I got to play a second round of Dragon’s Crown at Comic-Con. This time I went with the Wizard and played Vanillaware’s game on PlayStation Vita.
Vita screenshot
PlayStation 3 screenshot
I made a new adventurer and started Dragon’s Crown from the very beginning where your character meets Rannie, the thief. Rannie assists the player in dungeons by opening treasure chests and unlocking doors. Just like Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara, there are rooms for players to find in Dragon’s Crown like a treasure stash guarded by orcs in the first stage.
Before you can head off to a quest, you need to prove yourself to Guildmaster Samuel by fixing your broken staff. And, to do that you have to visit Morgan who runs the magic item shop and repairs equipment. Basically, the tutorial gives you a tour of Hydeland, the town in Dragon’s Crown.
Your reward for joining the guild is a quest and my Wizard was off to fight lizardmen. The Wizard’s strength is his use of fire magic. You can shoot fireballs by pressing circle. Hold circle down and the Wizard lets out an explosion of flames straight in front of him. The Wizard can also unleash a circular fire blast (down + circle) and an upward cone of fire (up + circle). Spells drain magic points and the Wizard can recover magic power by using his standard staff attack. This doesn’t do nearly as much damage, but you can play keep away by jumping and using the staff to shoot magic missiles. You can also recover MP by holding the square button down.
The Wizard’s most useful move is teleporting (R button on Vita). It’s faster to teleport forward than walk plus you can disappear right before an enemy strikes and appear behind it. That’s probably the best way to take down the Harpy, the boss at the end of the first level. The Harpy attacks by throwing three quills that fan out at the player and dashing forward with its talons. Before I fought the Harpy I ate an apple. Like all of Vanillaware’s games food plays an important role and the apple boosted the Wizard’s HP to 150%. I used the teleport/counter strategy to defeat the Harpy and won a new A-rank staff.
A narrator tells Dragon Crown’s story and Rannie has a few voiced lines too. I noticed in the options menu the English version of Dragon’s Crown has an option to choose between English and Japanese voiceovers.
