Not pictured: Odin Sphere.
Odin Sphere could have been a masterpiece. It should have been a masterpiece. The fairytale it told was complex (not in terms of content, but plotting) and absorbing. The mechanics were simple, but tight enough that when combined with the sometimes spectacular boss design they transcended their one button attack limitations and became a challenging tactical experience. But it was let down by a frame rate that rendered parts of the game unplayable, and a degrading structure which required the player to complete seven eight hour campaigns which repeated not only environments, but bosses and enemies too. It was ten hours of near perfection, and forty hours of insulting, sloppy padding. But the potential was clear. Then came Muramasa which had far less grandiose intentions; which is by no means a criticism.
At first Dragon’s Crown appears to have equally modest intentions; in spite of the six starting characters that the player can choose from—most of which have their own unique skills and play styles, ranging from a focus on range and mobility to hulking damage absorbing suits of armour. These characters are even relatively flexible within their own classes, as the skill system allows the player to carefully build a character to their own tastes and skills—the skills affecting not only how combat must be approached, but also the already impressive visual flair of battle.
But beyond those immediately apparent ambitions, Dragon’s Crown begins tamely—the player must navigate their way through only nine dungeons; the bosses at the end of each relatively simple in their patterns and arsenal and are so slow that every attack is telegraphed and most easily avoided or blocked. Some bosses are not even bosses, but a steady arsenal of meagre opponents that the player must bash or (magically) burn their way through, complete with a health bar at the bottom of the screen that decreases with each peon that is killed; irony free. But given the simplicity of the genuine bosses, these flights of fancy do supply the opening stages with a welcome sense of variety and unpredictability. And you can summon a genie!
But you need a magic lamp to do that; elsewhere you must rely on AI companions: a currency of bones scattered throughout the dungeons that may be recovered and resurrected; or buried for the chance of receiving an item at random. The AI can be genuinely helpful in battle; sometimes egregiously so—easily eating their way through a boss’ health so that it seems as if you are doing very little to contribute. Then in the next breath they might all die en masse; receiving a fatal whiff of Dragon halitosis. Their most consistent and impressive achievement is their clockwork ability to walk directly into any of the myriad traps that litter the dungeons.
First Aaliyah, now Lizard Man must die?
Once the player has made their way through all nine dungeons, it turns out that that was only just the beginning: it’s time for a second romp through; only this time the b-path has been unlocked, in which more dangerous bosses and enemies await and most importantly—if the player pleases—the player can go online and play with other adventurers searching for the dragon’s crown. The improved skills that make the dynamic, vibrant animation of the battles all the more complex is the icing on the cake, for the addition of online and tougher bosses drastically alter the dynamics of battle, and turn what otherwise could have been a repetitive, cynical way to flesh out the length of the game from five hours to fifteen, into a stroke of genius.
The bosses are still relatively simple and easy enough to defeat; especially when the player can build up a hefty number of continues, or even bribe the Goddess Althena once the continues have run out to resurrect themselves immediately. But with the added complexity of the mechanics due to the levelled up skills and the camaraderie with other players, the very modern pacing becomes engaging and effortless; allowing the player to easily to drop in and out of dungeons and move from partner to partner with no adverse affect on the flow. So modern is the pacing that sometimes boss battles require the player to not even directly attack the bosses, but perform various busyworks to vanquish their adversaries—or both at once.
This flow can result in frantic, visually spectacular battles with players bouncing around the screen; expertly animated so that their bodies move with a tangible sense of weight—and are beaten by or beat the bosses with a genuine sense of impact. There’s nothing more satisfying than dodging a particularly dangerous attack, and much of that is due to the visual panache, for such an action can easily be achieved simply by mashing the R1 button if one has sufficiently raised their evasion skill due to the extreme telegraphy and sluggishness of the bosses.
The constant stream of experience, gold and items help keep the player engaged; after every battle it’s a joy to sift through the spoils: deciding what to invest money in to appraise (thus revealing the finer stats and abilities of the item in question) or what to simply sell on principal (if it’s not ranked as A or S then it’s probably not worth the player’s time) as well as how much money to keep to repair one’s perpetually obsolescent equipment.
One of the less controversial artworks that are unlocked upon completion of any side quest.
There is genuine satisfaction to be found in chaining together several long, arduous dungeon runs in a row thanks to the constantly approaching use-by date of the equipment and because items cannot be replenished mid-dungeon. The best thing one can hope for is that they’ve been smart enough to assemble several sets of armours and items and distributed them amongst their selection of bags wisely. Of these bags, one is selectable at the branching point of each dungeon. This approach, that encourages taking risks for rewards, results in a sense of genuine camaraderie with complete strangers that usually only the toughest, best MMORPGs manage to illicit. So much so that almost all the people I added as friends immediately accepted my request. This networking is an unfortunate necessity, for the matchmaking often fails to find any matches; even though, judging by the amount that my new friends were available to play, there were a great many people playing.
In fact, so good is this sense of camaraderie that even the horrendous cooking mini-game which requires the player to manually move food from larder to pot to bowl with a cursor controlled by the analogue stick takes on a frantic, competitive and highly comical tone when playing with other players. Though, on a laggy connection it becomes all but impossible to achieve much in the way of the health and stat bonuses that gluttonous consumption is rewarded with—the latency making cooking almost harder than the boss battles themselves!
It is in this context that the true strength of the telegraphed nature of the bosses, and the loose, accessible mechanics of combat (most of the powerful attacks are performed simply by button mashing square or circle, with no particularly good timing required; and spamming dodge all but guarantees safety) become clear (beyond simple accessibility)—even the worst online connections never become frustrating or unplayable in combat due to the simplicity of the mechanics (lag spikes aside).
Which is not to say that things might not become harder later on for, once the credits role, the game does not end. A more challenging difficulty level is unlocked as well as an incredibly enjoyable take on randomised dungeons—the player moves through a dungeon that consists of transplanted rooms from all the dungeons in Dragon’s Crown, wherein one fights randomised enemies and bosses. The player jumps from icy caverns to cavernous ruins in the blink of a screen while fighting enemies usually found amongst the trees now in the dead wood of a library. It’s a wonderful way to break things up given that if the player wishes to continue normally, they will be playing through the same game again. And once the credits role a second time, the third and final difficulty will be thus unlocked.
But even on the next difficulty level up I had very little trouble in killing a boss over a dozen levels above me; with only AI companions for company. The boss’ movements were slightly faster, but having already been exposed to the boss’ movements and attacks, the increase in speed was negligible, and the biggest differentiating factor was simply the level difference between myself and the boss in question; nothing a little grinding couldn’t quickly fix.
I was six when I went on my first safrarri.
Grinding is far less chore-like than it might have been. Beyond chaining together multiple dungeon runs—one receives experience and gold bonuses for the more runs one completes—the best way to gain experience and skill points is by completing quests which require the player to perform a specific action which might be as mundane as killing a certain number of enemies, or as interesting as searching for a hidden area in a dungeon; a search which is carried out through interactivity.
As well as the traps, the dungeons are filled with chests, unlockable doors, runes and hidden passageways; all of which are manipulated with the previously mentioned cursor—thus making the gorgeously illustrated environments feel all the more real. Clicking on a wall and discovering it to be cracked, only to then break through the wall—watching beautifully animated plaster crumbling to dust as you do—is a joy; the environment no less tangible than the characters that inhabit it.
Unfortunately, the quality of draughtsmanship and composition for the illustrated representations of the characters (in shops, et cetera) is inconsistent in quality with some characters following vastly different aesthetic values than others. Some are composed to successfully accentuate menus and stat bars, yet others are awkwardly stretched across the whole screen simply for the sake of filling it, with no compositional sense between character and menu; the draughtsmanship suffering as a result of the attempt to fill a blank canvas with something miniscule.
This visual flaw is exaggerated by the shallow artistic references that cover everything from classical paintings to Disney to Dungeons & Dragons, but come across—at times—as unnecessary name dropping rather than a well considered appropriation of influences to compliment George Kamitani’s own anime aesthetic. Though this mish mash of influences might be shallow, it certainly feels genuinely sincere; with no pretentions in the choice of reference: it’s a giddy joy when even Monty Python makes it into the collage of fantasy lore and myth. One that could only have originated from another culture; one which might just as easily utter Conan the Barbarian in the same sentence as Lord of the Rings—one just as innocent as a culture which might accuse the creator of Odin Sphere, with its almost feminist themes, of being a misogynist.
And you can ride a purple fucking panther. Or a flame spitting velociraptor. And you can just as easily ride them when playing as a muscleman with a beard or as a scantily clad woman whose breasts jiggle as she hovers in the air while she casts deadly spells. Dragon’s Crown has all the absurd machismo of the likes of Altered Beast (God bless it, I love that game; don’t get me wrong) but actually plays well too like Golden Axe. There are no awkward bee-men originating from some medieval experiment, though. Sadly
