In an era where online gaming as we know it barely existed and arcades were places people went to, a brawler made a huge amount of sense. It was also, critically, a team sport, with a team of people working together to defeat the scenario created by the dungeon master. Keep in mind that the earliest versions of Dungeons and Dragons were more structured and boardgame-like than the genre is currently known for. Today the brawler might seem like a very strange template for a game based on the most famous role playing game, but back then it made all kinds of sense. This was the era in which Dungeons and Dragons was in the twilight of its heyday, Capcom (and not EA or Activision) was the top developer of licensed western games, and arcades were still the main place to play videogames with friends. Advanced for their time, these arcade games were of the genre I unfortunately have to call “beat-’em-up”, in which people would beat up other people, as if on a street of rage or in some form of final fight. The design team features a few of its creators, long since departed from Capcom.

Which is not to say that Dragon’s Crown doesn’t have some original and delightful design as well, but while learning what works in one game and implementing it in a completely different game might seem common sense, it’s rarely simple to actually execute.ĭragon’s Crown is meant as an unofficial sequel, of a sort, to Capcom’s Dungeons and Dragons: Tower of Doom and its sequel Shadow Over Mystara. It’s amazing how willing Dragon’s Crown is to throw away tradition in order to be a very traditional sort of game, and it’s amazing how Dragon’s Crown is perfectly willing to steal from the best.

It’s amazing how many things Dragon’s Crown gets right, and unbelievable that one of those is the only acceptable Monty Python reference of the past forty years.

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