Vanillaware's new PS3 and PS Vita title Dragon's Crown is featured in this week's Famitsu through a four page interview with director George Kamitani. Here's a bit of what's leaked out from the interview via the usual flying get suspects. 

• The game's genre is "multi play belt floor 2D action RPG." I'm not sure what the "floor" is supposed to be, but I believe the "belt" means it's a beat-em-up. 
• The project got its start 13 years back after Sega Saturn classic Princess Crown. It was originally planned for Dreamcast. 
• Actual development did not begin until after Oboro Muramassa on Wii. 
• The game will have attacks that make use of stage geography. 
• There will be cooperative play elements. The game will support at most four players. 
• Vanillaware is currently seeking programmers to finish work on the project. 
• Kamitani says that he took the project to a number of publishers, but Ignition gave them the okay. 
• Kamitani is a big fan of Golden Axe and King of Dragon, and wanted to try seeing what would happen if those games were evolved while staying 2D.

Looks awesome.

Dragon's Crown appears to emphasize multiplayer. Kamitani says teamwork is a focus. Four players can play together. When you're on your own, you can play with three CPU-controlled characters.

Players can select to be the same character type. Currently, they're planning to show each player's name on the top of the character so that you can differentiate. If they have time, they'll add palette swaps.If you die during your play session, you will be revived after a some tens of seconds, assuming you have lives left of course. If all players in your party die, you're all returned back to town.There will be a few communicative aspects to the game. You won't be able to chat, but you will be abel to do greetings and create a dying message.I'm not totally sure if I'm reading this part right, but it seems that the game will have a Demon's Soulish system in place where the dead bodies of other players will appear in your game session as bones. From the bones, you can see information about the other player and their dying message. If you like a particular player, you can take his bones and covert it into an NPC for future use.

Those are...some real real big thighs. 

They got muscles on their muscles. Also that's one of the biggest racks I've ever seen.

Definitely getting a Vita.

I'm not a fan of some of the character designs, but man, I am all over this.

Their art style is so goofy but even goofy shit looks good with enough frames of animation. Just look at Skullfighter or whatever that shit was called.

Hopefully we can work some new stuff in there that we didn't manage with Muramasa. For example, there's a red dragon boss that's sleeping atop a massive pile of treasure. If you try to take the treasure, he'll wake up and attack you. You can try taking him on directly, but it'll be a tough battle. You have the option of escape, of course -- he'll chase after you, but if you can make it over a stone bridge, it'll collapse under the weight of the dragon and he'll fall downward. That sort of thing. We want to have these sorts of rescues for the player when he's fighting difficult bosses. If the player comes across an enemy he's too low-level for, I want to be sure there's always a way he can survive.

If the Amazon doesn't have some special move where she squeezes enemies between her legs until they pop like a grape, I'm gonna be really disappointed.

Reminds me of Capcom's Dungeons and Dragons games, Shadow over Mystara and Tower of Doom. Really hope it has similar RPG elements!

Edit: Just saw the official site and it looks like it does! Joy!!

Ignition is doing the localization... They're going to fuck it up.

Very excited about this game. The character designs are blowing my mind, specifically the proportions.

Reminds me of Capcom's Dungeons and Dragons games, Shadow over Mystara and Tower of Doom. Really hope it has similar RPG elements!

Ignition is doing the localization... They're going to fuck it up.

@Icemael said:

@Khessed said:

Reminds me of Capcom's Dungeons and Dragons games, Shadow over Mystara and Tower of Doom. Really hope it has similar RPG elements!

Vanillaware's founder worked on Tower of Doom, so count on it.

Had the exact same thought when I saw the trailer the first time. Loved those D&D arcade games. Game is totally moving up my list of anticipated titles.

How can players develop their character in Dragon’s Crown?
 
Throughout the game, players will find weapons, which can be leveled up. Dragon’s Crown also RPG elements, but specifics have not been finalized yet. 
 
Each class in Dragon’s Crown is different. The amazon has weak defense, but she has powerful attacks. In contrast, the fighter has high defense. The Wizard takes time to cast magic attacks. These are very strong, but the wizard needs other characters to protect him while he’s charging up. This is one of the ways Dragon’s Crown encourages cooperative play.
 
Will there be team attacks for say the wizard and the fighter? 
 
Yes, we’re planning on doing something like that. 
 
Which class is your personal favorite? 
 
Visually, the sorceress. She is an interesting character that uses magic to turn enemies into frogs. The sorceress can also reanimate corpses and make an army of skeletons attack enemies.

How does Dragon’s Crown utilize Vita specific features like the touch screens? 
 
On PlayStation 3, you use the analog stick [like a cursor] to select objects such as healing items. We wanted to take advantage of features on Vita, like the touch screen, so on Vita you can do the same thing by touching objects on the screen. In addition to items, you can touch parts of the background. Walls, for example, may collapse if you touch them opening new paths. Vanillaware also wanted to implement puzzle elements into Dragon’s Crown similar to The Tower of Druaga, a game Kamitani is a fan of.

On the reaction to the game 
 
Ignition was quite surprised with the tremendous reaction the game got in Japan following its announcement at E3. Regarding the reaction the game got outside of Japan, they'd been expecting it because it VanillaWare CEO George Kamitani is very popular overseas. 
 
On difficulty and balance 
 
The game's difficulty is being set so that beginner players and high level players can play together. Rather than your character rising in level based off how you play, the game takes the direction of having you make your character's skills stronger by using items that you collect. In multiplayer, when a beginner is matched with advanced players and the party tries out a difficult dungeon, the beginner player can obtain powerful items. 
 
On character selection 
 
You're free to make your party any combination of charactrs. You can have everyone be elves, or everyone be sorcerers, for instance. If you opt for elves, who use arrows for their attacks, you'll end up working through the dungeon using long-range attacks.Some dungeons will be more difficult with certain party formations. However, they're making it so that you can support yourself with items, equipment and magic.One thing they want players to do is discuss the quests at the start in order to create a strategy. 
 
On game volume 
 
Even at the current point in development, there's already a large number of quests that you can take from the guild.Some of the game's dungeons are so huge that you won't be able to explore them in full during the course of a single quest. To see the full dungeon, you'll need to play quite a bit.With all that in mind, the game will have about 40 to 50 hours play time. 
 
On stage formation 
 
Regarding the game flow, rather than clearing stages, it's more like you're clearing quests. For example, when you head out to a dungeon on a quest to find a particular item, you'll be forced to go down a particular route through the dungeon.Your actions may effect how the stages play out. In the case of a certain boss enemy, you can steal an item from him without him noticing. But if you make him mad, he'll chase you not just through the current stage, but will also pursue you to other dungeons as well.Similar to this, they're making it so that there are lots of options for how you proceed. You can jump right into the fight straight on, or you can select to flee. There are other options as well -- options that you may have to find in the stage. 
 
Fairies and Thieves 
 
Two of the game's character classes are fairy and thief. These two are exclusively NPC types, though, meaning you don't control them. They accompany your party as support characters as you work through the dungeon. (You'll recall that it was previously said that if you lose a weapon during battle, a thief will have to steal a new weapon from the enemy. Although Oda didn't mention this in the Dengeki interview, his comment helps explain how this system will work.)

Seems like a quest-based version of Guardian Heroes / Castle Crashers, but with HD Vanillaware goodness.

New teaser confirming that yes, this game still exists. God knows when it's coming out.

http://www.siliconera.com/2013/03/18/dragons-crown-will-roar-at-japan-this-july/

Hopefully there'll be a Western release fairly close.

Do they have to be *that* big?

New trailer:

http://www.siliconera.com/2013/03/20/a-dancing-mouse-elated-to-see-new-dragons-crown-video/

Also, the official site has been updated with new artwork, screenshots and sprite animations for all the playable characters.

http://www.siliconera.com/2013/03/25/dragons-crown-reaches-u-s-this-summer/

Sweet!

New trailer:

I miss andriasang....

Also, does each character have an air dash?

I tried watching the video, but all I could see was that lady's enormous goddamn knockers.

Game looks great by the way.

Crazy, was this game really announced almost two years ago?

Anyways, can't wait.

Dwarf trailer:

You know I don't really have a problem with the Muscular Barbarian Cavewoman; her attire seems fitting and not overly fanservicey but that sorceress is dreadful, too scared to buy it at this point.

The Amazonian is wearing a thong and a bra.

@aegon: Times were tough in the stone age! Her muscles stand out more relative to the other chick's gargantuan tits that take up half her body mass.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/04/23/dragons-crown-for-ps3-ps-vita-melting-faces-on-august-6th/

Definitely getting this for my Vita when it comes out.

Elf trailer:

Wizard trailer:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/05/07/dragons-crown-the-game-vita-and-ps3-deserves

A nice piece about the gameplay and general structure of the game on IGN. Drop-in drop-out will no doubt benefit the multiplayer a lot, hopefully the enemy scaling won't turn it into another Borderlands experience, though.

Furthering the RPG feel (while also giving you plenty of reasons to replay old stages) is Crown’s scoring and appraisal systems. Your performance on various stages will net you a score, which is then translated through an algorithm to give you what are, in essence, experience points. Your score is basically modified to equate to experience based on your performance on that stage. The better you play, the higher your score and the more experience you earn.

Ended up pre-ordering the Famitsu DX Pack, no need to hunt for the artbook afterwards and it comes with a bunch of other goodies.

Amazon trailer:

I absolutely love the fast, acrobatic fighting style. Definitely the character I'm most looking forward to trying out.

The latest trailer focuses on gameplay systems. Dwarf dumping skill points into Eagle Dive, body splashing skeletons and miscellaneous inventory/loot stuff.

More importantly there's a cooking minigame, delicious food items and animations confirmed.

I never cease to be astounded by the animation in this game. Look at those floating cherubs!

Totally missed this a year ago when the info was being floated around! this looks hella neat though! cant wait!

I really love Vanillaware. And this is another reason for me to get a Vita... Tempting...

The official site has been updated with a section showing off some of the enemies: http://dragons-crown.com/#monster

Man, I cannot wait for this game to come out. Got mine pre ordered on Amazon... which is appropriate since I will be using the Amazon. She just looks so gaddamn awesome, shes amazing when she's fighting. I'm really hoping that with the small bit of character customization they give you, that I can make her eyes green again. I was a lil bummed when recent screenshots of her released with blue eyes, but that was before the reveal of the customization.
...
SHUTUP! IT MATTERS!

The Harpy design reminded me of the griffin in Princess Crown, the old switcheroo. Can't wait to see everyone animated.

This game is so beautiful. Love pretty much everything about it that has been shown.

@ervonymous said:

The food porn was probably my favorite thing out of all of the Muramasa art. I would stop at the inns and eat one of everything because it looked so great. I'm way too glad that they are bringing it back.

Information from a Q&A with Japanese fans: http://www.siliconera.com/2013/07/11/dragons-crown-boasts-over-20-hours-of-gameplay-per-character/

20 hours per character is a lot. I'm expecting repeated (and repeated, and repeated, and repeated) environments and bosses a la Odin Sphere. I wish Vanillaware would cut down on game length to avoid this... I'd much rather play a really short game that keeps it fresh visually and has tight, interesting level and encounter design than spend 20+ hours on a bloated monstrosity.

IGN's "Dragon's Crown Week" video series:

New Japanese trailer:

The Odin Sphere protagonists were pretty varied but this is like a totally different ball game, the Amazon looks execution heavy and interesting but I love rangers and flash kicks so I have to try the Elf first. Props to NIS America (apparently) publishing this in Europe but I'm done waiting.

I took so many screenshots while playing Muramasa: Rebirth, bet I'll die a lot doing so in DC. Gimme alla dat parallax scrolling.