I was able to get Dragon's Crown earlier today... Sadly, I wasn't able to pre-order it and the game wasn't on my radar until last week, I think? Anyway, I saw the gameplay - not the stage demo stuff - way too late. So, the obvious is that I wasn't able to get the 64 page artbook of extraordinary eye candy. I have the game though, that's something. Still, I didn't think Dragon's Crown would be that sort of game. Most titles usually have enough that without pre-ordering, you can get it and sometimes with the pre-order goodies if the employees are nice. This applies mostly to "popular" titles like Mario, Zelda, Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, Bioshock, etc. Even less popular games like Catherine, The Last Story, Shadows of the Damned, and Lollipop Chainsaw still have copies available. This game, however, sold like hot cakes and it didn't help that for whatever reason, some retailers didn't even get the game on release date. It's my fault entirely for not pre-ordering, but I do place some blame on the recent incident with Atlus and Index. Maybe that caused some confusion and panic for having this game in stock, I don't know. That and from what I heard, Shin Megami Tensei IV and recently released Atlus games tend to not have as much stock compared to other games.
Generally, I get games later unless for some reason I had. I remember getting The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword bundle since I didn't have a Wii Motionplus remote - I owned a Wii before that thing existed... ugh. I remember seeing the bundle pop up from time to time and seeing the copies with music CD still on shelves as well. Final Fantasy XIII-2, pre-ordered because I enjoyed Final Fantasy XIII and wanted to support their effort in spite of hatred from other Final Fantasy fans. Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault was a funny story. Apparently from what happened with All 4 One and that this wasn't entirely a true R&C game, on release day, I actually had to remind a retailer to put them on shelves. So it's not a true R&C game, that doesn't make it a bad game. It's decent and somewhat challenging on later levels. This might happen with Into the Nexus; might not since it's supposed to be a true R&C game, but it's out when the PS4 and the Xbox One are released. Any, I severely digress.
Back to Dragon's Crown. It's a fantastic game with fantastic voice acting - I love the narrator, JB Blanc, I believe. Speaking of voicing acting... I swear Yuri Lowenthal voices
three characters: Rannie the Thief, The Wizard, and the Monk. The art was what got me hooked onto the game. It is absolutely beautiful just like Muramasa: The Demon Blade. George Kamitani has done another wonderful job making games look like paintings. Personally, I don't have anything against the way some characters are "drawn", I understand why, but still, Dragon's Crown isn't aiming to be a realistic game, it's just this beat 'em up that draws on Western mythology and old games of the genre like Golden Axe. Did I also mention how the Amazons from Dragon's Crown and Golden Axe look similar? One is made of pixels more that the other.
Golden Axe Amazon:
Dragon's Crown Amazon:
Whatever, Dragon's Crown is a fun game with great visuals and audio. I'll just have to remind myself to watch Atlus games, Vanillaware's games, and George Kamitani's works more carefully next time. Speaking of which, Kamitani has done games with European and Asian mythologies, prominently with Dragon's Crown and Muramasa: The Demon Blade. I wonder if he could do a game based on Middle Eastern, African, or perhaps Native American mythologies. I really want to see how he takes a spin on them with his art style and because we've seen plenty of games based on European and Asian mythologies. Man, I remember popping in Muramasa: The Demon Blade and just absorbing the art and wanting more. I don't even remember what got me to buy the game, but I will never regret it.
Also, Super Paper Mario, I hate the space maze level. There is always that one area in games where I have no idea where to go.
