Initial Dragon's Crown Impressions

Here I have a flame tosser, yes it is as awesome as you think.

As is usually such when I get a game, I don't generally get to play that game until sometimes the following day or at least until after I've attempted a blog post for the night because I at least try to be responsible, damn it.  So my impressions are generally a little bit late as I like to sink at least a little bit of my teeth into it properly because coming away with something approaching an opinion.  Since I have, at times, had a positive reaction initially that festered into something quite negative or in the best cases, the exact opposite of that reaction where I plug at a game until it becomes something special and amazing.  I know how easily it is to be pushed into a purchase because of positive impressions around and about, so I don't like throwing out my hat until I'm pretty positive on it.

With only about half an hour of playtime in Dragon's Crown I am pretty much bucking that trend because I don't care.  Dragon's Crown makes a very nice first impression with the art, with the voicing and presentation, and eventually the gameplay which I am obviously still a novice in, yet it doesn't -feel- as much.  Throwing down with the Wizard feels natural and I'm not sure if that's just because I dig him or because of some other crazy reason, but I'm not about to complain.  I've heard tale of people stating that he's kind of weak against the bosses and I can -understand- that, but, well, I didn't have that problem.  I don't say that to brag or anything, I'm obviously not a pro-gamer or anything, but I've found that it's all about the Teleporting.  The Wizard can teleport about the distance of an enemy (even a boss character) so....you know, use that.  Teleport behind them and Up+Square that bastard for a nice clip of damage.

It's curious that all the characters are geared toward different "Tiers" of players - Fighter is for 'everyone', Dwarf and Amazon are for 'Normal' players and the Sorceress, Elf and Wizard are all listed as being for  "Expert" players - since these types of games try to at least put up the façade of all the characters being balanced so that nobody plays favorites for such reasons.  Though I suppose maybe it's not an indication of who's 'better' like that, but rather just who is simpler to play which doesn't necessarily mean better returns and such.  Actually, yeah, it is probably just that and I'm just being silly.  Again, having just played this a little bit, it's not something that I have fully settled in on yet.  Still, I can see why the Wizard falls into the "Expert" category since he does have some advanced things to keep him viable - mainly the teleporting thing and the fact that you have to recharge his mana after using the nice big dangerous spells that are his bread-and-butter.  I imagine the difference between him and, say, the Fighter is that the Fighter can just charge up and hit things with his sword until they stop breathing, so, yeah, I can see the difficulty shift there.

I'm pretty confident that Dragon's Crown is going to be something that's going to keep my attention despite the ease that I put it down with.  In my defense, I did that because, again I'm trying to be responsible, and because I'm too distracted by all the other goings-on of being on the computer (talking to people, or at least trying to, checking message boards, reading things, etc.) to really sit down and enjoy what the game has to offer.  Tomorrow, that's when I'll be able to delve into it and likely throw hours upon hours at, so that's the game plan for it.  Though...I -do- have my Vita right here playing some music through the Music Unlimited app, and after I finish this....hrm.  It is tantalizing.  That is a good sign, friends.  That is a damn good sign.

seriously though, teleport is something you want to do a lot of, it's so good