Dragon’s Crowns Artworks
Publisher: Atlus USA
Page Count: 64
Cost: FREE (Pre-Order Bonus)
Release Date: 08/06/2013
Both Sean and I are currently hard at work on our reviews of Dragon’s Crown (I’m doing the Vita version while Sean is doing the PS3 one), but as the game doesn’t come out until August 6th, I thought I’d share with you a sneak peak of the artbook you can get if you pre-order the game from online retailers like Amazon or brick and mortar stores like Gamestop. The art book is sixty-four pages long and in full color. I really love the art style in the book. I can see why the Sorceress and Amazon character designs have earned a bit of ire for their cheesecake proportions and outfits, but the other women in the game, such as the Elven Archer and Princess Vivian, are dressed far more sensibly. Besides, the male Dwarf is equally nonsensical in terms of proportions and lack of proper dungeon crawling clothing, so it’s not like only one gender is being objectified (if you can call it that).
The artbook starts off with a foreword by Georg Kamitani, President of Vanillaware and from then on it’s all art save for a page introducing “guest artists” towards the back. The first two dozen pages are devoted to the six playable characters. There are lots of full page illustrations of the characters in various poses along with each one getting a two page spread of different statuses in the game. From there the book gives you the same illustrations you see for the various NPCs in the game. Some are half pages while others are full pages, depending on the character(s). The book also then gives you ten full pages of enemy art called, “The Monster Compendium,” which is a nice reference to Second Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. After that, the book shows background scenes, various dishes you can make at camp, the aforementioned guest art and the thing I found most fascinating – the original character designs for a 1998 version of the game for the Sega Dreamcast that never materialized! How awesome is that.
All in all, I was really happy with the artbook and it was a lot of fun to flip through, although not as fun as playing the game has been. Check back for my review of the Playstation Vita version of the game on July 31st and Sean’s review of the PS3 version shortly thereafter. Until then, I’ll leave you with a gallery of pieces from Dragon’s Crown Artworks for you to ooh and ah at.
Leave a Reply