YMMV / Dragon's Crown

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • A lot of fan art featuring just the three female characters has the Elf depicted as jealous she doesn't have a figure like the Amazon or Sorceress.
  • The goddesses, since a lot of statements about their actions hint at Jerkass Gods, yet they grant their power to revive the dead and fought to protect the world from the Ancient Dragons.
  • Some have interpreted Tiki's reaction to the chained spirit's suggestive response to the player clicking on the spirit's body (instead of the chains) as jealousy rather than as admonishment.
• Awesome Art: The fanservice's controversy will cause people to completely ignore how incredibly detailed and colorful the game's art is.
  • Even the food looks awesome! Well, of course it is, it's Vanillaware.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: If you look for fanart of this game, you are bound to run across more pictures of the Sorceress and Amazon than anyone else, most of them NSFW. To put this into perspective, this occurred almost immediately after this game was first announced, years before the release date.
• Breather Boss: Played with in that the order of bosses you tackle in the second half of the main story campaign is more or less either random (if you take the warp gate) or at your discretion (if you use the stables) but the last boss before the game opens up, the Gazer, represents a rather large spike in difficulty, and many of the Route B bosses, like the Killer Rabbit and the Red Dragon, mentioned under That One Boss, are themselves fierce opponents. This also means, however, that some of the Route B bosses stand out for how simple they are to beat. To wit;
  • Medusa's biggest issue is the number of enemies she spawns. Other than that, the majority of her attacks have long wind-ups, and the one attack that comes out fast, her grab, is only really a threat if you're staying still - which isn't likely to be the case, since Medusa is constantly moving and the player will be trying to avoid her snakes. The Dwarf might have a little trouble given his speed and aerials, but Medusa is also rather frail, meaning the attacks the Dwarf does deliver really sting for her.
  • The Wraith, like Medusa above, is only ever really a threat because of its army of corpses. Its attack speed is glacial, it's easily dodged by the player just moving around to the side it isn't facing as it slowly telegraphs its attack, and it doesn't make much of an effort to dodge getting comboed. Once the zombies have been corralled and the statuette's been lit, the Wraith goes down fast.
  • The Chimera's attacks are all really easily to avoid, and it takes forever to actually use any of its attacks, period. For added hilarity, its heads can be stunned, meaning you can leave it more or less helpless while you wail on it. Just mind the paws, since it can strike with its claws moderately fast.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: During the early phases of online play, there were players would rather have the Amazon, Dwarf, and Elf in their parties over the Wizard and the Sorceress (the Knight was more of a middle ground). These players would usually mention that the Elf could outperform the Wizard without being as squishy, as well as not having to pause (as in, stop attacking things) to recharge mana. And for a while during these phases, Sorceress players were sometimes outright discriminated against, since Sorceresses didn't put out the damage Wizards could and some people assumed that Sorceress players were just using her for the Third-Person Seductress aspect of her character (ignoring that the other characters, such as the Amazon, could be used the same way). Nowadays it seems to have mellowed out as Wizards carved their own niche for being Difficult, but Awesome while Sorceresses became valued due to their capability to be The Medic with Create Food and the ability to bolster the whole party's defenses with Protection (this includes summons as well).
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Skeletons in general can be a pain, particularly if you have the misfortune of there being a crossbow-type weapon in the vicinity when they spawn. Black Skeleton Wights spawn alongside a healthy number of normal skeletons, they are blisteringly fast, extremely durable, their swords have a chance to freeze (meaning they and their flunkies can annihilate your health in a matter of seconds while you're helpless), and they are surgically precise with any crossbows they get their hands on. Face more than one at a time, and there's pretty much no way you're getting out without losing at least one life point.
  • Owlbears. They're quick, they hit extremely hard and they tend to show up in groups of at least three.
  • Black goblins are the same as the Skeleton Wights, being Elite Mook versions of the regular goblins. The sword versions attack very quickly and are more immune to being knocked down compared to the regular goblins and the staff versions like to play Keep-Away with you while casting spells like Curse from afar, making them a bigger nuisance since they like to appear with a large group of enemies to help them hide more effectively.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Despite only appearing in a piece of collectible treasure art, the Dark Elf Beastmaster appears to be pretty popular in the fandom, if only because she's just as scantily clad as the Amazon. She even appears in the manga as a supporting character.
• Game-Breaker: Once upon a time, you could combine the Elf's skill, Clone Shots (creates an additional shot when doing dashed/crouched charge shots), Salamander Oil or Toxic Extract (Fire or Poison Magic respectively added to arrows that hit the ground, scales with Magic Damage +X% modifiers) and Volley (Increases the number of arrows you can shoot in a row) and a Strength Potion (damage done+) and fire upwards. With a 25%+ modifier to Magic Damage, which can be found on bows... each arrow will hit, land, and spawn a column of fire or poison cloud. Each landing arrow creates a separate column/cloud, which even the Wizard cannot do as rapidly. It was possible to gib bosses of the same or higher level within 5-10 seconds with a full party, and only the Elf needed to do anything.
  • Unfortunately a later patch Nerfed her a little in that bosses no longer drop arrows when taking damage from the above assault, preventing her from doing nearly as much damage by keeping her quiver full.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: A slight complaint is that the game's not very long. Once you go through the B-Paths that's pretty much the game finished, since The Ancient Dragon is open by that point and, long as you're level 30 and above, you have got a good chance at beating him on your first go, though you are free to grind at your own leisure. The quests do add a bit of longevity, but a lot of them generally involve just seeking hidden rooms that offer treasure, beating bosses by yourself without teammates, or fighting certain enemies (though there are a few unique circumstances), and of course the 100 dungeon challenge opens up.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Many fans were disappointed that Dragon's Crown Pro added nothing new to the game other than remastered music and a graphical upgrade. It's still technically the best version of the game, but many will say it's only worth it if you don't already have the PS3 release.
• Moe: The Elf, shown more effectively◊ in the bonus art◊. Princess Vivian as well, particularly later in the game when she's grown more fond of the adventurers, free from her Mind Control, and smiles more often.
• Nightmare Fuel: The Chimera, an artificial monster acting as the B-route boss of the Magician's Tower. The fact that it fills the whole damn screen alone is unnerving enough, and an introduction that would make Mary Shelley proud doesn't help matters. But the nightmares really begin when you wear down its health enough, and it begins to gradually fall apart...
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: The artstyle caused plenty of backlash in the western world... subsequently giving the game all sorts of free advertisement and spreading the word of the game to people who probably would have never heard of it.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: For two years after its announcement, all some people talked about were the female character designs instead of anything regarding the game's merits, most of whom never actually played the game.
• Padding: After collecting the talismans required to defeat the final boss, the Ancient Dragon, you're told that you need to do it again, but on a harder difficulty. Then, once more at a third difficulty. The only thing that makes up for this is that the difficulty can be changed on any file, preventing you from needing to make a new character each time. There's also an unlockable treasure art of the three goddesses of the setting once you beat the last boss at the third difficulty.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The system of activating runes is somewhat disruptive to the flow of the game, not to mention that you need to have fast reflexes to activate the word before enemies start attacking you. Each room in a level will have at least 2 runes in the same spots every run, but the runes themselves change each run. The runes look pretty similar to each other, and there's 21 spells that are made up of three runes each. Also, every human player needs to buy their own set of rune stones to even cast these spells, and they're very expensive by the time they unlock. Not a big issue for players joining online, but for a partner playing as P2, it's disruptive to have to set your character as P1 so that the option of buying runes becomes available to you.
• That One Attack:
  • The Archdemon's basic attack makes it the melee character equivalent of the Wake-Up Call Boss Gazer. It's deceptively simple - the Archdemon grabs the character and starts gnawing on them. The issue? It has almost no windup. You have less than half a second to react to the Archdemon rearing its arm back - if not even less than that since the Archdemon autograbs you once it starts the thrust down. It does decent damage, it's the Archdemon's most common attack, and jump attacks and blocking do not protect against it, because it's a grab, not a strike. The fight with the Archdemon will inevitably turn into a game of footsies as the player takes small potshots before retreating, simply because the time you have to dodge the attack is so unreasonably tight. It doesn't help this makes getting the talisman from the Archdemon a real chore, considering you're on a time limit to beat the boss before you lose your chance to get the talisman.
  • The biggest reason the Red Dragon is That One Boss below, especially in the case of its associated grueling sidequest? Its stomp attack brings down stones from the ceiling - and there is no indication where they'll land. You can only dodge the stomp by not being near the Red Dragon - meaning melee characters aren't doing damage - or by jumping, which just brings you closer to the rocks falling down. It is absolutely, completely, totally random where the rocks will fall, and they come down too quickly to reliably dodge while airborne. They also stun you, making you easy pickings for the Red Dragon's other, stronger attacks.
• That One Boss: The Red Dragon is quite nasty. It's so large, it almost takes up the whole screen. Plus, the chamber you meet him in is quite crowded, making avoiding its attacks a daunting task. One may choose to take the fight out of its chamber, but doing so puts a time limit on how long you have before the boss becomes unbeatable: one can still advance to the next stage if you survive the ensuing chase, but if you don't beat it quickly enough, you won't get the talisman from killing it.
  • The literal Killer Rabbit isn't much better. It's absurdly tiny, barely any larger than the scorpions and snakes you've fought by this point, and a regular speed demon. It's arguably more difficult to kill than the Red Dragon just because its speed and size make it hard to land hits on the boss. It hits absurdly hard as well; not as hard as the Red Dragon or some other bosses, but it hits like a proper boss regardless. On top of that, its whirlwind attack has a large hit range and makes the Rabbit invincible until the attack ends, and it enjoys spamming the attack. Not to mention the fact that it has an instant-kill attack that it won't hesitate to use.
• That One Sidequest:
  • Bear Witness. The quest objective? Kill the Red Dragon. Yes, the same one mentioned above. Solo. In the treasure room. Good luck. Fortunately, the actual difficulty you complete the quest on doesn't matter, so if you wait until your character has completed hard mode, it's a small task to change the difficulty to normal and complete the quest.
  • If the player character is a caster, the Soul Gazing quest is also a rough one, since it involves fighting the Gazer one-on-one. It can be done... but it's a time-consuming pain in the butt.
  • It's not as dangerous as the sidequests above, but most sidequests where you have to kill a set amount of enemies are incredibly annoying. Most of these sidequests involve killing a comical number of enemies (thirty wood golems), killing enemies that are not common spawns and make you feel like you're killing a comical number of enemies as a result of their scarcity even when they do show up (ten owlbears), or killing a comical number of enemies that happen to be Demonic Spiders (like the aforementioned ten owlbears).