Played for nostalgic purposes. Had the cartridge for the megadrive when I was little. Not much to say, I haven't played any other shmup apart from this one, but I'm guessing this is a pretty generic one. There's nothing really that stands out. I think I remembered the soundtrack being kind of good... It's not.

I'm at an age where it's becoming harder to remember stuff from my childhood, but I can pinpoint this game's sounds to a tee... Funny how that works. I can probably "see" this game's noises with how much I remember them.

An extremely unique, if not occasionally obtuse, adventure that made for a fun and memorable 2 player co-op experience (we left the AIs disabled throughout the playthrough). While I'm usually not a fan of ARPG-style loot-based progression, it was always exciting to get a new highly-ranked drop, especially when it was loaded with interesting passives that encouraged trying out a new playstyle. There was also a ton of freedom when it came to building your character through the skill point system, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I personally played as the Wizard and tearing through hordes of enemies with various lightning bolts, ice storms, and fire balls consistently felt great. I eventually had multiple loadouts each with different selections of spells equipped; it was a blast swapping between them and really forcing myself to manage my resources effectively during some of the longer excursions.

As far as my gripes with Dragon's Crown go, I'd say my primary complaints would be with the often obtuse rune system that always felt a bit too difficult to use in the heat of the moment (skill issue perhaps), a lack of meaningful interactivity in some of the boss fights, and the relatively uninteresting story which culminated in what I felt was an underwhelming ending (though I understand the post-game is quite extensive). The local co-op also often felt like multiple single player games stacked on top of each other rather than a seamless multiplayer experience as only one player can adjust their equipment and accept quests at a time; they definitely could've put more effort into streamlining this. There's also the obvious elephant in the room, which are some of the pretty grotesque female character designs; luckily, the art style present throughout the rest of this game is absolutely gorgeous, as we have all grown to expect from Vanillaware at this point.