Critic reception: Dragon's Crown (PS3/Vita)

The old-school hack-and-slash, Dragon's Crown, that received a ton of backlash on suggestive artwork is finally here, and overall the Atlus title has been given some very good reviews.

What's surprising is despite some frame rate issues, higher rankings are being generated for the Vita than the PS3 edition. Both games are the same, but there is no cross-buy feature which is a huge disappointment.

Perhaps just saving $10 on the Vita version justified better scores? Let's find out.

• GameRankings: 84.44 percent (PS3, 27 reviews), 90.75 percent (Vita, 4 reviews)
• Metacritic: 83 / 100 (PS3, 32 reviews), 91 / 100 (Vita, 4 reviews)
• Best review: Gaming Nexus, Destructoid (95, PS3 version); GameCritics (95, Vita)
• Worst review: The Escapist (60, PS3 version); RPGFan (88, Vita)

As it's clearly easy to see, the reason why the Vita version is so high is because there's only been four true reviews of it. Most places reviewed the PS3 edition while at least test-playing the Vita version and giving a little summary in the review.

Colin Moriarity of IGN, like most reviewers, recommend that those questioning what version to buy should stick with the console edition over the handheld.

For fans of brawlers, it looks like Dragon's Crown brings both an homage to classic hack-and-slash games and is definitely a must-buy for any fans of the genre. The direction of the artwork is simply on purpose and just portrays what the game is. Those that are offended by it would likely not enjoy a game like this anyway.