Beat-'em-ups have been through a bit of a rough patch lately. The arcade-style brawler suffered a decline that coincided with the downfall of arcades themselves, and aside from standout efforts like Castle Crashers and Double Dragon Neon, little has been done in recent years to progress or revitalize the genre.

Vanillaware breathes new life into a worthwhile but rarely attempted style of gameplay with Dragon's Crown, a brilliantly executed tribute to arcade gaming's past that offers up an endlessly satisfying loop of questing, looting, and character progression.

In comparison to its Vanillaware-developed predecessors Odin Sphere and Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Dragon's Crown forgoes in-depth RPG elements in favor of traditional beat-em-up gameplay. Combat in Dragon's Crown is fluid, satisfying, and intense, and represents a major, necessary evolution of the style introduced in Capcom's Dungeons & Dragons series.