Princess Crown

Princess Crown is a two-dimensional (2D) side-scrolling action role-playing game where the player takes control of four different characters across multiple scenarios. The game world is navigated using linear paths connecting towns and dungeons. During exploration in towns, characters can purchase items using gold attained from battles. Among the items present are seeds which can be planted to yield ingredients which can be used to restore character health. Ingredients can also be cooked and turned into meals which offer a greater health boost to characters.

Combat—which uses a beat 'em up-style battle system—is divided into normal battles triggered by random encounters while navigating the roads and dungeon environments, and boss battles tied to story events. While many normal battles are against a single enemy, sometimes multiple enemies appear in a single battle. The player attacks using a single button, creating combination attacks depending on both the number of button presses and other actions such as jumping and dodging. Each character has a main weapon and subweapons which can be thrown at enemies from a distance, and a shield which can be raised to block attacks.

Princess Crown opens with the warrior queen Elfaran De Valendia defeating an evil demon who sought royal blood to resurrect its master Lalva. Twenty-five years later, Elfaran's thirteen-year-old daughter Gradriel ascends to the throne. After hearing of problems across Valendia, she sneaks out of her castle to help her people in person. During her journey, she is confronted by multiple demons and runs into three other characters on her journey; the knight Edward Glowstar, the noble pirate Portgus, and the mischievous witch-in-training Proserpina.

The demon attacks are being caused by Lalva, who—through humans controlled by a sentient grimoire—seeks to use both the magical crowns of Valendia and neighbouring kingdom Volga to break his seal. During one encounter, Edward dies protecting Gradriel. He is saved when Gradriel travels back in time to save him on advice from Heindel, a dragon who helps her in exchange for a magical jewel. After Volga's crown is stolen by the sorcerer Leon, the latest person possessed by the grimoire, Gradriel gathers her forces at Valendia's castle for a final stand.

Princess Crown was the creation of George Kamitani, a developer who worked at Capcom on Saturday Night Slam Masters and Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom before leaving to become a freelancer and direct his own project. He joined a friend at an unnamed development company based in Osaka; initially focused on adult video games, the company was branching out into other genres. Princess Crown was originally envisioned as a life simulation game similar to Princess Maker 2, with players raising a female character and multiple possible endings stemming from their choices. This was changed abruptly when the game was being pitched to Sega; they asked if it was a lengthy role-playing game, a genre they wanted for the Saturn due to ongoing competition with the PlayStation. To prevent the game being rejected, Kamitani said it was a role-playing game, and quickly redid his designs to replace the simulation aspects with action role-playing gameplay.

Development began in late 1995 based on this revised concept, but the project ran into difficulties the following year when the company went bankrupt. While Kamitani tried going to Sega for direct funding, they were in the middle of negotiations for a possible merger with Bandai and declined to fund the project. Through a friend at Sega, Kamitani next pitched the project to Atlus, who agreed to hire the game's staff and complete the project. Princess Crown was developed at Atlus Kansai, with additional help from Sega as publisher.

According to Kamitani, the release of Princess Crown near the end of the Saturn's commercial life resulted in poor sales. Financial losses were compounded by the bankruptcy of its previous developer. In the years following its release, the Saturn version became rare, becoming known as a cult classic. The PSP port sold 22,000 units during 2005.

Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu gave the game a positive review, with its four reviewers giving it a score of 29 points out of 40. It received a 7.75 out of 10 average from Japanese Weekly TV Gamer magazine, based on individual scores of 7, 7, and 8 from its three reviewers. Following its release, the game has received praise for its smooth 2D animation and artstyle. Anoop Gantayat of IGN and the reviewer for 1UP.com ranked Princess Crown as being among the greatest 2D video games in existence. Damien McFerran of Nintendo Life and Richard Eisenbeis of Kotaku felt that the game was a historical curiosity from the Saturn era due to its design.

Due to the commercial failure of Princess Crown, Kamitani's team was blacklisted in the game industry, which hampered Kamitani's future career for some time. Shortly after the game's release, Atlus Kansai was dissolved and several staff members went on to found Noise Factory. Atlus and Sega would go on to collaborate on multiple projects following Princess Crown.

Kamitani founded Vanillaware with former Atlus staff members and produced Odin Sphere for the PlayStation 2; Odin Sphere was a critical and commercial success, establishing both Vanillaware and Kamitani in the gaming industry. Both Odin Sphere and Vanillaware's next game Muramasa: The Demon Blade were designed as spiritual successors to Princess Crown, with the former evolving its narrative and the latter its gameplay.