Game Journal: The King of Dragons (1 Credit Clear, Hardest)

I cleared The King of Dragons, a 2019 beat 'em up game from Capcom, on the hardest difficulty.

It's a great game! You only have one attack and you don't have any grabs or crowd control tools like a regular beat 'em up, so it plays more like a belt-scrolling Castlevania or Ghosts 'n Goblins. It feels like the first game in a subgenre that doesn't exist, so I hope people will make more games that expand on its ideas one day!

It has a wide variety of characters who are shockingly balanced, all things considered. I also cleared the game with the Elf, who uses a bow and arrow:

And with the Fighter, who uses a sword and shield and can block attacks by holding back like in a fighting game:

Tip for playing the fighter: you can cancel the later part of your attack's recovery animation into a walk, so the fastest way of doing repeated attacks is by holding forward and doing a microwalk between each swing.

My main issues with the game are that some of the bosses have a ton of health on hardest difficulty, and trying to carefully space yourself in the Z axis to hit a boss without being at risk of counterattack can feel awkward at first, compared to regular beat em ups where hitting an enemy/boss will put them in hitstun so you don't need to worry about them immediately counterattacking you. These issues aren't anywhere near significant enough to stop me from recommending it though, so give it a try!