Dragon's Crown is VanillaWare's most expensive game to date

PlayStation 3 and Vita side-scroller Dragon's Crown is the most expensive project VanillaWare has ever produced.

"Dragon’s Crown is actually the first title our company has developed that has gone over the ¥100 million wall in costs,” VanillaWare founder and lead artist George Kamitani said on Twitter, according to Gematsu's translation.

“I’m very thankful to have met the release date without problems.”

¥100 million is almost exactly $1 million at the current exchange rate.

Talk of Dragon Crown's cost is quite interesting because it will not support cross-buy. It was first announced by Ignition as a budget title with a much earlier release date. The company went off games, and Atlus picked the project up, only to declare it far more expensive than Ignition had expected.

The hack-and-slasher is due in north America in early August and in Europe sometime during northern autumn.

VanillaWare's earlier titles include Muramasa: The Demon Blade and Odin Sphere.