Dragon’s Crown‘s reviews are out of embargo, and while I’ve already weighed in on my thoughts on the game (hint: It’s good!), I found this really interesting article that talks about some of the historical and pop culture influences that have inspired the artwork in the game.

Richmond Lee, from the blog Art Eater, posted this analysis of a Dragon’s Crown trailer that was released earlier this year and talked about how the game’s art style was influenced by a myriad of things, including Greek sculpture, Renaissance portraiture, and even Disney. Quite frankly, I should’ve spotted the immediate Disney reference when I saw Tiki the Fairy pop in and make the Atlus logo materialize out of thin air, which is akin to how Tinker Bell would make the Disney logos materialize. How could I miss that?

“Watching the latest Dragon’s Crown trailer I was delighted by the density of historical and pop cultural references they managed to sprinkle into every shot,” Richmond says in his post. “Vanillaware is staffed by many ex-Capcom employees who worked on some of the best arcade games from back in the day, including Capcom’s Dungeons and Dragons: Tower of Doom and Shadow Over Mystara (my favorite beat-em-up next to Capcom’s Aliens vs Predator). Dragon’s Crown is very much a spiritual successor to these games, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the vast array of influences at work in this title.”

If you want to check out his lengthy analysis of Dragon’s Crown‘s influences, check out his article here.