Princess Crown continued to influence Kamitani's career, leading to the founding of his company Vanillaware and the development of the spiritual successor Odin Sphere.

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.

[4][7] Princess Crown opens with the warrior queen Elfaran De Valendia defeating an evil demon who sought royal blood to resurrect its master Lalva.

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.

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.

[1][9] Development began in late 1995 based on this revised concept, but the project ran into difficulties the following year when the company went bankrupt.

[1] Kamitani acted as director and designer, Atlus staff member Hiroyuki Tanaka was producer, the programmers were Tetsuya Ikawa and Takashi Nishii, while the scenario was written by Hitomi Fukaumi and Shigeo Komori.

[10] The music was mostly handled by the in-house Atlus Sound Team, with additional work by Metal Slug composer Toshikazu Tanaka.

[13] According to Kamitani, he wanted to create "a game like Dragon Quest with a visual style influenced by Alice in Wonderland", the latter referring to the illustrations of John Tenniel.

This tied into why he made the lead character a young girl, a decision in line with the tastes of the game's original developer.

[18] The port was managed by Hiroki Toyama, an Atlus staff member who would go on to direct Tokyo Mono Hara Shi: Karasu no Mori Gakuen Kitan.

[21] A port of the PSP version to PlayStation 4 was created, being released as both a pre-order bonus and paid downloadable content for 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim.

[22] No version of Princess Crown has received an international release, nor was any fan translation developed for the Saturn original or the PSP port.

[7][33] 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.

[4][8] Jenni Lada, reviewing the PSP version for GamerTell, ranked the game alongside other titles for the platform including Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII and LocoRoco.

[30] Eisenbeis enjoyed the combat system, but faulted the repetitive backtracking, occasional imbalances due to difficulty spikes and enemy behaviour, and the restrictive nature of the Power meter.

[6] While RPGFan did not comment much on the story, the reviewer liked the reversal of role-playing tradition by having players control a female lead for much of the game.

[1][36] 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.

[1][38] Intended as a 3D title for Sega's Dreamcast, the project was cancelled following the commercial failure of Princess Crown and dispersal of Atlus Kansai.

[38][39] The sequel was eventually redesigned by Kamitani as the 2D action role-playing game Dragon's Crown, and was released in 2013 to critical and commercial success.