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With bleeding-edge open-world gaming dominating at the moment, it's refreshing to feel a blast from the past, well, a hack from history. And the old-skool charms of Dragon's Crown for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita are a tribute to those 2D side-scrollers of old where men were ripped and women wore ridiculously inappropriate clothing for fighting.

Taking the template of golden oldies such as Streets of Rage and Golden Axe as its starting point, Dragon's Crown drops you into Hydeland, a world of magic and mystery where you're charged with slashing your way through nine locations packed with dungeons, killing enemies and raiding for loot with one of six character classes - from the inevitable Fighter and absurdly... 'bouncy' Sorceress to the enemy-tossing Dwarf.

From forests to castles and catacombs, you'll spend the majority of your time ripping enemies asunder and in quiet moments, exploiting the surprisingly in-depth loot system that offers up a fantastic range of goodies to tool your character up with. And once done with dungeoning, you can head to the hub town to undertake side quests to boost your character's stats.

All this action is portrayed in 2D, but what 2D it is. With its hand-painted graphics in full 1080p, the game pops out of the screen whatever system you're playing it on. And there's no compromise in visuals on the PS Vita's small screen either when compared to the big telly delights of the PS3 thankfully.

The only blood stains on Dragon's Crown's perfect parchment is the lack of cross-buy and the inability to cross-play between the two systems in multiplayer. It's not a deal breaker though - both versions offer up a series of multiplayer modes; the PS3 lets you hook up with up to three other people for co-op either locally or online, while the PS Vita allows teams to co-op purely online. Plus you can transfer your saves across from the PS3 to the handheld, and vice-versa.

Dragon's Crown then is a surprising RPG treat - and one which, if rumours are to be believed, nearly didn't see the light of day. But it's here now, offering a sweet blend of old skool dynamics and some of the most enticing graphics we've seen in a long, long time...