3/5 ★ – Empyrean's review of Drakengard.

Lalalala! Lalalala! The Watchers! This game absolutely hates children, and as someone who also hates children that means I love it! Kinda. The original Drakengard is a deeply frustrating experience, and that’s being generous. It is Yoko Taro at his most unhinged, for better or worse. I loved the story and the world, to the point I read all the supplementary material and watched the Japanese undub in case I missed anything. I also hated every single moment I spent playing this garbage game, listening to the mindnumbing “music”, and suffering through the awful dub. Do you see how that might be difficult to rank? To expand, I will spoil some things. When Drakengard begins I initially had it pegged as just a generic grimdark medievil fantasy, which it is for a time. The beginning cutscene is excellent and reminded me of the Demon’s Souls opening. Then gameplay began and the wind was knocked out of me. Supposedly the game was originally meant to be Ace Combat with dragons, but pivoted to include some crude Dynasty Warriors ground combat with light RPG elements. It’s awful and I never once enjoyed it. Dragon combat fares slightly better and is where most of the interesting art design comes in, but the controls still suck. You can also, sometimes, seamlessly transition between ground and dragon. There are 60+ weapons and all of them are unique, but most of them suck and only a masochist would grind to max them all out. You can also level yourself and the dragon. All of this is impressive for the PS2, but it doesn’t make it good. Signs that Drakengard might be doing something different (narratively at least) comes later in the first chapter, where Caim, the protagonist, makes a pact with a dragon to save both of their lives. They both hate each others races, which would already make for an interesting central dynamic, but the price for this pact is that Caim gives up his voice. Not an hour into the game and the lead character is now mute, and speaks only once more in one of the games five endings. The seeds of Yoko Taro’s mad genius have been sown and the Berserk/Evangelion influences start creeping in. Later on, you can collect allies. These include a blind paedophile, an insane child killing woman, and… a child. Caim also becomes blinded by his bloodlust in the quest to rescue his sister (who kills herself because she’s so ashamed of her incestuous feelings towards him) and cuts down anyone in his way, including child conscripts. Who is the central antagonist for most of the game you ask? Why, a child of course! Please refer to the second line of this review. It’s important to note that all of these characters are not portrayed positively and are not meant to be likeable. Once you reach the third act, all sense of blandness has vanished. The land, and your army, are literally nuked. The skies redden, giant babies descend from portals and devour two of your allies, and the enormous pale pregnant queen, who controls time, begins to swallow the world. You attack the queen, only to fall into a portal and end in modern day Tokyo. The final battle is a pseudo-musical minigame where you have to match the rings. The queen dissolves, leading to a phenomena that begins a little spinoff series called Nier. Following the battle, the Japanese airforce shoot you down, instantly killing Caim and Angelus (the dragon). You then unlock a jet to use in air missions. The end. I hopefully don’t have to tell you that this shit is WILD and incredible. You also probably understand how frustrating of an experience it is coupled with how bad the rest of the game is. If you’re at all interested in Drakengard I recommend the undub movie on YouTube. That way you don’t have to endure the English dub and the gameplay. It isn’t ideal, but it’s better than actually playing the thing.