this game requires no introduction anymore so i'm not beating around the bush. drakengard has been on my mind a fair bit recently - on the off chance you'll forgive a second log i think it's worth examining some of what the title accomplishes uniquely well, or what it's able to achieve with respect to the various titles that it's in conversation with. first of all: there's nothing quite as flatline-inducing or revealing of the author's own tendencies as reading that drakengard was intentionally poorly designed, a commonly held idea in various hobbyist communities frustratingly stemming just as often from its supporters as from its detractors. not only is this a frightfully pedantic and dull reduction of the text - it's also just an elaborately constructed fiction masking deeper truths. for instance, i think it's plain as day our burgeoning critical language still struggles with titles seemingly antithetical to traditional enjoyment, and are only able to escape from suffocating evaluative lexicon through irony or genre labels. survival horror isn't normally 'fun' & people appear willing to understand this so the genre gets a normative pass en masse, although it seems worth mentioning that the longer they exist in the public eye the more their mechanical frameworks get totally demystified by the public, arguably reducing them to vehicles for pleasure and gratification anyways, resident evil being the prime example.

drakengard, of course, isn't survival horror. it's largely a musou with some horror trappings, but it's rather plain about its affectation. however, because the traditional 'game' part of it is in such conflict with its aesthetic, we end up with the idea that this dissonance is a result of intentionally languid, engineered dissatisfaction. oh wow that wacky yoko taro wanted you to feel bad so he made his debut game bad. bzzzzt. wrong. square enix wanted a commercial success with drakengard. if they didn't, they wouldn't have requested that a project starting out as a simple remix of ace combat (owing massive inspiration to electrosphere in particular, another game that combines peerless arcade bluster with bleak narrative proceedings) would incorporate elements of its contemporary blockbuster peer, dynasty warriors. none of this is to say that drakengard can't be an awkward game, but it's in large part due to a friction with cavia's inexperience/lack of technical expertise, their attempts at holding true to their initial vision for the project, and square enix being desperate for a worthy competitor to koei tecmo's success.

here's where i'll stake a claim on something potentially contentious and risible. on the basis of the title's struggles in production & development, it is somewhat shocking that drakengard is not just 'not bad', but is a totally competent musou game. given the milieu in which it released, you might even dare to call it 'good', or 'well-made'. i'll double down with something absolutely no one wants to hear: most people have no point of reference because musou is rarely put in its historic context, appreciated for its strengths, or even, broadly speaking, played. disregarding popular experimental offshoot licensed games which carry their own unique magnetism, dynasty warriors has an especially prevalent stigma in contemporary action game circles, and few seem willing to return to reevaluate the franchise. if we accept this as the case, we can begin to understand why nostalgia is the primary driver of fondness for early musou, and why you always hear dynasty warriors 3 is the best one. 'load of bull', you say, 'drakengard is not good', you say, 'dynasty warriors sold millions and is beloved for inventing the drama; surely it's better', you say, but take a look at these admittedly small sample sizes (evidence A and evidence B) and you tell me which is actually the niche ip at present. one of these broader game worlds got a FFXIV collaboration. it was not dynasty warriors.

anyways the idea that drakengard could be a respected peer to dynasty warriors - or even, perhaps, better - is not ahistorical. drakengard came out in 2003, only a few months after the release of dynasty warriors 4. by this point in the dynasty warriors timeline, your only sources of inspiration for the musou canon are dynasty warrior 2 and dynasty warriors 3. they're fine games for what they are - content-rich, pop recontextualizations of romance of the three kingdoms that fold the intense political drama, grandiose character dynamics, and poeticizing of feudal history intrinsic to the novel and morphs them into larger-than-life battles of one against one hundred. it works for that series, but having played dynasty warriors 3, it's also very simply orchestrated. DW3 is kinetic and energetic, sure, but form is not function. as a still nascent series, DW3 has yet to experiment with elements that would come to define later entries, such as a strong emphasis on field management - its presence in 3 is largely muted and, dependent upon your stats, can often be negated. it is mostly a game of fulfilling your objectives, grinding up your stats, and engaging in undemanding combat pulling the same strong combo strings against some unique generals and a multitude of carbon copy generic ones. and i happen to appreciate it for what it is, but there is no question in my mind if you slotted that exact same mechanical framework into drakengard's tone and setting, it would be similarly deemed bad on purpose.

other than its tone what does drakengard do differently from this purely mechanical perspective? honestly, not too much from DW3! archers are still often priority targets, because if you don't prioritize them you will get knocked off your horse dragon. mission structure is usually quite similar, arguably with a bit less back and forth. combos require virtually the exact same input. the camera in both games is kind of fucked up. aside from abstruse unlock requirements and a...unique, system of progression, the biggest differences are mostly relegated to additions rather than subtractions. there are more enemy designs than just grunt soldiers. you can dodge now. the game is weapon-driven rather than character-driven ala DW3, which allows for its own form of unique experimentation. the soundtrack is excellent, i'm not accepting complaints. to aid in breaking up the pace, there are aerial missions that play somewhat comparably to panzer dragoon on-rail segments which are actually quite fun; likewise, the hybrid missions allow for angelus to be used as a means of offence in ground warfare and rain hellfire from above. it keeps things relatively varied. there's no troops to manage because caim is fighting a losing war and willingly formed a pact with the only being capable of potentially turning the tides, and the game is content to use the musou form to communicate ideas about caim and angelus to great effect.

of course, it's the narrative which gives drakengard a lot of its greatest texture (and is also demonstrative of its greatest strengths and appeals as a DW clone), but we can save discussion of that for some other time; for now it's more important for me to say that it's not quite the outright condemnation of violence through ludology that so many claim it is (it's far more interested in more subtle forms of violence than the explicit and ceaseless murder it depicts anyways). really, this was just a self-indulgent exercise in placing drakengard in its historic context once and for all, away from all the retrospectives it's been getting as a result of nier's runaway success. drakengard is a game that won't be for most, but it's a game that's lingered in my memory long since i first played it. it takes an, at the time, relatively new genre, and through sheer passion and dedication spins it into a uniquely transgressive idea while still remaining an enjoyable title to let unfold. if it feels numbing or meditative, that's more or less the exact emotional resonance that something like DW3 is targeting - drakengard just uses it to achieve more things than a sense of gratifying white noise. it remains peerless because of all of its contradictions, because of how messy and thorny it is as a game, and because we'll never see anything approaching this utterly unique interplay of emotional rhythms and macabre, uncanny storytelling wearing the skin of its crowdpleasing predecessors ever again.

disenchanting poetic anarchy. quills soaked in blood transcribe fragmented stanzas across pages soiled with tragedy and insanity. hatred sows its seeds, obsessed with the universality of inner struggle. the seeds grow beneath lush fields of thriving imperialistic medievalism. faithful sacrifices are made in the strive towards a greater power personified by the beliefs of humanity. a single man who can only speak in genocidal tantrums sparks the beginning of the end. there is never motivation to continue forward nor is there ever a satisfying feeling of triumph. caim is just going through the motions while others beg for mercy at his feet. violence is a mundane necessity rather than an expressive resolve. not a single ending closes with excitement, only the depressive upset of loss. frenzied classical chords and pounding industrial symphonies amalgamate to feed the player’s own misery. drakengard is chaotically demoralizing, if nothing else.

Knees buckle before the great expanse
The threshold of ruin overtaken
Thoughts locked into hypnagogic trance

The foundations of reality thoroughly shaken
World screams out a final anguished cry
Searing pain on a land forsaken

A corpse whimpers a final lie
Phantasmagorical tears in space time abound
Clouds frozen in the blackened sky

Trembling ceases within the ground
Destruction slows into the still then
Atmosphere pierced by the soundless sound

A people denied their sundering end
Void spaces of slumber again and again

This was the worst thing I have ever played. The main cast copnsists of a sociopathic mass murderer, a cannibal, a murderous priest, a pedophile, a psychotic fairy, a depressed kid, and a dragon who just fucking hates everything. At no point do you ever feel good about the things you do in this game, slaughtering retreating soldiers, innocent creatures who know no better, and even fighting to murder a fucking child all as its amazing but haunted soundtracks pounds into your head over and over. The repetitive gameplay, the horrors of the whole situation of the story, those fucking god awful dragon missions, the bizzare difficulty dips and spikes, the missions that never seem to fucking end make this experience so fucking miserable but its almost as if this was all completely on purpose because no person should ever feel good playing as Caim. Idk if yoko taro intended the gameplay to be this awful but it sure ass hell adds to the experience of this cursed chaotic evil mess in a way i have never experienced in game. you dont want to play, but you cant stop. you have to see what happens next. you have to see how insane yoko taro gets. you cant stop until you know the limits of this fucking game. im definately glad i experienced this even if it at times made me go insane. its one of the most unique experiences ive ever had playing a game.

this game is disturbing and cursed and no person should ever play this piece of shit. its one of the best games i've ever played

pour one out for the mid-size developers; the hard-working designers cranking out licensed titles and budget IPs left and right before the HD era killed off small-team development and financial consolidation came back in vogue. the jank if you will, that lovely feeling of finding a solid 6 or 7 out of 10 with a couple kooky mechanics and a simple gameplay loop tucked away in your favorite console's library.

cavia may be one of the most prolific of these developers: their ouevre includes drakengard 1 and 2 (with d3 being handled by fellow jank purveyors access games), resident evil dead aim, gits:sac on ps2, beat down fists of vengeance, bullet witch, and nier... a truly stellar roster of B games. and in this sense, drakengard is a perfectly solid action title. in fact, I would call the dragon flying sections downright fun! it plays like a cross of ace combat's free-roam target-based objectives and flight control and panzer dragoon's targeting system, with some smart movement mechanics added in such as lateral dashes/dodges/blinks and 180 turnarounds. the enemy roster in these areas is solid as well, mixing more traditional flight combat fare such as oddly geometric aircraft with heat missiles with more magical fantasy elements such as flying reapers who can only be hit when they throw their scythes at you. just enough variety between missions to keep things interesting, and the bosses for this mode hit just right. in my mind even if an encounter is initially frustrating, as long as you can experiment and find the right tools to handle it I think it's a design success - ie the ending B boss whose air slices I found hard to reliably dodge until I began combining the lateral dodges with dashing at a different pitch angle.

the ground combat is a bit more of a hang-up overall, and it quickly becomes apparent that this mode is the more hastily constructed of the two. there's an inordinate amount of weapons with uncomfortably long grinds required and unique magic for each, a parry system that I almost never used, blocking and lateral rolls, and yet somehow in all of this they left out the right-stick camera control. very unfortunate! though given that it's a musou it's not difficult to adjust to using the minimap for guidance on enemy arrangement along with frequently using the center camera button. at the end of the day you can hew close to caim's default weapon with little trouble, and after you adjust it becomes as relaxing and mindless as any other musou. it helps that it has the extremely inspired ground/air hybrid levels, which allow you to lay waste to dozens of foes at once between handling magic-resistant enemies or trebuchets on foot.

if anything the biggest problem holding this game back is the mission structure. rarely do the designers muster anything more than waves of identical targets with the occasional twist such as "fight through a crevasse instead of an open field" or "we have some wizards here too" or possibly "explore this dungeon that is mostly just regular goons strewn throughout." it's a bit upsetting when they do go out on a limb and end up producing some of the lowest points in the game, such as the mission that requires you to take down a golem in a labyrinth of ravines - caim cannot mount angelus in the middle of the maze, so whenever he gets knocked off the dragon he must trek all the way back to the start to try again. these moments are mostly annoying rather than truly game-breaking, but it is disappointing that the game never elevates its scenario design, especially since missions can often run in the 15+ minute range unfortunately.

what also drags the missions down is that the story integration into each mission is rather poor. while there's evidently a large-scale war going on, you have no real present allies to fight beside, and the enemies have no dynamism beyond chasing you when you come within range. instead the plot points are parroted to you by off-screen characters represented as talking heads in a banner at the top of the screen. since caim and his party end up losing virtually every locale they defend to the empire, perhaps this conveys the futility of the conflict and the abject weakness of the union in face of the threat of the gods. at the same time, it left me feeling rather disconnected from the salient plot points when little what I do moves the plot forward; it often feels like these missions are just buffers between cutscenes.

if characters aren't babbling about off-screen events, they are often scolding caim for killing scores of people in an insatiable bloodlust driven by revenge. I went in with this knowledge and expected some cloying "you are the real bad guy" moral, but drakengard really surprised me with how it played with caim's character. he's potentially the best silent protagonist ever conceived: a man who literally let his sword do the talking, one who is so committed to violence that he willingly exorcises his voice in pursuit of absolute power. yet while verdehet pleads with him to spare his fellow man and angelus sneers at his animalistic instincts, neither can do much more than tsk tsk since they absolutely need caim whether he's a psychopath or not. the reality of their world is so deeply bathed in despair that the lives that caim takes are merely specks on top of the mountain of humanity's sin, totally and comprehensively meaningless. this ties in to the overarching flood-like narrative that the game pushes for, where the planet's most powerful force yearns to let the gods completely and utterly extinguish life in order to cleanse the world of its caked layers of immorality. in this setting, caim's actions are a form of idealism that proposes that perhaps humans can still change reality through sheer force of will, as angelus realizes when caim pushes her to reach new heights of power towards the end of the first ending. his actions directly convince her that perhaps humanity is worth saving and perserving after all... caim demonstrates a fascinating moral decay of the hero complex that manages to stubbornly save mankind from an extinction wrought by its own hand.

unfortunately much of the intrigue of the rest of the cast has been bowderlized in localization - even more unfortunately this is still present in the undub I played. how much this affects the story beyond pure shock value is up for debate, and I'm not sure I have an answer. whether leonard is any more compelling of a character without his nonce arc present for instance doesn't perhaps matter too much to the plot as a whole given that he does very little except make off-handed remarks of self-loathing (though his scenes towards the end are rather affecting and well done in CGI, which btw is pretty excellent throughout the game). arioch is just a vessel for female trauma with no characteristics beyond that, though given the cavalcade of woe already present the male cast is entirely unempathetic to her plight and seems to view her as a liability. out of all three of the side allies seere is easily the most interesting. his naivete and extreme need for validation stemming from his abusive mother's favoritism legitimately develops over the course of the game, to the point where he eventually accepts that true heroism requires tremendous sacrifice and is willing to accept the reality of his world. his bickering with angelus over the myths he's enraptured by is turned on his head as the world's grim recreation narrative is laid out for all to see, and thus to see him step into the shoes of those who came before is fulfilling. I also love the scene where he's trapped in the coliseum and caim comes in to slaughter an entire horde of "subhumans," to which angelus exhorts him for finally "learning how to save a life with [his] blade." truly great black comedy.

these characters don't make much of an appearance in the main story though, and if you play that first set of endings before going through the side content it will feel a little bare given the small cast. thankfully inuart is a satisfying secondary antagonist, one who's envious of caim's masculine strength over his own and seeks to exceed him and demonstrate sexual dominion to assert himself. his frenzy towards the end of the game as he plays directly into the hands of the cult of the watchers is a fulfilling downfall to witness, even if in the process (ending B) he manages to create an eldritch horror in the process thanks to his warped conception of mysticism stemming from the aforementioned web of myths humanity has woven for itself. those first three endings were all worth it on their own, and then the fourth one really blew things open and got me thinking more heavily about the narrative themes.

in fact, I nearly considered rating it higher, and then I played that final mission in ending D. what can I say? some people are just not very good game designers. I'll try to remember the fun I had with it prior at least... and to be clear, I didn't get ending E and instead just watched it on youtube. looks goofy!

My first exposure to Drakengard was watching a LP on youtube to catch up with the series in preparation for Nier Automata. I sat there fast forwarding the missions until the cutscenes came up, chuckling at the overacting done by the cardboard characters, and finding some brief amusement as the plot got progressively more fucked up, culminating in a "I get it" from me and moving on with my day. Turns out that, no, I didn't get it. Unless you actually sit down and go through with it, you have no idea how life draining and excrutiating this shit can get.

From the moment you first swing your sword at the endless spawning enemy soldiers in a wasteland of early ps2 environments and you feel how kinesthetically unpleasant it is to control Caim, you have at that point every reason in the world to shut off the game and never pick it up again. What follows from then on is one of the bitterest and most incisive condemnations of the videogame industry and its propensity for using violence as its main language. After spending 20 minutes boringly killing hundreds of enemies for no seemingly apparent reason, and having characters off screen constantly chastising and belitlling you in disgust, while a cacophony of classical symphony samples assault your ears, it honestly doesn't get any better.

You are then greeted by the most bizarre set of cutscenes that have the characters wallowing in self pity and agony, with a bird's eye view camera that never allows us any chance to sympathize or get comfortable with these muppets. The main character even has his ability to speak taken away, giving him no concrete way to express himself other than murder and gladly passing that torch to the player. As I finally completed the story by killing a giant possessed kid after a slog of grinding and repetitive sword slashing, I was more than happy to have my Drakengard experience over with. But 4 endings remain, the game taunts me.

Subjecting yourself to more of Drakengard, the story does indeed open up itself to reveal more. And what it reveals is even more despair and bloodshed. Searching for answers and a better resolution, what you get instead is your allies sharing the gruesome skeletons in their closets, the inescapeable truth of Caim's lust for violence, and the total annihilation of humanity in every shape or form possible. Shit, I'm playing Undertale before Undertale was even a thing.

These characters are forever trapped in this universe conceived purely for eternal war and death, it's no wonder that they are all mentally scarred and can only express themselves through senseless violence and the abuse of others, what can you expect them to do when these are the walls we devised for them? It's only fitting and brilliant then that at the end of it all the universe of Drakengard has no other way of resolving itself besides breaking through our own world to fight a ridiculously challenging final boss that in no way resembles any of the mechanics we spent the last 30 hours wrestling with, only to get annihilated by the people and machines that would have the capacity to create a game such as this one.

What's disturbing is that you eventually learn to compromise with Drakengard. You quickly figure out that you can ignore 90% of the enemies and just dash for the actual targets and you fall into a senseless stupor of boredom that allows you to disengage from the grind. And maybe that's part of its point, but I do wish it was more excrutiating and near impossible to beat. Or maybe i'm just fucked up, who knows. It's one of the best examples I have seen of consolidating a message of anti-violence with the actual act of playing, a narrative that is only fully conveyed if you are the one actually behind the controller. I just don't want to ever play it again, and if you are to get anything out of this review, is that you shouldn't either. Watch a LP.

P.S.: The true horror of Drakengard is coming to the realization that somewhere out there is someone that truly enjoys the ground combat for what it is and isn't remotely aware of the message the game. I shudder at the thought of it.

This is gonna be a conflicting one.

In 2021, I first saw the trailer for NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139. I was a huge fan of Automata and had also played a bit of Gestalt before dropping it, so I was no stranger to the series. I wanted to play Replicant but also wanted to play every prior game beforehand. Alongside going back to Gestalt and finally beating that, I also decided to buy both Drakengard and Drakengard 3 since I knew they were connected to the series somehow. Fast forward to 2022, I randomly decide to finally dive into the Drakengard games. I play up until like chapter 3 or 4 I think and drop the game due to a skill issue. What did I think of it? I thought it was shit! Not only did I not like the gameplay, which most people don't ofc, I also just thought the story was super boring up to that point. The story was the main reason you'd be playing the game, so for me to not be into the characters or story at all, I just wasn't motivated to continue playing it. Fast forward to present day, fellow user Lemonstrade eggs me on to play it as a joke. Well I didn't back down and decided to beat it this time. The first mission or two, I immediately thought "yup this is still shit". But then I remembered some of the gameplay mechanics that made the game more tolerable and bada bing, I started to enjoy myself more.

So let's get into the absolute most contentious aspect of the game, the gameplay. The biggest issue I had with it, and it's still its biggest issue now, is it doesn't flow the best due to the camera. It's a fixed camera depending on what way you're facing and the right stick only tilts the screen a bit and goes back in place when you let go of it. If there's an enemy behind you, this can be really clunky feeling as you manually have to face the enemy before you can see them in front of you. I got used to this pretty quickly but this is the only major issue I had with the gameplay tbh. Otherwise, it's just a perfectly fine hack and slash/musou game. The actual gameplay, not including camera issues, is perfectly serviceable I felt. It actually does get satisfying killing hoardes of enemies while the side characters talk about how brutal Caim is. That plus there's combos that can knock enemies down which makes the gameplay more tolerable, there's summonable characters that can just mow down hoardes of enemies like nothing and the magic that changes depending on what weapon you're using. The combat is surprisingly more in depth than you'd think, and that's not even getting into the air combat. I found that more enjoyable from the start tho that can be even more frustrating than the ground combat at points just because how slow it is to aim sometimes. That's only an issue with later encounters and bosses but either way, the combat in this game? Not bad honestly, it's not great ofc but in the end I found it a lot enjoyable than when I played the game initially.

The music is honestly super fitting and also really experimental and out there. A big chunk of the songs sound like looping messes. It kind of sounds shit at first, and look I aint listening to the OST outside of the game, but it really is memorable. Playing this 2 years later, I still remembered all the early game songs. I wouldn't say I actually "like" the ost, except for maybe a couple of the more comprehensible songs, but it's still a good ost since the game is trying to drive you crazy.

Diving right into the story, I'm gonna just say it. I didn't think it was mind-blowing at all or even that amazing. My issue with not caring about the story or the characters still applied to a good chunk of my playtime here. It wasn't until like the last third, and all the endings, where I was actually interested. I really really enjoyed how crazy it got near the end, and I really loved the dark fantasy elements. I just wish more of the game was like that, and that the earlier chapters weren't so boring. But I also think that was the whole point, it was to subvert expectations and make you think it'll just be a boring fantasy game only to surprise you with all that craziness in the endgame. It also wasn't until post ending A, where you got cutscenes with all the side characters. Those were entertaining every once in a while but I just did not care about the cast in this game. Even Caim, who has an iconic design (which may have been caused by a very iconic user on this site) I just didn't like as much as I should've. I know the whole point of him not speaking is for the characters to describe how awful his slaughtering is and for you the player to basically take his role. That's a cool concept but it just made me not care about his character. It's funny how I'm more positive on the overall gameplay than the story, but the peaks of the endgame story cutscenes overshadow everything else at least. I just wish there was more idk. Also, that final boss, holy shit idk how you're supposed to do that without the pause trick or looking up inputs. I had to do both cuz otherwise I would've just not beaten the game lol.

Additionally, I may not really care about the cast in this game, but I can't deny the voice acting is actually surprisingly good. It's a mix of British and American voice actors but it works surprisingly well, especially for a game from 2003. Aroch, specifically when you summon her and she screams "WHERE ARE MY CHILDREN", holy crap is it satisfying. Idk who voices her but that voice actress was cooking.

So yeah, like I said, it's a very conflicting game for me. Usually you see people either loving or hating this one but I just personally think it's a decent little game that does some really unique things. I'm glad to finally have beaten this as a huge NieR fan and I'm glad I did end up enjoying this one overall. Excited to play 3 in the future, tho I also own that physically too and idk if I'm ready for the framerate lol.

6.5/10

drakengood

15 hours in and i gotta say, the combat is WAY better than everyone said it was. i'd say once you get more weapons it's very fun. in other words i have permanently ruined my credibility

the homie chandler said that drakengard could never be made nowadays. i was a little skeptical at first, given that this is said about a lot of media by a lot of assholes complaining about how sOfT tHe LiBs ArE. i totally agree tho- drak is the result of a time where a AA studio could get big square money to make a game this offensive, mean, and just weird. there's damn near no room for a direct sequel (minus the premature ending a) and the whole of the experience is as harrowing as it is exhausting. don't take that as a shot against the game in the slightest; from the start of the first mission to my "victory" against the final boss of ending e 50 hours later, drakengard kept me glued to the screen. if not by the gameplay loop, then by the storytelling. i think dissecting the nonstop subversions that cavia pulls again and again around every turn would take away from the experience, so just let me say this: it's not "bad on purpose". the game is insane, unique, uniquely insane, insanely unique, and speaks for itself. it is just do be that way. if you have the patience for challenging art i recommend giving it a try. anyway. i'm gonna go puke now i was way too close to the screen for that final boss

also caim is cool and the music is got damn legendary but you already knew that

https://toxicdevil.neocities.org/drakenguide.pdf

An ambiguous story that flips a lot of the hero-dependent narratives of the period on their head. I get the whole Yoko Taro story structure thing has been done to death now that we live in a post-Nier world, but it's pretty fresh here. I dig this.

Playing this game will kind of make you want to die, but honestly it's pretty disorienting in the most captivating way possible.

I see a lot of people form the conclusion that this game is "bad on purpose" but I sort of resent the implication of that. I feel like this game was good on purpose. Often games are reduced to being either "fun" or "not fun" and that's so boring. Let a game make you feel like shit once or twice, you'll be better for it (and cooler, more badass etc. etc.)

this is such a fascinating game to me.

i hated playing 90% of it, didn't really care for any of the characters besides Caim and Angelus, the ost made me genuinely angry sometimes because of how repetitive and incoherent it is, the chapters structure makes no sense. some are unusually short while others are unbearably long.

and yet in spite of that, i kept playing and did every single ending. even during my miserable time i was fascinated by the lengths this game went to to make my experience as horrible as possible.

was this a good game? i'm not sure. was this a bad game? i'm also not sure. was this a very unique experience that i can't see being replicated in anything but in this medium? absolutely.

Drakengard fully takes advantage of its medium to create this one of a kind experience and i will probably never forget about this hellish piece of shit anytime soon.