This review contains spoilers
A beautiful work on the potential of children - two kids raised by the same mother: one with love and the other with hatred.
Seere ended up emulating the hero he admired from the fairy tales of his mother -the 'little hero'- and played an irreplaceable part in the saving of the World.
Manah was abused and did the only thing that was taught to her: to destroy - this led to the collapse of everything as it was known.
Arioch sacrificed the possibility of having children by making a pact with two elemental spirits. With her child gone to the war and an impossibility to create any more life within her she goes mad and becomes a child-eater - probably due to jealousy "my child was taken away from me and I cannot have any more, therefore it's not fair for any other person to have the privilege of their children living".
Some interesting symbolism I found about these two spirits is that they resemble the ovaries of a woman which play an important part in the making of a human being.
It was very subtly told overtime but Leonard was a pedophile (from what I have read this was more explicit in the Japanese version) but it was made more obvious with the cutscene for ending E where Seere hugs him and his reaction is surprisingly descriptive - it seems as if he wants to give in to his urges but ends up resisting; probably due to the memories of his little brothers which he regrets.
These last two might be bit of a stretch but here's my interpretation of it:
Furiae was in love with his brother Caim, as we know incest can lead to genetic disorders in children - the World itself is not fair but on top of that genetic disorders bring a lot of complications on children to live a normal life and adapt to society.
Caim has bloodlust and no compassion for human lives - it's a war so there will be bloodshed but he actively enjoys it disregarding the children he is leaving fatherless and the human on the other side of the War. Something that Angelus and other characters constantly ask of him agaisnt the enemies is for mercy.
There's so much symbolism but I was comfortable with some of my interpretations of it after seeing how the Watchers resemble giant babies. There's also a surprising amount of depth to the characters and different endings.
The soundtrack is beautiful: the abrupt repetition of samples alludes to the repetition of slaughter in the field - this is especially felt while playing with Caim on the ground.
Onto the gameplay: I'm not a fan of musou games but I grew to like the ground combat because of the experimentation of different weapons and I think it was brilliant from a ludo-narrative stand-point to get to know Caim.
I straight up loved the combat with Angelus, so much so that Panzer Dragoon has increased some priority spots in my to-play list.
As if this wasn't obvious with some elements you can find in Drakengard this was named Project Dragonsphere due to drawing heavy inspiration from Ace Combat 3, I was surprised to see so many things that reminded me of it: the canyon which is kind of a small labyrinth as it was in AC3, the city in its demise is also reminiscent to how the city looked in some of the endings (or all of them? I cannot recall) of AC3, the extra expedition where you can fight against fighter jets, the gameplay of Angelus itself, the sometimes atmospheric and electronic soundtrack, etc.
There are so many things I probably missed about Drakengard but that's also the beauty of it, I was really surprised with how much I loved the story and that I ended up enjoying the gameplay. Now I'm shilling this game to my friends.
On another note - sometimes it might be worth asking yourself: can this work as effectively as it is if it was a film or a work in another medium? In the case of Drakengard, I don't think so.
Some personal notes:
This was my previous review for Drakengard but I have been re-playing some games I used to dismiss (e.g. ICO) because of my lack of patience with positive results; it feels like growing as a person.
With how much I loved Drakengard, I will play the rest of the series (including Nier) and eventually re-play Nier Automata (I did not enjoy this last one as much but I want to revisit it)
I also had some things to say about how Caim doesn't care about the unethical behavior of the people helping him to achieve his goals but because of being so focused on saving Furiae he disregards this. This eventually comes back to bite him in the tail...
Seere ended up emulating the hero he admired from the fairy tales of his mother -the 'little hero'- and played an irreplaceable part in the saving of the World.
Manah was abused and did the only thing that was taught to her: to destroy - this led to the collapse of everything as it was known.
Arioch sacrificed the possibility of having children by making a pact with two elemental spirits. With her child gone to the war and an impossibility to create any more life within her she goes mad and becomes a child-eater - probably due to jealousy "my child was taken away from me and I cannot have any more, therefore it's not fair for any other person to have the privilege of their children living".
Some interesting symbolism I found about these two spirits is that they resemble the ovaries of a woman which play an important part in the making of a human being.
It was very subtly told overtime but Leonard was a pedophile (from what I have read this was more explicit in the Japanese version) but it was made more obvious with the cutscene for ending E where Seere hugs him and his reaction is surprisingly descriptive - it seems as if he wants to give in to his urges but ends up resisting; probably due to the memories of his little brothers which he regrets.
These last two might be bit of a stretch but here's my interpretation of it:
Furiae was in love with his brother Caim, as we know incest can lead to genetic disorders in children - the World itself is not fair but on top of that genetic disorders bring a lot of complications on children to live a normal life and adapt to society.
Caim has bloodlust and no compassion for human lives - it's a war so there will be bloodshed but he actively enjoys it disregarding the children he is leaving fatherless and the human on the other side of the War. Something that Angelus and other characters constantly ask of him agaisnt the enemies is for mercy.
There's so much symbolism but I was comfortable with some of my interpretations of it after seeing how the Watchers resemble giant babies. There's also a surprising amount of depth to the characters and different endings.
The soundtrack is beautiful: the abrupt repetition of samples alludes to the repetition of slaughter in the field - this is especially felt while playing with Caim on the ground.
Onto the gameplay: I'm not a fan of musou games but I grew to like the ground combat because of the experimentation of different weapons and I think it was brilliant from a ludo-narrative stand-point to get to know Caim.
I straight up loved the combat with Angelus, so much so that Panzer Dragoon has increased some priority spots in my to-play list.
As if this wasn't obvious with some elements you can find in Drakengard this was named Project Dragonsphere due to drawing heavy inspiration from Ace Combat 3, I was surprised to see so many things that reminded me of it: the canyon which is kind of a small labyrinth as it was in AC3, the city in its demise is also reminiscent to how the city looked in some of the endings (or all of them? I cannot recall) of AC3, the extra expedition where you can fight against fighter jets, the gameplay of Angelus itself, the sometimes atmospheric and electronic soundtrack, etc.
There are so many things I probably missed about Drakengard but that's also the beauty of it, I was really surprised with how much I loved the story and that I ended up enjoying the gameplay. Now I'm shilling this game to my friends.
On another note - sometimes it might be worth asking yourself: can this work as effectively as it is if it was a film or a work in another medium? In the case of Drakengard, I don't think so.
Some personal notes:
This was my previous review for Drakengard but I have been re-playing some games I used to dismiss (e.g. ICO) because of my lack of patience with positive results; it feels like growing as a person.
With how much I loved Drakengard, I will play the rest of the series (including Nier) and eventually re-play Nier Automata (I did not enjoy this last one as much but I want to revisit it)
I also had some things to say about how Caim doesn't care about the unethical behavior of the people helping him to achieve his goals but because of being so focused on saving Furiae he disregards this. This eventually comes back to bite him in the tail...
Reviewed on Apr 22, 2022