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Square Enix moves to a brave, new world.
Drakengard can be best described as a mix between Dynasty Warriors and the cult-favorite Panzer Dragoon series. While both of those titles arguably do their focus gameplay better than Drakengard, neither offers both gameplay modes in a nice little package backed by the mighty Square Enix name and publisher staples like “pretty” male leads and rather long weapons. Drakengard has been listed as an RPG by various retailers since it is a Square Enix game, after all. The game has a few RPG elements but you won’t find the typical RPG storyline, turn-based battles, and random battles.
In Drakengard, you play as Caim who isn’t in the best of moods. You see, Caim’s parents were murdered by dragons but he sets out to destroy the wicked “Empire” after the attack a fortress in search of a goddess. Initially, the game strongly resembles Dynasty Warriors. You have a fair number of techniques like rolls, blocking and jumping but for the most part you’ll be hacking and slashing your way through the initial segments. You’ll fight through countless baddies with your techniques occasionally pulling off combos that show off some of the fancier animations in the game and allow you gain health. If you have a really twitchy finger, you won’t find much to complain as baddies appear continuously through the game.
Rather early in the game you meet up with your dragon friend. Initially, the dragon simply follows you around. Later on though, you’ll settle your differences, you are able to ride it in the game’s Panzer Dragoon sections. During these sections you’ll fight enemies off with fireballs as you are lead to your destination by the game’s arrow. Some portions of the game have you mixing the flying and on-foot portions, as well.
The RPG elements of the game allow you to find over sixty weapons and level them up through four levels of power. You can also gather party members, although that’s more for show than anything else.
Like with any Square Enix game, you can expect the style of the game to be awesome. Drakengard doesn’t disappoint. There are huge environments that seem very detailed at first. Unfortunately, you’ll notice a lot of repeat textures as you go by, thereby limiting how detailed the environments look. Also, the game doesn’t disappoint with invisible walls: you’ll find plenty of them. The characters look decent, although they are of the Square Enix mold. The animations look good, although there should have been more different ones. Lastly, the frame-rate goes a good job for the most part but drops significantly when there are a lot of enemies on screen, which actually happens pretty often.
The soundtrack is fitting although it is nothing you will be humming to after you stop playing. The voice acting is a bit annoying, particularly that of the dragon. Overall though, it isn’t bad.
Drakengard is a very different game from Square Enix than we are used to. Based on its own merits though, the game is enjoyable. Neither of its two main gameplay modes are the best in the industry, Drakengard does both well enough to be a pleasant experience. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Apr 15, 2004
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