Over the past couple of years, the hack-n-slash RPG genre has established itself as one of the choice genres for gamers thanks to its focus on character development rather than cinematic storylines. From Koei's Dynasty Warriors series to Blizzard's Diablo, hack-n-slash RPGs have possessed a simple, yet addicting formula that allowed any gamer to whittle away their days and nights to increase another level or find some rare item. However, Drakengard is more of a repetitive exercise than an addicting slasher. Add the fact that it really has nothing original to bring to the table and features a lot of borrowed ideas doesn't help matters further.

As the story goes, it is a time of fantasy where dragons fly through the sky and a goddess holds the seal to the world's balance. This balance is in danger, however, as an evil empire has its sights set on getting the goddess and the seal that she protects. You play a warrior named Caim (rhymes with time), who fights to protect the goddess from this seemingly unstoppable empire. When Caim is mortally wounded in battle, he comes across a dragon tied down in the castle bailey. With both surrounded and on the brink of death, Caim and the dragon (who has a demeanor that would make Morrisey proud) make a pact joining their lives together to save themselves and enables Caim to have an equalizer in the war against the invading empire. This, of course, renders Caim Mute, and enables the always positive dragon to do all the talking for him.

The similarities between Drakengard and games like Dynasty Warriors and Panzer Dragoon Orta are far from coincidence. If you've played either of these games, you'll be able to pick up Drakengard right away. The game's somewhat confusing story only acts as a device to get you to another stage in a different environment. Caim starts off with his sword and a basic three hit combo, though as the game progresses, Caim will be able to perform higher combos and gain new weapons such as hammers, axes, spears, etc. Each weapon also has its own type of magic associated with it that will affect a group of enemies, which consists of your typical fire, lighting, and earth attacks. Unfortunately, the additional weapons are either too weak or too slow. You might be better off sticking to Caim's default sword in the long run.

Caim will start off fighting on the ground where he will have to battle hundreds of enemies while making his way to finding and taking out certain generals to advance to the next chapter. After a few levels, you can take to the air by summoning the dragon with the select button, thus making mass murder much much easier. Many of the enemies, save for archers and other projectile-throwing soldiers, can't even reach the dragon in the air and are easily dispatched by the dragon's explosion inducing breath. Both Caim and the dragon gain experience for every soldier killed, which varies depending on the soldier's rank. You can also execute chains of combos for extra experience points. If you get tired of advancing levels with Caim and the dragon, you can also pick up allies by beating levels in under twenty minutes. Once you acquire an ally, you can summon them in place of Caim with the circle button. This is especially good if Caim is low on health and you need to switch out quickly. The camera can become an issue during ground battles since it likes to swing around to the front of Caim often. Any attempt to adjust it will result in the camera snapping back to its original position.

In addition to battles on the ground, Caim and the dragon will also have to do battle in the air in periodic shooting stages. The ever resourceful empire comes equipped with giant bats, gargoyles, floating cannons, and airships. You're able to lock on to a single target multiple times or multiple targets by holding down the square button and moving your crosshair over them. These levels range from mildly fun to overly frustrating thanks to the ever present camera issues and confusing control (which the SwankWorld staff lovingly refers to as wild boar control). There's no option to have the right analog stick control your crosshair, so you'll have your crosshair off screen most of the time while you wrestle with getting yourself in a position to make another attack.

Graphics are average and don't offer a lot of eye candy. Caim seems stiff and wooden, as his torso doesn't move even while at a full sprint. Enemies offer the same level of animation. As to be expected, the levels are full of foggy goodness and don't have a far draw distance. While games like Dynasty Warriors offer the same type of gameplay with little to no hits on the frame rate at all, Drakengard does a good job of slowing down the action when you're swarmed by more than one group of soldiers. Environments are also bland, as most of them are really barren except for a rock or pillar here and there. CG sequences are also lackluster as everyone seems like they were rendered in Adobe Wax Museum Studio 8. To put things simply, everyone has that shiny plastic action figure look that was so popular eight years ago. On a plus side, there's an ample amount of blood shed onto the ground and that hits a sweet spot in my heart.

Sound is also a mixed bag. The voice acting is generally good, and the developers would have been better off having Caim do the talking instead of the dragon. Imperial soldiers don't make any noise during battle, but when they actually get the chance to talk, they end up sounding like mindless robots and offer such memorable quotes as “the goddess, she's upstairs” with all the monotone glory of that robot from Lost in Space. Music is also a bit annoying since you'll be listening to the same thirty second orchestrated loop over and over during the game. At one point I thought the PS2 wasn't reading the audio track right, nope, it was by design. Battle sounds don't offer anything exciting as every hit Caim registers is met with a dull clank instead of an exciting clash. It just sounds like he's giving out love taps as opposed to critical blows of justice. Perhaps I'm just being a little melodramatic here, so I'll leave it at that.

If this review seems a bit harsh, it's not truly intended. Drakengard does offer some form of solid gameplay, but its ideas are heavily borrowed and doesn't bring anything new to the table at all. On top of that, this game comes from the two developers that have given us some of the most innovative and enjoyable games of the last fifteen years, I just expected better. Casual gamers might find a good couple of hours of enjoyment before things get repetitive or if you found Dynasty Warriors 4 disappointing, you might find some solace in Drakengard.

 

Final Word

Drakengard was one of the top games on my wish list when I saw it at E3 last year. I always enjoyed the Dynasty Warriors series, and I was excited to see what Square-Enix would do with the formula. Imagine my disappointment a year later when I find no improvement over the original formula whatsoever and what was borrowed seemed more like tedium than fun. The control was stiff and Caim lacks the lethal suaveness of Zhang He from Dynasty Warriors. On another note, Wild Boar control ©2004 SwankWorld Media all rights reserved.

 

- Brad Hicks (aka Dr. Swank), SwankWorld Media