Games are often limited by their need to be “fun.” Despite video games being the only medium with interactivity—an aspect that should be ripe for all kinds of exploration—we are mostly limited to things that are entertaining on some level to our brains. Games are not designed for sadness, hatred, anger, or a litany of any other emotions as their primary motivators, as these are antithetical to the “fun” designers desperately need to find and the conventionality that audiences crave, despite their protests otherwise. Further, games are often heavily concerned with coherency and reaching standards of “good”-ness. That is: a story should be mostly understandable on some level; production values should be high and apparent; and said production values should contribute to the player’s enjoyment in some way. Games desperately want to be liked, and so they cling to these ideas in the hopes of audience validation.

Drakengard cares not for any of this. You roam through gray hazes of environments, cutting down endless hordes of mindless enemies, in the hopes of increasing in power until the very act of playing the game becomes meaningless. Broken music accompanies your rampage while characters shout vague probings of human nature and desperate attempts to contextualize the battles you fight. Your brief respites are inscrutable cutscenes that are meant to tell some semblance of an utterly hopeless and miserable story as you are flung wildly from beat to beat with little in the way of build-up or logic. You descend further and further into this hellish nightmare of absurd imagery until, miraculously, it ends. You awaken from your fugue state and attempt to comprehend what you’ve experienced.

Well, here’s how I see it: Drakengard has the unique ability to radicalize the player so that they completely reconsider what video games are and what they value from them. Whether this is intentional or not on its part is entirely irrelevant—although its brilliant soundtrack lends some credence to that vision—because it is such a fundamentally bare and broken experience that the only option is, ultimately, to project onto it. Drakengard martyrs itself in order to question the very construction and presentation of video games. It hands you the scalpel and then slowly brutalizes itself to death in front of you, with the hope that whatever conclusion you come to in the autopsy is a valid one. There’s a disturbing smile on its face that invites you to revel in its self-destruction.

Incredibly underwhelming tbh.

The gameplay isn't unbearably frustrating like some other games, but it's just so boring and repetitive. I was able to get through the game but I think I'd just reached the point where I never wanna play it again. The story and characters really aren't anything special either. There's striking imagery and the game is certainly dark, but none of the characters really get any significant development. Inuart is probably the most interesting character, but his arc is still straightforward and predictable. The most disappointing aspect of the game is Caim. I can see where they were going with Caim’s depiction, but I think making him mute was a big mistake. Because of it, every other character just keeps telling you how terrible of a person Caim is while he just makes the same uncaring expression. I feel that this game would’ve been incredibly impactful if I played it during its initial release. By today’s standards however, it comes across as loud and edgy for the sake of just upsetting the player. As someone who likes getting the perspective of a series, I’m not mad I played it, but I also wouldn’t really recommend it. Having played NieR Automata prior, I know how great Taro can be as a director. Unfortunately, his first outing didn't really work for me.

Wow, what an insane storyline! Although the game can be frustrating at times (and it progressively becomes more difficult to progress with each ending), it holds a unique charm. It's the type of madness that you rarely see with such a budget nowadays. This game feels incredibly authoral and unhinged, and even if I don't agree with every decision, I can certainly appreciate the boldness it took to create something like this. Personally, I don't find the gameplay as bad as some people claim, but a remake could greatly enhance the experience of Drakengard. However, the real standout is the OST, which is truly one of the most outstanding compositions in video game history. It reaches its peak just before the end with that incredible, haunting piece in Ending E. It's pure brilliance.

after drakengard 3 I was really excited to try the game that started it all and I'm pretty sure that was a fucking mistake guys

as you can already see from my rating I actually enjoyed this quite a lot but I'm pretty sure the conception of a game like this can be done only by someone clinically schizophrenic and after playing every drakengard/nier apart from 2 I'm pretty sure yokotaro is the most famous patient in the psychiatric ward of Tokyo or wherever the fuck he lives roppongi kichijouji whatever you get my point

the overall synopsis of the game is there's caim who's a fucking war criminal and the lord of a land and to this point im kind of confused to why he actually fights they get to defend some seals and make a really bad job for it because they get fucking destroyed by the end of the game and nobody knows why or how because caim is just too occupied slaughtering people or dwarfs or the undead thats so fucked up to a point that I don't understand whether you can even call him the protagonist because why would you get into the shoes of a genocider but I guess the point of it all is seeing caim killing everything that breathes and being absolutely dumbfounded by his blood thirst its an incredible thing to see when every other character is asking him to stop for the love of everything worthy in life

introducing the other character of the game angelus which I was convinced was a boy because I played it with the japanese voice over and its pretty confusing understanding their gender but in the English dub they just went and put a very feminine voice so that's how I discovered it I would've just thought she was a man so since the game is called drakengard or if youre japanese drag on dragoon whatever THAT fucking means people and yeah so she is the dragon and she takes caim ability to speak in exchange for his pact with her and thats the way to make a silent protagonist if you ask me

main personality of this dragon ? she's fucking done with humanity hates life hates everything that moves and wants to just get out of this fucked up world . can you even blame her ? no this world SUCKS in the best way possible it has a medieval aesthetic there's some lands that you don't even know the names of because caim isn't doing anything burocratic noooooo he's on the field front line by himself killing all that has a brain

you also get to know a priest who cannot shut the fuck up a pedophile another pedophile who eats babies a baby the end this is the cast of this game believe it or not these other characters are kind of side y content unless you want to do ending D and forth but the priest oooooo the priest he is going to cry and talk and shout and whatever the ENTIRE game you go through idk how many missions and I mean since he's your buddy or whatever I guess he should be accustomed to caims murderous needs but nooooo every mission he's like "caim pleaaaaaaaaase some mercy for thy foes nooooo God is crying over those dead corpses" shut the FUCK UP OH GOD ARENT YOU USED TO THIS and when he's not crying he's like "caim ….. the seal has been broken" grazie a 'sto cazzo coglione what do you think

then theres caims sister who is kinda in love with caim which is already kinda weird also kinda incestuous also kinda blasphemous because she's also called the goddess and I guess she's the trope of "fragile girl grown in a castle secluded from the world" or something and she touches herself thinking about her brother can you even believe that I mean I kinda vibe with her because she wants to fuck a mass murderer I don't really wanna fuck a mass murderer but a rough man can be a good compromise that being said there's also inuart I fucking hate inuart he sucks ass like I can excuse manslaughter but rape ? SPOILER with a dead fucking body ? no ma'am . no ma'am plus he's ugly plus he's fucking disgusting I hate him like I hate everyone in this game

also this game has some serious art direction problems the models are pretty fine if you ask me but people the little portraits ? or like every single UI ever in this game ? I mean I saw some bad stuff but this is very below decent and still I love it anyway call me sick

I didnt talk about the gameplay because the gameplay can be reviewed in some few lines this is a hack and slash you get to swing your swords with a lot of enemies in missions that feel like they're 40 minutes long and sometimes take 40+ minutes long you get some different weapons that can be upgraded if you use them but if youre me you're not even gonna pick them up and just use caims sword

you can fill a meter and do a big special move apart from that ? that's the fucking end of the ground gameplay then you also get some spice in the dragon mission which are fucking hideous if you ask me the dragon controls like dick and the aiming system is broken the fucking end

and thats what you're gonna do for like 15 hours more or less just swing sword swing sword swing sword special move swing sword again again again again

now this sucks but also I cannot fucking tell you how much I did not mind this ? I actually got into a trance-like state of some sort and the incredible amount of absolutely nothing you're gonna do for the entirety of the game like idle clicking like those smartphone stupid games thats what you're gonna do and everything happens while some psychotic man pushes random buttons in the soundboard and makes some repetitive ass music that smashes your eardrums till blood flows out

no actually let's talk about the music and how this is the most normal one of the bunch and after this you get a repetitive fucking mess chaos of instruments beats incredibly screwed and twisted melodies a fuckton of noise and honestly ? I fucking love this soundtrack and it absolutely encapsulates caims madness in this fucked up world like this is the first thing you hear on land incredibly enough everything is crafted to the point that it gets some incredible soundscapes that really drive the entirety of the games atmosphere home this games world is in ruin and the music wants YOU to know it this one's also fucking insane AND a favorite OH AND ALSO this one's fucking incredible if you ask me honestly this is some of the most sickeningly insane beats you will ever listen to in your entire life and honestly if you listen to the entirety of the ost you're gonna need a psychiatric expertise this one actually gives you 2 seconds of release and then delves again into madness you got 0 chill in this game I swear to fucking god I mean let's just stop but you get my point im gonna listen to the entire ost someday and add it to my videogame music playlist so yeah

and guys

that's it

now I do enjoy caim being just fucking angry I can vibe with that but the lengths he goes ? maybe im not that mentally ill yet

SPOILERISH STORY TERRITORY

this is the game that started the different ending structure of the drakenier series and I'm pretty fucking sure this was a mistake

I forgot to tell that there's mana which is the high priestess of the cult of the watchers and if you ask what the watchers are well …….

ending A is possibly the most plainly executed and one that actually gave a good conclusion to this fucked story you destroy mana and angelus becomes the seal and she uses her last breath to tell caim her name and thats pretty fucking sad if you ask me I could cry they loved each other

angelus hAs a pussy?/10 rating

ending B us inuart revives furies with some wicca stuff and he wants to bang the fuck out of her until she becomes kind of an angel and you gonna beat the shit out of her until she's dead (again) and caim gets her back

I don't condone necromancy or necrophilia But I guess a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do/10

ending C angelus becomes a cursed dragon breaks the pact with caim and so caim gets his speech back and you won't believe what groundbreaking tearjerking words he says as soon as he can speak again that's right "I am caim" and whatever he fucks angelus up real bad

300 languages and caim deCided to speak in the language of truth/10

ending D babies come down from the sky and eat people plus their mother womb shit also comes down and just vibes her pussy out everyones dead times stopped I hate this game

yokotaro what kinda aciDs did you do to think about this because I want some/10

ending E angelus and caim battle head on with the mother beast queen something baby whatever and she gets into some space time dimensional drift and you get teleported in fucking modern day 2003 Japan Tokyo ? then you get to do some rhythm game war flashbacks to the fucking drakengard 3 final boss ? then caim and angelus are killed by a fighter jet ? honestly most normal ending till now

you laugh at this joke ending until you realise this is the canon ending that flows into nier and the ashEs of the Queen are the word-disease this game is not real/10

absolutely one of a kind experience I cannot believe yokotaro got the opportunity to make a game like this because if it were me I would've laughed and shut down the project and to think this is the starting point that escalated up to nier automata what a fucking world we live in I love this game

the box art is insane so great