An angry and brutal deconstruction of rpg and action game tropes, but like a punk song it quickly reveals itself to be little more then a simple 3 note ditty with a lot of rage. Once you get past the shock of how awful each character is and the beauty of the surreal imagery, you are left with a barely functional, esoterically padded action game populated by one note characters in a frustratingly unexplored world.

Years earlier Moon: Remix RPG Adventure tackled many of the same concepts with a lighter touch and more nuance. Years later many more games (including those by Yoko Taro) would explore many of the same ideas in more depth) yet there is something to be said about how bleak and direct this game is. The music and visuals have a very avant garde and ethereal quality which is lacking from Taro's future work on Nier which visually is a snooze fest in comparison to the boldness on display here. Drakengard said what it needed to in the time it came out and paved the way for many future games, but I'll be damned if I touch it again any time soon.