Drakengard is what a never-ending post-nut clarity would feel like. It’s quite (not) literally a brain rot. Not in the usual “hyperfixation” sense, it’s more of a “going down into a hole of insanity and despair” kind of thing.

To be honest, these devs got lucky. Some of the decisions made here make them seem inexperienced at best, even for 2003 standards. But for some reason the writers decided it was a good time to unleash their accumulated anger and frustrations all at once into a project and ended up with a story as bizarre and deranged as it is dark and despairing; a subversion of every videogame trope poured into a long road of loss and defeat.

The result is a game that intentionally and unintentionally excels in making you feel like shit. In an unprecedented move for its medium, it paints the idea of not being either fun or a gratifying experience as its main goal.

It’s hell, but it’s refreshing.

The cast is pretty much the antithesis of the usual playable crew. The protagonist is a bloodlust-filled maniac driven solely by revenge and an incestuous lust for his own sister, and is accompanied by: a human-loathing, hypocritical dragon; a bossy, self-centered and racist priest; a blind, self-loathing pedophile that for some reason is probably the most empathizing of the bunch; and a cannibalistic elven woman driven to madness by the loss of her own children, with a sweet tooth for little kids.

Ballsy and edgy, and not in the greatest of ways, but it just fits this pit of madness; you get so numb to it that it doesn’t even feel like it’s trying too hard.

Now when it comes to the combat, they didn’t really try that hard; in fact, I don’t think they even tried. I mean, they probably wanted it to be good, but it landed right on the other side of the spectrum. And for some reason that works better here.

There’s both hack-and-slashy grounded combat segments inspired by Dynasty Warriors AND flying segments reminiscent of Panzer Dragoon and Ace Combat. Neither are very good; the former lacks impact, precision and for some reason both the player character’s actions and the camera move in respect to a close-but-otherwise-arbitrarily-chosen enemy, while the latter is as imprecise as its counterpart while having just an odd difficulty balance, and controls that in and of themselves are a challenge. It just makes the whole experience loathsome, which wasn’t the point. Wasn’t.

The soundtrack is just very… insane. I’ve seen people describe it as schizo music, and while I won’t comment on the ableism ingrained in that sentence, the sentiment behind it is quite… accurate. It’s the musical equivalent of putting your brain in a blender. Which is quite ironic given how it samples classical pieces and puts THEM in a musical blender.

It’s all just very odd, that given the story direction the game’s shortcomings work in its favor. This is the kind of game that is unique from its conception to its legacy, there’s nothing really like it, in a way that is even hard to explain.

It makes me question what makes a good game or a bad game, or even if there are games that fall out of that spectrum and belong somewhere different entirely. It wasn’t a pleasant experience, but was it a bad one?

I mean, it was worth it, and it made me feel things no other game did, no other ANYTHING did. It was not fun, it was not entertaining; it was miserable. But it was worth it.

And THAT is the game’s statement. Games don’t need to be fun, or beautiful, or entertaining, or just centered around giving the player a gratifying experience. They CAN, sure, but not as a rule. They can be more than that. Art is more than that.


[Edit: I’ve come to realize that while it’s implied, I’m not sure if the romantic love between Caim and Furiae goes both ways. {SPOILERS} Furiae definitively kills herself because of her not wanting her feelings exposed by Manah, but all that really entails is that he doesn’t (or she thinks he doesn’t) know about it, not really that it isn’t reciprocal. I’ve come to expect this kind of vagueness from Taro’s work, but I’ll still keep it written that he lusts for her because shock value; yes, I’m just like that.]