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[EvilKatarn]

You just need gold and you can farm that super fast in the challenges.

Do you not need to find all the treasure chests?

 

[MetroidPrimeRib]

I will say that the game completely succeeds at having fucked up and disturbing imagery because I'm going to remember that scene of Arioch being devoured by the Grotesqueries with their teeth forever

 

[pancakesandsex]

I will say that the game completely succeeds at having fucked up and disturbing imagery because I'm going to remember that scene of Arioch being devoured by the Grotesqueries with their teeth forever

THE GREATEST OF FEASTS!

 

[SephLuis]

one last question - will i need an ending guide/weapon guide for drakengard 3 like with 1 and does anyone have a recommendation for the best one? At times it was hard to find out exact locations/criteria for weapons in D1 because no one played that game

Yes, it's best if you have one.

Also, everyone should at least play Drakengard 3.

I think, eventually, I will return to my play of D2. Got to the middle of the game and I can't back down after that.

 

[Hektor]

Do you not need to find all the treasure chests?

You need some of them (not all have weapons) but with the exception of the one in the desert map it's quite impossible to not find them on your own.

 

[MillionStabs]

I can't believe you've done this.

Drakengard 1 and 2 are genrally regarded as bad games.

 

[Kipper]

Terrific post, definitely would read again.

 

[K.Sabot]

I remain with my opinion that Taro never intended for people to enjoy the game, as he did not want to reward people for what amounts to virtual mass murder. I believed this before Taro's "Philosophies of Violence" interview, and hold it even more strongly after his comments on the game in lieu of Drakengard 3's release.

Though I love this game because despite it trying to be unlovable, not just from a fascination of its more psychological explorations.

 

[MetroidPrimeRib]

I can't believe you've done this.

Drakengard 1 and 2 are genrally regarded as bad games.

I've beaten far far worse. D1 has some creative and interesting things in it with a wholly unique narrative and soundtrack.

Games like Rogue Warrior, Shellshock 2 Blood Trials, Neverdead, MorphX, Leisure Suit Larry Box office bust, Vampire Rain, Legendary and Turning Point Fall of Liberty have virtually zero good qualities.

Xbox Live achievement whoring was a dark time

 

[JoeyJungle]

I've kinda wanted to play this because I really liked Nier. I played about an hour a few months ago and dropped it, thanks for the heads up about what the rest of the game is like.

Still wanna play Drakengard 3 though.

I've beaten far far worse. D1 has some creative and interesting things in it with a wholly unique narrative and soundtrack.

Games like Rogue Warrior, Shellshock 2 Blood Trials, Neverdead, MorphX, Leisure Suit Larry Box office bust, Vampire Rain, Legendary and Turning Point Fall of Liberty have virtually zero good qualities.

Xbox Live achievement whoring was a dark time

Man I picked Legendary up in a steam sale because I just wanted a fun FPS to play on the cheap. What a bunch of garbage.

 

[Brandon F]

Been dabbling with Drakengard 3 off and on for a while now. Difficult game to mainline given the repetition and performance, but a couple missions here and there and I am quite enjoying it.

Really enjoying the characters and the mystery behind well, a potentially misguided and brutal mission. Really intrigued to play the prologue DLC too(sadly a requirement for the full narrative?)

Just really sad the game performs like a dog on PS3.

 

[MetroidPrimeRib]

About the game playing poorly on purpose -

It's a really difficult thing to pick out. It's a PS2 game and the average PS2 game plays far worse then the average PS4 game. The average has improved. There's plenty of shitty PS2 games that play just as bad as Drakengard 1 or worse. But Drakengard seems to be deliberately designed to play this way. Taro's comments and interviews pretty much confirm this.

Like there are sections in the game where you just know the developers are taking the piss. The later levels with the double shielded enemies packed into a hallway that are magic immune come to mind, as does every boss fight. The game never feels satisfying, and all the endings are different ways of saying "fuck you." Especially the finale - after the terrible last boss thats a rhythm game based mechanic in a game where all the music is unconformable noise you just get killed by the Japanese Air Force in this medieval hack and slash game and are impaled on the Tokyo Tower.

 

[SolVanderlyn]

So I just finished a LP of this game.

What.

WHAT.

What was the deal with Seere's time power thing? That was kind-of-but-not-really explained.

Only Ending A even made a modicum of any sense. And ENDING E LEADS TO NIER??

WTF

 

[Sumio Mondo]

Pretty sure originally the game was going to be a straight Panzer Dragoon clone (hence the Japanese name) but one of the producers insisted on shoehorning in the Dynasty Warriors gameplay since it was so popular back then:

According to his comments within a Dengeki Online interview, Taro Yoko answers how the game's general concept was spontaneously conceptualized between Takamasa Shiba and Takuya Iwasaki during a night out at the bar. Since there were members of Cavia who worked on Ace Combat, Iwasaki pitched the idea of making a dragon flight simulator. Originally, Drakengard was going to be centered on just this aspect.

However, Dynasty Warriors 2 came out during Drakengard's development and became a popular hit in Japan. Shiba then pushed to include this title's gameplay into their project. His decision to do so surprised Yoko. Yoko revealed that Cavia was severely undermanned for Drakengard's development process and that he wanted to present the game on two discs. They were rushed by Square-Enix to finish it within their deadline on one disc, a decision which still upsets Yoko to this day. He reveals later that a jump feature was originally in the game but was too buggy for the programmers to fix; it had to be removed due to time constraints.

Even back then, Yoko remarked that he had to fight a lot with Square-Enix to keep many of his creative decisions in the final product. One particular example which he named was how executives kept pressuring him to have a blue sky for natural realism. He strongly resisted them multiple times as he sought to keep the landscape surreal and dreary for the game's tone. Many of the characters' odd quirks and personalities were conceptualized by him for the sake of originality. Yoko felt Drakengard wouldn't stand a chance against Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy if the characters were normal. He is personally surprised to learn that the characters have stood the test of time in people's memories and had no idea the game has a fanbase.

http://drakengard.wikia.com/wiki/Drakengard

 

[Asd202]

This game made me feel like a psychopath.

 

[CybernatonEvolution]

I recommend getting into Nier, and then checking Drakengard out and potentially play Drakengard 3. Interest in Drakengard is intrinsic with liking Nier, as both share nihilism themes and have a root backstory. It is not for everyone though. Drakengard has a lot of potential, and having Nier 2 partially developed by Platinum games is a good step in potentially improving the series (not sure if there will be sequels though). I still have Drakengard 3 in my backlog; I do plan on beating it when Nier 2 is released. I already beat Nier, and I am aware of the Drakengard plot.

 

[Spudnik Sweetheart]

Played Drakengard 3 and really enjoyed it. The soundtrack was amazing. Watched Clemps' discuss the first two games to see what I was missing out on. A handful of the characters in Drakengard 2 seem interesting and welldone, but the main character seemed kind of annoying. Drakengard 1 seems so much darker and much more unsettling - amusingly making it a lot more appealing.

Really intrigued to play the prologue DLC too(sadly a requirement for the full narrative?)

It's pretty sad it's DLC as it does have quite a large impact and would have made the mainline game a lot more moving had it kept these parts in to give some of the characters more depth. It really recolours the way you look at a few of the cast.

 

[Narroo]

Pretty sure originally the game was going to be a straight Panzer Dragoon clone (hence the Japanese name) but one of the producers insisted on shoehorning in the Dynasty Warriors gameplay since it was so popular back then:



http://drakengard.wikia.com/wiki/Drakengard

This explains why the game is so depressing. Shmups have a long habit of being very depressing and negative - to the point where in some games the endings are so bad you'd have been better off getting a gameover early on.

 

[snow in jamaica]

I'd love to see a version of the game with a laugh track and stock screams.

This explains why the game is so depressing. Shmups have a long habit of being very depressing and negative - to the point where in some games the endings are so bad you'd have been better off getting a gameover early on.

I've heard Yoko has always wanted to make a pure shmup but has been turned down by Square. Maybe he should pitch it as Zweihander.

 

[Taruranto]

One of the worst game ever made. It's not fun. It's not an experience. It's not even particularly dark unless this is you first work of fiction ever. Maybe try-hard edgy at best. The characters come off as hilarious mostly.

The (infamous) let's play description is pretty apt:

Jun Iwasaki, president and chief executive officer of Square-Enix USA, described Drakengard as a "perfect hybrid of genres" due to its blend of action, character growth influenced by role-playing games, and a "solid story that binds it all together". According to him, the game is intended to appeal to gamers looking for a "deeper action game".

Jun Iwasaki is a fucking idiot. Drakengard is a terrible game -- absolutely awful. It isn't fun. At all. There is no fun to be found here. Look elsewhere for fun. It is a muddy hybrid of a half-assed Dynasty Warriors clone meets a poor man's knock off of Panzer Dragoon coupled with an unbearably dull grind fest.

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

About the game playing poorly on purpose -

It's a really difficult thing to pick out. It's a PS2 game and the average PS2 game plays far worse then the average PS4 game. The average has improved. There's plenty of shitty PS2 games that play just as bad as Drakengard 1 or worse. But Drakengard seems to be deliberately designed to play this way. Taro's comments and interviews pretty much confirm this.

Like there are sections in the game where you just know the developers are taking the piss. The later levels with the double shielded enemies packed into a hallway that are magic immune come to mind, as does every boss fight. The game never feels satisfying, and all the endings are different ways of saying "fuck you." Especially the finale - after the terrible last boss thats a rhythm game based mechanic in a game where all the music is unconformable noise you just get killed by the Japanese Air Force in this medieval hack and slash game and are impaled on the Tokyo Tower.

I noticed this when I did my play-through*. A lot of the weapons were absolutely screwed in how they behaved. With one particular weapon, Caim would swing it, but the hit wouldn't register until AFTER the swing completed, not when the sword itself connected with an enemy troop. The mechanics were deliberately off just because.

There was also the one level that required players to wait 45 minutes for a hidden weapon to appear.

*I actually played through this game shortly after reading TheDarkId's lets-play. Even knowing exactly what happens, playing the game and seeing everything firsthand is such an experience.

Shame that Nobuyoshi Sano never composed any other Taro games. The first game's OST is still the finest work in the Drakengard universe.

 

[skLaFarebear]

The (infamous) let's play description is pretty apt:

The best thing is that nothing about this quote is wrong.

Doesn't change the fact that Drakengard 1 is dabes

 

[Lunarwhale]

Skip 2. It's not part of Yoko Taro's wild ride. 3's actually pretty fun at times - combat jank isn't intentional which makes it feel a bit off, and when it does work against the player it feels a bit hamfisted, but at times it's a genuinely fun game. Its framerate and performance are unfortunate, and the game's certainly not technically very good looking, but I thought it was aesthetically gorgeous if nothing else. Loved the color contrast going on and how flashy it was. I thought 3 was hilarious too, but its blend of cartoonish humor with... everything going on in it doesn't work for some people.

I think 1's a fantastic game. The ludonarrative dissonance in it felt so good. Caim genuinely enjoying every bit of killing he does while the player suffers through intentionally irritating setups led to a player-character disconnect I've never seen another game do so effectively. I'll stop myself before I go on a tangent, but Drakengard's something that I finished thinking was just a wild ride and ended up sticking with me for a good long while. Genuinely one of my favorite games of all time despite the fact that I never want to play it again. I get why people recommend reading or watching it, but the experience you have with the game can only be conveyed so well vicariously.

 

[MetroidPrimeRib]

Hey I'm back

But I didn't play Drakengard 2, I read The Dark Id's LP of it like people advised. Now he obviously hates the game and the narrative but I don't really see myself thinking any differently if I played it. The story and characters just seem totally lame and missing the spark the first game had and the idea that Caim let Manah live just seems dumb. Guy didn't have an issue killing kids before. What I really enjoyed about Drakengard was the sheer bleakness of it all and Caim. Nowe just seems like a bad JRPG protagonist complete with a prophecy, childhood friend, super saiyan form and being a dumbass. Although there are a few details about the story I like.

- Caim dragging Manah around to punish her for screwing up the world so bad is a cool-ish idea. I know I said its dumb that he didn't just kill her but had Yoko Taro written that story it could have been interesting. As it stands it just doesn't really make a lot of sense.

- When you break the seals the sky just shatters like glass and that's dope

- Verdelet screws over Angelus and makes her go insane

- Caim kills Verdelet. Dude deserved it honestly he was a real piece of shit

I was thinking up to the start of the 2nd playthrough that I could have handled the game and it seemed less obnoxious then the first aside from a few free expeditions but the second I read that to get Ending B you had to replay the entire goddamn game on a bumped up difficulty and then again for Ending C I was suddenly extremely relieved that I chose not to play it. Music is really really good though, all though its missing the fucked up industrial tone to the first game.

Over the months and reading the LP I've meditated a lot on Drakengard 1 and re-reading my OP post I still feel pretty much the same way but more positively, I guess. The more I think about it the more I like it because its just so unique and nobody would ever attempt anything like it again...which hey maybe thats a good thing, dont make a bad game on purpose

I'll play Drakengard 3 soon-ish. At least before Automata comes out, but theres no shortage of RPGs at the moment. I know all about Drakengard 3's performance issues but the narrative and dialogue in that game looks extremely my shit so I'll be checking it out. I just need to know how long it is and if you need a guide for the endings.

 

[Dusk Golem]

Hey I'm back

But I didn't play Drakengard 2, I read The Dark Id's LP of it like people advised. Now he obviously hates the game and the narrative but I don't really see myself thinking any differently if I played it. The story and characters just seem totally lame and missing the spark the first game had and the idea that Caim let Manah live just seems dumb. Guy didn't have an issue killing kids before. What I really enjoyed about Drakengard was the sheer bleakness of it all and Caim. Nowe just seems like a bad JRPG protagonist complete with a prophecy, childhood friend, super saiyan form and being a dumbass. Although there are a few details about the story I like.

- Caim dragging Manah around to punish her for screwing up the world so bad is a cool-ish idea. I know I said its dumb that he didn't just kill her but had Yoko Taro written that story it could have been interesting. As it stands it just doesn't really make a lot of sense.

- When you break the seals the sky just shatters like glass and that's dope

- Verdelet screws over Angelus and makes her go insane

- Caim kills Verdelet. Dude deserved it honestly he was a real piece of shit

I was thinking up to the start of the 2nd playthrough that I could have handled the game and it seemed less obnoxious then the first aside from a few free expeditions but the second I read that to get Ending B you had to replay the entire goddamn game on a bumped up difficulty and then again for Ending C I was suddenly extremely relieved that I chose not to play it. Music is really really good though, all though its missing the fucked up industrial tone to the first game.

Over the months and reading the LP I've meditated a lot on Drakengard 1 and re-reading my OP post I still feel pretty much the same way but more positively, I guess. The more I think about it the more I like it because its just so unique and nobody would ever attempt anything like it again...which hey maybe thats a good thing, dont make a bad game on purpose

I'll play Drakengard 3 soon-ish. At least before Automata comes out, but theres no shortage of RPGs at the moment. I know all about Drakengard 3's performance issues but the narrative and dialogue in that game looks extremely my shit so I'll be checking it out. I just need to know how long it is and if you need a guide for the endings.

Drakengard 2 had a different director, and it shows. After Drakengard 3 failed where Drakengard 1 succeeded, the director was put back on board for NieR, Drakengard 3, and NieR Automata and has been given kind of free reign to do as he likes with the franchise since he's attracted a marketable niche.

Curious how Drakengard 3 will go down with you, I actually have not played it yet but I've heard some interesting mixed things... Which is par for course with the franchise, I suppose.

 

[MarkusRJR]

Is Drakengard on PSN as a PS2 classic for PS3? I love Nier and kind of want to experience the game.

 

[EVA UNIT 01]

I remember playing this game as a young child and i remember none of this shit.
So now hearing about it as an adult im like
"I played this!? This stuff happened!?"
It all must have gone over my head.

 

[MetroidPrimeRib]

I remember playing this game as a young child and i remember none of this shit.
So now hearing about it as an adult im like
"I played this!? This stuff happened!?"
It all must have gone over my head.

Unless you followed the extremely specific guidelines to get all the weapons you probably didn't see when the game goes full nightmare mode

 

[shnurgleton]

The music of the original Drakengard will always fascinate me.

So those who haven't ever heard the music in the original Drakengard have some context:

Drakengard
has
an
odd
but
fascinating
soundtrack
if
you've
never
listened
to
it

Drakengard is odd since it's a wholly fascinating game with a lot to like about it if you find its fascinatingly twisted and dark, yet completely strange world fascinating with a lot of depth to it. Interesting story, music, art, atmosphere... It just... Isn't very fun to play. Which I know it's what they were going for, and it fits with everything else artistically. But it makes it a game I really want to love, but I just don't enjoy it. It's a lot more fun to watch and talk about than it is to actually play it.

Advance apology for the bump, but I recently bought this game as I'm sort of working my way backwards through the NieR lineage. Always been fascinated by the soundtrack and this one is flooring me right now.

Anyway, would be super interested in hearing how others getting into the series lately are liking this one.