Drakengard

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Motherf**king Drakengard. Those who have played this game to the end know EXACTLY what I'm talking about. For those of you who haven't, I'm not sure whether to say "You lucky b**tard" or "I feel so sorry for you." Oh, Drakengard, how you confuse me.

Drakengard is one of those games made by SE that's not quite an RPG, but it has quite a few RPG elements. This includes experience, levels, summons (of a sort), and even massively confusing JRPG plotlines. Yes, plotlines. Plural. We'll be getting to that later.

Let's start with gameplay. It's a violent (understatement of the decade) hack-and-slash game in part. The other part is riding a dragon and raining down burnination upon the huddled masses of enemies. And I literally mean MASSES. You'll be killing 100+ guys in every mission, unless you're purposely going out of your way to avoid doing so. In one mission, there are over 2000 enemies to wipe out. Now, that wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for one thing.

This game is hard.

And I mean HARD hard.

This game is merciless toward both the players AND the characters. For the players, this involves (as previously mentioned) whole ARMIES against you and your dragon. Armies that WILL. NOT. LET. UP. This game just LOVES thowing enemies at you. And then, when you kill them all? MORE APPEAR.

The aerial missions are much better. Though they still throw waves of enemies at you, there are much less, and they are much easier to handle.

Next up, plot.

Oh god, the plot.

Words do no justice to the plot of this game. The first time through isn't so bad, and the first ending you get is the ending that leads into one of the game's sequels, Drakengard 2. Things in this ending make a relative amount of sense, and you needn't look too much further into it.

However, after completing the game once and unlocking the first ending, you start to unlock the branching paths, all of which you have to accomplish certain goals to unlock. The final ending, which you unlock by getting all 65 (yes, 65) weapons in the game. This is not easy by any means. However, it is this ending that leads to another of the game's sequels, Neir.

Yes, Nier is a sequel to Drakengard's hardest ending. Though it isn't advertised as such, and you have to delve a good bit into the game's backstory to find that out.

Graphically, the game is pretty good. No complaints from me.

Overall, this game gets a 7/10. Minus one point for being rediculously hard at times, minus one for the confusing plot, and minus one whole point just for the last level and ending of the last plot path. If you see it, you'll see why.

Other than that, it was a game I enjoyed quite a bit. Perhaps you will, perhaps you won't. It all depends on how much effort you want to put into it.