Drakengard, known in Japan as is a 2003 action role-playing video game developed by Cavia and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation 2. The game is the first installment of the Drakengard series and features a mixture of ground-based hack-and-slash, aerial combat, and role-playing elements which have become a staple of the series. The story is set during a religious war between two factions—the Union and the Empire—with the war tipping in favor of the Empire. The player controls Caim, a deposed prince of the Union, in his quest for vengeance against the Empire. Wounded in battle while protecting his sister Furiae, he is forced to make a pact with a red dragon named Angelus as they journey together on a quest to prevent the Empire from destroying magical seals that keep the world in balance.
Takamasa Shiba and Takuya Iwasaki conceived the game as a hybrid between the popular Dynasty Warriors series and Namco's aerial combat game Ace Combat. It was Shiba's first project as a producer. The dark story was created by director Yoko Taro and Sawako Natori, who wrote the majority of the script. The music was written by Nobuyoshi Sano and Takayuki Aihara. A Europe-exclusive mobile adaptation was developed by Macrospace and published by Square Enix for Vodafone devices in August 2004. Drakengard sold well in Japan and received mixed to positive reviews in the west: reviewers praised the game's story and music, but were mixed about the graphics and criticized the gameplay for being repetitive.
Gameplay
Drakengard is an action role-playing video game featuring three types of gameplay: ground missions, aerial missions, and Free Expedition Mode. The gameplay modes are called Ground Mode, Strafe Mode, and Air Mode. In some levels, players can switch between ground-based and aerial combat. Ground-based gameplay primarily has the player controlling the main protagonist, Caim. He has access to three types of attack: a standard sword-slash, a magic attack and a dash attack that throws enemies to the ground. Additional weapons can be accessed and swapped via the menu. Weapons gain experience levels through use, dealing more damage as a result. Each has a four-level cap. The player can access up to eight weapons during a mission. Pressing the attack button repeatedly while in combat with enemy units triggers combos, and pressing another button mid-combo will trigger a special attack which will temporarily incapacitate enemy units in the immediate area. The player can also temporarily switch between Caim and an assigned ally, who shares similar attacks but deals more damage. These allies are gained in optional levels and can only be summoned a limited number of times.
In aerial combat missions, players control Caim's dragon partner Angelus. During these moments, players are directed against multiple aerial targets that must be destroyed in order to win. As Angelus gains experience points through combat, she levels up and is able to do more damage – similar to the weapons used in ground-based combat. Boss battles are all located in these aerial stages. Angelus has access to two types of standard fire attacks: a free-aim blast that causes high damage, and homing bolts that can hit multiple targets but do less damage. Homing shots can be dodged or countered by some enemy types later in the game. Angelus can also perform a special area-affecting magical attack that damages or kills multiple enemy units. She can be used to quickly traverse battle areas during primarily ground-based missions. Players can summon Angelus during certain ground-based missions and play her in Strafe Mode. Controls are identical to ground-based combat. Pressing the select button causes Caim to dismount Angelus. Caim and Angelus level up during combat in different ways: as Caim levels up, their shared health meter grows, while Angelus' leveling increases the damage her attacks do to enemy units.
Players can navigate the game world and select missions via a world map accessed between levels. While playing, a mini-map allows the player to see enemy locations, and a full-screen map can be switched to that covers the entire area and shows mission objectives. Drakengards levels are called verses, and the verses are grouped across thirteen chapters. Each level has a time limit of one hour for players to complete them. Normal levels are numbered, while additional levels are marked by Roman numerals. The game features five endings: the normal ending and four additional endings which are unlocked when certain conditions are met, such as completing optional chapters or obtaining powerful weapons.
Synopsis Setting and characters
Drakengard takes place in a medieval dark fantasy world called Midgard. The world is protected from falling into chaos by the Seals, objects magically linked to a woman chosen as the Goddess of the Seal. If the seals and the Goddess were destroyed, malevolent beings known as the Watchers would enter the world to destroy humanity. A key element of the world is the ability for a human and a beast to form a pact, a ritual that ties their souls together and grants great power. Their lives become bound by the pact, and the human pays a price for it in the form of some attribute (e.g. their voice, their eyesight or their ability to age). During the events of Drakengard, the Union, which protects the Seals, is in the midst of a religious war with the Empire, a power led by a cult who believe that destroying the seals will bring them good fortune.
The main characters are , a deposed prince of the Union, and , a red dragon. Joining Caim and Angelus in optional sections of the story are , a hermit who loses his brothers in an attack by the Empire; , an elf woman driven mad by the murder of her family; and , a young boy from the Empire whose village was destroyed by the cult's devotees. Other prominent characters are , Caim's sister and the current Goddess of the Seal; , Furiae's former fiancé; , a priest in charge of protecting the Goddess Seal; and , Seere's sister, leader of the enemy cult and the game's main antagonist.
Plot Drakengard opens with Caim in the midst of a battle to protect his sister from the Empire. During the battle, Caim is mortally injured, but continues to fight his way into Furiae's castle, where he finds Angelus severely wounded from torture. Despite their mutual mistrust, Caim and Angelus agree to make a pact and save each other. With the attack repelled, Caim is joined by Furiae and Inuart to find safety, encountering Verdelet on their travels. Inuart is captured, tortured and brainwashed by Manah, eventually kidnapping Furiae in the belief that he can save her from her fate as the Goddess and earn her love. Verdelet and Caim travel to each of the three Seals, but each time arrive too late to stop them being destroyed. Eventually, the Union and the Empire engage in battle, and the Union emerge victorious. After the battle, however, the Union's surviving troops are decimated by an unknown force from above, and the Empire's troops return to life. Caim and Angelus travel to an Imperial fortress that has appeared in the sky, where they find that Furiae has killed herself, breaking the final seal. Inuart, seeing her body, is released from his brainwashing and takes her away.
Optional missions allow Caim to find and recruit Leonard and Seere, and take along Arioch to protect others from her madness. Subsequent playthroughs and extra chapters reveal further details about the characters. Leonard's self-imposed seclusion is because he was trying to suppress his pedophilia, and the guilt at his brothers' deaths stems from the fact that he gave in to his cravings and left them unprotected. Arioch's madness takes the form of cannibalism of children, in the belief that they would be safe from harm within her. Furiae is revealed to love Caim romantically, which led to Inuart becoming jealous and vulnerable to Manah's influence. During the events leading to the third ending, Manah reveals Furiae's feelings for Caim, who shows revulsion at the revelation: due to this and the Watchers' influence, Furiae stabs herself. Manah was abused by her and Seere's mother, but Seere was never subjected to the abuse, leading him to feel guilty. The abuse Manah received and her longing for love eventually drove her insane, and she was chosen to become the Watchers' agent.
There are five possible endings, four of which are unlocked after fulfilling certain conditions. In the first ending, Caim and Angelus confront Manah and defeat her. Manah asks them to kill her, but Angelus declares that she must live with her crimes. Angelus then offers herself as the new Goddess of the Seal for Caim's sake. As Verdelet performs the ritual, Angelus tells Caim her name before fading away. In the second ending. Inuart uses a magical object called a "Seed of Resurrection" to resurrect Furiae: while successful, the Seed turns her into a monster, and she kills Inuart. Caim is forced to kill her, but not before clones of her are produced from other Seeds to destroy humanity. In the third ending, after Furiae's suicide, Caim and Angelus stop Inuart's attempt to resurrect her and confront Manah, who is killed by another dragon. With the dragons now being driven to destroy mankind, Angelus breaks her pact with Caim and fights him to the death. Caim then prepares to die fighting the other dragons. In the fourth ending, Seere has his Golem pact partner kill the deranged Manah, causing the fortress to collapse. Caim, Seere, Leonard and Arioch escape, while Inuart and Furiae are killed inside. With Manah dead, the Watchers descend on the Imperial capital, with Leonard and Arioch dying at their hands. Caim and Angelus then sacrifice themselves to allow Seere to use his powers to seal the city and the Watchers in a timeless zone, nullifying their threat. In the fifth ending, instead of using Seere's power, Caim and Angelus instead attack the queen and the three disappear through a portal. After engaging the queen monster in a rhythm game in modern-day Tokyo, the two destroy it, and are then shot down by a fighter jet.
Development The original idea for Drakengard originated between Takamasa Shiba and Takuya Iwasaki when they were working at Cavia. It was conceived as an aerial battle game similar to Ace Combat. The four-year development was Shiba's first project as a producer. The team developing the game went under the moniker of "Project Dragonsphere". As development progressed, ground-based battles were also incorporated after the success in Japan of Dynasty Warriors 2. Creating the change from ground to aerial gameplay was exceptionally difficult for the team as they encountered problems with the PlayStation 2 hardware. Speaking in 2013, Shiba commented that Cavia had been inexperienced in creating action games, and as such it was not up to the standards of its contemporaries. The game's battle scenes were inspired by films such as the 1999 version of The Mummy and its spin-off The Scorpion King, as well as films like Dragonheart and epic films from Asia. Iwasaki was unable to take up the position of director because of other projects he was involved with: the position instead went to Yoko Taro, who was primarily responsible for the game's tone. The lead programmers were Toshiyuki Koike and Takeshi Katayama. The CGI cutscenes were created by Studio Anima. During production, the team were asked to make multiple adjustments and changes to its content by Drakengards advisory board. It was annoying enough for Yoko that he decided at the time not to make another Drakengard. Yoko was worried that the dark tone would cause the game to go unreleased, so one of the game's external producers Yosuke Saito went to Sony with a pitch; Sony were so tired of reviewing pitches at the time that they approved the project without looking at it.