Drakengard 2 Review: Goodnight, Sweet Prince...

 

 

The story follows Nowe, a young man raised by a blue dragon named Legna. Both Nowe and Legna (by association) are members of the "Knights of the Seal", a group dedicated to protecting five "seals" that keep the world in balance. Without them, malevolent beings known as the Watchers will enter the world and destroy humanity. Despite their noble cause, Nowe is forced to abandon the Knights after discovering how the seals are created and maintained, joining up with a small resistance movement trying to break the seals instead. Lead by the former cultist Manah, the resistance claims they are trying to set the people free from their suffering at the hands of the Knights, who use the seals for oppression.

 

 

The game is broken up into 12 chapters with multiple levels (called "verses"). A "verse" is a collection of missions that will be based either on the ground or in the air. Ground missions utilize Nowe's entire party, requiring the player to switch between the different characters for their specific weapon types, which have different strengths and weaknesses, to deal with certain enemy types. Only one character can be active at a time, but the player can switch between party members on-the-fly by selecting one of eight different weapons from a weapon wheel. Every character has one main attack that can be combined with alternate attacks by pressing the square, triangle, and circle buttons to perform combos. Just like the main cast, weapons gain experience and level up through use, dealing more damage as a result.

Aerial missions are carried out by Nowe's dragon partner Legna, who can use homing bolts to target multiple enemies at once. The player can deal heavy damage to enemies by free-aiming, but it's difficult to master thanks to a slippery camera. There is also a special area attack with a long recharge period that can damage, or outright kill, multiple enemy units at once. Unlike Nowe's human companions, Legna can change his weapon type (his breath weapon) to a different element before battle, and just like the weapons in the game, Legna gains experience and levels through combat.

 

 

Drakengard 2 simultaneously broke and improved some of the gameplay issues of its predecessor. The soundtrack received a new composer, the controls are marginally better, and combat has been tweaked to encourage the player to change party members more often, unlike in the first game where the player never had a reason to switch things up. There is more story and world building in the sequel, but the overall tone has shifted significantly thanks to a change of director. The soul of the original has been torn out and replaced with something much more colorful and scrubbed clean of any taboo themes. There is some focus on genocide and freedom, but these topics are hardly touched upon, which is a shame. The weird, unnerving elements were what made the otherwise forgettable Drakengard remarkable. 

 

First posted to videogamegeek.com on August 12, 2020.

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