Platform: Playstation 2

Genre: Action

Publisher: Square-Enix

Developer: Square-Enix

ETA: Q2 2004

Related Links:

Review: Drakan: The Ancients' Gate (Playstation 2)

Review: Dynasty Warriors 4 (Playstation 2)

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Drakengard

A few years back, before the colossal backfire that was Final Fantasy: The Movie, Square was diversifying the titles they would release like it was nobody’s business.  Brave Fencer Musashi, Front Mission 3, Vagrant Story, Bushido Blade, you name it, Square released it, and what made it really amazing is that a good number of these games were quite good.  Of course after their movie tanked, Square had to play it safe to make up for the huge losses the company suffered at the hands of their film.  This meant clinging firm to the Final Fantasy games, their flagship franchise.  After a few years of this policy and merging with Enix not so long ago it looks like the new Square-Enix is taking a peak outside the world of RPGs with their upcoming action game for the PS2, Drakengard.

The game follows in the tradition of Drakan: The Ancient’s Gate in that Drakengard combines hand-to-hand combat on the ground with dragon riding air combat.  PC and PS2 gamers may be familiar with the Drakan games on their respective platforms, very fun titles though they didn’t really grasp the public’s eye all that well.  With that players will be able to ride their dragon over the battlefield, blasting fire at the enemy in one-on-one dogfights or by strafing ground troops with huge plumes of flame.  It will also be possible to dismount your scaly steed and go by foot, engaging the enemy face-to-face with any of the over 60 weapons available for the hero in Drakengard.

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Giving motivation to the game’s hero is a rather dark back story.  Drakengard’s hero is a young man named Kyme, a member of the Alliance.  At one time the Alliance had a peace agreement with its equally ambiguously named rival, the Empire.  But it now looks like the Empire would prefer to be calling the shots and has become quite aggressive in recent years.  Unfortunately for Kyme this resulted in his kingdom being attacked with his sister being trapped in the castle during that time.  Rushing back to fight of the invaders Kyme becomes badly wounded and his only chance of saving his sister is to form a dragon pact.  Fortunately Kyme comes across an old red dragon who is willing to make the pact, but these things come at a cost, as Kyme must give up one of his abilities to perform the pact.  With this Kyme gives up his ability to speak, and with that he and the dragon join forces for life and save Kyme’s sister.  Shuttling off his sibling and one of his oldest friends to safety after the battle, Kyme and his new companion are off to figure out what the Empire is up to and if they’re lucky stop them in the process.  As the story progresses expect to see a darker narrative than the norm as the hero comes across macabre scenes and sad circumstance left in the wake of the Empire.

Despite the dark motif of the game and the combination of air and land combat, Drakengard’s main obstacle will be to set itself apart from the Drakan games.  Drakengard proved to be reasonably popular in Japan upon its release earlier this year, but on these shores it has a little more competition to deal with.  One feature present in Drakengard that may well help set it apart is the sheer number of enemies players can face at once.  More akin to the Dynasty Warrior series, players may find themselves facing off against a legion of enemy soldiers all at once, but here they’ll have the option of cutting them down to size with melee weapons, or flambéing the enemy with the dragon.

We still have a ways to go with the game’s localization for the North American market, but at this point gamers can look to a mid-2004 release for Drakengard.

- Mr. Nash

(November 15, 2003)