Drakengard Critic Reviews

One of the most important factors of gameplay is the layout of the controller. Square Enix has done an excellent job of making all of your tasks simpler by utilizing the DualShock 2 efficiently and naturally.

If you dig "Dynasty Warriors," this is a must buy for you. If you dig "Panzer Dragoon Orta," this is a possible buy for you. (there are less Dragon specific sequences than there are DW style sequences.)

While overall you have a typically slick Square-Enix production, fighting is too simplistic, with only one button to perform most attacks. Also, despite the enemies themselves looking terrific throughout, the backdrops for the aerial battles are no match for "Panzer Dragoon Orta."

If there is a criticism, it's the essentially unvarying mission objectives. In the hands of a lesser developer, it might have resulted in a monotony over the game's long life span. That it never does is a testament to Drag-on Dragoon's excellence.

Neither of its two main gameplay modes are the best in the industry, Drakengard does both well enough to be a pleasant experience.

What it isn't, though, is the second coming of the "Dynasty Warriors" series, nor is it the RPG that all the advertisements make it out to be. It's an action game pure and simple, and one that succeeds and fails on multiple levels.

The dragon gameplay makes a good gimmick, and the story is strong, but for gameplay, it only has a Dynasty Warriors hack and slash system backed up by good experience gain.

While the game has at least a good 30 hours of gameplay, I don't see this as a title that many will come back to beat again once they've gone through it one time.

The most glaring error in the game, however, is the pop up. Enemies appear out of nowhere because the engine is unable to draw them close enough.

Got a spare 20 to 30 hours, and a hankering for mindless medieval bloodshed? Not been pressing the Square button enough? Go on -- give this an intense weekend rental.

A title that showed promise, but was hampered from soaring primarily because of its static, somewhat limited combat and graphical issues. This is a pity considering the solid storyline, numerous weapons and multiple endings lend themselves to a large amount of replayability.

Yes, it's simple and not terribly original, but it does provide plenty of fast-paced action and some solid visuals. As action games go, you could do much worse.

In small doses Drakengard is quite fun. The best way to play it might be like the novel you read on the subway on the way to and from work. Read a little bit each day as you ride and you eventually get the whole story while being entertained during the mundane task of getting to work.

One of my biggest annoyances when playing Drag-on Dragoon was that I couldn't save my progress in the middle of a stage. This can be frustrating if after 40 minutes of leveling up your character you die because of a silly mistake.

It seems ironic that in Square Enix’s attempts to make a game appealing to fans of two genres they have actually created a game that features pretty standard gameplay and may not attract its intended audience.

With a superb story, three challenging modes of gameplay, plenty of side quests and missions that can climb to almost an hour apiece, Drakengard could easily consume up to 50 hours of one’s time.

Thanks to the three modes of play, Drakengard remains fairly fresh because the actions always seems to sway right when it should.

It just feels like Drakengard could have used a lot more polish, such as no frame rate issues, a better draw-in distance, and better AI.

The RPG elements keep the game from getting overly repetitive but at the very basic level, the game is a monotonous task of defeating enemies to progress further.

Don't expect it to be packed with excitement from start to finish since much of the gameplay is repetitive, but there are some decent moments which make wading through the lean times worthwhile - almost.