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Drakangard PS2 Review - www.impulsegamer.com -

Gameplay 7.2
Graphics 6.8
Sound 6.7
Value 7.1
Distributor: UbiSoft
Classification:
MA15+
Review Date:
April 2006
Reviewer:
Tory Favro

7.0


Drakengard

The next instalment in the Drakengard saga is here and fans of the series will be more than happy. Taking place about 18 years after the first Drakengard, this game tells the story of Nowe, a youngling raised by dragons (as you do) to save the world from peril.  

The story takes in the raising on Nowe and his eventual discovery by the Knights of the Seal whose responsibility it is to see that the Red Dragon never breaks the magical seals that hold him in place. Nowe  joins the Knights but after finding out that all is not as it seems and strikes out on his own to find out the truth of the whole matter. 

There are two key components to the game, and they are the land and air battles. Battling on the land will give you access to the entire team that Nowe eventually assembles, though you can only use one of them at a time for a good old fashioned hack n slash. Each character has their own weapon type and is useful against certain enemies.  

The games plays out almost like a book with each separate chapters breaking up the way that the tale is told. My favourite element to the game was taking to the air on dragon back and although some parts of the airborne fighting are somewhat cumbersome, the overall feeling of being in the air is a lot of fun, plus remember you are on a dragon! 

Graphically the title won’t bring you tears of joy, but it certainly won’t let you down either. It does the job. The colours look a little dimished at times but it’s a more the fault that we are spoiled with more powerful machines now such as the XBox and XBox 360 to see what is possible with graphics on a console. When taking part in large scale combat, I did notice that the frame took a fair hit at times, never rendering it unplayable, but certainly upping the annoyance level as when on dragonback it’s hard at times to get a good lock on enemies as it is without the added aggravation of a framedrop. 

As you play the game, your characters will build up in experience points and through experience become more powerful. This is something that happens automatically and can’t be controlled by you the player.  

Something to bear in mind when battling your way through this title is to be very careful. The missions are lengthy, complicated and to make matters worse, just like the first game, there are no checkpoints to pull you out of any mess you might encounter or die in mid mission. I simply don’t understand why games developers don’t think about this, or more importantly why their testing teams don’t bring it up, which would sometimes suggest that a game isn’t played in it’s entirety before being distributed. To have to replay a 20 plus minute mission over and over just makes you put down the game and forget about it. 

All things said and done if you are a fan of the series then you are going to enjoy this one too. Improvements have been made on the original with the exception of the dated appearance of the graphics. The game is old fashioned hack and slash fun with a bit of story thrown in for good measure. Give it a rent and see what you think, then go buy it if.






 
 



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