Before you proceed, this blog will mention pedophilia, incest, and violence.

I didn't know what I would be getting myself into when I decided to watch gameplay of Drakengard. Now before you say anything, Drakengard is a game from 2003 that was available on the PS2. I do not have money to buy and I don't want to try pirating it incase I get a virus.

Btw this is more like a summary / review of the chapters and sharing my thoughts! I will link some videos down if you wish to watch the gameplay.

"What is Drakengard?" - Drakengard is a 3-part game that traces back to the Nier timeline. It's a dark fantasy action role-play centered around the main character Caim, and his quest to keep his world from collapsing.

This won't go too much into the fighting style, since I'm not the one playing it, more about the lore. I did plan on making this blog covering all the chapters, but as you can tell, it's long enough as it is. This will be part 1 to Drakengard!

Index: Chapters this blog will talk about!

• Chapter 1: Beginning
• Chapter 2: Complications
• Chapter 3: Chance Encounters
• Chapter 4: Betrayal
• Chapter 5: Destruction
• Chapter 6: An Old Enemy
• Chapter 7: Tragedy
• Chapter 8: Seals
• Chapter 9: Reqium
• Chapter 10: Astray
• Chapter 11: Partings
• Chapter 12: Chaos
• Chapter 13: Truth

Chapter 1: Beginning

When you start the game, you learn about the 2 sections: The Empire and Union. The Empire has grown in strength and is attacking the Union in order to get access to the goddess, Furiae.

There's an opening scene with Furiae sitting in a room, reading a book. A gust of wind riffles the pages, and Furiae stands and says "It begins"

We are cut to another scene of a dragon soaring through the air and the battle between the Empire and Union. This is where we meet Cain, the older brother of Furiae. Caim is seen slaughtering other guards before being struck in the back to which he cuts the guard in half. He witnesses an Empire soldier burn down the Union flag, realizing Furiae could be in trouble, and rushes towards the castle.

Caim is a vengeful man. The Empire has killed his family, and now he slaughters anything and everyone that is associated with the empire. As Caim slaughters half of the guards, we learn they have captured a dragon.

Caim wanders into the bailey. We see the injured dragon and the rage on Caim's face. Memories of his parents murdered, and a dragon looming over their corpse's. He raises his blade, readying to strike. He stops himself and asks the dragon to enter into a pact. A pact to kill the Empire and save both of their lives. 

The castle becomes flooded with the Empire's army. No matter how many you strike down, more and more keep coming. The Empire fights their way through into the castle, trying to find Furiae. They want to break the seal in order to bring chaos to the already broken world. Caim and the dragon flies back to the entrance of the castle, and this is where Caim realizes he has become mute; A price to pay when you enter into a pact. 

He fights his way to the top of the castle and meets Inuart, his best friend, protecting Furiae. Caim revealed the pact he made w/ the dragon, and this is where Inuart acts.. strangely. He wants to bring Furiae to the elf village because it's safer but makes a comment on how he was engaged with her before she became the seal.

When Caim agrees, Inuart seems happy at the thought of traveling w/ Furiae then his duty as a guard. He sings a song in celebration. This is where Chapter 1 ends, and Chapter 2 begins.

My Thoughts:

I found this chapter really interesting and a good way to introduce the world, characters, and magic behind the universe.

We know that Caim is a blood-thirsty killer by some of the comments made in the gameplay.

Caim's vengeance is obvious throughout the 1st chapter. He made a pact for revenge and kills unnecessary amounts of people. Actually, as soon as he makes a pact, he goes out of his way to kill more and more people. While this can be answered as him trying to limit the numbers and hold off the attack, he's already told about his sister's safety is in jeopardy. While Inuart is there, he is only one man. We witness how close she is to death because of this.

We already know Inuart is rather weird towards Furiae. He definitely cares about her safety, but in a rather controlling manner. As soon as he finds out Caim is mute, this behavior begins.

"Why does it matter?" - Caim is a Lord, not Inuart. While Inuart is her guard, he has no place to make the decision. He doesn't seem to want to listen to Caim at all and wants to take control of the situation. Let's not forget how excited he was to travel w/ her, rather than take her to safety.

I can't comment much about Furiae, except that she is a goddess of the seal. In the very first manga, we learned that when a goddess dies, it is passed down to another. In this case, it was Furiae. The seal on her is what keeps the world that is broken, together.

The dragon is a creature that was created to wipe mankind off the planet. When she formed a pact w/ Caim, she did it out of hatred to mankind. She believes they are useless beings.

Chapter 2: Complications

Caim, Furiae, Inuart and a few guards head to the elf village. While making camp, the dragon informs them the Empire has already attacked the village of the elf's. Inuart refuses to believe this information and counters "I'll believe this with my own eyes" and forces the group to continue their way to the village.

Furiae then collapses, and Inuart makes sure she is okay.

He comments "You carry the awful weight of the seal".

As they enter into the village, they notice Imperial forces attacking. As Caim clears out the forces, and figuring out the truth of the elf village, Inuart makes this comment:

The fight rages on, and we learn the Empire is heading towards the elf village as well, in order to find Furiae. They continue look for the village and find it near the east inside the forest. Caim goes on foot, and fights more Empire guards. This is where we question if it was a safe idea to come.

Finally arriving at the elf village, we learn the Empire got there first. Inuart is in despair and falls to the ground. The dragon then hears a voice, hierarch Verdelet. He has made a pact too w/ a petrified dragon. In order to protect Furiae, she must go to the temple within the desert.

Inuart believes he isn't strong enough to protect her, but she wants him to company her.

We learn this hierarchy Verdelet is the spiritual leader of the union, as well as guardian of the 4 seals. The seals are:

• The seal of the temple
• The seal of the desert
• The seal of the forest
• The seal of the goddess

Caim and the dragon stay behind and search inside the village. There, we find a corpse w/ a message writen in blood: "Speak not the watchers. Draw not the watchers. Write not the watchers. Sculpt not the Watchers. Sing not the Watchers. Call not the Watchers' name". Both are left wondering, until we meet a dying elf. This is where we learn about the "Cult of Watchers". 

Apparently, the cult has a shrine and kidnap all the fairies to this shrine. He rushes over to the shrine to safe whatever fairies are left. We get a bit of his inner thoughts, wondering if the Empire and cult are somehow connected.

A battle begins, and a guard tells us about red soldiers being protected by magic. The Empire has learned spells and witchcraft, assumingly from the fairies. As we arrive to the shrine, we notice the fairies are gone (taken else where), and the dragon can no longer hear Verdelet's voice anymore.

Before they begin their journey to the desert, a boy cries out for help. His village is being raided by the Empire. He crawls towards Caim, and Caim kicks the boy away from him.

Caim still decides to go to the village, but not to save them, to kill more soldiers. This is where we meet Leonard.

Below this line is mention of Pedophilia and implied incest.

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Leonard is facing his cabin house on fire. His 3 younger brothers lie dead. He tries to kill himself but fails. That's when a fairy appears and begins taunting him, egging him on to finish himself off. When he refuses, she calls him a bore but then asks to make a pact with him. He agrees.

This is where I mention that Leonard is a pedophile. The reason he was in those woods was to give into his lust. He moved away into the forest due to shame and fear of his disgusting desires. When his parents were killed, he had to take in his brothers. His absence is what caused his brother's death, and the guilt continues to eat at him.

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Caim shortly arrives and kills more, and more Imperial guards. That is when both the dragon and Caim hear Leonard's voice. When we meet Leonard, he's blind due to the pact he made with the fairy.

Caim's movements in this scene are eerie. When Leonard prays / gives respect to the guards that dies, Caim gets uncomfortably close and stares at him. When he quickly gets in front of the dead corpse, continuing to stare down at Leonard, I thought he was going to kill him.

Leonard agrees to travel w/ Caim to help the Goddess. Leonard pays respect once again, and comments "They say that no man is beyond forgiveness".

Route if we met / had leonard before: we have the same bloody message scene: "Speak not the watchers. Draw not the watchers. Write not the watchers. Sculpt not the Watchers. Sing not the Watchers. Call not the Watchers' name" but this time we have Leonard. Leonard sees the Imperial guards attacking the forest of the seal. Guided by Leonard, they arrive to the forest of the seal, and we enter into another battle.

The Empire has already beat them to the forest of the seal, and set the forest to flames. This is when the fairies inform both Leonard and Caim there's children soldiers. Caim does not care.

Leonard goes back and checks on the dead children's bodies, wanting to give them a burial. One child is still alive and makes a disturbing comment... "He is just like my brother. His voice..." He tries to protect the child from Caim and the dragon, and in a twist of ironic, comments "He's just a child".

The child gets up and tries to attack all 3 of them, before being finished off by Caim. They travel further into the forest, and Leonard asks for forgiveness. The dragon rebukes: 

They are traveling deeper into the forest and encounter the fairy king. Leonard continues begging for forgiveness and his fairy alludes to something "secret". The fairy king is demanding they leave the forest while mocking the dragon and giving crude details about Inuart and Furiae rotting in the desert. They all adventure out to the desert.

My thoughts:

This chapter was something. We learn more and more about Inuart, Caim, Furiae and Leonard.

First, Inuart. He continues to try and control the situation until he is met with despair. He humbles himself a bit in that dialogue. I didn't include a screenshot, but he asks Caim to come along with them, to which the dragon tells them to go on without them.

Also, his comment about Furiae's curse. Goddess can't be intimate or have any romantic relationships. She is supposed to be pure. This could be a reason why he said this, or he genuinely is worried about her. (Up to you)

Furiae is an interesting character. She seems rather innocent and doesn't say much in this chapter. She comforts Inuart, and they leave together. Surely, she's the angel in this story...

We learn about other seals, and how they are also keeping the world together. The Empire / Imperial are continuing to attack these seals and trying to find the goddess. We learn about a possible connection between the cult and Empire. 

I don't want to talk about Leonard as much. He's a gross character, that is all LOL 

Closing:

That is 2 chapters within 1 blog post. I would've aimed for 3, but as you can tell this one is really, really long (and I was getting confused with the coding LOL). If you are interested in learning more about the game, here's some links!

Drakengard Movie (No long fight scenes)

Raw Gameplay 

Reddit Drakengard

Thank you for whoever has read this far and enjoyed hearing my rambles! If you have any thoughts or different opinions, please share them! I love discussing this game.

(C) Music : Snow In Summer - Nier Replicant