While ground combat in Drakengard 2 has seen a great number of changes, it does retain the same feeling by and large – if perhaps somewhat slower and more methodical. At first this felt very weird and nonsensical, but in later missions drifting becomes an almost necessary technique for avoiding enemy fire while making attack runs, and I grew to really enjoy it. The second is a general increase to your dragon’s speed and manoeuvrability: accelerating either forward or by strafing applies a much greater amount of momentum to your dragon than in the previous game, causing him to ‘drift’ when you steer. It’s a good enough system but a little too awkward and situational for my preferences, most notably because you can only carry one type of orb at a time. Their colour can be changed by additional fireball shots, which has a nice arcade feel to it, and each has an associated magic ability it can be expended in order to cast. These are glowing orbs of various colours dropped randomly by enemies killed with unguided fireballs. The first is the addition of ‘breath spheres’. Let’s address aerial combat first, since there’s the least worth saying about it there are two significant changes to aerial combat: I won’t get too in-depth this time about certain aspects of gameplay already explored, but I will say that there’s probably a lot more to the mechanics here on the surface level, compared to the first game. Other changes to ground and aerial combat bear closer inspection, as does another late-game mechanical development. He also has a hover button to allow him to hold position while dishing out damage, and ‘Dragon Overdrive’, which takes the place of Angelus’s magic meteor shower attack, but largely his purpose is the same as hers was: quick escapes, transportation, and dishing out heavy damage to vulnerable enemies. This time around your dragon, Legna, controls almost identically in ground missions to aerial missions, allowing you to freely fly up and down rather than maintain a fixed height over the battlefield as we saw in the first game. Of course the dragon mount remains as the series gameplay gimmick as well. A Game of… Two-ish ModesĪs with the first, Drakengard 2 is primarily a hack-and-slash game reminiscent of the Dynasty Warriors series, though for this outing the scale of things is more frequently paired down to smaller-scale dungeon delving and duking it out with tankier enemies. I’ll be referencing article two heavily in this to contrast and compare, so if you haven’t read that it might be worth a skim – it’s probably going to be the better of the two anyway.Ĭredit for all images included goes to the game’s manual. Following on from my examination of Drakengard 2’s narrative, I’m now going to take a look at it’s gameplay, as I did for the first game in article two.Īs with the narrative, there’s probably less to say about Drakengard 2 than its predecessor for the most part the combat and combo counter mechanics feel similar, but there are some significant differences in the way that weapons, attacks, and companion characters work, as well as changes to the handling of your dragon mount, and an overhaul of ‘strafe mode’. This is the fourth of the NieR/Drakengard series in which I’m exploring the narrative and mechanics of each game in turn. Spears are strong against heavy shields.Ī PlayStation 3 exclusive built by former Cavia staffers, Drakengard 3 has not been confirmed for western release even though I have threatened to chain myself to Square Enix's lobby doors and cry forever.Alright, let’s ditch the copy-paste introduction the previous three entries in this series have had. They're slow, but powerful, and have good range and dash attacks. Spears, on the other hand, are the strongest melee weapon. Swords aren't the most powerful weapon, but are good for combos, which fill the tension gauge faster. The different weapon types have various strengths and weaknesses swords are the easiest to use and most balanced, with a good range and reasonable speed. A seamless mid-combo weapon switching system supports her to this end, but players will have to be quick and clever to choose the right tool for the job.Įach weapon type has numerous attacks, and these unlock progressively as Zero gains levels. Zero is an Utautai, or songstress, and must bathe in the blood of her foes in order to increase her abilities. Siliconera translated the Drakengard 3 website update that accompanied the screens, explaining what the heck is going on. An explanation for those combat-filled Drakengard 3 screens has turned up, revealing some details of how Zero will take down her many enemies.
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