“If the Empire is defeated and the world saved, then is even revenge a noble cause?”

An ocean of metal and flesh sprawls beyond the horizon. This amorphous deluge would seek to suffocate you. To crash wave after wave over you until you sink beneath its surface. Words are found to be worthless against such a dispassionate force. The machinations that facilitate war to such scale cannot be negotiated nor placated with. Its conductors’ presence existing beyond the realm of mortal tangibility. That which instead stands before you does not possess a will of its own. Merely existing as a manifestation of power, that would have you reconcile with a simple truth. That violence is the only universal language in this and every world.

Naïve idealism in the strength of song is sacrificed in order to survive. You instead learn to speak more plainly. Through blade and dragonfire and repeated execution of monotonous routine you convey yourself with concise clarity. A grey sea is dyed both red and black. Although it scarcely recoils in response, through overwhelming and unrelenting force the tide is made to turn. And in the scattered debris a clear uncompromising message is formed. That you are willing and eager to persist forever in battle, until one side draws breath no more.

Those that rally behind you are far less resolute in their conviction. Unable to acknowledge the brutal nature of this world, they find themselves drowning in despair. Rather than acclimatising to swim, they instead cling to a raft built from purpose. To sustain in an untenable belief in some other in which to compel them forward. Whether through faith in unfathomable gods, or in desiring an impossible reciprocation of true love, they convince themselves to find a meaning within a hollow conflict. So too in turn they scrutinise the grip in which you hold your sword. Although the intensity you bear it is undisputably firm, there is much contention upon which ideal you impose through its edge. Is it in a righteous fury or a psychotic ecstasy in which you cleave your enemies through? They refuse to comprehend that these two passions are of one and the same. To realise your enemies defeated is also to revel in their suffering. That to attempt to conflate such acts of murder to be imbued with any semblance of compassion, is the true delusion.

History would vindicate your affinity towards such brutal slaughter. As the branches of possibilities are iterated across, repeated, and explored. That to indulge in that belief, that clear categorisation exists between good and evil in vicious acts, is revealed to be folly. Merely resulting in hesitation in which opportune moments for effective action is lost. Where instead we find ourselves forced to witness and accept ever more desperate compromise. The world of Drakengard is found to be lost. Yet in another further beyond its own, a final and familiar message rings out. One in which you must struggle in vain to deafen. That violence is the only universal language in this and every world.

(It is an unusual prospect to critique Drakengard as the core conceptualisation behind the work itself is to exist as a critique. Against the ubiquitous glamorisation and revelry of violence. While readily apparent that the work is specifically riffing off of ‘Musou’ games, having taken deliberate imitation of its systems and format, this alone does not encapsulate its entire ambition, which would seek to implore you to apply such comparisons more broadly. Its distortion of renown classical music, its broadcast of contemporarily taboo themes, and the evocative imagery in which it is all conveyed together, attempts to coerce a more intimate introspection from its players. Although some may describe the work as hostile and frictional to play, I dispute this notion that the experience is engineered to be unsatisfactory. Rather instead, Drakengard is successful in its critique because it is able to articulate just how readily compelled we find ourselves enraptured in its depravity. It is truly miraculous that a game as artistically envisioned such as this was enabled to exist in the circumstances in which it did. I would recommend it to everyone who can indulge it, although I must acknowledge that it holds a more restrictive audience than I would like to believe. Mainly for those who are willing, and have the time able, to lose themselves in a mesmerising trance of repetitive inputs.)