As we find out later in the story, Caim’s parents were slaughtered by a Dragon. And, of course, Dragons have no tolerance for the barbaric humans that infest the land. So there is no love lost between the two. However, as both are dying and both desire to continue to live — Caim, to bring about the downfall of the Empire, and the Dragon to simply continue its life — form a Pact, a melding of the souls that will allow both to survive. As we shall see, nothing is free in the world and the formation of the Pact carries with it a significant price. For Caim, it is the gift of speech which he must sacrifice to gain the power and the continuance of his life.

Having been revitalized from the formation of the Pact with the Dragon, Caim charges into the keep to rescue his Sister Furiae — who just so happens to be the keeper of the Final Seal and is called the Goddess. The seals are ancient artifacts which, if broken, will release the Seeds of Resurrection. It is not truly known what will occur should all the Seals be broken.

After rescuing Furiae, Caim sets out with her and Inuart, his buddy who happens to be in love with Furiae (get the feeling that the story may become interesting?), to find a haven where Furiae can sit out the war in relative safety. Through adventure and misadventure Furiae is captured and Inuart is “seduced” by the dark side and becomes a pawn of the Empire.

Caim, of course, then finds himself at odds with his old friend who has formed a pact with a Black Dragon. At this point the fun begins. Inuart, too, had to sacrifice something to form his Pact. His sacrifice was his gift of Song, which is significant as he ceases to be the happy-go-lucky kid and becomes the serious malevolent warrior (which is OK, as I thought his singing was a bit lame in the first place).

Drakengard is set out as a book or a play would be — it is written in Chapter and Verse. Each Chapter revolves around a specific area of the land. Each Verse is a wave that must be completed to move on to the next part of the story. As you progress through the Verses, you are also rewarded with Free Expeditions, which are additional waves in which you can choose to participate as a way to hone your skills. Either way the Expeditions do not affect the story line.

Caim, as the hero of the story, is the main character and the person with whom you will take on the entire might of the Empire. As he progresses through the Chapters, Caim will gain in levels and experience (the only thing his levels seem to do is to increase his hit points for battle), and find additional weapons with which to decimate the enemy. Each weapon feeds off of the life forces of those it slays and becomes more powerful over time and with use. So, it becomes important to “level” the weapons to make them more powerful. Each weapon has its own advantages, disadvantages and magic attacks. For instance, Caim’s Sword does good damage, is fairly quick and has a flame blast which extends out from the blade in a cone in front of him. The Holy Mace, does copious amounts of damage though the initial attack is an overhand swing to a target directly in front of you. It has a long back swing so is not as fast as the Sword and its magic attack is a column of Holy Light which streaks down from the sky to knock back all attackers around you. There are some 20-plus weapons you can use.

As you progress through the game, you will learn the best tactics and weapons to use for each encounter based on the type of combat (close quarters, indoors, vs. archers, etc.) the type of opponent and how badly hurt you are.

Of course, there is no way to walk through a battlefield without taking a few hits here and there. The way that Caim recovers his health is through combat. As you attack the enemy you will build up a “chain” of strikes. You must reach at least a chain of 10 to get a small “glowing magic health ball” which will heal you in the midst of battle. The bigger the chain, the bigger the Health Ball that appears. At about a chain of 50 or so, you get one that will heal you up to full.

Heling is affected by the choice of weapons. Using a slow weapon, such as the Holy Mace, will not generate much in the way of chains, but using a shorter faster blade which does low damage but strikes numerous times will allow you to generate Health Balls.

In combat you also have the ability to be in a defensive stance which allows you to parry/block incoming blows. This is definitely a life saving position as some of these beasties hit really hard. You also have the option to roll right and roll left, which is a good way of avoiding incoming archery shots and spells, or to get out of the middle of a mass of soldiers.

The ground based Verses have a map which you can view to see how you are progressing through the game. Each Verse has a number of “Targets” that must be dispatched before you can move on to the next Verse. The Targets show up on the map as yellow circles, where the red dots are all the other enemy troops that will get in your way as you move about the field of battle.

And let us not forget the Dragon…

Yes, that’s right you get to ride the dragon. The opening Verses of each Chapter start off with aerial combat where you shoot down numerous flying things (don't ask the names of enemies in this game, you're not given their name!). Some are living, some are balloons mounted with cannon and some are, well, just plain weird (basically you’ll have to see them to believe them, and even then …).

The Dragon, like Caim, has a few maneuvers at its disposal while flying. It can leap left, leap right, and the best of all is a 180 degree aerial flip which will reverse your direction in a flash.

Our Dragon friend also comes with its own built in BBQ which is capable of turning even the hardiest of Empire Knights into Paper Wrapped Chicken. During the Ground-based Verses, you can just fly about the battle field laying waste to all that you see without much threat to yourself (until you meet the “special” red guys — heh). And in the aerial Verses, the Dragon's breath is able to target an object and actually chase it around till it hits it. During the especially busy encounters it becomes quite a light show.

The Dragon should be counted among the various weapons you will acquire throughout the game, since you can jump on and off the Dragon during the ground based Verses. So, using the Dragon is almost like bringing in an F15 with FAE bombs to lay waste to the infantry.

The last little tidbit is your Allies. Throughout the game you will encounter other persons who have made Pacts with various creatures to preserve their lives. Through this common bond of similar experience they choose to join you in your quest to preserve the Seals and rescue Fureia.

Should you ever find yourself in a position where death is imminent, you can summon forth an Ally to take your place in battle. This ally arrives with full health, but loses it over time regardless of whether it is taking hits from an enemy. When the Ally's health reaches zero, you return as the active character. This is a great tool to get you out of some serious scrapes and to find a spot where you can rest and consider your next move.

The Free Expeditions that you are gifted with are little side combat scenarios that occur outside the story line. The great thing about them is that you can do them over and over again and use them to level up Caim, the Dragon and your weapons. You will want to take advantage of them.

The detail in the game is amazing, I’m very happy with the quality and quantity of the graphics in the game. The dragon ages as it levels and its scales and body shape show the detail of a maturing animal. Each weapon looks unique and the spell effects range from the minuscule at lower levels to terrific at higher levels.

The cutout scenes and movies are done with high end rendered images and give a good visual experience of the trials and tribulations of Caim and the Union Soldiers as they try to defend the world from the Empire. As you can see from some of the screen shots in the gallery, Square Enix put in an extra effort to create a visually stimulating game.

Now for my minor gripe. Yes, the sound effects are great — especially the sounds of the Empire Aoldiers having their guts ripped out by Caim’s sword. The background music on the other hand…

Initially the music is good stuff, it enhances the tension and drama as the story progresses. But after a few hours of listening to the same tune over and over again it begins to grate on the nerves. Almost makes me feel as though I’ve got a Philip Glass CD playing in the background… AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I eventually had to just turn off the music so that I could focus on the death and destruction I was causing.

Overall I enjoyed the game. As with most games of this sort, it is a lot of running around and killing everything in sight. This can get a little tedious after a while, but the type of enemy changes from time to time to increase the challenge and diversity.

The continuing storyline gave some level of anticipation regarding what would happen next. I have to say, the frequent commentary from the NPC’s during the Verses does become a bit tedious at times — especially when you are in the middle of a fierce aerial combat and Verdelet chimes in to ask you if the only thing you live for is revenge and to kill. (duh!)

My only issues with the game are that some of the Free Expeditions have time limits to them (which you are not warned about ahead of time) and if you don’t complete them in time, the game ends and poof! you have to start over again. The other is that you only get one save on the memory card. So if your child/friend/significant other wants to play the game while your in the middle of it, you have to remember to pull the memory card and insert another one, otherwise, their game will overwrite yours and all your hard work will go the way of the Dodo bird.

For those of you seeking mindless violence or those seeking a good interactive book, this is a game I think will satisfy most of you. Flying about on the Dragon is great fun, especially when you see the ground troops scatter to get away from you.

Drakengard does not require alot of dexterity on the control pad, just alot of persistence on your part. The game saves after the completion of each chapter, so you can play as much or as little as you want in each sitting. Be careful though, you may find yourself hooked to the point where you have to see what the next chapter has in store for you.