Drakengard 2 features some better design choices than the original and provides a good cap to the end of the first game.
Drakengard 2 takes place eighteen years after the events of the original game and features a new protagonist in Nowe, a young man raised by a dragon named Legna. As the game begins, Nowe is just completing his intiation into the Knights of the Seal, and soon after is sent on his first mission. However, he begins to question the knights' mission, and a chain of nasty events forces him into fleeing the order. While the storyline to the sequel isn't as twisted or perverse as the original game, it's still fairly complex, and the ways it ties into the first game are both emotionally involving and logically placed.
On the surface, not much has changed since the original Drakengard. Combat is divided into three types. The first and most common is ground combat, in which the player controls Nowe or one of his companions to hack away at the swarming enemy forces. The second is air combat, in which the player must pilot Legna to take on an aerial assault. Finally, there are the air-to-ground segments, where the player can attack large masses of ground-based forces all at once with Legna. Each play segment has received tweaks that allow them to play better than the orignal game. For example, the original Drakengard allowed the player to switch from Caim (the first game's hero) to an alternate character for limited spurts of time. Drakengard 2 frees this up by allowing the player to switch to any active member of the party at any time, and each character has strengths and weaknesses that allow them to excel at specific enemy types. Also, unlike the original game, Drakengard 2 only features time limits for certain mission objectives, giving the player much more freedom to run around without having to worry about a clock counting down.
In the air combat stages, Legna can find and use elementally atuned breath spheres that feature unique targeting properties and the ability to do more damage than his normal attacks. His controls have also received some fine-tuning that make flying feel smoother than the dragon sections of the original game. The early flying missions are a bit too basic to be entirely engaging, but the practice certainly pays off in the latter half of the game during the more hectic dog fighting.
With all of the gameplay improvements and tweaks made over the original game, it's unfortunate that the graphics didn't receive a similar upgrade. While not particularly primitive or ugly, the character models lack a certain level of detail, particularly when seen in cutscenes driven by the game engine. To counter this somewhat, dialogue is primarily driven with the use of detailed character portraits that do a much better job of depicting emotion. Drakengard 2 also makes use of FMV sequences that give the story much-needed detail at key points.
While the graphics fall short, the sound is absolutely phenomenal. All of the dialogue is fully voiced, and the British accents add to the medieval atmosphere of the setting. Of particular note, unlike Caim, who was rendered mute following the opening stage of Drakengard, Nowe retains his voice, and the actor that portrays him does a good job. Even better is the orchestral soundtrack, which like the original game is unusal for its choice of instrumentation. Slashing through an army of enemy soldiers to the sound of a sorrowful violin solo might seem strange at first, but it comes together very well, and the more unusual choices made for the game's sound design are almost always for the better.
Drakengard 2 might not win over anyone that didn't enjoy the first game, but for fans of the original, it should be a real treat. It retains and improves upon all of the elements that made Drakengard such a distinctive title, and the storyline is a worthwhile effort, if not as overtly dark as the original. Simply put, if you liked the original, you should enjoy Drakengard 2.