Part 27: Episode XXIII: In Which We Discover Why Nowe is Such a Dolt

Drakengard 2 is the sequel to the original Drakengard, which was brought to America by Square Enix. This addition to the series continues the action-focused role-playing gameplay as you continue to explore and protect the red dragons. The game combines 3D flying and shooting aspects, as well as. Drakengard 2, or Drag-On Dragoon 2: Sealed Red, Immoral Black in Japan, is an action RPG for the PlayStation 2 system and is a direct sequel to the original Drakengard. Like the original, Drakengard 2 combines on-foot hack and slash with aerial combat stages. It was developed by Cavia, Inc., published in Japan by Square Enix on June 16, 2005 and released in North America by Ubisoft on February 14, 2006.

Episode XXIII: In Which We Discover Why Nowe is Such a Dolt
Welcome to Chapter 6. I believe we're a little bit past the half-way point of the game now. This chapter is a really short one. But it contains several startling* revelations along the way.
_{* Note: Revelations may only be startling to Nowe because he never bothered to play the first game.}
Yeah. He just murdered the old Hierarch, your dad, and half the Knights of the Seal last time he was in the area with an angry agenda. What's the big deal if he was grinning menacingly in her direction as he sliced a dozen people in half with one blow?
Anyway, unlike most chapters, there are no new Free Expedition missions and the towns are devoid of any updated inventory. So, it is straight back to the Closed Lands of the Endless Ground. Way back to the area we first chased Manah. Goodie..
Verse 1: The Lightning - Music: Abysmal Earth
'Right. Let's hurry, Manah.'
'..'
'You know, it is pretty rude how you turn and talk to the princess every time I speak to you.. Just throwing that out there..'
'Manah, are you listening?'
'O-Oh, yes.. Sorry.'
'Can we save the flirting for later, you two? If we're going over the District of Soul Flame, you can bet we're going to run into the knights. Stay on guard.'
'Right. Though, Urick..why are you still wearing that mask? I thought you said you couldn't see all that well out of it.'
'Am I the only one getting pelted with bugs constantly flying around here? I don't know how you kids do it. I practically need to hose myself off every time we land.'
'Eh..you get used to it after a while.'
'I just sit behind Nowe.'
'Ah. So chivalry still lives on.. Cute..I guess?'
With the fall of the Holy Crystal in the District of Shining Life, the Shining Breath sphere is unlocked. This new overdrive shoots a ball of energy forward that will strike lightning at anything it comes into contact with. It'll one-shot most minor enemies. But, given they need to be lined up in a row and there's no homing ability for it, it's pretty useless overall. Other than that, not a damn thing happens during this mission.
Verse 2: The Revelation - Music: Exploration
There are no enemies in the first portion of this mission. Just a big huge expanse of nothing..except..
If we take a gander at the map, it seems there's an item box waaaaaaay over in the other direction of where we're meant to go. This is past the cave where we rescued that merchant asshole back in Chapter 3. We've never had a reason to go all the way to this location and we never will again. It's an annoying trip, since we can only mount Legna after traveling through caves for about a minute straight. And even then it's only saving about a half minute of travel time.
The treasure box in question is located on a strange little island inside a cave. This box holds a very special weapon. One that we have seen before, but never actually got much use from its old owner..

So that's what happened to Inuart in the Ending A path of Drakengard. He flew off with Legna the Black Dragon to one of the Seeds of Resurrection Destruction with Furiae's body and.. That was the last anyone ever saw of him. Obviously, he couldn't have died or else Legna would be toast too. But, Legna seems to have found a loophole out of his pact with whatever happened there. And Furiae obviously didn't turn into a mutant angelic abomination by using the Seed wrong. So..what happened..?
Hmm.. Exactly eighteen years ago.. Inuart.. Furiae.. The Seeds of Resurrection.. The dragons actually know how to use those things properly.. A boy raised by a dragon.. A really whiny, dumbass fuck-up of a boy raised by a dragon.. A really whiny, dumbass fuck-up of a boy with feathered hair raised by a black dragon and being lead along by a blonde haired, red eyed girl trying to destroy the seals that hold together the world..
Oh for CHRIST SAKE!!!
Nowe is fucking INUART'S CROTCHSPAWN?! That.. That..
..
That makes so much sense.. Nowe is some magic test-tube baby of a dead chick and the biggest fuck-up of Drakengard (outside Verdelet.) All the bone headed utter stupidity coming out of Nowe now falls right into place. Drakengard! 2!
Well, that was quite the revelation. Maybe Nowe can get some more use out of that sword than his dad did. Granted, that's not a difficult set bar to beat. I believe it was used to knock Caim on his ass once and..yeah, that was it..
Heading to where the informant is allegedly hanging out..
'Strange. This is definitely the place. Maybe the informant was mistaken or maybe..this is a trap.'
'Ha. Now you've got it.'
'Eris!'
'Granted, you're supposed to, ya know, spring the trap before announcing your presence. But hey, you're young. 'A' for effort!'
'Who the hell are you!?'
'Ah, do excuse me. I forgot I was wearing this ugly mask.'
Urick removes his helmet, begging the question of why he even wears it in the first place. Besides looking pretty sweet.
'Urick!'
'You're alive..?'
'Which means you did desert the Knights of the Seal after all.'
'Eris!'
'Deserted' is such a harsh term. I prefer to think I was just cashing in a lot of overdue vacation hours and sick days. I guess I got a bit carried away.'
'I have nothing more to say! I am a Knight of the Seal! It is my duty to arrest those who betray us!'
'And here I thought the three of us were all going to go out to lunch to catch up together. Oh..right.. Nowe and the princess. Still a sore subject, eh? Awkward..'
'What..?'
'Ah. Still in the denial stage of moving on. I'll drop the subject. Well, then. Shall we begin?'
Music: Breakthrough
Yeah so Eris..
Eris is not fucking around with this ambush. There are a dozen mages, a half dozen minotaurs, and a hundred or so grunts. And that's just the first wave.
Nowe, like his father before him, is ever quick on the uptake.
'My eyes are wide open, thank you very much. All I see are a group of traitors responsible for the deaths of hundreds of my comrades and threatening the safety of the very world.'
'What happened, Eris? You used to be so..sweet.'
'I see that you haven't changed, Urick. All talk and no action.'
'And I see you never managed to dislodge that stick up your ass in the years you've grown. It must get ever so uncomfortable after all this time. I see now why Nowe dumped you for the princess.'
'I..what?! He did nothing of the sort! Nowe, don't you see she has bewitched you. You need to snap out of it!'
'Oh, now it's a 'bewitching' that did it? And I bet your next boyfriend will be hypnotized by elven magic when he ends up with another.'
'..'
'Where are those airships?!'
Eris: REALLY, REALLY not fucking around anymore.
Each of those screen shots above are their own separate wave of enemies and accompanying Murder Meter. It gets a little bit crowded on this battlefield. I think less people were present for the final battle between the Union and the Empire than this ambush.
Of course, this show of overwhelming numbers is kind of foiled by one key tactical advantage our team possesses..
..Namely, the fire breathing dragon that can annihilate scores of men at a time. However, another unexpected factor also proves to disrupt Eris' attempt at stopping Nowe and his band.
'Manah, what's wrong!? Talk to me!'
'Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Oh god..'
Oh, MANAH! I know you're here somewhere! I can kill these Union fuckwits all day and still have some energy left to stomp a mud hole in your ass!
'What!? What's happening!? I want a report now!'
'Argh..' <drops dead>
'The one-eyed man!?'
'Soooo.. Time for a tactical retreat back to the airship..'
'Sure, I agree. But maybe in the middle of a battlefield is not the best of spots to do that, eh?'
'..'
'P-Please don't kill me..'
Asking me not to kill..? Come on guy, that's like asking the sun not to rise in the morning.
'RARGGH!!'
'Caim? The one-eyed man is Caim? The man who saved the world eighteen years ago? THIS is the hero who saved the world!?'
Rip and tear! RIP AND TEAR!
'Manah.. Damn. Revenge will have to wait. Let's get out of here!'
And so Nowe and Manah of the newly re-soiled trousers beat a hasty retreat before we even get to see any of Caim tearing the Knights of the Seal a new one single handedly. Lame!
Verse 1 & 2 Cutscenes
The Drakengard 2 Party Artwork - Also Seere because he's feeling left out being only in about three cutscenes the entire game.

Part 33: Episode XXVIII: In Which We Reach the End Episode XXVIII: In Which We Reach the EndVerse 7: The Ghosts -So it's time to fly back to the District of Shining Life from the beginning of the chapter and do things properly now that we have Manah back in the band. Note that Manah will contribute FUCK ALL to the rest of this chapter.

Indeed, she straight up vanishes from a few cutscenes she's so unimportant. But hey, Nowe has a thing for evil, red eyed blondes so rescuing just had to be done.The way back to the district is, of course, absolutely filled with airships patrolling the skies. Where are they all coming from at this point?

We just massacred everyone in the Knights of the Seal's HQ. All that should be left of the knights are only Gismor, Seere, and a few knights stuck patrolling the ass end of nowhere due to getting caught making fun of Gismor for getting beaten up by the dragon boy.So, we're going to fight ghosts now to make up for that discrepancy in reinforcements. Sure, why not?Ghosts can shit out purple glowing skulls to put a force field over Legna, locking him in place while the main ghost lobs its sickle around like a boomerang. Well, at least we know from where General Gismor learned that sword fighting technique. Super tank game download. That or they both just stole it from playing one too many Star Wars video games.In any case, the ghosts can block any fireballs shot at them by twirling their sickles around creating a shield.

However, they cannot attack unless they throw said sickle. And when they do as much, their only available strategy is to kind of float there and go 'wooo!'

At the attacking fire breathing dragon. This is kind of a large strategy oversight on their part.Four dead ghosts later.Right, then. Busting all the ghosts flying over the district will allow Legna to safely land and the proper assault on the district to begin. I wonder if Nowe's plan is to bum rush the gate and kill everything between him and the district.Verse 8: The Sacrifice -Aww yeah.

Accurate armchair general guesses up in this war plan. The KotS have all buggered off this time around, leaving only a horde of low level goblins to guard the district's gate.

Strange.A handful of dead goblins later.' I guess it's not just the knights that are after us.' Are you alright?' I'm-I'm fine. Let's keep moving.'

Ladies first!' 'Not really the proper time for being the gentleman, kiddo.'

'Sacrifice a life in each room, and the door to the dais opens. Nice story, isn't it?' The district dungeon is filled to the rafters with goblins and ogres (how do they even FIT?!) down twisting, narrow, and very brown corridors. Verdelet must be spinning in his grave with all this sub-human scum desecrating these halls. As Urick mentioned, we need to navigate to three rooms in the labyrinth and perform sacrifices in order to open the gate to the district key.The first room locks shut and demands a sacrifice of life force to its chambers. It has to be somebody besides Urick to get drained of power.As such, Manah or Nowe must just stand around in a locked room for 30 seconds while their energy slowly ticks away.

Just standing in an empty room for half a minute taking damage. Gameplay!The second room demands a ton of blood to be spilled. It just so happens that a bunch of goblin tribesmen are hanging out in this chamber. Since they don't count as people, the party is free to butcher the lot of them to activate the second key. Very heroic.' Death is terrifying.

Nothing lies beyond death.' Where'd you hear all that?' It's in the pamphlet they give you when you first get assigned to this place. I'm paraphrasing it a bit.

The original text was written by the former hierarch. So just add a few dozen 'doom!' And 'the end is nigh' variations to spice it up and you'll get the gist of it.' So did you used to be on guard duty for this district or something?' '.Is he honestly still clueless about where I'm heading with all this?'

The final chamber demands battling with ghosts. I guess these unlucky saps are cursed with getting double-sacrificed. These are actually Ghost Heavy Knights. They are.functionally just heavy knights but Manah gets a buff against them instead of Nowe.

And with heavy strikes, their armor can be shattered unleashing a spirit ball that can be struck down to insta-kill them. Sol survivor trainer. Not much to talk about beyond that.When all three sacrifices have been offered up to the district, the gates to the Life Dais creak open and the party can progress into the penultimate district key's chamber.Verse 9: The ShowdownStupid shitty ass flowers! The HELL am I supposed to do with these things to break this seal?!' It's the one-eyed man.'

You chucklefucks again. Didn't I kill you already, tinhead.?' 'You're the missing lieutenant, and guardian to the key of the District of Shining Life.

Isn't that so, Urick?' 'Well, damn it all.

I wanted to tell you myself.' 'Well, it really wasn't too difficult to deduce.' '.For most people, at least.'

'Listen, kid. I'm not so nice after all.' 'During the attack on the seal three years ago, I was defeated by Caim. General Oror saved me. I left him to die, and ran away.' 'You were there, too!?' 'No, I was out getting a turkey sub while my district was being assaulted by a crazed swordsman slaughtering hundreds of knights like they were nothing.

Of COURSE I was there. Urick has a pact with THE GRIM REAPER and his pact price was.losing the ability to die.

Probably the least negative 'price' I have ever heard of before. Unfortunately, it turns out Urick had an emo death wish the entire time, despite being fairly upbeat up until the last hour of the game.And it finally clicks with Nowe that this is sort of a suicide mission for Urick. You can just see the gears straining to come up with a solution to this new dilemma. Manah, on the other hand, seems to give two shits about having to kill Urick.(Hey!

Go listen to this! It's one of the best tracks in the game!)'When the reaper is in my body, that's when I can truly die.

You get it, Nowe? I'm counting on you. Don't miss it.' I don't want you to die!' 'Yeah well.maybe you should have thought about that before going on your little quest here. A bit late to turn back now, eh kiddo?' So that's why this shit didn't work last time I was here.

I KNEW stomping on these dumbass flowers was a waste of my time. Never was into gardening. There's something I excel at. Let's see ya try to resurrect without a head.

Oh, that's rich. I've shat out things that have looked tougher than you, junior. But hey, if you wanna be notch 314 on my belt today, then be my guest.' Nowe, fighting Caim is.not going to solve anything. Like at all here.

I'm still kind of bound to the key. Not reversible whatsoever. No loopholes.' 'I must win!' 'Oh.just gonna ignore the problem.? Alright, that's cool I guess.'

Lemme try a bit more of that sign language I'd been working on.NOBODY TELLS.ME TO.STOP KILLING!' .and that's 314. I think there is a little shit roaming around here that's long overdue for paying up for that whole 'eye for an eye' policy.' That felt good. Great, really! That savings bond of murder idea Angelus had was totally worth it. Alright, one more for the road and I can get out of this fruity dump.

Try to stay dead this time, eh?And that's a wrap! Alright.now I just gotta figure out where the hell that last stupid seal is hidden. I bet if I track down that Seere runt, I can beat it out of him. Oh hey, new sword for the armory! Score!Welp, it was a less than fun ride.

Until next time.(Really, go listen to it!)Urick and the Grim Reaper Poster - Aww look. The Reaper is offering him roses for their pact.