History The idea for
Drakengard originated in 1999 between Takamasa Shiba and Takuya Iwasaki. The gameplay was conceived as a blend of elements from
Ace Combat and
Dynasty Warriors 2.
Drakengard 3 was intended to return to a dark aesthetic, but also to include moments of humor and tie in with
Nier. The character designer for the
Drakengard games is Kimihiko Fujisaka. Initially a minor staff member at Cavia, the team were impressed by his skill as an amateur artist and he was recommended for the post of character designer for the game. The designs for both the characters and the world were influenced by armor and clothing of
Medieval Europe. He returned in the same capacity for
Drakengard 2, and later for
Nier. Disliking some of his initial designs for
Drakengard, he took the opportunity to remodel them more to his liking for the
arcade game Lord of Vermilion. In
Drakengard 3, Fujisaka designed the protagonist
Zero around the dark themes of the game, although some unusual elements were nearly cut. The other female characters were inspired by
Puella Magi Madoka Magica, while the male characters, considered a low priority, were designed around male archetypes and approved quickly. The character designs for
Nier were handled by an artist under the moniker D.K. For
Niers international release, the protagonist was redesigned from a teenager to an adult character. This was because the publishers felt an older character would appeal more to western players. For
Nier: Automata, the main character designs were handled by
Akihiko Yoshida, an artist noted for his work on the
Final Fantasy series. While he was initially expected to refuse, he agreed as several staff members at his company CyDesignation were fans of
Nier. For his designs, Yoko requested he focus on smooth outlines and black coloring. Other characters were designed by Yuya Nagai and Toshiyuki Itahana.
Music The first game's soundtrack was created by
Nobuyoshi Sano and Takayuki Aihara. The two created the score using samples from well-known classical composers. The second game's soundtrack was composed by Ryoki Matsumoto and Aoi Yoshiki, who had never before been involved with video game soundtracks. The game's Japanese theme song,
Hitori, was sung by
Mika Nakashima. The music for
Nier was composed by
Keiichi Okabe, who composed the soundtrack as something different from the main series, and to directly reflect the sombre tone of the game's setting and story. Singer Emi Evans (Emiko Rebecca Evans) wrote and sang the vocal tracks, and performed many tracks in an invented language dubbed "Chaos Language". "Chaos Language" is less a language and more a writing style, as each individual song has a different language based on a real-world language. The one exception to this is "Song Of The Ancients" which is sung in a language based upon multiple different languages, instead of a single language. Okabe returned to compose the soundtrack for
Drakengard 3: in an interview, he stated that, in composing the music, he tried to emulate the work of the earlier composer without imitating them. He also commented that the result was very unlike the traditional Square Enix game. The game features two theme songs: "Black Song", performed by
Eir Aoi, and "This Silence is Mine", the game's theme song proper, written and sung by
Chihiro Onitsuka. Okabe is again providing the music for
Nier: Automata, with singer Emi Evans also returning. ==Common elements==