Aran Lawson is a tracker hired to retrieve a Mysterious Waif kidnapped by a cult. Infiltrating the cult's fortress, he finds the girl, who seems more interested in telling him he's The Chosen One than being rescued. Faced with a humongous demon the cult has summoned, he has no choice but to follow her instructions to summon and bind Eckhardt, his very own ferocious dragon to ride. However, this isn't one of your friendly Pernese dragons. Eckhardt is a wild beast that fights Aran's control.
Combat is standard Final Fantasy style, with a unique take: Aran doesn't fight battles himself, he rides on Eckhardt's back and imperfectly attempts to direct its rage. The combat interface is represented by chains, which Eckhardt constantly struggles to loosen. Keeping the chains tight causes the dragon to use defensive abilities and healing, but do low damage. Loosening control allows it to cut loose with stronger attacks, but also puts you closer to the "danger zone" where Eckhardt throws Aran from its back and goes berserk, in which case there's a high chance it'll turn and One-Hit Kill him.
This game provides examples of:
- Attack Its Weak Point: Played with in the opening. After Aran recalls Eckhardt's name (which also makes it stop attacking him), he then must brand it, which is what generates the chains controlling it. This is done by stabbing his sword in the glowing blue spot on Eckhardt's back.
- BFS: Aran wields a katana that's literally taller than he is. During the on-foot sections, it's slung on his back diagonally, and without a scabbard, so getting cut is probably a hazard. Moreover, it regularly clips through things during both gameplay and cutscenes; it's likely that its tip would get quite chipped from such treatment.
- The Cult: The cultists in the opening are a very traditional example, and look like they are going to be the immediate antagonists. Then, though, a large Demon of Dread spawns in and easily slaughters a swathe of them, to the point Aran takes pity on them and tries bailing them out (though he only succeeds because Eckhardt shows up as well.)
- The Dreaded: Given that it's literally their name, the Dread are demons whose monstrous rampages are taken all too seriously by the helpless populace. For centuries, the only thing that was able to combat the Boss Dread on their level was a lineage of dragon tamers that could only control one frequently-evolving dragon ever, and the latest dragon from their arsenal is Eckhardt. Said dragon is also The Dreaded, because there's a significant chance that the dragon will turn on its owner and wreak havoc on the world; if it is sentient, it's ANGRY from being enslaved all that time.
- Elemental Powers: Some moves that are specific to each Rider fall into this category.
- Kill It with Fire: Aran
- An Ice Person: Gale
- Evil Laugh: The green Demon of Dread in the opening does one when he suddenly re-emerges for a proper battle, after it first seemed like Eckhardt already dispatched it in a cutscene.
- In the Hood: The cultists wear typical black all-enclosing robes with tall hoods that completely conceal their face.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: Queory. The insect-based Boss Dread doesn't leave anything of Queory's body behind but a red stain. She gets better.
- Mutually Exclusive Party Members: Justified in that there is only one dragon that they can control. It's presumed that since your riders are all Badass Normal hunters anyway, they fight the small fry while Eckhardt fights the leader in each battle.
- Mysterious Benefactor: The Time Traveller, the latest in a series of time-travelling merchants who are authorized to sell any DrakeRider munitions. Gauss also gives the player his "secretary", a Team Pet who helps uncover funds to buy munitions with, and a Hypercube that holds a dungeon (unfortunately, said dungeon is not randomly generated).
- Gameplay and Story Integration: The unrestrained power of the dragon is described in story as being FAR too great for mortals to control, and indeed, if you let Eckhardt go berserk, he can EASILY ROFL-stomp bosses in seconds....... and then turn on you, though there are passive abilities that mitigate the (potentially) horrendous damage you'd take trying to get him back under your control.
- Team Pet: The bunny-like secretary that the time-traveler lends Aran to help with his missions. This bunny gives you free stuff to trade with the time-traveler for equipment (and elixirs), but needs time to find items. The bunny can be given a name from a prewritten list of funny names, levels up the more he searches, and gives better stuff as he levels up.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: A fairly extreme example on Eckhardt's side of the team. Aran would LIKE to get along with his mount, but....
