Drakengard 3- Or Not

[She-Pudding]

Man, I reeeeally wanted to like this game.

Let me sum this up here, because I'm feeling wordy. I suppose I just wish they had used a different title. This is more of a spiritual successor or spin-off to the Drakengard series, like NieR was, rather than a new entry into the series. The familiar clicks and clacks in the menu screen are sure to instill nostalgia in any fan of the original, and the musical score could bring an audiophile to tears, but... how to put it? If felt more like a fan-made homage on a low budget, released far before it was ready by a non-commital studio, to cash in on a fanbase before they realise it isn't really worth $50. It may have benefitted more from a digital-only release with less dialouge and low-res cutscenes, in favor of a more thoughtful story and better quality gameplay components that honor the original, rather than imitating it's dated graphics and stale gameplay. But that isn't what looks best in the trailers, I suppose. As it is, the music tells a higher quality story than what was presented here as opposed to complimenting it, and that just makes me sad.

I don't necessarilly regret the purchase, though.

There is fun to be had here. Plot elements and secrets about the world to be revealed. Towering Ogers to be decapitated with your bare hands, if you so choose. RPG expectations to be subverted in entertaining ways. But I feel alot of what makes this game original is also what seperates it from the original Drakengard. (How does one lose theirself in a dark fantasy where the characters arbitrarilly break the fourth wall for laughs?) And what is borrowed would have been better off getting revamped, if not replaced. I accept the PS2-like graphics, but multiple, long loading screens in every map? And how much time did they really spend planning these resrictive, one-way maps ? The characters joke about this in-game, but does that really excuse it? The camera is no better, as it's view is too limited and gets caught in and under the enviornment. Which is sort of a shame. I laughed at the wolf models that hovering in mid-air, motionlessly going in circles... untill I realised I paid good money for a finished game. Not this beta version.

But I suppose my real dissapointment for the game is becoming apparent. And this is a fairly personal fan rant, so feel free to skim righ past this here. I shall take all neccessary precautions...

Hold on...
Hold on...

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I generally play games for the experiences they offer and emotions they evoke. I'm a story lover, and gaming, for me, enhances that. And I loved the original for it's dark atmosphere and story. The endless fighting through large, empty enviorments... gathering strange but fascinating "allies"... and the new, yet uniquely tragic endings you couldn't even reach without sinking many hours into your bloody campaign... It may have been a grind, and a little bland, but I found that that only sunk me deeper into the anti-hero's shoes and his hopeless situation.

Here, though, I just don't know what I was supposed to be experiencing. The dialouge is largely dirty and cliched- not in a witty way, more like a "look at him! He's so weird and perverted!" way. There's little to no character building or growth (or even relatable human interactions) outside of the very beginning and latter half of the ending chapters. And where the plot isn't boringly predictable, it seemed to rip off it's own previous titles-NieR included. The endings are "sad", but... I don't really buy most of 'em. (Why suddenly reveal a deos ex machina that was there all along and... just not use it in other endings?) I get that these endings may mostly be for filling in the blanks in this story and the larger Drakengard world, but that does not a good story make. And someone may need to explain the idea of multiverses to the creators, because it largely seems to equate to "crazy convenient magic so we can ignore our own story structure" in D3. And breaking the 4th wall, over and over... did I mention that? Because that continually pulls me out of the experience. Choose: are you a dark story using quasi-science or are you a power fantasy that knows it will never, at any point, take it's own rules seriously? Because I'm not sure what to believe and what to throw out the window. *sigh*

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So... let's wrap this up.

All in all, not a bad game. It could use polish and would have benefitted from more time or resources, but it is not bad. The frugal side of me says "borrow this, rent this, or wait for a sale, because it is not worth $50". But the gamer in me says to buy it directly if you want to justify the studio's decision to bring back this niche title, and maybe see others get their time in the sun. Your call, really. This girl already bought into the hype and preordered~

But perhaps both we and studios persuing such a series revival need to lower our expectations and meet in the middle. Next time they can tell me exactly what I'm getting-no gimmiks or hiding behind an established title or trailers- and I'll pay them directly for their, perhaps, mostly-complete game, downloaded off the PSN. That would be a very respectable deal, ne pas?