Drakengard 3 Review - Sister Hacked

[Something Amyss]

Don't forget Jim, this game is part of a series where the first game has a child molester/pedophile and a crazy baby eater as characters. Protagonist characters at that. So I'm not surprised about this game having a messed up main character.

And incest. Caim and his sister were getting it on.

I think all three were downplayed in the West, but yeah.

The story was screwed up. The characters were screwed up. The protagonists were screwed up. It was a strange game, and that's what kept me going. It's a shame the gameplay was boring and tedious. And that's from someone who's played most of the Koei Warriors titles.

I don't know about you perhaps deceiving yourself (and potentially others) about the gender politics on offer here. It's not against the law to enjoy something that's problematic, but IMO this game is one of the worst I've personally seen on this front. I got the impression the writer had some quite serious unresolved issues with women, showing up indirectly in this game.

So....Business as usual? I mean, developers with women issues seems to be pretty common.

Anyway, I don't know from gender politics, but it's fairly common to rationalise thing you like as "not sexist." I don't know enough about the context here, but this certainly sounds like the same old song and dance.

 

[Teh Blasterz]

So it's insane...but is it bleak?

By the end of the first Drakengard I was wondering if I'd ever smile again....

Depends, while the general story is fairly upbeat with the characters cracking jokes at each other at a very frequent pace, alongside some fourth wall breaking humor at times, the endings tend to be anything but upbeat. Even the happiest ending in the game, the final one, is an extremely bittersweet ending. It's not like Drakengard 2 where the happiest ending is a "everyone lives happily ever after" type of ending, which makes sense considering the people who worked on this game's story worked on both Nier's and drakengard 1's stories as well.

 

[karma9308]

I'm SO waiting for TheDarkId to let's play this thing.

Hell Yes to this! I just finished his Drakengard 1 LP and may do the 2nd one soon. Hopefully I'll finish in time for the three month period to be up.

And incest. Caim and his sister were getting it on.

His sister wanted him but when the secret came out, Caim did not react to well to it, especially when you take her reaction into account.

Spoiler

Killing herself and letting the world end out of embarrassment.

 

[ckam]

Sounds kind of interesting by the way you described it. Still, it looks kind of boring.

 

[Therumancer]

Hmmm, well I've never been a huge fan of "Dynasty Warriors" games (which this is compared to), but I did kind of like "Deadly Premonition". Maybe at some point I'll get a chance to play this, but I've pretty much retired my PS-3 for a PS-4 (lack of foresight on my part) which I rarely use (indeed I probably should have gotten Watch Dogs for it, but I prefer playing on my PC, especially nowadays).

To be honest it sounds like someone came up with a different take on the "play as the villain" thing than we've traditionally seen where it's mostly been cartoony (Overlord) or humorous sim/Strategy games (Dungeon Keeper, Dungeons, Evil Genius, etc...).

From what I've heard of the series, it seems like their problem might be that they need a budget. Maybe if this game does well the next one will take some inspiration from Dark Souls, using a similar system, but changing the difficulty for high octane action.

I also must admit the flower in her eye is an interesting choice, I've seen a lot of weird things done for characters, but that's the first time I've seen something like that.

 

[RealRT]

To be honest it sounds like someone came up with a different take on the "play as the villain" thing than we've traditionally seen where it's mostly been cartoony (Overlord) or humorous sim/Strategy games (Dungeon Keeper, Dungeons, Evil Genius, etc...).

What about Legacy of Kain? Kain saves the world to take it over himself and Raziel fucks up everything he touches.

 

[Therumancer]

To be honest it sounds like someone came up with a different take on the "play as the villain" thing than we've traditionally seen where it's mostly been cartoony (Overlord) or humorous sim/Strategy games (Dungeon Keeper, Dungeons, Evil Genius, etc...).

What about Legacy of Kain? Kain saves the world to take it over himself and Raziel fucks up everything he touches.

To be fair I only played the first "Legacy Of Kain" a long time ago, and I seem to remember you had a choice of whether to sacrifice yourself and save the world or rule it. I suppose since the series continued (making the ruling ending canon) your right, I didn't think of this series though.

Of course perspective matters as well, I have no idea where the other games in the series went, but Kain was originally fighting things so much worse than himself, and the bad guys were destroying the world as they had become corrupted and were tied to it. Originally I saw him as more of an anti-hero than a villain per se. I know very little about Raziel overall.

 

[RealRT]

To be honest it sounds like someone came up with a different take on the "play as the villain" thing than we've traditionally seen where it's mostly been cartoony (Overlord) or humorous sim/Strategy games (Dungeon Keeper, Dungeons, Evil Genius, etc...).

What about Legacy of Kain? Kain saves the world to take it over himself and Raziel fucks up everything he touches.

To be fair I only played the first "Legacy Of Kain" a long time ago, and I seem to remember you had a choice of whether to sacrifice yourself and save the world or rule it. I suppose since the series continued (making the ruling ending canon) your right, I didn't think of this series though.

Of course perspective matters as well, I have no idea where the other games in the series went, but Kain was originally fighting things so much worse than himself, and the bad guys were destroying the world as they had become corrupted and were tied to it. Originally I saw him as more of an anti-hero than a villain per se. I know very little about Raziel overall.

Kain serves as a villain in Soul Reaver (the two Soul Reaver games star Raziel), a mentor/manipulator in Soul Reaver 2, in Blood Omen 2 he wanted to take over the world way before he knew that the opposing side were much worse than him and in Defiance he, once again, wants to save the world so he can rule it. Raziel, while well-meaning, manages to play into villains' hands multiple times and is pretty self-righteous. They do dance on the line between a villain and anti-hero, but that line's blurry as hell.

 

[softclocks]

Why does she have a flower in her eye?

It looks ridiculous.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

I'm SO waiting for TheDarkId to let's play this thing.

Hell Yes to this! I just finished his Drakengard 1 LP and may do the 2nd one soon. Hopefully I'll finish in time for the three month period to be up.

Thirded. I love that guy's Let's Plays, and I'm glad he's coming out of retirement to LP this. Hopefully this game won't be as bleak as the last two plus Nier. Even with TheDarkId's snark it was kinda depressing...

 

[Eve Charm]

It's part of the story, and Kinda do want to mention the flower for a eye knocks a lot of the sexy factor for her down a lot ;p.

But ya the story is as far messed up and all over to not really telling you why she wants to and does the things she to or at least most of the whole thing till near the end.

7/10 and is good score for this game and if you want one hell of a ride of crazy this game is awesome. But just know Cavia is a huge friggen troll and that final boss OMG RAGE!!!!!!

But anyway as her own, Zero is a really good character.

 

[Drummodino]

Question! This game sounds pretty fun and I'd might check it out sometime. But will I be missing anything if I haven't played the previous games in the series?

 

[MrHide-Patten]

I saw the cover and similar art around the gam, not that the game actually LOOKS like the artwork itself, and became one of those titles in the back of my mind that I would play if it were to pop up on PS+ or something.

But from the review on its story and characters and its gameplay not being a turn based RPG thing I might just have to pick it up.... at some point later.

 

[Eve Charm]

Question! This game sounds pretty fun and I'd might check it out sometime. But will I be missing anything if I haven't played the previous games in the series?

It's a prequel in the series time line so no.

 

[zombiejoe]

Somewhat related question.

If I played Nier, would the experience be better if I played Drakengard first?

 

[Quantum Star]

Why does she have a flower in her eye?

It looks ridiculous.

I could tell you, but it's critical to the story and the entire plot, it's not just there to look ridiculous.

Somewhat related question.

If I played Nier, would the experience be better if I played Drakengard first?

Not really. You can if you want, but playing Drakengard 1 is suffering. Don't expect it to be TOO similar to Nier either, because even though it's the same director, he's stated he hates doing the same thing twice.

 

[Fuescma]

You know, the review doesn't really touch on the ending of the game. Unless it's one of the major reasons for saying it was sloppy and shoddy in execution and the reason for getting under his skin, it would be interesting to hear a specific take on it. I've loved everything up to that point, as even the challenge missions haven't deterred my love for the game. However, that final verse is perhaps one of the worst things I've ever played. Without diving into spoilerific specifics, it's all well and fine up to the... 4th stage, then from there it devolves into an increasingly hot mess of terrible design choice after design choice. The fact that it relies on the age-old method of "die to progress" doesn't exactly help when it can take a good half a minute depending to get back into the game, and having to start from the very beginning no matter how far you were into it makes it worse.