the framerate was actually intentional in order to convey the inconsistent speeds at which taro’s brain operates
"I'm sorry"
- Yoko Taro when a fan told him he liked Drakengard 3
- Yoko Taro when a fan told him he liked Drakengard 3
the video-game for the modern lesbian
Gaming has had an immense amount of tragedies ocurring upon this medium over its 6 decades existence, but the absolute worst of them all is 100% the fact that I unfortunately REALLY liked this game.
Drakengard fans stop apologizing and just like the series challenge
I love this game to pieces, for everything that it is. It feels more like an insanity simulator than an actual game, there are so many parts of this game that seem antithetical to what "good" game design is and the devs are perfectly aware of it. Your mind grows numb to the monotonous platforming and single-digit frame drops as you slay countless soldiers while Zero casually discusses her sex life until you realize you've become just as numb to the massacre as Zero has, creating a dissociative effect between what is actually happening on-screen and what is being perceived by the player.
I think Drakengard 3 is fascinating as a commentary on gender politics in dark fantasy stories by inverting the common patriarchal society found in them. Like, yeah, the usual reasoning is to reflect antiquated sexist views towards women, but are they always something worth including? In D3's case, there is no sorrow cast for the unfortunate men whose ownership are transferred from one girlboss to another like tools and not people. They're humiliated and pitied, existing as fodder for misery and never agents of their own accord. When they do open their mouths during missions, they often quickly evoke the ire of Zero with some of the most insane dialogue ever written in a video game script. I've always read it to be ridiculously sharp satire.
There is a heart to D3, and I would probably be far less charitable to it without this crucial component: Zero and Mikhail's relationship. Yes, she can be very harsh with him, but there's a subtle sensitivity in the way she addresses him that she doesn't spare to the Intoners or Disciples, our first inkling that she isn't a remorseless sociopath. It's a small seed that blossoms beautifully as you progress through each branch and understand just who Mikhail is to Zero, with each ending testing the limits of their relationship. Zero cemented herself as one of my favorite video game protagonists ever with the many reveals made about her in the final branch, and I don't think the game could have sold me on her as a character without Mikhail to bounce off of.
Maybe I'll revisit this and say more, but I struggle with words to verbalize just how I feel about this game. I think it's an experience I've never felt replicated in any other game I've ever played, it had become the new standard of audaciousness for game narratives when I played this some years ago. There is truly nothing like it.
I think Drakengard 3 is fascinating as a commentary on gender politics in dark fantasy stories by inverting the common patriarchal society found in them. Like, yeah, the usual reasoning is to reflect antiquated sexist views towards women, but are they always something worth including? In D3's case, there is no sorrow cast for the unfortunate men whose ownership are transferred from one girlboss to another like tools and not people. They're humiliated and pitied, existing as fodder for misery and never agents of their own accord. When they do open their mouths during missions, they often quickly evoke the ire of Zero with some of the most insane dialogue ever written in a video game script. I've always read it to be ridiculously sharp satire.
There is a heart to D3, and I would probably be far less charitable to it without this crucial component: Zero and Mikhail's relationship. Yes, she can be very harsh with him, but there's a subtle sensitivity in the way she addresses him that she doesn't spare to the Intoners or Disciples, our first inkling that she isn't a remorseless sociopath. It's a small seed that blossoms beautifully as you progress through each branch and understand just who Mikhail is to Zero, with each ending testing the limits of their relationship. Zero cemented herself as one of my favorite video game protagonists ever with the many reveals made about her in the final branch, and I don't think the game could have sold me on her as a character without Mikhail to bounce off of.
Maybe I'll revisit this and say more, but I struggle with words to verbalize just how I feel about this game. I think it's an experience I've never felt replicated in any other game I've ever played, it had become the new standard of audaciousness for game narratives when I played this some years ago. There is truly nothing like it.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 of Video Games.
I'm gonna tell my kids this was madoka magica.
Behind layers and layers of (important) dick jokes, paywalled characterization and sidematerial lies one of the kindest stories about coming to terms with oneself and the world. Perfect ending and final boss too but ehrm that might just be my post dod1 masochist brain speaking.
Beneath layers of hilarious humor and an unusual list of characters with unfiltered interactions lies one of the most beautiful and impacting stories ever told showcasing many themes that are rarely touched upon correctly in media
Yoko Taro games usually tackle subjects not so different from each other but every single one of them does it in a very unique way that never feels repetitive and always feels like it has Yoko Taro's signature on it
tackling the subjects of self-acceptance and questioning the sets of beliefs and drives people have and human nature
I don't subscribe to the idea that dod 3 is "bad on purpose" or whatever many people throw around
in fact, the moment I was thrown into its world i was interested
the game starts off with a clean plan and blueprint and you are nothing but a spectator trying to understand the reasoning/meaning behind the drive of the main character and the setting of this insane world and it ties it up perfectly with a cathartic ending that left me stunned
know the game has some inherent shortcomings because of its age but beyond it all is genuinely one of the most impactful stories ever.
the structure and branching and narrative of the game are incredible it's sad that this will always be an underappreciated gem
to talk about every single theme this game conveys and how Yoko Taro's themes and how he tackles them are always the greatest ever would take too much and I still have much to learn from all the side content. i just loved the game and that is all that matters to me
Yoko Taro games usually tackle subjects not so different from each other but every single one of them does it in a very unique way that never feels repetitive and always feels like it has Yoko Taro's signature on it
tackling the subjects of self-acceptance and questioning the sets of beliefs and drives people have and human nature
I don't subscribe to the idea that dod 3 is "bad on purpose" or whatever many people throw around
in fact, the moment I was thrown into its world i was interested
the game starts off with a clean plan and blueprint and you are nothing but a spectator trying to understand the reasoning/meaning behind the drive of the main character and the setting of this insane world and it ties it up perfectly with a cathartic ending that left me stunned
know the game has some inherent shortcomings because of its age but beyond it all is genuinely one of the most impactful stories ever.
the structure and branching and narrative of the game are incredible it's sad that this will always be an underappreciated gem
to talk about every single theme this game conveys and how Yoko Taro's themes and how he tackles them are always the greatest ever would take too much and I still have much to learn from all the side content. i just loved the game and that is all that matters to me
indifference isn't enough anymore i'm becoming a yoko taro hater
this happened to my buddy Zero
Doo-do doo-do doo-do doo-do doo-do doo-do doo
My name is Mikhail! My name is Mikhaiiil!
I really love me some Ze-e-rooo
I'm not a stinky dragon nor am I a dirty dragon
Hop on my back and let's go for a ride
Yay!
My name is Mikhail! My name is Mikhaiiil!
I really love me some Ze-e-rooo
I'm not a stinky dragon nor am I a dirty dragon
Hop on my back and let's go for a ride
Yay!
I played it on an emulator, so it went 60 fps smooth as fuck boii
I was apprehensive at first, seeing as everything was "softer" than the first one. The hard edges (like the pumping and hitting soundtrack, the resounding sound effects and the robotic combat) are no more, you can even have fun with the combat! And the orchestrations are really nice, specially the songs throughout. But it wasn't diabolic.
When you start forming your team, i thought it was going to develop like the first one, slowly giving into the madness and the eccentric behaviours of Zero and her companions, but it was much more interesting than that. As branches go on, the group mentality settles and normalises, they talk about stuff and see past first impressions and philias, reaching the point of actually having consensual encounters like grown-ups. It goes beyond the anime-esque teenage taboos of sex and treats it like a bonding experience that develops with time and comprehension.
The rest functions as explicit expansions over the first one. The functionality of branches are represented by a character, the relationship between human (or entoner) and dragon is deeper and the ending song shows a deeper catharsis that wraps up the whole journey.
Maybe because it is not the deafening experience of the first one it didn't hit me as much, but it's more mature and humanistic in comparison, and still a game laying in the confines of what is possible for the medium
I was apprehensive at first, seeing as everything was "softer" than the first one. The hard edges (like the pumping and hitting soundtrack, the resounding sound effects and the robotic combat) are no more, you can even have fun with the combat! And the orchestrations are really nice, specially the songs throughout. But it wasn't diabolic.
When you start forming your team, i thought it was going to develop like the first one, slowly giving into the madness and the eccentric behaviours of Zero and her companions, but it was much more interesting than that. As branches go on, the group mentality settles and normalises, they talk about stuff and see past first impressions and philias, reaching the point of actually having consensual encounters like grown-ups. It goes beyond the anime-esque teenage taboos of sex and treats it like a bonding experience that develops with time and comprehension.
The rest functions as explicit expansions over the first one. The functionality of branches are represented by a character, the relationship between human (or entoner) and dragon is deeper and the ending song shows a deeper catharsis that wraps up the whole journey.
Maybe because it is not the deafening experience of the first one it didn't hit me as much, but it's more mature and humanistic in comparison, and still a game laying in the confines of what is possible for the medium
This is every bit as angry and transgressive as drakengard 1 but turned way the fuck up in intensity and unbelievably cathartic. Banger.
don't care that the frame rate is awful; don't care that the combat is asinine; don't care that the game is unpolished, janky, ugly, and poorly considered in every respect; don't care that it was subject to predatory dlc; don't care that accord's requests are emblematic of some of the worst there is in side quest design; don't care don't care don't care
what i do care about is that this is the ultimate manifestation of YT's disinclination to work in games juxtaposed with his earnest belief in the medium as a vessel for greater things. in his grimmest failure, he finds light at the end of the tunnel. an astonishing exercise in empathy generation, one of the best finales in a game, and the only one of yoko taro's works that makes great use of backwards scripting + sequential playthroughs
what i do care about is that this is the ultimate manifestation of YT's disinclination to work in games juxtaposed with his earnest belief in the medium as a vessel for greater things. in his grimmest failure, he finds light at the end of the tunnel. an astonishing exercise in empathy generation, one of the best finales in a game, and the only one of yoko taro's works that makes great use of backwards scripting + sequential playthroughs
dawg if I had a choice between dilapidating my balls with a hydraulic press and playing the FInal Boss again? WELL THEN I BID THEE FAREWELL TO MY BOLLOCK(S) NIGGA!!!111
If it weren’t for the dreadful performance issues and the prior knowledge of who was at the helm of this project, I would have had a hard time differentiating Drakengard 3 from the countless mid budget Japanese games that populated the 7th gen. It is kinda fitting, and in some ways admirable, that a game coming at the very tail end of the ps3 lifespan, a console notorious for lowering the bar for acceptable framerate and optimization, would achieve the worst performance that ever graced the cell processor. But take away the obvious elephant in the room, and Drakengard 3 is actually a pretty serviceable and enjoyable hack n’ slash that hardly inherits the DNA from its predecessors.
Drakengard 3 carries itself with a whiff of resignation from the outset, an apathetic conformity to the whims of an industry that was slogging on forward to its demise, long after Nier’s final gasp for air. The world didn’t really care for what Drakengard 1 had to say, and while I don’t think Yoko Taro ever expected it to listen, Drakengard 3 is his most indifferent and defeatist work, with a constant self awareness that points out the absurdism of videogames, without ever trying to engage with it for most of the runtime, and while I am certain that the terrible performance issues are just a symptom of rushed development and a nonexistent budget, the 10 FPS drops do lend a certain intentional hilarity to the game at the player’s expense.
Despite not reveling in the misery porn of Drakengard 1, it somehow manages to be an even uglier game, in all senses of the word. The cast gleefully express from the get-go their propensity for violence and murder for comedic effect, the character designs are bloated with generic anime-isms and garish colors that clash with the medieval tone of the environments, the combat is now sufferable and standard musou fare that no longer provides the unique boredom present in Drakengard 1, filling the screen with shallow stylized blood splatter and DMC combos, and the game manages to be unpleasant in wholly new ways thanks to a plethora of explicit and depraved sexual innuendos that decorate most of the script. And yet Yoko Taro manages to find some life in this corpse of a videogame.
In contrast to Drakengard 1, the more you play, the more the game is willing to open a breach and extend its hand to you, regardless of how restrictive its polygon walls can be, and the jaded psychotic nature of its characters manage to somehow open up to reveal a sad, broken world pleading for death and change, of any kind. Even if the only language these characters can speak through are murder and sexual desire, they have the power to change the status quo, no matter how childish and naive that sentiment might be or how badly the cards they have been dealt are. And once again, Drakengard asks that you drop your weapons and everything you learned thus far, devote yourself and your time to its insanity, and struggle through one of the most infuriating and mesmerizing final bosses ever conceived. Bashing your head into a wall to the point of despair and defeat might not seem like the optimal way to communicate such messages, but like one character says after sacrificing itself in a bout of inspiration: “This was more human, wasn’t it?”
Drakengard 3 to me is Yoko Taro’s most impenetrable work, and a big part of it is due to the baffling decision to spread a lot of backstory and lore that drastically changes interpretation of the source material through a bunch of paid DLC, novellas and mangas, context that should have definitely been present in the game itself and would have made this a much more accessible and comprehensible entry in his Drakengard oeuvre. A lot of the ideas from Automata seem to have been conceptualized here first, such as being trapped in an endless death and rebirth cycle of bloodshed, a near impossible final boss that has you fighting against the game itself, or a meta-textual force interfering with the outcome of the story, and it functions like an inevitable bridge between Nier’s sorrowful epipath and Nier Automata’s existential rebellion. Drakengard 3 is the perfect 7th gen game, both a symptom of and a response to the dark age of japanese videogames. It just embodies that ethos a bit too much for its own good sometimes.
And yeah, this review was just an excuse to say I beat the Final Song. I did it. It took me 5+ hours to do it, but I fucking did it, and I did it without syncing the game to no video guide either. Hitting that final invisible note by pure intuition after going through hell is the most beautiful thing ever in videogames, and I’m so glad I never have to go through it again.
Drakengard 3 carries itself with a whiff of resignation from the outset, an apathetic conformity to the whims of an industry that was slogging on forward to its demise, long after Nier’s final gasp for air. The world didn’t really care for what Drakengard 1 had to say, and while I don’t think Yoko Taro ever expected it to listen, Drakengard 3 is his most indifferent and defeatist work, with a constant self awareness that points out the absurdism of videogames, without ever trying to engage with it for most of the runtime, and while I am certain that the terrible performance issues are just a symptom of rushed development and a nonexistent budget, the 10 FPS drops do lend a certain intentional hilarity to the game at the player’s expense.
Despite not reveling in the misery porn of Drakengard 1, it somehow manages to be an even uglier game, in all senses of the word. The cast gleefully express from the get-go their propensity for violence and murder for comedic effect, the character designs are bloated with generic anime-isms and garish colors that clash with the medieval tone of the environments, the combat is now sufferable and standard musou fare that no longer provides the unique boredom present in Drakengard 1, filling the screen with shallow stylized blood splatter and DMC combos, and the game manages to be unpleasant in wholly new ways thanks to a plethora of explicit and depraved sexual innuendos that decorate most of the script. And yet Yoko Taro manages to find some life in this corpse of a videogame.
In contrast to Drakengard 1, the more you play, the more the game is willing to open a breach and extend its hand to you, regardless of how restrictive its polygon walls can be, and the jaded psychotic nature of its characters manage to somehow open up to reveal a sad, broken world pleading for death and change, of any kind. Even if the only language these characters can speak through are murder and sexual desire, they have the power to change the status quo, no matter how childish and naive that sentiment might be or how badly the cards they have been dealt are. And once again, Drakengard asks that you drop your weapons and everything you learned thus far, devote yourself and your time to its insanity, and struggle through one of the most infuriating and mesmerizing final bosses ever conceived. Bashing your head into a wall to the point of despair and defeat might not seem like the optimal way to communicate such messages, but like one character says after sacrificing itself in a bout of inspiration: “This was more human, wasn’t it?”
Drakengard 3 to me is Yoko Taro’s most impenetrable work, and a big part of it is due to the baffling decision to spread a lot of backstory and lore that drastically changes interpretation of the source material through a bunch of paid DLC, novellas and mangas, context that should have definitely been present in the game itself and would have made this a much more accessible and comprehensible entry in his Drakengard oeuvre. A lot of the ideas from Automata seem to have been conceptualized here first, such as being trapped in an endless death and rebirth cycle of bloodshed, a near impossible final boss that has you fighting against the game itself, or a meta-textual force interfering with the outcome of the story, and it functions like an inevitable bridge between Nier’s sorrowful epipath and Nier Automata’s existential rebellion. Drakengard 3 is the perfect 7th gen game, both a symptom of and a response to the dark age of japanese videogames. It just embodies that ethos a bit too much for its own good sometimes.
And yeah, this review was just an excuse to say I beat the Final Song. I did it. It took me 5+ hours to do it, but I fucking did it, and I did it without syncing the game to no video guide either. Hitting that final invisible note by pure intuition after going through hell is the most beautiful thing ever in videogames, and I’m so glad I never have to go through it again.
this has to be the hardest m-rating a japanese game has ever received. its also the best game ever made.....
jk but also i adored every little thing about it. if nier hit on everything i loved and cared about as a person when i first played it drakengard 3 hit on everything i love and care about as a person presently.
the framerate is good. every time it dipped my wife and i shouted "yeahhghhh baby lets go"
jk but also i adored every little thing about it. if nier hit on everything i loved and cared about as a person when i first played it drakengard 3 hit on everything i love and care about as a person presently.
the framerate is good. every time it dipped my wife and i shouted "yeahhghhh baby lets go"
Sometimes I fantasize about Zero coming home drunk and beating me until I feel numb. She kicks me in the ribs until I can hardly breathe. Then she starts to cry and apologizes, begging me to forgive her. She holds me all night as I gently cry into her t-shirt. Please help is there any hope for me ? 🥺
kinda like kid icarus uprising if in between the metahumor they made jokes about cock and ball torture
Developers: Yoko-san, this game is really bad. What should we do?
Yoko Taro: Release it
Yoko Taro: Release it
Who are you to say what makes a game good?
Drakengard 3 is the best game of all time.
Drakengard 3 is the worst game of all time.
These are not one opinion, but two opinions from two people with opposite tastes and different experiences. The gamer's mind is capable of such feats because there is no universal truth when it comes to art or entertainment: There can be only individual truths. One person's great work might seem like utter trash in another's hands; the very same piece could satisfy both. Art has no rules for its creation nor does it follow any instructions about how to appreciate it. This applies especially to video games, where anyone can create anything they want at any given moment and players can play however they wish whenever they choose (barring regional censorship). Games can thus never fail on principle – they will always be fun if you let them.
But is Drakengard 3 supposed to be fun? Yes! It absolutely is meant to be fun! However…
It's just too much fun! And I mean that literally. Playing through this monstrosity was as physically taxing an experience as I've ever had, which isn't saying a lot since my list of hobbies includes doing hard drugs and drinking radioactive cleaning solutions straight from the bottle. That's right: Drakengard 3 is a real-life endurance test. The constant flow of intentionally bad game design and juvenile humor conspired against me in ways that few games have ever managed. Just the other day I woke up thinking about this game and immediately passed out again. That said, if you enjoy challenge then you'll find plenty here in one way or another, and if you don't know what kind of game Drakengard 3 really is then this review may be confusing.
Drakengard 3 is the best game of all time.
Drakengard 3 is the worst game of all time.
These are not one opinion, but two opinions from two people with opposite tastes and different experiences. The gamer's mind is capable of such feats because there is no universal truth when it comes to art or entertainment: There can be only individual truths. One person's great work might seem like utter trash in another's hands; the very same piece could satisfy both. Art has no rules for its creation nor does it follow any instructions about how to appreciate it. This applies especially to video games, where anyone can create anything they want at any given moment and players can play however they wish whenever they choose (barring regional censorship). Games can thus never fail on principle – they will always be fun if you let them.
But is Drakengard 3 supposed to be fun? Yes! It absolutely is meant to be fun! However…
It's just too much fun! And I mean that literally. Playing through this monstrosity was as physically taxing an experience as I've ever had, which isn't saying a lot since my list of hobbies includes doing hard drugs and drinking radioactive cleaning solutions straight from the bottle. That's right: Drakengard 3 is a real-life endurance test. The constant flow of intentionally bad game design and juvenile humor conspired against me in ways that few games have ever managed. Just the other day I woke up thinking about this game and immediately passed out again. That said, if you enjoy challenge then you'll find plenty here in one way or another, and if you don't know what kind of game Drakengard 3 really is then this review may be confusing.
Unpolished, repetitive gameplay and way too many cringey sex jokes (they all have sex, we get it), but this game has the most adorable dragon I've ever seen, so yeah.
zero: boy, fighting those soldiers sure was boring! good thing i have my gang of drag-on draGOONERS on my side!
decadus: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BYq5m1RCcAACLN3.jpg
decadus: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BYq5m1RCcAACLN3.jpg
Basically a potpourri of Yoko Taro's usual ruminations including exploring the inevitable development of a human/machine's moral ambiguity over time, the mechanics of wholesome companionship within these furthest extremes of vulgarity and depravity, how these politics and natural human inclination towards goodwill influence his classic self-destructive scenarios/fantasies when it comes to his attitude toward being an artist, and a metacommentary on how annoying lore hunters online caused an even further self-destructive loop inside his own machine against his will. What this adds up to I can charitably describe as a warning against the fraying of interiority when one tries to mentally blockade themselves from good old fashioned causation, but this is more or less the same conclusion we get from Drakengard the first which leaves Drakengard 3 ending up as the slightest Yoko Taro work despite being the most convoluted, and it's intertextual function in the canon feels mainly intended to poke fun at the intertextuality itself, which is a shame because that aspect is one of the best parts of this series for me (although this could be in response to how fans don't tend to treat the relationship between Drakengard the first and NieR with any respect beyond it's status as the "joke" path). The relative balance of Drakengard the first and NieR is worn away here too far into general pettiness and spite, something that was then overcorrected by the new sincerity vibe of his second slightest game NieR: Automata
The framerate in this game sucks fucking ass, never call for mikahail's help because his fireballs just make the game a slide show. Annoyingly frustrating at multiple points especially when it tries to be self aware about how shit the gameplay is then still makes you do it's mind numbing menial tasks anyways. I'd take Drakengard 1's boring & repetitive gameplay that at least runs well over this shit anyday. Once you get past the layers of shit there is a real gem hidden with this game's story and music. Sadly all the dlc is $35 on the psn store which shuts down in a few months, thanks sony!
I wish Zero would peg me too
all these years of playing love live school idol festival really prepared me for the final verse of this game. This game is pain. This game is suffering. Unfortunately for yoko taro I enjoy pain and suffering; or maybe he’s trying to teach us a life lesson through all this masochistic nonsense. These sex craved characters and their witty two cents they have to constantly babble about as you’re running around. And yet these obnoxious characters all grew on me, I found myself enjoying all the banter, and sexual innuendos. The more I played, the better I understood these people and now I know where they are coming from. Zero gives them tough love and I’m with her on what she chooses to tell these fools. Even the dragon mikhail earned a spot in my love for the game; of course Michael is a lot cooler but that’s a given. At this point I don’t remember what my main point here was, I’m just reflecting on the game. The introduction to this game was very impressive. The characters designs are cool, I like all the personalities of the sisters. It’s genuinely very fun and feel good to play through. Thanks yoko taro, I bought Drakengard 1 after this so we’ll see how that goes.
I hate it!