This is the worst game I have ever played. But also the game that reminds me games are art and they are experiences as much as any other art form. Weird comment right? It's weird but this game uses it's faults to it's advantage knowingly or not knowingly, maybe subconsciously? This is also a game that impossible to get rereleased in this "modern", "sensitive" times with it's grotesque/violent/disgusting content. Let me explain:

This game have the worst broken combat mechanics in the square enix catalog(I mean from what I played from them this is the worst one). I mean the ground combat part. Not the dragon riding part(there is a ace combat like free dragon riding missions that actually works). Ground combat is broken because: There is a guard button for example, it's also a lock on button and it's just doesn't work and does it's own mind and keep changing it's locked enemy itself without your request??, there is a dodge button and it's satanicly designed to change your camera view without your request and destroy your flow!?. Attacks are boring and repetitive with there is only one 3x combo with optional explosion attack at the end. Also there is magic that does a room kill move or a protection buff(depending on your weapon). There is multiple weapons and playable characters that feel the same with only difference is their range, magic and damage values. Also not just that, you can't play on easy to cheese the game if you want to get all the endings, because last ending is exclusive to side content completion that can only be done on normal difficulty. Do you want to know what is side content completion? Getting all the weapons in the entire game that have satanistic requirements like, do this mission but on 2 minutes! Or kill 500 enemies in 50 minute. Or find that hidden enemy in the shitty arena that is impossible without a guide. Sounds fun? No. It's not.

But also story is genius with going insane with the same pace as the player, you go insane as the story go insane. You do messed up shit, as the story does messed up shit. You somehow connect to characters in a spiritual level? Now for those who don't know, this game have probably the darkest characters and the darkest story Yoko Taro wrote in gaming (actually mangas are on another level to the point of torture p#rn but that's beside the point). To explain myself, I want to give the beginning of the story.

Game starts as the main character fights against an evil empire to protect his sister, but gets injured and finds a injured dragon like himself. To live, he does a pact(something like sharing life force I guess?) with the racist dragon that hates humans but wants to live as well. Then after we continue slaughtering the enemies and arrive at our sister's place. Then we get a cutscene that shows the main character Caim stabs a soldier over and over and over again even tho soldier is dead already. Then we realize, the character we play as isn't sinless as the enemies we fight. He is a pyschopath.

And the story continues. You go insane, characters you play go insane, story goes insane, enemies become more grotesque, hope disapears, despair inflicts and you start to connect with the game. A cycle that goes to infinitum. A repetition that never ends. Characters that are maniacs. Disgusting violent actions you take to progress.

And in the end, you just want characters to kill more and more. Because you are a psychopath yourself now aren't you?

Because. You. Are. Insane.

I think... I may be shelving this because im starting to gather that getting overwhelmed by enemies and getting wombo'd is rlly not fun
which is a shame because i Was having fun and i think the setting and music are good, i like the scale of the fights and even the swapping from dragon to foot was fun
until i kept getting blapped out of the sky and was forced to adapt more to ground combat again..
which then made me think "Oh.. does this game expect me to grind or am i just That bad right now and need to dodge more" a question that i cant help but meet with a frown because i dont think i could tolerate it and i dont wanna sit bitching through the game all the way through just to say "I dont get it" because people also seem to share the sentiment with me but idk! thought id be different on this because there was a lot to like from what i saw early on

Games are often limited by their need to be “fun.” Despite video games being the only medium with interactivity—an aspect that should be ripe for all kinds of exploration—we are mostly limited to things that are entertaining on some level to our brains. Games are not designed for sadness, hatred, anger, or a litany of any other emotions as their primary motivators, as these are antithetical to the “fun” designers desperately need to find and the conventionality that audiences crave, despite their protests otherwise. Further, games are often heavily concerned with coherency and reaching standards of “good”-ness. That is: a story should be mostly understandable on some level; production values should be high and apparent; and said production values should contribute to the player’s enjoyment in some way. Games desperately want to be liked, and so they cling to these ideas in the hopes of audience validation.

Drakengard cares not for any of this. You roam through gray hazes of environments, cutting down endless hordes of mindless enemies, in the hopes of increasing in power until the very act of playing the game becomes meaningless. Broken music accompanies your rampage while characters shout vague probings of human nature and desperate attempts to contextualize the battles you fight. Your brief respites are inscrutable cutscenes that are meant to tell some semblance of an utterly hopeless and miserable story as you are flung wildly from beat to beat with little in the way of build-up or logic. You descend further and further into this hellish nightmare of absurd imagery until, miraculously, it ends. You awaken from your fugue state and attempt to comprehend what you’ve experienced.

Well, here’s how I see it: Drakengard has the unique ability to radicalize the player so that they completely reconsider what video games are and what they value from them. Whether this is intentional or not on its part is entirely irrelevant—although its brilliant soundtrack lends some credence to that vision—because it is such a fundamentally bare and broken experience that the only option is, ultimately, to project onto it. Drakengard martyrs itself in order to question the very construction and presentation of video games. It hands you the scalpel and then slowly brutalizes itself to death in front of you, with the hope that whatever conclusion you come to in the autopsy is a valid one. There’s a disturbing smile on its face that invites you to revel in its self-destruction.

Incredibly underwhelming tbh.

The gameplay isn't unbearably frustrating like some other games, but it's just so boring and repetitive. I was able to get through the game but I think I'd just reached the point where I never wanna play it again. The story and characters really aren't anything special either. There's striking imagery and the game is certainly dark, but none of the characters really get any significant development. Inuart is probably the most interesting character, but his arc is still straightforward and predictable. The most disappointing aspect of the game is Caim. I can see where they were going with Caim’s depiction, but I think making him mute was a big mistake. Because of it, every other character just keeps telling you how terrible of a person Caim is while he just makes the same uncaring expression. I feel that this game would’ve been incredibly impactful if I played it during its initial release. By today’s standards however, it comes across as loud and edgy for the sake of just upsetting the player. As someone who likes getting the perspective of a series, I’m not mad I played it, but I also wouldn’t really recommend it. Having played NieR Automata prior, I know how great Taro can be as a director. Unfortunately, his first outing didn't really work for me.