throughout the entirety of my drakengard 3 playthrough all i could think about was what this game was trying to say. the story just felt like it was constantly building towards
something… it felt like there would be a moment where everything clicked together at once and i could understand the genius of yoko taro. I was confused nearly at every turn. surely these constant, tasteless sex jokes had some sort of meaning? in a metanarrative sense, at the very least? did they fucking test this game on hardware? why does it run so fucking terribly? there is nothing going on to warrant the dips to 2fps. i was just waiting for all of these questions to be finally answered. the more and more i played, the more i thought that this moment would never come. drakengard 3 might just not click with me. it’s great for people who love it, but for me? i don’t know… i didn’t see my opinions changing after playing the last two verses the game had to offer me.

as soon as i started up the final song i knew that it would be the death of me. first an hour passed. then another. and another. then, suddenly, clarity:

ba-dump, ba-dump

the shallow beats of my heart echoed around the room. for the first time in what felt like years, i looked way from the TV screen. I felt an entire lifetime flash before my eyes. i saw a future where i was happy… and then i snapped back to reality. what… what am i doing with my life?

it was in that moment that i finally understood drakengard 3. all i could do was laugh. i get it now… through my hysterical laughter i saw the truth of drakengard 3. why do we play video games? i’ve been doing this for 3 hours? my life is worthless! i should really get my drivers license… i really need to get a job… yoko taro knew these things. the most important thing for a game is the kind of impact that it leaves on the player. the constant sex jokes, the shitty frame rate… and of course, The Final Song. it was all to make ME (the gamer) feel bad about myself for putting up with this terrible bullshit. drakengard 3s thesis is to tell you to fill out a job application and get your drivers license. it’s to make you touch some fucking grass. yes… drakengard 3 is… bad on purpose.

thank you yoko taro. i would’ve never been able to come to this realization without your incredibly gargantuan intellect.

Nocturne is such an immersive experience, I always feel a strong sense of isolation and danger at every moment and like I'm really fending for myself in that treacherous ruined world. It has my favorite turn based combat system of all time, which has so many possibilties that it makes every other JRPG I play feel slightly disappointing. With the way buffs work there's rarely ever a need to truly grind, if you bring a good strategy you can win, at least when doing the normal endings. There are countless memorable and epic boss battles with easily the most consistent lineup in the Megatens I've played. Everything about the game from aesthetics to concepts to soundtrack is just so metal and brutal and raw. Even when it's really putting me through my paces or beating me down again and again, I'm never too frustrated for long because another idea occurs to me and something awesome happens again. I first completed it on the remaster on TDE, and it probably goes without saying that this PS2 version has better moodier lighting. This run I skipped the Amala Labyrinth entirely and felt the vanilla content had a much better flow and variety to it, but TDE has some of the best boss fights and extreme difficulty too so it's worth trying it once. I just adore this game :)