Long time ago, in a generation of consoles far away, there was this little game called Drakengard which was a mixture between an action and an rpg very similar to Dynasty Warriors, with large areas to go, the ability to ride the dragon and many, MANY enemies to kill. The plot was dark, the characters likable yet questionable, and one of the endings - ending A - would lead to a sequel,Long time ago, in a generation of consoles far away, there was this little game called Drakengard which was a mixture between an action and an rpg very similar to Dynasty Warriors, with large areas to go, the ability to ride the dragon and many, MANY enemies to kill. The plot was dark, the characters likable yet questionable, and one of the endings - ending A - would lead to a sequel, Drakengard 2, which is a much lighter in tones than the first game.
However, it's ending E that would lead to the eventual creation of a little title that not many knew, probably one of the most curious games I ever played. That game is of course NieR. Yeah I guess Nier Automata also exists but now I digress.
This is all to say how much I LOVED the Drakengard series: I played the first 2 games so much, i got all weapons, got all endings, and everything. I was so in love with the series that I only bought NieR later because I had no clue it was tied to the series! Then there's NieR automata but we don't talk about that.
So it pains me to say that Drakengard 3 is, to put it nicely, complete garbage.
Let's start with what could be a good point: the story is interesting and I really enjoyed the character interactions and overall dark humor behind it. I was afraid that the silly humor would ruin the overall dark and gritty and bloody theme of the game but I'm glad it didn't: between swear words and a sex joke there was legitimate care and talent in making the game flow greatly and I'm amazed how it works well. I was NEVER tired of the dialogues, I was NEVER tired of the swearings and highly offensive regards but that's because it KNEW how to pace it, it KNEW how to make each sentence work against another. I'm just amazed how well it worked and I played this game non-stop for over 10 hours because it was just that entertaining. Why can't Square Enix be like this anymore...
The plot itself, not to go into spoilers, is a prequel to the original Drakengard which means nothing can be lost if you start with this one, however one thing I felt it wasn't a good choice was to sell tons and tons of DLC that serves as prologues for the events before the main game. We wouldn't see this kind of greed until ff15 but it's sad to see it started from here...at least I think so.
But beyond the story, which is interesting and definitely the best (and only) good thing of the game, it's EVERYTHING ELSE that completely takes the cake and makes it from a potential nice action game from a complete wreck.
How can I start this nicely...the controls are godawful, probably one of the worst controls I've had in a long time and I played enough games to know that this is bad enough that I can't believe they let it go. It's so bad that not only it often doesn't connect hits but it also locks you in one direction, making you go to another direction despite you're pressing another. I also want to mention how IT CANNOT BE CUSTOMIZED, how it randomly opens the menu, how the lock on always disappears, how there is 2 buttons for weapon swap for no reason, how the intoner mode doesn't always turn on because R3 and L3 don't always work, and many many many MANY more issues, i think it's safe to say that more attention to the controls would've made a world of difference.
When you make a game hard because of bad controls, you made a bad game.
But oh no, there's more: if controls don't bother you there's the technical issues that will definitely poke your eyes and probably blind you. The game is quite literally broken on many levels: the game is supposedly on a 30 fps, which was normal back then for most action games too, but it DROPS CONSTANTLY and there are times that I can safely say it went below 10 fps to the point of a slideshow. Not only that but the camera is completely uncontrollable and will often get stuck on walls and make you see nothing of the enemies. It also makes other sections of the game, like the dragon ones, just a pain to sit through.
This is all technical stuff that could've been fixed but guess what? Square Enix did exactly diddly squat! I'm currently playing the 1.00 version which means it never got patched - AND YES, I did check for updates and there are none! On top of that, IT'S DIGITAL ONLY FOR EUROPE! They absolutely did NOT care to release it here in retail! How scummy can you **** be?!
In other words, this game was dead on arrival and Square Enix killed it before even release. It's clearly it was rushed to meet a deadline and they had no expectations that this game would be any good so they released it without even testing it properly.
It would take 3 years for Nier Automata to give some justice to the series and give it some recognition to old and new fans for the series but considering what we got I would have preferred to let it rest.
Do I recommend it? Absolutely not, don't buy this game: I got it on discount and I still feel it wasn't worth it. Watch a longplay and save your money and your patience.… Expand
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