so, i've finally beaten drakengard 3. sort of. i watched the last cutscene on youtube, though only because i played the final boss for 8 CONSECUTIVE HOURS to no avail. it's easy for six phases and then the seventh is nonsense. inevitable final boss gripes aside,
this is my first yoko taro game. that's probably not the intended experience, but i'm ultimately glad i started with it. i haven't been charmed by something so quickly since the first time i saw botw.
many before me have complained about the "shitty" combat of the drak series and i'm here to tell you that, while i cannot yet speak for the first entry, i enjoyed all the gameplay in this here game (update: i have now played the first game and i like the combat). sure, there's nothing particularly deep about the fights, yet it always stays fun, even in the longer ground battles. everything is so visceral and punchy that it doesn't matter whether or not the hacking and slashing require any brainpower. look at that massive, colorful sword animation. look at those cannon fodder soldiers. listen to their screams. watch fountains of blood dance and decorate zero's body. if you witness this spectacle and come away with the conclusion of "unresponsive and imprecise" and/or "just ok" and/or "bad on purpose", you have no soul.
but fine, let's say you can't get behind the combat. too spoiled by devil may cry 3*? there is so much more flair to be found here. the music, while a bit more generic-fantasy than other taro titles, is some got damn peak writing. so catchy and it'll just get into your feels. listen to that menu theme. melodrama with a capital M and i aM here for it. the visuals are great too! i've seen a lot of complaints about the lag and poor antialiasing and general technical issues. i get that. HOWEVER, i love the way these environments look. there's a cozy n64 zeldaness to all of these areas, where the color pallettes and suggestion of detail take precedence over realism or big grafix. also much like oot, you'll be revisiting these areas many, many times. i could see this being a turn off for some people, though i enjoyed it a lot. they aren't the greatest environments, but they grew to feel homelike. vibe with your girl zero.
speaking of zero! i love her. so much! an s-tier protagonist, who is a entertaining as she is convicting. shoutout to jaded sociopath women with strong thematic importance. across the board, dk3 is consistently funny, charming, and moving. i never thought i would care about funny masochistic man or funny piss baby dragon or funny angry murder woman, yet the ending had me misty-eyed. great even when out of the context of the (many) other drakenier works.
that's kind of it! i would recommend to anyone looking for a fun game with a meaningful story. onto drakengard 1 i go!
edit: whenever i think about drak 3, i get a little choked up. i've kind of realized the point of the final boss; you are meant to struggle for multiple hours so that when you arrive at that ending, you feel extra crushed. i love this game a lot
*: the inferior game to dmc1