#DRAKENGARD 3 RELEASE DATE PS2#
It's not even as if the characters or environments are particularly complex or detailed: for the most part, this looks like an upscaled PS2 game. Meanwhile, the frame-rate drops to what appears to be single figures on the thankfully infrequent moments when you call Mikhail in to help thin out enemy numbers, and even labours slightly when you're surrounded by any more than a handful of foes. It's hopeless at close quarters and in cramped interiors you'll be lucky if you get a decent view of Zero, let alone whoever or whatever she's fighting. The camera jerks upwards awkwardly whenever Zero jumps, but that's the least of its problems. It would be more fun and empowering than it is if Drakengard 3 hadn't been one of the most technically inept games I've played in years. Swords are your classic all-rounder, the heavier spears are slower but useful against more powerful or shielded opponents, bracers are ideal for building up combos at close range while the chakra - a violent Frisbee, basically - can target airborne and distant enemies. There's also a rage meter that builds the more blood you spill, with Zero briefly assuming a more powerful and even faster form.įor the most part, it works fine: it's hardly the deepest or most original fighting system, but Zero is quick and responsive, and the different weapons all have their benefits in different situations. It's cut from a similar cloth to the latter, with its square-square-square-triangle combos, adding the weapon-switching of the former and a dash-evade that allows you to quickly dodge incoming attacks or get behind enemies that like to block frontal assaults. On the face of it, Drakengard 3 is an action-RPG, but it plays more like a cross between DmC and Dynasty Warriors with a lightweight levelling system. You can bring two disciples along: a choice between sexual peccadilloes and whose incidental dialogue is the least irritating. At times I was reminded of Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street: this isn't someone who you would ever identify with, but there's something magnetic about their horribleness.
It helps that her bluntness is often genuinely funny, and Yoko gives her some truly savage put-downs. Zero may be irredeemably horrible, but at least she's consistent. Dozens of games have us controlling sociopaths who think nothing of gunning down or slicing up hordes of opponents that lie between them and their goal, but then they expect us to empathise with these so-called heroes. Many will find her abrasive personality repellent, and I can't blame them, but for me there's something refreshingly honest about playing a mass-murderer whose actions aren't excused or justified. "I don't hate you," she tells one sister, "I just want to kill you." Soldiers cry out in terror and her sisters beg for forgiveness, but Zero slices them apart without pause. She's hostile to everyone she meets - even poor, put-upon Mikhail - and ignores any and all pleas for mercy. Assisted by a juvenile (and oddly incontinent) dragon named Mikhail, she tackles them in reverse numerical order, cutting a bloody swathe through each deity's armies. That's chiefly down to our protagonist Zero, who is on a single-minded quest to kill her five magical sisters, ostensibly to steal their powers and become the world's only remaining goddess. Drakengard 3, by contrast, plays more like a jet-black comedy and is much colder to the touch. Nier was a tragedy with a viciously cruel streak, but it was also surprisingly warm-hearted, particularly in the developing bond between its protagonists. Much of that, of course, could also be said about director Taro Yoko's Nier, which, with the benefit of hindsight, I rated rather harshly in our 6/10 Nier review. At the very least, it's flawed in interesting ways, and it will surely find a niche audience that is prepared to defend it to the hilt. And yet at the same time, it's weirdly fascinating for all its faults, this is a game that tries something different - several things, in fact - and comes close to pulling them off. It's baggy, inconsistent, repetitive, scrappy, tonally iffy and beset by a litany of technical failings.
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