Game:

Drakengard 3 (2013)

Duration: 1:50:50

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If ever there was a reason to tout the benefits of emulation, "Drakengard 3" would make a strong case. Developed by the little-known team at Access Games in 2013-2014 (best known for "Deadly Premonition" and "D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die") who took the reigns after the original developers, Cavia Inc., went bankrupt, the game is the final title in the "Drakengard" trilogy, serving as a prequel to the first two. While the series was not particularly popular (evidenced by the more than eight year gap between the last one) in terms of sales figures, it has an extremely dedicated fanbase who have endured a lot to piece together the game's literally insane characters and worldview, and why wouldn't they? Besides being fully functional ARPGs and Musou-lite games at their core, they were pioneered (sans the second game) by the now-legendary Yoko Taro of "NieR: Automata" fame. While the game deviates somewhat from what made the first two games popular and was met with mixed reception, it has improved the melee combat, restructured the dragon segments and cranked up the absurd story telling to an 11/10 while revealing some of the underlying DNA that would ultimately make its way to N:A.

Long ago, in an age tarnished by endless conflict, five beautiful goddesses descended upon the land. The goddesses sang mystical songs that restored peace and harmony to our broken world. The people began to worship these holy songstresses, and came to refer to them as "Intoners." Thanks to the efforts of these Intoners, the chaos of war became a distant memory. And as a result, mankind enjoyed a an age of sweet reverie, basking in the newfound light... or so one would think. In actuality, the world is "ruled" by Intoners, sisters whose songs unleash vast powers and each has twisted and depraved ideals. One day, the eldest sister, Zero, appears with her dragon Micheal in tow, in order to kill her 5 sisters. Why did Zero appear before her sisters? Why does she travel with a dragonkin? What exactly is an Intoner? These questions are just the tip of the iceberg. While much of the plot is initially delivered in breadcrumbs, when the floodgates eventually open and the narrative branches out with spoiler after spoiler and 4th wall breaks... whooo boy.

Drakengard 3 is one of the most violent, unapologetically vulgar and even lowbrow officially licensed games ever released on a video game console and some deem it to be so bad that its good while others deem it a flat out masterpiece of storytelling and surrealism. The game holds few punches and the few that it does are done INTENTIONALLY, not because the devs were concerned with censorship or morality. In one moment, you're trying to kill someone, the next minute, the characters are sharing self-aware banter about the stupidity of puzzles in video games, and then in another minute, they're touching on taboo subjects and highly charged sexual innuendos. Zero, our "heroine", is almost completely unhinged, and so are all the other characters you meet, making few of them really likeable or relatable... but you understand them within the context of the game and this is a trait it shares with its predecessors. Yeah.

The game is basically a series of linear stages and small, structured side-quests that the player engages while making their way to each of the sisters you must kill. Vigilance will still pay off as the player tears through mobs and destructible objects to earn loot to get money, unlocks new items, permanent upgrades, new skills, gain experience to increase in levels, still get bits of weapon stories, and more. The dragon has been restricted to limited aid, certain aerial segments (free-form and on-rails) and boss segments while melee combat has been made more fluid and feels better to perform. Consequently, while the player can combo, unleash a berserker "Intoner" mode and even switch weapons in the heat of battle (creating a cool slowmo effect), the variety of weapons has been reduced to four types. You also gain disciples or "allies", but they do little in actual combat. Both of these things can be seen as a demerit to the overall action, but it depends which you deem more valuable. While it's not the most fully-featured character-action game out there, it tows a line somewhere between "Dynasty Warriors", "Devil May Cry" and the previous "Drakengard" games.

This brings us to the main points of contention... the delivery of the plot, the presentation and... DLC. The game's localization is said to be botched from start to finish in terms of how Yoko Taro wanted the characters to be presented, the presentation is... okay, but plagued with terrible performance issues, and the game's key plot points are hidden behind expensive DLC... if you want all the DLC that does stuff, it costs more than the game itself. However, emulation has removed two of those hurdles... the price of entry and the terrible performance with a 60FPS patch that has made the game much more respected in later years.