In Drakengard, the first game, you get to play as a bloodthirsty warrior whose companions are a cannibalistic woman and a pedophile priest.
And with that bit of delightful background, let’s talk about Drakengard 3.
I had no idea what to expect with this game. It’s my first foray into the world of Drakengard, the brainchild of Yoko Taro’s lunacy. In the immediate aftermath if finishing this game, I binged on LP of the first game, the second game and scouring for more expanded universe material. The games eschew so much of the conventional Japanese tropes that it cannot be graded on a normal scale. I could just end the review right here and now but I’ll try my best to sort through this clusterfudge.
You have to experience Drakengard to believe it…
--THERE’S A MONSTER AT THE END OF THIS BOOK--
In Drakengard 3, the world had been saved by the appearance of five beautiful Goddesses who had ended war, famine and ushered an age of peace. Immediately, after this tidbit of info, you get to see blood spatter as you begin butchering enemies.
You play as Zero, the missing sixth sister of those aforementioned Goddesses. For reasons known only to herself, Zero embarks on a bloody journey to brutally murder her sisters with the help of her dragon, no matter how many innocent people stand in her way.
Right at the beginning, you get a sudden case of whiplash. You are slaughtering countless soldiers, each begging for their mommy and daddy, as you work your way to unravel this golden age of peace and destroy the world. Essentially, you’re playing the villain. It’s a refreshing, if jarring, approach to a narrative. I’ll say this, there is a unique thrilling sensation to be had from being playing the bad guy in these stories. As with most stories, there is more to it than meets to the eye and while I did get to understand Zero’s motivation, I never rooted for her.
Zero is a monster and I say this not out of hate, which is what strikes me as such an odd experience, nor out of an emotional response. It is simply a fact. As she herself put it best “Killing is like breathing, it comes naturally.” She’s not a bad character, she’s simply an irredeemable one. Neither a hero nor an anti-hero, she’s a villain at worst and an anti-villain at best.
But that’s what makes Yoko Taro have such a huge following. He deconstructs and spits on traditional RPG tropes. His heroes are murderers but they get their comeuppance in the end. It’s brilliant.
Following Zero on her journey are the male disciples of the fallen sisters she slay. Zero kills her sisters and beds their men. It’s important to note that you do not get to see or hear anything but the rich dialogue leaves nothing to the imagination as everything is spelled out for you.
By far, the greatest character in this story would be Mikhail, Zero’s dragon. In the presence of a butcher and a band of animals, Mikhail’s constant maintaining of the moral high ground comes as a welcome respite to the player. Considering that Mikhail tops the character popularity charts, other people seem inclined to agree.
I’d like to empathize once again that I do not hate the cast. I’ve grown attached to them. They are unique, funny and come with terrific voice work but they are so morally reprehensible that Mikhail’s presence serves as a life raft of sorts.
All in all, Drakengard 3’s storyline is engaging, absorbing and worth your time.
--DO NOT PURSUE LU BU--
The Drakengard series is created literally out of the fusion of Dynasty Warriors and Ace Combat. During the ground sections, you get to play as Zero and hack’n’slash your way through countless grunts. The combat is fast, bloody and visceral and hampered by the frame rate and stuttering. Like in Dynasty Warriors, you can build up your rage gauge and unleash a super state where you can wreck havoc on your enemies. Unlike DW, however, you can instantly switch on between four weapons at any given moment. This lends to some interesting customization as you find yourself instantly switching weapons on the fly to vary your approach. Sadly, the enemy’s difficulty spikes up comes in the form of damage increase to an insulting cheap levels. I would have preferred more pattern based enemies than the same old dumb grunts who’ve had their DMG output cranked up to elevent.
The Ace Combat section involves piloting your dragon. These come in two flavors, on-rail shooting ala Panzer Dragoon and boss fights where you are trapped inside an arena with invisible walls and get to play a slightly awkward version of Virtual-On. In essence, the Dragon sections are incredibly boring, repetitive and seem more like an afterthought.
--SING A SONG, SING OUT PROUD--
Drakengard 3’s voice work is competent and, at times, downright stellar. As a person who prefers his subs to his dubs, I often sneer my nose at dubbed voice but this is one of the few instances where it actually clicks. The cast banters, they give it their all and you don’t find that twinge of embarrassment you often hear when some actors shout embarrassing lines.
Musical tracks are nice and memorable, although there are few and far so they often end up being repetitive. It’s still a very well-put collection of songs.
--SILENCE IN THE LIBRARY--
I recommend Drakengard 3 and would have rated it higher were it not for three problems. One, there is an absurdly unnecessary bit of grinding near the end in order to proceed further. You literally have to grind for hours to gather enough gold to unlock the final stage. There is no narrative reason for this, absolutely none, it’s simply a way to get you to buy the DLC missions which I’m told come with stages for easy gold farming. It is embarrassing to hide the game’s final ending behind a wall of gold grinding when there is no in-game plot explanation for it. Experience grinding? Sure, but grinding for gold? Come on.
The second problem is the abysmal framerate. At times, the game comes to a stuttering halt and the frames move at such a snail pace that you end up watching a slide show. I am not exaggerating this. As of now, there is no word of an optimization patch and judging from one lone patch meant to fix a game-breaking bug, I highly doubt this issue will ever be fixed.
The final problem is, quite fitting, the final boss fight.
I’m putting this out there. It is my belief that you should play this game unsullied and unspoiled, both for the story and for that final boss fight. This is on the level of ‘The Cake is a Lie’ and ‘That Wizard came from the Moon’, you. Simply. Must. Experience. It. For yourself.
I implore you not to spoil yourself via Youtube or other forms of media. It simply must be experienced as it was intended. There is simply no replicating the impact if you watch it now on Youtube.
So go~ buy this game. Grind for gold, sharpen your skills. Experience this strong narrative and let that final, preposterous boss fight wash over you. It’s a life changing experience.
Get ready to embark on a journey filled with monsters, magic, and overpowered haircuts, because this list features the best JRPGs on the PS3.
There wasn't that many. Thanks to the west's criticism. It was definitely lacking compared to every other ps system. Dont get me wrong there were a few good ones i know that.
Nier, Valkyrie Chronciles, Tales games , Ni No Kuni, Resonance of Fate, FF13’s, Ys8 just a few off the top of my head and there were a lot more.
Not nearly to the degree of PS1 and PS2.
@shinoff2183 makes a good point that around the PS3/Xbox 360 gen is when the genre wasn’t as prevalent and began to shy away from turn-based. There’s some standouts for sure, but look at the PS1 and PS2 JRPG library and then compare that to the PS3 and PS4’s.
Theres definitely a decline in a selection of titles. Even worse was the quality seemed to take a massive hit as well. I think Lost Odyssey was a huge standout for that gen when you look at production values, then you look at something like Fairy Fencer on the PS3 and it’s kind of depressing.
But by that generation there was a shift from western developed games overtaking Japanese developed games. Back from the NES to PS2 Japanese games were the cream of the crop… I don’t know what happened but like midway into the PS3/360 life-time they became less so.
Compared to the ps1 ps2 and he'll even ps4 ps3 doesn't hold a candle to either imo. It's also when turn based damn near disappeared. Again thanks to the west's criticism
Crimson I'd put money on the west being at fault, guys like Phil phish, and numerous others at that time were attacking jrpg and Japanese games in general pretty hard.
Ni no kuni was probably my fav jrpg back then , and the blue dragon
Tales got kinda lucky here. When they took a chance and finally brought tales of graces f over west it sold like 250k lmao a lot of jrpgs did 500k or below. Disgaea was worse i think. Bamco decided to keep bringing more games over though.
Demon's Souls, Dark Souls and Dark Souls II were the best RPGs on PS3 made by Japanese developers. Everything else just fell short always. Ni No Kuni was a full package, an okayish game as well. Nier and Drakengard III had superb writing, setting and voice acting, however, the performance was a real drag on the gameplay. Traditional RPG-wise I'd actually say 360 had better JRPGs, and think that Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon were the best traditional JRPGs of the era. PS3 Valkyria Chronicles was okay, but it is closer to an SRPG.
Ryu Ga Gotoku games were also solid, they were still finding their footing and breaking new ground with new cities and formats.
PS3 was the era that almost made me quit gaming and I started playing on PC because I could not find good performance nor games on the system. PS4 got me back into it, and now PS5 is a mix in and between, I just play my PS4 library on the PS5 and rest on PC, just like during the PS3 era. The only new exclusive Sony JRPG is pretty much FFXVI and it is so streamlined and simplified from the normal RPG experience that I can't fit it into the genre anymore. Dragon Quest XII hopefully remedies all of this, but it is just one game.
These new games will all be on PC (while it does take 2-3 years to wait, and 6-12 months from launch to have them patched + fixed by modders) and they perform better on it. The only point in owning a PS5 is to play games a couple of years earlier, but for a hard-working family man like me, the quality of the experience is more important than playing it as soon as possible. And I can't do modern games at 30fps 720p after playing 120fps at 4K. For older games, that's okay.
PSX and PS2 though, those were the days...Still have a massive collections of classic RPGs in CD and DVD format and a phat PS3 to play them!
It's kinda like that, the PS3 generation was a bad time for JRPGs, especially with the Japanese feeling the need to westernize their games, shooters dominating that gen, the racism from western game journalists (it was bad, between G4, Phill Fish, and a slew of others), and the higher development costs...
It really made me miss the PS1/PS2 days of JRPGs, even the quality of half of those games during the 7th gen weren't as good. The 360 tried, but Microsoft's consoles weren't popular in Japan and no body in the West bought a Xbox for JRPGs (despite Xbox having Vesperia, Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey).
" It's kinda like that, the PS3 generation was a bad time for JRPGs, especially with the Japanese feeling the need to westernize their games "
This is when everything fall down and games looks not fun to play anymore except for few games like demon and dark souls for example
Nah. It's a bad trilogy of games
The only reason XIII-2 stands out is because XIII was so bad
When the bar is so low, anything after feels better.
Watching the credits roll on ff16 now it is good but , I'd really like to re try ff13 least it's turn based and would fill that gap for me.
They got better after the first one in the trilogy, not outstanding game though.
Honestly, I played FFXIII a few years after release and maybe because it was after the hype cycle and I knew the flaws of the game, it actually became my favorite FF after VII.
I took off the mini map and never used auto battle and the stuff that mattered to me in an FF was just so well done.
The art and graphics were insane at the time
The music is still special
The story still lingers in memory more than a decade later
The RPG systems were decent
I never really got the hate for it, still have a soft spot for that game inside me.
Only gripe I have with Ar Tonelico 3 is that Saki is annoying as hell whether English or in Japanese. Then Saki's English voice actor became Ionasal on Ar Nosurge she was a little annoying but not as bad. Johnny Young Bosch voicing Tatsumi I thought he did a great job. And Akiko Shikata with her vocals and the music from the games just went hand and hand.
Square Enix suggested they might remaster more games from their storied archives—here are the classics we’d like to see get a new coat of paint.
I would definitely enjoy a Xenogears remaster. Recently finished Legend of Dragoon again (this time with platinum trophy) and would love to dive back into Xenogears with Fei and the rest of the crew.
It needs more than a remaster though, I hope they can turn disc 2 into a full game..
I wonder how they would even handle a xenogears remaster
Would they give it to monolith soft (the original developers) to handle, and more then likely make it a Nintendo exclusive, cue the endless bitching from Sony fans...
Or will they do it themselves, thus not finishing the original story as intended
"... and more then likely make it a Nintendo exclusive"
I would think it'd eventually hit all the platforms much like the Front Mission 1st Remake. That way no one would be 'bitching' regardless of your platform preference lol.
They don't need the original people , they already have the foundation of characters ,world and lore to work off of.
Honestly it's not that big of a game if you really examine it by modern standards , it's how they present everything that makes it seem so grand especially with how epic the story/music is . SE have good writers that could incorporate post release lore of perfect works and such if they ever remade it from the ground up.
Square Enix classics? dont they mean Squaresoft. Square Enix dont make classic games, just games with pretty graphics, no heart & soul, boring & over stuffed with woke Gen Z cockiness.
But while were on the subject i would love too see a remaster of Front Mission 3.
They already announced a Front Mission 3 remake. Doubt they'll also do a remaster.
I will get the remake but i still want a remaster cos with all remakes they lose a lot of the original magic the original game had.
Pretty sure its going to be a remaster of the game, similar to what's been done with the first two games, not a remake.
FF7r is certainly more a remake of FF7 than a remaster for instance.
Now, if they did Gun Hazard remaster...
Yeah they call it a remake like "Front Mission 1st Remake" but I'd consider it more of a remaster as it doesn't change any of the core gameplay but basically just sharpens up the graphics. I think they added a couple of new features also but I still think it's more of a remaster.
Like @Godmars290 suggested, FF7Remake fits the mold of a remake since they 'remade' the game from the ground up, changing the battle system completely, and retelling the story with a lot of different elements added.
But I guess they can call it what they want since they're making it lol.
Exactly. SquareSoft merged with Enix shortly after Final Fantasy X and it has never been the same.
Drakengard 3 is a hidden gem from Yoko Taro that deserves a remaster.
That would be better. I couldn't beat part 3. By the time it came out the combat and gameplay was so outdated it was painful. Also graphically awful.
It would need a full remake, and for that they may as well build the original from the ground up.
The framerate completely destroyed this game. The graphics were pretty terrible as well. Other than that though I quite enjoyed it, the story, characters and overall gameplay was really good. It would definitely benefit from a remaster.
Haha maybe. Either way I still liked the story and characters. Never thought Nier replicant would get a remaster so fingers crossed this game gets a second chance too.
They should remake the entire franchise to be honest. Every single Drakengard game is definitely unique, but overall clunky as hell.
When i was playing this game i realized halfway through that this is a 'so bad its good' kind of game.
The story is preposterous, the dialogue hilarious at times, the motivations of Zero makes Nathan Drake look like a saint. Zero murders people with reckless abandonment. If it wasn't for Mikhail her child-like companion who's innocence makes you smile there is really nothing about Zero to root for.
The music is fabulous & the voice acting pretty good. 'Silence is mine' is a haunting theme that captures the mood of this game brilliantly.
Yes there are performance issues throughout the game but considering it is an extremely low budget & an unreal game running on the PS3 which hasn't had a great track record, personally it is a pass for me.
The game is destined to be a cult classic, with many either loving it or absolutely hating it. However there is a brilliance in this mess that one can't put down the controller once you start playing it.
Let's just say when it comes to that final boss, it's definitely not for amateurs.
Lucky americans got a disc version. Loved Nier and wanted to play this but I really want a disc version. And they even raised the price a while after release here.
I could import from US but it's too expensive at the moment. SE are really missing the ball on this...