Drakengard 3, PS3, Review Article for Front Towards Gamer by contributor Casey DeFreitas. Considering the disbandment of developer Cavia, I never expected another installment of the Drakengard series, the hack-and-slash, aerial combat hybrid I fell in love with when I was a middle-schooler. But here we are, ten years later with Drakengard 3, a prequel set 1,000 years before the first. I loved Drakengard for its dark, gritty themes and cast of delightfully disturbed characters, catapulting it far and away from any other stories JRPG’s were telling at the time. To be fair, Drakengard 3 retains all of this, but it’s blurred by layers of crude bathroom humor and sexual innuendos. If Drakengard explored themes of immorality, Drakengard 3 explores themes of sexuality, albeit in a much brasher manner. Admittedly, this put me off that the creators would turn a serious franchise that examined the pitfalls of humanity into an even more blood-soaked absurdity now basted with dragon excrement. But after a few hours of resisting the abrasive humor, it grew on me, and I found myself smiling at the raunchy dialogue instead of recoiling from it. I just had to stop expecting the tone of the original and accept Drakengard 3 for what it was, which should be decidedly less tedious for a player who didn’t experience the first. Luckily, you don’t need any knowledge of the first two to understand the plot of the third. In Drakengard 3 you play as Zero, the eldest of six songstress sisters, known as Intoners. The Intoners, worshipped as goddesses, can use magic and summon “angels” with the power of song. Legend has it that the Intoners descended upon the world from the heavens and saved humanity from conflict, leading the world into a period of peace and harmony. Zero interrupts this serene era by embarking on a quest to kill her fellow sisters and end the Intoners for good. Enlisting the help of her impressive and powerful white dragon, Michael, she challenges her sisters, who promptly defeat her and kill Michael in the process. Fast forward a year later, and Zero has replaced a severed arm with a mechanical stand-in and has a mysterious pink flower blooming out of her eye (and you literally never figure out why it’s there). Michael has also apparently been reincarnated into Mikhail, a much less badass dragon with the voice of a child and the mind of an innocent pacifist. He’s a stark contrast to the bloodthirsty Zero and the devious disciples they pick up on the way. These disciples remain one-dimensional: you have a sadist, a masochist, a sex-crazed old man, and an air-head. Though singular, they do make for entertaining banter between and even during missions, which aroused numerous smiles and even a few laughs. The only characters who do get any sort of development are Zero and Mikhail themselves, yet Zero’s motives are hidden throughout more than half of the game — and by half the game, I mean half of the entire game, not just half of the story up until the first ending. The narrative can be a bit difficult to understand at times, but the mystery surrounding Zero’s intent and background kept me fairly driven to continue well beyond the first, second, and even third ending. What kept me more driven was the ability to collect more than forty different weapons and switch between four different types in the heat of combat. Like the original, each weapon has a different design and its own backstory that’s unlocked as its upgraded, a unique extra. Unlike the original, the weapons don’t have individual magic attacks, but there is a large variation of weapon sizes, speeds, combo animations, and combo finishers. Even more unlike the original, ground combat is awesome and fun. This fluidity wasn’t apparent at first, with a single unevolved sword with limited combos, but once I upgraded a weapon I liked to level two, I became infatuated. Along with the standard swords, you unlock combat bracers, spears, and chakrams, which can be switched out in real time, preserving the fast-paced action. Already faster and stronger than any soldier you’ll encounter, Zero can also enter “Intoner Mode” when you rack up enough combos, making her harder, better, faster, stronger, and invincible for a short period of time. This is pretty sweet, and helped me get past some tough spots and dash through areas I didn’t feel like dealing with. Fighting can be a bit repetitive at times--usually when attempting a timed side-quest--but the variety of enemies I encountered and the variety of weapons I could use on them kept things interesting. Unfortunately, a wonky camera and poor targeting system disrupt the flow of combat often enough to be bothersome. It was incredibly discouraging to be seconds from completing a timed challenge, only for the auto-target to lock on to a foot soldier 20 feet away when I was being attacked by a much more threatening ogre just two inches from my face. Another setback is an occasional, but severe, drop in frame rate, a problem I’m very familiar with from playing the PS2 Drakengard and Dynasty Warriors games. As a PS3 title, I assumed this would have been solved, but the only solution I found is to force your PS3 to a 480p resolution, which I didn’t want to do. That said, Drakengard 3 doesn’t look like a PS3 game released this year. The environment textures are flat, non-detailed, and bland, making the whole game look like a launch title, or maybe even a PS2 game with an HD makeover. The main characters’ models are the only graphics that look decent. To me, it looks like a budget hindered the ability for Drakengard 3 to reach today’s technical standards, but this is something I was able to overlook for the most part. What I couldn’t overlook was the terrible aerial combat. You take control of your dragon, Mikhail, at seemingly random occasions. These times are rare, which at first left me disappointed because the aerial missions reminiscent of Panzer Dragoon and Ace Combat in the first two games were easily the best parts. This is not the case in Drakengard 3, because riding Mikhail is not a good time. Mobility is incredibly limited when on rails, and the dragon is clunky to control whether in the air or on the ground. But even so, fighting foot soldiers and even larger monsters with Mikhail is mind-numbingly easy. Luckily, 80 percent of the game takes place slicing through foes on the ground, with Mikhail simply offering support. It irks me that Drakengard 3 greatly improved ground combat, which the series desperately needed, but then turned around and totally shafted a mechanic it already had on point. Por qué no los dos, Drakengard? As on overall experience, Drakengard 3 was fun. It isn’t very difficult and it has quite a few flaws; there’s plenty to do, and it’s entertaining enough to stick with it until the end. Like its direct predecessors and spiritual sibling Nier, Drakengard 3 is not for everyone. It’s definitely on the weirder end of the spectrum, but fans of fast paced hack-and-slash games with a dark sense of humor will enjoy slaying thousands with Zero and Mikhail. Oh, and for you Nier fans, the music is fantastic. 7/10 .