I haven't reviewed a game in a long time, but Drakengard 3 requires a cathartic exposition. Let's get the good out of the way, since that's a short list:
The Good
- Good voice acting other than Mikhail, and I can forgive the lack of lip sync on a Japanese game.
- Tight controls
- Challenging combat
The Bad
- Death by DLC - even years after release, you could still spend more than the game cost in DLC, much of which seems like it would actually help the story.
- Highly repetitive gameplay - how many times does one have to clear the room of 30 soldiers and 2 ogres?
- Forced completionism - if you wanna see it all, you have to grind since money and materials are rewarded scarcely
- Mikhail's voice actor - do we seriously have to listen to a little kid the whole game? Couldn't he *ahem* develop each time he evolved?
- Glitchy - I fell through the ground once and fell forever. Could not restart mission, had to reset the system.
- The abusive way Zero treats Mikhail is a little disturbing
- The unnecessary vulgarity - I'm no prude, but obscenity for it's own sake gets old fast.
- Bad graphics - seriously, it looks like a PS2 game, and not even that great of one. Frame rate stutters and jagged edges abound. I played Red Dead Redemption just before Drakengard 3, and the former looks so much better despite being 3 years older.
- Long load times - especially in light of the prior gripe, this is unforgivable.
- Bad endings - look, I know things don't always work out in the end, but if you're going to do a tragic ending, do it right. Very unsatisfying.
- That last boss fight on Branch D - artificial difficulty is a sin, especially when it's in the form of a loooooong game of Simon Says with no midpoint, no way to skip the opening cinematic, and no hope of getting those last two chimes in the goddamn dark. This tells me the dev team ran out of money or time.
- Confusing story, which brings me to...
The biggest of the Bads is the wasted potential. This wasn't some one-off release from a no-name publisher. This was Square working with established IP. And what did we get? A hot mess that doesn't know if it wants to be a serious tragedy about averting the world's end or a steaming pile of fan service. I don't know if the Japanese origins explain the wacky approach to what should have been epic (I know Final Fantasy has been running off the rails since X), but in the end I just forced myself to finish the game. Do not waste your time on it, only weep for what could have been.