Drakengard 3

Drakengard 3 (known in Japan as Drag-on Dragoon 3) is a dark fantasy hack and slash action-adventure video game developed by Access games and published by Square Enix. It is the third and thus far final game in the Drakengard series and serves as a prequel to the first game.

Plot
Zero is one of the six Intoners, godlike beings who can control magic through song. With the help of the young dragon Mikhail, she sets out on a quest throughout the world to murder her five sisters as the reason for her rampage is told throughout.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Due to varying criticisms towards the previous two games, creator Yoko Taro teamed up with a new studio and tried to address several of the criticisms and improve upon them in this game, managing to do so in a variety of ways.
 * 2) Like the Nier games, this one takes a more comical and meta route with it's story to avoid alienating audiences, though it still takes many much darker turns and has plenty of disturbing moments, though still a little drawn back from Drakengard 1. There's even points with Kojima-like meta humor like a fake censor screen calling a scene offensive and another where the audio is censored for excessive swearing from Dito.
 * 3) A very interesting story that takes a tropey revenge plot and does something much more interesting with it as the story progresses, with plenty of interesting twists that give reason to Zero's actions and make the story progressively more disturbing as it continues. It's also pretty well written all around as it contains a lot of lore and history for the world, surprising considering it isn't open world.
 * 4) An insane beginning to the story where it has a storyteller telling the backstory of the world with some noticeable parts omitted until he's very suddenly cut off and stabbed through the back by Zero.
 * 5) Speaking of Zero, she herself is a pretty interesting character who manages to balance edginess with a bit of humor to make her a more endearing and likeable character than some of the previous casts, and her design alone is pretty interesting with the flower in her right eye being a nice new touch. She's also an antihero like many of the others, but less edgy and more realistic by comparison to some of them as well.
 * 6) Plenty of interesting side characters to recruit in addition to the main cast.
 * 7) Dito hates his master Five for being sex-crazed, but ironically is quite a sadist himself, enjoying the pain of his enemies and being sexually obsessed with Zero.
 * 8) Decadus, unlike his master Four, is a closeted Masochist and has sexual fantasies about receiving pain, which even Dito ironically finds disturbing.
 * 9) Octa is a particularly virulent member of the group, being sexually attracted to many things as well as desiring deeper knowledge about the world and a master he feels is more worthy of him.
 * 10) Cent is probably the most normal and insightful of the group as he knows a lot of random facts but also is capable of much deeper insight than the rest as he claims Mikhail will be Zero's downfall.
 * 11) Pretty great graphics for the most part that have plenty of detail in them and a pretty nice color palette as well when needed, a pretty big improvement from either of it's predecessors as the gameplay and cutscene graphics match this time instead of clashing with their differences.
 * 12) The gameplay, which was a main point of criticism for the other two games, is almost completely revamped this time. It plays much less like a Dynasty Warriors clone and focuses on the quality of the enemies rather than the quantity. While you'll still be fighting multiple enemies at a time, you're no longer fighting entire armies and the enemies you do fight are varied and more difficult. The combat is also a lot more engaging as there's a ton of different combos to use with each weapon that have varying degrees of use and you can finally switch between weapons at any point without pausing the game, even through a combo.
 * 13) Lots of awesome and creative boss fights throughout that you often fight while riding Mikhail (though in One's boss fight, you then fight her dragon as Zero), as well as plenty of fun mini-bosses who have different move sets and weaknesses.
 * 14) Great voice acting throughout in both English and Japanese, especially Zero's English voice actress Tara Platt giving a good amount of sardonicism and humor to her performance.
 * 15) Wonderful musical score throughout, arguably even better than some of the other games.
 * 16) Perhaps as a result of several of the above mentioned changes, the game is a bit longer than it's predecessors.
 * 17) You don't have to have played either of the previous two games to fully understand the story, partially because it's a prequel to both and partially because it was developed as a pretty different game altogether.
 * 18) Plenty of optional requests to undertake for money and experience points, and you can replay them as many times as you want while also getting a bonus after every few completions where you fight a boss for extra money (which doubles if you manage to defeat it, even giving "gold soldiers" for another bonus)
 * 19) A huge variety of different weapons that handle differently and that the player can upgrade between missions. The player can also equip 4 different kinds of weapons and switch between them even while performing combos, and each weapon can be leveled up to level 4 with materials and money, with the exception of Zero's Blade which only levels up when Mikhail does.
 * 20) Like the Nier games, you get different endings through multiple playthroughs, amping up replay value by quite a bit and making it interesting to see how the story plays out until the true ending. After the first "branch", there's a mindblowing plot twist revealing that not only is Accord, the one who's been giving you requests, narrating your journey, and who you haven't seen before, is actually important to the plot, but that there's also a time-travel singularity sub-plot with different branches having different outcomes, like how Zero immediately has Cent, but Cent doesn't remember Two despite having been her disciple in the previous branch.
 * 21) The player can even summon either Mikhail or another demon in order to help with battle.
 * 22) Lots of different add-on stories for the other sister's through DLC, as well as plenty of new costumes.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) While the graphics are pretty good, there's some significant framerate issues during gameplay as it'll often slow down significantly, though not to the point where it's game breaking.
 * 2) While the characters are generally quite interesting, some characters like Mikhail can be annoying at times and others like Five can be just plain unlikeable.
 * 3) The voiceover audio sometimes has noticeable glitches in it.
 * 4) The level design is very linear for the most part and kind of similar to the aforementioned Dynasty Warriors despite the much smaller scale. The requests also take place in the same levels but with much smaller areas.
 * 5) The aerial combat sections are a somewhat of a step down from it's predecessors as some of them are just a glorified rail shooter and the controls are much more rigid otherwise. You also can't switch between Mikhail and Zero at will anymore being that Mikhail can just walk on the ground when available as well. Admittedly, it wasn't perfect in the others, but still.

Reception
Though receiving some mixed reviews from critics like it's predecessors, the game was generally better reviewed by both them and fans alike than either of the previous two entries. The story received a great deal of praise for it's meta tone and inclusion of darkly comical elements which many found to be a welcome change to the series. The story was also well received for it's worldbuilding and characters, with some critics viewing it as the best story out of the three games.

In contrast to the previous two games, the gameplay received a great deal of praise for it's many changes and more unique design, with some calling it a mix between Devil May Cry and Dynasty Warriors, though the dragon-based gameplay was often criticized for it's awkward control scheme and slower pacing.

The graphics and level design received more criticism, though some praised it for being an improvement over the previous two games, others agreed that the graphics were bland and the level design failed to complement the scale of the story.