excuse u
When seen at the time and had no idea that Nier would happen it could only be seen as a joke and is a pretty good one. They story is Taro designed it in secret and let as few as people see it as possible and added it in before shipping.
I guess what I’m saying is I’d love to read Drakenguard the multi volume novel where all the ideas get some room to breathe.
I’ve skimmed a few synopses of various side material but most of them sound like they dance around the stuff I want more of and alot of them are hard to place when they start mixing with Drakenguard 3’s mess of a time line.
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my hot take is that in most instances guilting the player for continuing isn’t a super interesting or meaningful direction for games to go. the violence isn’t real, except within the game system (which isn’t to say that it’s immaterial). the player activates and engages the system, but doesn’t meaningfully determine its course and isn’t morally culpable for its continuation. drakengard 1 is more interested in the game than the player in every way. that indifference might feel unpleasant or ineffective, but i think it’s intentional.
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I don’t think guilting the player is a particularly strong technique either. The ballroom scene in Nier is effective because it shows Nier to ultimately be a tragedy and one we can see in lots of conflicts. Nier (the guy) even after learning what shades are doesn’t give a fuck presumably because of a combination of being in too deep, his desire to save his daughter and because he doesn’t really have much else going on in his life. The same motivations can be seen in other spheres of human tragedy, genocide or no.
Edit: to clarify with my fascination with the language theme. Not revealing the shades’ true nature, I think, is mainly done to align perspective between the player and player character, not to make them feel guilty. If the player knew what was happening from the start the game wouldn’t really have the same dramatic pay-off. We don’t get the language barrier is a barrier until it doesn’t really matter any more. Kaine is just as complicit in not telling anyone what’s actually happening (thanks to her bilingualism) and the player isn’t guilty for that in any sense. Kaine clearly just doesn’t want to talk about it due to the stigma she’s received for not being fully human. I think she’s also implied to have strong feelings for Nier and doesn’t want to ruin that relationship (she doesn’t have many others. Drakengard actually chooses this latter choice by making Caim and the cast all clearly messed up almost as soon as they’re introduced. But the payoff there is revelling in the feeling this gives the world.
Ending E in Drakengard feels like a natural progression since the only way you can mess the world up further is to mess up other worlds.
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I couldn’t keep playing because the cursor has a minimum mouse movement threshold to move.
The game gave me a sniper rifle (cool) but then I couldn’t actually use it to hit shit.
I might try again just using a saturn pad lol. The game is probably better that way, honestly.
worth crossposting here
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Wasn’t a huge fan of Daemon x Machina but this is very encouraging news. Hope they keep things unusual and don’t chase nostalgia.
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