As long as Yoko Taro doesn’t kid us, it looks like another NieR game is on the way. Whether it’s “NieR 3” or “NieR 4”, if you count reincarnation (and you should, Because it seems that Taro himself does), no one knows yet, although recent hints suggest that the word “repent” might fit in somewhere. It’s all good and dandy and maybe even exciting and I love Neil! But (and there’s a but, of course), the thing I’d most like to see from Taro is a return to his lesser-known but equally interesting series Drakengard.
If you’re a die-hard Nier/Tarot fan, you probably already know about the Drakengard series of games, a short series of games that Tarot actually only made two-thirds of, but It also has a close connection with Nier itself. I won’t get too deep into it, but believe it or not, Nier is actually a spin-off of the original Drakengard, set in the future during one of its endings, which is extremely difficult to unlock. This ending is particularly wild, as the entire game has a medieval setting, but for some reason it climaxes the events of the original Nier by seeing the dragon-riding protagonist dash to modern-day Tokyo.
Drakengard 3 – Trailer released
Drakengard did receive a sequel, but Taro had nothing to do with it, although he later returned for Drakengard 3, which was released in 2013, three years after Nier. Unfortunately, 3 ended up receiving mixed reviews, mostly due to severe framerate issues, although the gameplay was generally well-received – even if no one liked the dragon riding aspect.
I’ll admit that Drakengard 3 didn’t always turn out the best, but for the most part I thought it was bolder than Nier, and the game’s ending did work, but the overall formula did feel (deliberately) ripped off “Ocarina of Time”. Drakengard 3 is a strange game in which you play as Zero, a no-nonsense, god-like being who, along with her anxious dragon partner Mikhail, seeks to kill her five sisters. It’s strange, it’s surprisingly hungry, and it’s also full of potential that never really comes to fruition.
One of the biggest criticisms of the original NieR was that the game’s combat was lackluster, something that was arguably rectified in its sequel Automata and later re-released as Replicant version 1.22. Arguably, then, Nier has a chance to shine two more times, and as mentioned earlier, it seems likely that it will do so again with some kind of sequel. However, Drakengard feels like it will forever be stuck with only three games, even though characters like Zero have actually appeared in gacha pulls in the mobile game Reincarnation.
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It’s not that the references to Drakengard 3 weren’t found, you’ll see them in Automata if you paid enough attention, but I did wish the fantasy elements could flourish in a way that they couldn’t. Riding a dragon is a forever cool concept, and maybe with the benefit of modernity, some way can be figured out to make it actually work and even feel smooth.
One of the most interesting aspects of Drakengard 3 is its more overt acknowledgment of the game’s alternative endings, known as branching endings. This is actually the entire frame-up following the game’s first ending, where the space-hopping robot Accord leads us forward. In fact, the whole reason Accord travels across different timelines is to find a world where everything is happy—ironically, it’s almost like looking for potential. Potential futures, potential solutions, potential conflicts, all of which feel like Drakengard never really observes.
I admit it’s entirely possible we’ll see some of these return in future NieR games, after all this is the more popular and successful IP of the two, so I don’t really expect Drakengard to fully return (especially after How risk-averse the gaming industry is these days). So no matter how it happens, I hope we get to see more from the world of Drakengard, even if Taro has to be a little sneaky about it.
