I am a huge fan of Nier. It was one of the few games that I Platinum'd. I hear that Nier and the Drakengard series are tangentially related. Having not played either 1 or 2, should I jump in with this one?

Nier takes place after Drakengard's final ending. The story is bound to be just as messed up as Nier's, but don't expect an open world adventure type game out of Drakengard. It's more like....a sorta linear Dynasty Warriors, I guess?

@steadyingmeat: What I liked most about Nier was its tone and aesthetics. Do those carry over into Drakengard 3? Also, are the first two titles required reading?

I've only played it for about about an hour and it's really hard to describe. I guess the tone would be like if Nier and the T.V. show East Bound and Down got together and made a baby.

That is the weirdest combination, ever. I'm intrigued.

I would strongly advise people wait for reviews and or go to watch video to see for themselves. Neir was a solid enough game, the Drakengards have always been janky as hell, had characters that were less than likable, and had stories that made even less sense than Neir.

I did not know this, but I really liked Neir so I decided to pick it up. I've played like two hours so far and am just not really getting into it. It's definitely not helping that the frame rate is constantly terrible.

Anime lady Kenny Powers is probably the best way I can describe the main character. It's pretty bonkers, but I'm digging it so far.

I highly recommend Kill Your Family: The Video Game to all who enjoy Nier and/or incredibly weird videogames.

However, if you are a fan of graphical fidelity, good camera controls, and sane characters, then I would advise against laying down the money for it. That said I am loving the hell out of it right now.

When I first read your comment, I just saw "I highly recommend you Kill Your Family."

@drac96: I will say this, I had some gripes about the humorous tone of the game at its outset. While that never fully goes away, things do start getting more serious as you get further in. The combat (while still Dynasty Warriors-esque) does get better to as the AI gets tougher when you go for alternate endings. It does not make the best first impression, but stick with it to Ending A at least (end of chapter 5) and you'll know whether or not you want to keep going at that point for the rest of the story.

Drakengard and Nier are different beasts from the same director. The combat and general gameplay in Drakengard is more like Dynasty Warriors but instead of large boring environments filled with hundreds of countless mooks with the same moveset, Drakengard is small boring environments with a handful of mooks with different movesets and A.I. This is broken up by on rails dragon sections. Drakengard is a much more grind intensive game, especially if you intend to max out every weapon.

That said, if you liked Nier for the narrative there might be something of that caliber to be found in Drakengard 3. I say might be because I've not finished it yet. I would honestly not be surprised if someone who only played Nier to go into Drakengard 3 and hate it. It is not Nier 2, it is very, very much a Drakengard game.

I was kinda on the fence about this one, but after watching the video below I figured jankiness be damned! I need to play more things this man is part of...

@donchipotle: ultimately this and the fact that I can't find this game anywhere in stores is what les me to believe that maybe this isn't what I was looking for - which was Nier 2. For all the monotonous gameplay Nier had, there were some hints if brilliance through the peculiar camera usage and boss fights. Drakengard 3 seems extremely mindless from a gameplay perspective, and Nier was already testing my patience.

Having only just bought the game and not played it, I would hesitate to say you should enter the Drakengard franchise because of Nier. The connections are great, yeah, but Drakengard 1 and 2 were varying degrees of terrible. The only situation where you need to get Drakengard 3 is if you, like me, really really love the first game for some god forsaken reason, and need to know. But it's not going to be Nier 2, if that's what you're really looking for. That said, if you haven't played Drakengard 1, there's an excellent let's play of it on the Let's Play Archive by the Dark Id. It's text and screenshot, but it's one of my favorite let's plays of all time. I'd say look into that, and then decide if you want to a part of this awful family.

Do not pay any mind to Drakengard 2. It's an awful game with none of the interesting things that Drakengard 1 had going for it and all of the terrible everything. Avoid it. Besides, if you take Nier to be the true sequel, like I do, then it's not even canon, and let it remain that way.