I’m here yet again to talk about Drakengard 3--is anyone tired of it yet? All humor aside, it’s a game I think has been tragically overlooked by many, even with its rough edges, and I can’t stop thinking about it for a variety of reasons. The most recent reason? Its DLC, which I bought a few months ago and just recently got around to finishing. Since this DLC is quite expensive ($30 for 6 new chapters), and since Drakengard 3 is already a game not too many people have “got around” to playing yet, I thought it would be useful to some if I did a little overview/review of what the DLC entails, to help all of you decide whether or not to purchase them.

First off, let’s talk about what you get in the DLC chapters. There is one for each of the sisters, One through Five, and a new prologue chapter for Zero. Each of these chapters is four stages (with one of those being a dragon level) that take about an hour or so to complete in total. You play as Zero’s sisters for the first time, but this isn’t much more than a model swap with many of the same animations. Each of them also have their own weapon, one of the four types from the original game, with its own stats and attack patterns--these weapons also unlock for the main game after finishing each chapter. You can level up each sister but on a much smaller scale that caps at 10. There are a few cutscenes for each chapter, most of them in a new pop-up storybook style that works quite well if not appearing a bit cheaply made. Every chapter also has TONS of in-game VO fleshing out the sister in question and her relationship with her Disciple (including One’s “new” Disciple).

The story of each of these chapters is obviously tailored to the sister it stars, exploring part of their life before the events of Drakengard 3 occurred. Because of this, the DLC does a much better job relating each of the sisters to the player than the main game ever did. Also, many of the questions you would probably want to know after playing the main game are answered in these chapters, either indirectly or during the actual events of the gameplay. The most interesting of these in my opinion are easily Two’s chapter, where you learn how she became catatonic in the events of the main game, and Zero’s prologue chapter, which details how she met her original dragon Mikhail. The rest vary in relevance, some focusing on humor instead of serious backstory, but they are all at least entertaining enough to experience once.

Furthering this backstory information are the Memoirs for each sister. These Memoirs are a series of relatively short journal entries from that chapter’s sister that unlock as you level up the sister in question. Many of these mimic the tone found in each sister’s chapter: for example, Five’s Memoirs are a series of orders she made to a speciality store for things like high-end cuisine, art she cares little about, and even a variety of sex toys. These journal entries pack some of the funniest bits of the entire DLC. Four’s journal, easily my favorite, contradicts her usual “holier-than-thou” tone of perfection with what essentially consists of a burn book towards everyone in her life, including herself. It’s unfortunate that this entertaining writing is stuck behind an arbitrary leveling process, one that forces you to replay the smallish amount of content multiple times, but the Memoirs are easy enough to find online if you’re curious.

The strength of each of these DLC chapters varies greatly from one to the next, for various reasons. You are locked into a certain weapon type for each sister, meaning that you may have to use spears or chakrams exclusively--even if you don’t much care for those types of weapons. Some of the chapters throw a lot of rather difficult enemies at you, demanding excellent execution or a lot of health items (which gratefully carry over from the main game). Most notably, however, is that some of the content just features poor design decisions. Three’s chapter is easily the worst in this regard: it packs in wave-based encounters in each level, has the most horribly tedious dragon level of the bunch, and features an end “boss” encounter that is poorly explained and frustrating. Sadly, her story is also one of the most terrifyingly fascinating, which made me gladly plow through to see how it ended.

There’s a few other problems I had with the DLC as a whole. First, it only reuses levels from the main game in each chapter. I wasn’t really expecting brand-new content, but it still makes the DLC a bit more tedious, especially considering how much the main game already recycled those same levels. Second, there isn’t much replay value to any of the chapters. Odds are, you won’t want to play through the levels more than once: unless you want those Memoirs, which force you to replay several levels to hit max rank and see them all, or a perfect set of Trophies. Finally, the DLC reuses a lot of the humor tricks used in the original--bleeping out lines, breaking the fourth wall, making jokes about platforming sections--and saps them of all their remaining humor. I know the dialog was written by the same people as the main game, but a bit more creativity and variety would have been nice--especially considering the price tag.

While I greatly enjoyed this content as a big fan of Drakengard 3, I do think it’s a bit overpriced for what you get--$30 for a bundle containing all the chapters or $6 a chapter (meaning don’t buy them all individually). In the end, I can only really recommend the DLC to those who loved the original game and want to see more of the humor, characters, or storytelling. The amount of content you get isn’t worth it otherwise, especially considering that the combat absolutely doesn’t hold up well for that much time. I also recommend that you only buy all of the DLC or none of it whatsoever, unless you just really want to know more about a particular sister. The DLC works better as a whole than as six individual pieces.

Hopefully, this closer look at the DLC of Drakengard 3 is enough to tell you whether or not it’s up your alley. For those of you reading this who haven’t even played the original game, give it a try! It’s still one of the funniest and most entertaining games I’ve played all year (link), even considering the often monotonous feel of the gameplay.

I didn't even know Drakengard 3 was a videogame.

I'm feeling ashamed of myself. I went and bought the collector's edition of Drakengard 3, and I haven't even started on it yet. I really need to rectify that, because the Drakengard games are a kind of insane that I really enjoy.

I totally forgot this game even came out.

@hailinel said:

It never goes quite as crazy as original Drakengard (from what I've heard of it, at least), but there's plenty of messed up stuff to see. It's much more focused on sex, since Intoners and their Disciples sleep together to form that bond, so that's most of the insanity it tries for.

Funny enough, I'm the complete opposite of you--bought the game, played through it all and the DLC, platinumed it, plan on filling out the wiki here on GB, and wrote several posts about it.

That's part of why I wanted to keep posting about this in the first place!

I wanted to play Drakengard 3 but i'm not willing to pay £40 for it digitally. (or £32 if I import it) I only tend to buy games new if they have a lot of replay value and as much as I liked Nier, I was done after I saw that story through. It's cool that they supported this game though, even if they did recycle a bunch of stuff.

This game will probably find its way onto my GotY list, so I might as well post something. I played the DLC when it first came out, so forgive me if I get some things wrong.

Five's chapter: I feel like everyone hates Five. If you read the Novel(la?) and don't bother looking up the Sisters beforehand, you'd get the impression that Five was a scatterbrained 300lb nymphomaniac that loves rare stuff, food, and making others uncomfortable with her lewd talk. Turns out that she's like a 12/10 that eats a lot (yet weighs like 140lbs at most) and her lewdness is simply her being more...open with her basic Intoner needs. Too bad none of that matters because every other character in the game shits on her 99% of the time. Poor girl stood no chance. Her chapter isn't very good, but it has a Giant Enemy Crab. Yeah, we're living in the Drakengard Universe.

Four's chapter is better than Five's, but unless I'm forgetting something, it wasn't amazing, either. It's a shame because she was originally my favorite Intoner. She's probably the most damaged of the Intoners from a mental perspective.

Three's chapter lacks creativity in terms of gameplay, but it goes by pretty quickly and I was happy to dig deeper into her mind. If you play the DLC, try to take your time and listen to her ramble about her creations. There's some quality stuff in there.

Two's chapter is fucked. Two's story would fit right in with the fuckery that goes on in Drakengard's(PS2) many endings. It may drag on a bit, but that just makes the Drakengard comparison better. Easily one of the better pieces of DLC.

One's Chapter...is something that I cannot comment on because I didn't play it. I played through all of the DLC in one sitting because I wanted to get all of the trophies. Sorry! Chakram nonsense aside, I'm sure it was totally fine.

Zero had a lengthy Panzer Dragoon-esque section, so I guess that's one thing it had going for it. Oh! It also had Michael, so if you didn't get enough of him in the main game, there's a whole lotta him here. It's pretty cool, yo.

Ranking is:

3>2>0>4>5

One's chapter will probably slide in between Zero and Four because it'd be hard to be worse than Five's chapter.

@flappy: Sounds about right. You're pretty on the ball with One's chapter--it's easily the most uninteresting of the bunch, and has the WORST dragon level of the entire game, not just the DLC.

@wemibelec90: That's a bummer. I feel like One had the potential to be one of the better characters in the game, but she never quite reaches her full potential. I'd totally read a book that expanded on the Drakengard 3 story and all of the details that didn't make it into the game.