Maybe a few minor spoilers

I’ll begin this ‘review’ with a brief mention of the story of this game. I can barely remember game stories, so I already don’t remember what happened in this game! However, Ending A leads to the schizo game so it’s automatically great. Most of the characters are competent and interesting enough for a game of this scale, though you’ll probably get tired of a few of them really quickly. Some of the dialogue and numerous sex jokes feel shoehorned into the game by the funny mask guy who was probably like 14 when he wrote the script. I won’t go into detail regarding the overall story, but it does pay off at the end with a pretty cohesive explanation.

Secondly, the gameplay, which is alright, albeit somewhat repetitive at times. It feels better than Drakengard 1 (obviously), but less smooth than Nier somehow, though it’s definitely enjoyable. You get 4 weapon types, out of which I really only used the spear and the game didn’t really seem to care that much. You could probably finish the game with either of the four, besides the chakram unless you’re fucking insane, which you probably are since you’re playing this game.

If you know anything about this game you probably already know that it’s basically a huge ad for Microsoft PowerPoint, but I can’t stress that enough. When anything happens in this game, Bill Gates won't let you forget it. Did an explosion occur behind you? Please wait until that effect fades away so you can return to your whopping 9 frames-per-second! In some areas, the game gives you the option to call your dragon to help you out, which I realised towards the end of the game, is a terrible idea. This is because whenever the dragon attacks, I can count the frames on one hand! Overall, I’d probably have more fun with the combat in Nier which surprisingly happens to run at a two-digit framerate, and also has a double jump!

Regarding weapons, you can upgrade them! All you need is some weapon upgrade materials and your entire life savings, which you probably shouldn’t waste if you want to get Ending D quickly, since that requires you to get a loan from the government to finance your purchase of every weapon in the game (which is a requirement for Ending D!) To summarise, you need to spend money to upgrade weapons, but you shouldn’t spend money because you need it to buy all the weapons, which you need in order to get to the last ending of the game! The first time I upgraded a weapon in this game was 4 missions before the last one, which looking back, is just funny.

Accord Requests – What the fuck
Apart from the story missions, you can do Requests which are basically the side missions of this game, to earn some extra money/upgrade materials or to increase the amount of healing items you can carry (speaking of healing items, the game never gives you any, you have to buy these if you want them.) These side missions are simple, timed missions in which you collect X amount of material or kill X number of enemies to complete. For the most part these are really straightforward and simple, besides the 3 or 4 which are actually just painful to get through and honestly ruined the rest of them for me. A few weapons in the game are locked behind specific Requests, but thankfully you only need to do two of the painful ones to get one of the weapons required for Ending D, so it’s not as bad as having to do them all.

On a brighter note, after being traumatised by hearing about the weapon grinding necessary for Ending E in Drakengard 1, I expected to have to grind quite a bit in this game to get the money necessary to buy all the store weapons but was pleasantly surprised when I only had to do five or six quests again (which I was planning on doing anyway to pick up some missing collectibles).

It might seem like I really don’t like this game, but honestly, it’s not all bad.
The character designs are quite memorable, the art is great, and the voice acting is very well done.
I played the game in Japanese in an attempt to understand as few details as possible, in order to convince myself that Drakengard doesn’t exist. The Japanese voice acting is really good for the most part, and I’m convinced the Intoner voice actors are actually equally as schizophrenic as the characters.
The music in this game slaps, especially during boss fights with the Intoners. Unlike Drakengard 1, the music in this game shouldn’t induce schizophrenic episodes. Also Eir Aoi and Emi Evans provide the vocals, so it’s once again automatically good.
Some extra mentions:
- If you suffer from heart conditions you probably should NOT do Ending D or any of the Accord missions :)
- If you've been diagnosed with schizophrenia, you can probably use this game as defence in court if you murder someone!
- Michael

Oh yeah there’s this game called osu, and you should definitely pl-