Three’s Chapter Impressions

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** Please beware of spoilers as follows… **

So, I just finished Three’s story DLC and… I must say this is the weakest of them all thus far.  I know I was concentrating more on the battles than listening to the voiceovers but my feeling is that…not much happened here.

For some reason, some of Three’s creations started acting out, basically becoming monsters and thusly One instructed Three to dispose of them. In typical Three fashion, she sluggishly fights against her own creations, which on first glance, seems just a tad bit underdeveloped.  The key to Three’s chapter is discovering what the most important thing is to each character, both Three and Octa.  For Three, I believe her most beloved thing is her dolls, the ones that she spent countless hours creating from nothing… and to have to destroy them in the end–by her own hands–was more than she could bear. This is what eventually broke her and drove Octa to seek asylum with Zero.

Her stages have a couple JUMPING areas that I completely suck at.  No matter what game that might use these moving platforms and areas where you have to jump juuuuuuuuuuust right;  I’m no good at it and it often takes me several times out of pure frustration to actually succeed. I was sort of hoping there would have been some more PUZZLES rather than simply jumping areas in her chapters, though.  During the normal run of the game, it seemed like she really liked puzzles and riddles, too, so it’s a little odd that none of that made its way into her chapters.

The multiple round enemy battle was the majority of her stages.  There were no minor enemies spread throughout her stages.  There were just a couple rounds of enemy battles.  Kinda strange.  I really have no idea why they incorporated this aspect into her chapter.  Does it have anything to do with her?  Was it just random, to change things up?

Also, Gabriella makes an appearance in one stage… and she says that One instructed her to help Three… but I thought it was the most awkward thing ever.  It just felt like a ploy through and through; an easy way to change up the style of battles.

Three is incredibly slow.  Yes, it is fitting with her character, but in battles, it’s majorly annoying.  Her scissor-swords are quite a bit shorter than a normal sword, so many times when you attack an enemy, you miss because the strike doesn’t actually reach the enemy.

Three’s conversation with Octa was pretty funny, though, as usual. Octa’s always on his rant about JOY this and JOY that…and his utmost desire to have his JOY with Three.  I think this is his real reason for leaving Three… because she was his most beloved thing… and she was unable to give it to him.

I know my initial reaction to Three’s chapter is pretty negative, but this was just a quick run-through.  I’m sure my opinion will change the more I play these stages and level Three up to unlock her memories.

Here’s a list of the various titles within Three’s chapter:

 

Chapter Three

Verse 1 – Ogre

  • Stanza 1:  The Playful Utahime
  • Stanza 2:  Playing a Mischievous Prank
  • Stanza 3:  The Beautiful Warriors
  • Round 1:  Phanuel  [Disc 2, Track 2]
  • Round 2:  Raphael  [Disc 2, Track 7]
  • Round 3:  Ezrael  [Disc 2, Track 11]
  • Round 4:  Abdiel  [Disc 2, Track 8]

Verse 2 – Imp

  • Stanza 1:  The Flying Warriors
  • Stanza 2:  The Misfits
  • Round 1:  Almisael  [Disc 2, Track 4]
  • Round 2:  Galgaliel  [Disc 2, Track 10]
  • Round 3:  Zophiel  [Disc 2, Track 9]
  • Round 4:  Gabriel  [Disc 2, Track 6]

Verse 3 – Cerberus

  • Stanza 1:  The Mammoth Dogs
  • Stanza 2:  The Mammoth Warriors
  • Stanza 3:  The Mysterious Humans
  • Round 1:  A Mysterious Spirit – Battle Stage [Disc 1, Track12]
  • Round 2:  Out Come the Crawlers – Battle Stage [Disc 1, Track 13]
  • Round 3:  Arrival of the Guards – Battle Stage [Disc 1, Track 10]

Verse 4 – Gigas

  • Stanza 1:  The Stalking Unease
  • Stanza 2:  The Final Judgement
  • Stanza 3:  The Marvelous Masterpiece
  • Stanza 4:  The Dolls’ Game
  • Round 1:  Raphael  [Disc 2, Track 7]
  • Round 2:  Armaros  [Disc 2, Track 3]
  • Round 3:  Egregori  [Disc 2, Track 5]*

*  Only monster with a unique name: High Gigas.

 

Three’s Memory Title:  Memoirs of a Certain Warrior


Afterword:  Please note that I wrote all titles given to the various stanzas in Three’s chapter. They may undergo more tweaking as I play through the stages more.  

4 thoughts on “Three’s Chapter Impressions

  1. Honestly after sitting back and looking back on the game as a whole it I’m kind of not surprised about your reaction to the DLC. I was slightly disappointed with the game overall. And right now I’m not even disappointed with the technical failures (i.e. crap frame rate at times or crap camera) I’m more disappointed with the lack of exploration. The linearity is the kind of blatant in your face we’re-not-going-to-try-to-even-remotely-hide-it type of linearity for a roleplaying game and it really shows… I think for the Three DLC it’s even more blatant here than in normal gameplay.

    • That’s a really good way of putting it. I really don’t mind about the gameplay goofs and such. The way the game is set up with giving us free reign of playing whatever chapter we want once we complete it once is nice, but… for me, story and character is everything. It really annoys me to get really interesting story plot and only see it be developed halfway.

      • I’ve kind of let go of the annoyance over the intoner sisters not getting much screen time or development in the games since this is a Drakengard game. It’s not going to be like NieR where we get a whole lot of development for the villians like the Android twins+Shadowlord. But I wish the world was explorable since that really helps make it feel more organic. Like all the side quests in NieR (Lighthouse lady anyone?) contributed to the story since they kind of served as insight into what replicant Nier’s day-to-day life looked like: doing a bunch of oddjobs here and there for people. They don’t necessarily contribute to the plot but the narrative of the game is made so much better by them.

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