It is no officially the date of Drag-on Dragoon 3’s release, but we’re still hours away from getting our hands on the game, even though there has already been some lucky people out there who have nabbed it early!  I expect my 10th Anniversary Box to arrive sometime in the morning (I HOPE THEY ARE ON TIME!!).

In the meantime, check out the 4th and final track available on the Soundtrack page here:

http://www.square-enix.co.jp/music/sem/page/dod3/

Lastly tonight, I made an interesting image that shows the two different dragons that we have seen thus far in previous PVs and the latest Opening Trailer.

We know from Mikhail’s profile information that has been up on the Official Web site for some time now that Mikhail has been reincarnated… we just didn’t know the details on this until recently.

Of course, this is still sketchy speculation, but from the Opening Trailer that was released the other day, Zero may be referring to the bottom, gray dragon as Mikhail, pronouncing the K.

There is a brief moment in the movie that shows Zero dismounting from the back of the gray dragon and very much drops her guard…  Just then, a giant monster ambushes them and attacks Mikhail, from which you can see splashes of blood briefly move across the screen.  Perhaps this is how Mikhail dies…momentarily, of course.  We know that the souls of dragons cannot be killed, and even if their lives are taken, their soul lives on to regenerate anew.

Later, we see a nice image of Zero surrounded in floating orbs of light as she says “You’ve truly become a magnificent dragon,” implying that Mikhail has just been reincarnated or regenerated a la Doctor Who style.

Hmm!  That’s all for now!  Stay tuned!

Here are some highlights from tonight’s NicoLive Broadcast:

*  They again showed the two TV spot videos, both the Normal and Hard version.  They commented that since the “hard” version is a little more grotesque, that one would play late at night when wee-little kids might not see it.  haha

*  They also showed two variations of the TV spots with Mikhail sounding extremely *happy* at the end of the clip, and the other sounding extremely *unhappy*.  I’m pretty sure both of those were only meant as a gag. heh

***THIS WAS THE HINT THEY HAD TALKED ABOUT DURING THE BROADCAST. IT MAY OR MAY NOT BE SPOILERISH, SO READ WITH CAUTION***

*  Voice actor Peter announced that he will be in DOD3 as well.  He also provided voices for Angelus in DOD1 & 2 as well as Shiro in Nier.  It was a bit of a shock, however, to hear his voice as a dragon named “Mikhael”.  Could this be Mikhail’s parent…or possibly the previous incarnation of the dragon, since we are told that dragons have eternal souls.  Perhaps Mikhael died and thusly became the naive/baby dragon that we know of Mikhail.  Interesting.

*  We were able to see a short gameplay demonstration of the DLC for Furiae’s costume for Zero.  They are also thinking of a proper price for a bundle of DLC costumes including Eris, Mana, and Nier outfits for Zero.

*  Apparently 63.3% of people asked have already reserved the 10th Anniversary Box set.  They also offered extra copies for sale during the broadcast, but were again sold out within mere minutes.

*  Aoi Eir displayed a new PV for the theme song “Kuroi Uta”, which will be available with her new album, slated for release in January.  More info on that later!

Here’s a short clip Sony Entertainment Japan released thus far, the first three minutes of the 6-minute song.  Still excellent quality!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBgOBo-IPwk

*  A nice shikishi signed by Uchida Maaya and Toyama Nao and DOD1 Midgard T-shirt were the giveaways for this week’s keyword provided by Aoi Eir!  Congrats to whomever won those!  😀

*  Last but not least is the *new* trailer, the OPENING MOVIE!  For this NicoLive broadcast, a few scenes and spoken lines by characters were bleeped out, but still…it’s an awesome video!  You can check it out from the Official DOD3 Web site… although it wouldn’t play for me.  Maybe too many people are watching it now!  xD

SE just uploaded the Opening to their official YouTube account:

And here’s the link to the Trailers page on the Official DOD3 Web site:
http://www.jp.square-enix.com/dod3/#/trailer

Square Enix just officially released two versions of the TV spot/commercial that has been airing on TV & on YouTube ads. The version that I nabbed from Nico Douga was the “Hard” cut version…but like many others have already voiced, the other “Normal” cut seems much superior!!

TV COMMERCIAL – NORMAL CUT

TV COMMERCIAL – HARD CUT

For anyone who has tried to use YouTube within Japan, I’m sure you’re are more than aware of the annoying commercials that will randomly play at the beginning of almost every video you try to watch.  There are ways to block these ads with ad-ons to your browsers and such.  But I don’t think you’ll want to miss out on this one commercial:

This is a new 15 second commercial for DOD3 that has been appearing in random commercials on YouTube and also on TV in Japan.  It’s excruciatingly short but we’re able to see a couple new things in here!  Let’s take a look!!

Here’s a crazy image of Mikhail drenched in an eerie, blue light. It’s difficult to see much emotion on a dragon’s face, but with her mouth open wide like this, I can’t imagine it could be due to anything good. I doubt she’s just hungry for grazing cows.

This is such a sweet image of Zero gently caressing Mikhail’s face. We’ve only seen Zero’s harsh side, but this proves that there is a feeling heart inside there somewhere… Maybe this makes her close herself off from others while wearing her unfeeling warrior’s mask.

Here we see a rather sorrowful and/or weak image of Two, seemingly exploding into a ball of light.  We can see many glyphs behind her as well. These look quite similar to the rings of light that surround enemies in past gameplay videos.  Could this be Two’s final moments…?

And here is an image of Five also expelling yellow energy bursts similar to Two above.  We can also see that she may be drenched in her own blood, with a pool of red behind where she stands.  It may not be anything at all, but it almost seems like there are several dark lines (possibly swords?) being thrown at her from multiple directions. Eeek! Poor Five!  This image also calls back to her retched condition that we saw in the 2nd Promotional Video.  *ahem*  Huge sword through the chest…

Holy angry rage, One!  Even though we cannot see who she’s engaged in battle with in this scene, I can only imagine that she’s fighting Zero here. It would be very satisfying to find out that she is the one who destroys Zero’s left arm.

There’s not much detail in this image but it is amazing.  I believe this is Zero, with her hair and white garments blowing in the from a gigantic explosion or fire in the distance.  You can almost feel the heat from that blaze.

And again we see the historical drawings of the five winged Utautai Goddesses with a scary looking head in the center of their circle.  What could that be!?

Lastly, here’s a nice closeup of Zero with her sword raised in defiance while Mikhail looks on from behind. Could this be the paired image with One above?

So, what do you think about this short commercial video?  There weren’t any huge surprises here–how could there be in such a short running time?  But it was very nice to see something new!  It feels like it’s been a long time since we had any new footage, so this was greatly appreciated!

More News and Updates Below!

Nico Nico Live Broadcast #6 – Monday, December 16 at 9:00PM (Japan Time)
Don’t forget to tune into the live broadcast tomorrow night!

Various Time Zones
————————–—————–
Eastern Time Zone 7am
Central Time Zone 6am
Mountain Time Zone 5am
Pacific Time Zone 4am
Australia (Brisbane) 10pm
Europe (London) 12pm

Well, we’re finally down to the final 2-week stretch before the Japanese release of Drag-on Dragoon 3 aka Drakengard 3!  There hasn’t been much in terms of new info out there recently, but there are a few bits that are worth mentioning.

Today’s issue of Famitsu ought to have something in it about DOD3.  I tried to pick it up late last night–just before midnight from my local convenience store–but they said it wouldn’t be for sale until tomorrow.  It was like 30 minutes early! -_-;  Anyway, so I will pick that up on the way to work today and see if there’s anything DOD3 related in it.

As far as Famitsu Online goes, they have another article written about a few impressions after completing the game–Yes, apparently they were able to play the game ahead of all of us!  Lucky journalists!  xD

I will write up a translation for the short article later today, but here are the main points:

Written by Giant Kuroda, Edited by S
http://ex.famitsu.com/dod3/2013/12/05/62/

*  Fast paced battles
*  Changing weapons are easy and don’t upset the flow of battle
*  Missions last around 20-30 minutes
*  Difficulty level is well balanced – Even if you die or find it difficult to complete a stage, it’s easy to level up in extra missions or save strong Utautai attacks for difficult enemies.
*  Fans of the original series or Nier will be quite pleased with this game.

*  Mikhail provides a nice contrast with Zero’s tough personality.
*  Mikhail (probably female) appears to be a great, nobel beast of a dragon… but she’s quite innocent and young-spirited.  She always wants to help Zero when she’s in trouble.
*  Sometimes she is more engrossing than the Utautai sisters.
*  You can freely switch between ground and air battles with Mikhail;  air battles feel more like a shooting game.
*  The freedom of the battleground with the high-speed nature of battles keeps the game interesting and fun!

I will edit this post to add any additional information later. 🙂