Nah, he is one of the Japanese Game Dev Holy trinity along with Miyazaki and Kojima. Also there is a bunch Japanese Game Dev angels like Suda51 and others.
"Suffering defeat after defeat... the man's mind reached past it's limit... breaking down to insanity. But he couldn't stop yet. The man had still a job that MUST BE DONE: To finally beat the directors cruel joke." Nero the Sky: *unsheathes Controller with masochistic intent* "Yokotaro..."
I love how at the end when Kuroi Uta (Zero's theme) properly starts playing all the intoners move with her. Because it's her realizing all the intoners are Herself. They're not people, They are not individuals, They're reflections of herself. And the final dance symbolizes her knowledge of it, they can have their own movement, they can try to be their own people, but at the end of the day, it all comes back to Zero.
I think she did know they were a part of her. It's why her name is "Zero" because without them in her she was empty. They were pieces of herself and the magic that kept her alive. Perhaps the intoners are a reflection of humanity itself, people drown themselves in vice, lies, curiosity, love and justice. Whether or not it's genuine or truly right, and without those we are nothing, but we can never truly kill them. Humanity's core is the final boss, all of its disgusting truth and we live on despite it
The sole reason there is not a 4th Drakengard is because Yoko Taro hasn't come up with a more *player hostile,* in this video's terms, Final Boss YET. The game could have the smallest budget, least amount of advertising or hype, most minute sales expectation, ect, and none of it would matter. The day some 7 circles of hell level s**t manifests itself in Yoko Taro's mind, there will somehow some way be a 4th Drakengard released and no one could stop it from happening... Edit (Around 24:43) From this point I could not stop laughing, not an exaggeration for the 2-3 minutes I lost as much control as he had...
Let’s be honest, this game needs the NieR Replicant treatment. The story and characters are great. And more people need to actually experience the bit of gamer bullying
I can't find the post anymore but allegedly Yoko Taro joked that he would skip Drakengard 4 and instead leap to 5, where the plot was the characters looking for the 4th game. So if he ever makes a new drakengard game it'll be the meanest meta joke to grace gamers.
Yo I was on the QA team for the NA release (check the credits for my name!). I was the first person to beat this and this shit took me two full shifts....to get to the final note moment. No debug tools, no guide or walkthrough, no warning. I thought I might burn down the office at that point. I would have rather been paid to be waterboarded by the CIA for two days. Only one other person on the QA team beat this branch/"boss" fyi.
It's no mistake that the timing to hit the final note is right at the start of Mikhail's line after Zero speaks, and that the rings always spawn at the same height as the Intoners' mouths. The Final Song is an art piece, a boss fight, and a final conversation between Zero and Mikhail.
If you look at this from the lore of the game, it does make a lot of sense actually. The intoners are goddesses of song. So it makes sense, that the flower, the big bad boss is using music as a weapon. The boss is mean but.... well this is the final batlle. The dragon is the only one left to save the world. At this point, Zero is gone. He has to do this himself. So even the fact that one mistake means death makes sense. This boss is mean, but for this situation, it is perfect.
"So of course you play as Mikhail here. He's the only one who could get through this." It's New Years Eve. I've had a hell of a year, and NieR/Drakengard means everything to me. This hits a lot harder while I'm hearing everyone shoot fireworks into the sky. Thanks for this video. Entertaining and fulfilling, every time.
I didn’t get rage, but I did notice the repeated failures over a few nights actually sunk my mental health a bit. Didn’t realize this was the cause until the night I beat it.
*slaps the roof of The Final Song* This bad boy can fit more high-pitched screams in it than a Five Nights at Freddy’s playthrough on the hardest difficulty
you can do it! you could try watching a lets play, and gain some confidence in the last fight, then just try for yourselves. it's not that hard after you get into the song. (took me months, but because I didn't want to fall into "hating" the game, i just told myself I would only play while I was having fun, the moment it wasn't anymore I would stop, and try again later when I felt like it, now I can redo the fight while enjoying it fully...kinda n_n)
14:00 - 14:13 That right here is the highlight of this video. Nevermind the rest of this shit. Komeda pulling a gun on himself and saying "Duck" then "I didn't say Simon Says~~~" is COLDEST line ever. That is some tomfoolery of the most unkind.
I came expecting a breakdown of the story, themes, and references. I got a breakdown about how much the director is a troll in every sense of the word. Perfect video.
My definition of art is something that uses the unique tools of it's medium to share a feeling aside from mere entertainment... And MAN this one sure is using it's medium to share a LOT of hatred and spite to life itself.
@@franconunez925 that’s a pretty narrow and pretentious definition of art, and that’s before considering that your definition doesn’t make a lick of sense. “Using the unique tools of its medium to share a feeling aside from mere entertainment” is as nonsensical as it is asinine. Entertainment is entertainment regardless of the feelings being conveyed. This boss is literal entertainment. Sure, maybe it makes a thing mean more to you personally, but it has 0 bearing on said thing being art or not. Defining art in the first place with such broad sweeping black and white strokes is a self-servicing masturbatory endeavor.
As someone who has beaten this song blindfolded, I think I can confidently say this is the hardest boss I’ve ever played in a game ever, next to maybe Galdera in Octopath. But that’s what made it all the more rewarding. I’d still say it’s probably my favorite final boss in a game ever.
Yesterday i finally beat the boss after 1 year of trying and rage quitting over and over again. But the thing that made me the angriest and what kept me going was that this boss was NOT cheap and NOT trash it was a beautifull peace of art that is completly unique in Gaming not because of difficulty but because of the hatred towards the player as it turns the srongest part of Drakengard 3 its music into your enemy fitting for the flower and the intoners but in complete dissonance with the gameplay of this game. I love it but i never want to play anything like it ever again. I realy apriciate your analysis because you show the terrible experience and beauty at the same time.
Yo thank you for the donation! Congrats on your victory, the feeling you get from landing that last note is something that just stays with you. Glad you saw it through to the end.
6:49 to be fair this game has a strong hold on music. Every intoner has their own song that they use to spread harmony or calamity that also grants them the ability to summon monsters demons dragons and angels. Heck they are call in”TONE”rs.
this was probably my favorite game moment I've ever played. The realization that it was a rhythm game, not being able to fail once, 8 minutes, the final note. All of it was so mesmerizing and beautiful and it gives me such joy that I can't fully explain. I'm like halfway through though and this video is a great depiction of such a cool moment.
I’m in a online writing class and we talked about other medias writing we enjoy and I brought up Yoko Taro, recommended playing both NieR;s and WATCHING drakengard 3 as it was intentionally boring to play because Taro’s birthing concept of the story were that it’s weird you get rewarded for killing 100 enemies, what a horrific thing that is and that you should never be rewarded for murder. Anyway, one of the other students screamed in excitement that she recently beat the last song. I have never played drakengard 3, I have no intention to play it, but I have watched every single part of it also I’m full convinced that kuroi hana is the toughest boss in history. There’s no cheese, no git gud, no secret, no leveling, no nothing except you at the none existent mercy of a flower taking you through torture for 8 minutes for many hours asking for perfection. I have nothing but huge respect for her and others that completed it
Drakengard 3 is not boring to play, the problem is it runs like shit on PS3. It runs fine if you emulate it though (assuming you have a decent enough computer). Drakengard 1 on the other hand, THAT game is extremely boting to play.
@@chstens and now I am here to say Drakengard 1 isn't boring to play.... to me. I can't really speak for anyone else but after recently beating the entire game for the first time, I loved every second of it, including the Ending E boss fight
@@amaterasumaster8781 That one's a much harder sell, but I'm not going to argue with you. But D3 is at its core a competent action game. Not nearly as good as Automata or the Replicant remake, but it's by no means a bad game.
@@chstens yea I agree with you all around. Tbh, D3 and MGS 4 are two of the main reasons I never wanted to get a PS3. Most secondhand titles that weren't Sony lag so damn bad it's atrocious
After losing my mind I used an assist visual I got to the final phase and spent hours. That being said I think the boss is fitting. Zero ultimately doesn't want to go and every part of her quite literally doesn't want it to allow to happen you have to understand suffering, her suffering. Yes it's ridiculous. But yes it's beautiful. Also it was fun watching you lose your mind thanks for that!
I know many people who used the video timing guide on youtube (including myself) to sync with this "boss fight", just so you don't get those crappy stages of grief all over again. It's not shameful, it's just a way to avert malding hard. Drakengard 3 is probably the only gaming media that pissed me off so badly, be it with horrendous frame drops, repetitive battles and recyled enemies, bland graphics, great content behind DLC (like the sisters' story, II's dlc is still engraved in my mind to this day), sluggish story pace, and this frigging boss battle. ... ... And i remember it fondly, the music, the themes, Zero's fuckery, mikhail's voice, the subvergion of the intoners (specially IV's). This is a masterpiece. A mean one, that i probably can't recommend, but a masterpiece either way.
I think if it got the NieR Replicant treatment, it could be a good game. I personally love the story, Mikhail is a precious bean, and I want to fight this boss even though just hearing the song makes me sweat and I subconsciously tap my finger while I hear it
Yooo, my comment was mentioned in this amazing video!! That's awesome! Great video, man, seriously. I was regularly screaming with laughter. Fantastic comedic timing, and great editing! I'm glad to have gotten a shout out in this!
I played through Drakengard 3 just last month and beat the the final boss a little over 2 weeks ago. Even though the last portion of the fight was BS, I actually loved the boss fight. It was a surreal experience and it’s something I’ll probably never experience again from any other game.
I really appreciate that you took the time to add 'feux deaths' into the video to push the point in that you're dying multiple times and forced to restart
9:05 something very odd to note, is that this is true for every phase except phase 2, as can be seen at 7:56, almost all of Five's section (AKA One's melody) lacks the downbeat, usually starting on the first upbeat, idk why that is tho also phenomenal vid, only 10 mins in and i'm loving it 27:04 i'm pretty sure this is the first time they give you sixteenths, and the sound effect is too echoey ngl, that's why the measure with 6 eighths, an eighth rest and then a final eighth fucked me so hard, it's hard to differentiate finally, the WORST part of the fight: 33:26 IS the indication. what is truly the CARDINAL FUCKING SIN is that the timing is actually INCORRECT??? WHAT THE FUCK??? THE FINAL TRICK IS THAT RHYTHM ISNT RELEVANT? ITS FINE THAT IT HAS A NOTE THERE, BUT GETTING IT CORRECT GIVES YOU A PENALTY??? THATS BS 46:18 personally the way i interpret this part is because no matter what, One always put the world ahead of herself, others, and her sisters,. everything was for the cause of figuring out her and her sisters' relationship with the world, how they came to be, ending Zero so she doesn't bring ruin, so the camera pans away from her, Zero, and the Flower itself to show One's grander ideals. additionally, Three's section zooming in on herself is reflective of how she literally cares about nothing other than herself, not in a selfish way, but to the point where the way she speaks and governs is all about just entertaining herself alright, just finished watching the vid, marry me now edit: holy shit what was i yapping about
7:56 I should've noticed that. I guess the devs felt it was fair play since the tempo's still quite slow. 32:26 Literally the most disrespectful thing I've experienced in a game. You know the devs were giggling while making it. 46:18 Since writing the script I've read the manga and got a better idea of One's character. I like your interpretation, I think it' s pretty spot on.
@@nerothesky woahhh thx for the response, i don't think i'll ever figure out why they made Five's section that wonky but you're right it's still slow so **it's not that bad**
The final trick feels a bit more relevant to the story than it does to the song, like there's a specific reason it's placed where it is, but there's still the thing of like "how the hell was I supposed to know that"
Something I just noticed today, is that each Intoner’s boss fight ost has a portion of lyrics coinciding with their phase. For example, Three’s boss fight ost has the same lyrics as the lyrics during her section of this fight. Just thought it was interesting.
"You weren't gonna play it anyway." Oh no, I already did. I suffered, swore, almost broke a controller for the first time and came up with a classification of game bosses that are really, _really_ hard and seem like the devs are trolling you, the Incarnation of Shenanigans. Did I go a little crazy? Probably. Nyehhehheh. It was great.
I have to say, you do a great job of conveying the level of insanity this fight drives a person to. I may be laughing, but it's more that I'm laughing to keep from crying. Fantastic video, and I finally understand the yoko taro fans losing their minds in the ffxiv nier raids
I played through Drakengard 3 a few weeks ago but only managed to beat the Final Song a couple days ago. Needless to say, Drakengard 3 is one of the games of all time, as well as one of my favorite games. It's kinda bad, but nowhere else has a piece of art challenged my conceptions about art so aggressively before, and the Final Song encapsulates that feeling more than anything. Even going in with a wealth of premeditated knowledge and listening to the song over and over again, it still took me weeks of building courage to even attempt the boss, and I still died to the final note once. Other cool touches I noticed about the fight: -I love how visually and sonically, the boss is basically a manifestation of conventionally beautiful art. Interpretive dance, nudity in art, and multi-piece musical movements are all things that in their respective mediums epitomize beauty, which makes the reality of the boss sting that much more. -I think One's camera trick is less to do with "looking for answers" and more deliberately unrestrained to contrast the first phase. While the Intoner sisters are often portrayed as a quintet, One and Zero sort of exist as their own dyad. Even aside from promotional art depicting them in opposition to one another, Zero and One are opposites in every way. Zero embodies her sisters' worst aspects while One embodies their best. This also works thematically with the fight being binary, literally 0 and 1, perfection or failure. One's camera trick reflects her opposition to Zero. -One's camera trick could also be that she's looking out for the Intoners, which explains why the camera moves around the screen and sort of "examines" each of them. She's the leader of the quintet who meticulously keeps track and takes care of her sisters. This is also corroborated by One asking her dragon to monitor her sisters, which might be why the camera gets all fuckywucky in this phase. Might be a reach but it would be funny if this was a meta joke at how evil the camera is in this series, especially during dragon missions. -It's been mentioned before, but the sisters sing each others' songs except Two and Zero. People theorize that the sisters sing the song of a sister who contrasts part of their personality in some way (e.g. Four (virgin) sings Five's (slut) song). It would make sense then that Zero and Two would sing their own songs, because the two of them are the most internally conflicted of the sisters, Two with her overwhelming kindness and naivete and Zero with her cruelty and cynicism. I'm just impressed with how much deliberation there is, not just in this fight, but in this game. That's Yoko Taro's biggest strength and weakness as a creative. He's a brilliant visionary who makes everything with the utmost intent, and if we have to suffer to experience that vision, then so be it.
Yoko Taro probably saw people losing their shit with this section and did nothing but giggle to himself like the freaking gremlin he is. Even in the FFXIV/Nier collab content he'd continuously pester the devs to make the fights harder or add more bullets until they had to tell him their literal engine couldn't handle that shit and he needed to chill lol. I'd love to know how this man kept getting his ideas made despite all the nonsense he put people through, even before the success of Nier:Automata.
Yes, 2/10 is the rating that it deserves. It was insane that the entire game mechanics in this part went totally against you. It literally defied your instincts and anticipation. As a fellow masochist myself, this...is...art. Thank you, Yoko Taro. 🙏
I cannot imagine a better ending to a game. It came by surprise, it hated me for trying, it took a week to finish it (I struggled), but everything that comes at it’s conclusion… So worth it. Drakengard 3 is my favorite game of all time. Even if I understand that it is objectively a bad game. I love it so much
When you realize THIS is how they make you feel why a flower... A FLOWER... Is the most EVIL thing in this universe. It never speaks. It never moves. But this tells you EVEYTHING about it. And makes you understand why Zero HATES it SO MUCH.
Some of the things I've seen with Yoko Taro regarding the FFIV Nier Crossover has convinced me that his nature isn't just being a "troll" but actually a sadistic A-Hole Some interviews suggested he wanted to wipe entire raid parties out if one player takes even a single hit of damage, where some accounts say he even wanted to make players delete their own characters... on an MMORPG. Thank god the Devs at FF14 rightfully reigned in his sociopathic lunacy.
To be entirely fair, he's always been crass and sarcastic when speaking publicly in interviews or such, but after Automata, he's played up being a dick for laughs, I've been heavily invested in these games since the PS2, I love reading any interview he's done, I look into his non-Drakenier content (Yorha as an idol group was completely unrelated to Nier to start! He just wanted to take a hand at Idol media, and used the group to record DoD3's boss themes, but everything about their backstory was set even 2 years before DoD3, giving them the story that would end up being the basis the future Nier sequel would adapt into Drakenier's lore), and he's definitely been exaggerating more since Automata's success and his newfound notoriety, it's pretty obvious too, the XIV devs aren't reigning him in, they're laughing with him because they know it's a bit
@@Zenos174 WELL Considering Yoko Taro is currently working with Sega now on a mobile game project set in a world where Sega itself is LITERALLY the evil corporate villain of the games narrative. I'm now FULLY convinced that there is no artistic intent and Taro is just a cantankerous jackass thats drunk with George Lucas levels of power and is just seeing how much he can get away with before someone finally stops him.
I always saw this boss as a either bad game design or really bad glitches, but this video showed me that the boss was actually INTENTIONAL bad game design, and now I can't see the boss as anything else but art. Amazing video!
I heard "EHHH MACARENA!" and died laughing 😂 This was an honestly great breakdown of this fight. Also telling how the song is basically about destroying every living thing...
I've lost track of how often I've watched this video. It's such an intelligent, thorough, and hilarious analysis of the boss fight and the feelings it evokes in the player. The boss fight might be 2/10 but this video is 10/10
Yo this video is fucking awesome. I laughed so hard watching it. Personally the best one about this topic I've seen. Last night I was thinking about watching the video and that maybe it would be funny only in the beggining but you destroyed expectations, what a fucking great job. Definitely going to watch any other thing you upload
This is a really good video, very accurate showcasing the suffering, anger, denial, and the salt that this boss fight produces. I myself have sunk about 3 hours into it so far, the first spot that I have trouble with is the second and third notes Four sends out, because they don't seem to go with the beat very well so I have to visually guess with them. The second spot I get stuck is the last note Three sends out, I have trouble with the timing of it but I know the song goes "Ahhhhh" at the correct point, but you have to be pressing the button before hearing that basically. Once I overcome those two problem areas I am able to get to One easily and sometimes I lose doing misclicks because the notes fly out so fast and she does doubles quickly. But what really does me in is all of the girls together at the end, it's just soooo fast I can't press the button fast enough lol. Closing my eyes did nothing to help, it actually made me zone out and stop paying attention.
I found pressing the bumpers for fast parts helpful. Something I've also heard suggested is alternating between the two bumpers. This should help you click a lot faster. I have faith you'll beat this.
Clicked on the link from reddit, thought it would be 10 minutes long but ended up blasting through all 40+ minutes of it without even realizing. Completely relatable, 100%. However, I was less patient and just synched up a video with the notes to do it. I still love the game thought, much respect to who did it legit or more legit than I did it anyway. Great video by the way!
I always interpreted this final boss fight as the flower's last desperate hurrah. It spited Zero, when she tried to pull it out of her eye, after trying to kill herself over and over and being revived by the flower, as a "fuck you" to her, it created the clones that became the intoners. This final fight is one last "fuck you" to the dragons trying to end this world ending menace. Zero was caught off guard when it happened, the flower monster does not play fair. So this final boss, is as such. It does not play fair, all that combat experience you have, meaningless. But you will destroy this calamity. It knows it, and it will do everything it can and by warping reality it hopes to destroy the world and you with it in a way you are not prepared for, thus the rhythm boss.
I legit love this boss with every ounce of my being. I felt frustrated and tense the whole time, and when it was finally over and it's just silent, and you're watching the flower break down and Accord starts narrating, I felt so, *so* empty. And then of course "This Silence is Mine" starts playing and I just absolutely break; I'm a mess and I'm just sobbing--I don't even know if I'm sad or just overwhelmed and emotionally distraught--but I'm just sitting through the credits and ugly crying. I've never had anything close to that experience ever again, and I think it's why I feel so emotionally attached to this game when I look back on it. Zero is still one of my favorite Yoko Taro characters ever, and killing her was hard both emotionally and mechanically.
Especially since ur playing as the precious bean of a dragon while doing it. Seriously, I adore Mikhail. If I had to rank the male characters who stick with the protagonist, he’d be number 1, followed by Emile from NieR Replicant and then 9S from NieR Automata
It's time to stop idolizing and fetishizing creators like that. Many people besides the directors who work on these kind of games bring ideas forth all of the time, but the director is the one who gives the "go ahead". Suda, Kojima and Taro sure are different in their wacky concepts and creativity, but let's not forget what made them great in the first place: the entire team behind the development of the games.
You can do both. When you see a creator’s body of work and see a very consistent style and through-line they clearly have a strong creative voice that is being used executed upon by a talented team.
THAT LAST FUCKING NOTE! THAT GODDAMN LAST OTHERF NOTE also a boss you can fight the best when you arent looking at the screen. Like I found the visuals distracting so listening with closed eyes actually helped getting further
I always loved the discordant intro to the song, where it's seemingly arbitrary rhythms mushed together until it suddenly becomes a beautiful melody. Watching this and learning that the fight actually has rhyme and reason to every phase. I have no choice but to deem this the absolute pinnacle of boss design. Even if it's the biggest troll in all of gaming, it's art in its purest form. I can only aspire to even think of something this insanely beautiful. Someone's going to argue the lack of fun, but video games are just a form of media, and not all media is intended to be tangible to the average reader. This boss is an abstract masterpiece, and I will die on this hill that Black Song, White Scales is nonpareil.
Bro just dropped the craziest pitch for a final boss design ever and thought it wouldn’t get greenlit lmao - Some dude at Squareenix watching this video
This is actually a perfect6 encapsulation of war games final message, "Perhaps the smartest move, is not to play..." I have not played the Drakengard games, and have no intention to do so. Specially this one.
I love this video. You narrated it so authentically I was hysterically Joker laughing at just thinking about it while also thinking of the Hours I spent on weird OSU maps
You say, who would do this again? I would. I did. I AM that psychopath. Every couple years I would practice again, totally blind, so I don’t get rusty. Each time, it takes far less time than that first sweaty, sleepless night I spent trying to beat it. I’ve been holding out hope for a DOD3 remaster, so I need my body to be literally ready for this fight again. I’m still praying
Great video but i do have to disagree with the statement at 27:04 i believe the issue is moreso lag from the game and not the sound design exactly. When i played it i heard the two notes on the first time i tried that section. Drakengard 3 can be kinda weird with how it runs based on resolution (especially in this fight) so if you were playing at 1080p it's likely it was the lag. I was playing at 720p for my attempts
It only took me 3 tries. And 35k in debt for a percussion degree. 1st death was on that first zoom you mentioned because even with the rhythmic confidence, it still makes you second guess yourself. Second death was after the screen went black because it's literally impossible without prior knowledge. 3rd time I got it. The worst part with the last hit, is that it is the only one not to follow the pattern. Even as slow as it is, instead of mirroring the exact rhythm on the beat, it hits on the third 16th note of the third beat.
the final note actually disregards rhythm in favor of theme. the entire fight, you, as mikhail, can only _respond_ to the intoners' song, deflecting their voices as they come to you. the final note happens when mikhail responds to zero after she speaks. the boss is a conversation, talking things out like mikhail always wanted. it's a thematic masterpiece.
You absolutely do get the proper cue for that last note. You just have to never stop counting. Which you don't because the fight has already shown you its going to be a jerk.
It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one that needed some “assistance” for that final gut punch at the end. Although I imagine you probably didn’t spend a literal week before going to that video like me…
Somehow I want to see this kind of rhythm game on "dance of eternity", where even the band couldn't agree on what time signature on a certain measure is.
fantastic video, im currently struggling on the hardest rythm but im sure as hell gonna make it and thank god i already know when to press for the last note lmao
This game... man. It's not a game. It's an experience, and not a pleasant one. And it knows it. The game knows that it's not pleasant. Fucking Yoko Taro. Fuck him. Love this man.
Having seen the boss fight so many times before watching this video I was just so anticipating of your reactions to the growing absurdity of the fight!
Usually I clean out my watch later list on UA-cam by essentially treating videos like podcasts and just playing games, and today I decided to play A Hat in Time. Specifically, it's Death Wish stages (The hardest challenges it throws at you), and felt almost called out with throwing myself at a wall despite the difficulty being on completely different levels. So I kept playing and listening, because hey I like video essays! But the thing is, I was here for around an hour. I was under the assumption that part of the message of the video would be to throw the exact same video at me again with slight differences, and force the viewer to watch the entire video again to find it all for no apparent reason but to reinforce the boss's message. I looped the video.
Something to note is that taro has explained his development ideas in interviews, his goal is to evoke specific feelings and works backwards from there. This boss isn’t fair on purpose, mikhail losing the only person in his life isn’t fair. This boss is meant to make you feel mikhail’s suffering, his loss, his anger, and his hopelessness. If you can get through it all, you find peace and find yourself not complete, but accepting of what you’ve gone through, just as mikhail did
Watched this video with my mates while we had lunch and in moment when you said that you can't do it with eyes covered because you're scared 2 of my mates said "skill issue" at same time. Well done for defeating it!
I could never get past One on this boss, and I applaud everyone that has actually beaten this last, cruel, and beautiful boss fight. When I played this game last year, I had to give up, mainly because I didn't have the time to sink into really learning One's phase and I still value what's left of my sanity. Only got past it once, died, kept trying but kept dying in the same spot in One's phase. I understand now why Zero hated her so. This video is one I watched before playing the game, but after experiencing the madness myself...yeah this is ten times funnier. I understand the agony. I couldn't overcome it in that playthrough. Good for you that you beat it and thanks for sharing that experience. :) Best wishes and God bless you.
PRO TIP: Easiest way to beat this boss is to close your eyes and play it by ear. Not kidding. The visuals are nothing but a distraction. Just close your eyes, ignore the visuals entirely... and replicate the rhythm you hear in time with the tempo... then press it one last time as soon as you hear Mikhail say "I" when playing in English (or "Boku" in japanese). Simple as that.
Damn, loved the video. Really makes you relive the experience. Also respect for beating it. I played on an emulator, so I could skip at least the intro animation, took me probably 16 hours and barely got to the last phase. After that I finally pulled out one of those rhythm guide videos, and it still took me like 5 attempts to beet it completely...
I've compared Drak1 and Drak3's final fights as being a sprint through hell versus a hellish marathon. Still like 1's final boss more than 2's. Haven't 100%ed 3, though I'd still say that. Also, One's thing was that her sensed were ever growing.
Yoko taro is an scp that sqaure enix is containing
Nah, he is one of the Japanese Game Dev Holy trinity along with Miyazaki and Kojima. Also there is a bunch Japanese Game Dev angels like Suda51 and others.
@@diamondhamster4320homie, you missed the reference
@@Thiago_Alves_Souza No, I did not. I made a comment.
He's a treasure and I adore him lol
The best part of this whole thing is the utterly mesmerizing song that plays.
This is why emulators have save states
"Suffering defeat after defeat... the man's mind reached past it's limit... breaking down to insanity. But he couldn't stop yet. The man had still a job that MUST BE DONE: To finally beat the directors cruel joke."
Nero the Sky:
*unsheathes Controller with masochistic intent*
"Yokotaro..."
*looks away from screen*
*hits the first rings*
"... rhythm beats. that does freeze my bOOOOOONESSS AAARRRRRROUUUUUUUUNND!"
Lacks the really fucked up twist at the end of your average Yoko Taro story
47:09
"...I often think about the God who blessed us with this cryptic puzzle and wonder if we'll ever have the chance to kill him."
Yoko Taro...
Good one.
I love how at the end when Kuroi Uta (Zero's theme) properly starts playing all the intoners move with her. Because it's her realizing all the intoners are Herself. They're not people, They are not individuals, They're reflections of herself. And the final dance symbolizes her knowledge of it, they can have their own movement, they can try to be their own people, but at the end of the day, it all comes back to Zero.
And the saddest realization is that you cannot actually analyze it because the game is constantly trying to fuck you :D
I think she did know they were a part of her. It's why her name is "Zero" because without them in her she was empty. They were pieces of herself and the magic that kept her alive. Perhaps the intoners are a reflection of humanity itself, people drown themselves in vice, lies, curiosity, love and justice. Whether or not it's genuine or truly right, and without those we are nothing, but we can never truly kill them. Humanity's core is the final boss, all of its disgusting truth and we live on despite it
Kind of recontextualizes the fact that she hates them so much.
"FUCK you, sir. I loved it."
Yoko Taro, A Summary
The sole reason there is not a 4th Drakengard is because Yoko Taro hasn't come up with a more *player hostile,* in this video's terms, Final Boss YET.
The game could have the smallest budget, least amount of advertising or hype, most minute sales expectation, ect, and none of it would matter. The day some 7 circles of hell level s**t manifests itself in Yoko Taro's mind, there will somehow some way be a 4th Drakengard released and no one could stop it from happening...
Edit (Around 24:43) From this point I could not stop laughing, not an exaggeration for the 2-3 minutes I lost as much control as he had...
Let’s be honest, this game needs the NieR Replicant treatment. The story and characters are great. And more people need to actually experience the bit of gamer bullying
Neir is the continuity of drakengard 3
I can't find the post anymore but allegedly Yoko Taro joked that he would skip Drakengard 4 and instead leap to 5, where the plot was the characters looking for the 4th game. So if he ever makes a new drakengard game it'll be the meanest meta joke to grace gamers.
Yo I was on the QA team for the NA release (check the credits for my name!). I was the first person to beat this and this shit took me two full shifts....to get to the final note moment. No debug tools, no guide or walkthrough, no warning. I thought I might burn down the office at that point. I would have rather been paid to be waterboarded by the CIA for two days.
Only one other person on the QA team beat this branch/"boss" fyi.
What is the QA Team?
@@Carcosahead quality assurance
@@vihurah9554 thanks!
What was your name brother lol
Then why did they not change it lol😅
It's no mistake that the timing to hit the final note is right at the start of Mikhail's line after Zero speaks, and that the rings always spawn at the same height as the Intoners' mouths.
The Final Song is an art piece, a boss fight, and a final conversation between Zero and Mikhail.
If you look at this from the lore of the game, it does make a lot of sense actually. The intoners are goddesses of song. So it makes sense, that the flower, the big bad boss is using music as a weapon. The boss is mean but.... well this is the final batlle. The dragon is the only one left to save the world. At this point, Zero is gone. He has to do this himself. So even the fact that one mistake means death makes sense.
This boss is mean, but for this situation, it is perfect.
also mikhail constantly yells -that's mean, Zero!"
If Neir Automata had half of the amount of bullshit as that final note. I would be in jail for premeditated murder.
Only 0.000000001% is the final ending itself but you can cheat at the beginning of the game so its not bull shit.
"So of course you play as Mikhail here. He's the only one who could get through this."
It's New Years Eve. I've had a hell of a year, and NieR/Drakengard means everything to me. This hits a lot harder while I'm hearing everyone shoot fireworks into the sky.
Thanks for this video. Entertaining and fulfilling, every time.
I didn’t get rage, but I did notice the repeated failures over a few nights actually sunk my mental health a bit. Didn’t realize this was the cause until the night I beat it.
That's actually.... worse
Congrats on beating it 🎉
‘THAT CLOUD LOOKS LIKE A LOOOSER!’ 😂😂😂
@17:40
Also how dare you throw in the Shadowlord theme I’m trying to get over how sad it is… 😂
Literally my favourite line as well 😂
*slaps the roof of The Final Song*
This bad boy can fit more high-pitched screams in it than a Five Nights at Freddy’s playthrough on the hardest difficulty
Five Nights at Mikhail's?😳😳😳
@@GensokyanImperialismSpend 5 nights with Mikhail instead
@@Fermin-hw5pd why not all nights with him instead🥰🥰🥰
Me and my sister have owned this game for 9 years. We with our combined efforts have still not beaten it.
you can do it! you could try watching a lets play, and gain some confidence in the last fight, then just try for yourselves. it's not that hard after you get into the song.
(took me months, but because I didn't want to fall into "hating" the game, i just told myself I would only play while I was having fun, the moment it wasn't anymore I would stop, and try again later when I felt like it, now I can redo the fight while enjoying it fully...kinda n_n)
4 monthes late but clearly you just need more sisters, a total of 6 should do the job
Easiest way to do it is sync the start with the song of someone who did beat this to your playthrough.
There is guide in yt that can use to match each tone, u can use that
22:59 "The white girls are trying to dance!" got a chortle out of me.
lol, lkr😅
Only on Drakengard you look up the sky and see 6 giant white girls dancing, only on Drakengard
18:49
Timestamp for personal enjoyment
just goes to show how good the script is
14:00 - 14:13
That right here is the highlight of this video. Nevermind the rest of this shit. Komeda pulling a gun on himself and saying "Duck" then "I didn't say Simon Says~~~" is COLDEST line ever. That is some tomfoolery of the most unkind.
I came expecting a breakdown of the story, themes, and references. I got a breakdown about how much the director is a troll in every sense of the word. Perfect video.
27:50 : "For how mean this boss could be it was ultimately fair"
And then they turned the lights off.
Personally I think this is a work of art
My definition of art is something that uses the unique tools of it's medium to share a feeling aside from mere entertainment... And MAN this one sure is using it's medium to share a LOT of hatred and spite to life itself.
It's art in the truest form, it has the balls to use gameplay to evoke emotions other than fear or joy. It evokes pure anger
@@franconunez925 that’s a pretty narrow and pretentious definition of art, and that’s before considering that your definition doesn’t make a lick of sense.
“Using the unique tools of its medium to share a feeling aside from mere entertainment” is as nonsensical as it is asinine. Entertainment is entertainment regardless of the feelings being conveyed. This boss is literal entertainment.
Sure, maybe it makes a thing mean more to you personally, but it has 0 bearing on said thing being art or not. Defining art in the first place with such broad sweeping black and white strokes is a self-servicing masturbatory endeavor.
Disagree.
@@peen2804 i think your just projecting your insecurities
(also defining art is a very simple task what are you even on)
Nearly 10 years on and I still think about this boss fight on the regular. Thank you for putting this experience into words!
As someone who has beaten this song blindfolded, I think I can confidently say this is the hardest boss I’ve ever played in a game ever, next to maybe Galdera in Octopath. But that’s what made it all the more rewarding. I’d still say it’s probably my favorite final boss in a game ever.
The fact that beating it blindfolded is actually EASIER than looking at it because of the crazy misleading camera is honestly incredible
Yesterday i finally beat the boss after 1 year of trying and rage quitting over and over again. But the thing that made me the angriest and what kept me going was that this boss was NOT cheap and NOT trash it was a beautifull peace of art that is completly unique in Gaming not because of difficulty but because of the hatred towards the player as it turns the srongest part of Drakengard 3 its music into your enemy fitting for the flower and the intoners but in complete dissonance with the gameplay of this game. I love it but i never want to play anything like it ever again.
I realy apriciate your analysis because you show the terrible experience and beauty at the same time.
Yo thank you for the donation! Congrats on your victory, the feeling you get from landing that last note is something that just stays with you. Glad you saw it through to the end.
6:49 to be fair this game has a strong hold on music. Every intoner has their own song that they use to spread harmony or calamity that also grants them the ability to summon monsters demons dragons and angels.
Heck they are call in”TONE”rs.
this was probably my favorite game moment I've ever played. The realization that it was a rhythm game, not being able to fail once, 8 minutes, the final note. All of it was so mesmerizing and beautiful and it gives me such joy that I can't fully explain. I'm like halfway through though and this video is a great depiction of such a cool moment.
"No fear."
*bells begin chiming*
"One fear."
legit me on the final boss in Paradigm's Breach in XIV xD the moment i heard those first few notes i was like 'oh......oh no.....'
I’m in a online writing class and we talked about other medias writing we enjoy and I brought up Yoko Taro, recommended playing both NieR;s and WATCHING drakengard 3 as it was intentionally boring to play because Taro’s birthing concept of the story were that it’s weird you get rewarded for killing 100 enemies, what a horrific thing that is and that you should never be rewarded for murder.
Anyway, one of the other students screamed in excitement that she recently beat the last song. I have never played drakengard 3, I have no intention to play it, but I have watched every single part of it also I’m full convinced that kuroi hana is the toughest boss in history. There’s no cheese, no git gud, no secret, no leveling, no nothing except you at the none existent mercy of a flower taking you through torture for 8 minutes for many hours asking for perfection. I have nothing but huge respect for her and others that completed it
Drakengard 3 is not boring to play, the problem is it runs like shit on PS3. It runs fine if you emulate it though (assuming you have a decent enough computer). Drakengard 1 on the other hand, THAT game is extremely boting to play.
@@chstens and now I am here to say Drakengard 1 isn't boring to play.... to me. I can't really speak for anyone else but after recently beating the entire game for the first time, I loved every second of it, including the Ending E boss fight
@@amaterasumaster8781 That one's a much harder sell, but I'm not going to argue with you. But D3 is at its core a competent action game. Not nearly as good as Automata or the Replicant remake, but it's by no means a bad game.
@@chstens yea I agree with you all around. Tbh, D3 and MGS 4 are two of the main reasons I never wanted to get a PS3. Most secondhand titles that weren't Sony lag so damn bad it's atrocious
@@amaterasumaster8781 Both games that could really use a re-release
After losing my mind I used an assist visual I got to the final phase and spent hours. That being said I think the boss is fitting. Zero ultimately doesn't want to go and every part of her quite literally doesn't want it to allow to happen you have to understand suffering, her suffering. Yes it's ridiculous. But yes it's beautiful.
Also it was fun watching you lose your mind thanks for that!
I know many people who used the video timing guide on youtube (including myself) to sync with this "boss fight", just so you don't get those crappy stages of grief all over again. It's not shameful, it's just a way to avert malding hard.
Drakengard 3 is probably the only gaming media that pissed me off so badly, be it with horrendous frame drops, repetitive battles and recyled enemies, bland graphics, great content behind DLC (like the sisters' story, II's dlc is still engraved in my mind to this day), sluggish story pace, and this frigging boss battle.
...
...
And i remember it fondly, the music, the themes, Zero's fuckery, mikhail's voice, the subvergion of the intoners (specially IV's). This is a masterpiece. A mean one, that i probably can't recommend, but a masterpiece either way.
I think if it got the NieR Replicant treatment, it could be a good game. I personally love the story, Mikhail is a precious bean, and I want to fight this boss even though just hearing the song makes me sweat and I subconsciously tap my finger while I hear it
To play Yokotaro game is to learn suffering
both physically and mentally
and to realize that some part of you likes that suffering because 'music is nice' xD
It's just another way of saying, playing his games is a waste of time because he isn't respectful enough to value YOUR time
Yooo, my comment was mentioned in this amazing video!! That's awesome! Great video, man, seriously. I was regularly screaming with laughter. Fantastic comedic timing, and great editing! I'm glad to have gotten a shout out in this!
I played through Drakengard 3 just last month and beat the the final boss a little over 2 weeks ago.
Even though the last portion of the fight was BS, I actually loved the boss fight. It was a surreal experience and it’s something I’ll probably never experience again from any other game.
It also feels intentional that you have to hit it when Mikhail says "I had fun" as a final FU from Yoko Taro.
I really appreciate that you took the time to add 'feux deaths' into the video to push the point in that you're dying multiple times and forced to restart
9:05 something very odd to note, is that this is true for every phase except phase 2, as can be seen at 7:56, almost all of Five's section (AKA One's melody) lacks the downbeat, usually starting on the first upbeat, idk why that is tho
also phenomenal vid, only 10 mins in and i'm loving it
27:04 i'm pretty sure this is the first time they give you sixteenths, and the sound effect is too echoey ngl, that's why the measure with 6 eighths, an eighth rest and then a final eighth fucked me so hard, it's hard to differentiate
finally, the WORST part of the fight: 33:26 IS the indication. what is truly the CARDINAL FUCKING SIN is that the timing is actually INCORRECT??? WHAT THE FUCK??? THE FINAL TRICK IS THAT RHYTHM ISNT RELEVANT? ITS FINE THAT IT HAS A NOTE THERE, BUT GETTING IT CORRECT GIVES YOU A PENALTY??? THATS BS
46:18 personally the way i interpret this part is because no matter what, One always put the world ahead of herself, others, and her sisters,. everything was for the cause of figuring out her and her sisters' relationship with the world, how they came to be, ending Zero so she doesn't bring ruin, so the camera pans away from her, Zero, and the Flower itself to show One's grander ideals. additionally, Three's section zooming in on herself is reflective of how she literally cares about nothing other than herself, not in a selfish way, but to the point where the way she speaks and governs is all about just entertaining herself
alright, just finished watching the vid, marry me now
edit: holy shit what was i yapping about
7:56 I should've noticed that. I guess the devs felt it was fair play since the tempo's still quite slow.
32:26 Literally the most disrespectful thing I've experienced in a game. You know the devs were giggling while making it.
46:18 Since writing the script I've read the manga and got a better idea of One's character. I like your interpretation, I think it' s pretty spot on.
@@nerothesky woahhh thx for the response, i don't think i'll ever figure out why they made Five's section that wonky but you're right it's still slow so **it's not that bad**
@@nerothesky Where can I read the manga?
@@AngelusArgentum Google "read dragon dragoon otahime five" and you should find it
The final trick feels a bit more relevant to the story than it does to the song, like there's a specific reason it's placed where it is, but there's still the thing of like "how the hell was I supposed to know that"
The script and the editing of this video are just brilliant. On point and funny all the time. I take my hat off to your work.
Something I just noticed today, is that each Intoner’s boss fight ost has a portion of lyrics coinciding with their phase.
For example, Three’s boss fight ost has the same lyrics as the lyrics during her section of this fight.
Just thought it was interesting.
Yeah, the final song is actually a mix of every sister's song, though they don't play in order, One's song plays in Five's part, for example
"You weren't gonna play it anyway." Oh no, I already did. I suffered, swore, almost broke a controller for the first time and came up with a classification of game bosses that are really, _really_ hard and seem like the devs are trolling you, the Incarnation of Shenanigans. Did I go a little crazy? Probably. Nyehhehheh.
It was great.
Maybe if it gets the deserved NieR Replicant treatment, more people could play it
Hanatarashh fan spotted.
I have to say, you do a great job of conveying the level of insanity this fight drives a person to.
I may be laughing, but it's more that I'm laughing to keep from crying. Fantastic video, and I finally understand the yoko taro fans losing their minds in the ffxiv nier raids
I played through Drakengard 3 a few weeks ago but only managed to beat the Final Song a couple days ago. Needless to say, Drakengard 3 is one of the games of all time, as well as one of my favorite games. It's kinda bad, but nowhere else has a piece of art challenged my conceptions about art so aggressively before, and the Final Song encapsulates that feeling more than anything. Even going in with a wealth of premeditated knowledge and listening to the song over and over again, it still took me weeks of building courage to even attempt the boss, and I still died to the final note once.
Other cool touches I noticed about the fight:
-I love how visually and sonically, the boss is basically a manifestation of conventionally beautiful art. Interpretive dance, nudity in art, and multi-piece musical movements are all things that in their respective mediums epitomize beauty, which makes the reality of the boss sting that much more.
-I think One's camera trick is less to do with "looking for answers" and more deliberately unrestrained to contrast the first phase. While the Intoner sisters are often portrayed as a quintet, One and Zero sort of exist as their own dyad. Even aside from promotional art depicting them in opposition to one another, Zero and One are opposites in every way. Zero embodies her sisters' worst aspects while One embodies their best. This also works thematically with the fight being binary, literally 0 and 1, perfection or failure. One's camera trick reflects her opposition to Zero.
-One's camera trick could also be that she's looking out for the Intoners, which explains why the camera moves around the screen and sort of "examines" each of them. She's the leader of the quintet who meticulously keeps track and takes care of her sisters. This is also corroborated by One asking her dragon to monitor her sisters, which might be why the camera gets all fuckywucky in this phase. Might be a reach but it would be funny if this was a meta joke at how evil the camera is in this series, especially during dragon missions.
-It's been mentioned before, but the sisters sing each others' songs except Two and Zero. People theorize that the sisters sing the song of a sister who contrasts part of their personality in some way (e.g. Four (virgin) sings Five's (slut) song). It would make sense then that Zero and Two would sing their own songs, because the two of them are the most internally conflicted of the sisters, Two with her overwhelming kindness and naivete and Zero with her cruelty and cynicism.
I'm just impressed with how much deliberation there is, not just in this fight, but in this game. That's Yoko Taro's biggest strength and weakness as a creative. He's a brilliant visionary who makes everything with the utmost intent, and if we have to suffer to experience that vision, then so be it.
Yoko Taro probably saw people losing their shit with this section and did nothing but giggle to himself like the freaking gremlin he is. Even in the FFXIV/Nier collab content he'd continuously pester the devs to make the fights harder or add more bullets until they had to tell him their literal engine couldn't handle that shit and he needed to chill lol.
I'd love to know how this man kept getting his ideas made despite all the nonsense he put people through, even before the success of Nier:Automata.
very late to the party but, man, this video rules. amazing structure, pacing, storytelling, and funny as hell
Yes, 2/10 is the rating that it deserves.
It was insane that the entire game mechanics in this part went totally against you. It literally defied your instincts and anticipation.
As a fellow masochist myself, this...is...art.
Thank you, Yoko Taro. 🙏
I cannot imagine a better ending to a game.
It came by surprise, it hated me for trying, it took a week to finish it (I struggled), but everything that comes at it’s conclusion…
So worth it.
Drakengard 3 is my favorite game of all time.
Even if I understand that it is objectively a bad game.
I love it so much
You dropped this 👑
It needs the NieR Replicant treatment
When you realize THIS is how they make you feel why a flower... A FLOWER... Is the most EVIL thing in this universe.
It never speaks. It never moves. But this tells you EVEYTHING about it. And makes you understand why Zero HATES it SO MUCH.
People think Flowey is the meanest flower in existence?
*hands them my drink*
Let me tell you about Drakengard 3.
Yoko Taro is a terrible person. Just, the worst. That final note isn't just unfair, it's sadistic.
That's what makes him the best.
He makes Kojima and Suda51 look sane by comparison. And that’s why he’s an amazing game creator
Some of the things I've seen with Yoko Taro regarding the FFIV Nier Crossover has convinced me that his nature isn't just being a "troll" but actually a sadistic A-Hole
Some interviews suggested he wanted to wipe entire raid parties out if one player takes even a single hit of damage, where some accounts say he even wanted to make players delete their own characters... on an MMORPG.
Thank god the Devs at FF14 rightfully reigned in his sociopathic lunacy.
To be entirely fair, he's always been crass and sarcastic when speaking publicly in interviews or such, but after Automata, he's played up being a dick for laughs, I've been heavily invested in these games since the PS2, I love reading any interview he's done, I look into his non-Drakenier content (Yorha as an idol group was completely unrelated to Nier to start! He just wanted to take a hand at Idol media, and used the group to record DoD3's boss themes, but everything about their backstory was set even 2 years before DoD3, giving them the story that would end up being the basis the future Nier sequel would adapt into Drakenier's lore), and he's definitely been exaggerating more since Automata's success and his newfound notoriety, it's pretty obvious too, the XIV devs aren't reigning him in, they're laughing with him because they know it's a bit
Tackled him to the ground more likely...
@@Zenos174 WELL Considering Yoko Taro is currently working with Sega now on a mobile game project set in a world where Sega itself is LITERALLY the evil corporate villain of the games narrative. I'm now FULLY convinced that there is no artistic intent and Taro is just a cantankerous jackass thats drunk with George Lucas levels of power and is just seeing how much he can get away with before someone finally stops him.
@@Zenos174 Why not?
You are correct. He is a sadistic ahole.
I always saw this boss as a either bad game design or really bad glitches, but this video showed me that the boss was actually INTENTIONAL bad game design, and now I can't see the boss as anything else but art. Amazing video!
I heard "EHHH MACARENA!" and died laughing 😂 This was an honestly great breakdown of this fight.
Also telling how the song is basically about destroying every living thing...
i've rewatched this video like five times now. your analysis is super entertaining, funny and interesting. definitely glad i found this video
I've lost track of how often I've watched this video. It's such an intelligent, thorough, and hilarious analysis of the boss fight and the feelings it evokes in the player. The boss fight might be 2/10 but this video is 10/10
Yo this video is fucking awesome. I laughed so hard watching it. Personally the best one about this topic I've seen.
Last night I was thinking about watching the video and that maybe it would be funny only in the beggining but you destroyed expectations, what a fucking great job.
Definitely going to watch any other thing you upload
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it :)
This is a really good video, very accurate showcasing the suffering, anger, denial, and the salt that this boss fight produces.
I myself have sunk about 3 hours into it so far, the first spot that I have trouble with is the second and third notes Four sends out, because they don't seem to go with the beat very well so I have to visually guess with them.
The second spot I get stuck is the last note Three sends out, I have trouble with the timing of it but I know the song goes "Ahhhhh" at the correct point, but you have to be pressing the button before hearing that basically.
Once I overcome those two problem areas I am able to get to One easily and sometimes I lose doing misclicks because the notes fly out so fast and she does doubles quickly. But what really does me in is all of the girls together at the end, it's just soooo fast I can't press the button fast enough lol. Closing my eyes did nothing to help, it actually made me zone out and stop paying attention.
I found pressing the bumpers for fast parts helpful. Something I've also heard suggested is alternating between the two bumpers. This should help you click a lot faster. I have faith you'll beat this.
28:24 This scenario was basically the embodiment of the game, "I Wanna be the Guy" from a decade and a half earlier.
Clicked on the link from reddit, thought it would be 10 minutes long but ended up blasting through all 40+ minutes of it without even realizing.
Completely relatable, 100%. However, I was less patient and just synched up a video with the notes to do it. I still love the game thought, much respect to who did it legit or more legit than I did it anyway.
Great video by the way!
I've been stuck on the final phase for over a week now, I've hit the acceptance phase. This is my purgatory, I live here now.
Me, 47 minutes ago: Why does this video takes so long?
Me, now: oh
I always interpreted this final boss fight as the flower's last desperate hurrah. It spited Zero, when she tried to pull it out of her eye, after trying to kill herself over and over and being revived by the flower, as a "fuck you" to her, it created the clones that became the intoners. This final fight is one last "fuck you" to the dragons trying to end this world ending menace. Zero was caught off guard when it happened, the flower monster does not play fair. So this final boss, is as such. It does not play fair, all that combat experience you have, meaningless. But you will destroy this calamity. It knows it, and it will do everything it can and by warping reality it hopes to destroy the world and you with it in a way you are not prepared for, thus the rhythm boss.
This boss causes so much PTSD I remember all the exact timing of the notes and just tap my feet automatically. Genius.
"That cloud looks like a loser"
Breaks me every time 🤣
I legit love this boss with every ounce of my being. I felt frustrated and tense the whole time, and when it was finally over and it's just silent, and you're watching the flower break down and Accord starts narrating, I felt so, *so* empty. And then of course "This Silence is Mine" starts playing and I just absolutely break; I'm a mess and I'm just sobbing--I don't even know if I'm sad or just overwhelmed and emotionally distraught--but I'm just sitting through the credits and ugly crying.
I've never had anything close to that experience ever again, and I think it's why I feel so emotionally attached to this game when I look back on it. Zero is still one of my favorite Yoko Taro characters ever, and killing her was hard both emotionally and mechanically.
Especially since ur playing as the precious bean of a dragon while doing it.
Seriously, I adore Mikhail. If I had to rank the male characters who stick with the protagonist, he’d be number 1, followed by Emile from NieR Replicant and then 9S from NieR Automata
Yoko Taro is the greatest genius both as a director and writer that has worked in the gaming industry, no one can even come close to his insane mind.
Oh yeah. He makes Kojima and Suda51 look sane by comparison.
@@MelonTartVAKojima is a better game creator.
It's time to stop idolizing and fetishizing creators like that. Many people besides the directors who work on these kind of games bring ideas forth all of the time, but the director is the one who gives the "go ahead". Suda, Kojima and Taro sure are different in their wacky concepts and creativity, but let's not forget what made them great in the first place: the entire team behind the development of the games.
You underestimate humanity's insanity.
You can do both. When you see a creator’s body of work and see a very consistent style and through-line they clearly have a strong creative voice that is being used executed upon by a talented team.
been watching this over and over, mygod it gets funny everytime
THAT LAST FUCKING NOTE! THAT GODDAMN LAST OTHERF NOTE
also a boss you can fight the best when you arent looking at the screen. Like I found the visuals distracting so listening with closed eyes actually helped getting further
That was a fantastic video all the way through. I got super excited...and a bit anxious while listening but it was super entertaining
I always loved the discordant intro to the song, where it's seemingly arbitrary rhythms mushed together until it suddenly becomes a beautiful melody.
Watching this and learning that the fight actually has rhyme and reason to every phase. I have no choice but to deem this the absolute pinnacle of boss design. Even if it's the biggest troll in all of gaming, it's art in its purest form. I can only aspire to even think of something this insanely beautiful.
Someone's going to argue the lack of fun, but video games are just a form of media, and not all media is intended to be tangible to the average reader. This boss is an abstract masterpiece, and I will die on this hill that Black Song, White Scales is nonpareil.
Bro just dropped the craziest pitch for a final boss design ever and thought it wouldn’t get greenlit lmao - Some dude at Squareenix watching this video
I love how something as simple as the movement of the camera leads to many creative ways to set difficulty
Watching the video seven times in solidarity with people who had to actually play it.
This is actually a perfect6 encapsulation of war games final message, "Perhaps the smartest move, is not to play..."
I have not played the Drakengard games, and have no intention to do so. Specially this one.
I love this video. You narrated it so authentically I was hysterically Joker laughing at just thinking about it while also thinking of the Hours I spent on weird OSU maps
You say, who would do this again? I would. I did. I AM that psychopath. Every couple years I would practice again, totally blind, so I don’t get rusty. Each time, it takes far less time than that first sweaty, sleepless night I spent trying to beat it. I’ve been holding out hope for a DOD3 remaster, so I need my body to be literally ready for this fight again. I’m still praying
This is one of the best bosses in video game history and nothing will convince me otherwise
This may be one of my favorite videos on UA-cam lol. Incredible job
I have never fought this boss. I'm losing my shit. Thank you for posting this
Great video but i do have to disagree with the statement at 27:04 i believe the issue is moreso lag from the game and not the sound design exactly. When i played it i heard the two notes on the first time i tried that section. Drakengard 3 can be kinda weird with how it runs based on resolution (especially in this fight) so if you were playing at 1080p it's likely it was the lag. I was playing at 720p for my attempts
Wow, actual amazing video, Hope your channel grows a lot
It only took me 3 tries. And 35k in debt for a percussion degree.
1st death was on that first zoom you mentioned because even with the rhythmic confidence, it still makes you second guess yourself. Second death was after the screen went black because it's literally impossible without prior knowledge. 3rd time I got it. The worst part with the last hit, is that it is the only one not to follow the pattern. Even as slow as it is, instead of mirroring the exact rhythm on the beat, it hits on the third 16th note of the third beat.
i know someone who beat it by looking at the wall. just following the rhythm
the final note actually disregards rhythm in favor of theme. the entire fight, you, as mikhail, can only _respond_ to the intoners' song, deflecting their voices as they come to you.
the final note happens when mikhail responds to zero after she speaks. the boss is a conversation, talking things out like mikhail always wanted. it's a thematic masterpiece.
This was a great analysis with great editing and humor. Good job!
You absolutely do get the proper cue for that last note. You just have to never stop counting. Which you don't because the fight has already shown you its going to be a jerk.
All of that plus Mikhail's annoying screams as he dies
It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one that needed some “assistance” for that final gut punch at the end. Although I imagine you probably didn’t spend a literal week before going to that video like me…
Somehow I want to see this kind of rhythm game on "dance of eternity", where even the band couldn't agree on what time signature on a certain measure is.
Is no one going to mention the fact he said “it’s ass but I’m going to eat it” it’s the wildest line I’ve ever heard
every time I heard the vocal I got a shiver, it was beautiful but also traumatizing
fantastic video, im currently struggling on the hardest rythm but im sure as hell gonna make it and thank god i already know when to press for the last note lmao
This game... man. It's not a game. It's an experience, and not a pleasant one. And it knows it. The game knows that it's not pleasant. Fucking Yoko Taro. Fuck him. Love this man.
Having seen the boss fight so many times before watching this video I was just so anticipating of your reactions to the growing absurdity of the fight!
This is hilarious. Hilarious as in I felt the pain when going through this
Usually I clean out my watch later list on UA-cam by essentially treating videos like podcasts and just playing games, and today I decided to play A Hat in Time. Specifically, it's Death Wish stages (The hardest challenges it throws at you), and felt almost called out with throwing myself at a wall despite the difficulty being on completely different levels. So I kept playing and listening, because hey I like video essays!
But the thing is, I was here for around an hour. I was under the assumption that part of the message of the video would be to throw the exact same video at me again with slight differences, and force the viewer to watch the entire video again to find it all for no apparent reason but to reinforce the boss's message.
I looped the video.
Something to note is that taro has explained his development ideas in interviews, his goal is to evoke specific feelings and works backwards from there. This boss isn’t fair on purpose, mikhail losing the only person in his life isn’t fair. This boss is meant to make you feel mikhail’s suffering, his loss, his anger, and his hopelessness. If you can get through it all, you find peace and find yourself not complete, but accepting of what you’ve gone through, just as mikhail did
Watched this video with my mates while we had lunch and in moment when you said that you can't do it with eyes covered because you're scared 2 of my mates said "skill issue" at same time.
Well done for defeating it!
Amazing video my friend
I could never get past One on this boss, and I applaud everyone that has actually beaten this last, cruel, and beautiful boss fight. When I played this game last year, I had to give up, mainly because I didn't have the time to sink into really learning One's phase and I still value what's left of my sanity. Only got past it once, died, kept trying but kept dying in the same spot in One's phase. I understand now why Zero hated her so. This video is one I watched before playing the game, but after experiencing the madness myself...yeah this is ten times funnier. I understand the agony. I couldn't overcome it in that playthrough. Good for you that you beat it and thanks for sharing that experience. :) Best wishes and God bless you.
PRO TIP: Easiest way to beat this boss is to close your eyes and play it by ear. Not kidding. The visuals are nothing but a distraction. Just close your eyes, ignore the visuals entirely... and replicate the rhythm you hear in time with the tempo... then press it one last time as soon as you hear Mikhail say "I" when playing in English (or "Boku" in japanese). Simple as that.
Damn, loved the video. Really makes you relive the experience. Also respect for beating it. I played on an emulator, so I could skip at least the intro animation, took me probably 16 hours and barely got to the last phase. After that I finally pulled out one of those rhythm guide videos, and it still took me like 5 attempts to beet it completely...
I've compared Drak1 and Drak3's final fights as being a sprint through hell versus a hellish marathon. Still like 1's final boss more than 2's. Haven't 100%ed 3, though I'd still say that.
Also, One's thing was that her sensed were ever growing.
So, basically, the cameraman is the true final boss
Yup. But that's nothing new in video games 😂
What an AMAZING video!!