#emily plays drv3

[zezeryous]

i just finished drv3

i just finished the game like 15 minutes ago and i’m torn. very torn. short initial thoughts under the cut (huge spoilers obviously)

okay i’m gonna start off by saying i was spoiled on the identity of the mastermind by my own stupidity and also that Kaede wasn’t actually the main character via tumblr. so i went into this game not entirely blind and i think it affected my experience with it in a minor way.

i think it’ll be easier for me to start with what i liked about the game so i’ll do that. the thing i liked the most about it was how it differentiated itself from the previous games and broke a lot of the tropes from the previous games. i went into the game expecting it to be another normal dr game with the usual tropes and around the third chapter i realized that what i thought was gonna happen based on my knowledge of the previous games wasn’t actually happening. and i fucking love this. drv3 feels fresh it feels different. it’s still a dr game but at the same time it isn’t and that’s what i like the most about it.

Kaede. sighs. out first female protag was gone too soon. however, i thought having the protag be a culprit was a fucking brilliant move and while i wasn’t sure about it at first because i was worried about how they were gonna do it, i think it was a great move and kept things fresh. it kinda expanded on how Hinata was sort of the mastermind of sdr2 and i really really liked it and think they pulled it off really well. i do wish they hadn’t pulled this during the very first chapter though because i would’ve liked to have had Kaede around a little more. though to be honest i think Saihara is my favorite from this game so i’m not complaining that much.

i also really kinda liked how they handled the aftermath of the twist (more on that in a bit because O H  B O Y do i have Feelings about it) i thought it was brilliant to have everyone break dr tradition and reject both hope and despair. this point goes back to what i was saying above with how this game just subverts a lot of the tropes from the previous games (not all though - i’m looking at you general themes of the cases)

another thing is how the cast as a whole was a lot more friendly and trusting of each other compared to the other two games, especially the first. had there not been any motives, no murders would’ve taken place. again this is yet another thing under the “drv3 did this differently than other games” category but it was really interesting to see this dynamic still hold after all the shit various people did.

i also wanna talk a little bit about Ouma. i’ve heard a lot of people saying he’s a lot like Komaeda, so i was kinda expecting that going in, but in the end i don’t quite get it. i don’t understand his character as well as i would like and i don’t feel like the game (or at least the localization anyway) didn’t do him justice. so if anyone who really loves Ouma is reading this i would absolutely love it if you could please explain him to me because i don’t understand his character like i should be and i want to as a big Komaeda fan (and one that thinks that the fandom really fucked with his character a lot)

okay. the twist. the motherfucking bullshit twist. i legit wanted to scream at my computer because i thought it was a flaming pile of bullshit. i hate the twist with a burning passion and it almost ruined the entire series for me. the ending of drv3 is very vague and really leaves it up to the player what is a lie and what is truth. is their world actually fiction or is it part of the dr world? we don’t really know. it’s kinda like the ending to the first game where we don’t really know if Junko was lying about how the outside world was fucked up or if she was actually telling the truth. it turned out to be the latter once sdr2 was released, but the idea is similar. so it’s up to our interpretation. but there’s also a third option. it’s the option where drv3 is its own beast in its own universe completely unrelated to the main dr games. this is the option i think i am going to go with because i can continue to love and adore the previous games like i always have while still respecting what happened in drv3 and what it was trying to do as a dr game.

the thing about the twist that really got on my nerves above all else though was how they portrayed the fans of the “series”. to me it was a kinda negative portrayal of the dr fanbase. because if Tsumugi is to be believed and it was all a work of fiction, real actual people in a supposedly peaceful world wished for 53 different real life killing games, which is really kinda fucked up. i got a “y’all are crazy for loving this series so much” vibe from it and it left me feeling vaguely insulted for being a huge fan of the series for so long. granted, i don’t know if that was the intent or if it was supposed to be a more positive “the fans keep this series alive” message, but i’m sure i’m not the only one who came out of the game feeling vaguely insulted for being a fan of the game. and if multiple people got that feeling when that was not the intent, then it was a poorly written message and one that should’ve needed to be reworked.

if the twist hadn’t been what it was i would’ve been okay with the backstory being what it was. my biggest issue with it though was naegi and hinata and the others fought so hard to fix the world only for it to be completely destroyed again by something they couldn’t control

i’ll probably try and find other peoples’ thoughts on the game because i’m not sure how i feel about it and maybe someone will have some insight on it that’ll make me decide one way or another

tl;dr i have mixed feelings about the game because of the bullshit twist but i love the characters and i like the game for what it was (a dr game, but not) and what it could have been

[goldenlandfiascos]

kelly said for y’all to send me dumb aus and she said they all have to involve nappi-chan