[Dracko]

SPOILERS MAY FOLLOW

I'm playing Drakengard at the moment on a friend's recommendation. As expected from a Square-Enix title, the gameplay is horrendous. It's a Dynasty Warriors-style grindfest in barren settings, mashing buttons until hundreds upon hundreds of faceless foot soldiers perish and your weapons level up (ugh).

But Jesus, Lord, the story... I'm amazed this was made at all, let alone released.

Those faceless enemies and barren battlegrounds, well, they play right into the low fantasy, senseless tone of the universe crafted. I swear, this is perhaps the most despairingly nihilistic told in a game.

And it starts off with the characters. You play Caim, an incestuous, blood-thirsty swordsman, mute as a price for a pact with a dragon in order to save his own life. Oh, and he hates dragons for killing his family. And the dragon in question seems to enjoy throwing out misanthropic and nihilistic pieces of wisdom ("The wise man chooses death over war. The wiser man chooses never to be born at all.") His sister, who he protects from the evil forces of the Empire, is a goddess that holds one of the seals defending the land from chaos. His merry group of allies consists of a blind paedophile, a barren, child-murdering lunatic elf and a boy who is unable to age. Your inevitable rival is your sister's betrothed, who gets sucked into the Empire's forces after having is perceived inability to protect her exploited. He also has slight necrophiliac undertones.

It turns out that the Empire footsoldiers, that you've been slaughtering in the thousands in (tedious, half-hour long) battles are all possessed by a crazy 6-year old witch, who seeks to cleanse the world of humanity itself for the sake of its creators. More on them later. Not that this does anything for Caim, because HE LOVES TO KILL THINGS. I mean, this is a game where any creatures other than humans are referred to as "sub-human" and includes a mission where you kill off hundreds upon hundreds of child soldiers while your paedophile follower cries for you to spare them. Once you've dealt with the Empire, that's when the game just descends into total chaos: Once you get the first, canon ending, you have the possibility to continue the story into four different directions. These include the gods finally revealing themselves, dubbed Grotesqueries. Why the name? Because they're giant, blind, floating babies that eat things.

The final one, which you can only get once you've found and maxed out all 65 weapons in the game, and defeated the final boss, the Mother of the Grotesqueries, in a 64 key game of Simon says where one single mistake results in instant death. You follow her through a dimensional portal to finish her off, into the world of the creators. The moment you do so, well... You land yourself in modern day Tokyo. Then you and your dragon both get gunned down by fighter jets. Other endings include the world getting so FUBAR on account of the Grotesqueries that your only option is to freeze time, or your rival attempting to resurrect your sister, driving her to madness. You have to hunt down and kill her, only to find that more creatures just like her have spread in countless numbers across the skies, all screaming in pain.

So yeah, it's kind of like Gantz meets Berzerk (blatant references include giant swords, etc. At least it's slightly more subtle than Final Fantasy VII ripping it off without keeping any of the interesting bits). I hear the sequel sucks because it's jRPG rubbish which tries to explain everything, including how the universe relates to our reality. I'm fairly certain the game's creators have utter contempt for every single one of its cast members, including the fodder, as well as the player. That means YOU, YES YOU! Instead of an epic about glory and retribution and such, all you ever get is more death, misery, hopelessness and betrayal, mission after mission, right until the very end. And there's no way to salvage a single thing your character cares for, no matter what ending you get: At best, you just get more chances to indulge in your sociopathic sprees.

Oh, the cool notes: The world map is a flipped map of Europe and the weird, but awesome score is made from samples of well-known classical music pieces.

Simon Belmont, you should play this game.

What games have you played that you've either felt completely disturbed by or revelled in by their sheer weirdness?
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[Toups]

Is there a reason you didn't post this on the front page?
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[manmachine plays jazz]

interestingly enough, the score is by nobuyoshi sano, who's soundtracked multiple tekken and ridge racer games with melodic, synthy tech-house. i don't fucking understand the drakengard soundtrack at all :D

[bort]

just think they saved these japanese assholes just to be killed by them

[Dracko]

[Chuplayer]

I never actually played it, but there was that Japanese arcade game where you had to poke people in the ass. That one was very fucked up.

[Toups]

I'm pretty sure at least some of the deception series would fall under this category, as well.

I also feel obligated to point out that Drakengard was called Drag-on Dragoon in Japan.
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[zombieman000]

Maybe one of the Dark Seed games. I haven't played them, but uh, pictures and various bits of info suggest that those games are pretty out there. I wanted to say killer7, but there's probably crazier examples.
Also Haunting Ground's death scenes would fit in here, I think.

[Dracko]

[spinach]

[Wall of Beef]

Isn't there a Drag-on Drakengard Dragoon 2?
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Tumblr

[spinach]

[dongle]

Not the most shocking game, but it's what comes to mind at the moment:

Dreamweb is a kind of shlocky game in a Blade Runner-esque universe starring a guy named Ryan who places too much credence in his dreams (and eventually waking delusions) that there are monks asking him to carry out assassinations for him. After murdering a half-dozen people in extremely violent ways, Ryan is shot to death by the police for his crimes.

That the story & subject matter is handled so clumsily is what makes it fucked up – people who were ostensibly adults with jobs made a game handling the subject of insanity about on par with the quality of angsty early-teen scrawlings in a notebook. Perhaps I'm oversensitive to mishandlings of serious subjects that result in the trivialization of, oh, life.

I'll avoid mentioning obvious titles like Killer 7, Chiller, or Manhunt.

[Dracko]

Wow, those Haunting Ground death scenes are completely playing on psychosexuality, aren't that? Is it worth a go?

I've played Chiller and I'm not sure what the point of it is? Oh, the Clock Tower series is probably worth a mention.

I wouldn't say Manhunt is that fucked up in comparison to some of these games. It's essentially 8mm: The Game. Dreamweb was pretty great in not ever revealing to you whether your dreams were prophetic or not. Quite simple-minded as far as adventure games go, though. I don't think adventure games have managed to handle death or killing people all that well.
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[winkerwatson]

mgs2 lol
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tim?

[Dracko]

[firenze]

[Dracko]

Two peas in a pod.
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[Toups]

Whatever man Bullet Witch is a pretty good game.

...

There's another game on the tip of my tongue which is just utterly depraved in every way.




Oh yeah, God Hand!

(kinda)
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[Dracko]

The only thing I've liked by cavia were their Ghost in the Shell titles.
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[manmachine plays jazz]

[Moogs]

Goddamn, guys, I used my old cell phone camera to take pics of my television and posted screenshots of the GIANT FLOATING BABIES a while ago! I think that might have been at the IC forums, actually...

Anyway, yeah! Drakengard is seriously one of my favourite games ever.

[extrabastardformula]

The Metal Slug cell phone game I had on my old phone was pretty messed up, also there was a cell phone King of Fighters game I had which was just a rhythm game.
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[diplo]

oh, wow. that thing about the music is really interesting. i'm downloading the soundtrack, now.

i guess illbleed is the weirdest game i've played, though i don't really remember much of it. i recall a jump-roping segment where a single misstep equalled death. said jumprope had spikes or something on it. then there was a "horror house" with, uh, i think wax statues that had blood inside. the statues spouted out lines and then exploded or were torn in half by tentacles.
actually, i can't decide if illbleed was fucked up, or just plain retarded.
probably the latter.

[Dracko]

[diplo]

galbadia hotel only has the second game's ost, as far as i could tell.
i'm downloading individually - via a more painful process - from blue laguna. almost done. ;____;

[bleak]

Man, fucking Harvester. That game is pretty fucked up.
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[wasted potential]

[Dracko]

I suppose Hopkins FBI would also count, if only because it's such a horrible, horrible French turd of a game with dire, but still bizarre, twists. It's like killer7 if written by an impressionable teenage pet-rapist-in-waiting and his Heavy Metal fan friends, who actually are basement metalheads.
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[shnozlak]

Beat em and Eat em?
I mean its sort of widely known now but when I downloaded it years ago, oh wow.

BONK games is pretty screwball, I mean you like eat meat so you can freak out. Its a good adventure though, in that you never know whats coming next.
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Mixtapes galore ~ VG MUSIC
ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ http://phantom-photon.tumblr.com/

[zombieman000]

Panic!!/Switch?

[BIGJ420COOLDUDE]

i mean i could name a bunch of shit like d2 or sexy hiking or trio de punch or whatever


but its gotta be snes star fox.



not the same game but probably the most fucked up moment ive had with the series as a whole

[DonMarco]

Super Mario 64

I haven't played a Mario game since 1997 because of that single damned game. Even the previous Mario games, like the NES and SNES ones. Not including the Kart and RPG gaiden.
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Still alive.

[shnozlak]

[Toups]

[Toups]

[Talbain]

I'm gonna say Smash TV.
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[Loki Laufeyson]

[Lurky]

[RobotRocker]

Probably Demonophobia.

Dont even look for that one kids. Its not worth it despite being a surprisingly reasonable but bastard hard Clock Tower/Another World style game that even 4chan thought was too horrid.
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[bloody heartland]

Godhand is offbeat but not fucked up, man.

Illbleed ends up having a hell level based on toy story where you have to save SEXXXAAAYYY DAAAWWWWLLL from ZONDICK THE HELLHOG. Alas I've only seen this on youtube.