should i play Drakengard and NieR?

[Jubbs]

just finished NieR:Automata in the brief span of 4 days and really loved the story. I am aware though that Automata is the 3rd game in the series and people have said to me that the story is much better if you've played the other two games. What do yall think? Should i buy them?

[myhr2]

Imho, reading the synopsis is enough, because the gameplay of these games is said to be less refined than the Automata one, but it might be interesting to also experiment them the way they were intented to, as video games.

[Id3alistic]

I've only played Nier and Drakengard 3 so I'll only comment about these two. They aren't very good. The combat is mediocre and you can tell the games lacked a proper budget. Aside from that, Nier has a great soundtrack.

Also I think to get the true ending in those games you need to collect all weapons which is very tedious iirc, and it's something I didn't want to do.

Overall I did have fun playing them, but they weren't that great.

[NyxCrab]

The original NieR is pretty good. The combat isn't as great Automata's, but it's still satisfying. The soundtrack in it is just as great as Automata, if not even better in some cases, and the story itself is fantastic. That being said, the side quests in NieR are also really awful as they're all just fetch quests for the most part, but luckily none of them really have any bearing on the overall story unlike the side quests in Automata. Route C in NieR is also a huge pain because you need to buy every weapon in the game before you're able to start it, which kinda burned me out of it for the time being.

I havent played Drakengard 3 yet, but from what I've heard the story is good in it but the gameplay is awful, mainly because the combat itself is a mediocre at best hack n slash but it's plagued with technical issues such as having very unstable frame rate, constant screen tearing issues, the game being nearly unplayable when you go into Intoner Mode or whatever it's called, etc. Could probably stick to just watching this game through youtube videos.

Drakengard 1 is also a pretty bad game from what I remember hearing. Bad gameplay, Bad music, a story that was alright I think? IDK it's an older game that I can't remember much about.

Drakengard 2 can be skipped entirely as not only is it really really bad, but Yoko Taro didn't work on it and thus it's not considered a canon game in the franchise.

[God Save The King]

Don't listen to NyxCrab's opinion on games he hasn't played. You're not completely wrong but you can't really judge the games unless you've played them and some of the things you mentioned aren't quite accurate. Drakengard 2 for example is canon but canon doesn't mean much in a series with branching timelines. Drakengard 2 follows off of a modified ending A in Drakengard while NieR follows from ending E. They aren't even in the same universes so whether its canon or not doesn't matter. That said, it's a better game than Drakengard and a lot more tolerable. The story has some pretty nice moments but seeing Caim and Angelus reunited won't have the same impact if you didn't go through the hell that is Drakengard 1.

Drakengard is really awful, just a terrible Dynasty Warrior's clone with music that will grate your ears. Some people like to meme that the music is bad on purpose to give you the sense of having tinitus and emulate the feeling of going insane just like the main character is but that's a bit of a stretch. That said, some of the music is actually really good and there is some really interesting stuff done with the instruments like dual channel manipulation and false CD-skipping effects. Listening to the music is an expirence all to itself, even if you end up hating it. Growing Wings is my favorite song in the entire franchise so you can't call the music all bad.

But should you play it? Eh, probably not. The story is pretty good but the gameplay isn't worth it. Getting ending E (which is what leads to NieR and Automata) also requires hundreds of hours of grinding. Just watch ending E on youtube and then start of NieR so you know what's going on.

As other people said, NieR is a great game and you should play it.

[Burnout6010]

The first NieR on PS3/360 is easily worth playing in its entirety: unique soundtrack, intricate story and characters, nice art style and gameplay that, while interesting, is a bit less in depth than Automata. It also has one of the most interesting uses of New Game+ I've ever seen, in the sense that you miss out on 50% of the story if you don't go into NG+: you get new scenes, new endings, new dialogue and can then understand the more tragic side of the story...

The reason why people say having played NieR before Automata makes the latter's story better is because you will understand elements such as the Gestalt Project, the library in the tower/the data collected in that library, the text section about the Popola & Devola androids, Emil's entire character or the fact that the Red Girls in the tower are based on data from the Shadowlord aka NieRmuch better. The story in Automata hits way harder if you have previous knowledge but it's entirely playable if you don't know anything.

Play the Drakengard games only if you are a huge Yoko Taro fan, the low budget is painfully obvious in those games even though they have their own great moments. NieR 1 and NieR: Automata are definitely way better games in all aspects. You might find an analysis of the Drakengard stories much more interesting than actually playing them. If they were remade with higher budgets I would definitely recommend them since they do a lot of interesting stuff in terms of story and music for example, but as they are right now... depends on you.

[dreamXCdid]

The first Nier is actually the sequel to a Joke [read Not Canon or Fail State] ending to Drakengard. So you will probably gain little insight to Nier world by going back that far. That joke ending explains reasons for Project Gestalt within an Apocalyptical world resulted from this particular Drakengard outcome. The plot line for Drakengard for the most part is abanadoned at the point, the Drakengard story continues along the true ending plot line. Neir, however has similar enemy attacks to NeiR: Automata. But PlatinumGames didn't make Neir, so don't expect the gameplay to be as satisfying. You will get gameplay persective changes, rich story lines and probably a better soundtrack (which is just an insane thing to say as Automata's soundtrack is incredible). If you don't have a legacy console to play Neir, you may want to wait until decisions of a Remake/Remaster of Neir have been made. It was hinted that this could occur if Neir: Automata was successful. And seemingly it has been.

If you play Neir, expect the same fashion of story telling with multiple play throughs required. But to my knowledge there isn't a chapter select option, so full play throughs are required. I'm waiting for the Remastering as multipe play throughs with a less robust combat system seems more painful than I care to put myself through.