The Let's Play Archive

Drakengard 3

by The Dark Id

Part 102: Episode LXXVIII: In Which We Hear a Dirge of Intoners

Episode LXXVIII: In Which We Hear a Dirge of Intoners



New Music: Exvulsion – Galgaliel (You should probably listen to this.)



Welp, this is happening now. This is a thing transpiring. Cent and Dito are going to have a high stakes Pokemon duel in the background. There's no need to worry about that right now. Instead, we have to contend with Undead Five and her newest variety of magical revenants: The Galgaliel.



So how many means are there to be resurrected/continue existing beyond a normal, human death in Drakengard's universe at this point? Let's see...

Oh and that's not counting the myriad of ways you can get your soul torn out and slammed into some other constructs or orphans being congealed into a single biomass entity or those nifty outliers. Though I don't know if that technically counts.



Anyway, the Galgaliel army. Undead Lady Five herself is ducking out of the first half of this battle. As soon as the fight begins (well... like 5-10 seconds into the fight due to the fact it actually chugs and takes a bit to load Zero's enemies because Drakengard 3), Five throws up an invincible barrier around herself and will just hang out until we reach phase 2.



What's Five doing here in the forest instead of Three?
Perhaps Accord was right about the world breaking down.
Oh, for fuck's sake.



The first phase of this battle involves slaying 99 of the Galgaliel horde. If you guessed that each individual one of these undead shamblers goes down in about 1-2 hits then ding-ding-ding! Give yourself a pat on the back. You've been paying attention to Drakengard 3's boss design!



Each individual acts quite similar to Three's Enhanced Soldier undead enemy type. Except it's 2004 and the Dawn of the Dead remake came out, so now it's all about the fast zombies. Which is to say Galgaliel can sprint. That is... pretty much the only difference between them and Enhanced Soldiers. They also barely do any damage even if they do manage to drunkard dash their way to Zero.

The ghoul soldiers can get their armor slashed off or just get good old fashion decapitated as Zero cuts her way through swathes of 'em. So that's fun.



Look at it, Cent! It's amazing! There's blood and guts and... everything! It's a world where only ugly is beautiful! And a world where idiots are geniuses! So join me, Cent!
Meeeeee?
Yeah! You! Come on, I know you hate the world you're in. I've known it forever! It's written all over your face!
Mmmm? That obvious, is it? Well, I suppoooose that might be the case. But even if I were to join you in that world... It wouldn't revive Lady Two.
Huh?
My place was by her side. It's really all I ever had...
Ugh, what the hell, man? You sound like a lovesick teenager. Makes me wanna puke my guts all over the floor... Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!



So, Two is already dead in this final timeline. The details behind her death remain unclear. But, I always figured that whole part of Two's Memories of the Intoners were it became rather creepy and Cent was having thoughts about going all One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest on Two... went a bit further down that path.



A nice detail is that Cent and Dito are indeed having a Pokemon duel with Dubstep Crab and the Bugzapper Twins outside the boundary of the arena. And I mean that quite literally. They are just taking turns leaping at one another occasionally like a proper turn based monster duel.



Still, it's nice the Access Games folks sort of got a handle on the engine the last 15% of the game enough to have such a busy arena with a bunch of enemies and not have the framerate completely tank like earlier usual. Speaking of a bunch of enemies, once Zero thins out the herd enough, we shall move onto Phase 2 of the battle.



Music: Exvulsion – Battleground





Undead Five's barrier dissipates after losing 99 loyal followers in her entourage. It appears now she's ready for a proper throw down with Zero. Well, we've murdered every other one of the Intoner sisters at least twice on camera now. May as well complete the set with the youngest sister, eh?



So they're immortal as long as Five's awake, huh?

We may have struck down near 100 of Rotting Five's adoring fans. But now she's taking special care to guard the last of her club. The remaining half dozen Galgaliel are all buffed with invincible armor (as in completely ignoring Zero's attack, no stunning allowed even) that is active until we do something about their leader.





The immortal Galgaliel will relentlessly make a beeline for Zero, utterly ignoring Octa or Decadus' meager efforts to even be a minor nuisance to their pursuit. So it's best to get some distance from the lot of them for some breathing room. Even with their fast zombie shuffle, Five will catch up far quicker than any of her subordinates. Giving us time to go to work on her.



Undead Five behaves like most of the other Intoner sisters battles and possesses all the same attack animations as her playable version. Her spear hits heavy and hard, plus possesses the longest range of any of the Intoner boss weapons. But her AI isn't particularly skilled at putting any of the proper techniques of a spear to good use (read: spamming stabbing attacks and jumping overhead strikes like you're supposed to.) Five is mostly just into the running up to Zero and stabbing her routine.



The zombified Five also isn't particularly great at blocking, barely ever parries, and or even dodging all that much. As before, I said she likes to just run up and stab at Zero and the AI isn't privy to animation dodge canceling unless it's a happy coincidence. So if Five whiffs an attack, she just commits while Zero hacks away at her from the side. I suppose we can't blame her too much for being slow on the uptake. She did literally have her brain cut in half a few weeks ago...





Once we manage to reduce Five's HP to fifty percent, our undead sister will stop for a bit to reveal her battle gimmick. No, it wasn't the invulnerable battle armor for her minions.



Remember how Five is a zombie now? And back when she was alive, she was quite the glutton to begin with? Well, let's just combine those two facts together...





...And add a bit of good old fashion cannibalism notch to Drakengard 3's crude, molding, bloodsoaked belt of WELP! Five can devour the corpse of a Galgaliel and completely restore her HP! Terrific! Simon Says: Tear your guts out for their potent restorative properties!



<slurping moan> I... I... I'm... so... s-s-s-saaad...
How did a beauty like Five ever end up in such a sad state?
I'm guessing the flower's force willed her body back to life. But neither one could handle the other, so now we have this. Stupid bastard should have just stayed dead.
I... I-I-I-I-I... I'll... alwaaays... <gurgle> adore... you... Zzzzzz... Zzzzz-Zeee... roo...
A sad sight indeed... She seems to be in pain... I'd be glad to ease it with my staff of miracles!

In this timeline, it turns out all the disciples are actually mallards.





The idea now is the same as earlier, there's just twice as many invincible Galgaliel in Five's brigade to avoid while baiting Five into a second death. Our Intoner rival doesn't switch up her attacking methods. It's just a shorter frame before the lemmings dogpile on Zero.



Of all the sisters, the flower's grip on Zero is by far the strongest. I fear she, too, will be consumed...
Hm? What's that?
...Nothing, my lady.





Once more we have to whittle down Five's health to fifty percent. But this time, she doesn't immediately drop everything to chow down on one of her underlings. Instead, Five raises her barrier from earlier again and gives Zero a sporting chance to avoid her boss gimmick.



A twenty second timer begins counting down and all the Galgaliel horde's armor vanishes, leaving them all just as vulnerable as they were in the first half of the fight. If Zero can murder each and every last zombie henchman on the field within the twenty second timeframe...



Congrats! The battle won't reset again. Failing to do so just throws us back to another loop of Five regenerating via cannibalizing a Galgaliel and we're back to square one. Octa and Decadus didn't get the memo about how we're changing gears to progress in this battle. Some things never change...



The Galgaliel army are finished after Undead Five's countdown shenanigans. Now it's just a matter of taking down Five for good. Undead Five has lost one ability the Intoner Sisters usually like to bust out during these on-foot duels.





Turns out getting half-resurrected by The Flower's influence makes popping off Intoner Mode a touch difficult in response to Zero's own Intoner power-up. Zero grinded for hours off screen to get that resurrection trick unlocked Five. You thought hacking a couple hex spaces in save files to unlock skills early wouldn't have repercussions down the line? Tsk-tsk. Amateur.



Z-Zeero... Beauti...ful Zero...



Music: Silence





See ya in hell...



...Sister.



RIP Lady Five. You lived as you died. Rotten, gross, and all putrefied.





Oh right, the disciples were still off quarrelin' with their old boss fight Stands. I suppose now that Five is double-dog dealt with, we ought to see what these birdbrains are up to now. My money is on the Egregori. You never bet on anything associating heavily with dubstep.





Out of the blue, Cent begins glowing with a distinct white anime aura. Now, this can mean only one of two things: Someone is powering up. Or someone's power is about to shit the bed. Seeing how Cent looks a touch bit distraught, I'm going with being the bad sort of anime aura.



Oh hey, Dito... You're doing it too. Yo... Dito? I know you're having fun here, but pay attention! <snaps fingers>



Huh? Wait, what the hell is this!? Uhh?!

Music: Iniquitus



You summoned an angel without the aid of an Intoner. Gonna have to pay for it somehow.



Sorry Dito... You done goofed on your disciple contract here. Dubstep Crab?



Status: REPOSSESSED!



Oh, come on! That's not even fair! I finally found it... I finally found a world I can live in and truly love!



Zero, wait... No!



No! No no no no no no no—





Welp. It's been nice knowing you, Dito. Have fun in your new life of shitting on people's heads from up on high.





Cent...



So that's how it is, huh? I honestly had no idea... I am just an idiot, after all, right?



Oh well. Heh. There's no point in living in a world without Lady Two anyway. Now I can rest.







Drakengard 3: A cautionary tale about thoroughly studying the instruction manual before mucking about with eldritch magical powers.



It's probably time to bust out the old character status list now that people are dropping off the roster three at a time. We've killed Four and fed her to Mikhail. Five is now double-plus dead. Two ate it off screen (no tricks, Two does not show up again in any plot relevant capacity.) Finally, Cent and Dito have exited stage left as doves. Spoilers: There's no coming back from Hatoful Boyfriend status either.



And that ends Verse 4 of Drakengard 3's final branch. Tune in next time for an quarterly employee evaluation on Team Zero.








Video: Galgaliel Army Featuring the Undead Five Boss Battle


Video: Branch D Verse 4 Conclusion (You should probably watch this.)



Galgaliel Battle Concept Art – Fun fact: This was the very first piece of media released for Drakengard 3 alongside the announcement of “Hey, The Dark Id were you having a good day? Well fuck you, Drakengard! 3!”