Drakengard

there's really not much else that can describe a game like this. held back due to budget restrictions and time crunch Yoko Taro and his team decided that if they couldn't make their game great, they would make it memorable.
the less then stellar game-play combined with the absolutely schizophrenic story and batshit insane plot make for an experience that no other game can offer.
And its also nice to see the beginnings of Yoko Taro's signature Avant-garde style of story telling.

the best 2.5 I've ever played.

Drakengard attempts an ambitious reversal of both JRPG and musou tropes, presenting the protagonist (and many others) as a hysterical psychopath who serves well to frame the game's mission. Its meditations on human conflict evoke the long line of political war-based JRPGs, but dispensed of the politics in favor of a cruel, nihilist spleen. Its quirky, yet crushing atmosphere benefits from the use of classical music samples, odd dark fantasy elements, and disturbing character subplots that viscerally expose stereotypes. Yoko Taro and Sawako Natori certainly paint a bleak, terrifying context to both video game and player habits - and when it works, they transform the story into a surreal, theatrical tragedy replete with colossal pathos.

However, the gameplay is where its vision falls apart. The mission oriented hack n' slash combat is clumsy at best, nigh-unbearable at worst, and the flight battles forming the other half of gameplay only further highlight the issue. In addition, its brutal difficulty, awful camera, and tedious missions add to the torment. At least the weapon variety, unlockables and multiple endings remedy some of the repetition. Conceptually, it's sheer genius, but the gameplay fails to keep up with its artistic ambition.

It's shit