Yup, even a game like Drakengard 3 has sad moments interspersed among its crude humor and violence.
- Two's DLC. You learn how she ended up the way she is when Zero meets her again, and it's gut wrenching. Two is undoubtedly the nicest of the Intoners, but her will isn't strong enough to handle the Flower (you can see it too, in how she always questions the love that she receives). Her power goes out of control, and she has to kill everyone affected by it, including the war orphans she loved like family. By the second half, her mental stability is on a verge of collapse. Then we see it collapse as the Homunculus—the children all fused into an ungodly amalgamation shaped like a human—shows up.Cent: These aren't your children anymore! It's a monster!
Two: Then why are they screaming? Why are they crying!? WHY ARE THEY CALLING OUT TO ME?!- The later half of her Intoner Memoir makes you feel pretty sorry for Cent, too. He thought Two could use her power to help people. Now he has to live with the knowledge that no, this power has far more bad to it than he could have imagined.
- Mikhail's unconditional love for Zero is probably one of most lighthearted parts of the game. No surprise that in Branch D, Mikhail has a hard time taking it in that he has to kill Zero in the end. He's still a child in mentality, so for his mother figure telling him to kill her…
- Hell, Branch D's ending in general is incredibly depressing. The Flower consumes Zero, forcing Mikhail to kill it, and, just for extra Player Punch, it creates gargantuan statues of the Intoners that it puppeteers in a stilted "dance", as if it's just mocking the player. Seeing Zero as a forced part of this abomination is nothing short of sobering
- In Branch A, Zero begs Mikhail not to use his final wish just to weaken Gabriel. The sight of this coarse, murder-happy Intoner trying to physically push Mikhail back from going through with it is strangely heartbreaking. And when One verbally tears at Zero, Zero tells her to shut up while trying to hold back her tears. She may be a Death Seeker, but at the very least she wanted Mikhail to live on.
- In Ending B, when Zero performs an heroic sacrifice to save Mikhail's life in her only open use of Intoner magic in the game.
- Hell...pick an ending. It's a tearjerker. The crude humor and violence? It's just there to trick you into enjoying the stabbing-your-back that it's doing, right up until it twists the knife.
- The last verse of Four's DLC. You hear the elves screaming in terror in childlike voices, and you also hear that their families are on the Mothership that is the final boss of Four's chapter. It really takes away any guilty feelings you might've had about killing Four… and replaces them with worse ones.
- The two last pages of One's Intoner Memoir. She says on the first that she wants her sisters happy and that she loves them all. On the last page, three months after her sisters are dead, she wonders where she went wrong, she knows she will die with those regrets, and asks her sisters for forgiveness and finishing by saying she will join them soon.
- One's brother after One's death. He goes to his secret room and dresses like his dead sister, stands in front of a mirror before going on about how much he knows about her, trying to touch her and wondering why he can't... really the entirety of Mirror Mirror is a tearjerker.
- Branch C is by far the darkest and most painful of all... especially the final Verse, where Mikhail and Gabriel kill each other and Zero utterly snaps, driven mad with grief over Mikhail's death and an incomprehensibly massive fury against One. One is just as angry as Zero, and the two fight a final battle to the death.One: ZEEEROOOOOO!!Zero: OOOOOONE!![battle begins]Zero:MIKHAAAAAAIL!!One: If you think you're the only one suffering here, you're out of your goddamn mind! Two, Three, Four, Five... You gave life to each and everyone of them, then you went and killed them all! What did you expect?! Cursing the world, then saving the world... You thought you could do everything by yourself?! Well, THIS IS WHAT YOU FUCKING GET!![once One loses a quarter of her health]One: Ugh!... You're the one who should be erased, Zero!Zero: Shut up! Shut up shut up shut up SHUT UP!! You killed Mikhail... YOU KILLED MIKHAIL!!One: Because he was your sword, Zero! You're a cursed Intoner! You're going to destroy the world!Zero: No! I'm... I'm!One: Ugh... DIIIIIIIIEE!!!Zero: AAAAAHH!!
- The worst part of Ending C is Zero's full breakdown, and the beginning of her transformation into a Queen-Beast, as she sobs, retches, and vomits, walking towards the exit as the screen fades to black and "Tsukiru/Exhausted" starts playing in the credits, sung by Zero's Japanese voice actress. Needless to say, Accord sealed that branch before Zero could fully transform.Zero: Mikhail... If you're not here... Then who's gonna kill me? [vomits] Stupid One... Who does she think I am? Idiot... [vomits three more times] I'll find a dragon somehow... [retches] There's... still time... *sob*
- The worst part of Ending C is Zero's full breakdown, and the beginning of her transformation into a Queen-Beast, as she sobs, retches, and vomits, walking towards the exit as the screen fades to black and "Tsukiru/Exhausted" starts playing in the credits, sung by Zero's Japanese voice actress. Needless to say, Accord sealed that branch before Zero could fully transform.
- Two and Cent's fates are sad in all branches.
- In Branch A, she is pretty much dead inside after the events of her DLC. She dies while saying Mikhael's name, so she must have regained consciousness just before dying. Cent allies with Zero saying that he doesn't care as long as he serves an Intoner. However, Branch D and the DLC reveals this as a lie, as he explicitly says that all he cares about is Two, and that a world without her is meaningless.
- In Branch B, Accord made Cent forget Two so that Cent allies with Zero. Without Cent, Two lost her reason to the Flower. When they are reunited, Cent immediately betrays Zero and returns to to Two's side. As they die, they're comforted that they will be together forever and they summon an Angel to at least make sure Zero goes down with them.
- In Branch C, Two again goes insane without Cent beside her, but this time Cent decides to put her out of her misery. However, Two placed a trap to kill all those around her so they again both die together (with the other disciples) while Cent says that he is here for her.
- The last verse of Three's DLC. You'll truly feel sorry for Octa as he is horrified by how many people Three tortured, experimented on, and ultimately killed for her research and obsession with humans as dolls. He begs and pleads for her to stop as her sanity slips away, going into disturbing detail over her methods of toying with the lives of innocent people. Despite his sexual antics, Octa truly, genuinely loved Three, and the ending shows him crossing the Despair Event Horizon from over how far she has fallen.
- Zero's DLC is the story of how she and Michael meet each other. It begins as rough (and humorous) as you would expect but soon turns into a beautiful friendship between two sorrowful people with a same goal. Michael reveals to Zero how he's lost everything that he loved and believed in but still wants to seek out a companion in her because being alone is the same as being dead. Zero, meanwhile, keeps calling him stupid and declaring that she doesn't trust him but it's obvious that she holds great affection for the dragon. At the end of the DLC, Zero, after losing Michael, quietly tells his spirit to hold on a little more in the afterlife, because she will be joining him soon.
- At the very end, the story reveals that on the night Michael agrees to fight with Zero, he has a dream of the past and once more feeling the fear of yet another battle and the loss of something precious to him. It's no wonder that he chooses to sacrifice himself for Zero in the main game's prologue, he simply couldn't bear another loss of his loved ones.
