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'Nier Replicant’ Beautifully Updates a Classic Oddity, but Can’t Replace It

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'Nier Replicant’ Beautifully Updates a Classic Oddity, but Can’t Replace It

"What if Ace Combat had Dragons?" is how it all began. Drakengard sprang to life—a mishmash of ground-based action RPG combat (added late in development) and aerial dragon combat, dark European fantasy, and too much Neon Genesis Evangelion—on the Playstation 2 in 2003. It was weird and chaotic, a broken, repetitive, shambling mess. It was just playable enough and outlandishly beautiful in its coarseness that it wasn't critically and commercially abandoned, and instead became one of those oddities of the PS2 era: cultishly adored and largely ignored.  Tucked away inside it is a joke ending, a what-if alternate timeline scenario...

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