My rating: 7.85122474487139 / 10

TL;DR, it is a more mixed quality experience than Automata, but shares a lot of DNA with that game and has a lot of creative energy behind it. It most likely will appeal to any fans of its sequel for at least the duration of one playthrough. If you're curious about the series, consider just playing the sequel first, but you will still find this to be a unique and fun experience that adds neat context to that sequel.

Not quite a remake, but not just a remaster, I guess it makes some sense that this upgraded version of NieR Replicant is marketed as version... square root of 1.5. The sequel, NieR Automata, is one of my favorite games of last gen, so I was curious to see what its predecessor had to offer.

Replicant shares most of its greatest strengths with its successor: a great story that's dark, mysterious, and emotional, a standout soundtrack, simple and fun combat, and an interesting playfulness with gaming conventions. The game regularly changes up its camera perspective and gameplay style to emulate different classic series, and these experiments, while sometimes a little long, are a lot of fun to see. I really liked a few segments paying homage to classic text adventure games, a funny bit of Resident Evil parody, and a somewhat horror-themed side-scrolling section in a wrecked ship late in the game.

Speaking of things being "a little long," that actually sums up a lot of this game's more disappointing aspects. Not that it's a long game, per se. A single playthrough to the first ending took me a mere 12-13 hours skipping over pointless side quests, and completing the remainder of the endings is not as long as you'd think. But in that short time to complete just one route, it reuses large areas and encounters 2 or 3 times, dragging out its obviously limited budget to fit its ambitious story. If you're madly in love with the game, you might not notice, but otherwise it's a real drag at times.

The combat is pretty good in this new version, becoming very weighty and satisfying once you unlock advanced weapon types in the second half of the game. The game is occasionally challenging, but by and large you are doing the same thing over and over in combat. Especially late game, every encounter began to have about twice as many enemies as it needed to. It was a bit exhausting and made the game hard to play for long periods of time.

Unlike the normal enemy encounters, the bosses are one of the best things about the game. Some are more interesting visually than others, but together they make the best use of the game's unique combination of character action and bullet hell gameplay. As the game goes on, they generally get bigger, tougher, and more fun to fight against, and some of the biggest ones are very, very memorable. The one following that wrecked ship level was so cool, the perfect challenge level and actually had some story behind it besides just being a big monster.

Also somewhat exhausting is how the game actually makes use of its great soundtrack. It's one of the best I've heard in an action game, but the game has a tendency to run its vocal-driven tracks into the ground. There is rarely an important story moment, or even a moment roaming the open world, that is not punctuated by one of a small handful of vocal songs, and by the end of the game I found these tracks tiring and lacking in impact.

One thing that kinda bothered me is that the main female companion, Kainé, is dressed in lingerie for the entirety of the game. Like Metal Gear Solid V's Quiet, there is actually a lore explanation for it, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. In addition to the camera lingering on her half-exposed butt during every cutscene, a party member constantly takes shots at her for it, calling her names and making rude jokes. Very weird and unnecessary.

She's a good character, but it's kind of awkward that so much of her character background is withheld until after the first playthrough. The game's storytelling style in general is based around giving you a bunch of stuff that makes no sense, then slowly revealing it in twists later. Sometimes it works great, giving later parts of the game a lot of impact that they otherwise wouldn't have had. Other times I just don't get why it was done. I didn't mind the multiple playthrough aspect of Automata, but here it feels unwelcome and tedious since I'm not head over heels with the game to begin with.

I have a lot of complaints here, and yeah, by the end of this thing I kinda just wanted it to end, but I think it sticks the landing and everything pays off. The best aspects of the game are a lot more interesting than your average action-RPG game. For all its flaws, it will go down as more memorable than some games that I may give a slightly higher rating to. It is absolutely worth checking out, a fun game with an emotionally engaging story and some neat experimental game design.