Nier Replicant (2010)

Ok, second playthrough done.. After Automata, whcih did the multiple character thing with extra content and Drakengard 3, which went for full-on alternate realities, going through the same exact gameplay with the same character with just a few extra scenes felt very underwhelming.

I do have a heart, so the little vignettes before each encounter got to me. It is affecting to see the inner lives and personal objectives of all the monsters you kill. At the same time, I didn't feel that most of them really recontextualised my actions.

During the fist playthrough the protagonist already sounded like a genocidal maniac when screaming about "killing them all", and we've already seen signs of intelligence from the Shades. Enemies also attack you, so it's not like neither the player character or the player themselves has any choice.

The small Emil vignette also doesn't add much to his story. We already knew that he was the one to put down his sister by just reading the scattered documents that referred to him as failsafe in case she went out control.

Similarly, we already knew Kainé was possessed by a shade. Her story is a bit more fleshed out, but I'm disappointed that they didn't really reveal that she's intersex clearly in the game (that fact is only spelled out in interviews, artbooks and other external media). It would've been a good payoff for all the objectifying in the previous sections.

Going through second route. It's got some impactful moments and some interesting character vignettes, but so far it's the same exact playthrough, which is very disappointing.

There was 1 (one) metanarrative nod when we start a quest that rewards us with a new weapon. Nier goes "Wait, don't we already have this weapon", to which Weiss responds "Shh, this kind of thing tends to happen the second time arround". Very cute. But then why can't we use similar metanarrative tricks to glose over all the meaningless nonsense that forces you to run from one corner of the map to the other to talk with Popola or go check your mail?

Ok, that's ending A in the bin.

My feelings towards the story are a bit more positive now, but the gameplay was still too bland. Again, comparisons with Drakengard 3 are inevitable. In that game, the gameplay was atrocious but because it was frustrating, it was at least engaging; it sparked some emotions. Nier's combat is serviceable but boring to the point of mindless and without the constant chatter to make it entertaining.

I'll continue with the next part of the story, though. Let's see how it goes.

I did it. I finished the game finally. Well, sort of. I finished the game and got ending A, but I didn't really understand what was going on, so I googled the context and found out Nier Replicant has multiple endings and you need all of them for the full story.. Oy.

Big debate happened in my brain. Keep playing this game and get all the endings, or move on because I have a million other games in my backlog I want to play. Well, I decided to move on because I want to return to the Final Fantasy hunt, but I'm going to leave Nier installed so I can pick it up again when I have an itch to play it. I did finish all 71 side quests (including the crossbreed moonflower quest) so I'm feeling pretty good about what I achieved, regardless of where I stop. I may write a review for this game. I loved the experience it provided, even if the story punches you right in the feels on the reg.

As someone who loved Automata, I had high hopes for this game. While it's not a bad game on the whole, there are parts of it which are terrible and really dragged down the experience and killed my momentum. For example, at a few points throughout the game there are boring, damage sponge mini-bosses which offer no real challenge or engaging combat. The perspective shifts also feel half-baked in comparison to Automata, and some really don't work well (isometric camera, for example), although others still make for standout experiences.

The side quests are some of the most tedious fetch quests I've ever experienced, and I basically checked out on them well before the end of the first act. They're so bad that Taro feels the need to crack the 4th wall by having a character comment on their banality, as if showing awareness of the problem lessens the blow (it does not). These fetch quests, in addition to the backtracking through barely-changed environments and re-watching identical scenes, disrespect the player's time. There are moments when the writing is so bad and the tone veers so sharply into melodrama that it almost feels like self-parody.

That being said, the main quest line is quite good (it has a lot of Automata DNA, which is to be expected with what is essentially Automata's rough draft), and the Automata-inspired combat is fun, but distincty inferior to what we got with 2B and 9S. The magic abilities are super cool, and most of the cutscenes are very well done, although they do start to feel a bit samey after a while. The art direction and soundtrack are top notch, and the tone is distinctly Nier. I don't think I'll ever replay it, even for the alternate endings, but I'm glad I played it once.

Story-wise, there are two siblings, one of which, Yonah, is sick with some curse. Her brother finds a talking White Book that is supposed to heal her if he finds the Black Book. This is all set in a post-apocalyptic world that fell into the Middle Ages. I tried to play the original Nier back in the day on Xbox360. The English version protagonist was a middle-aged man, Yonah's father. Then when the remake came out, I discovered that in the Japanese version, it was always Yonah's brother, a teenager. The most interesting part of the game is the camerawork. Usually, it's just a free 3rd person view. But sometimes it would switch to a sidescroller or a top-down view. The gameplay is quite boring; that's why I dropped it the first time. It's a mix of ARPG and slasher mechanics. It's interesting, though, that the game has some self-awareness. At one point, Weiss asks the hero what he thinks about the stupid errands everyone gives him. At another point, the hero asks why a girl he meets is wearing just lingerie: a common fantasy trope for sure. The music in this game is something else, I must admit. Having vocals is not something many games try to pull off.

Bad-mouthed Kaine is sure a good comic relief:

With her, we travel to a Sand City that has thousands of rules. Obviously, the dungeon/temple puzzles are also based around following bizarre rules: no jumping in one room, no running or using magic in another.

And suddenly, the game turns into a text adventure.

And then it mocks Resident Evil with its mansion and keys.

There we meet and kill Red Book, that doesn’t speak, though, and a boy, Emil, that can petrify with his gaze.

Then the village gets attacked. This episode is seriously technically impressive, with that huge boss chasing the hero:

We try to fend it off, but Kaine has to be sacrificed, turned into stone, to seal one of the Shades, and a dark twin of the protagonist appears alongside Grimoire Noir, which we were about to start chasing. Noir explains that it must unite with Weiss to bring Shades upon the world, but Weiss refuses. Still, the protagonist gets stabbed, and Yona stolen by the Shadowlord. The game makes a time jump 5 years. Time jumps aren’t new: Ocarina of Time pulled it, Breath of Fire 2 pulled it too. But I still respect every game that manages to do it properly. This one does.

Now our hero isn’t a teenager anymore, although that makes him resemble Dante now much more. I was also wondering why the game mentions that the sword you find is “one-handed”, since they all were one-handed. This is why. As an adult, the protagonist can also wield two-handed swords. Nice. Emil, the kid that is able to petrify with his stare, discovers that his mansion has a laboratory underneath (another Resident Evil reference), and there his sister, turned into a huge monster, is kept. And he was given his capabilities to stop her. The game perspective switches to 2.5D isometric ARPG-like for a while.

The siblings merge, Emil receives magic abilities, but now looks like a skeleton, a miniature version of his sister. I always thought that the skeleton on the cover is Grimoir Weiss personified.

With that, Kaine is un-petrified, and the monster she held sealed finally beaten. As I already mentioned, the OST of Nier is something else: https://open.spotify.com/track/2aCt0uqi9RrcUGMjX1hFQI?si=eb6f687edf5e41dc

Being grown up means mostly you revisit the same locations again, and with the Junkyard, I think even twice. Some of those are better, like the Octopus Girl boss.

Some of them are meh, like the Wolf boss.

Devola and Popola, the town mayor and her twin sister, turn out to be evil witches. And everyone turns out to be androids, while the Shades are the real humans. This is all explained in a sneaky burst of images at the very end of the game. Not a real surprise, as the subtitle of the remake is "Replicant". Akin to "The Island", the plan was for people's souls to return into the android "shells" after the pandemic is over, but souls turned into monsters, while shells developed conscience and rejected their owners. There are 4 more endings, achieved by playing the second half of the game 3 more times, and then the entire game again from the start. But I think I'll stop there. It's great the Nier has a sane difficulty: unlike Bayonetta or Revengeance, nor like Souls games, not once I wanted to break my gamepad while playing it for 20 hours. But I played it for 20 hours, and I think that's quite enough. No amount of post-irony and self-humor about boring dungeons and quests can hide the fact that those are indeed boring.

"Do you want this weapon so you can unlock the rest of the endings? Okay, you have to do this stupidly long sidequest. Which requires a material that only an specific enemy drops. An enemy which only spawns on a single room and if you kill them and if it doesn't drop it you have to walk all the way back so it respawns. Also the drop rate is stupidly low even with words that raise your drops"

Ah yes. Fun. A delightful time to be had.

This is an amazing game with a great story, but there are a few aspects that hold it back. Some quests feel tedious, requiring excessive grinding for materials and featuring a somewhat monotonous fishing mini-game. The difficulty scaling is a letdown, turning enemies into annoying damage sponges, and magic, while cool, falls short due to the weakness of most spells, making some of the more exciting ones impractical.

Another hiccup is the multiple endings; while A, B, and E make sense to separate, the division of information after ending A into separate runs feels like a time-wasting design choice. Automata handles this much better.

On the lore front, Replicant struggles to deliver its rich narrative in-game. To truly grasp it, post-ending A, diving into the Japanese-only drama CD and Grimoire NieR (or a story break-down) is advised. Various critical elements like Project Gestalt, white chlorination syndrome, what happened to the world, and the Grimoire's utility/ their ties to Emile's past go completely unexplained in game. Crucial details like the Legion & Red Eye's are not even expressly mentioned in the game. The lore is so extensive it feels like an entire game's worth of content happened before this one. Even if budget constraints were a factor, integrating collectible document fragments in-game could have significantly enriched the experience.

Anyone who finishes this game and just moves on is going to be missing out on a truly fascinating world which makes this all the more frustrating.

NieR Automata, while explaining more lore in-game, faces a similar issue, scattering expanding lore across stage plays, books, world guides, mobile game crossovers, and more, creating an accessibility challenge even for dedicated fans.

The good:

• The story was really good. The way the story was told was even better. Really liked the way you get more of the story as you repeat events. I do wish the repeated events could have been less tedious somehow.
• Loved the characters, probably more than those in N:A.
• The music was phenomenal. There were a few scores that while I loved, felt a little overplayed, but they never were grating or anything like that. Just wished there were more emotional tracks to play during the emotional scenes.
• The text-based sequences were maybe my favorite. The writing coupled with the dynamic music was beautiful.
• Atmosphere. Like the sequel, Replicants atmosphere is perfect. Love the world

The bad:

• Tedious. This game is a true test of patience. I knew I'd have to repeat a few things, but when I realized to what extent this was the case, I was blown away. And then I'd find out a few hours later I had to repeat yet another few hours to get the final ending. There has to be a better way, but still, I don't regret playing this one. I just won't ever replay it.

Story 9.5 Music 9.5 Gameplay 6 Overall 8.5

Nier Replicant is a tough game to explain because it starts good, gets better, get better, gets terrible for half the game and then gets amazing right before it ends. And yet you still love it the whole time. It's the video game equivalent to remembering the things your mum did for you as a kid and realising you were poor. The definition of making a lot out of very, very little.

Playing the game is fine, it's nothing flash. The art design is strong but the game itself looks pretty PS3 still and every side quest is the same. And the main quests are often the same as the side quests. And yet, so much of this doesn't matter at all! Do I know what happened in Nier: Replicant v.12247488...? No, not at all, who gives a shit. Do I know about the characters in Nier: Replicant v.12247488...? Yes absolutely, they're why I love the game.

There is a lot happening in this game. There's a lot of lore. Ultimately though, I found the game to just be character-driven and I loved this cast of characters enough to stick through all the unending piles of bullshit the game wanted me to play. If you ask me to play the factory level 1 more time, I might have a breakdown!

I do also have to knock it a little for one of the worst PC ports I've ever seen. Unfortunately it's just atrocious. The mod fixes some things and breaks others way worse, to the point where it was easier to just play the game without the mod at 1.2x speed for the rest of the game. Stay as far away from the PC release as possible -- stick to PS4 -- you're not missing anything visually.

This is a lovely game that I wish had a few less tedious awful steps needed to enjoy it fully, but the fact that it's as fucked up as it does make me love it a bit more, like a really, really, really, really ugly baby that is also thicker than pigshit.

This is a great story about what it means to be human, just like it's sequel, Nier Automata. I liked Automata so much that I played it to 100% two times across different platforms. I've long wanted to play Replicant, or even Gestalt, but I had no PS3... so before I got the motivation to emulate it, the remake for replicant came out. Great!

I thought it was a full on remake like say, the Spyro Reignited trilogy, or Ratchet and Clank, but it is only a fresh coat of paint on a 2010 game. A very good 2010 game, but it still shows its age. Clunky UI, tiresome quests which consist of gathering 20 goat asses, and the WORST offender, you have to play through the game 2.5 times to reach any semblance of a full ending experience. And it's not a very varied experience. Automata is really when Yoko Taro finally got a handle on the formula. If you say you had a good time 100%ing Drakengaard or Nier I'm kind of doubting your words.

It might sound like I hated it. I didn't. I love found family stories, I loved Emil and could respect Kaine, I can clearly see how the things I loved in Automata have its genetic blueprints in Replicant. The game is wacky, in a good way, and it experiments more with camera shifts than Automata: we've got 3D, 2D sidescroller, isometric, text adventure.... it's a good time.

It's just that you have to adjust your expectations for an old-style game, not a new one. I had to adjust my expectations, just like going from Ghost of Tsushima to Morrowind. I love both, in different ways, because they have different experiences to offer granted the 20 year difference in release date.

Overall.... a very nice blast from the past. Lovers of Nier Automata should enjoy this more, but it is also good as a stand alone.

PROS

• Stunning art direction and splendid soundtrack
• Mysterious setting and somber tone create a distinct identity
• Intuitive controls and innovative camera work allow the action to genre hop with impressive fluidity

CONS

• Egregiously padded out with fetch quests and back-tracking
• Mediocre combat and overly scripted boss battles
• Corny melodrama undercuts the otherwise immersive atmosphere
• Bland and disappointing level designs
• Lack of any sort of challenge makes much of the game quite boring

Yes, Nier Replicant is a game that has a lot of flaws, yes, the requirements for the full ending can be annoying for some, the side quests aren't very good and the backtracking can be tedious, but Nier Replicant is, in my opinion, a must play for any JRPG fan, with how fantastic its story is and how unique the storytelling is.

The story is by far the best and strongest aspect of the game. Just like its sequel, Nier Automata, the game starts on with a pretty generic kind of a tale you'll expect from fantasy JRPGs, up till you get ending A. Once you jump into route B and start seeing things from different perspectives and learn more about the world, the enemies and the characters, it stops being just a generic tale and you start seeing how masterfully crafted the story is. It paints a lot of the characters in a grey color and makes you realize in such post apocalyptic world there's simply no just black and white. A lot of hidden philosophical thoughts will get into your head while watching the new cutscenes in route B and C while at the same time, keeps the story easy to follow and understand.

The combat is mostly pretty good. The animation are slick, and the camera is very good. At the start of the game I felt an issue with the mouse sensitivity though. I think the default settings have it way too low which can hurt the experience, so I suggest bumping it up to the highest to make the movement feel better. There're a lot of hidden combos that you unfortunately will either have to discover by yourself or search for a guide for it. The tutorials are definitely lacking, but once you understand the ins and outs of the combat system, you'll find it pretty satisfying to slash enemies and combine magic with melee.

A little bit of a problem in the combat though is the lack of enemy variety. There're not really that many new enemies especially once you hit route B and beyond you'll start finding the game much easier due to lack of new, tougher enemies and combat scenarios. The enemies don't seem to have their levels increased alongside you in subsequent playthroughs which hurts the balance of the game.

The world is quite small and while it's designed pretty well and didn't need to be any bigger, I felt the game badly needed some fast travel options to lessen the amount of backtracking. Considering that you'll visit a lot of the areas several times and side quests will require you to go back and forth between clients, a fast travel option would have helped. There's a sort of travelling option in part 2, but it's not good enough. I kept on thinking what would have happened if they made the save points also a fast travel points, it would have helped a lot.

The backtracking in the side quests is pretty tedious considering that you'll have to do a lot of them to gather enough money to buy the weapons you need to 100% collect for the true ending. Most if not all of them are basic and generic fetch quests you see in every JRPG around. I understand the game is old and they can't improve all these quests but it's still a flaw magnified by the amount of backtracking and lack of fast travel. Good thing though, the quests in part 2 give you ton of money so at least you don't feel you're wasting your time.

The weapons collection part while I know and understand it's pretty annoying for many, it's not that hard and I easily got all of them during my routes A and B, so don't let it prevent you from getting the game or getting the full endings. The quests in Part 2 give you ton of money as I said and weapons acquired through exploration are pretty hard to miss. About 4 weapons you'll get from side quests so you can search for a guide for these, and the 3 you get from the DLC content are actually pretty fun to acquire. I liked these additional combat scenarios and the third scenario of them provided a pretty decent challenge.

Graphics wise the gameplay looks great. It's not super realistic or next gen experience but the environment and characters look great. Voice acting is fantastic and the actrs did a great job, especially Weiss and Kaine's voice actors. The soundtrack is stunning and adds a great atmosphere to the fights and exploration.

Overall Nier Replicant is a great experience and masterpiece of storytelling even if it has some flaws in the gameplay design, it's worth playing and you owe yourself to see this story to its full conclusion if you're a JRPG fan.

Story : 10/10.

Gameplay : 7.5/10.

Graphics : 8/10.

Sounds and voice acting : 9/10.

Overall : 8/10.

I love NieR Automata with all my heart and always felt a little shame about that because I didn't played the first NieR.

Well, I was able thanks to this and I'm not dissapointed. Not at all. I was intrigued by the lore, fell in love with the characters (specially Kainé) and enjoyed the way it 'deconstructs' genres using just camera tricks.

But above everything, I love the way the real narrative doesn't revela itself until you played two, three times more. Its a really risk way to tell a story and I'm sure a lot of people missed the real plot because of this, but it pays off.

The problem is that is use a lot of its narrative, aesthetic and (specially) mechanic shortcomings as a way to criticize video games in general. But it commits those sins itself with its repetitive combats, boring side quests and sexualized characters. It's the "can videogames be critic of their own violence?" debate all over again.

Anyway, you can read my full review in spanish here. Yes, that's not my usual outlet. I know. I worked 'pro-bono' on this one just because I was anxious to write about this game and couldn't get a review code thru GamerFocus.

Don't do that kids. Don't be like me. Don't work for free. It's not really a 'free game' if you have to work writing about it, even if you want to do it.

Can a reviewer be critical of its own sins?