Like many people, NieR: Automata was my first exposure to games directed by Yoko Taro, which led me to watching people play a bunch of his past stuff. On a trip to GameStop a few months ago, I saw that they had a copy of the original NieR; and while I had watched somebody else play it before, I decided that it was my chance to check it out firsthand. Playing NieR is a fundamentally different experience from merely watching it. On one hand, the story beats have a greater impact when you have to work for it. On the other hand, a lot of the flaws of NieR are downplayed when you watch someone else play it, and man, there are a lot of flaws.

The game opens up in a (presumably) snowy apocalypse, where a man (whose default name is Nier) tries to take care of his daughter, Yonah. Nier rejects the aid of a magical book he has in his possession, however, the appearance of an army of shadowy creatures called Shades forces him to rely on it. Alone with Yonah, whose conditions seems to be getting worse, he cries out for help…

The game then shifts suddenly to a time period more than a thousand years later, where you’re now playing as an identical man also called Nier, taking care of his own Yonah. Civilization has regressed to a medieval state and Shades ran rampant along with a disease called the Black Scrawl, threatening to bring mankind to extinction. Nier is not going out to save the world. He merely wants to take care of Yonah, who has been afflicted with the Black Scrawl. In a desperate attempt to heal herself, Yonah seeks a legendary flower at the nearby ruins, where she is captured. In trying to save her, Nier finds a talking book called Grimoire Weiss, who may have the key to solving his problems, and with that, the game truly begins.

As an action game, NieR is just… okay. Weapons have a base combo and a charge attack that can be used mid-combo, as well as a special attack depending on weapon type. One-handed weapons are the only ones that you have available in the first half of the game and have a special that breaks enemies’ guards. Two-handed weapons are heavy, but their swings hit hard and can break armor. Spears have a narrow attack area, but are reasonably strong and their special lets you do a cool little dash attack. There’s an interesting weapon variety, though one-handed weapons end up being completely outclassed.

Along with weapons, you can summon upon the power of the great Grimoire Weiss to do magical attacks, with a souped up version if you hold down on the button longer. He starts out with simple Dark Blast projectiles that rival the stuff enemies throw out, but he gains more powers as you beat bosses in the first part of the game. Throughout the game, you collect “words” that you can attach to weapons and spells to give them modifiers.

It kinda feels extraneous though because, come on, who isn’t going to prioritize the ones that boost damage? I don’t like how the combat flows, especially at the beginning of the game. It’s hard to combo together physical and magical attacks because of Weiss’ magic limit at the beginning of the game; along with the fact that NieR doesn’t even count magical attacks in the combo count.

By the game’s definition, a successful combo is just kinda hacking at enemies with little variety and no cool flourishes, which is lame to have for an action game. However, the crunching noises that ensue when you whack a bunch of enemies with a two-handed claymore are satisfying. You can do charged attacks in the middle of a melee combo, but they’re so easily interrupted that I usually don’t bother. Combat does get better in the second half of the game, however; you’re given more weapon variety and at this point, you should be able to use magic more reliably. For a time, combat actually does feel satisfying, slipping into a reasonable middle of the road difficulty.

However, on later playthroughs (more on that later), combat feels like it doesn’t matter. By the second playthrough, you should have enough power and resources that most fights become trivial. You can very easily spear dash through all your problems and decimate enemies from a distance with charged up Dark Lances, but because of this, the game’s combat winds up feeling tedious – especially with the amount of enemies thrown at you in late game.

Speaking of tedious, there’s a weapon upgrade system in the game and there are a few sidequests requiring you to collect certain numbers of a bunch of stuff in typical fetch quest fashion. I play a lot of RPGs, so I’m completely sincere in saying that this game has the worst drop system I’ve ever seen.There is an absurd amount of items that are locked to a specific type of enemy, and I do mean specific; there’s a different drop table between armored and unarmored variants. The worst kind are the flying mage shades, which only appear near the end of the game or in a place so far off that you’ll really have to go out of your way to grind.

Even with the equipped words that increases item drop rate, the chances of getting an item you actually need is slim. Some items are found in specific gathering points, but the absolute worst is the Eagle Egg. The dreaded egg can be found in only one spot in the game, which has a large loot table to begin with, and said spot becomes inaccessible after a certain story event. How do you know where to get all these rare items? Better look it up, because there’s no way you’ll ever figure out where to get items yourself. I found a handy guide, and whoo boy, actually going out of my way to upgrade weapons and do side quests does not sound fun at all.

If you’re going to play NieR, just buy the Phoenix Spear in the second half of the game as soon as possible. You’d have to be insanely lucky to get enough resources on a casual playthrough to upgrade a weapon to be more dependable than the spear at its default level. To 100% the game is a fools errand and good god, this doesn’t even get into the insanity of some of the trophies. This all sounds awful, doesn’t it? The thing is, NieR‘s main appeal isn’t its gameplay. Rather, the appeal is in the game’s writing.

NieR is a story about a man trying to save his daughter, but the story also asks: do motives justify your actions? After the first half of the game, which serves to introduce you to the world and the characters, things becomes more dire and Nier becomes more desperate. For him, his desire to rescue his daughter mixes in with a desire to commit genocide on the Shades. Yet given the circumstances of the world created by the Shades (from his perspective. anyway) it’s hard to blame him.

Earlier, I mentioned that there are multiple playthroughs of the game. It’s not enough to play the game once, as there are three additional endings you get from playing the game some more. The second playthrough of the game is important because it’s the one that drastically changes your perspective on the story. Without getting into spoilers, new scenes and dialogue are added to give you a perspective of the game’s events outside of Nier’s singular goals and the new context provides more moral ambiguity and tragedy to the story. Ultimately, most of the characters have their own reasons for doing the things they do and are sympathetic to a degree, sincerely believing that they are in the right, which gives boss battles a darker tone.

The main characters definitely manage to stay as sympathetic figures in spite of it all through their writing. Nier is a gruff no-nonsense guy that gradually becomes more genocidal, but it is balanced out by the fact that he sincerely cares about his friends and other people. The first half of the game can be summarized as him becoming a dad for other troubled kids. Grimoire Weiss is the only one in the main cast with a brain cell and he likes to lord that over people, but other characters aren’t as impressed.

What really sells Weiss is his voice acting, which perfectly captures his regal arrogance. Kaine is a foul-mouthed killer with a lot of hidden depth and a strong sense of loyalty. In stark contrast to everyone else, there’s Emil, a mellow boy that’s a bright spot in the otherwise dour setting. In some ways, they become a strange found family and one of the more effective ones that I’ve seen in fiction and it’s hard not to love them.

The game doesn’t exactly look good for a PS3 game. In fact, my sister saw me playing this game and said that it looked like this Harry Potter game we had on the PS2, which is a brutal unintentional burn. However, the game makes up for it with a strong sense of direction. The substance of the cutscenes is a joy to behold, conveying dramatic moments perfectly and the cutscenes where Nier finishes off the bosses are honestly really cool, feeling very climactic even if the battle itself may not.

The dramatic sweeping camera exploring the Aerie when you first go there, set to the menacing “Cold Steel Coffin,” for instance, is a solid moment. Which contrasts with the fact that it is easily the worst map in the entire game with enemies that can dropkick you off its narrow bridges.

Speaking of Cold Steel Coffin; music is also a high point for NieR, and in fact, its soundtrack is one of the few things that I bought off of iTunes (rest in peace) because I love it that much. There’s generally a sad vibe to the whole soundtrack, fitting the game’s apocalyptic tone; though it doesn’t stop it from having intense fantasy RPG boss tunes. The music of NieR is notable in that much of it is paired up with vocals singing in a pretend language, lending a stylistic flair to the game that feels as if somebody was lamenting the state of the world.

It’s much like the modern Persona games, which uses English lyrics as a stylistic instrument. My only complaint with the music is that they literally only used the desert temple boss theme once in the entire game. Come on.

For all of its gameplay faults, NieR is a game that teeters between 6 and 7 but is living proof that anything scored less than a 8 shouldn’t just be written off. NieR‘s story, characters and world is very memorable and it leaves a lasting impression and is among one of the best stories in a game that I’ve played. If you’re willing to deal with janky gameplay for a casual run of of a fantastic story, I wholeheartedly recommend playing NieR.

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NieR

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6.5

Score

6.5/10

Pros

• Great heartwrenching story and characters
• Great cutscene direction
• Excellent soundtrack

Cons

• Unsatisfying combat
• Extremely tedious