Nier

The Short


Pros
- Dark, exceptionally well-crafted story that transcends most JRPGs and games in general
- Does something rare in that it doesn't ham-fist you ever piece of information, saving most of its mysteries only for those who dig deeper and actually immerse themselves in the story
- Has probably the best "pull the rug out from under you" moment of any game I've ever played
- Four endings, and the "New Game +" actually adds new content and cutscenes that connect with my previous bullet point
- Excellent script and voice acting throughout
- Characters feel three-dimensional and act like real people; their banter is some of the best in the business
- On that note, Grimoire Weiss might be my favorite video game character of all time
- Best soundtrack for a game this generation
- The soundtrack isn't just great, it is used well to compliment the on-screen emotion
- Draws unique (and often bizarre) inspiration from a variety of genres but somehow manages to blend it all together well
- The amount of side content is staggering, even if lots of it isn't great
- Bosses are fantastic
- Self-referential humor and in-jokes actually work, despite their fourth-wall breaking
- Has a unique theme and art style it sticks to throughout

Cons
- Side quests, aside from providing entertaining dialogue between Nier and Weiss, are often boring
- The fishing "side-game" is horrid and the instructions are flat-out wrong
- Game is too easy, even on the hardest difficulty
- Parts of the game can be a bit melodramatic, which especially stands out considering the rest of the game is so damn well told.
- Recycles dungeons and content, which is disappointing
- Weapon upgrades are a pain in the ass, so it's lucky they aren't necessary
- Kaine's foul mouth might turn a lot of people off
- First hour to hour-and-a-half is monotonous and give a very poor first impression (though I still love it for reasons explained further)
- While I think the graphics are fine, many will be put off by it's PS2-era looking visuals
- Every ending to this game is depressing. I'll just warn you right now.
- Combat isn't particularly deep, and once you figure out which magics are the best you'll hardly need anything else

You'd better go get a drink. This review is going to be a long one. 

The Long

Let me be as blunt as I can when I say this: Nier is my second favorite JRPG of all time, with only Final Fantasy III/VI rocketing ahead, and that's only because Final Fantasy III/VI is my favorite game ever. Yes, I like Nier better than Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VII, any of the Tales games and even the god-like Super Mario RPG. Commence the hatemail, but this is my review based on my tastes (which you may or may not be questioning right now), so before you blow a gasket at least read the rest of the review then proceed to call me a moron because I think Cloud's melodramatic adventure is a bloated piece of narrative nonsense. 

Nier is a game I'd been wanting to play for a long while but never got around to it, mostly because it has received a full spectrum of reviews mostly angling towards the "negative" side. It wasn't until a certain group of friends started singing its praises on Facebook that I finally took the plunge. 

And, as you can guess, I was blown away to a level where I'd tout this middlingly rated, forgotten game over the time-tested greats without fear of losing all my readership. Ok, I do sort of fear that, but if it really offends you then you can pretend it doesn't exist and go replay Final Fantasy VII to feel better about it.

I've been putting this review off for several key reasons, but the first one was I was afraid it would just be me gushing like a fanboy over it for several thousand words, which nobody wants to read. I will do my best to balance my irrational fanboy gushing with actual objective facts, but again: this is my blog so you kind of get gushing with the territory.

But enough of me feeling like I have to justify myself to an imaginary audience, and let's get on with this review. 

Nier has a weird fondness for wearing underwear on his head during the second half of the game

Nier follows the story of a single, aged father, beginning in what appears to be a modern time. His daughter is sick, and when they are attacked in what appears to be the snowy remains of a 7-11 by monstrous black creatures (Shades), he calls upon the power of a magic book because whacking the beasties to death with his pipe wasn't quite doing the trick. He managed to succeed in defending his daughter, Yonah, but she also seems to have touched another magic book (which is bad for a currently unexplained reason), causing Nier (my name for the aged father) to freak out.

Cut ahead 1300 years.

Now we are situated in a more traditional JRPG setting. Nier (a guy who bears a striking resemblance to our 7-11 defending Nier, though he has ditched the emo hoodie for a more medieval JRPG armor set) also has a daughter named Yonah (who looks exactly the same except she's wearing...you get the point). Yonah has a curse called the Black Scrawl, which slowly overtakes her body and currently has no cure. Nier, who doubles as the defender of his village from the still-existant Shades, is heartbroken about this and goes off on a quest to try and save her. It is during one of these expeditions that he unleashes Grimoire Weiss, a sentient flying book with the same voice actor as War from Darksiders. Weiss claims that he could save Yonah, if Nier can recover all of the Sealed Verses, pages torn from Weiss by an unexplained foe. Nier, obviously, decides to embark on a quest to find these pages, and that encompasses the brunt of the first half of the game's story.

Which also involves massive Shade genocide, of course. 

Before I go any further about the story there are two other characters that must be mentioned. First you have Kaine, a lady who Square-Enix touted around about how she was a hermaphrodite (because I'm pretty sure they had no idea how to market this game, so they focused on what they thought would make the beast headlines) though it's never fully confirmed in-game. She's a foul-mouthed bitch (for lack of a better word) who wants nothing more than to murder every Shade on the planet, while housing a skyscraper full of inner-demons of her own. She also has a completely ridiculous outfit that is more lingerie then actual clothes (go JRPGs!) but I am completely willing to forgive because Weiss is constantly making smart-ass jabs about how stupid she is for, quote "battling monsters in her undergarments." At least the other characters noticed how dumb she looked, which is a rarity for JRPG costume design (Kingdom Hearts and your infinite zippers, I'm looking at you). 

The second character that tags long is Emil, a young man born with the unfortunate birth defect of being able to turn people into stone on sight (ala Medusa). Something happens at the start of the second half that changes into Jack Skellington from A Nightmare Before Christmas, though honestly I think he looks a lot better. He's optimistic almost to the point of being obnoxious, but again: since the other characters just sort of smile and nod at his attempts to be cheerful in even the most dire situations, I'm willing to forgive it. 

Yeah, Emil. You are better as a floating skeleton puppet thing.

So anyway, back to the story. You and your trio of do-gooders (or at least "doers") are all working towards a common goal: save Yonah and get rid of the Shades, lead by the powerful Shadowlord. I will be completely honest: parts of this game are bananas and make no sense in context (though most things are smoothed out after playing to the second ending). But there are several key things it does so well that I can't help but overlook it's goofy Japanisms.

First off is subtlety. Now, this game has a good helping of melodrama in it. It's a JRPG, so that comes with the territory. But even though it does have lots of characters moping around with vacant expressions on their faces in what is supposed to be a touching moment of self-reflection (mostly Kaine, surprisingly enough, considering she's a hardass), it makes up for it by being brilliant all the rest of the time. The story is one that is both extremely complex and simple, combining a broad, post-apocalyptic narrative along with more personal character stories. There's a lot to ingest here, and to be completely honest if you only run through the game once, skipping most of the dialogue, you won't get it. Plenty of it is buried in small side conversations or even conversations coinciding with side-quests (and the quests themselves are pretty mediocre, but more on that later), meaning only those who really want to get the story will. Considering 90% of video games' stories (especially JRPGs) bludgeon you over the head with every bit of premise, codex, plot, and world-building over and over again, the fact that Nier gives you so little to work on but still works is ingenious. I cannot count the times when something suddenly clicked in my mind (I had that happen to me just a few weeks ago, months after beating the game) that I hadn't gotten before, and I both felt like a genius for figuring it out and stood in complete awe at the game for presenting it (or not presenting it) so perfectly. It is rare that this happens in books - which one could consider to be the most "refined" storytelling medium - and never in a video game, so that's something.

Second is the twist. There are lots of twists in this game, but there is one massive, enormous, unforgettable one that happens right near the ending of your first playthrough. This is the best twist in any video game I have ever played in my entire life. Yes, it is better than Kefka actually destroying the world halfway through Final Fantasy VI. It's better than the ending of Braid (probably because it makes more sense). It's better then...wait, do any other video games have twists in their stories? Not really? Well, whatever. Nier pulls the entire freaking rug out from under you. And the best part is that it isn't just with the story, but with the gameplay as well. I can't say it without spoiling it (and I accidentally ruined it for one of my friends who saw a scene during the second playthrough that sort of gave it away), but it takes both genre trappings and gaming's core monster-killing-centric goals and completely turns it on its head. The fact that you then get to replay the last 1/3 (or maybe 1/4 would be more accurate) portion of the game with both added cutscenes and the knowledge you've obtained turns the entire experience into a heart-wrenching event. It's bloody brilliant. 

I will go on record to say there are only two scenes in my entire history of interacting with visual media (be it movies, books, or video games) that actually made me cry. Scratch that, the scene from Enslaved was just me tearing up a little. Nier's second run through the final boss and subsequent ending is the most damned heart-rending moment in a game for me I have difficulty even rewatching it on YouTube (don't go watch it now; you'll ruin the game). I legitimately shed some tears. Now I sound like a big wimp (but remember: this was the only time. Ever.) but it says something that a game could invest me this deeply in its narrative considering what a cold-hearted bastard I am most of the time. 

I warned you this would be long. You can go get snacks if you want; I'll wait. 

I haven't even gotten to what might be my other favorite part about this game: the banter between the characters. Now, characters chit-chatting isn't a new thing. Both Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 did this, with varying results. I genuinely enjoyed the Dragon Age banter (though I didn't like the game that much) even though since your character was a mute I never felt too involved in it. Mass Effect 2 did it a little better, but for some reason Shepard was chatty when in a dialogue tree but completely silent on the field, which always irked me. 

Nier takes this idea of chatty characters and ramps it up to a whole new level of awesome and hilarity. This is probably because every character in this game has a massive amount of depth (which is only further realized after running through the game a second time after the twist). Nier is our obvious hero, his intentions of saving his daughter noble, though he's also such a do-gooder the other characters (Weiss especially) get irritated he keeps taking side-quests to find lost puppies or what-have-you. Kaine is a rude, loud-mouthed jerk and Weiss (who has quite the ego) knows exactly how to push her buttons. Emil plays foil for Kaine's rudeness, though his over-optimistic gushing seems to get on people's nerves just as much as Kaine's hatred for everything that stands in her way. And then we have Weiss, the egocentric novel who constantly orders people to call him by his full title (Grimoire Weiss), speaks eloquently while spouting out witty insults and generally being the Gandalf to this story if Gandalf thought himself better than every other being in creation and wasn't afraid to say it. 

"Ah-ha! I KNEW this was a trap! Curse my brilliant intuition!" - Weiss

Since each of these characters is fleshed out based on their personas (I can't really say realistically in a game where we have floating talking books, lingerie wearing hermaphrodites, and flying Jack Skellingtons) their banter as you progress is charming, hilarious, and also serves as getting to know them better. Nier quickly becomes more bloodthirsty as the frustration of failing his daughter completely consumes him. Kiane softens up after finally finding people she can be with without being shunned, but she can't show it or else everyone will perceive her as weak. Weiss learns to humble himself in his own, ass-like way, realizing he actually depends on others to succeed. And even Emil, who I'll admit has the weakest character arc, manages to come to terms with what he is and his place in the world. 

The script for this game is flat-out brilliant, and is presented perfectly by its cast of extremely talented voice actors. Half of the time I'd avoid continuing the plot just so I could hear the end of random conversations between the characters. It goes a very long way into getting you invested, and paired with the excellent story (and storytelling) makes every part of this game's story a joy to experience, even multiple times.

Plus, the game is genuinely funny, and not on a "oh man, this translation is so awful" funny. It's actually witty, and frequently so. And I probably don't have to tell you how rare that is in a game. 

On to something besides the story, please.  

So beyond that, what about the meat-and-potatoes portion of Nier: the gameplay? What do you do in this amazing mosh-pit of blabbing characters and convoluted-yet-clever plot points? Well, a lot, actually.

Nier steals a good deal of its gameplay from other games, while never really reaching to the heights the others did. It has a good deal of Zelda in it with a touch of Devil May Cry, fused with the odd choice of...bullet-hell shooters. Yes, you heard me right. Nier has as much in common with Ikaruga as it does with Zelda. Oh, and there's two text adventures in here as well. Like, actually part of the game. 

Yep. 

The game's structure is very much Zelda-esque. You are given a hub-area (your village) which you can then travel to a variety of dungeons that you must clear by killing a boss at the end before recovering the next Sealed Verse. You then can return to the hub and move on to your next dungeon. The game mixes it up by adding a lot of stuff to do in the in-between areas (the "Hyrule Field," if you will) as well as some set-piece points that take the fight home or elsewhere. You can buy weapons and upgrade them, you gain experience by killing Shades which ups your magic and life, and so on. Simple.

It's when you hit the dungeons that things get weird. Enemies start out as straight-melee but quickly become (as do most bosses) bullet-sprayers, who shoot tons of magic red orbs at you. You'd be surprised to know that this (like the Portal Gun in Darksiders) actually works. You can attack the orbs with your sword, block them (though you'll be immobile), or counter them by attacking with magic. It's weird, but it adds some crazy insanity to the bosses and regular enemies that you don't find in other games. 

The bosses in this game are nuts, in more ways than one. 

Tying this (loosely) together is the combat, which consists of a combination of blocks, rolls, and a single button press for melee attacks. You can charge your weapon (though I never found reason to), as well as equip a variety (small swords which are fast, spears which do high damage but not area damage, or massive slow double-handed swords), though in truth I just used the basic attacks with basic swords throughout. You can go directly into a roll to a melee attack, which is appreciated, and it makes the game have a lot of seeing enemy's projected attacks and rolling aside to land a back-attack.

It mixes it up with the magic. You have a handful at your disposal (they unlock the more Sealed Verses you get) ranging from spears that spin around you as a shield, small projectile shots which have a variety of uses, a duplicate of yourself to attack enemies, and the Ultra Hax Spell (aka Dark Lance). The Ultra Hax Spell slows time to give you a target, letting you charge multiple bolts for a massive blast attack, and essentially makes the game a cakewalk. Considering it's the second spell you get, this means you probably won't use any other magic in the game, which is too bad. 

The gameplay isn't bad, though some people might argue otherwise, it's just...not particularly great. Bosses are an absolute blast, forcing you to use your handful of different magics to employ unique strategies to take them down, but the basic enemies are cakewalks. It's a lot of button-mashing combined with rolling, which isn't an awful thing but it does feel a bit uninspired. 

Still, it got the job done (I was never frustrated with the controls or bored, though that might have been because this game is crazy easy, even on Hard) which is more than enough. I'd put it as "above average," with the bosses being "exceptionally above average." It's still a fun game to play (and several moments wil have you going "Ha! That's really clever!"), though it won't blow your mind. 

I wasn't kidding about the "bullet hell."

The game also has loads of crap for you to do. Want to plant a garden and make flowers or food to sell? Yeah, you can do that, based on a real-time clock for watering and harvesting. Want to go fishing (you don't; fishing in this game sucks) like every other Japanese game adds for some inexplicable reason? You're set; there's tons of places to fish and lots of fish to catch (you can even "level up" your fishing). Want to do a bunch of really useless sidequests? Oh, this game has that in spades. All the sidequests usually consist of running somewhere, pressing "A" (or "X" on the PS3 version) on something, and running back. Brilliant game design, that. I'd say it earns you money, but considering if you just save up you can buy the best weapons pretty easily, you probably don't need the cash unless you are an Achievement hunter. The one good thing about these side-quests is it means loads more Nier and Weiss dialogue, which is hilarious. So they are worth doing for that, I guess, but only after you've played through the game once (ignore them all the first playthrough. Trust me. And ignore fishing, for the love ignore the fishing!).

Nier just wants to be a good father. 

The presentation of the game depends a lot on personal opinion. Technically, this game looks like garbage. Ok, that might be a bit harsh, but it certainly looks like it left the PS2 train to the next generation and got stuck in a layover somewhere in the middle. The effects are flashy and look great, but the environments and character models aren't exactly awe-inspiring. The art design for the Shades and the various areas you explore fit a certain aesthetic, but it only just makes up for the technical shortcomings. The game looks pretty awful at first, but I was so engrossed in the story (and finally playing a game as an older man instead of some effeminate boy, as in common in every other JRPG in existence) that I was willing to completely forgive the graphical shortcomings.

The music in this game...oh man. It is so, so excellent. Easily my favorite soundtrack this generation, maybe my favorite soundtrack since Final Fantasy VI. The tracks employ lots of background singing (in a made up language, thankfully), but it uses a lot of both piano and guitar to make the softer songs all the more potent. But what is probably the most important part is how they use the music. The people at Cavia clearly knew how to use music to invoke an emotional response, as they do it nearly perfectly throughout the entire game. There is one particular moment during the final boss fight (which has an awesome battle song), where after landing two blows and preparing for the (usual) third and final strike, the battle song completely transforms into something...different. I won't spoil it here, but I will say that when I was on my second-playthrough (and thus knew the game's big secret) and that song kicked in, I had to pause the game and set my controller down. I had such an emotional response to the music I literally could not continue playing. This is masterful, and is something games rarely can pull off, so kudos to Cavia for making this work.

Absolutely haunting. 

Now that I've gushed, what else is bad about the game before I continue into my over-excited conclusion? Well, most of the side stuff they give you (sidequests, fishing, gardening) sucks. There's only about six dungeons in the game, and you have to repeat them multiple times before the ending (though they have changed, though not significantly enough). Weapon upgrades require picking up a large amount of randomly-dropped items, which also involve you digging through the "shiny" spots around the world in the hope of finding what you need for your next level of spear. There's a lot of running about (no fast travel here) which is fine in Zelda because for some reason everybody is always willing to forgive that series' massive refusal to evolve, but might bug some people with Nier. 

Probably it's biggest flaw is its slow start. I personally loved it because it was a relaxed build, setting a tone that is rarely presented in games: peace. Usually you are too busy slashing things or shooting things to take a breath and simply do errands. But I do errands in real life, Nier, and the last thing you want is the player's first impressions to be defending a 7-11 and then dinking around town for an hour and a half. If you just sort of lie back and not over-analyze it the long boring intro sort of becomes tolerable (and during subsequent playthroughs I was on the lookout for plot hints/clues), but for a first time it'll almost make you want to completely give up. So don't, just know it gets a lot better after.

The view goes to diorama when you enter buildings, which is a cool touch. 

Lastly, this game is depressing. Every ending is depressing. It's worth noting that the final alternate ending  involves completely deleting every save you have on your console. Yes, including the ones that aren't tied to that character. All of it. Gone. Forever. (though you could back it up on a USB stick I guess). The game gives very good reason to do this, and I applaud them for trying something unique, but it also is a major jerk move. Regardless, right when you think this game will have a happy ending it turns it to a bittersweet one, and once you think it's a bittersweet one then you dig deeper into all the implications of what you've done throughout the game and you realize some awful truths that make it depressing.

I loved it. Kudos on them for making your characters gray. But I understand not everybody thinks Game of Thrones is one of the best fantasy stories ever due to its moral ambiguity and realistically flawed characters, so if you prefer stories with happy endings where everything turns up violets and sunshine I'm sure there are lots of other JRPGs out there to fit that need. 

You're getting more Nier music, because it all is great. 

So you probably can guess what my conclusion will be regarding this game. Is it flawed? Absolutely. It has tons of problems, from its ugly graphics to mis-mash gameplay formula to bad side-quests and repeated dungeons. But if you can get past these few minor niggles you'll find a game that far exceeds the sum of its parts. Nier is an experience I will not forget anytime soon, one of the best games I've had the pleasure of playing in years. As I've said, it's rare for me to continue finding out truths about a story months after finishing it, and even as I was researching for this review I found out new things that pulled more of the story together and left me in awe. 

Nier is a masterpiece. An overlooked, ugly, abandoned, forgotten masterpiece. It's sad we are in a world were bloated, big budget games like Final Fantasy XIII survive solely because they look beautiful and are forgiven their 30 hours of warm-up time, while actually unique titles like Nier are ignored, shunned, and their studios closed. So the next time you go out and buy Final Fantasy XXXVII and wonder where all the good JRPGs have gone, I want you to remember this review and Nier. Because it offered something different, and we all ignored it.

Or you could just go buy it and I'll forgive you. Hell, it's less than $20 on Amazon. I'll even link you to the 360 version.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go play this game again. 

Five out of five stars.  

"What's wrong? Did you forget all your strength in your other pair of panties?" - Weiss