Nier

[Aeolus]

Fuck other games.

That pretty much describes what I'm feeling right now.

So I have to thank all of you guys in this huge thread: you're the reason I decided to give this game a second chance. This game has been more emotionally affecting and, more importantly, emotionally challenging than any game I've probably ever played. And to think I had given up on it!

Around the time Patrick Gann's review went up, I decided to give this game a chance and GameStop had it for cheap. My first impressions were a mixed bag. Interesting storyline, characters, and visual design, but lackluster level design, gameplay, and OH MY GOD FETCHQUESTCITY! I made it to the boss of the Desert Temple, which had me stuck and I gave up on the game and went on to "greener pastures."

Cue a couple of weeks ago, where I suddenly found the "Song of the Ancients" jamming itself back into my brain. For some reason, I was missing this game! Then I re-read Patrick's review. Then I listened to the whole soundtrack on Youtube. Finally I hopped into this thread and read everyone's impressions (as well as the advice on being able to switch the difficulty without starting the game over!). Damn you all! ;)

I love this game! I beat that boss on the Easy setting and never looked back. I'm now going through the B scenario, and the game is just WOW. The worst thing about it is still the fetchquests, but the best thing I can say is that the game never makes me do them, and I like how just accepting them will often prompt fully-voiced discussions among the party.

It's weird though. I've been wanting a game to challenge me emotionally and force me to do things I'm not comfortable with for a long time. Now that I've finally found that in Nier's scenario B, I don't want to play it! Does the game ever stop being so soul-crushing? It's cool if the answer is no! :P

Now go play Drakengard.

Then play Drakengard! 2!

[MindCandy]

Were those ps only?

[Aeolus]

Were those ps only?

No. They were PS 2.

[Commander Jubby Shepard]

And I just bought NiER. I'll have to wait till late tonight or tomorrow to play it, but I can finally play it!

[tebian]

I am replaying this game again. I lost my saves after doing the 3rd ending but I want to see the final ending. I really do not think that even Nobuo could hold a candle to this soundtrack for a game. Emi Evans did great job on the whole made up languages to match Keiichi Okabe composing for the game.

for each track, I was given instructions to write the lyrics in a particular pseudo language. For example with « Kaine » I was asked to write in new style Gaelic.

- source

If you have not bought it yet do it and you did not at least play the 2nd run through do it.

[Fei]

Drakengard was too much for me to deal with.  Great game, but just too depressing.  Nier has pretty colors and a promising future; Drakengard is just bleak.

[Dice]

Drakengard was too much for me to deal with.  Great game, but just too depressing.  Nier has pretty colors and a promising future; Drakengard is just bleak.

Code:

To what extent was it promising?  They didn't cure black scrawl on Yonah, did they?

[Aeolus]

Drakengard was too much for me to deal with.  Great game, but just too depressing.  Nier has pretty colors and a promising future; Drakengard is just bleak.

Code:

To what extent was it promising?  They didn't cure black scrawl on Yonah, did they?

Code:

As far as Ending D is concerned, the only ones who aren't completely fucked are Kaine and Emil. And if we assume that Nier's sacrifice allowed Tyrann to make Kaine fully human then thanks to her abilities as a hermaphrodite humanity itself isn't completely fucked either....

At least until the aliens show up.

[Prime Mover]

How the heck does Kiane being a hermaphrodite save humanity? It's not like she can fuck herself and make babies pop out.

Code:

Not to mention, no one in the human world can actually reproduce. They're all trapped in a state of eternal stasis. Everyone in the game was actually born over 2000 years ago, but only came to their senses a few years prior. No new "humans" (replicants) can be born. Basically, the way I understood it most of their memories are fake or they are unaware of the inconsistancies of their past. Though this doesn't explain Yonnah's aging at the end of the game, or Emil's test subject past. There are some strange plot congruity problems with the whole thing that I didn't really understand.

Code:

The only way that the Nier world could ever keep from completely stagnating is if they find a replacement "stability gestalt" (or whatever you want to call it), like the original Nier. Since Nier's replicant killed his gestalt, it means that there is currently no hope of re-fusing the replicants and gestalts. But there may be another gestalt out there like Nier who can fuse them. If there is a sequel, it will likely focus on finding that person. However, I'm not sure the game sold enough or was received well enough to be able to create a followup.

Not to mention, the whole point of Nier was to create a complete and utterly hopeless tragedy. When the songwriter was given instruction on writing the final track, she was told to create a theme with absolutely no hint of hope. Nier's universe is never suppoed to have a happy ending.

[Aeolus]

A couple of things.

Code:

First off re: followups. While the Bro Nier version did do well in Japan, there's the whole Cavia caveat of not existing anymore (you know, with the whole getting rolled into AQ Interactive which just recently got itself rolled into Marvelous Entertainment (or whatever they call themselves)). And though Squeenix might still be able to use the property at their own discretion (I don't know who holds the rights anymore), unless they get the director/writer back, at best, we can only hope for a game of Drakengard 2 quality. And this isn't even taking into account any of the doubtless executive meddling that'll occur if they do manage to get the guy back. The tl;dr is that seriously, this series is as dead as any child appears in a Cavia game.

Second off re: Kaine's reproductive organs. I don't want to get into a goonsay sperglord rant over what's actually possible and what's not. In this fictional case, both sets work, according to the game's director. As for whether or not Kaine got promoted to stable Replicant or a Gestalt bearing Replicant (i.e. more or less human) is merely speculation on my part.

And finally re: Reintegration speculation. First off The Shadowlord's job wasn't to fuse Gestalts to their respective Replicants but to keep Gestalts from going feral with his maso charged excrements (or whatever it was that they needed from him). The actual job of reintegrating Gestalts to their Replicants fell to the Grimoires Wiess and [s]Wesker[/s] Noir both of which are now dust in the wind. There is no finding a replacement. Gestalts will all go feral in short order and likely be killed by Replicants. Replicants will either be killed by feral Gestalts, or succumb to the Black Scrawl which is caused by the death of their respective Gestalt. All sapient life is doomed to extinction (save for Emil and possibly Kaine's descendants if she has any) until the aliens show up (seriously, developer interviews have basically stated that if there ever was to be a followup to NieR, it would involve aliens invading before the final generation of sapient life die out for who knows what purpose).

And this says nothing about what happened to the alternate universe(s?) that were recipient to all the vacuumed up bad maso particles/bad magic/Queen Grotesquerie dust that was dumped from the NieRverse.

Also, way to use those code tags there PM. I'm certain that anyone checking out this thread to see whether or not to get this game, or are still working on it themselves will appreciate your usage of them.

[Agent D.]

I dunno if I posted in I posted in this topic or not yet, but I will now anyway. Nier's gameplay was pretty meh (generic devil may cry-ish beatings, combo system was bleh). Add to that the severe lack of weapon variety (sword, long sword and spear), and gameplay wise, it's all but disappointing.

Course gameplay doesn't mean everything in the game. The music score was astounding, literally enough to drive me through the rest of the game. The areas all had an amazing feel to them just because of the music playing through each of them. All the time I spent grinding for items and sellable stuff was doable just because the music kept me motivated. Of course, epic music leads to some epic boss fights, and most of the bosses were pretty astounding themselves. The last boss of act 1, for example....yeah not gonna spoil it. Let's just say it was amazing (and hard, he killed me like 5 times in a row on normal). The story definitely binds it all together, but it's weird. Sometimes it's spot on, and sometimes it's a bit much (like the forest area...yeah just strange really). But after the first playthrough and you get that little extra bit of story and all of a sudden the game is in a league of its own storywise. It's been mentioned, but you gotta play through it at least once to get a full feeling for the story, or even moreso a full appreciation. I mean, the whole bit about Kaine's past....that was well written. I tried so hard to imagine it while reading, like a good book, you know?

The makers did a really good job in the story department, and the musical score is incredible as well. Just a shame the gameplay was sub par. I still put this at at LEAST a 9.2/10. I gameflied my copy, but I intend to buy this one next time I got some cash on hand.

[Prime Mover]

I think that game developers often choose to focus on and polish specific areas of the game, realizing that they have something unique in some areas, and then just plow through the other areas. And ya know what? I really don't fault them for that. It makes sense to exploit the things that you excel at. I think Nier is a shining example of that. Probably early on the developers realized that the battle system wasn't going to be the pinnacle of the experience, maybe they didn't even really care much about it, and decided to focus on design, dialog, and atmosphere instead.

I'd rather play a title with one outstanding element, then a game with all "pretty good" elements. Gameplay I can gloss over if I'm swept away by the rest of the elements.

[Fei]

Drakengard was too much for me to deal with.  Great game, but just too depressing.  Nier has pretty colors and a promising future; Drakengard is just bleak.

Code:

To what extent was it promising?  They didn't cure black scrawl on Yonah, did they?

Code:

What I meant was that as you're playing the game, you're successfully defending people, helping people... there are actual good things happening.  I shouldn't have said future; the ending indeed makes me want to LARP Persona 3 with real guns.

Drakengard was just scary and depressing the whole time.

[Agent D.]

Drakengard was too much for me to deal with.  Great game, but just too depressing.  Nier has pretty colors and a promising future; Drakengard is just bleak.

Code:

To what extent was it promising?  They didn't cure black scrawl on Yonah, did they?

Code:

What I meant was that as you're playing the game, you're successfully defending people, helping people... there are actual good things happening.  I shouldn't have said future; the ending indeed makes me want to LARP Persona 3 with real guns.

Drakengard was just scary and depressing the whole time.

Um, correct me if I'm wrong but....

Code:

wasn't the whole black scrawl just the inner soul of the person the gestalt body was saved for trying to get out, instead of leaving and becoming one of the enemies whose names I can't remember for some reason?

Again, I could be wrong, I mean I steamrolled the game in 2 days and did essentially everything but wipe my file clean (ending D). It's all still fresh-ish, but it's not like it stuck real hard in there.

[hell_snake]

Guys, check this out:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=28132837&postcount=7755

Don't know if old, but that blew my mind!