When you strip away the fancy subtitles—your Replicants, your Gestalts, your *sigh* ver 1.22474487139…’s—the proper NieR series (NieRies?) doesn’t have all that many entries: NieR, NieR: Automata, and the free-to-play gacha mobile game NieR Re[in]carnation. It’s hard to believe this considering the dozen-plus NieR music albums Square Enix has released, including 2012’s Piano Collections NieR Gestalt & Replicant and 2018’s Piano Collections NieR Automata. They are part of Square Enix’s Piano Collection line alongside the likes of the Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts series. What distinguishs this new NieR: Piano Journeys from this other line of albums are the impressively versatile performances by German solo pianist Benyamin Nuss, who cherry-picks and puts his emotional polish on the very best songs NieR has to offer.
If VGM fans don’t know Nuss’ name, it’s likely they’ve heard his sought-after fingers at work on the Distant Worlds: music from Final Fantasy albums, the Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 & 2.5 remasters, or some of his many more tribute albums in and out of the Square Enix sphere. The ten tracks on NieR: Piano Journeys encompass the full scope of the series and carry a consistent tonal weight throughout—melancholy but never morose. “Inori (Prayers)” (Re[in]carnation) opens and exemplifies how the album strips away the strings, the chaos-language vocals, and the electronic elements while maintaining the emotions of the original compositions, proving the strength of Keiichi Okabe’s work without relying on the series’ equally impressive music production. “Emil,” mixing elements from Replicant/Gestalt’s “Emil / Sacrifice” and “Emil / Karma,” effortlessly and elegantly glides through the blindfolded boy’s transformation into a grinning weapon. The depth of the pool of pathos Nuss draws from in this track blew me away and made me appreciate the originals in a whole new light.
“Amusement Park” loses Automata’s iconic mechanical aspect and instead burbles and flares into a passionate, carnivalesque rollicking. Without the “sauce” of twins Devola and Popola singing it, “Song of the Ancients” feels like it’d be right at home in Yoko Shimomura’s Final Fantasy XV. When stripped of gentle vocals and acoustics, “Peaceful Sleep” becomes a Joe Hisaishi-esque, wistful lullaby. The dewdrop piano melody of “City Ruins” carries over, and somehow Nuss plays on this track like he’s wielding three or four hands by the song’s climax.
The theme of NieR’s Southern and Northern Plains, “Hills of Radiant Wind,” is the most lighthearted of the bunch and serves as a brief palate cleanser before the next emotional heavyweight, “Kainé,” the only other track besides the opener arranged by Nuss himself. Warm chords collide with a cold melody before blossoming into something more humanistic, perfectly encapsulating the harsh outer shell of its beloved namesake character. I missed the lyrics of “Weight of the World,” but it contains a grandiose wall of sound that I didn’t expect from a solo piano. Finally, closer “Fleeting Winds” is one of the most impressively virtuosic performances I’ve heard on a Square Enix release—Nuss twinkles at the keys with the same mastery of tempo and feeling as when he’s slamming at them, completely enrapturing the listener.
The NieR series’ music is one of its most popular aspects, so stripping away the elements that separate it from other JRPG fare is a bold move. I can safely say that move pays off. With no disrespect to the series’ previous piano albums, they’re not played by Benyamin Nuss, who is utterly incredible on NieR: Piano Journeys and has made me appreciate the compositional strength of the original soundtracks in entirely new ways. This is no collection of tunes for sleepytime—this is a burning piano hammering out laments for the loss of humanity and the collapse of the world. NieR: Piano Journeys is available for purchase through Square Enix’s site as of April 16, 2025.
