Though its time has come and gone, NieR Re[in]carnation‘s soundtrack remains with us always. Yes, I am referring to the live service mobile title in the NieR series that had its servers permanently shut down in April 2024. I have been grieving the loss of this surprisingly robust, story-heavy title. Helping me through the grieving process is my collection of NieR Re[in]carnation soundtracks, beginning with this album and continuing with volumes The Sun and the Moon and The People and the World.
This first album, simply titled NieR Re[in]carnation Original Soundtrack, covers music for the game’s first year; its first season, story arc, however you want to categorize it. During this portion of the game, we learn the stories of the girl Fio and the monster Levania, as well as ten other “Memory” characters accessed through the labyrinthine structure known simply as “The Cage.” MONACA composers Shotaro Seo and Keiichi Okabe combined their talents to craft a soundtrack that felt like NieR without being a carbon copy of what we hear in Replicant or Automata.
Notably, our star vocalists are absent. You won’t find any Emi Evans or J’Nique Nicole here. However, NieR Re[in]carnation still features plenty of vocal tracks. These are more ambient in nature, with only a handful featuring typical song structure and lyrics—”Inori (Prayers)” being the key vocal theme for the game’s first story arc. The vocalists on this OST help to build a unique soundscape for NieR Re[in]carnation. KOCHO and Yukino Orita appear on other MONACA/Yoko Taro projects, including SINoALICE and Voice of Cards. If you’re familiar with the music for those titles, you may find something similar here.
The song that stands out most to me? The opener, “Hajimari (Beginning),” lives rent-free in my head. This ambient, reverberating theme would play on the game’s title screen and through the login process. Despite the tonal tendencies suggesting something morose, this piece is a spot of brightness for me.
Another track worth highlighting is “Kaikyō (Homesick).” This piece serves as background music for story sequences involving Fio’s past. And it features a surprise third vocalist, one who previously recorded on NieR: Automata for Pascal’s Village! That’s right, it’s the young Saki Ishii. For “Homesick,” Ishii hums a simple melody alongside Okabe’s perfected piano and string ensemble.
Not every track is a slow-paced, ethereal kind of experience. Keiichi Okabe brings to life some fantastic battle themes on NieR Re[in]carnation. Among them, my favorite has to be “Ikō (Authority).” The rhythmic pattern that the vocal melody follows provides a kind of fake-out time signature. In the first section, we have a clear 7/8 with a downbeat establishing a new measure. But the next section? It plays out another 7/8, then two more quick beats for a total 9/8. Add that up and you get 16/8 across two measures. In fact, you can count out this piece in 4/4 common time and it works. It’s so fun, so clever, and the vocals help to make it quite the earworm.
Another battle theme I see NieR Re[in]carnation fans go nuts for is “Gōgan (Arrogance).” I love this one as well, but I’ll add an asterisk to it because the piece is little more than a sped-up arrangement of the “Inori (Prayers)” theme. I don’t think there’s enough here that makes it as transformative as, say, the battle music version of “Song of the Ancients” from the earlier NieR titles.
This first-volume OST ends on the track “Kyūsai (Aid).” This track features arpeggiated chords on harp to hold the structure together, with a wall-of-sound choir guiding the listener on a brisk, memorable journey to the next steps. I think this piece does not serve well as a closer, but it does make for a great stepping stone into the second volume OST, The Sun and the Moon.
This first volume of the NieR Re[in]carnation Original Soundtrack is perhaps the most consistent of the three in terms of quality. There’s a lot to love. If you enjoyed playing this game when it was running, or you want to experience this extant portion of the now-lost game, I’d encourage picking it up. Physical and digital versions have been made available thanks to Square Enix’s Music publishing department, as well as via streaming.
