Dear Internet,
"Nier"
has been on my backlog for a little while now, and I was happy to finally get
to it. While I do my best to be as unknowledgeable
as possible in regards to the various medias I want to consume (so as to
prevent any sort of spoilers for myself), I knew one thing for certain about
this game. It had fantastic music
throughout the game. From one forum to
another, "Nier" would almost be guaranteed a mention for having one
of the most beautiful soundtracks in the last/current generation of games. Beyond that, I knew just about next to
nothing. In fact, I had believed
that the game was more of an RPG than anything else. But I am getting ahead of myself.
"Nier"
follows around the titular character, who can also be named whatever you want. Nier is a middle aged man with a daughter
named Yonah. His daughter is sick and
dying from a mysterious magical ailment, called the Black Scrawl, which
manifests itself in black runes that appear over her body, giving her pain
among other things. The setting is a
futuristic dystopia that has more in common with the middle ages than a science
fiction epic. The biggest threat to the
people of this world is the Shades, a kind of monster that seems to be born
from darkness. They are slowly encroaching
upon the various villages, terrorizing and killing the people of the land. One day, Yonah attempts to obtain a flower
from outside the village. Nier followers
her in pursuit, only to find her passed out and surrounded by Shades. There, he finds the talking book Grimoire
Weiss, an ancient tomb that has many magical abilities that are slowly unlocked. After saving his daughter, Nier plans on
taking on the Shades and unlocking Grimoire Weiss's verses in hopes of curing
his daughter.
 |
| Shades readying an attack. |
So far,
the plot is fairly straightforward and sounds like many other games that have
come out from Japan in the last fifteen or more years. The biggest notable change is that the player
is controlling a father character as compared to a teenage angst ridden desperado. It is a change of pace that I wish the game
would place more emphasis on. There is
very limited interaction that the player has with the daughter, only being able
to take on an extra side quest or two.
On top of that, the main character does not seem to take a more personal
role with Yonah. Sure, he provides for
her by doing a number of odd jobs for the various villagers in order that she
has food and medicine, but there is something of a gaping hole that forms because
he is more concerned with her physical well-being than all her other needs. This of course stems from the fact that she
is dying from an unknown disease. The
game is somewhat aware of this gap and highlights it to the player, so it is
not as if the game itself was unaware. The
father/daughter interaction is one that few games go near and rarely from the perspective
of the father. "Lost Odyssey"
had it briefly, only to snatch it away just as quick. The "God of War" franchise has a
bit, but in those games the daughter is more a goal than a fleshed out character. Then again, the Japanese versions of
"Nier" had two different formats, one with Nier as the father and the
other with Nier as Yonah's brother.
Keeping this in mind, the various themes that appear might only be there
through the injection of the audience rather than the creators. If the main character can just as easily be
Yonah's father or brother for the purpose of the story of the game, he might as
well be her cousin, mailman, or pet hamster.
The gameplay
is not as RPG as I thought it was. In
fact, it is more action-adventure like a beat-em-up game. You control Nier in a third-person perspective
that occasionally goes side-scroller or top-down. Jumping, attacking, evading, and combo-ing are
very much like games such as "Bayonetta" but is probably more like
"God of War." I say that
because the combos are less string based than "Bayonetta," which uses
at least one more attack button, and combat in "Nier" is more reliant
upon learning the various enemies' patterns than juggling them in the air. There is also a little magic thrown in for
good measure, but so far, the magic is limited to use in only two buttons that
are player-designated spells. The player
can hold the attack button or spell button for a harder attack, but the
stronger attack charge is usually rather long, which can slow down combat or
create too wide of an opening. The magic
charged attack is a little more creative with some spells just being powered versions
up while other spells being altered to the point of having an added
effect. Evading feels a bit sluggish at
times, but it is balanced out by being able to avoid most attacks.
Enemies
are categorized into two groups. There
are the passive ones and the aggressive ones.
Passive ones, like sheep and goats will not normally attack unless
provoked. These types of enemies are
almost guaranteed to be harvestable for materials that are used for side-quests
and money making plans. The aggressive
ones, such as Shades and bats, will attack on sight (or when within
earshot). These are usually better
hunted for Exp than for materials, although the bat can be harvested upon
victory. Most of the time, Shades drop
nothing, but occasionally they drop medicine and more importantly tutorials and
"Words". The tutorials are
really strangely scattered around. Sometimes
I found myself amidst a group of enemies that I was attacking, only to be told
I found a tutorial somewhere in the battle that tells me how to plant
crops. But what is more valuable are the
Words.
 |
| Sometimes, tutorials are hidden in boxes around town. |
There are
120 Words within the game. I know this
because that's what the back of the game box says. It also says that there are 30 weapons and 8
spells. This is most likely why I
thought the game was more RPG than anything else. Words are used to alter weapons, spells, and
attacks. These effects can raise damage
output, spell cost, item drop chance, and so forth. The effects are minor so early in the game,
which mean that there is no real strategy at this point. Until the Words have effects that at least
alter stats by double digit percentages, Words can be largely ignored. It is rather strange that the game's back
cover could only think about boasting about these three things. The only other thing it says is that there
are a lot of side quests and multiple endings.
Bragging about the Words , weapons, and spells makes the game feel like the
game is scraping the bottom of the barrel.
It would be like Bethesda Game Studios bragging about the number of
different NPCs its game has. Sure, there
are a lot of them, but after a while you realize that they are not that
different and they sort of look alike.
Having only 8 spells loses its appeal when just in the prologue you get
to use about half of them.
I'll
end here and carry on next time.
Yours in digital,
BeepBoop
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