Nier was always amazing. It was almost like a hidden treasure only a few of us knew about. Where others ridiculed it for its ugly graphics and a bit awkward combat system, we sat there. A small cluster like knew.
Nier was always amazing, it’s just a shame it would take so long before the rest of the world discovered it. Sitting here with a remake of Nier is something I never quite thought I would experience. I did not think once I would get to experience a sequel since Nier was slaughtered hard and brutally by an almost assembled choir of critics – signed not included – Eleven years ago. The game slipped into the obscure, and grew after a quarter of an hour to become one of these cult classics that gets bigger with time.
But then it happened Nier: Automata, a game that even before launch was raised as if it were the return. I seem to be one of the few who was not beaten to the ground by Automata. I found it strictly disappointing. The only thing that was better was the combat system, but the world, history, music and not least the characters in Nier are in a completely different league.
If you are one of those who played Automata, but never the first game, you are lucky. You are going on a journey you will never forget.
Up from the ashes
Nines is one of my favorite games of all time. I see no reason to hide it. It is one of the few games where I have subsequently regretted the grade I have given. It got eight, but a lump inside me has always told me that I really should have given Nier ein, well nier.
Nier originally came in two editions, one in the West and one in Japan. The one we got – Gestalt – gave us the story of a father who must try to find a cure for the disease that is ravaging the body of his little daughter. In the Japanese – Replicant – we play in the city as a young boy who has to save his sister. When Nier no returns after eleven years, it’s like Replicant, and as you probably understand from the name, it’s now the Japanese edition we get.
It’s almost like a whole other game. Although everything is actually the same, all the same supporting characters, everything that happens, this one difference is so monumental that the game most famous annleis. It is something completely different to fight for your child, than to fight for a sibling. Is it better? Taste and pleasure I would say, there is really no difference in quality, it is just different. I must admit I miss old father Nier, but that’s because I fell in love with old father Nier, and this young variant has a lot to come with him too.
Some things hit the notch better in the original, while other things hit the notch better now, but the prank is jammed over by such a high caliber that the superb authorship behind this story shines.
The Dark Majesty
Nier Replicant has one of the best, darkest and most gripping stories a game has taken me on. But saying games is almost unfair. This is a story I have had with me for over ten years now. It is a game, a value, and a collection of characters that ten years later still resonate as loudly as it did then. This story captures me. It’s hair-raisingly tragic, there’s so much madness going on with these people, and it makes the shocking twists in Nier: Automata look like Children’s TV in comparison.
One of the main reasons why Nier Replicant grabs me so hard is that it offers one of the best character galleries of all time. I will not go into details and will not ruin anything for you, but even if the characters in Nier Replicant may appear absurd, and even if the humor is tough and deliciously wrapped in cynical lines between the lines, there is so much about them. They are people, you fall in love with everyone, and it’s hard not to feel for them when the fucking gets intense.
All the shooters are back, purely except for the main character himself, of course, and they all do a phenomenal job. All dialogue has been re-recorded, and a lot of new dialogue has been recorded to fill in things like side quests and less important dialogue.
It says something about the quality of a game when your biggest complaint is that Kainé or Grimoire Weiss do not say things quite as they were done in the original. The tone was different, he spoke more there, she was very angry now. It becomes banal tile nailing without goals and meaning.
The powerful music has also undergone a renovation. Not that there was any need for it. If there is one thing everyone could agree on when it comes to Nier, it is that the music was magical. In Nier Replicant, Square Enix has done what they plan to do when a game is to be refurbished, and they have brought back the composer to go over the music again. It’s scary, and the risk is quick that one ends up with something like the Final Fantasy X HD Remaster where much of the music completely loses the soul that once made it great.
Nier Replicant mostly looks like going to a concert with the band you have been digging for years. It’s the same music, just full of air and life I never quite realized was missing. Going back to listen to the original music was almost a synthetic shock where I for the first time realized how flat the production of the original music was.
The changes that matter
There are many changes and improvements in Nier Replicant. The most immediate is the graphic lifting test that will hopefully make people stop talking about Nier as if it were the ugly duckling. The most important change in Nier Replicant, however, is, regardless of how you turn it around, the combat system. It will immediately be familiar and comfortable for anyone who has played both Nier, Nier: Automata and a typical action game. You throw out light and heavy attacks, and dance around the enemies as a hero, but all this is much easier now. So, cracking enemies is not easier, but with better flow and response, it will be easier to get Nier to do exactly what you want, and in general, to enjoy beating the enemies, is much easier now.
There are three changes that have all the credit for this. First we find a new lock on mechanism that works like lock on shall work. Lock yourself on an enemy and the camera immediately focuses on the enemy. Kill the enemy and the lock immediately jumps on to the next enemy. Manual change of goals can also be performed. It makes campaigns a dream. Where you as old father Nier could easily end up attacking the loose air, you now always have steel control, but it gets better.
When you are about to shoot magic, you get help from a sight that shows you where you hit. One would not think this was a big deal, but you world so much easier it will be to hit things.
The new magic system gets at least the same value, because one almost has to call it new. We get to evoke the same magic as before. You can send a lance at the enemy, spear enemies on spears that shoot up from the ground, stab them with a magic fist, or skin them with knives dancing around you. It’s delicious, delicious fun, and now you can use magic while you to drink you. Before, you stood still for most of the magic, and having full freedom of movement is night and day.
This never becomes more important in the face of the many wild boss battles. If you played Nier eleven years ago, you will easily recognize them, and they both look and behave the way we think of them. The nice thing about the new combat system is that it gives the same feeling as the old game, but it is more immediate and user-friendly without it at any point going beyond the challenge. You can make Nier Replicant a bloody challenging game if you turn up the difficulty level, but you can also speed through it by turning it down and turning on auto combat.
Conclusion
I guess we all have that game. The one game that just awakens something in us. Feelings, thoughts, questions. Nier does this with me, and it has done so for eleven years now. It is a year that has never completely left me alone. Music has been a regular part of the rotation, history is of a caliber that appears here and there without warning, and over the years that have passed, the game has become, in short, important.
This reunion was scary. When someone is going to mess with something you love, there is reason to fear. What if we end up in a Star Wars situation where everything just goes crazy?
We did not. We got something made by someone who completely openly loves the game as much as I do. It is a nicer game, which breathes more life into the yellow-scorched landscape from the original. The music is unique, poignant and more alive than before, but most of all it is history that is the attraction here. Travel to Nier, Kainè, Grimoire Weiss and Emil. This dreadful and hopeless journey that is what we get when everything works out. When something is beautifully written, performed and wrapped in emotional music that creates an almost unbearable situation.
There is no such thing as this, and there will never be anything like this. Nier: Automata was great there, but it has nothing to line up with. Nier is the king. The king has returned home.
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