Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Nier Replicant Remaster and Mobile Game Nier Re[in]carnation Announced

 Video games  1 Response »  Tagged with: ,
Mar 302020
 

In honor of Nier’s 10th anniversary, we knew a live stream was set for yesterday and there were plenty of rumors about a potential Nier remaster.

Well, the rumors turned out to be true! Square Enix has announced NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139… for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

(And yes, that’s the name they’re going with, “NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139…” That number is the square root of 1.5, but I don’t want to see any Nier fans picking on Kingdom Hearts titles ever again.)

The remaster appears to be specifically Nier Replicant for both Japan and the west. For those of you who don’t know, when Nier was released in Japan, it had two versions: Nier Replicant and Nier Gestalt. The sole difference between these two is the protagonist and his relationship to Yonah. Replicant starred a young man who was her brother, while Gestalt starred an older man who was her father.

Only Gestalt was ever localized for the west, so this remaster will mark the first time the younger Nier has ever been playable in an official western release. It appears as though this will be the only version remastered.

Now, I’ve been calling it a remaster, but the official explanation translated by Gematsu leaves that slightly uncertain. It was officially described as “neither a remaster or a remake, but rather an upgraded version of the game.”

Voice-overs and background music have been re-recorded, and new elements have been added, including at least one new character, and the voice actors for 2B and 9S from Nier Automata will have small roles. However, it’s still undecided if there will be any new endings.

It still sounds like a remaster to me, but whatever it is, they hope it will feel fresh even to fans who have already played the game. I enjoyed Nier a lot when I played it last year, so I’m keeping my eye on this for sure.

But that wasn’t it for Nier news yesterday! They followed that announcement by revealing Nier Re[in]carnation, a new entry in the series for iOS and Android.

I’m not crazy about it being a mobile game, but additional details translated by Gematsu make it sound more promising.

According to producer Yosuke Saito, “at first glance, it doesn’t look like a smartphone title” and they’re approaching it as though it would be a multiplatform release, and he wants it to “cause a stir” even if it isn’t a profitable game. Director Yoko Taro described it as “a strangely startling type of game.”

This sounds like there’s a chance it won’t follow the usual free-to-play gacha model that turns me away whenever I see a mobile game announced. I’ll be interested in seeing more about Nier Re[in]carnation.

Meanwhile, I’ve gone back to my playthrough of Nier Automata and hope to make progress in that soon. Are you excited for the Nier Replicant remaster? What about Nier Re[in]carnation? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Nier is a Sad, Beautiful Game

 Reviews, Video games  6 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Dec 202019
 

Now that we’ve gotten this week’s exciting news out of the way, it’s time to discuss the game I finished over the weekend: Nier.

Yes, I finally played the original Nier, which I’d always intended to play ahead of Automata.

I barely knew anything about Nier going into it except that it was an action JRPG and everyone said it was depressing, so I didn’t quite know what to expect. I was rather surprised to find myself accepting little side quests from villages and planting seeds in my garden; somehow I expected Nier to be structured differently.

Nier has four endings. Originally I intended to get ending A, play the New Game+ for ending B, and then watch C and D online, but in the end I decided to get all four endings myself anyway.

As you might guess from that, I enjoyed Nier quite a bit.

Now, a lot of the side quests were fetch quests, and some got annoyingly grindy due to the items they required, and I gave up on one side quest completely, but the rest of the game made up for it. The story was interesting, especially in how it came together across the different playthroughs (particularly A and B), but the characters were what I liked the best about Nier.

I loved the cast of characters, their banter, and the way they grew closer over time. I did a lot of those grindy side quests solely to hear more banter between Nier and Weiss.

And as a result… I didn’t find Nier as depressing as I expected to from what I’d heard about it.

Don’t get me wrong. Nier is not a happy game. Some points on subsequent playthroughs are upsetting to the point where I felt like the game was deliberately trying to hurt me.

Click for major Nier spoilers
I know how this is going to end, so stop showing me how cute Kalil and “Beepy” are together! Stop it! T_T

But when someone describes a story as “depressing,” I think about some of the things we had to read in school where the major point seemed to be that nothing good ever happens to anyone. I think about someone I once talked to who thought characters were only realistic if their motivations were completely selfish. There’s a soul-crushing sense of hopelessness I associate with these types of stories, and I never got that from Nier no matter how distressing its story became.

I’ve thought about this a lot since I finished, and I think it’s really because of the characters.

The characters in Nier generally have sympathetic motivations. They’re likable. I wanted things to work out for them, and they had a lot of nice interactions with one another.

Click for major Nier spoilers
They don’t know they’re killing innocent people when they fight Shades, and that makes a world of difference when it comes to my feelings about them.

Even Kaine, whom I expected to be too dark and edgy for me, ended up being pretty cool.

Ending D was also so wild I was almost too excited to be sad.

Nier definitely is a sad game, but it’s also a beautiful one with a lot of good moments, and I definitely recommend giving it a chance if you haven’t played it.

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