Cheshire Cat Studios - Video Game and Movie Reviews

Nier

Nier tries to be too much of everything without focusing on refining any single thing.

By Dave

nier

Published by the infamous Japanese RPG video game company, Square Enix, Nier is an action RPG that is an interesting cross over of traditional RPG elements combined with some modern action video game elements that resemble games like Bayonetta, God of War, Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden. It may sound like a match made in heaven but when you try to appease everybody you please very few. Square-Enix outsourced Nier to Cavia, the company responsible for other such unremarkable titles like Drakengard and Bulletwitch, and the result is just as unimpressive.

Nier is the story about a brutal fighter named Nier in a post-apocalyptic world. His young daughter, Yonah, has been infected with the strange Black Scrawl virus, and he'll do whatever it takes to free her from pain and weakness. Along his travels he is attacked by enemies called Shades, dark ghostlike creatures that look almost digitized in their appearance. As the Nier's quest to cure his daughter progresses the magnitude of the threat grows larger and the characters' plight direr, but the game never loses sight of that heart, coming about full circle for the dramatic climax.

Nier with daughter

Square Enix's Nier is more or less a typical Japanese RPG game with mediocre game play mechanics. The reason why the gameplay is mediocre is because Nier tries to be too much of everything without focusing on refining any single thing. The gameplay is heavily influenced by games like God of War, Monster Hunter and even the Legend of Zelda games but it does not do anything really new with the source materials.

The gameplay in Nier consists of very standard moves that play off of God of War. You can attack with sword combination attacks, you can dodge and defend using the trigger and bumper buttons at the top of the controller, and you can quickly swap out different weapons and abilities heal yourself using items. Nier can unlock black magic by using an odd talking book called Grimoire Weiss. The Grimoire Weiss grants you eight different spells but some are more useful than others, such as Dark Lance, which hurls a magical black lance at your opponent. The magical abilities are helpful, but they do something else that's even more important to The gameplay in Nier: they add something fresh to the dull and repetitive combat.

Nier game play combat graphics

The RPG elements of Nier is most prominent in its many side quests which send you out to explore a very large and open world. However some of the quests involve menial tasks such as fishing, hunting, and harvesting much like the game Harvest Moon but on a grander scale. However the side quests are extremely tedious and borderline frustrating because of the amount of walking that is required. And if for example you do not bring the correct item with you, you will be required to return the same way you came and then travel back a second time in hopes that you in fact brought the correct item or items. To make matters even worse is that the side quests are ultimately unsatisfying and they will only stretch the 20 hours it may take to finish Nier to just above 30.

Nier features some of the most entertaining and innovative boss fights in any action RPG. Boss battles can take place in massive playing fields and multiple stages where you battle gigantic creatures, evade energy beams, throw bombs, and disable appendages.

The most tedious part about adventuring in Nier is that the landscape looks horrible. It is not that Nier takes place in a post-apocalyptic landscape, it is that the graphics in Nier are neither good or awe inspiring to see. The graphics quality is well below average for a game running on modern video game consoles but the textures look only slightly better than a late Playstation 2 video game. The landscapes themselves are bland and featureless so it makes adventuring feel like a long and arduous process where there is nothing truly 'fantastic' to see as a sort of a reward for your time and efforts.

Nier graphics

The dialogue is horribly cliché in places and any one who watches enough Japanese Anime will know what to expect. The voice acting in Nier is nothing cringe-worthy or fantastic but the music is ultimately the greatest in recent video game memory. Nier will make some of the most wonderful music come out of your speakers, and is often accompanied by a mournful and haunting woman's voice singing in some forgotten tongue.

The most notable feature of Nier is that it is unusually adult-orientated than most Square Enix titles. This is not to say that there is any excessive nudity or gratuitous violence but the language and situations of Nier are a lot more mature than Square Enix's block buster hit Final Fantasy XIII. Of course there is a sword-wielding hermaphrodite, Kaine, with a penchant for fighting and calling monsters 'shit hogs' while fighting in lingerie. But that is another story all together.

Nier Kaine lingerie hermaphrodite Admiral Ackbar it's a trap

Nier's story is also very depressing at times because when you experience a moment of triumph, something horrible happens. This is especially evident in the storyline for the character of Emil, who spends the game going from one terrible situation to the next. The characters in Nier are truly sympathetic to their situations and it makes what few triumphs they experience all the more rewarding. And the fact that all of the characters in Nier manage to continue forward in the story while still maintaining a wry sense of humor throughout the game is borderline genius.

Nier tries to do everything that has made games of different genres great, but instead falls flat for not going above and beyond in any one area. Gamers who enjoy roaming an open world and killing animals and bad guys will enjoy Nier but if you are expecting a great action RPG then you will need to look elsewhere. Nier does have one great strength and that is its more adult orientated themes. For gamers who are getting tired of tame and sugary-sweet RPGs where good always triumphs over evil and everyone lives happily ever after, then Nier is the counterweight. Nier is dark and depressing yet sweet in a bitter kind of way.

But regardless of its great presentation Nier is still a mediocre game that may be a great weekend rental but not worthy of a full purchase.

Graphics
3.0	The graphics are unacceptable, boring and very ugly.
Sound
8.0	A very good musical score with some okay voice acting.
Gameplay
5.0	Combat is so-so but it gets old very fast. Side quests are tedious. Boss battles are very good.
Story
8.0	An interesting story with likable characters but horrible dialogue.
Replay Value
2.0	There is nothing that makes me even want to revisit the game ever again.
OVERALL
5.0	Nier tries to do a lot but it fails at doing anything above average.