[Score: Light 8/10].
Story, Themes & Characters
This game’s structure and presentation within the video game medium is incredibly unique and engaging. The characters are NOT groundbreaking and wholly unique – and I think anyone who says this needs to read a sci-fi book – but its pacing, its well-fleshed out characters, and world are presented so well that it does what Yoko Taro wanted it to do. Provoke an emotional response towards the subject of what makes something “human”.
2B and 9S’s relationship is well-thought out and done incredibly well, with their interactions showing how much they deeply care for each other, despite 2B’s purpose being to literally execute him. In fact, I’ve grown to like their sexualised character designs quite a lot. 2B’s dominatrix appearance, parallel to 9S’s schoolboy attire, is used to communicate the theme of sex, love and death. One scene that pops into my head, is when 2B straddles 9S as she…fcking chokes him to death. It’s a hell of a striking image, and it becomes even more memorable when you remember that killing activates the same pleasure centres for androids as it does for humans having sex. This is further reinforced by another scene when Adam says to 9S: “You’re thinking how much you want to **** 2B”, with **** meaning either (or all) of three things. Love, fck or kill. Again, one hell of a memorable moment, and I think moments like these are memorable because the game manages to frame all these things in both synergy and conflict with one another. I could go on forever, but that’s video-essay me talking. Story presentation is amazing.
Combat
Hack and slash combat while not being as deep as DMC or Bayonetta, has a lot of depth and is really fun. I would really like some more enemy variety though. I want to fight multiple Adams and Eves at once, more YoRHa Soldiers, healing enemies etc. Almost every enemy I fight feels the same, as I’m not approaching them any differently to the others.
9S’s Gameplay & Open World
9S’s bullet hell segments were fine at the beginning, but quickly became boring due to how little variation and brain dead simple they became. It really sucks how it felt the game clearly wanted most of the spotlight on him for narrative purposes, but the gameplay just doesn’t hold up at all. I wouldn’t even call it serviceable, it’s just bad.
The environments and the world around Nier feel empty, which is not helped by the fact that the majority of the side missions are boring. There was a point where I was so bored engaging with the side missions, that I just grinded on easy mode (up to lvl 40) in the Arena, taking it as an opportunity to learn some combos as opposed to engaging with most of the side content. This game prides itself on narrative but fails to make the world feel fully fleshed out when it’s not part of the main narrative. Fallout: New Vegas has shown that you can have a barren wasteland filled with LOADS of ENGAGING side content that makes the world fully fleshed out, so I don’t see how “barren wasteland” can be used to justify boring open worlds.
Final Verdict
Despite my gripes with the game, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I even gave up my 35+ hour save file in the end, and I’ll definitely come back one day to try and master 2B’s and A2’s movesets. But for now, I’ll give this game a rest. 100% a game that almost every person that loves narrative storytelling in gaming needs to have.
Playthrough Details: 40 Hours, Route A, B, C, D, E Completed
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