Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Nier
Mar 20, 2011 19:14:18 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2011 19:14:18 GMT -5
Nier is very much about the characters and the player's affection for them. It would be unreasonable to expect everyone to love them, but I'm glad to say that I do. I feel that way too. They're all pretty flawed but still likeable in spite of that. The writing (localization) was well done, and the voice acting was fantastic. Laura Bailey was seriously out of character from a lot of her usual roles, it was great. And Liam O'Brian is totally bitchin' as Weiss. Speaking of which, I thought he sounded quite like David Bowie, although I can hear shades of Rickman as mentioned in the article.
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Nier
Mar 20, 2011 19:30:49 GMT -5
Post by Ike on Mar 20, 2011 19:30:49 GMT -5
I don't see any reason why half the story had to be in actual book form instead of the game. If it was really integral to the whole experience the book would have been included with every purchase, with footnotes appearing in the game referencing where to find further information in the book. I think Nier stands fine on its own, and its reception has little to do with people not reading a companion book written in Japanese. I do agree with this, but only because the English-speaking world didn't get the Grimoire. To my understanding it is included with every copy in Japan, so in reality it was clearly designed with the intention of you having the information handy. By some mishap of localization, we were basically screwed on this. It's less the game's fault than the publisher's. Fucking Squeenix I would strongly encourage you to play it again. When you start your second playthrough you begin at the half-way point, approximately around the time you visit Emil's mansion and explore the basement. I beat the game again in 3 hours. There's no reason to dick around since you know exactly where to go and the only story-relevant bits are the boss battles and major events, so it's no problem to breeze between your objectives. The game is very well designed in this regard. It'll only feel like a chore if you treat it that way, and like I said, you can breeze through the entire game in a matter of hours. Also, I don't know if you're aware, but the second playthrough starts with another text adventure segment concerning Kaine's backstory. It is more cutscenes and dialog. Gameplay-wise it's pretty much identical except that you retain your levels. Also, you'd do well to pull up a checklist of the weapons and their locations and compare them to what you already have. If you've been exploring and busting crates or purchasing weapons at all, you've probably already got most of them. And the vast majority of weapons can be purchased in stores and you should be loaded by this point. You don't need to upgrade them to unlock the endings, just possess them. It really doesn't take very long at all and I personally thought it was very much worth it. The game doesn't let its story go easily.
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Nier
Mar 20, 2011 20:01:59 GMT -5
Post by justjustin on Mar 20, 2011 20:01:59 GMT -5
Welp, after reading your response and feynman's I might let the game sit for a while and come back to it again. I think I had 20-something weapons already. It'll be an historic event in my life if I do this, though, as I've never had the willpower to get multiple endings in longer games or play any new game plus...
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Nier
Mar 20, 2011 21:17:44 GMT -5
Post by susanismyalias on Mar 20, 2011 21:17:44 GMT -5
Nier is the only game in recent history that I have bothered with multiple endings.
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Nier
Mar 20, 2011 22:55:39 GMT -5
Post by cj iwakura on Mar 20, 2011 22:55:39 GMT -5
Laura Bailey knocks this game out of the park. Extremely versatile actress.
(Also, that's GIGANTIC TAGER doing the voice of Nier.)
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Nier
Mar 20, 2011 23:00:11 GMT -5
Post by cj iwakura on Mar 20, 2011 23:00:11 GMT -5
Gorgeous screens. Money well spent.
Also, I loved the bullet hell bosses. Pure insanity.
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Nier
Mar 21, 2011 3:05:10 GMT -5
Post by kyouki on Mar 21, 2011 3:05:10 GMT -5
I enjoyed this game enough to finish it (only once), but the intro to the game is horrible- you are in this boring looking area fighting the same enemies over and over for like 15 minutes. Once you get through that the game becomes really interesting really quickly, but it is possibly one of the worst first impressions ever.
I liked that the world was large enough to give you a feeling of exploration but small and memorable enough that you didn't even really need to use the automap.
The graphics are really behind the curve, but a ton of imagination has gone into crafting the environments and so the game transcends the technical issues. It was interesting that in some environments the texture filtering seemed to have been turned off and you'd see pixelated floor textures.
The game also has a phenomenal soundtrack- best soundtrack in the past couple of console generations easily. It made running around the same areas over and over a lot more exciting.
It plays pretty well too- I thought it played more like Secret of Mana than any of the real sequels did! Collecting different weapons and leveling them up, running around slaying monsters with your buddies, all while listening to great music... this game could have been called Seiken Densetsu Nier and I wouldn't have questioned it.
However there are a lot of things that didn't work out too well.
The world is really memorable but it suffers from having too many diverse locations right around each other- medieval town is right down the street from desert city which is right across the way from European port town, which is a short walk away from vampire mansion and robot factory. It's still better than Oblivion's miles of rolling grassy hills and forests though.
The genre-bending stuff didn't work well either. The bullet hell bosses don't require you to actually dodge their bullets- you can just hold block and release your super powerful magic. The sound novel part was just lame and killed the pacing.
On top of that, about halfway through you have to go through a bunch of the dungeons a second time (one of them a third time!) and nothing is different except the enemies have armor you have to break off before you can kill them.
Finally, although I understand the English language version of the game has awesome voice work and a great script, I played the Japanese version and it did not. The acting was your typical melodramatic screaming and crying and the script was really pretty dull. I turned off the voices and things got much better.
I think Nier is basically a 10 hour game stretched out to 15-20 hours. But man those first 10 hours are amazing.
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magus
Full Member
Posts: 110
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Nier
Mar 21, 2011 5:22:12 GMT -5
Post by magus on Mar 21, 2011 5:22:12 GMT -5
while i didn't finish the game twice,i am really close to doing it so i have seen a lot of the extra cutscene
and that is exactly the reason why i say the drama in this game is overdone to the point of being silly
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Nier
Mar 21, 2011 7:17:45 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2011 7:17:45 GMT -5
Laura Bailey knocks this game out of the park. Extremely versatile actress. (Also, that's GIGANTIC TAGER doing the voice of Nier.) Yeah, she's definitely my favorite voice actress. She was totally awesome as Sana in "Kodocha", and as Shin-Chan. I watched a lot of both fansubbed in College and it's astounding how she captured the tone of both characters, especially Shin-Chan. I like her as Chun-Li and Rise Kujikawa as well. I really liked Weiss's voice though. He sounded pretty much like what a decadent, pompous immortal book should sound like. I really enjoyed all of the "buddy move" arguments between him and Nier, those really made the game fun. My favorites were the fishing-related bits. As for the drama being over-done, I don't agree. It's dark and approaches being overly-serious, but there's many, many worse offenders out there. Like Heavy Rain. I won't even go into that one. At the very least, Nier has well-developed and likable characters, which ultimately led to palpable emotional content when you hit the endgame, and the later play-throughs. To each their own though.
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Nier
Mar 21, 2011 20:18:10 GMT -5
Post by kaoru on Mar 21, 2011 20:18:10 GMT -5
I really loved Nier, but it's an aquired taste... just like Drakengard was. The story is very well written and can get very interesting, if you manage to connect the dots and play NG+ at least once for the B ending - yet it can be too vague for its own good. It would have been nice to put more of the background information you only get from Grimoire Noir into the actual game, so certain things would become a lot clearer/easier to grasp than they are. Also, if the game doesn't manage to hook you fast, you probably won't play for long, since what you are doing in the first half (which the NG+ thankfully ditches) isn't that terribly exciting overall - it is more of a build up/learning to know the world and characters to when stuff actually happens in the second half. Doesn't help that the game sets you on a relic hunt twice (the verses in the first half, the keys in the second half) and in the same locations, albeit with a twist, to boot. And while the gameplay might have a great diversity to offer, all of the different aspects sure are kinda rough around the edges. As much as I love the game, I can understand people getting bored by it for one reason or the other. It is a good example of the sum being greater than its parts. Sure it could use more polish gameplay-wise and should be less vague about itself but as a whole gaming experience it's greatness.
On a side not: I totally messed up the mandatory fishing part, too. Standnig on the wrong beach and all. Had to pull out the internet to get better tips on how to handle the minigame and to notice I was trying it on the completely wrong beach. Sure felt dumb afterwards, but it seems there are quite some people that did get stuck at this part too.
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Nier
Mar 21, 2011 21:49:25 GMT -5
Post by KeeperBvK on Mar 21, 2011 21:49:25 GMT -5
Who did the article? It's missing the author and date.
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Nier
Mar 21, 2011 22:35:53 GMT -5
Post by cj iwakura on Mar 21, 2011 22:35:53 GMT -5
The opening is not so boring once you realize the significance of it, but you pretty much have to read Grimoire Nier to understand it.
MAJOR SPOILER
That's the 'original' Nier and Yonah; the former later becomes the Shadowlord.
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Nier
Mar 25, 2011 19:32:05 GMT -5
Post by kyouki on Mar 25, 2011 19:32:05 GMT -5
The beginning is still boring though, as a game. They could have done a 2 min cinema of Nier fighting rather than making you sit there killing enemy after enemy.
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Nier Replicant is getting an Ultimate Hits release in Japan! Must have sold a decent amount of copies and unlike FFXIII I do not see a lot of used copies of Nier sitting on shelves (the ones that I do see are still like ~$45). Was thinking of picking this game up again but didn't want to pay (nearly) full price for a used copy, so this helps.
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Nier
Mar 26, 2011 9:13:13 GMT -5
Post by Ike on Mar 26, 2011 9:13:13 GMT -5
I'm gonna assume ou don't live in the US? You can buy it new here for $20 or under.
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Nier
Mar 26, 2011 10:39:25 GMT -5
Post by kyouki on Mar 26, 2011 10:39:25 GMT -5
I don't. I bought this game when it was new and finished it thinking I would never want to go back to it, but every once in a while I get an urge to play thought it. Not at ~$45 used though!
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