Nier somehow manages to work.
 
It could be due to the genre mash-up that this game is. I’ve always been a fan of developers willing to mix ideas together, though in this day and age that seems to simply be “take a shooter and have the player gain levels”. I was a major fan of Darksiders because of the various games it took influence from, and as a result it was a game that never truly got boring. Nier is very similar, though many of its influences seem a bit more unorthodox. There is clearly major influence from games like Devil May Cry and Zelda, but the game also borrows from titles such as Harvest Moon, top-down shoot-em-ups in the style of Ikaruga and text-based adventures.
 
The game is not without its flaws, however, and maybe it would be a better idea to address those first. There is a great number of side quests to provide some variety and keep the game time extended, yet these are all boring and tedious affairs. Most of the land’s inhabitants will require the player to obtain some number of some object(s) in the world and bring them back. A task that sounds simple, but Nier must have taken their hints from games like World of Warcraft by making these tasks long and painful. A game that requires the player to obtain ten Goat Hides may make it more likely to find than Goat Meat, an item that is easy to find yet never desired by any of the peasants. It seems as if there is a one in fifty chance of obtaining one of these Goat Hides, forcing the player to undergo the tedious ritual of slaughter until they finally manage to fulfill the quest’s requirements.
 
This is just as bad when the game requires specific plunder from the world itself, foraged from its flora and soil. The easiest option for these materials is typically to purchase the required amount of items from one of the stores around the world, yet ultimately this will cost you more than the reward you’ll get even for completing the mission. Once the player is forced to also take part in the fishing and farming mini-games, their patience will likely have run out and the side quests will inevitably be abandoned.
 
Without these side quests, however, the player cannot obtain money to purchase new weaponry or the occasional supplies. They will also have fewer opportunities to combat foes and thus gain levels or obtain “Words” used to enhance their abilities. In truth, the player is completely reliant upon completing side quests throughout the first half of the game, only free to abandon them in the latter half.

The main quest faces problems of its own as the dungeons are incredibly straight-forward and uninspired. There is little in the way of puzzles, none of them truly mind-bending, and ultimately the player is forced to go from room to room fighting enemies. Imagine The Library from Halo as nearly every level in the game, and that’s the general idea.
 
At least, it is almost the general idea.
 
This is where we really begin to see where Nier’s schizophrenia pays off. Each dungeon ends up having some sort of twist, though it may be minor. Only the first location is truly straight forward as it sounds. The second dungeon is primarily filled with optional side paths the player can skip, and in the center an on-rails top-down perspective resembling one of the above-mentioned shoot-em-up games. Another dungeon consists of few foes but endless puzzles where they must fulfill a specific objective without using one of their crucial abilities, such as running, jumping, rolling, attacking or using magic. There is a mansion whose camera angles are designed to remind the player of Resident Evil, a facility that plays like a level out of Gauntlet and another that is a complete text-based adventure.
 
Even when the dungeons are uninspired, there is some small attribute to them that gives them a different feeling from the previous one. None of these locations take more than an hour to complete either, meaning they last just as long as they need to before they get boring. What truly shines in this regard are the different boss fights, with each foe custom built to be fought differently than the last. They are, perhaps, the greatest gameplay highlight of Nier.
 
Doubtless fans of hack-and-slash games like Devil May Cry will be disappointed in the lack of depth in combat, or the RPG fans will be disappointed in the lack of importance in equipment or stat-building. Yet to focus on just one of these aspects is to miss the point of Nier. It is a video game in one of the most purest senses, creating an engaging experience by providing the player with so many things to do and see. By taking elements of various game styles they have crafted something that defies genre and can be enjoyed by a much larger audience than any niche title can claim to do (that is, if Square Enix had actually bothered to market the game at all).
 
Yet at the end of the day the player will likely not be playing the game for its design or mechanics. They’ll b e playing to see where the story goes. It is so rare these days for me to genuinely wonder what happens next in a game’s plot, but from the very opening of Nier it had me hooked. I had known little of it, just that I was to play a father trying to find/protect his daughter. Yet it didn’t prepare me to start in a post-apocalyptic 2032, dropping me into the story at random to leave me with so many questions. The “tutorial” for combat granted me one ability after the next, giving me a taste of the power I’d have later in the game, only to take it away after a few minutes. Over a thousand years later I’m playing what seem to be the same characters, only in a different time and place.
 
It is this sort of mystery that surrounds the game, and once you reach the conclusion you only have a small sense of what has been happening all this time. It is a bit confusing at first, but the game the n grants the player the ability to go back and replay the game from a central midpoint. All of a sudden there are small bits of story added in, creating a new perspective to the various events that occur. The game’s tone suddenly shifts. No longer are you hunting down some evil beasts, but you yourself are a monster blinded by rage and misunderstanding.
 
This is a very common theme in Japanese entertainment, the concept that there is no good side or wrong side of a conflict. Yet ever since the anime Macross this message has been delivered in a heavy-handed and ham-fisted manner. It often feels cheesy and forced, and those who are motivated by closed-minded concepts are shown to be trite and over-done bigots of a most absurd nature.
 
Nier delivers a fresh take on this concept, at first patting you on the back and making you feel awesome every time you fell a monstrous foe. You’re the good guy! Your quest is close to an end! Soon you’ll finally be done and everything will be right again! Then you complete the game and go back, and soon you find that this quest is more like a conquest, and the great irony of it all makes itself clear.
 
Nier is certainly not the best game of 2010, but it sucked me into its world and has had me pondering its story more than most this year. Even Bioshock 2 didn’t suck me in so much, and that was a story hyped as being smart and intellectual due to its predecessor.
 
I would like to finish by examining the game’s art style. In truth, this is far from the prettiest game you’ll be playing on any next-generation system. In fact, the hero himself looks like the Ugly Stick summoned the entire forest to dog pile on his face. Yet the game’s got a unique fantasy-meets-post-apocalyptic-meets-goth-sketchbook feel to it that just can’t be compared to anything else. On one hand it is bright and cheery looking, on the other completely desolate and twisted. Some textures are rather low-resolution and a lot of the environments are plain, but the game is still beautiful. It is as if the appearance is a perfect metaphor for Nier on the whole. On a superficial level of analysis the game is lacking. Yet it is just littered with style that gives it such a sense of individuality, and by being a mold of many other styles at that.

This is the sort of game that may not sell a lot of units, but those that will play it will remember it. In the end that’s the mark of a truly good game.

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