Initially developed by Drakengard-developer Cavia and published by Square Enix worldwide in 2010, NieR Gestalt and NieR Replicant (Known simply as NieR in the west) proved to be a sleeper cult classic of its generation. From the creative mind of Yoko Taro, what the game lacked in the gameplay department was overshadowed by its unique storytelling, beloved soundtrack, and concepts rarely explored in games before.
Although it was a game that could have vanished into the nether once the seventh generation of consoles was over, interest was renewed in NieR once its chronological sequel, NieR Automata, launched in 2017. Although different to its predecessor, being a sci-fi hack’n’slash rather than a fantasy adventure game, it generated enough demand for Square Enix to enlist Toylogic to port the original game over to modern-day hardware.
What separated the original releases of NieR Gestalt and NieR Replicant in Japan were their protagonists. The former being exclusive to the Xbox 360 in the country, saw players fill the shoes of “Papa Nier”, a more mature, gruffer protagonist whose sole purpose in life is to support his daughter, Yonah. The latter, however, was exclusive to the PlayStation 3, and featured a much younger protagonist – “Brother Nier”, who was supporting his younger sister, Yonah. A controversial element was the western release was that both consoles received “Papa Nier”, rendering the “Brother Nier” content inaccessible. NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139, if its name didn’t give this away already, focuses exclusively on the brotagonist worldwide, meaning that OG players get to experience the game through a fresh set of eyes from beginning to end.
A Familiar Story… with Extras
NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139 is set more than 1,400 years in the future, in a time where modern humanity has fallen, life is tough for the survivors, and they come under increased threats from shadowy beings known as Shades. Players take on the role of their self-named character (henceforth known as Nier). This young boy is doing mercenary work for an unnamed village in hopes of making money to support his younger sister, and perhaps discover a way to cure her of the Black Scrawl – a mysterious ailment with no cure. When Yonah sneaks out of the village and into the imposing tower to the east, this leads Nier to discover Grimoire Weiss, a book of legend that may hold the key to defeating this plague.
From there, the storyline follows a relatively linear narrative. The first half of the game is a tale focused on setting the scene, as Nier goes around the game world meeting its inhabitants and solving their problems in hopes that the key to curing Yonah is discovered. It also introduces the colourful cast of characters from the sweet, soft-spoken Emil with the uncanny ability to turn anyone he looks at into stone, to the foul-mouthed killing-machine Kaine, who slowly warms up to the protagonist. Then there is the second half, which takes players back across the world, concluding the stories introduced in the first half and introducing some more. The core story is not mindblowing or genre-defining but is written in a way that progressively rolls out the game’s lore and its links to Drakengard, toes the line between heartwarming and despair, and all-in-all is meaty enough and overall enjoyable.
Arguably the most significant addition to NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139 is the inclusion of the “Mermaid Arc”, which adds some solid new content to an easily speedrunable second act. Based on a chapter conceptualised initially for the original game, a shipwreck appears on the beach of Seafront. A new quest arc involving the ferryman and his partner will lead you into the hazardous ruins, encountering what could be arguably one of the darker and sadder chapters from the mind of Yoko Taro, and one of the more satisfying boss battles as well. It feels a little bit sudden and tacked at first, but it proves to be a competent chapter worth playing through more than once.
In addition to the Mermaid chapter, scattered throughout the game are several new events focused on Nier, Emil, Kaine, Devola and Popola (The latter two being the game’s main quest givers). These provide a little more depth to their characters in subsequent playthroughs, while not overbearing the player with pointless exposition. As mentioned in the game’s recent marketing, the voice actors for 2B and 9S also make an appearance at some point. You may need to take some risks and search quite a bit to find them, but they are there – and they are worth looking for!
The Ending System also makes a return, with subsequent endings leading you to question whether what Nier is doing is “just”, and Ending D once again doing what it did in the previous game through a tough decision. Will you take the plunge this time around? I certainly did…. after saving my save file externally.
One thing that did surprise me about NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139 is that, after more than a decade of waiting to play as Brother Nier, it didn’t have that much impact on the storyline. In fact, in many aspects, I preferred Father Nier. I felt that more should have been done in the script department to make both banter and storyline events alike more unique from the original English script. In fact, I spent subsequent playthroughs hypothesising whether I would be offered the choice to change Nier’s model and voice, as it (at least from my memory) wasn’t all that different from the original.
Music to my ears again~
One of the defining features of both NieR and NieR: Automata were their soundtracks, with musical melodies capable of both encapsulating the sorrow of a scene and emphasising the intensity of a boss battle. From ‘Song of the Ancients’, which doubles as both a great bar song and battle theme, to ‘The Dark Colossus Destroys All’, which is fantastic during those most intense of fights – almost every track in the game can be enjoyed repeatedly without becoming dull. This is especially true of many songs with vocals by Emi Evans, which feature lyrics in a fictional language. You may not understand the words, but they become an instrument in themselves, tying the tracks together into something more enriched and melodious.
NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139 features a rearranged soundtrack, in addition to a handful of new songs to complement new scenarios and areas in the game. The songs were perfect as they were, and this is one of the rare occasions where I don’t think the developers needed to go that extra mile. I am mixed on the new soundtrack, even if I cannot call it anything but amazing. Some tracks take already excellent songs to the next level, but at the same time, some of the most memorable scenes – especially the inclusion of ‘The Dark Colossus Destroys All’ at the end of the first arc, lost some of the epicness it had. Having the option to switch between original and rearranged soundtracks would have been welcome.
The decision to include the NieR: Automata as an optional soundtrack had the risk of being a big flop, given the vastly different settings of each game. However, while I only used it momentarily, the music choices for each environment felt spot-on and unintrusive, focusing on lesser-appreciated songs used correctly over bringing out all the hits en masse.
Except for Jamieson Price, who originally voiced Father Nier (although he makes a brief cameo appearance in the previously DLC content), all the original English voice cast reprise their roles in NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139. More than ten years after first voicing their respective characters, all manage to give the same level of charm as they did originally. This includes Laura Bailey as Kaine, Liam O’Brien as Grimoire Weiss, Julie Ann Taylor as Emil, Heather Hogan as Yonah and Eden Riegel as Devola and Popola. Joining the cast is Zach Aguilar and Ray Chase as the younger and older versions of Nier. Both are amazing in encapsulating the character both before and after the time jump, reflecting very different personalities and world views.
All voice lines in the game have been rerecorded, even when the script didn’t necessitate it. I appreciate this, and it did allow clips to be of higher recording quality, even between pre-existing and new lines, and allowed them to be a bit more “nuanced” in their performances. The entire game is dubbed in English, including all quests, secondary characters, and incidental characters – except the text adventure segments. The game world isn’t what I would call lively, reflective of a gloomier age where humanity struggles to survive, so having voiced characters provide ambience and life to the game worlds was a good decision.
Gameplay Mostly Remains Unchanged, But Is Creative!
NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139 is not too different from the original releases, compared to NieR: Automata, which was developed by PlatinumGames, one of the leaders of the Action-RPG genre. Combat primarily consists of players mashing the square button to perform a standard attack and Triangle button to perform a heavy attack, while using a combination of “Sealed Verses” associated with the L1, L2, R1, R2 buttons to take down enemies using dark magic. The variety of ‘sealed verses’ attacks is what keeps the game fresh, with abilities ranging from summoning spears to pierce foes surrounding you, to shooting a mighty lance at a long distance.
The game didn’t feel too different from the original release conceptually. Still, I would argue that it felt more fluid and a little more challenging on the normal difficulty setting than before. It might just be my taste in gaming, but there is nothing more exciting than being faced with swarms of enemies as you plow through them using weapons and a barrage of creative magic. There is nothing that would see me call the core combat gameplay as anything but ‘average’, but this is overshadowed by how diversified the overall NieR experience is.
NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139 isn’t just about hacking and slashing your way through waves of shades. Instead, it enjoys a competent RPG progression system through a range of upgradeable weapons and weapon/magic customisation through the ‘words’ system, which remains unchanged from the original release. Other systems combined into the NieR package include visual novel mechanics, a fishing system, a farming system, item collect-a-thon and more.
With the exception of the visual novel mechanics, which are forced upon players at multiple moments throughout gameplay and unavoidable, most of these features are explored and developed at the player’s leisure, through a diverse range of quests, money-making opportunities and upgrading all your weapons to squeeze out those last few trophies. Even when the gameplay is action-combat focused, some moments in the game shake things up, such as one labyrinth being presented with a top-down Diablo-esque viewpoint and another styled after a monochrome horror game. If there was one flaw with NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139, it was that they didn’t explore these more unique styles much further.
On the note of trophies, virtually all of the game’s original trophies are featured in this re-release, with a few more hidden for players to discover and unlock. Unfortunately, this includes the Lightspeed Fighter, which risks encouraging new players to speedrun the game in within 15 hours for a silver trophy. This is well and truly possible to accomplish even on a players first runthrough, but can convince players to skip pivotal scenes. My recommendation is for everyone to ignore the gameplay timer for their first playthrough, and enjoy the game for what it is and enjoy some of the earlier quests frequently skipped.
The World of Recycled Vessel DLC is included in NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139. These are essentially three sets of challenging battle missions with trippy art styles, remixed music and the ability to play as an older version of Nier (Aka. Papa Nier’s model). Provided you haven’t power-levelled your way through the game, each battle mission pack is enjoyable, featuring complex battles that grant you access to rare upgrade materials, three DLC exclusive weapons and costumes for Nier, Emil, and Kaine wear.
Great to Return To, Or Worth Checking Out for Nier: Automata’s Backstory
NieR was an underappreciated game when first arriving on store shelves and deserving of its cult status among sections of the gaming community. But it is difficult not to acknowledge that were NieR: Automata only half as successful as it was, then I would expect this to be a game lost to the annals of time, perhaps never seeing life off the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. This would have been a shame.
NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139 is low on traditional “AAA game production values” such as immense visual design or standard gameplay. But, it makes up for this through a narrative which sticks with you long after playing, incredible musical backing and gameplay which is incredibly addictive and has a few surprises mixed in.
Even ten years later, NieR is a game full of passion, tragedy and out-of-the-box concepts.
NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139 is a game worthy of players to return to, to experience the game as a younger Nier. It is also very much worth checking out for newcomers who want more context behind the events and characters of Nier: Automata – or otherwise an enjoyable yet dark tale set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world.
Now, if we just had a Drakengard 1,2 & 3 HD Remaster and localisation of the many Japan-exclusive supplementary material books… here’s hoping Square Enix get on that sooner rather than later!
A PlayStation 4 review copy of NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139 was provided by Square Enix and Australian/New Zealand distributor Bandai Namco Entertainment Australia for the purpose of this review. All playtesting was conducted on an original PlayStation 5 console through backwards compatibility functionality.
As this review was based on a pre-release copy, it may not reflect content updated in or out at launch or reflect future content updates.
NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139 will be available on the PlayStation 4 (Physically/Digitall), Xbox One (Physically/Digitally) and Windows PC (Digitally) this week.
