I never played the original NieR but i heard good things about it, after finishing NieR Automata and liking it, i decided to give this one a shot. Having not 100% it i cannot certainly give accurate verdict on it but generally i expected a lot better from it.
After waking up at the village i can immediately tell that the soundtrack is fantastic, as usual with NieR series its soundtrack themes are just top of the line, filled with emotions and good relaxing tones. I loved it there and kept wandering through the village while listening to it.
The story starts rough, i found the pacing to be very off when a lot of time from the first hours was about taking on missions from Popola which to me felt irrelevant and kind of fetchy in a way, i never found a reason to care about any of those main quests because why would i? the game barely bothers to explain and introduce them to me that it felt really pointless, it's like a daily job and im just working there.
Eventually i would stumble across some side quests, which i found to be abundantly boring, they all seemed to lack any meaningful context or development to either the characters or the story or to flesh out the world in a way. It's your typical go there and collect boar tusk for me but with slight variations. To me this is one of the most upsetting aspect of implementing side quests, if you dont have the context to back them up, dont do them in the first place.
After i tried few of them i decided to skip them and focus on the main plot because i wasn't having any fun being errand boy.
Later through the story, it starts to get interesting thankfully, it picks up the pacing and more characters gets introduced, more plot twists show and reveal itself, i liked the Mansion segment in particular, it felt like a love-letter to Resident Evil which i love.
Another section i loved was the wrecked ship.
I also felt sad for the technicians kids, their story was tragic.
After the turning point, i was more interested in the story and how to resolve it so i was having more fun, that all the way to the ending.
Characters are the best part of the game, i found Emil, Kaine, Grimore Weiss all to be good characters with some complex layers and meaningful development later on which is probably the most memorable part about the game. Weiss in particular is my favorite character in the game, his comments, the voice acting and how his traits are conveyed were all fantastic.
From the tutorial it was obvious that the combat itself was floaty and unsatisfying to execute, despite the flashy combos and the pretty colors, i never found myself having such a blast fighting shades, they all felt soulless and uninteresting to me, it's like hitting water, or cutting paper. This unfortunately continues through-out the whole game, because the game barely bothers to throw new enemies at you, you will fight more of the same enemies with few variations, the shades will change and some of them will have a shield and a weapon, some will be bigger and taller and some will be smaller and quicker, but that's it mostly.
You don't get much different weapons either its a choice between few weapons, spells and that's it.
Which is fine but not something very impressive, i found it weird because people dont bother to mention it while at the same it when it comes to other games you will never hear the end of it and its hyperbole.
Anyway i found the combat to be quite average. (which is fine, i dont put much emphasize on combat quality in rpgs)
Most of my time was button mashing on the spell from Wiess and a mix of jump attacks and light/strong attacks. Until i got bored of the same enemies over and over and decided to start parrying them to knock them off and finish them with a one shot critical hit.
If i felt the combat was more satisfying i would go for more fighting but to me the combat felt like an annoyance more than a fun thing to do so i decided to go the easiest most repetitive route.
Aside from that, i felt the open world to be needlessly big and empty, there was nothing interesting to explore or find there, it was just a vast land of empty spaces and few monsters scattered in between, the world also doesnt look good either, the art direction is subpar and graphics are below average, i understand its a remaster but visually the world didnt offer anything either.
Which brings me to one of the my most hated aspects of the game, The Level Design. it was awful, a sections of linear paths with no clues or interesting details, all look samey and they barely add anything to the experience, only making it dull and tedious. The underground sections are full of respawning robots that got very boring the first time, having lost my way through it, not because its complicated or anything, no but because it's a mess of lazy design, no level design clues or distinct features to vary the level and give it good layout. From the open world segments to the dungeons its extremely lazy and painfully dull.
Another very annoying aspect was the grind for materials to obtain new upgrades or to unlock lore. Like..Why? why would you lock lore behind a grindy tedious mechanics with extremely low drop rate, i dont get it, after i tried for few hours i eventually gave up and continue the game, because it was just not worth the time sink, i was able to defeat all the enemies with little effort using main weapons so this side activity felt nothing more than time waste and grind.
I enjoyed my time with it overall, but i dont want to go back to it, it's a one and done for me, i eventually watched the other endings on youtube because fuck doing them again, in Automata i did them because i enjoyed the game more, but here i wasn't ready for yet another playthrough.
It's not a bad game but i wouldn't say its good either. It does have very interesting setting and story but the setting is not properly explored and fleshed out.
And it has way too many flaws to account for unconditional praise it receives.
Summary:
+ Interesting setting.
+ Amazing Soundtrack.
+ Good story.
+ Great Characters.
- Dull/Bland Empty Open world.
- Terrible Level Design.
~ Average floaty Combat.
- Boring Enemies.
~ Pacing: Takes a while to pick up its story.
- Side Quests are awful.
- Subpar visuals.
- Upgrade system and Grind.
After waking up at the village i can immediately tell that the soundtrack is fantastic, as usual with NieR series its soundtrack themes are just top of the line, filled with emotions and good relaxing tones. I loved it there and kept wandering through the village while listening to it.
The story starts rough, i found the pacing to be very off when a lot of time from the first hours was about taking on missions from Popola which to me felt irrelevant and kind of fetchy in a way, i never found a reason to care about any of those main quests because why would i? the game barely bothers to explain and introduce them to me that it felt really pointless, it's like a daily job and im just working there.
Eventually i would stumble across some side quests, which i found to be abundantly boring, they all seemed to lack any meaningful context or development to either the characters or the story or to flesh out the world in a way. It's your typical go there and collect boar tusk for me but with slight variations. To me this is one of the most upsetting aspect of implementing side quests, if you dont have the context to back them up, dont do them in the first place.
After i tried few of them i decided to skip them and focus on the main plot because i wasn't having any fun being errand boy.
Later through the story, it starts to get interesting thankfully, it picks up the pacing and more characters gets introduced, more plot twists show and reveal itself, i liked the Mansion segment in particular, it felt like a love-letter to Resident Evil which i love.
Another section i loved was the wrecked ship.
I also felt sad for the technicians kids, their story was tragic.
After the turning point, i was more interested in the story and how to resolve it so i was having more fun, that all the way to the ending.
Characters are the best part of the game, i found Emil, Kaine, Grimore Weiss all to be good characters with some complex layers and meaningful development later on which is probably the most memorable part about the game. Weiss in particular is my favorite character in the game, his comments, the voice acting and how his traits are conveyed were all fantastic.
From the tutorial it was obvious that the combat itself was floaty and unsatisfying to execute, despite the flashy combos and the pretty colors, i never found myself having such a blast fighting shades, they all felt soulless and uninteresting to me, it's like hitting water, or cutting paper. This unfortunately continues through-out the whole game, because the game barely bothers to throw new enemies at you, you will fight more of the same enemies with few variations, the shades will change and some of them will have a shield and a weapon, some will be bigger and taller and some will be smaller and quicker, but that's it mostly.
You don't get much different weapons either its a choice between few weapons, spells and that's it.
Which is fine but not something very impressive, i found it weird because people dont bother to mention it while at the same it when it comes to other games you will never hear the end of it and its hyperbole.
Anyway i found the combat to be quite average. (which is fine, i dont put much emphasize on combat quality in rpgs)
Most of my time was button mashing on the spell from Wiess and a mix of jump attacks and light/strong attacks. Until i got bored of the same enemies over and over and decided to start parrying them to knock them off and finish them with a one shot critical hit.
If i felt the combat was more satisfying i would go for more fighting but to me the combat felt like an annoyance more than a fun thing to do so i decided to go the easiest most repetitive route.
Aside from that, i felt the open world to be needlessly big and empty, there was nothing interesting to explore or find there, it was just a vast land of empty spaces and few monsters scattered in between, the world also doesnt look good either, the art direction is subpar and graphics are below average, i understand its a remaster but visually the world didnt offer anything either.
Which brings me to one of the my most hated aspects of the game, The Level Design. it was awful, a sections of linear paths with no clues or interesting details, all look samey and they barely add anything to the experience, only making it dull and tedious. The underground sections are full of respawning robots that got very boring the first time, having lost my way through it, not because its complicated or anything, no but because it's a mess of lazy design, no level design clues or distinct features to vary the level and give it good layout. From the open world segments to the dungeons its extremely lazy and painfully dull.
Another very annoying aspect was the grind for materials to obtain new upgrades or to unlock lore. Like..Why? why would you lock lore behind a grindy tedious mechanics with extremely low drop rate, i dont get it, after i tried for few hours i eventually gave up and continue the game, because it was just not worth the time sink, i was able to defeat all the enemies with little effort using main weapons so this side activity felt nothing more than time waste and grind.
I enjoyed my time with it overall, but i dont want to go back to it, it's a one and done for me, i eventually watched the other endings on youtube because fuck doing them again, in Automata i did them because i enjoyed the game more, but here i wasn't ready for yet another playthrough.
It's not a bad game but i wouldn't say its good either. It does have very interesting setting and story but the setting is not properly explored and fleshed out.
And it has way too many flaws to account for unconditional praise it receives.
Summary:
+ Interesting setting.
+ Amazing Soundtrack.
+ Good story.
+ Great Characters.
- Dull/Bland Empty Open world.
- Terrible Level Design.
~ Average floaty Combat.
- Boring Enemies.
~ Pacing: Takes a while to pick up its story.
- Side Quests are awful.
- Subpar visuals.
- Upgrade system and Grind.