Glad this gave me a reason to actually play the game after I was memed into believing the original game was bad on par with drakengard so I just watched it on youtube. Now I realize it's really not bad at all and actually a genuinely great game albeit with some shortcomings. Thankfully I barely remembered anything from when I watched it on youtube so it was mostly a novel experience. The combat, while not very deep, is smooth and satisfying with plenty of different spells and weapons to play with. The game also makes good use of gimmicky bossfights and genre-blending level designs to constantly keep the gameplay fresh. The story is great with a very well-realized world, likable and unique characters, and emotional twists. I was weary of the switch from papa nier to brother nier, especially with how much of a twink he is in part 1, but in part 2 he's cool and has a nice voice so he grew on me. He also fits better in certain ways like being able to relate to the brothers at the junk heap a bit more and more believably getting close to Kaine. I do still miss papa though since I just find that father-daughter dynamic much more endearing. Visually the game is very nice, I really love the atmosphere of nier's home village with its overcast weather and the character models all look great. As for the music, I prefer the original tracks but the new ones aren't bad or anything. Don't see why they couldn't allow changing between the new and original. The game has it's fair share of faults as well. Most of the sidequests are just lame fetch quests (though there are a few with nice story bits tossed in like eating dinner with the red bag couple). Weapon upgrading sucks because item farming is boring. The novel segments are well-written and brief but really could've benefited from some illustrations, more voice acting or sound effects. The game does require like 4 repeated playthroughs to get all the endings and while they do mitigate this a lot by starting you halfway through the story and keeping your levels and equipment, there's still a lot of annoying things like bosses barely taking any damage until you finish dialogue or lengthy repetitive segments like the ruins and shadowlord's castle that just get more annoying with each playthrough when you're not getting new content like shade dialogue. The new ending E is kino though.