(im on a mission to finish some left over reviews from the games ive played and post them before the end of the year or else theyre gonna show up in the game count of 2024 dont talk to me so its been a while since ive played \insert current game\ have fun with what i remember about it)

i was definitely not expecting to love nier replicant this much and as such i was not even expecting it to get to the 4.5 milestone reward of being one of my highest regarded games of the entire cosmos but of course it would because this is obviously a game made for the LGBTs AMIRITE QUEERS IN THE ROOM WITH ME ???????????????

crickets

i have played automata some time this year and also last year due to the fact that I dropped it halfway through because the concept of replaying the entire game like 2 times with different protags was not really enticing to me little did I know that to finish nier replicant i had to replay the whole game like 4 times or something I cannot believe a game that made me replay the same segments these many times has become one of my fav games of the planet like genuinely this is also something that happened with drakengard 3 while i definitely dont think its THAT good i genuinely had such a fun time with it even though i had to do like 4 different endings (ok thats a different beast though because the scenarios are actually different but i dont care)

while automata actually makes the big leap to make you play with different characters each time at least so you can stop actually experiment with some new play styles and movements so you dont get fucking BORED replicant actually makes the completely stupid design choice to make you play with and only with nier throughout all the different endings so fucking FUN

and it was actually fun like no irony here it was definitely fun im sorry im a simp

now this is the remaster of nier replicant a game that was the carbon copy of nier (US) but released for the japanese audience for what it's worth I have never played nier (xbox360) so that means that bro nier was the first interaction I had with this media and boy am I actually glad to have experienced it this way (I will take my time to get to the original nier gestalt tho since papa nier is super hot like umh im pretty sure hes super rough when he fucks you i can feel it through the screen just trust me on this one i know what im talking about)

main things first I have to say that the gameplay in this one is pretty fucking fun . some great ass sword combos that also get expanded when you unlock the spears and heavy swords shit like this and also you get some incredible spells here and there to make some more variety into the fights . now I know many people for some reason really hate on this battle system and I might say that its not really the best thing in the entire world ok and automata will be enhancing the whole experience but ok not everyone can be nier automata it's pretty clear that this is also improved from the base version and I can say that I had fun for the entirety of the game and thats what matters honestly I so dont care about yalls ideas of hack and slash

moreover I can say that the surrounding gameplay isn't really the best you have to do fetch quests for most of the first part of the game (and also the second part of the game let's be real) and go through the same 4 places like 30 times and thats gonna be definitely more if youre planning on doing all 5 endings because FOR SOME DAMN REASON yokotaro decided that it was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ESSENTIAL for the games wellbeing to add an ending that is locked behind the requirement of you getting all the weapons in the game isnt that fucking FUN it actually sounds like i hate this game but still its the most beautiful toxic relationship ive ever experienced in my entire life is that even legal to say in front of a lot of (10 tops) people

now about the going and coming back from these places . I love doing that I'm so sorry the art design in nier replicant is absolutely unmatched there's like 5 places in total but they're incredibly gorgeous the hometown has such a comfy atmosphere to it the wild lands remind me of shadow of the colossus a bit too much actually all the places here remind me of shadow of the colossus the desert is moody and desolate the tower is mysterious and ominous the beach is tranquil and chill and the mines are . weird and emils mansion ??? the fucking resident evil reference ??? or the underground passage that becomes an isometric mmo all of the sudden ??? its really incredible how varied and beautiful these all can be its just something else

the world of nier replicant is the one on the nier "franchise" with the most connections with the drakengard series you get a post main spoiler event background with medieval elements here and there but nature really takes the focus of the game even though there's some degree of man's handmade structures in the setting like some industrial stuff here and there but in general its absolutely breathtaking nature and its a really weird juxtaposition with nier automata since in this one it's nature with some hints of civilization instead nier automata is nature is taking her rights back after mankind departed

characters are absolutely beautiful but being a person that didn't play the original I saw a lot of people screaming about the graphic overhaul of the characters . I honestly do not care for the fact that they all look stunning and fuckable so do i really care about that one point ? no so there's that moving on

now SPOILER TERRITORY

so the game follows nier (its not his real name tho lmao its like community name given to him I think) in his quest to cure his sisters yonahs illness now this illness is kinda fucking weird because words spread throughout your body and they slowly eat you alive that's it bibliophiles greatest flex

you also get some insights on some other villagers and particularly devola and popola who help nier in his quest to not let yonah fucking die so there's devola who's the outgoing and showbiz girl just there singing and singing and singing in the town center every single day and then devola is the most reserved of the two doing paperwork ????? queen with a career path

even though the 2 people carrying the entirety of the game are encountered later in the game and those are kaine and emil . now i cannot even begin to tell you how much i love these characters i swear the amount of tears ive shed for these 3d models in a videogame is absolutely insane forreal what the fuck

so kaine is this super vulgar femme fatale who's actually pretty skilled with swords and shit and she has an history of being possessed by a monster and she was deemed dangerous for the entirety of her village and exiled from it and yeah she's absolutely fucking insane or at least that's what the game makes you believe at first but when you get into her backstory it's actually because she was born as an intersexual person and was viewed as a freak from the village people and became absolutely scarred by this event if it weren't for her grandma who was always there for her and I cannot tell you how much I FUCKING enjoy her backstory . this is actually locked in the other routes which means you'll have to replay to even know what this is about and its not even that interesting because thats just words on a black background as much as I love this story I'm pretty conflicted on this due to the fact that the scenes on black screens didn't stand out to me . if it weren't for the fact that the stuff they're saying is gripping as fuck I wouldn't even have read it honest to god like they couldve condensed all those words into a few scenes actually achieving a greater emotional impact but what do i look like ? yokotaro ? maybe if you look closely

kaine is an incredible character a conflicted woman with an history of trauma and discrimination and i won't lie because the reveal about the intersexual nature of her body made me cry like a fucking bitch I don't understand how a game like this could tackle such important and contemporary issues in an industry that as we all know is pretty heteronormative and sexist and all that so it's such a breath of fresh hair to have characters that feel so real and so conflicted and that can resonate with the modern audience in this way

and yknow these characters are the exact reason why this game is a masterpiece to me as of yet I must say I was not expecting to like this

so emil is a faggot thats why i love him uwu im sorry yall hes CANONICALLY in love with nier and when i realised it i bawled again literally the entire iterations i had with this game are me crying a lot of tears for it

emil is a blind kid who actually realises after some time that he and his sister “sister” were actually just experiments of a corporation that i dont actually remember what was actually trying to achieve ok NOT THE POINT so after some plot points he becomes a mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm thing machine and what actually is pretty incredible to me is the fact that they begin to explore some great themes of self and identity that just scream LGBT

this game is so LGBT yall

so anyway emil is the greatest character ever created in the entire universe and you had to see my face fucking bawling when he sacrificed himself im literally SO in love with you dont fucking TOUCH me hes the sweetest baby alive one of the deepest characters in the game and a true icon of the medium (when you play that hidden emil boss in automata it hits HITS) and its truly haunting to see how he actually tries to heal from his sorrows with the help of nier and kaine

thats probably why the story hits as much as it does these 3 characters actually become a little family of people neglected from society and thats also why they end up bonding on their sorrows which is something that actually happens in real life wow can you see the ties

the characters definitely carry this story which is actually pretty intricate if you ask me with all the gestalt project the devola and popola betrayal the shadow lord events literally nothing HAPPY ever happens in this game apart from kaine smiling i love seeing kaine smiling literally one of the highlights of my life

theres a lot that happens in this game and i would honestly bore you to talk about it since i think that if you got here you already played the game but the thing is do i think the 4 endings are necessary ? yes and no this is one of my favorite games now and its definitely ALSO because of the different ways you can tackle the story but i cant really recommend to a casual player to just do every ending one after the other but its SOOOOOOO WORTH IT WOW

and its definitely helped by the fact that the gameplay is this good and the characters are just incredible you really want more and more from them but i wont lie some stuff became a chore after some time like the fucking ship level UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH LORD absolutely terrible and just a lot of different stuff that you have to see again and again when there was probably no reason to but whatever who am i to judge

i honestly love to see the different approaches to the story and how single stuff like the monster inside kaine actually helping you understand the shadows or the realisation that nier and yonah are actually the consciences of the two siblings at the beginning of the game AND ALSO the dark lord or the gut wrenching kaine fight theres A LOT of heavy stuff to this game and it definitely has a complete catharsis in ending E

while the other endings you have to replay the second half of the game with nier this time you actually have to replay this from the start and kaine is gonna take the rein after some time now , playing as kaine is definitely fun as shit and this route also has some implications to the automata lore that i was NOT expecting and that finale that has some similar iconography to the one in drakengard 3 UGHHHHHHH i love this ending some people dont like it but unfortunately im not people so fuck them this is great wow just wow can you guess what i was doing while watching it ? THATS RIGHT crying wow i feel like the only thing i did in this game was cry wow (because thats what i did)

so umh what i wanted to say is that this game is demanding i cannot lie to you but its such a great tale of humanity as a whole and what it means to be human that i just cannot stop recommending this one to anyone thats interested and while i know its a chore just stick with all the endings and im sure finishing it you will be left with a filled heart and i wish to be filled by papa nier no thats not what i wanted to say i wanted to say that the diary trials with papa nier made me hard no i wanted to say umh

this game is special like REALLY special just play it i beg of you do it for me you know you find me sexy and mysterious just do it ok bye also the music in this game is unmatched i had to say that at the end because i always end up putting 100 links in a review so im just gonna finish the draft and post it ok goodbye hope you had a fun christmas

i just read this "1.22474487139... is the square root of 1.5, so it's just a quirky way to say it's Nier Replicant 1.5" and my mind exploded