Jeremy Gallen's Game Reviews

A Boy and His Grimoire

The era of Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's rival Xbox 360 wasn't completely a golden age for both systems (although Nintendo's innovative Wii console acquired better reception), or for major video game companies such as Square-Enix, with its Final Fantasy XIII trilogy polarizing fans and critics, along with S-E's Dragon Quest franchise's sidetrack to the Nintendo DS with its ninth installment. However, one game that gained a cult following, in spite of mixed reception, was Square-Enix's NieR, a spinoff of their lesser-renowned Drakengard series, which had different versions featuring younger and older protagonists. It would receive a remake, NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139... (yeah, it's a mouthful), which has certain features that really make it stand out among the Japanese RPG crowd.

The remake opens with a prologue occurring in the year 2053, where the protagonist, whom the player names, protects his ailing sister Yonah from ethereal entities, before cutting to a little over fourteen centuries later where he and his sibling inhabit a village constructed upon the ruins of an ancient town. He ultimately receives the companionship of the enigmatic sentient book known as the Grimoire Weiss, both seeking a cure for Yonah and eventually battling entities known as the Shades and their master, the Shadowlord. The banter between the hero and Weiss is definitely witty, although another companion the protagonist receives, the female Kainé, definitely steals the show with her verbally abusive tongue.

The translators definitely weren't shy to localize the game in all its profane fury that extends to countless F-bombs, certainly pushing Replicant's M rating to its limit in that regard, and the general mature nature of the remake, as a result, will definitely lure older gamers somewhat tired of the relative tame thematic nature of most RPGs originating in Japan. The localization for the most part definitely helps the game more than hurts, with perfectly legible dialogue, good naming conventions, and a lack of spelling or grammar errors, although there are some stylistic choices such as not capitalizing "god" when used by itself. The storyline itself does have issues such as an overabundance of fetch quests and derivative elements like amnesia but is far more than bearable.

Luckily, a solid gameplay experience backs the narrative, with Replicant being a pure action RPG with real-time combat, the protagonist having a variety of moves such as attacking with weapons of different types and using various magical abilities thanks to the Grimoire Weiss. Occasionally upon defeating Shades, the main character may acquire "Words" he can assign to his various weapons and magic, empowering their various statistics and effects. One major convenience for those who would wish to cheese through the game is the ability to set the hero to attack and cast magic automatically, and while it does only show marginal incompetence, particularly if he's close to ledges and can receive damage from falling into bottomless pits, but he'll otherwise dodge and defend and take virtually no damage doing so. Generally, alongside the different difficulty settings, Replicant accommodates players of pretty much any skill level.

Control isn't nearly as solid, but does have plenty of positives such as crystal-clear direction on how to advance the central storyline (and while most sidequests don’t give great direction, the game is perfectly beatable without seeing them through), easy shopping, the ability to see how weapons increase or decrease stats before purchasing them, in-game maps, descriptions of item effects, and so forth. Granted, there is some issue with the save system, with sometimes more than half an hour between save opportunities and no suspend save of which to speak, although death luckily allows players to restart near where they died. Generally, Replicant interacts well with players.

The soundtrack also serves the game well, with many tracks having vocal accompaniment, largely Japanese with maybe the occasional smidgeon of English, and fit the various environments, such as the metallic underground mine theme. The voicework is decent and fits the various characters, and while there are plenty of annoying voices, most of the time, the player can skip through the text to cut them short. Generally, a great-sounding game.

Replicant is perhaps visually weakest, given typical three-dimensional graphic offenders such as blurry and pixilated texturing when seen close-up, an inconsistent framerate between standard gameplay and the "cinematic" cutscenes, poor collision detection, and plenty of pop-up of environmental elements such as grass in fields. However, being an M-rated game, the blood effects are superb, and the overall color scheme leans towards grayish and whitish. There are also some good weather and lighting effects, the human character models have realistic anatomy, and the Shade designs have some semblance of variety. All in all, the remake is far from an eyesore.

Finally, playtime is significantly shorter than the average JRPG, somewhere from twelve to twenty-four hours to "cheese through", although this aids well the game's lasting appeal, with different endings, Trophies, adjustable difficulty, and the like, albeit with some slightly-annoying level design that luckily doesn't detract too well from getting the most out of the gameplay experience.

On the whole, NieR Replicant is nearly a gold standard when it comes to roleplaying game remakes, given certain features that really stand out such as the potential for players to make the gameplay hands-off, given the brilliant auto-battle mode, with its other aspects shining such as the control, narrative with mature dialogue, the soundtrack, the graphics, and the potential lasting appeal. There are some minor imperfections in regards to things such as the save system and visual blemishes, although what the remake lacks in quantity, it certainly compensates for in quality, and at least for me was a breath of fresh air among the JRPG crowd given its mature appeal to adult gamers, certainly worth more than a glance and a nice surprise given its niche among Square-Enix titles.