I'm nominating the video game NieR for Yuletide. Why should you play it and/or read a Let's Play? Well, here's the first thing you see when you start up the game:
What is NieR?
NieR is a 2010 action RPG for the Playstation 3 and XBox 360, starring a man in a post-apocalyptic world looking to save his sick family member. There are two versions of the game: Nier Replicant, released only in Japan and featuring a younger Nier caring for his sister, and Nier Gestalt, released everywhere and featuring an older Nier looking after his daughter. I'm nominating NieR Gestalt and Papa Nier:
NieR is made by Sith Lord Taro Yoko and his dearly departed company Cavia, who you might have heard of because of Drakengard, that series with giant babies and impossible rhythm games and terrible, terrible people. Nier is a spinoff of the strangest ending of Drakengard I, but the tone is a hell of a lot different and you don't need to know anything about Drakengard to understand Nier. The only relevant fact is that introducing a pure magical being to a world in a dimension that is not magical at all (ours) and killing it so magical particles spread everywhere is very, very bad for that world.
Also to everyone's surprise, there's a sequel coming out! As announced by Taro Yoko at E3:
He just dresses like that sometimes. Sometimes he uses sock puppets.
What makes it something very special?
The Story
Nier's story is tragic, gorgeous, and absolutely amazing. The game begins in the summer of 2049, with Nier and his daughter Yonah holed up in an abandoned supermarket while snow falls outside. As they are besieged by the monstrous Shades, a sinister-looking book urges Nier to sell his soul and use the book's power:
And after the prologue, it's suddenly a thousand years later and Nier and Yonah are living in an idyllic village. Nier does odd jobs and cares for Yonah; they're living in a dying world and everyone knows it, and the Shades are getting bolder. But if there's something that can cure Yonah--or at least ease her pain--Nier will find it. And when Yonah goes out looking for a flower that can grant a wish, Nier follows and ends up involved in a far larger quest for his daughter. Along the way, he teams up with a sarcastic talking book, a foul-mouthed half-shade, and a sweet young boy with terrible powers. I won't give the story away, but the game eventually leads to a confrontation with the Shadowlord.
And then you start the New Game Plus, and you can understand the language of the Shades.
It's hard to talk about without spoiling anything, but NieR is very good at turning what you think you know on its head and showing a sympathetic view of just about everyone. Possibly my favorite thing about NieR is that almost every action and every decision, good or bad, was made for love. Almost every character is morally ambiguous: doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, surviving the only way they know how, protecting the people they need to no matter what. Even minor NPCs are fleshed out, with sidequests providing a lot of flavor to the world. It's a depressing game--you're not on a grand quest to save the world, you're just helping those you can as it winds down. But there's just a little bit of hope, and that's because of love.
The Characters
The four main characters of NieR--Nier, Grimoire Weiss, Kainé, and Emil--are extremely well-written, especially their interactions with each other. While some of their relationships are more contentious than others (see: the opening rant), they are very much a found family. Besides Nier, they're all outcasts in one way or another, and finding someone who cares after a long time on their own changes them. Outside of the main story, there's also a ton of fantastic banter between them in sidequests:
You'll also notice that the voice acting is fantastic--and it's really good for pretty much every character. The main four are
Jamieson Price,
Liam O'Brien (doing a great James Mason),
Laura Bailey, and
Julie Ann Taylor, and they're all excellent actors. And let me tell you this cast makes playing Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward friggin' weird. (Play that too.)
I go into more detail about the characters below, but in short, they're complex characters with complex relationships and it's great.
The Music
Despite being a cult game that didn't sell overly well, NieR has about 500 very popular soundtracks out because the music is fucking amazing. It even has its
own Wikipedia page! The music is composed by Kiichi Okabe, with lyrics and vocals by Emi Evans; they're the same team that did Drakengard 3. The songs are all in various fake languages, with most of them based on different real languages after 1000 years of linguistic drift. And probably a few hours of my playtime was just me letting the music play while I did other things.
For two of my favorites, there's Kainé Salvation:
And Song of the Ancients (this one's a cover but everyone should listen to it):
Just go listen to the whole soundtrack(s). Or get the Theatrhythm DLC, it's great.
The Gameplay
So the actual gameplay is NieR's weakest point--the fighting isn't terrible, but it's mediocre, and the sidequests are all fetch quests of various levels of annoying. But the thing about NieR is that it pulls off a lot of things that only a game could do, and it works well enough that it's more than worth playing. At one point you visit a creepy manor, and suddenly you're locked into the fixed camera angles of Resident Evil; when you visit a town locked in dreams, you find yourself in a text adventure that unnerves the hell out of Nier and Weiss. The genre switches are clever and really work with the story. Besides that, the story has a great deal more impact when you're playing as Nier, when you're doing what he has to do and watching his character change and realizing how much more there is to the world than he knows.
And then there's the true ending, which does something I've never seen a game do before and I would've loved NieR just for that. Definitely try to avoid spoilers if you plan on playing or reading/watching a Let's Play.
Also there's boar drifting!
Who are these characters?
Nier
"Do you often get asked to handle such inane shopping trips?"
"I don't think these trips are inane. I'm a father in a dying world. I'll take whatever job I can get. Everyone has it tough around here, so I've no right to complain. They give me honest work, and I'm grateful."
Nier, our burly protagonist who's allergic to shirts, lives for his daughter Yonah:
All his actions throughout the story stem from his need to protect Yonah, to save her from her illness and give her a happy life--even if he's so driven to save her that he misses the signs that she'd much rather have him home with her. What makes him a great protagonist is that he's a good man, but a stubborn man, stubborn enough that he fights even more single-mindedly while his friends, and the player, are starting to notice things that bring his goal into question. He's not the sharpest boar in the field, but at least some of that is willful ignorance--if killing Shades has solved his problems before, then that's what he'll keep on doing no matter what. But even as he becomes more violent, more single-minded, he cares for his friends and spurs them to change in a better direction than he is.
Grimoire Weiss
"You should not have turned your blades on me, foul creatures! With a single world, I, Grimoire Weiss, can shatter the very universe itself! Now! Prepare to..."
"Prepare to... Er... Uhh..."
"..."
"...Oh dear."
Grimoire Weiss, a blood magic-wielding floating book, is a stuffy, arrogant, egotist who quickly becomes Nier's closest friend. Even with amnesia from a Nier-induced beating, Weiss is the brains of the operation, constantly complaining keeping Nier on track and complaining about questioning Nier's obsession with sidequests. And yet, despite his wondering why Nier has to help all these people with their petty problems, he shows far more sympathy and kindness than he'd like to admit. He's the one by Nier's side the most, and Nier literally makes his mark on him (by taping in pictures of swords and carefully noting down how much mutton he's carrying). For someone who complains about not be treated with the proper respect, he's awfully fond of the people who treat him like a friend.
Kainé
"I like camping out with Kainé! It's kinda fun in a weird way. Sometimes we sit around the fire and tell stories, or roast-"
"Emil! That's enough! ...I got a fucking image to maintain."
Yes, she's dressed only in lingerie. Despite her design, the game mostly avoids the male gaze and Kainé is in no way there just for fanservice--she's possibly the most well-developed character in the game.
With that over with, a reminder on how she is introduced:
We first meet her in-game when Nier attempts to help her fight a giant Shade, only to get helpfully kicked in the head and told to get lost, she can handle this. It's not long before we find out that her bandages are covering part of her that's a Shade herself--and she's been ostracized all her life, forced to live outside her hometown while the townspeople badmouth her to outsiders. It's no wonder that she's abrasive and stand-offish. And yet, her musical theme is one of the sweetest in the game. With Nier and Emil's unconditional friendship, and even Weiss's (even if they spend every moment insulting each other), she begins to change. And once the New Game Plus shows Kainé's side of the story, we begin to see even more of why Kainé became who she is.
Emil
"I like being outside because I'm with you, Kainé. I'm weak, and sad, and lonely, but somehow you make me strong! You're my friend, and I need you!"
Emil is a precious cinnamon roll the end.
In more detail, Emil is a sweet young boy with the eyes of a Gorgon who lives in a creepy old mansion with only his questionably human butler for company. Due to his curse, he sequesters himself away from the world, spending all his time blindfolded just in case. Once the party comes to his mansion, he immediately strikes up a rapport with Kainé--Kainé, who's used to being hated all her life for something she can't control, who tells him his deadly eyes are not a curse. Despite his circumstances, he soon opens up to his new friends and reveals himself to be a cheerful, excitable boy who loves weddings and campouts and people with a dozen arms who can hold a dozen knives. He's the one most likely to give traditional JRPG Friendship Speeches, and it's especially heartwarming in such a grim world.
Why Yuletide?
Because two-thirds of his companions are canonically in love with Nier and the creators have joked that the third confessed their love too (and that they've written a harem game).
But seriously, the character interactions are so strong that there's so much to explore in fanfic. Found families, familial love and platonic love and romantic love, banter and bickering and people who would do anything for each other. And that's just the main characters! There are tons of characters that you want to know more about, friends and enemies and random NPCs who have just a brief moment of connection with Nier. And there is so much room for stories about the world itself, particularly with background information from the (very spoilery)
Grimoire Nier.
And fix-it fic. Because there is nothing that doesn't need to be fixed.
Should I play it? Is there a Let's Play?
Fuck yes. The story, the characters, and the music are all worth playing it on their own; the PS3 and XBox 360 versions are identical, so if you have one of those systems, go for it! If you can't or don't want to play, there's an
excellent screenshot Let's Play from The Dark Id that covers everything. Everything not in italics is game text. Make sure to listen to the music and watch the videos, though! I haven't watched any video Let's Plays, but are some out there if you prefer that--
something-very-special's includes Tumblr posts with meta, and there are more if you search on YouTube.
If you play the game, just remember these things:
1. You don't have to play Drakengard to understand this. Please don't do that to yourself. I recommend reading The Dark Id's
Drakengard Let's Play, though, if only to see exactly how batshit Drakengard is. I have never seen a game that hated the player so much for playing it.
2. Be prepared to play through at least Ending B to get the whole story. The game isn't overly long, and New Game Plus starts from the second half so subsequent playthroughs are even shorter. And Endings C and D only differ in a choice you make at the end, so you can save before the final dungeon and do both on your third playthrough.
3. You don't have to do every sidequest--most of them just give you money and banter. Start them all for the banter, but feel free to skip anything that requires way too many trips through the Junk Heap. And Life on the Sands. Don't do Life on the Sands.
4. When you have to fish, follow the arrow and don't just fish at the nearby beach. This is probably the hardest puzzle of the game.
5. No seriously don't do Life in the Sands. (Yes, I did Life in the Sands.)
And once you've experienced the game, there's a ton of background information in
Grimoire Nier, which has a fan translation online. There's interviews, side stories, and explanations of how the world became the way it did; it features Brother Nier instead of Papa Nier, but everything else is relevant to NieR Gestalt. One warning: there's a lot of potentially triggery stuff in the game and more in Grimoire Nier. Just message me if there's anything in particular you want to avoid.
Play NieR! Read NieR! Watch NieR! Listen to NieR! Cry!
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