The First game I've decided to review is Nier a somewhat unpopular game by Square Enix.
In the game you start of as Nier, a loving father who will do anything to find his daughter, Yonah, a cure for her rare and potentially deadly disease known as The Black Scrawl. Typically and for no reason at all Nier seems to be able to wield and use swords and spears like a pro which is handy because lets face it, its fun to kill shit. Nier has a lot of interesting features added into the game, you can grow your own crops from a small farm outside your house, fish (oh how we all love fishing) and even upgrade your weapons in two different ways, one being the usual, you walk into a blacksmiths shop and he says give me this, this and this and i shall turn this into this which makes you think EXCELLENT with that upgrade I'd surely kick twice as much arse! Another way to upgrade is to infuse words into your sword or spears name making its statistics re-arrange in a number of ways like adding a poison effect or mana draining abilities, oh how the fun never ends!Now I'm not sure why words have so much power in the world of Nier but apparently they do so much so that one of your companions turns out to be some sort of overly smart but not too well informed book called Grimoire Weiss who will float about and be the arrogant arse of a book that Grimoire Wiess truly is.
Now that we are on the subject of companions i shall tell you about the half naked woman that will eventually join your cause and basically be the "never been loved, I'm too strong for that kind of thing" arsehole of a character, and by half naked i literally mean it barely clothed and simply wearing what looks like lingerie, this hateful and predicable character is called Kainé but hey shes not all bad deep down she just wants to be loved so don't judge her straight away here's one of the many shots of Kainé's behind that you will see flash before your eyes a few times during the game.
Nier is a unique game in its own way however whilst playing you find yourself wondering why it was that easy to tell what was going to happen yet at the same time somethings happen that you really didn't expect and if I'm honest they don't actually ever get an explanation as to why that happened for example you come across a child, Emil, who joins your cause, he has eyes like Medusa and can turn anything into stone with a simple stare yet at some point his long lost sister eats him and when his sister is killed by Nier he becomes some sort of floaty Jack Skellington look-a-like apparently that's just how it is.
The game is increasingly repetitive having you button mash your way through countless demons and using magic when a large group decides to show up, annoyingly the game lacks difficulty, one upgrade of your two handed sword and everything will either dye in one hit or be knocked back by the sheer force of the blow which even more annoyingly includes bosses, now what good is a boss battle if you can knock him to the other side of the room with a light attack and destroy his projectiles with the same light attack which by the way seems to create some sort of invisible barrier between you and any incoming magic which makes them disappear if you are mid attack handy but shit considering not one person wants to sit there and be the king of a game by simply pressing X constantly and destroying everything you touch.
When it comes to creativity the game fails miserably however you cant say Nier didn't try as at one point you are jumped with several stories and riddles to solve which halt your quest if you cant do it, oh and if you get it wrong the answer changes and you have to read the 20 minute long story...again and again until you get it right but hey you get a few easy ones first so its not all bad is it? The riddles were not annoying unless you got them wrong but lord all mighty are the stories boring forcing you to read them as it encases your screen in black and throws large words at you until you complete this part of the game.
Somethings in the game go unexplained like why does Nier decide to put a robin style mask on that has only one eye cut out? and why does adding words like Pah and Mah as prefixes onto your swords incredibly unoriginal name make it that bit more powerful that it already was? Again I'm guessing in this game its simply because that's how it is.
A few other things in the game lack what i call imaginative such as the enemies they are simply black shadows of what used to be people but are now Shades, what has happened to the world of gaming why is it Shades and not something creative your don't have to name your enemies by what they look like that's just boring oh how i would love to see a legion of Dave, Freds and Perrys wouldn't that make the game just that bit more fun? if not you cant say its not original! Even the types of Shades are as boring as their name its basically small, medium, large, boss and later on in the game they acquire bin lids and scraps of metal as protection against your pysical attacks which is useless if you have a two handed sword a few swipes and they are already dead or at least grounded.
Finally i am going to rate this game out of 10 why? Because i can and its a nice conclusion, that's why, I give Nier a 4/10 which means this game is worth a look at but i wouldn't recommend paying more than £10 for this unless your a real Square Enix fan then it just may be right up your street. I hope you have enjoyed my ramblings thus far and i hope you shall return for more ramblings in the near future.
