Nier

I beat Nier on Sunday. It was enjoyable, but I had to read the wiki to fully understand what happened with the story.

The music and story were great, but the game is lacking modern graphics and creative gameplay. It boils down to a hack and slash with minor puzzles here and there.

Also, what's up with Kaine's nearly pornographic outfit? It was amusing that the characters made fun of the outfit during the game, but really, why? There's no logical reason to go fight monsters in lingerie. I skipped reading the Kaine novel after beating the game explaining her story. Hopefully somewhere in there they explain her clothes.

The game plays in SD, which doesn't make sense since it was made in 2010 for ps3 and xbox360.

It took me about 20 hours to beat, and that's because I was doing all the side quests. I stopped at 70% completion because they're really effing repetitive and boring. At that point, I looked up the side quests on gamefaqs and found out they (95%) only give a money reward. Playing the game without doing the side quests makes it more of an 8 hour playthrough. The side quests do add some neat story, but they're completely skippable. If they weren't as repetitive and had significant rewards, I'd be much more likely to do them.

The game has 6 different areas: the Forest of Myth, the Aerie (high up), the Village (where you start), Facade (desert), Seafront (water), and the Lost Shrine. All of the areas are neat EXCEPT the Forest of Myth, which I loathed. The story for the Forest of Myth is that everyone is trapped in their dreams and you have to rescue them by joining their dream. Fun? No. The screen turns black and for the next 30 minutes, you're reading white text on a black screen and answering multiple choice questions. It felt like the game creators ran out of money but wanted to throw another level in at the last minute.

Even though not original, the gameplay is fun. You learn a number of magical moves, and I used most of them throughout the game. The monsters get progressively harder as you progress, but playing in Normal mode meant none were ever terribly difficult. I would definitely recommend starting on Hard even as a beginner.

The boss monsters were all exciting and fun to fight, so if I were to play through it again, I would most likely burn through the game and not worry about any upgrades or side quests. Weapon upgrades really don't make much difference.

I recommend Nier to anyone who is not striving to get all the achievements; otherwise, you'll turn something fun into a big chore.