Nier: Replicant | A Complete History and Retrospective

near is a very special project one that only comes around once in a while a story that weaves its characters and world together so inextricably that you almost can't tell where one begins and the other ends themes that make you care and think about the ramifications of your actions a game that is truly honest about its characters and story but also about its creator and his opinions near feels very personal so realistic and true to the ideas of the man that made it that it almost feels like a piece of him but it also plays with structure warping and twisting the idea of how a game's story is delivered to create something entirely new in my opinion this is where the series really begins to hit its stride and where the genius of yokotaro really starts to shine through the game lacks in certain areas combat can be repetitive there is quite a bit of unnecessary grind and the effort require tired to see the entirety of the tail can be tedious but a project like this makes you see past all that and not really worry about the flaws this isn't to say that they aren't there but when you look back on your playthrough you often won't even think of them this is because you'll be so enamored with the things that you experienced the things you felt the things you didn't feel and those complaints will be lost in your memory I cannot stress enough that playing near will be an experience that you will never forget it is both a perfect game and an imperfect game all at once it is one of my favorite experiences playing a video game and will not disappoint its story is unrelenting thrilling and something that most video games lack in that it challenges the player not through gameplay and difficult combat but in theme and narrative today we're going to be taking a look at near we'll be talking about gameplay mechanics and everything in between if you haven't seen my previous videos on the first three games in the drakenguard series it would make sense to go watch those now those games connect to these tangentially and they do technically exist in the same universe there are many references to those games in near and you'll understand this game better having the knowledge of those if you enjoyed the video make sure to like the video and subscribe to the channel as it really helps me out and ensures that I can keep making videos like this in the future if you want to support the channel you can do so by subscribing to the patreon where I upload early access to my videos scattered text post updates and longer versions of my full series retrospectives you can also follow me on Twitch where I play games that I'm not currently reviewing spoilers for near Hey Dad it's me your favorite son and today I'd like to talk about near near actually began development shortly after draken guard 2. yokotaro had begun working on an idea for a third game in the series takamasashiba and kavya both didn't want to develop another game for the PlayStation 2. when another new console was just around the corner working around this Taro began coming up with an idea for a spin-off game which ended up being near the game was originally designed with heavy RPG mechanics during production producer yosuke Saito wanted to shift development to a more action-oriented game Saito had worked as producer on the original draken guard games but Taro didn't agree with this and mostly ignored his requests keeping the RPG elements near was developed with a relatively small team at kavya and it took around three years to complete the project Taro took an unorthodox approach to storytelling with a Sentry he liked to write the story starting from the end of an emotional Arc and working his way backwards he found that designing the game story around emotional Peaks and then working to find the reasons those emotional Peaks have impact worked better for him he also wanted the story to have a different structure than most RPGs out there he felt that a lot of game stories were too predictable because of this he wanted to show different sides of the same story giving the audience something unexpected Tara's Focus was again on the ruthlessness of killing and finding the morality in there he was actually heavily inspired by the 911 terrorist attacks when creating the story for near throughout development Square Enix had determined that Western audiences would not identify with the younger protagonist in near because of this kavya had to develop two versions of the game one with a younger protagonist that aged over the course of the story and the other with an older protagonist the music for near was composed by Monica with kaichi okabe directing the soundtrack okabe had worked on the music for many different games at this point including some of the early Tekken centuries kakeru ishihama kaigo hawashi and takafumi nishimura all assisted on the soundtrack okabe was given great Freedom over the project and was actually allowed to develop most of the songs separate from the game the soundtrack was designed to have a sadness across the entire thing even during the more action-based songs Emmy Evans did a lot of the vocals for the soundtrack Evans didn't have a ton of experience working on games at this point only really having provided cello for a game called time Hollow on the Nintendo DS the team wanted Evans to write her own lyrics and a new type of future language Evans wrote the songs in many different languages and then tried to imagine what those languages would sound like after drifting for a thousand years near replicant the Japanese version of the game was released on April 22nd 2010 for the Playstation 3 near Gestalt the Western version of the game was released in the EU on April 23 2010 and in the United States on April 27 2010 for the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360. a few notes before we get into things the first is about the version of the game that I played as I said before there were two versions of near released near replicant in Japan which featured a young boy protagonist trying to cure his sister's illness and near Gestalt in the west which featured a much more matured man trying to cure his daughter's illness I actually remember near being released in the west and I have a specific memory of an advertisement for near in Game Informer which I can't find to this day this was just a mystery image of the main character that was released by Square Enix to tease their new game but I remember fawning over it because it looked so interesting to me for this review I played the replicant version of the game I specifically played the remake of replicant that was released in 2021 called neo-replicant version 1.22474487139 the reason I chose to play replicant for this review is just because it honestly works better than Stolt the two games are very similar and have very little difference outside of the change in protagonists but this change actually has a cascading effect which causes the story to have a completely different impact we'll get into this issue later and talk about the specific details of why replicant tells a much better story I chose to play the remake of replicant because it's honestly just a better version of the game it features improved Graphics a re-recorded and arranged soundtrack upgraded gameplay and many additional pieces of story which flesh out the characters more and bridge the gap between this game and its sequel the second note is on the structure of this review because this is a yokotaro game we know what we're in store for when it comes to endings near is no different in that multiple playthroughs will provide us different endings and different playthroughs that will give us different views of the story that we're playing because of this I will first talk about the game and its first playthrough going in depth on gameplay characters world and everything else will see our first time around at the end we'll then Venture back to talk about the other endings and playthroughs that the game provides near begins in the summer of 2053 in a city with modern architecture something unfamiliar to us in the draken guard games previous the buildings are broken down dilapidated almost post-apocalyptic you'll also note that it doesn't look very summery here as the structures are covered in fresh fallen snow inside a nearby building a boy is falling asleep and a nearby book is beckoning him to take the power that he's offering him Shades begin to attack the building and we get our first tutorial for the game the boy's sister is nearby and she begins coughing she's rot with sickness overcome by some mystery disease the sickness does not make her bitter though she is scared and innocent in this the boy Ventures out to find something to eat warning his sister Yona to not touch the book beside her outside the boy is overcome by the shades and is forced to turn into the book for more power this book becomes our Ally and a source of magic we then get another tutorial on how to use the rest of the systems at our combat disposal while the boy was gone his sister found a cookie that they split she begins coughing once again and drops the cookie she begins to succumb to her illness as black words spread across her skin the boy begs for help screaming into the void for someone anyone to help but this is not where our story takes place our tale begins 1412 years later in a small village centered around another boy and another girl these two are in a similar predicament the boy has taken care of his sister as she is sick with a mystery illness as well the main character in near doesn't technically have a Canon name we are allowed to choose our character's name at the beginning of the game and I chose Sun but for the purposes of this review I will be referring to him as near or our protagonist most of the community around the game calls him near yokotara wanted him to be an unnamed protagonist so that he could effectively be anyone but it seems that his wishes weren't the same as the production teams because the character is referred to as near on some of the game's sites because of that I'll just be calling him near when it makes sense near has to leave to go make money and get food for the two to eat he is the primary Breadwinner for the pair since they don't have parents to take care of them the world of near can be pretty harsh and these two children have been left alone to fend for themselves since Yona is ill near then becomes the de facto provider for the household Yona wants to go with him but of course he won't allow this as she is too sick to leave her bed he tells her to go get some rest and we head out into the world nearby our protagonist's home is a library this is where popala makes her home she is one half of a set of twins that have served as surrogate parents for Jonah and near the two help them out in any way they can and have helped to raise the two since they were young clearly they still live on their own but the twins are very close to our protagonist he confides in them and looks to them for emotional support popla has a request from someone in town they want us to get some mutton for them in the Northern Plains popular also wants us to grab some medicine for her she gives us more than enough money to cover the cost of the medicine clearly showing that she takes care of the kids poppola believes in the spirit of community and most of the village does as well they want to see Yona get better and they'll help in any way that they can on our way out we find Yona searching through the library she's looking for books that could tell her how to cure her sickness nir tells her that if she gets rest she'll get better so she has to get back home and she believes him the world that we see now though visually different from the world we saw in the prologue isn't that much different in state plague has run rampant monsters called Shades roam the lands and people say that the world is dying this is a bleak Outlook but our protagonist has made it his goal to help his sister get better to ensure that they both survive he doesn't have another Choice out in the Northern Plains we have to take out some sheep to get the mutton that we were requested and defeat some shades in the process Shades being this close to the village is not a common occurrence this is an oddity for this world a change to the status quo a symptom of something to come we head back to the shop keep delivering the goods and getting poppola herbs she thanks us and we then head back to see Yona Yona is incredibly excited to see us every time we walk through the door near isiona's favorite person in the world he's the only family that she has left she cares for him deeply but he's also an incredible excitement a change in her daily life she has to sit inside 24 7. there is no respite from the boredom of the four walls that she's confined to she says that she's tried to read books but she read all of them hearing her brother talk about the world outside gives her some escape a life that she could live someday if she gets better the feelings of sadness are clear here this girl is an innocent and a bright hopeful and cheery one at that she seems to have done no wrong yet she is caught up in an illness that she can't yet defeat near tells her of a legendary flower called the lunar tear this flower is incredibly rare and will bring massive riches to the one who finds it Yona asks if it could even cure her illness and with the money they gained from the lunar tier they could buy any medicine they could think of the next day our protagonist heads out on another day of running errands popular has another job for us to head out to a nearby Bridge that's being repaired the crew was attacked by Shades there isn't much known about the shades that roam the world most know that they attack humans nearby and like to stay out of the Sun as it damages them but that day it was overcast and the crew was caught off guard we have to rescue an injured Carpenter who is still stuck out by the bridge we take down some larger Shades learning some more about the combat system which we'll go over shortly when we get back popola tells near that Jonah was asking her about the outside world when we get back to the house we find that Jonah is gone and we can probably tell where this is going apparently popola told Yona that lunar tears can be found outside the gates at the Lost Shrine nearby The Village Jonah went looking for these lunar tears and we can find evidence of this at the gates of the village we can head out the Eastern Gate and head towards the Lost Shrine this is a massive structure standing alone in the center of a canyon a large Bridge connects it to the rest of the world we can make our way through the tower heading up the stairs and taking some side rooms to access what looks like ramshackle ladders that take you up to the top Shades have infested this place attacking us as we make our way through the structure once we reach the top we find Yona unconscious on an altar guarded by two massive statues there's a small book in the center that seems to be emanating some sort of barrier we can free this book who calls himself grimoire vice vice has a very large large ego he knows the power he holds and he isn't afraid to tell us about the gravity of those abilities he expects to be treated as a being that can take down kingdoms and doesn't settle for anything less because of the desperation of the situation near decides to join forces with this book and use his powers to help out his sister I'm sure you can see the parallels here between the near Vice team up and kayam and Angelus Vice will become a father-like figure to near throughout the tale though he serves as a strict Shadow always watching over the actions of our protagonist he tries to guide this young man in the way that he feels best he tries to use his influence to shape the person that he will become he now has both the mothers in the village back at home and his father at his side with this we get the powers of vice and have access to some of the magical attacks that we could do in the prologue of the game this is probably the best time to talk about the combat of nir Nira is somewhere in the middle of an action game and an RPG you might even call it an action RPG the game's combat though is pretty simple to start we can attack with a variety of melee weapons either delivering a regular attack or a heavy attack by pressing square and triangle respectively this is about as simple as it gets and is what we'll do for most of the game slashing at enemies feels all right in the beginning and gets slightly better as the game goes but the biggest critique I have about it is that it's very simple there just really isn't a lot to do here there is a good amount of variety provided through the weapons in the game changing combos or attack Styles but this won't become very prevalent until about halfway through the story different weapons have their own style of attack and also their own damage ratings these can be upgraded through a mechanic that's introduced later so we won't talk about that just yet each weapon does have its own weight to it which should theoretically affect its speed and heftiness but there really isn't much of a difference at all this was more of an issue in the original version of the game but with the overhauled combat system there really isn't a point Vice will allow us to cast many different spells or verses these verses are gained throughout the story and range from shooting heavy damage bolts at enemies to shooting light damage balls to summoning Spears from the ground there is a good amount of variety here and we can choose to do many different things with the system we can also equip words two per item that will increase different stats they can be equipped on weapons to increase damage or speed equipped on versus even our guard or role these are collected throughout the game from various enemies and types but this is where the problems come in near is very easy way too incredibly easy and you know it's a problem if I'm saying it's easy because I'm about as average in skill as it possibly gets at video games there just really isn't any reason to ever upgrade your weapons or ever switch out your spells this was the second time that I played through near replicant getting all of the endings the first time I played through the game I tried everything out all of the different weapons upgrading things to make fights easier testing out new spells to see how they turned out but this time I went through the entire game without upgrading a single weapon or really ever changing my spells I just wanted to see if I could do it and let me tell you it was not a challenge at all there is also damage reduction on bosses when there's still dialogue left for them or your party to let out this is another change made from the original game and is honestly a really good one in the original near you could actually skip past a dialogue and boss phases this is not good because the game is very easy and a lot of incredibly important and emotionally impactful dialogue is delivered while in combat now we can't really skip those phases like before so we're made to watch those scenes I say this all with the caveat that I was playing the game on normal difficulty you can make the game harder if you really want but the bass difficulty really is way too easy there really just isn't a lot of challenge to be had here there's also the fact that the Magic Bar really isn't useful when you spend Magic by using spells it just immediately charges itself back up so there's really no point for it being there at all that being said I can't say that the system itself isn't well polished or fun there definitely could have been a larger amount of variety here to keep people interested but it's still not bad there's definitely nothing egregious here and there isn't anything super impressive either but if you compare it to the previous tracking guard games then it's absolutely stunning there are many things that will be introduced to the combat system throughout the game as Nia really likes to drip Feed Us mechanics and systems but we'll get to those as they come as we fight the small Shades and try to break down the barrier between us and Yona Vice tells us that his memory has seemed to fail he doesn't remember much about why he is an all-powerful being just that he is he begins to regain some of his lost Powers by defeating the enemies that we contend with then the two statues come to life and we have our first boss fight we have to manage both of these enemies at once but they make it easy on us by one going into defense mode while we attack the other one we get the dark Lance attack during this battle which allows us to fire a stronger more damaging Lance that takes a bit more magic to use we end up killing one of the armored statues which greatly angers the other we take that one out as well and wake up Yona the siblings apologize to each other as the shrine begins to crumble around them the group heads out and the front entrance is blocked behind them Yona feels like a failure she couldn't get the lunar tear she wanted she just wanted to help seeing her brother try so hard to cure her disease has caused her to feel like a burden on him near feels bad about this as well he just wants his sister to be safe and is doing everything he can to make sure she isn't hurt the black scroll begins to appear on her skin a manifestation of the sickness that she carries near and vice's conversation tells us more about the disease it appeared on Yona a month ago and the black scroll is fatal there is no known cure for it as of yet we had to talk to devila poplar's Twin she's heard of grimoire Vice before he's known as the white book and he's in the song of the Ancients a classic ballad that tells the story of a black book that begins to spread disease across the land the white book shows up and Saves the World she says that popola could have some more information on the subject so we seek out her guidance she too recognizes Vice who is Overjoyed that someone finally appreciates his power popla tells us of a story one of grimoire Noir taking over the world bringing destruction grimoire Vice the white book will bring his sealed verses and Destroy grimoire Noir removing the evil from the world the sealed verses that Vice is supposed to bring are some sort of Magic the spells that we can cast using him near is excited at this Prospect maybe the sealed verses could help Yona popola thinks this is just a legend but nier is ready to kill every shade they can so that they might be able to gather the sealed verses She tells us to go speak to the chief of the Airy a neighboring Village in the Northern Plains this is the point in the game where side quests become available here we can take on requests from other villagers and complete tasks for them to gain gold items or weapons now these are for the most part a weak point of the game this isn't to say that there aren't good side quests in near it's just that there are far too many half of the side quests are fetch quests that send you to the other side of the map which takes forever just to grab a material and then return it for a small reward a few of the quests do have genuinely interesting stories though that tie into the overall theme of the game without spoiling it or shoving it into your face too much if the total amount of quests wasn't overly bloated then these would actually be a highlight of the game the good news is they aren't all really necessary there are definitely some that you'll want to do for extra gold to buy weapons but we definitely don't need to do every single one I know I'm not the only one that feels this way because while I was researching the drakenguard slash near timeline for these videos I stumbled upon this flowchart someone thought it was an issue enough to make a flowchart for reference so it's got to be pretty bad for now most of the stuff is pretty simple get mutton find chicken eggs and the like there is a quest we get pretty early on to defeat a large boar in the Northern Plains this is incredibly useful because we will get access to a bore that we can ride when outside of town this makes travel quite a bit faster in certain areas which is very helpful for obvious reasons when we get to the area we immediately notice it's very strange layout the area is not a traditional Town its homes are built on platforms that jut out of the side of nearby rocks wooden floors hang above and near bottomless Canyon the citizens shroud themselves in small steel boxes which keep them from the outside world they are afraid of people that don't call the Airy their home afraid of these Shades that roam outside afraid of most every everything really the shades have made their way into this Village as well and we have to contend with them as we make our way to the chief he also has holed himself up in his home he doesn't want to speak with us and tells a year to kick rocks as we head out of the village our protagonist spots a shining crown of flowers sitting in a small hovel just outside of town it's a ring of lunar tears but before we can grab them a scantily clad woman shows up near almost thinks that she's a shade because of the Shadows around her hands we then have to fight her she's quick and puts up a decent battle unless we can knock her down this will open her up for damage she summons some sort of magic around her and begins to fight again once we defeat her a massive shade appears over the crest of the mountain above like most bosses in near this one is pretty easy we have to attack the shade's legs while it Stomps on the ground these Stomps cause shock waves to release and we have to time our jumps or Dodges to avoid taking damage the shade will spit more shades out of its mouth that we have to attack most larger enemies or bosses will have timers on them once we deal a certain amount of damage we have to defeat these timers before they run out to progress the battle towards the end of the fight the shade will spit out massive waves of magic at us we attack its head to take its sealed verse and end the fight causing the shade to attack once more but Kaine saves us from sure death she keeps saying that this shade is hers to deal with she has some sort of qualm with it when the fight is over she Fades into unconsciousness and the symbols on her skin disappear Vice claims that she's possessed by a shade somewhere in between human and beast she's not very appreciative of our help she does tell us her name though Kaine she's vulgar and crude but she tells us that it won't be good for us if we stay with her she tells us to stay away from the shade that escaped us and the two head out when popala hears that our protagonist thinks his weapons are too weak she tells him that he can find two brothers in the junk Heap who can upgrade our equipment for a price she says we'll need around 1000 gold which we can get by taking jobs at the tavern devila happens to be there playing music for the small crowd this is really just a way to convince us to do more side quests grabbing medicinal herbs for people returning orders that weren't delivered you know the drill classic RPG side quest stuff eventually we head to the junk keep the two brothers that we heard of before are running a small shop at the entrance Jacob owns the shop and his brother Gideon helps him out the two scour the junk keep a rumored derelict military base for supplies their mother has been gone for days looking for supplies the brothers need materials and we need weapon upgrades so we enter into a deal if we get them three titanium Alloys from inside they'll upgrade our weapons so of course we head inside the dilapidated walls of the junkie pulled more than just scrap they house Rogue robots that seem dead set on taking us out these enemies either attack with a close range lightning bolt or long-range blasts they also have flying variations and stationary turrets that will fire at us each of these enemies will drop some form of junk scrap or useful material the junk Heap is an incredibly valuable place for farming materials either for upgrading weapons or completing quests the place is pretty large and clearing out the first floor will give us what we need to take back to the brothers Jacob upgrades our first weapon for free this unlocks the weapon upgrading system for near here we can provide materials in exchange for another level on our weapon this will increase the damage output of the weapons like I said before though this is mostly unnecessary especially on normal mode the game is just simply too easy to require anything like this the materials needed to upgrade weapons are also just so much that it's an incredible grind to get what we need it's therefore too costly and not necessary enough for us to need it I will say that upgrading the weapons does provide more information from the weapon story system small stories that each weapon carries this is something we'll talk about a lot lot more in depth once covering the supplementary material on the series Jacob is insistent that their mother will be back but near and vice decide to venture inside to find the woman Jacob gives us access to the elevator inside so that we can access the lower levels of the facility once we reach the lower levels we encounter a massive robot that serves as our next boss battle here we have to shoot the hands of the machine these hands will shoot out lasers at us this attack is very simple to dodge and just attacking with our dark blast will take the hands down easily the machine will summon tons of robots to fight us and then begin its attacks with missiles we can then throw bombs into its mouth to damage it once done three times the Beast goes down arriving in the Next Room we find the two brothers mother she was with a man with a good collection of cash and clothes it seems like she was leaving her children to be with her lover but her tail didn't end very well the game lets us decide what to tell her children whether we decide to tell them the truth or not this doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things it won't affect anything in our playthrough it's not meant as a branch to split off Pathways for different experiences on the end of the user it's meant to reflect the user itself it's meant to show us who we are and who we want to be in this world it's also meant to reflect the world onto us to show us how Bleak things have truly become when Gideon learns of his mother's fate he runs away from the news Jacob had already known about her lover and has made peace with it he's just happy that his mother was with the one that she loved at the end he forgives easily ready to let things go at the end this is in stark contrast to his brother he has to be strong for him hold up in the face of tragedy a reflection of the relationship between nir and Yona When we arrive back in the village Yona is very sick she's in pain and needs help our protagonist responds in the only way he knows how to head out and grab some medicine yonah can't help but worry about him though we seek out popala for help she says finding a shaman fish might assist in relieving some of her pain these fish are located in seafront so we have to head out through the southern gate to make our way there this town just like others has a distinct design reflecting the environment that it was built in it takes much from its name in that it is in front of the sea it's a trading Village that has a lot of opportunity for purchase and sale it's also clearly abundant in fish its most prominent structure is the lighthouse that stands at Shore's Edge guarding the waters in the town itself when we arrive we can talk to the local fishermen who will teach us how to fish this is a mini game in near that will allow us to catch wildlife from many different Waters across the world using bait we can attract different kinds of fish and near the end game this will become the best source of gold if we need it we can level up our fishing by completing the fisherman's Gambit quest line which has a large number of Parts each Quest sees us catching a specific type and amount of fish for the local fishermen these can be quite different difficult depending on the game the task itself is usually pretty simple though cast our line wait for a bite and then reel it in and honestly any project with a fishing minigame in it gets automatic points in my book once we get the shaman fish we head back towards town but an old woman stops US she's a very rude and an impolite lady but she says that her male hasn't arrived yet she needs someone to go pick it up and because of near's good nature itself we take on this task we find out that the postman has a leg injury and hasn't been able to deliver the mail on time we can deliver the lighthouse ladies letter and even read it to realize that her impatience was because she was waiting on a letter from her lover he is stranded taken on by an illness in a foreign land we bring the letter to her and she rewards us for our troubles we eventually bring the shaman fish back to Jonah and she seems to be feeling a bit better she's even given a pet name to Vice vicey she wants to make stew for us and asks us to track down the ingredients this is actually a side quest but I think it's important to point out here because of Jonah's character it's very easy in games for the Reliant technically useless character to feel like a burden and like I said before this is even how Yona herself feels but she never really feels like this to the player this is probably due in part to her apologetic nature Taro is very good at crafting these characters ones that we are sympathetic to but also we don't feel like we're forced to take care of the game makes us want to take care of Yona not feel like we have to this is important because it creates a very specific distinction we are not taking care of Yona because the game creates an objective forcing us to do this before we move on we are doing it because we feel that we are near we are the character that is taking care of Yona this is because of both near's optimism and bright disposition in the face of Bleak adversity as well as Jonah's steadfast nature she believes there will be a cure and so does near both of these characters know that she will get better and that we're going to make it happen but the player knows there's an underlying chance that this may not happen because of all these elements combined together we feel for these characters we are partly aware of the tragic tale that is taking place before our very eyes and we want to help to make that tale less tragic as much as we can we don't view Yona as a burden we view her as our sister I should also note here that each loading screen normally contains letters from yona's Diary different entries May mention Us and how she wishes we would be home spending time with her they may also detail different events such as devila and Poplar visiting her these are also sometimes replaced by gray pages that mention other events completely different and separate from yona's inner thoughts but no less important to the Secret Story going on underneath when Yona inevitably does make a meal for near it's not great it's clear she isn't great at cooking but the point is that she tried when we talked to popular she tells near that the mayor of seafront has spotted a horde of Shades in the area once we head there we're confronted with the shade from before the one that Kaine was very adamant was off limits we fight the beasts throughout the entirety of the Airy jumping across platforms and moving the battle to different locations across the floating Town eventually Kaine is mesmerized by a voice that she hears one of her grandmother she quickly realizes that this doesn't quite sound like the grandma that she knew we defeat the Beast and kinee falls into an unconsciousness she wonders if she can rest now but she's pulled back to life by near we're going to lift Kaine four what I had my revenge and now it's over oh now see here this is Rich we help you in some mad quest for vengeance and now you think to bid us a Jew how can a fighter so skilled because with such a thick head a true warrior would fight they would give all in the service of their friends friends that's right he's right Kanye we're friends now see here that was hardly the point okay then what is the point she decides to pledge her swords to us with no other place to put them Kanye knows a king living in a city nearby he's been trying to find a cure for the black scroll for a while and his people may have found something as we head into town Kaine decides not to enter into any of the nearby cities with us she doesn't think that she would be welcome we head through our village and over to the neighboring Kingdom of facade the place the Kine believes may have had an end to the black Scroll once we arrive the guards don't allow us to enter until they see that Kaine is with us facade is a desert City built in an unorthodox way with many walkways and levels across a small area flowing sand rivers run throughout the town that the citizens used to travel across its uneven landscape as we'll see soon the city has also a pretty strict form of government the people that live in facade have thousands of rules they must follow and adhere to these mostly get in the way of daily life obstructing the citizens from living normally new rules are developed all the time forcing new laws on the people the people of the city also speak in a foreign tongue one not known to our adventurers Kaine tells us that she saved a child from a pack of wolves a while back the girl happened to live in facade and since then the people have always accepted her when we journey to the king's Palace we can't get in because we're not sure how to talk to the guards on our way back we see a girl who has fallen and we help her up her name is fira and she can't speak because she uses hand signals to talk Vice can understand her Communications she takes us on a tour of the Town showing us the shops and explaining some of the strict rules of facade at the end of the tour she sees Kaine the person that saved her the guards rushed to tell us that the prince has gone missing in the barren temple nearby their rules forbid them from entering the temple because they aren't nobility but the rules also state that they must look for the prince right away because of this contradiction near offers to go look for them Fiora guides us to the temple through a nearby never-ending Sandstorm inside the temple is broken up into a variety of different rooms each room has separate rules mirroring the city of facade we must complete the challenges in these rooms while adhering to the rules in certain places we can't jump or run or use magic as we begin to complete these rooms we see the prince who is captured by one of the temple boxes and taken further into the Fortress Kaine is also kidnapped in a similar way once we reach the lowest part of the temple we encounter a new boss this is a monster that is formed from the boxes defending the place we mostly use ranged attacks to defeat this enemy we can attack the pink cubes when they're lit up and slowly disassemble the creature eventually it takes a more humanoid type shape though and kinee joins back into the fight we eventually take the Beast down and the prince has found his mask that he was looking for the king of facade recently fell to his illness the black scroll the prince was looking for the Royal mask so that he take his father's place and become the ruler of facade the prince tells us that facade owes us a great debt near tells him to create a rule zero that allows the people of the city to vote to change a rule if they don't like it the prince gives us a sword as a gift and before we leave we ask him about the black scroll he tells us that he never found a cure for his father's disease we promise to return once again soon with this we head back to popla who gives us a letter she received from The Forest of myth the text Trails off into repeating the word dream halfway through the writing at this point there was a side quest available for the lighthouse lady this was probably one of my favorite side quests in the game mostly because it spans a couple different sections and carries a heavier weight than some of the other ones it also happens to tie into the theme of the game The Postman ends up contacting us to deliver more mail to the lighthouse lady at first we think this is just another dumb delivery Quest we take the mail to the lighthouse lady and it's another letter from her lover he is still ill and cannot come to see her all she wants is to look upon him once again she decides to leave seafront and stop caring for the lighthouse but the postman can't let that happen they don't have anyone else that can take care of the building so she has to stay eventually it's revealed that her lover has been dead for many years the letters that the woman has been receiving were a fabrication made by the postmen they did this because they didn't want to break the woman's heart and she did so much for the town by caring for the building that they decided to put in the work to keep her dream alive even if it was a farce we then get the option to either tell her the truth or lie to her I always decided to tell the truth in situations like this because it reveals more about the characters in this case the lighthouse lady is thankful she had suspicions anyways but she respects the people of the town for caring for her enough to keep up the lie she requests that we tell the postman that she doesn't know about the ruse and I obliged this is a theme that runs through the roots of near like an aged tree permeating the soil and earth that surrounded when we start this Quest Quest we think it's insane that the postmen would lie to the old woman like that she's been living a lie all this time but once we deliver her the truth she makes us see the other side of things better than we could have if we talk to the postman himself seeing the other perspective is something that comes up quite often in this game and it's something we'll get into heavily later in the tale but no one shows us the other side like near once we arrive at the incredibly small village in the forest of myth it is quiet when we find the mayor he tells us to Beware of the words it seems that he's under some sort of spell suddenly the gameplay of near changes we are no longer battling monsters with swords and Magic but solving puzzles through text this reflects the contagious words that have infected The Village this is the death dream and it has taken hold of the entire place we solve a few very simple riddles and relieve the mayor of his death dream but he says something peculiar that he saw a version of near that was not himself we end up heading into the other villagers dreams as well pulling them from their Slumber in one is a location-based puzzle where we have to keep track of the direction we're going and choose new ways from a list of cardinal directions we saved the woman from a great Castle as the place collapses behind us in the other dream we encounter a lost city of Art and a puzzle of statues that are mostly made up of liars we have to figure out the simple riddle of which statue is telling the truth once we do this the village is freed from the death dream and we can head out I really do like this section and it's such a refreshing surprise as we're getting deeper into the game Nira is never afraid to switch up its gameplay style its structure its formula or even its view as you can tell the game already employs a clever use of camera angles to show us the important parts of a scene in later sections we will even take an isometric view to deliver a different perspective on the battle the game is never afraid to switch things up and try out something new this is something I really respect with a game and it shows that the team either wanted to create a variety in gameplay or that they were trying to get around other limitations popular tells us that a new Canal is being worked on but the man that's supposed to be running it has gone missing we find him in seafront but he's worried because he can't find his wife he tells us that she has a matching red bag and we find a similar bag on a shade nearby we go to deliver the news to him but his wife arrives this couple is known in the town for their arguing so much so that they have become a spectacle in the village one of these arguments starts in front of us because the man ate one of the woman's apples we then get put in the middle of their argument they eventually make up and this allows the canal project to be underway we visit Yona because she wants us to do a favor for her near as shocked to find out that she has a pen pal that she's been writing to a boy that lives in a mansion nearby he's apparently sick and in trouble so we have to go help him we arrive at this mansion with big wrought iron gates out front when we enter the world goes dark the color is sapped from our vision there's a butler out front that guides us into his house we begin exploring the place and come back to find Kaine gone heading further into the building we can find various keys that allow us entry into otherwise locked doors in one of these rooms we meet Emil the boy that calls this place his home he wears a mask over his eyes but can still tell who's coming from the sound of their footsteps then I suppose I should tell you about my friend Vice I I only heard one set of footsteps grimoire Vice does not strut about like a common land mammal he has to wear the mask because anyone he looks at will turn to Stone he doesn't know anything about the letters that Jonah has been receiving he gives us a map and we head further into the building we see many troubling sites along the way making this place seem even creepier than it was before when we meet the butler he tells us that he has been sending letters to Yona he originally messaged us because he wanted to help a meal and get our assistance with it but Jonah was the one that responded the butler was only trying to help Emile get his sight back some way to stop him from having to wear the mask apparently the cure to Emil's condition is in the manor and the butler wants us to seek it out Emil comes with us as we defeat the shades deeper within inside the Library we have to fight a flying book we simply have to attack it and avoid its flipping pages when it summons a big shield around it we avoid its roles and break its Shield to get damage on the boss during the fight Emil feels incredibly bad that we're helping him he wants us to leave and let him handle it because he doesn't want us to die for him when the book is defeated we find a research report on petrification the key to the document is written in a code though the butler decides he is going to deconstruct the cipher no matter what before we leave the manor Kaine talks to Emil she tells him to not be ashamed of his eyes they are a part of him your eyes are not a sin don't ever be ashamed of them they're a vital part of you do you understand she recognizes something in the child something of herself and decides to let down her standoffish demeanor to give him some words of encouragement she says that she has found purpose even after she found her revenge a reason to keep going on to live she Whispers something in emile's ear something we aren't privy to we head out back to the village and we get a long hanging cut scene over the area this reflection on our home the place that we've called home for most of the game will have its reasons in a moment it is the Calm before the storm one last look at the place as it was in the before near laziona down to bed in their home she says that she doesn't want her brother to hate her because of her disease she again feels like a burden on the ones that care for her we had to get some medicine from popla and she wants some Vapor moss in return as we head out we see a meal limping through the southern gate he delivers a warning and near takes him back to the library he tells us to get out of the village at that moment the shades begin to attack outside a massive shade has begun to run rampant in the village we have a massive boss battle here across the entire town we have to attack its arms as it slams its fists toward us we can sever its limbs but it just regenerates too quickly it moves across the open area and starts heading towards the library every time we deal damage to it it just seems to keep coming back we finally put an N2 of the Beast before it reaches the library inside we defeat the shades that are attacking the building and a larger one shows up this tentacle shade requires us to attack each of its Limbs and then its head it's very strong but near manages to push the shade into the lower room of the library and Kaine holds it off inside just then our protagonist is stabbed by a powerful looking shade the shadowlord he has Jonah captive and begins to summon more shades then we see that Vice is transported to an ethereal area with another book that looks similar to him this is grimoire Noir who tells him that their purpose is to serve the shadowlord this seems to jog some of vice's memories he seems to succumb to the influence of the shadowlord and Noir for a moment but the voices of his companions Rouse something in him I'll understand I'll understand if you forget us but I promise I won't forget you I'll remember you no matter what we'll keep the memory of more of ice alive forever and that's that's not all I'll do you hear me I'll chase you till the end of time it'll bring you back to us please come back damn it we need to stop him if we don't do something that black book will absorb Vice black wise black wise images of black and white the black and white of the books The Good and Evil of the battle that is being fought Vice manages to shake this possession and overcome the power of the Shadow Lord we fight Noir in a boss battle but Vice is about to be stabbed and near jumps in front of the spell Noir tells them that they will understand in time and the group flies away with Yona in tow Our Heroes can do nothing to stop them but they're still the matter of the giant shade that Kaine is blocking from entering the library she realizes that this is her time this is her purpose the shade is too strong for them to defeat they only have one option a meal has to petrify Kaine blocking the door off forever and sealing the shade inside Emil resists this but ultimately makes the tough decision I really enjoy this whole sequence throughout the course of the game it's only felt like we were making progress but we never had a real goal the goal so far was to cure Yona and sure we had an idea of how to save her and an idea of who our bad guy was but this gives the group true purpose they know that they have to defeat the shadowlord and grimoire Noir and save Jonah but the group is also given motivation this loss is huge for them Kaine is now gone she's not a part of the group anymore and anytime that nier has to visit popla the reminder of kaine's absence stares him in the face Emil had to use his power to do this making him feel like he had to kill one of his own friends near's failure to save his sister has affected him greatly in the years after this causing him to lose his youthful upbeat optimism and take on a jaded view of the world not only that but he is now utterly convinced that shades are meant to be exterminated incredibly evil beasts that are only there to be killed the game picks up five years later and near has grown with this gameplay has also greatly changed we can now use two extra weapon types two-handed swords and Spears the daggers that we've currently been using are fast weapons with a middle range two-handed swords generally have a long longer range deal much more damage and are slower the Spears have a longer range and deal a decent amount of damage depending on which one we use for this playthrough I mostly found use in daggers and two-handed swords I didn't use Spears very much until one of the final battles this just lent itself closer to my play style the time skip really does change combat overall too though because Shades have now upgraded their abilities as well some of them have stronger armor requiring us to break through their defenses before we can deal damage to them this is easier done with two-handed swords than anything else we will also have to maneuver around enemies to be able to defeat them it is a wildly different change to combat and actually adds some complexity and challenge to the second half of the game we save a nearby woman who was being attacked by Shades near then fills us in on the last five years the world is dying even faster than before the shades and the black scroll are killing off everyone near has spent the last five years looking for his sis sister but it has led to nothing this again has created a much darker and more blunt protagonist who now doesn't even know if this journey will ever end if he will ever succeed in his goal his Resolute demeanor is still there though just presented in a different way we end up heading to popala she has a letter from Emil who says that he may have a lead on getting kinee out of her petrification we head over to the mansion and Emil hasn't aged at all apparently he just doesn't age for whatever reason he found a document in the mansion that mentions a room beneath the house that will cancel all forms of magic he thinks he may be able to harness this and stop kinase petrification in the courtyard we find an entrance to an underground facility of sorts located beneath the Mansion down here there are quite a lot of Shades but most of the technology seems to be more modern than we're used to Emil also seems to negatively react to the place as soon as he gets there venturing through the place we have to find different key cards to access the next area we find a discarded document talking about number six a weapon that this facility was working on it was the top priority for the research facility further in we find another document stating that number six needs to be stored and the team wants to know the progress on number seven they also decided to disguise the upper part of the facility as a mansion Emil is clearly pictured below and he begins to get worse as his headaches increase haluwa was the name of the donor body used for number six and a meal also seemed to be a donor body for number seven at this point Emil realizes that he is some sort of weapon but he can't remember anything near tells him that he will support him no matter what his past doesn't matter to the group we reached the final room of the facility and find a massive Beast Chained and nailed to the wall a meal then has flashbacks to his time in this place with his sister halua they were regular kids before they came here the research facility used magic to experiment on them and create the perfect weapon number six Emil's sister they lost control of number six and create a meal to petrify and seal it away near doesn't see a meal as a weapon he's just a meal Emil realizes that he needs his sister's power to get rid of kinase petrification he makes near promise that if a meal loses himself then he will end his life to ensure he doesn't hurt anyone Emil is swallowed up and we have to defeat number six another very easy fight here where we mostly just avoid the projectiles and continually fire ranged attacks once we pin the Beast down we see a meal in a dream he sees his sister and says she'll always watch over him then Emil shows up he thinks he can control his abilities now he Reveals His new form warped once he took on his new powers a massive head with skeletal arms and legs this moment is incredibly tragic Emil hates the way he looks because of his new form he thinks that people won't accept him that he has no place in a world with his friends because he is lesser but that's not the case nier is willing to accept him in any light he'll always be his friend no matter what welcome back Emil I've been through a lot but my my body I can't stand to be with you when I look like this how did I tell you we're here for you matter what even with this he still hopes that Kaine isn't terrified when she looks at him the group heads back to the library to try and reverse the spell it works and Kanye is brought back but the shade is also released from its holding place so we have to fight it once again this time though we're a lot stronger and have the ability to take it down for good the group gets Kaine to wake up she recognizes a meal immediately which takes him by surprise this is another shock because he thinks that he looks so grotesque there's no way someone could see him for who he really is but Kaine does she has also taken aback by near's new appearance he brought her a lunar tear to replace the ones from her grandmother which she takes is a massive show of respect and care tiny waking from her long petrified sleep meals unflagging kindness our reunion was a happy one and we let it wash over us like rain that is until devil and Poplar had to go and ruin it all at this point devila and Poplar tell the group that Emil and Kaine cannot stay in the village they have to sleep outside because the town's folk are scared of them near does not agree with this he can't just let his friends sleep outside Emil understands he knows why people would be scared of him and Kaine is used to sleeping outside so they go willingly near feels selfish because he never once thought about the situation of his friends but he ultimately understands the twins reasoning and apologizes to them the next day popla seems to think the shadowlord is connected to the Lost Shrine somehow since the canal has now opened up the boat can take us back to the entrance of the Lost Shrine this boat actually acts as a fast travel system of sorts it won't let us travel to very specific areas like the desert travel point will still require some walking to get to facade but it gets us closer than before and reduces quite a bit of walking slash rolling time heading through the Lost shrine we take a similar path as before to get to the top this time though we have to complete some box puzzles to get through the rooms on the way to the roof near tells the group that he's going to stay outside with them from now on he doesn't think it's right that they can't sleep in the village so he doesn't want to either when we get to the roof we come back to the same room where we saved Yona in the beginning of the game the shade that we took out before is there and it seems like he wants revenge we have to fight him again also fighting Shades while he protects himself eventually we take him down and Kaine gets impaled by a spear her skin begins to crawl with the letters and she fully transforms into a shade we have to take her down without killing her we seem to have stopped it for now Emile tells Kaine how he really feels he needs her he can't let her go Kanye I can't be with we're always going to be together Kaine if you transform again well just stop it again as many times as it takes I like sleeping outside because I'm with you Kaine I'm able to ignore my appearance and keep going because of you I'm weak and I'm sad and I'm lonely but you make me strong with that we find some sort of fragment by the altar we take this back to popla who tells us that it's part of a larger key that may have something to do with the shadow Lord we have to find four others the law of Robotics and the memory tree clearly refer to the junk Heap and Forest of myth from here we can choose where to go I chose the junk keep first when we get there we see a flashback of the two brothers scouring the place for materials a robot approaches them though and after Gideon trips on a pipe the place collapses causing Jacob to be killed Gideon has gone through a similar transition as near though he's gone a bit further he wants nothing but to destroy robots he's grown jaded and callous in these last five years years he only lives for Revenge now he gives us a weapon that we can use but he needs to repair it with a memory alloy we get one inside from defeating Shades we have to head all the way back through which is something we're going to have to get used to once we get the alloy Gideon says that he'll send a letter once the weapon is ready we decide to head back to popla and she needs us to check on her fairy men again he's been skipping out on work he's nowhere to be found but our search eventually leads us down to the beach where a ship has been wrecked inside we have a side scrolling section where we investigate the vessel there's evidence that the ship was used to transport slaves we also encounter a ghost-like girl that's wandering the place we find a red bag on the ship which doesn't spell good for the fairy men towards the end we find a massacre underneath the floorboards bodies piled up inside the boat we then find the girl and the postman arrives the girl then turns into a shade a massive one that we have to fight on the deck of the ship we have to destroy both of its tentacles when on the ground we stop all manner of attacks and try to do his damage as we can it seems that the postman and this girl had some sort of friendship Kane exploits this weakness and this allows a meal to deal a blow to the Beast we cut the beast in half but it puts itself back together there's a timer that we have to destroy but we don't have the strength to do it the group is about to be defeated when the postman starts attacking the girl this stops her and distracts her for a moment this is just enough time for near to finish her off afterwards the red bag woman shows up and we have to tell her the bad news about her husband at this point the king of Assad invites us to his wedding he's getting married and he wants the group to be there we head to the desert town where the king reveals that his wife is to be fira the girl we met all those years ago in true character Kaine is not excited for the wedding and a meal is overly excited the next day the king is married but during the ceremony wolves attack they're led by a larger shade wolf who we now have to fend off before he runs away in the process of this attack fira was killed this sends the king into a rage he's ready to get revenge on the wolves and take them out for good guys [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] we end up assisting him and defeat the wolves in their den with this we gain the loyal Cerberus fragment we end up getting a letter saying that our weapon is done so we return to Gideon he tells us that there is a shade and a robot working together in the jungkeep so the group decides to take them out once again we have to Journey Through the Heap and fight the robot in its Lair it seems like the shade is giving orders to the robot and the thing even tries to escape halfway through the fight when it begins to error out Gideon arrives and begins kicking the dead robot laughing maniacally in my opinion this moment is a time for near to see a reflection of who he has become or what he will become if he keeps down this path this is clearly a much worse off version of him as someone who has gone so far for revenge and has grown massive amounts of hatred for Shades or robots in this case this gives us the law of Robotics key fragment and only leaves one more place for us to visit the forest of myth here the mayor tells us us that he feels a strange Presence at the Divine tree this is a tree at the heart of the village when we investigate the tree we get another text Adventure it tells us that it once remembered everything about the world this was its reason for existing he shows us some of these memories a memory of a boy falling sick and succumbing to illness he meets a woman that changes his world before he passes another of these memories is about a Female warrior who lives for battle her comrades have fallen around her and she is the only one left she too falls to the Beast he tells us of one final memory one that he can't fully recall a memory of a red dragon falling from the heavens but this one has been lost if you're familiar with the first dragon guard you'll know what this is a reference to the tree's memories have begun to fade though we end up encountering a shade that can speak that has sentience the trees ask us to recall details about the memories he spoke to us and then he asks us one final question what is the most important thing in the world all three the answers are correct with this we gain the key fragment for this area we have one last fragment to obtain and when we talk to popala she tells us that the Arie has finally decided to open itself up to the other Villages they are finally willing to trade and have opened shops in addition to this a villager may know what sacrifice the last key fragment's name is in reference to when we get there we find shops open on the main platform and we speak to one of the guards there when we tell him that our goal is to kill all the shades he begins to transform into a shade himself half the village does this at this point and the place is attacked we have a battle with a massive circle-shaped shade as we move across platforms a child sees his sister fall to the shades he then accuses us of being the monsters but we couldn't be monsters right we have to Target the shade Center to defeat it Emil distracts it while we circle around back the shade proves far too powerful though and to defeat the shade Emil goes nuclear unable to fully control all the power that he harnesses this completely decimates the Airy the town is fully wiped out not a soul left in sight only a massive crater standing where it once was a meal weeps for the town cries for what he has done he feels the weight the guilt the burden of the lives that he has taken at this point but near thinks this was for the greater good they can't look back with this we have all the keys we need and can head to the Lost Shrine once again there are a lot more shades here than before and once we get to the top we find a portal at the altar we enter this portal and are transported to the shadowlord's castle once we reach the place we are confronted with questions from two birds this acts as sort of a password to the place why do humans disappear from the world because of a black disease how can humans extend their lives by separating body from Soul what is the destination of souls they are placed in their corresponding shells with this we enter the next room and find a very unexpected site devila and popola are already here they tell us to turn back that we shouldn't be here they were working with the shadow Lord all along they were the origins of the very power that we use this is a massive betrayal to near not only were devila and Poplar his friends they were basically his parents near had nothing as a child and has always had to fend for himself for him and Yona devila and popola were there they were a support network something to fall back on a net in case they failed this is the worst thing that could happen to near that someone would side with the people that stole his sister from him I think this betrayal though also goes along with the theme of growing as near Grows in character throughout the story he loses his innocence this is the final step in that the final loss that leads him away from childhood after we defeat the pair they get away and we're told that the answers to our questions lie inside the castle Vice begins to malfunction at this point his speech is distorted and something is clearly wrong we find a ballroom nearby enough to defeat tons of Shades more of the circular Shades show up and we destroy them before we're attacked by a massive bore we can take this thing out but it just keeps regenerating it chases us upstairs and we fight it once more then the guard from facade shows up led by the king himself the group decides to distract the boar while we head forward something near definitely doesn't want to do we encounter devila and popola once again they give us some exposition to explain themselves 1300 years ago Humanity was on the brink of Extinction and began Research into project Gestalt we are shown flashing documents then the big reveal we aren't human no one in the room currently is human the only humans left are now called Shades the twins serve the true humans this ultimately comes down to a difference of motives for them we begin our final battle with them the twins fight independently with one attacking from the stage and the other attacking on the ground we defeat devila and Poplar rushes to her side devila says that the two are twins because they were born without Souls the world too lonely for one without a soul they are two parts of the same they are one with that popala's other half dies and she's angry we have another battle against her as she spits out a constant stream of projectiles she then goes nuclear destroying the bridge nearby Emil sends the group up high in a protective bubble Emil explains himself he has always hated something about himself but now he's proud of who he is and one of the most tearful scenes in the game Emil sacrifices himself no now get going okay don't worry about me I'm gonna be fine [Music] the meal a meal you jackass get back here oh dear kind of so unstable and vice can't stop arguing with people I hope they can hold it together once I'm gone well I guess they'll just have to learn I I want to see you again I want to see all of you again just one more time I'm scared I don't want to Buy the weapon has turned into a protector we see the shadowlord looking over yonah and we see the aftermath and the grief in Kaine after Emil's death from here we can actually view the documents that we saw flashing on the screen before the fight with the twins this will explain quite a bit and I'm not going to get into the entire backstory or timeline right now I'll be saving that for later when we talk about all of the supplementary material and the full timeline in the series retrospective a brief Cliff Notes though is that Humanity was facing a battle against a disease called WCS or white chlorination syndrome this began in 2003 after the battle with the queen and ending e of drakengard project Gestalt was created to separate human Souls from their bodies the two would be reunited once WCS went away bodies were created for the humans from their genetic data these were called replicants the souls left from the humans were called gestaltz the first and original Gestalt was the shadow Lord himself gestaltz can have something called relapse which is when they reject their replicants this causes the black scroll disease to appear in those replicants and causes the Gestalt to become hostile the original plan was once WCS was gone from the world grimoire Vice and nor would be used to fuse Gestalt and replicant creating true humans again and reuniting their souls to their bodies but clearly this plan did not work out near makes his way through the castle and arrives at the shadowlord's chambers we have to fight grimoire Noir a very simple battle that resembles the fight we had in the library of the Mansion once we face him we Face the shadowlord himself he moves very quickly and attacks from all angles Sky ground ranged melee we have to avoid his attacks and get in damage when he's open after this Yona is awake and calls out to her brother but ends up heading to the shadowlord instead of Mir she says she doesn't want to do this it seems there are two voices inside Yona and our Yona wants to see near shadowlord's Jonah tries to convince him to stop that this isn't right and she can't see him anymore Jonah puts herself into the sunlight and it seems that the shade that possessed her sacrificed herself fading off into the sunlight we have another battle against the shadowlord that is mostly similar to the last Vice begins to malfunction he has enough energy left though to stop the shadowlord he decides to sacrifice himself as well to complete near's Journey he heads off and gives us a chance to take out the shadowlord with this we finally defeat him there's a wisp of Vice left his voice Still Remains we need to call Jonah back to tell her that we're still here and that our lives still have meaning she begins to ask us what her favorite things are and then her final question who does she love more than anyone we have to input the name of our save file here this is one of the things that near does best it's meta game and I'd like to talk about this for a bit at the beginning of near we are asked to put in our name this at first is an innocuous choice we don't think anything of it most will put their own name or the name they normally use for games like this but near isn't a blank slate character RPG we aren't going to be creating a personality here and applying it to the character that we're playing we're playing an established character but we are meant to supplant ourselves in their shoes this isn't the first time a game has done something like this but the game takes this a step further it asks us to make choices in its world mostly around telling the truth when met with these Crossroads in the world were asked whether we should deliver the hard news to the person or not this choice is incredibly important because we are being lied to about the world currently and we don't know it yet this is not to say that near is being lied to about the world but the player is as well we will see both options in the end but in this first run through we have no idea what's actually going on on top of that our goals and motivations line up with the character that we're currently playing during the first part of that game we want to cure Jonah most of us will naturally care for her character seeing a sick and innocent young woman be so conflicted with being forced to stay bedridden and be helped by those around her makes us only want to care for her more when she has stolen away before part two we along with near become jaded and want to take out every shade to get her back the idea that we may have failed at our journey in a game where it seems like we have been succeeding is not something that we want to face in the end we aren't a new character that we've supplanted our own personality onto or even a fantasy personality we are the protagonist and we naturally align with him as much as we can so when this question pops up who do I love more than anyone it hits like a freight train this impact is only hardened by the fact that we just recently learned that this whole thing the whole journey to find Yona might not exactly be the best thing for the world and we may have done wrong on our way to get here when we input this name Yona awakens she sees her brother and stands up the siblings reunite and Kaine heads off to leave near offers for her to stay with them but she knows this is never possible she's possessed there's a shade inside of her the two stare out at the sky and Jonah reflects on the voice that she heard before of the shade wanting to see light we then see a flashback of the two out in the grass as near gives Yona a lunar tear the two children are happy to be together in the Sun in the sky we then see the shadowlord and his sister reunited as well the first playthrough and ending of near is fantastic it drip feeds us enough information to keep us interested it tells us a story through its dialogue and cut scenes but in the background another story is brewing another one unseen we can feel it and we even get hints of it throughout our journey we know that something here isn't right and as we make our way to saving the princess we get the feeling that maybe we're doing something wrong but even just as a story on its own near succeeds in telling an incredibly emotionally deep tale about a group of troubled adventurers trying to find their way near our protagonist starts out as a starry-eyed boy who wants nothing more than to take care of his Sick Sister he will do anything to meet this goal and spends most of his days completing tasks for others to make this a reality when Yona is stolen though he feels like a failure for this first time in his life he really knows what it's like to miss the mark this creates a change in him in spending the next five years looking for her only to have that hope and optimism slowly fade away with time create someone who is Jaded and quiet he becomes angry at the shades and is on less of a journey to save his sister and more of one to murder every being that he deems evil in his presence this journey comes full circle when he is betrayed by his family the only family that he's ever known he realizes that the life he's been living is a lie and this all happens right before he is about to meet his goal imagine climbing a mountain dreaming of reaching the top spending weeks imagining what it will be like to stand on the peak only to be told mere seconds before you arrive that the mountain is a living being and with every step taken you have caused it pain your seconds away from the top so why not complete your goal but the journey will have been lessened by this Revelation Kane and Emil both have their own tragic Tales ones of lost Revenge hatred forgiveness and acceptance but like I said before the first playthrough of near is really only half of the story what we just saw was ending a of the game but I really only consider this the halfway point of the experience so let's talk about the other endings shall we beating near for the first time will unlock ending B which will allow us to experience kinase side of the story now I do have one big qualm with this route even though I think it's probably the best route in the game I think we should have actually played kinee during this playthrough this whole route adds another element that we'll get into in a moment but it's an element that Kaine has been experiencing the whole time this drastically changes the story when we look at it from her perspective and it makes us completely re-evaluate the tale when we look at it through her eyes because of this it really would have made more sense for us to play this route with her experiencing the story through her eyes fully I can understand why the original game didn't include it but I really wish the Remake would have there's already a section later in the game where we play as her so it would have just made sense for this version of the game this route is actually not an alternate ending but the same story and ending as before but with different context that being said We Begin this route where all routes will begin after a from the moment that kinet is taken out of her petrification here Kaine doesn't immediately wake up we begin seeing text appear on the screen Kane's full backstory is presented to us this Novella takes place when Kaine was still a child in the Airy she was ostracized from the community and bullied by a lot of the people there demo a local bully would band together with others and throw rocks at her the reason she was ostracized is because she was made different than everyone else she was born both male and female and for this the community looked down on her the only person she has in her life is her grandmother she protects her takes care of her and tries to raise her well at first their relationship is Rocky with her grandmother acting quite a lot like the Kaine we know does but over time the two grow to bond and butt heads less as time goes on kaine's grandmother begins to show her age though and it becomes more difficult for her to complete the daily tasks that the two need to survive Kaine has to try travel to town for her and meets an apothecary who treats her with kindness she draws a portrait of her grandmother so that she'll always live on one day Kaine goes to get some rocks and some fruits and when she comes back her grandmother has been attacked by a shade she is killed during the exchange and Kaine is brought to the brink of death she is then possessed by a shade named Tehran he is vindictive and feeds on hate and fear he can give her the power to survive this ordeal but he'll be forever in her mind feeding off the killing that she does whether shade or human this reveals many things about Kaine first is that her vulgar and standoffish nature result from her being raised by her grandmother she took those traits on from her because she was the only person in her life that she respected and the only one that cared for her she also keeps people at a distance because she could never trust anyone in her childhood everyone was trying to run her away and keep her out this explains a lot about her personality and how she got to be here but Tehran is an incredibly important part of this next playthrough since we'll be seeing the story through kaine's eyes we will now be able to hear Shades talk this is because Tehran is in kaine's mind therefore Kaine can hear what they say this doesn't mean a meal Vice or near our privy to this information but we the player are and it greatly changes how we view this story other small moments will be recontextualized as well like when near gives Kaine a lunar tear after she is awoken this clearly means a lot more than we originally thought and Kaine having a group of people around her that genuinely care for her no matter what is everything we also immediately come to the issue of the group sleeping outside it means a lot more now that near realizes Kaine has always slept outside before we thought of this as just our protagonist caring for her but now we realize that kinase sleeping outside doesn't mean lack of comfort it means being ostracized from society from Community from family we then see a new scene with Emil and Kaine camp Kanye opens up a bit to a meal and Emil is dedicated to finding a cure for both kinase possession and Emil's new look I should note here that with this second playthrough we now have access to the Diary of near's mother this is called the diary of the Recycled vessel and was something that was added for the replicant remaster here we play through short combat sequences as father near the one from the Western version of the game we can get a few weapons as rewards for playing through these fights there's also some brief and interesting references to the draken guard series as well during the second playthrough we go through the story just as we did the last time we have to head to the Lost Shrine to search for a remnant of the shadowlord this time though we see flashbacks from the bosses that we're about to fight Gretel the surviving statue from our first encounter here is grieving over the loss of their companion the shades nearby who are defective gestaltz end up growing a bond with Gretel Gretel swears to protect them and of course we attack our perception of this fight now changes as Gretel is really only here to protect the ones that they care for something that near is doing as well during this fight Gretel screams out repeatedly to stop killing his friends to not do this and suddenly we feel like the Invaders here we kill Gretel and Kaine goes berserk once again in addition to hearing the shades voices we now also hear Tehran constantly berating Kaine he's begging her to kill everything around her to kill and to feed his lusts with this we grab the first key fragment and retrace our steps to grab the others when we arrive at the junk keep we see a flashback to a shade and its mother they're trapped in the junk keep and people are coming after them the mother sacrifices themselves to save their child the child weeps alone in a room lost by themselves just then a robot arrives p-33 the robot is about to eliminate the Intruder when it realizes that its creator is also dead it has something in common with the shade it takes pity on him the two becomes friends and when Gideon and Jacob are ransacking the place Jacob dies after Gideon trips on a pipe we see that the structure collapsed because of The Intruders the p-33 and his friend never wanted to harm the boys we then Journey Through the junk keep to find another memory alloy we see p-33 in the shade spending time together they dream of leaving the place seeing the outside world living a life together after Gideon has completed our weapon we return here to seek out the robot shade team themselves this time though of course we can hear the two speaking during the battle at first it isn't bad but as the two realize they are losing the shade tells p33 to leave and get out of here p33 promises to protect the shade and the two try and Escape during the battle they want to see the outside world like they promised each other but they can't get away this is worsened when the shade jumps off of p33 and we murder him this Battle Turns from a boss fight into a massacre we head to the forest of myth as usual but not much is different here with seeing it from kaine's perspective we head to the area and have our boss fight with the shade that's attacking the place Emil wipes out the village and we then see his story his thoughts and feelings this story tells of how Emil was treated in the labs how he was handled by the assistance and show no care or worth they were scared of him and treated him as a delicate weapon rather than a real human it also shows when Emil petrifies his sister to try and stop her from causing any more damage it wasn't so something that he wanted to do but something that he had to do this causes a meal to see his sister's memories remembering the life that they had together this reinforces the belief that Emil holds that he is a weapon that he has made to destroy we then had to see front to look for the fairy man here we see flashbacks to the wrecked ship when the postman first met the girl inside he wasn't yet aware that she was a shade he just thought she was lost and scared he began to feed her and take care of her as his own he even taught her to sing bonding over something with her before we reach her we see Louise alone she has grown to care for the man and wants to stay human but she's slowly changing into a shade she thinks if she can eat more people then she will stay human of course we end up fighting her and we hear her begging to be human throughout the ordeal the postman arrives and it becomes clear why she was distracted she doesn't understand though she wanted to be with him and he taught her to sing she's just doing what she showed him to do Louise like Emil reflects on her hideous form a lack of perfection present in her eyes we then see Kaine with a letter that Louise wrote for the postman she tears the letter up though while Tehran belittles her we have one more key left to retrieve in the desert when we head there we see the main wolf talking to his brothers the desert used to be a massive Lush and green forest but now it has become a wasteland due to the human Invasion before the wedding the guards hunt down the wolves and slaughter them at their den so that there isn't an intervention during the ceremony this act of violence of course causes the very death that they were trying to prevent the wolf is sick of seeing his kin slaughtered like this and kills fira at the wedding the wolves are low in numbers after the attack and decide to stand their ground Dying With Honor rather than escaping when we kill the Wolves they wonder what they did to deserve such a fate we then see the wolf thinking of a man one that took care of him someone that he called friend we then head back to the village and near says that he wants to leave a meal and Kaine behind he thinks it would be too dangerous and that they might die in the process he wants to spare them this but they aren't having it they want to stand by their friend and rescue his sister we finally head to the Lost Shrine and make our way into the shadowlord's castle we fight devila and popola and head into the ballroom here the shades are making their last stand to protect their Sanctuary they fight for their home and when the door opens and the ball Shades flood in we realize that these are children the other Shades beg us to stop beg us to end the senseless murder but we don't listen we can't even listen then the boar shows up he is angry frustrated that we've slaughtered so many that their cause will die here this is when Kaine confronts to Ron she tells him that he's hiding his insecurities under violence and hate that they are both the same this is Kaine contending with herself making peace with her own faults the king of facade then sacrifices himself to let us go on events mostly proceed the same until the final fights Tehran has noticed a change in Kaine he realizes that she's doing this for him for us for near she pledges her sword for him once more this time the shadowlord begs his sister to stop what she's doing to stop her sacrifice for these people he Grieves his sister and in his last moments he finds peace that he will soon join her we then see him weeping in a white space he weeps for his failure and that he only brought his sister pain all these years we then jump back to the first scene from the game playing as the original humans that would become the shadow Lord in Yona she tries to convince him to share a cookie with her we then see the two reunited in something of an afterlife as they originally were after the credits we see an odd scene Emil's head bounces through the deserts he ended up transferring to his sister's body but only has a head now he needs to find a new body and he rolls off into the sand the second playthrough of near is fantastic and is really what took this game from something great to an Untouchable piece of art it's an amazing work and seeing the story again but Through The Eyes of those we fought gives us a completely different perspective it fulfills that goal that yokotaro was trying to meet seeing this from the perspectives of the enemies makes us consider the fact that we might be the villains here everyone we killed have had families lives children parents they had their own reasons and motivations for fighting their own reasons to battle us they weren't mindless beings they were Souls the shadowlord himself is a perfect example he is a parallel of near because he is the Gestalt version of him he wants the exact same thing that near does to save his sister he fights for the same reason and does things for the same reason yet we call him our enemy perhaps the most moving of the fights is the one with p33 seeing the young shade bond with the robot over time seeing their relationship develop seeing these two Innocents scorned by the world come together to develop a friendship only to then have Gideon blame his brother's death on them Gideon was truly the one that caused his brother to perish but he takes it out on these Innocents we then act as his sword because it furthers our goal of rescuing Yona they are slaughtered in the jungkeep as they try to escape and beg for their lives they only wanted to be together to see the outside world and they never got the chance because of us there really isn't a lot of new stuff included in the playthroughs to get ending C and D which is why I'm lumping them together here these are the first routes and endings that we will encounter that are actually different endings alternate to paths A and B which were the same story just told differently there are some slight additional dialogue here and there but for the most part the ending is different and that's it we get two extra sequences throughout the story we do have to obtain all 33 weapons in the game before we can witness ending C this actually really isn't that much of a chore it's a staple in yokotaro games to hide certain endings behind obtaining all the weapons but this one is probably the easiest to do it in most of the weapons are found in the world bought from stores rewards from side quests or earned through the story there are a couple that are locked behind the Recycled World challenges but they aren't that difficult the game plays mostly the same as our second playthrough up until the seafront section we fight the boss the same as before but now during the section where we couldn't be beat the timer we're powerful enough to be able to complete this we end up running up the side of the boss and defeating it head on we then see Kaine give the letter from Louise to the postman afterwards it affects him in a way that he can't understand even after realizing she was a killer and a monster he can't stop thinking about her we then collect all of the fragments just as before this is the part of the game that will become a slog for most people because we're really repeating a lot of content you can actually skip most scenes at this point and especially on the fourth playthrough to make it go a little faster you can really get the method down pretty quickly as well and make this only take a few hours when we finally reach the shadowlord's castle and defeat devila and popola we see a new text memory from Emil he recalls being with his sister and the only woman that took care of them when they were in the facility he recalls the good times and birthdays and the snacks he then talks to halua after his sacrifice and she offers him her body so that he can go on living for the both of them this is assumingly how Emil got to be the disembodied head at the end of ending B we once again fight the shadow Lord and defeat him Kaine then begins to succumb to the shade possession Tehran begins to feel the emptiness of the killing that he and Kaine took part in she started to rub off on him we then talked to her and she's about to go berserk with a meal gone there's no one to stop her she asks us to take her life before it comes to that we have to fight her or really just avoid her attacks for a period Tehran fully takes over and we have to battle Kaine he tells us that there is a way to save her life but we'll have to make a tough decision Tehran will take control and pin her down and we have to stab her in the heart after we defeat her Tehran tells us that we can free Kaine by killing her give her the Peace of death and stop her existence or we can return her to being a normal human again but in this we have to sacrifice ourself ending C takes place when we choose to free Kaine from her burden she is killed and near kisses her as she fades from this world Tehran tells near that she is truly free he knows her better than anyone near reflects on Kaine as he holds a lunar tear in his hands ending D is the other choice that we can make this is really the last ending that we can get in the original game and is the true ending to the story here we choose to sacrifice our own existence to return Kaine to her mortal life everyone will forget near all memory of him will be wiped from existence the game asks us four times if we're sure when we make this choice we then have to input the name of our character we slowly watches every single thing from our menu Fades away every item that we picked up every word we collected every weapon document tutorial map everything it all goes away as the world forgets about us our save data is erased and Kaine wakes up beside Yona as she thanks the woman for saving her Kane thinks that something is certainly off but she can't place what with this the menu changes and we only have one more ending to talk about this ending was actually introduced with the remaster this was originally published as a short story called The Lost World in grimoire near a strategy and World guide published for the game here we have to start back from the beginning of the game with a new character name we can't input our old one this is a fresh start we play through part one of the game completely normally rescuing Yona meeting Kanye heading to the junk keep helping the lighthouse lady and eventually defending the Airy from the shade that killed Kane's grandmother when Kaine Fades and the group tries to wake her up we realize this is a dream that she's having of the adventures with her friends it's been three years since she saved Yona after ending D and she's been plagued by these nightmares she thought this was the end but the shades left after the shadowlord's death have begun to attack replicants to try and get their bodies back she heads out to kill some shades and finds a guard that's in danger he was trying to make his way to the forest of myth because the village has lost con contact with them inside we find the inhabitants dead and robots are pouring out of the tree at its Center the tree opens up and we can head inside Kane has a slightly different move set to that of near we control her much the same though and the only real difference is that we use the magic buttons to charge and upward attack voices begin to speak with us as we move further down the tree this tree is really a machine that has been recording memories of the world inside we find two android-like children Kaine kills them immediately but they just reappear they summon a large robot that we have to fight it's a lot faster than the likes of p33 but has similar attacks the girl and boy say that they have been watching for a long time the voice of a recycled World they want to see kinase potential they want entertainment Kaine defeats the robot and heads deeper inside there they have recreated versions of kinee at her best in battle we have to defeat waves of them Emil shows up when things begin to get dire he now has four arms but assists kinet in opening up a path forward they reveal a doorway inside the children say that what is lost lies ahead inside we find some sort of energy source and are transported deeper within memories that have been sealed away begin to appear as the enemies that we fought in the main game we fight them and finally kinase Nemesis appears the shade that she cannot Escape there's something she can't remember someone else was here fighting with them Kane ends up failing and falling to the assault of the shades Kaine is then back in the Airy reliving her Horrors and warped versions of her memories a voice then begins calling out to her to wake her up it's Vice who then assists in the battle his magic helps us take down the Beast and the figures of children are shown the potential of replicants just then memories of near begin flooding into her head she calls him back she wants to be his sword again we approach near's body and we're asked to once again recall the name of the first character we made we slowly see as everything is restored our saves our items weapons stats everything is back Kaine succeeded we then see one final scene a massive large flower blooms over the land and Kaine holds an ear in her arms the camera pans out to show that the flower is a giant lunar tear now I don't normally do this but I do feel obligated to create a separate section for nears music this is mostly because it has such critical Acclaim especially with the new arrangements for the replicant remaster it's also just because I love it so much I feel like it deserves its own section the entire soundtrack is beautiful both versions are a masterpiece of music and fit the entire game incredibly well every track and every sound amplifies the world environments and moments that we are experiencing it's choral voices and orchestral instrumentation give the game a grand illustrious feeling as if we're hearing a tale about the far past told from someone in our time it evokes the feeling of looking back as we talked about with the development section the entire thing is also dripping with sadness a melancholic tone across the soundtrack that adds to the emotion that the game seeks to pull from the tail and the player now I I will say here both soundtracks offer a different experience I honestly can't and don't really want to choose which one I like more in some cases the updates and new Arrangements of the remaster feel better more clean and evoke more emotion but in other cases the original soundtrack works much better and it's stripped back feel lends to the song because of that in certain cases I will be talking about the original versions of these songs when I feel that they are better The Wretched automatons is one of those tracks that works much better in the original game the song is a rhythmic thumping track introducing us slowly to the industrial sounds of a factory the beat slowly progresses over the beginning of the song as new elements are introduced when the chopped and modulated voices start coming through and the beating rhythms in the background come together to form an absolute Groove this thing hits its Crescendo the choral voices in beautiful singing Only add to this track [Music] foreign [Music] I do think it works better in the original version of the soundtrack here it sounds much more stripped back and grimy juxtaposing the industrial with the clean sound of the Angelic voices the new version sounds a little too clean overall snow in summer is a song that I think works better in the remaster most of the voice heavy tracks and more choral feelings songs work a lot better in the new version of the game this intro just sets the tone for the song Angelic voices lilting through you can feel the voices drift down from heaven a beautiful light streaming from above oh when the rest of the track joins in it begins its build and never stops until it hits a beautiful Peak this track is a gorgeous wonder and its new version is stunningly impressive [Music] shadowlord is another track that works very well with the remastered version it's similar to the last track but with a much more somber and dark feeling we get the emotion of the character through the introduction the pain of a long journey unfulfilled [Music] the pain of loss and regret sadness and worry when the song builds in its Center we get the full scope of the final epic battle the character is about to fight the drums in the background hit beautifully and every time they are stressed you can feel it in your bones a meal sacrifice is one of the saddest songs on the entire soundtrack and is one that in my opinion works better on the original OST the newer version is much too clean and feels a lot more emotionless than the first track the song opens with some beautiful instrumentation that gives you chills but when the voices come through you almost feel as if Emil himself is singing this song it feels like a goodbye to friends a parting thank you a reflection on the journey the vocals done by Emmy Evans here are just beautiful the emotion is genuinely conveyed here wonderfully you can feel it in every single word and note this whole soundtrack is just fantastic it is an absolute treat and A Step Above the Rest while both versions are amazing you will be hard-pressed to find a song that does not impress on either of these near is one of my favorite games of all time and it's an experience that you can only truly have once it tells a wonderful story just through the Baseline playthrough it weaves narratives and characters together in such a compelling way the group that we travel through the game with all have their reasons for fighting the reasons for being there someone acceptance others want to be the hero some just want to help the characters are very well thought out and their Journeys build them up not only changing them as time goes on but revealing more about them that we didn't know the game's meta elements also push through just the story and involve the player themselves this forces the player to align with the character so that the things that the character feels are felt more deeply by the player the player is therefore interwoven with the game from the very beginning we aren't just along for the ride we are in the driver's seat any bumps that come along the way are hours to solve hours to contend with hours to answer but the SEC second playthrough of the story and its second ending show a complete other side it isn't just that this game has good characters and an interesting world and a well-crafted story it suddenly changes the game is now asking us difficult questions and making us feel uncomfortable we don't want to do this we suddenly don't want to kill these shades when the bosses are begging to be spared and protecting their children we just want it to stop but suddenly we become disconnected from that character we can't stop them we have to just let it happen these events have already played out they are already written in history carved in stone and we can't change them we have to live with being uncomfortable with seeing the horrific actions that our characters are committing through others eyes this is to say though that the game delivers its Point incredibly well as Taro said before he realized that you didn't need to be insane to kill you just had to think you were right our characters think they are right and through most of the story we think they are right as well we come out on the other side not really knowing what to think we can see both sides of the situation and understand both points but there really is no black or white everything is a true shade of gray and in this case No One Is the Victor both sides lose near sold all right in Japan with the replicant version specifically selling 60 000 units in its first week and 121 000 units by the end of May 2010. yokotaro stated later that the game wasn't incredibly successful but it wasn't a disaster either the game received mixed reviews with most Outlets criticizing the visuals as being quite lackluster the original game currently sits at a 68 on Metacritic for the PS3 version of the game the remaster fared much better upon release with the PS4 version getting a 84 on Metacritic and shipping over a million copies worldwide by June 2021 as we already know after near yokotara would go on to make dragon Guard 3 but after this the director would then release his most critically acclaimed and best-selling game to date but we'll talk about that next time bye dad

Channel: YourFavoriteSon

Views: 74,028

Keywords: Nier, Nier gameplay, Nier gestalt, nier replicant, nier lore, nier retrospective, nier replicant gameplay, nier gestalt gameplay, nier walkthrough, nier replicant lore, nier automata, nier timeline, drakengard nier timeline, nier gestalt retrospective, nier gestalt walktrhough, nier video essay, nier analysis, nier history, nier replicant analysis, nier 2023, nier replicant remaster

Id: 1cVGoSICUgY

Length: 105min 37sec (6337 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 06 2023