NieR Replicant - Episode Mermaid Analysis

it's been over a calendar decade since the original near drops and the remake of replicant is finally here i finally live in a world where this giant 7th gen japanese game i like is getting big sails it still gives me a little itch on the inside of my brain whenever people call it the near automotive prequel though anyways pre-release there was a huge buzz over new content being in the game i mean there was never any doubt there would be but the scope of it was always in question then we found out about a new character named louise through dark magic being performed on the steam database changelogs the final question on everyone's minds was what kind of role would this new character play in the game well after smashing the game for what i'd call a moderately unhealthy amount of time i can say i've got a pretty good answer for that so whether you've played the game and just want to go over the fine details you've played the original and just want to know about the new content or whatever's in between let's have a chat about near replicants episode mermaid by the way should go without saying but uh spoilers start here and uh they don't stop so what are we looking at here in part one of the game you help out a couple who is having a fight over apples or something i don't know i guess when you live in an agrarian society things like that mean a lot the defining feature of the couple is that they both wear red bags husband thinks she's missing big misunderstanding she comes back done deal the husband goes on to be the one who runs the ferry service the squad can use to fast travel later in the game fast forward to part two when boynier becomes a big point here episode mermaid is nestled in after the airy chapter and before the loyal cerberus one poplar lets you know that the bag man has gone awol and you go to the off forgotten area of the original game seafront to search for clues there's also some giant boat just uh chilling on the shoreline but i mean let that sit on the back burner for a sec after going back and forth between the areas a few times you finally get a lead to check out the post office in seafront when you get there you find out the postman has bounced out of the office and some random guy just thought it was empty and decided to fill in for him for a bit not so sure if that's how jobs work but i mean i admire the hustle your next lead is to go check out the big elephant in the room that washed up on the beach on the way there you run into kane and emil who usually just wait outside seafront whenever you go in but here they are now good timing wonder why they were there in foreshadowing you crack open a hole in the flying dutchman and you make your way inside but kanye and emile get cold feet and bail out bit sun don't you think this is possibly for the same reason kane goes missing in the mansionary of the game because it's time for a bunch of slow paced atmospheric walking sequences i mean seriously it's good but you start to really dread this stuff on playthrough four let me tell you first near and uh by the way i know his name isn't actually near yokotaro never officially referred to him as such but it's basically his accepted name by this point and i'm not going to do this whole playing the pronoun game thing so near it is picks up a lantern and you start to explore the crashed ship on a 2d plane there isn't really much to speak of gameplay-wise in this segment it's just exploration with some basic puzzle solving so let's shelve that for now you start by chasing after a mysterious figure lurking about the ship while following a trail of apples evidence that your red bag friend is somewhere about near grabs a document explaining that this was a slaver ship before it crashed ashore and he also finds some iron tools that were used for torture damn i mean replicants might not be human but they sure do mimic every aspect to humanity even the worst ones you find a bunch of other documents belonging to the crew such as notes on how they prefer to eat their meals and one member's diary about a monster attack gosh i wonder if that'll be relevant later near also finds a document with some illegible writing on it that even weiss can't make out hey pro tip might want to store this one in the old human ram box cause it's gonna come up later lastly you enter a room with some speaking pipes and here's some weird noises coming out of them pretty wild 5 out of 10 spooky but we'll see how this goes heading inwards towards the captain's room the floor suddenly gives out near falls below deck lantern getting knocked out in the process you fumble around in the dark for a bit until you find the lantern flick it back on and uh well [ __ ] no [Music] i guess we found the red bad guy near is pretty visibly shook by the whole thing and weiss tells him to avert his eyes and keep moving exiting the dank basement that nothing good ever came from near reunites with kaine and emil who were just sitting around here waiting i guess thanks for uh giving us the opportunity to experience an atmospheric set piece you guys the gang makes their way over to the captain's room and opens the door where they find a lone girl wearing a bow i don't know that's pretty sus if you ask me fellas tensions are coming to a head when the postman walks in like a sitcom character sends a laugh track when he approaches the girl kanye loses her cool and shouts out the cheats of shade prompting her to attack cracking open the floor and dropping the postman down below the girl pops out some tentacles and chases after him while near skeletor jr and the new model kane head to the top deck of the ship it's here we get to see the full extent of her shady transformation god damn that's some resident evil body horror type [ __ ] right there this leads to a cool boss fight i shouldn't have to say this since the whole chapter is exclusive to the remake but this is an all-new boss fight with multiple forms probably one of the most complex in the game turns out the boss is a bit of a hit squad killer and after getting stomped out kanye pulls out a bit of hostage diplomacy by putting her sword to the postman to try and call off the shades attack louise has a little heated gamer moment knocking the party to the ground and preparing the finishing blow just as all hope seems lost near applicant version 1.22 the numbers in the backyard burger king gift card secret party member reveals themselves and comes in for an assist the postman takes a piece of wood and starts smacking the giant shade with it causing her to lower her guard this creates a distraction just long enough for near to cinematically charge up and fire a blast of dark lance which hits the shade right in the head the shade stares out at the sea before disappearing and the scene comes to a [Music] close the final part of the chapter has near giving the news to the red bad guy's wife about what happened and she has a breakdown in front of him in typical near fashion this scene is about 100 milligrams of the big sad beam directly into your brain and with that episode mermaid comes to a close except did i mention we got play through b okay okay okay okay so going through this chapter for a second time you'll immediately notice some big changes the whole theme of playthrough b is seeing things through the shades perspectives but let's shelve that for a sec we get a few new scenes with the postmen who names the girl louise that's not necessarily the first thing that happens chronologically but i'm getting real tired of calling her the girl and her and that so the postman finds louise alone on the ship and takes a liking to her he mistakes her for a passenger who survived the wreck and is too traumatized to leave the ship amateur mistake but i'll give him the pass he visits her regularly to check up on her bring her food make sure she's okay and the like in one scene he shows up and she's got some new fashion and he says something along the lines of hey louise that's a cool red bag where'd you get it answer the question louise where'd you get the bag louise who gave you the bag the postman also asks louise to move in with her and to be his daughter but she declines because of the whole you know a giant sea monster thing he also teaches her two skills in particular writing and speaking let's go over these one by one of which there are two remember the illegible document near found well we can safely assume that was louise trying to write a letter to the postman remember she can't speak so the only way she could communicate is with writing if she knew how she'd been using the other documents around the ship copying the letters trying to write something down the next skill he taught her was how to sing he did it in front of her and she mimicked him with uh [Music] oh your voice is a bit rough there mix results to say the least remember the mysterious noises near herd through the ship's speaking pipes that was louise attempts to sing her singing also takes the form of some of her attacks during the boss fight just gonna say i don't think i'd be taking her to karaoke anytime soon but what does louise think about all this remember we can understand the shades now that we're on play through b well louise is obsessed with the idea of becoming human she doesn't really get why she's a shade and she doesn't know why she's inhuman and she's pretty determined to do whatever it takes to be as human as possible so she can stay with the postman despite keeping him at arm's length so he doesn't catch on to what she really is she's constantly using an insane amount of power to maintain the human form she's disguising herself as something she's having some clear trouble doing is she lets herself slip a few times there's a scene where she's having a dr jekyll and mr hyde moment and losing her ability to keep it together she has her little uh thing freaking out over here she desperately wants to be human and thinks that if she continues to eat humans she can keep her form so she won't scare away the post man the only person in the world who's ever cared about her okay in case you're not seeing the irony let me smack you over the back of the head with it louise is obsessed with becoming human but let me remind you being a shade she's the only human in the room near isn't human the postman isn't human emily's human but you know what i mean despite being factually the only human on board this boat she desperately tries to maintain what she perceives as her humanity killing and devouring the people of seafront to keep up her form she wants to be part of the human world so bad as is indicated as she looks tearfully into the distance as she disappears wish i could be part of your world yoka you've been watching the disney cartoons again you know that mouse is bad for you oh anyways anyways anyways anyways uh remember how emil and kane are conveniently waiting for you outside the ship right as you're going to investigate it turns out this is because tyrande been talking [ __ ] about how he senses some giga chad shade presence on the wreck so kanye drags out the boy to investigate it he also knocks on louise which is why kane shouts out that she's a shade oh man this shade is nuts i think i'm in love overall there's just a lot of extra scenes on play through b that give context to the characters giving us a bigger picture of the story so i'm gonna do another bait and switch where i pretend the video's over but it's not over trust me get ready [Music] except did i mention we got play through c oh so this is new for uh near replicant since most of the content doesn't really change between playthroughs b and c while most is the same episode mermaid gets a few significant changes the first being an extra scene that lets us know devil and popola are in on the whole thing wait wait what tada nazika louise was a plan b in case the whole shadow lord thing failed like damn there's gotta be an easier way to order a hit on a fella the next big change and i mean the big change happens during the boss fight with louise herself on playthroughs a and b there's a section where you have to deal a certain amount of damage to louise before a timer runs out but it's impossible to do so like seriously on route b i managed to deal enough damage but the game just stopped on the last take saying come back next time well on playthrough c you can break through this barrier which completely changes the boss fight foregoing the need for kane to take a hostage you enter a new phase where you climb up the boss to take the fight to louise's head body thing itself after this the story proceeds pretty normally until everything's said and done until we learn that one of louise's letters survived the battle tyrann lays some smack about louise's romaji stroke order while kaine mulls over what to do with it so before we continue just a quick little reminder louise couldn't speak at least not in the human language as is proven during the boss fight with her where one of her screams is that if she can eat enough people and become human she can live in the same world and speak the same language as the postman she could speak in her shade noises but never directly to the postman lest she scare him off therefore to everyone other than kane who can understand the shades this is the only thing louise and possibly the only thing any shade has ever managed to communicate to a replicant kane gives louise's document to the postman a barely legible letter with only two words on it and those two words thank you oof the postman is obviously emotionally conflicted about this i mean think about it he clearly harbors guilt for taking care of the thing that's been killing and eating the people of seafront but we can't assume he's been with louise for quite a while and had legitimately developed a close relationship with her and i mean damn he knows how hard she worked literally copying out letters until something stuck and the most important thing she so desperately wanted to communicate was thanks for the way he treated her god damn man it just really do be like that sometimes for those of you with near big brain you might notice that this episode is pretty similar to the short story titled the little mermaid from grimoire near and hey you'd be right the story is pretty similar but there are a few key differences the first being is kanye and a meal don't bail out of the ship in the beginning because there's no atmospheric walking sequence for near to go on because you know it's a book in the story they all enter together and they make their way to the captain's room pretty directly red bagman also doesn't make an appearance in the short story he's a brand new addition for the game being you know the written word which works a lot better for the exposition department the short story also gives us some background insight into some characters thoughts nothing absolutely significant but there is a certain internal monologue that kane has which is kinda interesting basically the reason louise and some other super powerful shades have extraneous features is because their magic power is so dummy thick that it's got no practical use to manifest as so it just becomes like a pair of wings or something also in the scene where louise gives the postman bread no wait hang on a minute in the scene where the postman gives louise some bread while she's eating it she's like going so ham she just bites his finger and starts making him bleed and she just dead ass stares him in the eyes like yeah and the last difference in note is what kaine does with louise's letter after everything is said and done in the short story kane rips it up without giving it to the postman which is actually what happens during play through b of near replicant handing over the letter is something that's left out of the short story being brand new to the game so knowing that i'm gonna ask you which version of the events do you think is better so that was near replicant's brand new story chapter episode mermaid thanks for watching up until this point i recently posted a poll to youtube asking what people would like to see next and it seems a lot of people would like a video on the new ending okay i can do that it'll probably take a while to get out since you know being the most significant piece of new content in the remake i want to get it done well i'll probably get out another translated chapter of near reincarnation before i'm finished with the ending e-video just because you know something like that's a lot shorter and thus takes a bit less time to make before both of those though i have a non-near video that should be out kinda soonish what soon means is up to you anyways till next time [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: BrandoSP

Views: 103,240

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Id: cCKK6trYgJM

Length: 17min 10sec (1030 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 29 2021