The way they do the multiple ending stuff looks to be brilliant.
(And I appreciate the use of the music, I think I briefly heard The Wretched Automatons.)
The way they do the multiple ending stuff looks to be brilliant.
(And I appreciate the use of the music, I think I briefly heard The Wretched Automatons.)
Time to break out the friend's Cruncyroll password!
(Certainly not watch it through countless other illicit methods.)
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited January 2023
Caught up on Automata since it's going on hiatus(sadly).
They're really hitting it out of the park in terms of tone and style, especially with all these callbacks:
Kaine and Nier's weapons!
I feel like this show is playing some mind games, especially with these two:
Their complete silence is eerily out of character, like they're planning something.
And of course:
cj iwakura on
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Episode 5 is out, and it's about
Pascal and the village.
They are really speedrunning Automata's plot, and it's a shame, because they're doing a fantastic job of the worldbuilding and fleshing out the machine lifeforms, especially.
They are really speedrunning Automata's plot, and it's a shame, because they're doing a fantastic job of the worldbuilding and fleshing out the machine lifeforms, especially.
Not sure why this episode makes you think they're speedrunning, that is the event that directly follows the amusement park. Like you don't even leave before it happens.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
They are really speedrunning Automata's plot, and it's a shame, because they're doing a fantastic job of the worldbuilding and fleshing out the machine lifeforms, especially.
Not sure why this episode makes you think they're speedrunning, that is the event that directly follows the amusement park. Like you don't even leave before it happens.
Well, I specifically thought the amusement park would get more time. It was pretty much arrival ~> straight to the boss fight.
I still love the show, I'm just surprised at the fast pace it's going through it.
They are really speedrunning Automata's plot, and it's a shame, because they're doing a fantastic job of the worldbuilding and fleshing out the machine lifeforms, especially.
Not sure why this episode makes you think they're speedrunning, that is the event that directly follows the amusement park. Like you don't even leave before it happens.
Well, I specifically thought the amusement park would get more time. It was pretty much arrival ~> straight to the boss fight.
I still love the show, I'm just surprised at the fast pace it's going through it.
Yeah, I'm mainly going over the show in the anime thread, but they did cut the Tank battle and roller coaster bits. But pacing wise, that made sense as they're just there to have things to do in the game for that area, it's not like anything of narrative significance was taken out (and the episode had a fair amount of action with just the boss fight). As far as direct game adaptations go, this has been VERY good. Notably better than say, Arknights (which I did like overall).
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
With the latest episode focusing almost entirely on Resistance backstory(and finally a glimpse of A2), I'm really skeptical this is going to be done in one season. We haven't gotten to Emil, Popola and Devola, really deep into Adam and Eve, etc.
It's possible, I guess, but talk about a speedrun.
Game adaptations are almost always a “cliff notes” version of the story . The big question is if the credits to the last episode will also be a bullet hell to make me feel bad about needing help. In my defense I did pay it forward . Currently waiting for a cooldown period to start all over again and get everything. Also glad they kept weapons stories , it’s one of the few things I remember about drakenguard other then blind dude and fairy and the giant demon babies .
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Game adaptations are almost always a “cliff notes” version of the story . The big question is if the credits to the last episode will also be a bullet hell to make me feel bad about needing help. In my defense I did pay it forward . Currently waiting for a cooldown period to start all over again and get everything. Also glad they kept weapons stories , it’s one of the few things I remember about drakenguard other then blind dude and fairy and the giant demon babies .
That's the funny thing, so far, it hasn't been. V1.1a has really been taking its time fleshing out the story for the most part, or condensing stuff to really hone in on the important things, while still adding new material to expand on what we don't know.
With the latest episode focusing almost entirely on Resistance backstory(and finally a glimpse of A2), I'm really skeptical this is going to be done in one season. We haven't gotten to Emil, Popola and Devola, really deep into Adam and Eve, etc.
It's possible, I guess, but talk about a speedrun.
If by season, you mean "cour (12 episodes)" then no. It was reported it would be two cours, 24 episodes, right near the start (I can't find an official statement, but it was leaked and then everyone else in the space seemed to agree that was the case).
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Episode 8's finally getting down to brass tacks, and while it sucks we're getting another covid hiatus, at least this is getting closer to the heart of the story than the last one, even if it's one hell of a cliffhanger.
And I knew the joke ending would be
2B eating the mackerel.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
This is nice news to come back to after the holidays. But using the end credit music was a dirty move. You can't not get emotional after hearing that after you finish the game.
Oh, and I got Nier Replicant 1. etc for Christmas! I'm still waiting for it to be delivered, but at least I'll be caught up pretty soon.
You know what? Nanowrimo's cancelled on account of the world is stupid.
Heh, I forgot that I was the last post. Anyway, I have some updates! It took a couple months (Mario Wonder came first,) but am now nearly done with Nier: Replicant. And by nearly done, I mean I already got Ending A and am working through B right now.
Overall, I'm enjoying it, but not nearly as much as Automata. Automata has better setpieces and a stronger philosophical thread running through it. Every level was not just a new setting and awesome boss fight, but a reflection of humanity based around what that location's machines have become obsessed with. I'm not getting as strong a connection to isolationist cliff people or rules-obsessed desert people. It's also getting a bit of the misery festival effect. You know, where if everything's sad, nothing really is?
Ending A spoilers to follow
I'm a bit annoyed that the documents that Devola and Popola give you disappear when you get Ending A. I was planning on reading them at the start of the Ending B route, and now I'll have to wait until I'm there again. Similarly, I wish the unfinished quests didn't reset, because I didn't feel like going back down to return the magic stone and wrecking the narrative tone. Oops! Better luck this round. At least it's going fast. I'm assuming that the "Mom's Diary" challenges with Dad Nier are an addition in the remake? Those are weird. I'm trying to figure out how they work in terms of continuity.
It dawned on me recently just how weird these games are. It's like the UFO Ending from Silent Hill, if they made a spinoff that takes it almost completely seriously, and they become so popular that people barely talk about Silent Hill anymore.
You know what? Nanowrimo's cancelled on account of the world is stupid.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
The plot of Automata makes more sense after Nier, what with
Progress continues. I finished ending B tonight. I'll take a day or so off and then work on Ending C. Are there any differences between B and C I should be on the lookout for?
Btw, I think it's hilarious that the credits are in straight-up alphabetical order. I never saw that in a game before. Or anywhere else, I don't think.
Oh hey, I noticed that this version has Matt Mercer in it, which I'm pretty sure is a legal requirement now. Any idea who he plays?
You know what? Nanowrimo's cancelled on account of the world is stupid.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Progress continues. I finished ending B tonight. I'll take a day or so off and then work on Ending C. Are there any differences between B and C I should be on the lookout for?
Btw, I think it's hilarious that the credits are in straight-up alphabetical order. I never saw that in a game before. Or anywhere else, I don't think.
Oh hey, I noticed that this version has Matt Mercer in it, which I'm pretty sure is a legal requirement now. Any idea who he plays?
Something to keep in mind while you're doing Ending B and on:
You're playing with Kaine/Tyrann's perspective, which is why you can understand what the Shades are saying now.
I've now finished all five endings. Comments and questions about the Nier setting as a whole below.
Ending E was pretty cathartic. But instead of going back to an old save, it would have been nice to have an ending post-E, with everyone together. Sucks for the people in the Mysterious Forest, though.
So ... some things that don't make sense to me about the Nier setting. I'm not sure if Drakenguard explains any of them, or the various novels/stage plays.
Why is the Earth in geosynchronous orbit, anyway? There was one off-hand comment about 13 seals or something in one of the Diary Labyrinths, but nothing else that I know about. Is the night side ever addressed? Because honestly, that might make for an interesting Nier 3 setting. Yes, I know there was a phone game, but I'm not counting that as Nier 3.
And why was Nier Prime the Shadowlord? I get that he's the Gestalt of the Nier we fought in the prologue, but what makes him special? The backstory indicated that tons of people went Gestalt before he and Yonah did. In fact, most of humanity probably did, hence why there were so many "Shades" running around.
On that note, what was the plan to complete the Gestalt Project? So Popola and Devola released Grimoire Weiss deliberately so Nier can collect the Sealed verses, right? Then what? Why was the Shadowlord being uncooperative, requiring our Nier to collect the five keys to get to him? What were the five keys, anyway?
I'm still trying to work out Popola and Devola's plan here. I understand that they're working with the Shadowlord (until he stopped, apparently,) to complete Project Gestalt by merging the remaining sane Gestalts with Replicants. But why run the village, then? Why be nice to Nier and Yonah? Is it just that they saw the two reborn and die so often that they got sympathetic? Actually, for that matter, how do Replicants come back if they die? How do they have kids? DO they have kids, or are parents and children just replicated together?
Hmm ... what else. Okay, how did Emil get a new body so soon after Ending D? He was very evasive when Kaine asked about it. I'm sure I'll have more nitpicky questions later on, but those are the main ones I have.
You know what? Nanowrimo's cancelled on account of the world is stupid.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
I've now finished all five endings. Comments and questions about the Nier setting as a whole below.
Ending E was pretty cathartic. But instead of going back to an old save, it would have been nice to have an ending post-E, with everyone together. Sucks for the people in the Mysterious Forest, though.
So ... some things that don't make sense to me about the Nier setting. I'm not sure if Drakenguard explains any of them, or the various novels/stage plays.
Why is the Earth in geosynchronous orbit, anyway? There was one off-hand comment about 13 seals or something in one of the Diary Labyrinths, but nothing else that I know about. Is the night side ever addressed? Because honestly, that might make for an interesting Nier 3 setting. Yes, I know there was a phone game, but I'm not counting that as Nier 3.
And why was Nier Prime the Shadowlord? I get that he's the Gestalt of the Nier we fought in the prologue, but what makes him special? The backstory indicated that tons of people went Gestalt before he and Yonah did. In fact, most of humanity probably did, hence why there were so many "Shades" running around.
On that note, what was the plan to complete the Gestalt Project? So Popola and Devola released Grimoire Weiss deliberately so Nier can collect the Sealed verses, right? Then what? Why was the Shadowlord being uncooperative, requiring our Nier to collect the five keys to get to him? What were the five keys, anyway?
I'm still trying to work out Popola and Devola's plan here. I understand that they're working with the Shadowlord (until he stopped, apparently,) to complete Project Gestalt by merging the remaining sane Gestalts with Replicants. But why run the village, then? Why be nice to Nier and Yonah? Is it just that they saw the two reborn and die so often that they got sympathetic? Actually, for that matter, how do Replicants come back if they die? How do they have kids? DO they have kids, or are parents and children just replicated together?
Hmm ... what else. Okay, how did Emil get a new body so soon after Ending D? He was very evasive when Kaine asked about it. I'm sure I'll have more nitpicky questions later on, but those are the main ones I have.
A few that I know(mostly from reading Grimoire Nier) -
Nier Prime was one of the few who was able to survive the WCS(White Chlorination Syndrome) that turned most who came into contact with Maso(from Drakengard 1's Dragon) into salt, so he was used as an experiment... which he agreed to, because they put Yonah Prime on ice until a cure could be found.
(Spoiler alert: they lied. They never found one, or maybe never tried, and NP eventually realized he was being played, so he took matters into his own hands.)
The ideal plan was that Grimoire Weiss and Grimoire Nier would reunite, and the Replicants would reunite with their Gestalts. This didn't happen, because Grimoire Weiss encountered Papa/Brother Nier, causing him to have a change of heart.
As for Popola and Devola, it basically boils down to them being sympathetic... but not to the point of endangering their mission. When it came to Nier or the mission, they chose the mission, damn the consequences. They mostly observe the village to report on the activities of the Replicants.
As for kids... who knows. Suffice it to say, things aren't going to go well for what's left once Popola, Devola, and the Shadowlord are dead.
Some is explained in the various reports and stuff you get near the end and see during the loading screens. But a lot is also just explained in that supplemental book.
Off the top of my head... and so much of this is going to be abridged from fading memory now...
Drakengard E ending. A dragon suddenly appears over Tokyo, and they shoot it down. Unfortunately this spreads magic COVID over the world. People either turn into salt, or super zombies.
Magic COVID also means magic particles now exist, so that's why we can now get into magic bullshit in the real world.
Eventually governments kind of hone in on an idea of separating the "soul" or "gestalt" from the body and then eventually replant it into a "replicant". They do this, let magic COVID die off, then put everybody back. The success rate of actually removing and replanting a gestalt kind of sucks.
Enter Nier. He's got the magic antibodies to make this work. Why? *shrug* He just does. I don't think he really gives a shit, but they tell him "Hey do this and save the world, and we can also save your sister/daughter. So he agrees.
Turns out this shit will take a long ass time. Devola and Popola are created to oversee the whole thing. Every so often Gestalt Nier asks "Are you done, can I have Yonah back?". And they say "Soon.".
It's taking a real long ass time. In that time frame, all the replicants kind of became self aware and regress to a medieval society. D&P either can't really do anything about it, or aren't programmed to. They've got no real choice but to let it happen. They're also nice to Replicant Nier because again, he's the whole lynchpin of this operation, even though he doesn't know it.
Gestalt Nier, or "The Shadowlord", after millennia of being jerked around, has finally had enough of this bullshit. He grabs Replicant Yonah to put her Gestalt back in. Fuck you, got mine. Replicant Nier just sees his sister/daughter kidnapped by the evil guy, and goes on a magic quest to save her. D&P collectively go "...FUCK!.
Cue the game. At the end, the hero vanquishes the bad guy and gets the girl back. ...And completely destroys the plan to restore humanity. Oops.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
White Chlorination Syndrome is from the Grotesquerie Queen that also escaped into modern day Toyko along with Caim and Angelus. The latter two defeat it, but then are shot down by the Japanese. (Drakengard 1 Ending E).
I've now finished all five endings. Comments and questions about the Nier setting as a whole below.
Ending E was pretty cathartic. But instead of going back to an old save, it would have been nice to have an ending post-E, with everyone together. Sucks for the people in the Mysterious Forest, though.
So ... some things that don't make sense to me about the Nier setting. I'm not sure if Drakenguard explains any of them, or the various novels/stage plays.
Why is the Earth in geosynchronous orbit, anyway? There was one off-hand comment about 13 seals or something in one of the Diary Labyrinths, but nothing else that I know about. Is the night side ever addressed? Because honestly, that might make for an interesting Nier 3 setting. Yes, I know there was a phone game, but I'm not counting that as Nier 3.
And why was Nier Prime the Shadowlord? I get that he's the Gestalt of the Nier we fought in the prologue, but what makes him special? The backstory indicated that tons of people went Gestalt before he and Yonah did. In fact, most of humanity probably did, hence why there were so many "Shades" running around.
On that note, what was the plan to complete the Gestalt Project? So Popola and Devola released Grimoire Weiss deliberately so Nier can collect the Sealed verses, right? Then what? Why was the Shadowlord being uncooperative, requiring our Nier to collect the five keys to get to him? What were the five keys, anyway?
I'm still trying to work out Popola and Devola's plan here. I understand that they're working with the Shadowlord (until he stopped, apparently,) to complete Project Gestalt by merging the remaining sane Gestalts with Replicants. But why run the village, then? Why be nice to Nier and Yonah? Is it just that they saw the two reborn and die so often that they got sympathetic? Actually, for that matter, how do Replicants come back if they die? How do they have kids? DO they have kids, or are parents and children just replicated together?
Hmm ... what else. Okay, how did Emil get a new body so soon after Ending D? He was very evasive when Kaine asked about it. I'm sure I'll have more nitpicky questions later on, but those are the main ones I have.
A few that I know(mostly from reading Grimoire Nier) -
Nier Prime was one of the few who was able to survive the WCS(White Chlorination Syndrome) that turned most who came into contact with Maso(from Drakengard 1's Dragon) into salt, so he was used as an experiment... which he agreed to, because they put Yonah Prime on ice until a cure could be found.
(Spoiler alert: they lied. They never found one, or maybe never tried, and NP eventually realized he was being played, so he took matters into his own hands.)
The ideal plan was that Grimoire Weiss and Grimoire Nier would reunite, and the Replicants would reunite with their Gestalts. This didn't happen, because Grimoire Weiss encountered Papa/Brother Nier, causing him to have a change of heart.
As for Popola and Devola, it basically boils down to them being sympathetic... but not to the point of endangering their mission. When it came to Nier or the mission, they chose the mission, damn the consequences. They mostly observe the village to report on the activities of the Replicants.
As for kids... who knows. Suffice it to say, things aren't going to go well for what's left once Popola, Devola, and the Shadowlord are dead.
D&P literally just tell people they're going to have a baby, then sedate them, and put the new replicant in their bedroom for them to find when they wake up. They have no frame of reference to know any better.
I've now finished all five endings. Comments and questions about the Nier setting as a whole below.
Ending E was pretty cathartic. But instead of going back to an old save, it would have been nice to have an ending post-E, with everyone together. Sucks for the people in the Mysterious Forest, though.
So ... some things that don't make sense to me about the Nier setting. I'm not sure if Drakenguard explains any of them, or the various novels/stage plays.
Why is the Earth in geosynchronous orbit, anyway? There was one off-hand comment about 13 seals or something in one of the Diary Labyrinths, but nothing else that I know about. Is the night side ever addressed? Because honestly, that might make for an interesting Nier 3 setting. Yes, I know there was a phone game, but I'm not counting that as Nier 3.
And why was Nier Prime the Shadowlord? I get that he's the Gestalt of the Nier we fought in the prologue, but what makes him special? The backstory indicated that tons of people went Gestalt before he and Yonah did. In fact, most of humanity probably did, hence why there were so many "Shades" running around.
On that note, what was the plan to complete the Gestalt Project? So Popola and Devola released Grimoire Weiss deliberately so Nier can collect the Sealed verses, right? Then what? Why was the Shadowlord being uncooperative, requiring our Nier to collect the five keys to get to him? What were the five keys, anyway?
I'm still trying to work out Popola and Devola's plan here. I understand that they're working with the Shadowlord (until he stopped, apparently,) to complete Project Gestalt by merging the remaining sane Gestalts with Replicants. But why run the village, then? Why be nice to Nier and Yonah? Is it just that they saw the two reborn and die so often that they got sympathetic? Actually, for that matter, how do Replicants come back if they die? How do they have kids? DO they have kids, or are parents and children just replicated together?
Hmm ... what else. Okay, how did Emil get a new body so soon after Ending D? He was very evasive when Kaine asked about it. I'm sure I'll have more nitpicky questions later on, but those are the main ones I have.
Note, I haven't played Replicant yet, just the OG version. I do have the Grimoire book, though.
No idea about this one, sometimes the games like to toss out insane lore without really getting into it.
He reacted with Grimoire Noir in a unique and helpful way that other people did not. This apparently made him the best candidate they had for getting the project to work.
How the project was SUPPOSED to work is that Grimoire Noir and Weiss were supposed to fuse and their combined power would enable Gestalts and Replicants to fuse properly again (note that this has never ONCE been successful, to the time of the story of the game, it has always just been the goal of the project). The book Grimoire states that Nier's (the player character's) violent method of waking up Weiss actually broke him and removed the possibility of him fusing with Noir until he regained the Sealed verses. My assumption of the whole game quest framework is that it's not good enough to simply force feed the verses to Weiss, he has to gain power and mastery for them to work at all (and for him to be able to absorb each more advanced one). Hence the whole framework of travel around, get in dangerous battles, etc.
So Popola and Devola (there are actually a bunch of them doing the same job over a larger area, these are just the ones our PC interacts with)'s job is to keep the Replicants safe and healthy because apparently from earlier in the project, if you just put them in a cold freeze or leave them inactive, they die right away. So they tried to create a safe pastoral existence, complicated by Shades going kill crazy all over the place + the Replicants developing to the point where they start advancing a more complicated (and sometimes violent or unhealthy) civilization on their own. They're nice to Nier and Yonah both because they're the most important people there (if they were to die, the Shadowlord's reason for cooperating would immediately go up in flames) and also because... Nier, Yonah, Popola, and Devola are all people. They developed their own sense of selves and get along, as people. The project truly fails because it never accounted for the Replicants becoming their own people, at the end of the day. There's a popular strain of commentary that our PC Nier "destroys the world" or "ends the human race" but... not really? The Project was an idea in theory that they never figured out and got to work. It's not even clear if they were still honestly TRYING to get it to work by the time of the game. They might have just been spinning their wheels in the hopes that a certain combination of artifacts and powers and people would make things work. So could fully powered Weiss + Noir have finally made things work? Maybe, but probably not! Because Nier is a grimdark shit ass world where things never seem to work out nicely, even if you sacrifice a ton of things to reach that point.
Short stories in between OG Nier and Automata basically state that Emil's powers and ability list are COMPLETELY insane and out of control. Naruto-esque millions of clones, weaponry capable of fighting off alien invasion, etc. This leads to my overarching theory of the Nier universe: basically, the dragon vs God intrusion destroyed this world in more than the obvious ways. The scientists tried to fix things by making up magical theory on the fly, and they just failed, completely. From Drakengard, we know that the Ancients weren't even explicable to people living in a magical world, people who had proper wizards and alchemy and etc. They were totally reamed by that, so that wildness coming into a mundane world with no sense of magic at all was dramatically worse. The pre-game Nier world is just dozens of Shou Tucker-esque figures doing HORRIBLE and harmful experiments to try to get some utility out of it, and failing basically every time. They created Emil's sister to be some kind of useful magical weapon... and failed utterly to control her, so then they had to create Emil to be a countermeasure against that problem, and then the power given to Emil makes him an immortal, eldritch being that they ALSO have no control over, and etc.
I've now finished all five endings. Comments and questions about the Nier setting as a whole below.
Ending E was pretty cathartic. But instead of going back to an old save, it would have been nice to have an ending post-E, with everyone together. Sucks for the people in the Mysterious Forest, though.
So ... some things that don't make sense to me about the Nier setting. I'm not sure if Drakenguard explains any of them, or the various novels/stage plays.
Why is the Earth in geosynchronous orbit, anyway? There was one off-hand comment about 13 seals or something in one of the Diary Labyrinths, but nothing else that I know about. Is the night side ever addressed? Because honestly, that might make for an interesting Nier 3 setting. Yes, I know there was a phone game, but I'm not counting that as Nier 3.
And why was Nier Prime the Shadowlord? I get that he's the Gestalt of the Nier we fought in the prologue, but what makes him special? The backstory indicated that tons of people went Gestalt before he and Yonah did. In fact, most of humanity probably did, hence why there were so many "Shades" running around.
On that note, what was the plan to complete the Gestalt Project? So Popola and Devola released Grimoire Weiss deliberately so Nier can collect the Sealed verses, right? Then what? Why was the Shadowlord being uncooperative, requiring our Nier to collect the five keys to get to him? What were the five keys, anyway?
I'm still trying to work out Popola and Devola's plan here. I understand that they're working with the Shadowlord (until he stopped, apparently,) to complete Project Gestalt by merging the remaining sane Gestalts with Replicants. But why run the village, then? Why be nice to Nier and Yonah? Is it just that they saw the two reborn and die so often that they got sympathetic? Actually, for that matter, how do Replicants come back if they die? How do they have kids? DO they have kids, or are parents and children just replicated together?
Hmm ... what else. Okay, how did Emil get a new body so soon after Ending D? He was very evasive when Kaine asked about it. I'm sure I'll have more nitpicky questions later on, but those are the main ones I have.
Note, I haven't played Replicant yet, just the OG version. I do have the Grimoire book, though.
No idea about this one, sometimes the games like to toss out insane lore without really getting into it.
He reacted with Grimoire Noir in a unique and helpful way that other people did not. This apparently made him the best candidate they had for getting the project to work.
How the project was SUPPOSED to work is that Grimoire Noir and Weiss were supposed to fuse and their combined power would enable Gestalts and Replicants to fuse properly again (note that this has never ONCE been successful, to the time of the story of the game, it has always just been the goal of the project). The book Grimoire states that Nier's (the player character's) violent method of waking up Weiss actually broke him and removed the possibility of him fusing with Noir until he regained the Sealed verses. My assumption of the whole game quest framework is that it's not good enough to simply force feed the verses to Weiss, he has to gain power and mastery for them to work at all (and for him to be able to absorb each more advanced one). Hence the whole framework of travel around, get in dangerous battles, etc.
So Popola and Devola (there are actually a bunch of them doing the same job over a larger area, these are just the ones our PC interacts with)'s job is to keep the Replicants safe and healthy because apparently from earlier in the project, if you just put them in a cold freeze or leave them inactive, they die right away. So they tried to create a safe pastoral existence, complicated by Shades going kill crazy all over the place + the Replicants developing to the point where they start advancing a more complicated (and sometimes violent or unhealthy) civilization on their own. They're nice to Nier and Yonah both because they're the most important people there (if they were to die, the Shadowlord's reason for cooperating would immediately go up in flames) and also because... Nier, Yonah, Popola, and Devola are all people. They developed their own sense of selves and get along, as people. The project truly fails because it never accounted for the Replicants becoming their own people, at the end of the day. There's a popular strain of commentary that our PC Nier "destroys the world" or "ends the human race" but... not really? The Project was an idea in theory that they never figured out and got to work. It's not even clear if they were still honestly TRYING to get it to work by the time of the game. They might have just been spinning their wheels in the hopes that a certain combination of artifacts and powers and people would make things work. So could fully powered Weiss + Noir have finally made things work? Maybe, but probably not! Because Nier is a grimdark shit ass world where things never seem to work out nicely, even if you sacrifice a ton of things to reach that point.
Short stories in between OG Nier and Automata basically state that Emil's powers and ability list are COMPLETELY insane and out of control. Naruto-esque millions of clones, weaponry capable of fighting off alien invasion, etc. This leads to my overarching theory of the Nier universe: basically, the dragon vs God intrusion destroyed this world in more than the obvious ways. The scientists tried to fix things by making up magical theory on the fly, and they just failed, completely. From Drakengard, we know that the Ancients weren't even explicable to people living in a magical world, people who had proper wizards and alchemy and etc. They were totally reamed by that, so that wildness coming into a mundane world with no sense of magic at all was dramatically worse. The pre-game Nier world is just dozens of Shou Tucker-esque figures doing HORRIBLE and harmful experiments to try to get some utility out of it, and failing basically every time. They created Emil's sister to be some kind of useful magical weapon... and failed utterly to control her, so then they had to create Emil to be a countermeasure against that problem, and then the power given to Emil makes him an immortal, eldritch being that they ALSO have no control over, and etc.
PC Nier destroys the world because its his final action that puts the final nail in the coffin of ever restoring anything again. But I wouldn't put the ultimate ramifications of that on him. He doesn't know. Or at least I don't think he knows or fully comprehends. He more or less does nothing "wrong", at least from his point of view. Shit was already pretty much irrevocably fucked anyways, he's just the last guy holding the bag is all.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
I've now finished all five endings. Comments and questions about the Nier setting as a whole below.
Ending E was pretty cathartic. But instead of going back to an old save, it would have been nice to have an ending post-E, with everyone together. Sucks for the people in the Mysterious Forest, though.
So ... some things that don't make sense to me about the Nier setting. I'm not sure if Drakenguard explains any of them, or the various novels/stage plays.
Why is the Earth in geosynchronous orbit, anyway? There was one off-hand comment about 13 seals or something in one of the Diary Labyrinths, but nothing else that I know about. Is the night side ever addressed? Because honestly, that might make for an interesting Nier 3 setting. Yes, I know there was a phone game, but I'm not counting that as Nier 3.
And why was Nier Prime the Shadowlord? I get that he's the Gestalt of the Nier we fought in the prologue, but what makes him special? The backstory indicated that tons of people went Gestalt before he and Yonah did. In fact, most of humanity probably did, hence why there were so many "Shades" running around.
On that note, what was the plan to complete the Gestalt Project? So Popola and Devola released Grimoire Weiss deliberately so Nier can collect the Sealed verses, right? Then what? Why was the Shadowlord being uncooperative, requiring our Nier to collect the five keys to get to him? What were the five keys, anyway?
I'm still trying to work out Popola and Devola's plan here. I understand that they're working with the Shadowlord (until he stopped, apparently,) to complete Project Gestalt by merging the remaining sane Gestalts with Replicants. But why run the village, then? Why be nice to Nier and Yonah? Is it just that they saw the two reborn and die so often that they got sympathetic? Actually, for that matter, how do Replicants come back if they die? How do they have kids? DO they have kids, or are parents and children just replicated together?
Hmm ... what else. Okay, how did Emil get a new body so soon after Ending D? He was very evasive when Kaine asked about it. I'm sure I'll have more nitpicky questions later on, but those are the main ones I have.
Note, I haven't played Replicant yet, just the OG version. I do have the Grimoire book, though.
No idea about this one, sometimes the games like to toss out insane lore without really getting into it.
He reacted with Grimoire Noir in a unique and helpful way that other people did not. This apparently made him the best candidate they had for getting the project to work.
How the project was SUPPOSED to work is that Grimoire Noir and Weiss were supposed to fuse and their combined power would enable Gestalts and Replicants to fuse properly again (note that this has never ONCE been successful, to the time of the story of the game, it has always just been the goal of the project). The book Grimoire states that Nier's (the player character's) violent method of waking up Weiss actually broke him and removed the possibility of him fusing with Noir until he regained the Sealed verses. My assumption of the whole game quest framework is that it's not good enough to simply force feed the verses to Weiss, he has to gain power and mastery for them to work at all (and for him to be able to absorb each more advanced one). Hence the whole framework of travel around, get in dangerous battles, etc.
So Popola and Devola (there are actually a bunch of them doing the same job over a larger area, these are just the ones our PC interacts with)'s job is to keep the Replicants safe and healthy because apparently from earlier in the project, if you just put them in a cold freeze or leave them inactive, they die right away. So they tried to create a safe pastoral existence, complicated by Shades going kill crazy all over the place + the Replicants developing to the point where they start advancing a more complicated (and sometimes violent or unhealthy) civilization on their own. They're nice to Nier and Yonah both because they're the most important people there (if they were to die, the Shadowlord's reason for cooperating would immediately go up in flames) and also because... Nier, Yonah, Popola, and Devola are all people. They developed their own sense of selves and get along, as people. The project truly fails because it never accounted for the Replicants becoming their own people, at the end of the day. There's a popular strain of commentary that our PC Nier "destroys the world" or "ends the human race" but... not really? The Project was an idea in theory that they never figured out and got to work. It's not even clear if they were still honestly TRYING to get it to work by the time of the game. They might have just been spinning their wheels in the hopes that a certain combination of artifacts and powers and people would make things work. So could fully powered Weiss + Noir have finally made things work? Maybe, but probably not! Because Nier is a grimdark shit ass world where things never seem to work out nicely, even if you sacrifice a ton of things to reach that point.
Short stories in between OG Nier and Automata basically state that Emil's powers and ability list are COMPLETELY insane and out of control. Naruto-esque millions of clones, weaponry capable of fighting off alien invasion, etc. This leads to my overarching theory of the Nier universe: basically, the dragon vs God intrusion destroyed this world in more than the obvious ways. The scientists tried to fix things by making up magical theory on the fly, and they just failed, completely. From Drakengard, we know that the Ancients weren't even explicable to people living in a magical world, people who had proper wizards and alchemy and etc. They were totally reamed by that, so that wildness coming into a mundane world with no sense of magic at all was dramatically worse. The pre-game Nier world is just dozens of Shou Tucker-esque figures doing HORRIBLE and harmful experiments to try to get some utility out of it, and failing basically every time. They created Emil's sister to be some kind of useful magical weapon... and failed utterly to control her, so then they had to create Emil to be a countermeasure against that problem, and then the power given to Emil makes him an immortal, eldritch being that they ALSO have no control over, and etc.
PC Nier destroys the world because its his final action that puts the final nail in the coffin of ever restoring anything again. But I wouldn't put the ultimate ramifications of that on him. He doesn't know. Or at least I don't think he knows or fully comprehends. He more or less does nothing "wrong", at least from his point of view. Shit was already pretty much irrevocably fucked anyways, he's just the last guy holding the bag is all.
"You want me to feel sorry for you?"
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
Posts
Never change.
https://www.crunchyroll.com/watch/GX9UQ084W/or-not-to-be
The way they do the multiple ending stuff looks to be brilliant.
(And I appreciate the use of the music, I think I briefly heard The Wretched Automatons.)
Time to break out the friend's Cruncyroll password!
(Certainly not watch it through countless other illicit methods.)
They're really hitting it out of the park in terms of tone and style, especially with all these callbacks:
I feel like this show is playing some mind games, especially with these two:
And of course:
They are really speedrunning Automata's plot, and it's a shame, because they're doing a fantastic job of the worldbuilding and fleshing out the machine lifeforms, especially.
Not sure why this episode makes you think they're speedrunning, that is the event that directly follows the amusement park. Like you don't even leave before it happens.
Well, I specifically thought the amusement park would get more time. It was pretty much arrival ~> straight to the boss fight.
I still love the show, I'm just surprised at the fast pace it's going through it.
Yeah, I'm mainly going over the show in the anime thread, but they did cut the Tank battle and roller coaster bits. But pacing wise, that made sense as they're just there to have things to do in the game for that area, it's not like anything of narrative significance was taken out (and the episode had a fair amount of action with just the boss fight). As far as direct game adaptations go, this has been VERY good. Notably better than say, Arknights (which I did like overall).
It's possible, I guess, but talk about a speedrun.
That's the funny thing, so far, it hasn't been. V1.1a has really been taking its time fleshing out the story for the most part, or condensing stuff to really hone in on the important things, while still adding new material to expand on what we don't know.
If by season, you mean "cour (12 episodes)" then no. It was reported it would be two cours, 24 episodes, right near the start (I can't find an official statement, but it was leaked and then everyone else in the space seemed to agree that was the case).
And I knew the joke ending would be
(The anime's coming back soon)
I stand corrected, they shadowdropped the last four!
https://www.crunchyroll.com/series/GNVHKNPW1/nierautomata-ver11a
And thus...
So, naturally...
Eat your heart out, No More Heroes, 2B and 9S have the t-shirt market on lock.
Also!
https://www.nierconcert.com/concert
And Orlando, which I might go to, maybe...
It's like $27 new on Amazon now, which is criminal.
https://www.amazon.com/Grimoire-NieR-Replicant-ver-1-22474487139-Complete/dp/1646091825/
It also covers the new version, and the new content, which actually makes me want it.
Grabbed that and the KH Ultimania book, that's a rare good book sale from them.
Sad soul Calibur noises...
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
Oh, and I got Nier Replicant 1. etc for Christmas! I'm still waiting for it to be delivered, but at least I'll be caught up pretty soon.
Overall, I'm enjoying it, but not nearly as much as Automata. Automata has better setpieces and a stronger philosophical thread running through it. Every level was not just a new setting and awesome boss fight, but a reflection of humanity based around what that location's machines have become obsessed with. I'm not getting as strong a connection to isolationist cliff people or rules-obsessed desert people. It's also getting a bit of the misery festival effect. You know, where if everything's sad, nothing really is?
Ending A spoilers to follow
It dawned on me recently just how weird these games are. It's like the UFO Ending from Silent Hill, if they made a spinoff that takes it almost completely seriously, and they become so popular that people barely talk about Silent Hill anymore.
Oh hey, I noticed that this version has Matt Mercer in it, which I'm pretty sure is a legal requirement now. Any idea who he plays?
Something to keep in mind while you're doing Ending B and on:
So ... some things that don't make sense to me about the Nier setting. I'm not sure if Drakenguard explains any of them, or the various novels/stage plays.
Why is the Earth in geosynchronous orbit, anyway? There was one off-hand comment about 13 seals or something in one of the Diary Labyrinths, but nothing else that I know about. Is the night side ever addressed? Because honestly, that might make for an interesting Nier 3 setting. Yes, I know there was a phone game, but I'm not counting that as Nier 3.
And why was Nier Prime the Shadowlord? I get that he's the Gestalt of the Nier we fought in the prologue, but what makes him special? The backstory indicated that tons of people went Gestalt before he and Yonah did. In fact, most of humanity probably did, hence why there were so many "Shades" running around.
On that note, what was the plan to complete the Gestalt Project? So Popola and Devola released Grimoire Weiss deliberately so Nier can collect the Sealed verses, right? Then what? Why was the Shadowlord being uncooperative, requiring our Nier to collect the five keys to get to him? What were the five keys, anyway?
I'm still trying to work out Popola and Devola's plan here. I understand that they're working with the Shadowlord (until he stopped, apparently,) to complete Project Gestalt by merging the remaining sane Gestalts with Replicants. But why run the village, then? Why be nice to Nier and Yonah? Is it just that they saw the two reborn and die so often that they got sympathetic? Actually, for that matter, how do Replicants come back if they die? How do they have kids? DO they have kids, or are parents and children just replicated together?
Hmm ... what else. Okay, how did Emil get a new body so soon after Ending D? He was very evasive when Kaine asked about it. I'm sure I'll have more nitpicky questions later on, but those are the main ones I have.
A few that I know(mostly from reading Grimoire Nier) -
(Spoiler alert: they lied. They never found one, or maybe never tried, and NP eventually realized he was being played, so he took matters into his own hands.)
The ideal plan was that Grimoire Weiss and Grimoire Nier would reunite, and the Replicants would reunite with their Gestalts. This didn't happen, because Grimoire Weiss encountered Papa/Brother Nier, causing him to have a change of heart.
As for Popola and Devola, it basically boils down to them being sympathetic... but not to the point of endangering their mission. When it came to Nier or the mission, they chose the mission, damn the consequences. They mostly observe the village to report on the activities of the Replicants.
As for kids... who knows. Suffice it to say, things aren't going to go well for what's left once Popola, Devola, and the Shadowlord are dead.
Off the top of my head... and so much of this is going to be abridged from fading memory now...
Magic COVID also means magic particles now exist, so that's why we can now get into magic bullshit in the real world.
Eventually governments kind of hone in on an idea of separating the "soul" or "gestalt" from the body and then eventually replant it into a "replicant". They do this, let magic COVID die off, then put everybody back. The success rate of actually removing and replanting a gestalt kind of sucks.
Enter Nier. He's got the magic antibodies to make this work. Why? *shrug* He just does. I don't think he really gives a shit, but they tell him "Hey do this and save the world, and we can also save your sister/daughter. So he agrees.
Turns out this shit will take a long ass time. Devola and Popola are created to oversee the whole thing. Every so often Gestalt Nier asks "Are you done, can I have Yonah back?". And they say "Soon.".
It's taking a real long ass time. In that time frame, all the replicants kind of became self aware and regress to a medieval society. D&P either can't really do anything about it, or aren't programmed to. They've got no real choice but to let it happen. They're also nice to Replicant Nier because again, he's the whole lynchpin of this operation, even though he doesn't know it.
Gestalt Nier, or "The Shadowlord", after millennia of being jerked around, has finally had enough of this bullshit. He grabs Replicant Yonah to put her Gestalt back in. Fuck you, got mine. Replicant Nier just sees his sister/daughter kidnapped by the evil guy, and goes on a magic quest to save her. D&P collectively go "...FUCK!.
Cue the game. At the end, the hero vanquishes the bad guy and gets the girl back. ...And completely destroys the plan to restore humanity. Oops.
Note, I haven't played Replicant yet, just the OG version. I do have the Grimoire book, though.
He reacted with Grimoire Noir in a unique and helpful way that other people did not. This apparently made him the best candidate they had for getting the project to work.
How the project was SUPPOSED to work is that Grimoire Noir and Weiss were supposed to fuse and their combined power would enable Gestalts and Replicants to fuse properly again (note that this has never ONCE been successful, to the time of the story of the game, it has always just been the goal of the project). The book Grimoire states that Nier's (the player character's) violent method of waking up Weiss actually broke him and removed the possibility of him fusing with Noir until he regained the Sealed verses. My assumption of the whole game quest framework is that it's not good enough to simply force feed the verses to Weiss, he has to gain power and mastery for them to work at all (and for him to be able to absorb each more advanced one). Hence the whole framework of travel around, get in dangerous battles, etc.
So Popola and Devola (there are actually a bunch of them doing the same job over a larger area, these are just the ones our PC interacts with)'s job is to keep the Replicants safe and healthy because apparently from earlier in the project, if you just put them in a cold freeze or leave them inactive, they die right away. So they tried to create a safe pastoral existence, complicated by Shades going kill crazy all over the place + the Replicants developing to the point where they start advancing a more complicated (and sometimes violent or unhealthy) civilization on their own. They're nice to Nier and Yonah both because they're the most important people there (if they were to die, the Shadowlord's reason for cooperating would immediately go up in flames) and also because... Nier, Yonah, Popola, and Devola are all people. They developed their own sense of selves and get along, as people. The project truly fails because it never accounted for the Replicants becoming their own people, at the end of the day. There's a popular strain of commentary that our PC Nier "destroys the world" or "ends the human race" but... not really? The Project was an idea in theory that they never figured out and got to work. It's not even clear if they were still honestly TRYING to get it to work by the time of the game. They might have just been spinning their wheels in the hopes that a certain combination of artifacts and powers and people would make things work. So could fully powered Weiss + Noir have finally made things work? Maybe, but probably not! Because Nier is a grimdark shit ass world where things never seem to work out nicely, even if you sacrifice a ton of things to reach that point.
Short stories in between OG Nier and Automata basically state that Emil's powers and ability list are COMPLETELY insane and out of control. Naruto-esque millions of clones, weaponry capable of fighting off alien invasion, etc. This leads to my overarching theory of the Nier universe: basically, the dragon vs God intrusion destroyed this world in more than the obvious ways. The scientists tried to fix things by making up magical theory on the fly, and they just failed, completely. From Drakengard, we know that the Ancients weren't even explicable to people living in a magical world, people who had proper wizards and alchemy and etc. They were totally reamed by that, so that wildness coming into a mundane world with no sense of magic at all was dramatically worse. The pre-game Nier world is just dozens of Shou Tucker-esque figures doing HORRIBLE and harmful experiments to try to get some utility out of it, and failing basically every time. They created Emil's sister to be some kind of useful magical weapon... and failed utterly to control her, so then they had to create Emil to be a countermeasure against that problem, and then the power given to Emil makes him an immortal, eldritch being that they ALSO have no control over, and etc.