System: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Publisher: Sqaure Enix
Category: RPG
Available Now

   Sometimes reviewers are so swamped with games, conventions, and expos that a couple can be missed, but it’s never too late to review a game, when to this day people still ask you what you think of the game. So we were able to get a copy of Nier and well better late that never.

   Nier is the start of Square Enix’s venture into making RPG’s appeal to a more western style of things. Nier is, in ways, more like an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) except built to be single player only. The game itself is a bit slow paced but picks up once major battles start.

   Nier begins with the main protagonist is trying protect his daughter against creatures called Shades, creatures that resemble faceless giant Golems and small almost knight like beings. You’re given just a pipe to fend them off but it’s more than enough because eventually you gain possession of a book that provides you with all your magic skills. Relatively easy and fun, especially once you can use magic, but don’t get too happy because everything that had just happened is just a flashback. Once you finish off all the Shades, things fast forward 1,312 years to the future where the actual game begins.

   In the present, the game starts off in the main character and his daughter’s home, they seem familiar and the daughter has the same name as the daughter seen in the past events. Here’s a list of the characters:

*The protagonist: This is pretty much you and you can assign whatever desired name to the protagonist. The protagonist is the father of Yonah, who does any job that pays in order to help his daughter.

*Yonah: Daughter of the main protagonist, who has a frail health due to a fatal illness she has attracted. She is mostly always in pain and in bed as result of her illness but every so often she’d go over to the town’s library due to her love of books. This usually worries her father.

*Grimoire Weiss: The ancient book that provides the main protagonist with his magic skills. Grimoire Weiss supposedly holds a power, according to a legend, that can heal and rid Yonah of her illness. Grimoire Weiss usually likes to jump on any and all opportunities to question and ridicule people. He is usually referred to as Weiss.

*Kaine: Kaine is a human who has been possessed by a Shade and is very vulgar and violent. She originally fought against the main protagonist until a giant Shade attacked both of them, to which she aids the main protagonist to fend off the Shade. Kaine has an obsession with preying on Shades.

*Emil: A skeleton like being that joins the main protagonist on his travels. Emil aids the main protagonist with powerful magic skills to combat Shades.

*Shades: Creatures that randomly appear to prey on people and livestock. These guys appear throughout the game in various places.

*Popola: Head of the library. Popola aids the main protagonist in finding jobs that will supply him gold to help his daughter as well as help him with preparation for his travels.

   Nier takes a bit of patience to progress through due to its slow progression. The boss battles sometimes require playing a waiting game to fell the boss but it’s not all long if you play your cards right. The story does get a bit intriguing as you progress but once again it’s a bit of a slow progression early on. Boss battles also pick up in pace as you get a wider variety of magic skills as you level. There are, of course, side quests, which are split into 2 parts one for each half of the game. Be aware that side quests in the first half of the game can’t be completed once you get to the second half of the game. Upon completing side quests you get gold as a reward. This is one of 2 ways to get gold as the other way is just selling things at the shop.

   Throughout the game there are various mini games that are required to complete various quests and missions to advance the storyline.  A few examples would be fishing, the puzzles that must be completed under certain conditions to complete various trials, and solving riddles. The fishing will seem hard at first but it’s all about getting the timing down and then its smooth fishing from there. The puzzle trials are fairly tricky at first as you can’t do certain things like jump, stand still, use magic, or use melee attacks and it’s a different restriction for each puzzle. The objective of the puzzles is to get to the pink glowing cube and destroy it. There’s several ways to get around the puzzles even with the restrictions and it’s just a matter of taking a good look at it before proceeding to complete it. The riddles are just usually based on logic so those won’t be hard to figure out.

   A nifty thing in this game is that Yonah will write letters to you, the main protagonist and father, and put it in the house’s mailbox. Check the mailbox whenever there’s an orange arrow like thing over it. This is to keep the player updated on Yonah’s daily activities more or less. There’s also a New Game+ Mode in which case you’ll see a different ending. The ending will change again on a third run through of the game. In order to truly get 100% completetion of the game, 3 run-throughs of the game is the standard for Nier. The rest of the game doesn’t change much aside from the different endings. Overall, if you don’t mind the slow progression then check this game out, especially if you like the insanely buff main protagonist.

**Written by Kenny Kong