NieR Replicant (PS4) Review

The fantasy genre is a place of comfort for me. For whatever reason, windswept plains and heroes braving seemingly impossible odds for the sake of a personal cause, or even just to save the world, resonates with me so strongly that most of my favorite media fall into that category. I’m the type of person who often praises games like Legend of Dragoon, Radiata Stories, and Final Fantasy due to lots of reasons but ultimately I enjoy games that explore fantasy tropes. After just a few hours with NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139… on PS4 I felt immediately at home. The typical fantasy setup and the calming, wondrous music sucked me back into my days of playing PlayStation RPGs while wrapped in a huge blanket while vast worlds unfolded on my bulky floor model CRT. I played NieR Automata up to the point of meeting A2 and I’ve collected most of the series, missing only Drakengard 2, but after playing through all five endings of NieR Replicant I consider this as one of my favorite fantasy settings ever. 

The original NieR release was broken up into two releases, NieR Gestalt on Xbox 360 and NieR RepliCant on PS3 but westerners were given Gestalt, renamed simply as NieR. The newest release, NieR Replicant is a remake of the RepliCant game featuring new story content, a revamped action system, and other improvements. While I own NieR, I’ve only seen a portion of it played. Playing NieR Replicant was my first encounter with this story and these characters outside of seeing some cool fan art or getting some fun details from a friend. I also only know the major, relevant story beats from Drakengard that lead into NieR so please understand that I’m coming at this PS4 release as a relatively new fan. 

The story of NieR Replicant starts off simple enough. After an action-packed section that introduces players to the game’s combat and the main enemies of the game, the Shades, our hero awakens in a sleepy town. This plucky hero is driven by the need to heal his sister Yonah of a magical sickness, the Black Scrawl, one that leaves her weak and promises her demise. While doing tasks for Popola, the hero discovers an ancient, talking, amnesiac book known as Grimoire Weiss. In the heat of the moment, the boy and Weiss make a pact to help each other to take down Shades, recover Weiss’ memories, and potentially save Yonah from certain doom. 

It’s a fairly simple backdrop compared to other works of fantasy but where NieR Replicant shines is the presentation and unique facets that add a level of oddity to the adventure. In moments where the player approaches a tower, for instance, the game’s camera does a tremendous job framing the scene in a way that inspires awe. NieR Replicant is full of these little moments, showing tremendous expertise in visual composition. In that same shot, a sorrowful choir accompanied by a faster more jovial piano melody creates a mood that’s hard to explain. 

Then we get into the deep characters with strange designs like the lingerie-clad Kaine and the skull-headed mage Emil. Both of these characters have striking visual elements in their character and their stories are deeply entwined with these designs. There’s a strong sense of connection in the core cast that is built up throughout the game too and if it wasn’t for these characters I wouldn’t have gotten through the entire story. 

To further add to the sense of weirdness that permeates the game, there are sections in NieR Replicant that are just black backgrounds with white text with a few decisions to make. Even this sudden appearance of prose is expertly paced with fantastic music creating a greater sense of importance. Unfortunately, after the first read, I found these story sections to be more tedious than anything else. One major item needed, in particular, has the player answer a few questions but the answer changes after every failed attempt, so not knowing the right detail to focus on just leads to annoyance. 

There were definitely a few sections that I found uninspiring. For starters, the Shade enemies are abstract blobs aside from bosses, which makes them less visually interesting than other creatures in similar games. Thankfully there are a few different types of Shade that do break up the combat. Furthermore, the first time the player enters the dungeon of the desert is extremely dull. Although I do commend the game forcing players to play differently by restricting certain actions. I also wasn’t a big fan of the slowness forced on the player when entering the wrecked boat, a section that not only takes a couple of hours but is also one that has to be repeated for additional endings. 

What drove me to finish this game was the comforting fantasy world even though I knew that something more sinister and sad lurked beneath the surface of everything. I stomached through a lot of tedious design elements to see what would happen next to this ragtag group of heroes. Honestly, aside from quests that grant weapons that are needed to hit a specific ending, I stayed entirely on the critical path. Side quests were basically just a way to get money and I found it much easier to just slay a bunch of robots and then sell the parts they would drop in abundance. Thankfully, combat was simple enough for me to be comfortable but complex enough to not be boring and there are lots of gameplay scenarios to break up the general loop. The magic system, while limited, has a lot of fun applications that are also fun to explore. Lastly, any game that allows me to unlock various weapons and then get interesting lore from leveling them up is always a treat for me. That said, upgrading weapons usually requires farming resources and I finished the game having only upgraded a handful of them.  

To me, NieR Replicant is two things; it is both a game that is meant to spark the imagination of the player through leaving out particular details in the critical path as well as a loving tribute to popular Japanese video games. There are tons of excellent essays out there that discuss the game far better than I likely ever could but these two main points are what permeated in my mind even weeks after rolling the credits for the fifth time. 

Since Drakengard, Yoko Taro and his team have been exploring the use of multiple playthroughs and endings where players can get more context and perspective as well as completely new story events. While each NieR Replicant ending is exciting in its own way, getting to those endings is a chore in patience. Thankfully, NieR Replicant allows players to continue playing at the start of the major timeskip but by the end of my NieR journey, I was just speedrunning most of the game to get to new content. The payoff isn’t great either, though it was interesting to see the sorrows of the various Shades. 

Ending E, which is new for this release, was definitely worth the effort of unlocking. By this point, I had built up such a connection to these characters that I just wanted to see some level of happiness for them and I got that… arguably. It’s also an ending that strengthens the connection between this and NieR Automata, so I feel that I’ll be playing that game again soon. What I found most interesting is when the game would drop nouns or details that are only mentioned briefly, leaving me to speculate the mysteries at work. Aside from learning how to unlock endings, I didn’t look at any guides or supplemental materials. Now that I’ve finished the game though, I’ve spent many nights going down rabbit holes of NieR/Drakengard lore and it’s fascinating, dripping with despair and beauty despite the darker nature of the themes. 

NieR Replicant is a game that invites players to ask questions, dig deeper, and mentally engage with the game more intimately than one would believe at the adventure’s outset.  

This game also was clearly made by a team that loves games. There are direct references to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and even the general setup of the communities being connected by a vast field echoes that monumental N64 game. Early on, I kept wondering what was in a spooky mansion that was guarded by unnerving giant spiders and when I finally was let inside the game became a reference to Resident Evil complete with fixed camera angles, slower pacing, and puzzles. When I found myself in an underground lab below that very mansion, the game’s perspective matched the opening of Final Fantasy VII with camera movement closer to something like Metal Gear Solid. The similarities and references were really fun to discover as a longtime fan of the medium. 

I picked up NieR Replicant due to my initial interest in Automata and the wackiness of Yoko Taro but I never would have guessed that this game has become an instant favorite. There’s so much that I haven’t touched on like the game’s fishing mechanic or the challenges that transform the player into the older protagonist of NieR Gestalt and I assume that there are more secrets to uncover. I happily look forward to trying out the Drakengard games, reading a few of the NieR books that were localized into English, and of course finishing NieR Automata. Hell, I’m even excited to play the upcoming mobile game, NieR Re[in]carnation, something that I really only had a passing interest in. I’m just hungry for more somber stories, complex and beautiful music, and striking visuals. 

With the recent reporting of the NieR games selling well, I can only hope that these developers get to continue exploring this franchise in weird and exciting ways. NieR Automata may have been one of the masterclass releases of the PS4 but NieR Replicant is an easy recommendation as well. 

NieR Replicant is a game that will stick with me, probably for the rest of my life. 

SCORES

GAMEPLAY - 7/10

VISUALS - 9/10

SOUND - 10/10

CONTROLS - 8/10

REPLAY VALUE - 7/10

OVERALL - 8.2/10

More information about NieR Replicant is available on the official website. A physical copy was purchased by the reviewer. Screenshots were captured using the native features of the PS4. Featured image courtesy of Square Enix press kits.

For more games with a touch of weirdness, check out my review of the No More Heroes Switch port; I also covered the sequel. Another RPG that NieR fans might have interest in is the dungeon crawler Void Terrarium which combines mystery dungeon gameplay with a caretaking mechanic. Lastly, if you haven’t read my review of Final Fantasy VII Remake, it is one that I am immensely proud of.