Nier Preview
Developer Square Enix, known for its epic-length games and movie-quality cinematics, represents the pinnacle of of stunningly beautiful action-JRPGs. Square games are usually full of gorgeous teens and twenty-somethings so it's fairly surprising that the hero of Nier, the company's latest action-adventure title, is an older guy—with a kid, no less. Sure, he's shirtless and hugely muscular like a long-haired version of Kratos from God of War, but that's where we're told the similarities between the two characters (and the two games) end.
Early peeks at the game gave the impression that Nier is about fighting, fighting and more fighting; at first, it seemed like nothing more than your standard action game. Recently though, Square's on a campaign to reintroduce the game as story-and-character-centric, and to that end has been doing its best to introduce gamers to the complex plotline without giving away any of its many surprises. The basic premise is that the world has been destroyed by a terrible virus called the Black Scrawl. Humanity has been decimated by this ravaging disease and even Nier's young daughter Yonah has been infected. Finding a cure for Yonah is Nier's main priority and what drives him throughout the game.
A recent demo of the game was preceded by a painfully short highlight reel that gave tantalizingly tiny glimpses of dynamic combat, monumental environments and typically cool Square-like characters. The demo itself began with a tutorial section wherein gamers are taught melee combat as Nier fights off malevolent shadow creatures called Shades (which were created by a failed attempt at curing the Black Scrawl) with a long metal pipe. Nier does some good damage here with this improvised weapon, and effectively protects his daughter from enemies that look a bit like towering, humanoid stacks of post-it notes. Afterwards, Nier and his daughter have a tender exchange which represents an inkling of the rich character development Square says is the foundation of the game.
At this point, Nier picks up a mysterious book called the Grimoire Weiss, which functions as a map, quest tracker, inventory, Word editor, and even as a companion (it speaks to him in a snooty butler voice). In Nier, Words are extremely powerful and are used to augment your weaponry. Words are gained by fighting enemies—as drops—and can be used like runes or enchantments to upgrade the three types of in-game weapons: two-handed heavy weapons, single-handed medium weapons and spears. (We were told that Words on weapons and abilities can also be combined to create special effects, although those were not part of the demo.) As you progress through the game, you'll find other grimoires which serve as magical weapons, allowing you to summon powerful spells.
The demo showed off several of these spells: Dark Hand, which summons a huge, black-and-red swirling hand, Dark Blast, which can be charged up and used to blast your enemies with a swirl of burnt ashes and lethal blades, and Dark Execution, which when cast, makes circular runes appear that turn into spikes rising up from the earth to impale your enemies. The color in the game is minimal and so weapon effects are striking in an unusual combination of black and red.
After this dramatic tutorial fight, the scene shifts to the site of Nier and Yonah's seaside village. The village is a home base for Nier, a place where he can buy and sell things (collected berries, herbs, loot), and talk to quest-givers to earn money and XP. It's 1300 years later—why, we don't know—and we see Yonah still sick in bed, and Nier still caring for her. Interestingly, when you're inside of structures in Nier, the game turns into something like a 2D side-scroller and we were told that in other areas of the game, it changes to a top-down view. Nier leaves Yonah to seek medicine from a woman named Popolo, one of the game's main quest-givers and in what seems like a classic “Why are we doing this when the world's in crisis?” moment, after stopping to buy an impressive two-handed sword called “Beastbain”, Nier agrees to collect mutton for someone else. Silly side missions aren't all bad however, and while outside the village walls, Nier runs into sexy, scantily-clad, foul-mouthed girl warrior, Kaine.
Kaine's a singular character. She curses like a sailor and wields two serrated, saw-like blades while doing a lot of acrobatic jumping around. She helps Nier with the mutton-gathering, but only really gets to show her stuff when a small boy staggers into the village, telling of an impending Shade attack. Nier and Kaine fend off waves of more post-it note Shades (this timed armed with shields and swords), by pounding them with traditional weaponry and using the Dark Lance spell, which summons a black magical lance to skewer them. During the second stage of the attack, a many-tentacled monster appears, looking like an angry sea cucumber with vines for legs, and starts whomping on the village from its perch on the walls. Nier fights the thing through several stages which incorporate martial arts, magic and the ability to react quickly to an onscreen meter, while Kaine jumps onto it yelling helpful things like, “You're gonna die, shit-hog!” Um...yeah. The demo ended before this fight was over so there's no telling what Nier had to do to take this creature down, but if what we saw was any indication, it was pretty dramatic.
With its familiar mechanics and unusual storyline, Nier is likely to satisfy existing Square fans and pull in new ones. Interestingly enough, the Japanese version of the game is known as Nier Gestalt and yet another Japanese version, Nier Replicant, features the same storyline, except that the father/daughter relationship is replaced by that of a sister and brother. Confused yet? Regardless of what it's called, Nier looks like it'll offer a unique and heroic story along with the kind of well-loved action RPG gameplay Square fans love. Look for it on Xbox 360 and PS3 in Spring of 2010.
