This unassuming Action RPG stole my heart back in 2010. It's rich characters, melancholic tone, and breathtaking music make for an experience that few games can achieve. It contains one of the greatest stories ever told in a video game (I'm a sucker for the whole Do Androids Dream? trope, even if it isn't literally androids in this case.) The concept of beating the same game over and over again to experience the full story is one that this game introduced me to, and now I love it. Any game that can pull off something like that should be commended. The gameplay is a little rough around the edges in that it's pretty basic. There are a lot of optional side-quests that are also very fetch-questy. But no minor complaint can dampen this tremendous game.

NieR may not be perfect, but it is by all means a masterpiece. Actually, I think a lot of what makes the game so brilliant is how raw, how unpolished it is. NieR tells what is undoubtedly (and if you're familiar with the story, ironically) the most human story I've personally ever come across. To this day, I sincerely believe the depth of its storytelling and characters remains unparalleled by any other piece of media— in spite of the fantasy setting, everything and everyone feels genuinely real, and by extension, NieR's is a story rich with meaning. Perhaps most obvious is the overarching allegory for post 9/11 America, but chalking the entire experience up to that wouldn’t do it justice. When I say this silly little game changed my life and worldview, I seriously mean it.

Something else I adore is how unapologetically NieR is a game. At least personally, I find that many story heavy "games" nowadays are actually just several movies wrapped up in a trench coat. Movies rock, and there's nothing inherently wrong with applying their approach to storytelling in video games, but I also think interactivity is a powerful tool in immersion, and it is here where NieR's embrace of its medium elevates it so. NieR has some of the most experimental gameplay I ever did experience— it constantly switches genres, makes players repeat large sections of itself with seemingly little incentive. This will certainly be a turn off for many, but it also makes NieR one of the most memorable and intimate experiences for those who choose to put in the work. And if you're on the fence about playing it, at the very least, all of the music is fucking phenomenal, the soundtrack literally NEVER misses.

I cannot recommend this shit enough, legitimately the most formative piece of media in my life. This game is something special.

Back in 2017, I bought this game alongside the Digital Devil Saga duology and Vagrant Story. I happened to find it at a convention and knowing I had just played Automata that year and loved that, I figured I'd pick it up. I honestly didn't even know there was a NieR game before Automata at the time, so I was pretty surprised. I started playing it, got up to seafront and had no idea how to fish and then promptly dropped it. Fast-forward to 2021, I see that a remake of the version with Brother NieR was releasing soon and I decided to go back and actually beat this game. I play through the entirety of it (besides ending D) and thought it was great, though I did have some issues with it that held it back from me loving it more than Automata. Fast-forward again to this year, I had planned to replay Automata for a while now and decided that November would be the month to do so. Before that though, I decided I wanted to replay Gestalt and see if I ended up liking it more now. Well seeing my updated rating, I'm sure you can see how I felt. This game is honestly not objectively perfect but it does certain things so well and I love it so much, that I can't give it anything less than a 10/10.

So the thing people like about NieR the most is the story. When I played it in 2021, I thought the story was good but overrated. I also somehow missed the gestalt documents at the end of the game, so that plus appreciating the story as a whole a lot more, made me realize it really is peak. A big part of the story being amazing too, are the different endings you can get. Ending A is great but the game really comes together when you go through route B. Some things get revealed to you at the end of Route A, and so there's a bunch of little changes in Route B that flip your perspective on what was going on and I just love it. You're basically replaying the 2nd half of the game all over again but because of all those little changes, I had no issue with it. There's also ending C and D and the route for those is basically the exact same as B, only the ending changes. The endings for those are great (especially ending D, holy shit does that ending feel impactful) however I can see how it would get tedious for someone playing considering it's pretty much all of the same content as route B. Either way, the story is just fantastic I think and definitely better than I once thought.

Though, the story is not actually my favorite aspect of the game. My favorite aspect is the main cast. Honestly may be my favorite cast in any game ever tbh, I love all of the main 4 so much and think they complement each other perfectly.
Weiss and Kaine are always throwing insults at each other, Weiss is always complaining about NieR's tendency to just help someone no matter what, Emil has a great affection towards NieR as seen later in the game, Emil and Kaine get along well because they both see themselves as outcasts...there's a lot of different character dynamics going on and when it's all 4 of them together they just make the perfect JRPG team imo.

The other big thing I absolutely loved was the OST. When I initially beat the game, I realized that the OST was really good but as time passed, I kept coming back to certain songs. I was listening to Gestalt's soundtrack more than Automata's and now that I've beaten it again, I can confidently say I 100% like it more than Automata. It's honestly just perfect and probably in my like top 3 Game OST's ever now. Stand out songs for me are Grandma, Emil Karma and it's other variant, Song of the Ancients, Shadowlord and more. The music is just top tier.

Another thing I really love is the gameplay changes that happen throughout the game. Besides your normal combat, there's also little sections that change things up. There's several 2D sections throughout, there's a forest area that plays out like a Visual Novel, the first visit to Emil's Mansion is basically Resident Evil with its semi-spookiness and fixed camera angles, Emil's Mansion's basement gives you this top down view that plays like Diablo, not to mention most of the bosses area bullet hells. There's just a lot of variety in the gameplay and really makes the game feel fresh.

Speaking of the core gameplay though, let's talk about the combat and the other "flaws" I see this game having. The combat...compared to more flashier, fast paced action games is lackluster. I remember it was a big issue to me when I initially played the game, but honestly it grew on me a bunch and I learned to enjoy it now. I don't think the game ever really needed super flashy complex combat and so I think it gets the job done. Plus there's something I enjoy about how chunky the combat can feel, idk I said the same thing about Yakuza 1 and the same thing applies here too.

My other biggest issue back then, and this was purely just a me thing, was I didn't like the world and it's aesthetic nearly as much as Automata's. The post-apocalyptic world in that game was my absolute favorite aspect when I played, and so to go from that to this was disappointing back then. I still much prefer Automata's world but I honestly do enjoy Gestalt's now. It's far from my favorite gaming world, though I also don't play it for that so it also gets the job done I think.

A couple small issues I did actually have with the game this time around were the bloom effects in some areas and the Exp system. I think the bloom in seafront and the fog effect in the northern plains can look kinda ugly at times, I'm sure that's probably fixed in the remake so that's really only a Gestalt issue. I also disliked how if Kaine or Emil got the finishing blow on a normal enemy, you missed out on any Exp. I hope that got changed in the remake because it can kind stink when playing here. I can also see why people would dislike all the backtracking, hell I was getting a bit burnt out myself going for ending C and D lol. But overall, I think the backtracking to old areas isn't as bad as people say. The area you go back through the most is the junk heap and even then, that area isn't too long and has banger music so I had no problem going through it several times.

Last time I played, I only did a few of the side quests that were needed to get every weapon for the latter endings. This time around, I did every single one...and while they could get very fetch-questy, I enjoyed them overall. A lot of the time there's some voiced Weiss/NieR dialogue that makes the entire quest worth it imo. The best quests overall were I Facade I thought. Most of those were very memorable, alongside the lighthouse lady ones of course.

I did also get a chunk of the trophies I was missing before, the big one being the Lunar Tear one. That definitely took a bit of effort on my part but once I finally got it, it was pretty satisfying. I still have the speedrun trophy and the weapon upgrade trophies to get so maybe I'll do those on my next replay who knows.

So yeah, is the game perfect? As I pointed out, there are some issues I can see others having and there are even some things I still wasn't a fan of in this game. But the absolutely peak story and especially peak cast and OST, just makes me want to give it a 10 and that's what I'll do for the time being. The game has a lot of heart and I think it's worth playing if you haven't already.

Anyways, next is Automata and it's been even longer since I last played that so I'm hyped to see if I'll still love it as much as I did six years ago!


Also sorry if this review is incoherent at all, writing this at 3 AM randomly lole.

True rating:
Gameplay & Mechanics: 5/10= ⭐️0.5
Graphics & Visuals: 7/10= ⭐️0.7
Sound & Music: 9/10= ⭐️0.9
Quality & Polishing: 6/10= ⭐️0.6
Story/Setting & Campaign: 10/10= ⭐️1

0.5 + 0.7 + 0.9 + 0.6 + 1 = ⭐️3.7

It truly hurts to rate this game that low, in my heart this is a 6/5 stars game. This is my favorite game story of all time, period, I liked it even more than Automata and that's a masterpiece regarding the story as well, the OG NIER It's just so much personal and touchy. The soundtrack is my favorite across all media along with Automata.

I would recommend to play the remake of Replicant instead of this, its so much more playable, but I assure you, these games have quite different dialogues, appart from the age difference of the protagonists and the fact that depending on the version a character is the protagonist's sister instead of daughter, in NIER the funny banter is more frequent because the protagonist is more charismatic, but in Replicant the protagonist is more emotionally inexperienced and neutral, I would say that this is better because you can choose the name of the protagonist and let it be you in that situation, the banters don't steal the spotlight from the main story while letting moments be taken more seriously. You will notice in both versions that the story is intended to have a man coming out of age to be the protagonist (Even in a very important scene), but the interactions with the sister or daughter will be as perfect as they should be in both versions. I would only recomend the OG NIER to a loyal fan of the Drakengard/NieR series. The protagonist may be more charismatic that the majority of people putting their name on him, but that's what makes this version so unique.

Would I recommend this game to anyone over the remake? Absolutely not.

But the Music, writing, and even the gameplay create the most unforgettable experience you can find in gaming. It personally surpasses all aspects of the remake but navigation and graphic fidelity.

Papa Nier supremacy