It’s hard to say whether the first Drakengard was a success or not. Sales were good, despite the crookedness and monotony, players and critics noted its dark tone and extraordinary plot. The green light was given to the sequel, and I will omit this chapter in the creative journey of Tarot for now, because a video will also be dedicated to Drakengard 2 – the last in this series. For now, the fact that the sequel became a victim of a conflict between Square Enix, who wanted to turn Drag-On Dragoon into a mainstream franchise, and Yoko, who wanted… to make a game about dragons in space, will suffice for now.
With the start of the seventh console generation, the Japanese gaming market plunged into a crisis, and not even an economic one, but a crisis of individuality. In pursuit of catering to the tastes of Western audiences, games began to lose their originality, and then their popularity. In this environment, Tarot began planning the third iteration of Drakengard, which eventually developed into an independent game. Almost independent. This time he worked with producer Yosuke Saito, who became Yoko’s real comrade. Saito was quite loyal to the creative ideas of his colleague and at the same time well versed in the business component of the gaming industry. For example, it was he who proposed making a game with action combat a la God of War, because the turn-based nature and abundance of menus in JRPGs repelled Western players. However, the game still contains cities and their inhabitants, which were originally created specifically for the role-playing game format. Yoko himself chose The Legend of Zelda as his main reference points. And because of his love for shoot-em-ups, he pushed the idea of shooting mechanics, which enriched the game’s combat. In general, the desire to sell NieR overseas dictated many scenario and game design decisions. At some point, it was decided to invite “gaijins” from the localization and marketing departments to the Cavia team in order to get feedback from them. This is how the idea came to create two versions of the game – with an adult protagonist in the West and a teenage hero in Japan. Saito has become a strong bridge between the visionary, as always gushing with ideas, and the strict bosses of Square Enix. Yosuke and Yoko work together to this day.
This time Taro took the script very seriously, aiming to create a complex story. He wanted to move away from the agonizing mood of his first game, without slipping into the vulgar pop-ness of the sequel. The initial concept of NieR described a fairy-tale world, everything that happened was looped in a time loop. The villains tried to resurrect their leader, but were defeated over and over again until they figured out how to break the flow of time. Yoko modified this concept over and over again until he read the Kino’s Journey manga, got inspired and began writing the story… from the middle. Drakengard screenwriter Sawako Natori again became a co-author, writing lines and relationships between characters.
NieR was first shown to the public at E3 2009 and was released a year later, in April 2010, on the Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms. And here let’s stop talking about game versions. Essentially there are two of them: NieR Gestalt and NieR Replicant. The main character of Gestalt is a father saving his daughter. The protagonist of Replicant is a brother saving his sister. And that, oddly enough, is all. Luckily there’s no censorship this time. In the West, it was decided to release only the version with the father, as it was more suitable for American and European audiences. In Japan, Gestalt was released on Xbox 360, and Replicant was released on PlayStation 3. Both versions are equally canonical, but after last year’s remake the situation became more clear. Taro still saw the main character as a teenager, and the relationship between brother and sister in Japan is considered more touching than the relationship between father and daughter. And Yoko, as you remember, has her own thing about sisters.
Japanese Replicant, Japanese Gestalt and the only Western version.
Japanese Replicant, Japanese Gestalt and the only Western version.
Japanese Replicant, Japanese Gestalt and the only Western version.
I will be disassembling the game in the Gestalt version, because I don’t know Japanese, and there’s only one disk. Please don’t worry about canonicity – firstly, all the events in the two versions are identical, and secondly, in an additional video I will cover the remake of the game, where the main character is already a boy. The scheme is the same as with Drakengard. Today – all about the game, next time – all about the novels, comics, etc. d. Let’s start again with the plot. If Drakengard was an exemplary dark fantasy with anime overtones, then NieR with its melancholy fatalism became like an exemplary ancient tragedy.
Plot
2049. In the middle of a deserted city covered in snow, an inconsolable father tries to save his daughter Yona. They are hiding in the ruins of a supermarket from sinister entities – shadows, with which Nir (this is a canonical name) fights with a metal pipe, losing his last strength. The voice of a mysterious black book sounds in the hero’s head, offering to use its dark power in exchange for his soul. Doesn’t remind me of anything? In a desperate situation, Nir, like Kaim, who merged hearts with the dragon, enters into an alliance with the mysterious Talmud and defeats the shadows with the help of new magical abilities. After the fight, Nier discovers that Yona touched another magic book, which is why black writing begins to cover her body. The girl faints. Nir calls for help for the last time and his voice echoes in the cold and empty city.
Events move 1312 years forward, into a new post-apocalyptic world, where humanity has already risen from the ashes and reached the level of development of the Middle Ages. Traders, blacksmiths and hunters live in a peaceful green valley. Behind the walls of the town, shadows still rule, but over the past millennium they have already become part of the ecosystem – people are afraid of them, but take them for granted. It is worth mentioning, by the way, that these creatures are afraid of sunlight. The plot again focuses on Nir and his daughter Yona. The girl is sick with a deadly plague – those same Black Letters that are gradually covering her body. In order to feed the girl, our hero works part-time in the village either as a hunter or just as an errand boy (well, in the Western version, as a man…). Helps with all sorts of requests from the village residents and, first of all, its elders, the beautiful and wise girls Devola and Popola, who, in turn, are trying to find a cure for Yona.
The plot picks up on the day Yona secretly leaves the village and heads to a place called the Lost Shrine to find the Moon Tear, a rare flower that can grant wishes. Ironically, Nir himself told her about the flower. At the sanctuary, Nir comes across a talking book calling itself Grimoire Weiss. He teams up with this book and uses its magical power to defeat two guardian statues blocking their path to Yona. With his rescued daughter in his arms and a companion book, Nir runs out of the erupting sanctuary. In the village, Nir learns from Devola and Popola that Weiss is a legendary book from the so-called “Song of the Ancients”: a ballad that tells about the battle of Grimoire Weiss with another book – Grimoire Noir, the sower of chaos. With the help of artifacts called "Sealed Verses", the white book defeats and restores peace on Earth. Believing this to be the solution to Yona’s healing problem, Nier and Weiss begin searching the land to collect the Sealed Verses.
That’s how different the heroes were waiting for the Japanese and everyone else.
That’s how different the heroes were waiting for the Japanese and everyone else.
This is how the first big quest of the game begins. In his search for the Verses, Nir explores a variety of places around his village and meets a variety of characters, some of whom become his partners. The protagonist’s comrades have significantly increased in depth and versatility since the first Drakengard. Grimoire Weiss is a rather comical snob character who takes herself too seriously and never misses a moment to reproach others for their stupidity. The more valuable the moments become when the grumpy tome has to step out of his role. In the Air Village, the heroes meet a daring girl named Kaine. Initially, she is drawn to the most vulgar (in the sense of philistine, I’m not talking about her costume) anime stereotype: a sexy, touchy warrior. However, over time, the image of Kaine becomes more and more shocking and tragic, which we will talk about later. For now, let’s confine ourselves to the fact that she is half a shadow. An innocent boy named Emil becomes Nir’s third partner. He bears a heavy curse: like the Gorgon, with his gaze he turns living beings into stone, which is why he has to wear a bandage. But he has amazing hearing.
In addition to making friends, Nir manages to visit the Seaside City, whose inhabitants were able to establish ship trade, a robot junkyard, where two blacksmith brothers ask him to find his missing mother, the Air City, where residents locked themselves in their houses and snap at anyone passing by, and the deserted city of Facade, where Nir, Weiss and Kaine save the young heir to the throne and thereby secure his friendship. The façade itself is an interesting location: its residents value life “by the rules” above all else, and have elevated this desire to an absolute, which is why the number of contradictory decrees totals several hundred thousand. This illogicality is reflected in the chaotic architecture of the city – it is a continuous labyrinth. Another extraordinary place is the Forest of Myths, whose inhabitants are sick with the Death Sleep – they are doomed to sleep forever and perceive the world… through text! Nier and Weiss become infected with this plague and the gameplay turns into a text RPG. Brilliant! Of course, the heroes manage to save everyone, but the words of the headman of the Forest of Myths remain in the memory: “I’ve already met you somewhere, but it wasn’t you”… A strange phrase that describes something similar to standard deja vu, however, during his adventure, the player continually stumbles upon signs that something is wrong with this world. When completing some side-quests, plot holes arise: clearly dead or simply missing people unexpectedly return; whole, unharmed, and not remembering the very fact of their disappearance, pretending as if nothing had happened. The loading screen, usually featuring excerpts from Yona’s diary, sometimes glitches, causing strange chronicle entries to appear in the diary. However, during the first playthrough, these mysterious paradoxes remain unnoticed by the player. And only after ending A..
Let’s call these "Tarov guns".
Let’s call these "Tarov guns".
Well, okay, it’s too early to talk about this yet. Nir finds all the Verses, makes new friends and returns to the village, which is unexpectedly attacked by a large pack of shadows led by a giant shadow. The monster breaks into the library, where Niru manages to drive it into the basement. And then appears… Shadowlord.
A powerful dark entity that rules all shadows. Next to him is Grimoire Noir, tempting Weiss to fuse together for a greater purpose. The hero and the white book manage to repel the attacks of the black one, but Shadowlord himself disappears, taking Yona with him. The situation is aggravated by the fact that the monster locked in the basement is trying to break out, and Emil has to turn Kaine, who is holding the door, into stone. At her own request, of course.
This is how the first half of the game ends. The action moves forward another five years. Nir has changed a little during this time.
Here, in fact, the Gestalt version still stumbles, because Nir-Father looks approximately the same at 39 and at 44, but in Replicant the evolution from a teenager to a man is perceived much brighter.
Here, in fact, the Gestalt version still stumbles, because Nir-Father looks approximately the same at 39 and at 44, but in Replicant the evolution from a teenager to a man is perceived much brighter.
Here, in fact, the Gestalt version still stumbles, because Nir-Father looks approximately the same at 39 and at 44, but in Replicant the evolution from a teenager to a man is perceived much brighter.
Here, in fact, the Gestalt version still stumbles, because Nir-Father looks approximately the same at 39 and at 44, but in Replicant the evolution from a teenager to a man is perceived much brighter.
Here, in fact, the Gestalt version still stumbles, because Nir-Father looks approximately the same at 39 and at 44, but in Replicant the evolution from a teenager to a man is perceived much brighter. Over the years, he has made little progress in finding Shadowlord, but is still determined to save Yona. The shadows have become stronger, they have developed resistance to sunlight and use armor and even weapons, while the village suffers due to the Black Letters and lack of resources.
Emil sends Niru a letter saying that he may have found a way to free Kaine from petrification. The hero goes to the mansion where the boy lives, and discovers that the entire structure is just a cover for a secret weapons laboratory, where Emil remembers his past: he and his twin sister Halua were the objects of cruel experiments to create living weapons. Halua became weapon number 6, and Emil became weapon number 7. The heroes find the monstrous Halua, and after defeating it, Emil unites his body with that of his sister. Now he is able to control his eyes, but the boy is disfigured. Nir, Emil and Weiss return to the library and remove the petrification from Kaine, defeat the Shadow sealed in the basement and continue their journey.
Emil before and Emil after. Now you know whose mask Tarot is wearing.
Emil before and Emil after. Now you know whose mask Tarot is wearing.
Popola informs the heroes that https://nonukonlinecasinos.uk/betting/ in the Lost Sanctuary, the same one where Yona once fled, the entrance to Shadowlord’s lair is hidden. However, in order for the passage to open, it is necessary to collect the fragments of a certain cipher. And collecting these fragments is the main quest of the second half of the game. Nir will again visit familiar places, but now peaceful towns and villages have become dangerous. The King of Facade has grown up and wages a war against the desert wolves, in which his bride dies. Residents of the Forest of Myths write glitched texts onto the screen. One of the blacksmith brothers dies at the robot scrapyard. And the residents of the Air City generally go crazy and turn into shadows.
And so, all the fragments are collected, and Nir and his friends go to the Lost Sanctuary. The heroes open a passage and enter Shadowlord’s castle. They get in the way… Devola and Popola. The twins try their best to dissuade Nir from moving forward, but the father is not ready to leave the rescue of his daughter, and the girls enter into battle. But before that they tear off the veil from the main secret of this world. Nir and Yona are not real people, but artificial vessels, replicants created a thousand years ago as part of the Gestalt project.
Again I have to fight with someone beautiful..
Again I have to fight with someone beautiful..
Now let’s remember ending E in the first Drakengard. During the battle with God Mother, Kaim and Angelus are transported to Tokyo in 2003. They defeat the deity and it crumbles to white ash. The warrior and his dragon are shot down by fighters, after which their bodies remain in our world. This is how magic came from the Drakengard universe to our world. The NieR universe describes what happened to our world after that. Magic particles (they are called “maso”), when in contact with people, incline them to a pact, because in the world of Drakengard, as you remember, everything rests on pacts. The conditions are as follows: either a person loses his mind and becomes an embittered monster serving the evil gods, or turns into a salt statue. This is how White Chlorination Syndrome appeared – an epidemic that has spread throughout the world. In order to save humanity, the Gestalt project was invented: with the help of magic, the souls of people were separated from the body and placed in storage until better times. Human bodies are a short-lived product and prone to epidemics, so for each soul an artificial body without a mind is created – a replicant. According to the program, replicants were supposed to live in communities, and each community was looked after by a pair of androids of the Devola and Popola models. Sooner or later, the gestalts, the souls of people, had to return to their replicants, artificial bodies. Magical artifacts-books, Grimoire Weiss and Grimoire Noir, were responsible for the process of separating and returning the soul, as is distortedly stated in the Song of the Ancients at the beginning of the game. One way or another, at some point the project was canceled due to the fact that the replicants, like their namesakes from Blade Runner, gained consciousness. The souls themselves, at some point, began to destabilize and turn… into shadows. In total, we have the fact that all game characters are artificial copies of people. Moreover, these copies are still being produced. Remember I mentioned how supposedly dead or missing people in quests unexpectedly returned as if nothing had happened?? Now you know why. And why did the inhabitants of the Forest of Myths remember that they had seen Nir before, but a different Nir?. The enemies, of whom the heroes had already killed several hundred by now, were real souls of people.
Before Nir and the player have time to comprehend this revelation, a battle with the android twins begins. Devola is the first to die, and Popola, hysterical at the sight of her sister’s death, goes into berserker mode, forcing Emil to sacrifice himself in order to contain Popola and allow his friends to move on. The boy says goodbye to the heroes and disappears into the void.
As a result, Nir, Weiss and Kaine finally get to the Shadowlord’s abode, where they have to fight Grimoire Noir, and then learn another revelation. Why did Shadowlord kidnap Yona?? Because the main villain is the soul, the gestalt of the main character. Shadowlord is Nier from the prologue, who lived on Earth 1300 years ago and tried to save his daughter. The fact is that in those days he was the most successful among gestalts. Ordinary people, during the process of gestaltization – separation of the soul from the body – immediately relapsed and turned into shadows. Nir’s body contained a stabilizing element, which is why he became the core of a scientific project. Stable particles of Nir’s DNA were grafted onto the rest of the gestalts, which is why Shadowlord is instinctively considered the leader of the shadows, which is fair – he is humanity’s only and last hope for survival. When Yona touched the book in the prologue, the Grimoire, as we now know, her soul immediately began to separate from her body, and immediately relapsed. The girl is doomed, and not only her original version, but also a copy. Due to Yona’s unstable condition, her replicant will be forever sick with the Black Letters. The organizers of Project Gestalt realized that without motivation, their main asset, Nier, would be useless, and placed the incompletely “separated” Yona into hibernation, promising her father that the girl would be saved if he continued to be a resource of stabilizing particles. At the time of the main events of the game, Nier realized that he had been deceived and tried to save his daughter by connecting her soul with a replicant – the daughter of our hero.
The battle of two Niers begins – the replicant, which we play for, and the gestalt – Shadowlord. As a result, the copy defeats the original, but the final fight is interrupted by the awakened Yona. The girl’s soul (and she has grown up in five years, let me remind you) woke up in her artificial body, but she still hears the tears of her copy. Yona approaches her father, Shadowlord, apologizes and says that she cannot live, having taken away another, conscious life, warming in her body. The girl’s Gestalt kills herself by going out into the sunlight, which, as we remember, is destructive for shadows, that is, Gestalts.
In desperation, Shadowlord enters into a final battle with Nier and dies. Grimoire Weiss, having helped his friend for the last time, loses his physical form, for he has used up all his magic. The remaining pair of replicants, our protagonist and his daughter, are finally reunited. Kaine says goodbye to his comrades and goes about his own business, Nir and Yona return to peaceful life, and somewhere in heaven the soul of a father is finally reunited with his daughter.
End. Ending A, more precisely. By the way, I forgot to say that as a result of the death of Shadowlord, humanity is doomed – all gestalts will be destabilized and there will be no real people left in the world. The current generation of replicants will be the last, because there will be no one to produce new copies. As always, a happy ending in the style of the Tarot maestro. I really hope that I was able to clearly explain all the twists and turns of the plot – I tried really hard, really. If you still have any questions, write in the comments, I will answer. We still have endings B, C, D, but let’s digress a little from the plot and talk about the gameplay, because there is something to talk about here too. Don’t worry, we’ll come back to the endings later in the text.
Gameplay
Let’s start with the fact that NieR, unlike Drakengard, can be called an interesting game without compromises or references to experimentation. If Yoko’s previous creation was a mix of ideas from Ace Combat and Dynasty Warriors, then in the case of NieR, Taro and his team were inspired by God of War, and then licked a bunch of ideas… from the most recognized game in the history of mankind. From Zelda, Ocarina of Time, the only game with a score of 99 on Metacritic. And in this case you can even trust him. We’ll talk about gameplay borrowings later, but for now I’ll draw attention to the plot: in Ocarina of Time, the plot is divided into a child phase and an adult phase, which was completely copied in NieR. This is noticeable, of course, precisely in the Replicant version, where five years later a really different person appears before us. I’ll say right away: despite the fact that this series of videos is called “exposure” and I’m trying to show the other side of the Tarot, I don’t see anything wrong with copying, and when I pay attention to borrowed moments further in the text, these will not be complaints, but simply observations. Yoko himself makes no secret of the fact that in a certain sense NieR is a kind of parody of Ocarina of Time, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. If you study, then only from the best, and you shouldn’t forget about borrowing and reworking postmodernism. For example, the entire segment of the game in Emil’s mansion is one fattening reference to the first Resident Evil. There’s a resident-style fixed camera, and a metroidvania element with a search for keys in an abandoned estate inhabited by monsters. Yes, even locations as quotes. In the end, as in Resident Evil, Emil’s mansion turns out to be a cover for an underground laboratory, only for the creation not of zombies, but of all-powerful, pretty boys and girls.
The main mechanics are as simple as three pennies – it’s an open-world action-rpg. We have a hub location, the village of Nira, where his home is located and where he is given instructions by Devol and Popol. Outside the village gates, a variety of places await the player: fields, forests, ruins, mountains, deserts, seas.
Cheap and cheerful!
Cheap and cheerful!
Cheap and cheerful!
Cheap and cheerful!
Cheap and cheerful!
Cheap and cheerful!
Cheap and cheerful!
Each location has a distinct identity and even a color filter. And this approach is also the merit of Zelda.
Just compare: here is Link’s home village, but the surrounding desert, mountain, field and sea.
Just compare: here is Link’s home village, but the surrounding desert, mountain, field and sea.
Just compare: here is Link’s home village, but the surrounding desert, mountain, field and sea.
Just compare: here is Link’s home village, but the surrounding desert, mountain, field and sea.
Just compare: here is Link’s home village, but the surrounding desert, mountain, field and sea.
This approach saves NieR from the feeling of monotony, but sooner or later it will catch you, because you have about thirty hours to run through all these beauties. If you want to get all the endings, of course. Despite its emptiness, the game world tries its best to seem alive – in the settlements Nir receives sidequests from residents, goats, sheep, lizards and wild boars live in wild places. By the way, the latter can be ridden, which at least somehow helps to save yourself from a five-minute run across the field.
The combat is simple and accessible, adjusted for crookedness, of course. There is a strike, there is a block break, a dodge and a defensive pose. All these actions can be combined, which creates a strong base of simple combat mechanics. Once again, several dozen killing weapons appear in the player’s arsenal, each with its own characteristics and pace of combat: light swords for quick fights, heavy ones for large crowds of enemies and spears for fighting single opponents. This system is enriched by the introduction of the Grimoire of Weiss. Firstly, this is another reference to Zelda – there was always a fairy flying next to Link, and a book next to Nir. By pressing a button, Weiss begins to release energy charges – an analogue of a firearm. It gets more interesting when the player takes possession of the Sealed Verses. These are not just plot MacGuffins, but magical abilities – magic projectiles, traps, walls and even giant fists that can be used as weapons. The shooting mechanics are at their strongest when Tarot starts playing with perspective, and he does this much more often and much more talentedly than in Drakengard.
In general, during the passage the player will have time to play in a variety of genres: while maintaining the basic mechanics, the game turns into a shoot-em-up, then into a beat-em-up, then into an isometric diabloid, then into a text novel, like in the Forest of Myths. Once again, I can only applaud Yoko for her commitment to diversity.
Do you want variety?? Change the camera! Laziness? Well… just make the text)
Do you want variety?? Change the camera! Laziness? Well… just make the text)
Do you want variety?? Change the camera! Laziness? Well… just make the text)
The most important difference between NieR and Drakengard is that it’s incredibly pleasant to be in. The action is not focused on an infernal meat grinder: there is fishing, hunting, simple puzzles, and side quests. The latter, of course, for the most part are fixated on give-bring-kill, but we must pay tribute to the Cavia studio: they provided each minor story with a touching or tragic story, often providing the key to solving the main mystery, as I mentioned above. The atmosphere of the game is imbued with a peaceful melancholy, albeit doomed at times, but still enchanting. And we haven’t talked about music yet.
Music
I don’t even know how to approach this topic. First, let me tell you the fact that at the time of NieR’s release in Japan, the soundtrack was more popular than the game itself. This is an incredible monumental creation, so I will pay special attention to the melodic accompaniment.
Composer Keiichi Okabe is responsible for the tracks that you hear all this time in the background of my voice. According to the interview, Taro and Okabe were university friends, and Yoko invited his friend and his Monaca studio to work on the game’s soundtrack. For three years, Okabe led a team of musicians from Monaca and Cavia, creating the music of NieR. Interestingly, some gameplay moments were adjusted after the fact to fit the soundtrack better. Keiichi invited singer Amy Evans, an Englishwoman living in Tokyo, to perform vocal parts. In the 2000s, she was the voice of the band freescape, and if you are familiar with the sound of the NieR OST, you will immediately recognize this timbre. Okabe gave Evans an unusual task: singing in a made-up language. Firstly, such a solution was better suited to a world where all civilizations had long been erased from memory, and secondly, lyrical texts in an understandable language would distract the player from what is happening on the screen. Amy had to mix the sounds of French, Japanese, Gaelic and Scottish languages, creating songs in an invented dialect.
Our heroes. Okabe in poor quality because I tried to find the youngest photo
Our heroes. Okabe in poor quality because I tried to find the youngest photo
The result is music that, in genre terms, can most easily be classified as New Age. New Age involves combining elements of classical music with synthetic sound, like Vangelis, adding ethnic notes, like Kitaro, or near-pop techniques, like Enya. To be fair, I will say that the term has already been criticized a thousand times for being too vague. This is how they say that in the 80s the moronic general word was “fusion”, in the 90s “new age”, in the 00s “alternative”, and in the 10s, apparently, “IDM”. But this is already the field of music critics, not mine.
One way or another, the overall sound of the soundtrack perfectly conveys the melancholy fatalism of the game, while at the same time hinting at the biblical scale of what is happening. Here you will find choral singing, crystal synthetic ambient, and uplifting acoustic guitar parts. RJ in his review compared the musical theme of Shadowlord’s castle with Bach’s arrangement in Solaris, and it’s just a great comparison. It’s amazing how Okabe was able to combine the polyphony and identity of each individual track with the overall mood of the whole music. Emil’s Mansion Theme initially sounds like a desert acapella, and later develops into a complex battle track, while maintaining the overall tragic-mysterious sound.
The result is one of the best music scores in the gaming industry. Drakengard’s soundtrack was rowdy and experimental, echoing the game itself. To some extent, it was similar to the sound of Japanese films from the 90s, the works of Satoshi Kon for example. Okabe’s work has already become a fundamental creation, reflecting Tarot’s more serious approach to his game.
Endings B C D
Well, let’s finish the plot! After receiving ending A, the player moves half a game back to the moment Kaine was “unsealed”. All plot events are repeated, but now the context of what is happening is revealed to the player much more deeply. Now, when killing each shadow, you can hear its voice – a distinct, human one. The absence of this context on the first playthrough can be perceived as a Tarot scam, but this technique contains an anti-war commentary: does this context have a modern soldier aiming at the enemy?? The image of the enemy is always impersonal – it is truly a “shadow” that carries only a threat. Yoko said that these thoughts were prompted by the terrorist attacks of September 11th and the subsequent war in the Middle East:
“The mood of society [after September 11] has changed: now you don’t have to be crazy to commit murder. It’s enough to just consider yourself right.”
A fair comment, although it seems to me that it can be attributed to any war at all, even to the Battle of Trojan, even to the conflict in Ukraine. War is always a lack of context and depersonalization of the enemy. And Yoko really has a thing for September 11th: the first Drakengard was released on this date, albeit in 2003, and this particular day is indicated as Nir’s birthday, and Nir’s father.
The shadow bosses have a tragic backstory, and the player actually feels ashamed for killing them. During his first playthrough, Nir encounters a tragedy: the king of Facade, who was once saved by him, marries a kind and beautiful girl who once helped the heroes. Suddenly, a pack of desert wolves, led by a shadow leader, breaks into the wedding and kills the girl. Enraged, the king sets out to take revenge, and Nir helps him in this by slaughtering all the wolves in the lair, including their leader. On the second playthrough, the player learns the story of the shadow wolf. Being a gestaltized dog, he remained faithful to people for thousands of years, and even when the replicants began to destroy the native forest of wolves in order to erect that same Façade in its place, he maintained neutrality, not allowing his charges to attack people. However, one day he discovers that all his friends, including even the helpless wolf cubs, were killed by facade hunters. An attack on a wedding becomes the leader’s revenge, after which he is ready for retribution. The remaining members of his pack do not want to abandon their comrade and are preparing to die together at the hands of Nir and the replicants from the Facade. And that’s just one story.
Kaine reveals himself the most when going to ending B. The player learns about her tragic past and the reason for her isolation. Let’s start with the fact that Kaine is a hermaphrodite. That is, she has the genitals of both men and women. Such an embarrassment occurred due to confusion during the creation of a girl replicant. Because of her illness, Kaine was persecuted in her home village, like any scapegoat. The only person who cared for the little girl was her grandmother, who instilled in her granddaughter willpower and the ability to stand up for herself. One day, the grandmother is devoured by a giant shadow, and the girl is left completely alone in this world. More precisely, paired with a shadow. Remember I said Kaine is half monster?? The fact is that her replicant was possessed by an evil gestalt named Tyrant. A voice constantly sounds in the girl’s head, inclining her to violence, which largely determines her tough character.
Two pieces of art about Kaine’s two main problems.
Two pieces of art about Kaine’s two main problems.
Ending B itself offers not so much an alternative development of events, but an expanded version of ending A. After the replicant Nier defeats Shadowlord, a scene plays of a crumpled Gestalt Nier crying alone in the white void, regretting all the hardships he put Yona through. A memory emerges of how, in that same supermarket, the daughter tries to persuade her father to eat cookies, but he says that he is not hungry. The girl’s soul approaches the lonely Shadowlord and thanks him for always being with her. And in the last cutscene we find out that Emil still survived. And more determined than ever to find friends.
To get endings C and D, the player will again have to collect all the weapons in the game, which, to be fair, is less annoying than in Drakengard. By the way, weapons can be pumped up again and thereby learn the history of each individual blade. Continuing from endings A and B, the plot turns to Kaina. The personality of the evil Tyrant still takes over her, and now the insidious shadow sets a condition for Nir: he can save the girl only if he sacrifices his life and even his memory. In option C, Nir kills Kaine and thereby frees her. Finally, the Tyrant conveys to the hero the girl’s words: “Thank you.”.
But ending D is a new mocking idea of the Tarot. You don’t have to go through a crazy boss battle to save Kaine. You just have to sacrifice yourself. If the player makes such a choice, the game erases all progress data. All items, all progress and even all saves. Moreover, if you start the game again, you will not be able to enter the old character name. None of the characters remember Nier’s existence anymore. Nobody but the player.
Yoko Taro and his wisdom
If at the time of the creation of Drakengard Yoko was largely driven by his fetishes and rebellion, then his new game feels like a much more complete and, interestingly, wise creation. NieR’s story doesn’t tend to show off its most shocking sides. First of all, this is a simple story about a father saving his daughter. The story is tragic and emotional, but accessible. Even the loading screens, which show excerpts from the girl’s diary, are subject to this motif. She describes those days when her father is not home and she has to spend time alone. Unfortunately, in order to save her daughter, Niru has to spend minimal time with her. Tarot said in an interview that this backbone is the most important thing in the game, and all the secrets of the world and cause-and-effect relationships can be treated the same as in real life – you don’t need to know all this.
The principle of freedom that Yoko followed in Drakengard also applies here. In the case of the Replicant version, the player thinks that he will spend the entire game running as a 15-year-old boy, but in the middle of the game the plot moves forward and the hero becomes bigger, stronger and angrier. The endings, as always, open up a new side of perception of what is happening, which the player is again unaware of. In the context of NieR, we should talk about how Taro writes scripts. Due to the emotionality of the story, he resorts to the technique of “reverse scriptwriting”. That is, the first thing that appeared in his head was, say, the scene of the death of King Facade’s bride at the wedding. Starting from this emotional peak, Yoko writes a long path that will prepare the player for, so to speak, catharsis. When we first meet Fira (that’s the girl’s name), she’s still 10 years old. This is a brave little child who also suffers because he is mute. The girl cannot communicate normally with her relatives, but still tries to help the residents of the Facade and even helps save the young king. Five years later, the king takes Fira as his wife and thereby recognizes her as an equal, even despite her illness. And only at this moment does the girl die. The game world is filled with many more such stories, but I won’t tell them, because playing NieR has become much easier – the remake was released on modern platforms. But the PS3 version has an amazing guidebook included. I was incredibly surprised that it was written in Russian. If the game was adapted for our market, and even in the 2000s, then imagine how Cavia tried to immerse the rest of the world in their universe.
Yoko’s second technique – photo thinking. When writing each scene, he, like a director, tries to visualize it and fill it with details. In terms of visuals, by the way, I want to pay tribute to the game’s cutscenes. Drakengard already had expensive PS2-era FMVs. The video series of NieR may be budget-friendly for its time – compare with the same FF XIII – but made with incredible taste and beauty. Plus, don’t forget that the cutscenes are accompanied by Okabe’s music, which gives plus 100 to the epicness.
If Kaim’s partners were primarily carriers of behavioral extremes and deviations, then it is much easier to feel empathy for Nir’s friends. In general, the tangle of relationships turned out to be quite complex. Yoko and screenwriter Sawako Natori said that in many ways Nir’s relationship with Kaine and Emil is a love story, especially in the Replicant version, where the hero is closer in age to his partners. It couldn’t have happened without a little tin either. You already know about Kaine’s genitals, but you don’t know that Nir, as a boy, provided sexual services to the villagers. Everything, again, for the sake of saving my sister. So the version of his romance with Emil, who is not indifferent to the young man, is quite possible. Many scenes revealing the characters and their relationships are the merit of Natori. I read in an interview that the scene of Popola’s madness came to her when she was acting out a moment from the children’s anime PreCure with her daughter. Why not. All this is seasoned with postmodern gags, when Weiss is outraged by yet another running side quest or when the Forest of Myths starts a text segment and the heroes hear the words of the author describing their actions.
NieR depicts Yoko Taro’s new, wiser and more mature approach to video game creation. Of course, nothing would have happened without his team: Saito adjusted the gameplay, Natori worked deeper into the script, Okabe and Evans created a great soundtrack. We can only be glad that we have such a game.
Conclusion
Today I told you everything I know about one of the best games Yoko Taro. NieR was a true lost gem, saved by the hype of its sequel. This is an interesting, unusual and wise game, breaking the mold of its time and, at the same time, promoting its own vision. As you might guess, I’m not finished with this opus yet. In the next part you will find an overview of all the novels and other media related to the game, as well as a comprehensive review of the remake of the game, which was released just a year ago.
I didn’t know which one would please you more) There will be a positive version of the “replicant” version and the “gestalt” version
Written by root21 de septiembre de 2025 
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