Nier Catch-All

I liked the second boss fight where you get Grimoire Weiss! There's some pretty fun mechanics in there. They are starting to feel a bit more natural. I like how the story seems to be going in the direction of the time traveller's failure dilemma in the sense that he keeps trying to save someone who can't be saved. Don't spoil it for me if I'm wrong. Thanks for the tips about NG+. I'll be careful to check what I'm doing if I get to the fourth ending. I probably won't read Minarchist's spoiler until then.

Oh man, you're just getting warmed up. Wait 'til you get to the shmup, or the resident evil style mansion, or the text adventure. This is one of those games that I so wish I could wipe my memory of so that I could experience it again for the first time. The text adventure was especially poignant. By which I mean soul-crushing. Thanks, Cavia!

I have to get back to this game. It's been left in the mud due to my NaNoWriMo endeavors, but I will get to it as soon as I'm done with my attempt at a novel. It's my prize for finishing it; that and the Dark Souls DLC.

Minarchist wrote:

Oh man, you're just getting warmed up. Wait 'til you get to the shmup, or the resident evil style mansion, or the text adventure. This is one of those games that I so wish I could wipe my memory of so that I could experience it again for the first time. The text adventure was especially poignant. By which I mean soul-crushing. Thanks, Cavia!

Wait.... you just spoiled all of Frog Fractions.

All right, after some insistance from Mincarchist that this is a must play game, I've added it to my holiday backlog of games I'm trying to finish during my Christmas vacation. I can already tell this is one of those games where you need to pay attention to what's going on, as the "1312 years later" text after the intro battle didn't register until a few minutes later.

I've just got Weiss and figured out what the main quest is going to be so I'm still really early, but I'm interested in seeing how everything plays out.

AndrewA wrote:
Minarchist wrote:

Oh man, you're just getting warmed up. Wait 'til you get to the shmup, or the resident evil style mansion, or the text adventure. This is one of those games that I so wish I could wipe my memory of so that I could experience it again for the first time. The text adventure was especially poignant. By which I mean soul-crushing. Thanks, Cavia!

Wait.... you just spoiled all of Frog Fractions.

That's OK, because Frog Fractions is really not that great. Now, Dikembe Mutombo's 4 1/2 Weeks To Save The World on the other hand....

I put in a bunch of time last night and got to the point where...

Spoiler:

Grim Noir/Shadowlord takes away Yonah. Am I correct in assuming that that is the part where you can end the game if you choose not to let Kaine get petrified? I kept playing a bit longer and unpetrified Kaine. I think I'm going pretty slowly because I have maybe 20 something hours in the game so far. It may have been recording time when I left it in menu to go do something, though. From what I can tell, it records that time.

The game continues to be great for the most part. The control and fighting mechanics can be slightly frustrating once in awhile. I still end up choosing this game over FFXIII and P4G whenever I'm at home and the TV is free. My poor beastly PC is getting seriously neglected.

The point you described is basically where New Game + picks up and starts again. Pretty sure the petrification bit can't be avoided.

Thanks! That's what I figured.

So,

Spoiler:

What happens if you tell the kid not to petrify her? Does he just do it anyway?

I don't think you can avoid that particular plot point.

Spoiler:

As an aside, the plot with you and Emil to get her unstuck is one of my favorites in the game. You get a ton of Emil's backstory in a Gauntlet style arena, and it ends with a really poignant (read: crushingly sad, like everything else in this game) boss fight.

Minarchist wrote:

I don't think you can avoid that particular plot point.

Spoiler:

As an aside, the plot with you and Emil to get her unstuck is one of my favorites in the game. You get a ton of Emil's backstory in a Gauntlet style arena, and it ends with a really poignant (read: crushingly sad, like everything else in this game) boss fight.

Yeah, that was some great stuff.

CptDomano, I know it's tempting, but seriously, do not click the spoiler tags.

This is one game you need to savor

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Thanks! That's what I figured.

So,

Spoiler:

What happens if you tell the kid not to petrify her? Does he just do it anyway?

The game becomes a sort of stalemate as that particular thing has to happen for the story to continue. You are basically put on an endless loop until you choose the right option.

m0nk3yboy wrote:

CptDomano, I know it's tempting, but seriously, do not click the spoiler tags.

This is one game you need to savor :)

Oh, it's easy for me to ignore the spoilers when I'm playing a game. No worries there.

Trying to do the damn side quest where I deliver the fragile package. Can someone just tell me I don't need the quest that bad so I don't keep reloading once I get to the city and get hit by the Shadows the show up? Please?

CptDomano wrote:

Trying to do the damn side quest where I deliver the fragile package. Can someone just tell me I don't need the quest that bad so I don't keep reloading once I get to the city and get hit by the Shadows the show up? Please?

1. Fight your way to the mayor's house before you take the quest. Speak to him. Aerie shadows = gone.
2. Have boar, will travel.

EDIT: well, you may need to beat a certain boss just prior to the Aerie first. Anyway, it gets easier in just a bit.

It would have been kind of interesting if it just gave you the game over message for choosing that option except for the fact that there wasn't a save point right before the choice.

I played a bit more last night.

Spoiler:

Fought the boss where Kaine gets skewered. I really enjoyed that boss and then fighting shadow Kaine. I find that most of the boss battles tend to be relaxing but interesting. I'm super glad I'm just playing it on normal.

Anyways, I'm excited to see what happens in the end. I think I'm going to neglect side missions in the new game plus mode just to save on time. Are there any specific side missions that I shouldn't skip because they are very fun? For example, I liked getting the ingredients for Popola's drink so that the twins would sing a song. That was cool.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Are there any specific side missions that I shouldn't skip because they are very fun?

Fun? Fun? in Nier? ...not really, no.

However, there are a few I would recommend, but I'm guessing you're in the 2nd half of the game? Most sidequests from the 1st half become unavailable after that seminal event.

Anything with the old woman and the lighthouse is worth playing. If you did the old man and his dog in the first half, that's very touching. Anything with the boys at the junkyard. Piggybacking on that, anything involving a roustabout or cad from various women in part 2. Most of the quests in the desert city in part 2 are worth doing.

The side-quests in this game were interesting. The actual quests were almost all bog-standard MMO collect-a-thons or delivery boy quests, but the majority of them really fed into the pervasive feeling of loss and sadness the game as a whole carries. I recommend them just to flesh out the world more. Their post-quest flavor texts are pretty much always worth it.

Thanks. I guess I'll just pick them up and do them if they look interesting. I did most all of them from the first half.

So I've been interested in this title for a while now, and the $10 price point on the Square Enix site (with free shipping!) is really enticing. Add to that the advocacy of Minarchist (who was a big proponent of Catherine & El Shaddai, both games I really really enjoyed) and my mouse button is hovering feverishly over the Buy button.

How is the gameplay compared to say..El Shaddai? or Darksiders? My hack-n-slash combat experience is pretty shallow for this gen, and from what I've seen it seems more close to those two than to say Too Human or Dante's Inferno.

nel e nel wrote:

So I've been interested in this title for a while now, and the $10 price point on the Square Enix site (with free shipping!) is really enticing. Add to that the advocacy of Minarchist (who was a big proponent of Catherine & El Shaddai, both games I really really enjoyed) and my mouse button is hovering feverishly over the Buy button.

How is the gameplay compared to say..El Shaddai? or Darksiders? My hack-n-slash combat experience is pretty shallow for this gen, and from what I've seen it seems more close to those two than to say Too Human or Dante's Inferno.

Buy it! The reason it took me so long to get it, sadly, was that the NA box art is terrible. I haven't played any of those games, so I'm not sure how to compare them combat wise. Just play it on normal, and you should have fun hacking, slashing, and using all of your awesome magic powers. Just make sure to keep some medicine on hand in case you screw up. It's not a difficult game on normal.

I'm going to have to buy the soundtrack off play-asia once I finish the game. I keep listening to the youtube playlist at work.

It's not difficult, if that's what you're worried about. Trash mob combat is relatively forgettable, but the bosses are fun. Of course, then there's the SHMUP stuff, and the plain text adventure section, and...

Text adventure...

Man I really need to play NG+. Love this game.

Minarchist wrote:

It's not difficult, if that's what you're worried about. Trash mob combat is relatively forgettable, but the bosses are fun. Of course, then there's the SHMUP stuff, and the plain text adventure section, and...

Eh, less concerned with difficulty, and more curious about how the combat is played. Like, is it more like Bayonetta with obscene button sequences, or is it more subtle like El Shaddai where they give you a very basic set of moves and it's in how you mix them up?

I guess another game it reminds me of is the last Castlevania game.

nel e nel wrote:
Minarchist wrote:

It's not difficult, if that's what you're worried about. Trash mob combat is relatively forgettable, but the bosses are fun. Of course, then there's the SHMUP stuff, and the plain text adventure section, and...

Eh, less concerned with difficulty, and more curious about how the combat is played. Like, is it more like Bayonetta with obscene button sequences, or is it more subtle like El Shaddai where they give you a very basic set of moves and it's in how you mix them up?

I guess another game it reminds me of is the last Castlevania game.

Combat can be forgotten as a concern. No long strings of sequences to remember. I am yet to play El Shaddai (he got me too) but I imagine, from the way you describe that combat, it's quite similar. I never felt like I had to know what sequence to hit to succeed. Pick one or two 'magics' you can draw on, then just attack with basics for the rest.

Also, BUY IT!

So, for some strange reason I've taken it upon myself to do ALL of the side quests as they became available to me. I'm not even sure why either, because the payoffs rarely seemed worth the hassle.

HOWEVER, I'm sitting at 51% completed with no new quests available, 100k gold, and now I'm ready to keep pushing forward with the main questline--heading to a forest. I've been perfect so far in my ability to stay away from spoilers (even while looking up locations of items for side quests). Still don't really know what the whole story is yet, but my crazy prediction (which I'm not serious about), is

Spoiler:

somehow, Kainé is Yonah through some weird space time rift that gets messed up by Nier & Weiss. Hey, I have a floating talking book and I fished in a desert. In this universe, is that REALLY that far fetched? :D

All in all I've been enjoying the game--like Minarchist said, the boss fights have been fun as hell and I am rather interested in the story and the world in general. Planning on burning through most of the main quest today and wrapping it up tomorrow Glad I decided to give this one another shot!

EDIT:

...

..

wut

So I'm guessing you finished the forest text adventure? One of my favorite parts of the game.

EDIT: nevermind, you only went through it the first time. 2nd time is even better.

I really should go back and finish this game. I don't even recall what caused me to hang up the controller.

Minarchist wrote:

So I'm guessing you finished the forest text adventure? One of my favorite parts of the game.

EDIT: nevermind, you only went through it the first time. 2nd time is even better. :)

Yeah, I really enjoyed that part too. It was pretty cool.

Just finished Ending A about an hour ago--and I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised by this game. It has a bit of a slow start (which may have been caused by my need to do the side quests), but after the second half gets rolling the story picks up speed and grabbed me. Not really sure what to expect with the next part, but I'm sure it'll be interesting to say the least.

Only complaint I really have is that I still haven't quite figured out the combat much past mashing on the regular attack, evading, and using Dark Lance on boss enemies. I mean, it obviously got me through the game well enough, but I just feel like I'm missing something by not using any of the other options (weapons, magic, etc). Ahh well, I enjoy the narrative enough that the seemingly shallow combat mechanics aren't too much of a negative for the experience.

Also, those side quests can go die in a fire Spent WAY too long collecting things for those

I asked for this for Christmas. Good move, then?

Warriorpoet897 wrote:

I asked for this for Christmas. Good move, then?

Yeah, I'd say good move