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Not really a question, I just want to say how happy I'm to finally find you again. Back in 2014 when I was in middle school I found your NieR let's play and that was what got me into everything Yoko Taro, I'm 22 now and out of nowhere while I was browsing steam I got reminded of that let's play I had watched long long ago. I hope you're doing well and I wish you the best!

Hey there and thank you! Hope you've been enjoying this depressing romp as much as the rest of us! I'm proud I could be a gateway drug.

Don't... don't take that out of context.

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hi! I'm unsure if this account is still active however if you do return to your ask box I'd just like to thank you for all your passion for the nier games. I recently completed endings a-d of replicant (working on e!) and a-e of automata so I've just been scouring the internet for content and I have immense respect for you dedication to this franchise and your amazing analysis of it. I hope all is well in your life, wish me luck emotionally with ending e :]

Hey, thank you!

It's hard to call the account 'active' when I haven't done anything for so long but I'm still here, yeah. I'm glad this can stand as testament to these great games (and I do still hope one day to get back to Automata, but, alas, time is more and more difficult to keep hold of as life goes on) and that people are still getting something from it.

Have fun with ending E! You've earned it!

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WHY DIDN’T ANYBODY TELL ME ABOUT THIS

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I have a question about Devola and Popola, how they can survive after the explosion with emil and go on to nier automata ?

Different models.

The Devola/Popola observer units were produced in, if not mass numbers, then significant ones-- I believe our Devola and Popola are units 23 and 24, and they were both killed at the end of NIER. The ones in Automata are other units-- their character models and artwork are intentionally a little different to reflect that. What happened was that after Popola wound up being responsible for the death of humanity, every single Devola and Popola unit was held responsible. They were universally reprogrammed to feel endless guilt for the actions of the models from the first game, and were constantly seeking atonement for their sins-- an intentionally impossible task.

Thinking on it maybe there was some rationale to the idea, at least as far as the androids are concerned. The locus of consciousness lies in their memories and programming, which can be freely transferred to new shells (including Machine Lifeforms). Mass replication is theoretically possible by making memory backups and uploading them into multiple bodies, meaning that the androids would theoretically be able to mass produce exceptional fighters/scanners/defenders/healers. The idea of backup clones is already common among field units of all stripes. But there seems to be a taboo on activating multiples of an individual simultaneously. Presumably the Devola and Popola units had the same base programming, since they were all made for the same task and are all given the same name. Does this make them all clones? Or does this make them all the same? Since resetting to old memories is a common practice it could be argued that they could all be reset to the same conditions that caused the original Popola to, you know. Kill everybody. Under that rationalization it makes sense to punish the entire line under the assumption that they are all effectively the same unit, and since the originals seem to have been atomized, they're also the only ones left to shoulder the blame. From a human perspective it's monstrously unfair, of course. But androids and machines aren't particularly good at existential philosophy. That's why we're needed as an audience.

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i found your blog at 2am and scrolled through every post on a whim, and i just wanted to say it makes me really happy to know that fans of the original nier are still here and active. and thanks for posting an original replicant playthrough, i hadn't heard weiss's voice at all and it was nice to check the differences

lastly, i saw one of your posts about how love is the central theme of nier and i think that pov makes a lot of sense, even more than the others about justice and revenge.

you get to see how the main four grow closer, and how each of them sacrifice so much in their quest, because all of them so badly need a family, people to depend on

nier fights for his friends, and yonah. he said it best himself; he fights to protect them, and if someone puts them in danger, they must stand aside or be cut down. papa nier lost his wife, and bro nier lost both of his parents, losing yonah is not an option.

weiss chooses to fight with the others and abandon the gestalt project, because even if he didn't remember rubrum, some small part of him knows that he doesn't want that to happen again, he doesn't want to lose those precious to him.

kaine originally only fights because she needs somewhere to belong, and along the way she discovers that this is where she belongs, being nier's sword, bickering with weiss, camping with emil.

and emil... poor emil. an ultimate weapon, made only to destroy. he fights so his sister's sacrifice won't be in vain, because he hates his body, because at least he could be useful that way. after all his adventures with the party, and having a kindred spirit in kaine, his last act is to sacrifice himself, to protect them.

so in summary these four are all severely damaged people and deserve to be happy as a found family. sorry for the mini essay i had a lot to say on this. might also be a bit weirdly structured cause i wrote this on only three hours of sleep. thanks for readin, have a good day-

No worries, Anon, thank you so much for taking the time to write this!

Ending E also drives the point home, both in its original prose version and the playable version added to Replicant. Kaine hasn't spent her new life fighting for revenge and justice; it's to protect. Even if she doesn't remember exactly who she pledged herself to, she's going to protect what's important. That's love.

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“I leave the rest to you... hussy.”

Hey guys?

Why is the sad game that makes people sad so goddamn adorable?

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cannot wait until you see ending E if you haven't yet. it's really everything i could have hoped for, you're gonna explode ^^

So I actually saw this a few days ago and held off on responding because I hadn't seen Ending E yet.

And that hasn't changed.

Buuuuut

I admit I got a bit burnt out pushing toward Ending E. My dumb ass decided to try and get as much done for a Platinum trophy as I could before hitting the button to erase the save. I could've saved myself a lot of trouble by... not trying to do that and just reloading the Ending C save, but I didn't, and I made a lot of progress on weapon upgrading and money gathering and

I managed to cultivate TWO Lunar Tears before I had enough pink seeds for Life in the Sands, which was hilarious

so between the grind and repeating what I'd just done I burnt myself out and took a break.

But I saw this message come through mid-week, and it motivated me to go back in. It's time.

I have since confirmed that my concerns about lost progress aren't as dire as they were from the original release (I had certain suspicions but I didn't want to risk it, I got too lucky on Forlorn Necklaces). I had to spend my time finishing out my Ending D run, and of course blitzing through the first couple of hours of the game, so I've only just touched the beginning of Ending E. (I wanted to be in place for my next day off, when I can properly dedicate the time to it.)

Five minutes in and I still felt a giddy need to say something about it. It ain't much, obviously, but I knew I was in good hands when I checked the menu and saw Kaine's special attacks.

I am quite eager about what's to come.

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I’m being told Song of the Ancient ~ Fate was played during the 2020 Olympics opening celebration parade.

That’s...

That’s pretty cool.

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SINoALICE class story for Emil & Grimoire Weiss.

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Hello, I have been a huge fan of your blog since I first played NieR a long time ago, it was such a pleasant surprise to revisit it today and see you are still active after all these years, I really like your analysis and admire you for being able to write so much about this great game! have you seen the new ending yet? it's really cool

Thank you!

No, I haven't yet. (Yes, I'm quite behind.) Definitely looking forward to it!

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“You haven’t changed a bit, lazybones!”

halua you’re such a bitch

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Hi, this is the anon who asked for your YouTube some days back?

First of all, i thoroughly enjoyed that nier lp, though apparently i have actually seen parts of it before (if some years ago) because i recognized some of the comments you made. I loved it nonetheless :)

Second is that i uh... Took a liberty of writing something off of a small headcanon you presented in one of your videos? I'm well aware it's been 8 years since those vids were posted, but my hand slipped? Yeah.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/31495322 - work in question.

I hope this is ok :')

Can I guess what it is? Yes I can!

Thank you, and thank you for sharing this. I'm glad to have provided inspiration!

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Me: The Little Mermaid boss is pretty cool, but something feels weird and anticlimactic about the fight, I dunno.

Route C: yeah huh that’s weird isn’t it

This was such a cool thing to do, taking advantage not just of the sense of familiarity you get on repeat playthroughs, but it was another thing to trip up a returning player who was already accustomed to the rhythm of repeated playthroughs. Replicant has legitimately been a joy to experience.

Commendations for this specific fight, as well. NIER was never highly praised for its gameplay but there’s a really solid foundation to that gameplay (and its integration as a storytelling device) that you can feel something is off. I really did kind of expect that it was a cool spectacle fight that was serving as a setpiece and the dissonance was just a side effect of time and a different team.

No! Fully intentional.

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“and it’s gonna be TONS OF FUN.”

Look, we all know Route B is the one where you ruin everything and suddenly everybody thinks they’ve been playing the villain the whole time but can we talk about

the other stuff?

I said it must be surreal for people coming in off Automata with all those references suddenly making sense but this is surreal for me coming off the original game to have these little extra scenes intercut through the game.

See, here’s the thing that I really grew to love about NIER-- it’s a fundamentally small story. Its ramifications are world-shattering, but the story itself is very small. It’s not about the conflict between Gestalts and Replicants, it’s about love, and the great and terrible things it can do. Love between brothers, between lovers, between fathers and daughters, brothers and sisters, a ragtag messed up family. The greater conflict is the backdrop and driving force, but the story isn’t about that so much as it’s about all the tiny tragedies that you bear witness to on the way to the end.

(And I realize now how powerful the Little Mermaid story would be if it could be contrasted to Papa Nier, there’s... oh there’s stuff to think about from that perspective, isn’t there? Not that the tragedy doesn’t exist with Brother, but it’s kind of how Gideon hits different between the two-- the story in isolation still makes sense, but it means more contrasted between one or the other.)

The Shades are easy to remember. But the tiny tragedy that I love most, of course, is Kaine and Emil. Two people ostracized as monsters forming their own little family unit, utterly happy to have found each other (and Nier’s there too, I guess). There was a lot implied by the little dialogue they really exchanged during the first run of the game (and the original game in its entirety) but it spoke volumes about the kind of relationship they had established. (It speaks even more to go into Automata and see that truck!Emil has been preserving Kaine’s house and the field of Lunar Tears even though he didn’t retain the memories of Kaine herself.)

The newly added scenes aren’t at all necessary, but they are such a welcome addition and corroborate a few different things that were hinted or implied rather than explicit (or were easy to miss-- later Kaine mentions they ‘don’t have Emil to hold [Tyrann] back’ and that seems like a really bizarre jump if you don’t notice that you can’t hit the finisher gauge against her in the Lost Shrine until Emil has her pinned with a spell; there’s a little cutscene post-Junk Heap that calls attention to it. And while we’re still in the parenthetical can I just say I still love the organic feel of so much of the writing? He says “If that happens, I’ll stop you again”, she says “You sure about that?” and there is no hesitation or response from him. Kaine gets the follow-up ellipses and her “Thank you” is genuine. There’s trust there. Even if she doesn’t necessarily believe her transformation can be stopped, she believes him, and that’s enough.)

But it’s also not too much. What got me all over again was the scene added after you finish the keystone; Nier contemplates going it alone against the Shadowlord, Kaine and Emil are right behind him and very huffy that he considers leaving them behind. And it becomes clear that apparently they have actually plotted out Emil’s suggestion to fix Kaine’s possessions and get his body back, and Nier’s gonna help them, and they’re gonna have to travel the world to do it and they’re gonna taste every local delicacy on the way and it’s gonna be TONS OF FUN.

And you expect that from Emil, who is literally a child and a ball of sunshine when the main story isn’t happening... and then Kaine joins in. “Yeah. And I’m gonna eat way more than my fair share, so you better be ready to pony up.”

You see that?

Kaine’s ready to be happy.

Tyann will later make mention of her heart being ‘full of light’ during the final stretch and this is interpreted as love-- usually love for the protagonist, as she goes on about how she’ll ‘be his sword one last time’. But it’s described as her rage and sorrow going away. Terrible things have happened on this trip and she’s privy to more of them than the rest of the party, but she’s entering the final battle with this also on her mind. Not that they’re necessarily going to actually travel the globe on a gastronomic adventure (but I would play that cooking game), but she’s glad to be here, with them.

(She is also the one who asks if Weiss is all right during the final battle. I might be misremembering but I swear this was Nier’s line in the original, I can hear Papa Nier yelling it in my head.)

In fact, with the added scenes, it becomes more explicitly clear that Kaine only gives up at the end of the castle because Emil isn’t there to bring her back and she knew she needed him to go on. She knew he would be able to let her go on, and would always be there so she could keep on going on. Kaine wants to die after her grandmother’s murder and her possession by Tyrann and only holds on because otherwise Tyrann would use her body to do terrible things, but it’s here that it becomes clear that you know what?

She’s up for an adventure. Might be fun.

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“Today I asked Popola what hooch tastes like...

...and she said it’s the best thing in the world!”

popola what the hell are you teaching my little girl

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I've found your blog just recently and have been really enjoying your essays and just posts in general! All those little details that i just can't rly see myself sometimes but i really like. What i wanted to ask is, you mentioned you did videos for Nier and i was wondering how to find your channel? I'm sorry if it's writen somewhere obvious but i can't see it.

I did, yes.

It’s a Let’s Play, which might not be quite what you’re looking for. There’s some tangential analysis throughout the gameplay, but the purpose was to show off the game to a group of friends who didn’t necessarily have a chance to play it, and give context to the written analyses that accompany each video.

But if you’re interested in listening to my boy-voice talk over the game you can find the playlist here. Thank you for your interest!