#also you are playing nier replicant CORRECTLY

[replimata]

Art and stuff has been slow, but I wanted to share some ideas.

It's a little bit hard to attach numbers to Android Kaine and Nier. I didn't want to go for anything too cheesy (not that I know much about numbers and symbolism) and I don't wanna just throw some arbitrary numbers at them.

Android Kaine and Nier are important androids provided their backstories, obvs. I'm designing them with commander outfits to reflect this. As for their flight units, they will either be white or maybe decorated with some other stuff (not sure yet). But it's supposed to hammer in the "VIP" concept.

Their flight units are also larger to compensate for their larger size. The pair are taller than 2B and 9S.

The two aren't commanders, but will assume the role (like how 2B did in the beginning of the game) when necessary.

As for their names, I've settled with the "B" and "S" respectively. Their Pods are a WIP. I might just give them random numbers.

I'm gonna do my best to keep the characterizations as one would expect out of Nier and Kaine but maybe with a few liberties, not sure.

One thing that I want to experiment however is that Android Nier will probably have Thalassophobia or the fear of large bodies of water. Replicant Nier can't swim. Androids can't really swim either. But I want to go for some kind of false memory or misinterpretation of Android Nier's implanted memories. If I recall correctly, pretty much everybody in Automata are born out of Replicant (?) data.

Brother Nier being an android kinda fucks with this, as the machines may have been created through his data in canon (idk if that's confirmed or w/e) but it doesn't matter, I'm gonna work with it. lol.

One of the main conflicts is that Android Nier suffers through strange dreams, later revealed to be flashbacks of Replicant Nier. Pretty much like in Replicant with that one mission "Eye of Power" if I remembered it correctly. Except it's in his sleep.

You can say it's almost Replicant all over again though and you'd be right lol.

As far who the "Shadowlord" would be and who would be "Tyrann", I'm not really sure. Just haven't made it that far yet.

Emil will remain the same. I never did the Emil quest during my first play through of Automata so yeah. I'm replaying Automata and will definitely get a refresher on the story which would also be a huge help for this AU lol.

Rn, aside from Nier and Kaine's design, I'm thinking about zones and boss designs. As well as combat and stuff (I might go off on that later lol).

[liketheinferno2]

blorbo questionaire(?):

preface: i have not watched any of these/played them besides Nier Automata and Replicant

kristoph g-something, (maybe gavin?): the inside of his head is an oil fire he is continuously pouring water on and fanning with his hands, he has this weird complex about Wanting the Black Haired Dude and also being disgusted by him. he is losing 4D chess that he's playing with himself. Also has anxiety tics

estinein: oh my god he's this like. white haired elven Guy who is in an abusive relationship with his telepathic(?) eye and i think he is also wearing the blood of the guy whos eye he just... took? questionable eye acquisition... he is coated in blood but he wouldnt smell bad because i think patch'ii cat cleans him or something, if so i think patch'ii should get a free toothbrush. i think a lot of the fandom seems to misinterpret him from what ive read of your posts and my god i can relate bc my favs also always get their nuance sucked out through their one personality trait people assign him

harchufaunt: HARCHUFAUNT

Nier (protagonist): im in act 2 after the whole tentacle ship in my first run and my grasp of nier is: cant swim, is the baby girl to kaines bad boy, he is very tunnel vision and just... Cognitive dissonances his way through the day while taking down more and more shades and tunes out any other options because otherwise nothing would be worth it. Half the time i almost forget yonhas the prerogative because niers so determined to be taking as many detours as possible and keep putting off the inevitable reality. Good boy!

Adam: woman, but no, but yes and a mother, had a stab wound baby he didnt want by deadbeat dad 2b and popularly dubbed incel 9s (i think this is the dumbest and funniest interpretation of his character and how it is held by more than one person i do not know)

9s: decidedly small and also he has half the arm of his dead not gf attached to him because he is small gender

GOD THANK YOU FOR THIS TREMENDOUS READ THIS IS ALL VERY ATTENTIVE AND GOOD. BUT I'M REALLY DELIGHTED THAT YOU SOMEHOW GOT THE CONCEPT OF PATCHAH'LI CLEANING ESTINIEN SOMEWHERE IN HERE. Because he doesn't but I definitely have him as cleaning younger characters like a cat. You can't lick Estinien's hair he wouldn't allow it. But you CAN take a bath together in an onsen:

I also want to show you Estinien's Special Guy:

This is why the eye's like a big sticky bowling ball. Big man is BIG. He's just also sentient through the eye and can talk with it, just to Estinien though. The eye was taken a thousand years ago and held as a treasure by the Blatantly Just The Catholic Church until Estinien stole it and started running around with it to draw Big Man away from the people in city and towards him, because he's a dragoon knight, a knight that kills dragons. He's like "I will be a delicious hunk of meat this guy wants to tear to pieces. What could POSSIBLY go wrong there?" When they meet in person he takes the OTHER eye out of his head and this leads to 1. covered in blood, 2. my favourite Estinien image of all time

I keep that MF THANG ON ME!!! I've ended up so attached to Esti for a great many reasons but part of it that I'm playing as another dragoon knight and that nets you a bunch of extra scenes and context for him. And he likes you best. This isn't just ANYONE'S blorbo, he's mine lmfao.

Also people struggle with Estinien I think largely because he's characterised as a very socially stunted person so where another character would tell you their tragic backstory and try to explain what they're doing, Estinien just kinda... doesn't? You have to hear it from his dad, and that's optional. So they present you with a guy who is going through some extremely heavy shit but it's mostly private, you're never getting the whole story of this nebulously terrible relationship he's in; he thinks he's got more power in it than he has and the player's inclined to believe him. The curtain comes off about exactly how bad it all is pretty late in the game and even then it's not of his own will and he's resistant to being saved from this situation too. He's a Difficult Bitch. But then you do bleed and cry and help him and seeing the emotional recovery afterwards is really fantastic. Slow burn character.

Also Haurchefant? That's pronounced as "Orshufon." I know.

ALSO YOU'RE RIGHT ABOUT INCEL 9S BEING THE DUMBEST TAKE TO EVER HIT THE INTERWEBZ. THANK YOU FOR THE ASK AND GOOD MORROW

[kissingdeadgirls]

NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139... is out soon and the remake coming out looks like it’s an exact replica, and it’s my fav game, so here’s a love song. 

i love NieR (2010), it’s art direction, it’s style, the music has been on my phone since i first played it and lost my absolute shit upon entering the Aerie. 

there’s the now apocryphal story about grandma, citation scrubbed from the square enix site, but quoted on wiki:

“The music for the game was generally composed legal entirely separate from the development of the game. Often, elements of the game were modified to match the music, rather than the other way around. Some tracks were used in ways that the composers did not envision, such as "Grandma", which was expected to be used in the prologue of the game but was instead chosen as a boss battle theme. The music was designed for different motifs to appear in various arrangements throughout the soundtrack, and also to convey a sense of sadness even during the "thrilling" tracks.”

it’s this beautiful idyl, a pastoral post post-apocalypse, everything is soft and dying. 

the towns folk have townsfolk concerns, they’re hungry, they’re scared, they’re content as they live out their days in the relative peace of the village. this is a series of fetch quests masquerading as a game. they ask you to hunt, and you butcher sheep. they ask you to gather herbs and eggs and you crouch at every drop point. they ask for crops, and you can grow them in the patch by your house. they ask you to gently carry packages from one extreme of the map the other. they ask you to do that three times. 

there’s an achievement for getting all the weapons to max strength and you need to grind for all of these incredibly rare drops, and i spent at least 40 hours doing that with a song in my heart (except for the black pearls you need 15 of those bad boys and there is no way in game to turn your brightness down, it must be done on the television itself, oh my god the agony of that). 

and between these merry little quests where a british book of curses needles you in to becoming a henpecked husband, there are quests where you see the cracks in the world, anguished little moments, or villages banded together by heartbreak. and for each of these: do you share what you’ve learned with the quest giver? or do you keep it to yourself? the game comments, but you get to decide. it doesn’t effect game play, it’s just a couple changed lines on the screen. it’s not presented as a heart of darkness in all things, but as love and grief and terror creating hard questions. so, now, do you tell the truth, or do you keep what you’ve learned to yourself.

~𝔰𝔭𝔬𝔦𝔩𝔢𝔯𝔰~ spoilers are a little different for tragedies, because it can open with how it will end and it will still hurt. it doesn’t affect the narrative or my personal enjoyment as a spoiler avoidant person. but i still want you to have the ecstasy and the despair if you choose to play (and keep playing).

i am hugely in to sweeping stories where every action i take in the game implicates me morally in dubious action. and this game was effective in a way i know of no other for making the act of choosing To Play a game mechanic. several times the action stops and the game will ask you if you want to stop playing. if you want to go forward, you’re going to have to choose. and you’re going to have to keep choosing.

there isn’t a twist, no shocking reveal, just every button smashed brings you a little further in, as you learn to read the writing on the wall, the way the game demands that the player demonstrate complicity before you can proceed.

you can’t get in to the final boss area unless you correctly answer a question that proves you understand what’s going on. the boss doesn’t turn to you and monologue because in order to get here you had to already know, there is no big reveal because you already knew and chose to continue anyways.

~𝔭𝔬𝔦𝔫𝔱 𝔬𝔣 𝔫𝔬 𝔯𝔢𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔫 𝔣𝔬𝔯 𝔰𝔭𝔬𝔦𝔩𝔢𝔯𝔰~ you’ve have held a child transubstantiated in to the world ending weapon weep in your arms as you killed his sister, all while the dialogue has been like a shonen anime, “together with the power of friendship we will prevail!,” as you swing a scythe across the landscape, calling still for more blood. you’ve known.

and then, because it’s NeiR, you replay the game five times and you see how complete your actions were. you’ve seen some of the consequences of your actions, now see them slower and closer up, see how much further they reverberated. and then do. it. again. ~𝔭𝔬𝔦𝔫𝔱 𝔬𝔣 𝔫𝔬 𝔯𝔢𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔫 𝔣𝔬𝔯 𝔰𝔭𝔬𝔦𝔩𝔢𝔯𝔰~

and then because this is not a method of ludic self expression that matters overly much to me: mechanically this game is either a orgiastic kaleidoscope of styles and genres, there’s text adventures, platforming, bullet hell, combat, and either this will work for you or it will be a discordant mess. the remake looks done in the style of plantinumgames which will be responsive and “fun to play” if you care about that kind of thing, and it seems some might.

i will say i had to face the truth that the 90s promise of beautiful towering glass spires that spring up like an alien plant are here and they are the environment destroying climate uncontrolled and unslightly office buildings we unfortunately inhabit currently. theres a text adventure part where they talk about the pre-apocalyptic world and our sights of the city. Caveat Emptor usually i open with this, but this time i am trying a new thing where i talk about how i loved a thing BEFORE i tell you how i want to also rend it soul from body and spit on the ashes. god. kainé has a fucking butt window. a random selection of the townswomen just aren’t wearing pants. listen. i am looking you in the eyes and saying with my full heart that this game [holds up a picture of kainé] is worth playing. the anime horniness is repugnant to me and all the characters look like children. horny people deserve no rights.