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Nier Reincarnation Might Be A Gacha Game, But Story Still Comes First

I was worried about Nier Reincarnation. While the trailers looked gorgeous and Yoko Taro’s position as creative director ensured the series’ identity wouldn’t be diluted, you can only stretch so far in a free-to-play experience shackled to the whims of gacha mechanics.

Reincarnation is exactly that, a mobile effort where the main draw is to roll for gorgeous renditions of new and existing characters all brought to life by masterful artist Akihiko Yoshida. It’s a beautiful slice of escapism, especially when cranked up to maximum settings on the latest iPad Pro, but my worries remained – could this game weave a narrative on a similar level to Nier Replicant and Automata without surrendering itself to the worst of mobile gaming habits? The short answer is no, but bear with me for a minute.

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For the opening couple of hours, Nier Reincarnation feels like a traditional JRPG, albeit one where movement and combat controls are simplified down to a handful of touches to serve the design of smartphones and tablets. Yet it still manages to feel robust, almost resolute in its mission to establish a storytelling foundation with all the existential mystique we’ve come to expect from Yoko Taro. Tutorials are minimal, with Mama – the adorable ghost who accompanies you – even poking fun at your insistence to dip into the menus before the game deems it necessary. It’s cute, and breaks the fourth wall in a way that Nier is all too familiar with. As first impressions go, Reincarnation is aware of the expectations it needs to abide by, with the majority of players likely coming off the back of Replicant earlier this year.

You play as a little girl who finds herself trapped in a supernatural labyrinth known as The Cage. There is no end to its winding staircases and shifting climates, with the building seemingly morphing in response to your presence as you do battle with monsters and uncover memories of characters who have long left this land behind. Towering, kaiju-like creatures roam the outside world, making you feel trapped despite the sprawling nature of your fantastical prison. Everything feels alien, so your only option is to keep moving forward and follow the instructions of a guardian who seems to have your best interests at heart.

However, I imagine a darker truth awaits that we’re yet to uncover, with a false sense of security forming around the relationship between a young girl and a paternal figure who wants the best for her. I imagine its existence as a continuous mobile product will hinder Nier Reincarnation’s potential for narrative finality, but it also seems to be aware of that fact, choosing to tell its hard-hitting tales through the medium of stylistic vignettes and seasonal events and updates instead of going the traditional route. For example, right now there’s a Nier Automata crossover promotion that offers exclusive characters and a small storyline that expands upon the bond between 9S and 2B. It’s far from essential, but it doesn’t need to be.

Things might change as I progress further, but the first few levels in Reincarnation have us approaching darkened statues holding weapons, each one housing memories of individual characters that connect to form their own cohesive story. As you’d expect from Yoko Taro, all of them are tinged with tragedy. One follows an android bodyguard who pledges to protect a prince banished from his kingdom. The harsh desert environment they call home soon overwhelms them as bounty hunters and a lack of resources spell death for the young boy. He passes away in the ruins of an old chapel, but the android’s mission remains the same, so he guards the prince’s corpse for years to come, murdering anyone foolish enough to cross his path. It’s a melancholic call of duty, the android’s programming failing to process the finality of organic life, or perhaps the character is making up for his own failure as a way of toiling away at his own grief. Like many of Nier’s stories, there’s so many interpretations to be drawn from it, and having miniature versions of these tales spread throughout an ongoing game like this is such a fantastic idea.

Another vignette focuses on a hunter and her younger sister, two siblings who live every day like it will be their last. One day, a war taking place in a neighboring nation eventually boils over into their hometown, with enemy soldiers slaughtering everyone in sight and taking people prisoner so “they can be sorted.” What this means soon comes to light as our heroine awakens with a mechanical arm and leg, two of her limbs being morphed into weapons to serve an empire that only wants endless bloodshed. She escapes, murdering her captives and venturing into town to find her sister. Sadly, she’s too far gone, morphed into a robotic killing machine with nothing but homicide spurring her onward. We fight them to the death, forcing us to watch as a sister grieves for the only family she has left.

Square Enix has said that Reincarnation takes place in the same world as Nier Replicant and Automata, and I can see these connections becoming more concrete as I progress through the campaign, but right now it’s detached enough to be its own entity, maintaining the themes of transhumanism and emotional vulnerability that made its console siblings so immediately iconic. The decision to split these stories into four distinct chapters is a stroke of genius, each one providing a microscopic cliffhanger that will keep you invested, eager to pick the game up whenever you have a free moment if only to sink yourself into a well of depression. The gacha system rears its head eventually when combat becomes a regular staple of each new chapter, but it’s easy enough to pour all of your resources into a single trio of characters and power through in service of the narrative instead of letting it restrict you. This could change in the coming hours, but right now, Reincarnation seems to strike a good balance.

So many established properties have made the jump onto mobile in recent years and sacrificed their core appeal in the process. Nier Reincarnation narrowly avoids this pitfall, seemingly because the creators who made the original games so beloved weren’t willing to let its themes, characters, and storytelling become secondary factors to monetisation. Square Enix clearly wants you to pour money into this game, and you’d arguably have a better time if you did, but the narrative centre that makes Nier to enticing remains untouched, and that’s the only thing it needed to be a success.

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