So I've finished it now, got all the endings at about 65 hours. Haven't been hooked on a game like this for a while (though I also had more spare time recently than I had for most of the year, with the summer and all).
On that note, the game lets you transfer your accumulated levels, stats and inventory to a New Game+, except it starts you at about halfway through the game, so it's way quicker to push to the end than doing a full playthrough. All side-quests you did in a previous run are still solved, so there's not much to distract you from the main events either.
The second half is where the pace really picks up. Or actually the lead-up to part 2, but I don't want to spoil it. There's still new side-quests in part two, but those are opt-in as usual, so if it feels like it's moving too slow, just push on with the main quest and it'll be great again.
I really respect what they did with the writing. There is one "town" in the game world that's called the Forest Of Myth, very small place, where all your interactions are getting "sucked in" to stories and dreams. It's all reading text, while the 3D rendering of the world is faded to black. These are approximately five-minute episodes, white letters on black background with dynamic music playing along. Sometimes there's a little "quiz" integrated to check if you paid attention. There's one event that is a bit like a text adventure/interactive fiction in that you need to choose directions to go while escaping from somewhere. It sounds lame, but the effective switch to another medium allowed them to really rack up the writing. Excellent story telling.
The association I have here is with the thousand-year dream from Lost Odyssey, except I've never played that. Oh well. In any case, it's fully integrated into the game and the plots are intertwined.
Combat holds up well, too. The enemies keep getting tougher, they introduce armored shades in the second half, and two new weapon classes (two-handed swords and spears) open up, both with their little quirks. Scrub enemies don't take brains to fight, but getting past blocks and armors of the higher-level enemies either with rolls/back attacks, charged standard attacks, downward smashes (triangle while in the air) and/or magic never got old for me.
The UI is very fast, so whenever you feel like you want to switch, you'll be accomodated. Basically, d-pad to open a category (up for healing/buff items, down for SH swords, left for TH swords, right for spears), then a short, flat list pops up. No loading, waiting for animations or any other annoyances here.
It also helps that the game is one seamless world, with visible enemies and no magic transportation to the battle arena or somesuch. You can cover ground very quickly. Of course there's always some glowing harvesting spots to pull you off to the side
All in all I would definitely recommend this. I've imported from the UK for 18£ plus shipping and got way, way more than I expected. The graphics look a bit iffy, and I suspect that's what scared a lot of people away, but everything else, combat, quality of the story, amount of content, is ace. I can't overstate how good the music is. It's dynamic tunes, ala Lucas Arts iMuse back in the day, where instruments chime in and bow out depending on which rooms/floors of dungeons you enter, and what enemies are around, if any. Nier is only the second PS3 game so far where I'd buy the soundtrack (the other being Shatter).
One more story note: the game reveals much more of its hand in New Game+. After the first ending, you might still feel it's all just "Hero kills all the bad guys and saves the world" kind of deal ...
In New Game+ though, the game goes in the
direction.
(the spoiler text is a reference to another game, not a description of plot developments)
tl;dr: it's awesome.
On that note, the game lets you transfer your accumulated levels, stats and inventory to a New Game+, except it starts you at about halfway through the game, so it's way quicker to push to the end than doing a full playthrough. All side-quests you did in a previous run are still solved, so there's not much to distract you from the main events either.
The second half is where the pace really picks up. Or actually the lead-up to part 2, but I don't want to spoil it. There's still new side-quests in part two, but those are opt-in as usual, so if it feels like it's moving too slow, just push on with the main quest and it'll be great again.
I really respect what they did with the writing. There is one "town" in the game world that's called the Forest Of Myth, very small place, where all your interactions are getting "sucked in" to stories and dreams. It's all reading text, while the 3D rendering of the world is faded to black. These are approximately five-minute episodes, white letters on black background with dynamic music playing along. Sometimes there's a little "quiz" integrated to check if you paid attention. There's one event that is a bit like a text adventure/interactive fiction in that you need to choose directions to go while escaping from somewhere. It sounds lame, but the effective switch to another medium allowed them to really rack up the writing. Excellent story telling.
The association I have here is with the thousand-year dream from Lost Odyssey, except I've never played that. Oh well. In any case, it's fully integrated into the game and the plots are intertwined.
Combat holds up well, too. The enemies keep getting tougher, they introduce armored shades in the second half, and two new weapon classes (two-handed swords and spears) open up, both with their little quirks. Scrub enemies don't take brains to fight, but getting past blocks and armors of the higher-level enemies either with rolls/back attacks, charged standard attacks, downward smashes (triangle while in the air) and/or magic never got old for me.
The UI is very fast, so whenever you feel like you want to switch, you'll be accomodated. Basically, d-pad to open a category (up for healing/buff items, down for SH swords, left for TH swords, right for spears), then a short, flat list pops up. No loading, waiting for animations or any other annoyances here.
It also helps that the game is one seamless world, with visible enemies and no magic transportation to the battle arena or somesuch. You can cover ground very quickly. Of course there's always some glowing harvesting spots to pull you off to the side
All in all I would definitely recommend this. I've imported from the UK for 18£ plus shipping and got way, way more than I expected. The graphics look a bit iffy, and I suspect that's what scared a lot of people away, but everything else, combat, quality of the story, amount of content, is ace. I can't overstate how good the music is. It's dynamic tunes, ala Lucas Arts iMuse back in the day, where instruments chime in and bow out depending on which rooms/floors of dungeons you enter, and what enemies are around, if any. Nier is only the second PS3 game so far where I'd buy the soundtrack (the other being Shatter).
One more story note: the game reveals much more of its hand in New Game+. After the first ending, you might still feel it's all just "Hero kills all the bad guys and saves the world" kind of deal ...
In New Game+ though, the game goes in the
Shadow Of The Colossus
(the spoiler text is a reference to another game, not a description of plot developments)
tl;dr: it's awesome.
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