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S2 Ep165: NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139...
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MAJOR SPOILERS: NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139...
MINOR SPOILERS: NieR:Automata
Join Dave and Jake as they learn the Words and try avoid White Chlorination Syndrome in this week's episode!
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
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MINOR SPOILERS: NieR:Automata
Join Dave and Jake as they learn the Words and try avoid White Chlorination Syndrome in this week's episode!
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:16
Speaker
Oh
Introduction and Warm Weather Chat
00:00:51
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-host as always, Dave. How's it going today, Dave? It's going pretty good. The weather is warm. I walked over the CVS to grab an energy drink this morning. And it was toasty, but it was a nice dry toasty. Like I was an almond or some tomato that was being sun dried.
00:01:16
Speaker
I think that it would it could probably cook. I mean, like so there's places in the US that are hotter and I'm not going to get into the whole like weather thing. You're like, oh, you consider a hundred meager, 100 degrees Fahrenheit is hot. Oh, you poor soul, you know, like whatever. But it's like 90 degrees out today. Went through a drive through. I do this little thing where I like leave the windows down. If I know it's just a short trip to just like experience heat a little bit.
00:01:44
Speaker
They get the airflow going. Yeah. Um, and even like, you're like, I don't go outside much. So if I'm going to go outside and I know it's going to be like five minute trip or something like that, I'll just like put myself through the climate or whatever the weather, um, just to experience it a little bit. Remember what real life sensations like.
00:02:07
Speaker
I get that. That's sometimes why I do errands. I'm like, I should go out to get groceries. But sometimes I'll drive a little bit further to be like, I'm going to go out into the world, you know, adding 10 minutes to my commute and that's it. I can't say I go out into the world that much, though. Outside is the adventure in itself.
00:02:28
Speaker
Well, you call it Zaborudo, so. Right. Yeah. And then drop a steamroller on them. Yeah. But now it was, uh, it is pretty nice out there. It is very nice. I think it's too hot to like do anything outside right now. Like 90 degrees is pretty hot for me, but I could walk a lap around my apartment complex. And if I came back inside, I would feel the need to change. Yes. It would just be a little bit, little bit too sweaty and uncomfortable.
00:02:57
Speaker
I think like maybe swimming. Swimming is like the only thing, but I mean, that's the exception, right? It's like up to a point and the point is pretty high up there. Swimming is kind of the counterbalance to hot heat, you know? Yeah, like if it's.
00:03:15
Speaker
Let's say it's 75. I don't necessarily want to go in a pool because when I get out of the pool, I will be cold. Whereas if it's like 90 plus, when I go to the pool, it will be refreshing because I feel the heat coming back. Yeah. This is back in the pool.
00:03:34
Speaker
It's the opposite to the hot tub in the snow type thing. You're just like, Oh man, it's too hot. Oh, that's nice. All right. Back in the hot tub.
Love for Hot Tubs and Chlorine Memories
00:03:41
Speaker
Real talk. Hot tubs. Gods here. Hot tubs in the winter. Gods here. S plus like it's right. It's so warm and cathartic. Capital G. I also like the smell of chlorine. So and bubbles ever since the, the incident.
00:04:00
Speaker
Where I have chlorine for two years and I've built up a copious addiction to it, yes. That is why. Your own white chlorination syndrome. Ooh, that's good.
00:04:11
Speaker
That would have been a segue if we were actually using them. But that's fine. We're not. Hot tubs are great. And chlorine, I think, especially if you did a lot of swimming as a kid, it's easy to make that association. You smell the chlorine. You think about the water park or a personal pool or a friend's pool or something like that. I think that's not a bad association to have.
00:04:35
Speaker
It's kind of similar to smelling sunscreen. You're like, ah, yes, summer. There's part of that, oh, I'm outside, I'm at the pool, I'm doing summer activities. There was a kid I knew in my creative writing class in high school who was a swimmer for his hobby or sports for the high school. And he swam so much that he always had so much bleach going through his hair. So I touched his hair once. It was offered to me. I didn't just grab him out of nowhere.
00:05:04
Speaker
He typically had like straight hair like me, but my hair just feels like hair. His hair felt so unbelievably soft because the chemicals had just deadened the fuck out of it. But I was surprised at the difference. And he obviously noticed it cause he's like, my hair feels different than other people's. Yeah. He was bald one year after the last time he saw him. I mean, to be fair, I haven't seen him since. So that could be. Yeah.
00:05:32
Speaker
It's very possible. Um, I say that I haven't been swimming in like forever. I think in person line party was the last time I actually went swimming. Cause now it's like, what am I going to do? Am I going to just like show up to a pool with like presumably like we're at an apartment. So, you know, there's going to be kids. There's going to be other people. I don't, I don't really want any of that. I'll take a bath. You know, that's the closest thing to swimming. We'll just make the water a little deeper than usual. Call it a day.
00:06:01
Speaker
That is the joy of the pool is like you can actually submerge most of your body, if not all of your body. Whereas with a bathtub, you play in the knees or shoulders game. It's just I can't win. And then the temperature just stops at a point. Yeah. And starts to decrease. It's hard to
Introduction to Nier Replicant
00:06:18
Speaker
get a good doggy paddle going in the bathtub as well.
00:06:23
Speaker
I mean, you can do it a little bit, but God bless the person who uses all the towels afterwards to pop up the bathroom. Oh, man. Better not to deal with it. Oops, I bought my microphone. Speaking of dealing with it, today's episode is not Bennett Foddy's getting over it. It's near replicant, which is a new game? Ellipsis?
00:06:52
Speaker
in the same way that Demon's Souls is a new game. That's pretty accurate. Yeah, so this is the. I want to I forget the difference between remake and remaster, but I think remaster is just graphics and audio. You're not changing the experience at all.
00:07:10
Speaker
OK, so it's definitely a remake. They definitely cleaned up some things. But a lot of things, if you play the original game back in the PS3 days, which we did not get a chance to, it is very true to the story and everything it has laid out. If there's something you loved about it, it's still there. If there's something you hated about it, it's still there. And this is the real test. How would you pronounce the name of the original game?
00:07:42
Speaker
I'm not sure if you're talking about near replicants or near Gestalt. Gestalt. As you got to throw some, like Sean Connery has to possess you in the middle of the word. Gestalt. Yeah, I go with a German inflect on it. I don't know why it just sounds right. I think it's because like near sounds like a German word. I mean, it's also just an English word, but
00:08:08
Speaker
I don't know where it's going with that. This is the remake of Gestalt, which is a fun word to say. This came out not that long ago, really. It was earlier this year, Q1, something like that. I don't know exactly, Q1, Q2. Three or four months back-ish.
00:08:31
Speaker
Yeah, but we're basically going to treat it, even though it is a very recent release, we're going to just treat it like it's a game that came out 11 years ago, because it's also basically a game that came out 11 years ago. So spoilers,
Exploring Nier Replicant's World and Pacing
00:08:44
Speaker
I guess. Doesn't really particularly matter, I think. But just going to talk about a bunch of crap.
00:08:52
Speaker
So real quick before we hop in I know we did near automata as a game We haven't had the episode on it because true boy. Howdy would that take some playthrough time, but I'm coming into it from your experience of near automata. Did you have any prior knowledge to the original near? Where's house filling in it's kind of funny because I think I was in a similar boat at some point I did look up the like what is
00:09:20
Speaker
Because at the conclusion of Automata, I had a lot of questions. I think that's a comment coming in. And I was like, what was the backstory that set all this in motion? And they're clearly just they're answered. They're just not retreading the same ground. And I got like some spoilers from that. I think I perhaps have seen the final end of the original game in cutscene form, but I had largely forgotten the specifics of what happened.
00:09:48
Speaker
Yeah, I think I would be in the same boat. It was something on PS3. It was like a decade ago. I'm like, I'm not going to get a PS3. They're never going to remake the game. Let me look up this thing that's tangential to something that I like and kind of get the backstory and then, oh, I'll just put that in the data bank. And they're like, it's a game now. I'm like, fuck. Square Enix is like, I'm about to end this man's whole career.
00:10:11
Speaker
But yeah, I don't think anything was particularly spoiled for me. But looking back, it would have been nice to have played the original Nier and then played Automata when it came out in that order. Yeah. Because I felt like going back to play Nier, I'm like, is this like Automata? This isn't like Automata in these ways. Right. In the same way with like something in a Dark Souls. I'm very much comparing it to other games in this franchise. Yeah.
00:10:39
Speaker
We have a, I haven't talked to him in like literally forever, but friend Victor who played Bloodborne and then played Dark Souls afterwards, right? And that's like, it's a very different game. You can see where some of those inspirations and things came from, but it went in a slightly different angle and changed the trajectory entirely because of it.
00:11:02
Speaker
And that's what it feels like here. Yeah. The game has a lot of making you appreciate the world and environment by making things take time. So if you want to get from point A to point B, you're going to have to walk there.
00:11:20
Speaker
And also, anytime you go between an area, there's a loading screen. So you start to fuel that pretty quick. And I know there's some other sections outside of just travel, like the forest where you're like, I'm going to be here for a bit, but I'm going to complete it so that I can say that I did it.
00:11:40
Speaker
And move on. Yeah, there's there's a subreddit called patient gamers, which is the intent is for sales like people who don't buy games as soon as they come out. And it's basically the only if that subreddit name was taken literally, it would be the only subgroup of people I'd recommend this game to because like unless you're just speed running it and even then that really doesn't respect your time now.
00:12:08
Speaker
It is
Nier Replicant's Gameplay Mechanics and Combat
00:12:09
Speaker
a Japanese game. So it's not like that's uncommon behavior amongst, you know, JRPG like games. But even this, they're just certain activities that just take a while. There's the reason I engaged with farming, which is a mechanic that's available throughout the game, like once or twice. I was just like, all right, plant the entire field.
00:12:33
Speaker
And then I realized that the animations take forever. Like it just takes forever to plant something and put some water on it and you know, like fertilizer ground, whatever. And I just didn't want to do it again. It would just be standing there for minutes, like engaging in this activity that is just watching this guy repeat the same animations over and over again for each little plot in his farm. And that's kind of like.
00:12:57
Speaker
It's a micro example, but it's also core of the way that the game treats your time. And I'm not a fan of that so much. Yeah, it's I always feel like stuff like that is an immersion tool. Like I definitely see the benefit of it. But if you're not invested in it for that reason, it sucks to have to go through it. You're like, just let me do the thing and move on. Just let me do the thing and move on.
00:13:25
Speaker
But they're like, no, you got to appreciate you're spending the time to do this. You're traveling from here to there. Great. And again, I get it, but it needs to be for that specific audience. And like for me, I didn't explore farming or fishing because I'm like, I want to play through the base game and know what the story is. Maybe do some side quests for a little bit of fleshing out. But mainly, I just wanted to do main content.
00:13:49
Speaker
Yeah. And I did want to hit the tags, you know, going back to the Steam tags to see whether you agree with them in particular. The first one is great soundtrack. Yup. New games have great fucking music. It's amazing. It's quite possibly the best part of the game. It's literally the soundtrack. What was your favorite from this one? Oh, that's tough. I actually really like the... It's good because I heard it a lot.
00:14:17
Speaker
the machine voices like song in the junkyard in the like that combat area it has this electric feel there's also a even more of an electric feel i don't know if you did this at all but post game there's a journal you can interact with that puts you into it was dlc yep for the original game where it's just combat sequences and i kind of enjoyed that a bit like it started to grate a while but i was like
00:14:45
Speaker
Man, I wish this game would like let me interact with the combat more often, you know, like in these just challenging, it was kind of like Devil May Cry encounters and the music for that is remixes of the base game and they're so good. So I stumbled upon that accidentally because I was just clicking around some stuff and I didn't realize it was just optional side content until later. But they actually have you for those sequences play as the dad character from
00:15:12
Speaker
Technically, there's two releases. There's the Japanese one and the English one. I forget which is which for whether you're the brother of Yona or the father of Yona. But in that one, you are dad near and you're going through and just slapping some ass. It's one way to put it, I guess. But it is good music, too. Yeah, the music is really good there. Did you have any standouts for the musical tracks beyond that?
00:15:37
Speaker
I mean, the immediate ones that jumped to mind, obviously song of the ancients, fucking classic and banger. Is that the, um, the, the heavenly choir, high voices singing, or is that a different one? It's like the main theme that I think devila or popola is singing in the courtyard. You hear it a lot throughout the game. And then shadow Lord's theme is very nice too. Also all of the temple music. Like I always enjoy that vibe. Oh yeah.
00:16:08
Speaker
No, it's really good. Across the board, it's really good. I also really liked, it's just a minor aside, the Devil of Popola, I can't remember exactly who it was. It's Devila, because Popola is always in the library. But Devila was out there near the fountain, and when you get close to her, her vocals cut into the track that's just playing in that area. But if you talk to her, the vocals stop. They stop, yeah. I love when games do that.
00:16:36
Speaker
It was like a cool moment and I wish that I was kind of a more patient gamer so I could just like sit there and listen to it for a while because I just left. I kept like, I got me in quest to do a piece. And as a completely or somewhat related aside, I would say from a different game, I didn't realize this until like this week, but apparently in Metal Gear Rising Revengeance,
00:17:01
Speaker
For the final boss fight, you can be disarmed of your sword. And every time you're disarmed of your sword, the vocals fade out until you get your sword back. And I didn't realize that until I literally know. I was really wondering what the time was going to be, because my opinions on that game versus near games, I'm like, mm. I'm not going to draw comparisons between those games. But yeah, the music is top tier. Top near?
00:17:31
Speaker
The other tag is Story Rich, before I get my opinion on this. Actually, maybe I'll save. I don't know. Maybe I'll come back to this one. I'm going to come back to this one. OK. But this is a Steam tag. Action and RPG in the last two.
00:17:47
Speaker
Action, yes, because the combat is like third person run around very similar to your automata automata. As far as RPG, there are items you can use, but it's like my health's low. Let me spam the healing potion. And then it's just your heal. So there's not as much in the way of RPG. You do have some magic abilities as well. But it doesn't feel as RPG as some other games where you have, whether it's tactics or turn based.
00:18:17
Speaker
but it has RPG elements.
00:18:20
Speaker
Yeah, it's like a soft RPG. They do have like, the other element I would mention is the words for magic and weapons, which is like, if you have customization and choice, that's literally like the aspects, the main aspects of RPGs, right? Here's some choice for how you go through the game. And I did find myself actually using a bit of those modifier words. They could be things like experience gain, item drop rate, flat damage.
00:18:50
Speaker
I went with damage or MP use, I think. I also remember when you were playing, I messaged you on Discord, like, did you find the rune word Bussy yet? Yeah, I found it eventually. I actually.
00:19:05
Speaker
I was on the side for the words. I was doing some content in the fight DLC post game stuff and I went up against a bunch of super heavily armored enemies. I was like, this is going to take forever because my game was on hard and they have like
00:19:22
Speaker
I left it on hard after I realized that increase the item drop rate, maybe. The internet's like, there's a lot of conflicting opinions on whether that's true or not, but some people that seemed more authoritative said that it is the case.
00:19:37
Speaker
And it was really struggling to go through these guys. And I was like, all right, let's modify dark execution with poison and then amp that up to level nine. Because I could poison dark execution when charged up as just a bunch of blades out of the ground that impale everybody and then drop them to prone if they can be prone.
00:19:59
Speaker
hit all of them for good damage, poison them, which seemed to do more damage. And then I could chain execute two or three of them on the ground, which didn't instant kill them, but it did a lot of damage. And it was just so much better. I thought you were going to say, like, and then I used the armor breaker rune. I'm like, that makes sense. But no, I tried that. I tried that. It didn't actually work as well because you couldn't strip the armor off of them. They're like special enemies. OK.
00:20:27
Speaker
But anyways, the customization is not like...
00:20:31
Speaker
It's not crazy advanced, but there's enough there that you can play around with it a little bit. It's like if you were to make an RPG today and you had like by the end of day to submit something to me, it's what you come up with is like a first pass. I want some weapons. I want some magic. I want some items. I want some upgrades, but it's all very kind of flat across the board. Like there's not branching paths for upgrades. It's do I have the components to make my weapon stronger? OK, its stats are buffed.
00:21:01
Speaker
Yeah. There was, there were some like some interactions there. Like I think heavier weapons are supposed to deal more with armor, but I didn't really find it was worth dealing with that too much. And magic is better against enemies that have armor that can be stripped. But it's, yeah, I mean, you can also just whack on things till they die for the most part. Or you can type them and never actually get in combat range. Yeah.
00:21:28
Speaker
Um, and the words weren't like, for the most part, they weren't absolutely devastating. It felt kind of like monster hunter elements. You're like, I'm building up paralysis on this enemy. Now they're paralyzed for a minute for not a full minute, but like a couple seconds. Or I have life steal on this. It gives me the smallest bit of health back. Right.
00:21:51
Speaker
I never once felt like I had lifesteal proc enough to actually mitigate the need for health items. No, it's very much you have health items, you spam them when you need them through like a pause menu and that was pretty much it. Yeah.
00:22:11
Speaker
And it sounds like we're being really critical of the combat. I actually do enjoy the combat a lot in the system. And you can only bind four spells or abilities at once. And those abilities include block and evade. So there was parts of the game where I literally unbound block. I kept evade on them. We play Dark Souls, right? Yeah. You've got to have evade. Give me the role iframes, please. I don't remember using block that much or at all.
00:22:40
Speaker
There's a few enemies where it's very, very, very useful. There's really high health enemies that are giants in the Northern Plains and the Southern Plains. I think they might both be related to quests, so I don't know if you would have seen them or not, but they have a ton of health and it takes forever to chip away at them.
00:23:05
Speaker
If you're just behind them, they'll either swing with their right arm or their left arm to hit behind. And it's just a reliable parry every single time. And you parry by blocking at the moment you hit. And you kill them so much faster, just literally standing there and cheesing them, encountering their attacks.
00:23:25
Speaker
Yeah, as with all games, I always forget that parrying can be a mechanic. Hence Bloodborne took me longer than some other games. I took some damage, I'm gonna back off. I'm gonna back off. Not a good call in Bloodborne.
00:23:41
Speaker
No, the combat is definitely smooth. I always like, for some reason, the weight in the movement. So let's say you do a jump and a dash. Your body kind of like lurches forward, but then gravity is still very much present. There's not a, there's not a floatiness to it.
00:23:58
Speaker
I made a counter your point, but go ahead. Jake's probably going to talk about doing some aerial combos, but it feels like when you hit and you dash around, you feel very corporeal. Like you feel like it seems to match the action you're doing based on whatever weapon you have. So like the combat feels good and realistic in that regard. So I did enjoy that. Yeah.
00:24:25
Speaker
You called it. It was going to be the aerial combos. Anytime you're attacking in the air, you're not falling. So there's like a three hit combo. Um, it's, it's devil may cry. The literally like the two comparisons you could make is dark souls where every attack you're committed to the move or devil may cry or where you can cancel out of anything. It's devil may cry. Um,
00:24:46
Speaker
And it's very fast for that. I would ask, though, at a later portion of the game, we'll have to go back and talk about the story at some point, but you gave me the option to use different types of weapons. What did you find yourself going with Rocky? I mean, I always go for whatever is going to give me the best DPS, but it doesn't feel like shit. I felt like I went with a big Katana type.
00:25:15
Speaker
Do you want like swords? Did you go two hand sword or one hand sword? I think two hand sword. Okay. I have to load up my save to double check. Yeah. But it would have been something that felt decent enough for animation where it's not like I'm committing for four seconds. But something I can like dash and slash a little bit.
00:25:34
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It definitely like the different weights mattered, I think. So the higher weight, the weapon, there's like three classifications. There's one-handed swords, two-handed swords and spears. And spears were like the lightest, fastest, most reach. And I like, they were pretty good. I use spears. Like I sunrise spear like through the end of the game. So freaking good. Um, and, uh, the two-handed swords are like slower, but they do a bunch of damage.
00:26:04
Speaker
Okay, so now that
Nier Replicant's Story and Themes
00:26:05
Speaker
you said it, I am remembering. I definitely used a spear and I used the two-handed charge animation, which is you just chuck the spear. And I was hitting for like whatever upgrade it was, like a thousand at a time. So I would hold my fire and magic button. So I'm just like hucking out spears and I'm also throwing out like magic crystals and it was full just
00:26:28
Speaker
DPS build. Or I can be confusing that with my recent playthrough of Nier Automata where I did the exact same thing. But if you can get big chunky damage like that from range, it feels pretty good.
00:26:43
Speaker
And yeah, I didn't see it. Like I was going to say, I was kind of surprised you went with like two-handed swords, if that was the case, because they are very slow. It's like it feels much more like Dark Souls than because you can't cancel out of those animations. And this is a game where you're getting hit by balls from all sides and you very much want to be able to just jump out at a moment's notice. Yeah.
00:27:13
Speaker
I still like the idea of the balls. Like if there was no near orbs, if there were no projectiles in that game, I don't think it'd be as challenging because it's. A lot of the enemies have pretty straightforward combat options, even like the bosses, but adding the extra like, hey, here's projectiles you're going to worry about on top of that, it's like, OK, it's an extra layer of complexity.
00:27:37
Speaker
Yeah. And it's very much like there's some attacks and then there's like bullet hell attacks with the orbs where it's just like, we're going to flood this green in this pattern and find the gap or use an ability to help mitigate this.
00:27:52
Speaker
There is two types. There's like the light orbs and the dark orbs, where the light orbs can be absorbed or shot. If you are using dark lightning. Or if you have like the shield up, the shield is actually like amazingly good as magic. It charges through different phases as you're holding the button. And the default is just puts a large shield in front of you that'll block projectiles. But if you full charge it, it becomes a bubble that follows you.
00:28:22
Speaker
And it literally makes you immune to magic. Like magic doesn't lower the durability of the shield, only physical attacks do. So there's certain points in the game where the boss is like, and here's the magic phase where it's supposed to be like a bullet hell portion. And you're like, great shield. And now I'm just going to hit on you for like five minutes, just right up in your face because I don't care about the projectiles at all. And that's pretty good.
00:28:48
Speaker
I need to explore more options in games like this because I find something that works. I'm like, OK, I'll never do anything new. Yeah, it is. It is pretty hilarious. It feels like an exploit for certain bosses like.
00:29:02
Speaker
when they're just, they're only doing magic and they kind of throw it out rapidly in melee. So you can't swing your sword or spear enough to break them. But the shield blocks all of them, like even if they're spawned inside the shield because you're right in front of them. So it's really good. So that being said, did you find the game easy?
00:29:24
Speaker
Not particularly. I mean, certain parts were definitely harder on hard. But I'm trying to think of a place where I really particularly struggled. I know I remember seeing the game over screen a couple times with us because I was usually getting one hit by enemies that I wasn't supposed to fight yet. Actually, maybe I guess like a little bit easy.
00:29:53
Speaker
until like route B final bosses on hard. Those just took a while to go through and I did start to run out of consumables. But they're more like big health bars than difficult. What about you?
00:30:13
Speaker
Pretty easy. I mean, I played on normal, but nothing really. I had to come back to a whole bunch of times. It's more like I did something stupid. I'm like, oh, right, right. Don't do the stupid thing. Yeah. Dashing into a laser that's obviously been foretold for like five seconds. Stuff like that. Yeah.
00:30:34
Speaker
And there's a big difference between literally like any boss in the game and then like the final three bosses. It's like every other boss in the game is kind of like something closer to like, not necessarily Shadow of the Colossus, but like God of War, big hulking things. I was going to say like Mario or Zelda type. Yeah, exactly. Like puzzle solve.
00:30:59
Speaker
And then the final bosses are very much like, you're Dante and this is Nero and go. We're giving you enemies the same size as you. Oh shit. Yeah. I know. What have I done to deserve this? Um, but yeah, I think the combat overall is, was probably one of the more satisfying parts of the game. Um,
00:31:23
Speaker
And there's a lot else to talk about the game for sure. Some of them less satisfying, some of them more. I mean, I'm good to go into whatever. Sure. How does this game start? Because I would at least like to touch on the sections of the game. You don't have to go into crazy detail.
00:31:44
Speaker
Okay. I had to memorize line by line because we talked about this ahead of time and I spent hours actually trying to. You know what? It's fine. So the game starts out. You are this young lad. You're with your sister. You're in a desolate kind of wasteland. It's winter. You're out of food. You're alone. Yeah. Your sister's not doing so well. Got the cough. Black lung.
00:32:09
Speaker
I mean, just a cough with America's health care. So you go out to like venture for food, you encounter some shades, but you're like these dark apparitions that attack you or you attack. And like a pipe, you're fighting with like a pipe, I think at this point. Yeah.
00:32:30
Speaker
But basically they keep spawning them in and you're like, shit. And there's this black book nearby, later to be known as grimoire noir, black book. But it gives you magical powers. So as you start killing these shades, you unlock more powers and you quickly keep fighting more and more shades and leveling faster and faster, getting new magic abilities. But all this happens, like you fight all these shades and then
00:33:00
Speaker
you go check on Yona like, Hey, I killed a million guys. You good? Yeah. And she's like, I did the one thing you told me not to do. Yeah. She also touched the black book, which is bad because it's, it's cursed, et cetera, et cetera. And then I think you get
00:33:25
Speaker
You just get scene swapped, right? Yeah, basically. There's like the jump forward 1,400 years or something like that. And you're both the same age in fantasy land instead of desolate modern America in the winter. And it's weird because I knew going in what it was. So I kind of compartmentalized that and just moved on. Yeah. But did you have that knowledge going in?
00:33:55
Speaker
that there was going to be like the jump forward or I guess. Yeah. Like when the time skip happened, were you like, the fuck was that about? Or did you kind of just say, I'll probably find out about that later and just moved on. Yeah, you kind of just have to accept a sense of stuff's going to happen and it's not going to make sense when you're playing your games. So that's kind of where I was at. I was you have to you have to be in the acceptance state when you're playing through the games where you're like, I'm not going to understand all of this. I may or may not later also, but
00:34:25
Speaker
Do you also talk about near in therapy? Cause that's, that comes up for a lot of weeks. Yeah. Um, but yeah, it's, you jumped to the future, I guess, future past days of future past and you now basically link. That's it. It's, it's very much this like fantasy town, low technology magic exists. Um, you don't have the book anymore at the start. Correct.
00:34:57
Speaker
You're kind of just a kid doing some odd jobs around town trying to take care of your sickly sister, Yona. Getting medicine for her and stuff like that.
00:35:06
Speaker
but the shades are becoming more aggressive. Yeah. They're getting moving closer to town and other stuff. So you end up venturing out. And then you, I forget the exact reason why you come across the temple or you go there, but that is where you find room or vice who becomes your magic companion and talking book.
00:35:32
Speaker
And I was wrong, it's not actually voiced by Matt Mercer, it's voiced by Liam, who is also in the cast of Critical Role, but... Okay, I now feel better because I was like, I feel like I should have known if it was Matt Mercer, but I guess I didn't, huh? Yeah, it was Liam, but it's the source of all of your spells.
00:35:50
Speaker
that we've been talking about for a while now. In particular, I really like this effect when you kill enemies with a sword. You can't kill them with magic to get the effect, but when you kill enemies with a sword or weapon,
00:36:04
Speaker
and they die, there's a blood splatter, which for one, like I don't really remember, and you played Automata more recently than I have, but I don't remember like blood being in the game. I mean, you're killing robots. So like usually they would explode, but the anything that quote unquote fell out of them, like scrap disappeared immediately. It's more so like there's the death animation and that was it.
00:36:26
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, you say, yeah, you're killing robots. So why would it make sense for them to be for there to be blood? But in your replicant, you're killing shades, which are basically ghosts, more or less. And there is blood. So they're like, they leave blood splatters and like pretty early in the game. Also, there's just animals, sometimes like sheep or whatever, getting mutton for a side quest. It's dumb.
00:36:49
Speaker
if you run through blood and your character like leaves bloody footprints for a while until it like wears off their feet. And I'm like, what am I playing, right? It's far more gruesome than I expected it to be. But on top of that, when you kill one of these enemies, like there's an effect like coming from them towards you and Grimmar of Ice collects the blood
00:37:15
Speaker
to use to fill your spells. And that's your like magical energy that also regenerates over time. Yeah, so if that doesn't raise any red flags. Right. As the protagonist, you know, collecting blood. But it looks like blood magic, too. It's all like tinted red. And I'm a fan of blood magic in any setting. It's great stuff. Yeah, it's. Do you want to explain why that is or
00:37:43
Speaker
Hmm. Do I know? Maybe. Well, the reason that there's blood in the first place. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Uh, they're humans or they're the souls of humans. Yeah. Which I mean, the physical standpoint doesn't make as much sense, but the game you're like, Oh, okay. Yeah. So that's near, right? Yeah. Just squinted everything because it doesn't make sense outside of near. Yeah. Um,
00:38:12
Speaker
But basically, shades are not inherently bad because they are the souls of humans that were removed from bodies through a certain process that I pronounced earlier based on game lore. Basically, they want to get back to their respective bodies. That is the whole plan of that thing. Yeah, because that's where the androids come from.
00:38:41
Speaker
Yeah, but even so, as I'm just now going to do story spoilers. Yeah, we're going to spoil them. That's fine. So you as the playable character and everybody in the town are not actually human. You are actually. Would you be safe to say Android bodies? Yeah, they're they're Android's.
00:39:00
Speaker
That's part of the thing that threw me off is the protagonist who's brother near the community calls him But he's just the protagonist and Toro's sadly doesn't have a name It's like he ages Specifically there's a point in the game where it's like we now have jumped forward five years and there's now a different voice actor His voice is much deeper. He goes from like I'm a Chinese. They're not Chinese. I'm a jet I'm a young Japanese kid and
00:39:23
Speaker
And then he's just like, I am a gruff Japanese adult male. And it's like, it's like you went from eight to 13, I think, or something. I think it's like 12 to 17. But yeah, he's a puberty hit a lot. Yeah. But yeah, he ages, which threw me off a little bit because I was like, maybe he's not actually a replicant because I don't remember any other replicants aging. But he is.
00:39:54
Speaker
So technically Yona does too. If you look at her because it, before she gets kidnapped and afterwards, when you finally see her like six years later, she definitely has changed. Um, yeah. So I think the technology does facilitate that to a degree, but no other NPC or character you interact with. You really see that wall didn't know the King, the desert King also ages. Oh yeah. Oh, that's true. Yeah. Huh.
00:40:25
Speaker
It's it's clearly enabled for some of them and not others. Some key characters have that have the aging option turned on.
Moral Complexity and Player Agency in Nier Replicant
00:40:33
Speaker
It's very if we if we spend time trying to like make sense out of near it. Yeah, we're not actually going to work for the episode. But in general, the premise was another the shades are the Gestalt. They don't use that word in the English version, which is like what is confusing, I guess. But in like the Japanese version, the shades were called Gestalt.
00:40:56
Speaker
So they're the human souls. The replicants are like the human replacement bodies. Yeah, the shells. And eventually there would be this convergence in the future. But what humanity did not anticipate was that the assumption of sentience and the replicants. And this is the foundational part of all of the near games.
00:41:20
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's a really fucking cool premise. But again, having played Automata first and then coming back to this, thank you. And I talked about it beforehand off air. It has very similar ideas trying to convey as far as what it means to be a person or an individual.
00:41:40
Speaker
And in this game, it's contrast between like the shades who you obviously don't initially think of as people. Yeah. And then your character if you think of as people and then it's kind of inverted with them with your automata, where it's well, I'm a person looking thing slash Android. And these are robots.
00:42:00
Speaker
Yeah. But in both cases, very much your main character says like, oh, those other things, those are nothing like me. And they drive that home a lot. Yeah. And later they're like, but what if they're like, no.
00:42:16
Speaker
Yeah, in particular after the five year skip, it's like part one and part two in this game. Like the protagonist is straight up like he's overselling the point that he hates shades so much. It's literally like Aaron from Attack on Titan. He's like, I will destroy all shades.
00:42:34
Speaker
And it's just this all-consuming, doesn't matter, there's a shade here, kill them all. I must kill Chaos. Yeah, but Chaos is meant to be controlled, as we know. It's also a ladder, as we know. But yeah, he oversells it so much that I'm just like,
00:42:53
Speaker
shades are the good guys aren't they right when you realize when the protagonist is like all right no do gruff aggressive antagonist voice when you're dealing with his enemy like okay yeah maybe
00:43:07
Speaker
But it's it's there is a little bit of a mix because the shades aren't all good necessarily a lot of them attack you because they're I Don't think the word was regressed. It was there's another word like that but basically the human consciousness like Goes feral more or less and those are most of the enemies that you face. Yeah
00:43:28
Speaker
But there's only a few. In fact, there's like very few. I remember specifically one, two shades in the game that are non-aggressive that you have to kill. Or will kill, likely. One's for a side quest and the other is riding a robot. Yeah, it's...
00:43:53
Speaker
Yeah, they're basically, like you said, or we said before, just kind of people. Um, some are, I don't want to say good, but not inherently evil. Yeah. Like some of them seem good, actually. Yeah. So like the whole quest line with, um, the boat,
00:44:13
Speaker
And there's that shade who is like trying to learn the ways of people and kind of briefly gets accepted. Yeah. And then like shows human components. But there's that miscommunication and it's like, no, you're a monster. Which just reminded me of Disney immediately.
00:44:37
Speaker
So I'm going to ask this and have a follow up point, perhaps. How would you rate that boat storyline? And most of it, you go through, play through A, where you can't understand the shades, and then play through B, where you can understand. Because this is literally the format for all near games. It's like, play it like a standard game, and then we're just going to punch the gut, consecutive normal punches.
00:44:59
Speaker
Literally just emotional manipulation. How would you evaluate that storyline, the boat storyline, compared to like other storylines in the game? Do you think it's better or worse?
00:45:11
Speaker
I have to think about this out loud a little bit, partially for the context of the audience. There's technically a couple of different areas outside of the main town. One's like the desert. There's the machine scrapyard. There's the sea town. And there's some other stuff. But usually, each one is kind of tied to an overall plot quest and main objective key item piece you have to get.
00:45:38
Speaker
It's literally Legend of Zelda, right? Go to Gore on town, go to Zora town, you know, whatever. But with Luis's story, it's very much like there's just a a shade pretending to be a girl. They find out it's like this gigantic kraken monster. And then you're like, oh, that was obviously a bad thing. This guy was being duped by this shade. What an idiot. And then when you go back and you can understand
00:46:05
Speaker
Basically, she's just doing her normal shade stuff of like eating people who like happened upon her and she's trying to survive. But then she's shown kindness by this guy who's like, oh, you're a little kid trapped on a boat. Oh, you're shy and you don't want to talk at all. No red flags there. So he's like bringing your food and being really nice.
00:46:23
Speaker
Yeah. Um, she specifically, I want to mention is trying to become human. She wants to be human. And that's one of the reasons she was eating humans. If again, also here in your games, uh, I want to say I like it to a degree because it definitely gives more context. Uh-huh.
00:46:46
Speaker
And it makes you feel, I guess, bad for killing the boss. But I would say the one that hit harder for me was in the scrapyard where a shade's mom gets killed and it's like this little baby monkey shade that finds this defense robot.
00:47:08
Speaker
The fence rope was like, I'm going to kill you. He's like, kill me. I don't care. Nobody loves me. And it's like, what is love? And then the shade is trying to explain its basic consciousness and what it means to be to a robot that doesn't have an idea of it. And then they come to terms, become friends, and then the robot wants to protect the shade and vice versa. So when you go back in, he's saying like, hey, don't hurt my friend.
00:47:33
Speaker
And you as a player character, you're like, I must destroy all shades. Yeah. Because then it just feels worse because it's you're killing someone who's trying to protect something that they care about. Yes. Mm hmm. But that's every storyline I feel. Yeah, it's it's very much that. The reason I
Character Backstories and Development
00:47:52
Speaker
wanted to jump to that or mention the boat and ask the question about the boat in particular is because that plot line was not in your Gestalt. It was added in this one.
00:48:02
Speaker
So I wanted to contrast and say, like, has it actually improved? Like, is this because when I played through it, I didn't know that. And I found this out later and that boss was added on. When I got to the boss, I was like, why is this boss so much higher quality than like anything else that I've fought so far? It's because it's made after automata. Um, but yeah, I a hundred percent agree with this whole, like,
00:48:26
Speaker
Like that is literally just the core of near is like you don't understand the other person's point of view. And it's kind of this, this comes up in like Japanese stories a lot where it's just the difference between right and wrong is literally just my vote motivation versus your motivation. And that's it.
00:48:46
Speaker
So you don't have, you know, solid moral ground to stand on. And that's just the core theme of Nier. You just misunderstand what humanity is and what people's motivations really are. But this game does it in a cheap way, I think. And this is this is one of the faults I actually have with the series is they don't let the character, the player make mistakes. They force you into it.
00:49:14
Speaker
Right. Like you have to kill the shades because they're bosses and the sequence doesn't resolve until you kill the shade. There's no point where like you, the player can be like, I'm going to make the choice to do the right or wrong thing. Yeah. There's definitely a difference of.
00:49:34
Speaker
Hey, we're going to set you in this thing. We're not tying your hands. But there is a giant thing that you perceive to be an enemy in front of you. Right. 99% of people naturally would just go into game mode and kill it because it's the option, right? Yeah. Versus, hey, this is how the story goes. A brief aside to Last of Us 2.
00:49:56
Speaker
Mm hmm. There's very much a hey, we're making you do this thing and then we're making you do that thing. Yes. It still shows it, but it has less impact because it's here is the road. You cannot turn left or right. Yes. Mm hmm. And I think it can desensitize you to you for me, at least. I get some of that early emotional reaction. Like I don't want to kill this thing or whatever. But then once the game is like, but you have to.
00:50:23
Speaker
maybe that hits you first, like the first time, but the game continues to play that note of, like, by the time you've gotten to, you can, it's literally just assemble the McGuffin, grab the four pieces in this case of the Triforce instead of three or whatever, and now you can face the final boss. That's the basic format for the game in part two.
00:50:43
Speaker
But when you get to the scrapyard, that was one of the non-combat shades, is the little baby monkey shade or whatever that jumps off the robot when it's about to die. And it won't fight back. It just runs from you. But you have companions who are helping you fight Emil and... Kinda.
00:51:04
Speaker
Kainai. Yeah, I was gonna say Kyrie and I was like, that's wrong. Kainai, who we haven't talked about at all. And they just want to get there like I did. Yeah, I saw like 40 minutes like haven't talked about Kainai or a meal. I haven't talked to him yet, but they attacked that shade immediately and it doesn't fight back. Right. And one of those characters has the motivation to auto attack shades.
00:51:31
Speaker
And the other one really doesn't, like Emile is supposed to be the opposite, is much more empathetic type character and is not really the type to just kill things that aren't attacking him. And he does it anyways because it's a video game and you have to kill the shade.
00:51:48
Speaker
Or they'll just whittle it down, I guess, over time, but there's no option to subvert. There's no player agency, is the way I would put it. And past a point, you're like, I don't care that you're telling me the other side of this story if I can't actually change the story at all. And that was one of my negative points to Replicant. I mean, I think that's fair.
00:52:17
Speaker
They realize there's more to cover, but yeah. Yeah. I think overall for the story, it was very much a I'm along for the ride. Yes. But then when I looked back, I understood the character of Kynae and how she fit into the story. Yes. But I don't understand the character of Emil and how they fit into the story. I feel like you could remove everything with Emil and it's the same. Yes.
00:52:48
Speaker
I like the character enough, but not enough to be like, I'm glad they're here. He's a plot device. Yeah, as a plot device for like, I need a mechanical thing for this. Oh, he's a fucking nuke? Okay. And then that happened. I'm like, eh.
00:53:05
Speaker
Yeah, they needed a plot device to be the nuke, kill the innocent people, in quotes, people, and for the sacrifice at the end. And those are literally his functions. Otherwise, he's just a friend, I guess, in quotes, but like he's just an esoteric, utilitarian sort of addition to the game.
00:53:32
Speaker
So I will say, I think Emil definitely rounds out the party. So you have brother near, he's very much a kid, and then the kill everything guy. 17 year old boy. 40 year old boys.
00:53:49
Speaker
astute, learned, wise, and very... Pompous. Pompous is the word. Pompous character who doesn't like being bothered with trivial things. He's great. And has goals. But it's still like a good character. And then there's Kainé, who's very much the... Hussy, as Gremar would say. She's a whore.
00:54:16
Speaker
But she's scantily clad and she's foul-mouthed and very much a contrast to Vice. Yeah, she's literally wearing baby doll lingerie. But hanging out, it's incredibly egregious, even amongst usually egregious character design.
00:54:33
Speaker
Again, Yokotaro. And then Emil, not dressed slutty at all, is just like a young boy throughout the whole, pretty much most of the game, and then becomes like a skeleton boy. Again, reasons. With a really weird head. Because his sister ate him, so he became his sister and himself. Yeah, he got her body, so that's how Japan works.
00:55:03
Speaker
You can't see the amount of things I'm doing with my eyebrows and head at the moment since it's an audio record, but it's a lot. It's 360 rolling of the entire body. It's a good party dynamic, I think. Yeah.
00:55:19
Speaker
But overall, like grimoire, vice and kind are easily top tier characters. Yes. As far as how you see them progress and their interactions. Yep. Way more interesting than definitely Emil and actually brother near himself. Brother near is not an interesting character at all. Um, unfortunately to me, I mean, they're like canvas for protagonist.
00:55:44
Speaker
Yeah, but it's like, it's, it's a canvas in a game without agency. So he's literally just hero's journey start to end. Like there's nothing else about him. Um, she's unfortunate. Kinda is actually my favorite. Yeah. We talked about the baby doll. No, she's, she's really good. Um, voiced by Laura Bailey, who's also a part of that D and D group that you follow. Critical role.
00:56:10
Speaker
Um, I did not know those hurt until I looked it up afterwards. I didn't know that until just now, but she does a really great job of the English voice acting. Um, and like even the encounter with shadow Lord, if you go back and watch that as a context, you're like, this is some anime shit. Um, but in the moment it feels very.
00:56:34
Speaker
apps and cool for her whole dialogue when she's like yelling at her more advice. Oh, yeah. She is the most vulgar character in possibly any video game I've played, which is hilarious. Yeah. That's a lot. I played a lot of video games. Yeah, I agree. But I feel like her whole backstory is it justifies her character and persona where she was ridiculed and hated a lot for just being different. Yeah.
00:57:04
Speaker
I think at that time it was, it's implied or somewhere it's Canada that she's a hermaphrodite. I'm not sure. I don't actually know. I'm not sure there. That's actually new to me. Look that up. I think that was heavily implied where I just got that from a Shane theory many years ago. But at some point she is possessed by a shade. Yes. And she's also ridiculed for that. But I'm not sure how aware that was to others. Right. There is definitely something.
00:57:35
Speaker
that happened to her because she was different from birth. Yeah.
00:57:41
Speaker
Okay. So yeah, like the shade thing would have happened when she was around like 17, 18, I think. Yeah. Because she's like possessed by like Tyron or Tyron is his name. Yeah. You hear his voice in route B, but I guess she was also born. I'm literally looking at the Wiki. She was born half shade basically. Um, right off the gate. Um,
Nier's Storytelling and Emotional Impact
00:58:08
Speaker
So, you know, can you just Google kind of penis, but not an image search? Let me know. I could have sworn that was a thing. Yeah. I don't know. It says, yes, she's half human, left arm, left leg, keeps under bandage coverings or those of a shade. As a response to the harassment she received in her childhood for being intersex, she took a liking to clothes that emphasize feminine characteristics.
00:58:36
Speaker
So I'm kind of getting that, I guess. Huh. Yeah, intersex condition. So there you go. They really don't touch on that at all in the game, like at all, as far as I know.
00:58:54
Speaker
Maybe a later route because it only comes up like once or twice in like a backstory thing. But I think it's more hinted at than explicitly said. Yeah. In the same way, like Emile's being gay comes up once, literally once. I didn't know that one either. I miss that.
00:59:10
Speaker
Really? Oh, so when you're going to the king's wedding in the desert, there's a brief dialogue beforehand. It's like, oh, I hope you will find like a good wife one day as well. And he's like, that's not exactly what I'm... I forget his phrasing, but it's like, I'm not into women. That's not quite right. Yeah. He's like, that's not quite right. I didn't actually understand that line, but that makes sense. I thought he was because he was kind of sad.
00:59:36
Speaker
like a little despondent or whatever. He was withdrawn, at least. And I wasn't sure what the intention there was. I have no Gator, so I wouldn't be able to talk. But I don't know if that applies to video games, right? But no, that's. Huh. OK, that makes it that actually provides some context there.
00:59:58
Speaker
Yeah. And I like that they put stuff like that in the game because it's not done as a plot device or a, hey, they're gay, therefore their character means this. It's just like, hey, this person, also they're gay. That's just another attribute about them. And that's it. Yeah. So it's more normalizing than
01:00:22
Speaker
Here's our token gay. Yes, right. I guess I would give them some credit for that because it doesn't impact the story whatsoever. Sometimes in American media it's like, and here's the gay character. Awesome. We're inclusive.
01:00:37
Speaker
And it's not bad to have a character that's gay, but if that's the entirety of their identity and they don't really contribute anything else, then it's a little derivative, right? You heard it here first. Jake does not want non-contributing gays. Right? Everyone needs to contribute. I'm a strict utilitarian.
01:00:54
Speaker
Like we've talked about this with like when you add a romance or like a sexual thing in a game that doesn't need to be there You're like, oh the character the female characters there for her to be saved or sexualized and that's her only role Okay, it's not a good character. Like they're not adding anything to it. You're just there as a plot device Gotcha Huh?
01:01:19
Speaker
So I mean, I was still I was I'm still like reconceptualizing my understanding of Kanye through like this lens of her like added complexity here because it explains the like lingerie clothes more than anything. She's trying to just emphasize a particular aspect to like diminish ridicule for the other. Mm hmm. Huh? Yeah, she's like a really good character.
01:01:44
Speaker
But that's a little bit more thought out. I still criticize, I think, because Yoko Taro is just like, when asked, why are your female protagonists and protagonist like characters always dressed so scantily glad, he's like, because of cosplay, I like to watch the cosplay. And that was his actual answer. I'm not giving, I'm not making anything up. Yeah, it was very much on the nose.
01:02:10
Speaker
He's like, I'm old and horny. Yes, renegade. Perfect. But I mean, like outside of her design in the game and like grimoire of ice calling her a hussy. Yes, there's no real other like sexualization or her used in like a romance thing. No, there's no romance or sex throughout the entire game. Yeah. And I like when games can do that.
01:02:39
Speaker
The only the only ending I read this, I didn't actually get the ending, but the only ending where there's anything evocative of romance is Brother Nier, older, you know, section or chapter two, whatever, kisses her in the ending where you choose to kill her.
01:02:59
Speaker
as a final act. He kisses her and stabs her and Tyran or whoever tells you her final words, which were thank you. To contextualize that choice, it's like she was going to lose herself and you have the choice to either sacrifice your entire character. This is the original ending to Gestalt. Sacrifice your entire character, save file all of that.
01:03:25
Speaker
to save her, basically, or kill her. And those are the two ways you can save her. But yeah, he does kiss her. But if you do sacrifice your save phi, you can get it back on the next playthrough. Only in this one, though.
01:03:39
Speaker
Oh, they didn't do that in the original game. I don't think so because they added the new ending. Ending E was changed for this one. Well, ending E was added, I think. Yeah. It's completely new. Yeah. But it's like the tie in kind of near replicant era and near automata. Yeah, which is cool. I like that. If you're going to do a remake, throw some stuff in there. I watched it on YouTube because I think Afra did.
01:04:04
Speaker
endings A and B. I'm like, I'm good. I didn't feel like I wanted to do more game content. Yeah. Because one of the ways is like you had to unlock all of the weapons. I'm like, yes, 33 of them. I just felt good at that point where I didn't need to experience more game. Yeah.
01:04:21
Speaker
And this is just briefly, this is one of the reasons I didn't like, I wouldn't recommend Replicant to people who are just, you know, casually playing games or not trying to grind things. They make you go through the same areas over and over again. Junkyard, incredibly egregious for this. But in particular, like the chapter two, beat all the bosses, do all the things.
01:04:44
Speaker
you have to do that for like each of these routes in a playthrough and automata, even though they do make you replay the game some, they absolutely start shortcutting that and instead just extend the story from the previous endpoint or they change your perspective entirely. So you're not doing the exact same thing. Yeah. And this game makes you do the exact same thing. Like there's not shortcuts to the same degree at all. Um, and that's,
01:05:13
Speaker
I don't like that. It's very much like re-putting on the exact same play, but like adding in one extra cast member who is like the nephew of somebody of like the stage director and you give them some lines like, oh, that added some context versus in automata. When you go back as 9S, you immediately have it from his perspective.
01:05:35
Speaker
Because it's it's a different point of the timeline or storyline that kind of converges and weaves in and out with two bees. Yeah, this game actually tells you at the end of Route B after credits, it's like, hey, go back and play. You can continue your game to see the story through kind of Chinese perspectives. I always want to see either Kyrie or Kyrie or Kanye, and neither of those are correct.
01:06:02
Speaker
Here's the thing, Kanye, flat out wrong for multiple reasons. We won't get into that. Kyrie, I think is closer because there is a character called Shadow Lord. And as soon as you hear Shadow, you're like, oh, Kingdom Hearts. Kingdom Hearts. I actually did tell Jenny, I was like, my main gripe with this story is it is Kingdom Hearts, actually.
01:06:21
Speaker
Um, not as far off as I want it to be, but yeah. And unfortunately you have to replay the game, like section several times, fight the bosses multiple times. And the only thing they really throw in is some extra cut scenes, the ability to understand the shades. You have to have some patience. Yeah. And honestly, again, I'll say, fuck the forest section. That is, it's all text. It is all text.
01:06:44
Speaker
It is like 40 minutes of text. It's a lot of reading. And you're like, oh, like dialogue? No, no, no. Screen is black text on screen. It is just text right now. And you have to go through that entire thing twice. And I don't think any context was added there or additional lines. And you're just like, hmm.
01:07:06
Speaker
I remember messaging our friend Justin about it and like, yo, fuck this. Yeah. I like reading and it was too much for me. It's literally like. It's it's not I say literally in the literal sense, like the literal definition, not the hyperbole. Yeah, not hyperbole. It's taking people who made the made the choice to play a video game and making them read a book. That's exactly what the game does. Yeah.
01:07:37
Speaker
Like, it's fine to have text in something even a little bit verbose, even if you're forcing upon the versus putting in like a text entry. Yeah. But it is it is so much of a block of time that it's like, hey, you know that gameplay you were doing? We're going to put that on the shelf for, again, 40 to 45 minutes. Here's the thing you didn't necessarily ask for.
01:07:59
Speaker
You can tell that they went all in on it, actually, because this game, as most games, has a text dialogue at the bottom for text, for whatever people are saying on screen. That's common. They made a full UI for the text, where it takes the entire screen in more book format to represent this text thing. It was like, OK, background fade to black, white text on front. Let's go for it. Automata also had reading sections, but nothing nearly to the extent of this.
01:08:30
Speaker
Bad, bad, not good. I'm going to open my eyes a little bit at nearly. Look at my second dad joke.
01:08:38
Speaker
All said and done, though, I still enjoyed playing this. There's definitely some weird
Summary and Final Thoughts on Nier Replicant
01:08:45
Speaker
parts and some things like that seems done from a story perspective, but it felt good to be along for the journey and then have the payoff at the end. Like the end for me, I thought was pretty hype, at least in the moment, like the Shadow Lords there.
01:09:02
Speaker
just the ending setup, not necessarily the ending. Yeah. Because again, going back to story reasons, technically at the beginning of the game, you were playing as the Shadow Lord. Right. So you were a brother protecting your sister and then you became ghosts and want to get back to your bodies. Your bodies are now playing through the game.
01:09:23
Speaker
and essentially treating you as the enemy. But the whole time you were just trying to save your sister as you, the player trying to save your sister. So there's that conflict of interest of like we want to do the exact same things, but the on the opposite sides. Yeah, the Japanese thing. Exactly. But it feels cool because it's like, you know, your motivations, you play throughout the whole game, but now you understand the Shadow Lord's motivations after you play through the whole game. And like the music's good. It just felt hype and like a nice climactic finish.
01:09:53
Speaker
Yeah. They shouldn't have named Yona the same character though. Old Yona shade, new Yona, little sister, or like should not be the same character name because that did make things confusing. Although to be fair, they probably did the same with Nier, right? Both of those characters are unnamed, so they potentially could have the same name actually. It's just the character picks, the player picks it. So yeah.
01:10:21
Speaker
Anyways, it's a video game, I guess. I mean, what would you rate this out of 10? Oof. It's really, it's really freaking tough to give it a cumulative score because certain things are like really freaking good. And the other things are like so bad I wouldn't recommend the game to anyone. And
01:10:44
Speaker
That's a hard thing to reconcile. All right, all right. Let's take our numerics. Let's do the top three-ish things you would recommend about the game. At the top three-ish thing, you say, maybe this really isn't for people for these reasons. Sure.
01:11:00
Speaker
Definitely top soundtrack. I think we talked about that. Amazing. Banging soundtrack. Characters in the universe are literally the reason to play these games, I think, and their interactions and developments. So I would put those rated very highly overall, even if it's not usually like the protagonist. Automata is better with that.
01:11:26
Speaker
And let's see, another top three. I like the combat. I think the combat was really good and I enjoyed it.
01:11:36
Speaker
Bottom three would be the actual areas. Some of them are good, but a lot of them are like retread this a thousand times, and they're not interesting enough for that. The game doesn't have a really good fast travel system. It has an approximate fast travel system that comes in late.
01:11:57
Speaker
and it doesn't take you right to the destination. And Automata fixed that perfectly. They're just like, go there. Go. It's over there. Going to warp there. And I really feel the absence. So repetitive areas that you're forced to fight through multiple times. Man, that's like, it's taken all three spots for me, I think, actually. Just the repetitive nature of the game, making people replay content.
01:12:25
Speaker
Yeah, there's as you said before, and probably the best phrase is it doesn't respect your time. No. So when you first go to the desert town, they're like, hey, we're going to take you on a tour around the whole town. Cool. How long does that take? 10 minutes. There's actually an option when you get to like the king's door where it's like, do you want to complete the tour or cancel? And I was like, cancel instantly, please. Actually, just skip the rest. I don't care. Did you complete the tour?
01:12:54
Speaker
Yeah, I don't remember that option. I mean, it still takes like two or three minutes of very slowly following this NPC around to get to that point. And that's not the only time in the game that they're like, here's a really slow NPC that you need to follow or escort.
01:13:14
Speaker
Well, there's another time in the desert again where you have to like follow somebody through the desert sandstorm and only they can guide you. You have to stay within a certain range of them to progress, but they walk. So it's. I'm going to compare this to the superior game, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, where in the desert.
01:13:33
Speaker
They literally had the same puzzle, but the puzzle was you would see a flag, and you had to run in a straight line to that flag. There could be some combat or whatever on the way. And then you would see another flag, and you had to run to that flag. You set your own pace. You don't have to follow a stupid slow NPC. You set your own pace. Better game. There you go. Better games. Better pizza. No one passes free trailing missions, thank you. Yeah. But I'm not as emotionally attached to Legend of Zelda characters as I am near, so.
01:14:04
Speaker
Maybe it's because they don't talk at all. It's a more complicated relationship, I suppose. So any final thoughts on Neo Replicant version 1.x? 1.x. I feel like you're really selling it short. It's actually... How long is this version? Because it's too long for the Steam name and it goes to dot, dot, dot.
01:14:30
Speaker
122, 47, 44, 87, 139... It's... I don't know. I would play Automata first, because it's a better game. And then if you find that you're like, I absolutely need more of this universe, then I would play Replicant.
01:14:57
Speaker
I think that's a really fair assessment. Yeah, but like wait till they go on sale. Yeah, don't pay retail for a applicant like I did. I would say it's it should not have. If I were to just I couldn't give it a number score, I would give it a mostly positive on Steam, not for my own review. That's what the game should have. I'm saying all reviews should an aggregate conform to mostly positive for near replicant, not very positive or overwhelming.
01:15:28
Speaker
So, yeah, we're getting at the hard sell. I think that this is it's the only game that I feel confident saying. Not my own opinion, because I'm not confident giving my own opinion on the game, but what everyone else's opinion should be. You should like it. Mostly positive.
Episode Wrap-up and Listener Engagement
01:15:52
Speaker
What about you? What's your takeaway? I know that you're Bioshock and near Dark Souls are the pillars that hold your life up. So how do you feel about Replicant when it's all set into?
01:16:09
Speaker
I very much enjoy the vibe. Again, keep using this term, being along for the ride, the suspension of disbelief into an anime fantasy bullshit land. I did enjoy many moments of it, mainly for how it builds to the end game. But then there are also so many things that are just
01:16:33
Speaker
old game dumb whether it's fetch quests or other things you don't care about or the RPG system is too light and kind of it's just Doesn't detract from but it just feels very separate from the gameplay. Yeah where I'm glad the music is really good Because I felt like that was very much a driving factor throughout and also just wanting to know what happened and
01:16:58
Speaker
but would still say, if you're looking to just go in fresh, check out Automata. And then if you really want to go into universe, you can get replicant or look back into Dragon Guard stuff. Don't do that. Also don't do that. We'll look that part up on a wiki because that's just fantasy stuff.
01:17:20
Speaker
I was looking at Steam reviews. I realized we're so over time that it doesn't even matter anymore. We're in alternate reality. This has broke up into two episodes anyway. This will be in part two. That would actually be hilarious. Or it was hilarious when we have done this in the future.
01:17:36
Speaker
I really like this quote from a negative review posted by Steam user idle reset. Going into the sentence with a lot of moments that you can see the writer was saying, see, ain't that sad? I'm sure that was sad. I mean, that NPC you don't care about just died a very, very sad death. And that sums up a lot of my negative emotions. I think that was put pretty well. Thank you, idle reset for the show.
01:18:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's any type of emotional manipulation. It helps a lot more when you're in that state of mind and on board. But if you're not, if you're not already on board. Yeah. It really feels like you're just. Talking two different languages. Mm hmm. The your corporation has severe onboarding issues, so.
01:18:33
Speaker
Anyways, this has been an episode of Soapstone. We talk about a bunch of stuff here, sometimes near, sometimes you talk too long, usually for near. If you have other topics that we could cover in a more reasonable amount of time, you could send those in to soapstonepodcast.gmail.com, or you could join this discussion on Facebook, which will invariably be shorter than the length of this episode at facebook.com slash soapstonepodcast.
01:19:01
Speaker
And as always, I'll see you in the next one. Have a good rest of your day.
01:20:40
Speaker
you