Support NeoGAF

[Ledsen]

Good side quest guide here: http://uk.faqs.ign.com/articles/109/1091721p1.html

Thanks, I read through the "part 1" part of the list and I've decided to skip each and every sidequest in the game. None of them sound like they're worth the trouble, and I'd rather just enjoy the main story free of interruptions. I'll just Youtube endings C and D after getting A and B. Funnily enough I just played through Deadly Premonition, and in that game I finished all the sidequests because they were, fun, varied and generally very short.

 

[robotzombie]

You do realize you can get a good half the requests done without even making a conscious effort right? Just grab them when you see them and u run into the items/person/etc eventually anyway. There's no penalty for picking up the quests and not doing them

 

[Edvardelis]

You do realize you can get a good half the requests done without even making a conscious effort right? Just grab them when you see them and u run into the items/person/etc eventually anyway. There's no penalty for picking up the quests and not doing them

There is a penalty, actually. If you have multiple quests involving the same person, the first one overrides all of the ones after until you finish it.

So I couldn't advance the story

Spoiler

in the Junkyard until I got ten titanium alloys for a kitchen knife.

Also I couldn't advance the story in

Spoiler

Facade until I got the guy the stuff for the damaged map quest.

 

[hosannainexcelsis]

Thanks, I read through the "part 1" part of the list and I've decided to skip each and every sidequest in the game. None of them sound like they're worth the trouble, and I'd rather just enjoy the main story free of interruptions. I'll just Youtube endings C and D after getting A and B. Funnily enough I just played through Deadly Premonition, and in that game I finished all the sidequests because they were, fun, varied and generally very short.

At least do the sidequests involving the lighthouse lady. They aren't time-consuming, and the narrative payoff is worth it.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

Yeah, I would recommend doing the lighthouse lady sidequest. There are a few more worth doing for the story and narrative as well. Forgot what the others were.

 

[Ledsen]

There is a penalty, actually. If you have multiple quests involving the same person, the first one overrides all of the ones after until you finish it.

So I couldn't advance the story

Spoiler

in the Junkyard until I got ten titanium alloys for a kitchen knife.

Also I couldn't advance the story in

Spoiler

Facade until I got the guy the stuff for the damaged map quest.

Yeah, I just realized I HAVE to get 10 lizard and mouse tails before I can give Popola her letter...

 

[robotzombie]

nvm

 

[ZephyrFate]

I spent like 20 minutes running around trying to find a third Royal Herb or whatever for an earlier sidequests, and now they want me to get 10 mouse tails and 10 lizard tails. It feels like a joke to be honest, almost like they're trying to make it a grind-fest Korean MMORPG, and I don't really want to "put a little more effort in" doing MMO collectathons if I can avoid it in any way. There's nothing I hate more in games than time wasters with no purpose other than to pad out the game length.



edit: If anyone could provide me with a list of sidequests that give me some substantial reward (not simply some money and a few dialogue boxes) and that I "should" do, that would be great.

You realize that getting lizard and mouse tails takes all of 20 minutes, right?

It sounds like you just want to put ZERO effort in the game, and Youtubing Ending D defeats the purpose of even playing the game.

 

[robotzombie]

Just for the record, sidequests dont have any ACTUAL in game effects other than just giving you money and a few weapons right?

So the only ones that actually effect anything are the weapon ones because you need to collect all the weapons in order to get the other endings?

If so, are the weapon sidequests all in part 2 or are there any that are missable?

 

[ZephyrFate]

Just for the record, sidequests dont have any ACTUAL in game effects other than just giving you money and a few weapons right?

So the only ones that actually effect anything are the weapon ones because you need to collect all the weapons in order to get the other endings?

If so, are the weapon sidequests all in part 2 or are there any that are missable?

Weapon sidequests are all in part 2, and you need all weapons for Endings C and D.

However, you miss out on a lot of the backstory of the world if you skip other sidequests.

 

[robotzombie]

Thanks


Are giant/rainbow spider silks useful for anything other than selling?

 

[ZephyrFate]

Thanks


Are giant/rainbow spider silks useful for anything other than selling?

Not useful at all.

 

[Edvardelis]

Just for the record, sidequests dont have any ACTUAL in game effects other than just giving you money and a few weapons right?

So the only ones that actually effect anything are the weapon ones because you need to collect all the weapons in order to get the other endings?

If so, are the weapon sidequests all in part 2 or are there any that are missable?

There are a couple of quests in the first half that expand your garden. You need those if you want the flower achievement/trophy.

 

[0 HP]

this game is sooooo good

im only 4 hours in, but everything just feels so right. this is the kind of game you wish SE would make, but never does. i can see already why people on here are saying this is the rpg of the gen.

the only thing thats kind of lame is that girl in the intro that calls you a bitch everytime you turn the game on :|

the localization is really fucking good otherwise

 

[ZephyrFate]

this game is sooooo good

im only 4 hours in, but everything just feels so right. this is the kind of game you wish SE would make, but never does. i can see already why people on here are saying this is the rpg of the gen.

the only thing thats kind of lame is that girl in the intro that calls you a bitch everytime you turn the game on :|

the localization is really fucking good otherwise

I don't know why people have a problem with that intro. I think it's the funniest shit I've ever seen in a game.

 

[Ledsen]

So after deciding to skip all the sidequests, I'm at the point where

Spoiler

me and Kaine kill the giant monster in the Eyrie.

So far all the dialogue and story stuff has been pretty bad, complete with emo Kaine moment ("I hate myself and what am I living for I don't knoooow"). I'll keep playing of course, I'm not about to give up on a game this early on and I LOVED the intro sequence in the snow as well as Kaine screaming obscenities, but so far it isn't living up to the hype. I just played Deadly Premonition, which turned out to be one of my favourite games of the generation, and jumped into Nier because I heard it was the same kind of "janky gameplay, great ideas, great story" type of game. We'll see I guess.

You realize that getting lizard and mouse tails takes all of 20 minutes, right?

It sounds like you just want to put ZERO effort in the game,

I put tons and tons of effort into doing stuff I ENJOY in games. I won't spend a minute doing something horribly boring, like running back and forth across an empty field collecting lizard tails or mutton, unless there's a big payoff at the end. From reading about the first 50 or so sidequests, there doesn't seem to be any such payoff. Keep in mind that I started the game with the intention of doing ALL the sidequests, like I usually do in games. Only very rarely will I skip such a substantial part of a game's content.

and Youtubing Ending D defeats the purpose of even playing the game.

So you're saying the game isn't worth playing unless I play it four times to get all the endings? Doesn't sound that promising.

 

[ZephyrFate]

No? I'm saying what happens in Ending D is fundamentally only worthwhile to you as the player if you actually play it. Youtubing it is dumb, and kind of lazy.

The payoff to doing most of the sidequests are the stories involved in them. If you don't care about the world that much, then there's really no reason to play NieR. The game is more about atmosphere, the world, the characters, the story, and the music.

Kaine's emo moments are justified, you're writing her off WAY too early. Wow.

 

[Tomat]

No? I'm saying what happens in Ending D is fundamentally only worthwhile to you as the player if you actually play it. Youtubing it is dumb, and kind of lazy.

The payoff to doing most of the sidequests are the stories involved in them. If you don't care about the world that much, then there's really no reason to play NieR. The game is more about atmosphere, the world, the characters, the story, and the music.

Kaine's emo moments are justified, you're writing her off WAY too early. Wow.

It would help if they weren't boring fetch quests/kill quests repeated over and over again.

 

[ZephyrFate]

It would help if they weren't boring fetch quests/kill quests repeated over and over again.

It would, but then again, you're playing a Cavia game. If they aren't torturing you, then they're doing it wrong.

 

[hosannainexcelsis]

So after deciding to skip all the sidequests, I'm at the point where

Spoiler

me and Kaine kill the giant monster in the Eyrie.

So far all the dialogue and story stuff has been pretty bad, complete with emo Kaine moment ("I hate myself and what am I living for I don't knoooow"). I'll keep playing of course, I'm not about to give up on a game this early on and I LOVED the intro sequence in the snow as well as Kaine screaming obscenities, but so far it isn't living up to the hype. I just played Deadly Premonition, which turned out to be one of my favourite games of the generation, and jumped into Nier because I heard it was the same kind of "janky gameplay, great ideas, great story" type of game. We'll see I guess.

Glad you liked the intro sequence; that's what hooked me into Nier and kept me playing to the end so I could make sense of it. Nier takes a bit to show its hand; I never thought it was bad, but the main story hasn't picked up yet where you are. Try to give it until at least the midpoint, which is where (light spoiler)

Spoiler

Kaine's opening obscenities occur in context.

. Kaine's breakdown doesn't fully make sense when you first encounter it, but it fits her character and ties into her backstory.

So you're saying the game isn't worth playing unless I play it four times to get all the endings? Doesn't sound that promising.

Don't worry; people exaggerate the necessity of playing through Nier's multiple endings. I've played through Ending B, and while the extra sequences were nice, it didn't add anything essential (except for Kaine's backstory, which occurs at the beginning of the second playthrough). I was satisfied with Ending A.

It would, but then again, you're playing a Cavia game. If they aren't torturing you, then they're doing it wrong.

I do like how the game makes fun of you for taking on some of the stupider sidequests.

 

[ZephyrFate]

Uhhh... no one's exaggerating with Ending D. It loses all effect if you Youtube it. All of it. The second playthrough is essential because it's the other side of the coin, and seeing the other backstories further fleshes out NieR's world and what the main character's role in all of it is.

Just play through the game. Multiple playthroughs.

 

[hosannainexcelsis]

Uhhh... no one's exaggerating with Ending D. It loses all effect if you Youtube it. All of it.

I'm not saying you should YouTube any of the endings of Nier; I just think people who say that, if you didn't like Ending A, Ending B and subsequent endings will blow your mind are misguided.

 

[Ledsen]

No? I'm saying what happens in Ending D is fundamentally only worthwhile to you as the player if you actually play it. Youtubing it is dumb, and kind of lazy.
.

So I'm better off not watching it at all? Because I won't be playing the game through more than twice unless it really blow me away towards the end.

The payoff to doing most of the sidequests are the stories involved in them. If you don't care about the world that much, then there's really no reason to play NieR. The game is more about atmosphere, the world, the characters, the story, and the music.

The world is fine, but at this point it's a clichéd post-apocalyptic fantasy world and what I actually want to know more about is what caused the apocalypse. The sidequests so far haven't helped with that at all, and most are your standard jrpg fare. From what I read, the rest don't really either, but if I'm wrong about at least some of them you could tell me and I'll do them.

Kaine's emo moments are justified, you're writing her off WAY too early. Wow

I'm not writing her off at all, I'm saying that at this point in the game, knowing what I know right know, it put me off a bit and I didn't like it.

Don't worry; people exaggerate the necessity of playing through Nier's multiple endings. I've played through Ending B, and while the extra sequences were nice, it didn't add anything essential (except for Kaine's backstory, which occurs at the beginning of the second playthrough). I was satisfied with Ending A.

Sounds great

 

[heringer]

Ok, I can sort of understand if someone is satisfied without Endings C and D, but without Ending B? The powerfull side of the experience only comes with the second playthrough, imo.

 

[ZephyrFate]

So I'm better off not watching it at all? Because I won't be playing the game through more than twice unless it really blow me away towards the end.



The world is fine, but at this point it's a clichéd post-apocalyptic fantasy world and what I actually want to know more about is what caused the apocalypse. The sidequests so far haven't helped with that at all, and most are your standard jrpg fare. From what I read, the rest don't really either, but if I'm wrong about at least some of them you could tell me and I'll do them.



I'm not writing her off at all, I'm saying that at this point in the game, knowing what I know right know, it put me off a bit and I didn't like it.



Sounds great

The sidequests do not tell you what caused the apocalypse (and trust me, it's FAR from cliche. Seriously.), but instead give you characters who are minor but full of depth and emotion. They reveal to you how people are DEALING with the apocalypse, rather than giving you the answers. It helps to flesh it all out.

 

[Ledsen]

So I'm kinda digging the game more now, I really liked the

Spoiler

rule people

. But now I'm in the Barren Temple and the boss is super hard (or, I should say, so long that it eventually wears you down. I have one healing item and there's absolutely no way I can beat him with only that. However, I discovered that I'm locked in the temple and can't get out to purchase more. Also this is my only save. What do I do?

 

[Nirolak]

So I'm kinda digging the game more now, I really liked the

Spoiler

rule people

. But now I'm in the Barren Temple and the boss is super hard (or, I should say, so long that it eventually wears you down. I have one healing item and there's absolutely no way I can beat him with only that. However, I discovered that I'm locked in the temple and can't get out to purchase more. Also this is my only save. What do I do?

I find using the spear in aim mode makes that boss a lot easier and doable with one health bar.

It is tricky though due to the first part having so many bullets.

If you get far enough though, you should restart with full health at the halfway point.

 

[rinker]

I'm sure this has been asked in this thread, but I didn't want to dig too deeply in order to avoid spoilers...

I just starting my second play through and

Spoiler

read Kaine's stories

in the first hour.

Are there more of those stories and/or new cut scenes? or from this point is it just a new game+ with a different ending?

I liked it enough the first time through, but my unwrapped LA Noire is calling my name.

 

[BocoDragon]

I played this game and was loving it, but stopped when the game forced me to fish and I could just not catch one :/

 

[ShockingAlberto]

I'm sure this has been asked in this thread, but I didn't want to dig too deeply in order to avoid spoilers...

I just starting my second play through and

Spoiler

read Kaine's stories

in the first hour.

Are there more of those stories and/or new cut scenes? or from this point is it just a new game+ with a different ending?

I liked it enough the first time through, but my unwrapped LA Noire is calling my name.

Spoiler

You know how Shadows sometimes talk? You can now understand them during battles and cutscenes. You also hear the Shadow inside Kaine occasionally and often get context for story quests (like seeing what really happened with the two brothers).

 

[rinker]

Spoiler

You know how Shadows sometimes talk? You can now understand them during battles and cutscenes. You also hear the Shadow inside Kaine occasionally and often get context for story quests (like seeing what really happened with the two brothers).

Thanks, I keep going and its pretty cool so far... How about 3rd/4th time through, they are the same except for the endings right?

 

[Zeal]

so who thinks we will get a Nier announcement at E3? would be a dream come true.

 

[Yoshiya]

so who thinks we will get a Nier announcement at E3? would be a dream come true.

No chance. Minor possibility of a PSP prequel at TGS, given the game's success amongst the 'hardcore' RPG base in Japan, which tends to favour handhelds.

 

[mattiewheels]

I just went through the underground section of the mansion, and I have to say that the isometric view that starts very distant but slowly pulls in the further you progress is a little stroke of genius. There's a lot of those in this game.

 

[flyover]

I played this game and was loving it, but stopped when the game forced me to fish and I could just not catch one :/

Many of us have been there!

Spoiler

You're probably fishing at the wrong beach. It's not the one right next to where you learn to fish. Follow your current quest pointer on your map to the beach across town.

Good luck!

 

[Ledsen]

So I've started to like this game a WHOLE lot more after I decided to skip all the sidequests. The ending to the first "part" was really epic and awe-inspiring, and now I've just

Spoiler

un-petrified Kaine

and the game is really moving along at a nice clip. The slight changes in gameplay from dungeon to dungeon is refreshing, and the bosses are pretty awesome. It's like a whole different game from the boring fetch-quest slog I was making the game into in the beginning. So in summary, my advice to new players would be to skip all sidequests for a significantly improved experience.

edit: Also, thanks to Nirolak for telling my about aiming the Lance, I had no idea you could do that (because tutorials as enemy drops is super weird) and I finished the boss on my first try.

 

[JetBlackPanda]

got this game for free today after buying God Of War III for $15 at Blockbuster, I can't wait to get into it.

 

[CartridgeBlower]

I also got this game at the BB sale and was wondering what difficulty people recommend playing on? I'm starting on Normal, but is the combat still fun and challenging on this level? Or do I need to bump it up to Hard?

 

[BocoDragon]

Many of us have been there!

Spoiler

You're probably fishing at the wrong beach. It's not the one right next to where you learn to fish. Follow your current quest pointer on your map to the beach across town.

Good luck!

Thank you sir. I might have the will to turn the game on again.

 

[Let me in]

I just got this game with Gamestop's B2G1 sale. I got through it in a few days, which is pretty good for me. And I don't usually like ARPG's, but I liked this one.

The only complaint I have is that the battles started to get really repetitive. Shades weren't the most interesting foes. Once I got the Sunrise spear, there was no going back. Dash + Dark Spear FTW. The repeat visits to some of the dungeons got boring, too.

I liked the characters, which is surprising considering we know next to nothing about all of them. I still haven't done any additional playthroughs which I know reveals more about Kaine, but what about Nier and Emil?

Interesting world they created, definitely. Could have been utilized better. But overall, I'm glad I took the chance on this game.

 

[Tomat]

Just beat the game for the first time. Holy crap.

That is all.

(Seriously though, second half of the game was really good. Gameplay overall was repetitive, but the story kept me going and man was it worth it.)

 

[1stStrike]

Just beat the game for the first time. Holy crap.

That is all.

(Seriously though, second half of the game was really good. Gameplay overall was repetitive, but the story kept me going and man was it worth it.)

Welcome to the Nier club. Make sure you do a New Game+ (you start at the 2nd half of the game) as it's absolutely worth it. New cut scenes, new dialogue, new ending.

 

[EatChildren]

I see he/she hasn't posted it here, so I'm going to do it because it's just way too awesome (I hope you dont mind dude!). User Dunan posted this mindgasm in another thread, and it really needs to be read to be believed.

End game spoilers as with most things. But seriously, wow.

Playing Nier, this blew my mind utterly. Long post, but bear with me:

These days lots of games will invent alphabets and other written characters for their worlds. Usually they're based on the Latin alphabet, but not always (the GC Zelda games, and more recently El Shaddai, use the Japanese syllabary). I'm a huge fan of this stuff and always try to figure them out.

In the opening scenes in Nier, some orange letters that look like Hebrew appear in the background, and they're used all over the game.

Trying to read them as Hebrew was pretty confusing at first, because some of the letters are weird (and you have to read it from left to right), but it eventually transpired that

Spoiler

they just borrowed the font wholesale from Heinrich Agrippa's 16th-century Angelic alphabet which you can read about here: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/angelic.htm .

Using this, you can tell that

Spoiler

the two lines of text in the opening video say HOROBIRU SEKAI and HITO SAIGO; the first one means 'a world collapsing' and the second one is not quite grammatical but means something like 'a person's end'.

That's not the mind-blowing fact, though. The mind-blowing fact is this:

Spoiler

Most of the text you see in the game is gibberish, including the text on the big round seal on the game's cover:

The letters used in the icons above the villagers' heads indicating that they have something to say to you are also gibberish.

Almost everything in the game looks like gibberish, but if you look carefully, you'll notice that both the round clock-like indicator used at the end of boss battles, and the Black Scrawl itself, seen here:

...only use four different letters, despite the font having many more than that.

Which four letters are they? Well, test out that font here and see for yourself. Type in A, T, G, and C (in any order you like, just be sure to use capitals) and you'll see that those letters are the Black Scrawl.

These are the initial letters of adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine, the four bases that make up human DNA.

When I figured this out, close to the end of the game, I was thinking, "But why would they go out of their way to make the Black Scrawl correspond to human DNA while people's speech and the rest of the text is meaningless garbage?"

Oh. So that's what this "disease" is.

And at that point I knew what the real story was, who the Shadowlord was, and what was going on with the Shades. I didn't see

Spoiler

Devola and Popola

coming, though.

What a fantastic thing to hide right in plain sight! Is Nier a great game, or what?

 

[Santiako]

OK. That's awesome.

 

[Jaroof]

Holy shit. O_O

That's awesome... and this game is awesome.
Beat ending B the other day.

 

[1stStrike]

That is pretty mind blowing. Don't see stuff like that in games too much anymore. I really appreciate the amount of detail they put into Nier.

 

[∀ Narayan]

That's pretty amazing!

 

[Combichristoffersen]

I'm glad to see more people are discovering the awesomeness of Nier

And holy tits @ that post about the letters/angelic language. Awesome.

 

[Dunan]

I'm glad you guys appreciate that; when I saw the "video game facts that blow your mind" thread about a year and a half ago, before being premitted to post here, I was thinking, "boy, have I got a doozy for you!"

I discovered one more readable phrase, and it actually disappointed me after seeing the perfect arrangement of the

Spoiler

DNA for the Black Scrawl and nonsense everywhere else

.

In this screenshot, you can see the English words MAGIC MOTION on the inner ring:

http://www.blogomatic3000.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Nier-online-screen1.jpg

(It's a huge image, so I didn't hotlink it.)

The letters you're looking for are:

If you look closely at this alphabet -- you'll see it float out of the save-point postboxes too -- you'll see quite a few instances of a plain tall rectangle. This is in fact the "this character is not available in this font" default glyph!

One more hidden thing is the letters in the background of the text boxes. You should see, very faintly, more of this Hebrew/Angelic writing there. I had a go at transcribing it, but couldn't get very far. It looks like it might be a reference to that ending in Drakengard:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/49793436@N06/4710240231/in/photostream/

Edit: I found a small and hard-to-read image of the end-of-boss-fight circles:

If this shot is too small, just pop the game in again. The Black Scrawl is A, C, G, and T over and over.

 

[trejo]

I said wow.