Hey! You may (or may not) have wondered where I have been, And to that I have to say it’s complicated, A combination of a certain medical condition I found myself in and also start of a more busy schedule, I only managed to complete 2 games in the past month and the second one was a 3 hour long game I started and finished today.

So what is that game you may ask? The one I spent (on average) an hour and 20 minutes a day in for the past 2 months and decided to make it my comeback post, It’s none other than one of my favourite games of all time, From the one of a kind (and also one of my favourite) series of all time, NieR Replicant™ ver.1.22474487139…! (Does anyone actually read that number? Apparently Yoko Taro himself doesn’t remember the number sequence.) Here goes post #10.

First thing I gotta say about this game is that it has hands down some of the most annoying achievements and sidequests in the history of gaming, Almost 90% of the side quests were annoying fetch quests that made you travel across the map multiple times…. There was one achievement that required +20 hours of farming for materials!!!!! I managed to finish the full game in around 65 hours including all 5, 5! endings and all sidequests then started my journey towards getting 100% completion which in the end got me up to 86 hours, Funnily enough there was a speedrunning achievement too which I despise in games, But this one wanted you to finish the game in 15 hours, I managed to speedrun it without any preparations in just under 6 hours, Talk about generous.

In case you are not familiar with the NieR series, I will open up like this, They have the best music, Ever. You will struggle to find a game with better sound production than these 2 games have, every second of it gets stuck in your head and boosts your gaming experience no matter how many times you hear the tracks.

This game is an updated version of the original “NieR” (the first installment of the series originally released in Japan) so the gameplay is at best 2010 grade, It’s a PS3 game with more modern graphics, An uncomplicated hack and slash that you can complete without much grinding but NEED to grind for achievements, I like the gameplay as I am totally biased, Sue me.

Where this game really shines, Apart from the music ofc, Is the story, It’s a general theme with these NieR games, They are generally dark, When you finish the game, You’ve barely seen 30% of the content in the game, As I mentioned earlier this game has five endings and each one is better than the one before it, It’s riddled with stuff to understand about the universe, The best way to describe it is as an “experience” rather than a game, I feels like I’ve lived a second life for 86 hours, All sorts of emotions are at play with this game and it’s hard to get in depth without spoiling it, So I’ll leave that part to you, If you just want to experience the game and not the grindy annoying part of the achievement hunting, You can ignore most side quests, You don’t need weapon upgrades to get through the game either, The level up system is enough in easy/medium.

Overall I would give it a 8.78/10, The only place I found this game lacking was with the slightly outdated gameplay, And 1-2 achievements, Overall it’s a definite yes from me!