Make no mistake, video games are a form of art. If there is anything that proves this, it is the plot behind the Nier series. Once familiarized with Yoko Taro's stories, it is much easier to understand all the fuss about Nier, be it Gestalt, Replicant, or Automata. The plot behind each game, the morals behind it, and the artistic vision of one renowned storyteller are only proof that games can be so much more than brainless entertainment.
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Nier has fun gameplay, but the plot is deep, convoluted, and filled with interesting callbacks. Although the plot of each game stands on its own, putting everything together reveals a talent worthpraising.
10 Nier's Lore Started As A Joke Ending For Drakengard
Seems the created director of Drakengard, Yoko Taro, has an interesting sense of humor. He and a group of developers decided to add an ending, known as The Ending E, as a practical joke. The ending is also meant to be a homage to The End of Evangelion.
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Interestingly, this was his second idea for a joke ending. His first idea was shut down when presented, and it is not hard to understand why. Originally, he wanted a huge pop star to come from the sky and start a musical battle against the player.
9 Drakengard's Ending E Shows Tokyo Being Attacked
After all the seals are broken, the watchers appear along with a creature called The Queen Beast, whose appearance is of a giant, naked, bold woman. When trying to stop her, Caim and Angelus end up going through a dimensional portal.
After going through the portal, they battle The Queen Beast in 2003's Tokyo. After she is defeated, Caim and his dragon are shot down from the sky by Japanese fire jets. It is easy to see why this was made as a joke ending. Ironically, it became the canonical beginning of the Nier games.
8 White Chlorination Syndrome Affects Shinjuku
A deadly disease affects people in Shinjuku. The body of those who perish due to this disease turn into Sodium Chloride. Interestingly, this is also what happened to The Queen Beast's body. It was rare at first, but it then became more common with time.
Later, it is revealed that those who were affected by the disease were actually given a choice by a god. They could either turn into mindless drones or die and turn into salt. The Japanese government eventually sealed Shinjuku with a giant wall named The Jericho Wall.
7 Project Gestalt Did Not Work As Planned
In order to survive White Chlorination Syndrome, humanity came up with a very particular solution. They created artificial bodies, replicants, that would go on to try to solve the issues on earth. Meanwhile, humans had their souls separated from their bodies to protect their consciousness. The name given to the bodiless souls was gestalt. The replicants called them "shades."
The replicants were meant to eventually be used by Gestalts so they could have a body again. This did not work well since the replicants developed thoughts of their own and saw shades as monsters who were trying to take them down.
6 Three Niers, One Tale
Nierhad two versions that tell the same story. Nier has either a daughter in Nier Gestalt or a sister in Nier Replicant. In both versions, she is called Yonah. To save her, Nier makes a pact with a Grimoire. He is given genetic material to prevent project Gestalt from dying, and Yonah is put asleep for one thousand years to be set free from the Black Scrawl Disease.
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Things get crazy close to the end of the first Nier game. Yonah, possessed by a shade, goes to the last boss and says that he's her father. Turns out that the Shadowlord is Nier's gestalt, who's trying to save his Yonah. This whole time, both Nier and the Shadowlord are just fathers trying to save two different versions of their daughter, gestalt Yonah and replicant Yonah.
5 The Black Scrawl Disease Is Not A Disease
Upon death, replicants are recreated by The Replicant System. They are given memories and personalities downloaded from their gestalts and are set to clean the world so humanity can return. Turns out that project gestalt was not perfect. Many souls lost consciousness, preventing them from ever returning to their replicants.
This process is called Relapse. This means that the gestalts lose sapience. This causes the replicants made from them to have a malfunction that was named The Black Scrawl Disease. Yonah's gestalt was starting to relapse and was put into stasis to be eventually saved. That's why replicant Yonah will always malfunction.
4 Humanity Is A Lie
Turns out that the Original Gestalt, the Shadowlord, had a genetic issue that caused all other gestalts to eventually relapse. With the original Nier dead, humanity was left to disappear with no bodies to return. They eventually became shades. Without gestalts, no more replicants could be created.
Replicants were repeatedly recreated over a thousand years, but they cannot procreate. Meaning that without the gestalts, all replicants were doomed to face extinction at some point. This leads to a world where humanity is completely extinct in the following game, Nier: Automata.
3 Nier: Automata happens Over A Thousand Years After Nier's Death
Emil was a child who was raised to be a weapon. Upon absorbing his sister's powers, he became a Skeleton shaped being with a round head. Still, the last human on an Earth that was overtaken by Replicants. Emil somehow managed to make copies of himself, most likely replicants, when the aliens invaded.
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The Alien invasion is a weird chapter in the game's story. It took 85 million Emil copies to stop the invasion. At that point, humans were already extinct. The human council on the moon was never made of humans. The fact that the main characters are only mimic humans in appearance is just one of the many weird things that Nier: Automata throws at the player.
2 Nier: Automata Is About The Meaning Of Life
From the beginning, Nier's story and philosophical points are about Nietzsche's dead god. The idea that without a higher being whose behavior humanity should copy and strive to be like, people feellost and end up drifting aimlessly in search of themeaning of life. All creatures in Nier Automata seem to mimic this behavior.
The Yorha Androids are the same. Without a reason to live, they were given a new god. By consequence, they were given a new purpose. The humans on the moon were a reason for the androids to live. They were meant to be a god worth dying for.
1 Hope Is Not Lost
Nier goes a long way to prove a point. Creating a system that provides a purpose that lasts forever is nearly impossible. The game shows cults, false gods, doubts, depression, and many other aspects of human life being mimicked by machines that strive to find a new meaning. In the end, the game tests players in a genius way.However, players have to go through multiple playthroughs to get there, but it is worth it because of the extra content.
The playercan send messages to those who are having a hard time finishing the game and can choose to delete all save files to help someone chosen at random. The game actively discouragesplayers to do it. It says "you might intensely dislike the person," that it's a thankless action, and so on. That's the meaning of life that the game suggests to humanity. A state of mind in which a person cares for others. A wish to achieve the greater good without judgment. Nier's whole plot is hope disguised as nihilism. And it's beautiful.
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