Nier, the action-RPG title developed by Cavia (Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles) and published by Square-Enix is hitting the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on April 27th and we got a chance to check the game out in a hands-off demo.
What we liked about Nier:
Customizable controls and abilities.
You can change your special moves on the fly by mapping the shoulder buttons. Interestingly enough, you can even take off guarding if you want to go all out and take enemies down with straight offensive moves.
A mix of game play.
You’ll spend a good deal of time taking down enemies in Nier, but the game balances bashing in enemy skulls with farming and fishing side quests. It’s not so much Harvest Moon, but players that go on these side excursions will see benefits by cultivating seeds and chasing down rare sea creatures.
Customizing weapons.
By collecting words (essentially runes or materia if you want to break it down), players can alter the abilities of weapons. Knights have too much armor on? Throw a word on to break their armor and make your spears and swords more effective. The system seemed genuinely interesting.
It’s got the look.
It’s not Final Fantasy XIII, but Nier’s no slouch in the visual department. The game is sharp looking.
What we didn’t like about Nier:
We’re still not sure what the game’s about.
During the game’s demo, story details weren’t being doled out and we didn’t get a great idea about what the heck is going on in Nier. There have been a slew of videos about the game and an upcoming comic to fill in details, but we’re going into this pretty blind.
You’ll need to mark off 45 hours to see the entire story.
We were told that a single play-through of Nier will take players about 15 hours and give you everything you need for the game’s story, but that multiple play throughs will reward players with greater insight into the story and the ability to understand enemy languages. It’s an interesting idea, but time-strapped gamers probably won’t be able to afford multiple trips through Nier.
Cavia can be hit or miss.
The developer is certainly technically capable and their Resident Evil outings on the Wii show they can harness complete power of a console, but their track record of making polished play experiences is spotty. Everyone developer’s got at least one Bullet Witch in their closet.
