With less than a month to go before the worldwide launch of Nier, the cone of silence surrounding Square Enix's upcoming action RPG has not been encouraging. I had the chance to take one last look at the near-final build of the title earlier this week, and it's easy to see why. While it's never wise to completely discount a game after a mere 30 minute demo, Square Enix's latest attempt to appeal to Western markets is looking a bit shaky.
As I discussed in my previous preview, the game stars the warrior Nier in his quest to save his daughter from a monstrous plague that turns its victims into terrifying shades. Following an intro that takes place in a world rather similar to ours, the story jumps ahead some 1300 years to find Nier still alive, and still trying to save his daughter. The ensuing quest has shades of The Legend of Zelda, as it follows Nier in his quest to obtain five emblems that open the way to the villain of the piece.
In the interest of proving that Nier has a fairly involved storyline, I was shown a scene that takes place toward the latter part of the game. It begins with Nier's party preparing to attend a wedding in a large desert city, having recently helped a band calling themselves, "The Masked People." But the relative peace is soon shattered by a shade attack lead by a wolf-like beast, and the battle begins.
Now, my impressions are admittedly superficial given that I haven't had any hands-on time with Nier, but the combat looks pretty simple on first glance. The crux of the battle system is the various spells that can be assembled by collecting "words," which are dropped by the game's numerous enemies. One such spell is the Dark Whirlwind, which creates two spinning orbs that serve as a barrier while fighting. Holding the charge button means access to a more powerful version, which features spinning spears.
The spells are used in conjunction with light and heavy swords, as well as spears. Outside of the fact that each of the weapons handle differently, the combat doesn't appear to be any deeper than the average hack-and-slash action RPG. The battle with the wolf creatures is made more difficult by the leader being relatively immune to magic while charging about the arena, but it's quickly defeated by the combined forces of Nier and his two A.I. partners.
The king vows to defeat the creatures once and for all, and recklessly gives chase with a band of warriors. It's possible to issue orders to the king's roughly half-dozen warriors once the battle begins, but it seems smarter to keep them in a defensive posture lest the waves of wolves overwhelm their leader for a game over. Once the mooks go down though, the leader is fair game for an all-out attack, and that's pretty much that.
This battle kind of falls flat as a set piece, but there was at least one moment that caught my attention. The wolf monster issues a series of sad-sounding growls just before it gets a spear through its chest -- which is apparently a coherent language. Playing Nier a second time means being able to understand what exactly the shades are saying (presumably, "Please don't stab me" and "Ow").
