Thinking about Nier

I’ve been playing Nier (2010) these days. A lot. And it has left a strong enough impression on me to begin writing and never stopping.

Now, with the last finale still fresh in my head, ideas are cobbling together in my head, and after a couple days of rest I’ve finally reached a conclusion about the road travelled until now.

Spoilers below.

0) Brief intro

It would be best to start with a brief summary of Nier’s experience, at least the American and European one. In this version we star in a strong, gray-haired, morose forty-year old that wants to protect his daughter from every possible harm. This simple motivation gives provides him with some personality at points, but it mainly works to make us comfortable while carrying out his mission. As is often the case with RPGs, the interesting characters are the ones that orbit around us, wether they are close companions (like the deliciously pedantic Weiss and the foul-mouthed Kainé) or distant NPCs (like the somewhat cold Popola and Devola, and the fearless king of Façade). Nier’s true appeal isn’t his combat system (which comes across as complex but ends up considerably simplified) or his world (which feels deliberately empty and desolated). The real forte is the dialogue and the unpredictability of the game’s direction.

By “unpredictability” I am not referring exclusively to the script or the “story.” I am referring to Cavia’s decision to establish a play space that never sets on a specific mix of verbs. When we approach a well-known franchise like Castlevania, Megaman, Assassin’s Creed, and Dark Souls, there is a certain assumption of familiarity on our part that somewhat compliments every innovation that each particular title brings to us. Nier is an interesting case of a “franchise” that, when setting up its bases, employs an explicitly postmodern framework by borrowing conventions from many games and creating a palette that suits uniquely suits it. Thus, we have spaces like Emil’s mansion, which combines the movement of Resident Evil with early 3-D JRPGs, and a combat system that is sits between the action of Legend of Zelda and the reflex-based mechanics of God of War. All this seasoned with questing, leveling and crafting systems that approach it to some contemporary RPGs.

These components help to describe what the work is made of, what can it meant, and what can we extract from it. Nier was cornered in its day by the popular works of the time, like Limbo, Amnesia and Red Dead Redemption. In a time choke-full with such seeming innovation, something quiet and understated like Nier was doomed to obscurity from the get-go. Writers from the time barely spent a couple of minutes before resume their tal about Super Meat Boy or whatever. In the blogosphere, almost every text I could find tended towards negativity, some remarkable efforts nothwitstanding, and at least until the success of Nier: Automata. Almost none of these (except some academic ones) have encouraged to explore the game in depth. Even now, I feel that there is much left to write about this game, and I do not want to imply that this text is the end-all and be-all of Nier discusion. In any case, I hope someone takes it as an invitation to keep talking about it (if the remake doesn’t do it for me).

With the benefit of hindsight, insisting on classifying this game as “subversive” strikes me as shortsighted. While I tend to agree with the observation that the game employs mechanics in a way that invites a close reading, their implementation is anything but graceful. People keep having nightmares about the fishing minigame and the item collecting, and for good reason. All in all, I believe that Nier wants to tell a story that has value, and it deserves a appreciation. The pedantic excuse is that taking it int account would put way too many indie games that have been touted non-stop for their “innovativeness” on their place. My personal (and completely subjective) reason is that this game feels too beautiful to dismiss it as “one of those dark JRPGs” that constantly gets undervalued. And for that reason, I want to dedicate these paragraphs to talk about the reasons that make Nier a momentous work, even if the path he uses to reach those heights isn’t always the most successful.

First height: ¿Partners or NPCs?

When we play a medium-sized video game like Nier, describing it solely via a single single emotion or theme is invariably reductionist. Nier is at times a peppy drama where our reflexes are put to test, at others a meditation on the value of our bodies and personal relationships, and at others a relaxed but dreary display of repetitions that are garnished with some sarcastic humor. Although Nier shows considerable eclecticism when it comes to jump between these situations, its methodology follows the same conventions that have been used by console role-playing games for decades. Many instances of this game can be traced back to earlier significant games, from classics like Chrono Trigger to Majora’s Mask.

One of the fundamental anchors that this game relies is its characters. Yoko Taro’s stories have a perchant for tragedy, which in the Japanese media ystem is a particularly successful kind of story (look at the popularity of the works from Gen Urobuchi, Yoshiyuki Tomino, or Go Nagai). But even in their darkest moments they offer avenues to optimistic conclusions. A pillar on which that optimism rests is the maxim that no one stays behind, even if it means making the game monotonous at times. Playing Nier the second time around is an act of ludic masochism that dooms you to hours of deliberate boredom, but we do it because the game offers some glimmer of hope that we might find a better resolution for our characters. Perhaps you feel compelled by an understandable (if somewhat misplaced in my opinion) desire to redeem the main character (whose genocidal impulses become more evident with every minute), or you perhaps you want to save Kainé or learn the final fate of Emil.

There is nothing wrong with offering the player the possibility of a “perfect ending”, but its undeniably irresponsible to demand that to every game. Partly because even with the best of outcomes Nier always will fall on a tragic note. If you wanna see a daughter and her father reunite again, you need to get between the happiness of another father and daughter (though they did it first if we’re being honest). If what you want is to understand these enemies that you have been killing for hours, then you have to deal with the knowledge that you have made them suffer for a long, long time. And if what you want is save your companions, as in some weak gesture of pure altruism, you may have to sacrifice your own existence.

Spending hours and hours of your free time on a task that will be ultimately erased forever is a pretty effective way of telling yourself that what you’ve done has came out of sheer kindness, but I don’t think Nier is naive enough enough to believe that all players will come out of the experience trying to be better people. Maybe that’s why it avoids falling into the same trap that so many games (both good and bad) end up stumbling inadvertently, that of providing a definitive closure to something that cannot be closed. You may have saved Kainé literally and Emil metaphorically, but the Shadows you killed and the families you broke will remain like that forever, and the only thing you can do at the end of it all is be content that all those hours wasted while looking for Eagle Eggs managed to get some companions out of their daily misery.

Second height: Maximalist lectures, only for Gamers

A game that expects you to spend dozens of hours collecting inane items to improve weapons that you will never use is a game with a fanatical confidence on its setting and premises. I can personally attest that it won me over (though not with some costs). The English localization makes a Herculean effort to translate the work in a lively and fresh way. Laura Bailey sells a Kainé that sits proudly alongside Atsuko Tanaka’s, and Liam O’Brien/Weiss does such a great job selling his relationship with Jamieson Price/Nier that I didn’t even bother to look up the original. Still, there are details of the original dub that deserves recognition. English Kainé leaves out untranslatable depths that you can only understand by being aware about certain Japanese slang. It is one of many things that shows how Nier is a such a layered literary work.

With this I want to take the opportunity to discuss a problem that we’ve been having for decades and has only gotten worse after the massive corporatization of geek pleasure into the mainstream. I am referring to the unhealthy obsession we have with lore, and the desire to fill in the gaps left by the tension inherent in so many fictional works. It is true that stories that belong to the “speculative fiction” umbrella lend themselves this “completist” reading that breeds so many wikias and fan chronologies. Everyone self-declared fan has fallen into this innocent habit from time to time (I’m not excluding myself from this: there’s a “FINAL FANTASY CHRONOLOGY” doc somewhere in my old laptop that comprises fifty pages or more), but we can’t deny that it has become an effective strategy to make us hooked to the content mill.

There’s a similar problem within the video game fandom that extends itself to the act of play, which usually takes the form of players getting obsessed about finishing every challenge within a game an/or getting every achievement. I tallked about this obsession in detail during my miserable experience with Super Meat Boy, but nowadays I feel it more with AAA titles that are filled with boring quests and banal mini-games. Nier has something similar to this in the fishing and planting minigames, as well as its humongous list of secondary itmes. It’s the kind of content that players expect to find in a typical JRPG, and some Japanese publishers benefit from this paradigm with gigantic strategy guides that are all the rave in that country.

Cavia is a fascinating case in the sense that their works are a clear example of what the genre tend to be criticised about, but also by taking unexpected turns at the eleventh hour. I understand that Drakengard resorts to several twists many times, but Nier uses complementary texts like the Grimoire Nier, or the YoRha stage play (which I haven’t seen). These additions contribute to the convoluted background of the “Taroverse” in a way that reminds me of the intentional obfuscation in Evangelion or Ryukishi07's bibliography. In a way it is the opposite path that works like Yume Nikki and Off take, in the sense that they attempt to explain as many things as possible generate more questions in the process.

No event in the game brings this to the front better than the secret endings. In the same way that we endure narrative punishment because we hope to save our comrades at the end, we endure mechanical punishment in Nier in order to reach the 100% and see how far the depths of the “Taroverse” go. By the time we‘ve spent more hours than we want to admit, the only thing that keeps motivating us is the certainty that we’re about to reach the endgoal “Maybe today I’ll get Ending D! Come on, I only need another Black Pearl!”

Third height: no meaning without empathy

Even this sneaky tactic of forcing players to commit to the game by making them to compromised can go awry when not done tactfully. Nier certainly falls short of its ambition past certain levels and events. Not even my completist mindset can deter me to watch every ending on Youtube If I’m not feeling like spending that many hours. This is the part where I say that the the games circunvemts this problem that making us empathize with its themes and conflicts from the get-go.

Now, I must explain what I mean with “empathy” as I apply it to video games. Usually we understand it as the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. When used to describe what certain video games do, is what allows me to make decisions that are based on factors that go beyond personal interest. It usually becomes necessary to identify what elements serve as catalysts to empathy depending on the video game. A lot of recent examples that people cling to now include Undertale, which demands players to avoid an entire section of the game so that we can show how much we care for its characters. The Walking Dead and Telltale games make use of a rapid-fire choice system that constantly judges your actions when taking conversations. Games with more open systems, like This War of Mine, tries it so that these situations may arise “naturally,” so that we may not be able to predict them.

Although I won’t deny that these models have produced interesting moments in recent gaming, most of the time they prove to be failed models. That’s partly because of a prevailing fear that the player will avoid the “good” decision if it doesn’t benefit him in some way. The reason so many Bioware and Bethesda games have such hollow moral systems is because they are used to lead players to the “good” ending through paths of least resistance, and leaving “bad” decisions as filler rather than alterantive ethical routes. Some games are purposefully aware of their artificiality and can be a lot of fun, but most end up being masturbatory exercises of moral contemplation. This Decision with Consequences model has been fundamental to video games this last decade, and its influence on the medium is key to understanding how people talk about empathy in recent years.

Compared to this paradigm, Yoko Taro’s games feel outdated in their decision to stick with a method that video games have been using since the beginning, which is appealing to a larger context. Some games that have retaken this path recently, like Celeste and Hollow Knight, but their way of applying it lends to tiring metacomentaries about the nature of video games (Pony Island stands out as an especially vile case of this pedantic trend). Nier is not expressly interested in telling us what it thinks about when we reach the end, but it’s willing to provide a more complete picture of your impact on its world. The difference that its “secret endings” have to Devil May Cry, Silent Hill and other games is that they are not alternatives or substitutes for the last one you experienced, but complementary for the final message it wants to instill in you. And it’s the idea that, with each new twist, greater understanding doesn’t necessarily make us“better” or “happier” persons, but wiser. For many people in the “Taroverse” it can be too late, but for you it might not.

Conclusion: No one stays behind

If Nier has something to say, above anything else is that you should do whatever it takes for your partners. Life is difficult, and misfortune tend to compound easier than joys. Actions don’t necessarily have a positive impact, and purposes in life are difficult to find. In the world of Nier, not even the bodies of its denized are spared from being stripped of their agency for the benefit of a convoluted background. And though their situation may seem extreme, isn’t that how many of us feel in this world too? In a world where humans are mere (ahem) shades of what they were, humanity has the opportunity to shine the greatest. And even though the game itself is a tortuous stretch of farming repetition, insisting on humanity’s potential is there until the end. Letting go of their bodies is what allowed Nier and their comrades to reach the heights that they needed to save the ones they loved. And the fact that along the way they have to face the prejudice and scorn of the rest makes them true heroes in my eyes. The least I can do for them is try to bring their mission to the end. I have no idea if this says something “good” or “bad” about me, but it makes it very clear that, when confronting with such disinterested sacrifice, is the least that I should do.