Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139…
Oppressively bleak. Repetitive. Player-unfriendly. Repetitive. Those criticisms remain as valid now as they did more than a decade ago. While 2010’s Nier might not have been the unlikeliest candidate for cultdom, surely no one could have predicted its trajectory since. Seven years on, a celebrated sequel reinvigorated interest in the series, and now we have this: somewhere between a remake and a remaster, a so-called “version up” that exists by dint of its sequel’s success, which in turn has more to do with the original’s reputation than its sales. Celebrating its tenyear anniversary a year late (and how very Yoko Taro is that?), this is an update of a game many will feel they already know without necessarily having played it.
Most players, we imagine, will appreciate Replicant more for having finished Automata beforehand. That game was a relatively welcoming and refined vehicle for its creative director’s offbeat ideas, whereas this is more fricative. But not as much as it was. It runs more smoothly for starters, though we experience a sporadic issue where the framerate temporarily tanks without rhyme or reason, before returning to a smooth 60fps.