After this post, you’ll never unsee it.
I know, I know. I haven’t been around much lately. But that’s what happens when you get married and have a kid, you get me? I have a crawling dirt attractor now who loves to injure himself, so I don’t have time to be cool like all of you. Sorry.
But I did have time to play the Nier remake. You see, Dark_Sage and I have an agreement. He buys every game that comes out on Steam, and I play them for free. That’s our great agreement. I can even make requests!
You might not know this, but I really liked the original Nier. Back when Dark_Sage and I were dating, he would lend me all sorts of PS3 games from his physical collection, but held back on Nier, saying, “You wouldn’t like it. You’re too gay to like a game with a protag that looks like this.” But when Automata was coming out, I insisted on playing the original first to prepare myself, and I’m so glad I did.
My favorite character in Nier became my favorite character in any Yoko Taro masterpiece: Kainé. The foul-mouthed lingerie-wearing dual-wielding young lady was 100% my type. The US version glossed over the penis thing, but my wife likes to fuck me with a strap-on, so what’s the difference, amirite?
And this is where the remake lost me. You see, all of the characters got a glow-up. The problem?
Kainé now looks like Michael Jackson.
The nose. The cheekbones. The square, flat face.
Let’s compare the old Kainé to the new Kainé. Because I can’t be real, right? I’m totally not being fair, right?
Look she wasn’t amazing in the original, but she was at least not Michael Jackson!
The only thing that the new version did right with Kainé was by including the original Japanese dub. Or maybe that’s because I don’t need my 8 month old repeating lines like these:
Oh, and on an unrelated note…
Since I don’t have a lot of time to spend on gaming, it was an insult to not get ending C when I had fully expected it. Yes, Yoko Taro, I got all the weapons. Oh, no I didn’t? I ignored the ones that were DLC only because why would they matter? The DLC is utter garbage, so why would I want to play it? I mean, I guess it features Big Boy Daddy Nier, so it gets a pass there.
I guess some people find this attractive, but I wouldn’t turn straight for him.
Look, some of the changes make sense. The game did need to be updated, and it does play a lot more smoothly while still keeping enough of the jankiness that gives it its charm. Devola and Popola now look like their Automata counterparts, and grown-up Yonah is a joy. But the original title was my top game of the last decade, so there was a high bar that I — and other fans — had set for this remake. And I don’t think it quite made it there.
I guess I can find solace in that there are a lot of other great white haired hard-ass bitches in Yoko Taro games. There’s 2B and A2 from Automata, Snow White from SINoALICE, and my favorite, Zero from Drakengard 3.
Yum.