Tell me another story, Mama – NieR Reincarnation First Impressions

And so, NieR Reincarnation has launched in Japan! It’s time for the person with no knowledge of Japanese to muddle through a surely highly anticipated mobile title that just so happens to be also a gacha (totally not a coincidence). Well, with Yoko Taro on board as creative director and NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139… still a while to go before it releases, it’s going to be a fun time, right?

PRESENTATION

I really do like how the game looks. On the Poco X3 NFC, the settings default to Medium quality, and I don’t see anything especially egregiously horrendous about it. The White Girl – whom you’ll more often than not see wearing a black dress instead – will run around in this honestly gorgeous world. The whole place is empty, made by mysterious architects, accompanied by fittingly somber music. A beautiful “cage”, for sure.

The combat system is pretty much a turn-based RPG, but the way it’s done and animated, it flows like an action RPG. The gacha looks like it’s opening coffins of some sort? Unearthing the forbidden goods, sometimes with extravagant amounts of money, hur hur. The main story is fully voiced, with the storybook-like sections also narrated, which you can also skip of course. Dialogue in the sections proper aren’t. Characters have stories too, but I haven’t checked those out.

Basically, game look and sound good please wait warmly for English release. I will say that there are uses of glitch effects, so if you happen to be sensitive to those, tread with some caution.

GAMEPLAY

As advertised, the game two distinct sections: the linear “exploration” stretches, and the battles you get involved in. Both of these can be done on auto, so you’re not left holding left or right on your screen for long periods of time. The Girl can’t run any faster though, so if you find her to be on the slow side, well, too bad about that. Combat does have increased speed. I tried to run off the side but there’s an invisible wall to prevent me from falling down, and what looked to be alternate corridors were also closed to me. I don’t think that’s a bad thing by any metric, just probably disappointing if you wanted a wide open space from the get go. You can come across black birds as you run along to tap on. Mama says she’ll give a reward, so be a good kid and listen.

Funnily enough, you can access the Mama menu as soon as the icon pops up, and she asks you, twice, about whether you really want to check out the menu. She even mentions the gacha, and I don’t have enough Japanese proficiency to accurately translate what she said, but it sure is there. Thanks for the fourth wall leaning. Anyway.

Your skills have to charge up, be it over time or when you get hit by enemies. Tap on the skills to queue them up to be used next in line, and you can build up a combo that will give a damage multiplier. There’s also the typical strengths and weakness thing, but I have no idea where the chart is located. Or maybe I skipped it. Whoops!

Both characters and weapons can be uncapped / limit broken through the use of items, and notably, not dupes. If you do have dupes, like those of weapons, feeding those to the same weapons grants some bonus EXP. You can also use the dupes to uncap, but it’s a bit friendlier with the use of other items instead.

GACHA

As for the gacha, well… the highest rarity you can get is a 4-star item, for either characters or weapons. Some weapons are tied to characters. The rates are on the lower end, with 2% for 4-star characters, and 3% for 4-star weapons that don’t come with characters. The list will show which item comes with weapons, but it sure is a Feels Bad moment if you roll a 4-star which isn’t that rate-up character you want. It’s 3000 currency per 10-roll, with no spark system in place.

In any case, from what I gather of the story, the White Girl has lost her voice, and Mama’s supporting her throughout this adventure. It’s the Girl’s “duty” to wander this place, seemingly purifying these “stories” (?) and making her way through. Sometimes she gets blocked by some barricades, so you’ll need to bring in your party to defeat the enemies that stand in your way.

We’ll see about people translating it while they wait for the official release and start drawing conspiracy theory charts with any references or hints dropped in the game to the rest of the NieR series. Wouldn’t that be fun?

Download

NieR Re[in]carnation

Publisher: Square Enix

Developer: Applibot

Release Date: 2021-02-18

Android, iOS

The latest game in the NieR series arrives on mobile devices! NieR Re[in]carnation is a command-action RPG for mobile devices from Square Enix and Applibot.