#Now I just need Threads of Fate remastered and my life is complete

[something-very-special]

Impressions

I know I’m way behind on progression through Replicant (insofar as anybody can be ‘way behind’ in the sense of playing a video game for personal entertainment), buuuut I figured I’d share a few thoughts.

Presently I’m doing sidequest mop-up post-Barren Temple, for reference:

So just to get this overall out of the way, I am legitimately fascinated by the differences between NIER and Replicant. This is something I picked up on when I played RepliCant to grab footage for my LP, but given my extremely limited understanding of Japanese all I could get was the tone between characters and to my unpracticed ear they sounded pretty different. I always assumed that Weiss was somehow even more condescending to Brother and hah hah, wow. Even kind of expecting the dialogue and delivery differences I was not prepared for some of the dialogue and delivery differences. Weiss just straight-up insulting BroNier on the regular, not even doing sarcastic eye-rolls like he does with Papa. I don’t remember the exact line that set me off but somewhere in the Barren Temple I was just laughing my ass off at how much of a dick Weiss is.

Thought the ‘miracles’ conversation in the Junk Heap was interesting, too. I remember Papa Nier telling Weiss to stuff it because ‘those kids need a miracle’ and Weiss kind of backs down-- obviously doesn’t believe it, but he knows better than to push. And Brother tries but Weiss is just not having this optimism bullshit. Little things, but the tenor of the relationship is definitely different.

One of the more interesting aspects early on is the way the Lunar Tear is treated. Obviously I don’t know if this was part of the original game or a script adjustment, but Brother talking about the Tear as a source of money as opposed to Father saying it can grant wishes was interesting. Maybe it was to justify that Kaine just has a whole necklace of the damn things and therefore it’s rare but not literally magic, but it always sounded like it was just meant to be taken as a myth to me anyway. Then again, it’s established in the Grimoire that Brother has a fixation specifically on making money so he can support himself and Yonah (versus Papa Nier, who has obviously already established himself as an adult rather than a kid still figuring things out and hoping that enough money will solve all their problems).

Where the dialogue doesn’t diverge is interesting, too. Mostly I’m talking about the scene after defeating Hook. I always found Papa Nier exclaiming “You’re going to live, Kaine!” and “Yes, we’re friends now!” to be obvious holdovers from a younger protagonist just goddamn hilarious when Papa Nier is saying them. They’re still really funny with Brother Nier but just remembering Papa Nier doing the exact same delivery in his deep, manly voice just re-elevated the whole scene into comedy gold.

All of that is really why I was interested in getting the game so already my money is well spent. But there’s some other stuff:

They butchered the OST! ...or so people keep telling me on Youtube. I admit I do think the re-orchestrations is largely inferior to the original (although there are some that are at least as good in a different way, and whatever they did to The Lost Forest -- which was one of my least favorite tracks in the original -- I really enjoy) but I wouldn’t call it a butchering and I highly suspect that if I didn’t have the eleven years of the original OST and its association within the game itself I wouldn’t bat an eye, it still all sounds great.

Also, a weird observation, but I found that the soundtrack sounds much better coming out of the TV speakers than through headphones. I’m not sure if somehow it was optimized for play through external speakers, or maybe just not hearing the added orchestration right up against my eardrums, but when I went to the Lost Shrine with headphones on I was admittedly disappointed, but going to it again and listening through the TV it worked significantly better.

(I’m not sure if this is necessarily a factor, but the booklet in the White Snow edition mentions that the new soundtrack was all studio mixed rather than having the individual tracks layered. While I don’t think that would have an impact on music quality it almost definitely makes a difference in the way it’s produced.)

I miss chest-thrusting to double jump Movement overall feels much more refined and polished. It’s not as slick as Automata, but it definitely feels like a natural evolution of the original game, and as an apologist for NIER’s combat I can appreciate that. A little more responsive, I appreciate being able to move while casting magic, and it still has a bit of a crunch behind weapon impact (although I wish it felt a bit heavier).

But goodness I miss the stupid animation for double-jumping. I mean sure, an aerial somersault is a classic indication of a double jump, but I just loved that Nier would chest-thrust so hard he would break the laws of physics and ascend higher.

It also feels a bit like the aerial dodge was nerfed for movement purposes? I really don’t feel as much horizontal thrust to get a running start after diving off the Library balcony.

Fully voiced? Fully voiced?! I knew this was happening but I totally forgot until the NPC villagers started talking to me! Some of the incidental deliveries are a bit awkward, but as somebody whose glasses prescription is a decade out of date I appreciate this immensely.

The item guy in Seafront just being from the goddamn Bronx is a thing of beauty.

BroNier does fit into the Village better. One of the little details I love in the game is that each bit of civilization has its own style. The maps aren’t large enough to really convey how long travel takes, but the different styles between the Village and Seafront just kind of helped to ‘place’ the characters in a really neat, subtle way (Emil’s sash identifies him as ‘belonging to’ Seafront, which is actually pertinent when you get that sidequest where you find the letter from his science-mom in town! I assume she always wore a kicky sash when she went to work in the underground child torture bunker.)

Facade obviously also has their own style, but it’s... hard not to appreciate.

Papa Nier’s dress doesn’t really ‘place’ him anywhere, which doesn’t feel weird for the main character, and I feel like it’s implied that he isn’t really from the Village in a meaningful way anyway and kind of drifted in at some point after Yonah had been born. But younger Brother Nier is actually wearing the local fashion and it’s a neat little detail that I didn’t appreciate back when I played PS3 RepliCant. (Probably because I didn’t bother talking to any NPCs what with not being able to read the dialogue, so I never really had him standing next to anybody for long enough to process.) Older Brother Nier takes on a very different outfit that winds up displacing him from the rest of the Village (and any other towns), which is a pretty nice visual metaphor, too.

I have a confession to make. I still enjoy fishing in this game.

Yeah I said it. I’ll say it again too-- I like the fishing minigame. I happily blitzed through the Fisherman’s available Gambits, and then just caught five sharks while I was hanging out, and then also caught the sandfish ahead of time, and also wound up with a half-ton giant catfish (??!?) trying to remember where the black bass are located.

Cart me away.

Related but I laughed far too hard when the fisherman says “the WESTERN beach”. I wonder why they changed that line. I just can’t imagine.

And those seals. Always a delight to go to early Seafront and just plant yourself between a couple of seals. Watch the ocean. Listen to the music and the waves. Watch the seals lazily roll around and make cute seal barks.

The most depressing thing about the timeskip is losing those seals.

My garden--! The gardening timeskip exploit was fixed due to a difference in PS4 architecture. :/ I know there’s still an exploit involving time zones but I didn’t go in knowing that and I was horrified when I adjusted the system clock only to find my crops weren’t growing. Is Legendary Gardener still a trophy? Fffffuuuuu

My BARREN TEMPLE. The Barren Temple is, to me, a legitimately funny dungeon, between Sechs getting himself abducted, Kaine getting herself abducted and Nier and Weiss just sighing in resignation, and the whole concept of the rules-based challenges. And the adjustment they made to the Prince’s dialogue before you meet him is so good-- the original felt a little disjointed and felt like it ended with the Prince being confused. It was still funny, but here Weiss just gives zero fucks about insulting the Prince (and presumably knows that’s exactly who he’s talking to) and it’s just great.

And I say all of that because I just died laughing when I got to the infamous Racing Wolf room and saw they outlawed evasion.

Evasion works differently in this game anyway so you wouldn’t have really been able to do the same trick before (dodge roll; in the original release you would dodge roll forward by tapping the button, but a default evasion has you backstep. Of course you could arrange BroNier to face away from the trap and then evade, but it would be significantly dicier, and I feel like the pattern on the shots was awkward enough that you wouldn’t have an opening in the second row (and probably would’ve have dodged your ass right into the bullets anyway). But just that they acknowledged the trick and then flipped you off with it was amazing. Aggravating? My amusement far outweighed my frustration since the Defend trick was still solid.

It also felt like more rooms outlawed jumping? That I can’t corroborate (I was really focusing on whether they did something to Racing Wolf, which is of course the most traumatic of the rooms) but I feel like it wasn’t as easy to cheese some of those rooms as it had been previously.

Dark Blast is amazing. Cheesed the shit out of the actual ‘Evasive Mouse’ room, though. I remember having some difficulties when the miniboss shows up since you can’t dodge out of the way of his lava pillar attack, but I just circle-strafed with Dark Blast and he died comically quickly.

This is actually more relevant to the magic as a whole, but in the time since I first played NIER (so... probably the time I fifth played NIER) I learned more about the little intracacies of the magic system. Like, really little intricacies, like how you can use magic with just a button tap and it actually has different effects... like Dark Blast dealing significantly more damage. It’s not as easy as just holding down the button and getting the multi-shot off the charge, but for a single enemy like that just rapid-fire tapping the button chews through the lifebar.

This tap strategy is really appreciated for Dark Hand (forward thrust punch) and Dark Lance (which is even better thanks to the game’s lock-assist-- a much appreciated quality-of-life adjustment), and I look forward to getting Dark Execution because of its fast activation feature (spreading the lances in a forward cone in front of you, extremely useful for crowd control when you can’t afford to wait for Execution to charge up).

Fragile Delivery still sucks. I don’t know why I had such a terrible time with the first Fragile Delivery but I broke that... Ming vase or whatever you’re delivering half a dozen times. Send that guy a steel rug instead, Guard #3, he is not worth whatever piece of art you had me destroy six times.

And the game still holds up. This is probably a ‘needless to say’ thing but yeah, this is still a great game. I always have a little bit of apprehension going back to something I loved just in case there’s a rose-colored effect going on. Not that I really expected that to happen with this game (I’ve played NIER recently enough that I didn’t think nostalgia would blind me) but, you know, always a possibility.

(That and that the remaster would be... perhaps of dubious quality. It happens.)

Nope! Still engaging. Still charming. I’m always impressed to go back to this game with all the knowledge of its inevitable misery and remember that it’s also just plain funny. NIER is one of those games that’s just like I remember it but better every time I go back to it.

I’m so glad that Automata did well enough to spur greater interest in this game. It really didn’t get the chance it deserved back in 2010 and now it’s topping some of the sales charts. That’s fantastic.

Just... fantastic.

[oceanmastertrash]

the tides know our names- 7/?

gif from @kingsorm

Summary:  -takes place after the movie- Orm is working with Arthur to try to help Atlantis move forward when Elara has a vision of his death. As part of an order of Atlanteans dating back to the reign of King Atlan known as Tidewatchers, it is her duty to warn the king of her vision. Predicting and reading the future through the tides of fate has never been easy but Elara is in for the challenge of a lifetime working with her former king to save his life.

Part: 6/?

Word Count: 1,744

Warnings: none for this chapter

Read on Ao3

FRIENDLY REMINDER: This story has been remastered into and OC fic instead of a Reader fic. All chapters have been reworked to feature Elara instead of Y/N. If you've read the previous chapters, not much has changed from the story itself, just some strengthening of the prose and pronoun changing. I hope you all enjoy Elara as we continue on!

More than anything, Elara wanted him to look at her- to see what he really thought of her being the one to join him on the surface. And yet, he kept his eyes stubbornly fixed on his brother as he asked, “When will we leave?”

Arthur looked to Vulko then back to Elara and Orm. “Tomorrow.”

-

The next few hours were a blur. There was still much to plan and little time to do so. They’d spent a considerable amount of time debating whether such promptness was prudent or foolhardy but Arthur ultimately won out. As they had no way to discern when the vision would happen, getting Orm away from the palace as quickly was ruled the safest course.

Eventually, Elara left them to their plans. She may have needed to be in on discussions about the logistics of her upcoming departure, but discussions of how to orchestrate it and hide his absence were less in her wheelhouse.

And so, many hours after she’d first entered the palace, Elara returned to the Tidewatcher temple to prepare for her unexpected journey. Entering the temple, Elara was not surprised at all to find Calysa, the unofficial leader of the council, waiting for her. Of course, she’d been following the tides.

“You know?” Elara asked with a sigh.

Calysa, wasn’t as old as Atlanna but she had experience beyond her years. She’d seen much and helped many as well as effectively raising Elara after her mother died.

The wrinkles around her pale blue eyes crinkled as she nodded. “The patterns are still unclear on much in this matter but, for what it’s worth: I think you made the right decision.”

Elara felt a weight lift, “That helps. Walk with me?”

Calysa fell into step beside Elara, giving the younger tidewatcher space to breathe and think.

Elara had always appreciated that about Calysa. She’d done her best to guide and support Elara not only through her training and the hardest years of her life, but she’d done her best not to smother the young girl. Calysa would always be there with advice and direction but she allowed Elara to make her own decisions about things, which in hindsight, was also one of the most useful skills a tidewatcher could develop.

Elara felt like she’d just walked through a flood with all that had happened that day. Part of her wanted to lay down right there and sleep for a week but, of course, that wasn’t an option right now.

So, forging ahead, she asked, “Is there anything you can tell me about what I’m getting into?”

Calysa sighed sadly, “You know I would tell you if there was.”

Elara knew that but rarely had her gift ever felt so useless. Other than the vision, trying to see her way through this situation was like trying to gaze through a solid rock wall.

“Why is it so difficult this time?” Elara asked.

Calysa took her former charge’s arm and began leading them to Elara’s room, “You’re a gifted Watcher, Elara, what do you think the block is?”

Elara felt like she was a tidewatcher novice again, still being taught through questions. Calysa had taught Elara so much but she believed in giving Elara the tools to divine the answers for herself rather than just giving her own opinion and passing it as fact. It wasn’t until Elara had done the work and divining herself that Calysa would share her thoughts.

Elara had already begun to suspect what the problem was but just wanted some confirmation from someone else.

“It’s Prince Orm, isn’t it?”

Calysa nodded. “Our prince has come to a grand sort of crossroads in the tides. After all that has happened, there are too many options before him. Too many forks in the river for him to choose from, each one twisting back on itself and crossing with others in complicated ways. He is in a unique position. Many of these paths lead to greatness but just as many lead to devastating ruin and until he decides which direction he will take, his tides will remain unreadable to us.”

“If there are so many conflicting possibilities for him, how do we know for sure that he’ll take the path that leads to what I saw?” Elara asked, trying to piece it all together. “My vision could be in a completely different direction than where’s he headed now.”

Rather than answering, Calysa looked at her calmly. “Do you feel like it’s in a different direction?”

Elara hung her head. No, no she did not. This didn't feel like a possible obstacle on one path amongst a multitude of streams, it felt like a waterfall- inevitable as the pull of gravity. The thought scared Elara, it felt like a challenge too big for her to tackle.

“No, I don’t. I don’t even know if I can stop it at this point,” Elara admitted.

Calysa clucked fondly, “Now I know you know that’s not true. The tides may shift and change as they will but nothing is set in stone. The ocean shouted this at you Elara. It chose you to see this and I believe that’s because you are the one who was meant to see it.”

Elara smiled weakly, “You’re talking in circles again.”

“That’s because time is a circle!” Calysa said excitedly, rehashing an old discussion of theirs. She then shook her head and waved her hand in front of them. “Forget that for now though. Just remember Elara. Remember that the tides wouldn’t have shown this to you if all you were meant to do was tell the King to begin making funeral arrangements. The tides are a thing of water- not of stone. And I have never heard of a vision as strong as yours ever ending in an unchanged dead end. You may not be meant to save him but you were meant to do something with this knowledge.”

Having arrived at Elara’s chambers they entered and sat down on the side of her bed.

Elara was silent, still trying to make sense of the tangled mess that was Orm’s tides when Calysa spoke again, almost hesitantly.

“I saw this possibility once.”

Elara looked to her. “I thought you said you couldn’t reach any of the tides around my vision.”

Calysa nodded, “And I can’t. I haven’t seen any patterns of his death. That’s not the possibility I saw. What I saw was you and Orm on the surface together.”

Elara jolted as she faced her mentor dead on. “You saw what ? Why didn’t you tell me before?”

Calysa laughed at Elara’s expression. “Because, as I’ve always said, reading the tides is a matter of timing and the time was never right. It was such a small thread, such a faint possibility at the time. Yet, it was still vibrant and I did not want to disturb it.”

Elara knew Calysa had a point, as she often did, but such an idea was so foreign to her.

“Besides,” the older woman continued, “you were hardly in the mood at the time to receive it well.”

Elara squinted suspiciously, “What kind of mood was I in?”

Calysa’s eyes twinkled in mirth, “I believe you were of the mood to call your king a ‘big-headed, close-minded lout who had no respect for the tides or women who were smarter than him’.”

Elara froze, remembering those words and the anger that had gone with them.

“ Then ?! You saw us going to the surface together that long ago?”

Calysa smiled, “Indeed. The timing amused me then nearly as much as it does now.”

“But I hated him then,” Elara reminded her.

“Oh I know,” Calysa said.

Elara remembered it all too well. It had been ten years ago that she’d first seen Orm in the tides. She’d been an apprentice perhaps a year or two then, no longer a novice or a teenager but a young woman still. King Orvax had been dead for less than a year and his son had been working hard to master to the daunting task of ruling his people.

This climate probably was not the best time for Elara to see a pattern of Orm making a mistake. And yet, the tides had spoken to her. Elara, having just returned from training on the surface, was brimming with confidence. But, even with the self-assurance that is so often found in youth this had given her pause. She was young enough in the craft that she could still have interpreted it wrong and didn’t want to alienate the young king over a misinterpretation.

Unlike any other pattern she’d seen before, she sat on it for a few days before even bringing it to Calysa. She tried searching the tides for any other part of the pattern she might have missed and yet the message remained clear. Calysa had lightly chided her apprentice for keeping it to herself when Elara finally presented it to her; but, through her own searchings, she found the same pattern that Elara had.

After that, Calysa had encouraged Elara to tell the king what she’d seen. Elara was mortified at the idea but Calysa reminded her this was her duty as a tidewatcher. As long as there had been tidewatchers, there had been unpleasant patterns but it was their responsibility to help the affected parties either prepare for what was to come or to help them learn from and avoid it. Just because Elara was still an apprentice didn’t make this any different.

Orm, new to the throne, was dubious at the idea of tidewatchers but, as he sought to uphold the tradition their service to Atlantis had always been, he had granted Elara, accompanied by Calysa, an audience to discuss the young tidewatcher’s portents.

To say it did not go well was putting it mildly.

King Orm had been prepared to listen but make up his own mind about the nature of tidewatching in its entirety. He considered the whole thing more of a courtesy than an obligation at the time. His father had not been fond of the trade but it wasn’t in him to disband a centuries-long tradition. He’d just always paid them little mind and put little faith in the tidewatchers and their patterns. Under his father’s example Orm was not a believer in the tides to begin with.

And yet, despite all this, here was this young woman, with scraggly hair and little experience in her gift telling him that she foresaw him making a deal with a surface dweller that would lead to death and pain for his people. King Orm was outraged and prepared to call the whole thing a useless art. He was insulted, and so, tactless or not, he insulted back.

What he’d thought most strange was that the girl refused to be cowed or belittled, even by her king. She stood toe-to-toe with him, utter confidence blazing in her amber eyes as she defended her craft. She was probably a foot shorter than him and really had nowhere near the authority he held and yet she didn’t let it stop her.

Orm had wanted to dismiss it out of hand as preposterous. Ever since losing his mother because of it, Orm had hated the surface dwellers and the idea that he would make any sort of deal with them rankled at him. To think that this apprentice in an uncertain craft could be so certain that he would betray or hurt his people in anyway, especially with a surface dweller was beyond absurd. He’d dismissed her and the idea of tidewatching and focused instead on his reign, as if trying to prove Elara wrong. And yet, he couldn’t dismiss the look on her face as she defended what she knew would happen.

As time had gone on, other more provable and positive tide patterns had at least won the Tidewatchers more credibility with the King. It was several years before Elara had been part of any presentation of tides to King Orm again, and yet, anytime an audience was requested by the Tidewatchers, he couldn’t help but wonder if it would be that audacious young woman who’d challenged him so thoroughly.

For Elara’s part, she’d tried to put the whole episode behind her. Though she knew what she saw was still likely to happen, she tried her best to distance herself from the King both physically and in her tidewatching. And yet, even back then, Calysa had seen their paths entwining in the most unusual way.

In the present, Elara was burning with curiosity at such a vision.

“What did exactly did you see?” Elara asked.

Calysa sighed, almost considering keeping it to herself but thought it could do little harm to the pattern to tell Elara now. “You were in a forest. It was dark but a light I couldn’t see the source of seemed to shine around the two of you. Your hair was as long as it is now. And remember that when I’d seen this you’d had that short crop you’d gotten on the surface that made it look like you had a dirty mop on your head.”

Elara scrunched her nose at Calysa’s teasing. It wasn’t that bad of a haircut but it had made much more sense on the surface than when she’d returned underwater. Now her golden brown hair was down to her waist- a good foot and a half longer than it had been when she’d met Orm.

“So you knew it was much farther down the line from that?”

“That and your Tidestone,” Calysa said indicating the gem Elara wore around her neck.

Tidestones had been handed down through generations of Tidewatchers since the time of King Atlan. Made from stones found in the ocean they were said to be imbued with a kind of magic that helped watchers connect with the tides. While that strengthening could be proven, there had long been rumors of some Tidestones possessing other skills like healing or even control over animals. As far as Elara knew though, those were just myths.

It had long been tradition that as tidewatchers entered new stages of growth in their path as a tidewatcher, they were given a different stone. When Elara had her first vision that led her to cross paths with Orm, she’d been wearing the swirling patterned agate stone of an apprentice but the one she had worn the last 4 years was one of vibrant jasper that signified she was now a master tidewatcher.

Elara smiled as she touched it, “Did you think of your vision when you gave this to me?”

“Yes, but it still didn’t feel like the right time to tell you.”

“What else did you see?” Elara asked. She knew it was unlikely there was anything truly pertinent to learn from it but the whole idea of going with Orm to the surface, which until a few moments ago had seemed so thrown together, having been foreseen fascinated her.

Calysa almost seemed to speak slower, as if she didn’t want to startle Elara, “The two of you were looking at each other and he said something to make you laugh. I didn’t hear what it was but it didn’t seem to be the point.”

The whole image seemed almost too foreign to believe. “What was the point then?”

“You were happy,” Calysa said simply.

Elara put her head in her hands, mumbling. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that.”

“I don’t think this is the kind of sight that requires anything to be done, I think the point of it was just to be seen and known.” Calysa said simply.

Elara kept her face in her hands, bone tired and confused.

“I’ll leave you to pack,” Calysa said before Elara could think of any reply.

Part of Elara wanted her to stay, to comfort her in the face of such a baffling future, to say the right thing to help Elara figure out how she felt about all this. But Elara knew she needed to work through and absorb some things on her own and could use some time alone to take in the events of the day. Calysa knew this so she stood and squeezed Elara’s shoulder once and then left.

Elara should have gotten up immediately to get ready for tomorrow but instead she just lay back on her bed, staring up at the barnacle ceiling, asking for answers from the silent tides.

A/N: I know this chapter didn't have much Orm in it but I felt it was one we needed to not only set up the Tidewatchers some more but to help you get to know Elara better. and we get some history between her and Orm which has been fun to tease before now. I just love this story so much and I'm so happy to get to share this with you all. I would love to hear what y'all think of Elara and the story so far! remember, feedback is love! thank you for reading!