In Nier Replicant at 49% sidequests with a few areas left in part 1, so I think I'm just about done with all these sidequests. I never did most of them back in the original, so as much as the mat grinding sucks, some of them are fun to see for their stories and world building. Guess I'll be going for 100% this time around.
I'm at 11 hours now, so probably finish part 1 around 13-15 hours. Considering I remember beating the entire game of the original in 15 hours, seems like doing the sidequests basically doubles the length to ~30 hour game first run. At least with all this stuff done in the first run, the other runs should still be quick (I'm assuming I'll get almost all the weapons in this first run so the 3rd run should be short still).
One difference is that I am LOADED WITH MONEY from doing all these sidequests and all the other mats I get during my RNG mat grinding + I'm actually farming this time around which I never bothered with in the original. Should be set pretty soon to just buy all mats I can and weapons for the rest of the game/runs.
Though I will say that if it's your first time playing Nier, skipping the sidequests outside the boar tusk one at the beginning is the right choice for the first run. Nier is very much a story game and with sidequests the pacing just dies. It becomes one of those games were you do 1-2 hours of story and then run around doing 2-3 hours of sidequests, then 1-2 hour story pop, 2-3 hour sidequests, etc... probably best to just run the main story for ending A/B and then do the long sidequest run on C/D.
I am getting pretty tempted playing this to replay Automata. I wasn't a big fan at release and it felt like a let down from Nier. Way worse story/writing/characters, less memorable music, only the gameplay/combat/graphics were better. (also the 2nd run route B was terrible). Over time though, and thanks to the FFXIV Nier Automata raid over the past year, Automata's plot has grown on me and I wouldn't mind giving it another shot right after I finish up Replicant.
Replicant as a whole...it looks pretty nice artistically. And the 60fps is great. The arrangements are neat, most are fairly similar, but some stuff like The Aerie sound totally different here. Brother Nier isn't as good as Papa Nier, but he's grown on me a lot and I think he's still good. Kaine's face looks too weird and doll-ish. But overall like SoTC Remake and Demon Soul's remake, and Zone of the Enders 2 HD, this is a great way to keep a classic game very playable for another decade for returning players and new fans.
My only disappointment with this remake is the combat. The original combat was basic af and all you did was slash slash slash while using your magic attacks and dodge rolling. It was servicable, but very shallow. Here they had the chance to bring the combat to Automata standards with combos and juggles and a decent amount of moves in a basic character action way...but they didn't bother. The combat is smoother and feels better but you only have a few more slashes than the original. You have light attack x 3, heavy attack x 3, jumping light, jumping heavy, block -> light counter, block -> heavy counter and roll -> light, roll -> heavy and that's it. I thought maybe you'd get more moves as the game went along, but nope, you basically just have slash slash slash like the original the whole game except now you have light attack slash slash slash and heavy attack slash slash slash for guarding enemies. It's pretty disappointing they didn't do anything to make the combat more engaging. The magic attacks seem the same as before and there's still no reason to use any besides the bullet one and lance one.
So in the end it's basically the original game, but better looking, 60fps, with some slight tweaks, very slightly better combat and slight new content (ending E is ~40 mins of new content I've been told and the one mermaid episode is probably less). So it's basically Nier, for better or worse. Replaying it now there are definitely some bits that do not hold up that well (barren temple no run room -_-), but a lot of it does still hold up like a real classic.
