Nier Replican't finish the game - 6/10
Very few people can accomplish the colossal task of blending humanistic storytelling and existentialistic ideals into a bleak post-apocalypse setting, emphasizing the struggles of the last remnants of mankind. But Yoko Taro somehow pulls it off by dwelling on isolated, internal conflicts of the main character--out to save his sister from an invading darkness--and the supporting cast--a pariah exiled from her village and a boy who could once turn anyone to stone at a glance. Some sidequests also present emotional moments--the man with the red bag and the remaining Junk Scrap brother come to mind. These character-building instances are the meat and bone of Replicant.
And can I just take a second to talk about the music? I've listened to the original's soundtrack extensively, but to actually see it in the full context of the story is something else. Keiichi and his sound team at Monaco deliver again, as does Emi Evans with her spectacular vocals.
However... The game is severely handicapped by an archaic design flaw that wasn't even that acceptable at its initial release a decade ago. Being a remastered port of the original, Replicant offers very little in the way of QoL features. This is very noticeable from the outset, as you set off to one place, take care of business, go all the way back to the Village, and talk to the administrator, only to get sent back to the place you just came from. All this without any "fast travel" until halfway through the story. The game is riddled with backtrack quests, and even the "fast travel" option is so inconvenient because there are so few of them and so far out of the way that it's pointless to use them.
Conversely, there are mailboxes used for saving the game all over the world nearby the majority of objectives, but the game is designed to draw itself out as thinly as possible. So why not just use the mailboxes as warp points in addition to saving? The aforementioned red bag man's quest, for example, is one of the mandatory story missions, but it makes you go between the Village and Seafront about three to five times to discover his whereabouts. And the real kicker is that he was the one in charge of the ferry/fast travel option. Yes, his story is emotionally investing, but the process of completing it is nothing short of a waste of time. And that's a damn shame.
In fact, the same could be said for the majority of the sidequests, which can be summed up as glorified fetchquests. It's always an outrageous number such as, "Gather 10 moonflowers for me!" or "Catch me 10 sardines!" Seeing stuff like this wore thin for me because it was all artificial lengthening.
Lastly, I simply wasn't able to beat the game because of something I can only assume was a bug. I did beat the final boss and save the protag's sister, but in typical Taro fashion there always has to be a gimmick at the end. The catch here is that I had to enter a custom name, EMIYA, into the textbox in order to stir Yonah's (the sister's) memories, but the game wouldn't allow it go through. I tried putting a space before and after to no avail, and the name that I entered at the beginning of the game wouldn't register. Finally, I decided to reload the save hoping that it would set me back to a decent spawn point. Instead, it loaded at the beginning of the final dungeon, meaning that another hour's progress was gone with the wind.
I wanted to see this game to the end, but there's a good chance that the same bug would pop up if I tried going through it again. There's plenty to like about Replicant, such as its combat and extensive weapon editing to inflict numerous statuses, in addition to some awesome spells. It's just a pity that the backtracking wasn't trimmed down some.
Whelp, time to go talk to Popola again! (¬_¬")