Gamescom 2009: Discussing Nier With Producer Takayuki Kawasaki

During our time in the Square Enix business lounge we became so relaxed that once we left our appointment for Final Fantasy XIV, Team OLC strolled into Nier thinking that nothing else could surprise us.  We were wrong. Nier was being showcased behind closed doors by the games producer Takayuki Kawasaki of cavia, and before we witnessed the first hands on demonstration he was keen to point out that the game was still in the early alpha stage – and it showed.  Nier is a combat based action title which places its emphasis on swordplay and magic, similar in the vein of a Devil May Cry title – albeit one aimed at a slightly more mature audience – with shining examples of dialogue such as ‘this ends now asshole’ – you can expect the title to really push Square-Enix in a previously unexplored area of the gaming market.

The demonstration – and world premiere of how the game plays – took Nier, the talking book who appears to be his sidekick, and the newly revealed character Kaine – a female with a mouth filthier than a London sewer - up against a mammoth creature with multiple glands pulsating on its chest.  The boss battle was actually structured into several sections with the three characters launching a multi-tiered attack on the creature, before moving strangely into what Kawasaki referred to as a homage to the classic side-scroller.  The effect is similar to that seen in Shadow Complex, or even the remake of Mega Man X, with three dimensional characters and backdrops on a two dimensional plane; although the low-fidelity, and unfinished graphical effects certainly took some of the shine away from the inspiring level design.

Another element we noticed was that Nier uses a simplified control scheme in this Xbox 360 build, so whether or not there will be other functions aside from ‘slash’ and ‘special attack’ we couldn’t say, but with about a year of development time to go it’s fairly safe to say that there will be some more additions to the control scheme before it launches.

Whilst discussing the actual content of the game, noting that it was a departure of sorts for the publisher Kawasaki stated that they ‘had this concept from day one that we were going to make something quite different,’ and as Square-Enix has always been known as JRPG giants they wanted to take a ‘sure step away from that.’  With this story they were aiming for something darker and more adult, and he describes Nier as a warrior who is aged around forty, pointing out that he has a very strong build and force of will.  When his young daughter suddenly falls sick with a mysterious illness called the ‘Black Scrawl’ he has to embark on a journey to find a cure and whilst doing so he will encounter allies.  We have already met the ‘book’ which accompanies him on his adventures, as well as the aforementioned Kaine, but Kawasaki tells us that there are other characters you will encounter and that they will join the team as the story progresses.  The main story he tells us will last somewhere between 12-15 hours if you just rush through, but there are other sub-quests for you to to take up which should lengthen the game considerably.  We also discovered that there will be a ‘New Game Plus’ mode for those who enjoy replaying the adventure with what he described as ‘hidden elements’, so it’s good news that Nier has been conceived as a game with great depth and re-playability.

When pressed for details regarding the theme of the game Kawasaki told us that Nier revolves around the ‘love between family members,’ and this was the reason why they deliberately shaped the environment to be dark – in order to allow this love, between a father and a daughter, to be depicted more clearly.  Another aspect of the story though is that ‘there is another side to the coin, in that he may not be just as he looks’ - which is cryptic, interesting and just maybe a little spoilerific.  In other words, don’t presume to know anything.

Taking place in what was described to us as a huge open world, Nier will gain experience points from battles in order to level up and gain new abilities. You can collect new items and enhance weapons, but how that is achieved wasn’t explained directly just implied that it will do so in a traditional RPG manner.

Finally we asked about multiplayer support in the title and Kawasaki told us that the game would be single player only, with no online elements, but they are looking to support the game post-release with downloadable content. After seeing Nier do his thing for about twenty minutes we can honestly say that this take on the hack and slash format has our attention.  We certainly look forward to seeing more of the game in the future, and whilst it certainly has a long way to go, something tells me that Takayuki Kawasaki and team are on the right path.

Nier is due for release in 2010 in North America and Europe simultaneously for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It’s developed by cavia, and published by Square-Enix.