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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT<br />
nIer<br />
enough<br />
is close<br />
enough<br />
TIM HENDERSON is so Nier and yet<br />
so far.<br />
You k<strong>now</strong>, for all of<br />
the horrible X-Factor<br />
snippets and terrible R&B<br />
music videos that litter the<br />
world of YouTube, I still love<br />
the place. You see, if you<br />
enter the words ‘Nier OST’<br />
into a search on YouTube,<br />
you will be greeted with a<br />
list of awesome, and really<br />
rather unique, music tracks.<br />
Mostly reworking a core<br />
theme in an amazingly varied<br />
number of ways, the music<br />
from Nier brings to mind<br />
sweeping adventure and lush<br />
green fields, ages of gentle<br />
Gods and towering temples<br />
made by men, water that<br />
sparkles like sand and sand<br />
that flows like water, battles<br />
as fierce as thunder and an<br />
embrace as soft as clouds,<br />
cliffs like wounds in the earth<br />
and bridges that cover them<br />
like bandages. It’s powerful<br />
stuff on its own, and it only<br />
becomes amplified in-game.<br />
Mixing a variety of<br />
instruments, stylistic<br />
inspiration, and sweetly<br />
sung lyrics of a fictional<br />
tongue, the music of Nier is<br />
a tightly-contained example<br />
of its host’s greater mission<br />
statement: to stack familiar<br />
ideas together in ways that<br />
nobody has thought of before.<br />
Nier’s soundtrack is far and<br />
away the greatest success<br />
born of this mentality. The<br />
only musical downside is<br />
that there’s not enough of it.<br />
Melodies blend and evolve<br />
beautifully, lyrics fading<br />
into the game’s hub town<br />
background music when Nier<br />
himself walks within earshot<br />
of a minstrel strumming the<br />
very same tune.<br />
But Nier is a game that<br />
has all the technical merit<br />
of a powered-up PS2 title.<br />
Any and all visual appeal<br />
can be attributed to the art.<br />
Stylistically, Nier’s sunscorched<br />
aesthetic borrows<br />
heavily from ICO, much of<br />
its world architecture from<br />
Panzer Dragoon, and the<br />
character designs appear as<br />
misfits from a Final Fantasy<br />
game – too restrained and<br />
imperfect in appearance<br />
to appease the tween<br />
demographic crossover.<br />
The limitations placed<br />
upon the engine are not<br />
just visual, either. Character<br />
movement and world<br />
interaction comes with<br />
familiar limitations; Nier’s is<br />
not a world where advanced<br />
physics are breaking open<br />
new gameplay boundaries.<br />
This is understandable: the<br />
aging father of a gravely ill<br />
daughter, Nier himself is<br />
hardly the most sprightly<br />
and youthful of videogame<br />
6 www.pixelhunt.com.au<br />
JANUARY 2011
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