Zippy reviews NEIR

Neir Far near FAR NEIR FAR and Zippy


Neir is a very interesting lite action RPG with decent dubbing which is surprising since most dubbing is nauseating at best to me.


Where do I start? Well the story I guess I can’t find many issues with it other than the few plot holes that nag at me(take refuge in the library, basement I assume… wait for it…. Wait for it). Also one of photos in the lab under Elies mansion has both Elie and Kanie in it… whatever. The sci fi base for the plot is not bad the retro tech is nice I cannot find much wrong with the story. Characters are not that bad either I even enjoy some of the banter/conversations(which can be hard to do outside of a bioware game).
Quests are not that bad even the fetch quests (which you kinda need to do if you want money which is a nice touch) tho I wish I could just go to the bar add all the active quests to my book and move on, also it seems quest management in game is so so a person who is part of a quest canot handle 2 quests at a time so you have to finish the frist one I order to get to the next one, this only happens 3 or 4 times but it’s annoying.

One of the reasons I call this a lite action RPG is because well is more like onimusha or DMC than Zelda, speaking of DMC(and secret of mana) I will get to that later, also this game so gives nods to Zelda specifically the N64 games, if you can’t see it you are not nerd enough other than that it does things better than Zelda well combat is better but at least on Zelda you can aim better but there again Zelda is not about squishing as many targets as you can fill the screen with.


Anyway combat is annoying and fun, I really hate the one button combo system it’s not well polished I really wish within the pressing of 2 or 4 buttons I can quickly shift to a 360 knock down attack and not tap tap tap hold button and hope I don’t get whacked befor I pull it of, also would be nice if I could hit 3 or 6 buttons with jump to move into a 2-3 move than ends in a jump ad downward stab knock back+finishing move but alas combat is..er… tappy at best. I wonder why the quick knock back attack is not in wises to move around or word edit…. That was a mistake also would rather have a knock down attack that has a 50/50 chance of working thus I work in a combo plus knock down and finish… but there again this is not that kind of polished action game.
Magic is neat and fun tho I wish he had a healing/regen mode(ya know after you kill MR squiggles after you revive Kanie) and I hate the medical herb limit its stupid, even more so when you are not limited on bigger items….…. Seriously adjust limits based on level or make the most widely available healing item degrade as you grow in power this way at level 10 you need 5 to heal the same amount at level 1, then use the store buy/sell this many thing to use on healing items in order to attack effect in as few moves as possible (IE select medical herb prey left for max healing, so using 4 or 40 only takes a button push more) Also I got to complain about auto aim or the lack of auto aim normal I loathe auto aim but tis lacking or poorly implement in this probably would not be an issue if you could aim better not to mention if the dark lance didn’t have the range of what you can piss….. it’s nice it do radius damage but WTF good is it if I cannot hit what I can see….. speaking of which dark blast is nice but a upgraded version called dark seeker would be nice ya know where you shoot out a bunch of tracking shots….its you can charge dark blast for it but the only thing I use dark blast for is the wave shot that comes out if you tap or first hit its button…. Spaming that works nicely. On and the lack of solid auto aim makes using the spear a pin point weapon a pain in the arse….. as lining up a hit can be highly annoying.


Now on to Level design which is one of my biggest gripes of modern game design. Levels are mostly well built, invisible walls are over used making it annoying when something should be obvious to get to you can’t because they did not path it right(top level of town you live in, there s a person up there I should be able to get up there like in fasade)the shifting shiny item pickup stuff is nice tho I wish they hid more special stuff here and there in chests… but whatever at least it’s not corridor crazy but for the random dungeon. The shifting game type third person to side scrolling to based adventure (ok it happens 3 times but is still awesome) is neat as is the over head stuff tho aiming can be problematic. All in all I could want more messiness all over the place but other than that I can’t really complain.
Equipment and items are the other big thing I whine constantly about and the game delivers bit under whelming meat attached to an over sized bone and its bipolar treatment of item limits . . . is annoying. Word edit(what you would call enhancements you can place on you and your spells/equipment) is blatantly limited and I hate it, for weapons for every level you go up you should be able to add a word, also you would be able to add a word in any combination with a reduction of 25% for doing so(this way you can USE the frakkin status aliments it gives you as a afterthought), You also get word edit on dodge and block but not knock back which is more martial art than weapon but whatever…. Also it would be nice if you could do the FX weapon/equipment customization thing with weapons IE you find X amount of an item and then are able to imbue that weapon at cost with its effects IE a level of weapon speed, more attack power or knock back power for 25% of magic per swing,elements, auto block, charge weapon speed, armor break, guard break, paralyze, confuse, poison, defense, attack, knock back power/strength, protection from knockback, protection from magic, giving weapon magic damage, magic regen, health, health regen, block to regain health magic at loss of health or magic, ECT,ECT,ECT
I hate blatantly limited and half assed wankery and this is it but this is the weakest part of the game IMO.


After the first arch when the shadow lord shows up you get two handed swords/axes/alt and spears both have new game play elements 2 handed swords are slow, slower than the dark hand squishing things but have better radius and charged attack has a great radius so you can pull of a 360 attack spears on the other hand are fast and long but have a very limited radius meaning you have to do a lot of lining up to hit stuff. This helps make the game a bit more fresh but without new sealed verses/magic it’s going to be a bit of a slog fest through the rest of the game of which I am still working on.


Really tho I am enjoying this instead of playing it and making fun of all of its designs(bioshock,FO3, Mass effect 2).
Now I think that’s everything? The mini games? The garden is ok wish if something died you at least get seeds depending on the fertilizer used. The mechanic of hitting the weak spot that if missed you have to wear down the last 10-20% is not that annoying unless you have to aim at a certain angle and even then it’s not that bad.


Now I mentioned DMC and Secret of Mana, DMC needs to use this style of mechanics and give it a nice lock on ability as so you can go to town on sturdier targets. As for SOM make this game 10 times better improve the equipment system, enchantment (word edit) system, add more equipment more weapons more combo styles(over haul combo system then again if you have 20 weapon types with their own combo style you don’t have to) add a better travel system and travel powers and you have a fcking grade AAA SOM game!!


And yes Zippy likes video games he just hates luke warm games using tried mechanics.. . .

http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/2011/01/14/neir-far-near-far-neir-far-and-zippy/