NieR Re[in]carnation Reviews

by SpartanJ34

This is one of the most greedy, low effort games I’ve ever played. Gacha fames in general are disgustingly predatory, but this game is worse because it actually tries to attach itself to the NieR series which is actually amazing. On top of that, the game is just the most boring, tedious, and horribly balanced games I’ve ever had the displeasure of playing. I can’t wait to see this game fail and be shut down due to low engagement.

I’ve never seen a game get deserted by it’s player base so quickly. Lots of NieR fans were hesitant about a gacha game to begin with, but even the ones who tried it quit. It’s like every 2 weeks my entire friends list on this game stops playing permanently. It’s a testament to how bad this game is.

This could have been a truly great game if it never got twisted into a mobile gacha game. The music is amazing as always, and the stories and very good despite being told through such a terrible medium (Mobile gacha games).

Square Enix is scum, through and through. They release broken PC ports regularly and never fix them. They try to rip every penny from their customers wallet, and are willing to disgrace and ruin franchises to do so. They are even beginning to e corporate cryptocurrencies and NFTs into their games. Good luck with that Square Enix. I hope you enjoy ruining truly beautiful works of art for your own personal wealth.

by Poe117

As Yoko Taro states, this game exists so square enix can make money on a gacha. He is mot being meta. Not neing quirky. That’s exactly what it is. It’s disappointing to see such an amazing and powerful series be reduced to this. Honestly gameplay wise it’s not bad. The auto turn based combat with skill attacks on cooldowns is serviceable. But the story sequences are really lackluster, and the Gacha system is horrid. Summons don’t match the data they state. Every ten pulls is supposed to be a high rate item with a guarantee for a character. Yeah that’s not true. I’ve done 43 summons and have only gotten weapons(with…pretty uninspiring designs tbh). I have been summoning in the character banner as well so this stings doubly so for me. I haven’t spent money, but the game gives you gems needed for summons at such a criminal rate I can’t say I’ll stay playing. Sad as Nier Replicant and Automata are among my favorite games of all time. Can’t always knock it out of the park it seems. Music is 10/10 as always though lol.

by M.Wu

This game is okay if you like NieR and collecting stuff, but there’s just way too much farming in the game and there’s no way to skip or fast forward the battles in auto mode, so one would need to keep the phone on all the time to farm it.

And what’s worse is that the game doesn’t keep your phone screen on while auto farming, and it stops farming when the screen automatically turns off, so you will have to go to settings to turn off Auto Lock in order to farm, but if you forget to turn the auto lock back on after farming, you might end up with a dead phone when you need it. This is very annoying. For a mobile game like this, what’s the point to force the users to burn through our battery just to farm? Let us have the options to skip battles or allow the farming to continue in the back ground.

I play games on mobile because I don’t have time to play a console or computer game, but If a mobile game with a pay to win system is gonna cost me as much time to farm, it completely defeats the purpose of playing a mobile game imo.

And one more thing, the game audio just won’t turnoff when you are using headphones watching videos or listening to music at the same time. Please fix it.

by Sandor Strangesnork

The music and storyline is pretty good. The visuals are unispired & washed out. Character design is absolute garbage. I cannot even FIND the game's mechanics. I'm sorry to have to say all of that, as I have been a *huge* Square-Enix fan for as I can remember, but I've been so disenchanted playing this release over the last week, hoping that something of merit would be kicking in "anytime now", but it never came. You will be fighting the same handful of amorphous blobs from Chapters 1 - 9. The underpinning vibe I get, is one that I feel most people have, unfortunately, come to expect from the mobile gaming franchise: it's a system of paywalls/stat checks with just enough content to keep you trudging toward the next hurdle. Still, I've played many mobile RPGs/Gachas over the years which are built around that same basic framework, but manage to pull it off with some flair, and enough substance to keep me engaged. This just isn't one of them. I can toss the devs a pair of stars for some of the story elements, and the music, but unless this project undergoes a transformation of, "No Man's Sky" proportions at some point, I don't see myself coming back to this one. In its current form, I honestly can't even recognize it as a Square-Enix product.

by Namealwaystakenscrewit

Long and short of this mobile game is the story and presentation of it, the music, the art, the voice acting is all really quite good, great even. Problem is the gameplay itself is split into two parts, walking simulator and auto-battles. The walking sim part is neat and it’s nice having an actual world to go through for story missions, so I’m not complaining about this tbh, it’s a good step up from most mobile games story presentation for sure. The combat on the other hand is a huge let down.

The game boast some impressive models and animations for its attacks and skills, but you have what amounts to no impact on the fight. You have a 3D space you can walk your character around in but you can’t affect combat outside of hitting “use skill” buttons when the timers up. Basic attacks are performed automatically and you can’t dodge or block enemy attacks. Combat really is as engaging as QTEs in RE4, you push a skill button every few seconds and the rest is auto pilot.

by 1ofThoseGamesULove&Hate

Its Square Enix so expect to be amazed by a beautiful story and high end graphics. If you’re a NieR fan then this game will be in your ballpark. However, the user interaction is extremely bad. You do absolutely nothing in this game but mediocre functions. Its purely story based and is aimed at fans of the genre. The Gacha rate seems to be pretty bad too since Character & Equipment is grouped together in the same pool. Games like these I would usually avoid since they are intended to be more of a cash grab and left in the backburner to be forgotten or abandoned. If it wasn’t a Square Enix game I’d have given up already but the art put into both drawing and story seems top notch. Will continue to play to see if it improves. You’ll get bored quick though if you’re not into these slow paced games. Hardly anything to do, lol.

This game should’ve been open world concept since NieR franchise has so much potential to be more.

by MintyFre5h

The game has very beautiful music and story, but the mechanics of the game is very boring. The characters automatically attack the npcs and all you have to do is use character skills when they’re available… so there isnt much to do other than sit and watch the battles. There are event missions where you need to collect coins to exchange for limited time items in the shop. You can set the missions to repeat automatically 10 but it be so much better if you just instantly get the materials for 10 runs rather than be unable to use your phone until those 10 run completes…. And drain your battery. The game is worth playing for the story but because there’s not much to do other than grind to collect the characters like every typical gacha game

by Crucible Eater

I’ll start off by saying I love Yoko Taro, Drakengard was insanely fun and Automata is a genuine master piece. But this game is not fun, it’s not predatory, the Gacha rates are decent and it’s retool friendly. The music is beautiful and the visuals are stunning when compared to other phone games. The story starts strong but falls into a repetitive cycle pretty early on, with you constantly investigating the side characters story, which wouldn’t be so bad if they were a touch more interesting. If the mysteries at the beginning grip you then I think you’ll find a lot to love in the story eventually. All of this is besides the point, the core gameplay loop, of pressing buttons in combos, isn’t engaging, and that for obvious reasons kills this experience. If I were rating the game simply off of its core mechanics it would certainly be lower than 3, but it’s very stylish and sounds beautiful, so I can’t go any lower.

by Angry Minato

Tells you everything you need to know. Considering my last review seems to have been deleted, here we are again. Event summon rates are absolutely garbage. You need to pull 200 times (or 20 10x pulls) to get enough required tokens to get an event character; which you will have to do. The rates are such trash that it’s unlikely that you will get even one in those 200 tries… and that’s with 4 possible event characters!

How does that sound reasonable? How does that encourage you to put money into the game? Honestly, I’m discouraged from buying any game currency, or bundles, knowing that the game is so abysmally stacked against players. The kicker? Every event banner has it’s own currency, so you can’t even earn towards a character across banners. That’s 200 pulls per banner to earn ONE CHARACTER PER BANNER!

This a decent enough game, but it doesn’t deserve your monetary support. Not if it continues to promote such anti-consumer behavior.

by 10fortyEZ

The theme of exploring weapon stories is cool and seeing stories playout is really neat. But the “game” part is really boring since for the most part you can put it on Auto and the game plays itself. The auto feature is mostly useful because you will have to grind a lot, and sit through 10-15min of auto play per round for your grinding. Since the story is stronger than the gameplay, this would have been better if it was not a game but an short story anime or something. But since it is a game some QoL improvements at minimum would be, not sending back to title screen if stamina is full and you try to send/receive stamina from friends. If a level/battle has already been completed auto should just auto complete the battles; should not have to sit through 10–15 minutes of having to watch each battle play until you run out of stamina. Adjust material and stamina requirements, grind is fine but the price of some upgrade materials is too much. Only with half stamina events does it make it easier to grind for things you need. And since you have to mostly auto play they really need to implement a way for the screen to stay on instead of defaulting to your phones auto screen off. So many other game apps override the settings to keep the screen on, but you have adjust your auto lock settings.

by Shadow Wraith

I’m a huge fan of the NieR/Drag On Dragoon (Drakengard) franchise, in particular Automata. With this being touted as a direct sequel to the aforementioned game, it creates high expectations. Although it is better than most gacha games, that’s not saying much. It being a game from a Yoko Taro-san series, I expected it would be truly transformative in a mobile gaming world that seems to be a pathetic race to the lowest common denominator of mobile games all in the name of corporate greed. 1. It should have been sold like it’s pay once Final Fantasy (FF) games 2. If they insisted on a turn based system then make it at least up to par with its FF combat system. Sadly, it doesn’t even match up to rpg battle systems like Phantasy Star from the 80’s. It’s not from a lack of mobile graphics capabilities. 3. It really should have been the Automata of Genshin Impact and retained it’s open world action adventure qualities without the gacha mechanics. If I was Square Enix I’d do what they did with FF XI and go back and make a worthy game like FF XIV was. This time maybe include Yoko Taro’s input more.

by Lunar Rabbot

I’ve been playing the JP version of this game since it launched and through the banners I’ve never had a problem getting something worthwhile, at least one purple(weapon or character) within 10 rolls. The 4* rates in JP are 4% not 2%. So far in over 200 rolls, I’ve gotten four 4* weapons and one 4* character, plus a pity character. In comparison, in the JP version I’ve gotten 12! 4* weapons and maybe six 4* characters in the same amount of time, making building a party I like easier to assemble and build. I have built up only 1 character on EN version and that’s the A2 event character.

Additionally they have added a get(a tiny amount of) gems in exchange for watching a minute long video. The time wasted watching the video is not worth it personally since most time you’re gonna land on the 10 gem one.

Gameplay is the same in both versions, which is why I’m giving this a 3 rating. Predatory gacha practices when being localized for the West always ends up being put in. Then the game fails within 6 months here. It’s ridiculous.

by Wexfordqreettr

I love NieR. I love the characters the storytelling the MUSIC. It’s all some of the best out there in. I do games. This game definitely has the music part down pat. Apart from that it really is kinda just another gacha game. You use gems to summon new characters (if you’re lucky/an unapologetic whale) and then you level em up with materials you grind for. Seriously if you’ve played ANY gacha you’ve seen what this game has to offer mechanically before. And I’m sure to some people that’s fine. But if you’re like me you’ve been burned out by these games and the repetitive slog they become before long. I knew nothing about this game before downloading it. Not really sure what I expected it to be but it honestly was not Another Gacha Game™️. Yet sure enough when I got into the game it showered me in the usual log in bonuses of enhancement materials and free gems. Speaking of gems I noticed the game differentiates between free and paid ones so…that’s always cool to see. Who knows though? Maybe this game will blow my freaking mind and grinding to level up my characters for end game content I’ll need to follow a guide to the letter for will be fun and worthwhile this time!

by Fcfthchct

The graphics and music are quite beautiful and are perfected, but there's, of course, the problem of being new. As such, the game is very raw currently, although I expect it to get better. I love the scenes and world, however not being able to control your camera angle is... strange. I would much rather be able to control it, or have it only be auto-controlled for cinematics where you still control the character. Then again, maybe I have to beat the last of the four first missions first. Battling is also strange, as combined with the not being able to control your camera, you also only control skills and general movement, attacking and dodging(why?!) are automatic, making the game seem much more like an idle game since you even have an auto mode. And combined with the fact the first two things I get access to in the menu are an ad reward spinner and a gem gatcha for things I cannot use, I simply cannot rate this more than 8/10 stars. First impressions are what decide wether someone will play the game or not, and I'm geniunly dissapointed with what they did. Of course, maybe I'm asking of too much for a free mobile game, and have high expectations for it as it's an offshoot of Nier: Automata.

by Jlnick123

I’ve had a chance to play this game for awhile now, and there are certain aspects that completely impress and others that could use some work. First of all, the visuals and aesthetics of this game are unmatched on the mobile platform. The world building, character designs, and character narratives go beyond what is to be expected for a game of this platform.

That being said, the story and design elements are obviously the primary focus of the studio that is producing this game. Because of this, actual gameplay suffers from being repetitive and grinding/farming intensive. Don’t get me wrong, I like the gameplay; but there is little to keep me immersed and I usually end up playing through all the battles on fast mode with ‘auto’ enabled. I think the turn-based gameplay mechanics need tweaking to encourage more strategy beyond aspects that are adjusted during the loadout phase.

Overall, this game is enticing, entertaining and a refreshing take on the gacha mobile game formula. If you are a fan of the NieR franchise this game will be even more appealing to you due to the frequent crossover events and familiar design elements. But, if you like intense, immersive and involved gameplay experiences I would look elsewhere.

by Knux64

While playing the game there are frequent crashes and when your pulling the doors are gold and you get all whites which doesn’t make sense cause other time you get a bland door and I have pulled x3 purples from them. Also there is no way to look at single character to see if they would be better in a group, not to mention when you have multiple of the same character you have to build one or the other like filo, the white is for defense and the black is all out attack, but I want to use the costume of the white one with the blacks stats… don’t know if this was an over site or made difficult either way along with the crahses makes the game hard to enjoy. The other weird thing is the 3 different types of menus, don’t get me wrong I live having seamless menus but it throws me off. Other than day one drop this game is really good. Best story/hero collected I have ever played.

by HappiiBun-Bun

This game blew my breath away with how beautiful the art, the story, the soft capturing music and the characters are, and that is really hard for me to find in the lot of games I've tried. The stories pull you in and leave you wondering what will happen next and it's interaction is unique and admirable. I truly hope you guys continue to grow the game and make many good changes to make it better. And a side note for those who got cranky over the having to wait a little longer for the maintenance to be over obviously needs to be taught some respect and patience for those who put their all into an astounding game like this.

by JC_Ron

It’s a quite rare gacha game that not too much focus on requirements to spend a lot of money and time investment while being a Nier series, what make me surprised about it that the dialogues and quality of the story is great. Since this game is considered new on global market, I believe the game has a better potential if they have more activities and things that could give it a better go. It’s probably higher than quality than most FF games on mobile from SE that I know and play so far.

The combat seems great and high quality, wish Nier Gestalt or Drakegard should have some version of the games on mobile, console, or PC platforms. Personally, I think limited games on other platforms somehow low down the intentions for this type of game. It’s technically one of the heavy titles that would explode your phone devices, so i recommend that a console port or PC should be greatly appreciated.

by RyanVento

I pre-ordered this game and played it for about a week before deleting it. My initial impressions were a mixed bag: the game itself was a beautiful combination of Monument Valley, Sinoalice, and a (somewhat) traditional JRPG. However, due to my unfamiliarity (at the time) with gachas and the complexities/oddities of the mechanic - and the game itself - I just found it a little overwhelming at the time. However, after months passed by and I inadvertently became more familiar with gachas - courtesy of Punishing: Gray Raven and Genshin Impact - I decided to circle back on NieR:R and boy…I sure am glad I did. Now that I understand gacha mechanics I now have a far better vision of how this game works. With this confusion cleared up it’s like a fog lifted, thus revealing the other elements of the game that I didn’t fully appreciate at the time, such as the awesome characters/weapons, the beautiful world, and the dark but lovely storytelling. I am a huge fan of this game now and am thankful I gave it a second chance.

by LOGAN MG03

Just as you would expect from a NieR game, this new addition has incredible story telling that will drag you in while being accompanied by a phenomenal soundtrack and stunning graphics. The gameplay isn’t too over the top and can even be completely automatic for those who are only really interested in the story's. However just like any game there will be at least some minor bugs. One of the main bugs that I have been running into at the moment is that at times when I collect something from either a mission or by collecting on of the birds my game will constantly have the connecting sign in the corner of the screen and never connect despite having perfectly fine internet. However, I don’t find this to be a big enough of an issue to cost such a great game even 1 star. This game most certainly has the potential to become one of the greatest mobile games of all time as long as they move in the right direction and I can’t wait to see where they go with it next.