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 NIER: Gestalt/Replicant, developed by cavia inc., published by Square Enix To head off this question before it gets asked exactly 4,138,532 times, I will explain what the difference between these two titles are. Gestalt is the "true" version of the game, featuring an older man attempting to save his daughter from a deadly disease called the Black Scrawl. This version has been released in North America simply as NIER, available for both the XBox 360 and PS3. Replicant, as is inferred by the name, is a copy of the Gestalt version featuring a younger male attempting to save his sister from a disease called the Black Scrawl. This version is available only for the PS3 in Japan. How are they different? In literally no way that is significant. There are incredibly slight dialogue differences between the two games, and each game features a different design for the main character. That is all. Trophies, storyline, quests, items, and EVERYTHING important is the same.  Gameplay So, it's made by cavia, huh? Their games are usually pretty poo poo, right? Good news, friend! It's not terrible! The game is pretty much free-roaming, with a small area to run around in (think Zelda, not so much Oblivion/Fallout in terms of size) populated with towns, dungeons, and open plains. Towns are filled with shops where new weapons can be purchased or jobs can be accepted (but are not required) and two forms of fast-travel: a drifting boar and a boat. The action is not Devil May Cry, but I think it's serviceable. Here are some examples in video form: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlaYiajEqo4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2eI1j9J3v4 Character progression involves killing enemies for experience to level up, killing bosses to receive new spells for your floating book, and acquiring new weapons from three basic types: one-handed swords, spears, and two-handed swords. There are around 30 different weapons. Here is a helpful list if you are looking for what weapons you are missing: http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/action/nier/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-54581717&pid=960449 It also has fishing! Honestly, I don't care for it, but if you like that kind of thing it's there. Fishing Explanation Added 5/1 Okay, by popular demand the fishing mechanic will be explained here. In the town of Seafront, an old man will hand out all the Fishing training quests. Now, completing each of these quests will increase your fishing skill and allow you to catch larger fish, but you must begin with the mission to catch the Shaman fish. Let's start with controls. -Start at a fishing location and choose your bait. The only available option at first is lure, but later fish will require different ones. -You will cast out your line. The fish bite is indicated by a sizable tug on the line, sometimes preceded by smaller jerks. I have found it easier to judge the line tug if you move the camera to Nier's side so you can see the whole pole. Also, the most frequent bites I get come on the third tug of the line, although not always. -When you get a bite, press X once or simply push down on the left analog stick. The fish's life bar will show up. Hold down on the analog stick, the ENTIRE TIME, moving either down-right, down, or down-left when Nier's body shifts. Hold the stick in the same direction he leans. -The fish is yours when the life bar runs out. If you are having trouble reeling a fish in, it is probably because your fishing skill is too low. Here is a list of the fish needed for the quests, and what lure it needs to be caught. Shaman Fish: Located at the red X at the beach next to the lighthouse, NOT the beach next to the old man. Bait is Lure. Sardines: Same location as the last OR beach next to the old man, use Lugworm. Blowfish: Beach next to old man, Lugworm. Rainbow Trout: Northern Plains, under the bridge to Junk Heap, Lure. Bream: Same location as blowfish, Lugworm. Black Bass: Watery area outside main village, across from the little dock, use Lure. Sandfish: Sandy river area in the desert surrounding Facade, use Lure. Royal Fish: Eastern road river by the goats, use Earthworm. Blue Marlin: Dock the old man is standing on, use Lure. Hymeria: Desert sand river, use sardine. There is also gardening. Whatever.  Story The selling point of this game will be detailed from this point on. It is a JRPG with an actual, honest to God, interesting, captivating story bereft of cliches (for the most part), and a melancholic yet never soul-crushingly depressing plot. Never soul-crushing at first, anyway. The game will receive many comparisons to Drakengard's story, mainly because it was made by the same team, and I think this game shows considerable growth from their previous effort. While Drakengard was interesting because it threw completely unlikable characters into hosed up situations, Nier's story features characters you might actually give a poo poo about in hosed up situations. Cavia has abandoned crude death metal darkness for a more subtle, emotional tone which is aided by the fantastic musical soundtrack (We'll get to that.) The story's simplicity serves to its benefit, in that it rarely seems to get off track or diverted into weird digressions that don't advance the plot unless you want to get involved with the myriad side quests. Finally, its story is served well by featuring a strong concluding sequence that expands and builds on the plot with successive playthroughs. Here are the ending requirements. ENDING STUFF Ending A requires that you simply beat the game. Ending B requires you to complete the game again. (You will not start from the beginning.) Ending C requires all weapons to be collected along with a third game completion, AND for you to select the top option in a concluding scene question. Ending D requires the above, except the BOTTOM option must be selected this time. (DO NOT GET THIS ENDING UNTIL AFTER SEEING C, AND MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING LEFT TO DO WITH THE GAME.) Characters This is another point of strength. The characters are really endearing, and the voice acting is mostly fantastic as well (except for No. 6, IMO). Nier is the main character. Unless you are Japanese or an importer, he is old, a loving father, and has a tendency to poke fun at poo poo that would seem unbelievable if it weren't in a video game. Grimoire Weiss is an incredibly old book with great magical powers. He is also surly, sarcastic, and prone to excellent banter. Liam O'Brien does his voice acting and is brilliant. Kaine is the woman. She is awesome. This is Kaine. EDIT: Nevermind. She's well-written and has an interesting backstory. She will definitely grow on you once you get over the fact that she is dressed in lingerie a horny boyfriend would buy for a girlfriend on Valentine's Day. No.7 is the skeleton guy. He looks creepy and is basically a weapon of mass destruction, but he feels really bad about it. He is responsible for one of the most goddamn touching scenes I have ever seen in a video game, no bullshit. AND FINALLY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoJhn5WZ4kE&feature=related Nier has one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in a video game. Keiichi Okabe is the main man behind the music, and he is famous mostly for doing Tekken music. The vocals are supplied by Emi Evans, who interestingly enough, revealed that the composers asked her to sing songs in the game based on futuristic versions of modern-day languages, so vestiges of various familiar tongues creep into the music. Here's her site: http://www.emievans.net/ One of the cool things about the soundtrack is that it is very well-integrated into the game itself. For example: The main town's theme includes vocals and instrumentals. You can hear the instrumental everywhere around town, but when you get closer to the woman playing music, the vocals kick in, and if you talk to her, naturally, the vocals stop. The segues between different areas with different music are pretty great too, often blending and fading out seamlessly, rather than simply stopping abruptly and starting a new song. Also, this is a boss theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSAH4VDtFjQ So, hey! I like it! You might like it too! LAST UPDATE EVER, GRIMOIRE NIER If you are finished with the game, and find yourself in need of more NIER, the following document was compiled by some cool guys at GameFAQS of all places. http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgvmkf89_228fxgghgg3 It is a translation of the supplemental material included in a companion book released in Japan only, and contains short stories as well as interviews with important members of the game's design team. Don't read this until you are finished with the game, though, as it features SPOILERS. InnercityGriot fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Jan 6, 2011 |
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May 1, 2010 03:49
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 02:01 |
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Be nice, it's my first OP.
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May 1, 2010 03:49
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http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3240012
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May 1, 2010 03:53
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mango sentinel fucked around with this message at 04:01 on May 1, 2010 |
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May 1, 2010 03:53
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You know the search function works now right?
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May 1, 2010 03:55
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All the images in the OP are leeched, hahahaha.
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May 1, 2010 03:56
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InnercityGriot posted:Be nice, it's my first OP. No.
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May 1, 2010 03:57
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not everyone has platinum, but um yeah, there's not really any excuse for the image leeching.
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May 1, 2010 03:58
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well it was a well written op
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May 1, 2010 04:00
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For the people pointing to the other thread, there was talk of making a new Nier thread since the game was out now. The idea being anyone who wanted to look up the game wouldn't have to slug through the posts of what the gently caress is this. However, stop with the leeching, OP.
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May 1, 2010 04:03
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To be fair it is a better OP
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May 1, 2010 04:04
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I wasn't sure about what the rules were about the image stuff so I tried to take everything off the official web site, for the most part. If there's stuff I have to take out I will, or if we need to delete the thread I can. I'm kind of new to this whole internet message boarding thing, so if there's some kind of probating I need to do for breaking rules, I'll serve it, sorry about this. I kind of wanted to give the game a more condensed, easy to read summation of the game without having to wade through pages of speculation and confusion. My bad, guys.
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May 1, 2010 04:11
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InnercityGriot posted:I wasn't sure about what the rules were about the image stuff so I tried to take everything off the official web site, for the most part. If there's stuff I have to take out I will, or if we need to delete the thread I can. I'm kind of new to this whole internet message boarding thing, so if there's some kind of probating I need to do for breaking rules, I'll serve it, sorry about this. I kind of wanted to give the game a more condensed, easy to read summation of the game without having to wade through pages of speculation and confusion.
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May 1, 2010 04:15
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I am a nice person so I uploaded the leeched images to Tinypic (Waffleimages isnt working for some reason  ) for you, copy paste these links to replace the old ones.http://i44.tinypic.com/1zx5rhl.jpg http://i43.tinypic.com/ta1vtw.jpg http://i40.tinypic.com/23wmhvo.jpg http://i41.tinypic.com/9gbrew.jpg
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May 1, 2010 04:15
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mango sentinel posted:
Way to read the thread you're linking to, guys; we discussed making a new thread for it in the thread itself.  OP looks good - just fix up the image leeching and you're golden. Rei's links should do fine. In the future, don't forget that you can just go to Waffleimages and paste in the URL of the image you want to link to, and it'll automatically mirror it for you.
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May 1, 2010 04:19
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quote:I am a nice person so I uploaded the leeched images to Tinypic (Waffleimages isnt working for some reason ) for you, copy paste these links to replace the old ones. Much appreciated, thanks man.
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May 1, 2010 04:30
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So basically, I want to buy this game just because of the boss music. It's sad, but epic at the same time. Amazing.
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May 1, 2010 07:44
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I've sunk over 25 hours into it and the music is the best part of this game. The OST came out about a week ago and it's on iTunes.
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May 1, 2010 07:59
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Pretty solid game. Do not play it on Hard however, it's the bad kind of hard where enemies have massive HP and nothing else.
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May 1, 2010 08:02
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One nitpick: the skeleton dude is #7, and his voice actor is super grating on my brain. I'm near the end of the game, hopefully everything goes completely off the rails to hosed-up-ville, or I'll be disappointed.
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May 1, 2010 10:03
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Threep posted:Re-upload the images to https://www.waffleimages.com.
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May 1, 2010 10:34
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Aardark posted:Yes, recommend the host that is down 50% of the time. Whenever I see a broken image on the forums, it's a pretty safe bet that it's hosted on waffleimages.
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May 1, 2010 10:48
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The best thing about this game is hearing WEISS YOU DUMB-rear end every time you start it up. The worst thing is that it doesn't properly reverse the O/X buttons on a JPS3 so after I get to the main menu I need to remember to press X to select "Continue", then O to select my savegame. Then it's O to examine things in the field but X to select stuff on the menu. Xythar fucked around with this message at 10:58 on May 1, 2010 |
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May 1, 2010 10:53
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Okay, so. Fishing: what the gently caress? I'm trying to get that one fish that you need to get to progress the plot, right when fishing becomes available. I failed at it something like 20 times, then finally landed... a piece of seaweed. And then another piece of seaweed. A few failures later I had finally hooked something big, pulled it in and got... a rusty bucket. After that I went back to failing. I think I saw the actual fish a few times, I'm assuming that's the one where the gauge barely goes down and I take off maybe 5% of it before the fish escapes. I gave up for tonight after spending like half an hour failing horribly to catch a fish.
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May 1, 2010 12:56
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Xythar posted:Okay, so. Fishing: what the gently caress? I'm trying to get that one fish that you need to get to progress the plot, right when fishing becomes available. I failed at it something like 20 times, then finally landed... a piece of seaweed. And then another piece of seaweed. A few failures later I had finally hooked something big, pulled it in and got... a rusty bucket. I have a feeling you're trying to fish in the wrong place. You need to go to the beach where there are a dozen of seals near the lighthouse. And no matter what the game says you need to pull the stick BACK and then slightly do BACK-RIGHT or BACK-LEFT motion as the fish moves. And remember to press X only once to start reeling and reveal the fish's HP.
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May 1, 2010 13:02
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Xythar posted:Okay, so. Fishing: what the gently caress? I'm trying to get that one fish that you need to get to progress the plot, right when fishing becomes available. I failed at it something like 20 times, then finally landed... a piece of seaweed. And then another piece of seaweed. A few failures later I had finally hooked something big, pulled it in and got... a rusty bucket. And once you get the hang of it, in say... 10 sardines, do as Syvere says. Edit: I had a similar (more than likely worse) experience to yours when I first tried fishing in the game. This helped me "get" it. Even if the video says nothing, you can see how it "should" be happening and it help. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Irctu0lee9Q Dantes fucked around with this message at 14:19 on May 1, 2010 |
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May 1, 2010 14:09
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Well it's encouraging to hear that it's pretty good. It fell off my radar after a while and it's good that another thread is taking shape now that the game is out. Also good to hear that they're not somehow making us play the game twice--one locally and the other imported--to get the complete story, as they implied with their advertisements months back.
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May 1, 2010 15:12
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Brackhar posted:Pretty solid game. Do not play it on Hard however, it's the bad kind of hard where enemies have massive HP and nothing else. Yeah. I play everything on hard first just by principle but good lord, I ended up switching back to normal for this game. Hard isn't really hard, but you're literally chipping away at everything. Everything has like 5 times more hp. The first boss (not the prologue) took me like 20 minutes to finish. Took about a minute on normal. In games like DMC and GoW the increased hp is ok because there is more to do with the combat system. Combat is a little too on the simplistic side for it to be bearable in this game. So, play on normal. You'll enjoy it a lot more.
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May 1, 2010 15:28
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quote:One nitpick: the skeleton dude is #7, and his voice actor is super grating on my brain. Fixed, thanks. And yes, I think the voice acting is generally really well done in this game, but the acting for No. 7 is pretty grating. quote:I have a feeling you're trying to fish in the wrong place. You need to go to the beach where there are a dozen of seals near the lighthouse. The game says that you need to go fish by the beach, so I think people just assume the game is talking about the beach directly next to the old man. The fish there are too difficult to catch without better fishing skill, though. Just follow the red x for the first mandatory fishing mission.
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May 1, 2010 15:45
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gently caress Blue Marlins and the old man who wants 2 of them 
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May 1, 2010 15:51
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Nth-ing the props to the soundtrack, it's easily one of the best to come along in years. I actually bought the soundtrack first, then decided "drat, now I've got to play the game to see what's going on during these songs." I'm a few hours in, and I agree with most everyone here; the combat isn't Bayonetta-level, but it's not a pure action game, either. It's still complex enough to keep things enjoyable and satisfying, mixing up close combat and magic, and I'm having fun with the fights that almost resemble bullet-hell games, with Weiss shooting off a stream of shots that cancels out the enemy's, leaving you a bit of room to maneuver and approach. And that was just the first boss fight. Fun stuff. I also agree that the draw of this game is its setting, the overall experience. The setting is rather original (it's Cavia, after all), set in the future, where some of the "dungeons" are actually built like old buildings from our time. The characters are especially interesting and have a lot of life to them, and it's always fun to hear them banter back and forth (and there is a good deal of it), especially between Nier and Weiss. When walking around the world, talking to villagers and all, you can tell Cavia put a lot of love into developing a coherent and living setting. The world and its people really feel like it's coming to a slow end, like the dusk of civilization, where everything's just beginning to quietly fade away; there's been this feeling of slight melancholy throughout the game so far. And of course, the awesome music really ties everything together. The graphics are a bit dated, I'm not a fan of fishing, and the ladder climbing animation is kinda slow, but I'm having a really good time with everything else. Rent this thing, at least.
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May 1, 2010 15:56
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One Legged Cat posted:and the ladder climbing animation is kinda slow
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May 1, 2010 16:04
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InnercityGriot posted:Ending D requires the above, except the BOTTOM option must be selected this time. (DO NOT GET THIS ENDING UNTIL AFTER SEEING C, AND MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING LEFT TO DO WITH THE GAME.) Speculative: Yeesh. This sounds like your save file gets deleted for a storyline decision. Bold move.
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May 1, 2010 16:11
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jannik posted:Tap X to jump up faster. You only need to hold X/A and he'll keep doing the faster animation.
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May 1, 2010 16:23
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rainy day posted:not everyone has platinum, but um yeah, there's not really any excuse for the image leeching. Agreed, rainy day. The OP should obey the law.
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May 1, 2010 16:26
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New GiantBomb Quicklook It only shows off the really early part of the game before you get Grimoire Weiss so things are a little bland, but it seems Ryan is getting into it.
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May 1, 2010 21:37
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Just picked up a lot of games recently but I'm definitely getting this sometime soon, pretty much expecting crap gameplay but the soundtrack and story look good at least, and the final ending twist is loving awesome Not a story spoiler, but when you get the last ending the game erases your savefile which is what got me really interested in the game. I want to see what exactly happens that the game has to do that. Also something where I can mash my way through a lot of it looks relaxing after buying a bunch of SMT games and playing competitive online games
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May 1, 2010 21:53
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rainy day posted:not everyone has platinum Think how he would have saved himself from looking stupid if he had platinum. Maybe there should be some kind of "don't make a thread unless you have platinum" common sense rule for the forums.
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May 1, 2010 21:59
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You can also google "Something Awful NIER", or check the first few pages of threads and look for the word "NIER" (in this case it's been consistently on page 1-2)
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May 1, 2010 22:19
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Can we talk about a videogame now (I like this thread better)
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May 1, 2010 22:32
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