For the people that want a quick answer: Is Nier’s entry in the gacha market, Nier Reincarnation, worth playing? For players that want a more story-focused game, Nier Reincarnation delivers. The visuals, music, and how players interact with the world immerse the player into something entirely different from other gacha games. Nier Reincarnation also respects the player’s time – currency rewards are plentiful, and rerolling isn’t a chore.
Nier Reincarnation enters the gacha fray! The Nier franchise has garnered a huge following from its single-player games. As such, It was a bit of a surprise to fans when Square Enix announced that the next Nier game would be a mobile game – and not only that, a gacha game!
It seems like it was planned all along with the amount of Nier Automata collaborations that was going on in the gacha industry (Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, Final Fantasy War of the Lions, and even Punishing Gray Raven!).
Not to mention, Yoko Taro, the lead director of the Nier games, was already involved in some ways in the gacha games (Sino Alice is another gacha that he directed). Therefore, he definitely has had some time with gachas before creating Nier Reincarnation.
Is Nier Reincarnation A Good Fit For You?
The director, Yoko Taro, is an eccentric character himself, saying that he mainly wanted to get into mobile and gacha games because of the money generated. This is definitely not wrong, many of the popular Gacha games make an enormous amount of money. Gacha gamers just are dedicated to their waifus and husbandos.
However, as both Pokemon Masters Ex and Alchemy Stars have discovered, even with a big following or backing by big names – it’s by no means a guaranteed success. Probably Yoko Taro realized this himself since Sino Alice has not gained the popularity that he or Square Enix wanted.
Gacha players are critical gamers, and if they’re going to invest time and money into a game, it better be good. Luckily, Nier Reincarnation is something unique that a lot of players are going to enjoy.
What Makes Nier Reincarnation Worth Playing?
Pros of Nier Reincarnation:
- The story and the presentation of the story is the star. Traversing through the Cage, your ghostly companions will feed you little lore/story bites in a way that isn’t intrusive.
- The way the story is told is easy to digest – players can absorb what’s going on through the 2d animated scenes, in addition to the text and narration.
- Although there’s an overarching story, each chapter in Nier Reincarnation has a mini-story or memory that starts and concludes by the end of the capter. Allowing players to feel satisfied by completing each chapter even if they don’t have much time to devote to the game.
- Every single piece of text that’s related to the story is voice-acted.
- The gacha aspect of the game aligns with natural gaming behaviors. The game doesn’t want you to save for the next character as it actually encourages players to pull as often as possible.
- There’s some sort of reward for everything that’s done in the game. Therefore, gathering premium currency doesn’t feel like a chore. This in itself is fun because players know that they can get the next pull quite quickly.
- Nier Reincarnation gives plenty of time for players to hit pity on the featured banners. If there’s a character that they’re unable to get, the banners last so long that all players will probably hit that pity mark (at 200 pulls). It also gives players the choice of one of the featured banner characters.
- With Keiichi Okabe again leading the music direction for Nier – the game keeps up the Nier tradition of having an amazing soundtrack. The game’s music easily brings players into the world and atmosphere.
- The game has a cast of memorable characters down to the unplayable companions in the game. Mama and the cast are charming and their comments abou the world they inhabit are always interesting.
- Similar to Granblue Fantasy, players can play as much as they want because of the abundance of stamina potions available. Not to mention, there are a lot of half-stamina events.
- The game’s world, characters, and visuals are wonderful. Everything in the game is well done from a graphics standpoint, from the 3D models of the characters, to the world of the Cage, and all of the 2D parts of the game.
What Makes Nier Reincarnation Not Worth Playing?
Cons of Nier Reincarnation:
- The game is mostly an auto-battler (with skill inputs from the player) which might put some players off looking for active gameplay.
- Most of the content is quite easy with the only exception being ‘Dark Memories’ quests.
- Featured banners last a long time (weeks at a time). Which means its a long wait for new characters and weapons to appear.
- While allowing you to add friends and use their supports ingame, Nier reincarnation has no real-time modes or meaningful co-op to play with other players yet.
- Although the game does well to hide the menus when going through the story (by transversing the Cage), however, to enhance characters/weapons/etc, there’s a lot of navigating through menus and buttons.
- Getting into the action might take awhile because the game is story-focused. Players might find the pace of the game a little slow.
- The content currently is mostly based upon the stories and side stories for each character. Therefore, more hardcore players will complete content quickly.
- The color pallete might be a bit drab for people that like more bright and colorful aesthetics.
Is Nier Reincarnation Free To Play Friendly?
Nier Reincarnation is very free-to-play friendly. The game gives out so much stamina that casual players will probably find it impossible to use up. So people that want to grind all day and night can if they want.
Also, players get characters and a boatload of premium currencies used to pull by going through the game.
Not only that but getting to the last chapter in the game unlocks daily pulls. You might think it’s only 1 pull a day like other games, but it’s actually a 5 pull. 5-pulls a day. Which is unheard of outside special events and anniversaries.
For free-to-play players, that’s amazing since it allows everyone to scratch that gacha itch and try to get lucky. Also, by the end of normal difficulty in the story mode, players will likely gather enough points for a full pity (about 200 rolls for a guaranteed 4-star banner unit of your choosing).
The rates in Nier Reincarnation is as follows:
| Rarity | Type | Probability |
|---|---|---|
| 4-Star | Weapon & Character | 2% |
| 4-Star | Weapon only | 3% |
| 3-Star | Weapon & Character | 5% |
| 3-Star | Weapon only | 10% |
| 2-Star | Weapon only | 80% |
Here are some important things to know about the Nier Reincarnation Banners:
- It takes about 3000 premium currencies to do a 10 pull.
- Every 10 pulls, you get the same amount of tokens that go toward your pity (200 pulls for 200 tokens).
- Featured banners last for a long time, 30+ days. Players will have plenty of time to get the characters they really want (with a couple of dupes too!).
- In Nier Reincarnation, getting dupes is valuable but not hard. Getting dupes can further your progress in the game. So pulling on the same banner is recommended.
- Clearing a stage completely with 3 stars nets you about 130 premium currency and clearing a chapter nets players 300 more premium gems, in addition to whatever missions you might complete doing it. Each stage only takes a couple of minutes to complete. Therefore, getting to 3000 gems to do a multi pull is very easy to do.
- Gem income is high too, after getting to the end of the normal story chapters – players can get a few hundred gems a day in addition to getting premium pull tickets if they’re lucky from mama’s tree!
- Each character/weapon has 3 ascensions. So to max out a character or weapon, players will need to obtain 5 copies of the same weapon.
You might think that being encouraged to get dupes is bad for the game. However, it’s not the case here, as you can still ascend the character without dupes using a special item obtained in the game. However, it comes at a much slower pace. Therefore, it’s recommended that players pull on one banner until they can cap out their main roster of 4-stars if they can.
However, if they can’t do it before the banner goes away – it’s easy to gather the necessary materials to ascend the characters slowly. So don’t feel pressured to cap them all out.
What is the Endgame in Nier Reincarnation?
The endgame in Nier Reincarnation focuses on completing and maxing out ‘dark’ weapons in the game. Dark memory weapons are the strongest weapons in the game not obtainable in the gacha. In Nier Reincarnation, unlike other gacha games, players will find that uncapping or ascending weapons are more valuable than obtaining characters.
After players complete the story mode on normal and work towards completing all of the hard mode story missions – they will start to collect dark weapons and unlock ‘Dark Memories’ quests.
These quests are some of the hardest content in the game and can drop materials to ascend the dark weapons or tickets (to pull for ascension materials). They have an extremely low drop rate. Therefore, it’s more of a long-term goal for Nier Reincarnation players to complete.
Is Nier Reincarnation a Main Game or Side Game?
Nier Reincarnation is more of a side game. The game allows you to play as much or as little as you want. Although there’s is PVP in the game – it’s more of a distraction as there’s no control over the characters (since it’s auto PVP).
The game’s story is the main driving force of the game, along with the memorable cast of gacha and side characters. Therefore, it’s really a gacha that is meant to be enjoyed rather than be competitive. Even the time-limited events are quick to do and last for a long time to ensure players can gather all they need from them.
The combat is relatively hands-off and has many auto features that make the game easy to progress without feeling pressured to be too involved in the game. It’s a game to be enjoyed at whatever pace that players want to play it at.
Nier Reincarnation Verdict
Nier Reincarnation is a great gacha game that knows how players will want to play its game and sticks to what Nier fans want most: story and all the things that make a good story experience. However, it does very well on pleasing the gacha players simultaneously by being generous, easy to get into, and mostly easy to understand mechanics.
While the game won’t please everyone – I think it’s a gacha game that everyone should give a shot even for just the music and atmosphere alone. For me, it’s definitely a game that will stay on my phone that I will play on the side to enjoy the story and whatever characters they will add to the game later.
If you want to start the game, I recommend reading this great guide from a member of the Nier community.