YMMV / NieR Re[in]carnation

• Accidental Nightmare Fuel: The sudden closeup to Mama's blank stare in Chapter 12 can be this for those not expecting it.
• Anti-Climax Boss: For some, the Final Boss of the Story of the People and the World and the overall game, the Female Administrator, is this, with a number of players not thrilled that the fight is the exact same as Carrier's boss fight in the Story of the Girl and the Monster and that once Her Beehive Barrier is gone, all it takes is for at least 1 Character Skill to completely wipe out Her HP bars. But hey, the fight at least has really awesome music to go with it!
• Awesome Art: The Cage is absolutely gorgeous, having various architecture with intricate designs that provide a calming scenery while simultaneously awakening one's inner Design Student's Orgasm. There's also the story art that's reminiscent of a storybook.
• Awesome Music: Courtesy of Keiichi Okabe, as per other Yoko Taro games. Standout tracks include Authority and Flux, two of the battle music in the game.
• Catharsis Factor: For the SINoALICE fans, getting to beat the crap out of Parrah and Noya and have them be on the receiving end of the grind in the "Variation: Puppets Parrah-Noya" event is this for all the bullshit they give in their source game.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • If bringing a healer in the party, the 4* Abstract version of F66x is the go-to for those who have her, due to her character skill "EMERGENCY CARE" allowing her to heal the entire party by up to 40% of their maximum health when fully ascended and upgraded. Her 3* versions works just as well.
  • For early game, the 3* versions of 2B, 9S, and A2 are used often on account of being easy to get, and coming with powerful weapons you can max out. You don't need to spend any summons to get them, making them good characters to use while you level up other characters. In fact, if you manage to get all three of them and their weapons, you can coast through pretty much the entire story by evolving their weapons, and it's only around the later chapters that they start to fall off (Slabs can keep them relevant).
  • Speaking of NieR: Automata, A2's 4* Divergent variant and 2P reign supreme due to both of them dealing multiple heavy hits, making them a must-have in PvE where victory is decided by who can deal the most damage in the shortest amount of moves. Even to date, A2 is still on the top of the tier list despite being one of the first 4* units released.
  • Among the Reborn variants obtained through fully upgrading their respective Dark Weapons, Levania and Lars are the most used due to their immense damage potential.
• Demonic Spiders: In the Cage, some of the Black Birds' forms are truly fearsome.
  • Beast Types are deadly foes. Despite their frailty, their immense agility and damage potential greatly compensate for it. Worst of all is their That One Attack, Grudge, which is able to halve your characters' defense, which can be disastrous at higher difficulties.
  • Sea Creature Types are deadly for another reason. They may not be fast or strong, but they are sturdy and are able to fire blinding beams of energy.
• Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: The gameplay is generally considered uninspired at best and extraordinarily grindy and monotonous at worst. The game's main draw is the plot, which is not only generally considered well written but also features a ton of lore developments for the NieR series as a whole.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: The NieR Re[in]carnation fandom will be very quick to point out that while the game's place in the timeline is unknown, it's still canon to the franchise, and anyone who disagrees "because it's a mobile game" will have the timeline from the official twitter account shoved onto them. This sentiment is shared with the SINoALICE fandom.
  • To add on, be prepared to get utterly slandered if you call for a sequel to Automata and/or a NieR 3, referring to Re[in]carnation as NieR 2.5. Even Yoko Taro himself clarified (quite a number of times, at that) that Re[in]carnation is NieR 3, whether certain fans like it or not.
• Fan Nickname: After the release of the The Story of the Sun and the Moon's opening MV, players were quick to call it Act of Reality 2 due to the modern day setting of its protagonists. The Female protagonist in particular ends up nicknamed 'Alice' due to similar appearances and ages.
• Friendly Fandoms: With the SINoALICE fandom due to both games being directed by Yoko Taro. Despite Taro claiming that both games only have 'being gacha games' as the common factor, many fans hope to have a collaboration between them in the future.
• Funny Moments:
  • In Chapter 4, we see the Dark Monster ( who's Fio in Levania's body) playing with the piano staircase. It's hilarious as it's adorable.
  • During Garden of Benediction, when Fio has her One-Person Birthday Party, Mama can be seen in the background beating up the Dark Crows in a Big Ball of Violence. Crosses over with Heartwarming Moments.
  • Almost everything in the Life in the Cage Yonkoma:
    • The first chapter, Friendship, has Fio cheerfully asking Levania about the taste of her dream which he's seen eating like cake. When he accidentally reveals that he's been eating the dreams of other humans aside from her, she gets glowing red eyes, manifests a sword behind her back, and beats the everloving crap out of a utterly terrified Levania. The final panel has Mama hold a signpost censoring what's left of Levania with the same message as that scene in Drakengard 3 where Zero stabs Five:
      "This content has been deemed inappropriate for pretty much everyone."
    • Argo and 063y try their hand at comedy. Fio's reaction is pretty much what the readers are all thinking, and to 'add insult to injury', she drew eyes on her own face to pretend that she was paying attention.
    • Saryu happily demonstrating magick for Fio goes south when Fio makes a certain... censored request regarding Levania. Whatever it is, it left Saryu very terrified of the little girl.
    • Never let Griff talk for too long, as Lars finds out the hard way.
    • Gayle and F66x compete in a game show, in which they have to guess a certain scent. Gayle isn't willing to lose but the answer to the current scent?
    F66x: "This is my husband's favourite underwear after a half-marathon and some weight training, washed with detergent and no softener on the quick setting and line dried."
    • Poor Gayle is later left fuming when Carrier awards F66x 10 billion points and declared the winner.
    • Marie offers Gayle a new prosthetic arm when she notices that the latter's current model has gotten outdated. Gayle thinks she can shoot lasers with it, but Marie reveals that it actually doubles as a glowstick for her concerts and even shells out VIP meet-and-greet tickets when advertising it, causing Gayle to conclude with a Flat "What" that "the future is stupid".
• Game-Breaker: SARAFA. She has not one, but two meta-busting costumes:
  • Her Abyssal Belle is already an incredibly good Water attacker with both her Awakening and Karma skills increasing her ATK, but what makes her so broken is her 3rd Karma skill; namely there is a chance to let her reduce skill cooldown time by 30%. To everyone. In the Arena where getting out skills as fast as possible matters, skill cooldown time reduction is a godsend.
  • Then New Years 2024 came around and her New Year Belle costume pretty much shattered the game. How? She has the highest base ATK in the game, Void Drive to double the attack of high ATK Dark spears, 80% Dynamic Caged Vigor baseline which can stack with other weapons with the same skill, 60% a passive Static Caged Vigor at Awakening 3 which makes it the highest form of damage amplification and an absolutely disgusting Character skill that puts her in a Dauntless state^Noteincreases ATK at the expense of 99% of HP gone and if she's holding a Dark-element weapon, refreshes her cooldown time. She's so broken, the good folks at NieR Re[in] Guide call her "The official face of toxicity". And for good reason.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • "Garden of Benediction" is about Fio having a One-Person Birthday Party by herself and making a birthday cake out of dirt despite never having actually seen one before. Mama goes Mama Bear on the crows and provides her an actual birthday cake in secret.
  • The character stories for the 4* variants of Nier and Kaine reveal that they come from an alternate timeline where Yonah is completely cured of the Black Scrawl, Kaine is freed of her possession, and Nier didn’t have to sacrifice himself. Even more so is that Kaine's new outfit is revealed to be something her grandmother used to wear when she was younger, and is implied to be wearing it in anticipation of going on a date with Nier.
  • The EX story of Akeha reveals that she did not die and was dragged out the castle with the heir. From there on, the two lived a quiet but happy life. Sure Akeha still does sword work, but she uses it productively to train others.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: At this point, Yoko Taro should get himself involved with the Persona series already.
  • Prior to the release of Automata, Yoko Taro was asked by Atlus to promote their own fantasy RPG project, which he did in this video. Among his ideas to ensure the longevity of his own games was to shift NieR's setting into that of the Persona; that of a high-school drama. With the release of the 2nd Arc of Re[in]carnation, it looks like we're getting a NieR high-school drama after all.
  • And with Persona 5 Royal coming to Re[in]carnation in September 2022, this joke became even more hilarious, since Persona is in a sense invading NieR. Is Yoko Taro a secret prophet?
  • In the collab event itself, Hina becomes a Guest-Star Party Member as Joker and Makoto venture into a Palace created by her suicidal friend. Her English VA Allegra Clark is then cast as Mitsuru Kirijo in Persona 3 Reload, alongside Yuzuki's English VA Aleks Le as the protagonist/Makoto Yuki. Even better - both Mitsuru and Makoto Yuki were previously voiced by the same voice actors as Zero and Dito.
• Junk Rare: For Memoirs, getting Memoirs with flat stat boosts like HP, Def, and Atk are considered useless, since while okay for 1/2 rarity Memoirs since they make for good base stats for low level accounts, once the player gets higher leveled and needs more stats, getting flat stats is worse than percentage increases. Percentage increases allow for better scaling at end game content, while flat stat boosts are static and thus fall off eventually. Defense and HP especially are generally useless too as the primary stat since there's no reliable way to make the AI attack the party member you want them to unless you plan on soloing a run, while HP, Attack, and Crit are more valuable in almost every mode.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Heya, Besties!"^ExplainationThe official NA twitter often referred to its followers as 'besties' which made it subject to mockery and No. Just... No reactions from fans who aren't used to anything that chipper from the NieR series aside from Emil.
  • We already have NieR 3 at home, goddamnit.^ExplainationA number of people were quick to assume that the 12024 The End of Data concert revealed the name of a third NieR game titled NieR: Repent, with "Repent" stylized as "R3pent. Players of Re[in]carnation proceeded to roast those people by pointing out that there was actually a NieR 3: Re[in]carnation itself.
  • Off to beat the shit out of the Red Girls^ExplainationThe end of the teaser trailer for Re[in]carnation's final chapter had N2 making an appearance, implying her involvement in the game's overall story. Many players who also played Automata or at the very least aware of its story proceeded to develop a violent urge to defeat them in-game as a result.
• That One Sidequest: The Dark Weapons sidequest, while ultimately worth it, is a tedious and long term project that requires a lot of grinding to complete. The player needs to run a ton of hard to get items to ascend the characters weapon, and since each character has their own, you have to get lucky and hope their specific materials drop as well. The weapons are worth it for sure since they start at 3 star rarity and go higher with no need for extra copies, but it takes so long that, at best, you'll only really be able to get one finished if you grind all the time. In particular, there are several required items for ascending them to max power that have horrible chances of being gained, cost a lot of resources to get, and you need a lot to do even one character. It's for this reason the community generally suggests doing them for select characters whose weapons/users are worth using, such as Lars.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: As mentioned below Argo does not have many fans. However, it seems like he's on the way to redemption in "The Story of the People and the World" as he has a Jerkass Realization over his parenthood and as such has a more positive interaction with Fio and Noelle, with his Fragment story related to the chapter having him wonder how he can be a better father.
• The Scrappy: Argo. He's the only character that is viewed negatively due to leaving his family to go climb a dangerous mountain — especially when his wife was due to give birth to their second child at any moment. And then in his Dark Memory, it's revealed that he does this rather often and even told his eldest that "if [she] were a boy, [he'd] take her on one of [his] adventures". While it could be argued that this was the intention, the game still tries to flesh him out and give him likeable traits, but few players enjoy his character due to the selfishness he displays without developing as a character. This is especially poignant since most Dark Stories/Character Quests work to give more layers to the lead character; Argo has the dubious honor of his content making him LESS likeable. Mama is especially disgusted with him due to his Parental Neglect, but the game still treats him sympathetically in events and other chapters, which avoids him being Love to Hate and instead just a dislikable character. The developers seem to acknowledge this, and have given Argo a Jerkass Realization that makes him realize what a terrible father and husband he was.
• Shocking Moments:
  • The fact that Applibot went out of their way to paste a spoiler warning in the in-game notices and on the Japanese Twitter account for Chapter 6 of The Story of the Sun and the Moon had a number of people panicking over what was to happen. True to form, not only does it have Multiple Endings but also reveals a LOT about Hina and Yuzuki's circumstances.
  • The teaser trailer for The Story of the People and the World had a number of heads spinning as it features not just the return of Fio, but also other Memory Characters such as Rion travelling in the Cage outside of their memories. The 2nd trailer goes even further to show Fio, Rion, Dimos, Akeha, Argo, 063y, Saryu, Yurie and Yudil teaming up against a unknown threat along with Fio and Argo interacting with each other in the Scarecrows.
• Tear Jerker:
  • "Seat of Shadow" is this for Rion. He's laid up in bed because of his illness, taken care of by a kind woman. As the kingdom closes in, Dimos finds out why the woman took Rion in: he reminds her of her dead son. Once Rion is well enough to leave, he tells the woman that he's the prince of said kingdom, turning her into a snarling rage and telling him to Get Out!, blaming him for all the death and misery.
  • Rion and Dimos' story is by far the most tragic of the weapon memories Fio and Levania encounter. They failed to bring peace to the land due to everyone they encountered showing nothing but hatred towards them, usually trying to kill them on sight due to Dimos being a Clockwork Man and Rion being his kingdom's disgraced crown prince. In the end, Rion's body gave out just nine months after they started their journey, dying in an abandoned church. Dimos' heart broke after his prince's death, becoming little more than a feral beast that painted its ruins crimson red with the blood of those who rejected Rion's message of peace. He kept doing this for an entire century, before Gayle finally put him down.
    • Dimos' character story reveals another detail: Dimos was fully conscious and (mostly) sane during his final years. Despite the ravages of time corroding his body and his memories, he refused to leave Rion's side for the rest of his life. He was legitimately angry with the world for the suffering Rion endured and wanted to make them pay for it of his own free will.
      Dimos: My body is ravaged by rust. My memories grow defective. Yet I stay by his side: My Prince, who time eroded. There is a gaping, empty hole in my chest. The pain I felt just before he died... is gone. I will paint this church red. I will use the blood of humans who denied his salvation and now intrude in his slumber. In accordance with the promise we made that day, I will continue to protect him... and the peace he desired forever...
    • The worst thing? Rion's failure to stop his father's plans for conquest led to his kingdom bringing horrendous suffering for over a century, their clockwork soldiers massacring entire cities. Gayle's home town was one of its victims. In the end, the kingdom imploded on itself, but its remnants continued to destroy and ruin countless lives.
  • The ending of NieR: Re[in]carnation: The Cage is saved, everyone's back home... except that Fio chooses to stay on Earth to be friends with the Female Administrator, which even Mama was reluctant to allow at first. To demonstrate this, Fio's 2* default variation undergoes Deletion as Punishment as it's glitched out, with the in-game reason being that she reincarnated on Earth.
    • Speaking of which, the new story for Fio's default 2* costume:
      Mr. Monster... Everybody... Thank you so much. I'm gonna go far away for a little while. I'm looking forward to sharing the memories I made with all of you. Even if a day comes when I'm really, really sad, I know I'll get through it if I just remember how you were all so nice to me. And if you ever get sad, I hope you know that I'm somewhere out there thinking about you. I'll never forget about any of you, so I'm not sad even if we can't see each other. Bye-bye! I hope we can play together again someday.
    • While the post-credits scene ends with everyone about to return to their various worlds, two people couldn't: Hina and Yuzuki. As a result of the conflict from the previous arc, the siblings' weapons have been fractured, thus preventing them from returning back home. Thankfully, the tears of sadness turned into Tears of Joy when 10H is revealed to have survived, thus reuniting the friends as they spend the rest of their lives hanging out in the Cage.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Initially believed to be only appearing in a collab event, Chapter 3 of The Story of the People and the World gives us Parrah and Noya, albeit giant and in shambles. The same chapter marks a cameo of Devola and Popola, more specifically the incarnations in Nier.
  • Chapter 4 of the same arc makes the reappearance of a Grotesquerie Queen as its Final Boss, scaring the everloving crap out of players familiar with its origins. And then the ending to the chapter essentially makes "A Much Too Silent Sea" required reading as YoRHa Unit 10H shows up in the last scene and Mama's true form is revealed to be Pod 006.
  • The end of the teaser trailer for the final chapter marked a cameo of N2, better known as the Red Girls, Slasher Smile and all. Half the fandom proceeded to lose their minds while the other half gained a violent urge to beat them up, assuming they had anything to do with the current state of the Earth...
  • Which turned out to be a Red Herring as they're not the primary villains like what many people thought when the final chapter released. Instead, many players were utterly shocked when it's revealed that they'll now have to play NieR: Replicant ver. 1.22474487139.... due to the presence of Her, aka the Female Administrator from said game's Ending E playing a major role as Re[in]carnation's Big Bad.