A surprisingly enjoyable game
I actually find the story line interesting and different. It's not based on a typical love story, or a handsome protagonist. It's just a father trying to save his daughter, the only thing he has left in this world. It's actually quite touching and the story really gets to you near the end.
I've read in the reviews that the story gets ruined by all the side quests you get in the game, well, firstly the quests given are optional so you can choose to ignore them and just focus on the main quests, but most of the quests you can do as you play the game anyway, it's not too huge of a world that it actually becomes a hassle to do and I actually enjoy most of the quests, only some get tedious.
The game play is easy to pick up, the controls are simple and it also gives you the power to choose which magic abilities you'd like to use. RPG meets Hack and Slash. You can level up your weapons by finding certain items to forge and you pick up magic abilities randomly as you go through the game.
Everyone has noticed that the soundtrack in Nier is just amazing, if not for the game play, play it for the music. Every area of the game has an amazing song playing in the background, I think I sat for around 45 minutes straight by a fountain in one of the areas where a character was singing because it sounded so beautiful.
Overall, it's worth a play through, it isn't an all time amazing game, but it's definitely worth a play, you'll get your moneys worth as you can spend a lot of hours doing side quests, and farming and fishing, there's also new game plus so you can view different endings. Get it....