What was the Japanese reception to Nier crossover?

[MikkoAkure]

Cuz we stopped it.
The title works better than the title for the expansion at least.
We're supposed to be "shadow bringers," but we don't bring shadows, we bring the night, which if anything means there are less shadows after ending the endless day.
It just sounds cool.

What is night but the shadow of the entire planet? The sun is the light source and night is the world's shadow.

Back on topic I feel like they didn't try too hard to make NieR feel like it fit in the world. But even as someone who eats up the lore, I think it's kind of dumb to complain about it. They've had cross-overs with non-FF games since the beginning and they've all felt a little awkward and out of place, but the game is an MMO theme park experience and not a super hardcore RPing one. Yeah it's a little weird, but I didn't let that bother me too much and the raids themselves were fun with new mechanics and a lot of nostalgia, which was the point.

[Bright-Flower]

What is night but the shadow of the entire planet? The sun is the light source and night is the world's shadow.

Back on topic I feel like they didn't try too hard to make NieR feel like it fit in the world. But even as someone who eats up the lore, I think it's kind of dumb to complain about it. They've had cross-overs with non-FF games since the beginning and they've all felt a little awkward and out of place, but the game is an MMO theme park experience and not a super hardcore RPing one. Yeah it's a little weird, but I didn't let that bother me too much and the raids themselves were fun with new mechanics and a lot of nostalgia, which was the point.

The difference is those other crossovers were one off events. Not storylines spanning an entire expansion and the expansion's entire alliance raid story, plus even having story in the .2 and .4 patches between raids. The other crossovers are extra bonus events, not a big part of the expansion's content cycle.

If someone didn't like monster hunter event for example they could just ignore it, this is something spanning from 5.1 to 5.5.

[MikkoAkure]

The difference is those other crossovers were one off events. Not storylines spanning an entire expansion and the expansion's entire alliance raid story, plus even having story in the .2 and .4 patches between raids. The other crossovers are extra bonus events, not a big part of the expansion's content cycle.

If someone didn't like monster hunter event for example they could just ignore it, this is something spanning from 5.1 to 5.5.

As much as I thought it was weird and out-of-place, skipping a whole part of the game because you don't like the aesthetic is a little childish. I hope they do original content in the future for alliance raids since I find that much more interesting and engaging, but covering your eyes and pretending it doesn't exist is a bit extreme.

[Iscah]

The difference is those other crossovers were one off events. Not storylines spanning an entire expansion and the expansion's entire alliance raid story, plus even having story in the .2 and .4 patches between raids. The other crossovers are extra bonus events, not a big part of the expansion's content cycle.

This. It's not just that it was "out of place" or a bad crossover, it's that we got it not as a bonus on top of our regular scheduled content but replacing a whole chunk of whatever other story could have been told in the one-per-expansion alliance raid slot.

As much as I thought it was weird and out-of-place, skipping a whole part of the game because you don't like the aesthetic is a little childish.

Firstly it's not that childish to choose to engage with things you enjoy and avoid things you don't, at least in the context of what you do with your free time, but in any case I think it's the opposite problem. The average player will do the alliance raids because they give upgrades or glamour or it came up in the roulette. And every time I'll be reminded again how completely nonsensical and disappointing it was.

[linayar]

And every time I'll be reminded again how completely nonsensical and disappointing it was.

"Completely nonsensical" is a pretty extreme description. Even without knowing everything (yet?), the story itself is quite understandable for the most part and still fits within the world of FFXIV with everything that we know about it.

[Jojoya]

"Completely nonsensical" is a pretty extreme description. Even without knowing everything (yet?), the story itself is quite understandable for the most part and still fits within the world of FFXIV with everything that we know about it.

While I'd agree "completely nonsensical" is a stretch, the story did feel jumpy and disjointed to me.

I'd like to read your synopsis of the story to see how you consider it quite understandable without going into Drakkengard/Nier references that those who never played those games would know. Every other synopsis I've read or listened to has to resort to talking about the other games to try to explain what was happening.

If you have to talk about another game to make sense out of what has happened in this one, then it doesn't fit into this game's world.

[linayar]

While I'd agree "completely nonsensical" is a stretch, the story did feel jumpy and disjointed to me.

I'd like to read your synopsis of the story to see how you consider it quite understandable without going into Drakkengard/Nier references that those who never played those games would know. Every other synopsis I've read or listened to has to resort to talking about the other games to try to explain what was happening.

If you have to talk about another game to make sense out of what has happened in this one, then it doesn't fit into this game's world.

Keep in mind that I have terrible memory recollection (especially on details), and I've only played the story on one character without having done NG+.

On a remote area in Kholusia, the lives of a group of dwarves were changed forever(?) when what appeared to be the body of a female hume was discovered within a mining(?) site, surrounded (attacked?) by what appeared to be moving machineries. The WoD and twin dwarves who cannot contain their curiosity saved the hume, discovering that she is still "alive," and she told them that there are more of these living machines further "in" through the mining site.

After defeating a few more machines and blasting open the way through, they found themselves in a clearing that leads to what appeared to be an abandoned factory of some sort, but it was not totally abandoned. Fighting their way through more machineries, they finally met what appeared to be a male hume that somehow has control of these machines. After a battle occurred, ending with a fight between the two humes, the male hume fell off the edge and the female hume fell unconscious.

They figured out she was some kind of machine as well and went on to "fix" her with spare machine parts they found within the factory. In the factory, they also found some data (which I did not bother reading).

In the meantime, the village was getting ready for a festival and everything seemed to be looking up for them.

After the female hume became conscious (though the use of a device, which may have also affected her knowledge/memory and also became a signal), an explosion occurred that revealed more parts of the area (mountain?) near the village of the dwarves, followed by an attack on the village itself, revealing the female hume to be the enemy all along. One of the twin dwarves was attacked, only to be saved by another female hume that looked identical to their once-ally-now-enemy.

They chased after their enemy through new pathway in the mountain and found themselves in another area, battling more enemies through a bunker that led to a ship. There, they fought and defeated the girl.

(Here, my memory really fails me, but up to this point, I don't think the story felt disjointed.)

They came back to the village still suffering from the attack and the villagers are looking for people to blame, and the twins were an easy choice for "digging" up things they should've left alone.

(Thing happened that I don't remember. I believe one of the twins went missing around this time or after defeating the female enemy and then the WoD had an echo vision of that same twin having fallen in the past and meeting a white sphere.)

(OMG, I don't remember what happened in this latest patch. I think I was out of it when playing. They either found some clue about the missing twin or their new female ally, along with the male hume that was recovered, told them something.)

They went off and found the missing twin (or the missing twin appeared before this) and head out to finally deal with the origin of this attack. After fighting through more enemies in some weird environment, it was revealed that this attack was from a different universe/dimension(?) and that the missing twin had been sent there. In the end, the missing twin sacrificed herself to seal the gateway to this other world and the two hume allies also left (or cut themselves somehow from this world) in order to not leave any connection between the two worlds.

The remaining twin could not accept what happened and decided to leave, hoping to find more clues about the incident.

Meanwhile, the villagers still want someone to blame, but one dwarf who had a connection with the twins disagreed with their desire to put blame on scapegoats on something that no one in the village could've knowingly prevented beforehand. Instead, he decided to focus on rebuilding the village with the help of the WoD gathering materials both from the discovered factory and bunker areas. At the same time, the traveling twin also had been keeping in touch. Meanwhile, the village chief seems to have an uncontrolled moments of suspicion and anger(?) while some dwarves had began to change their minds about finding a scapegoat to blame.

To be continued...

So, missing memories aside, I think the story has been mostly straightforward in terms of letting me be able to follow through a path in the story narrative without knowing anything about Drakengard/Nier. That said, if I know them, I may have picked up on things that I currently do not, assuming my memory does not fail me in regard to those references.

[Erendis]

"Completely nonsensical" is a pretty extreme description. Even without knowing everything (yet?), the story itself is quite understandable for the most part and still fits within the world of FFXIV with everything that we know about it.

Completely nonsensical is very accurate imo. It has nothing to do with the world, we also have no idea wth happened there... I'm only going to repeat them when they add weapon upgrades for coins. And unfortunately it will count towards people "who do it because they like it"...

[linayar]

Completely nonsensical is very accurate imo. It has nothing to do with the world, we also have no idea wth happened there...

You have no idea what happened where? Do you really think nothing at all about it makes any sense whatsoever?

[Bright-Flower]

As much as I thought it was weird and out-of-place, skipping a whole part of the game because you don't like the aesthetic is a little childish. I hope they do original content in the future for alliance raids since I find that much more interesting and engaging, but covering your eyes and pretending it doesn't exist is a bit extreme.

I'm not pretending it doesn't exist. I like the actual raids I just think they dropped the ball on the story.