Quote Originally Posted by Cilia View Post
NieR Raid - Because I haven't seen anybody else mention it.
I haven't seen anybody else mention it yet, at least not in detail, but the reason it's so confusing is that fully appreciating everything requires not only knowledge of NieR: Automata and its predecessor, but Drakengard (at least 1 and 3, since Yoko Taro wasn't involved with 2) as well.

The first two bosses, the Knave of Hearts and Hansel and Gretel, are lifted to the original NieR. The semifinal boss lifted from Automata, where it served as the final boss and orchestrator of the plot. The actual final boss, on the other hand, has a lot of allusions to Drakengard: its subtitle translates from hex to "Aberration," but the DE code translates to "Grotesquerie." In the original Drakengard the Grotesqueries were... a race of extradimensional, giant babies with sets of adult teeth, that don't seem to have had any goal other than destroying the world. What set the NieR timeline into motion was ending "E" from Drakengard, where the protagonist Caim is drawn through a wormhole and fights the Queen Grotesquerie in the skies above Tokyo (1999 A.D., if I remember right); though he succeeds in defeating the thing it comes at the cost of his life, and the Queen Grotesquerie's corpse slowly infects the world with White Chlorination Syndrome. This leads to the Gestalt Project in an effort to save humanity, but this ultimately fails due to the actions of Nier; past that comes Automata.

Thus why, though it's in a digital space, we fight Her Inflorescence in the skies above Tokyo.

"Her Inflorescence" further refers to the flower from Drakengard 3 (which is a prequel to the original), the source of the setting's song magic. It was apparently created by the Grotesqueries (or Watchers, if you prefer) as a first effort in destroying the world, but is ultimately thwarted by the game's protagonist Zero (cold comfort, considering regardless of ending it leads to the original Drakengard). Her Inflorescence also wears Lunar Tears in her hair, referencing Kainé from NieR.


So yeah, even without doing the weekly "NG+" stuff I'm calling shenanigans.
Ten characters.

In Drakengard 3 Ending D, Zero is consumed by the Flower and ends up sealed in the Spirit World. Accord mentions that Zero is still alive and that we'll meet her again one day and I think that's what happened here. I think that after Nier: Automata Ending E, Zero breaks out of the Spirit World - now a full Grotesquerie/Watcher - and creates 2P using a Seed of Destruction on the repaired 2B. Watcher Zero then leaves Earth to track down The Ark that left in Ending E because why not, the Watchers ain't exactly a friendly group of people. Watcher Zero catches up, The Ark crashes on Novrandt and gets corrupted by Watcher Zero, and the fully repaired and reawakened 2B and 9S catch a ride to Novrandt with Watcher Zero...somehow. Anyways, once on Novrandt, the Dwarves stumble across the Seed of Destruction, the Factory is discovered, we meet 2P, blah blah blah, end of the series involves us beating the tar out of the combined Watch Zero/Red Girl/2P thing while 2B and 9S once again seal her in the Spirit World. At least, that's my best guess from trying to make sense of the story. The third Alliance Raid is done, I don't think we're going to get much more explanations on what the hell happened outside of Konogg sending us the occasional message in his search for Anogg. It blows my mind that this story got added to the game with so many holes and is so disconnected from damn near everything in FFXIV. It's embarrassing and disappointing, especially as someone that is a fan of the lore for both Drakengard and Nier. It's just poorly done fanservice that doesn't tie into FFXIV at all and the barebones story doesn't even manage to provide any answers. It's just references all over the place, references that players new to the series won't get which kinda goes against that statement of "new players won't need Nier to understand what happens." I dunno, I expect nothing from the weekly quests going forward but who knows, maybe I'll be surprised.