It’s understandable why many people favor the story in NieR Automata over the one in NieR Replicant.

The dire and hopeless situation they face in their fight against the machine lifeforms never seems to end no matter what they do.

And the worst part of all?

They’re fighting for a lost cause.

Here they are, thinking they’re fighting for humans who hope to return to Earth someday once it’s free from the machine lifeforms’ shackles.

But unbeknownst to them, humanity as they know is long gone way before the machine lifeforms infiltrated the Earth.

Because of its dark and twisted story, it’s no wonder why NieR Automata is a cult favorite among many people.

So, what is it that makes many people prefer NieR Automata over the other?

Is NieR Replicant not dark and twisted enough?

If you think that NieR Automata is a depressing story, you’ll be surprised to find out that the story in NieR Replicant is far more twisted than you can ever imagine.

The enemy you have to face in NieR Replicant

While the enemy you have to face in NieR Automata is a machine lifeform, the enemy in NieR Replicant is known as Shade.

Unlike the machine lifeforms which look nothing more than a bunch of rusty robots going on rampage whenever they see you, the Shades are a lifelike being.

Like the machine lifeforms, Shades also come in many shapes and sizes.

And they attack you whenever you are in their vicinity.

But unlike the machine lifeforms where many of them talk and behave like your typical robot, only a handful of Shades can talk.

Even if they can talk, their speech tends to sound gibberish.

You just can’t make up what they’re trying to say without subtitles.

While killing machine lifeforms usually don’t leave any traces behind, Shades do leave traces when you kill them.

And the traces are unsightly to see too.

The true nature of Shades

Imagine that your life’s goal is to wipe out every single Shade out there no matter how many and dangerous they are.

While you’re doing it for the sake of humanity, you’re doing it to lure the leader of all Shades, the Shadowlord.

Some of you must be wondering why you have to poke at the hornet’s nest when you can just stay at home and sip tea with your buddies.

Well, it’s hard to sit still and sip tea with your buddies when this Shadowlord guy kidnaps your sister.

And your sister was nowhere to be found ever since then.

You don’t have any compassion for them since you view Shades as nothing more than a pest.

Yes, they may come to you in large numbers and attack you when they see you.

But these Shades are actually humans.

While many of them become Shades after being attacked by one, there are a handful of them who remain in that form when they reincarnate back into the world.

That explains why some Shades can converse albeit in a gibberish tone.

And the grim part about this whole situation?

Our main character here doesn’t even realize that he actually killed his fellow humans.

Thus, the blood traces that were left behind every time you kill Shades.

But the situation is the same in NieR Automata too!

Yes, you can argue that the machine lifeforms aren’t that much different in this case considering that some of them try to mimic humans.

Not only do they try to form friendships with one another and establish a family unit like humans do. But they even go as far as mimicking humans having intercourse as well.

Just imagine the terror when these machine lifeforms at the Pascal Village scream, begging you not to kill them as you slaughter each of them.

They may only be a machine lifeform.

But the way they’re pleading to you to spare their lives isn’t that much different from what a human will do when someone is about to kill them.

If there’s anything that can feel eerie when you kill the machine lifeforms, it will have to be this moment when you have to kill everyone in the Pascal Village to unlock the game’s bad ending.

Other than that, killing machine lifeforms isn’t that much different from getting rid of the weed in your backyard.

There’s nothing grim about killing a machine compared to killing humans that take a different form.

And you’re doing it without knowing anything about it.

That’s not the only thing

If you think that’s the only twisted part about the game, you’ll be hard-pressed to find out about what happened to Emil in the past.

Remember the rolling head that 2B and 9S come across at the abandoned shopping mall?

Well, that’s Emil.

And will you believe me if I say that Emil used to be a human?

What causes him to become a rolling head in NieR Automata has a lot to do with the situation that took place in the Shadowlord’s castle thousands of years ago.

But what causes him to look like a spooky grinning ghost lookalike has a lot to do with him inheriting his sister’s body and abilities.

A long time ago, Emil and his sister were test subjects in a cruel experiment.

They turned his sister into a weapon of mass destruction and him as a human with a petrification ability.

As you can expect from those who become test subjects, no one treated them like humans except for this researcher lady who was nice to both of them.

Alas, his sister becomes uncontrollable, wiping out almost everyone in the lab.

They then brought Emil out as their last resort against her and petrified her in the depths of the lab.

Of course, he comes back to the same place once again with our main character to put an end to his sister’s life.

Yes, it’s cruel to have someone like Emil end his sister’s life with his own hand.

But if that’s the only way to free his sister from a cruel fate, then so be it.

It’s actually a good story

Some of you must be thinking that the story in NieR Replicant may not be that interesting considering how most people tend to favor NieR Automata over the other.

Well, they’re not wrong about that since the story in NieR Automata is amazing.

But the story in NieR Replicant isn’t that bad either.

If anything, I prefer the latter more since you get to see the banter among the characters which is absent in NieR Automata.

While I won’t deny that the game can feel like a slog since you have to repeat the second part of the game multiple times to unlock all endings.

But it sure is worth playing especially if you enjoy the lore as much as I do.

P.S. If you’re into reading a light novel with a dark theme, then you may enjoy reading my thriller light novel series, Trigger Locked.

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Trigger Locked Book 1: The Mind Control Assassins