I’d like to chronicle one aspect of my experience playing NieR Replicant, involving a nice instance of ludonarrative harmony that felt unique to my playthrough. A story of an unfulfilled promise and my regret.
This post contains spoilers for all of NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139….
I started playing the game last December, intending to complete it and NieR:Automata before the anime adaptation of the latter aired. That wasn’t a goal I managed to accomplish, but it informed the way I approached the game.
Feeling strapped for time from the start, I didn’t really want to go out of my way to do side content. I didn’t interact with the cultivation mechanic even once – I still don’t know how it works. I would only pick up quests as I came across them, and I would do random ones that piqued my interest or were easy.
One questline I did find myself invested in was Yonah’s. It starts with the “Yonah’s Home Cooking” quest, where she simply asked me for two ingredients right away. I procured them, gave them to her, and she lovingly made me some stew that did not taste good. This unlocks the next and final quest, “Yonah’s Gift”, where she asked me for a melon.
At that point in the main story, I was about to head into Facade, where I bought her a melon. Once I was done with everything there and came back to the village, I gave her the fruit. She asked for another one: a watermelon. I looked for it in the shops in every area I visited next, but like the melon, it was only sold in Facade.
I was seeking efficiency here, so I thought, “next time the story sends me to Facade, I’ll buy her the watermelon”. I mean, the story had sent me to the Praerie twice already, then it sent me to Seafront a second time. Clearly, soon I’d be going back to Facade. Not quite.
Yonah’s cough was getting worse, and Popola asks me to gather some vapor moss growing near the southern gate to make some medicine. I had no idea that by picking it up I was entering the point of no return, triggering the Shade invasion where my dear little sister gets kidnapped.
Part 1 of the game was over. The timeskip really wowed me. Seeing “Nier” all grown up, badass, wielding two new kinds of weapons, was amazing. I had obviously already seen his adult design–online, in collabs, in the cover art for the game! But my brain conspired to make this twist as effective as possible, completely obfuscating that cognizance until it happened.
However, all of the previous quests were now filed under an “uncompletable quests” category. I couldn’t give Yonah what she had asked for anymore. I felt really guilty about that and it made me connect with the story tremendously. The main character’s grief over his little sister and desire to rescue her really became my own as I constantly regretted not fulfilling her request.
The first chance I had, I bought one watermelon from the grocery store in Facade. For when we were reunited. It was purely sentimental.
The undelivered watermelon really became a defining part of my playthrough. Friends who were following my experience would occasionally rib me about how Yonah never got her watermelon. It stinged a bit.
For a while, I thought that perhaps not all hope was lost. I knew I had to play the game multiple times to get all the endings. But it turned out that following playthroughs began from Part 2 already. I was ultimately thankful for this, as honestly the game has you to replay it one too many times. But it meant that I could never complete the quest that weighed on my conscience.
There’s a quest in Part 2 involving the ferryman that elicited a similar feeling when it became uncompletable too, but as you have to replay this part of the game many times, I could quickly make up for that one the next time around.
As a side note, ending A was awesome. I loved how you’re directly interfering with something much grander, but none of it matters to you, your character doesn’t even comprehend it, it’s just about getting your family back above all else. I definitely headcanoned giving Yonah all her ingredients at the end. The three next endings were awesome too, though I’d have merged the content of ending B with other endings.
For ending E, you have to start a brand playthrough from the start again, so I thought that maybe I’d finally have a chance to see Yonah’s questline through, but it diverges long before that. I had some of the more meta aspects of this and the previous ending spoiled sadly, but it brought great closure to the game and beautifully tied things up.
If the game had allowed me to go back to Part 1 after completion in my recovered save file and finish that quest, though, it probably would’ve been one of the most cathartic moments in a game for me. If I ever replay Nier one day, I’ll focus more on the quests, and maybe finally get that catharsis.
I do wonder if Yonah’s questline was intentionally designed for this to potentially happen. It asks for three items sequentially that can only be bought in Facade, after all. To some people it might have been the melon, or the pumpkin she never got to ask me for, that they never get to deliver.
The watermelon ended up being a really memorable part of my time with the game and a great example of the game design and the story complementing each other, whether by design or coincidence.
