I'll talk about it on both sides of the spectrum, whether you've played the game, or watched with fresh eyes.
The story depicts the apocalyptic world of NieR. A mysterious landscape, with AI running things from good side and bad side. Both in a never-ending spiral of constant fights, constant horrors, and sacrifices. While the good side is inevitably the most human, there's something about the bad one that peeks into something greater. Some sort of humanity, brewing deep inside.
We follow two androids, the cool-headed power girl, and the bashful and curious dude. Perfect duo, which discovers the reality of this world while making their own choices, something not done in a long time by the group they work with.
I enjoyed the setup, the character interactions, and the many scenes giving us a little peer into the stories these people have suffered, as well as developing in the mystery on why the machines started becoming more. However, from the basic setup, and the “First Season Syndrome”, the series really couldn't do much.
Even the original game had that problem, where the beginning portion of the story was a bit dull, maybe a bit by the numbers. It was done with intent, with purpose, since the director Yoko Taro has a beautiful desire to make his audience suffer. Not only with storytelling, but with game mechanics, difficulty, and elements which only work for the medium it uses. The anime can't do that, and as such, it needed to compensate a lot, and create new elements and mechanics just to try to achieve a similar feel.
The game technically was three stories. The first one told with no context, just baseline knowledge. The second one was a retelling, with much more information, changing EVERYTHING. The third one awaits, lying in the second season of the anime. That part of the story being one of, if not the most AMAZING piece of storytelling a game's ever offered to me.
In turn, that itself makes the first anime season practically just the prologue, and it makes the entire sense that it wasn't as well put together as what goes ahead. Hell, I can argue, I wasn't enjoying everything the game was throwing at me, until, the end of what this season adapted, and I'll give this series credit, I care for these people.
The background characters get much needed development, and a character, much relevant to the next one, gets some proper background, and backstory. I love that. It adds to the story, and piles layers onto what is to come, but the MAIN cast is put aside.
I'm a firm believer, this series required at least three more episodes to tell the story in its entirety. The character development, the scenarios, how each builds their opinion on one another. 2B takes decisions instantly after contradicting herself, the feelings 9S, and her develop feel entirely rushed, and the villains didn't have as many more scenes together of their activities. The game managed to give a special pacing to all of this as a drip fed plot that worked perfectly. The anime's pacing doesn't suck, but it's not as remarkable as the game.
TLDR; all my problems stem from adaptation problems. Pacing issues, rushed developments, but at the same time, great background information, world-building, designs, interactions, and dialogue. The robot scenes are great, and the reveal at the end makes me so excited about a good adaptation of what lies ahead, since that's the BEST OF THE BEST NieR has to offer.
7/10. Many problems, but solid enough.
