Trivia / NieR

• Acting for Two:
  • Devola and Popola are both voiced by Ryōko Shiraishi in Japanese; and by Eden Riegel in English.
  • Yuri Lowenthal voices Jakob and (teenage) Gideon in English, while Spike Spencer voices both Tyrann and (child) Gideon.
• All-Star Cast: Due most actors reprising their roles from Gestalt to the Replicant remaster, the English dub contains multiple prolific voice actors like Jamieson Price, Laura Bailey, Liam O'Brien, Eden Riegel, Julie Ann Taylor, Yuri Lowenthal, Matthew Mercer, Spike Spencer, D.C. Douglas, Wendee Lee and new voices like Ray Chase, Zach Aguilar, Erin Fitzgerald and Sam Riegel.
• Casting Gag: In Nier Replicant, Grimoire Weiss is voiced by Shinnosuke Ikehata, who previously voiced the Red Dragon in Drakengard. Yoko Taro has confirmed this was intentional, as a nod to Drakengard fans.
  • The Administrators are voiced by the same actors as 2B and 9S (Kira Buckland and Kyle McCarley in English; Yui Ishikawa and Natsuki Hanae in Japanese).
• Colbert Bump: Its ties to Drakengard already got that franchise more attention, and Nier itself was vindicated by the success of NieR: Automata.
• Continuity Nod: The story makes several references to Drakengard. More specifically, the entire game's premise is spun off of Drakengard's Ending E.
• Creator Killer: Nier's disappointing sales partially led Cavia to close its doors in 2010. Averted with the remake, with it landing at the top of the UK and US selling charts at one point.
• Executive Meddling: Nier was always intended to be a conventionally-attractive young man, but after a meeting at Square Enix's American branch, he was changed to a burly, middle-aged man for overseas releases. This paid off well: while Replicant's "Brother Nier" still has plenty of fans, many Western players relate better to the father-daughter story of Gestalt's "Father Nier" and enjoy the sheer novelty of a middle-aged man starring in a Japanese RPG.
• Fake Brit: Liam O'Brien uses a British accent when voicing Grimoire Weiss.
• God Never Said That: When speaking on the development of NieR: Automata, Yoko Taro expressed some regret that the most pessimistic fan interpretations of the original Nier came to be seen as his own intended vision for the story (most likely the belief that your party of Replicants were the real villains all along and that Nier, like Caim before him, is supposed to be a reprehensible protagonist who doesn't deserve a happy ending). In actuality, he'd simply intended to explore the moral ambiguity in situations where both sides are more than willing to kill one another for what they believe is right, without passing judgment on who, exactly, is right. One of his stated goals when developing Automata was to avoid this pitfall and leave the story more open-ended.
• The Other Darrin:
  • In ver. 1.22474487139..., Hiroki Yasumoto replaces Shinnosuke Ikehata as Grimoire Weiss.
  • An interesting case of this happens in the English dub. While Yuri Lowenthal voiced both Jakob and (teenaged) Gideon in Gestalt, in ver. 1.22474487139... he only voices the younger brother before and after the time skip, replacing Spike Spencer as Gideon in his childhood, while the role of Jakob is recast with Sam Riegel.
• No Export for You: Zig-zagged. While the PS3-exclusive Replicant never left Japan in its pre-remake form, Gestalt was released on both PS3 and Xbox 360 overseas — but stayed a X360 exclusive in Japan.
• Posthumous Credit: The ferryman with the red bag is voiced by Brad Venable, who passed away several months before the remake's release.
• Playing Against Type: Tyrann is a sleazy, smooth-talking and murderous thug; far from a typical role for Spike Spencer.
• Remade for the Export: NieR Replicant was remade for eighth-generation consoles as NieR Replicant ver. 1.22474487139..., with revamped combat, upgraded graphics and re-recorded voice acting.
• Role Reprise: Most of the cast of NieR Gestalt, including Jamieson Price, returns for NieR Replicant ver. 1.22474487139...
• What Could Have Been:
  • Some of the stuff that was planned but cut was detailed in the supplementary Grimoire Nier; however, this stuff ended up being incorporated into the 2021 Nier Replicant remake:
    • Originally, there was going to be a final ending that takes place after D where Nier is brought back into existence at around the age he first met Kainé at, with no memories of who he is. He runs into Kainé, who also has no idea who he is (after all he removed himself from existence), but they go off to presumably to live their new lives together. On a practical note, it would also free up whatever name you used for the Nier who was erased for future files, as normally whatever names you use are permanently unusable from then on. Due to time and budget concerns, this ending was never put in the original game proper, but it was detailed in supplementary material as Ending E. Ending E eventually became a reality, name restoration and all, for the remake.
    • The mission "The Little Mermaid" was originally intended to be in the original game, but due to the same time and budget constraints, it was relegated to the side story Grimoire Nier until it was formally incorporated in the remake.
    • While weapon stories were a staple in the Drakengard games and were present in Automata, they weren't present in the original release of Nier and were relegated to side material. Like everything else, it was formally added to the remake.
  • The game's original concept had a fairy tale theme, with a young boy collecting thirteen grimoires to save a mysterious girl — like a Darker and Edgier Kingdom Hearts. The final game retains some of this: most Shades are named after fairy tale characters, like Hook and Mother Goose. Many of these ideas were later resurrected for the mobile game SINoALICE.
  • At one point a PlayStation Vita version of the game was in development that would have combined both the Replicant and Gestalt versions into a single game, but was cancelled because Square wanted to focus more development time and effort towards Dragon Quest X.
  • There was going to be moments where it was revealed that Nier felt some resentment towards Yonah for having to take care of her all the time. Taro decided against putting it in due to the emotional impact it would have brought. While not confirmed, it also has been speculated that part of why it was removed was because of the implications it would bring for those playing Gestalt over Replicant due to Nier being Yonah's father in Gestalt instead of her brother like in Replicant.
  • In an odd twist of fate, Emi Evans only ended up doing the vocal work for the game because Keiichi Okabe was commissioned for DanceDanceRevolution and the song the two made together didn't make the cut.
  • Grimoire Rubrum was going to be the first boss in an earlier version of the game. This is why the boss theme is called "Deep Crimson Foe".
  • In a fairly humorous example, Kainé was originally intended to wear heavily concealing clothes, but when Yoko Taro said that she'd wear clothes that would cover her "half-shade form," rather than correctly interpreting it as "clothes which protect her from the light and hide her nature," the character designer interpreted it as "clothes that covered half her body," leading to designs of her in lingerie with her limbs on one side completely bandaged up. This being Yoko Taro, he decided this was a lot more striking than his idea and just rolled with it.
• Word of Gay: The creators confirmed that Emil is in love with Brother Nier during interviews. When asked if it might just be platonic, they outright insisted he's gay.
• Word of God: According to Yoko Taro, the game's story was inspired by the events of 9/11.
  • Reflected in one of the loading screen journal entries written by Yonah early in the game - Nier's birthday is September 11th. However this is only for Father Nier, as Brother Nier's birthday is June 6.
  • Emil's fate ultimately was revealed to be fighting an alien invasion in a drama cd.

---