If you didn't know that 2010's "Nier" was Cavia Games' final title, you might know it when you play it. This action RPG feels like the last act of swinging for the fences, characterized by anger, tragedy, and desperate earnestness. And like most desperate swings, it failed at the time. Sales were poor, Cavia Games was absorbed by its parent company, and Nier's creative director, Yoko Taro, took his arms elsewhere. [NieR Replicant ver. 1.22474487139... (henceforth referred to as Nier Remaster. Produced by developer Toyologic and publisher Square Enix with the direct involvement of Taro and his usual collaborators, the Nier remaster feels like an attempt to fulfill the ideas and promises of the original game. 2017's sequel, Nier Automata was an unexpected hit, the team is betting that now is the perfect time to reintroduce the original game to a wider audience. Maybe this time it will be more palatable to a wider audience.

I honestly don't know if it will: even in its remastered form, "Nier" remains a singular and boring game, a work of art that tries everything and constantly seeks out the most difficult notes. But it is also one of the most memorable games I have ever played, and the remastered version captures and enhances its excellence in every way.

If you play "Nier" expecting a direct prequel to the cyberpunk and high-tension existentialist action of "Automata," you won't find one. Set literally thousands of years before "Automata," the story follows a boy and his sister in a post-apocalyptic world that has reverted to pastoral fantasy, magical diseases, monsters, and at least one talking book. As the boy, you'll explore a dark fantasy world while trying to cure your sister's horrible disease, and join some of the game's most outlandish characters: Grimoire Weiss, the book, a semi who casually inserts words like "shitpurse" into his dialogue during battle. Kaine, a female monster warrior, and Emil, the cutest little boy you've ever met, with terrifying magical abilities. [The game is like a dark pastiche of a standard fantasy adventure game like "The Legend of Zelda," enjoying the conventions of video games but subverting them and continuing to live in a world that wants you dead and is probably dying itself and look into deeper thematic realms, contemplating the meaning of Along the way, you'll find sharp shifts in genre, such as sections that seem ripped from bullet-hell games and dungeon crawls that switch to an isometric perspective reminiscent of "Diablo."

In other words, you'll actually spend most of your time running around lush fields and dank dungeons, completing quests and fighting ethereal monsters called shades. The combat follows in the footsteps of "Automata" and is much more dynamic and fluid than in the original version. Magic, once inconvenient and slow to use, is now properly integrated into combat, and spells and ranged attacks can be unleashed alongside regular melee combat. Areas that were previously confusing, like the infamous fishing mini-game, are now more clearly explained, and Nier's famous genre shift has also popped up, as the core combat mechanics have become much more interesting. Before, departures into more bizarre gameplay areas felt like a drag, slowing down the pace of combat and exploration that would otherwise have felt incredibly tedious. Now, they are tied up in big, dramatic battles, which is very welcome.

Compared to the original, which struggled to maintain 30 fps, the technical aspects are much improved, but not up to modern standards. There are no options regarding frame rate, and 60 fps seems to be the upper limit. Texture filtering, shadows, reflections, and LOD can be turned up or down, but more could have been done. I also encountered some odd technical issues, such as serious frame drops when the controller was inadvertently unplugged, and persistent problems with the mouse cursor continually reappearing on the screen during cutscenes.

In other respects, this is a remaster that is generously devoted to the original. Remasters and remakes tend to impose new meanings on old works, decontextualizing old games and rewriting their styles into something new and ill-fitting. The "Nier" remaster succeeds in avoiding this in every respect. The graphics are much more advanced, if not state-of-the-art, at least on par with "Automata," but that doesn't change the aesthetic of the game. Many of the key visual touches of the original "Nier" - the surrealistic pulsating textures on the monsters you fight and the magic you use, the over-washed lighting that was characteristic of the games of the time - are recreated here in a more evolved form. Yes, the look has changed, and while I don't fully agree with all of the design changes (why did they change Kaine's jawline, when she was already perfect?), they have succeeded in capturing the atmosphere and style of the original. For long-time players, it will feel like a homecoming.

There are some new elements, new quests and stories interspersed throughout, but they deepen, not change, the story. To me, it feels like a director's cut, with additions and tweaks adding context and complexity, better connecting "Nia" and the sequel, and adding new vibrant, bright moments to the fatigue of the original. It feels like a beginning, not just an ending.

In other words, this is still Nier, for better or worse. Like the original game, it relies on repetition that builds up in narrative meaning as it is played over and over again, which, while original, can become tiresome later in the game. As with the original game, there is no such thing as subtlety that I have even heard of. But like the original, it is also heartfelt. It's shifty, constantly playing with genres and styles in ways that still feel visionary 11 years later. And then there is the divine music, the best in the medium.

Look, I don't know how people will react to "Nia" in 2021. It's far from perfect. But let me tell you, it's worth it.