Finally got to play Nier: R and got all the endings. Must say was a great game, combat could use some work...

Finally got to play Nier: R and got all the endings. Must say was a great game, combat could use some work, but the story was really good Specially the sacrifice of Emil and how its portrayed

will Automata be as good??? also given all the Emile-like faced enemies will it be a pre-quel?

You have missed out on a loootttttt of discussion

Automata is set 8000 thousand years after Nier. That said, all the Drakengard 1 references in the demo are making me believe it will be.

Just finished it as well man. Bummed out on missing previous discussion. Also thought the Emile sacrifice scene was great but then he survived which did cheapen it a little bit. I am confused by some things so I'll just ask if anyone cares to answer.

So Nier takes place like a thousand years after the virus spreads and replicants apparently can't reproduce so do they just keep making new replicants? I think Popola and Devola said something about generations. How do they have memories of their grandparents and so on if each time all replicants just get remade? And if replicants are immune to the virus why did they have to make Gestalts first rather than directly transporting people into their replicants?

Also the shades in the Aerie referred to Nier and group as humans which I guess is just a thing because you don't know shades are human yet, kind of cheap. But the strange thing was to me that shades there apparently were disguised as humans. I mean how are shades any different if they can easily have physical bodies and live normal lives?

I think I also read the relapse happens to gestalts when their replicants become self aware but we really don't see any replicants that are not self aware. Or what does self aware even mean in that context? That they know they are not the original or just that they have advanced consciousness and independent thought? In that case all shades should be relapsing, which I assume they do after the shadowlord is dead.

And how does Kaine even work? So she is a half replicant and half shade which she was before she absorbed Tyrann (as I understood the novel section) which is why she was treated as a freak. So how does that happen? Did the Gestalt just try to enter the replicant and something went wrong? I'm not gonna go into how she can absorb another entity like Tyrann or how the whole sacrifice thing is even possible because that just seems to be made up not following any rules to be honest.

I honestly like Nier's combat. The dodge-roll is fucking incredible, it's Quake levels of movement quality IMO.

>And how does Kaine
keep her tits within her dress??

Have you ever heard of Jack Vance's 'Tales of the Dying Earth' series? Nier always reminds me of that. The general rule for anything that can't be explained in those books is generally that 'it be like it is because it do'. A stupidly long time has passed since impossibly complicated science completely altered the nature of life and nature itself as we understand them. I don't think it was meant to be understood. The story works with all of your questions still hanging in the air.

I suppose so. It still kind of sucks if half of your story is just unexplainable asspulls not following any consistency or rules. To be honest I think there hardly is a story in the game Nier. 90% of the game you are completely oblivious to reality collecting verses and keys and then your actions in the last 10% have the potential to exterminate humanity and bombshells are dropped on you left and right but we never see the consequences of that. Though I suppose humans don't die out because they exist in Automata. Just feels like it lacks a proper conclusion. Surely the creators wanted to do more/something else but it never came into the game.

Guess I will have enough time to play the Drakengard games before Automata so I'll do that next.

>then he survived
I felt that it was made 100% comedy purpose to separate ending A from B more than just linking Shadowlord with the guy you play as when the game start.

and so to be a giant fuck you in the feelings when you get to C and D.

The thing is though that I personally didn't feel like I was looking at asspulls. I suspect that Taro has this stuff 99% sorted but he only lets us see the tiny bits that protagonist-kun sees because that's the kind of experience he wanted us to have. The bits of lore that we do see are absolutely fucking awesome and the idea of a world where all of the crazy, epoch-changing shit already happened and the cast are just stuck living in the epilogue is an interesting one.

>So Nier takes place
Replicants are basically artificial clones created based on the DNA contained in the Gestalt - which is why they first made Gestalts and why Replicants without gestalts (relapsed or otherwise) cannot be re-made again.
The recreation process is however just Devola/Popola handling all funerals and childbirths, so I guess they simply deliver the recycled Replicants as new children. The whole thing is pretty vague, as it usually is with Taro - for example how does this happen in Facade? Wouldn't they find it weird that 2 random women come to town every now and then and...give babies away or something?

>Also the shades
The replicants think themselves human, they are entirely unaware of not being uhman.
According to the grimoire, in the Aerie there were actual true humans, where the gestalts just went into their replicants without help. Doesn't explain much, the aerie is weird.

>I think I also read the relapse happens
Theres a relation between the Replicants gaining sentience and the Gestalts losing it (relapsing), it wasn't really clarified if its a 100% ratio or anything though, and I think it mentions that the whole relapse thing is due to Nier's effect on the rest, since he is supplying them.
And honestly through the game, most of them do seem already relapsed.

>And how does Kaine even work?
Kainé was a normal female who was gestaltized, and the cycle in which the story happens poor Kainé had received a system error when she was remade, and got a big fat dick from it. This is why she was hated in the Aerie. Then later Tyrann came in to share her body/save her life, this is not a real merge just some weird thing, as you say - no clear rules at all. Tyrann did want to take her over and merge in the beginning, but got softened by the end and basically let her take him over.

>And if replicants are immune to the virus why did they have to make Gestalts first rather than directly transporting people into their replicants?
because they'd just get WCS again
>I mean how are shades any different if they can easily have physical bodies and live normal lives?
Because they have to possess an unrelated innocent replicant to do it, hijacking their thought processes and integrating into other people's families, except with the free thought of their human side like Kaine has
>So she is a half replicant and half shade which she was before she absorbed Tyrann (as I understood the novel section) which is why she was treated as a freak.
No, she was born with male genitalia after an error in the replicant process which led to intense bullying and peer exclusion making her more susceptible to having a shade take her over
>So Nier takes place like a thousand years after the virus spreads and replicants apparently can't reproduce so do they just keep making new replicants? I think Popola and Devola said something about generations. How do they have memories of their grandparents and so on if each time all replicants just get remade?
the same replicants keep getting remade and have memories from their past lives
The story is there, it's just that you have to connect the dots yourself and it's still taking time for me even but every time I do connect one of these dots it feels rewarding
The rules are certainly there, just vague
By the way the reason why humans exist in Automata was because they fled to the moon
>That said, all the Drakengard 1 references in the demo are making me believe it will be.
Tell me more, I don't have a PS4 and Drakengard was the first game I played out of all of these so that excites me
That's how I feel about it too, the fact that Accord in DOD3 hints at Automata just reinforces this for me
More I think about it the more the world makes sense in my head

cont

The ending seems like Kainé and Tyrann merged as gestalt and replicant can (using Nier for energy), to form a true human, the weird thing ofcourse is that it was not her own Gestalt

To which Taro actually added an interesting bit to the grimoire:
>If Tyrann managed to take over Kaine’s body – not his own replicant – the “Gestalt Project” might possibly move towards a new direction.

The opposite happened, but I guess a new direction was possible from there, which is why I like the theories of Automata androids being a continuation of this project.
The themes are all there too
>humans go into a non-human form (Shades) and lose their sentience
>non-humans (mindless replicants) get a human form and gain human sentience

I believe this answers all the "why does an android need a fat butt or a pussy" questions, maybe automata is simply all about birthing a new humanity since the last one died.

There is a simple story of a father/bro trying to save Yonah, it was the point with Nier to make you do the regular JRPG save the girl/world bullshit that 99% of all games do, and then have you realize how you just got punkd.

You should remember that the Grimoire came after the game, so those who finished it back then were simply left with
>saving the world turned out to be double-genocide against humanity
You can bet I felt like that was the final conclusion

Taro's creation process seem to be to create a huge story with many events, and then just flesh out the parts that get turned into a game, so all the meta ends up very vague and sort of empty, but still making sense.
He said he cut out basically 2 game's worth of story from Nier, its hard to imagine how close this actually was to his original plans...or how far.

>how does this happen in Facade
There seem to be a lot of Devolas and Popolas (maybe under a different name) as they reappear in Automata (or maybe they were rebuilt?) so I guess each region has it's own cyborgs. As you say it is vague, I guess we'll have to settle with that.

>The replicants think themselves human, they are entirely unaware of not being uhman.
Yes there were original humans in the Aerie which is why the whole fight there was a thing. The problem is that the shades (original humans!) called Nier and his group humans despite them knowing they themselves are the real humans and Nier just a fake. I don't remember the exact dialogue but it kind of bothered me when I went through the Aerie. Also once Nier announced he'd kill all the shades humans started transforming into shades which is another thing that bothered me. I assumed it was just an illusion the shades created but if they actually managed to merge it just means that merging is basically meaningless because you can go back to being a shade anytime and seemingly losing your current replicant.

>Nier's effect on the rest
From what I understood Nier's supply prevents the relapsing which is why Devola and Popola help him with the whole kidnapping thing and his plan to get this Replicant. After the shadowlord dies the relapse preventing substance is no longer available which is why all shades should relapse and ultimately perish along with the replicants which causes the human race to do extinct.

Suppose the kaine explanation makes sense, just an error then.

>to form a true human
It seems like the replicants consciousness persisted though which shouldn't be the case in classical merging as we can see in Yonah. Either way it feels to me like the whole replicant/gestalt plot was kind of abandoned in Automata because it was hardly heading anywhere and probably too confusing for newcomers. The existence of humans is confirmed so it's probably all resolved in Automata.

>No, she was born with male genitalia after an error in the replicant process which led to intense bullying and peer exclusion making her more susceptible to having a shade take her over

I've heard this several times, I need some fucking facts or sources asap

Is this seriously referring to the bully saying she wasn't a real girl, as in, some sort of shade monstrosity

It's somewhere in grimoire Nier.

>they'd just get WCS again
Merging with the WCS immune replicants makes them susceptible to WCS again? Why?

>and have memories from their past lives
What? So they have memories from the modern era? That's obviously not true. Or do you mean they have memories from thousand of years of replicant life? Either way I don't think that is right.

>The rules are certainly there, just vague
Like the whole sacrifice thing? I do agree they are there for the most part but some things seem to really bend the rules for convenience and desired storytelling.

Banquet of the Witch seems to answer that. (I haven't read the entire Grimoire yet but I'll get to it.)

There are a lot of Devola/Popola pairs, thats confirmed, the ones we knew were 21 and 22.
So its clear that they in general handle it and I can see many many villages having their pairs (as many of the Drakengard weapon stories actually are about this) but I just don't see how a secluded place like Facade works.

I'm soon going to be replaying the Aerie part in japanese so I'll try and look out, its been a very long time since I actually played it.
I believe the shades "disguise" was simply taking over a random replicant there and why they could "revert", as to WHY they did it, I can only assume they were already under the influence of Hook, driving them mad.

Nier is supplying the maso that is correct, but his own self affects the Shades too through this connection, that is why Shades start relapsing en-masse as the story progresses.
Basically shadow Nier has run out of patience, he was lied to and it took him 1400 years to realize it and that Yonah will not recover, basically got mad and decided to do the entire merger thing ahead of time/schedule.

Theres no real "classical merging" because the replicants weren ever meant to be sentient.
shadowYonah gave up on merging because she knew either she silences the other, or vice-versa, she was unwilling to do it so turned into magic or whatever the fuck that was supposed to be, suicide.
And this one is even less "classic" because its not even the same person's replicant and gestalt.

>The existence of humans is confirmed
>Either way it feels to me like the whole replicant/gestalt plot was kind of abandoned in Automata

I'd say both of those are naive things to say, knowing Taro.
We've not seen humanity, we are just told they exist and they are giving commands. And I think the android themes are actually too in-line with Nier's, in Nier you never really thought twice about why the fuck the replicants gained sentience, its literally just "well it happened", with the info from the stageplay cont

From the stageplay script
Commander: Is this the inevitable goal of humanity…… To manipulate selection pressure to promote evolution…… Is this the only way?

Why work towards promoting evolution? A biological humanity would simply "have it" due to natural selection.
So why would you artificially imitate this with androids you've somehow granted sentience to already?
Unless the goal is to have a new humanity that can actually evolve by itself.

There are some very interesting things in that script that just explain nothing to us and bring up 10 more question.

>-If we’re talking about the lack of realism, then the hermaphrodite heroine has to be the epitome of that. Was Kaine a hermaphrodite as a human?

>Yokoo: No, in our setting, she was born as a hermaphrodite due to an error in the long-running replicant system. Originally, she was a female with a fiancée, and was supposed to get married.

Replicants are immune specifically because they don't have souls, WCS is caused by the Grotesquerie Queen's maso forcing a pact on human souls.

>Merging with the WCS immune replicants makes them susceptible to WCS again? Why?

Because a Replicant+Gestalt = simple real human body and mind, which is VERY susceptible to WCS

I'm not sure which memories he meant, I believe Replicants have memories like you and I, of their own lives, the "history" others tells them, and thats it. Definitely no original memories.

this shit is bananas. The gears in my head are turning so loudly

the implications of kaine having a dick echoed right up until the end of the story. If Kaine would have never had a dick, humanity wouldn't have gotten double genocided.

IS THIS THE MOST IMPORTANT PENIS IN VIDEO GAMES?

Why do you think Kainé's benis is the cause of all this?

I don't mean the cause, I just mean that if kaine, by some error of some system, hadn't been given a comical penis, she wouldn't have lived the life she did and likely never met nier.

This dick made the story possible. Not in that it was central, but a stiff, fleshy spoke in the wheel of fate.

What is a soul?

I know that is the major difference between humans and replicants but is it actually ever specified what a soul is supposed to be? I mean replicants are no different from humans in intelligence, emotion or anything else except that they are sterile.

Mind pointing to wherever that was said? No matter which memories it is seems to me that makes sense or fits into the Nier universe.

>is it actually ever specified what a soul is supposed to be?
Not as far as I remember.

Well yeah, the story still would've reached the same conclusion I think - however some penises are more important than others, if Kainé had no dick, I would have probably taken many more years to get to playing Nier (probably only now due to Automata) and wouldn't have been my favorite vidya for the past 4 years.

>What is a soul?
Play the game to find out!
But honestly, no, it is terribly vague, they separate humans into replicant and gestalt - but if the gestalt is the soul why do you need it to create a biological body based on DNA?

I think the whole soul thing was and will continue to be the overarching theme of Nier as a franchise.

Not sure exactly which one you mean, but heres the grimoire on the system:

By extracting data from humans who have undergone the Gestalt process, copies named Replicant (with no reproductive abilities) are created. To make it easier to manage the replicants, they are given an artificial personality. When the Gestalt and its corresponding Replicant combine, the original person would be restored. Replicant did not have a true sense of self at first, but they developed it after countless resurrections. The Black Scrawl is developed in the replicants because the data source (Gestalt) was already corrupted.

>Not sure exactly which one you mean
Actually meant the memory part. The Gestalt process is quite clear to me at this point.

What have we learned today kids?
Don't mistreat intersex/trans faggorts or you'll end up being another step in the Butterfly Effect eventually leading to the extinction of humankind as we know it
Every time you call someone a degenerate freak or ask them to kill themselves you may very well be dooming us all you madmen

wew lads, just started gaming again recently and picked up Nier the other week (was luck as fuck to find someone selling it for 5 bucks)
Why didn't Devola/Popola just not help him out? He wouldn't have figure shit out if they weren't pushing him along, or did they just figure OG Nier could still beat the replicant?
All red stuff is magic right, how do the basic bitch robots in the Junk Heap use it?
If Kaine could hear what the gestalts are saying the entire fucking time why didn't she ever say anything to anyone else?
Is the replicant factory or w.e located in Japan or do they ship them from the moon or where ever the fuck humans are

The whole presumably every robot having the Emil head is fucking with my mind, why would they encase the seemingly invulnerable body like Number 6 into the metal body? Would would the world be populated with them? GODDAMNIT YOKO TARO

>If Kaine could hear what the gestalts are saying the entire fucking time why didn't she ever say anything to anyone else?
I don't think she could hear what all the gestalts were saying, just Tyrann due to inhabiting the same body
The whole "hearing what shades are saying" thing was for us to understand the story I feel, not necessarily a perspective of what Kaine's hearing
>Why didn't Devola/Popola just not help him out? He wouldn't have figure shit out if they weren't pushing him along, or did they just figure OG Nier could still beat the replicant?
bingo

Well theres nothing to cite for that, it just seems like it from our interactions in game, its logical that they have no memories from their gestalts otherwise they wouldn't live like that.
They seem to be cluelessly living thinking they are humanity, so I don't think they have any memories beyond their own / whatever was included in that default personality programmed into them.

Nah, Kainé is not a tranny, and trannies cannot have any great effect on humanity.

says who
she may not be trans but she was treated like it as in mistreated to the point of near suicide

You're not understanding user. She's not a tranny. She is a hermaphrodite. These are different things.

>Why didn't Devola/Popola just not help him out?
They wanted to use him to get Weiss, the verses, him the replicant and the gestalt all coming together conveniently in one place to initiate the merging process.
They probably hoped that once Weiss regains his lost memories it doesn't matter what the Replicant does - Nier's power is entirely coming from Weiss.
They just hadn't counted on Weiss choosing to be Nier's friend over actually initiating the merger with Noir.

>All red stuff is magic right, how do the basic bitch robots in the Junk Heap use it?
Magic in the world of Nier is basically technology that siphons energy from an alternate dimension, thats why so many unexplainable things are so easily done, why machines work forever, why robots use magic etc.

>If Kaine could hear
I'm unsure where this was specified, I think one of the novels, but after Tyrann possesed Kainé she indeed started understanding Shades and subsequently starting going insane instantly, so Tyrann blocked that all out for her so she could stay sane, you can see by the end that despite that block she remembers something of the trauma of it, and realizes whats happening on her own.

The Forest of Myth is probably the/one of the Replicant factories

As for Emil, we know why the robots look like him, they don't actually all have an Emil in them. As to why he was imprisoned(?) in one of them, fuck knows.
Knowing Emil, he might've just crawled inside one for fun.

Says the lore for the first part and says common sense for the second.
They removed themselves from the genepool, and nobody takes them seriously because 95% of them turned themselves into a tranny just for attention.
Which is kind of the opposite of Kainé, who got attention for being one, and ofcourse it was all negative.

i found the white legion and red eye cool in grimoire, maybe they will show some cutscenes of that as taro said he wanted to show more of them

Why didn't Popola and Devola just lie to Replicant Nier and tell him that rejoining with a Gestalt was like waking up after being cured of amnesia? Just say that it doesn't erase either, it joins them back into a whole being.

Surely that'd be easier and less cruel than misleading him for years and then trying to beat him into submission.

>95% of them turned themselves into a tranny just for attention.
[citation needed]

>Why didn't Devola/Popola just not help him out?
Additional to what the other user said I think shadowlord Nier forced them to act because he threatened to cut off the relapse suppressing substance only he could produce. What really confuses me is how they fight him and when Devola dies Popola goes batshit insane. I mean what did she fucking expect to happen?

I think Kaine didn't say anything because she had a gigant hate boner for Shades. Don't forget her Grandmother and all. Also I think she just didn't really give a fuck about the shades complaints, she fought for Nier. Tyrann also had an influence on her, who happily killed Shades or anyone else really.

Yea it is obvious they don't have their gestalt memories. But earlier it was stated that they have their replicants memories which would be thousand of years which is what I originally disagreed with and really doesn't make sense either. But if they have neither memories it seems strange that they remember their grandparents. They don't have pre programmed personalities because they grow up and die like normal humans and just get replaced with an identical baby replicant when they die which is created from the DNA stored inside the gestalt. The strange thing is to me that there should be a lot of inconsistencies. If someone dies early isn't it strange for someone identical to pop up just like that? Older replicants should be able to observe that happening. Also some pairs can never get any children. I assume they don't get pregnant either then do they? In that case shouldn't they actually be wondering where the children are coming from? To be honest I just confused myself more by writing this. The whole process and passing of time seems like a big fat mess.

found the triggered tranny

Replicants don't realize that they can't have babies since they have no concept of what normal childbirth looks like. Basically, managers like Devola and Popola just call them to a place, say "You're going to give birth soon", and put them into sleep, then create a replicant from a test tube-like thing while they're asleep. When replicants die, D&P just 'recycle' them into new bodies.

They weren't very good at their jobs/manipulation I'm afraid.

Popola going nuclear there is basically just being emotional for the first time while also desparate and technically for them it was all over by then, Weiss refused to change sides.

And I agree, inconsistent is how I'd describe the entire replicant/gestalt system, theres absolutely nothing clear about how they were handled, how they fought off the remains of the Legion, how they actually pushed all the queens maso out the window, and how they turned into this "dying humanity" we see in game.
Its a very neat concept, but you can't look too closely at it.

>What really confuses me is how they fight him and when Devola dies Popola goes batshit insane. I mean what did she fucking expect to happen?
She said it herself, Replicant Nier was never meant to grow as powerful as he did. She likely expected him to go down without huge difficulty, or at least hoped they'd both survive.

As for losing her shit, well, that just make sense. Devola has been her steadfast companion for a thousand years; their bond is probably stronger than that of any other characters in the series. Seeing her get hacked to pieces and having her die in her arms was in all likelihood incredibly traumatic, so she went berserk.

not an argument

What do you mean with fighting off the remains of the legion?

The fight between humans and legion is explained in Grimoire Nier. And what do you mean with "pushed all the queens maso out the window".

>how they fought off the remains of the Legion,
The androids are clearly pretty stronk based off Devo and Poppers, and GN says that they used an army of Replicants in the Battle for Jerusalem and for general cleanup.
>how they actually pushed all the queens maso out the window,
Do we really need more than just the mentioned magic ritual as an explanation?

But yeah, if you start thinking about the logistics of the project large swaths of it either don't make sense or are never explained at all. Personally I'm curious as fuck how the system works after everyone gains sentience, since there's explicit reference to there being generations of Replicants.

I mean honestly, how does it handle child gestalts whose bodies age to adults? Or tricking everyone into never realizing their kids aren't really from them? Or rotating Replicants between settlements so nobody ever bumps into a younger version of somebody they knew who previously died? It's a mess to think of.

>The androids are clearly pretty stronk based off Devo and Poppers, and GN says that they used an army of Replicants in the Battle for Jerusalem and for general cleanup.

the battle of jerusalem took place pretty early, in 2030

as far as i know the crusaders were all human

You're right, I got confused between the BoJ and the last rebirth of the Red Eye that happened there where an Android and some Replicants killed it.

yup, hope taros wish of showing more of legions battle will hapen in automata but i doubt it for some reason

>will Automata be as good
Fuck if we know. So far Taro's track record is 50/50. YoRHa and original Drakengard is pretty great, 3 is controvertial, Thou Shalt Not Die is barely at chapter 20 and pretty uninteresting thus far

>also given all the Emile-like faced enemies will it be a pre-quel?
Read Grimoire Nier.

Basicly, thousands of years after Nier, aliens show up. And Emil wrecks their shit so hard, they put his image on their weapons because he is clearly a god of death.
That's how hardcore Emil is.

I doubt Automata will have a story or character interactions nearly as interesting as the ones from the first game, but who knows? Maybe Yoko Taro will pull through and create another masterpiece.

How much do we know about the explorable zones until now?

>Wood/Pascal Village
>Resistance camp
>Resistance camp lands
>Demo zone
>Robot zone (Pascal gameplay)
>Desert

Fucking Emil. ALL PRAISE THE SHINIGAMI

The amusement park can be seen in the demo's main menu screen

Bunker-base simillar to Nier's house was also shown in the last stream

...

It is possible that Replicants and android being sentient IS actually them developing a soul, so that would make WCS fuck them up but it's extinct by the time game starts IIRC

Gestaltification works on two fronts:
1. Replicants can't get pacted because no soul
2. Gestalts can't get pacted because they're magical beings and two beasts can't form a pact together (so you can't have two dragons being tied)

Note that it's all speculation on my part as it's never clearly defined. The pacts themselves are INCREADIBLY vague and never elaborated upon even in the original Drakengard

I know this a NieR thread but whatever.

What caused Zero's flower to sprout in the first place?
One looks a lot like Manah, is it really just a coincidence? Not to mention, she also has a twin brother in ending A (Seere?).

Also, fuck ending D, I did everything else in the game but I can't even beat the desert level in Patapon so I'm forever cockblocked from 100% it.

Four best grill.

What do you mean what do I mean?
>An Android and four Replicants challenge the Red Eye, attacking it. They destroy the Legion and send the "maso" back to the other world. The purification of the world is confirmed.

This is the summation, they made replicants, replicants gained sentience, made their own civlization, killed off the Legion and sent the queen's maso away.

Only after this do Gestalts get back into the world, and a hundred years later Nier begins.
Its left pretty fucking vague all in all.

Its not that I need to know, I just want to, like you. I can't fit my mind around it so it leaves that nagging feeling.

The entire description above sounds exactly like a summed up Taro game, basically just waiting to be made.

Replicants were sentient by the time they finally killed the last Redeye and Legion, so they were still immune despite being self aware.
Non-relapsed Gestalts were only released after WCS was gone, so who knows maybe it was possible still possible to pact with them (just not with relapsed ones because already too crazy?)

>One looks a lot like Manah, is it really just a coincidence? Not to mention, she also has a twin brother in ending A (Seere?).
Brother One is Seere and Manah's ancestor and the human founder of the Cult of the Watchers

I'm confused now. Is DoD 3 a prequel to the first game?

It is, though actual continuation is in a side story novel.

Taro sure loves branching stuff, doesn't he?

Indeed, also loves to put his canon endings into material we will never officially get so it great at making me mad.

Atleast with Automata now we have 2 games that follow an actual in-game canon ending.

I just read Grimoire Nier and there is some crazy stuff in there like brother Nier prostituting himself. Quite a different tone from the game.

Why are people always shitting on Nier's combat?

Outside of some enemies being way too bullet spongy and not having big enemy variety the combat mechanics are fucking good for an arpg.

Also not sure if the whole "bullet hell hack n slash" was Nier's idea but I haven't seen another game that did this and it's pretty unique and fun.