The Philosophical Questions Posed by NieR

Gameplay/Cutscene Footage courtesy of:
- Axis Koi
- BuffMaister
All footage of the game belongs to Square Enix and Yoko Taro.
Hello everyone! In today's video I want to discuss the NieR series and some of the fascinating philosophical questions it asks its audience. Please enjoy! Be warned, though, that full spoilers for both mainline games are included.
0:00 Opening
3:02 NieR: Replicant: What does it mean to be Human?
16:22 NieR: Automata: How do we give meaning to our Lives?

[@asnodt42]

No matter how much you "overanalyze" the Drakengard/NieR series its never enough, the amount of subtle messages and hidden meanings between every single little thing is just mind blowing. Even the untold backstories of the games that are set before or after them are massive. Yoko Taro is just built different man

[@linkalot7415]

Couldn’t agree more 👍

[@davidle0]

It's because of videos like these that I have a deep appreciation for Yoko Taro and the communities built around his game. Nice work!

[@linkalot7415]

thanks man, your kind comment means a lot

[@albedo5037]

What I like about the series that we only see the representation of human consciousness. Replicants were literally artificial humans, only lacking soul (and reproduction system but that's besides the point) and they still developed it anyway. Androids were created by humans in the first place, so they were learning on our experiences and proplem solving skills. And the most interesting imo is that machines acquired consciousness from a conscious robot that was created by humans (P33 that we fought in Replicant), that's why they they have all the same concepts that we do.
And what fascinates me is that we know that aliens had a different kind of consciousness. As Adam and Eve described them, they were "uninteresting and simple", I believe somewhat akin to plants or animals so they had more organic way of thinking, that is more realistic and pragmatic, only doing what consciousness was designed for by nature - evolve and learn.

[@happysmilesworldandgames8755]

2B dying also helped to make 9S insane

[@linkalot7415]

Very true. The degredation of 9s’ character is definitely one of my favourite aspects of automata’s story

[@Hijrahydratehiro]

8d