What? It deletes your save?! That's madness! And I like that they don't make you do the side stuff over. That's why my Mass Effect playthroughs always bog down.

Everyone I have spoken to who has actually played Nier seems to have adored it. This makes me wonder where these middling reviews have come from. I find myself wondering whether some reviewers really took the time to get into it, or "prejudged" it before allowing it to sink its claws in.

That's likely an overly-cynical view, but then I did see Kotaku review Xenoblade Chronicles (a 100+ hour game) after completing less than half of it, so perhaps it's not so unreasonable…

I have no idea yet, actually — I've managed to remain almost completely spoiler-free on Nier so far so haven't looked anything up apart from a few quest solutions. I believe there is extra story content, and each new playthrough concludes with a different ending, with you only getting the "full story" after having seen all the endings. Then it deletes your save files. No joke.

Sidequests and collection stuff carries over, though, so each subsequent playthrough is MUCH quicker.

I've got a friend and fellow writer — who's also a (so called) niche gamer — who's ranted and raved that Nier is wholly misunderstood, and indeed a great game. I've got full plans on getting to Nier this year, but that's sometimes easier said than done.

And I love games that reward multiple playthroughs or extra time investment. Pokemon is one of the ones that springs to mind, along with Mass Effect and the Persona games. And this post gets to the heart of what I dislike about metacritic. It creates an invisible barrier of "good" and "bad" games, when, as you said, some of the lower games are more fun than some of the higher. For instance, God Hand for the PS2. That game is amazing! And it got a 73 on metacritic.