Nier Gestalt/Replicant - the first impression

Since finishing FFXIII, I'm looking for a few other rpg games to be played and that includes Nier Replicant, Last Rebellion, White Knight Chronicle, Valkyria Chronicle Demon Soul. The first 2 had just arrived early this week, so I spent a few hours to get a feel of one of the game, Nier.

Nier is an action role-playing video game developed by Cavia and published by Square Enix. It was released in April 2010 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. In Japan, the two platform versions were named Nier Gestalt​ (ニーア ゲシュタルト) for Xbox 360 and Nier Replicant​ (ニーア レプリカント) for PlayStation 3. The major differences between the two versions are the player character Nier's appearance and his relationship with the character of Yonah. In all other regions, the two platform versions are based on Nier Gestalt.
The action is set a thousand years after the events depicted in one of the endings of the game Drakengard, by the same developer.

Title: Nier Gestalt (english); Nier Replicant (jp)
Platform: PS3, xbox360
Genre: action rpg
Developer/publisher: Cavier/Square Enix

Currently I am about 7 hours into the game, just after touring this weird 'All-hail-Rules" village called Facade (my the people and rules of this village realy cracks me up). Ok, to the impression.

Gameplay: 6/10 - okay, I guess. The game features simple hack and slash with Nier as the only playable character (damn I really hope kaine is playable), killing enemies away mostly with your swords (later can also use Spear etc). Not the best hack and slash game you could find because it lacks variety and depth - basic 5-hits combo, magics, jump attacks, sidestepping amd finishing moves with some variation in between. Definitely not on par with the likes of DMC, Bayonetta and GoW, but if you like action rpg, then Nier is not a bad deal.
Other than that, it has this features called "Word Edit", which basically adds certain bonus to your sword/magic/martial arts if you equip them with certain "word". Nothing innovative there imo, replace Word Edit name with things like "Customize/Special Effects", and you got similar thing.

Graphic: 5/10 - Not that good. Coming from the developer of Drakengard, I guess it's not surprising that the graphic isn't that great, and even the character design was kinda crappy (seriously why is the main protagonist so ugly?). But considering this game is for PS3, and was released this year, surely they can improve this area, at least don't make the main character looks like some barbaric thug.

Characters: 8.5/10 - Interesting. Although they're poorly designed, I have to say that the characters are quite interesting - Nier (main character, we name ourself) was a responsible father/brother who cares a lot toward his daughter/sister Yonah. Grimoire Weiss is sarcastic book, and with Dist (Tales of Abyss) as the voice actor, you know you are bound to some laugh :) Kaine is some foul-mouthed woman with very bold sense of fashion (wtf fighting only in her lingerie). Things like "fucking asshole", "crap, "shit" are common in her dictionary; you will most likely hear her swearing once in every five minutes. Oh, and her secret/background too....

Story: -/10 - Not much comment considering I'm only a few hours into the game. So far I couldn't figure much about the relation between this game and Drakengard (a nice ps2 game), though I have a rough idea about the disappearance of the old modern world.

BGM: 20/10 - Awesome. Freaking amazing. Superb. Despite the crappy character design/awkward gameplay, I really love the musics in Nier. Soothing, melancholic yet fit with the theme and mood of the story. They're not the same with the one you often heard from Motoi Sakuraba/Nobuo Uematsu, Yasunori Mitsuda blablabla, and have a tiny bit resemblance with Kajiura Yuki's operatic style arrangement, sang with choir in fictional language. Whoever compose the music for Nier deserve a double thumb up. Overall I can only say that Nier has one of the best BGM I've ever listened to.

Others:
-WTF, there's only THREE save slots? That's far too few for an action rpg...
-Lots of extras and sidequests. And some rather lame fishing game, since they're pretty easy.

-Kaine brought controversy not because of her foul-mouthed nature or her clothes, but something else. To be honest that fact (or opinion, depending on your point of view) kinda bothered me because now I can't see her the same way I did before. Good thing "that" information about her is not boldly told in the game and pretty much open to debate.

I guess that's about it for my early impression toward Nier. To sum it up, the game lacks graphical appealing and depth in gameplay, but was backed by excellent musics, promising story, sidequest, and replay value (there's 4 ending in total). Although I'm a bit turned off with the character and environment simplicity, I'd still continue playing the game and hopefully finished it within the next month.