SquareEnix book extravaganza II — NieR near ogres in high school

It’s that time again, time for impressions on another smattering of books from SquareEnix. They send me a lot of literature and art, but I just don’t have the time to thoroughly cover each piece. So here we’re going to go over my initial impressions of NieR Replicant Project Gestalt Recollections File 01, Grimoire NieR Revised Edition, Final Fantasy XIV: Eorzea Academy, and The Art of Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together.

Starting with Tactics Ogre, a game I have not played yet, even just the cover and sleeve are gorgeous. It features a circle of characters on a pure white background going slightly onto the back. The sleeve is transparent and has the title embossed in a shiny gold color. You can remove the sleeve if you prefer just the art, but I like to protect my books and it looks extremely classy. Inside is a massive table of contents, organizing artwork by character, classes, world, and more. This book has just about everything you could ask for; high quality prints of key art (on two page spreads, which does vex me), tarot card illustrations, artist commentary on the difficulty of designing each character along with sprite comparisons, and even sketches of characters. I’m garbage at strategy games, but the gorgeous artwork by Akihiko Yoshida and Tsubasa Masao alone makes me want to experience the world he helped create. It’s genuinely stunning stuff and is the platonic ideal of what an artbook should be.

Final Fantasy XIV: Eorzea Academy is a comedy manga, depicting the hijinks beloved characters get up to in an alternate universe high school setting. The Academies of Light and Dark have merged into a single school under Principal Tataru Taru, but the students are still divided. So Tataru decides to hold a competition of various events like a field day and school festival, tracking the total points each class earns with the winning team earning a wish. The manga mainly follows Alisae and Zenos trying to one up each other, but you also get to see things like Thancred’s Nutkin causing havoc, Ryne and Gaia being lesbians together, and everyone dunking on Asahi. It all feels pretty standard for a high school comedy manga, and not all the jokes really landed with me. Still, the art is nice and it’s fun to see these characters in a different setting or just hanging out.

Grimoire NieR was previously a 2010 Japan-only book that was something of a strategy guide/world guide. It guided you through the game (either Replicant or Gestalt, since they’re basically the same), while also giving you a bit more insight into characters and the world. It also included a new ending to the original game, Ending E, which was then actually included in NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139… This Revised Edition is now in English (duh), is a guide for the remaster only, and includes even more side stories. I really need to take the time to fully dive into this thing because it is super dense, but perhaps the coolest thing about it is that it even includes a story written on the inside of the sleeve jacket. It’s very neat, very Yoko Taro, and very much should be a part of any big NieR fan’s collection.

Finally, NieR Replicant Project Gestalt Recollections File 01 is a novel detailing NieR’s life from childhood to adulthood (teenagehood?) that wasn’t covered in the game itself. They’re framed as observations recorded by Devola and Popola, which is a cool touch. I fully believe that NieR works best as a video game, benefiting from the interactivity the medium brings, but if you just have to have more NieR, this novel by Jun Eishima is a good way to get that. I prefer the ambiguity of the game by itself, but this does make Devola and Popola a bit more sympathetic considering their actions. Personally I’m not in a rush to read the whole thing, but many others seem to enjoy it.

I also received the third Encyclopedia Eorzea, but I’m going to save that for its own review as I know several people who have been really looking forward to it. This was an incredibly busy year, so hopefully I can make more time for each individual book SquareEnix sends me rather than these roundups. Then again, two JRPGs are releasing in the same week in February next year, not to mention Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, so who knows. Regardless, I’m very grateful for having the opportunity to cover all of these and I think it’s helped me grow as a writer.

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