Nier earns its R16 rating through a combination of bloody violence and brutal language, the latter of which is demonstrated before you even have a menu to choose from. This harsh first impression is quickly overwhelmed by the surreal feel of the game. It has brutal moments, and some subtly disturbing aspects, but overall, it's an action-packed thrill ride through a beautifully realised fantasy story.

You receive a short tutorial in an apocalyptic future before being dropped into the game proper. It looks like an odd change of setting, a fantasy world with brick houses and a walled town to explore.

When you start travelling, you'll notice that there are ruins similar to those seen in the tutorial, some suggestions of which become vaguely disturbing as you progress. The world in this game is far more than a backdrop, providing a story of its own which almost acts as a counterpoint to the one the player follows.

You control Nier. Your daughter has a disease called the "Black Scrawl," named for what looks like indecipherable writing on the bodies of victims. Your mission, of course, is to do what any responsible father would do; abandon the care of your child to inattentive villagers.

She's free to run around with little regard for her safety or potential infectiousness, and you continue to trust these people even after she's allowed to make a solo journey into the monster-infested forest nearby.

Instead of such foolishness as caring for your child, or even spending time with her, you instead run off into a wilderness full of deadly... sheep. Don't laugh, they're actually nasty little critters at the beginning of the game, and don't even think about upsetting a herd of goats until you've got some healing items.

I should mention that you don't get any magical healing abilities, apart from mailboxes restoring your health by mere proximity. They also act as save points, and a bridge to the game's loading screens, most of which are pages from your daughter's diary, often referring to letters from her father. As well as the save-mailboxes, there are checkpoints scattered liberally throughout the game, with the tougher boss fights including several, to reduce the occurence of those controller-shattering "so close" moments.

Fortunately for our wayward Dad, it turns out that your daughter's illness is somehow caused by mysterious creatures called Shades, which can potentially be hurt by "powerful light." Unfortunately, the game never clarifies why direct sunlight in the open does nothing, but a ray of sunlight in an otherwise dark room quickly kills the things. Shades vary greatly, from child-sized to larger than a building, and from frail to nearly invulnerable.

For a third-person action-RPG, I initially found melee combat pretty basic, but it turned out to have surprising depth. If you want to keep a handle on your limited stock of healing items, you have to time your attacks carefully, striking and sometimes only landing a hit or two before going on the defensive. Each weapon has regular attacks with a combo string, and one-shot special attacks, and you can also block or dodge enemy attacks.

Each weapon you find, and there are plenty, has statistics for damage, magic power and weight. Magic power boosts spell damage, and weight affects attack speed. Once you've reached the forge, you can use random junk accumulated in your travels to level up your weaponry, which increases damage, and occasionally alters weight, magic power or both. There's usually a balance of sorts, the more valuable and rare the items needed, the better the upgrade. Unfortunately, in spite of the number of weapons available, there are only three move sets.

Spears were my least favorite option. You could use their special dash attack to make hit-and-run attacks, but I found little incentive to do so, the majority of large battles being fought in tight enough confines to limit the effectiveness of such a strategy. Also, the stabbing action spears rely on is tough to aim.

There were times when two-handed weapons came into their own. Even the lightest is slower than any one-handed sword, but they hit hard against tough opponents, and the wide room-clearing swings cut down waves of enemies at once, especially the special attack.

In typical JRPG fashion, the best part of the game's upgrade system is also the strangest. After killing an enemy, you'll sometimes be given a "word" to use in "word edit" mode. No, this isn't a typing program. Every weapon, spell and defensive ability you have can be equipped with up to 2 words, each of which alters your character in some way, usually relevant to what it's attached to. These words can upgrade damage, add special effects like poison and paralysis, or even level up the other attached word.

Nier includes a raft of mini-games, such as fishing and gardening. They each have their own side-quests, and also act as an alternative option for some "gather" quests. Though well-made, they haven't added anything worthwhile to the game.

Another oddity occurs in some enclosed areas, where you're forced into a side-scrolling 2D platformer, or sometimes viewing from a top-down perspective. Usually this comes up when the perspective change will make the area easier to navigate. Fortunately, developer Cavia has done a good job of ensuring the controls remain both consistent and usable in these spaces, and some puzzles were a lot more logical than they would have been from ground level.

As good as the story was, there were a few plot arcs that did nothing but pad out my playtime with unnecessary events. The developers have also taken an interesting, but ultimately flawed, approach to flashbacks and dream sequences. Instead of showing the flashback, you'll fade-out to a black screen with white text describing the scene.

It's possible to get a little bogged down by the sheer amount of content in Nier. Some mini-games are of dubious value and the multi-layered upgrade system can convolute the experience. But it's important to see the woods from the trees. On balance, Nier is a varied and engaging experience that for JRPG fans, is certainly worth a look.