The last issue of Famitsu magazine, which featured 18 pages worth of content for the NieR 15th Anniversary, ends with a 6-page roundtable discussion with the creators (at an izakaya) as they fondly looked back on their experiences working on the series.

Although I can’t offer a 1:1 direct translation, I will pick up some of the main points and paraphrase important segments here and there in a simple bullet-point style.

※ Editor’s Note: Although both NieR Gestalt and NieR Replicant were originally known collectively as “Gestalt & Replicant”, in this order (such as on the original soundtrack), this article reverses the order to refer to both as NieR Replicant/Gestalt.

▶︎ The Members

• Yoko Taro – Creator, Creative Director (Bukkoro)
• Yosuke Saito – NieR Producer (SQEX)
• Keiichi Okabe – Composer (MONACA)
• Takahisa Taura – Lead Game Designer (Formerly PlatinumGames)
• Kazuma Koda – Illustrator, Concept Artist
• Saki Ito – NieR Replicant Ver.1.22… Director (ToyLogic)
• Daichi Matsukawa – NieR Re[in]carnation Director (Applibot)

▶︎ The Location

• Sumibi Sakaya Manma
  (Receive 1 drink free if you mention you came after reading this article in Famitsu!)

▶︎ The Huge Presence of NieR Music

• Several pages from the early NieR project proposal (on pages 72-73) were from the actual game documents that were created internally at SQEX to pitch the game, but it was hurriedly thrown together and many things changed once development started.
• The theme like “protecting a loved one even at the cost of the world” was already present from the outset.
• Originally, Seafront was called “Mermaid’s Coast” because the story of Louise was meant to be included in the original release of the game, but it had to be cut due to unfortunate delays on the development side when game engine they were using stalled things for roughly a year and a half…
• Okabe joined the team during the pre-production phase of development. At the time, MONACA was mostly making soundtracks for anime titles such as The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Lucky Star, and the Monogatari series, but after working on NieR Replicant/Gestalt, he began thinking more on the business side of the company.
• Since then, Okabe has won “Best Score/Music” at The Game Awards, one of the biggest gaming awards shows in the worldーtwice! …to which Yoko responds, “Unforgivable…!” Okabe replies, “Life is unpredictable that way, I guess.”
  • The Game Awards 2017 – Best Score/Music: NieR:Automata
  • The Game Awards 2021 – Best Score/Music: NieR Replicant ver.1.22…
• Okabe was shocked when “Song of the Ancients” was used in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic opening ceremony.

• Saito heard some rumors that a song from one of his games might be used, and he was satisfied enough when they played the overture from Dragon Quest, but then when “Song of the Ancients” began to play, he got rather emotional, especially since they used the vocal version that he specifically requested.
• During the 2024 World Tour, Saito mention that, no matter what country they were in, the crowds always went wild whenever Okabe’s name was announced.
• Yoko originally asked Okabe to create music pieces with voices, but he didn’t mean actually sung lyrics but rather voices in the sense of mimicking percussion sounds and such. He was surprised when they went ahead and mixed in tracks without voices, some were even quite short.
• This is where Okabe speaks up to mention that NieR Replicant/Gestalt was going to utilize an experimental structure that includes two melodies in each track which would be played in real-time throughout the game to adjust the length. The two melodies would connect to form a complete track, but they ended up not using the real-time style very much, thus some tracks turned out shorter than originally planned.
• Although it was Yoko’s idea to use this real-time system, he eventually regretted using it and complained about it later.

▶︎ A timeline in which NieR wasn’t released and instead another ultra-famous title was

• Yoko looks back at NieR Replicant/Gestalt as a huge experiment for everyone involved and never expected it to succeed.
• Saito believed that Yoko had genuine talent and wanted to give him a second chance after Drakengard. At the time he had two choices: let Yoko work on a new project or greenlight a new title in an ultra-famous series (the exact title remains ambiguous). Taura jokingly says that Saito should have picked the other game, but alas, he went with Yoko instead. Saito also jokingly wonders if he should have gone with the other title, and Yoko agrees. Saito jokes that the other title might have been a bigger success.
• The original plan proposal Yoko submitted was for a side-scrolling action puzzle game similiar to Solomon’s Key.

• This original game was called “Echo”. Saito mentions that it wasn’t at all what he had in mind and asked Yoko to reconsider it. Yoko had several other plans that also got rejected.
• However, since Saito believed in Yoko, the NieR series has now surpassed 10 million copies worldwide, with NieR:Automata selling nearly 10 million copies on its own.*
  * This statement doesn’t quite make much sense to me, so I’m wondering if it might be a mistake. If NieR:Automata sold nearly 10 million copies, then the entire NieR series should be over 10 million, no?
• Saito mentions that, as a game creator, it feels like entering the Hall of Fame, but on the other hand, he felt rather dejected when Monster Hunter: World exceeded this mark in just a month…

▶︎ Do the “Okabe Children” dominate the creator scene?

• This next section focuses on the younger guys on the team, Takahisa Taura, Kazuma Koda, Saki Ito, and Daichi Matsukawa, and what they were doing 15 years ago.
• Taura had just entered PlatinumGames. He heard within the company that they were going to be making a game similar to Bayonetta, which was released the year prior in 2009. He first became interested in the project through the music. It was the “Okabe Children” not “Yoko Children” that intrigued him, a statement which Yoko said was the first he was hearing about it… Taura went on to say that a lot of other people in the company got interested in the project because of the NieR soundtrack. Yoko seemed a bit vexed at this, saying, “I can’t even!” but then agreed that he pretty much heard the same thing.
• Kazuma Koda likewise heard about it from a fellow sound designer at PlatinumGames who told him about some game that had great music, to which Saito mentioned that Koda is also an “Okabe Child”. Koda was still a student 15 years ago and had just started drawing, so he didn’t know anything about NieR Replicant/Gestalt back then.
• Koda first started drawing when he had to repeat a year of high school to get into a university. He was reluctant to study and ended up sketching at his desk instead. What’s absolutely amazing is that Koda never really drew before this, not as a child or anything.
• Comparatively, he was more into music than anything else. So, it’s very possible that if he didn’t have to repeat a year in high school that he might have been led down a very different path that may not have included the world of art.
• Matsukawa asks if this is when he started using the pen name “Ronin” (浪人 / rounin; but he romanizes it as “lownine“), and Koda replies, “Yes, exactly!”
• Ito suggests that if Koda had pursued a career in music, maybe he could have ended up at MONACA, to which Koda disagrees, although he was a fan of the music from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, so was, of course, aware of MONACA’s work.
• At this point, Yoko’s getting bored and mentions how this discussion isn’t very interesting…
• The interviewer ignores Yoko and asks Matsukawa what he was doing back then, to which he replies that he was 18 and just starting university… and simply “living it up!”
• Saito confirms that Matsukawa never had the intention to enter the game industry, but by some random chance, he ended up doing it anyway, working with Applibot.
• As for Saki Ito, he was a 20-year-old student and the complete opposite of Matsukawa with a slightly dark youth. Whenever he’d go to a nomikai drinking party, he’d always be off on his own, playing Pokémon and he’d always skip out if there was a nijikai or second round and go to the arcade instead.
• Apparently, Saki Ito was a huge gamer and actually played the original NieR when it first came out in 2010. Prior to the release, his attention was first grasped by an image of Kaine in her underwear in a game magazine. Although, after playing the game, he was absolutely hooked on the soundtrack, so in a way, he’s also an “Okabe Child”.
• At this point, Yoko suggests that they’re all just “Taura Children” since NieR:Automata has sold the most and NieR Replicant ver.1.22… and NieR Re[in]carnation really only reference NieR:Automata… So, they’re mere pawns under Taura’s regime. But Taura reiterates that he is an “Okabe Child”.
• Okabe mentions that it always comes back around to him in the end, to which Yoko mentions how uninteresting this is before going into his usual spiel: “Why are all you young people so well-groomed and good-looking!? I hate good-looking guys, but I always end up choosing them anyway…” The next moment, he orders another highball.

▶︎ NieR:Automata was supposed to be a slow-life game cultivating Lunar Tears?

• The NieR series fell into a bit of a drought with little forward momentum after the release of NieR Replicant/Gestalt until around 2012.
• Yoko wanted to make a sequel and consulted with Yuki Yokoyama (producer of NieR Re[in]carnation) who was the assistant producer at the time. But, unfortunately, the plan fell through and Yoko ended up working on Drakengard 3 (originally released on December 19, 2013).
• The first YoRHa stage play, which depicts the events that lead up to NieR:Automata, was held in October 2014. Yoko mentions that this play was not originally connected to the NieR world at all. As it was stated in the manga “The True Theory Game Creators Story: Yoko Taro’s Arc“, Yoko again confirms that it was Saito who came up with a good story (narrative) and suggested they could do something with PlatinumGames.
• They also had the option to remake NieR Replicant/Gestalt for the PS Vita, but also thought it might be better to make something brand new instead. So, Saito asked Yoko to come up with an idea which… ended up being a farming game, like all the other popular smartphone games at the time. Yoko’s idea was something like where you’d grow and cultivate Lunar Tears… and idea that wasn’t even seriously considered, Saito said. Yoko’s reprieve was that similar games were super popular at the time, and since Saito liked money, it could work…
• Generally speaking, the first idea doesn’t matter nearly as much as actually getting the project off the ground, from which point you can figure out the various details later, Yoko said. After that, he had a look at Taura’s plan proposal, and that’s basically when the idea was born to base NieR:Autoata on the original YoRHa stage play.

▶︎ Yoko Taro’s audacious willingness to extend deadlines

• Because of the great success of NieR:Automata, NieR Replicant ver.1.22… was released in February 2021 with NieR Re[in]carnation coming the following April, the interviewer asked Taura what it was like working with Yoko again, to which he said that he never knew deadlines could be so easily extended without any adverse repercussions, to which Saito mention that this was true even before NieR:Automata became a great success… So, it appears as though Yoko just really dislikes deadlines. “I was always like this!”
• Whenever Yoko writes, he always wonders of what he’s doing is really okay and really can’t find the right answer anymore. Saito mentions that this is often how creative people feel, and Taura added that once you create the basic shape, anything can be changed or fixed later. Here, Yoko doesn’t respond and apparently makes an odd face to which Ito responds by saying, “You can’t just make a face like that, like you don’t understand.”
• Here, the interviewer mentions Yoko’s new column that also began in this issue, and how he hopes Yoko can make his deadlines… Taura & Saito to some degree encourage him to write the script and to not forget to do his own work. All Yoko can do is agree.
• Since NieR Replicant ver.1.22… wasn’t necessarily a new game and was more of a remake of a game that already exists, the interviewer asked if it was less stressful to work on with Yoko and also make the necessary deadlines. Ito replied to say that it was probably easier than what Taura or Matsukawa had to deal with. Sometime around the midway point of development, Yoko started complaining about things even though they had decided to stay faithful to the original game except for a few new additions. At one point he apparently said, “I don’t like how the grass grows in the Stone Temple!”
• Saito said that they were in effect recreating the original game that Yoko made, but they ended up totally redoing the backgrounds, and Ito added that the result included a ton of grass and vines everywhere. Yoko agreed that the background team did a really amazing job, especially how they so closely recreated Koda’s concept art in the game. He praised them further by mentioning how quick they were to respond whatever he asked for something. The more he asked for changes, the more the backgrounds needed to be redone.
• Regarding other changes that were implemented, Ito said that they were thinking about easing up on the monotonous grinding that existed in the original, but they essentially came to the decision that they wouldn’t alter those aspects, although he still wonders if that was the right decision. Saito then came to his aid and agreed that it was the right call.

▶︎ Effort and its hidden toll

• According to Okabe, he wanted the motion capture data ahead of time to compose the piece that would play during the Dev/Pop battle, where Popola attacks while dancing on the stage, but they were told that the mocap for another song had to be recorded first and to compose the piece to match this data (basically reusing the mocap data rather than having another mocap session specifically for the battle sequence (it’s a resource conserving measure both time and money wise, also may have been a scheduling issue)).
• So, Okabe had to compose to match the previous mocap data, which is really insane if you think about it. But he worked his magic anyway, although it appears like most players didn’t even notice Popola’s dancing, so he wondered why he put in the effort… To which Saito apparently gives a Steve Jobs quote of sorts: “A good sofa is one that’s sewn well, even in places you can’t see.” (This is a translation of the Japanese translation of the original English quote, so it’s a little difficult to pinpoint the actual quote at this point).
• Apparently, the first boss in NieR:Automata, Engels, was designed to match the music much like Beauvoir in the Amusement Park, Taura says, although hardly anyone noticed. He guessed that it was because they made it feel so natural that it was difficult to tell it was synched to the music as well. He was frustrated since it took a lot of effort to design it that way.
• Koda tried to express that maybe it was difficult to tell the motion was synced to the music due to such large movements, but Taura suggested for people to play it again with this in mind. Even the part where 9S comes to help is completely synched with the music.
• The interviewer asked if there might be anything new that could be revealed at last, and Ito was the first to speak, saying that the fishing bobber texture in NieR Replicant ver.1.22… was adapted from ikura (salmon roe) texture. Additionally, sometimes the main character will seem to draw something on the ground as an idle motion, and there were several different versions of this; one of which was writing “Yoko”. Apparently, this was news to Yoko, but Saito raised the bar exponentially higher when he mentioned, “That’s cute, but nothing compared to what Yoko did in NieR Replicant/Gestalt, when he hid the feature where your save data is deleted.” It seems as though the project manager somehow got wind of this and let Saito know about it, and that’s how it was inevitably discovered…

▶︎ A Sense of Accomplishment Through Art

• Kazuma Koda was asked which of his many illustrations he felt left the largest impact on him, and he named the illustration he did for the NieR:Automata 5th Anniversary, as it was the piece in which he felt the most fulfilled and received great feedback from social media. Generally speaking, NieR art mainly uses a white color scheme. Koda grew to use subtlety warm or cool tones, especially in shadows, and he felt he mastered this color adjustment process with the 5th-anniversary illustration.

• Yoko would often give Koda instructions to illustrate a particular scene, but other times the directions were more vague. Even so, he rarely had anything returned for corrections, which he was grateful for. Still, at the same time, he said it was rather disconcerting.
• When asked about Yoko’s art preferences, Koda mentioned that Yoko often liked more symmetrical designs or compositions with characters that are arranged in an easy-to-understand manner. Koda also likes this sort of composition, so he always kept this in mind whenever he was working on illustrations for NieR. Yoko added that, once a theme had been decided, he often liked to go the simpler route, eliminating any ambiguities or unnecessary elements.
• Apparently, there was some confusion regarding the saturation of Koda’s artwork, but he didn’t consciously alter this; on the other hand, Taura suggested to lower the saturation of the game’s visuals by about half. Both Ito and Matsukawa were aware of Yoko’s idea that the NieR series uses a subdued saturation color scheme, so they were both acutely aware of this in both NieR Re[in]carnation and NieR Replicant ver.1.22…
• Matsukawa mentioned that he got so used to this minimal saturation scheme that when he encountered something with higher saturation, it tended to hurt his eyes and thusly started to prefer designs with more subdued saturation or even drawn to whites and grays. “It’s Yoko’s curse,” he said, to which Yoko responded, “That’s good.”
• Koda often plays more colorful games like Splatoon to sort of reset his metal color image after working on NieR designs for too long.
• When Saito asked what Koda likes to draw for himself, he mentioned that he likes the backgrounds in NieR but perfers cuter characters. He never felt he was very good at drawing realistic faces, which was why the characters were relatively small and more delicate in the various NieR artwork, but more recently he feels like he’s more capable of drawing realistic characters as well.
• As far as NieR:Automata goes, they had Akihiko Yoshida doing the main character designs with Yuuya Nagai doing the sub characters as well as Toshiyuki Itahana with the new Dev/Pop designs, so Yoko specifically had Koda focus on the backgrounds. Koda added that since he’s more able to illustrate characters, he’s happy he was able to come up with the key visual for the “NieR:Dinner Show”, held on December 29, 2024. Okabe mentioned that he was filled with surprise and gratitude to see the design, and a poster of it is actually hanging up in the MONACA office.

▶︎ The Influence of NieR

• Continuing the questions for the younger game developers, the interviewer asked if they may have applied anything they learned by working on NieR to the other works or were maybe influenced by it in some way.
• Ito mentioned that he started getting angry at the dev team more frequently, and like Yoko or Taura, he was less willing to compromise on quality. If he noticed anything that wasn’t write, he’d point it out and sometimes end up speaking harshly.
• Comparatively, Matsukawa has taken a different approach and has been speaking more kindly, thinking that it’s not always about raising the quality by being harsh, so he consciously changed the way he approaches and speaks to people. Taura agrees, adding that you can’t necessarily create something good by being mean.
• That was was when Yoko spoke up, saying that Taura was always rather harsh on the game designers and planners, and Taura’s reasoning was that anyone could full those roles, even if they weren’t particularly skilled at it. Yoko pressed further, saying that he’s being harsh just saying that.
• Taura goes on to talk about his own experience, how he went to a tech school to become a programmer, but failed. He then wanted to draw, but there were still many other amazingly talented people who were better than him. Then he thought he’d like to work on games, so the only role he could get into was a planner. He put in the effort not to bother the actually talented folks above him, so that’s probably why he’s somewhat triggered by those who don’t necessarily put in the effort.

▶︎ Reflecting on the Past 15 Years of NieR

• Shifting over to the topic of everyone’s most memorable moments in the past 15 years, Yoko was the first to mention he became more talkative when Saito among others invited him to attend various livestreams. He feels he’s more able to speak freely now.
• Taura feels that he’s able to drink alcohol more, which has somewhat helped him to speak and explain things to the team more effectively. (I’m worried if he’s drinking at work… lol)
• Saito mentioned that during one of their livestreams, he suddenly got sick and had to ask Taura to take over as the MC, so he felt bad for doing that (This might have been during the #4 official livestream, but I’m not sure. Saito was wearing a mask while the other’s weren’t and he only appeared in the beginning and end, so maybe this is what he was referring to). Taura hoped that he did well enough at least, whereas Saito thought it helped Taura “level up” in some way. Taura mentioned how funny it is for turning points in your life seem to come at the most unexpected times.
• At this point, the interviewer asked Taura regarding the rumors that he since left PlatinumGames, to which Taura said it wasn’t something he was trying to keep under wraps; it’s just he didn’t make a huge announcement about it. Regarding the reason, he said that once he’s able to release a new project with his name on it, he might be able to talk about it freely then.
• Apparently, Taura has started his own development studio, called Eel Game Studio.
• Moving on, the interviewer mentioned that the three main guys (Yoko, Okabe, and Taura) were working on a new game and asked if that was still true, and Saito confirmed this as accurate information. ”What a relief!”
• At this point, Yoko mentioned Takano, the PR rep, and how he said he’s just doing whatever because it’s his job, and didn’t seem remotely interested in NieR, to which Takano replied that neither the company nor the fans really expected it to be a huge hit. He hadn’t played the previous games either, so he didn’t quite understand anything.
• This was when Saito spoke up to mention an international meeting where they discuss how many copies they expect to sell based on the project proposal, and the numbers they got then were pretty embarrassing. Even so, both Yoko and Okabe were convinced the game would do well overseas, so they got Akihiko Yoshida and PlatinumGames on board, with the goal of reaching at least 1 million copies sold. They basically continued on like this thinking, “If it doesn’t sell, I’ll quit.”
• Apparently, Takano got swept up in everything and went to E3 2015, thinking “I’m not interested, but I’ll do it since it’s my job.” (This was when NieR:Automata was teased as the “NieR New Project”)
• According to Takano, this was the first lighting of his interest, which continued on to the 2016 event in Tokyo at the EX THEATER ROPPONGI, the NieR Music Concert & Talk Live – White of the End, Black of Rebirth, at which the performance moved him deeply. He actually regretted not playing the game before this, since the impact of the experience would have been much greater.
• At this point, Yoko spoke up, saying how he didn’t want to hear such a moving story and thusly ordered something more to drink…
• Saito mentioned that Takano is also an “Okabe Child!”
• Taura also spoke up, stating that it’s a rare thing to get interested in something from the music alone. At that, Yoko was like, “In that case, I’ll make a really horrible game just to see how far your musical magic will go. Then we’ll see if people actually say, “Geez, we actually needed Yoko’s story…”” Taura hit back by saying he’ll just buy the soundtrack… lol
• Here, the interviewer tries to change the subject a little by asking Yoko whether he’s been contemplating Okabe’s music more recently and if he thought his music has been getting better over the years, to which Yoko admits that ever since SINoALICE and NieR Re[in]carnation, Okabe’s music has only gotten better, although Saito pipes up to say that it’s already been good from the start. lol Yoko has a mini conniption, saying, “Everyone says that, but it’s not true!” before admitting that Okabe’s musical skill actually did improve considerably after this period.
• Regarding what Okabe actually felt himself, he mentioned that he did notice an improvement. Although, since the NieR:Automata soundtrack had more of a sci-fi or Hollywood-style vibe, maybe fans of the previous game were turned off because of it.
• Apparently, Taura actually wrote a plan proposal for a NieR Replicant/Gestalt sequel and he was shocked to see how different it was when NieR:Automata was actually announced.
• The interviewer mentioned that because of this massive gap, the soundtracks for NieR Replicant ver.1.22… and NieR Re[in]carnation musically stood out more.
• Okabe mentioned that this could be accurate. Around the same time, he got similar requests for various themes. Even though the requests were similar, he tried to make each piece unique. But since they were all composed around the same time, there was a natural sense of hierarchy that he had in mind.
• Slightly confused, the interviewer confirmed that it wasn’t about whether the themes were good or not, but simply that one felt better than the others, to which Okabe agreed, saying that the track that best fit this criteria was Fleeting Words（泡沫ノ言葉）Yoko was rather impressed to hear that Okabe had written 3 similar tracks around the same time and decided which one would go to which game later. It absolutely worked like magic!
• The way Okabe writes NieR music is by deciding on the melody first then arrange them later to better fit the feeling of whichever game.
• Yoko asked Saito at Famitsu how or why they decided on putting Automata on the cover in 2016, a full year before the release of the game. He was confused because it wasn’t expected to sell well, both on the Famitsu side and SQEX side.
• The interviewer (Saito), said it was due to several different reasons, but the hype over a new game by Yoko Taro was likely the main reason. People were also excited that PlatinumGames would be doing the development, and seeing Taura show some of the gameplay at the “NieR Music Concert & Talk Live” also got a lot of people hyped up. Also, Akihiko Yoshida’s character designs were another plus.
• Yoko wasn’t all that thrilled about it, however, and actually wondered if the people at Famitsu had their heads on right. Typically, weekly magazines release about 50 issues a year, so they felt they could give it a shot.

▶︎ Closing Comments

• Saito said that in 2027, Automata will celebrate its 10th Anniversary, so he hopes that Yoko, Okabe, and he will still be around (alive) in order to share something related to NieR then. Before that, however, he hopes that worldwide sales and downloads will surpass 10 million copies.
• Yoko said to look forward to his new YOKO & TARO column in Famitsu because he will gradually be revealing more about the future of NieR!
• Except, the interviewer stated in the 10 columns Yoko’s already submitted, none have hinted at anything about this yet, so perhaps we should look forward to the future installments.

▲ These black and white characters are known as “Pre” and “Zen” (two halves of the Japanese word for “presentation) were originally created by Yukiko Yokoo, Yoko Taro’s wife, to use during his various presentations. Here, they are depicted with a ヨ for “YOKO” and タ for “TARO”.

• Saito was surprised that he’s already written 10 columns, yet Taura yelled at him to keep writing the scripts.
• The roundtable discussion ends with Yoko responding to Taura, “Yeah, I get it~☆”

So, that’s about it! I guess we’ll have to wait to hear more news on the next NieR title when Yoko feels like teasing it in his new column!