What JRPG has the best story?

[F0X]

Michael-5 said:

F0X said:

Michael-5 said:

Bleh....compared to Drakengard, Nier was trash. I bought the game, ignoring the reviews, but I have to say....outside of Emil's story-arch (which is awesome, especially his cutscenes), the plot was bland.

I don't agree at all. Are you aware of what happens during subsequent playthroughs?

I have unlocked all 4 endings, and that's actually one reason why I hated it. You literally play the second half of the game 3 times, and just face a couple different bosses.

In Drakengard, the 2nd-5th playthrough are all different. They return you to different places in the story, have you progress down different levels (most taking place after the 1st ending of the game), and has so much more of a psychological twist.

I mean, in Drakengard Inuart doesn't even play a major role in the 1st campaign, but in the second-fifth campaign, you find out he also has a pact with a Dragon, and he's obsessed about Furiae. Plus when she commits suicide, he revives her and she becomes some twisted Flying god-like angel thing and kills him! That's more f***ed up then anything in Nier.

Just wikipedia the endings, they are so much more f***ed up then anything in Nier. They aren't like the good or bad endings in Nier, it's so much more complicated then just making a different decision.

That's all well and good, but when I praise Nier's story, I praise two aspects in particular:

1. The Sacrifice ending. And I'm far from the only person who thought that ending was genius. 
2. The second playthrough could effectively be named "Nier, You Bastard!", because of the Shadow of the Colossus-like player guilting that goes on the whole time. 

I'm personally fine with Nier not being so "f***ed up", because this also means that Nier's story didn't lose me with any sort of contrived ridiculousness. The point was to tug at the heartstrings, and I firmly believe Nier did it better than most RPGs that came out in recent memory.