Getting started on your NieR Re [in] carnation Grind

Any NieR fan out there will have been waiting for the first-ever NieR mobile game to publicly launch, and last week was the much-awaited date as on the 28th of July, Re [in] carnation hit Google Play Store and App Store. The app, like other Gacha games, is free to download and play, but there are a lot of micro-transactions that make the journey much easier than grinding the game free. Luckily, the latter is totally possible due to the fairness of the content in the game, which we shall go over below.

NieR Re [in] carnation currencies

The first and most obvious aspect of the game is the currency it uses, and in Re [in] carnation there are plenty of different currencies which one can use to trade and exchange for goods. The first and most important currency is gems, with which you can purchase Summons; the game’s best characters in battle. Currently, the game is having a NieR Automata Campaign which runs until around mid-September, so this is the best starting point to begin earning gems and rolling to have a chance at earning the crossover units, who are obviously very good units to start with.

The Automata crossover campaign features arguably the three most iconic characters of Automata: 2B, 9S and A2. These come in 4-Star units, and they are very good for starting the game with. Three more characters, 2P, Fio and Akeha are also part of the crossover but they are unique to the mobile title although with designs that feel straight out of Automata as well.

Gems are fairly easy to earn as well in Re [in] carnation, with story mode missions giving plenty upon each completed encounter, and these happen quite regularly while progressing the story. There are plenty of other side-quests to do after you clear the first story mission as well, giving players plenty of opportunities to earn them. These can be spent on other items such as restoring stamina, which is where the F2P element comes again into play. Each quest takes an amount of stamina to undertake, and this stamina restores over time. Thankfully there are also tons of stamina-restoring consumables dropping from quests that help in regaining this, so you can virtually play for very long bursts at a time.

Quests and side-quests

The second aspect of Re [in] carnation is the quests and side-quests that it offers. The main story progresses in chapters, at a slowly increasing difficulty to let players get to grips with the enemy’s strength and giving them time to upgrade the characters in their loadout. Sub-quests then feature a great variety of different things to do, from the Automata Crossover event, which lets players grind to earn medals and other items. These medals can then be exchanged for Automata-related items and other re [in] carnation exclusives, so playing the crossover missions repeatedly can be a great way to earn good gear rapidly.

Replaying main questline missions on hard mode also unlocks Dark Memory Quests; an elite set of missions with extremely high Suggested Force to even compete with the enemies, but which offer very good rewards that help the upgrading of the character in question. Each main story episode beaten on Hard will unlock a new Dark Memory Questline for a different character, so you can keep doing these episodes until you unlock the Dark Memory needed for your preferred character or loadout upgrade drops. Then replaying this will get you those sweet consumables to then use to upgrade your units.

Completing a chapter from the main missions also shows a small cutscene of sorts detailing the backstory of the character you unlock Dark Memory Quests for. It really ties in well with the cast and seeing such storytelling in a free to play title is impressive.

Upgrading

Enhance is the third section of this Re [in] carnation rundown, and an incredibly important one too. Enhance, as the name implies, lets players upgrade their character to get them at maximum strength. Upgrading characters involves two types of currencies; Gold and Weapon/Character Enhancements. Gold is earned through plenty of mission types so it is not as much of a problem.

The Enhancements part is, however, as these can only be earned by doing specific mission types. The Guerilla missions, which are a type of mission that rewards players with lots of Weapon Enhancements but are only available in 4 specific hours per day, so I suggest doing them whenever they are available. These Guerilla quests are available in the following times (BST):

• 15:00 – 16:00
• 21:00 – 22:00
• 03:00 – 04:00
• 07:00 – 08:00

One should grind the rest of the subquests in other times where you cannot access Guerilla. The app will send a notification when Guerilla missions are available sometimes, which can be a great help in obtaining Weapon Enhancements as well.

Gold and Enhancements are spent together to enhance your character’s strength to be able to take on more difficult missions, and these are key to progressing once you get out of the beginning’s 3000 force opponents. Naturally, you don’t want to spend all your enhancement consumables right away (totally not what I did …) and save them for when you get your desired pulls and upgrade them to have your favourites at maximum strength and slotted into your main loadout right away.

It is important to note that when doing Summons for the crossover event in Re [in] carnation, you are given shards. These shards take quite a while to accumulate but then can then be exchanged for the same items that you can roll for, like 2B, 9S and the rest of the available units in the Automata event. It feels extremely fair, as since you are rolling anyway to get these, failure to get these through RNG can still mean you can save up enough shards to exchange for your desired unit.

Exploration

Exploration is another game mode in Re [in] carnation but instead of battling, you engage in minigames. I have only unlocked the first one which is sort of a space invaders type of game, but these Exploration games, available once every 8 hours, restore stamina, which is a great way to continue grinding quests for gems and weapon or character enhancements. It all comes full circle in the end, and you really come to appreciate the amazing work which Applibot have done with this game.

Being a gacha game, there will no doubt be more content produced in the near future for NieR Re [in] carnation, so stick around as this guide will be duly updated with any and all new mechanics introduced, such as Arena mode, which is still under maintenance and more exploration minigames. It is important to note that the Japanese version, which was released quite a while before the English one, received crossover events for Drakengard 3 and Nier Replicant, so here is to hoping that these make their way to our versions as well. I know I’d kill for Kainé and Zero units!

Be sure to download Re [in] carnation through the official website HERE, as well as stay on top with every new update in real-time by following the Re [in] carnation Twitter page.

And for more gaming content, check out HERE on FULLSYNC.