Earning gold is an important part of Nier Replicant as you'll need it to purchase and upgrade your weapons. Collecting all weapons is required to unlock Ending C, and upgrading them all has multiple related achievements/trophies. Additionally, the "Man of Means" accolade is earned for owning a total of 1,000,000 gold at any one point.
That's a hefty task to achieve, but we've got some helpful tips here on the best ways to farm some gold. Fortunately, there are a number of good ways to earn a steady income in Replicant, here they all are.
Fishing
Fishing is a feature that unlocks really early in the game and is a great way to earn some gold very quickly. You won't be able to catch all the available fish in the world until you have completed all of the "Fisherman's Gambit" quests, some of which only become available in Part Two.
While the rarer fish that you can catch later in the game are worth more when sold, they take more time to catch and generally require more expensive bait too. You're actually better off targeting some of the lower-value fish that can be caught more quickly with a lure or cheaper bait.
We recommend farming the following easy fish to make gold:
Part One:
- Fish: Black Bass
- Bait: Lure
- Location: Nier's village
- Sell Price: 1,500 gold
Part Two:
- Fish: Sandfish
- Bait: Lure
- Location: Desert (near the fast travel boat)
- Sell Price: 2,500 gold
- Fish: Royal Fish
- Bait: Earthworm
- Location: Eastern Road
- Sell Price: 4,000 gold
You can also try and get Dunkleleosteus (sells for 12,500 gold) and Blue Marlin (sells for 1,950 gold) in Part Two, both of which can be caught with a lure in Seafront. However, the Dunkleleosteus is a difficult catch and you might end catching a lot of junk fish that are attracted to the same bait in the process.
You can refer to our Complete Fishing Guide for a list of all available fish and how much they sell for, as well as general fishing tips.
Quests
Quests are a great source of income with many offering decent rewards, and some even going so far as to give you 50,000 gold on completion. We have a Complete Quest List here so you can see which quests are best to complete in order to earn gold.
In Part One, there is a repeatable quest that offers a good way to earn some gold. The woman near the fountain by the Item Shop in Nier's village will give 1,500 gold for every 10 Mutton you give her. Mutton is easily farmed in the Northern Plains by calling all of the sheep to you and then slaughtering them. You can then leave the area and re-enter to make the sheep respawn.
Sell Junk Items
You'll be gathering a lot of items during your many playthroughs of Nier Replicant, as so many raw materials are required for weapon upgrades and quests. However, not all of the items you obtain from defeating enemies or from gathering spots are actually needed.
While many might not be worth a lot individually, you'll end up with a lot of junk items and so they can add up to quite a bit. We have a handy guide on items that are safe to sell right here.
In fact, if you are close to achieving the 1,000,000 gold needed for the "Man of Means" accolade, you can cheat to get it. You can save your game, sell all items you own to unlock the achievement/trophy, then reload your save to get all of your items back.
Cultivating Plants
Cultivating plants is a great way to earn some money in Replicant, but only if you're willing to manipulate your system time (covered in this guide) — otherwise the process is just too time-consuming for the rewards.
You can unlock the ability to cultivate plants as soon as quests become available in your game (which is very early on). You simply need to complete the quest given by the florist in Nier's village, which we cover in our Complete Guide To Cultivating Plants.
You can plant either flowers or vegetables in your little garden patch, but the most lucrative items to grow are the hybrid Moonflowers that you have to create by cross-breeding.
Hybrid Moonflowers sell at the following prices:
- Indigo Moonflower: 1,800 gold
- Pink Moonflower: 1,800 gold
- Peach Moonflower: 1,800 gold
- White Moonflower (Lunar Tear): 5,000 gold
You can follow our guide on how to breed hybrids here, with the aim being to get as many White Moonflower seeds as possible.
Once planted, flowers appear after 24 hours and then turn into seeds after 48 hours. When going for White Moonflowers, make sure you grab one as a flower to unlock "Legendary Gardener", then reload your save and skip ahead a day to get the White Moonflower seeds.
Farming Guide:
- Plant your White Moonflower seeds.
- In any other available plots, plant alternating Pink and Peach Moonflower seeds to try and get more White Moonflowers.
- Skip ahead 48 hours to harvest seeds from the dead flowers.
- Rinse and repeat until you have a decent number of White Moonflower seeds to plant flowers.
- Plant your White Moonflowers seeds (keeping at least 15 in reserve at all times).
- Skip ahead 24 hours and harvest your White Moonflowers for sale.
- When you reach your 15 reserve White Moonflower seeds, plant them with the goal of harvesting the seeds once more and repeat the process (You normally get 1-2 White Moonflower seeds per harvest without water or fertilizer).
You don't want to harvest every single White Moonflower and run out of White Moonflower Seeds completely as you will then have to try and breed this hybrid all over again.