The words that alter the weapons and magic abilities is pretty much equivalent to crafting/augmenting.
Note: the following is my personal opinion and not meant to derail the thread. It's simply an indepth critique as to why I think the story and writing, thus far, are terrible.
Anime, in my mind, is merely a framework within which cool shit happens (Martial arts! Big swords! Boobs! Explosions!) without being very strong in neither narrative or character writing. There are a handful of phenomenal exceptions that we could namedrop, but after spending a lot of time growing up consuming it, it is, for the most part, a barren and shallow medium that I can barely stand these days.
I'd hate to come off as condescending or whatnot to most anime fans (as I'm sure there are some here) but I can't really stomach most Japanese games these days that have writing that's typical of most anime chaff. Once and a while you have a game come along like El Shaddai that has a really intriguing concept and an original story with neat writing -- but even that has some hokey dialogue to go with it. Nier, this far in, seems like a lot of the same old stuff: sick kid that is meek yet defiant; tough chick (well... :lol) who offputting because she really has too much to prove; and even the face of the one character (the one with the round, inanimate face) is a direct rip from the manga/anime Berserk. All in all, the plot and writing seem so paper thin and weak, yet is so overbearing at the same time, so it comes off as a huge blunder not worth paying attention to.
So far, the story isn't batshit insane/terrible to the point where it's hilarious (like Bayonetta, for instance) so I can't really take it seriously.
I'm still very much open to the story/writing improving, but at this point, I'm playing it for its combat and refreshing take on the action RPG genre.
