Nier Replicant Mouse Tails & Lizard Tails: where to get them for The Ballad of the Twins
There's a whole lot of side content in Nier Replicant - but as we say in our complete side quest guide with full quest walkthroughs, some are definitely more worth doing than others. In the early stages of the game, one of the most worthwhile quests is The Ballad of the Twins - but completing it can be a pain.
The Ballad of the Twins is one of the first quests you can get in the game - it's sort of handed over by Devola in the Tavern, but you'll need to follow that up with a trip to Popola in the Library to truly kick the quest off. At first the quest starts simple, tasking you with fetching a drink from the Seafront Tavern - but then you'll learn the Tavern needs you to gather some unorthodox ingredients to make the drink - 5 Mouse Tails and 5 Lizard Tails.
Before we get into where to get the Mouse Tails and Lizard Tails, a quick note about this quest in general - it doesn't carry any specific rewards, like a heap of gold, a hot new weapon or even useful upgrade materials... but it does give you a little story scene where you can hear a lovely song arrangement - and it also gives some hints about the learned twins that act as guides throughout your adventure. So, if that sounds cool, do this quest. Otherwise, you might as well skip it - as gathering those materials will take a little bit of time.
Where to find Mouse Tails in Nier Replicant
There aren't any classic RPG style giant mice in Nier Replicant - so you won't be getting the Mouse Tail material as a drop from them. Instead, you actually have to catch mice, and they can only be found in one area - in the overworld area immediately outside the Robot Factory dungeon - so in the Junk Heap.
In this area, you'll find mice scurrying around anywhere from the entrance to the Two Brothers Weaponry shop right the way down to the entrance to the Robot Factory Junk Heap dungeon. The exact number of mice that spawns seems to vary, but we've found there's always one and have had as many as three spawn on one load of the area.
To get the mouse tails, you'll just need to chase after the mice as they scurry around. When you get close, an interact button will appear. Press Circle/B to interact, and you'll pick up the whole mouse and... get a mouse tail. Gross. I'm not quite sure what the protagonist does to make that happen.
Anyway, that's it. In order to get the five you need, the easiest thing to do is to leave and reload the area, thus forcing a respawn. The quickest way to do this is to enter and exit the Junk Heap dungeon, just as you would in reverse if you were farming Machine Oil or Titanium Alloy inside that dungeon.
Where to get Lizard Tails in Nier Replicant
The deal with Lizard Tails is much the same as the above, except this time it'll take you to the Northern Plains or Eastern Road areas. We've found the Eastern Road the most reliable place to find Lizards - they spawn on the pathway that leads towards the Desert, quite far up the path. Usually only one spawns on this path, but we have seen two before.
Once again, you'll need to chase after the Lizards that dash about and interact with them with the Circle/B button when close to scoop them up and... somehow, take possession of their tail, presumably in a very cold-blooded manner.
Lizard Tails will probably take a little longer than the Mouse Tails because the Lizards seem a less common spawn; just like with Mouse Tails, though, the easiest thing to do is to enter the nearest area - that's the Desert - then re-enter the eastern road to force a respawn. At most you'll have to do this five times, then you'll have what you need.