Game: NieR: Automata
Developer: PlatinumGames
Publisher: Square Enix
Release: 2017-2018
System: PS4/PC/XB1
Genre: Action RPG
This is game I didn't expect to get so invested in. I remember everyone obsessing over it last year, and 2B's ass being all over twitter, and it kinda turned me off from wanting to play because it was getting nothing but universal praise that I felt at the time was just blind hype. Well after beating the original at least once (first ending) I thought it was a really fun game. I liked all the main characters, Nier himself, Grimoire Weiss, Emil and of course Kaine. They were all memorable and the overall story was easy to follow and I was invested. So after waiting a while, up until recently, I decided to actually play the second game, NieR Automata. Only warning is I'll probably be discussing spoilers at the end of the review, but I'll provide my overall thoughts before the spoiler section.
Overall gameplay
NieR: Automata is technically a sequel to the original NieR, but you don't need to play it in order to enjoy this one. But playing the original helps you better understand some of the names, weapons, references and more, that you otherwise wouldn't understand if you only play the second game. The game plays similar to other action games made by Platinum, but you don't need to do a whole bunch of complex combos and memorizing enemy patterns to get the most enjoyment out of battle. It's an action RPG, so they decided to make it less focused on combos (there isn't even a combo meter so there you go) and just focused on simple fun combat, and while I say simple, it's not dumbed down. You can cancel your animations and stuff by jumping. dashing mid attack etc, so it's up to you how you play. Similar to the original NieR, 2B and 9S have pods, and those pods can shoot projectiles at the enemies, similar to how Weiss worked, but instead you keep the same speed you have, and can even attack while shooting with the pod, which I believe you couldn't do in the original. The gameplay basically reminds me of the same hack and slash action of the original Nier, but way for fluid, polish etc. Way less jank this compared to before, but I kinda miss the jank. Usually the game is just an action RPG, but then in a lot of areas the game switches styles and even the gameplay. A lot of times you'll be using their small mech flying things to do a vertical or horizontal shooter section, then it could be a twin stick shooter. But a lot of times, the perspective changes to just being 2D which works almost seamlessly. Perspective switching is a returning feature from the original, although they never really brought back the small zoomed out overhead view which kinda reminded me of Gauntlet. There are some overhead sections on the ground, but those don't happen that much.
Additional info
In terms of the actual RPG elements, well you can level up obviously and enemies have levels that increase as you get through the game. You can buy and upgrade weapons, chips and you can even upgrade the pods. You can upgrade weapons up to about 3 or 4 stages, and they get way more powerful, and if you click on them, you can read a short story about each one, although I didn't really check those out. Chips are super interesting because you can essentially remove HUD elements which are pre-installed, so you can remove the ability to see the map, enemy HP/level and shit. But the main function of the chips is to add a bunch of active and passive effects. You can make your weapon do more damage, auto-heal, increase defense, have more invincibility after taking damage etc. It's a really good system which lets you have fun and mess around with different set up. You can even stack multiple chips of the same effect if you have enough space. The game isn't like a "true" open world, but like the original Nier, all the outside areas are all connected to the main area in some way. Like in the original, you could get to all the other sections of the map by leaving town and just going certain ways. Same thing here, as almost every area is connected to the main city ruins. The areas can be really damn big so it's a good thing you can warp to the other areas.
Story Setup
This is the basic version of the story summary. Basically the game takes place over 11000 years into the future, earth is a post apocalyptic wasteland full of destroyed cities and just nature. Mankind was almost wiped out and decided to stay on the moon in a big space station. While that's happening, mankind sent their sentient androids, the YoRHa units, to earth to help repair it and get rid of the machine lifeforms plaguing the remains of civilization. But the androids and machine lifeforms are basically at war with each other, and it's kinda become a standstill. You play as 2B with her partner 9S usually helping you throughout the story and all the side quests and stuff. As you get through the game, you learn more about the machine lifeforms and meet tons of characters. I will not spoil it here, but the game has many great emotional moments, and overall the game does make you think. That's something I really like about the story and overall tone and atmosphere the game sets up. Just make sure you're emotionally read for some scenes :p It was a really good experience. I think Yoko Taro deserves a lot of points for writing characters that I actually cared about, and made me feel something whenever bad shit happened. Reminds me a bit of the first NieR, but I think since you spend more time getting used to them and just seeing them on screen, when this or that happens, you do feel it.
Music, Style, Graphics etc
This game has very unique music and the songs almost always perfectly fit the tone they're going for for a certain area, scene etc. Some of my favorite area themes are the Amusement Park, Desert Area, Machine Village and the space station. Keiichi Okabe did the music for both NieR games, and the songs in this game are still in my head. Instruments like piano, guitar, strings and even 8-bit sounds are all used in the soundtrack in some way or another. another thing carried over from NieR 1 is the heavy use of vocals. The vocals are technically just gibberish, but it still sounds great, I don't know how they did it. The soundtrack also can get quieter or more dynamic depending on what's going on. And sometimes the don't show up until you get further into area. I really like this feature. I like a lot of the middle versions of the songs where it's before they go full dynamic. The game looks fine, no real issues. The main characters all have good designs that I actually can recognize, so they stand out. And the use of various camera angles and colors really helps with the game's tone and style. Like the space station has calm, quiet thinking music, and that area's colors are only in black and white, so even the screen and everything stays monotone. There's a lot of subtle uses of color, and it's great since a lot of fucking games have like eye-bleeding colors nowadays, with too much going on at once, like you gotta dilate your fucking eyes or something. There's good use of greys, browns and subtle colors that help give the game a unique color palette. You can always tell what area is which just by the music and how the area looks. Even the desert looks great, and most of it is just fucking sandy hills and rocks. they use fog effects, sand in the wind and lighting to make it look really cool. The game's art direction is definitely one of my favorite things, both in terms of music and looks. The game even has crazy effects, like later in the game, your vision can get fucked and the screen just reminds me of Apple II and shit with everything being black and green, it really makes you remember that 2B and 9S are actually robots. When you get hit you can even hear a bit of static, and the screen gets completely monotone if you have low HP, and goes back to full color if you have over 30% HP.
This game is really good. I got all the main endings for the game, so yeah I guess I invested a ton of time into it, like about 30 hours or so, but I did go back to do some of the extra content and the coliseum DLC (still need to get the original NieR outfits lol). I wouldn't be talking about this game so much on here if I didn't like it. But I still don't feel like how I can sum up how I really feel about this game, maybe I just don't know or maybe it's too early to tell, eh who knows. NieR: Automata is a really good game, but I don't think it's the GOTY shit tons of people were saying last year when no one would shut up about it, but it's very good. I don't see it as GOAT either, but that doesn't mean the game sucks ass. I'm happy I played this game, it was basically what I couldn't stop playing over the course of 2 weeks, I was kinda obsessed playing for hours at a time. I don't know if it's because it's a lot of fun or if I was just so focused on the story. If you're interested in this game I guess buy it and see what happens, and stick around for the credits.
Plus:
- Great music and art design. The soundtrack is great and is just as good as the original, with good instruments, vocals and beats. Good looking areas and very artistic.
- Memorable and emotional moments that can really make you feel bad, the game makes you think a lot and has interesting themes and ideas. The cutscenes and voice acting are really good (played with Japanese voices)
- The main characters were actually really good and I got attached to them, you stick with them for the whole game, but they actually do develop as characters throughout the story.
- Great combat and good upgrade systems/mechanics, letting become an unstoppable monster if you know how to set your shit up right.
- Fishing doesn't suck ass anymore.
- There's a lot of good twists and turns, both in gameplay and story, it's good if you go into the story blind, so it can be really surprising.
- Different gameplay styles that fit the game well and look cool when they happen. I really enjoyed the 2D shooting sections.
- You can warp to almost all the areas with no issues. great for sidequests or if you need to do other stuff. Or just to progress the story.
- You can blow and and lose some of your clothes
- Emil is best boy.
Minus:
- Some of the story is hidden away in text you gotta read on your own time, also there's some segments where you just read walls of text for some characters backstory and it was starting to get a bit tiring, like the forest in Nier 1.
- After beating the whole story, I still feel like nothing fucking happened, maybe that was the point, but I felt the little moments in the game had more of a punch than the overall story.
- Some villains are just lame and underutilized so they're just there. The game does try to make them a bit more than just flat characters, but it didn't really work for me.
- Some enemies could be really fucking annoying, especially have trouble dodging, they just pummel you even if you barely take damage, it's just stun after stun. just try to jump outta the way and avoid it.
- A lot of the machine enemies are reused in each area and only either have a different outfit or are just stronger versions of the ones in another area. Fuck those drill serpent things.
Nitpicks:
- Your outfits stay the same in cutscenes, weird because they would look cool, and because we just wanna see more of the unitard.
- You can't zoom the camera in, it's always at a certain distance, even when in the open 3D areas where can freely move the character, kinda sucks
- Emil having random spawn points, it's not that hard to find him, but it was a bit of a pain to get certain chips and parts I needed.
I will get into some spoilers here so only keep reading if you've beaten the game, watched someone play etc or don't care for spoilers.
SPOILER SECTION
Adam and Eve suck ass, they didn't do much besides kill the aliens, capture 9S and made the machines go haywire after they both died. I really liked all the questions and shit Adam was saying to 9S while he was in his own brain, and what it means to have free will and all that. An just coming and telling 9S "nigga I know you wanna fuck 2B," The copied city where you fight Adam looked cool, and reminds me of the tower at the end of the game (ending C, D, E) but I thought the area was kinda underused just like both Adam and Eve. After Adam dies, Eve just becomes a crazy mad man, and all he does is whine and go on a rampage because we killed his brother, that nigga needs to chill the fuck out seriously. All he did was yell, make a fucking sandstorm of robots, and even made them join together to give him huge ass robot arms, and then him and 9S both get huge ass arms and Falcon Punch each other.
I understand what Popola and Devola were designed for, and that they wanted to atone for their sins after the other Popola/Devola units went crazy and fucked everything up, but they didn't need to die. I felt they didn't get enough screen time. The commander staying on the space station when she got the logic virus made me upset because I liked her, but it still felt like a pointless sacrifice, it did help 2B and 9S survive, but later on, before Route C starts, it's already too late for 2B (and later 9S in Endings C, D, E) as she already had the virus. Damn that part of the game as good, it was in such a hurry, I didn't want to die from the virus, and the game makes you go all the way to the destroyed mall so she can try to save herself. It's technically not scripted since you can die before making it to the cutscene, but the game did a really good job at making me worry. It felt like I was fucked, and it was cool way to mix the story and gameplay together because you actually have to get there, and without warp points, so the build up to 2B's eventual death was really good. And her death just fucks up 9S mentally. He suffers the most in this game honestly, since they ask him so many questions, the commander admits and tells him the secrets behind YoRHA and the humans, and the final part of the story (playing as A2 and 9S) is just big mix of emotions from him.
The saddest part of the game for me isn't even when 2B eventually dies, or when A2/9S both die at the end, it's when the machines in Pascal's village actually become crazy. His village is on fire, there's nothing but crazy machines malfunctioning and they just eat the other villagers, and then you gotta kill them. It made me happy and upset when in a last attempt to save his children, Pascal brings them to the abandoned factory for shelter, and then A HERD OF BUNCH OF FUCKING UGLY MACHINES invaded the factory, and then Pascal takes his last stand. He stops being a pacifist and then controls a fucking Goliath to wipe them all out, it was cool. But after A2 and Pascal go to check up on the other robots, they all committed suicide. They destroyed their cores, which basically contain all their memories and everything, so they killed themselves out of fear of dying from the cannibal robots. And this just cuts through Pascal. He then asks A2 to hack him to erase his memories, because he's finally given up, he's done. He can't take the pain anymore. You put him out of misery basically. I had to erase his memories and reset hi. This was the hardest moment for me, my heart sank because I had to actually kill Pascal. I fucking cried, it was a deep pain inside. That was a real stand out moment for me, it fucking hurt. And now the theme to the village is bittersweet. What makes me feel worse is that you can actually walk away from him and he's continue to live with his memories. This hurts because the game makes it look like you don't have a choice, as the game makes you walk in the same slow walking animations as when you normally talk to NPCs, I wanted to save first, but it didn't look like I could leave the area and save at the warp point. Goddamn it.
The silver lining is Pascal never actually, but putting him out of his misery and erasing his memories fucking broke my heart.
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