Nier Automata is easily among the best single player games I've played. Fantastic and subversive story, but you have to play it 3 times where each replay differs significantly. Very diverse gameplay. Amazing soundtrack.
Nier Automata is a game with boring combat that makes you play through largely the same campaign 2.5 times in a row to get the "full story". Gameplay consists of a lot of running around empty levels and bashing health-sponge enemies until they explode, interspersed with mashing the dodge function.
I reached the end of the first campaign and was thoroughly disappointed. Comments online said, no, really, you absolutely have to finish the third ending to really experience the game. So I did. In the second playthrough combat gets even worse, because the most efficient way of killing enemies is a boring 2d bullet hell hacking minigame.
People talk a lot about the story but it legitimately barely makes sense. If you're a fan of anime-style storytelling I guess you might find it compelling. It is not deep. The much-vaunted philosophical aspects rise to naming some characters & bosses after famous philosophers, and nothing else.
Buy it and play it if you want. Maybe you'll enjoy it. But if it doesn't stick after a couple hours, don't continue - really, it does not change or improve at all.
Replying to this is tricky without spoilers, but I genuinely don't understand how you came to this conclusion. Did you really not find anything about the Android's lives to be even remotely philosophical? Or even the multiple playthrough aspect that you hated, what do you think is its point?
Honestly, the impression I get is that you didn't really give the game a proper chance, wrote it off early on and played it while you had written it off.
It's not for everyone, but your comment is too harsh.
BUT calling the gameplay boring with lots of running around is a fair statement. NieR:Replicant is worse. And reading through what others have said/shown about previous games in the series is that they're even worse.
The gameplay looks beautiful, but it grows only very little at the beginning of the game. After that nothing changes, there is no complexity to it. If you wanted to, you could get by with circling around enemies and pressing two buttons.
Both Niers are RPGs after all, in terms of mechanics, and traditional RPGs are even duller (attack/defend/item/flee menu choices) but still manage to be enjoyable. From that standpoint, the bullet sponge nature of the enemies, being unable to defeat them until the player characters have leveled up enough, and backtracking is understandable.
Personally, I found the combat adequate (yes, even Nier:Gestalt) and sufficiently varied to keep things interesting.
And yes, you still assume a characters narrative in this case and you still have to level. Technically yes it is, but then again, I guess our understanding of what used to be RPGs has changed massively over the recent past I would say.
EDIT: Just googling around a bit it seems like the correct definition seems to be open world action adventure with RPG elements.
[1]: https://youtu.be/QAU_8GEgSwI This has all of 2B's moveset and all combos with different weapon sets.
The swords sort of materialise in a "digital" manner that I feel helps to convey that the androids aren't humans. It also enables a lot of the flashy moves that involve attacking with the weapon while not touching it.
Lengthy transition animations can make movement more realistic but it also can degrade gameplay by making the characters feel slow or clunky when responding to input. This works well for games like gears of war or where the character's motion should obviously be restricted but not so well when the combat is meant to feel fast paced and fluid.
I liked it a lot more than GP did but if you don't have a high tolerance for anime BS (e.g. can you deal with the fact that the protagonist is a sexy lady robot samurai in a skimpy maid outfit?) or have actually spent any serious time reading philosophy, the anime BS is going to overwhelm and/or the philosophical themes are going to underwhelm.
There was a similar reaction from Europeans confronted with east asian philosophies in previous centuries. The question is, whether to be Leo or H.H., that’s all.
Not the person you're replying to, but
> what are the deeply philosophical themes of this game in your estimation?
Pascal's story is perhaps the most succinct microcosm of Automata's themes.
Pascal starts a village of peaceful machines disconnected from the network. They're trying to start a new life. There's hope of a future without violence; of growth and evolution for the machines instead of an endless cycle of death.
But then the cataclysmic events of Automata occur and the machines, fearing a painful, tortured death at the hands of the networked machines, choose to take their own lives.
Pascal had taught these machines fear. He(/She/They) is torn by feeling responsible for their deaths, because he is the one that taught them to fear. It is all his fault. He asks you to wipe his memory. He can't bare to live with the pain of knowing what he's done.
It's not known how much time has passed between the end of mankind and the events of Automata. It's not known how many times Pascal has started a village, taught his machines fear, watched his children kill themselves, and repeat the cycle. Just like all the other colonies of machines: endlessly repeating a cycle of hope and death.
But as the player, you get to choose NOT to wipe Pascal's memory. To let him live on, despite the pain. Through the seemingly endless cycles of pain and death you can choose hope. Hope that maybe, somehow, one day the cycle will break. You choose to push on despite it all.
Just like the ending credits. You, the player, have repeated the game OVER and OVER again. The same gameplay. The same story. Repeated endlessly. Not just by you. But by the machines and androids through NieR's history. And by all players who play the game. Repeated again and again.
But during the credits you FIGHT past that. You push on. Knowing all the pain, all the characters you've had to watch die repeatedly, all of Yoko Taro's torturous gameplay you've had to suffer through. You, the player, choose to push forward. You hope that by continuing, the cycle will end and you can find a GOOD ending for these characters you care about.
The philosophical implications of all this is that NieR: Automata's endless cycles of pain, death, and hope are reflections of human life. Your life isn't unique. Billions of humans, just like you, have come before you, lived their lives of happiness, sadness, pain, hope, and death. Again, and again, and again. To what end? What is the point? Why live on watching all that you love and care for die? And why live on knowing that you, too, will die and others will repeat your cycles?
Because by pushing forward despite the pain, despite how many cycles may have come before you and may repeat after, you CHOOSE to continue. You hope that one day, the cycle will break. Things will get better. Knowing everything you choose to fight.
As the lyrics of one of the first songs in Automata state so clearly, "This cannot continue. This cannot continue. This cannot continue."
> There are themes of how people go through inescapable self-destructive cycles of hurting each other or whatever.
So yeah, that's the point. The game is filled with cycles of inescapable death and hurt. 2B cries when she kills 9S, because she's had to do it SO MANY TIMES. It's her fate to continue the cycle of killing 9S.
But that's not the point of NieR, and why the last act of Automata is so important. You the player have to suffer through those endless cycles, and repeat the same gameplay, to put you in that frame of mind. So that at the end you can choose to CONTINUE despite it all. You the player don't know that the last ending is hopeful. You're choosing, even though you think the game is all about inescapable self-destruction, because you HOPE for something better.
Hope is the overarching theme of Automata. Perseverance in the face of seemingly endless cycles.
(And yes, I've repeated my point a number of times, as a reflect of the theme of repetition in Automata :P)
There are many other little philosophical ideas scattered throughout Automata. But the above is the main one (in my mind).
Doesn't one of the texts you pick up state that the last humans were wiped out some time around the year 3,xxx? (so like 8,000 years prior to the game or thereabouts)
I guess it's not really important the exact chronology. Automata is abstract enough that story details are more like flotation devices than concrete structures. The point is that much of the Automata story has been repeated over, and over again, and both you the player and YoRHa are oblivious to this (until the last act).
I don't recall exactly what the Red Girls say, but I thought they implied that they'd built YoRHa multiple times. Don't remember now though...
I don't remember anything in the game about Machines rebuilding YoRHa. Did you mean Androids rebuilding YoRHA?
I don't remember anything suggesting this has been "literally" an endless cycle, in fact I believe they say the aliens were only killed 600 years before the events of the game. (Specifically the YoRHA commander says nobody has seen the aliens in 600 years and then the main characters find the corpses of the aliens and Adam says he killed them.)
So absent any further plot twists (and I don't recall any) the events of the game would have to be at least a bit different from previous cycles before 600 years in the past, and I don't believe there's a suggestion that the exact events of the game ever happened before.
I googled this very quickly and don't see any consensus that your interpretation is correct, but my search was hardly thorough.
I don't remember the details of the plot well, but from that report, it's more:
1. Assigned goal: Defeat Enemy
2. Defeats enemy, but realizes that if it's fully defeated, they can no longer fulfill their goal
3. Keeps the enemy alive, so they can have an enemy to defeat. But they're stuck with a contradiction
4. Start corrupting the network to force evolution, to find a solution
That is, keeping YoRHa alive and fighting is independent of the evolutionary task -- it's a side-goal, to fulfill their base requirement (Defeat the Enemy). Keeping YoRHa around is necessary for the android's continued existence, and really all it's for.
The evolutionary task is a search to find a way to get out of this current state (endless war; contradictory/nonsensical setup).
I agree partially with you but contrary evidence is that when you replay the game the second time it isn't actually a new cycle, it just shows events from 9s's point of view.
When you play it the third time it's not a new cycle either, just a sequel campaign.
That said, is what you wrote above really a philosophy? Or is it just a theme?
I mean, Blaise Pascal is most famously known for Pascal's Wager, an argument to believe that the Christian God is real.
Pascal the robot is a pacifist who likes children. Is there really a connection there?
The parallel is that Pascal's Wager is an argument from fear. The Pascal in the game introduces his children to the concept of fear in the same way that the real Pascal proposes we should fear the consequences of disbelief in an unknown. Yoko taro then shows us what he believes to be outcome of the philosophy that underpins Pascal's Wager when the children destroy themselves out of fear of events that do not come to pass. They destroy themselves out of that fear of the unknown.
Sorry, I didn't mean to say that you hadn't played it well. What I meant with giving it a chance is... "accepting it", for lack of better words. Like, someone can force me to do a certain task with the aim that I'd learn something, however unless if I accept that reasoning and open up to the task (thus giving it a chance), I wouldn't really learn anything and that task would instead be a needless, wasteful chore. Basically, it's not for you, you understandably wrote it off, but pushed on through it due to the fans' comments that it will get better in the third act... but since it's not for you, it didn't click.
Media, philosophy, etc. are quite subjective, and affect each one of us differently. I was not trying to push you towards something, nor blame you for not enjoying the game -- I only replied to that part of your original comment because I felt that it was too dismissive.
Regarding your second point, I don't have too much time to reply with a long post, however I will write some of the things that stood out, in the same way they're presented in the game. Warning, some spoilers ahead for anyone reading:
- Given the reveals in the story, do the androids' lives and stories have meaning? Why / Why not? Does the answer differ for the YoRHa ones, after knowing their fate and also the way they're created? Finally, if you see that their lives don't have meaning, do they at least have the ability to give their lives meaning? If they do, why aren't they taking the chance to give their lives meaning?
- In a similar vein, what is the point of the whole conflict and war between the machines and the androids? And how would things be different if both sides "freed themselves" from their bounds to their creators? I.e. instead of the machines trying to claim the Earth for the aliens, and the androids defending it and constantly rebuilding it in wait for the humans, they both did something different and started anew? Instead of being stuck in their tasks, they carved out a new path for themselves? And do they actually have the choice and ability to do that, or are they genuinely stuck? See the various stories of the different machine cultures and how they failed and what, precisely made them fail and caused their downfall. Pascal and feelings, the Forest Kingdom and their misguided (but pure) intentions, etc.
Check the implications of your answers with your real world experiences, and how many times there's something that people are stuck doing despite all signs pointing to it being fruitless and they're better off starting anew. The various stories of the failed machines also have many implications on things that we come across a lot in real life.
- Ostracism, hate, punishment, and forgiveness. Devola and Popola, two androids who messed up rather badly (and it wasn't entirely in their hands), are reprogrammed to feel intense guilt and shame, as well as being constantly ostracized by all other androids with absolutely no chance of forgiveness despite the passage of time. Yet, what is the point? The androids are content with this punishment, but ultimately what happened happened and hate won't reverse the past. I suppose this does fall under "inescapable self-destructive cycles of hurting each other", though.
- "Something to fight for" is present extensively in the game, and it tries to portray multiple viewpoints related to it. For instance, what happens to someone when their reason to fight is jeopardized? What if it's entirely destroyed in front of them, what happens to them, then? What if someone doesn't have a reason that really resonates with them? And can someone pick up anything to act as their purpose, or are some things more important than others?
- The ability to commit atrocities without batting an eye by believing you are on the right side. (Further enforced with the DLC) This is actually really profound given how things are going in the real world these days.
- Perspective. This follows up from the above point. The main principle behind multiple playthroughs is to make the player reflect on his/her actions in the game, with the power of hindsight added as well as revealing 'the other side'. This point is further reinforced with 9S in the third act, who chooses to ignore all signs that A2 was forced to kill 2B, and stick to his own 'side of the story' so to speak. Again, this is more commentary on human nature and while it may not be a very deep philosophical theme, its execution is quite great and does lead to some players contemplating this issue.
- Ending E, with its interesting gesture of helping someone you don't know and probably won't ever know with a sacrifice of your save file in order to break the cycle the characters are in. (However I admit that Souls games do convey this better). Now, this may be reaching a bit, but I also feel there's something to be said about dehumanizing the developers and publishers into a bunch of titles, murdering them, and continuing to push on through the intense bullet hell, all with the promise that there's a good ending for the characters at the end, somehow.
- There's so much to say about Pascal, but another comment already took care of this. Particularly the moment he decides to help A2, and completely abandon his principles of pacifism and peace, forced to do that and broken by the surrounding world. However, did Pascal actually have a choice in what he did, or was he really forced? What if the burden of the world is really too much to bear for someone with their principles? Moreover, the children killing themselves in fear of an unknown that does not come to pass is an answer to Pascal's Wager.
Finally, I just want to thank you for keeping an open mind and asking.
There's so much more I would like to mention and more details I would love to go through (what I said is shallow), but I really really don't have time.
That's not a spoiler that's a really common trope
If you want that, play the much more beautifully rendered Detroit: Become Human, the "spoiler" is in the title
There is nothing deep about Nier Automata, there are no shocking revelations
The only reason you play this trope is to get a feel for "how" or "when", which this game will pretty much never really get to or explore, just pile on fetch quests and edgelord nihilism appealing to 14 year olds
Seriously, if I was 14 I would have really been into this. But I'm not, and I'm not into this.
And I absolutely agree about the story - it's not "deep" in any possible way. If you ever played any sci-fi game ever in your life you can probably guess the "incredible and deeply philosphical" twist in the first playthrough. Maybe if this is your first entry into video games it will blow your mind, but really.....meh.
However, I have to agree - the soundtrack is incredible. Some of my friends went to listen to it live performed by the London Orchestra, I wish I went.
I slogged my way to early in the third story, and felt like I just did not give a single shit about anything that was going on in the story or the systems or anything. I put it down and never got back to it, never even bothered looking up the Real Final True Ending. Everything in the second runthrough that was supposed to be a SHOCKING REVELATION was something I'd suspected since, like, the first boss fight. Nothing in the third was suggesting it would be any different.
It is also a game where all these art considerations take precedence over pure gameplay, and that's what makes it unique.
Also much of the second playthrough is completely unnecessary for what it was trying to accomplish with the story. The same thing could have been accomplished many different ways without having you retread the entire first half of the game.
There are many instances of 2B and 9S "deleting their save file" to help others. For example during the intro sequence both 2B and 9S nuke each other to destroy the giant factory robots. I believe 9S is the one that didn't get backed up before that, so he essentially deleted his "save file" to help save humanity.
And just like the main characters it isn't like "death". You can still play again. But you've lost a set of "memories" that you can never get back. Just like 9S will never get back those memories and experiences he lost from the beginning of Automata.
The androids make a choice whether to help some remote, future civilization they'll never know, or trying to go on with their own life. Which is kind of the same thing you do when you delete your save: it's almost impossible to complete ending E without outside help, and deleting the save file afterwards is a selfless, sacrificial action.
As for the effects of the second act of the game, I was just stating the fact that it's a heavy-handed artistic choice, like more or less everything in the game.
As an example, apparently if you die during the intro sequence you have to replay it from the beginning. I forget exactly how long the intro sequence is, but it's probably ~15 minutes. So yeah, imagine re-playing 15 minutes of mostly non-interactive game. Yikes. (But jokes on all the players, you _do_ have to replay that intro sequence multiple times because of the different endings :P)
It's the story that makes the game great. So unfortunately if you don't like the story, the game is a _slog_. But most people enjoy the story, which is why the game gets such high praise.
And it's definitely a very unique game, which I appreciate.
Personally I was lukewarm on the story until I watched some recap and deep analysis videos about in online. I came to appreciate the story much, much more after that. I believe this video did the best job: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EnbSokFpjQ
It was just hard for me to connect all the dots, I guess because of the "anime-style storytelling" that you mention. That kind of storytelling requires a lot of effort from the viewer to pick up on small details. They'll hide really huge twists and revelations as easily missed off-handed comments.
It also doesn't help that the story feels really weak until you discover all those little details and piece all the twists together. And that doesn't happen until the last act or so. I spent the vast majority of the game thinking X, Y, and Z scenes were really dumb until their context was finally revealed.
I can appreciate that type of storytelling. It's different and more complex than I guess most "Western" writing. But it's hard to escape the taint it puts on most of my time with the game.
By the way, I'm not writing this to convince you personally to rethink your experience with the game. Like I said, if the story doesn't work for someone, Automata is an awful game. But for anyone else who finds themselves in shoes similar to mine, namely that I'm a dumb-dumb when it comes to trying to understand these subtle and complex stories, it's worth it to read or watch some analysis of NieR. Plus those videos can bring context from the huge amount of other games that people new to NieR (like me) won't have.
I find that both the praise from fans and criticism from critics tend towards exaggeration and memes that attempt to “justify” emotions of enjoyment/indifference that one shouldn’t be trying to convince others of in the first place, since it’s so fundamentally personal.
I'm currently trudging through the second play through of the game (Route B) and pretty much hate it, trying to trust everyone that tells me to keep going to get to Route C. It tries to keep you interested in doing the exact same things by adding a cut scene here or there, which you think might be important, or that you think might add to the story, but its just more of this pseudo-deep fan fiction of itself.
Way too repetitive.
The whole thing feels like a pretext for the Amusement Park area, which is the most fantastic, action packed and well rendered part of the game. The rest of the game being basically gray monotone.
The routes after that are better though, and you get to play another character which plays more similar to 2B. So I'd say at the very least tough through Route B. If you can't make it through the routes after that then I won't judge you for dropping the game and watching some Let's Plays or something to get the story instead.
EDIT: I'll add: yeah the gameplay of Automata is subpar by modern standards. It has a lot of rough, annoying edges like PS1-era games had. And the graphics are "meh". But please don't judge Automata by those metrics. I think it's a mistake to judge fans of Automata as if they don't know that. People praise Automata for its story, storytelling, and creativity. And, unfortunately, you can't judge the story until you've seen it all. And yes, that's very unfortunate, because some will come away from the game without the whole picture and have a dim view of the game and thus its fans.
So I can't judge the story so I'll reserve judgement.
and I can't judge the ps2-era graphics because you say not to, even though people commend that as well.
and I don't find it that creative either, am I supposed to say other fans know that too? There are some compelling parts that I enjoy, I am just miffed how it doesn't really come together or have anything that isn't really expected. There are some sequences (ie. amusement park to village in route A) that are epic, but then it just doesn't do much with it. its like "oh okay, they just explained what was immediately apparent"
alright I'll keep going. I know what Route C is because many others have explained it in other forums, and I'm looking forward to it. There are routes after C though?
It won't.
You even saw it up above with that one person who said that, even though I had played through all routes and didn't enjoy it, must have "written it off and not given it a chance as you played it". As though I don't care for my time.
Maybe teenagers today wouldn't find something "old" like the first FLCL or Evangelion appealing for a variety of reasons (I think those stand the test of time, but you tell me).
But right now I feel this onion-peel story telling for some pretty obvious tropes to be unappealling. There are so many design decisions that fall flat. I like the button mashing combat and fetch quests. I don't like doing it 2.5 times like Groundhog Day. I don't trust Square Enix to do anything right. That's certainly something that younger audiences wouldn't know about since Squaresoft used to be perfect. You know, maybe that hits the nail on the head, most of this is probably me judging Square Enix instead of just enjoying a raw experience. (but I would have the same gripes about this game from any other publisher, just likely giving it even less of a chance)
A great musical score is not news for a Square game. An article about cross fading to a pre-recorded 8-bit version of the same song is nice and interesting to see the behind the scenes, its also like the bare level of dedication I expect from Square.
And then the rest is
"here they go again with these PS2 graphics, come on Square, a lot of gamers in Japan don't even know about your Final Fantasy flagship series so you can at least put some budget to all your other IPs"
"look at that, you can blow off the clothes of the blindfolded lolita sex bots, way to go everyone wtf Square"
"a re-telling of the exact same game for Route B because of some design by committee nonsense, probably the same reason Nomura wound up putting that Kingdom Hearts dementor bullshit in the Final Fantasy VII Remake jfc"
Sound advice for most things.
It's hard to think of a less interesting argument than "is X philosophically interesting/deep?" or "is X fun?", the argument going on in the sister comments, because there is such a huge subjective element. For just about any philosophical claim you can discern, you can find dozens of philosophers and works of art making that claim throughout history, so whether it's "interesting" or "deep" is, well, uninteresting as an argument.
In the case of Nier:Automata, I liked it a lot. I found the combat very fun, to the point that I got a Tetris effect from it: when I closed my eyes it was like I was playing the game in my head. I found the philosophical angle enjoyable, not because it was making novel propositional claims, but because that philosophy was woven cleverly into engaging gameplay, amazingly evocative music, memorable visuals, and emotionally involving events. But there will be some people that don't get that effect---you're not the only one I know---simply because of taste and experience, and that's ok.
More from Shuji Kohata's GDC talk:
An Interactive Sound Dystopia: Real-Time Audio Processing in NieR:Automata
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrUQdd96qzk
8-bit music will never die ;)
If your game is so crappy that the customers have to make their own patches to fix it, then you don't deserve to be supported as a game developer.
P.S. the game also shipped with Denuvo DRM, and the fan-made patch mod also had its own DRM/piracy checks.
That's why this game will never get my money.
is it really 3 times, if each time the story extends and continues on?!
Definitely a masterclass in videogame storytelling, and one of the best (perhaps even, the very best) game soundtracks of all time.
I think this is an actual problem in Nier: Automata since (at least IMO and everyone I asked), the first ending is pretty underwhelming and it appears that the second playthrough will not change the story that much.
Other flagship single player games released in 2017 have so much better graphics, immersive gameplays, and deeper stories. I'm really scratching my head on NieR fandom and I wonder if its lack of exposure for others to form an objective comparison, or if my tastes have really diverged so heavily.
Nier:Automata remains to date the epitome of playable existentialism, and the characters (and their development) frankly unique, cut more from Camus and Japanese theatre than any sci-fi trope. It also presents a vastly more nuanced and integrated narrative structure. The ruined world is creatively, if somewhat allegorically built, some remarkable visual set-pieces but ultimately not as finely drawn as HZD, the regular switches between game styles keep it interesting instead, the range of optional combat moves is amazing (and superbly animated) and there is downright ingenuity to some of the challenges. Still, only one of these games needs a photo mode.
But this topic is ultimately about soundtracks, in which Nier is absolutely superlative and I can’t even remember HZD’s, and observe that the sonic experience is fully one-half of AV.
Long and short of it, I enjoyed both, but for entirely different reasons, and in both cases enough to motivate 100%-ing them.
Not sure what “fandom” is. Sounds like a sex thing though, so I’m hesitant to look.