NieR: Automata

Nier: Automata is the Jaden Smith of Platinum games. It wants so badly to convey things of great importance about life in such a forceful yet earnest way that it's unlikely anyone will feel apathetic toward it. Like Smith, fans will overlook the lack of technical chops and presentation because the deeper message is, uhh, deep? While I can appreciate Automata's ambitions to present the player with greater concepts we don't usually see in games, it does this while forgoing the basic elements of plot and action that would compel the average player to begin with. If you are a "thing" person who can go along with abstract concepts in absence of compelling characters, you likely will enjoy Automata. For people like me who want compelling characters that have interesting personalities, clear intent, and established obstacles, you likely will find yourself so disinterested that when the big twists happen you won't care.

As a game, Automata fails even harder. It commits many of the sins of open-world games: big boring world, extreme repetition in mission design, item fetch-quests, combat that lacks depth, etc. During the first 12 hours, I enjoyed my time but after that I grew tired of just about everything the game had to offer. There was nothing new to learn and no challenges that forced me to adapt. Even worse, the difficulty is terrible. On medium, everything is a cakewalk making all conflict unengaging. On hard, 1/10 enemies will one-shot you without warning. Then you have glitches like the camera not resetting properly in a boss fight or enemies being able to stunlock you to death from full health.

Yoko Taro has said many times how much he detests violence in games and that joylessness has carried over into every aspect of Automata. Platinum did their best with what they had but it's not enough, given the game's long running time. It's nice to see a Japanese game in the vein of Xenogears and Terranigma that addresses concepts like God, existence and humanity. But games like SOMA and Talos Principle have tackled these subjects in a far more tasteful manner with compelling characters and tight narrative structure.

Like Jaden Smith, I can admire Automata for its ambitions and earnestness. I certainly don't want to take away what other people get out of it, but there is no way for me to see past its shortcomings and overt need to teach the player something (never a good thing in art -- good art comes from a creator exploring these questions themselves, not forcing an audience to learn what the creator believes to understand.) Automata fails on every level but it fails awesomely.

From the gameplay point of view this game is nothing special. It is a hack'n'slash that is enjoyable, but nothing special and with some sequences that are tedious. But the best and most important aspects of Nier: Automata are story and narrative.

The game touches many important topics, like free will, meaning of existence, meaning of sacrifice, consciousness of artificial beings and many others I've probably missed. And it does it in an interesting and tasteful way. At the beginning the storytelling could be view as a little disjointed, you are an android special soldier whose goal is to fight the machines, so you are just being assigned mission after mission. But in later parts of the game the narrative shifts focus from assigned missions to characters and the world. And the player discovers the truth about them, which is pretty scary.

The ending (I mean the real ending) is great. It fits thematically within the story and it is surprising. I don't want to spoil anything so I'll just write that it gives the glimmer of hope in the story that is ratter dark and depressing.

The game is not without its faults. First the port to PC is badly done and it isn't patched. There are issues with stability, resolution etc. Unofficial mod takes care of most of them, but it shouldn't be required that fans have to fix the game. Also the second of three parts of the game is pretty repetitive and could be boring. The other thing that is annoying is that in this open world game you meet large amount of invisible walls. I understand that player movement has to be limited somehow but it could be done in much more elegant way, Most of sidequests are not really interesting, although there are exceptions (like an absolute masterpiece that is "Wandering couple").

This is not by any means the perfect game, there are many things that could and should be done better. But was playing it an interesting experience? Yes. Do I regret the time I spent with it? No. Do I recommend playing it? Yes, absolutely, it is an unique experience,

POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD

I admit that when this game came out, I knew next to nothing about it except that there was a new waifu on the table with the strongest thigh-game in the current meta. I didn’t even know the contents of the game or that it was a sequel. I knew nothing save for the well of waifu material I tortured my friend with until graduation. After an agonizing, at least for my friend, couple months of 2B jokes and then a 9 months gap of silence after graduation, he gifted me Nier Automata out of the blue. At this point, I had completely moved on from the 2B waifu train and for the most forgotten about Nier. Regardless, I jumped in without hesitation, and oh boy… Long story short: If you like weird, and you’re well versed in existentialist philosophy, you’re probably gonna like this.

Nier Automata is a thematically driven game that explores aspects of existentialism such as the purpose of life, and what humanity really means. Now unlike many games where it wants to deliver a clear cut message based on themes and motifs presented in the story, Nier veers away from that. Take for example Deus Ex Mankind Divided. Augmentation serves as an analog to racial tension. The message by the end of Mankind Divided on this aspect is clear...and boring. Where Automata differs, and in my opinion shines, is the usage of existentialist aspects to elevate the game. What better setting to explore the purpose of life than in a post apocalyptic scenario where the world is quite literally barren? What better scenario to explore the definition of humanity than in a world devoid of humans and instead pastiches of humans lie? It’s the perfect setup to explore the previously mentioned aspects of existentialism because it allows for interpretation and exploration that director Yoko Taro definitely took advantage of. He created a world and narrative so fit and perfect for the thematic elements he wanted to focus on and drenched me in it. In my opinion, this heavy emphasis on precise narrative setting is Nier Automata’s greatest strength

Of course, if this was the only strength of Nier, then director Yoko Taro probably would’ve been better off writing a book that outlines this. However, that’s not the case. With the involvement of Platinum Games, well known for their track record of solid Action RPGs, the heavy emphasis on establishing narrative elements was complemented by a flexible and well executed combat and movement system. I say flexible because the core mechanics are made so that the game itself seamlessly translates over from a third person shooter, to a twin stick shooter, to a sidescroller with no issues whatsoever. Alongside that the combat and movement systems implemented in the game give for many issues in combat with the enemy. You have the option to engage in close range with a variety of weapons all of which can be combined with greater effect. If you opt for long range, you’re given a set of special abilities from your Pod and different primary firing modes for your Pod to play and mess around with. Combined with the movement system which allows you to do even more such as evading, countering and if you’re like me, jumping, and you have a great range of what you’re able to experiment with in terms of combat. To add even more depth to these systems, the player is allowed to experiment with a set of plug in chips installed with the playable characters that alters a variety of things such as health regeneration, defense stats, attack stats, as well as other things such as movement speed and evade range. All in all, this creates a great level of freedom for the player to explore the best, or most enjoyable, combinations to suit their playstyle. Hands down, this has to be the second best strength of this game.

No game is executed perfectly, and while the emphasis on heavy delivery on the thematic elements of the game benefited this game greatly, it also created several problems with the game. When exploring huge and ambitious topics such as the meaning of life and humanity, it’s hard to come off as pretentious and obnoxious, especially if you’re intending to drown the player in it. Thankfully, the game doesn’t suffer from that as much. It avoids delivering philosophical jargon for the sake of appearing intelligent and witty and uses it instead for better effect. Where the game suffers is in the plot and pacing. It’s clear that Yoko Taro had a lot more in store with his intent of having the player go through multiple playthroughs, but this might not have been necessary. A good portion of 9S’s playthrough has you repeating most of 2B’s campaign with some variation. While I did enjoy the second run because of the new perspective, I felt that it could’ve been better executed without the second required playthrough. Repeating missions is not exactly fun and only serves to harm the pacing. Thankfully this playthrough is mostly just filler and later playthroughs have you dynamically switch from one playable character to the other. This is shown during the late stages of the game where it has you swapping between 9S and A2 constantly between one boss fight to the other. Another thing to note is that with the complex themes to explore comes a complex plot. I think that for a lot of players, save for those who may have invested in taking in supplemental material in(the archives, sidequests, not skipping cutscenes) or out of the game(interviews, graphic novels, the stage performance), the plot itself was confusing and convoluted. Combined with the unconventional storytelling and it becomes even harder to understand.

Another problem that arose from Nier Automata’s heavy focus on its thematic elements is gameplay. While the barren post apocalyptic wasteland is perfect to explore the meaning and purpose of living, it also creates a dry, barren map for the player to explore which eventually they may tire of. I found that in my playthroughs, that I began even disengaging from fights just to complete side quests and the main questline. Perhaps where Nier could have improved was populating the map with just a litle more. Maybe have random encounters here and there rather than have enemies programmed to spawn in one place, or create a larger resistance camp or several. I understand that the emptiness of the map adds to the theme, but it doesn’t have to be so sacrificial to achieve the feeling of emptiness. Alongside that is the monotony of the enemies. While there are certain types and classes, a good portion of what you will encounter offer no variety and opt for the same telegraphed attack pattern. It gets boring very fast. Couple that with the plug in chips, and it becomes almost trivial, even when the game decides to throw swaths of them at you. Speaking of plug in chips, they also make boss fights somewhat trivial if you have the right combination. Furhermore you can even bypass the ease of fighting with the even easier method of hacking which makes the game even more trivial since it either one shots opponents or takes a sizable amount of their health. In my opinion, this is the worst system of the game. While hacking allows for you to control your enemy, it drastically ruins the pacing of a fight by throwing you into a bullet hell game. Have this happen to you multiple times and the quality of the experience drops. At this point, you’re not just slashing your opponents anymore, you’re playing the equivalent of a softcore porn match 3 game and hoping for the best result at the end of it. It’s a shame I have to say that when I complimented the game for its ease of transitioning from one genre to the other, but I absolutely despised hacking and would have much rather preferred the seamless transitioning that was offered at the beginning of the game.

However, in counter to all my complaints, I managed to sit through 35+ hours of this game and even had sessions that would go on for more than 5 hours because I just wanted to know and find out that much more about the world. I so badly wanted to know where I would be taken in Nier Automata that I just didn’t care. I endured the hacking and hit the peak of optimizing combat and I managed to get to the end of the game. This was mainly in part to the two strengths of the game I mentioned. You’re so easily engrossed in this world and the tight combat system aids in keeping you seated. Besides that, I was also heavily invested in the confusing plot I mentioned earlier mainly due to the fact that I took the time to do the sidequests, gather what intel I could and read some out of game material to learn more.

Overall, I had a pretty enjoyable experience, and while I think I need some time away from the game right now(Some gut punchers really got me), I would definitely play it again sometime in the future. I’d definitely recommend this to someone with experience with Yoko Taro games but primarily I’d recommend this game to someone just looking for something different because this game definitely has that identity and it wears it with pride.