JRPG Journal Entry 7 - Nier: Automata - The End of Yorha Edition

This is certainly a game of lofty ambitions. It requires at least three playthroughs and a not so small amount of patience. I'll go playthrough by playthrough and discuss strengths and weaknesses. I feel like just spouting my feelings any other way would do this game a disservice.

Playthrough 1/A
Starting with playthrough 1 and this game's opening level. It might be this game's biggest strength. It's opening level is certainly one of the best openings to any video game I've ever played. Going from Mobile Suit gundam, to DMC lite combat, to sidecroller camera, to bullet hell shooter, to fighting a building sized boss and then using its arm as a sword to kill it is INSANE. It immediately sold me on this game. While the game will hit some bumps in pacing and story, I will always remember how batshit insane this opening was. It was like playing an E3 demo that actually lived up to the hype. The story and the characters might be a little much at times but I would be lying if I said I didn't love 2B and 9S's relationship Especially with the added context of the other endings. It makes their relationship so tragic. But seeing 2B lower her guard and let herself get more and more attached to 9S is really sweet and really well developed. The way the game makes you learn and understand the robots is really well done as well. It draws parallels to humanity. The robots have an amusement park and they're pacifists. They just want to make people smile and have a good time. Same with Pascal's Village. They present you with the idea that robots are evil and the game opens showing you the threat of these creatures only to slowly peel back the tape on the idea that there is more to these machines than meets the eye. The side quest where you have to escort a scared machine back to her sister in the desert was really sweet. 9S is trying to comfort this machine even if he doesn't even believe that they can have feelings or thoughts of their own. Yet he still does the right thing and so does 2B. It makes the player question if Yorha is really the right side of things and without discussing spoilers it brings up the right questions in the right ways that makes this game memorable and well thought out.

A weakness of this playthrough would be some off pacing and weak sidequests. Some of them are just typical go here kill that type of quests. There are certainly diamonds in the rough and some awesome sidequests that push this game's themes and ideas but they are too far and few between. The ending of the first playthrough is very sudden and you have to playthrough the same story but as 9S and depending on how thorough you are it can take just as long to reach the second ending to get any resolution.

Playthrough 2/B
The opening sucks. To be fair I ran out of healing items at the end of my first playthrough and I really liked how tense that made the last battle but since I opened up the second playthrough without a way to heal myself I threw myself against a wall for about an hour before I just decided to play on easy until this segment was done. But I don't think it was fun either way. This is easily the lowpoint of the whole game. You get to playthrough the same story but you get to talk to 9S's pod and operator. His operator is boring and his pod is just a female robot voice. So nothing much is different except instead of having a secondary weapon that can use heavy attacks you have a hacking ability. This is kind of a strength and a weakness because having the option to just halve the healthbar of any enemy, other than bosses, whenever you wanted is a big buff but the minigame gets very boring very fast. I felt like half my 9S playthrough was spent playing the bullet-hell hacking minigame. So 9S's gameplay is just an instant win hack button, and mashing the attack button and mashing the easiest dodge mechanic in any action game. I didn't rush this playthrough because I wanted to be fair but I didn't find any of the 9S exclusive quests or sideactivities very interesting or memorable. And it's the same ending mostly. The only real change is getting these lore scenes intersperced throughout the playthrough at significant moments in the story that give context to the wider world. It is fine but it grinds the playthrough to a halt and it's already slow since everything you're doing you've already done before. I didn't give the first playthrough a grade but I'd give it like an 8 or 8.5/10 but this one would get like a 5.5 or 6/10.

Playthrough 3/C
This is the meat and potatoes right here. All the same gameplay gripes are here. By the time I was done with this playthrough my hand was hurting because of the amount of holding down the autotarget button, holding down the shoot button, and mashing the attack and dodge button. The combat got really lame by the end of the game and a lot of this playthrough has you go through several waves of enemies in-between story beats. So While playthrough C has to best story beats and a really strong opening and ending sequences, it over-relies on a gameplay loop that got really stale after 30 hours. Playing as A2 was really fun. Cherami Liegh is just the queen of voice acting because I knew it was her the second she spoke. I think giving her devil trigger (lol) was enough of a gameplay difference between her and 2B that I wasn't bothered. I will say I think 2A's story is much more engaging than 9S's. 2A goes through a similar arc that 2B and 9S went through learning how not all machines are evil and the Pascal bits in 2A's story are deeply moving and emotional. I would say that climbing the towers as 9S were snoozefests but only the first one was both boring and easy. The latter 2 were infuriating and unengaging. The second one was just a hackathon that got progressively more and more annoying. And the last one is just another wave of enemies per floor that gets bullshit when you meet the kamikazi drones for the first time. I forgot to mention that this game doesn't have an auto save and the last playthrough doesn't give you a lot of options to save between missions. So I died in a bullshit way and was thrown back like 20 minutes due to some poor saving opportunities. The end was really good. This was my last playthrough but I did do the cursory look over the other route D and E endings to give me the full context. The choice at the end of route c is really nice story wise but I will say that it feels too black and white. The game makes this decision feel too binary. You're with 9S the entire game and only spend the final third with A2 yet one is clearly the good ending and one is clearly the bad one. Like I didn't feel as conflicted as I should. I will say the game probably wasn't trying to make you feel conflicted but if a choice's consequences are THAT clear they should be.

I have no real transition to talk about this but the game has some MAJOR glitches on the nintendo switch. I would heavily recomment playing this on any other system. It has nothing to do with the way the game runs. I was shocked at how well the game ran and how stable the frame rate was. This game runs better than Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom does and they're designed by Nintendo! The big problem with this game is that it will often get stuck in loading screens. If the Yorha boot menu does not show up during a loading screen then you're game is just frozen. This happened upwards of ten times in my playthrough. In a game where there are no autosaves, this glitch is game breaking. I got into the habit of saving every chance I had and would save every time I fast traveled because I was afraid the game would just stop working. So when the game works it works beautifully, but every time you enter a loading screen you're playing a roulette game that has like a 1/10 chance of screwing you over. I also encountered a funny glitch where I broke the camera free of the side-scroller effect and saw the other half of the world I wasn't supposed to but that's my bad and not the game's. The game also froze the first time it went into the hacking minigame mid combat. So I'd recommend staying in handheld mode for some of the more technically demanding parts of this game.

So other than some weak gameplay that struggles to carry the game to the end and some bumpy pacing the game is pretty excellent. I don't think its some masterpiece. The theme is battered over the player's head too much for it to carry itself as far as people think it goes. It certainly was a great time and one worth playing but I certainly don't have the love for this game that most of the internet does. The technical state of the game is really crappy because it works 99.9% of the time but the one time it freezes you could lose god knows how many hours depending on how often you save. Still, it's a damn good time and one I'd recommend anyone's way who loves high concept sci-fi and action games

Nier: Automata doesn’t justify itself as a video game as much as I would have preferred. The numerous fake endings felt pointless and the gameplay, while varied in scope, becomes repetitive due to heavily limited enemy variety and encounter design. In an uncharacteristic move from Platinum, battles often boil down to simplistic wars of attrition where you mash the attack button and occasionally jump or dodge. It’s a real shame too, because everything else is phenomenal.

The story is unforgettable. A mindbending tale about racism, humanity’s justifications for war, and the necessity of a God for finding purpose in life. Truly one of the best stories the medium has been graced with. The three playthroughs required to see the whole story are well done, especially the last one. Seriously, if you play this and enjoy the gameplay a lot more than I did, Automata may be a contender for your favorite piece of interactive art.

Audiovisually, this is a feast. The graphics are a firm reminder that the AAA industry would be better off dropping photorealism more often in favor of creating a memorable art style that doesn’t require years of development time. I will certainly remember these post-apocalyptic landscapes for a long time. The music accompanying them will burrow itself into your brain. Great to listen to on YouTube for sure, but far more powerful when playing the game.

Despite coming out in a year packed with great games, Automata sold very well, but unlike many commercial successes today, it stands tall as something special. The product of a true visionary. If you are hesitant to play it because of the anime influence, don’t be. The story is far more contemplative than most non-anime narratives and it avoids a lot of the cliches typical of the medium.

Nier Automata is a game I wanted to play for a while because of how big of a fan my boyfriend is and the game did not disappoint. Although I enjoyed the gameplay I wasn't the biggest fan of the bullet hell sections. And by far I had the most fun playing as 9S more. It was fun to see all the different perspectives it has to offer as the characters are interesting and compelling all with their own secret goals. The messages and stories the game tells are really devastating at times, which is why just running around listening to music after finishing quest was good breather. The biggest gripe I had with the game was the map ;v as it is difficult to navigate sometimes coupled with the fast travel that is locked to points making you need to open the map separately to check where you actually need to go. The game also offers and amazing soundtrack, memorable locations which made it pretty easy to travel around the map. The many twists and turns in the story really had me hooked and I finished all of the main endings. It really is a game that I would recommend that everyone tries at least once.

I have yet to play through the "final" endings of this game because I'm savoring it as much as possible but this has been a treat. Watching the story about this world unravel with each "play through" of this game is incredibly fun and intriguing. I like the characters and designs (I really fw the gothic-ish aesthetic) and the world design is great as well. I played this at the perfect time in my life where I actually want to spend time playing everything it has to offer instead of speed running the story as I would've prior to watching Frieren. That's a tangent though, all I have to say is that I think this game is incredible.

It's sad, but the main thing I am feeling having completed this game is disappointment. Nier Automata is frequently hailed as one of the greatest games to ever grace the medium, a masterpiece that swept the industry with countless awards and accolades to place in its trophy case, lauded by fans as perfection. I'm not here to take away from any of that at all, and I am certainly not here to say this game is garbage or anything, because it isn't. Nier Automata is a game that disappointed me because it was just good. Just fine. It's an ultimately solid game that left me expecting so much more.

The biggest thing that underwhelmed me about this game is actually playing it. The gameplay itself is unfortunately extremely dry and bare bones. I was shocked and still am shocked that an action game with the name "Platinum Games" in the credits has combat that isn't just dry, but barely even surpasses being serviceable. There is like, one or two combos in the game, everything feels super floaty and light, and my god, it's just a button mashing fest. It doesn't help that the enemies can be super spongey at times, so it just makes combat feel like a battle of attrition that I need to get through so I can experience the actual story rather than the core combat of the game. The hacking minigames are mostly a bore and something that I honestly would rather have not done at all, but I appreciate them including something to shake up the gameplay while you're controlling 9S, so, it gets a pass. I do like the plug-in chips system and the ways that you have some freedom in how you build your playstyle, as it actually can alleviate some of the issues with how spongey the enemies can be, but the dryness and shallowness of the combat is probably the biggest thing that had me expecting way more.

Before I get into what I thought about the story, which is probably the primary thing that Nier is lauded for, I want to dive into some of my more personal nitpicks with this game, and specifically with some of the ways that Yoko Taro approaches things. Do not let anyone fool you into thinking this is a game that has multiple "endings". The "endings" that people talk about in this game are actually not endings at all aside from the last few. Endings A and B are essentially chapter conclusions that do not serve as conclusions to the game at large, like, at all. All the other endings are just joke game over endings meant to score quirk points. Does any of this actually matter? Not really, no, but it's just something I can't wrap my head around. Why are these "endings" telling the player that the game is over with a roll of the credits when it is in fact not even close to being over? What is the point with having all of these endings when the game is actually supposed to be experienced from endings A to E in a cohesive fashion? I don't see a reason for structuring your game in this way. This isn't really something I can actually knock the game for but it was on my mind a lot so I wanted to say it.

The story is... good. I really love the characters and the palpable amount of struggle we feel them all go through as they change and adapt to what they learn about the world, but I think the story itself hits bumps and potholes along the way to its conclusion. The middle of the game after routes A and B conclude is exceptionally good, with a ton of tension being released as some huge plot twists occur and a pretty gut wrenching final sequence before we are met with "ending" C and the beginning of the final act of the game. Moments like ending C showcase what Nier is best at: applying the gamey-ness of a video game to a story and letting them amplify each other. In other words, the experience that the story is telling in that moment is made so much more powerful by the fact that you, the player, are experiencing it in a way that is made so much more immersive by the mechanics of the game. Again, Nier excels at this in so many different moments, and it is those moments that made this game really start to click with me. But there is an equal measure of moments where the story is too on the nose, or too scattered, or just plain shallow that make me feel so mixed on the plot. The final routes of the game have some incredible building tension as we ascend towards the final fight and ultimate conclusion of the game - but the events that happen in the final location feel rushed, out of left field, even a little bit sloppy sometimes. The antagonist is terribly undercooked and the conclusion, while somewhat powerful, left me with more of a feeling of "oh, that was it?" than anything else. The good thing about this game is that the themes of it are impossible to miss, so there's no way that Yoko Taro's ideas can be lost on you. The bad thing about this game is that the themes of it are IMPOSSIBLE TO MISS because the characters will basically tell you to your face what you are supposed to be feeling or learning with all the subtlety of a shonen anime character's monologue, wiping away much of the early intrigue and emotional payoff for events that should be tugging at my heartstrings.

The best way I can describe this game is as a really, really excellent third or fourth draft of a video game. The combat has good aspects, the story has a spectacular cast, powerful themes, there's a beautiful soundtrack and art direction, and a really strong emotional backbone to build the plot off of. But it's dry. Disconnected in places. It needs editing, proofreading, some fine tuning in some really critical places before it's wrapped up and shipped off. There are highs that feel like an absolutely euphoric grand slam to win the world series and lows that feel like you're on the wrong end of a despair-inducing no-hitter. Bad game? No way. But this one needed some extra work.

I finished Route A which was one of the worst endings to a story I've ever seen. The only thing the game had going for it by that point was the occasional 2b 9s banter and the great combat.

However upon starting Route B, they took the one thing the game had going for it and took it away. 2b went from barely talking to not talking at all and they took away the good combat replacing it with one of the worst mini games I've ever seen.

That was enough for me to drop and I don't have any motivation to continue. I'm sure Route C-E are amazing but I don't care anymore.

Dropped out of boredom, I just couldn't enjoy this game no matter how hard I tried.

Putting aside the plot and characters (which I absolutely didn't like, but not necessarily found bad), since those are probably personal preferences that many could argue being stupid, I think even those who loved this game could not argue on how the gameplay was repetitive and boring, the enemy design uninspired and how some design choices could have been implemented better (such as forcing the player to play through the same story three times).

Long story short, the gameplay SUCKS. It really does.

I would have probably enjoyed the story when I was a sci-fi obsessed 15 years old tho.
Yoko Taro fans will say shit like "You need to play 16 games prior to this, read 4 novels, 6 mangas, listen to a concert and the lore he wrote on a piece of toiler paper" and I just couldn't care less.

What a huge disappointment...