A Raw Expression of Unadulterated, Unbridled Creativity

You can't accuse Nier: Automata of not trying. Despite many flaws, this game lived up to the lofty expectations it set for itself (and blew those expectations out of the water) unbelievably often.

Things I hate about N:A:
1) The combat isn't nearly interesting enough to justify the ludicrous balancing spike in Route C. Enemies take just eons to kill. I switched to easy to keep the gameplay time reasonable & not die endlessly. The fighting is fun when fights are more high stakes, high reward. Trying to break my right trigger for 15 minutes isn't that.
2) Route B, while a cool concept, is a chore to play and should be half the length it is.
2.1) This also makes me feel the game's pacing is imperfect. Route A is just immaculate, but in retrospect I wish it was a bit longer... so much of B could be folded into A to really flesh out the relationships, especially between 2B and 9S.
2.2) There's still more time-sucking fetch-questing than I'd like (>0) in N:A, but it's an acceptable level given when this was developed and the vast majority of quality quests.
3) Way too much anime shit. Character models are downright perverted, good voice actors are coopted by atrocious yelling/grunting, the emotion and gravity of some situations are just way over-dramatized from a narrative standpoint on occasion.

Things I love about N:A:
1) Unbridled game-design creativity, implemented without restraint. NieR: Automata stresses the bounds of what 0s and 1s can achieve. So many moments stick out. The godzilla turtle fight. Seeing your own menu screen bumbling again in Route B. The cinematic start of Route C. Everything in The Tower. Ending E. N:A presents as a normal video game, yet it constantly reminds you how much it very much is not.
2) The most god-tier music ever put in a video game. Just a heavenly arrangement of sounds, dynamically implemented into every scene and elevating every single experience in the game.
3) Video game stories usually suck. I'll admit that many games I've downright loved had mid stories with mid implementation, or a good story which hides behind traditional storytelling tools--in essence, a (very enjoyable) interactive book. That's bc it's hard to make a good story in a video game which also takes advantage of the unique limits and opportunities of a video game. To that, N:A says fuck you and launches headlong into a full-blown, unapologetic sci-fi epic. It weaves that epic into the aforementioned creative game design to create an experience only accessible through video game. This tale is essential. It is heavy and introspective, yet often genuinely funny to break the tension when needed. A 20-hour game should not have me questioning my own mortality like this, and it certainly shouldn't have me this attached to characters I've only known for less than a day, yet it does all the same. Any flack N:A catches for trying to be too deep is instantly neutered by bits of self-awareness upon closer inspection. Moreover, you just want to be swept away by it. This story, told how N:A tells it, is a marvel of the medium.

Like with Sekiro, I feel bound by my own rating system here. NieR: Automata is flawed to the core in some respects. I dislike essential elements of this game. Yet despite those flaws, I was absolutely blown away by this game. It left my jaw on the floor time and time and time and time again. A flawed masterpiece which earned my respect, appreciation, and gratitude for existing.

Huh. Wasn't nearly as sold on that run. Redoing stuff you already did for 75% of the second play just isn't super fun. I think the hacking minigame is supposed to tide you over but it, and I cannot emphasize this enough, suuuuucks lol. All of the highs of the first run are still there, but they feel really diluted having to redo stuff without any suspense. Losing the second heavy weapon is also just kinda punishment. Thankfully I could basically speed run the stuff I had seen before (hence this run being half the length), but still.... I imagine I'll appreciate this run in the grand scheme of things later on, and I feel like I see what they were trying to do for players in the moment too, but it was still a serious chore to push through.

Unlike the first run, I can really only think of two merits for the second one. First, the few new elements on the 2B side are decent. I liked seeing his perspective, and there were some fun gameplay times when he was alone. The highlights were his standalone contributions against Adam and Eve in the hacking platform, which leads to the second pro of the B run: once again, the story. You get some good tidbits in a cool way. Realizing who the narrator was (and watching him come to terms with what he was seeing) was great, and the Adam sequence in the copied city in particular was excellent. Still, I think that was the only moment I had the same sense of mind-melting awe that the A run inspired so regularly--even the bombshell of the run re: YorHa felt relatively uninspired compared to the insanity the early hours of the game held. You basically had to infer something along those lines by that point, and it kinda felt like the entire reason for the B run existing was to tell you that point nonetheless. Such a shame, I feel like there's a lot of wasted potential in the second run, but I still expect I'll come to appreciate it as I slowly unlock the alphabet in Automata.

What a brilliant experience, and the rare one which can only be achieved through a video game. NieR: Automata pushes the medium forward while leaving your mind reeling from the creativity at your fingertips all the way through. I can't wait for play #2.

I have a grand total of two complaints with this game, which I need to get off my chest now so I can stop thinking about them. First, I can barely tolerate the worst of the anime shit going on here. The female character models & outfits are utterly heinous, and a few of the voice lines (or grunts) are distractingly cringey. Second, it's a damn shame that large swaths of the open world have bland visuals. Endless identical concrete buildings are particularly jarring given how impressive visuals in other sections of the game can be. I can't help but think of BotW, which was released the same year on platforms with lesser performance yet which adopted a visual style which has already aged dramatically better than Automata.

That's it. Those are the two problems I identified in my first run to the credits. Automata is otherwise a masterpiece of video game design. Where to begin? The story is among the most compelling I've experienced through a video game. I have endless questions after my first playthrough, but I explicitly got (and have inferred more) answers and narrative elements than I could've possibly hoped for. Moreover, I'm just dying to see what else I can glean about the story, and I really don't see how it could be left at "machines are sentient." I figured that out a while ago, man! Where are the deeper, darker secrets?? Ugh I have to find out, and I rarely feel that compulsion with games. Also it had me, like, very consciously thinking about philosophy, metaphysics, and ethics? And re-evaluating personal values?? Also the sentient robots immediately made a religious death cult to end their suffering??? Also you can say "Godzilla turtle submarine" and anyone who has played this will know what you're talking about???? What in the hell?????

The music is fucking god-tier. That's all I have to say about that.

And the gameplay, man. It is so cool. Combat is super fun, I've been wanting some good hack and slash action for a while now, and there's lots of room for customization... if you click buttons in the menu, which I didn't for an embarrassingly long time bc I was invested in the story. Game is a lot easier when you use your chip memory slots lol. I wouldn't have been such a resource hoarder if I'd known I was gonna roll credits at <9 hours though. But the absolutely slapping part is how the game just seamlessly melds perspective. There are barely traditional "levels" in NieR; the game instead warps your perspective between 2D, 3D, and combinations of the two to make easily a half-dozen+ different ways to play with almost no interruption. And your movesets very naturally but non-trivially change between them! And it happens all at once! Sometimes cutscenes happen without a cut, just spinning the camera around to indicate some narrative shit is happening now, and then it moves again and you're back in the action! What!? Oh so cool.

This horribly unedited brain-dump of a "review" is so unorganized bc this game overloaded my brain. I am overwhelmed by so much of it, but in the best way possible. Now that I've ranted my thoughts I can press "Continue" on my Xbox and get rolling again. A mind-meltingly appealing, nearly-perfect video game... so far. I will give a final star rating when I'm done done with it, as an average-ish of my logs by ending.