Not a bad game by any means. Has a great concept and enjoyable gameplay loop but overstays its welcome and eventually becomes very monotonous with almost nothing to motivate players to push past that. The slow pace reminded me a bit of sunless sea / sunless sky - both of which can be very monotonous due to slow player movement and no fast travel. In these games, however, the sense of monotony arguably adds to the overall affect and is worth pushing past regardless due to stellar writing and storytelling that lasts from start to finish. Still appreciate a lot about this game but would recommend waiting to try it out until it gets a hefty discount.

Really satisfying gameplay - surprisingly kept me entertained through all five endings and never devolved into a slog. However, story suffers greatly from over-ambition and its gargantuan scale, which causes a lot of story moments, concepts, and characters to be rushed in and out the door without the attention needed for them to be truly impactful. This causes certain moments clearly intended to be impactful and thought provoking to fall flat on their face in a way that is at times kind of hard to watch. The bathos of these moments is particularly intense because there’s a lot of talent at work here and a huge amount of potential inherent in the themes and concepts present in the game. This certainly isn’t a bad game but playing it immediately after Nier Replicant, which for me has probably the most gracefully rendered and emotionally impactful story I’ve ever seen in a game, left me quite disappointed. Comparing these two games is helpful in illustrating my main gripe with Automata’s story. Nier / Nier Replicant has a a simple story with simple themes that have been explored in countless pieces of media but it engages with these themes with style, grace, and empathy that’s genuinely unmatched. Automata has a rather complicated story and deals with a lot of pretty complex themes and the game ultimately breaks under the weight of everything it tries to tackle - leaving players with a story that is at times insightful and emotionally impactful but that contains a lot of moments that feel rather trite and at times frankly nonsensical.

Overall Nier Automata is immaculately scored, voice acted, designed, animated, and considered from a gameplay perspective but the emotional impact of its story just isn’t quite there - it never lives up to the potential inherent in its concept and themes, which is a massive shame.

Fantastic story with very cohesive themes and symbolism that feels genuinely subversive in its commentary on violence and how its presented in most games. Overall an oppressively fatalistic game but has some truly touching moments of hope and optimism sprinkled in, which end up being very effective given how dark the rest of the game is.

Brought down a bit by enjoyable but pretty simplistic musou gameplay that can get a bit tedious after a while. A lot of people say that the musou gameplay in Drakengard is bad on purpose which 1. is just wrong - its definitely not bad just tedious after a while and 2. i refuse to believe that Drakengard’s various gameplay flaws were meant to be “bad on purpose". This game is definitely disturbing and disquieting and unconventional on purpose - which I guess some people could be referring to when they say "bad" - but the idea that Yoko Taro would intentionally sabotage the gameplay in Drakengard to make a point is kind of ridiculous to me. For any piece of media with profit motivation - which this game does have being published by Square Enix - its incredibly rare and difficult for a creator to essentially make it "bad on purpose". There are too many people to push back against it and the higher ups would have to be remarkably incompetent to not notice this sort of thing going on and course correct. The only piece of mass-market media where i actually believe this claim of "bad on purpose" is Freddy Got Fingered and that was like a once in a generation fluke for a studio to somehow let that kind of thing happen.

Anyway really unique and genuinely subversive game with clearly a lot of artistic passion behind it. Highly recommend given just how one of a kind it is.