I did not play Nier: Automata with the intention to dislike it. I wanted to be part of the experience, to have it sweep me off my feet with the brilliant storytelling and soundtrack and deep reflections on the human condition its fans extol. As it turns out, 50 million Elvis fans can't be wrong, but 10 million gamers can be.

What an obnoxious fucking game. This is one of the most miserable experiences I've had with something I was actually hyped for. Nier: Automata promises something it can't deliver at every step. Its chameleonic gameplay design desperately wishes to be a definitive experience. It wants to be THE video game. It's a bullet hell shmup one second, a side-scrolling beat 'em up the next, an open-world action RPG a little while later, and it even dips its toes into being a roguelite. This could work, but it requires a very high degree of polish, which Automata simply doesn't have. It very quickly devolves into a button masher, where its bastard controls and aggressively bad targeting system are of no help. Not because it's that hard (on Normal difficulty) but because there is no feeling of achievement as you mash two buttons while keeping one held down. I recalibrated my controller, I restarted my PC, all because I believed there was no way the lock-on system could be this bad. The issue had to be on my end. But it wasn't.

But God knows a game that plays terribly can still win you over if its story is transcendent - Deadly Premonition isn't one of my favourite games for nothing, and that plays like arse. Yet nothing about NieR: Automata disappointed, frustrated and annoyed me more than its story. Even if its fans hadn't spent the last seven years bleating that it was special, I would have been let down. You see, when Pixar does a plot twist like this, it's just Wall-E. When Yoko Taro does it, it's suddenly profound and existentialist and says a lot about our society. It's the kind of plot twist you want to un-know because it's so pissweak, especially after so much of the game is fetch-quest-y; it never thinks to keep stringing you along as good stories do, it wants you to do your chores before you get a crumb of plot. It was the kind of twist I considered at the very start and discarded because there would be no fucking way a story this lauded would end up so trite. Not even in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that with all the acclaim, with all the praise, with all the awards, this is what they actually went with. Gamers really need to become more literate if this game's plot is what passes for incredible.

Right at the very start 2B says emotions aren't allowed, yet she feels like a fucking weirdo when she's the only one behaving properly. The rest of the androids are undermined by their meainingless, charmless anime writing while the robot assistants grow annoying because they try to keep the guise of professionalism up after you've already read through dozens of lines of 'Kyaaa! My date rejected me! Uwaaaa!' It's just not a good plot. I found nobody likeable. 2B has more character in her nighttime job of being a virtual porn star than she does in her actual game.

Even the soundtrack is obnoxious. It wails on and on like it believes its own legend already, but in a game so self-assured yet so bad in actuality, I couldn't expect much more. The graphics are ugly in the manner of high-end mobile phone games, where they're trying to be photorealistic but can't quite manage it so everything is plasticky and sheeny and the environments are more barren than they should be.

I don't think Automata is intentionally this bad, though there are no doubt a few fans out there who think having the world be a cage of invisible walls and narrow tunnels is part of Yoko Taro's unseen brilliance. I just think it's the work of a very inept director with an awfully high opinion of himself - judging off of this game. Because he wears a mask in public and acts quirky, it should follow that he's brilliant. But not everyone is a Salvador Dali. Not everyone is a Hideo Kojima either, much as Druckmann. Suda or Taro want to be. Guys, bring the goods before you start inserting yourself into your games. Otherwise you're not just a bad director, you're a hack.

I'm marking this game as 'Abandoned' because I feel completing only route A doesn't count as beating the game. Yet I can think of more humane forms of torture than playing through it two more times, like being boiled alive or watching High School Musical with the sound on.