6/10 not diverse enough - joshua not kissed enough

i have issues - i see flaws, cracks and holes - someone kicks my door down and screams in my face "what was that scene, that was JRPG NONSENSE!!", i point my smartphone at him showing a gif of james franco in the 2018 western cinematic film the ballad of buster scruggs, he grabs my head and shakes it, "THAT CHARACTER IS UNDEVELOPED", i laugh as he is instantly crushed by $200 million in 100 yen coins, to be spent on the next bossfight cinematic

you laugh nervously, you ask me "we'll get back to the game of thrones stuff soon, right?" - i do not register it, i am already preparing to fight the concept of midlife crisis or some other dumb abstract shit personified into human with wings of arbitrary color - and personally i wouldnt have it any other way

ultimately, yoshida-dono said he wanted "the best graphics, the best story and the best battle system" and inspecting with any lens of signifant width it is clear that it is his victory and we mere peasants can squabble about things that could have been done better (some things of which i'd probably agree with), but in the end we can do nothing but kneel

while these bumps in the road may prove nauseating to those not accustomed to riding chocobos with no seatbelt, fact is that when the road gets smooth, thats when playing this game feels like finally playing every fake e3 trailer thats been dumped on our eyes for the past 15 years, thats when playing this game feels like FFXV finally released, thats when we are so back bros

it cannot be overstated how much these bossfights and cinematics feel like i can finally understand what it means when someone says their minds were blown by the FFVIII intro cinematic when it first came out, or what fighting sephiroth in 1997 felt like

if you ever doubted that this is "real" final fantasy, you need only take a look at the plotholes and weird sidequests that probably should have been main quests - true marks of a really good final fantasy game - if you don't get it why this is or you think this is stupid, click off the page and go back to livetweeting your colonoscopy or whatever it is you freaks do, and if you actually want to understand it, go play FFV for the love of god someone please play that game im fucking begging you

know that i was leaning on somewhere between 4 and 4.5 but had to round up because i saw some asshole put 3 stars with dishonored in his favorite games list and im fucking done playin with you fools but also i dont think i'd go below 8.5/10 anyway so i had to round up regardless please dont hurt me








where is biggs and wedge ? huh ? wait dont roll the credits yet you forg-

The purpose of a critique is to take something apart to reveal a flawed construction or a shaky foundation, so it’s with some reluctance that I take on a modern classic with only an arm full of rocks to break the windows. I may have personally found this game to be a slog, but its straightforward action doesn’t actually have any fundamental problems. It tells a story with a lot of twists and turns, it develops its characters, there really doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it. So, here’s the brick I intend to throw at it:

What is Nier: Automata about? Not in terms of plot, what are its themes and core ideas?

This question probably sounds insane. How could you not pick up on its absurdist ideas? How could you not notice how existentialism is core to its central conflict? Well obviously, I did, but the ridiculousness of the question is exactly my point. Nier: Automata leaves so little to the imagination, so little for you to wonder about and consider on your own that it ultimately works against its own interests. Naming someone “2B” in an existential game is a pretty cheeky move, and naming a traitor character “A2” starts to get into eye-rolling territory. When the two protagonists who work for an inscrutable authority wear blindfolds, and the one who left the organization has her eyes open, it's just painfully on the nose. Introducing the machine-fighting heroes as androids themselves, and having them state “There’s no actual meaning behind anything machines do” within the first thirty minutes signposts the direction of the plot so clearly that it kills the intrigue. Examples like these are dotted all over the game, like how the moral absoluteness of Yorha has literally made their base viewable only in black and white, and how most secondary characters are named after philosophers who tangentially relate to the game’s themes. These details don’t draw you in and spark your imagination, but simply highlight how this was written by someone who didn’t want the time they spent reading philosophy to be wasted on people who wouldn’t pick up on messages less subtle than a chainsaw.

This sort of approach affects the gameplay just as much, with the most notable example being how the endings are paced. The first “ending” takes about ten hours to reach, but this is more of an intro than anything. The plot goes on to be resolved in the subsequent endings B through E, with the B ending being the second longest with a run time of six hours. During this time, you play as the sidekick 9S instead of 2B, and essentially replay the entire game with minimal changes other than a repetitive hacking minigame. The purpose was to force players into recognizing all the plot/character details they may have missed the first time around, grinding players’ faces into the story to ensure that they did not miss absolutely anything. Replaying games can be great, and picking up on details you missed is fun, but hiding the resolution to the story behind a boring replay is excessively self-indulgent on the behalf of the developers. This is incredibly damaging to its overall replay value, even when there wasn’t much to begin with, considering how the combat is similarly concerned with ensuring even the least attentive players see everything. The action is very simplistic, and the combination of strong upgrade chips and consumable items only incentivizes players to thoughtlessly break through the game rather than mentally engage with it.

That’s really what all these little nitpicky rocks pile up to become. I may have loved its style, its fashion, its sense of humor, and how it actually tried to do something philosophical, but a game that tries to be about philosophy, yet doesn’t let players think on their own, has an unavoidably detrimental irony. It’s a game that misses its own point, not letting people uncover meaning in a game about uncovering meaning. Even so, the character drama still works. The combat is still fun to watch, and for people who haven’t been exposed to this sort of topic, it wouldn’t feel as patronizing. Most people don’t replay games at all, so even the repetition I found to be so gratuitous could have been an eye-opening experience. Nier: Automata still stands tall in spite of my little complaints, but it’s not exactly a house I want to live in. Some asshole broke all the windows.