Squeenix NieR: Automata from Yoko Taro and Platinum Games

[sullynathan]

 

[Gerrard]

B-B-BUT MUH ORIGINAL IN-HOUSE ENGINE
WHAT COULD GO WRONG

>prerendered cutscenes
>DMC4 had real time cutscenes with better animations 9 years ago

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Got endings ABCDE, some question remain:

Spoiler

Who decided to create YoRHa? Based on the archives it sounds like it was a group of androids, but they must have been way more advanced than the other ones to come up with such idea. Also, who exactly decides what combat models to manufacture, and where to set their emotional settings? Is there a central android intelligence like the

Spoiler

Red Girls

for the machines?

More backstory questions:

Spoiler

Humans have been extinct since about 4200CE. YoRHa sounds like something recently (300 years or so created supposedly to keep android morale up. N:A is set in 11945 - what was keeping the morale up for 6 millennia? Also, why would you build a combat android with something like morale?

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

Comparing to previous games, N:A is closer to weirdness and melancholy of prequel or pathology of Drakengard 1/3?

 

[Hobo Elf]

Automata is perhaps more middle path. Without spoiling too much, however,

Spoiler

the ending in Automata is the most hopeful and happy one I've seen by Taro, so all melancholy and psychological deterioration gets undone.

There's not much weirdness in Automata either. It's fairly.. conservative.

 

[HoboForEternity]

modder fixed the performance of PC version:

https://gist.github.com/drdaxxy/77b1ff884ecba47dc705768999e6e01d

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/modde...most-double-the-performance-of-nier-automata/

 

[Anthedon]

It's like Dark Souls all over again. Imagine a semi-competent Japanese developer. The things they would be able to do.

 

[Wolfe]

Played about 40 hours, got all the main endings, loved it. Haven't played the previous games so I can't compare.

 

[Saark]

Got endings ABCDE, some question remain:

Spoiler

Who decided to create YoRHa? Based on the archives it sounds like it was a group of androids, but they must have been way more advanced than the other ones to come up with such idea. Also, who exactly decides what combat models to manufacture, and where to set their emotional settings? Is there a central android intelligence like the

Spoiler

Red Girls

for the machines?

More backstory questions:

Spoiler

Humans have been extinct since about 4200CE. YoRHa sounds like something recently (300 years or so created supposedly to keep android morale up. N:A is set in 11945 - what was keeping the morale up for 6 millennia? Also, why would you build a combat android with something like morale?

Wall of text with some answers and a bunch of stuff you didn't ask but I felt the need to write anyway.

Spoiler

Androids, most of them Replicants that were still alive after the events of NieR concluded, didn't fight the aliens from the get-go. The aliens landed during year 5012, about 800 years after humanities extinction. I would imagine that newly created androids and replicants lived their lives happily up until this point trying to find a way to revive humanity. It was Emil who created copies of himself to fight off the aliens for the first engagements against the Aliens. He created over 85million copies, loosing most of his memories in the process. The aliens quickly considered him to be some kind of greater god and instead of fighting him directly created the machine lifeforms in his likeness to finish the battle for them.
There was a point in time where P-33, or Beepy as he was nicknamed by his shade-friend, the Robot from the first NieR, managed to ascend from the junkyard to see machines, androids and aliens living together peacefully (The Fire of Prometheus shortstory, year 5645). At some point fighting must have restarted though and the androids started creating squads to fight the aliens in a more organized manner. This has gone on for more than 6000 years, and the fact that most androids are kind of bland and do not resemble the replicants we know from the first game at all, leads to believe that over time most replicants died during battle or "naturally" and had to be replaced with inferior androids that were no longer created from Gestalt-data. Those models were required to have a goal to live for, since they didn't possess the natural human will to live that was still active in replicants.

Why the fighting restarted isn't really explained, though I do think that the red girls from the games ending had something to do with it. There's a reason a lot of the machines aren't initially hostily, since only the ones still connected to the network receive transmission from the "hivemind". Being severed from the network seems to happen quite often, which is why some of them decided to form their own "society" based on human data - the forest kingdom being a good example here. Co-existence apparently was possible but didn't further the ultimate goal of the hivemind: Evolution.
It isn't far fetched to believe that these conceptual human beings were the ones to give the commands to the machine life-forms, and not the aliens themselves, to gather data and evolve further. Once sufficient data had been gathered from the alien/machine/android conflict, they would've destroyed the moon server to remove the foundation of the conflict and not bother with Earth anymore, only to continue their evolution elsewhere. The function of the tower gets changed during Ending D, where it shoots an ark instead that lets the machines aswell as 9S (if you choose so) leave for another world.
Another reason for the resurgence of the fighting might be the influence of the cult of the watchers. Eve is clearly shown to have the symbol of the watches on his chest and since the machines managed to obtain data from all of human history, they may have eventually come to find out about the cult of the watchers. The watchers ultimate goal was the destruction of humanity, same as the machines/aliens that are still connected to the network. Since the conceptual human beings not only have a striking resemblance to Manah, but also talk in both a young female aswell as an older male voice, same as Manah again, it makes me want to believe that this is the main reason for the conflict.


YorHa itself was set in motion before the start of the 14th machine war. The stageplay Yoko Taro wrote, which is somewhat rewritten in the game as the the novella 'Pearl Harbor Descent' (year 11941), is referenced as the first successful operation of the prototypes that eventually became the current project YoRHa combat models. You can read about it during A2s 3rd chapter in the 3rd playthrough, visit the resistance camp and talk to Anemone. This mission spurned the creation of the Type-E model, since A2s black box signal was still active and the mission itself was supposed to be a suicide mission. I am fairly certain that the server they were destroying did actually contain data about the lunar-server, the machines clearly hacked as deep into the moons server as they could so its destruction was important for multiple reasons. YoRHa did obviously not know about the Tower structure that had a library of all data as a back-up for the machine network. Project YoRHas combat model production may very well have been a reaction to the machines trying to hack into the moon-server.

There's no reason to believe the creators of YoRHa having to be more advanced/intelligent than YoRHa itself, they just figured that instead of recreating androids from the remaining human-data they had to create actual combat models that each had their own specific sub-set of skills, both to keep information compartmentalized aswell as being able to create squads that specifically fit their needs in pursuits of their ultimate goal - destruction of all data referencing humanities extinction. This is why they're the only ones to try to keep emotions to themselves during missions, though it is rarely punished if they do. Only 2E has a proper reason to not become emotionally evolved, most other YoRHa don't seem to care much about this "rule".
The YoRHa command had to be set in motion a lot earlier, since this appearance of YoRHa models is called the first "successful" operation of project YoRHas combat models. Seeing how setting up orbital stations, servers that communicate as if humanity was still alive and creation of prototypes for a project of this scope surely takes some time, it is quite hard to say when the project was actually set in motion. Could be 50 years ago, could be 5000. It is just that combat-model production has pretty much just started a couple of years before the game steps in, the non-combat side of things may very well have existed for hundreds or thousands of years.
The project itself was ultimately designed to be shut down by the pods (which is what happens during ending E up until Pod 042 intervenes) after the YoRHa combat models got rid of all the evidence that humanity was in fact extinct.


In the end alot of the original androids were still somewhat related to the old replicants, which had actual individual human data that created them. Most of them were not suited for combat at all but still had the humans will to live inside them. The newly created combat-models were inferior in that regard which is why most of them simply want to die when faced with hardship/angst and the machines were close to finding out the truth themselves, so something drastic had to happen to keep them working properly. Queue, Nier:Automata.
I'm not sure if there is any date associated in one of the hacking sections that can be used to gauge when the project was actually initiated.

My biggest question still remains: Who the fuck created Accord. She seems to be an advanced version of the pods and the shopkeeper in the resistance camp actually mentions her by name again (similar to most shopkeepers in the franchise).

 

[Haplo]

Finally got the game. Didn't beat the prologue boss yet. That one can't save before this encounter is quite annoying.

I'm not sure if that's the game for me. Probably would like it twice as much if it didn't have so much of those twin stick shooter/bullet hell elements and instead focused on interesting melee.
Keeping Shift pressed all the time is hardly interesting/comfortable and adjusting aim WHILE trying to also melee detracts from the experience for me.

Well, at least 2B has nice... design.
The level design seems good so far. On the other hand, the enemy design... them being old iron Andriod droid reskins doesn't make engaging them... exciting. I have seen their design before, so in this aspect I knew what I was getting into at least.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I'm not sure if that's the game for me. Probably would like it twice as much if it didn't have so much of those twin stick shooter/bullet hell elements and instead focused on interesting melee.
Keeping Shift pressed all the time is hardly interesting/comfortable and adjusting aim WHILE trying to also melee detracts from the experience for me.

It gets worse in later play throughs when there's even moar shmup segments and they introduce a hacking minigame which wears its welcome out pretty fast. Not to mention that

Spoiler

the final boss fight is a bullet hell segment.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Saark thanks for the info. I had to look up some stuff on various wikis to get the whole explanation but it makes more sense now.

Spoiler

Although it's nowhere (AFAIK) spelled out that at least some androids == replicants, it is a reasonable conclusion, based on the fact that 2B, 9S, and A2 bleed red, can cry, and have pulse that can go up.

There was also mention that YoRHa droids are based on machine-like cores, as the true AI cores would be inhumane - that probably made it easier for machines to hack into yorha. It also seems to me that pods have proper AI cores, and even they got emotions, as evidenced by 042.

I haven't gotten the hidden Emil fight so didn't see his story book - I'll try some chapter select stuff to get it, as his fight against aliens sounds cool.

Also wanted to mention that the game's soundtrack is fantastic! The slower instrumental pieces are really good at putting my baby to sleep :D

 

[Saark]

Spoiler

Although it's nowhere (AFAIK) spelled out that at least some androids == replicants, it is a reasonable conclusion, based on the fact that 2B, 9S, and A2 bleed red, can cry, and have pulse that can go up.

There was also mention that YoRHa droids are based on machine-like cores, as the true AI cores would be inhumane - that probably made it easier for machines to hack into yorha. It also seems to me that pods have proper AI cores, and even they got emotions, as evidenced by 042.

Spoiler

I don't think any of the replicants managed to survive for over 7000 years. The only human remains are the saved human genome on the lunar server, aswell as Emil being the last human "alive". He might be the key to reviving humanity, who knows.

I think every android is capable of feeling emotions, among other things. The problem they all have to face sooner or later is the fact that they do not know how to deal with it.
Replicants also were superior to androids since they were created by humans, using human data. The current androids however are just creating themselves, trying to imitate their original creators as much as possible. Machines and androids are very alike, since they also try to "become as gods" by imitating humans.

The machine vs android conflict is, by large, meaningless. It is also extremely important. It is the sole reason the machines exist, and their attempts at creating any new values or even imitating them all fail horribly. It's quite clear that they are not supposed to succeed, since that would give them a new meaning to live. I wonder whether they themselves actually realized this, learned that "this cannot continue" and thus created Adam/Eve which ultimately leads to the ending of the conflict?
Androids on the other hand would have to face the hard truth of humans no longer existing if they were to ever win the war. There'd be no more reason for humans to hide on the moon if the earth was freed from its invader. Since they are also unable to create any new values themselves, they would be trapped in a constant state of stagnation, trying to recapture humanity as much as possible without ever succeeding, and most androids we've seen don't cope well at all with such a bleak outlook and meaninglessness.
Which is why I think Ending E isn't actually a happy ending at all, there's no happiness to be found for 2B/9S/A2 after the machines basically jumped ship to someplace else. Sure, they can decimate the remaining machine population, but eventually they would have to face reality - they need the conflict. So they would most likely create one themselves, similar to how they managed project YoRHa, and the cycle would start anew.

Adam was right after all.

 

[bminorkey]

GOTY

You're gonna read a report on some human girl named Yonah and you're not gonna care. You're gonna see a symbol manifest on one of the bosses and you're not gonna notice.

what symbol? i played the original but didnt notice any symbol

 

[Saark]

what symbol? i played the original but didnt notice any symbol

Spoiler

 

[bminorkey]

The game expects you to do the side quests. Or just grind in the forest kingdom. There are lots of large packs of enemies and clearing them out a few times will level you up fast. The next boss will be pretty tough if you aren't at least level 20.

not really true, if you play on Normal it's pretty easy to beat even a level 50 enemy at level 30. on Hard youd need to level up a bit though

btw to grind extremely fast, just equip exp gain+6 chips and go into an area with a lot of respawning bots, like the "white underground city". takes all of 20 mins to level up more than enough

 

[bminorkey]

Spoiler

i dont even remember this symbol from the original (played it years ago when it came out). where did it show up?

 

[bminorkey]

The game is fairly entertaining, though the world doesn't feel as neatly connected as in Dark Souls.

Can somebody explain why the combat androids are of the hot female variety? Is there an in-world reason for that or is that what the art director likes?

in an interview yoko taro just said its because he likes women

also he said he doesn't care about any of his male fans, just his female fans (but he will give you at least a hug if you are male)

lol

 

[Saark]

Spoiler

i dont even remember this symbol from the original (played it years ago when it came out). where did it show up?

It didn't show up in the original. This is one of those moments where having suffered through Drakengard 1/3 is somewhat important though. It was first seen as the symbol of the empire in Drakengard 1, and was revealed to actually be the symbol of the cult of the watchers during Drakengard 3. It wasn't exactly shown during the original Nier. The white chlorination syndrome, which led to the events of Nier in the first place, was directly related to the cult however. The cult, together with 'the flower' (lunar tear) and Accord are some of the few things that have continuity throughout all games.

edit: And of course the red eyes that all the infected/cult people have in common. Not much different from networked machines/androids infected with the logic virus.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Spoiler

I don't think any of the replicants managed to survive for over 7000 years. The only human remains are the saved human genome on the lunar server, aswell as Emil being the last human "alive". He might be the key to reviving humanity, who knows.

I think every android is capable of feeling emotions, among other things. The problem they all have to face sooner or later is the fact that they do not know how to deal with it.
Replicants also were superior to androids since they were created by humans, using human data. The current androids however are just creating themselves, trying to imitate their original creators as much as possible. Machines and androids are very alike, since they also try to "become as gods" by imitating humans.

The machine vs android conflict is, by large, meaningless. It is also extremely important. It is the sole reason the machines exist, and their attempts at creating any new values or even imitating them all fail horribly. It's quite clear that they are not supposed to succeed, since that would give them a new meaning to live. I wonder whether they themselves actually realized this, learned that "this cannot continue" and thus created Adam/Eve which ultimately leads to the ending of the conflict?
Androids on the other hand would have to face the hard truth of humans no longer existing if they were to ever win the war. There'd be no more reason for humans to hide on the moon if the earth was freed from its invader. Since they are also unable to create any new values themselves, they would be trapped in a constant state of stagnation, trying to recapture humanity as much as possible without ever succeeding, and most androids we've seen don't cope well at all with such a bleak outlook and meaninglessness.
Which is why I think Ending E isn't actually a happy ending at all, there's no happiness to be found for 2B/9S/A2 after the machines basically jumped ship to someplace else. Sure, they can decimate the remaining machine population, but eventually they would have to face reality - they need the conflict. So they would most likely create one themselves, similar to how they managed project YoRHa, and the cycle would start anew.

Adam was right after all.

Spoiler

I actually think that the "Chil[D]hood's End" is the happy ending. All the protagonists are dead, with just 9S gestalt (so to say) going with the machines to start a new somewhere. 2B being dead makes her not have to kill other andros anymore, and A2 wanted to die anyway and was happy about it in ending C. 9S is no longer just 9S either, as he realized that fighting and killing is not what defines him. It also seems that in this ending abandoned hatred as primary emotion.

 

[Saark]

Spoiler

I don't think any of the replicants managed to survive for over 7000 years. The only human remains are the saved human genome on the lunar server, aswell as Emil being the last human "alive". He might be the key to reviving humanity, who knows.

I think every android is capable of feeling emotions, among other things. The problem they all have to face sooner or later is the fact that they do not know how to deal with it.
Replicants also were superior to androids since they were created by humans, using human data. The current androids however are just creating themselves, trying to imitate their original creators as much as possible. Machines and androids are very alike, since they also try to "become as gods" by imitating humans.

The machine vs android conflict is, by large, meaningless. It is also extremely important. It is the sole reason the machines exist, and their attempts at creating any new values or even imitating them all fail horribly. It's quite clear that they are not supposed to succeed, since that would give them a new meaning to live. I wonder whether they themselves actually realized this, learned that "this cannot continue" and thus created Adam/Eve which ultimately leads to the ending of the conflict?
Androids on the other hand would have to face the hard truth of humans no longer existing if they were to ever win the war. There'd be no more reason for humans to hide on the moon if the earth was freed from its invader. Since they are also unable to create any new values themselves, they would be trapped in a constant state of stagnation, trying to recapture humanity as much as possible without ever succeeding, and most androids we've seen don't cope well at all with such a bleak outlook and meaninglessness.
Which is why I think Ending E isn't actually a happy ending at all, there's no happiness to be found for 2B/9S/A2 after the machines basically jumped ship to someplace else. Sure, they can decimate the remaining machine population, but eventually they would have to face reality - they need the conflict. So they would most likely create one themselves, similar to how they managed project YoRHa, and the cycle would start anew.

Adam was right after all.

Spoiler

I actually think that the "Chil[D]hood's End" is the happy ending. All the protagonists are dead, with just 9S gestalt (so to say) going with the machines to start a new somewhere. 2B being dead makes her not have to kill other andros anymore, and A2 wanted to die anyway and was happy about it in ending C. 9S is no longer just 9S either, as he realized that fighting and killing is not what defines him. It also seems that in this ending abandoned hatred as primary emotion.

Spoiler

Kinda. Ending C provides a happy ending for A2 but leaves 9S unfulfilled, ending D is the other way around. Neither endings are satisfactory from a player perspective. Ending E provides a happy ending to the player, when it is something that ultimately dooms all of the characters the players seems to care about. Neither of the endings are good enough for everyone involved, which I think is the point Taro wanted to make.

Taking into account all the parties involved, Ending D seems to be the "happiest" ending though, I agree.

 

[Heresiarch]

Finished the game, did the "help other players" part, and now starting anew.

A few hours in, and I can't believe I've missed so many character and story details. Also a lot of the seemingly mundane events and character reaction makes so much sense after restart.

The game is not perfect; it's not DMC/Bayonetta/Revengeance, it's not a true open world game, it's no dating sim, it's not Soulsborne...but it has adorable characters, powerful story moments, gorgeous music, and beautiful area designs. As a semi-weaboo I love this game.

 

[Mozg]

I wonder how many people have been souls-type players that picked this up and been blasted with how weeby it is.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Well, I was hoping it's more Dark Soulsy but was ok with what I got. It is a very different game from DS, and does not have the same allure for me. I did have quite a lot of fun, and the story, while not a pinnacle of game writing, is serviceable and engaging enough to make me want to dig into it.

 

[bminorkey]

Spoiler

i dont even remember this symbol from the original (played it years ago when it came out). where did it show up?

It didn't show up in the original. This is one of those moments where having suffered through Drakengard 1/3 is somewhat important though. It was first seen as the symbol of the empire in Drakengard 1, and was revealed to actually be the symbol of the cult of the watchers during Drakengard 3. It wasn't exactly shown during the original Nier. The white chlorination syndrome, which led to the events of Nier in the first place, was directly related to the cult however. The cult, together with 'the flower' (lunar tear) and Accord are some of the few things that have continuity throughout all games.

edit: And of course the red eyes that all the infected/cult people have in common. Not much different from networked machines/androids infected with the logic virus.

i actually am familiar with the plot but never played drak 1/2/3 (but I watched all the cutscenes for drak 3 haha).

what boss has this symbol in automata? i wasn't paying attention