AN4RCHID
Arcane
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Squeenix NieR: Automata from Yoko Taro and Platinum Games
- Thread starter Ivan
- Start date
Automata is a hard game to deal with because it's mostly recommended by people who sat through the entire thing and walked away with feelings of joy after the true ending, but forgot that the majority of their 50 hours of playtime consisted of backtracking, fetch questing, messing around, hacking away at bulletsponges, and so on. It's not a sunken cost fallacy or anything, but the real ending of the game is where all the questions get answered and so many things come together which have been set up and foreshadowed since the first arc, to the point where your view of the ending will shape your view of the entire game, and whether it was worth it or not. People like this game despite its constant floundering, the only thing what made the general reception to this game different is that people forgot in their hype when Platinum was announced at the helm was that Yoko Taro games are inherently divisive, resulting in even more ruined expectations than normal.
It's a game which barely even shows the strengths of its developer, as it is a hack 'n slash game stretched out to suit the pacing of a RPG, there is no performance grading to encourage you to get better, difficulty is a matter of self-restriction yet painfully obnoxious on higher difficulties because of the death penalties, the bullet hell segments are euroshmup-tier, the integration of bullet hell elements in hack 'n slash combat is, encounter design is garbage from both an RPG and hack 'n slash standpoint with underutilized enemy types, the boss fights are some of Platinum's weakest, unskippable meme cutscenes out of the ass during boss fights, and route B is pure padding with a gimped player character whose gimmick is a crappy minigame, yet doesn't do much to justify it's own separate existence in the game by having you replay route A with additional sidequests and cutscenes, or make it known why it couldn't have been fused together with route A through a character swapping mechanic of some sorts. Even the initial pacing of the game is the very definition of a slow burn compared to the first game with its plentiful banter while doing sidequests, whereas in Automata its incredibly minimal despite the huge amounts of sidequests, there's only build-up going on in the background.
If I were to look at this game from a design standpoint, I want to fucking vomit. It's borderline experimental in areas, which is the only possible explanation for why a veteran developer like Platinum would make such mistakes, either that or Yoko Taro truly was that drunk.
To put it simply, NieR: Automata is shit, but I like it.
That is how I've described all of Taro's previous games in the past, be it Drakengard 1, Nier, or Drakengard 3. The gameplay of those games ranged from why to serviceable, and in Automata's case it's generally good combat which is never utilized to its fullest extent. Platinum offered some more finesse and depth and plugged some of the holes left by previous B-tier mainstay developer Cavia, but Platinum was mostly experimenting with this game, as opposed to their other games which were incredibly tight. Graphically it's subpar in this day and age. The only things anyone can reach a positive consensus on is the character designs and music. So what the hell is there to this piece of shit which attracts people to it like flies?
Yoko Taro games are revered largely because they're unique compared to most games in general, mostly because of how the storytelling uses the interactive medium to its advantage and presents something that wouldn't work as well in any other medium, and the non-standard subjects of the stories themselves. The stories themselves aren't too unique or as deep like Planetscape Tournament for example, but pacing aside, they're overall executed very well and undeniably memorable. Whether that memorability stems from frustration with the game fucking with you or appreciation of some of more clever bits of the game tends to vary from time to time. The characters in these kind of games are misfits who for personal reasons end up either dooming or saving the world, but are human in their flaws, which is what makes them so interesting. The worlds in these games are decayed and far beyond gone, yet the remaining survivors are still trying to make sense of the world. Aspects of characters are shown which are rarely ever shown (tastefully) in other games. The games have a certain charm to them unlike most games, you can clearly tell a lot of soul was put in the game and that the developers had a fun time.
It's not the kind of game you should expect to be a masterpiece, when from the outset it's a game whose main intentions aren't to encourage you to git gud, to respect you, or to let you have fun. In this game you're merely a bystander who unknowingly signed up for watching the premiere of an experimental French New Wave film. People who rate this game tend to rate how they felt about it, rather than how the game would objectively hold up, which is where all the miscommunication sprouts from. And as you can tell, many people who have achieved the true ending walked away very satisfied, yet in hindsight this is the kind of game you learn to both criticize and appreciate even more with each repeat playthrough. I very much appreciate the existence of this game and would like to see more like it, and would definitely encourage others to stick to the end while playing it.
It's a game which barely even shows the strengths of its developer, as it is a hack 'n slash game stretched out to suit the pacing of a RPG, there is no performance grading to encourage you to get better, difficulty is a matter of self-restriction yet painfully obnoxious on higher difficulties because of the death penalties, the bullet hell segments are euroshmup-tier, the integration of bullet hell elements in hack 'n slash combat is, encounter design is garbage from both an RPG and hack 'n slash standpoint with underutilized enemy types, the boss fights are some of Platinum's weakest, unskippable meme cutscenes out of the ass during boss fights, and route B is pure padding with a gimped player character whose gimmick is a crappy minigame, yet doesn't do much to justify it's own separate existence in the game by having you replay route A with additional sidequests and cutscenes, or make it known why it couldn't have been fused together with route A through a character swapping mechanic of some sorts. Even the initial pacing of the game is the very definition of a slow burn compared to the first game with its plentiful banter while doing sidequests, whereas in Automata its incredibly minimal despite the huge amounts of sidequests, there's only build-up going on in the background.
If I were to look at this game from a design standpoint, I want to fucking vomit. It's borderline experimental in areas, which is the only possible explanation for why a veteran developer like Platinum would make such mistakes, either that or Yoko Taro truly was that drunk.
To put it simply, NieR: Automata is shit, but I like it.
That is how I've described all of Taro's previous games in the past, be it Drakengard 1, Nier, or Drakengard 3. The gameplay of those games ranged from why to serviceable, and in Automata's case it's generally good combat which is never utilized to its fullest extent. Platinum offered some more finesse and depth and plugged some of the holes left by previous B-tier mainstay developer Cavia, but Platinum was mostly experimenting with this game, as opposed to their other games which were incredibly tight. Graphically it's subpar in this day and age. The only things anyone can reach a positive consensus on is the character designs and music. So what the hell is there to this piece of shit which attracts people to it like flies?
Yoko Taro games are revered largely because they're unique compared to most games in general, mostly because of how the storytelling uses the interactive medium to its advantage and presents something that wouldn't work as well in any other medium, and the non-standard subjects of the stories themselves. The stories themselves aren't too unique or as deep like Planetscape Tournament for example, but pacing aside, they're overall executed very well and undeniably memorable. Whether that memorability stems from frustration with the game fucking with you or appreciation of some of more clever bits of the game tends to vary from time to time. The characters in these kind of games are misfits who for personal reasons end up either dooming or saving the world, but are human in their flaws, which is what makes them so interesting. The worlds in these games are decayed and far beyond gone, yet the remaining survivors are still trying to make sense of the world. Aspects of characters are shown which are rarely ever shown (tastefully) in other games. The games have a certain charm to them unlike most games, you can clearly tell a lot of soul was put in the game and that the developers had a fun time.
It's not the kind of game you should expect to be a masterpiece, when from the outset it's a game whose main intentions aren't to encourage you to git gud, to respect you, or to let you have fun. In this game you're merely a bystander who unknowingly signed up for watching the premiere of an experimental French New Wave film. People who rate this game tend to rate how they felt about it, rather than how the game would objectively hold up, which is where all the miscommunication sprouts from. And as you can tell, many people who have achieved the true ending walked away very satisfied, yet in hindsight this is the kind of game you learn to both criticize and appreciate even more with each repeat playthrough. I very much appreciate the existence of this game and would like to see more like it, and would definitely encourage others to stick to the end while playing it.
Speaking of this true ending stuff, am I supposed to be doing something in particular? Make sure not to kill Aeris, pick up the Chemical in the Lab Equipment Room of Midwich Elementary to use on the penultimate miniboss, something like that? I don't normally do walkthroughs but I get the feeling the "real story" is behavior-gated.
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You could stop playing the game because you get bored
While I agree with you on pretty much everything there, I don't fully agree that route B would've been 'better' had they implemented a character swap system, at least not from a narrative perspective.
It's very much intentional that 9S only becomes playable after you play through Route A, because in Route A he is clearly intended to come across as an ultra generic, unlikeable side-kick character, fitting in with how the first route is intentionally the most generic in the game story-wise. He acts like a total dick-head pretty much throughout the route, snarks a lot at inappropriate moments, and generally goes out of his way to behave as unlikeably as possible, in order to make 2B's cold rebuttals of his attempts to socialize with her feel more justified and cathartic.
Then you start route B, and you begin to experience things from his perspective. His handler is cold and distant towards him, he's often forced to do the menial legwork that allows 2B to proceed with her mission, and despite being arguably the stronger of the duo due to his hacking skills, everyone treats him with dismissiveness at best, derision and suspicion at worst, and bluntly stonewall his attempts to question the more morally dubious orders his commander is sending them. Now 2B's behavior is painted in a much darker light, as it is made abundantly clear that she's intentionally trying to keep 9S in the dark about their mission, his constant snarking comes across less as him just being a dickhead, and more as him just trying to cope with his current situation, and his torture by Adam reveals that he feels a great deal of hatred and resentment for it. I don't know about you, but after Route B, I went from utterly despising 9S to completely sympathizing with him, which made the events of route C even more effective a gut punch.
I honestly thought the way it was done in the game was brilliant, and made 9S one of the best protagonist bait-and-switch moves since Raiden in MGS2. I just don't see it being as effective as it was in the game had they instead integrated route A and B together and made it clear from the get-go that 9S was a sympathetic character. It was a huge gamble, of course (A lot of people still didn't like 9S even after his character development), but it paid off for me in the end. I do ultimately agree that the biggest issue with all 9S segments is that he's just not as satisfying to play as 2B or A2 though.
Then you start route B, and you begin to experience things from his perspective. His handler is cold and distant towards him, he's often forced to do the menial legwork that allows 2B to proceed with her mission, and despite being arguably the stronger of the duo due to his hacking skills, everyone treats him with dismissiveness at best, derision and suspicion at worst, and bluntly stonewall his attempts to question the more morally dubious orders his commander is sending them. Now 2B's behavior is painted in a much darker light, as it is made abundantly clear that she's intentionally trying to keep 9S in the dark about their mission, his constant snarking comes across less as him just being a dickhead, and more as him just trying to cope with his current situation, and his torture by Adam reveals that he feels a great deal of hatred and resentment for it. I don't know about you, but after Route B, I went from utterly despising 9S to completely sympathizing with him, which made the events of route C even more effective a gut punch.
I honestly thought the way it was done in the game was brilliant, and made 9S one of the best protagonist bait-and-switch moves since Raiden in MGS2. I just don't see it being as effective as it was in the game had they instead integrated route A and B together and made it clear from the get-go that 9S was a sympathetic character. It was a huge gamble, of course (A lot of people still didn't like 9S even after his character development), but it paid off for me in the end. I do ultimately agree that the biggest issue with all 9S segments is that he's just not as satisfying to play as 2B or A2 though.
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If nothing else, even the biggest critic should recognize what a drastic, risky and extremely ballsy decision it was to build a story that way.
Many players and reviewers will quit for the reasons stated above and walk away thinking it was generic trash with nice music.
That's why many respect Taro a lot. He doesn't care if nobody plays his games or if they are fun. All he cares about istelling his story without compromises. Love or hate it, that's real dedication to your craft.
I think this suicidal way of making games deserves credit. It's a miracle he was allowed to make this, which again was more a marriage of coincidences, fans working at other companies, blackmail and owed favors.
Many players and reviewers will quit for the reasons stated above and walk away thinking it was generic trash with nice music.
That's why many respect Taro a lot. He doesn't care if nobody plays his games or if they are fun. All he cares about istelling his story without compromises. Love or hate it, that's real dedication to your craft.
I think this suicidal way of making games deserves credit. It's a miracle he was allowed to make this, which again was more a marriage of coincidences, fans working at other companies, blackmail and owed favors.
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As he said himself in the toco toco episode: "For my games aswell, they don't have to necessarily be interesting, as long as it is meaningful to play them." He reached that goal with Automata because a lot of people reacted very emotionally to what happened inside the game, others didn't and a lot of people didn't like the game at all.
But what is somewhat universally said about Automata is that the way it mixes together different types of gameplay, audio, visuals and design is something that deserves recognition, no matter whether it actually worked or was fun for the player. It's how a video game should be because it utilizes all the medium has to offer.
Kitchen Utensil
Guest
So story great/ballsy, gameplay shit/banal?
Kitchen Utensil
Guest
I think that depends on how tight and responsive the controls are. From watching gameplay videos, the 3rd person bullet hell segments for example seem to be hindered by camera problems. When I want to play a bullet hell, I play a Cave game. When you want to play a sidescroller, I also don't think Automata's segments would spring to most peoples' minds. Many people apparently also hate the hacking minigame, understandably so imo.
I like many things about the game*, but when it comes to gameplay it all just seems like a bunch of genres mixed together, each of them made worse in order to fit into a single game. Bad shmup-segment, bad platformer-segment, bad arpg-segment, bad j'n'r-segment followed by bad minigame-segment, and repeat. I'm not sure the story is worth it for me, because eventhough I can appreciate an excellent story in a game I'm still mostly a gameplay enthusiast.
*nah, who am I kidding, it's 2B's ass.
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It's not that those different types of gameplay are bad, but they're not as intricate as they are in games that dedicate themselves to a single one. This shouldn't come as a surprise though especially considering the game had a relatively small budget. The core gameplay is good and enjoyable enough and while you're playing the constant switches between gameplay styles don't give you the chance to think about how much deeper certain systems could have been. Plenty of games had deeper systems that were defining the game and they still sucked, here you get to experience different styles which are not as deep but somehow work better than the sum of its parts might suggest.
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Suicidal
Arcane
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- Apr 29, 2007
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I find all these claims about the gameplay being shit overblown. I'm playing it right now and I'm having a lot of fun killing shit. The combat is fast-paced and enjoyable, there are a lot of different weapon combinations and spells you can use, gathering a horde of dumb bots in one place and carpet bombing the shit out of them with a fully charged bomb spell is a beautiful sight to behold, the boss fights are quite intense on hard difficulty because you never know what will or will not one shot you so you need to be careful when attacking and run/jump/dodge a lot. The different missions of the main quest - not the open world, but the actual missions the main quest sends you on, like the amusement park investigation and the robo death cult in the factory - are great, each with its own atmosphere, challenges a fun boss and a little story to tell.
The controls are also quite good, even on KB&M (except it's more difficult to dodge). In the 2D sections, however, they really take a nose dive into a barrel of sewage. The 2D sections in general can choke on my balls, I could do without them.
I'll give some more detailed impressions once I'm done, but so far the gameplay has been anything but "boring" or "shit". If this is what passes as shit for you guys then I wonder what you consider a good 3D action game because apart from the very few I've already played I'm not seeing any.
The controls are also quite good, even on KB&M (except it's more difficult to dodge). In the 2D sections, however, they really take a nose dive into a barrel of sewage. The 2D sections in general can choke on my balls, I could do without them.
I'll give some more detailed impressions once I'm done, but so far the gameplay has been anything but "boring" or "shit". If this is what passes as shit for you guys then I wonder what you consider a good 3D action game because apart from the very few I've already played I'm not seeing any.
Dayyālu
Arcane
2D sections are kinda.... bad, yes. But they got me one of the best small little pieces of gameplay inventiveness I have experience in a while. Something creative in a 3d brawler? What?
So, one of the worst 2D sections is in the Forest Castle. First building, you get several jumps with bad collision detection. Ok, easy to do as 2B, pump some combos and you are gold. As 9S, I swear, I almost popped a vein. He's a twat and he can't even jump.
Got to the forest. Sneaked behind one of the machine camps and hacked one of the Medium machines. Got into the castle. Medium machines jump high. Section solved wiith ease. (and then of course abusing hacking for unreachable spots!).
It's silly, but it amused me quite a bit. Another piece for Automata to be a charming little thing.
Suicidal
Arcane
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Can't argue with that. They are one of the things I really dislike about the game, but so far they haven't bothered me too much. I may have to eat these words once I get farther into the game, however.
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So far I'm finding the boss fights to all be like that: endurance tests. The big robot in the opera house took me half an hour. I kept wondering if there was something else I was supposed to be doing, but there was no trick to it that I could find, just shoot it forever, survive the attack patterns, hit it with a sword sometimes if you can and look for that tiny tiny tiny tiny sliver of damage appearing on its health bar.
I "didn't not enjoy it" and am still looking forward to the rest of the game, but the boss fights so far are really not my favorite.
Suicidal
Arcane
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Strange, it didn't take me that long. As far as I noticed no matter how much damage you deal to it in its first phase (before it retreats and starts hacking you), after you complete the hacking minigame it will always come out with 50% hp. After that when you start fighting it again and do some more damage to it it will fall down and its head will open and if you move around it you will see a glowing yellow orb inside its head and hitting it deals so much damage you can kill the boss before it recovers and goes into phase 3. I only noticed this after dying like 5 times to its oneshotting shockwaves in phase 3.
Hm. It never fell down that I saw. On the other hand I never got one-shotted either. Who knows what is up with this crazy game :shrug:
Suicidal
Arcane
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You said you're playing on normal. On hard the shockwaves instantly kill
To get it to fall down you must wait till its dress starts burning and it starts screaming and then you need to melee hit it as much as you can and then it will fall down for several seconds.
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Yep, never saw any of this behavior you describe.
The only "chips" I've ever seen are the ones at the store that say Easy Mode Only.
Dayyālu
Arcane
????
How's that even possible? By merely fighting you get a ton of chips. Talk to the gal near the transport\save point in the Resistance Camp to buy extra slots. To set up them merely go on the menus, it's easy.
Chips make Normal difficulty a breeze. Get some Deadly Heal or Auto Heal, and nothing can hurt you. I died twice, never to a boss (just to random bullet hell spawns that took me by surprise and I could not dodge).
Suicidal
Arcane
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To be fair early game chips don't do much. It's usually shit like 2% damage increase or 5% hp increase. It's when you start combining them into big chips and buying extra equipment slots they really start to shine and you can make different builds.
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Except it does matter, because on hard those 5% extra HP might put you over the threshold of surviving an attack that otherwise one-hits you. Once you cannot be one-hit anymore no other defense matters because you just put in a lv1 anti chain damage chip and heal through any damage during the i-frames.
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