Squeenix NieR: Automata from Yoko Taro and Platinum Games

[Dayyālu]

Still waiting on his adult video, though.

What?

Q: Yoko Taro-san, you’ve touched up on video games, novels, and stage plays, so what form of media would you like to work on next?

Yoko Taro: I think this may be off-putting, but I’d like to make an adult video. I think of it as something I’d like to at least make once in my lifetime.

 

[Jasede]

Yoko Taro adult video...

"I thought my penis would expel fluids, not my eyes!"

 

[Silva]

who cares, no one's going to buy this overpriced product

I did. Worth every huehue money so far. Don't remember having this fun since Bloodborne.

 

[Silva]

Finished it and loved it. Im still diggesting things, but I have no doubt this is one of the most interesting games I've ever played and I'll be reflecting on its questions and events for a long time, just like with PS:Torment and SOMA. Only here the actual gameplay resonated better with me, those 2d and bullet-hell sequences bringing back the arcades of my 80s childhood.

Oh, and I've played with my 10 years old anime aficionado son. By the end we were crying and cheering together like it was the end of a big anime series. Lol

 

[Silva]

So, questions:

Spoiler

1) What exactly were the two red girls and how they knew so much about YorHa? Do they exist since the beginning?

2) Who gives the cards for the androids? Its clear its not the commander nor the resistance in earth. Is there some actual council of androids somewhere?

3) Also, am I right to infer that project Gestalt consisted in uploading people's minds to some storage server due to some incurable pandemy, and later downloading it to artificial bodies called Replicants? And those two redheads are android models created to oversee this process? But who da hell is Original and Kainé and how they fit in all this?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Silva]

Give the cards = the boss. Sorry for the English, its not my main language.

I'm wondering why I liked this game so much, when I hate these story-centric JRPGs. Maybe because I actually liked what Automata did with it's gameplay (even with it's flaws). I felt the same with Soma and Torment, "why da hell I'm liking this shit, since I hate games that use the medium just to tell stories?". But I think all them end up using the medium in their own subtle ways that add to their themes, Soma by putting the player in a vulnerable position full of dread and terror, Torment allowing player to express himself through C&C, and Automata subverting and fucking up with the medium in so many ways. In the end of the day I'll still prefer gameplay-centric games like Soulsborne or Mario, but it's been refreshing to try out these games.

*Edit: I couldn't grok Persona 5 though. Too much text and fake-choices. Automata spartan use of text was a clever move.

 

[Jasede]

Am not the best source as it has been a while.

Spoiler

1. Those were androids (not replicants) based on the same models as Devola and Popola, NPCs from NieR. Essentially they drive the main quest. There is, however, a twist later that they have been trying to dissuade you from your quest all along because, as it turns out, you, the player, are not human, but a replicant. A replicant is an artificial body meant to house the soul of a human, but those bodies became sentient and think of themselves as people. The real people are turning into monsters because they could not reunite with their intended artificial replicant bodies. In NieR you doom mankind and replicants to certain death because you destroy the means of this gestalt/replicant merging process, and thus all real humans (in the form of souls) die. This directly means that all humanity is doomed and long dead during Automata. Anyway, the androids in Automata hate the Devola/Popola series of models because they think those two betrayed mankind (which they didn't really; they merely failed to execute their mission, which would have doomed the replicants but saved the actual humans, or what was left of them)

You may recall the scene in Automata where you attack that tower and it looks like you are about to fight the two red heads. This is a reference to NieR: if you played the game, at that point, you expect them to betray you and attack you, but the game subverts this and has them help you, making a point that you, the player, also bought into the prejudices the other androids had towards those two.

2. I do think there is an implied but never mentioned secret council somewhere whose sole job it is to keep the cycle of android/machine war going for eternity. This council may or may not be the pods. My theory is that some androids - now long dead - figured out that androids need a reason to live, and tasked the pods with keeping this eternal war cycle going.

3. Kaine is an important character in NieR which you save by deleting your savegame in that game. She is, of course, doomed to die, like everyone else except for Emil. Kaine has a very long and complicated story best experienced by playing the game. Great character. Project Gestalt... When Drakengard ended, the world was infected with something called white chlorination syndrome, a disease that wiped out humanity. A plan to save them was devised: split the soul away from the body and keep artificial bodies ready, to be inhabited by those souls once the world is no longer infected by that syndrome. Devola and Popola are two android designed by humans to oversee that process and the eventual reuniting of body and soul.

Hey, if you liked this game and can tolerate 'bad' gameplay and maybe even like Twin Peaks, try out "Deadly Premonition". It fucks with you a lot this way, too, and is very memorable.

 

[Jaedar]

Spoiler

2. I do think there is an implied but never mentioned secret council somewhere whose sole job it is to keep the cycle of android/machine war going for eternity. This council may or may not be the pods. My theory is that some androids - now long dead - figured out that androids need a reason to live, and tasked the pods with keeping this eternal war cycle going.

This is explained in the concert that they had after the game released (just like how A2 and Anemone backstory is explained in a pre-announcement stage play). If someone is interested you can listen to the english VA's reading a translated script here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ08khNM1Fg

The gist of it is:

Spoiler

The Yorha and fake humanity plan was made by the original 9S. He was in on the plan, as were a few other androids, including the commander. But the plan was always to get everyone who knew the truth to die (which is why the orbiting base is left to get destroyed): that way no one can spill the beans, and there is no morale loss for the androids, so they will keep fighting the machines forever. He did also realize that other scanners would eventually wise up, which is why they have executioner models, they're supposed to kill scanners before they get that clever.

It is heavily implied that 2B has killed 9S at least a few times before the events of Automata.

Personal speculation: This is what the machine lifeforms want: An enemy to fight for all eternity. So it may even be that they helped orchestrate the whole thing. Android cores are made from machine lifeform cores after all.

:yoko taro:

 

[Jasede]

9S? what the fuck

 

[Silva]

Why YorHa androids dress like maids and servants? Perhaps a symbol of their dedication and servitude to mankind?

And those sashes over the eyes? Another symbol of this "blind" dedication? I've read those are actually visors or something. Perhaps those are like advanced goggles providing some form of enhanced vision?

 

[Jasede]

Without trying to be overly disappointing, I think the answer to that is "Because Japan."

 

[Saark]

So, questions:

Spoiler

1) What exactly were the two red girls and how they knew so much about YorHa? Do they exist since the beginning?

2) Who gives the cards for the androids? Its clear its not the commander nor the resistance in earth. Is there some actual council of androids somewhere?

3) Also, am I right to infer that project Gestalt consisted in uploading people's minds to some storage server due to some incurable pandemy, and later downloading it to artificial bodies called Replicants? And those two redheads are android models created to oversee this process? But who da hell is Original and Kainé and how they fit in all this?

Thanks in advance.

Spoiler

Regarding your questions:
1 - If you want to know about Devola/Popola, someone else already explained it. If you're talking about the two red girls in the tower, it is assumed that the AI/machine hivemind or whatever you want to call it managed to scan through all of mankinds and the androids recorded history and eventually caught up with the events of the original drakengard, drakengard 3 and nier. Since even an AI needs an avatar it created the two red girls, which immediately strikes you as similar to the cult of the watchers, both in appearance (taking after Manah/One) aswell as their voice (pretty similar to Manahs voice in Drakengard). They also hacked into the bunkers mainframe, which is why they knew pretty much everything about Yorha.

2 - According to some interview, Yorha was set in motion by "an android clad in black". Not much else is known about him/her, except that we did not in fact meet him/her in Nier:Automata. I don't think tis ever mentioned who that guy is, or that he was the "original" 9S.

3 - Project Gestalt is what happened in the first Nier game. You already got the gist of it already.

Why YorHa androids dress like maids and servants? Perhaps a symbol of their dedication and servitude to mankind?

Because combat androids don't need a specific look to fulfill their function, so they can look whatever their creator wants them to look like. Yoko Taro specifically mentioned that he likes women, so he made them look like sexy maids.

And those sashes over the eyes? Another symbol of this "blind" dedication? I've read those are actually visors or something. Perhaps those are like advanced goggles providing some form of enhanced vision?

The blindfolds are their HUD. It's mentioned in the screenplay he wrote, that whatever interface you're seeing while playing the game is what they see via their blindfolds.

 

[yellowcake]

They're both wearing black formal dress like one would for a funeral. It's Waiting for godot of the video games medium. Theatre of the absurd.

 

[Silva]

I've been hearing the music all day long and thinking "hmm this one seems French" and "oh this other is jap" and "that's Latin". Then I went ahead and looked for the actual lyrics...

...and found out they invented a whole language, inspired by Gaelic and "what Japanese might look like 1000 years from now".

Brilliant, man.

 

[Dayyālu]

Everything has been pretty much explained, so I'll limit myself to link what made me discover the original Yoko Taro insanity.


https://lparchive.org/Drakengard/

https://lparchive.org/NIER/

They are a fun read.

 

[Gerrard]

I've been hearing the music all day long and thinking "hmm this one seems French" and "oh this other is jap" and "that's Latin". Then I went ahead and looked for the actual lyrics...

...and found out they invented a whole language, inspired by Gaelic and "what Japanese might look like 1000 years from now".

Brilliant, man.

Wow, truly never before heard of feat, especially in JRPGs.

 

[Silva]

I don't play much JRPGs. Is that a norm or something?

 

[Jasede]

No, certainly not. In fact I am pretty sure this is the only game (NieR) where the entire OST is in that language made-up by the singer, except for two variations of the ending.
Never trust a Codexer, Silva. Play anything you are interested in for yourself.

My recommendation is that you find a few posters whose game recommendations you enjoyed in the past and go by that and try to ignore the tryharding. Reasonable people know good games can be found in every genre.

 

[Gerrard]

lol okay

 

[Jasede]

Now find five more examples not from that series, or to three of similar musical quality that also expresses the mood of the world.

 

[Gerrard]

Kill yourself.

If you want to be a pretentious hipster at least do your fucking homework.

 

[Jasede]

That's a nice way to write "I can't."
How about you kill yourself, you clueless moron?

To show you some actual knowledge, the task is impossible. The ONLY other jRPG in existence that does this is Panzer Dragoon, not counting substitution ciphers. So what you did is found one example and then claimed that proves it is not rarely done. That's so illogical that I think you would be better off killing yourself before you accidentally spread your genes by tripping and falling on top of a chick, which is the only way scum like you would ever breed.

 

[Gerrard]

I never claimed it is common, you dumb fuck. I just said it's nothing new.

 

[baturinsky]

Music is imho the best part of the game. Reminds me a bit of the Pucelle Tactics opening.

 

[Silva]