Nier Automata
That New Hype Smell
One of my favorite Just Gamer Things is discovering a game very shortly before or after launch and realizing I have a need, a yearning deep in the marrow of my bones, pure and righteous in the eyes of God. It’s hype in its purest form, unsullied by fandom and the pain of living.
For instance, Nier: Automata. I’d never heard of it until a week ago. My interest is fueled solely by the experiences of actual human beings who have played the game. I haven’t seen any official marketing of any kind. It’s the excitement of a big upcoming release condensed within a reasonable span of time and emotion. Feels good man Let’s go punch a Nazi or whatever it is we’re saying now.
Release day on Steam is always a party, however things go. My new operating policy requires reading zero-day reviews before purchase, so this thing could go the way of Dishonored 2, who knows.
While glancing at the Steam forum to see if anyone knew about potential performance issues, I saw a few comments along the lines of, “However it performs, we should just be grateful…” Yeah, nah. You all gotta stop with that. Don’t buy broke shit. I love games too but let’s don’t. I cannot think of any other type of consumer good where people actually encourage others to buy products that don’t work to support the manufacturer. Can you imagine?
“This hybrid doesn’t handle well and they lied about the MPG but if we don’t support them they won’t release any more cars in the United States.”
sure ok enjoy your parking space or whatever
* They get parking spaces, right? I drive a 1998 pickup so I have no idea.
** Holy shit I just realized my car is almost 20 years old D:
*** Excuse me I’m going to sit quietly in the corner and contemplate my mortality until my game drops bye
UPDATE:
*inarticulate screaming*
Nier: Automata
Update #2:
Thoughts:
B2’s Butt
Let’s talk about the anus of my new fav, shall we?
I was unaware of the Nier: Automata’s plethora of panty shots or the B2 butthole controversy prior to purchasing the game. A few months ago, a rumor began circulating that the model had a rendered butthole. Yes, that actually happened, this is my life.
When questioned about the game’s panty shots, Yoko Taro said something like, “I like to draw pretty girls.” In certain quarters this has been held up as an example of bravery in the face of oppression.
(I know, I know. They basically write the jokes for you.)
Anyway, I like B2’s design a lot, even though her dress looks bad in side-profile because the developer’s insistence on enabling maximum panty exposure at all times results in weird dress poof-levitation. What I don’t like is the What Are You Doing? achievement, which is apparently triggered after the player attempts to look up B2’s skirt 10 times. If done correctly, B2 notices the player’s gaze and pushes the camera away.
Like. Can we not, please?
On the plus side, knowing I can’t 100 percent the game takes some of the pressure off. I mean, seriously, fully upgrading all 40 weapons? That’s just mean.
Final Verdict
GOTY, I’m calling it.
Nier: Automata is a hack-n-slash open-world RPG with bullet hell elements. There are four things this game does really well.
#2 - accessibility NA’s easy mode is amazing. The player can equip auto-chips and the game plays for you–attacks, evasion, weapon changes, auto-heals, etc. The AI is solid and it’s fun to play this way, especially if you’ve been slaughtered a million times by a boss and you just want to get it over with.
NA also has an unlockable trophy shop, which allows players to purchase achievements end-game. This provides a great alternative for the grindier achievements.
#3 - layered narrative and multiple endings NA has 26 endings, 5 of which are main endings that give the full picture. Many of the side-endings are throwaway endings triggered by dying prematurely or running away from a battle or an emergency situation. During the three main routes you switch between various character perspectives. I feel like some parts are a little samey, due to the nature of the first two routes, but at the same time I found the game so fun to play I didn’t mind. The final main ending goes full meta, the closest thing I’ve played recently might be Undertale. Which ties into the next part.
#4 - clever use of meta NA incorporates game menus and the like into the actual game experience. You should always take the game literally. If someone says they’re recording something, they’re actually recording. I don’t want to say much more about it, but I’ve described this sort of thing in the past as “game design for gamers,” there’s an assumption that the player is familiar with genre conventions and will be surprised or pleased by certain types of subversions.
More blah blah: The Big Reveals aren’t surprising for people familiar with SF tropes but I felt they did a good job of telling character stories and parceling/withholding information and there are some really interesting ambiguities. (****)
The game attempts to be exploratory and on-rails at the same time. It works for the most part. Occasionally I will inexplicably find myself unable to jump up a hillside or pass through an android-sized hole, but the game does a good job of allowing exploration while keeping the player from wandering into areas where they might get stuck.
There is a privacy issue related to the networking feature. When you die your corpse is labelled with both your in-game name and your Steam name (or ID, I’m not sure which). Networking allows you to collect the bodies of fallen players, which results in HP, money, and a temporary stat boost. On death, players are allowed to leave a message on their corpse a la Dark Souls. This is not free-form, you have a list of things to pick from.
Performance wise, there’s weird framing on 1920x1080 full screen, which doesn’t bother me enough to fix. My main issues with PC port + controller are mechanical. Opening chests is a little wonky, I think because there is an “outward” animation (B2 kicks open the chest) and therefore the player has to within a somewhat narrow range to activate it. There is some chicanery with ladders. I got ‘trapped’ in an abandoned building for about 10 minutes because of tricky camera angles, which really sucked.
I didn’t have framerate issues until late in the game due to the sheer volume of projectiles. I had one crash I cannot explain. Otherwise, performance has been good.
I’ve done a full main story playthrough, minus a few cheevos that I’d like to pick up next time. I’m tempted to start the next PT now, but I’ve found I can get a little burnt-out on open world games if I don’t intersperse other types.