You know, the characters aren't a bad place to start in seeing just what kind of game Automata is. To that end, let's go to Yoko Taro, the director himself, for some insight into the characters. Mr. Taro, why is a battle robot in high heels and a French maid outfit? "I just love women. There's no particular reason for it." That's it, really. There's no discussion about that and, really, I applaud Yoko Taro for that kind of answer. It's a simple and honest response that pretty much asks us, "Why not?" I feel like that's the defining core of Automata, the moment you experience something and say, "Yeah, sure, why not," for better or for worse.
I'll be honest with you: the game gets away with a lot of things. Nier: Automata is certainly Yoko Taro's masterpiece, but it's a stretch to be singing praise from the comfort of every 2B body pillow out there (you know who you are). The game is beyond technically competent (except for the tragic PC port) and the overall experience is fresh, but one has to be honest with a game like Automata. The gameplay is flashy and repetitive, the art-style is blandly minimalistic, and the philosophical stuff suffers from an underdeveloped cast of characters that have been tasked to carry out the story's message. It isn't the gameplay, artistic delivery, nor the half-baked philosophical musings that makes up the spirit of the game. As a whole, Nier: Automata is really an exercise of the medium, a simple yet elusive one that celebrates the ability of video games to deliver an experience you couldn't find in any other form. So let's get into it.
the robots wear hats later on
The premise of the game follows a war between machines that have been built by an alien invasion and human built androids. Supposedly, humans lost the war and have fled to the Moon while androids continue their master's proxy war. The androids' base of operations is a space station in orbit and every once in awhile the androids will receive suspiciously pre-recorded sounding propaganda messages from the last remnants of humans who are totally alive and well on the Moon. Keep it up, we're totally alive and, gosh, we don't have Earth yet but we sure will soon! Keep at it boys and girls. Anyways, you'll get to play as various characters while you muck around in the whole "machine consciousness" thing. Think Terminator 2, thumbs-up-in-lava. Good? Good.
in the apocalypse, everything is coated in dust from exploded concrete
Let's have some fun this time around, starting the the game's Premium Girl, 2B:
There's one android called 2B,
2B or not to be, you see?
She's got big thighs,
She's cold towards allies,
You know, that's about it, really.
Adolescent boy
2B, a cherry blossom
Shitty minigame
Then there's A2 who's basically 2B but with longer hair and further down the scale of traumatic experiences lived through. Oh, she cuts her hair eventually so consider her your 2B replacement:
[Chorus - Snoop Dogg]
When the pimp's in the crib ma
Drop it like it's hot
Drop it like it's hot
Drop it like it's hot
robot with a hat, i can get behind that
If at any point during the game you think to yourself or out loud to your lonesome self if you're one of those people, "Wow, the machines are trying to be like humans and the androids, too, are weirdly human-like despite their constant denial of emotions and interpersonal relations. The machines and androids are adversaries on the eternal battlefield yet they have so much in common with one another. What does it really mean to be human and how does consciousness fit into our ideas of what constitutes life?," give yourself a big certificate with WordArt that reads I DO MY BEST and shower yourself with gold star stickers next to your nameplate at work because you just grasped the handle of the game's complex and thought-provoking philosophical quandaries. If you got the exact wording of the thought, I ask you to please leave my room and fix the window on the way out.
The philosophical undertone in Automata doesn't rise up beyond just that. The game is spectacle driven for the most part and whatever difficult philosophies it muddles around in are just the various highway roadsigns that get less and less entertaining as the friend next to you read them out to you over and over again. The only way it could get worse is if the highway sign falls and smashes through your windshield so you can get a better look at the sign you've seen six times before.
The philosophical undertone in Automata doesn't rise up beyond just that. The game is spectacle driven for the most part and whatever difficult philosophies it muddles around in are just the various highway roadsigns that get less and less entertaining as the friend next to you read them out to you over and over again. The only way it could get worse is if the highway sign falls and smashes through your windshield so you can get a better look at the sign you've seen six times before.
its a claritin d commercial
Then again, subtlety is far from Automata's strong point, except when you're talking about the environments. The game world is beautiful in the sense that a desolate landscape is beautiful in a melancholy kind of way. It's like your screen has a permanent grey filter on it and it gives everything in the world a washed out after effect. In retrospect, even the carnival level worked within a single color grade and was too afraid to work with any kind of contrasting hues. The grey filter seemed to just be replaced by a purple-red one in what was supposedly the most colorful zone in the game. Every zone seems to suffer from this innate blandness once the honeymoon period is over. The first time you look across an expansive, encroaching desert, there is a sense of reverence or majesty for the forces of nature. As you begin to repeatedly plod through the game's artistically bland landscapes, however, you're going to begin to wish that natural forces were a little more creative with how they destroyed and reclaimed the world. You're going to really wish for anything to stare at. To that end, I suppose it gives you more time to ogle at 2B's revealing acrobatics—well played, Yoko Taro.
can you tell why people like this game yet
Earlier I noted that Nier: Automata features repetitive gameplay and I realized how lazy a complaint that sounded. You can't fault a hack-and-slash game for making you, you know, hack and slash stuff over and over again—it's like blaming a shooter game for making you pick up a shooty thing to shoot at things. In essence, complaints about repetitive gameplay stem from unrewarding gameplay, the sense that you're doing something for no gain. In Automata, it won't be long until you're swimming in money and health restoration items and upgrades to the point where combat really isn't a threat. Weapon upgrades all serve to simply increase damage and you don't even need to get to the maximum level to do well. Enemy variety is sorely lacking outside of boss fights and they're hardly worth the time that I ended up just running past every enemy encounter between where I was and where I needed to go to advance the story. Sidequests are generally pointless in the rewards they give and are mostly there to placate the OCD collectors that scour the game for every little hidden thing. Be prepared for fetch quests and backtracking in these sidequests, the ultimate killers of pacing and sense of fun. Harder difficulties are scaled from the School of Frustration as Challenge and the only diploma you get in the end is a piece of tissue paper that has the words "Bragging Rights" written on it. There isn't a sense that you as a player are doing better or becoming stronger as you progress through the story.
Nier: Automata touts itself as an open-world experience but it takes little to no advantage of the fact. Invisible walls, linear stage progression, and boxed in mission zones litter the game. Was the open-world aspect to avoid loading screens? Well, you're going to be using the fast travel system anyway. Does it promote a sense of exploration? Exploration isn't really rewarded as much as you'd think and many of the zones are recycled anyways. It's not like you can interact with the world in any meaningful way, either. You can ride animals and fish, but those features don't add anything. I mean, they don't detract anything either but then it only leads you to question why its even in the game. The world may be large, but eventually you begin to see all the limitations that have been set in place. The open-world aspect of the game only serves to make navigation between story moments as tedious as possible. You'll be scrolling through the same zones that are devoid of anything interesting just to progress the story.
In terms of the combat, the game seamlessly moves between classic bullet hell segments and third-person hack-and-slash, which also incorporates elements of bullet hell. You'll be mashing your dodge button into oblivion as the camera moves around to give you a 2D side-scroller or top-down shooter perspective for no real effect other than to make sure you're still awake. The hack-and-slash is your standard fare light/heavy attack combos, dodge, counter, special move, etc. The fluid animation and controls really come across here and carries the game on its back. The bullet hell segments are actually less developed than I would've liked and manifest more in 9S's annoying-as-fuck hacking minigame that easily overstays its welcome. The combat gameplay experience, as a whole, is smooth and will make you say "Oh, that's cool" every now and then, but is ultimately low on content and relies on visuals more than anything to keep you engaged.
is my screen just dirty
Nier: Automata touts itself as an open-world experience but it takes little to no advantage of the fact. Invisible walls, linear stage progression, and boxed in mission zones litter the game. Was the open-world aspect to avoid loading screens? Well, you're going to be using the fast travel system anyway. Does it promote a sense of exploration? Exploration isn't really rewarded as much as you'd think and many of the zones are recycled anyways. It's not like you can interact with the world in any meaningful way, either. You can ride animals and fish, but those features don't add anything. I mean, they don't detract anything either but then it only leads you to question why its even in the game. The world may be large, but eventually you begin to see all the limitations that have been set in place. The open-world aspect of the game only serves to make navigation between story moments as tedious as possible. You'll be scrolling through the same zones that are devoid of anything interesting just to progress the story.
pull up, porkins!
In terms of the combat, the game seamlessly moves between classic bullet hell segments and third-person hack-and-slash, which also incorporates elements of bullet hell. You'll be mashing your dodge button into oblivion as the camera moves around to give you a 2D side-scroller or top-down shooter perspective for no real effect other than to make sure you're still awake. The hack-and-slash is your standard fare light/heavy attack combos, dodge, counter, special move, etc. The fluid animation and controls really come across here and carries the game on its back. The bullet hell segments are actually less developed than I would've liked and manifest more in 9S's annoying-as-fuck hacking minigame that easily overstays its welcome. The combat gameplay experience, as a whole, is smooth and will make you say "Oh, that's cool" every now and then, but is ultimately low on content and relies on visuals more than anything to keep you engaged.
just pile on the symbolism
Okay, so if the story and characters were underdeveloped and mediocre at best and the gameplay was mostly unrewarding, what are we left with?
Well, Nier: Automata certainly had its fair share of spectacular and unexpected moments interspersed within its slogging gameplay. The game made bold, convention defying narrative moves, even if they did feel disjointed and awkward at times. Automata is all about spectacle without relying on purpose and celebrates the ability of game developers to manifest their insane ideas and give them life. In the face of why, Automata pushes back and asks why not. I can't put my finger on it, but despite all the flaws there is a warm feeling of passion and care that emanates from the game. It's like a curious kid who wants to try everything out in all new ways, makes a mess, but comes out of it proud knowing he tried something different and new. If anything, Yoko Taro's Nier: Automata is certainly an unforgettable experience.
Thanks for reading.
Well, Nier: Automata certainly had its fair share of spectacular and unexpected moments interspersed within its slogging gameplay. The game made bold, convention defying narrative moves, even if they did feel disjointed and awkward at times. Automata is all about spectacle without relying on purpose and celebrates the ability of game developers to manifest their insane ideas and give them life. In the face of why, Automata pushes back and asks why not. I can't put my finger on it, but despite all the flaws there is a warm feeling of passion and care that emanates from the game. It's like a curious kid who wants to try everything out in all new ways, makes a mess, but comes out of it proud knowing he tried something different and new. If anything, Yoko Taro's Nier: Automata is certainly an unforgettable experience.
its okay
Thanks for reading.
