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[royox]

Ok here comes big text but I need to express myself after this (I really don't know if the tag should be LTTP or RTTP...don't get the difference lol).

Some months ago, in one of the FFXIV FanFestivals FFXIV players received this news directly from Yoko Taro and YoshiP "FF Shadowbringers will feature a whole crossover adventure (alliance Raid, content for 24 players) based on Nier Automata AND it would be considered Canon to Nier's plot and playing Automata would be mandatory to understand the plot, bosses, characters, locations, etc.

So suddently I, FFXIV player, decided it was the best moment to play that "best game ever" so many people was talking about months/a year ago because I want to play the Raid knowing 100% of what's happening. So I asked a friend about the game, what's the best version to play, how many hours can it take to end the game, etc.

So I got the game in Steam Sales (less than 15$) and got started totally unknowing even what kind of game I just got (to that moment I was 100% it was a "bayonetta-like" Hack and Slash and my info was that "IT HAS THE BEST OST EVER")

So I start playing (after 1 hour searching for patches and shit to make the game run properly at 60fps 1080p cause the developers are shit).

I'm playing with a cutie, 2B, the cutie of all the videos of this game I remember, the cutie of the nice butt. First level is fun, first I play with a gundam-like suit and then I reach the floor and it becomes the "H&S I was expecting it to be".
Mashing the 2 attack buttons and timing my dodges I end the "tutorial level" and bla bla bla bla bla got dropped into an OPEN WORLD GAME. What the actual fuck...IT EVEN HAS SIDEQUESTS!!!!

So i'm playing this game, that to this point has nothing special, gameplay is simple as hell, enemies are very simple and the only think that keeps me playing is my friend telling me "it gets better! keep playing".

Ok reach some interesting point where Adam makes his entrance and I get a little hooked into the story...totally expecting now a big plot twist. I keep playing, the gameplay now is boring as hell mashing the same button all the way, OST keeps not being "that awesome", boss battles are nothing special, graphics are horrible and the open world is horrible too). I force myself to keep playing cause the FFXIV raid.

Almost by accident I reach the final boss in like 10 hours. I'm surprised, friend said it was like 25h long game if I didn't care much about side stuff. Credits roll, got a message at the end "HEY IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE KEEP PLAYING!!"

"Ok" i think "we will keep playing". This time I'm playing as 9S and after a short introduction I find myself playing THE.EXACT.SAME.GAME.AGAIN but with worse gameplay (9S only has 1 attack button, he's weak AF and his way to deal with strong enemies is by the pirate minigame).

I ask my friend about this "hey i'm replaying what I did but now with 9S but it's...literally the same I did with 2B....is that normal??" "YES YES!! Keep playing!! It keeps better". So I kept playing the same exact levels and bosses as I did with 2B. Reach the obvious point where I'm guessing I will have diferent stuff to do and everything is the pirate minigame big version and controlling enemies that have the worst gameplay ever opening my way in a level I played before with 2B. I still don't get any intertest in the plot or much new stuff to get hoocked on the game. The plot twist you uncover as 9S is boring and predictable.

Reach final boss, same as before with 2B, credits roll. During credits shit happens "oh finally a surprise!!!". Credits are interrupted and the story keeps going. I'm 16 hours in of the game and I got the "YOKO TARO PRESENTS: NIER AUTOMATA" screen like the last 15 hours were just a precuel and the game starts now. . I feel trolled, ask my friend again, he insist on the "keep playing it will get much better!!" and I want to know everything I can so I get all the references on FFXIV so I keep playing.

Again with 2B, shit happens, i'm 9S now, BIG shit happens and I'm given the next trolling, a big tower rises and I'm getting a full screen with "NIER AUTOMATA" as if this was the first minutes of a game or movie. Ok so all I did before was totally a precuel and the game begins now.

I reach the part where I can choose between A2 and 9S, bla bla bla, I end the game once and I'm still unimpressed. Ask my friend again, he says "repeat the ending chosing the other character!!" I do that, get another ending, credits roll, game becomes a bullet hell against the credits, i die some times, get some messages from other players, only the credits theme and my faith that something spectacular has to happen after surviving this shit keep me trying, I end up getting help from other players. Game ends, get a 1 minute cutscene with the "real ending".

Afer that I get a message from the game "wanna help other players?"
"Yes"
"gonna erase your data, wanna keep helping?"
"Yes" (of course it's a bluff and it's not gonna erase my data"
Game proceeds to erase all my data.
Game ends.
Dafuk face but I don't even care.

Game ended and it never got better.

It only leaves me with one big question: what did I miss to feel this game was mediocre? I'm usually into this kind of weird games with a big twist or trolling but the story was so boring, the characters so boring, whe open world so bad, the graphics weren't even good, the gameplay has been the same since first second till the last minute...and I keep reading it's one of the best games of the generation, that it's so deep and so well done....and the worst of it is that my friend kept saying "it's going to get better!!! keep playing!!". I didn't even like the characters and only had a little <gasp> when they reveal the real purpose of 2B.

The best thing of this game for me is literally the OST...OF THE FFXIV RAID!!

Come on hear this, it's amazing

 

[GrayChild]

You're right, OP. It doesn't get better.

It's already perfect from the start.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

You're right, OP. It doesn't get better.

It's already perfect from the start.

It is.

 

[imsosleepy]

Gameplay in this game was soooo fun

 

[GreetingsMortal]

You’re not wrong. The gameplay, particularly the on foot combat is garbage, if you’re thinking of it as an action game.

if you think of it a jrpg though and focus on everything outside the base combat, everything else the game does is pretty amazing and not An experience I will ever forget. And I think that was more the point of the game than it being “fun”. Like a proto-death stranding...

 

[Kagey K]

You're right, OP. It doesn't get better.

It's already perfect from the start.

A couple of my friends quit because they died in the first boss and were pissed they had to start over. I tried to convince them to give it another go.

It’s a shame they didn’t because they missed out on one of the most interesting games this gen.

 

[Little Chicken]

I thought the game was overrated, honestly. Visually offensive, too.

The ending was good, though.

 

[Cybrwzrd]

I thought the game was overrated, honestly. Visually offensive, too.

The ending was good, though.

Visually offensive?

 

[The Bloody-Nine]

I played for 10 hours, got bored, and never went back to it. I almost never started it properly, after dying at the boss of the tutorial. That's 40 minutes I'll never see again. Horrendous game design.

 

[Ascend]

I'm going to leave this here...

 

[Punished Miku]

It's just not for you I guess, which is okay.

Spoiler

To me, it gripped me more than most games this generation. I played through it multiple times. Got the platinum trophy without buying any of them. Maxed out everything I possibly could. Got the DLC.

The main driving force is the story, the emotional content in the writing, the characters, the music. It all genuinely hits me. Just the opening to playthrough B is a pretty good example of what I mean, and the game has tons of stuff like that.

How did you not feel any emotion with what the robots were going through?

The game honestly made me confront my feelings about AI in reality as well. If robots really do achieve thought independently and can think and feel, then it really is immoral to abuse and destroy them. The game constantly is daring you to make this leap and change your mind. It shows you robot death after death while they try to just live, procreate, create societies and their own culture. The DLC makes you watch robots being tortured and enslaved while they suffer and beg for mercy, all the while the slavers taunting them and saying it's fine because they're just scrap metal. The game also makes you face the emptiness of valuing life itself and existence. If we can make the leap to valuing artificial intelligence and machine life, is that a good thing, or does that mean that essentially all life is pointless along with all of existence? Are humans just organic machines that are just as empty as the metal ones? You watch robots struggle to create religion and value and meaning in their lives but get coopted by a cult. You watch murder after murder of robots by the main characters, but none of it really matters. You watch robots commit suicide once they achieve the ability to think for themselves because they determine that existence is objectively pointless. And then the ending tries to salvage this dark analysis of life by bringing it back in the ending and saying the meaning of life is love and helping people, even if it erases your existence, and that there is beauty and meaning in that.

And then, if I'm not mistaken, the robots are actually the only hope left at the end of the game, when you learn that they are actually carrying the last seeds of humanity left from the first game when humanity became extinct. Humans don't live on the moon. And you see the robots leave in a spaceship they built, the last hope of life in another world where they may not be so persecuted.

And all this is set to one of the best OSTs ever created in gaming. And just as a nice little side bonus, the game plays like a simplified Bayonetta.

 

[Danjin44]

For me it’s my personal game of the generation, but I also understand it’s not type of game that’s gonna appeal to everybody, which is usually the case with most Yoko Taro game.

He makes weird games for weird people and thankfully I’m one of those weird people who loves his games.

 

[Mithos]

Quoting myself from this thread -> https://www.neogaf.com/threads/glory-to-mankind-nier-automata-turns-two-years-old-today.1473368/

I have never really liked games that play like Devil May Cry, Castlevania (3D), Rygar (3D), I've always called them "combo button mashers".

When I first saw this game, I was interested up until I saw the gameplay, it was fast paced "combo button mashing" (IMO) and lost interest.
However wherever I went (online) I kept hearing/seeing people saying how it was an awesome game, this continued for a long time, until one day an online store had the game on heavy discount, I decided to "well I'll try it out".

It was one of the better things I've done. Now truthfully... I'm not very good on these type of games "combo button mashers" so I had to play on the easiest setting on many parts, and normal on the rest to even get by. But by god this game is one of the first games in a very VERY long time where I did NOT skip/fast forward through any story elements or cut-scenes. The story being told is really really THAT good, and I didn't want to miss anything said.

Absolutely one of the best games I've played/owned on PS4.

Edit:
I'm even thinking of buying the game again -> Nier: Automata Game of the Yorha Edition

 

[royox]

How did you not feel any emotion with what the robots were going through?

I love Robot-AI games/movies. The "Robot" story Nier.A explains is just "one more of them". Maybe it's because I'm so used to that kind of story? I was very touched on Mass Effect games during the Quarian-Geth arcs by Legion when he asks if he has a soul on ME3...didn't feel anything on Automata, maybe because I wasn't attached to them like I was to Legion.

 

[nemiroff]

I uninstalled it early on after I was wedged between two spinning wheel-thingies that killed me - and the game just decided to go back to the beginning, intro and all (wtf).

 

[Lionel Richie]

From the moment this started playing I was hooked, little did I expect the game about hot androids would be the GOAT. In retrospect, listening to this song again it's like I knew from the start. It's a wholesome, wondrous experience.

 

[Katsura]

I don't get it either OP. I played this right after finishing Astral Chain and was so disappointed with the actual gameplay. The combat is incredibly mediocre, even more so when coming from AC. You can just abuse dodge the entire game. The story twist was so easy to predict. The hacking was atrocious. How did they manage to fail at making extremely basic twin stick shooter gameplay?

I did like the music, the theme park and peaceful robo village but as a whole it's massively overrated

 

[chimpsteaks]

I never felt anything for the robots because they don't actually have the brain chemicals that make them feel pain, happiness, sadness, anger - any real emotions. They were all just AIs that have learned to perfectly mimic certain behaviors and complexes that humans really do have because they actually do feel those things. Like I'm not actually meeting a robot that feels lonely, I'm just interacting with an AI that has learned to perfectly mimic what a lonely person would act like.

It was an interesting story for me regardless because it made me consider that exact idea, even if that wasn't necessarily the intended story beat. It was just a bizarre world of empty husks mimicking what humans used to be like and that was pretty neat

 

[Jigsaah]

Well I was an early adopter of this game and I never played the first Nier. I was blown away by the music, the gameplay was good, not fantastic, but felt unique enough. The story was really interesting to me. I dunno what it is about NierL Automata that grasped me, but I'm going to say your expectations were set too high due to your friend's and possibly GAF's heralding of the experience given that a lot of us were first adopters going in more or less blind.

You had all of us plus your close friend hyping you up. It's kinda like in Borderlands 3, a buddy of mine and I were playing through the game and finally got to Tiny Tina. Remembering how hilarious she was in BL2 I was telling him how funny she was. I inadvertently ruined the experience for him because he was expecting much more. Granted Tina is not nearly as funny in BL3 as she was in 2...but whatever, neither here or there.

 

[Punished Miku]

Well I was an early adopter of this game and I never played the first Nier. I was blown away by the music, the gameplay was good, not fantastic, but felt unique enough. The story was really interesting to me. I dunno what it is about NierL Automata that grasped me, but I'm going to say your expectations were set too high due to your friend's and possibly GAF's heralding of the experience given that a lot of us were first adopters going in more or less blind.

You had all of us plus your close friend hyping you up. It's kinda like in Borderlands 3, a buddy of mine and I were playing through the game and finally got to Tiny Tina. Remembering how hilarious she was in BL2 I was telling him how funny she was. I inadvertently ruined the experience for him because he was expecting much more. Granted Tina is not nearly as funny in BL3 as she was in 2...but whatever, neither here or there.

Yeah, overhyping can suck. Meanwhile, fans of the first NieR were going in with low expectations due to the gameplay and graphics engine in the first game.

 

[Doczu]

A couple of my friends quit because they died in the first boss and were pissed they had to start over. I tried to convince them to give it another go.

It’s a shame they didn’t because they missed out on one of the most interesting games this gen.

I borrowed this game from my buddy a few months back (maybe a year back?) and i started playing it on hard, csuse i am not some filthy casual, you know?
So now yesterday, after 16 hours of trial and error i've killed the first boss and the game allowed me to save.
I literally played the same opening level for 16 fucking hours cause i was too stubborn to drop the difficulty, cause i aint trying to write a kotaku review with some auto fighting chips.
So now, with the open world, side quests, beautiful sceneries and with the sexiest poly-ass to grace ones tv screen (and nagging wife asking why "she running naked, she just had a skirt on") i am happy i didn't give up like some ResetErs poster and went from hard to normal.
Once you get the flow of the game everything just works.

 

[JayK47]

I felt the game was truly unique and well worth my time. I may buy it on PC one day and play it all over again. It sounds like you forced yourself to play it and that is a bad way to play a game. Of course you were not going to enjoy it.

 

[GHG]

It's easily one of the greatest accomplishments of all time in gaming.

If you don't like it you have to be an uncultured heathen.

Become as gods.

 

[Little Chicken]

Visually offensive?

Awful graphics.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I also played Nier Automata just because of the raid in FFXIV and found that it is one of my Games of the Generation, ranks highly in my Games of All Time, and is also one of only two real contenders this gen for games which are legitimately Works of Art (the other being The Last Guardian).

So I don't really know what your issue is with it, OP. It's a masterpiece.

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

One of the best games I’ve ever played, a Top 5 game of this gen for me

 

[DeliciousDoc]

As someone who would be in the same position as you if I tried playing the game against my better judgement I thank you for the cause.

F

 

[Neolombax]

I gave the game quite the chance, played for I think more than 5 hours. I enjoyed the combat, but I dont know, it never really stuck with me. I hear a lot of praises for the game, but I just didn't find the game interesting enough. Not quite sure what it is. I played the original Nier on the PS3 with no problems, watched all the endings. This game is supposed to be an upgraded version of Nier, I'll give this game one more shot, maybe after I finish Fallen Order

 

[Griffon]

OP, you're telling the hard truth. We agree 100%.