Topic: Nier: Automata

@ellsworth004 The DLC does have some cool things in it. For instance there's a hidden fight if you keep talking to a random member of the audience in the flooded city colosseum after you've done all the main challenges there.

So, I finished Route B tonight. Some thoughts.

• The story structure was clearly designed around Route A. Route B doesn't have a great sense of pacing in its later half. It feels anticlimactic.
• I wonder if "Type-E" androids will be featuring in the main plot to any significant degree. That one quest felt like foreshadowing.
• I wish there was more variety to the hacking. I'm getting tired of destroying cores with my little ship constantly.
• There seems to be a decent amount of new story content here, but the cutscenes interspersed throughout are often so cryptic that I have no ideas what conclusions I'm supposed to be drawing.
• Besides developing the context around certain characters (the opera robot, the forest king, etc.), the BIG revelation in this route is that humans have been dead the entire time, and the Android leaders are keeping the illusion of human survival alive to keep the struggle against the robots on Earth going. Not particularly shocking, but maybe we'll get some decent plot twists that build off of this.
• There also seems to be the implication that YoRHa is some connected to the death cult featured at the end of Route A.
• Something I've wondered since the beginning of the game: why do androids seem so baffled by the notion of intelligent machines when they, themselves, are evidence that non-organic lifeforms can be intelligent and feel emotion? They talk and act like they're humans, but it's pretty clear that they're machines themselves.
• Maybe the androids are intelligent because the brain patterns of humans were digitized and transferred into their network before going extinct?
• The 'preview' of the next few routes was interesting. Hopefully this means the game will be adding actual new content instead of running me through the same set of events from a slightly different perspective.
• Overall, while I still enjoyed my time with it, I feel like Route B didn't add enough substantive new content that really required me to play as 9S to appreciate. It feels like padding.

I've completed 55% of the sidequests and am currently sitting at level 50.

@Ralizah I think your sentiment is a common one with route B.
I really liked experiencing things from 9S’s point of view, but you’re right that there is little actual new content as far as storyline. It’s been a while since I played so I’m struggling to remember what content was actually in each playthrough, but I remember B being a little repetitive for most of it. I also just played combat with 9S as normal melee and shooting combat and only occasionally used the hacking mechanic. Even though he does not handle as well as 2B in this regard, it was still more fun than hacking, imo. The main thing I got out of route B was a feel for 9S as a character and he really grew on me and is very likeable and easy to root for, which I didn’t feel quite as much when playing as 2B. I think that’s what stuck with me. Despite a lot of repetition, I believe some of route B will probably come back to be more meaningful by the end.
I think you’ll like the next route. I don’t want to oversell it, or spoil it. I’ll just say I loved the way the game evolved going forward from where you are now.

Route B did feel like padding to a point, I just enjoyed playing the game though so it wasn't too bad for me. I can see why some others wouldn't enjoy it as much. By the end of the game 9S is my favourite character of the three though I think. And playing as him in route B is probably important to solidify your feelings toward his character.

And yeah I'd be weary of overselling the final act too. I think if you don't like the game up to now it probably isn't going to change your mind on anything, but it certainly took it to the next level for me.

Yeah, the third play through is where the game really kicks back into life.

Personally, I didn't like 9S just for his voice acting. It was hammy and lifeless almost all in one which was quite impressive.

9S is alright, but I didn't enjoy playing as him as much as 2B. Hack and slash combat is much more fun to me then hacking.

The B route was a bit repetitive, but I feel it was needed to further build 9S's character and to get to know him better. I won't say anything about the next route except that it's worth playing.

5.5 hours later. Played two segments of 9S campaign in the third playthrough, and then the game forced me to switch to A2, so I'm in the middle of her second segment now.

• Before everything went to hell, I liked how (this is my interpretation) Operator 21O was trying to be almost motherly to 9S, even though it just came off as condescending to him. It was a fun dynamic.
• Not sure what to say about the direction of the game at this point. While what can only be called the very extensive prologue of the third playthrough was explosive and engaging, most of the motivating narrative factors in this game are gone. Mankind is dead. Aliens are dead. Adam and Eve are dead. YoRHa, along with all of those side characters, are presumably gone. 2B is dead. 9S is apparently losing his mind out of grief and has set out on some some sort of revenge mission against the world. A2 is just bratty and nihilistic, and doesn't even seem to have much of a larger goal on her horizon. Pascal seems fine so far, but considering how the machine village was utterly destroyed in 9S' timeline I can only imagine Pascal will soon be dead or wish that he was. If the game is intent on going all 'second half of Evangelion' on me, I hope it compensates somehow.
• On a positive note, while I'm not sure why it had to be purely text, I liked exploring Anemone's memories via the terminal. It would have been even better if the game had bothered to present that storyline in a more engaging way. Presumably her memories aren't experienced as pure text subjectively.
• I really like A2's combat style and longer dash.
• I also like the two strawberry-haired androids you meet in 9S' route. Very cute. I wonder what problems their previous models caused?
• Machines keep referring to androids as humans. Why? Because they were originally fashioned by humans? It's all very weird to me.

@Ralizah Yeah, it’s a fascinating subtext of what it means to be human. A well-worn narrative as it relates to artificial intelligence, I realize, but presented in a form of two separate “races” of AI, it has a different approach to the age old questions of what constitutes sentience.
I felt the same about A2 as far as gameplay, much more fun. I felt a relief that the playthrough is completely a different entity this route after experiencing just a point of view change during route B. You’re getting pretty close to the end probably at this point. I can’t remember how long route C was but it felt much shorter to me, but it was probably because I enjoyed it so much that it flew by as compared to route B. Soak it all up and I hope you’re still enjoying the ride. Can’t wait to read what your impressions continue to be through these final legs of the game.

lol
So edgy.

Although I will admit that I like the idea of a healthy (in an evolutionary sense) emotion such as fear being disastrous for artificial intelligences who have not evolved a cognitive and emotional apparatus to integrate it in an intelligent manner. Heck, it can be disastrous even for beings who are otherwise theoretically equipped to handle it.

Am I near the end of the game? We must be. There's not too many more lives to destroy before the end. I guess the people at the resistance camp. 9S presumably hasn't hit the bottom yet, either.

It's going to be funny if A2 is the only being in this game to come out the other end of the thresher relatively intact. Both physically and emotionally.

Oh, and retrieving The Pensées was funny, considering it was written by Blaise Pascal. Considering it's about Christianity, though, I'm not sure where it's supposed to hit thematically.

@Th3solution To be perfectly honest, the entire game has just flown by for me. Which is unusual, as I often have at least one eye on the clock when I'm playing games. I haven't been this invested in a game since BotW, and SMT IV: Apocalypse before that.

@Ralizah lots happens in the game, but moment to moment it doesn't all really make huge amounts of sense lol. I'm sure you'll have enjoyed it over all by the very end, and watching a few videos like the one I linked earlier might help you appreciate some of it further, though you appear to be clued up enough generally to make some solid assumptions (although a few I've seen have been off point and made me smile)

@kyleforrester87 I'm hoping the game still has some good narrative tricks up its sleeves. I feel like it must be hiding some real endgame bombs that will change how I perceive my entire experience with the game (Danganronpa and Zero Escape games are both particularly great at doing this).

You will almost certainly be messing around with some of the different endings once you finish the game as well so still plenty to get through yet!

So... I finished the game.

That was a lot to take in, and kind of all over the place, but let me see if I have the fundamentals down:

I feel like there's a lot of references to the previous NieR that I'm just not getting. What does this Gestalt Program entail? What are replicants? What event did some other versions of the strawberry twins fail to stop?

Well, anyway, the game somehow talked me into deleting my save data. It only seemed fair, since I had to burn through a bunch of other players' data to get through Ending E. That part of the experience was an interesting gimmick, as it allowed the game to concretize and increase the impact of its humanistic themes, and also to connect more directly with the player by prompting them to sacrifice something of supreme importance to them to help someone else. The argument is intuitive and works on an implicit level: after your experience with the game, and what it has attempted to communicate with you through its themes, plot and dialogue, would you prefer to hoard your save data for personal and ultimately meaningless purposes, or would you like to transform it into something meaningful and beautiful by sacrificing it for the benefit of another, real human being? It's the game's way of using fiction to impact the real world, of making an appeal to the heart of the person playing, and, perhaps, to illustrate that games need not be "silly little things" meant to do nothing other than distract us from the tedium of our ordinary lives as we march perpetually closer to the grave.

In short, as with Undertale, Danganronpa V3, and a few other games I've played over the years, it calls to mind the analogy of the finger pointing at the moon. These games don't exist simply to entertain, but also to make us think, question ourselves, and use the medium of video games to more deeply connect with our own understanding of the world as well as others. Instead of focusing on the finger (the video game, and the entirety of its fictional lore and environment), we turn our gaze to the moon (ideas, emotions, etc. that extend beyond the game and connect us with more fundamental aspects of ourselves).

Anyway... I dunno. I feel like the plot kind of falls apart in the third playthrough, and it throws way too much stuff at the player at once. The game feels VERY rushed in its third act, and big plot elements and introduced and discarded way too quickly. It was definitely an interesting experience, though. I'm actually not too worked up about the loss of the save data. I'll just replay the game someday if I want to clean up trophies, and having my data out there potentially helping someone is a much nicer legacy to leave behind than earning more meaningless digital badges.

Oh, and can I say that, reading through the list of potential messages to leave other players at the end of [E], I LOVE how the options gradually grow more and more abusive and weird, until you get to the point where you have the opinion of openly attacking the player you're helping ("You're worthless!") or talking about how much you hate PlatinumGames. Hilarious touch.

Haha, no I won't!

@Ralizah I think the backdoor in the YoRHA units was more to do with covering up the fact that humanity was already dead. The commander and any units protecting the moon server knew that humanity was gone, and information on the server meant that the likes of 9S would eventually find out as well. So YoRHA was designed from the start to be destroyed in order to hide all traces of the human moon colony being faked. It was the machines that would never be able to wipe out the androids, since the machines were programed to defeat their enemies, which paradoxically meant that they needed their enemies to exist in order to have any purpose. Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed the game.

For me, the third route was tough to get through. It was one emotional heartbreak after another. The big one for me was 2B's death after YoRHA falling. I was playing that quite late in the evening, and honestly I did not sleep that well that night.

After all that, I was so glad that Ending E ended on a more uplifting note and had the pods rebuilding the three androids.

@Ralizah Bravo! Very well said. I like some of your interpretations and I think the overall impact which you eloquently state and cite the analogy of pointing to the moon is a great way to describe my own thoughts. There’s a lot of depth and the more I think about it, the more I glean from the game and it’s presentation. The ultimate ending is pretty impactful. The ending credits with the shooting the names, recruiting help, deleting the save file .... it’s just the icing on the cake for one of the most uniquely presented games out there
I think that as you think back on your time with the game it will even prompt other thoughts and feelings over time.
As for the connections with the other NieR game, I can’t speak to that since I never played the original NieR game, or any Drankengard games, but I read an article once about the connections and it just went over my head because I didn’t have that context. I get the impression that there is some timeline interconnection but the games are pretty much independent in their characters and themes.
Did you come across the secret (well, semi-secret) trophy shop after the third playthrough? If you go back to the resistance camp before proceeding on to the final ending E, there is a woman that you can unlock a special shop where she sells all the trophies to the game, up to and including the platinum, for in game currency. In yet another fourth wall breaking move, this game does things I have never seen done before. To be able to buy the platinum is, in and of itself, I think metaphorical, much like the game save data deletion. And speaking of, I could have warned you about the save deletion so you could load a back up to the cloud or on a USB and still get to experience more endings if you wanted, but I didn’t want to spoil anything, or cheapen the impact of your getting to experience it yourself, and I ultimately think that ending and the options to connect to the player base throughout the world is one of the high points of the experience. But for future reference, if you ever go back, you can go to the camp and purchase any annoying trophies left over. Personally I had plenty of in game currency and succumbed to the temptation to finish off the last few trophies, although I earned most of them legitimately. I can’t quite tell whether I’m ashamed to have bought them, I don’t know. Part of me is, but part of me knows that it’s all part of the game mechanics and the idiosyncratic presentation and it’s role in the experience.
If you haven’t had a chance yet, I’d echo the encouragement to view some of the online articles and videos at some point, especially the one what was posted by @kyleforrester87 . It’s a long video, but I liked a lot of the research and thoughts the guy put into it and it gives a little interesting background into things such as the game’s director. Many of the most salient points you have already concluded yourself, but it’s worth a look.
There is just so much one can discuss about this game, which I think is part of its allure to me. Despite plot details becoming fuzzy in my mind over time, the themes and philosophical tone has stuck with me over the past year since I completed it. I do think I’d like to play it again someday, but part of me wants just to cherish the fond memories and just hold out hope for a follow up game or Yoko Taro’s next project.

@crimsontadpoles I would argue that the androids were much more defined by their struggle than the robots were. For the androids, it was 100% about liberating Earth so that humanity could return from the moon, whereas the robots were actively trying to become like humans in their behavior and the way they organized. If anything, it seemed like our "team" were constantly the aggressors, and the machines were trying to build themselves by copying humans. Although you're probably right about the moon server.

As I said in a previous post, I'm pretty good about noticing when my emotions are being manipulated, so it's hard for something in a piece of media to come from behind and really gut me. I can't say I had too much of a reaction to all of the horrors witnessed in the third playthrough. Things kind of snowball from "bad" to "worse," and I'm just like: "OK, we're doing the thing where everyone's life is destroyed somehow."

Which isn't to say that nothing has ever touched me or made me cry, but it's not a common experience for me. I do envy people who are able to easily invest themselves in fiction, though. I imagine it really increases how memorable the game is after-the-fact.

As for the last ending... I dunno. I wasn't really impressed with the idea that the pods were magically able to save the three major characters and perfectly rebuild their bodies. It feels like having your cake and eating it, too, like those Hollywood endings where they always get to the bit where, if the narrative had any integrity the main character SHOULD die, but they're always magically rescued somehow. I mean, it's definitely not bad on that level, or probably even bad at all, but I just feel like there should be more lasting consequences. I guess there are, since EVERYONE ELSE WE MEET IS STILL DEAD, but... I dunno. I feel like just breaking the cycle of rebirth would have been more satisfying for me. Either way, though, the gimmick at the end is one of the best I've ever encountered in a video game. I really love these devs who can find novel ways of manipulating the interactivity of the genre in service of broader truths about the world. VERY cool. I won't say it makes the game "art," though, as I've always found the alleged division between "entertainment" and "art" to be insultingly elitist. Kind of like those people, huffed up on their own smug, that try and make a distinction between "literature" and "genre fiction." As if genre fiction weren't also fully capable of artistry or conveying important truths about the world. But that's all a topic for another day.

RE: Popala and Devola... they were interesting, but I felt like their story, and really so many aspects of the final third of the game, were woefully underwritten in comparison to the rest of the game. I would have loved for it to go more in-depth to their plight. What we did learn was interesting, though. Especially the novel sequence near the end.

@Th3solution I actually didn't come across the woman who sells trophies, because I went straight to the final ending of the game. I actually had a TON of extra money left over (around $600,000 or so, I think), so I probably could have bought all of the trophies, but... is there even a point to trophies if you do that? I feel like it was probably commentary on the meaninglessness of the trophy system in and of itself. And it's a fantastic way to devalue the platinum if you only want them for bragging rights, because anyone capable of finishing the game has access to it. And, yeah, if I was savvier I probably would have backed up my save data (especially because, even though I wasn't really aware of the full context, I knew the game did some sort of weirdness with the player's save data at the very end). But... I dunno. I feel like the ending was probably even more meaningful for me because it ACTUALLY involved a form of sacrifice from me, you know? It might sound stupid, but it wouldn't have been the same if I'd saved my backup, bought trophies, etc. before actually destroying my save file. The game posed me a simple question in the enormity of the moment, and I had to make my choice then and there. It's also for the best, really, because I likely would have been unable to resist buying the trophies either. I'll use them as an excuse to replay the game one day, and, if there are any particularly annoying ones at the end of my second playthrough, I'll just buy em then.

And yeah, half of the fun of games like these are talking about them with people after-the-fact. I'll also definitely check out some of the interpretive material about the game over time, as I'm sure there's a lot of stuff that I just didn't pay full attention to. For now, though, I just have to say it has been a lot of fun discussing the game as I played through it. So thank you, along with everyone else who responded during my playthrough. It's even easier to stay engaged with a game when it's a kind of community effort!

@Ralizah Totally agree with the statement that forum discussion enhances the enjoyment of the game. It did for me too. The other game that did this for me was Bloodborne. NieR Automata and BB are probably two games that I probably would not have even tried if not for being active on the forums and they are among my all time favorites, largely because of the discussion and community feel that I had during my playthroughs.
So I know that it’s still fresh on your mind at this point and it will probably take some time to really let it all settle in, but where would you place the game on your personal preference list? Top tier, middling, or bottom tier? Do you think it cracks your top ten or twenty for this gen? All-time? I get the impression you liked it but was just wondering how much.

@Ralizah ha, fair enough on your last comment of your end-of-play post!

With route C, the bit where 2B is infected and can’t move was such awful design as if made by someone who hates gamers.

And seeing as you did fly through the game... did you visit Emil’s house (not the shrine) and fight him? That was a tough fight.

@Th3solution It was a fun but very flawed experience. It's absolutely in my top 10 for PS4 right now, but I also haven't played the PS4's library as deeply as a lot of you have, so we'll see if that changes. In terms of 2017 releases, I'd locate it in my top 5, right behind Breath of the Wild, Danganronpa V3 (it's funny how much I love that game now, because I wasn't really feeling it very early on), and Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Overall? Definitely a top 50 game, at least. Even with its flaws in execution, it held me in its grip for pretty much the entire duration, it asked interesting questions, has really fun combat, and the ending does something I've never seen in a video game before.

I was less impressed with the third playthrough than other people were, though. It was rushed and kind of sloppily plotted, and, if you don't include the end credits, there's no real interesting final boss. I still think Route A is the single best run of the game, even if Ending E will easily remain the most memorable section of the game overall.

While I wouldn't include it as one of my favorites, another game that really benefited from talking with people online, for me, was The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD. I was turned off early on by the boring opening, tedious Wolf Link segments, and grimy visual style, dropped it about four hours in, and would occasionally rag on it when talking to people on NL. But I kept getting responses to the effect of "You really need to play further into it!", and, finally, I decided to do that, and spent about a month playing through the game and talking about it on there, which helped me push through the early sections that I didn't like. And, honestly, it'll never be one of my favorite Zelda games, but I do think it has some strong areas to it (really fantastic dungeons, among other things), and I'm glad I was able to pretty fully experience it.

@Thrillho Oh yeah, that part in the third playthrough totally sucked. There were several times I died because I'd maneuver to a place that required me to jump, and enemies would gang up on me as I was waiting to recover for a second or two. I mean, I get that the game was trying to convey how crippled she was, and full points for that, but it wasn't fun to experience.

As to Emil: nope! If I had my data, I'd probably go back and do stuff like that, but I pretty much flew through to the ending. I also only completed... 75% of the sidequests, I think? Anyway, there's clearly stuff I didn't see in the game, so I think I'll play through again in Japanese on my second go some time in the future and fully experience the game before doing Ending E again.

I'm wondering: if I do the whole game again, can I upload yet another version of myself online? Or does it replace the one I uploaded previously? It's probably a moot point, though, because someone might use my data before I actually play through it again.