Topic: Nier: Automata

@kyleforrester87 this ones on you. I ditched the idea of BOTW (it was £55) in favour on Nier Automata (£44).

Traded in Uncharted 4, Project Cars 2 and Driveclub for the privilege. Looking forward to it. Only botw wild from 2017 remains on my must play list now.

@themcnoisy hohohooo good choice mate. I honestly think you will really like Nier. But DO play all 3 "playthroughs" (chapters really) and do em back to back.

Enjoy! 2B, 9S and A2 all rock!!

@themcnoisy Get on the hype train! Don’t worry about that BotW trash
I’ll be interested to hear your thoughts as you play it.

@kyleforrester87 @Th3solution 3 hours in and I absolutely love it.

Once I wrapped my head around the controls (Ive switched it to control B so the remote sentry is shooting with RT rather than the bumper and the super shot is LT rather than the left bumper) its awesome. Im so shocked to see the 2d and 3d shoot em up sections, I never even knew they were in the game. Sidescrolling (darius), twinstick (nex machina) and 3rd person (starfox) all represented in the first 10 minutes. I was like wow! I just thought it was a good jrpg so was made up to see that.

Then when you hit Earth and all the menu mechanics start coming to the fore like custom chips. I like the idea of the save points too, adds authenticity as to why they are in the world. Also the soulsbourne dead character retreval is a nice addition, Im terrible at those games so to have that mechanic in an easier game (Im playing normal difficulty) is a bonus.

The only downsides are the bad texture draw distances, lock on has to be held down and is a pain to use 2 same side shoulder buttons at the same time and as I have no connection to the chatacters the grandiose music feels at times out of context (the musics top drawer just right now where I am upto at the beginning sounds over the top as I have no connection to the world or characters).

Early impressions are it is Great so far, in many ways a dream amalgamtion of my favourite game genres JRPGs and Shoot em ups wrapped up in far flung sci fi with an amazing over arching background story.

@themcnoisy awesome! The RPG mechanics kind of fall flatter the more you play I personally found but that wasn't a biggy for me because I was so into the story instead.

And don't bother with lock on imo, almost pointless (and disabled on higher difficulties)

@themcnoisy Awesome to hear you are liking it. Hold on tight, my man, because I feel like you’ll even grow to like it more as the narrative crystallizes. I envy your being able to experience it for the first time.

@themcnoisy Also I agree the graphics are not the best (but perfectly serviceable) - the main character models and animations are great and the framerate is solid which is nice. The music is awesome throughout IMO (THIS.CANNOT.CONTINUE.) I agree it can sometimes be a little bit OTT perhaps but it's the best soundtrack of 2017 overall.

@Th3solution @kyleforrester87 cheers team. Ive had a few disasters recently in Farpoint (cant play it vomit city), Everybodys golf (constant crashing) and No mans sky (shi+). Thats now been offset by GT sport, Edith Finch and Nier Automata.

I will play some more after work. Hoping to level up some weapons!

@themcnoisy I like the way the weapons handle differently depending on which slot you have them in. So 2 weapons basically feel like 4. As for chips I think shock wave and overclock are good, plus any that restore HP when either giving damage or destroying enemies.

Edit: Oh, and the saving thing is cool, but DO remember to save. I had the game crash on me a couple of times and I hadn't saved for 2-3 hours as I felt I was at no risk of death. Plus, occasionally a sudden death can come out of nowhere. So yeah, save!

Finished Ending A earlier and now continuing. Such an awesome game with lots of stand out moments so far. I laughed out loud at the machine Romeo and Juliet!

I agree that the environment graphics aren't the best but if it reigned in the budget and enabled them to make it then I think that's a good thing. The music is absolutely incredible.

@mookysam ready for your second play through?!

@kyleforrester87 Not stopping now! It's splendiferous.

@themcnoisy Played anymore Nier?

@kyleforrester87 no unfortunately, platinized psycho pass so will probably pick it back up in the week. Been a weird week since initially playing it. But Im pretty much good to go from Sunday.

@themcnoisy played anymore Nier? :')

@kyleforrester87 not much. Ive just got as far as I can on GT Sport, pure pool and Raiden V before they start to become annoying from a trophy point of view, just started replaying odin sphere tonight so will throw Nier on next.

https://venturebeat.com/2018/04/01/nier-automatas-yoko-taro-a...

A really interesting interview here if you've finished the game and got the time to read it. It sounds like there won't be a true sequel to automata, which I'm personally happy with because I think its story wrapped up quite perfectly, but I'm just looking forward to seeing whatever mad game Taro makes next!

@BranJ0 I love Taro, his interviews are always brilliant.

GamesBeat: For people like me who didn’t play the first Nier, would you recommend that they go back and play that first one after finishing Automata?

Taro: No, I won’t. [Laughs] We make games that fit within a generation and an era. We also try to make sure that each game is fun to play on its own. So I wouldn’t recommend anyone to go back our previous title.

I like this reasoning a lot. I see that some people are now going back and playing God of War games and I honestly find that a bad practice as those games are made for a different era and generation and they really haven't aged well. But to each their own, I guess?

On topic: I find those costumes in Nier Automata off putting so is there any way to change the way these androids look to something more decent? I'd like to play this game but as it is currently I'll never do it.

@NecuVise I'm all for going back to play old games if you genuinely want to but I certainly don't feel obliged to play games in the order they are released.

As for the outfits in Nier, you kidding? They rock! What's off putting about them exactly? I didn't find them to be (too) overly revealing in the game, although a lot of fan art seems to show them as being.. sexier than they actually are.

I don't let stuff like that put me off anyway. Playing Ni No Kuni 2 right now, and wasn't a fan of the chibi style characters but since I've been playing the game I fell in love with them. You'd probably feel the same way about the costumes in Nier once you get to like the characters.