Nier: Automata (Steam)
Time to fight for humanity.
Gameplay:
Combat mixes the snappy fluid dance of a CAG with Sh'mup elements of all things, and wraps everything up with a (J)RPG leveling/progression system. It's a really unique mixture I haven't seen anywhere else & it won't take long before you're swiftly weaving between foes & projectiles alike as you deal damage.
the world/exploration has a pretty typical JRPG setup to it, with you unlocking new regions to explore as the story demands. Some of them can be quite large/open while others are tiny, but in general you'll move through them in a linear fashion from a story perspective (of course there are a number of chests scattered throughout the map, and of course side quests to partake in). Oh, and a fishing mini game if you want to relax for a bit. There is a bit of an "open world" illusion as there's not usually any noticeable loading between regions (usually there'll be some sort of tightly enclosed path, like a sewer, between regions, where the outside world is probably loading in the background).
it doesn't have that many locations that I'd really refer to as a "dungeon", though it does have a couple, and it's just as likely that a chapter/region will end out in a prolonged Sh'mup segment instead.
It definitely has a bit of an auteur's touch, as gameplay systems & quirks are mixed in to make sense from a narrative perspective, and this is probably the most unique thing about the game that makes it insanely memorable. For example, the game opens with you initiating an assault deep into enemy territory, and you aren't allowed to save at all during this opening 1 ½ hour segment. If you die at any point here (or shut off the game) it's right back to the beginning to start a new game. It's tense, it's bombastic, it feels great to clear, and it'll make sense narratively once you get past it. The game has a lot of elements like this, and although to say too much would be spoilery, let's just say I saw things through to the [E]nd.
Outside of that opening gauntlet I didn't think it was all that difficult a game though (granted, I only played it on Normal, & apparently the highest difficulty is instant OHKO for any damage). Apparently it does the "Souls" thing of making you retrieve your belongings from where you last died if you want to keep them, but I never had to face this. At the end of the day it's pretty standard difficulty for a JRPG, so as long as you don't run past most enemies & keep up on doing side quests as they pop up (there are a few you can't do immediately though), as well as remember to stay up to date with your best equipment (here in the form of computer chips that boost your stats & give you other boons), before you know it you'll always be at least a few levels above what's required for the main story content. Honestly there was only one boss in the middle of my third "playthrough" that had some real bite, but by then I was so awash in restorative items (which I hadn't had to use much since the opening gauntlet) that I was just able to cheese my way through it with tons of items to spare.
Story:
the story follows 2B & 9S, androids sent from a base on the Moon to help reclaim Earth from an army of Machines that are part of an alien invasion (what's left of humanity ran to the Moon). The war has been going on for centuries with no end in sight.
It honestly has some great twists & background lore, and although I knew some were coming I rarely guessed correctly what they were going to be. Likewise I really grew attached to the characters, which was a double edged sword as this isn't a very happy game to put it mildly. That said there is the occasional moment of levity, so it's not (completely) doom.
It can be a dreary existence in this world.
Presentation:
It's not exactly cutting edge (especially today), but it has a clear vision that really holds up with a great atmosphere. It uses a lot of the typical theme tropes (desert, forest, & so on) but has enough of a personality of it's own that it infuses into them. The real standout though is the Amusement Park region. You can definitely feel the auteur touch here as well, whether it be the monochrome hues of your home base or the Gameboy inspired aesthetics of it's various digital datascapes like the world map (and more...).
Music is a real standout as well, with some beautiful theme music that really hits home with the game's melancholic vibes.
Conclusion:
This is definitely going to be a game that sticks with me a long time. I doubt whatever I play next would ever have a chance of hitting the same kinda highs as this, so I'm not even going to try (I've started up Valkyrie Drive: Bhikunni, which is very much "B-game" quality, so I don't expect too much from it, and it's also much more of a bright & preppy game, which is a nice change of pace). Anyhow, Automata is definitely in the running for the best game I've played for the first time this year, and ironically enough it's biggest competition is South Park: the Stick of Truth, which while also a top tier RPG, couldn't be more different in terms of vibe, lol.
Time for a nice break.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
Was disappointed with the ending battle between Robocop vs Robocop 2 (old man). Would've been better to end it after killing Wendel, and Robocop and Anne Lewis responding to the disturbance at OCP HQ. It is highly recommended to see the 1st and 2nd films before this, as you won't get all the references / easter eggs that's thrown at you every 5secs.
There's one thing that Teyon either overlooked or didn't think it's great as a gameplay thing. Robocop replenishes his organic parts with baby food. Where was the baby food dispenser at the holding cell? Couldn't Teyon implemented that in there? Maybe, it would be silly to have jars of baby food lying all over the place eg. sewers, steel mill, old Detroit, etc.
Overall, I had a great time with this old-fashioned kablammo, with Batman-style scanning for clues gameplay thrown in. This and the Indy game are two of the best licenced film franchise games that I've played this year. Even the skill tree and auto-9 upgrade systems were great.
Apart from the Robocop sequel coming out, I look forward to what other project Teyon would make. Either another licenced game or an original IP. If another licenced game, they have loads to choose from.
Die Hard
Aliens
Dredd – which one, the Sylvester Stallone or the Karl Urban one?
another crack at Rambo
Lethal Weapon
Blade Runner
Just finished Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo on Switch after about 10 hours of playtime. This is one of the best visual novels I've ever played. The story was so captivating from start to finish. A horror setting during 1980s Japan is right up my alley. Due to the horror setting, there are tons of cheap but effective jump scares.
Furthermore, it was fun experiencing the story through different characters, which I really liked, that eventually cross paths. The bite-sized nature of the story in terms of episodes made it more thrilling and your progress more clear. Also, sometimes there would be requirements in order to progress, for example doing something with one character and then switching over to the other character to fulfill the necessary criteria.
Moreover, the way you interact with the story through external means was really cool. It's a bit unfortunate that the true ending was really hard to figure out on your own as the rest of the game was fairly straight-forward.
I can't forget to mention the phenomenal soundtrack. The main theme instantly sets the vibes for the game:
All in all, this was an absolutely exceptional game. I haven't experienced such an impressive visual novel since Steins;Gate, which I played years ago. If you like visual novels, you absolutely have to play this one.
So yeah I recently played, and well beat Ninja Gaiden 2 Black some time ago. What did I think about the game? Well I think you can say that it was a very cool game with some interesting characters and moments.
I am not sure if it had something to do with the fact that Tamco Namco, or Team Ninja, used Unreal Engine 5 for the game which I guess can have contributed to make Ninja Gaiden 2 black look very nice, and well good imo.
Other than that I find the main story in Ninja Gaiden 2 Black cool and I can also state that I find the extra material in the game somewhat interesting as well. Not sure how many who have taken the time to explore it but I can very much recommend folks to have a look at it if they have a chance becuse it might be something something. Over what most ohter games have to offer . Its something with the game and franchise.
I feel lots of “good” things tend to happen on the screen when you play Ninja Gaiden imo:) So yeah guess it would maybe be something of an understatement to state that that the games look cool to me.
Beside the graphics and controls, I find the choices you make in the game are very cool. Because it very much opens up the game(s) in a kind of an (un)expected way . Its like chapter inself to me tbh. Elements .
I also think the characters in the Ninja Gaiden games, is cool as well. And underappreciated maybe. Not least from a graphics or animation standpoint of view so to speak. Not least the femele ones tbh are cool to.
I guess you can ask if the animations in Ninja Gaiden are one of the better in industry? Even if there is of course some competition in the space or market.
One question I have asked many times when it comes to Ninja Gaiden is btw why the franchise is not more well known then it currently is. It does not feel like Tamco Namco or Team Ninja never get that credit for the work they do which I do find kind of unfortunate in a way. Not least if we look at things such as animation and the general systems which exist in at least in the modern Ninja Gaiden games. To me it's like a little bit of a mystery in some ways because I understand that Tamco Namco is not like a major crop but I guess a quite small studio at least compared to some other studios in the video game business. To me Ninja Gaiden is something special. And a series I dont want to foregot about.
I picked up Labyrinth of the Demon King since the reviews have been solid. I’ve played about two hours of it so far and it’s really interesting. The act of walking can feel a bit stiff, but everything else is good, and sometimes even great.
The atmosphere is incredibly unsettling. It’s set in this gothic Japanese locale, and features that retro PS1 graphic aesthetic. It’s essentially a first person survival horror adventure, with elements of Sekiro (parry system) and Dark Souls (enemy designs).
Meanwhile, you’re traversing castle grounds, underground caverns, and cramped buildings with finding maps and solving puzzles akin to Resident Evil, all the while using your sword to kill enemies. There are also side quests, where you can upgrade your weapon(s). I’m not sure if there is a variety of weapons, but I’ve found various items that suggest there are.
So far, just in this short amount of time, the game has been great. I think my feelings will change, whether positively or negatively, on how long the game is, and if it will lose its luster. Right now, however, it’s worth the $15.00. It’s on PlayStation, but I picked it up on my Switch.
A sort of review of Division 2 in 2025 as a returning player / a sort of review of the Battle for Brooklyn DLC:
To this day, there is no game I have put more hours into than the Division 2 (unless you count like, maybe games like Monster Hunter World or Destiny, where I played them on multiple different platforms, but then you are fudging it a bit). But it was very clear the WONY DLC and the corresponding season were really meant to be the end of the Division 1 and 2 experience, ready to lead us into Division 3.
I'm not sure if it is because of the pandemic or something else, but it didn't play out that way, with the Division 2 moving into a multi year seasonal model, that was clearly extending a story beyond the limits of where that story was ever meant to go. They introduced new gear, new modes were added, along with new story developments but none of it was very substantial, and most of it was just a lot of remixing of what was already there.
To the shock of everyone I think, five years on from WONY, Division 2 got a second, true, expansion. Battle for Brooklyn. It brought back an old Skill from Division 1, injected the pool with both new, returning and reworked gear, offered us a new open world space and a collection of new story missions. All priced less than the premium season pass bundle to be clear, so I think they set expectations fairly around what exactly you were getting with this DLC.
This is the confusing part, because after beating the DLC, I feel really whelmed by the whole experience, but it is almost like for the price they set, they've sort of made it critically bulletproof, because how high can your expectations really be, with a price tag like that? My issue more with this though, is not really in the content offering itself, and more that I had hoped this DLC would be set up ready for us to step straight into the Division 3, but that isn't what this DLC is. Instead, it is a fairly meaningless side quest, broken into a few story missions which can be cleared within just a few hours, filled with muted, difficult to follow story execution, that leads basically to nowhere.
In addition, for someone like me who fell off of the Division 2 probably around 3 years ago the game is almost impregnable as a returning player. From a story perspective, it seems almost everything definitive up to the end of WONY has now been undone and Battle for Brooklyn makes no concessions for those who haven't played through every season. As such, villains I had killed in previous content were now alive, and we were on the same side, so it just gave me extreme whiplash and pulled me out of it. Using Wikipedia to catch myself up, as there doesn't appear to be anything in game I can use, I see the desperate need to keep extending this story beyond its intended shelf life has mostly required an extreme jumping of the shark. Now people can come back from the dead. Use AI and deepfakes to fake their own death or allow basically anything to take place, with a magic undo button. This for me basically kills all story investment, because the story can never have permanence ever again.
In addition, from a gameplay perspective, while truly meaningful content has been rarely added to the Division 2 over the years, there is still a lot of game here which you'll organically learn you way around as you go through your journey with the game. Coming back though, there is no reminders, nor anything to point out what may have changed, or been added (there are a mountain of pop ups you have to wade through when you log back in for the first time, but they aren't driven by context, so you'll read a bunch of stuff you won't understand, close the pop up with no clear how to access it again and then when you finally end up at a point where you may need that information, it has only left your brain. This means huge amounts of the content available for you to do in the game is buried within menus, under sub menus, within even more menus making it completely unclear what the long term loop is beyond the new campaign missions.
In addition to this, while it is neat the game lets you play legacy content from past seasons (if you can find it, which is no easy feat) this content is absolutely dead from a matchmaking perspective, so you either gotta hope you have friends who will play, or be willing to lower the difficulty right down (meaning terrible loot) as this game's tuning is now no longer single player friendly.
Yet, despite how negative this probably all reads, playing this game again just reminds me of why I fell for this game in the first place, and gave up hundreds of hours of my life to it. No other looter feels closer to an ARPG in terms of its robust systems, and mechanics. Even with huge chunks of the depth being torn out by Gear 2.0, there is still no looter that sets the mind racing with a drop quite like the Division does. Each build forming effectively an ARPG class of its own, offering new ways to play and engage with the game, offering you a new dynamic within a team, and with three years + a DLC worth of new gear to add to my collection, I'm sure I've got plenty of hours ahead of me, as I once again absolutely lose my life to this game.
I wrote this piece on Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition last month on a whim, and I'd figured I'd give it a small make-over and post it here now.
Xenoblade Chronicles is the first JRPG I ever bought. In the last few months of 2023, I became highly intrigued by this particular franchise due to the praise I’d been hearing for the third entry’s Future Redeemed DLC. It promised to tie up the narrative ends of the three games and mix them altogether into a glorious finale bringing this trilogy’s over-arching narrative to an end. As a fan of narrative writing in any form, I feel like it’s not that often this kind of joint resolution to three stories worth of different characters and narrative is attempted. The attempt and the apparent success of it is what ultimately got me to start it and experience the full journey, so that I will hopefully be able to experience the same level of delight and satisfaction by the end of it.
Admittedly, the game and I started off on a rocky note. The underleveled nature of my party compared to the very first enemies I was coming across made the combat feel like nothing more than an uphill climb with an unhealthy dose of RNG. The near-instant deluge of nameless NPCs giving me fetch quest after fetch quest filled me with a sense of dread only modern open-world games can match. The more than occasionally questionable voice acting gave me the impression that this might not be the kind of narrative I would be getting much fun out of. And so, after a rough three hours with a rather unimpressive first impression, I dropped the game. It was as I expected… JRPGs were simply not my genre.
Fast forward to about a year later, when I played Metaphor: ReFantazio, stealing the thunder as my first ever JRPG finished. I got along better with it to the point that I managed to finish the whole thing, which in and of itself is almost unheard of for me in recent years with the ungodly length of it. While the combat systems are entirely different, playing it did expose me to more of JRPG-style mechanics and the style of storytelling. And surprisingly, by the end of it, I was yearning for more. So, with my newfound appreciation of a JRPG game and a longing for another humongous undertaking, what other game could possibly fit the bill? How convenient I had a dusty cartridge of Xenoblade Chronicles sitting there just waiting for someone to plug it into a Switch.
I got the gang back together again, or rather the three or four characters I had met by the point I quit previously. I was quick to notice that something had changed within me. Something was not the same. The enemies I had trouble with just over a year ago suddenly were a total walk in the park. It was like I experienced real personal growth instead of living vicariously through my characters leveling up and upgrading their gear. I contribute that to two different ways in which I played differently. First of all, I made sure to actually level up to the enemies I was facing.
It might sound to an obvious fix to all of you role-playing aficionados, but as someone who had been exclusively used to playing the type of adventure or action-adventure games where keeping an eye on your level was mostly absent from the experience, going out of my way to keep my level on par was far from second nature for me. Secondly, which goes hand in hand with the first, is that I stopped trying to rush to the next big story beat and just enjoy my time with it. Long games, especially open-world games, intimidate me to the point I have often tried to limit the time spent finishing it as much as possible (and failing). Now that I had a, by my standards, ridiculously elongated playtime with the aforementioned JRPG under my belt, I felt less intimidated by it and left myself the space to just explore and get to the next waypoint on my own time.
The combat system itself is nothing to write home about. I appreciate that they tried to go for a different route instead of the usual turn-based mechanics of most JRPGs, but I think what they ended up with was simultaneously over- and underbaked with a sprinkle of RNG and far too many sprinkles of the same flavor. The endless tutorials you start the game with promise a probably hard to learn, hard to master set of combat mechanics, and that is how I experienced it at first. I had no clue what I was doing with any of the moves I had or what build I should even go for or where I should even stand. Add insult to injury that I absolutely hate creating builds for anything in any game and would rather just go ahead and play it. Arranging a bunch of moves out of many possibilities to create the most synergized set, deciding which armor sets fit my playstyle best, inserting my gear with the most beneficial thingamajigs to get the most power out of myself for combat situations… blah blah blah. I could not care less, and this game throws all of it in my face.
My solution was to simply ignore the thingamajigs aside from what I had collected from loot, just put on the armor with the best physical defense at any point, and stick with the default movesets the game decided for me whenever I’d receive a new character. I simply do not want to put more thought into it than that, and luckily, that was enough to let me mostly brute-force any average encounter without problems. The problem came in when I wanted to fight enemies slightly overleveled compared to my party, where I quickly realized RNG was a huge part of this game. You can get an enemy down to almost no health the first try, respawn, and somehow die without the same enemy having even lost a third of its health bar the second time around. That was incredibly frustrating, but luckily, I was barely ever in a situation where an enemy was notably higher in level than myself. And if they were, it usually meant I had no need to fight them in the first place.
A certain white-haired lady ended up my go-to party leader, as I found her skill set to be the least difficult to play, in a party with a (weirdly too old for his behavior) furball and a bloke whose sword I’d unapologetically stolen. They dominated my party so much that by the end I would’ve probably forgotten other options existed if not for the constant reminders of them in cutscenes. None of them saved the combat scenarios from being overly repetitive, and I think none of the others would have helped on that front either, but it was a solid party to get enemies down with in a quick enough fashion that I could deal with the repetition.
The ambush of exclamation marks on my mini-map materializing themselves into NPCs wanting me to pick some flowers felt less off-putting by now too. I figured that at this point I’d dug many a rock or slain many an enemy for people irrelevant to my saving the princess. What’s another odd job between friends? I’ll take your request and see if I get back to it within the next hundred working hours. That said, I quickly grew an entirely new appreciation for the 449 side quests (stay with me here) to the point that by the time I finished the game, I probably finished 98% of them. This part has less to do with JRPG as a genre as a whole, but with the Affinity system the game smartly implemented.
Most NPCs in the game are named and will in some way be related to other NPCs you can interact with throughout each area, which is presented in an absolute nightmare of a statistical chart called the Affinity Chart. Through this chart, you can see the ways in which all the citizens of Bionis are connected, whether that’s through a romantic relationship or because someone stole someone else’s lollipop one time and they’re still super upset about it. The genius thing the side quests do is that they integrate themselves with this chart, where it will update whenever you finish practically any side quest with new information or events that happened that affect the quest-givers relationship to any person.
Suddenly a fetch quest felt less like a fetch quest and more like integrating myself into a community and happily learning more about the goings-on, even if yes, it ultimately still was a fetch quest where someone lost their favorite teddy bear on a remote island. I became invested in the people living in this city through the stories the Affinity chart and the only slightly narratively dressed-up side quests were telling. It no longer felt like a chore, but like a chore I had to do because I didn’t want to risk upsetting Dorothy by not giving her life advice after I got her shoe polished at another colony roughly weeks of traveling away. The fact that finishing certain quests and unlocking certain Affinity between different NPCs unlocked more quests that were directly tied to either previous quests or their relationship too, just added a bunch of depth to it that I couldn’t help but appreciate.
And my final initial reservation, the quality of the narrative and the voice acting. I can’t necessarily say that I personally did anything to make either better or worse, but I can say that the way I engaged with it was less instantly judgmental and let me end up loving the narrative and characters for what they are instead of what I’d make them. The voice acting has a certain charm when you get used to it, and there’s actually a fair few moments throughout the narrative where the actors are truly giving it their best and mostly succeeding. The plot also quickly won me over and despite some pacing mishaps here and there, ended up being an emotionally resonant tale of a group of people doing the thing that they seem to always do at the end of a JRPG... as is my now expert opinion after having played only two. The journey to it, however, was incredibly engaging and filled with many highs to keep my commitment to it ongoing.
I do have to say that it’s not a perfect story and there’s definitely a few things here and there I ding the ultimate scoring of the game for, which mainly is the characters. While they’re all charming in their own right and serve their purpose, with most having solidly written character arcs and some real over-arching plot importance, their personalities are nothing more than that. They’re charming and serve their purpose in the story, that’s all. Outside of the necessities of even wanting to engage with them at all, they’re rather bland and lack much depth. I enjoyed spending my time with them in the moment as virtual avatars for playing through the game, but they’re not characters I would hold on a high pedestal as being the peak of character work, because there is simply just not that much to them.
The Heart-to-Hearts, which are events meant to deepen the relationship between two characters in your party, do some lifting to add a bit more to the characters, but are too few and far between to have any meaningful impact. They also, as a side note, are very annoying to complete as the game will lock them behind a certain Affinity if you have not yet achieved it when you first find them, and afterwards will refuse to let you know exactly where this Heart-to-Heart was when you eventually do reach the threshold and search for it in your menu. I’ve heard the Definitive Edition makes a lot of quality-of-life changes to the map in regards to quests, but this is seemingly an area where a change would’ve been highly appreciated yet was skipped over.
Something that I never got far enough to explore my first time around was the exploration of the maps you’re given to freely roam around, which turned out to be one of my favorite activities in the game. My issue with many modern open-world games is that they don’t truly encourage you to explore for the sake of exploring outside of putting a god-forsaken number of markers on your map telling you there’s some bandits to beat up here or another [insert time period-appropriate tower] to go up there. I never find exploration satisfying because even if I do decide to explore for my own sake, many of these open-world games feel quickly repetitive in their locales or the architecture they decide to put on the map. This is where Xenoblade Chronicles does a way better job at keeping the exploration interesting.
The game is divided into many different maps you’ll be traversing through to reach your final destination of the narrative. Each one feels incredibly different and new, making it so that you won’t quickly be bored of the type of environment you’re currently exploring. The maps have hidden landmarks you won’t be able to find other than deciding to explore yourself, and more importantly… it has the most serotonin-inducing visual and audio cue that happens any time you reach a new area the game deems noteworthy. Sure, it serves the main purpose mechanically of being a new waypoint to fast travel to, but the instant gratification I feel when this visual and sound pops up made exploring in and of itself worth it. Maybe I’m just easily entertained, I’ll concur. But in a world where Survivor-like serotonin simulators are now a genre themselves, I feel like this was likely intentional more than anything.
This brings me to the finale of the game and my thoughts alike: Future Connected, a little side-campaign added as a bonus for long-time fans in the Definitive Edition. I was pleased to see that my favorite white-haired lady returned as the main focus on the campaign’s narrative, as I’d gotten most narratively invested in her arc. And also, because I would’ve hated to get to grips with a new moveset this late into the experience. At this point I want to hear nothing other than "summon Earth!" and "summon Copy!" and many blasting sound effects while characters are constantly screaming catchphrases out of the poor Switch’s speaker. It served as a satisfying finale to some of the plot points left untouched by the end of the main game and ended the full experience on a positive note. It doesn’t reach the highs of the game at its best, as I don’t imagine it was intended to, but it never drops into the worst of the main games’ weaknesses either.
The most notable thing I found mechanically in Future Connected was the removal of the Heart-to-Hearts in favor of the so-called Quiet Moments. They serve the same purpose as the Heart-to-Hearts, but are simply locked behind story progression instead of Affinity. Unlike the Heart-to-Hearts, they also include full voice acting, which I believe was both a blessing and a curse. I often resented the lack of voice acting for the main game’s Heart-to-Hearts. These are supposed to be building blocks to the characters’ personalities, which felt cheapened by the fact that they weren’t even given full resources to bring the best out of them. Here they receive it, but the Quiet Moments often felt lacking in their writing and overly long due to it. There are a few stand-out ones involving a sister that really do a lot to develop that relationship, but it ultimately just made me wish that the same level of effort and attention was put into the main game equivalent. Oh, and the Nopon inspectors were delightful.
***
Verdict: 93 hours later and I’m left with an incredibly positive impression of the whole game. It has its faults, surely, but the journey was narratively impressive at its best and mind-numbingly engaging at its worst. I ended the game with full-star Affinity for each of the areas, and some real investment in some of the NPCs I met along the way. I can’t name a single other game with that many different NPCs and quest-givers that worked together to actually form a believable community of people that I actively went out of my way to help out. And isn’t that ultimately the whole point of the game? Rejecting the old and finding new ways to co-exist and thrive together? I can’t help but feel it mirrors how my experience on a meta level went exactly. I rejected what I thought I wanted from the game and let me teach me how to love it instead, and along the way created the kind of parasocial relationships that made me want the best for this world and for its characters to be able to thrive. Enough with the “narratively”. It was personally satisfying, and that is the mark of a great game.
Forums
Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread
Posts 2,381 to 2,387 of 2,387
Please login or sign up to reply to this topic