I honestly felt the same way, loved the combat and intense gameplay of the demo but was pretty bored by the rest of the game, especially the open world and side quests. Perhaps I went in expecting a different game, but the core game felt much different than the demo.
I personally put 20ish hours in and didn't have it in me to "finish" the game. To each their own, I understand why this game had such an intense following, but it didn't click with me either.
But man, that demo / tutorial level, just amazing. Had this ikaruga-ish meets hardcore action rpg feel. Would love to see a stage based game like that.
Exactly. I almost feel like it played a bait and switch on me and the truly out there spectacle moments are few and far between, and instead I'm fighting the same little robot guys over and over again. Disappointed.
Exactly. I almost feel like it played a bait and switch on me and the truly out there spectacle moments are few and far between, and instead I'm fighting the same little robot guys over and over again. Disappointed.
I say just keep pushing onto the story stuff, no need to do every side quest immidiately. Route A is the weakest of the game for sure, it took until Route
with those mini movie reels added a lot of depth to the robots.
The hacking minigames I just LOVE.
The extra story for the
singing robot at the amusement park
was very emotional..basically the feels I wanted to be getting from this game
Adam and Eve
were more fleshed out, be it from just one or two extra scenes
The Forest Kingdom tragedy
was properly told and hard hitting.
Then of course the
revelations near the end about the humans...coming in hints whilst hacking at first. And the info on the Gestalt Replicant project was cool.
Route A seemed relatively barebones to me plot wise...Route B gave me bits of more plot here and there that elevated the entire narrative many levels for me.
i really like how the cavia team/taro sort of embraced the video game medium. i thought the first game sort of pointed out how crazy the action game genre was with a protagonist that killed thousands of people, and made it known how absurd sidequests in general were by having the player like, wait 24 hours for their crops to grow.
but i think automata does a good job of going in the other direction, not pointing out tropes in games but finding ways to fit video game staples in diegetically. like even saving a game makes sense, as its your character saving and uploading their consciousness. and the hacking/audiovisual distortions, so cool. its feels like something that could only work in a game, but at the same time is insanely cinematic. it feels like the ending to mgs2 for 50 hours lol
Hopefully I feel the same. I'm about half way through route B and this is a mess so far. Even some story bits come out of nowhere and the route has not justified its existence so far, nor why the game decided to make you replay so much of route A.
It was infuriating for me. At one point I actually got knocked into a pit with no way out. It made me really hate the machines. I can't even get mad at the game. It was awesome feeling so angry at them.
with those mini movie reels added a lot of depth to the robots.
The hacking minigames I just LOVE.
The extra story for the
singing robot at the amusement park
was very emotional..basically the feels I wanted to be getting from this game
Adam and Eve
were more fleshed out, be it from just one or two extra scenes
The Forest Kingdom tragedy
was properly told and hard hitting.
Then of course the
revelations near the end about the humans...coming in hints whilst hacking at first. And the info on the Gestalt Replicant project was cool.
Route A seemed relatively barebones to me plot wise...Route B gave me bits of more plot here and there that elevated the entire narrative many levels for me.
Nice to see others love the hacking. Feels like we are a small group lol
The robots' backstories were both sad and humorous. The Forest Kingdom in particular was hilariously awkward in how we were just fucking everything up, and them realizing that robots don't age lol
i really like how the cavia team/taro sort of embraced the video game medium. i thought the first game sort of pointed out how crazy the action game genre was with a protagonist that killed thousands of people, and made it known how absurd sidequests in general were by having the player like, wait 24 hours for their crops to grow.
but i think automata does a good job of going in the other direction, not pointing out tropes in games but finding ways to fit video game staples in diegetically. like even saving a game makes sense, as its your character saving and uploading their consciousness. and the hacking/audiovisual distortions, so cool. its feels like something that could only work in a game, but at the same time is insanely cinematic. it feels like the ending to mgs2 for 50 hours lol
Yea, several reviews have pointed out that Automata works so well because it does stuff that only a video game can do, but still provides an engaging story nonetheless.
I had to jump across one whole gap around the edge of the city areas crater during this bit,
I of course went all corrupted mid leap and landed in a pile of robots that instantly mugged me to death
.
Speaking of design woes, another Route C point and I'm actually hoping people can shed some light on me doing it wrong but...
The boss in the desert as A2 just seemed like a clusterfuck of camera woes and projectiles that you couldn't possibly predict seeing all the angles they were coming from when the balls dropped. I'm ready to christen it the worst Platinum boss (well I'm sure that turtles game may have some duds) unless I was missing some key tactic for it like the defensive pod abilities or something.
Just finished Route A on Hard in 30 hours, with 45% sidequests completed.
The music and the sound design are outstanding, truly one of the best soundtrack I heard in a game. The world-building and the thematics related to some philosophical stuff (
the question of existence, and what it means to be human, unsubtle reference to Sartre, blabla...
) were nicely introduced. It's a shame that the actual game felt tedious so far.
Playing on Hard managed to sour my experience with the game: why did they bother to separate "Hard" and "Expert" since most bosses already manage to one hit/shot kill you on Hard? I never felt that the challenge was designed to be fair, and it wasn't rewarding either when overcoming those challenges. It's a shame that there isn't any difficulty level between Normal and Hard. Going back to Normal for the rest of the game.
I had to jump across one whole gap around the edge of the city areas crater during this bit,
I of course went all corrupted mid leap and landed in a pile of robots that instantly mugged me to death
.
Speaking of design woes, another Route C point and I'm actually hoping people can shed some light on me doing it wrong but...
The boss in the desert as A2 just seemed like a clusterfuck of camera woes and projectiles that you couldn't possibly predict seeing all the angles they were coming from when the balls dropped. I'm ready to christen it the worst Platinum boss (well I'm sure that turtles game may have some duds) unless I was missing some key tactic for it like the defensive pod abilities or something.
Super long, sorry, GAF! Got up to Route C, and my engagement in Automata has increased by 1000%. 10000%? I'm so much more impressed. I had been enjoying Automata well enough until that point, but was finding it easy enough to put down. The preview for Route C comes along, and shit gets real from there. It's a shame, as I think there is a happy medium between showing your cards too early and still putting your best foot forward. I think Automata has suffered a bit from not doing enough of the latter, considering the brilliance on display in Route C. Outside of the opening of Route B, I think the first 2/3rds of the route could have been removed, and for me, not much would be lost. I'd even say you could combine them, but the back 1/3 of Route B would lose its added impact. Seeing the other side to the bosses in Automata wasn't quite as emotionally charged and devastating as the original Nier, it didn't really feel worth it - Nier's second playthrough had better pacing, too. A good compromise could have been if the first half of Route B had been removed, maybe, and just left the back half? I absolutely know you can't enjoy the pay-off of Route C without the contrast of Route A/B, but I think cutting it down a bit would have been the best of both worlds. I say the above because Route C is fucking brilliant thus far, and needs to be played - but I can see why the pacing would be getting people down, as I also felt like I was going through the motions with Automata a bit for awhile there.
I wasn't expecting Route C to basically be Part 2 of the game, either, which makes me feel a bit more frustrated about Route B.
Route C spoilers -
It's such a clever intro, and as people have said, it only really works so effectively in an interactive medium. The abrupt horror of 9S getting enemy glitches as he tries to protect 2B was amazing. Fighting in the Bunker and hearing the deeply horrifying Muppet-tier distortions of your fellow androids and operators was so gloriously fucked up. It was effective having one of your primary safe locations taken away from you, and in such an horrific way. I legit didn't think 2B was going to die, I thought 9S would find away to save her - I think I got the impression from the trailers that it was going to be 9S dying, ha. It's funny, I didn't realize how attached I'd gotten to 2B as both a playable character and a companion. Whilst she's haunting A2 a bit via her memory data, it's rough that the 2B we knew could be truly gone. It's such a gut punch that I genuinely hope she does stay dead. Well, mostly dead outside of hauntings. I've played a few hours into Route C (mostly side-quests), but her loss is still really noticeable.
Route B/C spoilers, plus full spoilers for the original Nier -
Even though it hurt, I love that the humans were truly gone. I also have some guilt that, playing as Nier, we were the catalyst for the eventual downfall of what little of the Gestalts/Replicants remained. Like everyone else I'm sure, I knew something was suss with the humans, but had thought maybe they were on the moon for a bit before they all died. The fact that YoRha came before the Council of Humanity was great. I kinda spoiled myself in a way via the credits for Route A, as when Matt Mercer only showed up under 'additional voices' I realized that the Council of Humanity spokesperson probably wasn't going to amount to much, sadly.
I actually think 2B's death was more of a gut punch in a way than deleting your save after Nier sacrifice himself. With Nier's death, you're probably walking away from the game anyway, so it's easier to be more detached. With 2B's death, you still have to keep going - to keep treading through the familiar locations where she once was, and talk to the people she interacted with. Her loss feels a lot more apparent. I gave her Pod to A2, and it was a heart wrenching passing of the torch. The Pod interactions are great, too.
After seeing the familiar sets of teeth on the zombie machines, I'm also petrified the Emil duplicates have been used as base for them all. That would be absolutely devastating. Fingers-crossed it's just an art direction choice!
The localization continues to be great, and all the voice actors keep delivering. 9S in particular is a real stand-out, as is
Eve
, surprisingly. 2B goes from strength to strength in Route C. I really love D.C Douglas returning to the Nier universe, and he does a great job with 2B's Pod. It's also like having a portable Legion from Mass Effect, yay.
Also, holy fucking SHIT at the level of detail in this game. Returning to the Amusement Park in Route C,
and the now zombie robots are shuffling to the beat of the musical theme for that area, even though the music itself is gone.
THE LEVEL OF DETAIL, SON.
I finished
Emil's
side-quest in Route A, and now after finishing Route B, my main screen is now a shot of
Emil's/Kaine's house with the lunar tears
. I was not expecting the change, ouch.
On a sillier note, I'd upgraded my Spear of the Usurper to Lvl.4 at some point, and I hadn't noticed the description change. At the ending of Route B, and the start of Route C, I legit thought it was a plot point that
9S was turning enemies to his side without manually interacting with them
. Then playing as 2B with the spear,
I thought 9S was helping her from a different location
. I eventually realized what had happened when I hit one of the giant enemies, and it was suddenly my bestie (the enemy was Automata's giant equivalent of Bioshock Infinite's Handyman, forgot the name). It seems like Turncoat can turn anything that isn't a boss or a unique enemy, as far as I can see, and it happens really frequently. With Turncoat + 9S and that ludicrously OP spear throw, man, too good. It makes up for all the fucking
Got ending E. That was definitely something. Hats off to everyone involved making this game. One of my favorite games I've played this gen. Going to continue playing as much as I can before Persona 5 comes out, but I don't think I'll be able to 100% complete it.
Though I did feel the cast in Automata were nowhere near as great as the first NieR. That Kaine/Weiss chemistry was ace.
I saw it at that point(First Adam & Eve fight) and I was feeling like I was seeing things because there wasn't any comment on it by either of them afterwards.
Not seen her since but I'm still semi early on in Route B.
LOL so I just finished the first mission and woke up after 9S went through the settings with me. So after that I opened up the options meu and clicked on skills, where I saw the first skill was OS Chip. Says removing it means death so I thought "wonder if it actually lets you remove it then?"
Long story short, I just got my first ending, ending T....
I think my quest might have glitched? Doing a sidequest in path C
Doing that Sorting Trouble 3 quest and I moved all the boxes out of the way and defeated all of the enemies but I still can't talk to the NPC for some reason. I even went and defeated all of the enemies around the building on the ground and even then I still couldn't talk to him.
Also lol, it feels like the game just started. The beginning sequence was a good display of partnership between 9S and 2B.
It's starting to bother me how there are very few Scanner models however, given how important hacking seems to be. The virus-sequence was a bit silly. So many battle models but just one scanner? Eeeeh.
