NieR: Automata Spoiler Thread
- Thread starter BRSxIgnition
- Start date
Well if anything watch the Y ending stuff if you don't do it yourself. I didn't do it myself, but I don't like Emil anyways.
Yeah that's what I'm about to do. I'm not doing this crap.
Well, there is a very easy way to level up in this game. Fight the gold bunny at the amusement park a few times. Do it with 9S for the extra hacking XP. I went from level 70 to 99 in like 30 minutes.
You also need all the weapons maxed out to finish that quest. I think it's worth it since you can buy most of the materials and the weapon stories are worth reading, but that's up to you.
You also need all the weapons maxed out to finish that quest. I think it's worth it since you can buy most of the materials and the weapon stories are worth reading, but that's up to you.
If you fight the golden rabbit in the amusement park you can gain insane amounts of levels incredibly quickly. If you want to fight Emil yourself that is. Youtube is fine too lol.
"It doesn't matter. None of this matters!"
"But if it doesn't matter, why do we long for Yoko Taro like this!?"
"Why do we desire the touch of someone who wears an Emil mask!?"
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
BECOME
AS
GODS
AS
GODS
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
Haw haw haw
KO Traveling Hobo
Member
Yoko Taro is cute! CUTE!
I think it's closer to how the religious machines treated Kierkegaard.
YOKO TARO HAS BECOME A GOD
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
I love how he just bolted over the crack too lmao.
Punished Emil when?
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
Nier: automata?
Punished Emil not Punishing Emil
muscuto who makes custom PSO2 figures (mostly) sculpted a 1/7 2b
https://twitter.com/muscuto/status/853842161153880064
https://twitter.com/muscuto/status/853842161153880064
pls retweet them and not someone else reposting the photos
I know this isn't a spoiler but wanted 2 share
How About No
Member
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
There's a statement a few pages back about Automata mainly resonating via a deeper reading of its themes and developments and how they're interconnected, and it's a statement that I agree with, and why Taro games are particularly attractive and unique within a medium that really should have more content like what he produces.
It's not a declaration of pretension or betterness either, simply the differences in which a story can be conveyed and how to evoke a potent, unique emotional resonance with the audience.
The formerly cited The Last of Us and its exceptional "surface value" storytelling is a great example. I personally wouldn't define it as surface value, or that there isn't a deeper reading that can stay with the audience after the fact, but games like The Last of Us wear their narrative on their sleeve and construct it with linearity. Deeper reading comes from resonating with the cast and the experiences they go through, later reminiscing on said events and how they make you feel. Joel's poignant choice at the end is the quintessential example of that; the act is open and linear, but we the audience can reflect on his decision and ponder how we feel. This moral complexity grants longevity to storytelling framed this way.
Taro's work is more frequently fragmented and deliberately unorthodox, not out of ego but instead genuine interest. In his talks and interviews, Taro often cites interest in exploring characters, themes, and structure of games in ways that may not be seen as conventional or "acceptable" due to budget, marketing, audience, and so on, because by being unique these facets are inherently interesting to him. In narrative, he notes how he is interested in the "story" of a video game character can end at any point - a "game over" is an interesting template as what if that was canon, what if the hero of the story did in fact die there, that was their arc.
It's why Taro games are usually loaded with so many endings, an abundance of lore, fragmented multi-character perspectives, and so on. It's far less about linearity and 'twists', so much as content that exists as a whole and is experienced simply when a particular character is usually in the right place at the right time. And it may not make sense or flow all that well for a traditional narrative framework, but that's why you're encouraged to keep playing, reading, seeing different perspectives, and reflecting on the experience entire afterwards. You might not even finish with a sense of catharsis or resolution, but more often than not it's intentional and abrupt.
It's a writing philosophy not just woven into the construct of the games, but the characters themselves and their narrative arcs. And I wish more developers would explore this. Interactive storytelling is an incredibly unique medium that can express concepts and themes and narrative beats in ways that are distant from linear storytelling (like film and literature), but seldom attempts this.
It's not a declaration of pretension or betterness either, simply the differences in which a story can be conveyed and how to evoke a potent, unique emotional resonance with the audience.
The formerly cited The Last of Us and its exceptional "surface value" storytelling is a great example. I personally wouldn't define it as surface value, or that there isn't a deeper reading that can stay with the audience after the fact, but games like The Last of Us wear their narrative on their sleeve and construct it with linearity. Deeper reading comes from resonating with the cast and the experiences they go through, later reminiscing on said events and how they make you feel. Joel's poignant choice at the end is the quintessential example of that; the act is open and linear, but we the audience can reflect on his decision and ponder how we feel. This moral complexity grants longevity to storytelling framed this way.
Taro's work is more frequently fragmented and deliberately unorthodox, not out of ego but instead genuine interest. In his talks and interviews, Taro often cites interest in exploring characters, themes, and structure of games in ways that may not be seen as conventional or "acceptable" due to budget, marketing, audience, and so on, because by being unique these facets are inherently interesting to him. In narrative, he notes how he is interested in the "story" of a video game character can end at any point - a "game over" is an interesting template as what if that was canon, what if the hero of the story did in fact die there, that was their arc.
It's why Taro games are usually loaded with so many endings, an abundance of lore, fragmented multi-character perspectives, and so on. It's far less about linearity and 'twists', so much as content that exists as a whole and is experienced simply when a particular character is usually in the right place at the right time. And it may not make sense or flow all that well for a traditional narrative framework, but that's why you're encouraged to keep playing, reading, seeing different perspectives, and reflecting on the experience entire afterwards. You might not even finish with a sense of catharsis or resolution, but more often than not it's intentional and abrupt.
It's a writing philosophy not just woven into the construct of the games, but the characters themselves and their narrative arcs. And I wish more developers would explore this. Interactive storytelling is an incredibly unique medium that can express concepts and themes and narrative beats in ways that are distant from linear storytelling (like film and literature), but seldom attempts this.
so having completed it...
the music is great. maybe it's the one thing that really kept me going throughout the game. the combat was fine (kind of bayonetta-lite) and i enjoyed the customization and amount of fun you could have with the os, pods, weapons, etc. lots of little details really brought the world to life outside of sidequests too.
i liked the characters of 9s, 2b, and a2, but the story was just kind of all over the place. i suppose that was maybe the point in that it's pointless. it's all about struggle and how meaningless it is to kill when people are just trying to get by. the adam and eve machines are just a byproduct of that, and it's part of a fight that doesn't make any sense.
...still doesn't make the story very compelling. the best part for me was when shit goes down in the bunker and the credits play as though this is the sequel to nier automata. a segment shortly thereafter had me pretty angry from a gameplay standpoint, but aside from that and the entire retread that was ending b, i enjoyed the flow of the game.
there were a lot of little things that i liked. buying trophies (platinumed this game in the cheapest way), removing the os chip, 9s seeing what you as 2b did (maybe the best thing in this game?) were all little touches that i liked. creators having fun with the medium is something that doesn't happen much and it was cool to interact with the game that way.
and i wiped my save.
maybe i'm missing something with the story, which wasn't super special to me having this be my first drakengard game, but it was definitely all right.
now to play persona 5 for some super unfair comparisons.
the music is great. maybe it's the one thing that really kept me going throughout the game. the combat was fine (kind of bayonetta-lite) and i enjoyed the customization and amount of fun you could have with the os, pods, weapons, etc. lots of little details really brought the world to life outside of sidequests too.
i liked the characters of 9s, 2b, and a2, but the story was just kind of all over the place. i suppose that was maybe the point in that it's pointless. it's all about struggle and how meaningless it is to kill when people are just trying to get by. the adam and eve machines are just a byproduct of that, and it's part of a fight that doesn't make any sense.
...still doesn't make the story very compelling. the best part for me was when shit goes down in the bunker and the credits play as though this is the sequel to nier automata. a segment shortly thereafter had me pretty angry from a gameplay standpoint, but aside from that and the entire retread that was ending b, i enjoyed the flow of the game.
there were a lot of little things that i liked. buying trophies (platinumed this game in the cheapest way), removing the os chip, 9s seeing what you as 2b did (maybe the best thing in this game?) were all little touches that i liked. creators having fun with the medium is something that doesn't happen much and it was cool to interact with the game that way.
and i wiped my save.
maybe i'm missing something with the story, which wasn't super special to me having this be my first drakengard game, but it was definitely all right.
now to play persona 5 for some super unfair comparisons.
I never really liked seeing sentiments like this in general, because there's no real secret here or anything. It either clicks with you... or it doesn't.
That being said, while I already loved the game to begin with, I quickly saw that there was a lot to stew over (got a lot of help due to reading through this thread...) regarding this game in particular, such as how the revelations in Route C recontexualize (and basically improves) Routes A and B in numerous little ways, like a lot of 2B's vague dialogue for instance, or how some of the sidequests and other characters foreshadow it.
It's just humorous that since the demo everyone was wondering why 2B got so close to 9S in such a short amount of time, and turns out there was a reason for it all along.
Same thing I'm doing lol
As said above it either fully clicks with you or doesn't.
But I'll at least say why it clicked with me.
When I was going through route A i felt similar. Felt the story was uneven, that things were just happening, that it wasn't as well paced as the first Nier. It felt like a weaker story.
But when route B started and went on to show you the story book segments, and enemy names, I clued it super hard on what this game was doing. It wasn't trying to be like og Nier at all. You see, og Nier is a huge set of multiple character studies and as such everything about the experience is tailored to that idea. Nier is first and foremost a "character-driven story" so its characters and ideas surrounding those characters are given crazy levels of attention. This is especially true in how Route B recontextualizes events from other characters' perspectives, giving more depth to events, their actions and yours.
Automata on the other hand is far more centered on themes and theming. Everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) is in service to the themes presented. Names, places, side stories, side quests, even names of damn audio tracks. All of it services the themes in a way I have never seen in a game. Much like Nier's experience (outside of the gameplay and technical) is a finely crafted story, Automata's theming is so finely crafted and so well presented to the player that even now, weeks later, I'm still finding thematic connections, conclusions, and tangents to run at. I personally super enjoyed route B because it felt perfect as a re-contextualizing of the game to that point. Like when you go back to a movie and realize things weren't what you thought back when you first watched them, only this time, the game forces you to look at it with a fine lense (in this case, 9S's revelations and the "gifts" theme) For the most part, characters (outside of a few) server as analogues for different theme tangents. Adam and Eve are prime examples of this. They appear 3-4 times in route A and 6-7 times in route B. Thats a short amount of scenes, yet they are some of the deepest characters in terms of theming.
There's surface level stuff. Their names being analogue to the first humans being, and as such fitting for the first hyper-evolution of machine lifeforms. Them being hatred personified, but there being 2 of them (though only 1 is pictured and mentioned as having to do with hatred), symbolizing the duality of hatred as being both analytical/ curious, and emotional (which later ties into route C, with 9S' battle in his mind over his mental perversion/ murder of his 2B memories)
Then there's deep stuff. Like how Eve as a character is a super fuck you to early philosopher's idea of women and how they were inferior and dependent/"weak". (There is a great article on the transhumanistic themes in Automata that you should totally read, also look into the works of philosophers and writers whose names spawned the bosses' names) There are a lot more here, but you get the idea. Adam and Eve are multi-layered faceted theme points, as are many many characters and events in the story.
What I'm getting at is that Automata has a shocking amount of depth and intrigue, and the more and more you think about it, the more and more you get out of it. Its a truly rare for a piece of media to do that to me, let alone a video game where gameplay-focused theme-centered stories aren't a normality at all.
I personally love it because it made me think, it made me go through a roller coaster of emotions, and (at least with ending E) it made me actually want to become a better person.
So yeah, this game clicked for me. But again, that's just me.
(oh, and, I am playing Persona 5 rn (55 hours in). I still like Automata more overall tbh.
)i feel you on that and it definitely came out wrong. i meant it more in a way that i feel like i missed something and less that people are crazy for liking it. it was recently the same with me and breath of the wild.
for me the game parts are pretty good. like i said, i enjoyed the combat and the customization, and the presentation elements were good too (music and art direction). there's just something off about the story and i'm not sure what it is. i went back to look into the first nier to get a better feel for it and from my understanding it's:
1. thing from drakengard 2 (i have a sinking feeling this rabbit hole goes pretty deep) causes extinction-level event for humanity.
2. humans devise plan for protecting against disease, separating the soul from the body, and create androids to watch over the process
3. nier happens, and humanity dies, the souls never forming again with the bodies (replicants)
4. androids inherit the earth
5. aliens attack, send their machines down for the dirty work
6. machines turn on their creators and androids find a reason to protect the earth by creating their own god and yorha
7. something something nier automata happens
...so what are the replicants and what happened to them?
Ah yes, the transhumanism article was some great reading: https://tanoshimi.xyz/2017/03/21/violet-evergarden-spoilers/
I never get tired of reading other people's thoughts concerning this game lol
I never get tired of reading other people's thoughts concerning this game lol
The Replicants are the artificial bodies that were prepared, as the humans planned on using these bodies to insert their souls into once the disease is finally gone.
As for what happened to them, well, shit went down in the first game.
If you want me to spoil Nier, well...
1. Drakengard 1, not 2. 2 is non-canon. Queen beast got teleported to tokyo, as did the MC and his dragon. They turned to salt, kinda, and magic came to the world. So did White Chlorination syndrome which either kills you (makes you a salt piller) or makes you a slave-zombie.
2. Project Gestalt. Artificial bodies, take out the soul, basically that's it, more depth is found in the Project Gestalt reports.This was basically a wait-out plan for the the white chlorination syndrome (it had bugs)
3. Basically yeah. Well... it takes longer than that b/c Shades become Feral and Replicants relapse.
4. Technically Androids already inherited the earth, but they were "hidden" I guess. Its more like they were waiting on humans to come back.
5. Yeah, Aliens invade, Emil fights them.
6/7. yep, as explained in Automata
You may just wanna play Nier if you wanna get a full grasp of Replicants. Basically they are infertal clone-ish shells that eventually gained sentience. Problems happened.
What ever it is, the answer isn't in the stories of the previous games, this is my first YT game, and the story held up pretty well for me despite not knowing anything about the previous games. References to old characters and events might land better if you knew about them, but what Nier:A have on its own is enough to make it one of the best games this gen.
My expectation from a game's story haven't been exceeded this much by a game since MGS1 and I was 12 at the time. Came in for Platinum gameplay and that part, while good, turned put to be the least of this game's excellence.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
While it's been marketed as a game that does not require its predecessors to appreciate, I am thankful I didn't go in blind. I feel there's enough very blatant referential work and connection that having accumulated knowledge from Nier makes certain discovers, like the files on Project Gestalt and background of Automata's Devola and Popola, more curious to unravel.
This is especially true for when you enter the tower and reach the library, and find it's modelled directly after the library/castle in Nier. It fits the motif of data collection and AI/androids/robots endlessly referencing old world material to derive meaning and purpose.
This is especially true for when you enter the tower and reach the library, and find it's modelled directly after the library/castle in Nier. It fits the motif of data collection and AI/androids/robots endlessly referencing old world material to derive meaning and purpose.
i appreciate the clarification. reason i started looking into it was the references to the first game that popped up near the end of automata.
to be honest, the reason i jumped into nier automata was due to the praise of the story of the first nier and the fact that platinum was behind the gameplay on this one. i don't think i'll be playing the first nier.
Did you play nier 1? These are big spoilers from Nier 1
Basically point 1 and 2 are right (although the threat comes from D1).
3-Gestalts are basically the souls extracted from humans, Replicants are just cloned bodies from the original host, that should act as a new non infected body. They are mindless beings that have no reasoning or soul, but with time they gained reasoning and consciense, so they get closed into "farms", with the androids watching over them.
Because you kill the Perfect Gestalt in Nier, and all Gestalts are linked with them, everyone will relapse and turn crazy. And because Replicants are also linked to their Gestalt, once the Gestalt relapses the Replicant gets the Black Scrawl and dies.
5- Aliens attacks first with their ships, Emil fights back and defeats them, so aliens kidnap one of his cloned bodies to make an army of machines.
3-Gestalts are basically the souls extracted from humans, Replicants are just cloned bodies from the original host, that should act as a new non infected body. They are mindless beings that have no reasoning or soul, but with time they gained reasoning and consciense, so they get closed into "farms", with the androids watching over them.
Because you kill the Perfect Gestalt in Nier, and all Gestalts are linked with them, everyone will relapse and turn crazy. And because Replicants are also linked to their Gestalt, once the Gestalt relapses the Replicant gets the Black Scrawl and dies.
5- Aliens attacks first with their ships, Emil fights back and defeats them, so aliens kidnap one of his cloned bodies to make an army of machines.
tbh I think Nier 1 has the better story, but again is a story that demands to care about the characters a lot. A lot of things from the events of the world are left unexplained or barely touch, like in Automata.
Benzychenz
Member
Can I make sure I'm understanding the game right?
So the aliens came down and battled with Emil, and eventually created their robot forces who then turned on them.
But then, androids have been battling the robots for centuries. Because the androids programmed to do war with them, their leadership basically wants the war to never end as that would cause them to lose meaning, so they create weaknesses among their own forces if they gain the upper hand.
Where did the androids come from? Are we to assume they've been here all along? We know the Devola and Popola models have at least existed since Project Gestalt went into effect.
But that doesn't work as they have the same machine cores don't they? Which is alien tech that didn't exist on Earth when humanity was around.
So the aliens came down and battled with Emil, and eventually created their robot forces who then turned on them.
But then, androids have been battling the robots for centuries. Because the androids programmed to do war with them, their leadership basically wants the war to never end as that would cause them to lose meaning, so they create weaknesses among their own forces if they gain the upper hand.
Where did the androids come from? Are we to assume they've been here all along? We know the Devola and Popola models have at least existed since Project Gestalt went into effect.
But that doesn't work as they have the same machine cores don't they? Which is alien tech that didn't exist on Earth when humanity was around.
That's just for YoRHa androids. The other models apparently don't have that.
I assume there are still some "original" androids running the whole thing, either on the moon or elsewhere on Earth.
They made the YoRHa androids to be disposable all along.
There's certainly some android mastermind that we don't know. It is said that all registries about what happened in Nier 1 have been erased, and also there was some kind of council that pushed the YorHa program. This is something that I felt it was missing, an explanation behind that. I guess it will come with a Grimoire Automata.
It is also weird because Nier 1, Grimoire Nier and Drama CD made Popola and Devola so important, like being probably the first ones created, more powerful that the Grimoires.... yet in Automata they're just like outcast that no android respects just for a reason that no one anymore knows.
But yeah, YoRHa are a diferent kind of android, they're all post invasion, hence have machine cores for that purpose.
YoRHa aren't normal androids. Conflating the 2 is only gonna make things more confusing for you. Androids existed before YoRHa units.
Rickenslacker
Banned
Can we just talk for a moment about how the aliens themselves are penises
Leona Lewis
Banned
I felt somewhat similarly about the story at first because the revelations came so quickly at the end that I didn't have time to process all of the implications.
But when you think about what those revelations mean and all the little breadcrumbs that were placed throughout Route A (2B acting so oddly distant and cold to 9S, her clenching her fists in the beginning after realizing that 9S had lost his memories, her accidentally letting slip an errant "Nines" in the forest castle, etc.) and what those little touches mean in the context of her actual designated role, it becomes so brilliantly tragic and powerful.
And that's not even getting into the intel text and what you learn in Route D about what 9S actually knew the whole time. The first few pages of this thread were really helpful in terms of getting a sense of what the ending really represented beyond the pretty amazing catharsis of the credits sequence.
I do agree with you about the beginning of Route C/infection sequence. I feel like that could've been handled with the bullshit meter dialed down a notch or twenty
ShadowSoldier89
Member
What I really enjoyed is how despite the framing being so grandiose, the story is deeply personal. The war is a backdrop for us to watch what unfolds between 3 androids and their pod companions, and goddamn did I care about all of them by the end. The framing adds such painful context to their personal stories in a way thats brilliantly futile.
did you guys really struggle with that, I got through it successfully 3 times without issue, except the first time I fell down into the hole towards the alien ship. Climbed the ladder no problem then just had to wait at the top to be able to jump again. I found it to be a powerful piece of video game storytelling through frustrating gameplay limitations.I do agree with you about the beginning of Route C/infection sequence. I feel like that could've been handled with the bullshit meter dialed down a notch or twenty
I'm really impressed with how the references to the first game ended up being used - it's so easy to lean back on shallow nostalgia in later entries of a series; but Automata manages to present a narrative that can be appreciated by people totally new to the series, while also having meaningful connections to prior games that use their familiarity in service to the overall narrative and its themes. That library was a standout moment for me as well - the use of what I think may have been the exact same geometry, as well as replicating the original camera angles and little details like the boss trophy room; helped additionally characterise the machine consciousness through the players' memories of the original game - while also probably being pretty economical from an asset creation perspective.
I've said it a few times now, but this game's use of recycled assets (and padding through the form of low-overhead hacking sections) still strikes me as fantastically effective - for a genre which has struggled significantly with pacing and content creation; most notably over the last two generations, the way Automata was able to provide its narrative with the room it needed; with only a handful of aspects coming off as underbaked or rushed, is surprisingly rare.
The additional context it adds to A2's actions in Ending C in particular - that she ends up retaliating against a peaceful action enacted by a section of the machine consciousness that had given up on war; in the name of a cause she knew was founded on nothing, so that she could end her life in a way that she felt comfortable with - was particularly depressing.
That's an interesting perspective - it'd probably have been a good idea if that idea were better incorporated into the character as represented ingame. Maybe not quite to the extent of him being prescribed a vibrator to cure his feeble-minded feminine hysteria, but I'm open to the possibility.
Yea it sounds weird to say, but I don't mind purposeful frustrations like that so long as they don't overstay their welcome.
OniBarubary
Banned
That's awesome
Well, Devola and Popola models were among the androids who sent human data to the moon. So even if by the time the YoRHa project actually started they were already being ostracized (I don't remember if the game makes the order particularly clear), they still in a way had a hand in that.
So, while their personal story is indeed an outcast one about prejudice and discrimination, they still played a fundamental role in another one of the most important events in history. Overseeing Project Gestalt, and basically putting the gears of Project YoRHa in motion, that's pretty huge.
I shoud yeah, he does follow me after all
(and everyone else in the world) I was honestly on the fence about whether the whole save deletion to save another player was just for show, but I suppose this proves to me that it is at least somewhat genuine.Holy shit. I don't know how I would react to this. Just reading gave me chills.
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
It kind of is. Notice how dependent "Eve" is to "Adam".