NieR Automata

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 NieR Automata is finally out! This game has been out about a week and half before in Japan and I had to do my best to not spoil the game for myself. This game is a sequel to the first original NieR game which was quite awhile ago that I really don't remember what happened other than it looked beautiful and have amazing music. The original NieR is a spinoff to the Drakengard games which I also played except the newest one. These games were really weird and disturbing in a good way. The Nier games aren't going to be that disturbing though. What's great about these games is how interesting the world is. In a way, it is similar to Dark Souls in which it has multiple endings and characters have different routes in their story. So I definitely recommend giving this series a try. The Drakengard games are quite old and it shows so you could read the wiki instead. You don't really need to know the series to get into this game so you can go in totally blind and be fine. Like how NieR is a spinoff on one of the Drakengard's endings, NieR Automata is the same with one of NieR's endings. The time between each game is big enough that they don't connect too directly. I think there are novellas or some media that goes into detail to what happens in between games, but I doubt any of them would be in anything other than Japanese.

 The setting of NieR Automata is Earth in a post war with alien machines. Well not post, the fighting is still going on. Humans have escaped to the Moon so there are no humans left on Earth. Androids are made and sent from space to Earth to fight alien controlled machines. Androids 2B and 9S are sent to Earth to fight these machinese, and are the main characters of the game. I didn't care about 2B and 9S from the trailers or the demo, but now that I'm 20 hours into the game these two are a cute pair in a platonic way. I am playing this game with Japanese audio and English text. The English text only follows the English voices which are a bit different. Japanese 2B is voiced the same way and by the same person as the Mikasa from Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin which is kind of funny but I like it. English 2B is a bit sassy than Japanese 2B. Japanese 2B has kind of that cool cold kind of personality that kind of fits her job as a combat android like a human soldier. 9S doesn't have as much of a change between the two languages. Japanese 9S is a more adorable cheeky little brother type while English 9S is the same but has a few annoying little brother moments. I won't go into story till after I beat the game and it will be under a spoiler box.

 I have quite a bit to say about the gameplay. First this is a bit challenging for casual players like myself, but not so that its frustrating. I've talked about this when I played the demo, but there's a lot of buttons you can press at the same time during battle. Its like playing a piano, but of course you don't have to get complicated. There are some moves that aren't told to you but you just have to discover which are probably in the guidebook. I have not found a list of them anywhere yet. I've mostly just spammed jump down attacks, and light attacks along with the pod guns and programs. Battles can be a bit hectic and confusing. Especially when there's lots of enemies and the bullet hell. Also when the perspective changes it can be a bit disorienting. I'm not a huge fan of the really zoomed out parts where its hard to see my character. Also not a fan of the lock on since I can't accurately lock on the enemy I want especially for melee. Lock on seems much better for range attacks with the pod. My ranged attacks have done the most damage in boss fights and is probably why I could beat the bosses without too much trouble honestly. The combat in this game is enjoyable, but its not something one can play for a long time. All the button pressing does hurt your hands so please take breaks if you plan on playing this for hours in one sitting. Also I do have too many moments when I have trouble jumping on simple platforms because it was just a tad too high for the double jump. Another annoying thing is accidentally hitting 9S when I was trying to grab items or whatever. I don't like that both X and O can be buttons to confirm things. There are 3 ways you can use items but they all frustrate me since I didn't really bother to figure out why I hit the touch button the centered quick menu pops up instead of the menu screen. Also also quick item use that pops up at the lower left side but both quick use options don't use the same button to confirm. So I hardly use the quick options and if they appear when I wanted to go to my menu I at east could use the options button to open the menu instead.

 One of the things I got confused at first was the Plug in chips. These are add ons where you can customize your HUD and bonus passive things like additional HP or Auto Healing. You can buy these or you can loot them from dead android bodies. You can fuse them like cards in mobile games to make them more effective. You also need to buy additional slots for these chips so I highly advise buying all the slots asap. The bad thing about these is that you can lose them. When you die you will have to retrieve your chips back from your dead body. If you die again before you get them back they will be lost so definitely get them back asap. I've lost some good chips and this is how I learned that this is a thing. Your flying pod can also have different attacks which you can buy and they are called pod programs.

 This isn't obvious from the trailers, but this game does have like an open world. There are side quests that are marked and you can get some early on even though those aren't accessible. The map is also in 3D but pretty basic like minecraft esque style which is neat. The side quests can be kind of interesting but some aren't that interesting. Whats neat about them is that when you finished certain ones a unique background music plays. Some are cute and some are creepily eerie.

 Overall, the game is pretty decent and would definitely recommend it! This isn't a game to feel good or have fun with since the it has some dark tones. The perspective changes makes a really artsy look to the game and the music is beautiful. As a tip, do not stop playing the game when you hit the ending. Another tip is try to not focus on sidequests too early on. Don't be like me who wasted time trying to do quests I couldn't finish and had to redo them over again. While some you can do others are better to wait till you have access to being able to finish them. The game does mark quests that you can't really reach or finish early on which is frustrating. Continue and the game will continue with more content. The game is on PS4 and PC on Steam.



There are 21 joke endings and 5 story endings. Each ending is labeled with a letter of the alphabet so yes there is an ending from A-Z. The joke endings are usually dying in certain points in the game with a simple ending summary and the credits quickly zooming by before the title screen appears. All the endings you've seen are listed on your save file. It took me about 20-ish hours to get the first story ending, Ending A. You can continue your save file which will lead you to other endings.

After Ending A, you start the game again (new game+) at the beginning but as 9S. He has a different skill set since he is a hacker but you will have the same stuff that gets carried over. The hacking is the same as in one of the bosses fights that has it happen during you first playthrough. Though calling it a playthrough isn't accurate so I will be referring it as route instead. Anyways since the hacking feature was quite early on the game I had forgotten about it since then. 9S' melee attacks aren't as good as 2B so having to redo boss fights as 9S isn't the most enjoyable thing to me at first. Instead of having triangle as the heavy attack, its now the hacking game. I really like the old school game music it has when you get into the minigame, but it is more bullet hell kind of game. I had a difficult time getting use to it. It did take me a bit to realize I could lock on in the hacking minigame which made things much easier. Also it too me way too long to realize that I could also hack enemies so to make them explode, have them attack enemies, or take over control of them. These were really neat but I only tied them out and never actually used them for anything outside the story. While doing the story again as the other character is neat, I'm really not a fan of redoing the story. Especially having to do deal with bosses that I do not want to deal with again and the hacking minigame isn't making it any better. Or so I thought at first. This second route is half repeated story, but the new stuff they sprinkled around kept my interest. Also the hacking does make the bosses a lot easier though it did take me a few tries to win them. At least your finished sidequests stay finished. Other than a couple sidequest, any other unfinished sidequests you will need to pick it back up again in order to finish them as they won't appear back on your quest log. You will have to do them over again which sucks. This second route isn't too bad. I did take a bit of time to find some of the locked chests that only 9S could open. It was kind of a pain, and some that require a sequence of movesets to reach I just left them for another time. Also was able to talk to Emil in this route. I really wasn't expecting him to be a little shop car driving oddly around the city playing music. I did his sidequest and it changed the background of the title screen when I finished the route. The really creepy part about this route is that there are glimpses of someone during some cutscenes. Spooky!

The 3rd route, things get super intense. This route switches between 3 characters for you to control. Each character is different enough that its a bit disorienting to have to switch between them. The beginning is you controlling 2B and 9S on this huge battle mission. This was kind of hard and I did die twice. Its been too long since I played 2B so she died on me those two times. The story also takes a big turn with another big thing changing the city again. Also the bunker and every other android including 2B are gone. You now can choose between controlling 9S or A2, the highly wanted-for-dead powerful android. Both have their own story paths so at least its something new now that the story is going beyond the previous 2 routes. The major thing in this route that made things much more frustrating was the lack of checkpoints. When I die I lose a lot of progress which doesn't make me feel good. It does make a big difference since for me this happens during the story part of the game which can take a while with no saving spots. I got pretty frustrated with the hacking minigame that I wished easy mode had any affect with it. I would be less salty if the lock on for it was better. I had issues getting it work half the time. Hitting the bumper buttons this much is not fun. Storywise this route is pretty bleak so I didn't enjoy it as much as the earlier routes. I really didn't like seeing 9S go a bit insane. The interaction with Pod and A2 is enjoyable but it did feel out of place to me. There's a lot build up as well in this route and the end leads to 2 possible endings. Luckily the chapter select unlocks after getting on the endings so you can go back and get the second ending easily. Getting both endings will trigger the last ending to the game. Before you see the ending you play that dark hacker minigame but with the credits. I hated it since the credits was long.

After seeing the last 3 endings, I have to say it didn't satisfy me. The build up gave me high expectations and the endings let me down. Its almost the same feeling I had with Final Fantasy XV, but this probably let me down more. I felt quite empty. Each route grew less enjoyable for me, but I wanted to reach the end even though its quite a struggle for me. The ending was too simple. It didn't feel rewarding for me. The final ending wasn't even a terribly sad ending either so I wish I could like it. While I know there's another boss and ending with Emil, but having to fully upgrade all the weapons to unlock it is not worth me time so I did youtube that ending. There wasn't any special cutscene for it either so I'm glad I didn't do that.

So my final thoughts on this game. It is good, but I am a bit bitter from the ending and the frustration especially on that hacking minigame. The most disappointing part of this game is that the open world part is too small. There's hardly much you can go to so it was rather repetitive and boring to keep going to the same places over and over again. It took me 56 hours to get all the story endings. I still haven't finished all the quests, nor found out what was behind the door in the castle or the elevator in the desert. I don't plan on 100% or getting all the trophies.

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