Page 44 • Nier: Automata • Gaming • PS4 • Eurogamer.net

Ror 30 Oct 2017 00:19:19 20,336 posts
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@One_Vurfed_Gwrx There's absolutely more variety in Automata's routes, but it's lacking a reveal that changes how you look at the world, like the realisation of the shades' true nature in Nier. There is that revelation that the Commander tells 9S in route B but I'd been expecting that for hours at that point, so it did very little for me.

One_Vurfed_Gwrx 30 Oct 2017 10:25:20 4,467 posts
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Yeah, the twists were more predictable in Automata. A lot less surprises. Nier did suffer a little as I had played a lot of it years before then restarted from the beginning so a bit less surprise value. And it would be hypocritical of me to like the Nier nods while criticising the original sequences

Did you polish off the bonus bosses? (I didn't)

Ror 2 Nov 2017 16:06:27 20,336 posts
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No, I just wanted to finish off the five main routes. I haven't decided if I want to hunt down any of the other endings yet - I'll have a break and see what I think.

One_Vurfed_Gwrx 2 Nov 2017 21:58:28 4,467 posts
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I also only did the 'extra endings' that I came upon naturally rather than actively seeking them all out. I focussed on the main events.

KD 7 Nov 2017 14:49:45 3,575 posts
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This looks promising.

https://gematsu.com/2017/11/nier-producer-yosuke-saito-teases-series-future-developments

Humperfunk 7 Nov 2017 15:11:51 8,634 posts
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Great news!

Rogueywon 7 Nov 2017 15:16:51 12,387 posts
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Nier: Automata is one of two games this year to have come close to making me cry (the other being Persona 5). If I did cry - which I'm emphasise I didn't - they would have been rugged manly tears.

But still... yeah... I'd take more like that.

Rhaegyr 7 Nov 2017 15:38:42 5,499 posts
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Persona made you nearly cry?

Was it due to the excessive grind at the end?

Edited by Rhaegyr at 15:38:52 07-11-2017

KD 7 Nov 2017 16:45:45 3,575 posts
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Let's mock you for crying to Persona while keeping quiet about our own Nier experiences...

Deleted user 7 November 2017 17:05:32

i did ending E and i never got THAT option right at the end:
the one that says if you want to help others, and then deletes your save. i got the "help" from another player after failing a few times, and had all the ships, and the music change, and all that, but i never got that option. perhaps somehow i DID get the option and skipped through it? i had been spoiled about that part so i was expecting it to come up, but it never did. weird?

eshy76 17 Nov 2017 12:01:42 210 posts
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Well well well - I completed this last night, endings A-E and a few others. Straight into my top 3 for the year alongside HZD and Persona 5. 2B is such an icon and the soundtrack was so good I had to buy it...what a game, what a year...

Ror 17 Nov 2017 13:26:59 20,336 posts
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The beginning of Route C made me cry. But to be fair, it was either that or throw the PS4 out the window and hope it then gets run over by a bus.

eshy76 17 Nov 2017 13:46:05 210 posts
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That was a poignant moment, but did not bring me to tears.

What is bringing me to tears is the track Treasured Times on the soundtrack. I think it plays in the Forest area later in the game.

I think it's the tune I would pick as the background tune if I was to make one of those iPhone style photo galleries of myself to leave for my kids one day. * ouch my throat *

Frogofdoom 17 Nov 2017 13:52:45 17,973 posts
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This has to be one of the games that everyone loves apart from me, it just didn't click with me. The music is lovely and the art style is good but I found the gameplay pretty poor. Maybe I need to give it another shot at some point to see if it can win me over.

Ror 17 Nov 2017 13:56:14 20,336 posts
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I didn't love it. I thought it was good in isolation, but a massive disappointment in a few areas (and especially as I adored the first game). I don't know if I'd ever replay it, but it did make me want to play the first one again.

I love the soundtrack and various bits of world and character design though. I have the vinyl soundtrack on pre-order.

eshy76 17 Nov 2017 14:07:26 210 posts
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@Frogofdoom I also did not get on with it back in April/May. I think the story did not connect with me like the games I had played just before it (HZD and P5) and I think that's still the case after completion.

But after a month or two messing around with PES and GT Sport, I think my body was ready for another open world game and I was hooked this time. I didn't connect with the plot, but I connected with the characters and their stories. The gameplay switched around enough to keep things fresh too.

I would say come back to it after playing some shallow stuff like PES or Overwatch, etc.

Rogueywon 17 Nov 2017 14:13:49 12,387 posts
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This is in my top three for the year, without a doubt, alongside Persona 5 and Total War: Warhammer 2.

I wasn't that sold on it after finishing route A. Some pacing issues with the story and a bit too much backtracking for sidequests. But once you layer routes B and C on top of that, it really does turn into a superb game.

Frogofdoom 17 Nov 2017 14:42:02 17,973 posts
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@eshy76 I think that was probably part of my issue as well. I have a few bits I'm in the process of finishing at the moment, when they are done I shall try again.

Ror 28 Nov 2017 23:54:46 20,336 posts
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I was listening to the soundtrack today and some ideas started rolling around my head as to why Automata didn't really resonate with me the way the first game did. It got me thinking back on something I was half-expecting, half-hoping for during the story - I mentioned it in here while I was playing - so I thought I'd flesh the idea out a bit more.

Obviously, massive spoilers for both games follow in what will be a rambling, potentially incoherent, probably goofy stream of consciousness.

First off, I was expecting the 'revelation' of humanity's demise for the entire game. Indeed, the endings of the first game make it pretty clear that the human race is utterly doomed (through your own actions, no less! Lovely!), though I'm sure plenty of people that didn't play the first also expected that, given you never have any contact with them bar a few emails.

So that wasn't a surprise, even though it was framed as one. I know part of the point of the game is what meaning can these beings, created to defend humanity, find when their reason for being is long gone anyway, but it didn't really do much for me. You have these robots from another world and these androids created by humanity; both find themselves seeking meaning by emulating humanity (itself a rather tired trope with android/robot storylines) while they fight a pointless proxy war for long dead masters.

Dunno. Didn't do much for me, and more importantly, almost completely lacked the emotional gutpunches that NieR revelled in.

What I was hoping to see was the revelation that the consciousness of an android was actually a gestalt from the original game. That would have tied deeply into the first game while opening up some interesting avenues to really put its characters through the ringer (I mean, not that they don't go through some shit, but still). Imagine, these androids created by humanity find out that they were once actually human themselves; they'd had their souls ripped from their bodies, put on ice for a thousand years or more, then made to think they're just disposable, artificial lifeforms, created to do nothing but fight and die and fight again. How do they deal with that realisation? What does that do to their mind?

That could then open up some opportunities to really mess with the heads of both characters and players and get into some pretty bleak stuff. Perhaps these android bodies had previous inhabitants - maybe there was another consciousness inhabiting my body that was destroyed, deleted, purged to make room for me. Another soul that was here before me. I live and fight in this body, not questioning it - it's mine, a part of my whole; I flex my fingers and clench my first, I jump and kick and fight, with confidence in my being, mind and body as one. But this body is not really mine. It was someone else's before. Could they just delete me too? Replace my self with someone else's? And what happens to me then? Does me soul, my consciousness, my sense of self just gutter out? Will I go to heaven, if there is one? And if there is, could a being torn from its mortal bonds even be granted entry?

I dunno. I'm probably typing a load of bollocks here, just some stuff that was rolling around me bonce while I was in the shower earlier. Perhaps that last paragraph wouldn't even bother a group of beings used to replacing bodies and body parts. But I think something like that could work with a bit of thought (hopefully more than I've given it

) and really dive deep into that sense of existential horror that Taro's games already touch on.

I dunno. Oh, and I did warn you it might get a little goofy.

Edited by Ror at 00:02:01 29-11-2017

ModoX 29 Nov 2017 08:40:24 3,480 posts
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Wally.

Rogueywon 29 Nov 2017 09:11:30 12,387 posts
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@b0rk There's a third party patch (prominently linked on the forums) that fixes the fullscreen thing and a few other resolution-related issues.

Rogueywon 29 Nov 2017 09:21:22 12,387 posts
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@b0rk Performance was generally decent for me. There are a couple of areas (in particular, the watery section outside the resistance camp) which consistently produce framerate drops. These are fairly isolated, though (and reducing settings doesn't help with them as much as you might think), so I'd suggest just tolerating those areas.

KD 29 Nov 2017 09:23:20 3,575 posts
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Try that mod, I played most of it without and wish I did, can't remember what it's called maybe global illumination uses too much and knocking it down 1 is worth it and bumping the res up for the other option. Been a while so can't think exactly what they were.

Ror 29 Nov 2017 13:18:35 20,336 posts
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ModoX wrote:
Wally.

I expected this.

ModoX 30 Nov 2017 13:34:03 3,480 posts
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Ror wrote:

ModoX wrote:
Wally.
I expected this.

I said it in the100 but may as well restate it here - I didn't play the original so don't have that context, but Automata worked for me as a mood piece. Nothing happens, or rather lots happens but its whatever, it's more that there are all these different beings trying to emulate various facets of humanity, and it inevitably feels pointless, unfulfilling, and generally sad.

It does all the usual schtick of - are robots real? - are humans even real? - what does it mean to be human? - are we actually special in any way? In that sense it's not doing anything that hasn't been done before, certainly if you read books, but it's the way it manifests that on every level in the tone and atmosphere, the dialog, the characters, the plot machinations, the many endings, the final ending, the repetitive gameplay (let's go with the idea that one was on purpose).

Zidargh 9 Dec 2017 00:46:43 2,048 posts
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Help me out here. I�m very open minded toward new ideas and applaud designers who carve their own path (Parappa the Rapper was one of my first PlayStation experiences), but...

I�m about 4 hours in and I haven�t the foggiest what�s going on. I appreciate the various switch ups in camera angles that make it feel �fresh�, but everything feels so undercooked. Combat isn�t as good as Platinum�s previous output, it�s hard to connect to any of the characters, the dialogue with NPC�s is bland, graphics are OK... I�m struggling to understand why this is so widely lauded.

Maybe I�ve just played too many games that do specific things exceptionally well, but does it get better?

Nier: Automata • Page 44