- Joined
- Dec 10, 2024
- Messages
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- Reaction score
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- 177
Nier is my favorite game, bar none. Figured I would share the Nier Automata review I have cooked up on here as a means to enter the guild.
---{ Gameplay }---
The fighting and overall game-play in this game are some of the best controls and fighting mechanics I have felt in a game to date. Platinum games have outdone themselves with this one. Everything is extremely fluid, tight, and just feels 'good' to play. My gripe comes with only one thing really, the hacking mini-game. During a certain section of this title, you're required to hack instead of using your strong/heavy attack. This is an interesting addition and one that I am not entirely unhappy with. That said, it can be a bit tedious and boring to hack smaller enemies when you want to dispatch them quickly. That said, it was always interesting to see what the devs were able to accomplish with the hacking mini-game, and I was always excited to see the layouts of the levels inside of larger/boss characters. At the end of the day, however, despite the difficulty ramping up in these instances, I would say that it grew a bit tedious even in these situations. I won't knock the game for its creativity, just that the amount of hacking chafed me a bit toward the end of route B.
---{ Audio }---
The sounds in this game are some of, if not the best sounds I have heard. The music is touching, melancholic and mysterious which really shook me to my core when playing. The songs match their locale perfectly, and really add to the tone that Yoko is trying to portray. The fact that an entire language (Emi Evans' Chaos Language) was created for singing in/lore purposes is insane to me. I love the songs in this game and jam out to them in the car at times. There are so many bops on the soundtrack, its really a treat. Some notable favorites of mine:
City of Ruin
Peaceful Sleep
Memories of Dust
A Beautiful Song
Amusement Park
and many more to be honest
---{ Audience }---
So the audience section had me thinking, would someone younger really appreciate the themes present in this game? I would say no, but the game-play and flashiness of everything definitely has universal appeal. The themes and tone of this game are dark, introspective, and a bit cerebral. I really don't feel that a child or teen would be generally able to appreciate these things to their fullest. As a 30-something, I think the notion of humanity, existence, and exploring the idea of moral relativity appeals to me much more than it would have as a younger me. I would say the audience is an adult one for sure, with younger folks being able to appreciate the game for other reasons like game-play and fun factor.
---{ PC Requirements }---
You need a relatively decent PC to play any game, but this one's requirements are nothing special by today's hardware. I ran the game flawlessly on a 5800X @ 4.8GHz and an RTX 3080, but it played spectacularly when I had a 980ti which is a 6-7 year old GPU at this point. A modern iGPU should honestly be able to at least match the experience had on consoles, so I would say its playable on most nowadays.
---{ Difficulty }---
The game can be pretty difficult at the outset. Its systems and game-play are a bit strange, and the battling seems intimidating at first. It's at the several hour mark for me that things just 'clicked' into place in my head and now everything is as intuitive as moving my own arm. That said, the game was a tad difficult at first, until this 'click' happened. From then on, only certain enemies posed a challenge for me, and I would say the minute-to-minute game-play is pretty satisfying but not difficult.
---{ Story }---
The story in this game is peerless. The way it is told and the level of polish is simply unmatched in my experience, especially with your average story playing out in a similarly mundane and droll way a la Call of Duty or some other bro-shooter. I like those types of games for the competitive game-play and the immediate gratification, but I come back to this game for the plot every time. One way in which I think this game truly excels above the rest is in how it delivers the story in arcs. Each play-through is different in meaningful ways so you see different aspects and occurrences happening from another perspective. This really helps immerse you in the lore and such because being exposed to each character's point of view helps you feel like you are living through their individual experiences. Each play-through reveals more and more about the world to the player, and the unlocking of information and lore keeps me coming back despite having to play through the same sections again. Route B was fairly notorious for this in both Nier games, having to play through most of the story again. In Automata, its significantly shorter though as much of the story is fast forwarded through to get to the new plot points. I haven't finished all of the endings yet, and I know there are C through E left of the main narrative for me, but this game really makes me want to come back and experience everything it has to offer. Its THAT good.
---{ Overall Score }---
5 lonely robots fixing their brothers out of 5
---{ Gameplay }---
The fighting and overall game-play in this game are some of the best controls and fighting mechanics I have felt in a game to date. Platinum games have outdone themselves with this one. Everything is extremely fluid, tight, and just feels 'good' to play. My gripe comes with only one thing really, the hacking mini-game. During a certain section of this title, you're required to hack instead of using your strong/heavy attack. This is an interesting addition and one that I am not entirely unhappy with. That said, it can be a bit tedious and boring to hack smaller enemies when you want to dispatch them quickly. That said, it was always interesting to see what the devs were able to accomplish with the hacking mini-game, and I was always excited to see the layouts of the levels inside of larger/boss characters. At the end of the day, however, despite the difficulty ramping up in these instances, I would say that it grew a bit tedious even in these situations. I won't knock the game for its creativity, just that the amount of hacking chafed me a bit toward the end of route B.
---{ Audio }---
The sounds in this game are some of, if not the best sounds I have heard. The music is touching, melancholic and mysterious which really shook me to my core when playing. The songs match their locale perfectly, and really add to the tone that Yoko is trying to portray. The fact that an entire language (Emi Evans' Chaos Language) was created for singing in/lore purposes is insane to me. I love the songs in this game and jam out to them in the car at times. There are so many bops on the soundtrack, its really a treat. Some notable favorites of mine:
City of Ruin
Peaceful Sleep
Memories of Dust
A Beautiful Song
Amusement Park
and many more to be honest
---{ Audience }---
So the audience section had me thinking, would someone younger really appreciate the themes present in this game? I would say no, but the game-play and flashiness of everything definitely has universal appeal. The themes and tone of this game are dark, introspective, and a bit cerebral. I really don't feel that a child or teen would be generally able to appreciate these things to their fullest. As a 30-something, I think the notion of humanity, existence, and exploring the idea of moral relativity appeals to me much more than it would have as a younger me. I would say the audience is an adult one for sure, with younger folks being able to appreciate the game for other reasons like game-play and fun factor.
---{ PC Requirements }---
You need a relatively decent PC to play any game, but this one's requirements are nothing special by today's hardware. I ran the game flawlessly on a 5800X @ 4.8GHz and an RTX 3080, but it played spectacularly when I had a 980ti which is a 6-7 year old GPU at this point. A modern iGPU should honestly be able to at least match the experience had on consoles, so I would say its playable on most nowadays.
---{ Difficulty }---
The game can be pretty difficult at the outset. Its systems and game-play are a bit strange, and the battling seems intimidating at first. It's at the several hour mark for me that things just 'clicked' into place in my head and now everything is as intuitive as moving my own arm. That said, the game was a tad difficult at first, until this 'click' happened. From then on, only certain enemies posed a challenge for me, and I would say the minute-to-minute game-play is pretty satisfying but not difficult.
---{ Story }---
The story in this game is peerless. The way it is told and the level of polish is simply unmatched in my experience, especially with your average story playing out in a similarly mundane and droll way a la Call of Duty or some other bro-shooter. I like those types of games for the competitive game-play and the immediate gratification, but I come back to this game for the plot every time. One way in which I think this game truly excels above the rest is in how it delivers the story in arcs. Each play-through is different in meaningful ways so you see different aspects and occurrences happening from another perspective. This really helps immerse you in the lore and such because being exposed to each character's point of view helps you feel like you are living through their individual experiences. Each play-through reveals more and more about the world to the player, and the unlocking of information and lore keeps me coming back despite having to play through the same sections again. Route B was fairly notorious for this in both Nier games, having to play through most of the story again. In Automata, its significantly shorter though as much of the story is fast forwarded through to get to the new plot points. I haven't finished all of the endings yet, and I know there are C through E left of the main narrative for me, but this game really makes me want to come back and experience everything it has to offer. Its THAT good.
---{ Overall Score }---
5 lonely robots fixing their brothers out of 5
