First off, urgent advice: before attempting to play NieR:Automata on mouse and keyboard, install the Input Overhaul (NAIOM) - the game is NOTFirst off, urgent advice: before attempting to play NieR:Automata on mouse and keyboard, install the Input Overhaul (NAIOM) - the game is NOT playable without it, and I mean it - in some parts of the game it's impossible to do what's needed because of ridiculous controller>mouse mapping. Some other quality of life mods are recommended too - look up the definitive mod guide on Nexus.
Second urgent advice: do not stop playing once you see the end titles for the first time, this is only about half of the story. It's more than worth it to continue until you've obtained endings A-E; it's not just other perspectives later on, it's also literally a continuation of the story.
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On one hand, NieR:Automata really deserves a 9/10, but on the other it deserves at most a 7/10. In the end, I'm giving it an 8/10, and below I'll explain why.
It deserves a 9/10 because in many ways it's an utterly brilliant game. The concept of the world is fascinating, the few main characters are very authentic, and the story (once you get to the >actual< end!) is so powerful that it left me emotional for days. The world design is charming and memorable, despite sub-par graphics in the vanilla version, voice acting is amazing (the Japanese voice-over is hugely recommended), and the soundtrack is otherworldly - even though there aren't too many tracks there, they're SO GOOOD that I didn't want to stop playing the game just because of the music. Combat is fun and well-balanced too, with a satisfying progression curve. Maybe the strongest suit though is that the game is original and surprising in so many ways. I won't give examples here because it's amazing and you have to see it for yourself! But let's just say that there are at least 6 different modes of gameplay, with virtually seamless transitions.
And then we get to the second part - why it deserves a 7/10 at most. It's really down to the fact that I felt compelled to give two pieces of advice at the beginning of the review - part of it is due to it being a terrible port, and part due to questionable design decisions. The game is literally unplayable on mouse & keyboard, which is just unacceptable. Some examples: negative mouse acceleration in 3rd person mode (the faster you move the mouse the slower the camera movement), and broken aiming in side-scrolling mode (mouse movements cause the crosshairs to jump up or down, but it jumps back to horizontal after each increment). Luckily modders sorted this out (in say 98% - there are still minor issues at some stages).
And by far the most questionable design decision in my view is the decision to split the game into three playthroughs, forcing the player to essentially replay the game with only minor changes and additions after "finishing" the story, in order to get to the actual second part of it, which let's just say is CRUCIAL. Even though at the end of the first playthrough the game tells you "please continue" I wasn't sure if I wanted to or if it was worth it - I looked online and saw some people saying it was worth it, so I did, but also saw plenty of people saying they gave up because of the repetitiveness, which is SUCH A SHAME. After playing through the whole thing and thinking and reading about it a lot, I remain unconvinced that this was necessary - I think the different perspectives and elements of the second playthrough could be integrated into the first, just like different perspectives were integrated at the beginning of the 3rd playthrough. It would avoid alienating many players, and make for a more cohesive and less grindy experience.
After all the experience was so amazing that I couldn't give less than an 8, but I wish I could give more.… Expand
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