This review contains spoilers, click expand to view.
After playing Nier: Automata (NA), I've found it a bit hard to play video games that don't cause some serious emotional impact. Like, Hades is a great game, I love it, I do, but it doesn't make me cry and ponder my own existence and mortality.
So I was pretty excited about playing another of Yoko Taro's games, and, well... it's alright I guess?
Visually, it doesn't fare all that well. I know this new version is an update from the original, but man, it still looks rough. Environments are bland, enemy designs are messy and unremarkable for the most part. The updated models look decent, but they still don't look as good as NA's. Nier's and Emil’s clothes have some cool patterns on them, but Kainé's outfit is stupid.
The music is pretty good, but I prefer NA's. I find the tracks to be a bit more "in your face" than in NA, and since we hear some tracks over and over I did tire of them. Why do we hear them more often? LET'S TALK ABOUT IT
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
Barring the final area, there are 4 "dungeons" in the game. Doesn't seem too bad, but the big issue is that two of them (The Lost Shrine and The Factory) have to be played through 3 times (possibly 4 for one of them? I'm not sure) in one playthrough - and that's not to mention the multiple quests that tell you to "please rid [insert place] of shades" or "get a few of those [ultra rare drops] for me, will ya?" Two of these trips are done in the second part of the game – the part of the game that has to be played through 4 times. So you’ll run through those dungeons a minimum of NINE TIMES. That’s between 7 and 8 times too many - which explains why some tracks get too much air time.
If travel to these areas were fairly seamless I wouldn’t complain as much. In NA, there are very few loading screens, the fast travel has tons of useful spawn points, and even running from one area to the next isn't that painful. Here, each area has multiple loading screens. Fast travel finally becomes available during the second half of the game but it sucks. There are only 4 destinations available, and one of them is useless. This makes fairly trivial tasks horrendous.
Want to upgrade your weapons? Oh, sorry, there' no fast travel to the weapon shop, and it’s closed right now anyway. Devola has two different quests for you in Seafront? Well Devola can only give you one quest at a time. What's that? Your quest has made you go from Seafront to your home village, to the Aerie, to Facade, to the Forest of Myth, to the Junk Heap, just to get a bit of cash? Even the main quest has you hopping from one spot to the next to “find a guy”. It’s a massive waste of time.
If the transitional areas were really interesting and full of secret treasure and branching paths, it might have been pretty fun walking around these areas. But there's nothing to find, nothing to discover. I'm so tired of running through the Northern Plains just to end up in an area to say "Hi!" to someone, and rush off in the opposite direction a second later to continue my quest.
And if you’re hoping to play the game for the plot, well, it’s not that good. It’s extremely contrived. Nier’s quest, from his restrained point of view, is about saving his sister from monsters. He’s a borderline homicidal maniac when it comes to Shades, but with the information he has at hand, he is making reasonable decisions. The new information we get in the extra playthroughs doesn't really recontextualize his actions that much. Sure, we feel a bit worse for the bad guys, but I don’t really feel bad for objective monsters doing objectively monstrous things because dey haz feewings. There are many opportunities for secondary characters and antagonists to prevent conflict, but instead of trying to avoid conflict by communicating, they speak cryptically, intentionally obfuscate, and/or resort to violence.
Why do Devola and Popola help Nier in his quest to find the Shadowlord if it’s actually a huge risk to their plans? Why didn't Devola and Popola kill Nier when they noticed he was becoming too powerful, and just wait for the next generation before trying to enact their plot? Why does Grimoire Noir act like a supervillain and laugh maniacally if he actually has good intentions? Why does the Shadowlord and his Shade buddies pillage and kill if their goals are altruistic? Why doesn’t he talk through Grimoire Nier to explain to Nier and Weiss he's trying to save Yonah? Why didn't the Shadowlord find Weiss before Nier, considering Weiss was right outside his castle for hundreds of years?
Ultimately, even as a big (and I do mean BIG) Automata fan, I can't really recommend Nier, even for fans. Be it visuals, basic storytelling, character development, pacing, travel, level design, action, quest payouts, material farming, where Nier: Automata succeeds almost flawlessly, Nier stumbles constantly.… Expand
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