Hey gang,

I recently finished Persona 5, and bought Nier straight after. Nier isn't the kind of game I'd normally play, but I figured that if I wanna enjoy games more, I need to broaden my horizons and go a little out of my comfort zone.

So, I picked it up, and for the most part, I'm enjoying it. But there's a few little niggles that are making me a bit skeptical.

Is there an easier way to heal than opening the menu every time? In the prologue, you get healed automatically as long as you have the items, which I thought was a nice touch. But now I'm up to the "open world" section. To heal, I have to pause it, open a menu, go to healing items, go to the one I want, use it, then back to the game. Is there a hotkey I'm not using, or is it like that everytime.

In addition to this, the map itself is absolutely useless. I just did the refugee camp. I did the 2 sidequests in there, and then the woman said "Go to the desert" for some light recon. I looked at the map, and there's a big icon where I'm supposed to go. Except I have no idea how to get there whatsoever. Literally none. I turned it off last night because I had no idea what I was doing. I suppose I'll just "Explore" when I get back on in an hour or so, but I guess I wish it was a bit more intuitive as to what I'm supposed to do. I've attached a picture of the map to show what I mean

If I'm missing something dead obvious, I'd love to hear from you guys. It's had AMAZING reviews everywhere, so I know there's something to it!

there is software for your android that makes it possible to auto heal also the controls are wonky imo shooting and dodging at the same time feels weird. But you can always remap your controller. and yes the map is really useless.

There's a quick menu thing which I forgot how to bring up. You can heal quickly there. Also, there are upgrades that let you steal life, regen it, or get some back after a kill.

The shortcut to your healing items is on the dpad, I believe it's dpad down but it's been a while since I've played.

If you go back to the factory after the opening mission you'll be able to retrieve your large sword, and I'm pretty sure the chip set that you start the game with is also retrieved this way, but if not you can buy another Auto-Heal chip from a merchant.

The map sucks. Not much I can do to help you there, not once in my 40+ hours of playing it did I come around to liking it. There's an NPC that gives some meta commentary on the game who remarks on the map being so terrible because it's a satellite image so androids just have to deal with it. Kinda funny, I guess, but doesn't make it better.

The gameplay (or the combat part of it) is solid, but nothing amazing, excluding the occasional changes from a third-person action game to a twin stick shooter. The world's mostly kinda bland otherwise and it's not really that fun to run around it, doing fetch quests or racing flying robots.

I believe most of the rave comes from the game's story and the themes around it. I thought it was okay, but way too melodramatic and quirky for my own taste, so I don't have as much love for it as just about everyone else seems to.

Like others said but I'll say in a bit more detail tapping down on the Directional Pad then instantly pressing Circle/B will use whatever last consumable you used.

As for the map it becomes clearer the more you find those Access Terminals and activate them after destroying the robots that are preventing them from working. You'll see in the image you've provided (three squre tetris-like blocks) that the areas where you have activated them have more geometrical indications of where it is. The way I found to make it easier to read was to tilt it to birds eye view as best you can.

Personally I think the whole game has had numerous design flaws ignored solely because of the cult-like reputation the game has and the things you noted are certainly some of them. So that's my warning I guess since like me you immediately saw things that seemed kind of dated/not well designed.

I'll also say, if you find yourself tiring of the game and you're doing side quests use all the willpower you have to not do the sidequests, they're superfluous and don't actually contribute much to the game and rarely do they actually reward you with anything worthwhile.

The game does get much better, but I found it forced me through about 15 hours of mediocrity before it actually started doing much interesting and by that point there was only about 5-6 hours left.

As mentioned above, Dpad down brings up a menu for your consumable. For the map, I could see you've already been to the factory, so the spot you're aiming at is the entrance for the desert area if I'm correct.

One thing I'd recommend is turning off minimap rotation in the options menu. The regular map doesn't have a set "default" orientation, so having at least the minimap fixed gives you a bit of reference for where stuff is. In other words, you can start to internalize that the camp is to the south, the desert is in the northwest, the bridge is to the east of the desert, etc.

(you do get fast travel relatively early on, but it's still helpful to have a general understanding of the map as you're running around)

As everyone else has said down on the Dpad is quick use of recovery items. As for the map, most objectives for the main quests tend to be pretty easy to get to, just make a beeline directly towards the objective and you should either get there or find the general path to do so. The side missions is where it gets a bit tricky and weird, especially with elevation and hidden paths that aren't on the map.

I wouldn't say that 8/10 - 9/10 are amazing scores, the game isn't flawless. It does some really interesting things with the story and I think that this is the reason people stick with the game.

Beside this, the PC controls are dreadful, playing with controller is a little bit better but I think its not enough. I think think the controls aren't very good if compared to Bayonetta 1.

People already stated that you have to use the D-pad to quick-menue stuff. Later in the game when you have enough weapons you can switch between weaponsets and pods allowing you to do some pretty looking combos by using the D-pad to switch between them so the game redeems itself later.

A thing I've seen often is that people expect this game to be short, like 20 hours or so. I think if you go with similar expectations people had with games such as The Witcher 3, expectations are way more realistically kept. Don't expect a short game and if you really feel like it, memorize the entire map just by running around for hours the game blatantly encurages this later.

Urgh, just sitting over here in Korea still waiting on a SEA release. First it was April, then it was May, now people say June. I'm beginning to think it's never coming here on PC.

Yo if you've only played it for 20 hours then you've not actually completed it. There's 5 'endings' to actually get the real ending.

The map never gets better. It always sucks. While it's definitely much more intuitive than the other games in the series, its still a bit odd and rough and shares a lot of the issues the original game had, but in a weird way that's kind of what you're there for. It's still probably not for everyone.

I honestly have no idea why so many people complain about the map. I don't remember a single situation where I ever got truly lost because of it. (Well, maybe once with a hidden quest location, but I doubt a more detailed map would have changed that.) It does what it needs to do by pointing you in the direction of quests and then you find your way from there, like most games. A lot of games are even less detailed than this with only a flat 2D map to guide you.

If that trip to the desert is the first one the game forces on you then there's no reason you should be lost. Just head toward the direction of the waypoint and the path should be obvious when you get there.

@alexw00d: I completed it got endings ABCDE and got the 80% side quest completion. The hour number i provided isnt accurate i just threw guess numbers because i uninstalled the game immediatly because you know why. It felt like 20-25 hours worth.

@zeik: I not seeing the issue with the map either. There are red dots if you go to map mode in the menu it will say what mission the dots correspond to. Mark the dot, then follow it.

I can relate to the map complaints - there's been 1 or 2 side quests that I just can't seem to find my way to even if I set a waypoint to them. I've been wondering if maybe it has something to do with opening more of the map as the story progresses...? I'm past the point of having fast travel but I still feel like I hit road blocks.

That's my only complaint with this game though. I'm really enjoying what I've seen so far. I've even found the side quests to add some decent flavor to the world. They don't amount to much in terms of gameplay but I like hearing how 2B and 9S respond to them.

Quick update:

I'm about 6 hours in, and I can't decide if I'm enjoying it or not. It's a weird game. The combat is just FINE. Nothing special, just feels kinda mashy at the moment.

I'll give it this though, the music is fucking terrific. I haven't heard a game OST resonate with me so much since Xenoblade Chronicles for the Wii.

Now, I'm not sure if I'm doing it right. I'm doing sidequests when they arrive, but I feel grossly "underlevelled" if that makes sense?

I just explored the forest, looking for the castle where the king lives. As I was moving further in, I fought a huge robot that was like, level 25. It kinda pushed my shit in, I had to just circle strafe and use machine gun pod to bring it down. I'm only like level 15, so I guess I might be underlevelled, even though it doesn't seem like the kind of game where levels matter?

Weird game. Took some time off this weekend so I can watch Evil Dead 2. Planning to head back in on Monday. Not sure if I'm enjoying it

I struggled with the map for quite a while, then I started to actually rotate/angle/zoom/pitch it and realized it can be super useful. Not perfect for sure but once you get used to it/find the "correct" camera position, it was likeable.

I'm ~55 hours in and am wanting it to end. I've mostly enjoyed it, but the combat and world have gotten old. I just want to finish the story.

I found that just looking straight down at the map made it fine. I will say that I wish the hacking and combat was a little deeper. Also, holy shit, the beginning of the 3rd segment will go down as one of my most frustrating moments in gaming.

It finally got released in Asia and I'm ten hours in and yes, this game is sometimes unintuitive. The map is functional enough: you only ever seem to need a general direction to find your destination, but the plugin chips, pod upgrades, weapon upgrades and probably some other stuff I don't understand yet seem to be inadequately explained. I find it all adds to the game's mystique. I love the atmosphere and melodramatic side. Are those android bodies I keep "retrieving" actually other players' deaths and I'm stealing their stuff? That would be cool. I played through the first Nier, and the way this games plays and looks is so much better. The story stuff so far is pretty good as well, but I'm a sucker for some over-the-top anime madness.

Pulling this up 4 years later, I also thought that I'm either stupid or getting old.

Can't say I've had these issues over the 100 hours I've played the game.