@dan_citi: I especially love the survival horro section. Sure, the game is a bit rough and having to beat the entire game again, get all weapons, just to get the true ending is annoying. But I still consider it to be better than Automata. <3
The first NieR is actually quite good. I recommend people give it a try, while the combat might not be the greatest, in terms of story and weirdness with genre shifting it trumphs Automata.
@thechris: I mean, the colored ledges is a weird fault to find with Horizon if you liked The Witcher 3. As correct me if I'm wrong, but it had similar ledges that Geralt could vault himself up.
Look, I get it. You love Horizon, and I respect that, but my issues with Horizon has nothing to do with the Witcher 3. Like yeah, Geralt can't scale mountains either like Nathan Drake, but that was never something I felt was needed for that game. Most open world games that involve parkour generally don't subscribe to the Uncharted formula, where you can't climb your average cliff if there isn't a prerequisite rock-that-is-animated-differerently-from-the-rest-of-the-wall to climb. Like it shouldn't be an issue with a game where you play as female Tarzan.
But it also seems to be one of the biggest issues some people have with game, including the ones who really enjoy it.
Tried the game and got bored with it. The mediocre voice acting and story just didn’t grab my attention enough to look past the tedious open world. The overall gameplay felt like I was just playing Tomb Raider, all the way down to the parkour being restricted to conveniently colored/animated hooks that Aloy can grab unto.
I feel the Witcher 3 has set a standard that most open world games just can’t match up to, it was a game that was good despite its open world not because of it.
If BJ's racist, violent dad doesn't show up later as a minor boss/setpiece encounter in an action game about nazis being the American government something went terribly wrong. Or alternatively, I suppose he gets to have a redemptive arc.
I'm playing through Nier Automata at the moment, and I might say it only takes 20 hours for the game to get interesting, or about half of the second playthrough. I'm on the third route now, and I think the plot on its own is pretty bad. Shit just happens because it happens, with little rhyme or reason. Obvious story twists are teased out extremely slowly. The second playthrough has scenes and exposition added that would have worked much better if you just switched characters occasionally the first time around, like you do in the third route. It's a bother.
But Automata does strong work with the environments and characters, and makes you care about what happens to them and how they feel. That's the part it does extremely well, and has made it worthwhile for me. When shit hits the fan, it hits hard. I dunno if I'd say that's worth the slog to get there, but for what it's worth Nier Automata does in fact get better later.
Honestly, I didn't care all that much about the characters as I did the first NieR. 2B's character seem to solely serve the purpose of being part of someone else's character development. 9S is fine though. A2 could have used more fleshing out, as I actually thought she was interesting, she was also generally the hero of the game. But she shows up once, and doesn't appear 'till near the endgame again. Unlike the cast of the first NieR, I felt there wasn't enough time spent to caring about these characters. Perhaps it's because of its nature as Platinum game, where there is a lot more emphasis on the action now. The minor characters were a lot more interesting, like Pascal, Anemone, and the other Androids and machines in the world than the actual lead characters or villains. Having said that, it is still as effective and well told a story as the first game.
It might have been a mistake to make half the main cast forbidden from showing emotion. I'm not a great judge since all I know about the original Nier are lore and boss videos I watched to get ready for Automata, but I do think the core cast in that game seems stronger. Grimoire Weiss seems wonderful. Emil looks like such a sweet kid with such a tragic turn. A2 is livelier than 2B, but she's still a few fucks and balls away from Kaine and her book. Except for angry dad Nier himself, I think I'd like those characters a lot more than most in Automata. I missed Emil's sidequest, so maybe I won't see more of him, but from the little he did when I've run into him I already like him more than most of the characters in the game. Pascal is similarly great, and luckily, in the game a lot.
Automata felt like it was a game that strived to find its place with regards to its gameplay, where the story hits similar steps to the first one. Even the afforementioned Ending E has a lot of similarities with the true ending in NieR Replicant. It's not sequelitis though, as the game is still amazing. The difference now is that it's no longer annoying to get the true ending, you don't have to play the entire game again, and no requirements like getting all of the weapons in the game etc. It's a game that went through the motions, but the world itself and the many NPCs, even enemy robots, are interesting. The music for each region really compliments the world's design, it gives it a story on top of the minor characters.
Emil's role in this game is really heartbreaking, but it's so much more effective if you've played the first game. When you fight him a second time, it really hits home I think. Both the English and the Japanese dub are excellent in capturing the dread his character has been going through. It just serves to remind me that the new characters don't carry the same weight as the ones in the first one did.
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