@zaldar: I suggest starting on normal and dropping to easy if/when you have to. I don't play many action games either, but I picked this one up very quick and had a lot of fun playing it.
It helps a lot that the game is surprisingly heavy on RPG mechanics and stats. Lack of skill can often be made up for in levels, item usage, and smart plug-in chip allocation.
@artmaddox: I find it odd that mispronunciation is so common with this game, given that it's a game about androids and machines, aka, automatons. I have never in my life heard anyone pronounce it "auto-mattons."
@steveurkel: There are 26 endings, but only A to E are real endings, and you only need 3 playthroughs to see them. Path A is probably the longest at around 12-15 hours (depending on side content), B is the shortest and can be completed in at least half that if you focus on the story, C maybe more like 10 hours?
Although I had over 60 hours by the time I put it down, so it can be a pretty long game if you want it to be. But I did basically everything.
@vinny: @alex: Alex mentions this a bit in the Quick Look, but I feel like I should emphasize that playing through the other main endings is very important to get the full experience. The ending A path is still "good", but I definitely would not have the same feelings for the game if I had stopped there.
The ending B path is more or less the same as Ending A, with some new stuff sprinkled throughout (which is why you could just make a beeline through it in a couple hours if you wanted), but the ending C path is very different and where Yoko Taro and Platinum really come together in the best way.
And please buy some proper health items guys. There's no reason to put yourself in a position where you can't beat a tough fight due to a lack of healing. Dan's not good enough at the combat to get by on skill alone. You're risking a lot of unnecessary frustration and possibly being forced to load up an old save to buy items and then replay everything after. Nobody wants that, I'm sure.
I'm glad someone at Giant Bomb is giving Nier: Automata a real chance. That game is real cool so far. I was worried we'd just get a quick look with the conclusion of "this seems neat, I guess" before moving onto the other big games and never hearing about it again.
You do need to go for the other endings to get the full experience though, (calling them alternate endings is probably a disservice even, given how important those paths are), which is not a brief experience, so hopefully it keeps Alex's interest long enough.
@muppio: Cutscenes are 99.9% of the best parts of Endurance Runs and Endurance Run-likes. The combat and mini-games aren't remotely as fun to watch someone else play compared to hearing their reactions to ridiculous story moments.
@artisanbreads: Majima is very different in future games, but it's not necessarily in a dark and serious way. Majima has the most over the top personality of any of the recurring characters.
I can't wait for them to play Kiwami, because that game gets fucking weird with Majima.
I'd like to know how faithful the dialogue from sidequests is to the original Japanese version. Are the lines equally ridiculous there or is the localization team just going above and beyond. In any case, I absolutely love it. Getting some very strong P4 ER vibes from this.
There's a degree of "westernization" involved in the localization to make it play better to English speaking audiences, but the crazy is definitely part of Yakuza's DNA. The stuff in this playthrough so far isn't even half as ridiculous as the stuff I've seen in some of the other games.
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