Having just finished NieR:Automata, I have to say it didn’t quite work for me. I love Platinum games, I love anime, I love philosophy, and I love questions around artificial intelligence and sentience, so in theory this should be the game for me. But in practise it just didn’t come together in the way I wanted it to. I think my main problem was I just didn’t care about the characters, in fact in the case of Pascal I found him mildly annoying.
As I didn’t form any real emotional connection with 2B and 9S, I never got past seeing them as anything but disposable, which obviously undermines the whole concept behind the game. In contrast, just thinking of the boy and Trico in Last Guardian makes me all emotional (just in case anyone thinks I’m a monster!).
In terms of actual gameplay, the action was good enough but didn’t have the depth of other Platinum titles and the role-playing elements didn’t feel fully realised. Even great ideas like the plug-in chips felt completely superfluous by halfway through the game, with little incentive to change your set-up.
Obviously, the unusual structure of multiple playthroughs and varying game styles was one of the main draws for the game but even this wasn’t completely satisfying for me. The flightsuit shooter sections were all excellent but the hacking sections, despite being inspired to begin with, started to drag by the end, especially when they completely impeded your progress. The second playthrough was fairly fresh and definitely worth the trouble but the third playthrough was really just a mix of the first and second playthrough, not actually adding anything new at all gameplay wise.
My entry for the video game turn-offs Hot Topic should have been having to play through locations multiple times without substantial change and NieR:Automata is definitely guilty of this. The sixth time in the factory was certainly not as exciting as the first (to be fair the amusement park was always exciting with the pretty fireworks).
I’ve made it sound like I completely hated the game but despite all I’ve said I still mostly enjoyed it. The music alone was worth playing for and I still have some of the songs in my head. I guess I just expected a classic and thought it’d all add up to more. Ha, maybe that sums up life in general.
Ryan O’D
GC: We think director Yoko Taro would be more than satisfied if that’s the message you took from the game.
