These transitions are made with minimal control fuss, so the player won’t be frustrated by their movement inputs suddenly changing direction, though at times the camera can be zoomed out too far to see what’s going on. Often the camera will sweep to the side and turn the game into a 2D platformer, or face straight down from above and become something like an old Zelda game. NieR: Automata loves to play with camera angles and alternative forms of gameplay. This isn’t to say that the combat is repetitive. This is especially problematic because sidequests don’t specify a recommended level. Large level differences can also make battles tedious, as enemies with higher defense and HP take exponentially longer to kill without being any harder to dodge. The myriad ways to take on robots is simply fun and engaging, which makes it a shame that the mechanics don’t encourage the use of any of these fancy maneuvers, as good dodging is pretty much all that’s needed to beat the game. There are even combined attacks that use both of 2B’s melee weapons at once, leading to countless permutations. Ranged attacks can be executed and skills can be charged up without interrupting other attacks. The combo system has an astonishing amount of depth, with each weapon having different combos that can change completely with small differences in input like holding down the button or pressing it late.
#NEAR OTOMATA UPGRADE#
There’s even an upgrade that can be equipped to slow down time after a dodge, exactly like Bayonetta’s Witch Time system. 2B can equip two melee weapons at a time, each assigned to either quick or heavy attacks, and dodge through enemy attacks with a flashy animation. Gameplay itself is fast-paced and reminiscent of Bayonetta. It’s even possible to save and reload the game normally, which takes a lot of the bite out of it, both in gameplay and as a story element. However, without the punishing difficulty of Dark Souls, this system lacks the same weight, especially since healing items are plentiful and can be used instantly. With an internet connection, other players’ corpses can also be found, to be either reclaimed for temporary stat buffs or repaired for a temporary ally. Borrowing a page from the Dark Souls series, whenever 2B dies, she leaves a corpse on the ground that contains some of her equipment and must be recovered.
#NEAR OTOMATA FULL#
Or does it? While the story takes the philosophical questions it raises in some wonderful directions, the death system is also a full gameplay mechanic. Androids in her organization are expected to regularly back-up their memories on a central server (ie: saving the game), so death for 2B means at worst a few hours of amnesia and a reprimand for wasting expensive back-up bodies. Her life may not have as much value as one might expect, though. Either way, she’s first and foremost a soldier and is willing to give her life for the cause. Not that she has any reason to question it, as propaganda messages routinely tell her the androids are on the cusp of victory. It’s this same millennia-old conflict that protagonist 2B has been born into, created solely to fight in what by any reasonable estimation is an unwinnable war against an enemy that the game quickly makes clear is only barely understood.
#NEAR OTOMATA ANDROID#
Not content to abandon their homeworld forever, the humans then created android armies with the end goal of eventually reclaiming Earth from the machines. Unable to stop the aliens’ army of self-replicating robots, humanity was nearly wiped out, with the few remaining survivors fleeing to a Moon colony. Nearly 7000 years ago, the Earth was invaded by aliens.
Make no mistake, NieR: Automata is a great game, but it could have been better.
And while the combat is vastly improved, it has its own flaws as well. The soundtrack is once again excellent, but the story doesn’t quite reach the emotional peaks of the original. What, then, can we expect when he partners with action-game superstar Platinum Games to make a sequel? Unfortunately, not a perfect game. NieR in particular received high praise for its story and music, but it’s impossible not to mention its boring gameplay. However, many of them fall short mechanically, being often tedious to play and not especially interesting to look at. Marked by creative risks that fail as often as they succeed and a sometimes bizarre approach to storytelling, it’s hard to mistake one of his games for someone else’s. Attached to industry behemoth Square Enix, he nonetheless produces experimental games that feel more indie than AAA. Developer Cavia, or more specifically their lead director Taro Yoko, is a bit of an odd duck.
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