#i just started the route(s?) after A and B as A2 and this game continues to make me soooooo sad 😭😭😭😭😭😢😢😢😢☹☹😞😟😟😫😫😫

[the-best-bagel]

uuuu i wanna screw around in the nier tags but ive reached a point now where i know absolutely nothing and i wanna keep it that way but also i want to look at all the fanart and stuff 😭

[anthurak]

9S is the final boss though? Like his whole arc after 2B dies is him going insane until you get to the final fight with A2 with her being the obviously better choice.

Alright, ‘cracks knuckles’ guess I’m finally talking about those Nier takes I’ve never gotten around to.

Yes, you are correct. Which is why I call 9S a ‘blemish’ and not something that outright ruined the game for me.

It’s still annoying when you get into later parts of Route B when 9S starts stumbling onto all the big lore and backstory reveals with even Commander White dropping into emphasize how important what he’s finding is. As if the story is saying ‘aren’t you a smart and special little boy, 9S, for discovering all these important things’. Which combined with 2B dying at the start of Route C, makes it feel like, as I said, 9S is getting the ‘he was the REAL main character all along!’ treatment. Particularly when we consider that 9S gets to be the PC of both Route B and half of Route C, whereas 2B only gets Route A and A2 only gets half of Route C, effectively meaning that 9S technically gets the most screen time, story-wise.

Add on the fact that, as I said in the original repost, 9S reads and acts like literally every generic, cardboard-cutout self-insert anime protag-guy, to the point where some of his dialogue with 2B that I think the game wants us to interpret as ‘flirting’ feels like it’s out of a goddamn visual novel, and you can see why I consider him pretty insufferable.

It also doesn’t help that every time I’ve revisited Nier: Automata, I’m always finding 2B more and more interesting and compelling as a character. Just as an example, has anyone noticed that despite being seemingly the most ‘professional’ and loyal to the YoRHA cause on the surface of the three PCs, 2B is actually the most merciful of the three to the machine lifeforms? Like how when you first encounter non-hostile machines, 2B doesn’t want to attack them, stating that there is no reason to attack those that aren’t attacking them. Or how 2B is actually the MOST open of the three to talking and working with Pascal, whereas A2 is at first extremely distrustful and 9S just wanted to attack him on sight.

And yes, I really like A2 as well. Unfortunately the way her route is constructed means that she feels just as much like a replacement for 2B as she does a separate character in her own right. Which combined with the shorter length of Route C, makes her character feel a bit truncated.

And yes, 9S rapidly revealing himself to be a crazed, murderous incel simping for 2B the moment she dies IS in and of itself a great, twisted and interesting character turn, and I wholly agree that A2 having to Old-Yeller him is absolutely the better choice for the final battle. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really change everything else I’ve been saying up to now. Or the fact that 2B absolutely got fridged to make it happen.

Personally, for a long time now I’ve felt a better way to do the post-‘everything’s gone to shit’ reveal that we see in Route C would have 2B not actually dying but instead taken by A2 and eventually purged of the logic virus, though with 9S still wholly BELIEVING that 2B is dead at A2’s hands. Say, A2 still stabs 2B, but it turns out to be non-fatal.

From there, Route C follows A2 and a weakened/regaining-her-strength 2B working together. Likely with some fun gameplay twists were-in you’re switching control between the two. All the while, 9S is deteriorating even further than what we saw originally, to the point where even when he learns that 2B is alive and sees her again, he just goes into an even more crazed ‘you abandoned me!’ and ‘you left me for her!’ mode.

Which actually ends up leading to 9S mirroring Eve’s own crazed obsession with Adam and the rampage he went on after the latter’s death. Which in turn at first leads 2B to believe that 9S has some lingering virus infection from Adam and Eve from when they were holding him captive and that is the source of his madness, meaning that 9S could still be saved.

Of course, in a tragic twist, it is revealed that it ISN’T something lingering from Eve, but rather that 9S is deliberately re-infecting himself with the virus. That the true source of 9S’s madness is simply his own twisted obsession with 2B.

Which in turn leads to a final boss fight of 2B and A2 fighting a now-monstrous 9S. A fight which culminates in 2B and A2, with the help of Pods 042 and 153, hacking 9S in an extended trippy hacking sequence.

A sequence which culminates in 2B/the player having to hack into 9S’s menu and actually forcibly uninstall his OS-chip in order to put him down for good. Complete with you/2B effectively having to fight the ‘Are you sure?’ confirmation box which becomes progressively more crazed and unhinged, until Pod 042 mentions that you can force-uninstall the chip through some seemingly simply method like holding the button. Or perhaps something equally zany like switching control to A2 to uninstall the chip while the confirmation box is ‘occupied’ with 2B.

Thus, we still get a tragic/bittersweet ending of 2B being forced to kill 9S, but this time for good with the sense that now she can finally move on. Also this version would absolutely have 2B and A2 becoming a couple.

So yeah, that's a... few of my takes on Nier. Heck, I didn't even go into the AU I've had percolating for a few years now wherein 9S is expunged from the story entirely, 2B is partnered with 60 and is a bit of a yuri-harem-protag and there is frankly WAY more world-building than is necessary.

[eldritch-elrics]

Here's some answers (based on my own understanding) for your N:A questions:

Yes 2B knows and resents the fact that her true mission is to play along 9S and keep killing/resetting him.

The 9S model is supposedly naturally curious and his curiosity will always eventually lead to him knowing the secret of Yorha.

2B always kills 9S when he discovers. In the events after endings A&B, her death ends that cycle and 9S just breaks down further and further, so YMMV on his reliability as narrator.

I don't recall a talk among fans that there are other B/S mission pairs. I believe that this 2B/9S pair is unique.

ooh hell yeah, thanks for the answers! i'm definitely gonna have to digest this one some more. on the surface it makes sense & is pretty well foreshadowed (both with the amnesia sidequest + various hints at 9S's curiosity, especially in that one ending where he wanders off because he's hungry for knowledge), but it's also one of those twists that forces you to rethink the whole game...

"how did yorha know for sure that 9s would find out" is still a sticking point for me, but it's making more sense the more i think about yorha. like, yorha's plan was always to self-destruct at a certain point (still unclear to me what marked that point, but i bet it was the destruction of adam & eve), and when that happened, they knew they'd have to try extra hard to kill someone like 9s. so my understanding is that 2b and 9s were paired because together they have the skills to get a lot of good combat data/info that yorha needed to move onto the next stage (plus when 9s found shit out they had someone right there to get him), but when they'd brought about that shift to the next phase, they were no longer needed and became even more of a liability. hence 2b's task of killing 9s for good. it's not like they had foreknowledge of 9s's actions; it was just another element of the self-destruct plan. he isn't special, just.... particularly annoying to yorha lmao.

which i guess brings up the question of what yorha was even doing with that combat data/info they collected? i would not be surprised if they weren't even doing anything substantial with it, but i think there was a record somewhere in the game that talked about them using it to make new combat models, like how they used a2's data to create the current e-class? i don't think it particularly matters to the story of the game, just another point of curiosity.

this is also making me wonder if 9s & 2b have prior history which was wiped from their memories before the start of the game. like, i know the problem is that the 9s model is particularly curious, but we've also seen a whole lot of memory resetting going on in general, so who knows, maybe this particular 9s has caused trouble in the past before! seems like something one of the side stories might get into? idk!

OH and now i need to watch the tutorial again because they make a big point of explaining that a few of 9s's memories from that section aren't backed up after they do the black box reaction. which makes me wonder... is there a moment in the tutorial when 9s figures out the secret of yorha??

ALSO wait i think i just realized. at the end of route A/B, 9s retains the secret about humanity even after being killed by 2b. this is either because yorha wanted him to have the secret for some reason (as an excuse to kill him? i know they left that backdoor open...), OR because 9s left all his data in the machine network, so all his shit got backed up without 2b realizing. hmmmmm

anyway, all of this is just rambling & rhetorical questions. trying to figure out my thoughts. once again thanks anon, and don't feel like you have to respond to any of this lol

[tainbocuailnge]

Couldn't be there for the stream, but congrats on finishing Nier. What did you think of it? And what game will you play next? (Maybe you already answered somewhere, if so sorry for being redundant.)

in terms of style and aesthetic the game is absolutely gorgeous. definitely one of its strongest points is the ways it uses design to reinforce its themes and provide subtle worldbuilding. the example freshest in my memory is how different hacking a2 looks from hacking anything else because she’s such an old model, but also the way the vivid colors of the regular overworld contrast with the grayscale of the bunker or the white cubes of that city where you fight adam/the tower cannon, or 9s’ fucked up memories of 2b in C and D routes using the same attacks as adam and eve’s bossfights in A and B routes. the game really leans into the strong contrast between vibrant organic shapes and washed out mechanical shapes, from the very start with the overgrown buildings of the city but also the difference between the detailed & colorful regular interface and the hacking segments consisting of straight lines & muted browns, and it will reverse that distinction at key moments to make a point. switching between different styles of video game (like the visual novel sections) is a really neat way to control the pacing of the story too

conversely i think a lot of the game’s actual playability was sacrificed for the aesthetic. hacking is really cool as concept and visually i adore the way it’s implemented but in terms of gameplay it fucking sucks. not only does it throw off the whole flow of combat but the actual gameplay of the hacking segments themselves is just frustrating as hell because it wants you to hack stronger enemies instead of fight them with 9s’ weak noodle arms but then makes specifically the stronger enemies a huge pain to hack, and if you fail at hacking you take damage anyway so in the end it’s still easier to just fight directly. stuff like the emp’s being able to seal your combat abilities or fuck up your visual processors also makes sense and enriches the game storywise, but is a huge fucking pain in the ass to deal with as someone Playing A Video Game because it means you just have to run the fuck away until the effect has worn off. switching between 9s and a2′s individual bossfights in the tower, too, is very cool conceptually but ended up being super annoying in practise because like the hacking it just disrupts the flow of combat (it was very cool when they were fighting the same enemy though)

i also feel like a lot of the fights just took way too damn long. this one might be on me since I didn’t do a lot of sidequests and thus was underleveled, but it felt like a lot of the combat was intentionally stretched out in order to pad out the game’s length. honestly i think i have a case here even with being underleveled because having to do the sidequests in order to even be strong enough to progress the main story at a reasonable pace is very much padding out the game’s length. even though it took me several dozen hours to complete the main story it still feels pretty short to me because so much of that was just dragged out bossfights. bloodborne definitely spoilt me on this point because in that one once you figure out a boss youre Done, you prove you know how to deal with it and you perform the Trick a few times and then you’re done with it but every Phucking nier automata boss was just endlessly whaling on some annoying mother fucker while i’m thinking bro just show me the next story section already. and then every other bossfight they dump lore on you WHILE you’re trying not to die and i hate that too dude i can’t fucking read and fight at the same time Don’t Call For A Meeting You Son Of A Bitch This Could Have Been A Cutscene

STORYWISE. storywise. honestly I need to rewatch some cutscenes before i can form a Real In-Depth Informed Opinion cuz we spent so much of the stream joking about horsecock that i didn’t pay enough attention to perform my true analysis no jutsu. what you’re about to read is subject to change. looking at just the progression of events in nier tomato there’s some things I don’t really understand why they happened other than ‘themes, bro’ which is not necessarily a complaint mind you because im a fate fan after all but its. hmm how do i say this. i feel like yoko taro is very much a Conceptual Writer. he’s got a strong idea of the kind of message and themes he wants to convey and then he constructs a story around that idea, but because it’s all so thematically driven the actual logistics of the story end up falling behind, like with all the above bitching about the gameplay suffering for the aesthetic. a lot of time i was like ‘no idea who i am no idea why im here all i know is im sad’ if you’re the kind of person who needs [ending EXPLAINED] videos then tomato is probably an incomprehensible robot ass simulator. speaking of robot ass I think it’s super cool that they just fuckin killed 2b actually because I absolutely did not expect that, it really puts a hard line between AB and CD routes.

it’s a very bittersweet game.... it asks “is there meaning in wanting to live when there is nothing left to live for?” and “is there meaning in wanting to protect something when there is nothing left of it to protect?” and answers with “if you want there to be, yeah” it’s about being able to die with hope in your heart as ultimate definition of humanity

ultimately it’s a very beautiful game both in visuals and emotionally and I’d recommend it to anyone whose tastes even vaguely align with mine but I don’t think I’m ever gonna actually replay it. look up story compilations on youtube at most. and it’s really such a shame because I think the way the gameplay is integrated in the story is fantastic from a thematic standpoint but it comes at the expense of the enjoyability of that gameplay so even though this is very much a Video Game Story it’s a hassle to actually consume it in video game format. [yoko taro voice] you WILL be sad about these robots and you WILL work for it

[alun-ura]

🌻🌻🌻

Send me a 🌻 and I’ll just tell you whatever the fuck I want

We have only one braincell and it can’t stop howling about Automata so I’ll take thREE OF YOUR THINGIes to just ramble about how the song Weight of the World destroys my soul and why I can’t stop crying about sad androids but it also heavy spoilers for Nier: Automata so idk man

First time you hear it is when you finish the first route / 2B’s route, and the song feels a lot like it’s from 2B’s perspective and gross sob as you learn more about her, that she is actually called 2E.

The official designation...is 2E. Number 2, Type E.

This is a specific model for Executioner,  it is shown in some side quest that there was another types among these and iirc the one you meet kills herself for nor being able to bear with the guilt of having to meet people / make friends and eventually having to kill them at some point. 2B's role though was to be sure that 9S wouldn’t find out about the truth behind the YoRHa, so she’d have to kill him every time he ended up finding out about it because of the natural curiosity programmed on his model/type.  

Tell me God, are you punishing me? Is this the price I'm paying for my past mistakes?

Even though she knew the truth about YoRHa simply for her model, and having to deal with 9S finding out about it - where there are times where he even learns the truth about her.

(9S speaks while struggling painfully.) 9S: Damn ...! 2B, why?! Why did you ...! Pod 153 (narration): A wide, white sword penetrates 9S's stomach. Pod 153 (narration): As delicate, red blood drips down him. (2B hides her pained feelings.) 2B: You attempted to access highly confidential information ... therefore ... 9S: B-But ... 2B ... T-Trust ... me ... Pod 153 (narration): 9S's vital signs begin to fade. Pod 153 (narration): Heart rate decreasing, body temperature declining, motor functions failing, pupils dilating. Pod 153 (narration): As every one of his parameters breaks down, he chokes out his final words. 9S: I-It hurts ... It ... h-hurt ... s ... (His heart stops, and there is the sound effect of a flatline beep.)

So 2B was bound to ALWAYS be partners with 9S, and ALWAYS have to kill him *muffled crying* thinking back that they are Androids so god knows how many times she had to do it.

2B: Kh ... ngh ... (Unable to bear it, 2B begins to cry.) Pod 153: Pod 153 to 2E. Pod 153: Proposal: Delete 9S's personal data and reinstall default personal data. 2B: This is ... too much ...

And :D

2B: No ... Enough already ... Pod 153: Proposal: Unit 2B should carry out her assignment. (The sound of a heartbeat stopping, and a flatline's beep.) 2B: I don't want to kill him anymore ...

But also :D

Pod 153: The Commander has already denied the mission cancellation request submitted 64 hours ago. (The sound of a heartbeat stopping, and a flatline's beep.) 2B: Why ... do I have to ... Pod 153: Unit 2B was chosen due to her ability to adapt to harsh environments as well as her combat capabilities. 2B: I'm not suited for this mission at all ... Pod 153: Negative. 2B: Someone ... help me ...

When the first route starts, you get to eliminate a target which ends up requiring 9S’s help, they are very formal / military-ish while talking then, but as it goes, 9S gets more :D with her as in.

9S: You know, ma’am. I’m glad you are here. 2B: Why? 9S: Scanners like me mostly work alone. Scouting enemy lines and all that? I don’t usually get a partner. It’s kind of fun! 2B: ...Emotions are prohibited.

This is something that I ended up wondering the first time I played it, because 9S at first is very friendly and excited to have a companion in a mission, and in general just very warm towards 2B while 2B is big ol’ “Emotions are prohibited” and tries to brush him off / don’t really care about his attempts on trying to be more intimate? with her.

9S: Hey, 2B? 2B: Yes? 9S: People that know me well usually call me Nines, so... 2B: ... Oh. 9S: So... What do you think? 2B: Of? 9S: I mean, if you wanna call me Nines, it’s totally okay. 2B: ... I’m good. 9S: Oh, um... Alright...

gently I’m not crying you are crying So because of the nature of their relationship, and because 2B knew the truth, and knew that she’d have to kill him again sooner or later.

9S: Watch out for hostile enemies, 2B. 2B: Roger that, Nine...ze. 9S: Huh!? Wait, what did you just say!? 2B: Roger that, 9S. 9S: Wait, no! That’s not what you said! You said “Nines”! Or at least something close to — 2B: Cut the chatter, and engage the enemy.

So her acting like this was a way to try and shield herself and not get attached once more and get hurt again when she has to kill him, but thinking through the game after you learn the truth about 2E, you look back on all the way she acts and how thorn she was through all of it and just pain.

2B: From the moment 9S gains illegal access within the Bunker, it becomes my duty to carry out his execution. 2B: It's a duty that I must repeat ... over, and over ... without end. 9S: I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel something special towards 2B. 9S: But that sort of thing isn't allowed for us YoRHa troops. (2B, with a hint of pain in her voice.) 2B: Over and over ... I continue to kill 9S with my own hands. 2B: And every time, it feels like a void within me deepens. 2B: I wonder ... if it's okay for me to hope ... 9S: For the day ... 2B: For the day ... 2B and 9S: When my sins can be forgiven.

And with things like this, how Weight of the World applies to it like,

I feel like I'm losing hope. In my body and my soul And the sky, it looks so ominous. And as time comes to a halt. Silence starts to overflow My cries are inconspicuous

2B was going through this for many, many years. iirc she, along with 9S. were the first androids to be properly made - where during her first time as 2B she already had to kill 9S for killing their creator. 2B was always at the price of either killing 9S, or letting all that she knew - all of YoRHa - fall. All the Androids, and possibly even the war against the machines before they knew that there was no proper war going on anymore.

Cause we're going to shout it loud Even if our words seem meaningless It's like I'm carrying the weight of the world

So by killing 9S, 2B was avoiding the truth and end of YoRHa every time - while fighting machines that mostly wanted to wipe Androids too. She was fighting against both sides, while often being confronted with the fact that some Machines felt things too and didn’t even want to fight or were harmful at all, but she was still a soldier.

I wish that someway, somehow That I can save every one of us But the truth is that I'm only one girl

This wasn’t just about her and 9S, cause not killing him would lowkey just be treason, but saving all the YoRHa androids of this fate and lies behind it, and all the other common androids from also YoRHa’s fall and machines, /and/ the machine lifeforms that weren’t connected to their network and had a mind of their own. Because she knew the truth behind all of it and still couldn’t do a thing to even save herself or the most important person to her.

Maybe if I keep believing my dreams will come to life

I’m not even gonna get too much into the philosofical side Automata and how we see both androids and machine question things like their existence, reason and God™️

This is my redemption song I need you more than ever right now Can you hear me now?

But overall I think every one in this game suffers a whole fucking lot but I think none of them had it as hard as 2B, and by the end of the last route, when she finally dies due to a contamination spreading through all of YoRHa units. She meets A2 by the end, and offers her own sword to A2 - so she can keep 2B’s memories, and also end her before she goes corrupt by the contamination.

2B: Guess... This is it... (2B stabs the ground with her sword, offering it to A2.) 2B: These are... my memories. 2B: Take care of everyone for me... 2B: Take care... of the future... A2...

So yeah, 2B just wanted everyone to be good and nice and safe, and she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t save them, nor herself after trying to repair herself from the virus that was destroying her mind. She puts it on A2, the renegade YoRHa android and someone who knew all the shit behind YoRHa, that wouldn’t end up falling back on the cycle that was between those two. She honors what 2B asked of her, and proceeds to end her before she gets fully corrupted - while 9S is running to try and find 2B.

(A2 takes 2B’s sword, and proceeds to stab her with it.) 9S: 2B! 2B! 9S: 2B! Are you— (A wide, white sword penetrates 2B's stomach. As delicate, red blood drips down her.) 2B: Oh... Nines... 9S: This can’t... 2B... No... 9S: —A2! I’ll kill you!

:^) I’m not crying you are crying. This proceeds to 9S getting full blinded by rage and spending the rest of this route trying to kill A2 even though A2 is just trying to keep her promise with 2B, and try to save everyone, including 9S. This got into a biG RAMBLE SO I’m stopping here but *waggles hands* this and like, when you hear the chorus version of Weight of the World as if it’s all YoRHa singing, or when I got to hear the XIV version of it in the raid?? just watch how hARD I CAN CRY. Cause if this wasn’t painful enough, I’ll just leave this final bit here, when 9S finds a recording of 2B after she died.

2B: This is YoRHa unit 2B... 2B: If anyone’s listening to this, there’s something I need you to do. 2B: If you ever meet up with YoRHa unit 9S... 2B: I want him... I mean... 2B: I’m sorry. Please, just give him the following message: 2B: 9S... the time I was able to spend with you... It was like memories of pure light... Thank you... Nine...s.

[malarkiness]

Finished Nier Automata, and I have many.... many thoughts.

I just want to start by saying that this game is aggressively bleak once you hit Routes C/D. Endings A/B are really the last bright spots in the story, and then it's just tragedy after tragedy from that point forward, and the worst part of it is that none of these tragedies result in anything good or even decent or even narratively satisfying. They just happen, and you're left thinking "wow, that fucking sucks" before you shake it off and proceed with the game.

Despite that, I kept playing because I thought all these tragedies would eventually result in something that would've made the characters' suffering worth it because that's just how a good story works, right? But that never really happens (at least, not within the context of the story itself), so when I finally got to Endings C/D, I honestly felt like I'd spent ~27 hours playing a game just to watch the leads die terrible deaths. It just felt really hollow and pointless.

But then I got Ending E, and that kind of changed my entire way of looking at this game.

So this ending shows the PODs deciding to try salvaging the androids' data rather than deleting it all as ordered. The game warns you that saving the data is risky and unlikely to work, then says "Knowing that, do you still wish for them to survive?" Choosing yes turns the credits scroll into a hacking minigame that is UNFORGIVABLY!!!!! difficult, but each game over screen reels you back in with something like "IS IT ALL POINTLESS?"/"DO YOU WANT TO GIVE UP?"/etc.

Now if you're connected to PSN, you'll also get little encouraging messages from players all over the world on each game over screen, but I wasn't connected for my first playthrough lmfao, so I just suffered through it for like 20 minutes and was starting to think the whole thing was deliberately impossible just to give the player one last kick in the teeth and show that yes, it really was pointless and that they're wasting their time trying to fix something that can't be changed. With the way this game's storyline played out, that really wouldn't have surprised me.

But then I restarted the segment and connected to """The Network""" when prompted, then died a few more times before getting a screen asking me if I'd like help. And I really wish I'd screencapped that prompt because that was when I started noticing all the little messages that other players left. There was one from someone in China that really got to me for some reason, and I can't even remember what it was lol, but it made me tear up. Once you restart after that, a bunch of other players' cursors will join in the fight to help you and the solo singer turns into a chorus, and I just.

😭

Every time you lose a player, though, you're told that "[name]'s data has been lost," which I thought was kind of sad, but it wasn't until I finally beat that segment that I realized what they all had actually done. After the credits wrap up, you learn that all the players who helped you finish the game gave up their save data to do it, and then you're asked if you'd like to do the same to help someone else. And while I've since learned that all this actually does is let you leave an encouraging message for other players and have your username show up during the ending sequence for someone else (sort of like an arcade game's scoreboard), the game presents it as an opportunity to really help other players finish the story, so of course I said yes. It wasn't a hard decision at all, and making that choice after playing through the credits was easily the most rewarding part of the entire game, or really any game I've ever played.

And I know I've spent like... 75% of this post talking about a credits sequence lmfao, but that really did change how I look at this game. When you finish the storyline with Endings C/D, the answer to this game's whole thematic question of "What's the point of living?" seems to be "There ain't one, chief." But finishing with Ending E, the answer leans more toward "The point is hoping for and working toward something better because you believe it's there." Add in the fact that you're given the option to "sacrifice" yourself to help someone else continue, and that the game makes this such a painless decision despite what an actual pain in the ass it is for you as a Gamer™, and it actually makes for a more satisfying ending than the in-story ending.

SE could've just had that one sequel-hook scene play at the end of the credits without the minigame at all, or just gone the typical RPG route and made that scene unlockable if you got 100% or whatever. But instead, they took this really creative meta approach that not only pushes you to do a task that's seemingly impossible, but also asks you to sacrifice something you've worked hard for just to help someone else get through that same task. And the fact that so many other players made that choice is just really sweet and honestly kind of touching. Like I'm sure plenty of people just got around it by saving their data on a usb lmao, but still. It's a nice thought. And for the record, my username is Larkey, and my message was "I bet you're having a tough time right now. But we've got this!"

Anyway! Other things about this game:

2B's history of killing 9S over and over or A2's backstory with Anemone and the YoRHa troops definitely should've been given actual screentime, and not just stated in the last 2 minutes of the story or shoved into some optional text. Watching 9S's grief-turned-madness was fascinating, sure, but 2B and A2 deserved just as much focus on their grief (which would've been way more interesting, just for the record. 2B purposefully distancing herself emotionally from someone she has to repeatedly kill, and A2 feeling betrayed by her own creators after watching her friends die needlessly, are storylines that would likely have a lot more emotional weight than "angry teenage boy goes on murder spree before finally getting his revenge only to fall on his opponent's sword and die like a dumbass." I know the Nier franchise has approximately 93 trillion pieces of supplemental material that fill in the gaps from the games, so it's possible that some of those cover 2B and A2 more, but come on. These characters are just as important to the story as 9S; They should've gotten actual in-game screentime devoted to contemplating their existences/grief/etc.

I talked about how bleak this game's storyline is, but the real kicker for me was the scene where all the children in Pascal's village commit suicide. That just seemed so needlessly cruel, and the fact that it happens (depending on how you play) maybe an hour after A2's shown to have warmed up a bit towards the machines is just... cheap? It really did feel like emotional string-pulling just for the sake of it, like the kind of silly edgelord shit I wrote when I was 14. It's so over-the-top that I almost couldn't take it seriously. And if all that wasn't 3edgy5me enough, Pascal then asks you to either wipe his memory or kill him because he can't live with the heartbreak. Fuck's sake. I think what really annoys me about this whole scene is that... This game introduces us to A2 by having her kill a defenseless baby machine, right? So you'd think there'd be some kind of reflection from her after Pascal loses all the children in his village. She fought an insane battle to protect them, too, and she's clearly horrified when she finds out what happens to them, but... that's kind of it. This incident is never brought up again, despite the huge impact it should have on her character. The only thing this scene really does for the narrative, I think, is set up a parallel between Pascal and YoRHa troops like 2B and 9S. And in that way, it does fit into game's overall theme of finding meaning for your life, especially after you've lost what you were living for in the first place (so Pascal's community, and YoRHa's "god worth dying for"). But like I said, the game never really seems to resolve that thematic question within the context of the story itself. And even if that parallel was the point, you could've accomplished it by just having everyone in the village die during the cannibal machine attack and Pascal + A2 failing to save them, no baby suicide needed. I dunno, I've gone back and forth on how I feel about this scene, but honestly, more than anything, it just comes off as a try-hard, eyeroll-worthy way for this game to earn its M-rating. And the fact that A2 gets 0 character development out of it just makes it seem lazy.

Characterwise, I'd definitely say A2 is my favorite. Her ending on the C/D routes was probably the most satisfying just because she essentially gets the only thing she's really wanted ever since she lost her friends, and I thought her unusual relationship with 2B was interesting (and again, deserved more screentime). 2B's also great, especially on the second playthrough when you know why she purposefully tries to get 9S to shut up anytime he innocently wonders something out loud. And I like 9S too just because he's so endearing in Routes A/B, making his stark personality shift in C/D that much more jarring. I'm a little annoyed that he never finds out why A2 killed 2B, though by the end of C/D, he's probably too far gone to actually take that in. I liked most of the NPCs, too. Anemone and Jackass are my favs, but 6O and 21O have some good moments, too. And while a lot of the female YoRHa designs are just... embarrassingly male, there are some really creative character/boss designs here and there. Simone's corpse dress is probably something I'll never forget.

The soundtrack is incredible. "Weight of the World/End of YoRHa" is a standout track not just because of the ending it plays through, but also just because of how cleanly it blends together the 8-bit sound from the hacking minigames and the English and Japanese versions of the song, and how it ends with the game's fictional "Chaos" language (which is apparently meant to be a futuristic blend of English, Japanese, Gaelic, and a few others). I definitely want to check out more of Keiichi Okabe's work, and that of the singers for all three languages. Some other favs are "Vague Hope," "Wretched Weaponry," "Alien Manifestation," and "The Tower."

I enjoyed most of the gameplay. The hacking minigames could be a little tedious sometimes, but overall, I found myself enjoying 9S's gameplay more than the other leads' because of it. I also actually liked most of the sidequests, too, and I normally don't like those all that much in other games (well, okay, I mainly just hate them in FF7R). I think I liked the machine quests the most because so many of them were just silly and low stakes, which was a nice change of pace compared to the main story. I remember the Father Servo one making me laugh a few times. And as for the androids, I liked 11B's memento quest and the Amnesia one (partly because 2B and 9S bicker so much through it, and partly because it's the first we hear about execution models).

I loved the voicework in this game, especially A2 and Anemone's. And whoever voiced 9S did his job perfectly.

I was crying through that whole Ending E sequence, but the part where the POD asks you something like "You put all that work into unlocking Chapter Select. Are you SURE you want to delete all your save data?" made me crack up. I'm doing a replay now, and Chapter Select is probably what I miss most from my original save data lmfao.

So... yeah? Overall, I liked it. I really do think that credits sequence was what sold me on this game as a whole, as weird as that sounds. I'd say the game's biggest faults are the unbalanced focus on the leads and its tendency to throw in pointless angst here and there, and I really wish those two things could've been smoothed out to make a good story even better, but eh. I'm enjoying my replay now, and I'm taking my time doing more quests and exploring areas. I'm going to try to get more of the joke endings, too.

[nierly-amazing]

[Translation] 50 Questions For Yoko Taro from Nier Automata Strategy Guide

Taken from this Reddit post: [Link]

Google doc version: [Link]

Read on the tumb (for mobile users) [Link]

*SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE GAME* 

50 questions for Yoko Taro

Q1. Why do androids come in female and male models?

Because they’re based on humans. To be more precise, since androids were first created when humans (not the replicants) still existed (Devola and Popola being an example), they came in female and male models. The newer androids were based on the first models, so that’s why androids still had female and male types even after humanity died out.

Q2. How does an android’s skin feel? Very soft and warm.

Q3. Is the red liquid flowing in the androids blood? It is not blood, but something made to look like it.

Q4. Do androids, as well as Adam and Eve, have reproductive organs? Do they use them?

They do not have them right after their ‘birth’. Since reproductive organs were hidden in most of the information from humans, they failed to copy those organs. However, during their learning process, they may gain body parts that serve as reproductive organs. Since they can copy anything, they can create semen, change their sex, and even mimic pregnancy to a certain extent, but since they cannot become truly organic lifeforms, they will not be able to undergo insemination or mitosis. They can only create very convincing imitations of the real thing using other materials.

Q5. Why do androids have a concept of leveling up? Because this game is an RPG.

Q6. The timing of the machine lifeforms’ attack on the bunker via the backdoor just seems too perfect. Are the androids and machine lifeforms in cahoots with each other?

This has been shown in the stage play YoRHa, but the machine lifeforms have always been coming through the backdoor. However, the androids and machine lifeforms are not in cahoots with each other. There were mainly two reasons the virus spread through the bunker so quickly. One, since YoRHa launched an all out attack on the machines lifeforms, they were deemed a threat, and two, the red girls just felt like it.

Q7. What is this “Command” organization that came up with project YoRHa? Since humanity’s forces consist of all the androids who report to the Council of Humanity on the moon, the so called Command is just the Council of Humanity. However, as revealed in the game, the Council of Humanity does not actually exist, and neither does the Command (the closest thing would be the server on the moon). The one who came up with project YoRHa is an individual android, but we have not revealed the details yet.

Q8. So the YoRHa’s black boxes are made from machine lifeform cores, but do the machine lifeform’s data and memories remain on the core? Since the core is sealed tightly, the machine lifeform’s memory will not transfer over. However, if you copy an android’s memory space into the machine lifeform’s core and then corrupt the android using the core, you can transfer the core’s memories.

Q9. Approximately how many YoRHa members are there? Do they have bases other than the bunker? There are around 100~200 YoRHa members. There are 13 orbital bases, but the bunker is the only YoRHa base.

Q10.  How many units of the same type (i.e. 2B and 9S) are deployed at any given time? Or will there only be one of each at any given time? It’s not exactly limited to one, but it’s very rare for more than one unit of a particular model (for example, the 2 model) to be deployed at the same time. This is to avoid causing confusion to the android’s individual consciousness when the unit’s memories are recovered and integrated. However, during a high priority event like an all out attack, multiple units of the same model could be launched.

Q11. Why are there even multiple types to begin with? The numeric part of the type represents the personality data, and the alphabetical part represents the functionality of the unit. The reason there are multiple functionality types is so that each type can specialize in their area to greater effect. The reason there are multiple personality types is because “having variety in our ranks decreases the chances of complete annihilation”, but deep down, the androids are imitating humans (or attempting to) in that regard.

Q12. Please tell us about all the YoRHa types. B -> Battler S -> Scanner A -> Attacker D -> Defender H -> Healer E -> Executioner

By the way, G stands for Gunner. I think there’s another type as well, but I can’t quite recall…

A and G were prototype models, and were integrated into the B model for production use. Also, prototype models’ types have the numeric and alphabetical parts switched, like A2.

Q13. Is there any reason the YoRHa member’s outfits are based on the gothic lolita style? The world of Nier Automata is way into the future, where things like appearances and sizes have lost their meaning (just because you stand out doesn’t mean you’re strong). Though there were multiple choices for the YoRHa’s costumes, the individual who came up with project YoRHa chose the color black for a particular reason.

Q14. Why did 2B tell 9S to ‘stop calling [her] ma’am’? Because 2B felt there was no reason for him to address her like that.

Q15. How much does it cost to produce a YoRHa type android? A lot. The value of money has changed too drastically in the Nier world to compare to our current standards, but one YoRHa unit has about the same value as one state-of-the-art fighter jet in our world. The flight units are even more expensive, and cost about ten times that of a regular YoRHa unit.

Q16. Why are emotions prohibited for YoRHa? There are two reasons for that. First, during the descent operation depicted in the YoRHa stage play (that A2 participated in), A2 went into hiding after the battle due to emotions. Because of that, emotions were deemed unnecessary for combat and were subsequently banned. The YoRHa squad members only know that ‘emotions were deemed unnecessary at some point in the past’ but not any details. Another reason is that YoRHa units have black boxes. The fact that black boxes are a product of enemy technology is a subject of much shame to androids. The one who created the YoRHa forces decided that units with such a tainted origin ‘should not be allowed to act in the same way as the noble humans’, and banned emotions when YoRHa was officially established.

Furthermore, to account for having black boxes, YoRHa units were implanted with a powerful program that compels them to love humanity (this is taking into account the possibility of a unit going rogue). YoRHa units salute using their left hands instead of right because they themselves are conscious of ‘not being allowed to mimic the actions of such noble beings as humans’.

Q17. Why did 2B need to hide the fact that she was 2E? As to not arouse suspicion from 9S, her assigned target.

Q18. How do the transportation devices scattered around the area work? Each of them contain a great amount of materials (but not yet in humanoid form) that are used to reconstruct a unit’s body.  

Q19. So permission to use flight units is rarely granted, but how many flight units are stored in the bunker? 16 of them. In the beginning of route C, you see more than 16 flight units in the all out attack, but that’s because they include units from orbital bases other than the bunker.

Q20. Does every YoRHa unit have their own rooms? How many rooms are there in the bunker? The bunker has around 100 rooms. In general, each unit has their own room, but sometimes units share connected rooms.

Q21. Where does Emil get all those materials from? He has been around for a long time, so he was able to gather materials from a lot of different places. For more details, see “The World in 80 Days” from GRIMOIRE NieR.  

Q22. Do Emils (including replicas) other than the one that 2B & co encountered exist in the world? Yes.

Q23. Why did the berserk machine lifeforms start attacking the resistance camp? They didn’t really go berserk - it would be more accurate to say that their restrictions were lifted and they returned to their original function. Their previous passive behavior is the irregularity, since the basic function of machine lifeforms is to attack androids.

Q24. Why did the machine lifeforms start devouring the androids? To make the androids part of themselves and further their own evolution. Machine lifeforms may look rather plain, but as can be seen from how they created Adam and Eve, they are in reality very complicated beings.

Q25. Was the tower created in an instant? Or was it created bit by bit, hidden away underground? Also, does the tower have anything to do with the giant tree from the previous NieR? Like the copied city, the tower was created underground by the machine lifeforms in a gradual process. The machine lifeforms extracted data from the previous NieR’s giant tree, so I guess in that sense the tower and giant tree are related, but it doesn’t mean that the tower IS the giant tree.

Q26. What is it that was launched by the tower at the end? Is it a rocket? That is the ark that the machine lifeforms launched towards the future. I guess you can call it a rocket in the sense that it uses propulsion to escape the earth’s atmosphere. The contents of the ark differ by route. In ending C, it’s empty (since all the machine lifeforms’ data that were supposed to be on there was destroyed), and in ending D it contains the data of machine lifeforms including Adam and the red girls.

Q27. Why did Adam talk to 9S in the end, even though Adam was destroyed? Due to 9S’s repeated hacking and him fusing with the machine network at one point, traces of Adam were intermingled with 9S’s own memories and took such a form.

Q28. Why did the machine lifeforms have top secret information regarding project YoRHa? Because the machine lifeforms accessed the bunker and council of humanity through the backdoor. Furthermore, leaking this kind of information to the machine lifeforms has always been part of project YoRHa’s plan.

Q29. Why did 9S give 2B an E-drug before the machine lifeform annihilation battle? “Humans on the frontlines used drugs during wars” - 9S was simply putting that information into action. There’s not really any deep meaning beyond that.

Q30. What kind of memories did 2B leave on her sword before she was slain by A2? Do the weapons even come with that sort of system? What 2B left behind was what she’d like A2 to do, which includes protecting 9S. It is possible to store memories on the weapons, though the amount of storage is limited.

Q31. Why did A2 cut her hair after slaying 2B? It’s her way of paying tribute to a unit which had the same type of personality data (type 2).

Q32.  Why did A2 have a berserk mode? It was an experimental mode that was implemented in prototype units. During the YoRHa stage play, 16G used it to annihilate the enemies. However, berserk mode was a bit difficult to use in practice, so the production models have the self-destruction mode in place of berserk mode.

Q33. What kind of feelings did 9S harbor towards 2B? What kind of feelings did 2B harbor towards 9S? No comment.

Q34. Who made the recovery units, and for what purpose? The machine lifeforms wanted to launch a large amount of data (mainly the personality data of various machine lifeforms) into outer space along with the ark. The recovery units were created to gather such data.

Q35. Does the machine network have a concept of ‘ego’? And if so, how did its ego manifest? Since the definition of ‘ego’ is a complicated matter, I can’t answer this question.

Q36. The machine lifeforms absorbed the memory data of ‘a certain human’ that was stored on the old servers, and the red girls (N2) were born as a result of that. Who is this ‘certain human’? No comment.

Q37. Why did the aliens attack the earth? And why did they just let themselves be killed by the machine lifeforms? The aliens attacked in order to inhabit earth. They were wiped out by the machine lifeforms simply because the machine lifeforms evolved to surpass the aliens.

Q38. Does the demonic element (maso) exist in this world as well? How is it used in battle? There’s not a lot of demonic element going around, but it does exist (for example, Emil’s attacks). Also, the YoRHa units’ skills utilize the demonic element.

Q39. Androids and machine lifeforms who go berserk have their eyes turn red; does this have anything to do with the Red Eye? If I have to pick a side, it’d be yes.

Q40.  Multiple machine lifeforms formed a cocoon from which Adam was born - how does that work, exactly? Multiple machine lifeforms fused to become a temporary factory, and gave birth to Adam from that. Since they used drastically different materials when creating Adam, Adam looks like a regular human, but the fact that he has a core means that he’s still a machine lifeform.

Q41. Why is it that only Adam can grow (level up)? It’s not just limited to Adam - all machine lifeforms can learn and grow. Adam was born as a complete blank slate, so he evolved quite rapidly thanks to 2B and 9S’s attacks.

Q42. When Eve is overwhelmed by his emotions, the markings on his left arm start to enlarge - what’s up with that? Is it related to the black scrawl in the previous NieR? And why is it that only Eve has those markings? He has those markings to imitate humans, based on what’s recorded in humanity’s past information. Adam told him to get those markings, and to Eve, those markings are like a keepsake from his brother, so he tried very hard to keep those markings, but when he goes berserk, he couldn’t maintain the shape of those markings anymore.

Q43. Why did A2 kill the forest king right after her sudden appearance? A2’s goal is to destroy machine lifeforms, so she decided to destroy the forest king after hearing that the ruler of the forest was a machine lifeform. Though A2’s main goal is not the destruction of YoRHa units, she will destroy them if they chase after her. A2 continues to fight due to her oath with her comrades who fought with her during the descent operation, and especially her promise with number 4, who saved her life.

Q44. Both 2B and A2 have a beauty mark near their mouths. What’s the point of androids having beauty marks? To imitate humans.

Q45. Are there any androids above YoRHa in the chain of command who’re responsible for calling the shots in the war against the machine lifeforms? There aren’t any. YoRHA, resistance members, other androids from the orbital bases, as well as the androids fighting in the kingdom of night* are all equal below the council of humanity. *This is the region of the earth that’s permanently night, which includes North and South America.

Q46. Who is the ‘god that emerged from the volcano’ as depicted in the picture books? See “Prometheus’s Fire”, a novella featured in the book that comes along with Drag-on Dragoon 3 limited edition.

Q47. Does Leonard III, the lord of Schwanstein Castle in the forest kingdom, have anything to do with Leonard from the first DOD game? Nope.

Q48. One of the archive entries is a flyer for Accord’s shop. Does Accord exist in this world? Yes.

Q49. Do you have any ideas for a sequel? Any offers from Square Enix so far? Nothing.

Q50. Last but not least, got anything to say to the fans?

e591aae381aee58583e587b6e381afe3808ce5a4a7e781bde58e84e3808de381aee697a5e38082 (All curses stem from the day of the Great Calamity.)

Bonus:

Here are the last few entries in the official timeline:

11945:

August 6th: The "tower" launches an object into space. September 2nd: Humanity's forces announce the end to the 14th machine war. September 5th: -------- September 19th: ---------

11946:

January: Peaceful machine lifeforms led by Pascal sign a ceasefire with humanity's forces.

12422:

September 2nd: An android wearing black clothes is sighted.

12530:

"Nobles" appear amongst machine lifeforms.

12543:

Civil disturbance happens amongst machine lifeforms. Not counting individuals who've gone out of control, this is the first internal conflict amongst machine lifeforms.

[something-very-special]

Ask Response-stravaganza!

So I got a buuuunch of Asks in the last couple of days and a lot of them are spoiler-y by nature. Rather than hiding them all until I feel more comfortable addressing them (which won’t be for a couple of months, honestly), they’re all going under a big ol’ SPOILERS AHOY! read more break.

So here we go.

SPOILERS AHOY!

Anonymous: I agree that 2B and 9S's bond is mainly that of a broken family but there also seem to be a few hints at attraction there (e.g. the comments about 9S's heart rate increasing at the beginning of route B). Also, even though Adam's line certainly referred to "kill", the wording itself does carry some ambiguity and connotations that seem intentional - considering the hatred and love aspects of 9S's (admittedly complex) feelings, Adam may be referring to several things here, possibly all at once.

I absolutely believe the context was meant to be ambiguous. This is also why it’s really funny seeing how people reacted to it, and how they kind of project onto it. (And I certainly had the same reaction the first time I saw it, hah hah.)

I like to think that the censored word is actually a number of verbs all at once -- ‘fuck’ and ‘kill’ certainly aren’t the only two four-letter verbs out there -- which is why it’s censored the way it is; it’s an accusation of multiple natures, potentially meaning multiple things, open to a bevy of equally valid interpretation.

But.

In context of the story, whatever is hidden behind that line of asterisks is something that 9S doesn’t want to acknowledge. If it were something related to love or even lust, 9S has already proven that he gets flustered in such a context-- the aforementioned ‘heart rate’ response, and his conversation with the Little Sister. However, in conversation with Adam, his response is violent. It’s violent denial. I don’t think he’d be so aggressive if Adam’s main point had not been trying to stir up his more negative feelings.

So, in context of everything Adam may have said, and in context of what we as the audience could take away from it? I do believe ‘you want to **** 2B’ can (and was intended to) mean a broad range of things. But in context of what 9S heard? Not so nice.

Anonymous: thank you for your in depth thoughts about 9S. I found him to be really unlikeable at first and then somewhat tolerable by the end. but my final lasting impression of him was that he just unsettled me for some reason i could not pin point. With your thoughts, I was able to understand him a bit more. though he will still be my least liked character, i can't deny his whole arc is really thought provoking (also you mentioned that A2 was very underutilized, a sentiment I concur with whole heartedly)             

Oh, I’m glad. I know 9S can come across as being a brat (which I think is more of a knee-jerk reaction to his youthful design), and a racist jerk (which is definitely intended in-game, by his dismissal of the very concept of the robots having their own egos), but he’s definitely got a lot more going on. I had the fortune of accidentally tripping the Mother and Son quest early, so other than 9S being kind of a jerk toward Pascal the first interaction I saw between him and the machines was trying to comfort the little child machine, which was adorable and probably instrumental in my own opinion of him. (Made watching him go from “Shh, shh, don’t cry” to “I WILL MURDER EVERYTHING” pretty disturbing, and heart-wrenching.)

Yeah, A2 needed more love. I think I understand why she was kind of incidental, but still...

kantan-kt:                                                      Do you think that 9S died in route C? If you continue to route E, the pods tell the player that all yoRHa black boxes are offline. Doesn't that mean that A2's sacrifice was in vain? ;~;  But then again, he did stop his data upload to the yoRHa server so maybe there's a chance that he's alive?            

When you enter Ending E from the Chapter Select, it continued directly from Ending C, implying heavily that his black box was offlined. However, A2′s work seemed to be less about keeping him alive (which wouldn’t really be accomplished by hacking into him, since the damage kind of came from repeatedly stabbing him in the final fight) and more about retaining his memories and eliminating the logic virus the clone-arm imparted into him-- saving his soul, if you will, even if the body still died. Kind of ties in to the considerations of something greater than themselves, and the direct contemplation in a few of the sidequests about heaven, and whether they, as artificial life, would qualify for such a thing if it exists.

So even if you ignore Ending E and its possibility of restoring the three characters -- which obviously A2 would not have had any knowledge of, herself -- no. Even though 9S is also confirmed dead at the end of it, her work was not in vain.

Anonymous: On the BBE's Artbook, Commander talks about Jackass making an android combined from two other androids...Do you guess who they are talking about? 

I haven’t taken a chance to really look through the art book yet (didn’t want to spoil myself), but I’ve seen this mentioned and I have to say I don’t actually have a guess. I can’t think of anybody in the game, including sidequests, that would match this description. The only thing I can think of is her lamenting the death of ‘White’ on the bunker, but I can’t think of anything solid.

I look forward to somebody figuring it out, though. That’s pretty awesome, in a legitimately terrifying kind of way.

Anonymous: I thought about something and would like to hear your two cents on it. I personally find that 2B lacks character development, she barely says anything about her throughout the entire game, however, once you learn what her true purpose is, you have to look at the core of most sidequests in the game to (indirectly) learn about her since said sidequests are more or less related to 2B (and 9S to some extent). The "YoRHa Betrayers" and "Amnesia" are the most obvious that come to mind. Any thoughts?  

This is a two-parter, but the Asks split themselves quite neatly.

Regarding this, this is one of the things I really like about both this game and the original (and I remember hints of this in Drakengard, too). There’s plenty of clear development between the characters, but there’s also a lot of unspoken, subtle stuff. I’ve recently mentioned the relationship between Nier and the members of his party, and what’s really brilliant about it is that most of the interpersonal bonding is done without dialogue, or else entirely through subtext. The entire chunk of game from the fight against No. 6 to the post-fight against Kaine in the Lost Shrine is brimming with gorgeous body language and perfectly constructed dialogue that never feels the need to speak too much about what it’s trying to say. It requires-- I don’t want to say thought because it sounds pretentious, but it does require paying attention, especially for the relationship between Emil and Kaine (which turns out to be incredibly powerful even, what, 8000 years later, and I’m completely sold on it for this one hour-long stretch of game).

The same occurs with 2B. We’re introduced to her in a very mechanical context, and she comes across as being stoic, flat, no-nonsense. It serves a pretty good foil to 9S being the most emotional and ‘human’ of the main characters, but 2B herself isn’t emotionless. I marked this even back in the demo; she says ‘emotions are prohibited’ but becomes extremely worked up over 9S being hurt. Seems like a clear contradiction, especially when they ‘just met’, and given how generally well-written and strong the narrative is seems too contradictory to have been unintentional, especially for being right at the start of the game.

There are definitely hints and intrigue throughout, and these little bits from the sidequests and from her more errant dialogue and reactions paint a very interesting and complex picture, especially in conjunction with the “Amnesia” sidequest, which not only reveals the existence of the E-series YoRHa (which 2B dismisses, incidentally) but that they are highly psychologically unstable due to the rather grisly task presented to them. (That was all one sentence and I’m sorry.)

I quite like how her characterization was ultimately treated. It’s not overt, but there are enough indications of what lay beneath to make her at least interesting, and once you’re given full context about her nature it retroactively makes her more unusual decisions and reactions quite a bit more fascinating, and telling.

I was running out of space with my sidequest ask earlier, I thought about another obvious one that might be related to 9S? It's the "Confidential Intel" which ends up pretty badly, where some resistance member wants to build an S android since he always wanted a family, which can be associated with 9S wishes in a way? Maybe this is too far fetched but it all feels too coincidental that most sidequests share the same themes as the main characters' struggle, if that makes any sense?

Oh! Yes, actually, I completely follow. I admit I didn’t make that connection (although I did that quest with 2B so I wasn’t yet in the realm of familial pining), but it does make sense. I imagine something could also be read into the Resistance member’s desire to have somebody to protect.

...now that I think about it, I wonder if an E-unit was sent after them? The Scanner has confidential intelligence, after all, something that could be catastrophic if leaked, and while I interpreted his ‘p-please...’ at the end of the quest being a misfiring need to get away from his ‘family’, it might have been linked to their request: “Don’t tell anybody about us”, “Please”, because if somebody learns where they are the Scanner has to be eliminated, and his protector will go with him.

Got a bit away from the point. But yes, I think that’s entirely possible. Thank you for bringing it to my attention!

[p-alex]

A couple gripes I have with Nier Automata

Disclaimer: I still think the game is great and, in terms of his narrative leanings, definitely a lot more interesting than a lot of its contemporaries. This serves more to highlight some of the mechanical issues I’ve noticed about this game after I let it sit for a while.

Spoilers for obvious reasons.

1. Issues with the difficulty balancing

Nier Automata is an action RPG first and a Platinum game second. While reflexes and a rudimentary understanding of the combat system are required, it’s also important to keep an eye on your stats since fighting enemies with higher levels than you can get exhausting easily (aside from certain circumstances to which we’ll get shortly). However, it is VERY easy to have the stats greatly overshadow the importance of your technical knowhow.

The first, and comparatively minor, issue is how cheap and plentiful HP recovery items are. They exist in at least four tiers which are easily accessible and can be bought up to 99 times a piece. Early on, this isn’t quite an issue since you lack the money to make such investments, but once the cash gets rolling and seeing how there’s only so much you can spend on weapon upgrades and memory space, having a lot of healing items at hand is not hard at all. Now, there is still a level of punishment present if you rely on them since using them, whether it be through the quick or the main menu, still breaks the flow of the game for a moment. However, there’s still another factor which makes this one sound minor in comparison.

The memory chip system is an interesting idea and allows for a wealth of customisation options, from simple stat changes to giving your mercy invincibility on hit and getting Bayonetta’s Witch Time in all but name. The problem arises when certain chips become a lot more appealing than others. Enter stacking attack boost chips with life steal chips. Not only is your damage output greatly amplified, the amount of HP healed thanks to the life steal means that you can facetank a lot of hits and emerge with not even so much as a scratch at the end.

Even that has the caveat of profiting from close range attacks a lot more than from long range, but we still have a solution to really break the difficulty in half. The ‘Deadly Heal’ series of chips regenerates a set percentage of your health every time you kill an enemy. Any enemy. Even popcorn in the shooter stages. And if my memory doesn’t betray me, you get a guaranteed Deadly Heal +3 from a sidequest, which is 30% of your max health for every kill. Needless to say, it’s ridiculous. It got to the point where I wondered how people managed to still die in the second half of the game even with those tools at their disposal, though I think I have a sensible explanation regardless.

See, so far, I have only completed the game all the way to Ending E on Normal, so you might counter with the argument that I should pick Hard instead. However, leaving aside that playing on Hard removes any sort of lock on, judging by some reports I’ve read, while Normal becomes a cakewalk not too long in, Hard and Very Hard are nearly indistinguishable since the damage you take at those levels becomes so high you might as well die in one hit. To put it simply, the game would need a difficulty setting that lies between Normal and Hard which would serve as a stepping stone to the higher difficulties without it becoming insurmountable.

2. 9S’ hacking ability

This is somewhat connected to my previous complaint about the difficulty balancing, though my issues with it lie elsewhere. Just like the chip system, 9S relying on hacking his enemies rather than hacking and slashing like his partner makes the B route different enough to not feel like they’re just making you play for Ending A again. However, there are two problems with it that combined make it less than ideal.

On one hand, hacking damage is, as far as I can tell at least, independent from your level. Fighting enemies twice your level with 2B becomes a slog due to how damage spongey they become, but with 9S, it doesn’t matter at all. You can finish the Father Servo quests in one swoop as soon as you get access to him despite him being Level 60 in his final form.

The other problem, and in a way the worst one, is that the hacking stages lack in variety. Only very few bosses possess unique patterns which make them distinguishable, like the final fights with Eve and A2, and dispatching most others becomes more about hoping to roll one of the less annoying stages, so they start feeling more like busy work with a light element of rolling the dice. Maybe the hacking stages become more developed on higher difficulties, though to be honest, I kind of doubt that.

3. Advertising A2 as a playable character

This isn’t a mechanical issue in the slightest, but it‘s just something I would like to bring up despite it seeming minor. A2 is present on the cover of the game as well is explicitly mentioned to be playable in the description on Steam.

The problem I have with this isn’t that it’s a lie, because it isn’t, but that A2′s presence in the plot before Route C is minimal at best. You fight her once at least halfway through Route A and a sidequest about Anemone detailing her past with her... and that’s all you’re getting. It’s only after that that A2 actually matters to a degree, and while I will still say that the plot could have done a lot more with her, it’s magnitudes more fleshed out than what you get in the first half. Essentially, A2 being playable would have made for a nice surprise had it not being mentioned by the marketing material, and I’m still not sure why this has been done. Compared to the two issues I brought up earlier, however, this is a lot smaller in scope. Alright, enough rambling. Any thoughts/agreements/disagreements/whathaveyou? Seeing how I basically wrote this stream-of-consciousness style, you might spot some problems with this text, but I’d like to know what you think regardless.

[entergamingxp]

Song of Horror is a quietly inventive homage to survival horror’s glory days • Eurogamer.net

What does safety sound like in a game? We spend a lot of time as players thrilling over compositions and effects that get the adrenaline flowing – spectral piano, frantic violins, ambient mitherings that might, if you’re very lucky, just be a broken aircon – but what about the compositions and effects that soothe and reassure? The Resident Evil series is full of them: bundle together every last Save Room melody and you’ve got a half-decent yoga playlist, though I’d probably chuck in some Okami or whatever to lift the mood. Gears of War has that satisfied guitar purr when you’ve winkled out every last Locust. The Sunless games have their port themes, wafted to you from off-screen like smoke on the breeze – music indeed to the captain coasting home on their last few lumps of coal.

And what of Song of Horror, Protocol’s absorbing homage to the Silent Hills and Alone in the Darks of yesteryear? In Song of Horror, safety is a soft tap, right on the edge of hearing, like somebody very carefully setting down a glass. All being well, you’ll hear it after a few seconds when you put your ear to a door. The tap, which surely represents a lot of calculation on the part of the audio designer, is a vital cue in a game where silence has many textures. Sometimes, silence sounds like silence. And sometimes, it sounds… bonier. Squelchier. As though you had your ear pressed against a misbehaving stomach. In which case, opening that door is… unwise. Better to switch to your map screen, work out another route, and hope like hell that when next you put your ear to a door, the tap is all you can hear.

Now three of five episodes in, Song of Horror is a third-person, combat-free spookfest with automatic camera perspectives and a refreshing taste for the procedural. Players rove dark, abandoned buildings solving puzzles while evading various ambient threats known collectively as the Presence. Snooping at doors is crucial because said threats – which kill off characters forever, should you fail the associated QTEs – are ever-changing, assuming different forms at different times in different places, based on a mixture of loose scripting and monitoring of player behaviour. You’re hurrying down some stairs, brandishing a candlestick like the shotgun you sorely wish you had, when oily black handprints blossom all over the walls. You’re inspecting a desk when something bandaged and breathy pops up on the other side of it, snuffling for your blood.

Who exactly you’re playing is one of the more important variables, though not, I think, as decisive as it should be. There are four character stats, Serenity, Strength, Speed and Stealth, which lightly skew the odds ahead – the first two determine how difficult it is beat those QTEs, while Stealth appears to set the basic probability of an encounter triggering in any given room. More substantially, choice of character alters the mood of the space you’re in, as each character describes each interactive object a different way – a quietly surprising flourish that hasn’t been developed to the full. Last year I wrote about how it feels to return to Resident Evil 2’s police station in different games, the phantom-limb disquiet of finding familiar objects altered or removed, old rooms expanded or sewn shut. Song of Horror is also about the relentless return of a space, a space that both has a mind of its own and is gently (re)characterised by the poor souls doomed to roam it.

Each episode stars a different building and gives you three or four characters to play with, some (providing they survive) carried over between episodes. Lose a character and you must try again with the next, retracing their steps to gather up the items they were carrying and the bloody, bitten-off threads of whatever riddle they were unravelling. The first is set in the gloomy mansion home of a novelist, Sebastian Husher, whose disappearance owes something to the music box you can hear, warbling away behind the skirting boards. You might begin here as Sophie van Denend, an art dealer searching for her ex-husband. Sophie comes armed with scented candles, useful for creating a calm atmosphere that minimises the chances of an icky manifestation. She can also name and date the house’s ominous paintings, some of which play a role in puzzles.

The robust and heavy-drinking Alexander Laskin, meanwhile, is one of the Husher family’s housekeepers. He lacks Sophie’s book smarts, but he understands each painting’s history within the house, remembering where they used to hang and how it felt to work around them. Security technician Alina Ramos is a stranger to both the Hushers and fine art, but she does know how to deactivate a door alarm, and has plenty to say about the house’s former occupants based on her own family background.

In changing characters the character of the building changes, which makes killing people off essential to appreciation of Song of Horror, as morbid as that may seem. Sadly, the script isn’t that hot, and the voice-acting is B-movie to the hilt (there’s an English character who sounds like he’s doing a drunken impression of Eddie Izzard’s drunken impression of James Mason), but the game gets enough out of its relatively unusual ensemble premise to keep you guessing. You only need to keep one particular character alive between episodes to progress the story – a run-of-the-mill Lovecraftian race to determine the origins of a cursed artefact – so feel free to let the odd person go for the sake of variety. Characters don’t quite vanish when the Presence snaffles them, mind you. There’s never a body, but the victim may linger on in other ways.

Song of Horror’s obvious strength is its architecture and interior design, which spurns the genre’s beloved impossible geometry in favour of good old-fashioned sense-of-place. The Husher estate is smaller, but every bit as intricate as Resident Evil’s legendary Umbrella mansion, and rather less silly of structure. It’s divided between the housekeepers’ quarters, a winding basement, a small library, an office, bedrooms, creepy playrooms – there’s a dollshouse that uncannily resembles the one you’re in – and a mouldering attic. Episode 2 takes you to an antique shop with an eerie fairground attraction in the lobby, backing out onto apartments where the owner and his daughter live. The quality of the interior design is heightened by solid camera composition: think views from a ceiling corner, as though your fly on the wall were the Babadook, and head-on tracking shots that deny you a clear look at what awaits you down the hall. A little disappointingly, the university in episode 3 consists of three, separately loading departments rather than a persistent space, but it does contain one terrific puzzle that troubles the border between image and reality.

The puzzles are gentle, quite varied, and mostly intuitive: good and bad, they exist to keep you shuttling back and forth between the far corners of the layout, in the face of the Presence’s efforts to box you in or scare you off. Many are just about combining objects (which can be rotated in the pause screen to reveal clues) in mildly eccentric ways. Some are numbers-based, others see you matching telltale details in documents to things like library signs. There’s perhaps one puzzle that is just plain annoying, a meandering riddle left for you by a smug professor (as with dialogue lines like “not another fetchquest?!” having characters call a puzzle irritating in the game does not actually lessen the irritation). The puzzles are best when they symbolise some element of the story being played out, and when they work with or against the structure that contain them. The dollhouse, inevitably, is more than it seems.

Song of Horror’s greatest weakness is, alas, probably the Presence itself. It’s oppressive indeed when out of view, because you’re always wondering when it will show up. You learn to time its appearances, and there’s nothing like the dread when you’re close to completing an episode but overdue a reckoning. The Presence’s actual manifestations aren’t that startling, however – think skellingtons and tentacles – and the problem with this being a procedural affair is that you quickly start to think of the scares as mechanical moving parts. The QTEs are as divisive as QTEs tend to be. I’d rather not spoil either the specific dangers or how you escape from them, but suffice to say you can expect button-bashing and rhythm-matching. The latter bits led to the game being all but unplayable over the winter, thanks to a performance bug that made it impossible to keep time; thankfully, this seems to have been fixed.

Song of Horror’s spooks aren’t quite worthy of the build-up, then, but isn’t that true of every monster, once it has shambled into the spotlight? The quality of the game’s location design, together with the not-quite-realised potential of its ensemble premise, make it something more than a Greatest Hits. It’s like a collection of planetary fragments that has mustered enough gravity to form a brand new planet. I’m looking forward to episode 4, out at the end of the month, which takes place in a ruined medieval abbey. Who knows what lurks behind those ancient doors? Better listen extra-carefully for the tap. Mind you, fostering a sense of security is one of the more devious tools in the horror designer’s arsenal. Perhaps where this game’s safer flavours of silence are concerned, the other shoe is still waiting to drop.

Song of Horror is out now on PC, and coming to PS4 and Xbox One this year.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/01/song-of-horror-is-a-quietly-inventive-homage-to-survival-horrors-glory-days-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=song-of-horror-is-a-quietly-inventive-homage-to-survival-horrors-glory-days-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

this is pretty late but I'm wondering: What made you hate Nier Automata after Route A? I'm curious 'cause I usually hear folks say that Route B fleshes out the world and events of Automata, and that the real story doesn't start until Route C

Uhhhhhggggggg tbh I pushed it so far outta my mind I chose to forget about it (and DRV3, sadly ZTD is still in my head....probably cause I only played a little so it wasn’t like I had to retain more than I needed to). I don’t wanna think about it so I’ll try to keep it short.

I dunno, I thought the world was empty and repetitive, there wasn’t much to do, the routes were too short. 2B and 9S were boring as all hell after awhile (I like the O people and our robot buddies better as well as some side characters). Speaking of side characters they didn’t really flesh them out, they’re just freaking there. I was hoping they’d flesh out even 2B or 9S more but they didn’t. 9S was a whiny little baby (which only bothered me by the time I got to Route C I think). The humans not being real was easy to call, even if you hadn’t played the other games. I don’t like how I had to collect a bunch of side items for the game to expand on and explain shit to me. 

A2 was the only main character I actually liked (around Route B I started to dislike the game, but held out for this route cause I knew I got to play her.....and then I found out I had to play as 9S too ahhhrrrggghh), probably cause she was an angry baby and she interested me when I first saw her (HATED how they don’t go into her more in the other routes). And cause she reminds me of Kaine (who was the first character of Nier I was introduced to and was def my kind of character, haven’t played regular Nier yet), probably cause apparently it is hinted she is based of Kaine (tho if that’s the case why isn’t she voiced by Laura Bailey????).

Also Adam and Eve were the most interesting villains of the game and we just kill them off half way through. Not a fan of that (one of the reasons I refuse to watch any more Luke Cage cause of what they did in Season 1, even tho I actually finished that whole season I should’ve stopped half way through tbh). 

I think I was suppose to feel bad for the robots, but as soon as I as I saw them in the desert (when Adam/Eve were born or whatever) I actually got a feeling of such squick that I didn’t care I just wanted them dead and gone. I did like the ones in Pascal’s village, but it didn’t make up for the desert scene. So when they all died I was like “oh man I hope A2′s not sad cause I think she’s gonna be sad” rather than feel sad for the robots or Pascal. 

I just hated the writing in general, just felt.....lacking substance I guess (it’s been awhile tbh so don’t @ me on the writing cause I don’t care for this game at all, I’m refusing to acknowledge its existence any further). Tbh as an introduction to Yoko Taro, it really made me get off on the wrong foot and makes me hate him as a writer. But I will keep my mind open as I go backwards into Nier PS3 and Drakengard or whatever. Cause maybe it was just Automata that pissed me off (it didn’t piss me off during route A, it was more “Ok I know there are other routes, maybe there’s more!” and while I didn’t love the game it was just....fine....and then it went downhill)

(btw while I don’t wanna hear any defense or just anything on Automata, you can tell me stuff about Nier PS3 and Drakengard cause I will give those a fair shot, I just don’t wanna indulge in anymore Automata as much as I can.....and I don’t want to salty up the fandom with my salt, thus I stay away and everyone is happy! :D

of course if Automata 2 comes out....and there’s a trophy list.....what can I say I’m a trophy whore who will play games I don’t like just for the plat but that’s neither here nor there nor is it new news XP and I probs won’t talk about it much anyway other than if I thought it was better than 1 or not but even then I dunno)

So yeah sorry for my salt, I try not to talk about things I hate on here, except for P5....cause I can’t escape P5 (cause P5 is special as it’s part of a video game universe I love thus I must indulge in it so I know more about the universe even if I don’t want to cause I don’t like the game and thus I’m in a catch 22 orz)....but I can escape Automata and DRV3 and ZTD....and so I do. 

[kowareta-sekai-no-uta]

A2 and Commander; Trivia

- Just like how Zero’s sisters were created as copies of her, 2B and 9S were created base on the data of A2.

- In the Japanese novels, Commander favoured 2B a lot.

- The “hard-ass” Commander even told 2B not to work too hard and didn’t scold 2B for feeling tired and couldn’t lift her left arm to do a proper salute to her.

- 2B also knew about humanity extinction from the start.

- Yet she went on to kill 9S for many times.

- Personally, I think the reason the Commander told 9S the truth about human extinction in Route B was because she trusted that 2B would kill him when she found out that 9S discovered the truth. Again.

＊ I’m glad A2 had nothing to do in this sickening scheme. I’m glad the Commander died and didn’t get to cause even more pain for A2.

- If the Commander were their mother, 2B was treated similar to Seere and A2 Manah. Despite the fact that A2 had always been a kind soul before and after she was betrayed and left to die.

- In the Japanese dub, 2B’s choice of language is similar to A2’s. Kinda masculine. While 9S always speaks the polite language with everyone (and A2 used to talk like 9S)

- But 2B always speaks the polite language that 9S normally uses when she talks to the Commander.

＊ What was the friggin reason for her loyalty? Even though that woman was the very cause of 2B’s suffering. White was the very woman who ordered her to kill her precious 9S.

- White and Jackass knew each other.

- White used to station at the Resistance Camp.

- Like older model of androids, white who was not a YoRHa had a name like human. Just like Anemone and her late friends who died alongside A2’s friends.

＊ I think it was a disgusting choice of White to choose “Number Two’s model and face” for 2E who had become her fave YoRHa, 2B. Because of 2B’s loyalty and obedience. Canonically, there was nothing sexual between them. Thank God.

＊ Can you imagine White when 2B and 9S bumped into A2?

White be like: lol 2B and 9S, you two were created based on A2. And 2B, you have the same face with her. But you know what? Kill her for me, will you?

LOL no クタバレ。ク。ソ。司令官。

- A2 doesn’t attack you unless you attack her first in the game.

＊ I used 9S in Route B to fight A2. I hacked her when she was still not hostile and I failed the hacking on purpose, A2 still didn’t turn hostile. I taunted her with Pod flashlight. She still didn’t attack.

＊ In Route A, A2 isn’t hostile until you attack her first too.

If this were Dark Souls, the fans would realize immediately that A2 wasn’t a villain or a bad character that the story tried to make us believe.

- Isn’t it fucked up? Commander shared the truth about human extinction with 2B but she wouldn’t tell her the truth that A2 and all her other 15 comrades were just test subjects that were created just to die.

The bottom line is; the whole Drakengard/NieR universe is about the philosophy of absurdism.

[meeraan]

NieR: Automata Overview (I guess?)

This post will contain spoilers about NieR: Automata as I will be explaining the story, the characters and what happens in the game.

Let me start things off by saying I LOVED NieR: Automata. It was such a thrilling experience for me, it contained so many things I love about Japanese based stories. It has fun side characters, a solid set of main characters, and an absolutely bonkers story. I’ll try to develop on these things later on, but first, the world! The world of NieR: Automata is set in the year 11945, in a world where humanity has been put onto the edge of extinction from an alien race that brought with them an army of Machines with one motive, Destroy the Enemy. The humans were crushed, and the last remaining humans left earth, and settled on the moon, because why not.Where we play is an undisclosed ruins of a city that’s been long destroyed. We don’t know how long for, but it’s pretty destroyed. We play as Androids, human-like robots created by humans to fight back the Machine forces. The android base of the force YoRHa, a team the humans made to combat the machines, is just in between the moon and earth. It’s refered to the bunker, and has all the Android units, as well as the Operators and the Commander. The map on earth we play on is separated into segments: The City Ruins, which is the centre of the city, where most things take place, The Desert, I huge desert created next to the city as well of on some of the city, The Amusement Park, a big ol’ amusement park run by passive machines, The Forest Zone, a forest run by a kingdom of medieval styled machines, and The Flooded City, and area of the city... that makes the city a coastal one, I guess. The future is wild. Each of these zones have a vast number of side quests and hidden secrets that rewards your exploration. 

Next, the playable characters. You play as 3 androids at different plays through the game. The game has a total of 3 routes (A, B and C) with the 3 androids, as well as 2 extra story endings. Everyone knows who 2B is, she’s used as advertisement of the game, but has no real impact to the true ending of the game. She dies just as the real meat of the game goes on, and she is replaced with an rouge android called A2 (who is a much more well rounded an established character once you unlock some of her backstory elements). 9S is a character who becomes very interesting once the story picks up during route C. Although androids are not suppose to bring emotions to their work, his and 2Bs interactions during the route A and B causes him to fall in love with 2B. I honestly do not think their relationship is forced, as you see what each of them go through together, as a team. The death of 2B makes 9S determined to wipe out every last machine, as well as the person who murdered 2B, A2. What 9S doesn’t know, is that she was infected with a virus that destroys androids, and she asked A2 to kill her, and look after 9S. This creates an interesting dynamic between A2 and 9S, and the last fight of the game, you can chose to be either 9S or A2, and fight to the death. I won’t go into the ending too much as there’s a lot that needs explaining, that I can’t explain. All in all, 2B was there to sell copies, 9S and A2 are the two main characters of this game.

The side characters are interesting as well. Let’s start with the operators assigned to 2B and 9S during their operations on earth. 2B is a serious character who does her job, and does it well. She likes to keep things formal and to the rules. Her operator, 6O, is a lovable goofball. She’s awkward and cute, she talks about her personal life with 2B, how 6O’s crush turned her down and how she was so upset and come to 2B for advise. She hints constantly that she wants to see earth, and see it’s beauty, until 2B decides she’ll be nice and send her over some picture taken by 2B. 6O is too pure and we never learn her fate.. 9S’s operator is the opposite. 21O is much like 2B, and 9S’s is much like 6O. Although 21O is very serious, later in the story we find out her sensitive side, and how she longed for people to call her family. In route C we find out the virus outbreak that caused 2B to turn evil, as well as everyone else, has taken her find, and we’re forced to kill her, as 9S. The fight was very touching and broke my heart a little, as her dying words were “all I wanted was a family...”. NOW LETS TALK ABOUT PASCAL. Pascal is the leader of a village of machines that have broken away from the network that connects the machines, and are now good! Free to think of their own, the village have lived in peace and harmony with androids and the opposing machines. Pascal is a sweet machine who just wants peace in this world of war. When we reach the village for the first time everyone is holding out white flags, offering peace. Pascal puts all his time and effort in educating the villages children, and making sure relations with the androids stay strong. I will not spoil what happens to Pascal and the village as I genuinely think that you need to experience it yourself. It was the first time in a long time that a video game has made me cry. The next and final character is Anemone. She is the leader of the Android resistance that stay on earth permanently. Her back story ties in with A2′s, as they used to be part of a team. Once again, I won’t go too much into it as there’s a lot to cover. She’s cool, but is only really interesting when interacting with A2.

Now, to try and summarise the story that’ll make sense... 2B and 9S are sent on various missions to destroy Goliath-Class machines - major treats to The Android Resistance and YoRHa. Along the way, the encounter a human-like machine, created in front of them named Adam. They defeat Adam, and from the body of Adam, comes Eve! See the reference? These two become the antagonist for route A/B. They reveal later that the alien race that the androids have been trying to find and destroy have been dead for hundreds of years, killed by the machines. When 2B and 9S make their way into the Forest Zone, they storm the castle to fight the king of these machine knights, only to be greeted with a Machine Baby, in a cot. A2, out of nowhere, comes in and kills the baby king, before fighting 2B and 9S. She leaves, 2B and 9S bested. Who was that mysterious android? Fast forward, past another Goliath-Class machine, 9S has been sent rocketing to half way across the map due to the fight and 2B must find him. She finds a mysterious elevator that takes her to a place named the Copied City. Here, we find Adam, with 9S’s body on a make shift crucifix, and 2B must kill Adam to save him. RIP Adam, 9S is save, woohoo. Except Eve is pissed, like super pissed. He loved his brother and only saw revenge as an option. Fast Forward again, and we’re at the fight with Eve. Mustering all the power he has, he beats 2B and 9S to a pulp, but 9S, using his hacking ability (that I never explained he could do, sorry), hacked into Eve, and destroyed him. Bur doing so exposed him to the machine network, and he was infected with the virus. Much to 2B’s misfortune, she kills 9S, there and then. This is where I have a problem with the story. Because he was connected to the machine network, he could project himself into any of the other machine life forms, why? No clue. But he’s find now, and not infected! Wohoo! But oh boy, that was only half the story. Route C is when the madness starts, the entire bunker is infected with this virus, 2B and 9S have to fight their fellow androids to escape the Bunker, and when they land back to earth, the machines are back, and stronger than before. 2B is then infected by the virus, and finds a place to kill herself. She’s greeted by A2, and A2 agrees to kill her. But 9S sees A2 kill 2B, and thinks A2 killed her for no reason....... and that’s where I’ll leave it. I will not be able to do route C’s story justice by trying to explain what was going through Yoko Taro’s head. It get’s mind fucky, and it’s amazing.

Endings. You know how I said there were 3 routes and 2 extra endings (making that 5 story endings). Well there are 26 ‘endings’ to the game. All the other endings are silly and fun way the game could have ended. For example: What would happen if an android ate a fish? They die, horribly. That’s an ending. What happens if instead of helping 9S when he was captured by Adam, you just walked away? That’s an ending. Killed everyone in Pascals Village? Ending. Self destruct in the Bunker? Ending. There are so many fun way to end the game. It’s a nice touch.

There are so many more things I could talk about. A2′s and Anemone’s backstory. A character named Emil, who was in the first NieR game. One of the story endings to do with the endings credits. The very concept of existence and the meaning of one’s life portrayed by machines created by an alien race. The Gestalt program. The Machine King. SO MUCH. This game has so much story and has such an established lore before the events of the game, it’s amazing. I loved NieR: Automata, and I hope we get some DLC, and maybe after a couple years a new addition to the NieR franchise.