#lemme have mah stripped down android bishiebois

[thepawt]

Got all the five main endings for Automata now and… It’s a good game. Solid. But it’s just… not nearly as memorable or emotional to me as Nier was. Like… Alright, let’s do some BIG spoilers under the cut

First and foremost, the characters. The characters are good, emotive and all have acting that ranges from good to great! But… that’s kinda where it stops? From a visual standpoint A2, B2 and 9S are hella boring once you get past the the novelty of 2B’s booty and A2′s 10/10 tummy. Compared to Nier where you had old man mcGruff, a talking book, Kaine with that BULGE and supersized attitude, and finally Emil floating around with his freaky big-ass head. There also weren’t any BIG emotional goals or restraints on the characters? Like, 2B has killed 9S hella times over, which explains the “You’re the You you are right now” in ending A but like… they do a Tell Don’t Show with that so you never feel the weight of it? Compare that to Emil blowing up the entire city at the end of the Wendy bossfight. That shit HURT

Gameplay was… both better and worse than Nier. The main combat was waaay smoother and more fun (And BLESS the gods that you don’t have to grind nearly as hard to max upgrade your shit) but the Hacking and the SHMUP parts just got… boring? I mean, Nier mixed ALL kinds of shit: You had the Resident Evil/Silent Hill locked camera angles in Emil’s Manor, the top down arcadey shooter bits in the Weapon’s Lab, some railshooter stuff… with the rpg being the core that kept tying everything together. In Nier it felt like a cool shoutout-  a meta-nod to other games- while in Automata it just feels like a not-quite-as-fun type of combat as the pure fighting.

And the bosses. Hoooo boy was excited for the bosses. Adam, with the uncanny robot orgy and the freaky theme was GREAT. Simone was dope too, with a great theme, cool setting and GREAT visual design. …And then it just felt like they had no creative juices left. Fucking FIVE of the bosses were the SAME FUCKING METAL EYEBALL!! The shit was up with that?? Compared to Nier which started off chill with Hansel and Gretel and then worked its way up to shit like Emil’s Sister, the Temple of Shifting Sands boss, the WOLF KING?? THE FUCKING SHADE AND HIS IRON giaNT ROBO BUDDY WHO JUST WANTED TO ESCAPE???? ;_; Automata didn’t even come close :L And the final bosses were fucking jokes. Eve was mainly just annoyingly easy, and 9S/A2 were so pathetically easy that I would’ve had a harder time fighting those worm-ass-wormbots. They didn’t even have that big FINAL feel that the Shadowlord had. Something you had built up to, sacrificed for, seen your friends DIE for over the entire game…

Speaking of bosses- Nier had the wonderful twist of throwing in subtitles for the Bosses’ otherwise incomprehensible speech, showing you their sides of things: their fear, their anger, their despair. Making you feel for them, making you realize that in most cases they are more justified than you are. It was a fucking GUT PUNCH on the first replay of Nier and Automata could’ve gone for something similar, allowing you to finally understand the machines’ speech… but they opted not to and while it wouldn’t really have done much since barely any of the bosses talked, it could’ve saved some goodness for the other endings.

Automata’s 5 main endings are kinda MEH all of them, tbh, and the shmup-shit with the credits roll on E just had me sighing in boredom after a while. Like… there is so much potential in Automata’s story. The setup is great- the androids and the machines learning that they are practically the same and their goal in a predetermined infinite struggle. But instead of having the characters realize this and try to find a way out of the loop, find a way for the races to coexist and finally replace the humans they both so desperately strive to be like, they spend the first ten hours going “Was that machine expressing EMOTION? Naaah, can’t be” and it just… ugh, felt like a lot of wasted potential, since it’s only really ending E that touches on that but it’s very off-handedly done. Creds again to them for having a “Making this choice will delete your savefile”-thingy, but AGAIN (Noticing a pattern here yet??) it’s just not as good as in Nier!

Okay so. In Nier, you have a choice at the end of your third playthrough. You either put Kaine out of her misery or you cure her. Putting her out of her misery triggers ending C and you then start back up again. Curing her- Ending D- however is a fucking BRILLIANT piece of game design. To save her you must give up your very existence, and to really make you feel the fucking WEIGHT of that? Yeah, it deletes your fucking save. You are GONE if you choose to do so. It’s just 11/10. Fucking great. GOD TIER game design right there. …In automata? You can give up your save file to help another player get through the fucking TRUDGE that is the Ending E credits roll. It’s not even a guaranteed sacrifice it’s just… kinda there??

And while we’re already talking down Automata… The soundtrack. It’s good. It really is. It’s just… not close enough to the fucking GDLK ost that was Nier. Nier had character themes, fucking DOPE reprises, and very varied sounds! …Automata’s was good, yeah, but it lacked character. Some of the best tracks in it were remixes/rearranges from Nier (Dark Colossus & Song of the Ancients ~Fate~ for example)

For all the shit I’m giving Automata I did like it. I LOVED the machine designs (Apart from fucking Eyeball McDullshit) and how much they could vary the designs on them but still keep them very cohesive. The gameplay was fun, perhaps not as deep as I could’ve wanted but still solid, good fun! Not a big fan of the Souls elements with losing your body and your skill setup on death- didn’t really feel like it added much OR made much sense since the teleports are explained as Body Swaps as well soooo by that logic you should’ve lost the setup every time you TP’d. It’s a good game, with good presentation, some really beautiful scenery, some GREAT emotional moments (pretty much everything with Pascal- FUCK ME it was hard seeing him there at the end) but not the emotional barrage that Nier was.