[Review] Game - Nier: Automata

NieR: Automata was a game I did not play until just recently. See, I hate this game's fans. Automata gained massive popularity and everyone ranted and raved about it. They ranted and raved mostly about things that... the game this is a sequel to did. Sympathetic enemies, a depressing tone, a philosophical story, gorgeous music, great characterization, gorgeous music, and a final ending which wipes your save file. These are all things the original NieR did, and unfortunately for me the gaming press at large and even many fans of the game don't really talk about what Automata does that NieR didn't do. The fact that so many upstarts who either had never heard of either Drakengard or NieR, or worse thought the first game was mediocre-bad, well you can imagine how a big fan of the original could develop some negative feelings for this game and its fans, to say the least.

You know what, screw being civil for the sake of an articulate review. Fuck you posers who jumped on this NieR bandwagon, fuck everyone who doesn't understand the story and just like's 2B's ass, fuck everyone who played this and still has no desire to play the first game, fuck everyone who said the first game was bad, and especially fuck everyone who wants a direct sequel to this game. Are you fucking retarded? Did the game's beautifully tragic story not make an actual impact on you? Did you not process the final lines of the game, did you not get what it means and why a direct sequel would be totally fucking stupid and ruin everything? You're the same kind of fucking clowns they had to make that Epilogue short story for that- shit. I can't say what happens in that because it spoils the ending. Whatever, at least half the fans of this game are complete brainlets.

That being said, there are plenty of people who dearly love the first game that love this one as well. And while I'd never say that this game is better than the first(honestly they're so different in so many ways it's not really a fair thing to say), I very much think it does stand as a good followup to the original NieR and a part of the entire Drag-on Dragoon/Drakengard and NieR mythos.

The reason I didn't play this game should be obvious. The people saying oh man this gameplay is so good(the gameplay is not the focus of NieR, the story is), this music is so good(yes just like the first game), this story is so deep(just like the first game), the last ending where you lose your save data is so good(JUST LIKE THE FIRST GAME.) all just made me feel like this was Yoko Taro doing what he says he doesn't do, which is making the same game twice. It seemed to me like it was a total rehash that was only impressive to people who hadn't experienced the original or were morons who thought the original wasn't very good and probably only got the first ending.

After playing it now, I can safely say that I was wrong. The decision to give it a shot came from at least 2 things: The fact there are NieR fans that properly appreciate it and also love this game too. And a strange gnawing in the back of my head. I... kept thinking. What if? I saw bits and pieces of the plot mostly the broad strokes which didn't help my perception of it being a rehash. But I still kept thinking. Every once in a while I'd see it mentioned and I'd go, hmm... It turns out this was a pretty good thing.While I still hate most of this game's fans, I can consider myself one. I apologize for, well not all of the things I said about this game but a hell of a lot of it. Like, 70% or more of what I said in my 2017 game of the year post I take back. Whoops!

So what do we do? Well, we talk about the game. I'll go over each category and try not to spoil the story. I think we'll start with the absolute least important part: The gameplay.

First off I'll say my only exposure to the gameplay beforehand came from the demo, which isn't even something I played, and is something a friend of mine played. Now, I've seen even people who say they like the gameplay say the demo isn't great. It's the first part of the game, the tutorial. You don't have access to all the weapon types, the more interesting pod programs, the stuff you can equip that makes combat more interesting, you fight simple enemies with simple attacks, you fight a simple boss, and you do a flight section and a bunch of the sidescrolling parts too. The level is very bland to look at because it's the factory, which is apparently meant to be part of the same structure you visit in the scrapheap in NieR, and that part wasn't much to look at either. It's also really linear when most of the game is fairly open. And honestly, the story is the least interesting save for the opening lines and scenes, and the ending of the section where they fucking blow themselves up. The first 30-50 minutes of the game is a tutorial that seemed to be made for a demo and tried to cram as much of what the game was into that timeframe without giving you too much of stuff you'll get as you progress, and also be a dungeon. It's really not very good and does a bad job of showing what the game actually is.

But I do think the gameplay, once you get past that part, is very fun and enjoyable, for the most part. It's very obviously a Platinum Games... game, and I do think that's maybe the problem. My original fears are unfounded, I was worried they'd make this too much like their other titles. But, not really. There are no QTEs, very few over the top moments(and the ones there are make sense within the context and setting), it's not like super hard or anything in a way that gets in the way of enjoying story moments, nothing that's really a detriment to the game. Well, okay, that's not entirely true but it's not things that are like other games they've made. There's a weird Dark Souls like mechanic where, when you die, you have to go pick up your shit from your body. If you don't within a certain timeframe, or if you die again, you lose what you had on you. This I think is only really your plug-in chips, things that boost your stats or give other effects, but if you got a good setup you want to keep it this means you need to be able to get to your body without dying, and hope you can get out of or conquer whatever area you died in or you're boned. Sometimes those situations might require reloading, but if you don't have a recent enough save then say goodbye to your progress. The game has no autosave and it probably just should have. I don't feel like a NieR game, or a Drakengard game for that matter, should really work like this. I like that you don't actually die so much as you go back to whatever place you saved last because that's where you backed up your data and it's put into a spare body. Saving is something you canonically do in this game, which is cool. But I don't wanna lose my stuff man, come on. The game can be challenging, and you can get yourself into places and events you shouldn't be with very little warning. How was I supposed to know this side quest is intended for players 15-20 levels above my current level?

All that said for the most part this game is decently challenging, it would like revengeance on hard or bayonetta if you didn't have free access to as many healing items as you can afford, and also chips that let you recover HP for causing damage and killing an enemy, or you couldn't level up and such. My biggest problem is, after spending most of Route A doing side quests, I ended up fairly over leveled for most of the bosses, and then on Route B I was a bit underleveled for some of them. I guess it's kind of my fault for doing all the sidequests I could have left for Route B in Route A but oh well.

The game plays like a hybrid of the original NieR, Revengeance, and Bayonetta. R2 lets you dash around like Raiden's ninja run(fitting since he's a cyborg and these are androids), and it also lets you dodge similar to Bayonetta and there's even a chip called Overclock which basically is Witch Time. I do think the combat is pretty fun, as fun as murdering countless sentient life forms that just want a purpose to their existence and sometimes revenge just like you do can be. It's fast paced, decently balanced, rewards paying attention and punishes not thinking and just going ham. I think my biggest issue is that I dunno if that's how combat in a NieR game should be? However, the gameplay does not detract or distract from the story, I just think it's got a tiny bit too much of a spotlight on it which isn't the point. Like, sure, it shouldn't be monotonous like DoD1 or be that plus performance issues like DoD3, but I mean I think NieR's gameplay was pretty much perfect for a gameplay second story first approach. I feel like the balancing is based more around the RPG mechanics more than the action mechanics, which is weird because so much focus is put on the action mechanics, whereas in the original more emphasis is put on the RPG mechanics. Either way, it's nothing special, but I think it's pretty fun. In terms of action gameplay, not at all their best work.

 
Also, the fun top down bullet hell sections have mostly been replaced with flight sections, where you fly your gundam around and shooty shooty at the robits PEW PEW. I don't like these, they're mostly boring and aren't really fun. Platinum doesn't know how to make a STG game and really Yoko Taro doesn't either even though he tries a lot. I like the hacking minigame a lot more even with it's minimalist presentation. I like that there are so many different playstyles and things you do in this game however, which is in line with the original. In fact, there are 3 whole playable characters! But I think that what makes the gameplay of NieR so good is how varied and weird it could be. Here, I feel like the core combat is very good but I don't like the gimmicks very much, the topdown and sideview sections, and the flight sections, aren't very good this time around. In NieR, those were fun and made the game unique, but in Automata it feels tacked on because this is a sequel. Not to mention, while the core combat in NieR wasn't very fun or engaging(though spells > pod programs for sure), I also felt like that was maybe the point? Was it supposed to be fun or was it supposed to be arduous? Not to mention, I feel like the hits felt better in NieR. When you hit and enemy there was a solid thump especially with bigger weapons, they spewed blood, and when they died there was a quick solid and immediate stoppage of everything. You could feel them dying, which is part of the point because you're supposed to feel bad when you learn that [redacted]. For Automata, every hit felt a lot lighter to me than I remember NieR being, and while enemies just stop I often didn't even notice, you just kind of slide through them to the next one. Maybe that was the point, to feel like you're simply mowing these poor robots down without even really processing that you've killed them. Either way, I just prefer the first game's gameplay, like I said the gimmicks are all fun there but much less here. That said, there are some really good set pieces in the late game that, along with having 3 playable characters as I said, almost entirely make up for that, so I guess I could maybe say they're both as good?  Maybe? I dunno. Moving on.

What is improved about the gameplay is the side quests. In the original Nier, I pretty much never did these aside the ones that give you weapons(needed for the last ending), because they were boring. Oh what's that you want me to go get some meat from these animals what's that kill some shades what's that find some rocks okay. I don't recall any that really gave you more insight about the world or it's characters, at least anything worth doing the sidequests, outside of a few. Nor did they give you anything interesting to do. While there are fetch quests and kill enemy quests here too, there are much more interesting ones that have you doing more interesting things, sometimes have humorous little side stories, have serious and sad side stories, and give you more bits and pieces of that cryptic puzzle. I did almost all the side quests this time around!

Something that's not really an improvement, but is simply good and different from the first game, is the range of movement. Fitting for a combat android, you can do things like double jump, hover with the help of your pod, and scale much larger structures than the first game. The first game was going for something different in how it's overworld worked, and also was somewhat limited by technology and budget, so it's not like one is better than the other. I do, however, feel like I kind of enjoy this better. Going up super high and surveying the decayed cities and deserts and forests is really cool, very beautiful, and very sad. It helps a lot to convey some of the theme and tone of the game in a way that the first game also did, just in different ways.

Moving on to the graphics then, I think that just like the first game they are below the standard set for games these days, but through it's use of good art direction and design, is maybe more beautiful than games of it's time. You get close to stuff and see the lack of detail in textures sure, but the big picture looks really great. I felt this way about NieR as well, while everyone else thought it looked like shit. The atmosphere the graphics and level design exudes is on par with NieR and conveys the intended emotions just as well. I suppose that's unsurprising, since Yoko Taro did direct it, and he also wasn't in Drakengard 3 mode this time, seriously DoD3 looks bad. Like the art direction wasn't very good either?

Part of that atmosphere and feeling is because of the fantastic music as well. I need to say something about that as well before I really talk about the music proper. I was under the impression most of the music was reused and remixed music. This is not the case, I only ever encountered 2 instances of reused tracks, and I know of a 3rd. The first two played during side quests featuring Emil and were appropriately placed. One played when you go find Emil's house, and it's his music. Later, Emil functions as a superboss if you collect and upgrade all weapons(I didn't do this one but I watched a video of it), and the battle version of his theme plays during it. The other one, Kaine's theme, which I had the most reservations about(let's say, instead of a more angry phrase), was also used appropriately. EDIT: Oh there was also one more that I forgot about but it too is used in an appropriate scene. There are no tracks that I remember from the first game that are reused for other character or major plot events, thank god. Some songs sound very similar, but I think that's meant to give a similar feeling and be a callback. EDIT: Okay, I suppose there are a couple other tracks that are different arrangements of tracks from the NieR sountrack, but for the most part it is original music. The new arrangements are different enough I had to play them back to back to tell anyway. And my point about character's themes not being reused for other characters or plot events still stands. Like, there is a song bearing the name "Dark Colossus" on both OSTs, but it's used for "you're fighting a large boss" in both games, pretty sure the song in NieR was used multiple times there too.

Now, do I think the music is better than the first game's? In some aspects I think yes, if only because the composer has had more time to hone is craft and style since then, and because his and Emi Evans' made up language music is becoming even more like Yuki Kajiura and GUST music(EDIT: okay GUST music is in japanese but it's a similar style of chanting). The soundtracks, like the games themselves, are very similar but very different and are trying to evoke somewhat different things, so I no I don't think this OST is better. I do, however, think it's really fucking good. I think my favorite tracks are probably "Wretched Weaponry", "Copied City", and "Birth of a Wish".

Of course that makes things difficult, as one thing I think this OST does perhaps better than the original is have so many variations of each song. So the question is, which version of those songs am I talking about? There are quiet ambient versions, more dramatic versions, and versions for battles. Not to mention, there are chiptune versions of almost every track due to the hacking minigame! And, the music plays dynamically, probably because of this being platinum and they learned from Revengeance. Sadly I can't think of any moments of boss fights where the lyrics kicked in, but lyric versions of tracks will play after a time, then will switch to more high energy versions when story or battles are happening, then transition back when it's over. It's pretty cool. Also, there are some versions of the songs where voice clips from the robots saying "This cannot continue" and "become as gods" are incorporated and they have japanese versions of the voice clips as well. I forget what the other is, but become as gods is "kami ni naru" if you're playing in japanese. I think this is a testament more to the composer's talent more than anything. He's so fucking good, keep hiring him. Make more anime with his music too! Keiichi Okabe is great! I'm so glad Yoko Taro has used him ever since NieR, and Emi Evans too. EDIT: Also forgot to say, about the ending song that plays. At first I felt like the lyrics were a tad bit cheesy, or at least sappy, for this game. Less so for endings A and B, but it plays before ending C and D as well. I was also kind of upset that, unlike DOD3 where there was a unique and often great ending song for each Branch, there was only it and it's japanese counterpart for all endings. However, both versions also play during ending E and I think I get both why the lyrics are the way they are, and why you heard it every time at the end. It builds itself up and when you understand the reason for those lyrics and who's perspective the song is really from, it all starts to make sense.

Now, on to the plot and overall story. Automata opens deep into the 14th Machine War, part of a much larger war between Machine Lifeforms and Androids, which has gone on for about 5000 years. A war in which most of the combatants can't even remember the reason for the fighting, in which the animosity between the two feeds into itself. Androids fight Machines in a neverending war in a dead world with only their conflict and a bunch of animals. It's claimed that humans are holed up on the moon, and once the machines are defeated they will return to the earth. This is what the androids fight for. You take control of one such android, member of a new elite group of combat androids of the organization YoRHa, model 2B of the "battle" type android. The game begins as you are flying toward what's known as a "Goliath class" machine lifeform, which incredibly easily destroys her whole squad even in their fancy powered suit flight units. After one of luckily only a few flight sections, you fight this big robit for a while until it runs off and you meet another protagonist, 9S, a "scanner" model. He is your partner and backup. I'll go more in to what she says to him in the character section but for now that's all.

The story consists of 3 Routes, and 5 endings(well there are 26 if you count all of the Bad Ends and joke endings you can get, such as one I got on accident when I sold my OS chip killing myself right after the prologue). First two endings are the endings of Route A and B, in A you play as 2B, in B you play as 9S. Then you unlock Route C, which continues the story from where A and B left off, adding a 3rd playable character called A2. From there, you can get ending C and D, which depends on who you chose to fight the last boss as. Finally, once you have achieved all endings, you unlock ending E which involved... something. I don't want to give that away if you don't know or don't know all the details. Regardless, it is actually as amazing as people have made it out to be, and is a fantastic and meaningful ending to the story. Also kind of cool is that the save deletion here is a choice, you can opt out of it if you want. I think that makes it more important, and is a good way to do it. Instead of trying to replicate the shock of actually getting your save deleted, it expands upon the concept in a good and meaningful way that a sequel should do. 

For route's A and B what the story consists of is mostly you being told by your commanding officer via your Operator(6O for 2B, 21O for 9S) sending you to various places with weird signals or rumors or whatever. At first I didn't like this, in NieR you had an overall goal, you were looking for something to fix your daughter and later for the pieces of the key to the Shadowlord's castle. I thought this was lazy, I mean instead of having direction and following leads to your end goal, coming across various characters and stories in the process, you were just being told to go to the next plot area. However, I think there are two reasons I was wrong about this 1: I mean really in NieR it's the same thing in terms of writing it and what you do. You're told to go to a place by another character and the reason it's relevant to your quest is because that's where the plot is. Just like where you're commanded to go is where the next plot point is. It's really the same thing, it doesn't take any more or less effort. 2: It kinda makes sense for how the story is. In NieR, you're a single minded determined warrior trying to save your daughter no matter what it costs to yourself or others. In Automata, you're a soldier shoulder deep into a war that's gone on forever. You went on a sad and depressing journey that unlocks the secret of the world in NieR. Here, you're given missions to complete. I feel like it actually does fit. It makes the story feel a little less cohesive here, but that's really only in the A and B routes which I think are meant to be somewhat unsatisfying. Spoilers but in route C the structure is more like NieR for certain reasons.

I think that in itself shows the differences between NieR and Automata's story. I can't go too much into detail about the story without giving a lot of the good details away, but if I could sum it up it feels like a mix of NieR and Drakengard, much less of the former. This could turn some people off from it, but I think that mix combined with Taro having experience writing and directing leads to even the more edgy stuff being done well enough that I at least don't have any issues with it.

What I can say about the story is that it is indeed very good, it made me think a lot, and I felt a lot of different feelings while playing. The theme seems to be a whole lot of existentialism, many beings in the setting struggle with the meaning of their existence, finding any meaning in existing or living at all. One little sidequest deals with several machines that won't speak to you and simply sit there lost in thought. You have to hack them as 9S and look into their minds, to see them questioning why they're even here. Once you do that for all of them, they all yell out, announcing that there is no point in carrying on, and all jump off of the high places they stood in, killing themselves. Many androids have lost countless friends and comrades, and lovers, to the war they fight in, to the point that many of them have become numb to it. Some characters are only able to really carry on because they believe that if they keep going, the war will be won and humans can come back. God, and the lack of having one leading to a lack of a purpose, is a strong theme throughout. The aliens that created the machines have long since stopped giving them any orders, and how they deal with this is just as much a part of the story as how androids deal with the situation they are in. Some machines even resort to creating a new god for themselves. A sad world locked in a neverending struggle that claims lives near constantly, protagonists who seem to hate it but are also fairly resigned to how things are, good twists and turns and lots of tragedy. Like I said I think this is a worthy successor to NieR.

EDIT: Edits because I'm an idiot and forgot to mention things! I wanted to say that the story features a lot of references to philosophers and many of their ideas, as well as references to classic literature in some of it's trophies and ending names(one is literally just called "childhood's end"). While this may seem to be evidence of what I said in my GotY post from 2017, and this is the "pretentious hipster version" of NieR, this goes beyond mere reference, the influence is highly tied to the narrative in a way that isn't just repeating it for easy smartdeeps, and there's something... interesting going on with this. The easiest example I can say without spoiling too much is there's an NPC named after Jean Paul Sartre, one of if not the father of existentialism. He's portrayed as pretentious and an asshole, so much of a "I'm above the world and it's trifles because I'm enlightened" kind of guy that when his female fans give him gifts he tosses them away and refuses to even write a letter in response. His fans know this and love him even more for it. Finally, it's worth noting that he is not Sartre, merely named after him, is a machine lifeform, and machines often try to imitate humans especially after reading about them. From this I think you could already interpret the point of these philosopher references, but if you can't perhaps by the end of the story you will. Incidentally, remember when MyAnimeList users would quote philosophers they didn't know anything about at the start of their reviews to show how smart they were?

Also since I don't have anywhere else to put it, for my good friend @TKarrde23, I found the "robots fucking" scene that Alex Navarro(of Giant Bomb dot Com, it's a website! About video games!) was talking about. He made it sound like it was a bunch of the humanoid androids having an orgy because the poor souls are close to being human but oh! Oh forlorn is they! They are not! However, I missed it the first time I saw it because it's literally just 2-3 of these tin can ass machines that you fight who are humping each other in this pit with a bunch of other machines some of whom are doing other things like pretending to cradle a baby they don't have or diving in to nothing. It's a detail that shows how broken they are and how much they try to emulate humans with no avail. It's not some deep meaningful moment, not on it's own, but it's something you can look back on after future revelations and go "oh that's why they were doing that".


So, after that, what of those characters and protagonists I mentioned?

Well, as I said we have 2B, battle model No. 2. I'll say this right now: I don't like her outfit, there's no real story or thematic justification for it, and Taro has admitted he just likes how it looks. The blindfold at least I can say is perhaps symbolic, and in the literal sense they're actually visors. 9S has one too, and I think I understand the reason but can't really tell you. That being said the rest of the costume is very clearly just Taro's fucking fetish, and I wish he hadn't put it in there like that. Like yeah, okay Taro,  I get it. I like short hair girls with beauty marks, big butts, short skirts, high heals that are blindfolded too but you know maybe save that for your porn doujins and not in your very serious and depressing game? Make a note of that for next time please? I mean there's even an extra ability that removes her skirt, the "self-destruct" command actually does that. To be fair, 9s at least has one two so we're being equal, and it does put you in a near-death state... but you can just pop some healing items and run around with her ass out. Recommend at some point saving and then using the move in The Bunker though, trust me. Anyway, the design and outfit and all that isn't bad in-and-of itself, not even the option to just go ass out, I don't dislike it because "this game is for coomers" or because it's "misogynistic" or anything like that, it's that it just doesn't fit. It doesn't even need to be kept to a fanservice game, it'd work in a more lighthearted and less serious game. Maybe, just maybe, the main character having a short frilly skirt you can easily peak up to see her ass with, the ability to remove the skirt so you can just look at it, long ass thigh highs with heels, a boob window, and a blindfold doesn't really fit with this serious and artistic existential tragedy game? No, couldn't be! It's not a huge deal but it's a deal, I didn't really like it in the original game with Kaine's outfit but at least it had narrative justification there if you read into it. Surely you can understand the tonal clash between "check out my kinky lady design" and "do all things exist simply to die?", it just doesn't fit. And yeah, I do hate that so many people only care about her and her ass, there are still tons of people who make porn of her and haven't even played it or know what it's about, forgetting even those that do just to look at her ass and don't pay attention to the story. There's nothing wrong with playing it because you liked her character design but I expect you to pay attention and engage with the game when you realize it's a somber sci-fi war story, and not install mods to permanently remove 2B's skirt.

Aside from that shit, 2B is actually a pretty good character. I think the first part of the story where she says shit like "emotions are prohibited" are not really the on the nose nonsense that it might come across as. First off, emotions are actually supposed to be prohibited for YoRHa androids, they just often don't follow that rule. Second, there is a reason for 2B trying to act so distant and unattached to 9S, which is never directly stated but can be easily put together especially later on. This can be seen right as they go back to The Bunker, the YoRHa headquarters and a space station, and due to an incomplete backup, 9S doesn't even remember the two of them meeting after his data is installed in a new body. As 2B sees this, she lets him walk off and a close up shot of her clenching her fist can be seen. Though, there's more to it than what you can surmise from that, that's all I'll say. It's unfortunate that the demo couldn't or just didn't show this, as 2B's character seemed kind of stupid in the prologue. 2B is practically a kuudere character, mixed with the cold and serious type of female soldier you see in anime. I find this to be pretty enjoyable, I mean I like both of those character archetypes. Perhaps because of this personality, a large part of the story centers around 2B and 9S's relationship, and much of it is told through subtext and small lines rather than just telling you about it.

That's where we transition to 9S. Something I noticed is that he acts very flippant toward everyone else, doing that bit they do in anime where he says "hai hai" and the other person goes "only one hai is needed" and then he goes "haaaaai", to his operator. However, he is much more polite(slightly less so in the dub, bad move I think) to 2B, even calling her "ma'am"(or "2B-san") at first until she tells him to stop and just call her "2B". She says it's unnecessary to be so formal, but I think that even with her desire to distance herself from him, she still kinda wants him to use more intimate ways of speaking with her. But I'm talking about him right now, what I'm trying to say is, it's easy to chalk this up to him simply being nice to his superior officer, but that becomes harder to do later when he starts asking her to call him "Nines"(a nickname we can only assume he made up himself), and when he says that when the war is over and humans rebuild everything, maybe they could go shopping together.

I'd like to say something that's sort of a spoiler, but it's always interesting when something does this. Really, 9S is the main character. The marketing, and even the game, would have you believe 2B is the main character. Now, I played as her maybe the most because I did most of the side quests in her route, but in terms of non-optional content, you play as 9S for a larger amount of the story. He has the more meaningful and important scenes, and the biggest arc. 2B doesn't go through all that much of an arc, it's mostly the dropping of what I see as a facade, and others might just see as her warming up. 9S on the other hand, well, some things happen to him. 9S... had a hard life.

As I said mostly he's pretty flippant, and then nice to 2B. I could see some people finding him annoying but, I actually kinda like this type of character. He's a rambunctious young man who's nice and soft spoken to certain people. 9S, more like 9/ss/ you know what I'm sayin??? Seriously though I do think he's an interesting character. Sometimes cocky and irreverent, sometimes polite, sometimes he acts pretty cute like when he expressed how happy he is to get a partner(though this hides something a little more sad), sometimes he suffers and is conflicted, confused and doesn't know what to do(a good notable part that shows this is a sidequest in which you have to hunt down and kill a few deserters. This, suffice to say, doesn't sit well with him, and makes a certain scene much later all the more tragic). There's a fun part where he comes in and saves the day by crashing one of their gundams into someone. I rather like him, more than I thought I would. I liked 2B more than I thought I would too.

EDIT: Dammit, forgot to mention. I'd try to weave it in to talking about 9S proper, but I want make it easy for someone who read this already(kek like happened) and also be up front about how much of a fucking amateur I am. Anyway, I was gonna talk about 9S' playstyle. When you play as 2B you have a fairly standard character action set of moves with some fun tweaks in the form of the chips and pod programs, she has a light attack with square a heavy attack with triangle. However, when you dodge and do a counter move she usually tries to fling people in the air, and in my experience 9S doesn't do that when he dodge-attacks. That's only the first difference, the second is he doesn't have a heavy attack, instead pressing triangle initiates a hacking attempt, fill up the hacking bar and you enter that hacking minigame I mentioned. Successfully complete the hacking minigame and and you'll do anywhere from 25-50% of the enemy's health in damage. Some enemies can be insta-killed that way. It ironically makes him more of a powerhouse despite being a data and reconnaissance model. I recommend if you're having difficulty in any sidequest because of some tough boss, just come back to it in Route B and kill him with 9S.

About that hacking minigame, I forgot to say it manages to pull of some great dramatic moments inside the area where you do them. I can't tell you what those are but they were really good and it's cool it was able to do that with this very boring looking space.

But there's one more player character to talk about! This one I won't say much of because it's already a spoiler that you can even play as her. About 2/3 or so through Route A/B, you will encounter and have a boss fight with a unit now designated "A2", formerly "Attacker No. 2", a protoype YoRHa model who deserted after the disastrous Pearl Harbor Descent Operation. I wanna take a second to talk about this and say it greatly upsets me that the full details of this event are not told to you in game, but instead in... a fucking stage play. Taro at it again with his supplemental material! There is an optional thing(make sure you talk to Anemone twice after you meet her with A2), but that doesn't give the full scope of what happened or why she deserted. If you didn't know these outside details, you'd think she left because she lost all her friends and decided "well if I don't have them nevermind".

A2 is very interesting but I've really already told you too much. A lot happens with her, and she too had a hard life. I don't really know what else to say, since her introduction is so far in to Route A/B, and by the time you can play as her, I can't talk about what happens.

Next, how about the primary antagonists? Well, I can't tell you about them. See, the very interesting and very mysterious Adam and Eve, that you can see in many trailers, are actually not the primary antagonists. This is one instance where marketing and the game tricking you is not really a good thing. I liked these dudes, yeah dudes I know one is named Eve, but actually he's the more masculine one so there may be some reason I haven't figured out for them both being male. Adam is a very bishi lookin dude while Eve is a hot head. I liked them both and they never really tell you entirely what's up with them, which I was disappointed by. They're pretty edgy, especially Adam, so if you don't like them then this won't be a problem for you. Though, the real antagonists aren't un-edgy either. I was glad that Route B tells you a little bit more about them as characters, but their origins are unclear. Well sort of, I mean we literally see them be birthed by a bunch of machines. Eve even comes out of Adam's rib ohhhhh I see what you did there. I won't go too much into detail about them but they were interesting and had lots of bits to them that were symbolic of their namesake. It's sad that they don't stick around for the whole story.

Next however, there are a few other supporting characters. Your commander, who you might think is bad and hiding things, and she is hiding things but I think she's actually a good lady who didn't really do anything wrong. You've got a few resistance fighters, of the non-YoRHa android army, including the aforementioned Anemone, and a character I dislike named Jackass(she's far too much of a "strong womyn" who curses like a fucking sailor, it's obnoxious and is probably mostly the fault of the localization oops). But there's one NPC much more important.

This is Pascal, a key figure, and maybe the most interesting and tragic character in the game. Pascal is one of the machine lifeforms, however, he is entirely pacifistic and has created a village of other robots who have disconnected themselves from "The Network" and no longer wish to fight, instead trying to co-exist with androids. Once again, not a lot I can say here, but the fact a character like this at all exists in this game should have you asking some questions. I wanna activate your almonds. Pascal is just the sweetest thing and some bad stuff happens to him too, it's very sad.

 EDIT: I'm the most stupid. I forgot to tell you about Emil. He is another NPC, and a returning character from NieR. The only one in fact, for reasons that are evident if you've played the game he's from(please do that if you have not). Now, before playing I was quite upset at how much of a joke character he seemed to be. And, after... well I'm still kind of upset about it. If you don't do his side quests at all, he remains a silly fun character. Now, I'm not saying there's no room for Emil being a silly billy, because he always has been that's what made him fun. He did, however, have a lot of tragedy and sadness to his story and was maybe one of the best characters in the original NieR? This can be seen if you do his side quests, well specifically 2 of the 3 as one of them is just a somewhat silly quest where you can steal from him and he'll fight you if you do. The good part there is that he's insanely powerful, which again makes sense if you played NieR, and can easily wipe you out if you aren't high level. The other two are much more serious, with you finding lunar tears(remember those?) to help him recover some of his lost memories, which culminates in one of two parts of the game where an elevator door openened and I was astounded by what I saw. Highly recommend doing this quest, I think if you talk to him a couple times when you find his shop he'll ask you to help find them. The second is that superboss I mentioned and is very sad and good and while I don't expect you to unlock or beat it either, you should look it up too. Some very sad and interesting things happen before, during, and after that battle. I wish this stuff had been in the main game, I understand that Taro wanted to focus on the new characters and story he was telling, but it leaves Emil as nothing but a comic relief character if you don't do this side content. That shop I'm talking about is him, he attaches himself to a tiny truck with a bunch of junk in the back that he'll sell you. He blasts silly music on a loudspeaker as he zooms around the City Ruins area. I'm not questioning that this is something Emil would do, and the song is fun, it's just that without the serious bits you can only get from a side quest and the hardest sidequest, it feels too much like a "flanderization"(I hate using tvtropes terms but it fits) of Emil's character. Like yeah he was super powerful have him fire a wave motion cannon at people for stealing their things. He was a goofball sometimes cuz he tried to be happy and cheer people up and was kind of a silly naive boy, so now he's just like that all the time. I'm not saying there maybe isn't a reason for how he is, and there are more serious elements to his depiction here, but you can't learn that unless you do sidequests. If you mainline the story Emil can show up a total of 1 time if you don't find him roaming around in the ruins, if you do then all he is is a silly shopkeeper. Taro you make bad decisions sometimes and they make me ANGRY.

So, to sum up, what I'm saying is that NieR: Automata offers a story that is as emotionally and philosophically deep as the original, has some very similar ideas and themes and does some similar things, but overall is a very different but equally as amazing of a story and experience. I had fun playing it, I wanted to learn more about NieR's world in it's current state and did, I warmed up to characters I didn't care for, found a lot to think about in a thematic sense and a plot sense, and overall had a unique experience much like I did with the first game. NieR is a worthy successor, a worthy sequel, and a great entry into Taro's very confusing metaseries. It also gives me lots of evidence for my theory that the Drakengard and Nier timeline are a loop. See in Drakengard 3 it's revealed that Midgard is just Europe but after The Cataclysm where a modern day city suddenly appeared in the middle of medieval europe and changed everything over time and then there's the fact that Accord is an android from the future and here she is being mentioned as the supplier for the weapons shop WHICH HAS NIER'S OLD WEAPONS SHE HAD TO HAVE GOTTEN THEM FROM TIME TRAVEL IT HAS TO BE THE SAME PERSON and also she is stated in 3 to be from the Kingdom/Country of Night and that's s place within the Automata timeframe and IT'S CLEAR THAT-

Oh uh, sorry I uh you know, I just... well anyway.

That's really all I have to say. I said a lot but also didn't go into a whole lot of details. I don't want to give away anything I just want to express my overall feelings on this game and it's story. I was wrong before, this is actually a very good story that I'm very glad I got to experience. I'm honestly kind of listless and wistful now. The way I often feel when I finish a really good game, especially a depressing one like this. It'll take awhile before I'm back to normal, but hopefully it'll be in time to make my game and anime of the year posts!