NieR Automata (aka Nieronetta) Catch-All

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Well, that was amazing.

Yup. Pretty much "'Nuf said" as far as that demo goes. As a rule, I never pre-order any game, but I'm going to make an exception for this.

Thanks again, Tuffalo, for turning me on to this series. It's just the right blend of crazy & awesome, with a killer soundtrack to boot. The sequel looks like it certainly won't disappoint. Haven't had this much fun with a demo since Valkyria Chronicles.

Minarchist wrote:

So if you had a combat continuum that was Nier on one end and Drakengard 3 on the other, would you say it's more toward the Nier side?

I didn't play Drakengard 3, however the combat in the demo reminds me of Nier only in concept; the execution is very different. Nier Automata uses a lot of the same ideas of bullet patterns and blending melee with ranged attacks (here a floating gun instead of magic, at least so far) but there's an added focus on well-timed dodges and effective crowd control.

What I liked so much about this demo was that it showed the same restlessness of genre that really helped define Nier's gameplay experience. In the demo there are 3D brawler sections, side-scrolling areas, top-down shooter areas, a battle against a boss that can't even fit on your screen, and a Space Harrier-like flight section. It smoothly and seamlessly blends from one type of gameplay to the next without anything ever feeling forced.

I'm really excited to play more of the game.

I downloaded the demo remotely, but couldn't play it since I wasn't at home.
Looking forward to trying it tonight, especially with all of you gushing over it.
I might have asked this before, but if I never finished the first NIER, shoud I go get a copy and play it first?

Nah.

I finished the demo yesterday, you definitely know it's a platinum game but I ended up enjoying the mixture of shooting & melee combat. The little floating robot sidekick that is essentially your gun felt good being off centre. Like Clocky mentioned the different viewpoints are nicely implemented, changing to mega man style gameplay or smash TV style top down shooting at a moments notice.

The strong melee attack feels solid & holding the attack to whirlwind into a bunch of robots with added fast light attacks on the end to see explosions & robot parts come apart is satisfying.

The big bosses were fun battles, dodging between giant saw blades, or under a huge swinging arm achieved a good sense of scale ala God Of War.

The only thing I thought it lacked was interesting environments, a touch on the bland side but I guess for the style of game it fits ok. I'll keep an eye on the reviews on this one come Feb/March next year.

As near as I can tell, the demo is effectively the intro to the game. All the other footage they've show has been from something that looks a bit like that factory but completely overrun with nature. It's also apparently an open world game, which I had no idea about.

After playing the demo, I'm definitely more interested than I was. I'll echo the bland environments (reminds me of Fallout 4), but with gameplay that's more fun than I expected, I'm intrigued.
Also, 2B reminds me strongly of Major Motoko Kusanagi, and the music reminds me strongly of the music from Ghost in the Shell and both Stand Alone Complex series (not the same composer, of course, but similar feel).

Yeah, I think the environments are a bit sparse, but compared to the original and Drakengard 3, they look incredible. I think it's fair to forgive them on that because the development time for the game has been really short. They clearly focused on other elements and went "good enough" with the environment. They are going to at least have some variety, so that's good. I have been wondering about the open world nature or not of it, so if it does have a bit of open world, I'll actually be kinda happy about that.

Played about 10-15 minutes of the demo last night. Went from "That might be interesting," to "Welp, that's a preorder,"

Day one, folks! Day one!

IMAGE(http://www.quickmeme.com/img/04/046657ede3154549514cc754684cdd013f51e7c5ffee9a90fc5cab6ef1d1b1ab.jpg)

There's a multi-page article on Nier: Automata in the latest issue of Edge-magazine, it's well worth the read. In fact the whole issue is excellent being a Japan special, it's got articles on Nioh, Dragon Quest etc.

So apparently if you made a wrong choice in the original Nier on your fourth playthrough it deleted your save file. That's pretty hardcore.

I thought the fourth ending deleted your original save file no matter what?

Also: what sort of info is in there? Because having completed the demo I wanna media blackout myself.

ccesarano wrote:

I thought the fourth ending deleted your original save file no matter what?

Also: what sort of info is in there? Because having completed the demo I wanna media blackout myself.

I got from the article that is was a binary choice, where the "correct" choice would be to sacrifice yourself, and the "incorrect" would be to let your sibling/wife(?) die.

The article was light on story spoilers, mechanic spoilers I don't mind and those were discussed. Mainly it was about Platinum and S-E, and their relationship in making the game.

And of course there's a full page screenshot where the center piece is the female androids' ass in some strings. W T F.

Spoiler:

From what I remember, the fourth and final ending lets you sacrifice your existence to save your daughter/sibling which deletes your save file. I don't know what happens if you say no. It probably kicks you back to the beginning of the fourth playthrough.

It's been awhile.

Whoops! That was wrong. Like I said, it's been awhile.

Spoiler:

It's your friend Kaine, not Yonah. Killing Kaine to save her from turning gives you ending 3, and sacrificing your existence saves Kaine and lets her live which is ending 4 and it deletes your save.

Man, if only the requirements for ending 3 weren't so grindy...

I love the actual game play of the Demo.. but the "JRPG'sness" is just so off-putting to me.. I keep wondering why on earth everyone's eyes are covered.. Are they Demon Hunters from WoW??

Why do "her" (I guess its an Android?) swords just float behind her? Why is that floating thing shooting bullets.. and why if it can float can't you just have to shoot behind you while you move forward?

The perspective changes are weird.. they at first seemed cool but then I just felt it was an unnecessary gimmick.. it doesn't really add anything...and when it changes it to a 2D Platformer it just makes the world seem small.

But the ARPG side and the combat is very satisfying and the Boss battle was enough to get me to want to play it which is something for a JRPG.

TheGameguru wrote:

Why

Magic! Yeah, if you want to enjoy this kinda stuff, I think you just have to embrace the crazy. If you end up trying to get through the game it'll be very interesting to read your thoughts. Hell, I'll be really interested to hear anyone's thoughts who doesn't typically like JRPGs. Hopefully the game is good enough to draw that type of crowd.

I am going to buy a PS4 Pro for this game given that there are some slight graphics improvements. I also want one to play through The Last Guardian again and do the endgame content of FFXV. It does seem like they're shooting for 60 fps on a regular PS4 and the demo ran and looked plenty good.

I might have held off if the PC version was coming out upon release, but I suspect that'll get delayed and it may be a buggy mess.

The Rule of Cool is basically the answer.

I feel like part of it is due to artistic expression, honestly. I don't know if it's because of how prominent anime and manga are over there or a difference between Western and Eastern art histories, but I feel like part of the point is to break away from realism for the sake of style. Part of it could also be a result of how repressive the society can be in regards to individuality and expression at all. When you're young and attending school you're wearing a uniform, and when you're an adult you're wearing a suit.

The thing is, do you approach all of these questions when watching, say, a Marvel film? Do you care that vibranium works because vibranium? That Cap's shield magnetizes to his back but conveniently nothing else does so? That Iron Man's suit is powered by an impossible energy generator? That Thor's supposed to live in a realm where science and magic are one in the same and yet there's no scientific rationale for why his hammer works like it does?

Japan takes the Rule of Cool further than most/many Western properties, and often in different directions, but it's basically just that same logic.

Plus, there's gonna be a thematic purpose for the blindfolds. No doubt about it.

ccesarano wrote:

The Rule of Cool is basically the answer.

I feel like part of it is due to artistic expression, honestly. I don't know if it's because of how prominent anime and manga are over there or a difference between Western and Eastern art histories, but I feel like part of the point is to break away from realism for the sake of style.

Reality-defying Rule of Cool isn't an East/West thing, it's just that the particular aesthetics of each region is different. But the floating swords and blindfolds of this game aren't any more unrealistic than the absurd outfits in any given Blizzard game, or the bulging muscles of Gears of War or Arkham Asylum.

But I feel like there's definitely a different in how reality is defied in Japanese media. Japan's media tend to be more greatly exaggerated. Captain's shield, again, works on magnets (I'm guessing at least), but the swords in Automata are literally hovering and glowing, which takes subtle but noticeable steps further and further from reality. I wouldn't be surprised if World of Warcraft and League of Legends are largely inspired by artists that enjoy anime at this point, because when you look through classic fantasy art armor looks rather practical until it's put on a woman.

Perhaps it's more that rarely do you get something in the West that is as serious as the Nier and Drakengard games tend to be in tone while still chasing those aesthetic differences and defiances.

Or maybe it's all just aesthetic and I'm full of sh*t. A completely plausible possibility!

ccesarano wrote:

Perhaps it's more that rarely do you get something in the West that is as serious as the Nier and Drakengard games tend to be in tone while still chasing those aesthetic differences and defiances.

Seen anything from Warhammer 40K recently?

Okay yeah point taken.

Been watching a let's play of the demo. A very enthusiastic one at that and the hype is definitely rubbing off on me.

To the point of the floating swords, it's one part style and perhaps one part technical. In 2017 there's still some difficulty with getting weapons mounted to backs actually stay there in a realistic manner especially in a fast-action style of game like this. Wouldn't be surprised if the devs had some forethought and simply decided to embrace this as a stylistic choice supported by lore instead of having it dog them throughout development.

This game was also made on the cheap, and floating swords that the character doesn't always hold let the developers create different movesets for each weapon without having to create as many animations to match.

I realized someone probably snagged the music from the demo and put it on YouTube and went to check just now. Yep:

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Hell, I'll be really interested to hear anyone's thoughts who doesn't typically like JRPGs. Hopefully the game is good enough to draw that type of crowd.

I've been interested in this game since I discovered it here. I've never played a JRPG in my life, but I downloaded the demo last night and I'm hoping to try it tonight. If I like it even half of what I think I'm going to, I'll buy the game for sure.

I finally played the demo this evening, and it was a lot of fun. I loved the character design and the enemies, and I can't wait to see the rest of the world when the game comes out.

I played it on easy, because I'm a wuss, and it looked like a lot of stuff was happening automata-cally (sorry --I couldn't help myself), so maybe I'll play the full game on normal to feel I have more agency. I just hope it's not too difficult, cause I'm a wuss, but we'll see.

Mario_Alba wrote:

I played it on easy, because I'm a wuss, and it looked like a lot of stuff was happening automata-cally (sorry --I couldn't help myself), so maybe I'll play the full game on normal to feel I have more agency. I just hope it's not too difficult, cause I'm a wuss, but we'll see.

I think all difficulties should be viable for fun times. I will say that I played it on normal the first time and hard the second time, and it was really rewarding to up the difficulty and see how the enemies and bosses changed. So, you might find it fun to play it on normal. I'd say if you felt comfortable with easy, though, just wait till the game comes out and play it on that difficulty.

Yeah, I might go with easy, as that's what I usually do. I don't have a lot of time to play, so when I do, I don't like to be frustrated and I want to make progress. In any case, this game is a must buy for me!