The GWJ JRPG Club - Q3 2019 - Nier: Automata! [Main thread]

brokenclavicle wrote:

Just got Ending A. So far, the story hits the beats I expected it to. Intrigued about a lot of the unanswered questions from the first playthrough, so I'll start up my next one soon enough.

A and B are pretty similar, but B ends up being significantly shorter (roughly 20 hours for A and 10 for B in my case). I'm currently on path C/D, and boy

Spoiler:

does the sh*t hit the fan!

If all goes well, I should be able to get either ending C or D tomorrow morning (I'm about to get the third key

Spoiler:

before entering the tower, which I assume is the final dungeon).

I'm still not clear on a lot of the plot elements, to be perfectly honest. We'll see if they get cleared up later. Still enjoying the game a lot though. It's one of those games where time really flies, and three hours pass without me realizing it.

Got ending D!

I'm contemplating getting ending C and finishing up some of the trophies. I may even go for the platinum (with or without the Trophy store, not sure yet).

bobbywatson wrote:

Got ending D!

I'm contemplating getting ending C and finishing up some of the trophies. I may even go for the platinum (with or without the Trophy store, not sure yet).

Nice! Definitely get C, that's an easy one to hit. E is similarly easy to hit, but a difficult choice.

merphle wrote:
bobbywatson wrote:

Got ending D!

I'm contemplating getting ending C and finishing up some of the trophies. I may even go for the platinum (with or without the Trophy store, not sure yet).

Nice! Definitely get C, that's an easy one to hit. E is similarly easy to hit, but a difficult choice.

I just got C (thanks to chapter select), and almost made the mistake of getting E. I'll keep that one for last!

I think I have 15 endings found so far, I will get back to getting the rest over the next few weeks.

I got A over the weekend, and jumped straight into the first hour or so of B. Still very much enjoying things, and quite keen to get through B and see where the story goes next.

Weird side effect of playing this game: Now I’m considering playing Drakengard 3...

bobbywatson wrote:

Weird side effect of playing this game: Now I’m considering playing Drakengard 3...

Oh, I even purchased it already because of this game. So, you're not alone on that boat.

bobbywatson wrote:

Weird side effect of playing this game: Now I’m considering playing Drakengard 3...

Yessss!!! It's so weird and interesting.

I'll put it on my wishlist and wait for a sale then! (It's only $20 here, it's not that expensive to begin with.)

bobbywatson wrote:

Got ending D!

I'm contemplating getting ending C and finishing up some of the trophies. I may even go for the platinum (with or without the Trophy store, not sure yet).

All right, I think I'm done with the game. Definitely not getting the platinum trophy. I still need endings E and Y, and I am missing a few weapons, and I definitely don't plan on getting all the materials to upgrade them all to their maximum level.

Great game overall, though. The game was super fun to play, the combat was fluid, the graphics were good, music was fantastic, and the story a few steps above most video games. Honestly,

Spoiler:

if both factions had been human factions rather than robots and androids, I think the emotional impact would have been greater. Maybe it's because I'm a programmer and work with computers all week.

Anyway, the disc is now out of my PS4, back in its case, back on the shelf. Not sure what to play between now and the next game club. I considered Tactics Ogre, but I don't know that I feel like playing that at the moment. The Grandia HD collection coming out this week reminded me that I have Grandia III somewhere, left untouched for more than a decade...

Just finished collecting endings C, D, and E. Didn't go with the data deletion route, so my save is safe, for the time being.

I simply loved the endings and all the story beats. Plenty of questions left, but there was so much satisfaction from what I got.

Spoiler:

I liked the connection to the Gestalt program and how Devola and Popola got their background explained.

I am gonna go down the rabbit hole with all the meta info I can find on this and the rest of the game's lore.

Level me up, please!

LastSurprise is in charge of that. I don't know if they read this thread or just the Tactics Ogre, so I sent them a note just to be sure

Done and done! Glad you enjoyed it. The lore always struck me as very interesting, and that it provided the possibility for some real deep dives. If you find anything fun, please post your thoughts!

Nice ya'll!

Finally done route A. This has been a slow burn for me but I like it. I just seem to spend a bunch of time away even though when I do play I tend to play for a while. I started the new route and am liking seeing the other side of things.

steinkrug wrote:

Finally done route A. This has been a slow burn for me but I like it. I just seem to spend a bunch of time away even though when I do play I tend to play for a while. I started the new route and am liking seeing the other side of things.

It gets considerably more interesting on the third and fourth playthroughs. You see more subtext, more meat to the plot, more reasons for being from the various factions... it really blooms!

Started my route B playthrough after getting distracted by Fire Emblem for a few weeks. Have made it to the point where I have unlocked Fast Travel again. The story snippets have been interesting but fairly disjointed so far. I am really not liking 9S' combat mechanics though. Only having the one weapon feels very restrictive and I hate bullet hells, so hacking is annoying rather than enjoyable even though it is by far the better way to fight non-tiny enemies with him. It is cool that some of the enemies that were tough for 2B 9S can destroy pretty easily because of hacking (such as the worm enemies with the shifting weakpoint).

Hope to get further tonight, maybe get a bunch of sidequests done that I missed/failed in playthrough A.

Malkroth wrote:

I am really not liking 9S' combat mechanics though. Only having the one weapon feels very restrictive and I hate bullet hells, so hacking is annoying rather than enjoyable even though it is by far the better way to fight non-tiny enemies with him.

I second this. So far they have done a fairly good job of making the required hacking easy enough that it doesn't get frustrating, but for the most part I have given up on it against larger enemies because it's just quicker for me to slowly hack away at them.

I think I am getting towards the end of the C/D playthrough. The story pacing really picks up in the last hour or so of B (as it did at the end of A) but then just keeps going from there. It feels very odd seeing so much new, important content after 35 hours and 2 "endings".

I liked the mini open world feeling of A/B playthroughs and found myself looking forward to side-quests because the basic gameplay loop is so good, and the snarky dialogue made them worthwhile even if the in-game rewards didn’t. So far I am enjoying the tighter focus in C/D as well and like 9S, A2 changes things up just enough to keep the combat feeling fun.

Just wrapped up Ending B, and those end-game fights as 9S are just annoying rather than difficult or spectacular. Fighting them as 2B really let you get into a fluid combat state and enjoy the game, but as 9S it just sucks. Your melee fighting is poor, so I relied on hacking, which is just bothersome because I do not like bullet hells and I fully recover hp while doing them thanks to the auto-heal chip, so failing them just sets me back some time.

I am curious to see if the next playthough for endings C/D are different or if I will be retreading a lot of ground again.

Malkroth wrote:

I am curious to see if the next playthough for endings C/D are different or if I will be retreading a lot of ground again.

Spoiler:

It's all brand-new territory from here on.

Malkroth wrote:

so I relied on hacking, which is just bothersome because I do not like bullet hells and I fully recover hp while doing them thanks to the auto-heal chip, so failing them just sets me back some time.

Yeah this was an odd machinic, there didn't really seem to be any way to lose in a lot of these fights.

In general, I found the combat went this way a bit. The first few hours are tough but once I got some chips I felt almost un-killable and even tougher enemies just become a grind of slowly wearing them down while auto-healing and dodging more than attacking.

And I'd done, I did C originally but went back and did D and E as well. Fantastic ending to a superb game.

If anybody stopped at C/D, I strongly recommend going back and doing the other one then going through E. The D and E run combined took less than an hour and ends the experience on a poignant note which perfectly fits the game.

Spoiler:

The battle through the final credits might be my favorite scene from the whole game. I ended up deleting my save, it felt like the right thing to do plot wise and i don't really replay things after finishing them anyway.

I ended up right on 40 hours and at around level 65 (which seemed a little over leveled because the later stages of the game were a cake walk)

Congratulations on finishing the game!

Congratulations! Glad you enjoyed it.

Rad!

Finished ending C last night and didn't some time collecting and upgrading weapons I had missed. So many platforming sections to get everything. I am out for a week but will do D/E when I get back.

The second tower 9S has to go into drove me a little batty though since hacking is required to progress.

Well whether or not you intend to go back, you have successfully finished for club purposes! Level up incoming.

Progress has kind of stalled for me in the past month or so since I started a new position at work and that's sucked all my energy. So I still haven't got ending A. I found out after failing a quest ("The Wandering Couple") because I entered the Flooded City too late that I'm almost at the point of no return for sidequests so I've been trying to get some of those done. Not sure how many I want to do before going ahead since they are a bit tedious sometimes but I'm at 38% completion right now. There have been some amusing ones though like..

Spoiler:

one were you come upon a very interesting rendition of Romeo & Juliet, another that explains what happened to Emil since the first game, and a kung fu robot that keeps trying to improve himself.

Now that I've dipped my toes more into chip customization, the game's pretty easy. Autoheal with items if health dips below a certain point, better melee/ranged attacks and so forth. I also found out you can pet your pod if you swipe the touchpad This game is great.

Forlorn Hope wrote:

Progress has kind of stalled for me in the past month or so since I started a new position at work and that's sucked all my energy. So I still haven't got ending A. I found out after failing a quest ("The Wandering Couple") because I entered the Flooded City too late that I'm almost at the point of no return for sidequests so I've been trying to get some of those done. Not sure how many I want to do before going ahead since they are a bit tedious sometimes but I'm at 38% completion right now.

Once you've gotten up to ending C or D (I think these two can be done out of order), you have access to chapter select and can do any sidequests you didn't get to your first time around. I would suggest, given your time constraints and the possibility of burning out on side content, that you bee-line for the ending and the subsequent ones until you unlock the chapter select feature. Then, you can consider whether you want to do all of the quests or nah.

Alternatively, focus on the side quests that have the most important story nuggets buried in them.