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NieR: Automata Review Thread

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
Apparently according to ACG some reviews may be dropping tomorrow based on the Japanese version, so i guess look out for them??
 
Apparently according to ACG some reviews may be dropping tomorrow based on the Japanese version, so i guess look out for them??

dAhFrsX.gif
 
Well when IGN Japan's review hates on it for shooting alone. Makes me wonder how the Polygon review will be, giving it a bad score possibly for character designs alone.

We will embrace this short lived 94!
 

DVCY201

Member
When your games used to be like this:

VkDFeHR.png


wNzdANg.gif


But now:

MC: 94

images

I'm really interested in seeing how reviews translate, especially with the multiple endings which reviewers won't play through likely. It feels so weird seeing Yoko Taro with good gameplay and Platinum Games with good story. I hope they continue to partner together though. That said, those reviews for Nier and Drakengard 3 are too off the mark for me.
 

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
I'm really interested in seeing how reviews translate, especially with the multiple endings which reviewers won't play through likely. It feels so weird seeing Yoko Taro with good gameplay and Platinum Games with good story. I hope they continue to partner together though. That said, those reviews for Nier and Drakengard 3 are too off the mark for me.

Despite having tons of interesting concepts and a plot i thought had a lot of elements i like to see in my niche games, i think Drakengard 3 probably does deserve it just by nature of being developed by Access games with a budget of negative 100 yen
 
I'm really interested in seeing how reviews translate, especially with the multiple endings which reviewers won't play through likely. It feels so weird seeing Yoko Taro with good gameplay and Platinum Games with good story. I hope they continue to partner together though. That said, those reviews for Nier and Drakengard 3 are too off the mark for me.

I dunno, as much as I adore Taro, I'd say those scores fit (Well Nier should be higher like 70-75?) considering how low budget/mediocre they were in every department but the music and writing.

Despite having tons of interesting concepts and a plot i thought had a lot of elements i like to see in my niche games, i think Drakengard 3 probably does deserve it just by nature of being developed by Access games with a budget of negative 100 yen

One dreams of how Drk3 would have turned out were it Platnium and with a Budget instead...
 
I havent even gotten to the demo yet but getting this definitely on the PC. An action game with a decent story and world building is something I have always wanted.

Whats the best youtube summary of the first Niers story and characters?
 

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
storafötter;231511862 said:
I havent even gotten to the demo yet but getting this definitely on the PC. An action game with a decent story and world building is something I have always wanted.

Whats the best youtube summary of the first Niers story and characters?

That's pretty difficult.

I advise you watch these Clemps videos first. These first two are DK1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__q_Nx9WbgY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-7MVq08Ogg

This is Nier

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnwEbOHo7Aw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqj7Lna-chU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLXWenjw7ls


And by extension this other one by ValkyrieAurora for chronological timeline summary, although its a bit more info dumpy, i consider this last one very important to give context to events.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE6n2KGbaZ0

I don't recommend Clemp's Drakengard 3 video because its not an actual analysis so much his opinions on certain parts, and he does not explain the context for events for that title.

But Valkyrie i belive does not go into enough detail about Accord which Clemps does go over to some extent, so you might as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM4rez0DnSk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGPndYN-NhM
 

DVCY201

Member
I dunno, as much as I adore Taro, I'd say those scores fit (Well Nier should be higher like 70-75?) considering how low budget/mediocre they were in every department but the music and writing.

D3 I can understand, but I do think Nier belongs in the range you just said. Despite not playing well, it was functional. And combined with writing and music, I think it does squeeze a bit higher than where the aggregate ended.
 
That's pretty difficult.

I advise you watch these Clemps videos first. These first two are DK1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__q_Nx9WbgY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-7MVq08Ogg&t=32s

This is Nier

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnwEbOHo7Aw&t=205s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqj7Lna-chU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLXWenjw7ls&t=92s


And by extension this other one by ValkyrieAurora for chronological timeline summary, although its a bit more info dumpy, i consider this last one very important to give context to events.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE6n2KGbaZ0&t=95s

I don't recommend Clemp's Drakengard 3 video because its not an actual analysis so much his opinions on certain parts, and he does not explain the context for events for that title.

But Valkyrie i belive does not go into enough detail about Accord which Clemps does go over to some extent, so you might as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM4rez0DnSk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGPndYN-NhM

Oh wow I didnt know it went that deep. I didnt think that Drakengard and Niers stories were that connected. Thanks for the recommendations. Will save these videos.
 

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
storafötter;231512110 said:
Oh wow I didnt know it went that deep. I didnt think that Drakengard and Niers stories were that connected. Thanks for the recommendations. Will save these videos.

Anyone who thought KH or Dark Souls had a long and complicated lore or backstory, yeah Yoko Taro has them beat.

I feel like it all does feed into each other far better than something like KH for example, which contradicts itself at multiple points throughout the story and is generally nonsense made up on the spot(as much fun as the nonsense is), while not being anywhere near as cryptically obtuse as Souls lore tends to be.
 

guybrushfreeman

Unconfirmed Member
D3 I can understand, but I do think Nier belongs in the range you just said. Despite not playing well, it was functional. And combined with writing and music, I think it does squeeze a bit higher than where the aggregate ended.

The problem is the side quests in Nier. If you advise someone to avoid them the score would be higher but reviewers would've included them in the review (which was correct of course) and it rightfully drags the score of the whole game down. The scores for both Nier and D3 make sense to me even if I think Nier can be a much better experience than that if you ignore the majority of the side content.

For Automata everything is good though, there's no gotcha element like the performance of D3 or Nier's side quests dragging it down so it's much easier for the work to stand on its merits
 
Anyone who thought KH or Dark Souls had a long and complicated lore or backstory, yeah Yoko Taro has them beat.

I feel like it all does feed into each other far better than something like KH for example, which contradicts itself at multiple points throughout the story and is generally nonsense made up on the spot(as much fun as the nonsense is), while not being anywhere near as cryptically obtuse as Souls lore tends to be.

Well that sounds promising that it isnt as obtuse as Souls or stupid convoluted like Kingdom Hearts. I just hope I dont get restless and have to play all of the games in the series.
 
That's a little harsh. Is it because of the performance issues? Personally, D3 would be up there in my favorites list if it ran at 60fps and had slightly greater enemy variety.

From what little I have seen of D3 the performance is literally unacceptible lol.
 

killatopak

Gold Member
As much as I love clemps yeah there's definitely still flaws in some of his analysis. He may also come off as a bit memey.
 

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
storafötter;231512264 said:
Well that sounds promising that it isnt as obtuse as Souls or stupid convoluted like Kingdom Hearts. I just hope I dont get restless and have to play all of the games in the series.

Take it from someone who has played all of them at some point or the other, you don't want to at this point.

They would have to be completely remade to have anyone want to play them in this day and age(even DK3, even though it only came out 3 years ago, which should set off red flags)

Yet i feel like that would have them lose something in the process, even in the quest to make them much better games
 
The writing is just as strong as any other Taro game, it has some of the best music tracks in the series, and the final boss is one of the best in the medium.

Are you sure you aren't thinking of Drakengard 2?

The story was anime dreck. The music was really disappointing, the performance issues were abysmal (as was the camera in tight quarters), the checkpoint system sucked and overall I much preferred D2 to it (D1 is still the best, regardless of the monotonous gameplay).
 

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
The story was anime dreck. The music was really disappointing, the performance issues were abysmal (as was the camera in tight quarters), the checkpoint system sucked and overall I much preferred D2 to it (D1 is still the best, regardless of the monotonous gameplay).

Although i get your point partially, this whole franchise is anime drek, including Nier and Nier automata :p generally speaking berserk/evangelion anime drek in the first Drakenard is the same as every type of other anime drek.

Whether its anime or not generally means nothing to whether its written well or not. i felt certain parts of D3's 'comedic' aspects were generally unnecessary and left lesser time for the other plot elements, but i thought it had a lot of nice ideas not executed well due to the lack of budget which left a lot of content out of the game

and while emi evans didn't work on a lot of the soundtrack of DK3, her contributions were nontheless fully felt
 
Although i get your point partially, this whole franchise is anime drek, including Nier and Nier automata :p generally speaking berserk/evangelion anime drek in the first Drakenard is the same as every type of other anime drek.

Whether its anime or not generally means nothing to whether its written well or not.

and while emi evans didn't work on a lot of the soundtrack of DK3, her contributions were nontheless fully felt

I never meant is as "anime is bad", I meant there's two kinds of anime and it was unfortunately the kind that I dislike greatly (as in edgy with no real foundation and terrible tone dissonance throughout). What I meant was that it didn't have any underlying themes that really elevated it like the other games did. D3 just had a bad story to me that just felt too different from the previous two Drakengard games. I kinda agree with the other person who says they wish it didn't exist, since I felt like I wasted my time with that game. Especially going through that fucking awful performance issues, some of the worst I've ever seen in a game last generation (Access Games were not the right developer for D3). I can't recite a single track from the game's soundtrack either, especially since Emi Evans only did like a couple of songs. It just sucked to me. This game is a return to form, on the other hand.
 

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony

It is opinion i guess, and i agree with you about some of the tonal shifts being ridiculous although i disagree in regards to Accord, just because of her place in the timeline being intentionally displaced

On the other hand, did you really not remember Kuroi uta or "Final Song?" by Emi herself? Those are by far the best songs in the game, in addition to the final fight with the flower morphing into a Queen Watcher in ending D


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49gLC9yiGOg
 

Dio

Banned
I never meant is as "anime is bad", I meant there's two kinds of anime and it was unfortunately the kind that I dislike greatly (as in edgy with no real foundation and terrible tone dissonance throughout). What I meant was that it didn't have any underlying themes that really elevated it like the other games did. D3 just had a bad story to me that just felt too different from the previous two Drakengard games. I kinda agree with the other person who says they wish it didn't exist, since I felt like I wasted my time with that game. Especially going through that fucking awful performance issues, some of the worst I've ever seen in a game last generation (Access Games were not the right developer for D3). I can't recite a single track from the game's soundtrack either, especially since Emi Evans only did like a couple of songs. It just sucked to me. This game is a return to form, on the other hand.

What on earth? How could you not enjoy the Final Song or Kuroi Uta? I listened to some of the tracks from D3 tons of times after beating the game. Same goes for some of the Intoner boss fight tracks. Hell, even Growing Wings from D1 makes an appearance on the soundtrack. It's not ALL fantastic but there were some gems in there. I also loved how the soundtrack changed once you went Intoner Mode as Zero and she did that crazy devil trigger scream. Even This Silence is Mine was great if you ignore the engrish.
 
The story was anime dreck. The music was really disappointing, the performance issues were abysmal (as was the camera in tight quarters), the checkpoint system sucked and overall I much preferred D2 to it (D1 is still the best, regardless of the monotonous gameplay).

Anime generally doesn't star sex positive adult women who talk crudely about pegging and feminine hygiene, nor does it usually attack idol culture, or have endings where
everyone dies except the main character who staggers off vomiting, or where the main character has to be mercy killed by her surrogate child.
It's incredibly edgy, but it's also sweet and heartwarming.

And I want to live in the world where these tracks are really disappointing.

Like, I would never recommend someone to actually play D3 because the gameplay and performance are aggressively bad, but it's a great intersection between the nonstop edgefest of D1 and the bittersweet drama of Nier. And the music is similarly an intersection of D1's oppressive chaos and Nier's beautiful breadth of music.

D2 is what anime drek actually looks like.
 
It is opinion i guess, and i agree with you about some of the tonal shifts being ridiculous although i disagree in regards to Accord, just because of her place in the timeline being intentionally displaced

On the other hand, did you really not remember Kuroi uta or "Final Song?" by Emi herself? Those are by far the best songs in the game, in addition to the final fight with the flower morphing into a Queen Watcher in ending D


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49gLC9yiGOg

Never did get that far with the game. I just listened to the soundtrack off YouTube at the time after I did two routes (since I gave up on the game since I found the cast of characters so dull/annoying and one note, especially Zero).
 

killatopak

Gold Member
D2 is fine at least to my 12 year old self.

I actually played that before d1.

I still remember thinking how I would like to play as Caim then.

D1 is a love letter to me.
 

Asd202

Member
No way this game will stay in the 90s. I'll eat a hat if that happens!
Would so good if it happened.
 

TB12

Banned
OMG the month March is insane...

Got:
Ps4 pro + Horizon
Switch + zelda

Want:
Nioh
Yakuza zero
Mass Effect
Nier Automata

Next month
Persona 5

Man crazy all this good games in a span of 2-3 month...
 
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