SleepehSheep
Neo Member
This thread reminded me how much I loved the music! Just bought the ost on itunes 
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Not much for soundtracks, but Nier: Automatas is beautiful
- Thread starter Mikey Jr.
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DarknessTear
Banned
I love Automata and it's OST but I don't know about Automata having a better soundtrack. Nier had more catchy and beautiful songs while Automata invoked different emotions. I'd rather just not compare them though.
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
Also because I'm reminded of it, let's remember how amazing the live performance of possessed by a disease is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-o2EtUOtNg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-o2EtUOtNg
BRSxIgnition
Member
Just one of the many songs that make up the best of Automata. Other notable set-piece themes are Dependent Weakling, Dark Colossus (Kaiju), Grandma (Destruction), Memories of Dust, and all the versions of Weight of the World (Especially the emotional JP version.)
So what are your favorite tracks? Mine is clearly Wretched Machinery, especially the Medium version. The melody is one of those that gets stuck forever in your head, and I love the synth used for it (main reason why I like the Medium version the most).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpjTILokyKM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpjTILokyKM
From the minute I heard this song, I knew this game was gonna be special. Using it to complement an Opera-based boss was genius lol
Amusement Park, Pascal's Theme, Wretched, the spoiler version of Weight of the World, the list goes on lol
An overlooked one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOKYBa3lhks
I think this one would work better as a regular credits theme, shit's sad like a Nier song should be lol
Weight of the World works better for E due to the more euphoric approach, especially with the chant.
Not a problem! Always happy to share things regarding this amazing OST.
As for your question, it plays during the end of Route B, IIRC. Ending A was English, Ending B was Japanese, and Ending C was New French. You also get a remixed version with all of the languages (English, New French, Japanese) during Ending E.
Edit: Corrected the languages present.
According to the OST track listing, it was indeed!
Gotcha, that explains it.
I checked the OST track listing again, and it does indeed say "New French" (or something that looks like it, considering it's in French and all).
Okay, because I'm like, I know it's been awhile since I've been in a French class, but...
The soundtrack in this game had me stopping from playing just to listen to the theme, some of them just get me in the feels. The first time I heard NieR: Automata OST - Pascal (Vocals) with seeing the white flags I just felt like crap about killing even the regular mobs, such a beautiful theme.
Haha, sorry for the confusion!
The chaos languages were "based on" present-day languages in Nier to simulate how they might sound thousands of years later. If they're calling something New French it seems they're still doing this in Automata. Each song represented different dialects.
Definitely don't. Play the game before you listen, it'll be impactful that way (plus the way the music is dynamic, and changes depending on the circumstances).
Afterwards...import the OST and never look back.
Here's a really neat interview about that (from a while back, discussing the original Nier).
http://www.originalsoundversion.com/deep-into-nier-interview-with-vocalist-and-lyricist-emi-evans/
Nocturnowl
Member
I'm not much for the game itself but that soundtrack, hoo boy.
Im not one to rave about game soundtracks... Most of the time its just whatever.
But holy fuck... NieR: Automata OST is fucking incredible. I love every single track... (One of my favorite is the retro theme park 8-bit (16bit?) track...
My other favorite is Pascals Theme i think... The one with the childish vocals.
Thats the one! I fucking love it.
NO ONE listen to the OST before playing the game... The music has HUGE EMOTIONAL IMPACT... Please do yourself a favor and play the game first!
But holy fuck... NieR: Automata OST is fucking incredible. I love every single track... (One of my favorite is the retro theme park 8-bit (16bit?) track...
My other favorite is Pascals Theme i think... The one with the childish vocals.
Thats the one! I fucking love it.
NO ONE listen to the OST before playing the game... The music has HUGE EMOTIONAL IMPACT... Please do yourself a favor and play the game first!
Shalashaska161
Member
I didn't love it quite as much as the original Nier's, but it's still amazing and it's going to be one of the best soundtracks of the year.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
This has to be some of the most magical seconds on a OST in years, for me at least.
Nier:A OST is so good.
Nier:A OST is so good.
Yea I'm already hip, was just a little confused there lol
Throwback to the one where you fight the Goliath boss in the demo section
I fucking love how the music starts right as he lands, it was hype af
Falchion
Member
Fuuuuuck you're right. I need to play this soon.
The music is great on its own ,but it just bleeds out of the events and scenery in the game.
You have to play the game to get the full scope of the music ,but its still great either way.
This a lot. A lot of my favorite moments in games are when a situation or music track makes you surrender for a moment and this game does that to you like a dozen times.
I can't overstate how great this game's soundtrack is, and I love soundtracks. Most games have those two or three catchy songs and probably 70-80% of this game has outstanding tracks.
Schopenhauerian
Member
Agree, the section from 1:50 2:47 is exceptionally good. In this case I was already familiar with the track, but Ill just mention that in general I find it quite helpful when folks bring attention to particular sections of tracks that they like, helps when when Im scanning through a neat thread like this (with tons of great recommendations) and I dont have as much time as Id like.
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
Also, confession here, I can't get into most gaming OSTs (and movie OSTs) because I find most orchestral style OSTs to be completely boring. My jam is usually the pop inspired Persona style, the indie/industrial of Silent hill, synthwave of hotline miami, or the heavy metal of guilty gear. Not even really that crazy for the more retro 8-16 bit stuff, though I do make exceptions.
Nier really surprised me with what an orchestral style OST can do.
Nier really surprised me with what an orchestral style OST can do.
GamePnoy74
Member
Love the soundtrack. Some if it reminds me of FF6, some of it very MGS-like too.
I have a playlist of boss-like tracks from it that I've been using as my workout music lately.
I have a playlist of boss-like tracks from it that I've been using as my workout music lately.
Weltall Zero
Member
Not having played Automata yet (it's complicated), I'm almost shocked and utterly delighted to hear people saying its OST is as good as the original Nier, which had without a doubt one of the best soundtracks of all time.
the title of this theme is so spoilery lol
Remembrance
Member
Another benefit of importing the soundtrack on CD and not being able to read any of the track titles!
charlequin
Banned
There's probably no game I can think of where the soundtrack more consistently enhances the mood of the events happening on screen than NieR: Automata, tbh.
While it's true that there's vocals throughout the soundtrack, you shouldn't be thinking of it like typical poppy vocal themes, or even the type of thing you get in Persona event and battle themes. There are a couple traditional vocal tracks that are used in key cutscenes in the game, but the vocals in area and battle themes are all much more environmental. They're all written in imaginary languages (intended to sound like far-future variants of real-world languages) without "real" words, so the sounds are just texture rather than intended to communicate meaning directly.
It's available digitally for a lot less, if that works for you.
I actually ripped a few variants from Youtube videos that aren't included in the soundtrack proper, including the English versions of Emil's song and the robot boss fights just since I thought the integration of the storyline vocals into the music was so cool.
Actually my single biggest problem with the OST is that A Beautiful Song (which is like an all-time-great bossfight song for me) doesn't start with the incredible three-note intro bit that Simone sings to kick it off in the game proper.
I can't quite get as into the Spring Rain version, just because the vocal inflection on the Cold Rain version just sliced me open when it came up in the game the first time. Then again my favorite version of all of the multi-arrangement tracks (Song of the Ancients, Kaine, Emil, etc.) is always the saddest one, lol.
I was deeply concerned about Nier: Automata going in just based on how strongly I felt about the original game, but on every possible level (story, visuals, gameplay, soundtrack, system and content design, and just overall play experience) it wound up surpassing the first Nier handily. It's just so good omg.
Dreams-Visions
Member
The Automata OST is -- start to finish -- the best original video game OST on the market. Ever.
Remembrance
Member
What we're going to need is a DJ remix of Birth of a Wish with all the vocal chants mashed up. This Cannot Continue vs. Become as Gods.
...Maybe not the CEO vocal chants. But the rest.
Maybe yes the CEO chants.
Tower theme's second vocal phrase is the GOAT, Furiosa-collapse.gif.
Edit: charlequin knows what's up.
I'm so-so with the OST. Grandma is pretty good, could have been trimmed down a little but it's worth it for the part in the second half where it's just the singing and a select few instrument groups. A Beautiful Song just doesn't sound right to me though, it needs Simone's singing at the start as well as the bells.
Edit: charlequin knows what's up.
Weltall Zero
Member
This is pretty awesome to hear and in line with all I've been hearing about it. It's currently at the top of my Steam wishlist and the primary reason I haven't bought it yet is that my birthday is approaching.
sixteen-bit
Member
So glad I imported this along with the hacking tracks bonus
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
Listening to the OST at work, and when the 2nd voice kicks in on this track...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ1DVqk4zLY
*chef kisses*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ1DVqk4zLY
*chef kisses*
Leona Lewis
Banned
It's amazing how well J'Nique Nicole adapted Emi Evans' lyrical/linguistic stylings to her own more chesty vocals.
Her work in Memories of Dust is incredible.
XANDER CAGE
Member
It's probably my favorite video game soundtrack ever. For reference, my other all-time top favorites are Ocarina of Time, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, and Drakengard.
For me it's been a long, long time since a video game has felt this "scored," for lack of a better term. The music in Automata is constant, and the dynamic mixing manages to underscore the emotion of both the story sequences and general action/exploration equally. Funnily enough, I'm typically not a fan of this approach. One of my major complaints about the Final Fantasy XV soundtrack was that it was constantly at 100% - everything was the most dramatic thing that had ever happened thanks to the bombastic score there. It turns out that in Automata, this approach works because, well... everything happening is the most dramatic thing ever.
The soundtrack is just constantly flexing in this game. It does work that the medium-budget visuals can't. More expensive games would have a far more detailed post-apocalyptic landscape for you to pick over, but the music in Automata fills in the gaps for you plenty. Action sequences are tragic because you know from the first second of the game that something is amiss with everyone's "the machines aren't alive!" attitude, but the music consistently hammers it home. Even the less overtly melodramatic songs - the City Ruins themes, the camp music, the Bunker theme - still have a real sense of melancholy weight to them. It's a mood that permeates the entire soundtrack, and by extension, the game. It serves as the internal monologue Automata mercifully does not literally have.
Obviously the context of the game and story is what really makes the soundtrack special, but it is really just stellar on its own too. I'm a big fan of 4AD Records style late 80s/early 90s neoclassical/neofolk music, and Automata is like... basically the closest thing to a lost Dead Can Dance album I can think of. The first Nier also excelled here, but Automata really runs with the idea. The percussion work and vocals would turn heads in any setting, I think. One of my main gripes with major game soundtracks right now is how safe they all are; I've just about had it with western wannabe-Hans Zimmer scores and the incredibly common orchestra-with-guitar-and-rock-drums thing that is really popular in a lot of JRPG soundtracks. There's so much variety and detail in Automata's music that I could probably write an entire article on weird little details I love, but here are just some:
-The slower, traditional-southeast-asian sounding beat buried underneath the faster tribal drums in Birth of Wish (also appears in Alien Manifestation!)
-A Beautiful Song's use of that very low synthesized bassline
-That Twin Peaks-ass synth in Forest Kingdom
-The incredibly uneasy violin melody that loops throughout Copied City. Actually, shit, Copied City in general is wild because it's a song that only plays in one area of the game that you could potentially only hear for like... a couple of minutes total? There's so much emotion in that track it could easily be the centerpiece of another score
-Two things in Wretched Weaponry (actually three - yay, a callback to Wretched Automatons!) that I love: the hi-hat loop that sounds a bit like a sample of a skipping CD, and the very quiet inhaling/exhaling sample that plays all the way throughout the first half track. You can only really hear it with headphones or if you turn up a nice stereo very loud, but listen for it in the right channel. It's there.
-Not really a small thing to notice, but here's a detail about Possessed by Disease: it fucking whips ass and if you don't go absolutely apeshit at the shift at 2:21 I don't know what to tell you
-Mourning (end game spoilers)
-Weight of the World. Folks you have two options, you can cry listening to the English lyrics or you can cry when the Japanese singer also starts crying while singing
-The escalation of the YoRHa theme through Fortress of Lies -> Crumbling Lies -> Sound of the End
-Vague Hope (Spring Rain)
-Blissful Death's reversed bassline
-The Sound of the End, for all of its drama, has an egg shaker keeping time all the way throughout the track.
-I brought up a comparison to an internal monologue before; I don't think this completely holds water but I think the use of almost exclusively female vocals adds to this idea for me, whether intentional on the composers' parts or not. I mean, in many ways (end game spoilers)
.
There's just so much about this score that gets me excited. It would get me excited as an album (well, three albums, I guess) but I'm grateful for the context it's in, because it elevated an already good game story into something that still has me fucked up almost two months after playing the damn game.
Aside from its variety and just general quality of its composition, I think one of the things that makes it succeed as a soundtrack is how "zoomed out" it sounds, for lack of a better description. It's a very general soundtrack, with big, broad emotional statements. A range of things can happen in any given area ranging between dialogue and action, but by simply adding and removing stems the feel of the music stays widely relevant to what's happening, but doesn't shift wildly to suit specific things. There's not a separate battle theme, for example. I think that helps solidify each motif. Many different things can be happening in the nitty-gritty of the story, but the tone of the music is pretty resolutely grand and melancholy.
God I love this soundtrack. It's too much.
For me it's been a long, long time since a video game has felt this "scored," for lack of a better term. The music in Automata is constant, and the dynamic mixing manages to underscore the emotion of both the story sequences and general action/exploration equally. Funnily enough, I'm typically not a fan of this approach. One of my major complaints about the Final Fantasy XV soundtrack was that it was constantly at 100% - everything was the most dramatic thing that had ever happened thanks to the bombastic score there. It turns out that in Automata, this approach works because, well... everything happening is the most dramatic thing ever.
The soundtrack is just constantly flexing in this game. It does work that the medium-budget visuals can't. More expensive games would have a far more detailed post-apocalyptic landscape for you to pick over, but the music in Automata fills in the gaps for you plenty. Action sequences are tragic because you know from the first second of the game that something is amiss with everyone's "the machines aren't alive!" attitude, but the music consistently hammers it home. Even the less overtly melodramatic songs - the City Ruins themes, the camp music, the Bunker theme - still have a real sense of melancholy weight to them. It's a mood that permeates the entire soundtrack, and by extension, the game. It serves as the internal monologue Automata mercifully does not literally have.
Obviously the context of the game and story is what really makes the soundtrack special, but it is really just stellar on its own too. I'm a big fan of 4AD Records style late 80s/early 90s neoclassical/neofolk music, and Automata is like... basically the closest thing to a lost Dead Can Dance album I can think of. The first Nier also excelled here, but Automata really runs with the idea. The percussion work and vocals would turn heads in any setting, I think. One of my main gripes with major game soundtracks right now is how safe they all are; I've just about had it with western wannabe-Hans Zimmer scores and the incredibly common orchestra-with-guitar-and-rock-drums thing that is really popular in a lot of JRPG soundtracks. There's so much variety and detail in Automata's music that I could probably write an entire article on weird little details I love, but here are just some:
-The slower, traditional-southeast-asian sounding beat buried underneath the faster tribal drums in Birth of Wish (also appears in Alien Manifestation!)
-A Beautiful Song's use of that very low synthesized bassline
-That Twin Peaks-ass synth in Forest Kingdom
-The incredibly uneasy violin melody that loops throughout Copied City. Actually, shit, Copied City in general is wild because it's a song that only plays in one area of the game that you could potentially only hear for like... a couple of minutes total? There's so much emotion in that track it could easily be the centerpiece of another score
-Two things in Wretched Weaponry (actually three - yay, a callback to Wretched Automatons!) that I love: the hi-hat loop that sounds a bit like a sample of a skipping CD, and the very quiet inhaling/exhaling sample that plays all the way throughout the first half track. You can only really hear it with headphones or if you turn up a nice stereo very loud, but listen for it in the right channel. It's there.
-Not really a small thing to notice, but here's a detail about Possessed by Disease: it fucking whips ass and if you don't go absolutely apeshit at the shift at 2:21 I don't know what to tell you
-Mourning (end game spoilers)
This only plays in two places - the first is during the Unit E sidequest, and the second is when you are A2 inside of 9S's brainbox finishing him off in Ending C. Fitting!
-The escalation of the YoRHa theme through Fortress of Lies -> Crumbling Lies -> Sound of the End
-Vague Hope (Spring Rain)
-Blissful Death's reversed bassline
-The Sound of the End, for all of its drama, has an egg shaker keeping time all the way throughout the track.
-I brought up a comparison to an internal monologue before; I don't think this completely holds water but I think the use of almost exclusively female vocals adds to this idea for me, whether intentional on the composers' parts or not. I mean, in many ways (end game spoilers)
the whole game is 2B's story in a way, even when it's not - she hangs over the proceedings even after she's gone. Also, the Vague Hope tracks, which play during key 9S and 6O scenes, are mixed as duets. ¯\_(ツ_/¯
_/¯There's just so much about this score that gets me excited. It would get me excited as an album (well, three albums, I guess) but I'm grateful for the context it's in, because it elevated an already good game story into something that still has me fucked up almost two months after playing the damn game.
Aside from its variety and just general quality of its composition, I think one of the things that makes it succeed as a soundtrack is how "zoomed out" it sounds, for lack of a better description. It's a very general soundtrack, with big, broad emotional statements. A range of things can happen in any given area ranging between dialogue and action, but by simply adding and removing stems the feel of the music stays widely relevant to what's happening, but doesn't shift wildly to suit specific things. There's not a separate battle theme, for example. I think that helps solidify each motif. Many different things can be happening in the nitty-gritty of the story, but the tone of the music is pretty resolutely grand and melancholy.
God I love this soundtrack. It's too much.
Isaac Otherworld
Member
I'm not being hyperbolic or exaggerating when I say I think the two NieR games have the greatest video game soundtracks ever made. Few games are so dramatically enhanced by the music in the game as the two NieR games.
I think the original soundtrack has more songs that I enjoy just sitting down and listening to. But ultimately in the context of gameplay, it's a bit overwhelming at times in game.
NieR Automata's soundtrack is not only as gorgeous as the originals, but the way the music is used and how musical tracks have multiple forms depending on the context means it's ultimately much better used as a soundtrack.
The best example of this is easily the carnival. The music has this xylophone piece that is the common thread throughout the song, giving it this whimsical carnival feel. Fitting. In the outskirts of the park and in the narrow quiet ally ways it's the only part of the track you hear. But as you enter the main park the rest of the music including Emi Evan's ethereal voice build up. The song reaches a climax in the climax of the area which is the roller coaster. It's fantastic stuff.
GOAT
I think the original soundtrack has more songs that I enjoy just sitting down and listening to. But ultimately in the context of gameplay, it's a bit overwhelming at times in game.
NieR Automata's soundtrack is not only as gorgeous as the originals, but the way the music is used and how musical tracks have multiple forms depending on the context means it's ultimately much better used as a soundtrack.
The best example of this is easily the carnival. The music has this xylophone piece that is the common thread throughout the song, giving it this whimsical carnival feel. Fitting. In the outskirts of the park and in the narrow quiet ally ways it's the only part of the track you hear. But as you enter the main park the rest of the music including Emi Evan's ethereal voice build up. The song reaches a climax in the climax of the area which is the roller coaster. It's fantastic stuff.
GOAT