LordOfLore
Banned
Waypoint interview. At the link.
The best part:
Nier: Automata feels like a game born from a dream, one that was never expected to burst into existence. And yet, here we are. A co-production between action developers Platinum Games and game director Taro Yoko, and published by Square Enix, the action-role-player has become one of the most-anticipated new games of early 2017. This is thanksin no small partto a hype-able demo put out just before Christmas 2016.
That demoa single mission served in a vertical slice, with a surprisingly dramatic conclusiongave players a taste of what to expect from the full game when it arrives for PlayStation 4 and PC in late February (in Japan, with a Western release following in March). Bayonetta-adjunct close-quarters combat is mixed with sections that vary from a behind-the-character shoot 'em up style to 16-bit-evocative side-on platforming sequences.
When the fighting's done, there's exploration, secrets to uncover, and many quest lines to follow in the battle against an Earth-invading robotic force that's sent humanity retreating to the Moon. There's plenty of RPG DNA here, with a story spread out across a massive world map, and the usual levelling up, stat-perks and item shopping you expect from the genre.
There's a little bullet-hell-ness, too, about proceedings, when the main controllable character, the nimble android "2B", is surrounded by enemies raining down projectiles, forcing you to go on the offense with swords, hammers, feet and fists, while also skillfully dodging health-bruising blasts.
It's a game of many alluring dimensions, then. And a really different project from 2010's Nier. That was a role-player with a big but empty world and unsatisfying combat, which unfortunately stood in the way of a fantastic story, told with a quiet and melancholic tone. Get past its technical problems, and Nier could palpably pull at the heartstrings.
But that was then. Now, I'm sat with Yoko, Nier: Automata's producer Yosuke Saitowho also produced the 2010 titleand the can't-get-a-word-in-edgeways designer Takahisa Taura, at Square Enix's London office. The three are laid back, relaxed, confident that what they've made is going to be a success. Not that they always felt that way.
The best part:
As I turn to leave, Yoko has one final message: "If you guys in the media keep in cahoots with us, hopefully we can trick the general public into thinking that Nier is good!"
Truth be told, I don't think we'll need to be doing that.