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NieR Automata PS4 demo available now

EDarkness

Member
Since you asked, Hektor made this lovely sum-up post of everything that happened in the chronological string of Drakegard 3, Drakengard 1 and NieR leading up to NieR Automata.

I just downloaded the demo and started playing. Was a fan of the original Nier and was curious how this fit in. After reading that synopsis...damn. I have no idea what the hell is going on. I wonder if any of the old characters will make an appearance again. I never knew that Nier and Drakengard were connected....

Demo is nice and I really like the flow of combat. I think 2B's voice is awesome and she looks badass. I bet a lot of folks will be looking up her skirt/shirt, though. I hope the story is good in the final game.
 

Moonkid

Member
... I don't actually understand bolded, but whatever.

You change the sets as a whole with the change weapon button and can customize the sets themselves from the menu. The first weapon in the set will always be for the light attacks and the second weapon will be for the heavy attacks, so the whole set is used when you have it active. The default sets just have the two blades you carry switched around in their respective slots. Each weapon type has a completely unique set of attacks for each attack type, minus the ones launched from successful dodges.
You get two weapon sets, each set having a hand for light, and another hand for heavy. You can switch between the two freely, but you won't always be able to connect attacks from one set to the other. But there are some interesting things you can do, I think.

Assuming Set 1 - Small Sword/Large Sword
and Set 2 - Large Sword/Small Sword,

You can do a light combo with set 1, switch to set 2, and follow up with a light Large Sword, or heavy Small Sword. Or you can start with set 2, with an air light, switch to set 1, and do a heavy attack. etc etc
Ooooh okay, thank you both :)
 

jb1234

Member
A replay of the demo has quelled some of my concerns (aside from the forced camera angles and the bullet hell aspects). I especially liked the boss fight.
 
Just finished, it was pretty good! The combat is stellar, although I can see the bullet hell elements getting annoying later in the game.

Whether I buy this or not largely depends on how the "open world" aspect is handled. If we get a huge, complex world filled with a wide variety of enemies that are fun to kill, I'm on board.
 

Caim

Member
If you can't hear the song in the game's tab when you press down you need to turn on system music in the system settings.
 
Just finished, it was pretty good! The combat is stellar, although I can see the bullet hell elements getting annoying later in the game.

Whether I buy this or not largely depends on how the "open world" aspect is handled. If we get a huge, complex world filled with a wide variety of enemies that are fun to kill, I'm on board.
Expect more of a Zelda style open world than something akin to The Witcher, or GTA.
 

wmlk

Member
Unlike Nier, the encounters in this feel really forced. Especially considering it's the same structure over and over and over again with the enemies that die in 2 hits -> bullet hell flying enemies -> even easier medium unit since it's all alone (and this one dies on 4 hits!).

The enemies that die in 2 hits make this especially feel like a chore when it really shouldn't be. The enemies are boring af.

But man, movement feels good after doing custom controls. Putting Evade on L1 makes more sense. It's wasted when the encounters are crappy, though.
 

dakun

Member
well this wasn't on my radar AT ALL until now. It just shows how good demos can sell games. I'd probably not pay attention to this if if wasn't for some spare time and a demo to fill it with.
 

ViciousDS

Banned
Fucking awesome demo


Few things


1. Totally playing jap dub......English was dreadful just from the small bits of what we had.

2. That boss fight was a fantastic tease to see what bigger ones bring.

3. Why don't they show eyes for the characters despite being basically robots.

4. Is there somewhere I can read up or watch a video on how the story is shaping up as it looks really interesting and I have no clue what's going on lol
 

hampig

Member
Unlike Nier, the encounters in this feel really forced. Especially considering it's the same structure over and over and over again with the enemies that die in 2 hits -> bullet hell flying enemies -> even easier medium unit since it's all alone (and this one dies on 4 hits!).

The enemies that die in 2 hits make this especially feel like a chore when it really shouldn't be. The enemies are boring af.

But man, movement feels good after doing custom controls. It's wasted when the encounters are crappy, though. Putting Evade on L1 makes more sense.

It is just a demo though. I think hopes are that it will ramp up.
 

wmlk

Member
It is just a demo though. I think hopes are that it will ramp up.

I've been following this game closely and I've seen basically these fodder enemy types in every piece of footage they've shown.

Combat so far feels only marginally better than Nier because of how repetitive the encounters are, especially when solo. Running around is really fun with Evade though.
 

Jigorath

Banned
Well it certainly plays great, my only complaint is I don't like how the lock on doesn't automatically switch to the next target when you kill the enemy. Having to manually lock on each time is a bit annoying.

Had a blast though, day one for sure.
 
Yeah some of the standard grunt enemies are a bit bland. That is probably one of the weaker aspects so hopefully we get a good variety of enemy types in the final game.
 
I've been following this game closely and I've seen basically these fodder enemy types in every piece of footage they've shown.

Combat so far feels only marginally better than Nier because of how repetitive the encounters are, especially when solo. Running around is really fun with Evade though.
This is my problem too, enemy design and encounter design in this demo is non existent and the only enemies of seen are those robots that are just incredibly un fun to fight.
 

Ogawa-san

Member
1. Totally playing jap dub......English was dreadful just from the small bits of what we had.
I usually go with japanese dubs when it's an option, but I didn't even try in this demo. I found english on par with the first Nier's.

Minus Emil, that is.

I wonder who's 2B VA, she sounded great also really familiar.
 
Expect more of a Zelda style open world than something akin to The Witcher, or GTA.

Yeah, Japanese open worlds tend to be a bit different.

I definitely want that "Oh shit, check out this giant, high level enemy roaming around" feeling that you get in something like FFXV and Dragon's Dogma, but the demo makes me think the overworld will just be a way of connecting levels/dungeons together, rather than a vast space that's interesting to explore.

Here's hoping I'm wrong and we get both a cool overworld and excellent dungeons.... but that's a lot to ask for from a team that generally prioritizes quality over quantity.
 
Well it certainly plays great, my only complaint is I don't like how the lock on doesn't automatically switch to the next target when you kill the enemy. Having to manually lock on each time is a bit annoying.

Had a blast though, day one for sure.

Yeah that sucks, hopefully they change it in the final version.

But since you can't use lock-on on hard mode I'm not going to get used to it though. After making some changes in the settings/controls menu the combat was much more enjoyable.
 
I've been following this game closely and I've seen basically these fodder enemy types in every piece of footage they've shown.

Combat so far feels only marginally better than Nier because of how repetitive the encounters are, especially when solo. Running around is really fun with Evade though.

They showed armored enemies in the demo in one of the later rooms. I think they only included basic enemies in the demo because it's just supposed to give you a taste, as opposed to letting you fight every sort of enemy in the main game.

I think there's going to be more variety in the full game, since for the demonstrations they used the debug mode to drop in random enemies to demonstrate the combat I imagine they didn't want to just splurge and show everything they have before the game is out.

I honestly hope the game has some good rival fights.

Maybe against A2.
 

hampig

Member
I've been following this game closely and I've seen basically these fodder enemy types in every piece of footage they've shown.

Combat so far feels only marginally better than Nier because of how repetitive the encounters are, especially when solo. Running around is really fun with Evade though.

Right, which would make sense if they're only showing early areas.

I have no inside info that I'm going off, I just think it's very possible that there's a lot we don't know about or haven't seen. I loved Nier so I'm down regardless, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to just wait for reviews if you're feeling cautious.
 
This is my problem too, enemy design and encounter design in this demo is non existent and the only enemies of seen are those robots that are just incredibly un fun to fight.

I agree, in that regard this is not a good demo. The enemies die to quickly and their attacks are not that frequent and way too easy to dodge.

But I don't think the final game will be like this, at least I hope so.
 

Markoman

Member
Day one, but I don't like the 2D sections to be honest. I was hoping they would be kinda rare, welp.
Why isn't there a TP game that does melee and shooting right?
 

LotusHD

Banned
This is fucking incredible.I aam shocked at how good this gameplay feels.

As much as I am happy to have this game,it made me even more painfully aware how fucking mediocre FFXV gameplay is.

& Dont tell me "different genres" just look how amazingly polished the sense of movement & attacking is in this game.

An action game simply has to feel good to the touch & FFXV fails miserably where this game excels.

FFXV is being mishandled by hacks...What a heartbreak.

Even the voice direction seems better in this.

Though I wouldn't put it so harshly... I pretty much feel the same way, and FFXV is my GOTY lol

Hard not to compare them, especially when FFXV just came out.

Turns out falling off the ledge doesn't count for the one-hit KO in Very Hard.

No weak knees like Geralt. Nice.

Holy shit. This demo was incredible.

2017 GOTY already.

Still picking my jaw off the floor lol

Yea, the demo made me this the #1 game I'm hyped for now.

Yeah some of the standard grunt enemies are a bit bland. That is probably one of the weaker aspects so hopefully we get a good variety of enemy types in the final game.

Honestly at this point, people should check in their expectations and just assume that the regular mobs will all basically look the same. They'll have different armor, height, weapons, etc., but so far only the bosses seem to be drastically different. Which is completely fine to me, but others may find this disagreeable.
 

wmlk

Member
Right, which would make sense if they're only showing early areas.

I have no inside info that I'm going off, I just think it's very possible that there's a lot we don't know about or haven't seen. I loved Nier so I'm down regardless, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to just wait for reviews if you're feeling cautious.

I'm gonna buy this for sure. The first game is one of my favourites. It's just frustrating that you have this awesome movement wasted on these enemies.
 
I agree, in that regard this is not a good demo. The enemies die to quickly and their attacks are not that frequent and way too easy to dodge.

But I don't think the final game will be like this, at least I hope so.
The full game will probably be better definitely, and hopefully will have better enemy design. I'm still interested though, for sure.
 

TriAceJP

Member
So was this Platinum letting us get Revengeance against that pretty lame Transformers game?

Demo was sick, picking this up for sure.
 
Day one, but I don't like the 2D sections to be honest. I was hoping they would be kinda rare, welp.
Why isn't there a TP game that does melee and shooting right?

RE4. Suplexes all day.

Also more controversial but I rather liked Devil's Third's mix of TPS and melee on the score attack mode.

Also Zelda BoTW seems to transition between Melee and Ranged combat quite smoothly.
 

Caim

Member
Wow what a beautiful song, how can I get that theme? Now I really want OST, i hope we can choose from three different versions of pre-orders: first - day one edition, second - limited edition (where you can get game, ost and metal case) and third se edition

I think just about every digital pre-order on PSN gives you a theme so I'm assuming that is where its from.
 

Despera

Banned
Well just finished the demo a second time barefisted. Didn't even feel the time pass.

This Cavia-Platinum combo was a match made in heaven and if the demo is any indication the game will actually live up to the lofty expectations.
 
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