The more I think about the ending the better it becomes.
Im willing to say that this is one of the best videogame moments of all time, especially in context of Yoko Taro's games as a whole.
The game goes completely meta, you LITERALLY fight the developers as the final boss. Especially Yoko Taro.
You get a shitty ending in which all the characters suffer and die. Which is also true for his past games.
Hell the best ending Yokos past games had was nier ending D, the only reason it being good is because nier is oblivious to what he has caused before deleting himself.
The best, most happy ending yoko taro had done was the one where the protagonists thought he saved his daughter and was ignorant to the fact that he a actually doomed her and all of mankind to death.
Nier automata ends on a similar terrible note, but then you battle him to fight for your first good ending.
To repeat: you battle the creator known for terrible endings to finally get a good and happy one after four games. That is meta as fuck.
Then you have the way in which the game connects you to other players, making it a community events without you even directly interacting with someone.
You die and die and die, while other people motivate you.
You get asked questions, about videogames in a meta form, about what you think them and how you connect to them.
Ultimately you get help by another player who has done the ultimate sacrifice and the music turns into a choir.
And the choir is the goddamn developers. Even thought they are the ones you fight, they actually cheer for you in a beautiful song.
They too want that you get that fucking happy end.
And then you get it and you too, are allowed to sacrifice everything for a random stranger on the world.
The actual moment itself and the way it weaves itself into Yokos works as a whole is truly outstanding.
I had more than enough time to digest the game now, and the more think about it and the more i unravel about it, the better the moment becomes.
As a Yoko Taro fan it feels like all of Yokos past games with their fuck awful fates for his characters have been building up to this.
Goddamn.