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[hydrophilic attack]

Well the gold enemies were something 9S is ideally supposed to handle actually, as hacking easily beats them. Gets some brief dialogue from his encounters with them, though I don't know if 2B does.

I beat them with 2B (on hard no less, kill me) and you get some dialogue with her as well. But maybe you get more with nines

 

[Danjin44]

Well the gold enemies were something 9S is ideally supposed to handle actually, as hacking easily beats them. Gets some brief dialogue from his encounters with them, though I don't know if 2B does.

Yeah on my second playthrough thats what I did. its really tedious trying fighting them as 2B.

 

[LotusHD]

I didn't know about 9S back then and kill them with 2B...... Lt's just say I had great fun chipping away the mountain by a chisel lol.

Ah. I just got bored and left them alone. Then I tried with 9S and saw the light lol

I beat them with 2B (on hard no less, kill me) and you get some dialogue with her as well. But maybe you get more with nines

On hard? Damn, you're a masochist lmao

 

[hydrophilic attack]

On hard? Damn, you're a masochist lmao

That's me

I also finished the Servo quests on route A on hard

And spent 6 hours of my life to get through the prologue on hard

(kill me)

 

[PK Gaming]

Re: 9S

Making him a strong character is pretty trivial. He's only tedious if you don't go hard on equipping him with chips/upgrading his default sword, but when you do he's got combat comparable to do 2B.

 

[RDreamer]

I loved hacking.

Honestly I thought Route A was a slog and I wasn't really feeling the game terribly much. Route B was a higher point for me, though. I got into things a lot more then, and then the last routes going back and forth were pretty good.

 

[LotusHD]

Re: 9S

Making him a strong character is pretty trivial. He's only tedious if you don't go hard on equipping him with chips/upgrading his default sword, but when you do he's got combat comparable to do 2B.

For those who have issues with the hacking, it generally has nothing to do with damage. (Which makes sense, since hacking is OP anyhow) They just rather slash at things the way 2B and A2 do. The spear gameplay helps, but it's not the perfect alternative admittedly.

 

[SlickVic]

The hacking definitely works and thank god for that, because I found the rest of Route B to be an almost unbearable slog.

Not a popular opinion, I'm sure. I do think Nier Automata does a lot of things really well though, including genre shifts.

Yeah I loved the intro to Route B because it was different from the start of the game. The end of Route B also really starts ramping up the important story sequences which carries over into Route C, which is great as well. What was less exciting to me was that middle part of Route B, particularly playing through it. The hacking is fun, and I really love how they recontextualized certain moments from Route A (which is all very necessary for the story), but a lot of it did feel like I was strumming along through the same big moments from Route A.

I don't know if there was necessarily a better way to handle it. Ultimately the story was far and away the most important part of Nier:Automata to me, and I think the way route B is paced serves the overall narrative very well. I love how each route of the game is essentially peeling back a deeper layer of the story. Still, it didn't quite stop me feeling I was going through the motions though large chunks of that route (though hacking sequences at least made it more interesting). And ultimately I'm ok with that, since Route C was quite incredible.

 

[Corpekata]

For those who have issues with the hacking, it generally has nothing to do with damage. (Which makes sense, since hacking is OP anyhow) They just rather slash at things the way 2B and A2 do. The spear gameplay helps, but it's not the perfect alternative admittedly.

Yeah, the issue isn't his strength, it's just that he's kind of boring (both from a hack and slash perspective, and the hacking minigame itself) to play.

 

[Moaradin]

I found 9S more fun to play than 2B tbh. The hacking was fun, and he still had light and heavy combos. The spear destroyed shit so quick, you barely needed to hack anything lol.

 

[PK Gaming]

Yeah, the issue isn't his strength, it's just that he's kind of boring (both from a hack and slash perspective, and the hacking minigame itself) to play.

He handles almost identically to 2B/A2. His movement is a bit slower, and he's weaker, but not to a substantial degree. He has access to heavy attacks and can also execute ridiculously long combos. Even if you ignore hacking, you're largely playing as the same kind of character, barring having 2 weapons equipped at the same time. If anything, 9S is too similar to 2B/A2. With Perfect Evade, counter, pod and skills being identical, he honestly plays the same (but abetter, because hacking is broken lol)

 

[dadjumper]

The gameplay switches, while smooth, were always unwelcome for me. The shooting stuff doesn't feel that great. The hacking is frustrating. I spent the whole time doing those wishing I was back to hitting dudes with my sword. Would've preferred one good style of gameplay over one decent and two poor.

Spoiler

That said, by the time I got to playthrough B I had started to dislike the game and that never improved. Overhyped imo

 

[Soar]

That's me

I also finished the Servo quests on route A on hard

And spent 6 hours of my life to get through the prologue on hard

(kill me)

Same here though I'm not sure I spent 6 hours. It seems like hard and insane is similar early on when you're at low levels because you die to one hits anyway. It's a massive rush though.

Father servo is silly on hard if you do it in route A when you are like 20 levels under.

 

[LotusHD]

He handles almost identically to 2B/A2. His movement is a bit slower, and he's weaker, but not to a substantial degree. He has access to heavy attacks and can also execute ridiculously long combos. Even if you ignore hacking, you're largely playing as the same kind of character, barring having 2 weapons equipped at the same time. If anything, 9S is too similar to 2B/A2. With Perfect Evade, counter, pod and skills being identical, he honestly plays the same (but abetter, because hacking is broken lol)

Well that's the thing, people obviously missed that 2nd weapon lol

 

[Haly]

His moveset is slow and clunky, especially the third hit where he launches the weapon.

Animations aren't very good as well. Use fists in the air with him, he looks like a doofus.

 

[PK Gaming]

Well that's the thing, people obviously missed that 2nd weapon lol

Yeah, but it honestly didn't make that much of a difference in practice. Transition attacks were flashy, but nothing special (and I suspect most players just mashed anyway). You could even argue that 9S's charge attack/range had their own appeal as well.

Real talk, the 9S = tedious gameplay was a myth perpetuated by people who didn't try hard enough.

 

[lord_of_flood]

Nope. I couldn't stand hacking. I get why it exists from a story standpoint but on the gameplay side I would have preferred if it didn't exist at all. Hated the fact that the developers limited melee combat (aka the best part of the gameplay) just to include crappy bullet hell mini-games, and Platinum has always been bad at making those.

Also,

Spoiler

Soul Box

made me want to throw my controller straight into the wall, which further tarnished my already poor opinion of the hacking mechanic.

 

[Danjin44]

Nope. I couldn't stand hacking. I get why it exists from a story standpoint but on the gameplay side I would have preferred if it didn't exist at all. Hated the fact that the developers limited melee combat (aka the best part of the gameplay) just to include crappy bullet hell mini-games, and Platinum has always been bad at making those.

Also,

Spoiler

Soul Box

made me want to throw my controller straight into the wall, which further tarnished my already poor opinion of the hacking mechanic.

Each to their own I guess. but personally I loved the hack, I especially live the music changes to 8-bit when u are hacking.

 

[Kumorin]

The bullet hell ship sections become completely broken

Spoiler

once you realize you can use melee swipes to wipe out unblockable bullets and destroy ships faster.

;P

 

[uceenk]

i don't hate hacking mechanic, but playing as 2B/A2 was more fun than 9S

 

[Ferr986]

I thought they went overboard with flying segments (and hacking segments, that was almost the same). Overall genre shifting was more repetitive than in Nier 1 because of this.

 

[Taruranto]

It mostly didn't for me, especially compared to the original Nier.

The flying sections were mostly a chore after a while.