Its been a while, but I believe the timeline is something like*:
Actual Machine war starts
Humanity makes androids to fight machines
Humanity goes extinct
Androids mostly defeat Machines
Androids realize they have no purpose, so they make more Machines so they can fulfill their programming.
Machine / Android war loop starts. Part of this loop is that the Androids periodically get nearly wiped so that they never quite win.
The war loop ends when the Machines evolve sufficiently to escape the planet.
* - Looking briefly at some “official” timelines, this seems to not be exactly correct, but whatever. There are some distinctions between regular androids, Yorha Androids and ancient androids (e.g. the pink haired twins) that make it all fairly confusing.
The sexy Machine boys are a recent development, mostly unrelated to the Androids. Apparently, the war-loop itself was ultimately designed and intended to spur evolution in the machines.
I’m assuming that this is a throwaway comment, but if this kind of thing really bothers you, I don’t think this is the game for you. The game is a kind of sloppy mess, but you have to take that on it’s face, and enjoy individual slices.
Nier: Automata is almost unique in my experience in the degree of it’s internal tonal incoherence. Yoko Taro likes butts, so there’s a lot of sexy robots. It’s a video game, so there’s fishing. Also, it interrogates the nature of humanity. But also, bullet hell shooters are cool, so let’s put that in too.
I like all these things too so I kept playing. I love girls butts. I love space ships. I love sword fighting and karate. If Bayonetta had a Gradius level I’d be 100% on board.
I have this problem with a lot of anime, it’s utter nonsense with high school level Deep Thoughts as the underlying themes that are completely disjointed and nonsensical. Maybe it’s a Japanese storytelling thing. Or maybe these guys are just shit at writing stories.
I actually don’t care about the rollercoaster thing, but that part really struck me as “How did Disney World survive for 8000 years?”
I didn’t read your whole post as I haven’t finished the game yet, but I was thinking the exact same thing:
This was on so many Best Of lists, I was expecting something amazing the way it was praised, but it is just a decently fun action game with some cool art design and great music.
The premise showed promise, but some hours into it, I am beginning to see the “crazy” and I imagine by the time I finish it, I will have no idea what the story was about.
I barely understood the story of the game but I enjoyed playing it nonetheless. The world design is just cool. I have a fondness for post-apocalyptic cities overgrown with flora and fauna.
I did the strangest thing: I dropped it when I was not able to beat the endboss in the first try (…first playthrough, I am sure it was the last of what seemed to be many last endbosses). I dropped it because I was sure to pick it up again and do all the even more important playthroughs… and because I was fed up with the gameplay.
Now I am not so sure anymore. I think the game has the best art design/atmosphere/whatever… since a long time. But I imagine whatever the great story revelation will be it won’t go beyond the sense of place, atmosphere that’s already there. Meaning: I think the gameplay for the first 15 hours is somewhat tedious and the story and the world is as deep as you allow it to be. I feel like I got a lot out of it. But to do the bullet hell stuff again? Not sure.
I have a personal category: Best books in the world (although I have not finished reading them and don’t plan to), well, NieR qualifies for ‘Best games…not finished and no intention to do so’ and, well, it’s even No 1.
There’s a whole class of games that I think are brilliant but wouldn’t ever recommend without knowing a lot about the person I’m recommending it to, and Nier: Automata is definitely in that category for me.
I initially felt reluctant to give this a shot after hearing you had to finish it multiple times to fully wrap up the story, but the consistent high praise for Taro’s design twisted my arm, and after seeing it through I came away thinking the experience was beautiful and well worth the extra effort. While the combat doesn’t have the depth of the rest of Platinum’s action games, everything else in the package makes this easily my favorite game of there’s. It’s a true original that only gets richer the deeper you go. The way the game plays with perception, embeds player choice, and encourages you to appreciate the world on its own terms is first-class. The fallen-world atmosphere, inspired cutscene direction, and one of the greatest OSTs ever made even got me over my hatred of SHMUP-style combat, which I only dislike it because I’m rubbish at it (I can’t spam evade and jump to cheese incoming attacks when limited to a 2D plane). So many innovative moments, but there’s a crucial scene very close to the true ending that was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. So damn good!
And saying you have to finish it multiple times is misleading, IMO. Sure, you get “endings” before the final one, but the three main “runs” are all effectively chapters of the story, not repeating the same game again.
Glad you enjoyed it! It’s my favorite game… ever, I think? There’s SO much to unwrap in every sense of the experience… I haven’t yet played again because I want to pick the perfect time to do so. I love this game.
Yeah, there’s so much to discuss isn’t there? It’s definitely an essential game and one I’ll replay some day. I’ll for sure be picking up and playing Nier Replicant next year! :)
That’s a better of putting it malkav11. I was afraid of spoilers, so I didn’t realize how different the subsequent chapters would be. Even with the disclaimer that pops up at the end of the first playthrough, I hope people didn’t think it would just be a standard new game ±type experience.
The only thing I didn’t enjoy was the performance on PC. I don’t know if it was just my setup, but even with FAR installed, it would sometimes hang for a couple of seconds when streaming in a new zone. It was especially frustrating because for most of the gameplay it performed beautifully. Maybe that could’ve been mitigated by using a SSD? I installed some upscaled 60FPS cutscenes that made the game feel more at home on PC, which I would definitely recommend.
This is similar to my feelings so far. I’ve had this on my wishlist forever, probably because of @rhamorim :-), and since it hit Gamepass I figured I’d try it. Nothing is bad, but nothing is great. I’m still early in, I just finished the mission that opened up the desert (yea, more brown). The combat takes too long, so that will hopefully improve when I get the things that help me do more damage. The environments are so boring (so far), so no real motivation to explore. Like others have said, the story has the potential to be interesting.
I didn’t know a lot about the game going in, and the anime-looking vibe I got kept me away for as long as I did. I thought the combat would be more Dark-Soulsy too. I’ll see how far I get.
Yeah, this game was a little underwhelming for me, especially with all the hype surrounding it. Seem to make a lot of Best-Of lists and I did not get it.
And just when I was getting into the swing of things, the slow frame rate (on the Xbox One X) turned me off it. The gameplay was still fine, but was getting motion sickness.
Not a bad game, just not stellar like the reviews would lead you to believe. I’ll probably get back to it sometime. Perhaps when I get an Xbox XS and it runs better.
I started a new game and had to play the prologue section with the boss fight 3 times, because I died 2 times at the giant double spinning saw gears… I just like the game world so much, so I had to try again and again. I created a save file now, for whenever I am going to replay, I just skip the start.
This is quite bold, making people play the first 30 minutes without a save point.
I died too at the same point, when I played the first time, and that is a long intro. But I’m glad I moved past that, because this is my favorite game ever.
And yeah, “bold” is a qualifier that can be used for a LOT of things in this game. It’s awesome.
I remember there was a theater stage, where robots performed parts of Romeo and Juliet… looking forward to get there. I played 5-6 hours, when it came out. But I always wanted to go back.
