Hey Nier players. I just bought this game, kind of on a whim. Picked up a copy of the Game of the Yorha edition on Amazon for about 50% off or so.
I actually bought it because of Final Fantasy XIV. There's a crossover raid in that game with Nier characters and locations and stuff. And it made me think to myself, "Hmm, I wonder what Nier is all about? I know it has generally been regarded very favorably. I'll check it out."
Let me say up front that I have literally no idea what Nier is. I went in 100% blind. I've never watched a trailer. Or read a review. Or anything. I just know that it exists and that people really like it. Plus it's in Final Fantasy now.
So going in blind like I did, I didn't really know what I was getting myself into.
Let me just say that I was absolutely shocked when the first level of the game is a bullet hell ship level. Followed by on-foot bullet hell combat. That completely took me by surprise. Historically speaking, I am downright terrible at bullet hell games. Just as a general rule of thumb. I really struggle with tracking all the projectiles and nearly every time I tend to die to things I didn't even see. Hopefully I'll manage to make it through this game. I'm a bit worried about it, if the whole game is like this.
Regarding the game itself, I am actually fairly interested in the story after playing for about an hour and a half or so. I'm also really digging the music of the game.
Really, the only actual complaint I have so far is the super random perspective changes that happen in the middle of combat. Like when the perspective shifts to a top-down perspective. I realize that they do this because that means that they're likely going into a heavy bullet hell sequence or something. So I get why it happens. But it's very jarring and I don't like it.
We'll see if I'm able to stick with it. This was a blind purchase and given that so far the gameplay has been in a genre that I am historically quite terrible at, I don't know that my chances of success are very good.
Rather than giving up if it gets too tough, look into all the help built into the game first is my main tip. There are chips to do various things, including using healing items automatically if you're bad at remembering to use them in time or auto aim help if you're having too much trouble with the Shmup parts. Some of these will require lowering the difficulty to easy, which again, you should do before giving up entirely. The story and creativity on display is worth the difficulty getting used to the ways that the game is a bit odd, imo.
Really, the only actual complaint I have so far is the super random perspective changes that happen in the middle of combat. Like when the perspective shifts to a top-down perspective. I realize that they do this because that means that they're likely going into a heavy bullet hell sequence or something. So I get why it happens. But it's very jarring and I don't like it.
I don't think this ever gets any better. It sometimes feels like Nier: Automata "solved" the age-old third-person free-floating action game camera problem by...periodically making the camera incredibly aggravating for the sake of style. It doesn't happen that often, just during a specific number of important boss fights, etc., right through the end of the game.
I'm also not a fan when the game decides that you're only going to see a particular part of the traverseable world from a particular camera angle, but at least usually it's somewhat cool looking, even if it makes navigation more annoying. The primary solution seems to be to ignore it and push through.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
When in doubt mash dodge its absurdly forgiving because of all the bullet hell.
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Hey Nier players. I just bought this game, kind of on a whim. Picked up a copy of the Game of the Yorha edition on Amazon for about 50% off or so.
I actually bought it because of Final Fantasy XIV. There's a crossover raid in that game with Nier characters and locations and stuff. And it made me think to myself, "Hmm, I wonder what Nier is all about? I know it has generally been regarded very favorably. I'll check it out."
Let me say up front that I have literally no idea what Nier is. I went in 100% blind. I've never watched a trailer. Or read a review. Or anything. I just know that it exists and that people really like it. Plus it's in Final Fantasy now.
So going in blind like I did, I didn't really know what I was getting myself into.
Let me just say that I was absolutely shocked when the first level of the game is a bullet hell ship level. Followed by on-foot bullet hell combat. That completely took me by surprise. Historically speaking, I am downright terrible at bullet hell games. Just as a general rule of thumb. I really struggle with tracking all the projectiles and nearly every time I tend to die to things I didn't even see. Hopefully I'll manage to make it through this game. I'm a bit worried about it, if the whole game is like this.
Regarding the game itself, I am actually fairly interested in the story after playing for about an hour and a half or so. I'm also really digging the music of the game.
Really, the only actual complaint I have so far is the super random perspective changes that happen in the middle of combat. Like when the perspective shifts to a top-down perspective. I realize that they do this because that means that they're likely going into a heavy bullet hell sequence or something. So I get why it happens. But it's very jarring and I don't like it.
We'll see if I'm able to stick with it. This was a blind purchase and given that so far the gameplay has been in a genre that I am historically quite terrible at, I don't know that my chances of success are very good.
Rather than giving up if it gets too tough, look into all the help built into the game first is my main tip. There are chips to do various things, including using healing items automatically if you're bad at remembering to use them in time or auto aim help if you're having too much trouble with the Shmup parts. Some of these will require lowering the difficulty to easy, which again, you should do before giving up entirely. The story and creativity on display is worth the difficulty getting used to the ways that the game is a bit odd, imo.
There's a lot of healing on hit and on kill chips you can slot in that help a ton too.
But the best advice I think is too set the game to easy and stop looking up any more info at all. There's a whole lot there to enjoy, and it's well regarded for a reason.
Does this game not have armor, or some way of increasing your defensive capability? An even level moose does 1/3 of my health per hit. Seems kinda ridiculous. I fought a boss last night that did a ground stomp that sent out a red ring on the ground. I got hit by the ring and it probably did as much as 55% of my health in that one hit. I feel like I'm missing something fairly fundamental here. I don't think I should be taking this much damage. But I also can't find anything remotely resembling armor on the inventory screen.
Does this game not have armor, or some way of increasing your defensive capability? An even level moose does 1/3 of my health per hit. Seems kinda ridiculous. I fought a boss last night that did a ground stomp that sent out a red ring on the ground. I got hit by the ring and it probably did as much as 55% of my health in that one hit. I feel like I'm missing something fairly fundamental here. I don't think I should be taking this much damage. But I also can't find anything remotely resembling armor on the inventory screen.
There is no armor. But you can get chips to equip that increase your defense to various damage sources, allow you to heal when doing damage, and increase the potency of healing items. That is basically this game's equivalent of an armor system.
Yeah chips are pretty much your main form of character progression and customization (outside of upgrading your weapons and just leveling up). Get new chips, equip them, mix and match them to find a loadout that you're comfortable with.
I need a ton more chip room. There's a big block, probably 60% of the entire space, that is locked off. I need that space.
I've been using chips, but they don't give me much room. The default list takes up a good half of the available space, and that doesn't leave me much room for customization. I've basically got an auto potion, a regen, and maybe a damage up on there or something. I'm not looking at the game right now so I don't remember for sure what I have equipped, but it's not much. Especially since one of the things I equipped took like 15 spaces or some huge amount.
There's a lot I don't understand about this game though. The numbers they use, and the UI presentation are needlessly convoluted, and not explained at all.
-I've upgraded my sword a few times now. It's level 4 I think. I understand the first line, where the damage numbers go up. But all the additional information of various things going up is over my head.
-When I loot a player corpse out in the world, before any of the UI or options or anything pops up, it always floats a number. Like +1015 or something. The number changes. But every time it floats a number and I have no idea what that number is. It's not money or XP, because those are explicitly detailed for you what you recovered when the UI pops up. It's just that one random floating number that I don't understand.
Is there not a junk tab? How do I know what's safe to sell? I've been hoarding everything and not selling anything because the game doesn't make it clear what I should be keeping.
One last major complaint. I'm finding these locked chests all over the place, and I can't open them. If they expect me to remember where all these things are, and re-explore later to open them all, they are crazy. There's no way I'm gonna re-explore literally every area to open all these chests. They're everywhere. I have found so many of them. And quite frankly it's irritating to be denied a reward for my exploration. I explore around, peek into the nooks and crannies and out of the way places, and then they tell me I can't open the chest I discovered. Seems like really poor game design. On the same topic, last night I was doing the Forest Castle area, and I found 3 different chests that I *was* able to open, but then 2B says "I don't have any use for this item" and puts it back in the chest. Again. Terrible game design. Why am I finding chests that they are denying me access to the contents? I assume that at some point down the road they're gonna give me access via an upgrade or something, and then they're gonna expect me to re-explore the entire game to open all these chests I've been finding. And when that time comes I'm going to tell them to go fuck themselves. I'm not gonna spend the time re-exploring every god damn area of the game when I've already found all the chests once.
I need a ton more chip room. There's a big block, probably 60% of the entire space, that is locked off. I need that space.
I've been using chips, but they don't give me much room. The default list takes up a good half of the available space, and that doesn't leave me much room for customization. I've basically got an auto potion, a regen, and maybe a damage up on there or something. I'm not looking at the game right now so I don't remember for sure what I have equipped, but it's not much. Especially since one of the things I equipped took like 15 spaces or some huge amount.
There's a lot I don't understand about this game though. The numbers they use, and the UI presentation are needlessly convoluted, and not explained at all.
-I've upgraded my sword a few times now. It's level 4 I think. I understand the first line, where the damage numbers go up. But all the additional information of various things going up is over my head.
-When I loot a player corpse out in the world, before any of the UI or options or anything pops up, it always floats a number. Like +1015 or something. The number changes. But every time it floats a number and I have no idea what that number is. It's not money or XP, because those are explicitly detailed for you what you recovered when the UI pops up. It's just that one random floating number that I don't understand.
Is there not a junk tab? How do I know what's safe to sell? I've been hoarding everything and not selling anything because the game doesn't make it clear what I should be keeping.
One last major complaint. I'm finding these locked chests all over the place, and I can't open them. If they expect me to remember where all these things are, and re-explore later to open them all, they are crazy. There's no way I'm gonna re-explore literally every area to open all these chests. They're everywhere. I have found so many of them. And quite frankly it's irritating to be denied a reward for my exploration. I explore around, peek into the nooks and crannies and out of the way places, and then they tell me I can't open the chest I discovered. Seems like really poor game design. On the same topic, last night I was doing the Forest Castle area, and I found 3 different chests that I *was* able to open, but then 2B says "I don't have any use for this item" and puts it back in the chest. Again. Terrible game design. Why am I finding chests that they are denying me access to the contents? I assume that at some point down the road they're gonna give me access via an upgrade or something, and then they're gonna expect me to re-explore the entire game to open all these chests I've been finding. And when that time comes I'm going to tell them to go fuck themselves. I'm not gonna spend the time re-exploring every god damn area of the game when I've already found all the chests once.
You can eventually buy more chip expansions from vendors. That's probably one of the more important things you can get.
The second line of info on a weapon is the combo length. "Combo: Lt. 5 Hv. 3" means that 2B can do 5 attacks with the light button, or 3 attacks with the heavy button
The number you see when you loot a body is healing. You get some health back when you loot the body, and then you get the other items or buffs.
Any item whose description ends with "Can be sold for money" is safe to sell. It'll never be needed for an upgrade or quest. You can also safely sell chips if you've already got some of that type that're better, or if you don't feel like using that kind of chip.
Yes, those chests with the extra nub on them do require an ability you don't have yet. And yes, the game is going to contrive a story reason for you to revisit the areas after you get that ability. They're largely not necessary to progress, but you will be back at those areas in any case.
The chests 2B refuses to loot are super annoying, yes. They're part of a side quest, and she'll only actually take the stuff after the relevant quest is active.
I need a ton more chip room. There's a big block, probably 60% of the entire space, that is locked off. I need that space.
I've been using chips, but they don't give me much room. The default list takes up a good half of the available space, and that doesn't leave me much room for customization. I've basically got an auto potion, a regen, and maybe a damage up on there or something. I'm not looking at the game right now so I don't remember for sure what I have equipped, but it's not much. Especially since one of the things I equipped took like 15 spaces or some huge amount.
There's a lot I don't understand about this game though. The numbers they use, and the UI presentation are needlessly convoluted, and not explained at all.
-I've upgraded my sword a few times now. It's level 4 I think. I understand the first line, where the damage numbers go up. But all the additional information of various things going up is over my head.
-When I loot a player corpse out in the world, before any of the UI or options or anything pops up, it always floats a number. Like +1015 or something. The number changes. But every time it floats a number and I have no idea what that number is. It's not money or XP, because those are explicitly detailed for you what you recovered when the UI pops up. It's just that one random floating number that I don't understand.
Is there not a junk tab? How do I know what's safe to sell? I've been hoarding everything and not selling anything because the game doesn't make it clear what I should be keeping.
One last major complaint. I'm finding these locked chests all over the place, and I can't open them. If they expect me to remember where all these things are, and re-explore later to open them all, they are crazy. There's no way I'm gonna re-explore literally every area to open all these chests. They're everywhere. I have found so many of them. And quite frankly it's irritating to be denied a reward for my exploration. I explore around, peek into the nooks and crannies and out of the way places, and then they tell me I can't open the chest I discovered. Seems like really poor game design. On the same topic, last night I was doing the Forest Castle area, and I found 3 different chests that I *was* able to open, but then 2B says "I don't have any use for this item" and puts it back in the chest. Again. Terrible game design. Why am I finding chests that they are denying me access to the contents? I assume that at some point down the road they're gonna give me access via an upgrade or something, and then they're gonna expect me to re-explore the entire game to open all these chests I've been finding. And when that time comes I'm going to tell them to go fuck themselves. I'm not gonna spend the time re-exploring every god damn area of the game when I've already found all the chests once.
There is a vendor at camp who will sell you chip space expansion, focus all the money you don't need for basic potions or whatever on that until you have max.
The best things to sell are like animal meat and things that literally say "this can be sold for money". Fishing is a source of infinite cash if you have the patience to do it, maybe put on an album you like or something.
You can combine chips at another camp location to make them more potent. If you see an asterisk or maybe a diamond (I forget) in the name, the cost to equip is lower than normal, try to use a bunch of those if you're struggling with space.
The locked chests have a good reason to be there. Explaining why would be a spoiler. The chests that 2B says she "doesn't need" are directly tied to a specific quest.
Regarding those locked chests, maybe there is a legit story/lore reason. But to me, right now, with where I'm at in the game it feels like forced inefficiency and I don't like it.
Regarding those locked chests, maybe there is a legit story/lore reason. But to me, right now, with where I'm at in the game it feels like forced inefficiency and I don't like it.
Once you find out the real reason, you might continue to dislike it for different reasons. But I'll just say it does what they meant it to do.
Regarding those locked chests, maybe there is a legit story/lore reason. But to me, right now, with where I'm at in the game it feels like forced inefficiency and I don't like it.
The whole game forces a lot of inconveniences on you, and keeps up through it for the whole game. Probably one of the reasons why there's a chapter-select option.
I never did find a chip deck upgrade. I looked on the vendor in the resistance camp and didn't see anything of that nature. Oh well. Guess I didn't need it, since I was able to win with only 1/3 of the total deck space activated.
I never did find a chip deck upgrade. I looked on the vendor in the resistance camp and didn't see anything of that nature. Oh well. Guess I didn't need it, since I was able to win with only 1/3 of the total deck space activated.
To be clear, you need to see endings A-E to get the full main story. (However, after getting C or D you get chapter select, which makes getting the other and E very fast)
Ending B is events from 9S's perspective. You get some additional context on things, a fair amount of lore, and the hacking minigame. Then you get part 2, which continues from where A/B end and gets you the remaining endings.
Yeah all I beat was the first story with 2B. The A Route.
Rude.
Actually, I just beat the game again on accident. I did click NG+ and started as 9S and almost instantly got the G ending just by following what seemed like the obvious path. Oopsie.
I really don't know if I want to play this game more times. I guess there's a lot of unanswered questions. The A ending didn't resolve anything at all. But ehhhh....we'll see. My backlog is so huge. Kinda disheartening to find out after seeing the ending credits roll that I'm only like 1/3 through the game or less.
Yeah, to go simple, the 9S route is the longest additional chapter of the game. The paths to the endings after it are cosiderably shorter, and do different stuff.
Yeah all I beat was the first story with 2B. The A Route.
Rude.
Actually, I just beat the game again on accident. I did click NG+ and started as 9S and almost instantly got the G ending just by following what seemed like the obvious path. Oopsie.
I really don't know if I want to play this game more times. I guess there's a lot of unanswered questions. The A ending didn't resolve anything at all. But ehhhh....we'll see. My backlog is so huge. Kinda disheartening to find out after seeing the ending credits roll that I'm only like 1/3 through the game or less.
Just to be clear, it's called "Ending A" but it's more like you finished a chapter of the story. The 9S part is very similar in terms of events, but introduces a lot of new mechanics and tons of new story.
Yeah. I'm gonna keep going. The gameplay is fun, and it wasn't overwhelming on the "normal" difficulty. I was afraid it would be because I'm godawful at shmups, but I did fine overall.
The 2S A-Route story took me 15 hours on my save file. If the 9B route is approximately as long, that's 30 hours of gameplay which isn't bad. When I beat the game on 2S I was honestly shocked by how short the game was. So it makes sense that beating her arc isn't really "done."
Yeah. I'm gonna keep going. The gameplay is fun, and it wasn't overwhelming on the "normal" difficulty. I was afraid it would be because I'm godawful at shmups, but I did fine overall.
The 2S A-Route story took me 15 hours on my save file. If the 9B route is approximately as long, that's 30 hours of gameplay which isn't bad. When I beat the game on 2S I was honestly shocked by how short the game was. So it makes sense that beating her arc isn't really "done."
If you do sidequests, 9S can take that long. It can also go faster if you beeline main story stuff. Knowing the map and how to play naturally makes it quicker as well.
I skipped nearly all the sidequests on 2B's route. I did a couple. I did the stolen data quest and the YorHa deserter quest. I think that's it. Otherwise I 100% just played main story. There was one point where I transitioned to the next story area and I was like 15 levels lower than the enemies. That was a bit of a shock, but I made it through. It was when I got to the forest area. My character was level 12 and the enemies in the forest ranged from 22-26. It was kinda crazy how big the level jump was.
Alright. Finished the game for real this time, or at least as much as I plan on finishing it.
I completed Route B pretty quickly. It only took maybe 7 hours. It reused a ton of content, with only a few unique parts, so I was able to get through it pretty quickly. I also didn't think Route B did much to improve the story or the ending.
I also completed Route C and D endings. Thoughts on those below in spoilers.
So right off the bat, I am not a fan of the way they do the "endings" of the game. Calling the A Ending an ending at all is a bit of a disservice to the game or the story. A's ending is really more like a midpoint. And honestly, it's stupid that they ran the credits there at all, or made you think you were done. Maybe nobody except me thought they were done. But I went into this game completely blind. So I didn't realize it was a multi-path game with a bunch of endings and all that. And anyway, I was very irritated when I finished Route A and discovered that I was only 1/3 done with the game.
As I said above, I didn't think Route B did much to improve the ending either. It was still basically the same, but with a bit more context for what 9S was doing, plus maybe a few lore reveals that I didn't think really meant much. I also wouldn't call Route B's ending an actual "ending" either, and just as before, it was stupid that they roll the credits at that point since you aren't done, and since the story is really only about halfway complete there.
Route C added a ton more story, but I'm not so sure any of it was necessary. When I got to the end, the question I asked was "Did Route C improve the ending or the game in any way above what Route A or B did?" and I think the answer is "no." All that extra story and context, and it did not really do much to improve the ending. The A and B endings were both pretty bleak and unsatisfying. And the Route C ending managed to be even more bleak and even more unsatisfying. Route C might have actually harmed the game in my estimation. All that extra context certainly did not improve it.
I thought Adam and Eve made much more interesting antagonists, since they actually had a face, and motivations, and personality. The big giant round eyeball robot that you fight at the end of Route C was neither interesting, nor did it have any personality or anything to connect me to it. It was way too generic to be the final boss of the game.
I think Route B's reveal that humanity was already extinct also kind of harmed Route C. What's the point of any of it, if what the characters are fighting for doesn't exist anymore? I guess that was kind of the point of the game though, huh? And they just took us on this journey along with the characters. So at the end, the characters were unfulfilled, and I as the player was also unfulfilled. Is that good storytelling? Ehhh... I'm not so sure. Endings can be bleak and dark, but still satisfying. It's the unsatisfactory part that really pulls it down. I felt like all the questions raised, all the various plot reveals, all the twists and turns, and "what ifs," none of it really mattered.
Anyway, after having completed Routes A, B, C, D, and G, I was still left with a handful of questions. I've already deleted the game and plan on moving on to the next item in my backlog, so if there's more context to be revealed through additional playthroughs or chapter select, I won't get that context from playing more of the game. Feel free to spoil away if anyone wants to answer some of these questions:
1) Why did A2 defect?
2) Why did A2 tell them that it was Command who betrayed them?
3) Did A2 already know that Mankind was extinct? If she did, that was not made apparent. Especially since the story specifically goes out of its way to say that 9S was special and they knew that he would figure it out.
4) What was the point of Adam and Eve in the story? Given how much additional content was a part of the Route C story, the whole Adam and Eve plot basically felt like a giant red herring (and by extension, a waste of time).
5) We learn that the Androids' black boxes are made up of the cores of the Machines, which basically links them and makes them one and the same. Which is fine. I kinda figured they were going to do something like that with the story. So I wasn't shocked by this revelation. But I guess I don't understand why they bothered to make the revelation and then did nothing with it? It seemed like pretty irrelevant info, all things considered. It didn't change anything in the way the characters behaved or in the way the story played out. Knowing that they were made of the same stuff didn't in any way whatsoever change 9S's view of the Machines. I guess I just don't understand why this was even a thing, since it didn't matter to the narrative. It felt like just a random bit of trivia with no real purpose.
6) In the final moments of the game, we get one last revelation that 2B was actually 2E. And just like my point right above, my number 5, I'm not sure why they bothered to give this information. It didn't change anything. Not really. It's kinda like "All this time you thought this character's name was Bob, but really his name is Steve." But then that information has no meaningful impact on the story. When A2 tells 9S this in the final moments of the game, he just shrugs it off and continues with his murderous intent. I mean, yes, I realize that she also says that 2B (2E)'s secret mission was to assassinate 9S. But I also felt like *the* 2B that we played as throughout the game, the one who had a special bond with 9S (our 9s), she wasn't out to just assassinate him. If anything, 2B was the only character in the game who I thought had an interesting character arc, because she went from being a distant, uncaring person to actually having feelings and caring about 9S, and her friendship with him was real. And all of those times when she did kill him? None of them were because of a directive from Command. She killed him due to circumstance. When they touched their black boxes together, it was to destroy a whole gaggle of machines. And she died in that blast too. And when she choked him out in that super weirdly erotic scene at the end, it was because he had Machine corruption and was literally being possessed by the Machines, and killing him was the way to stop the spread of the virus AND on top of that, he asked her to do it.
Anyway, there was a lot I didn't understand about the game and the story.
Overall, I thought combat was interesting. It felt like a mix of Kingdom Hearts and Galaga.
I never did warm up to some of those fairly forceful and abrupt changes in camera angle.
The music of the game was the best part. Music was top notch.
I didn't like the re-use of areas over and over. Felt fairly lazy. It felt like they cut a lot of design corners by just reusing each area 2-3 times for various story beats. It felt like a really low budget game to me. Maybe it was. It was obviously highly experimental and weird. And maybe Square Enix didn't want to invest a ton of money into a game that was such a risk. So maybe it really was a fairly low budget game. I don't know. But the thing that bugs me is that it "felt" low budget.
Anyway, I'd probably give it a 6/10 if I had to put a number to it. It was pretty average.
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Johnny ChopsockyScootaloo! We have to cook!Grillin' HaysenburgersRegistered Userregular
edited September 2021
You... You didn't take the alternate credits option in D (or C, depending on whichever one you did second)? With maybe the best music track in the game? No Ending E?
That's a real shame. A real damn shame. Although it feels like you weren't vibing on the game at all and sounded like you were doing more out of obligation than desire to dive into it, so that's fair.
Alternate credits option? I played the shmup till I died and then picked the option to not try again, because I had already failed once. If additional story was locked behind beating that endless scroller part, that’s on them for not putting checkpoints in.
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Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
edited September 2021
Yeah half of that is stuff you missed not doing sidequests. I usually HATE mission stuff that isn't along a main path in an RPG, but the side quests in Automata are both legit interesting gameplay and many add something to the story. Even if it ranges from minor to "pretty much required to understand the end". Even worse, a lot of it is stuff that would have made you go "OH!" or "oh SHIT" when you put it together if you did the side quests before knowing the end. Might not have the same impact later, but doesn't make it any less important.
Also on that second spoiler
A lot of the explanation for A2 is in that HUGE text dump not long into when you start playing her. She basically was a part of what I think was a kind of suicide squad, and was one of the few survivors. I haven't played in a long time, but I think because she learned they were just experimental models to make the better 2B, she broke off due to that. Unfortunately a lot of her past story was done in content outside of the game. There is uhh, a lot of storyline outside the game too. Important stuff even. Not important enough to understand the MAIN point of the plot, but if you care about the why of some characters before it, it is important to that. Also the previous Nier helps too.
Your questions about Adam and Eve as well as the final boss machine seem like you missed something I don't think you needed a sidequest for. Adam and Eve were the machines trying to replicate Androids I believe. But they had their own mind and pretty much messed everything up as soon as they killed the Aliens that created the machines. Their point was to show how the machines obsession with humans led to what eventually became their main reason to exist after the Aliens were killed.
I think the point of the black box realization is that Androids always thought themselves superior to machines since they were not just controlled by a main frame when connected to their network, or maybe even just they thought they were fighting an alien enemy. They pretty much learn they are actually fighting themselves, the humans just used the tech to do it. I think its a "we thought we were different the whole time, but we were actually the same" which should have deep meaning on its own. I feel like there was something more obvious though that I am forgetting having not played in a long time.
That revelation is like, the biggest "oh shit" moment and I dunno how that can't hit hard. 2B's job was to kill 9S before he became too knowledgeable which is exactly what happens in the story when he basically goes insane. They essentially know S models are super advanced to the point of being dangerous, so they take all the intel they get for the base, then have an E model kill them to reset their actual memory to not let them get too advanced. 2B however, is implied to end up letting her emotions get to her even thought they are told not to for that very reason, and keeps regretting killing 9S. Think about a lot of the moments in the game. Many of them suddenly mean a lot more knowing that. Just the simple fact she doesn't want to call him nines is because she is afraid to get attached when she has to kill him and he forgets her all over again. Like, she always remembers caring about him, she sees him caring about her, then she has to kill him and watch him start ALL over again. She only starts opening up later in the first two endings and early in C when she sees he doesn't forget this time. That is why the A and B endings matter. Because she killed him and normally that was when all those memories she keeps, he lost, but then he found a way to remain in the machines. So her whole death hits harder when you realize she finally didn't have to see him lose those memories anymore. That is what I got from it anyway, but a LOT of little things you really would not have noticed happened to show her regretting that stuff. The intro sequence of the game ending with them both being destroyed was supposed to be showing her dealing with killing him to reset his memory. Yeah it had to happen, but they likely designed the story that way because if she just kind of randomly killed him, it wouldn't have been as much of a subtle thing. It would be like "oh thats random as shit, I guess that is important later?" Which isn't the style of storytelling in the game and why the storytelling is so good IMO. I should also mention, this is one of those things you get a piece of from a side quest, likely one of the most important one. It teaches you of the existence of E models. So you could start to wonder about this before the big drop, which makes that drop hit a lot harder.
Also, I should likely ask, you didn't say anything about ending E. How did you do C and D and not reach something that should have led to E? I mean, it sounds like E wouldn't have hit as hard as it should have, but if the games story makes sense to you ending E is likely one of the most powerful things you will ever experience in a video game.
Game asks me to pick 9S or A2 during their final showdown. I actually picked 9S first, even though he was clearly insane and completely out his mind, because he was (in my mind) the true story character. A2 didn't have enough characterization to matter. So I picked 9S first in their showdown and got the D ending, which was pretty bleak.
During the D ending, I was presented with an option to either remain where I was or go with Adam and Eve on their rocket ship to the unknown. I picked to go on the rocket ship.
Then I went to chapter select, reloaded the final encounter and this time I picked A2 and got I guess a slightly happier ending than the 9S ending? It was like 3% less bleak. She hacks him and restores him to sanity, but then she merges herself with the white light, which I assume killed her. So at least 9S got to live in that ending. Still pretty bleak tho.
After the A2 ending (the Route C) ending, it went to the credits scene where you're playing an endless scroller shmup and you're blasting the names of all the folks who made the game. I died once, and it popped up a very oddly worded question, about whether I wanted to give up or something. I said "no" and it reloaded me from the beginning of the credits. I was annoyed at that point that that there wasn't any sort of checkpoint during all of that. I restarted and got quite a bit further the second time through the name blaster mini-game. But I did eventually die again, and the same strangely worded question popped up. This time I picked "yes" to give up, and it took me back to the title screen.
So if there was something else that I missed, I don't know what it was. Maybe I should have said "no" to going with Adam and Eve on their rocket? Would that have produced a different ending? Surely it would have been even more bleak still. The ending where 9S stays on earth, alone and friendless and full of the knowledge that everything he was created for was a farce.
Regarding why I was pushing through. I don't know if "obligation" is the right word. I had heard the game was good. A lot. Tons of people said it was amazing. So I was curious. I think playing out of curiosity is a better description than playing out of obligation. I wanted to see it for myself if it was really that good. Sadly, I wasn't super impressed. Oh well. Different strokes and all that.
Regarding the side quest stuff, I'm an RPG player of 30+ years and most of the time, side quests are just fluff and filler content. I've been conditioned over those 30+ years that side quests are usually skippable. Sure, they might give good coin, or an item, or whatever. But rarely are they essential to understanding the story. So if this is one of those rare cases where the side quests actually matter... I dunno. They needed to try harder to get me to want to do them. Or just make the important bits a part of the primary story arc. I dunno. I have a hard time accepting the fault for this one. I'd be willing to admit I was wrong if there were indicators that it was important to do them. But there really wasn't.
And for that matter, I did do a few of them. I did the one to kill the 3 YorHa deserters. That one was kind of a wet fart of a quest. Same with the stolen data one. Helped a dude up on a rooftop recover 3 stolen memory chips that the Machines had somehow stolen. There was another quest in Pascal's village, where a guy was just asking for money. And you had like 5 or 6 options of how much money to give him. I picked one of the middle options, for like 1000g or something, and was completely dissatisfied with what he gave me in return. So I did not go back or try again to reinvest in a higher dollar amount option. I guess what I'm saying is... I did do a few side quests. And apparently the ones I did were all the wrong ones, so they themselves trained me, once again, what I've known for 30+ years about RPGs that side quests are just fluff and filler. They reinforced that very notion. It's not like I was outright avoiding them. I did a few. And felt like I wasted my time with the ones I did.
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Johnny ChopsockyScootaloo! We have to cook!Grillin' HaysenburgersRegistered Userregular
Alternate credits option? I played the shmup till I died and then picked the option to not try again, because I had already failed once. If additional story was locked behind beating that endless scroller part, that’s on them for not putting checkpoints in.
Yeah, try try again was what the game wanted. And I'm disappointed that you didn't keep going but also understand why you didn't keep going.
Because on the one hand, that section culminates in a way that resonated immensely with me. But on the other hand I was super vibing on the game and doing it out of my desire to see what was next, and you obviously weren't vibing on it and were just trying to get things over with, so you'd probably be too irritated and annoyed to get the same resonance that I did.
A friend of mine had a similar experience with Nier Automata as you, where nothing was landing for him and he was just trying to get it all over with by the end. And it sucked, because I wanted to talk about the game with him, chat about what we thought about what went down, and we couldn't because I liked it and he just played it for trophies and let it all wash away immediately afterwards, almost resenting me for talking him into playing a thing he didn't mesh with. I understand where you're coming from, because you're not the first I've seen react this way to it.
So I'm sorry you didn't get from the game what I did, I suppose is what I'm getting at. Different people want different things from games, and Nier Automata was selling exactly what I wanted but didn't have what you wanted.
Yeah, it's not like I went in expecting to dislike it. Just the opposite in fact. Given how much positive buzz there is for this game, I went in pretty open minded and expecting to enjoy it. But, as I've said a few times I also went in pretty blind. I knew it was made by Square Enix, and that was about it. I did not know what the combat style was, and I did not know in advance that it was Ikaruga-lite in some parts. That came as a total shock to me. And I'm the worst ever at Ikaruga. I just can't track that many things at once and I inevitably always die to something that I didn't even see.
Fortunately for me, I was able to push through. I actually enjoyed the combat for the most part. I'd say the camera was the biggest obstacle, but that's always the case. The ground-based combat was pretty Kingdom Heartsy, and I love me some KH. But KH also suffers from the camera being your greatest enemy.
All things considered, I'd say I died and failed less on the flying parts than I did on the ground combat parts.
That one section right at the start of Route C, where you're playing as 9S and the EMP goes off and all your shit goes haywire was absolutely brutal. I died probably 20 times there. I was so frustrated and nearly at the giving up point, but I finally managed to beat it. That part was awful.
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Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
edited September 2021
Yeah that is what I assumed happened regarding ending E.
Read this if you legit never expect to try again, which I wouldn't blame you. From the way that credits thing went you definitely weren't feeling it so I don't think you would have gotten the intended experience
Ending E is for finishing the credits thing. The whole point is it is SUPPOSED to feel hopeless. The sequence, like just about everything in the game, is the "game" actually being the story. The pods were supposed to wipe out all of the androids' memories in the end which was why the whole virus thing happened. But 2Bs pod gained some kind of free will, questioned this, and wanted to give them their "happy ending". He convinced 9S' pod to try to do the same. So you are fighting their programming to change fate. Which intentionally should feel impossible. There is a point where it goes from "getting hard enough you may have failed" to "only godlike speedrunners could even THINK of doing this". Around then, you should fail enough that it starts to become obvious something is going on, and the doubtful messages stop making you want to quit. You are also supposed to be resonating with what is going on by that point and want that happy ending. So when you keep going enough, you get a message that someone wants to save you. It will be the name of an actual player who played the game (so you need to be online at that point, if its on PC that is likely a given). You then get a mass of ships and can shoot liked 7 times the bullets basically obliterating everything. If you do get hit one of those ships dies (complete with a message that a players name's was destroyed) and get a new ship until you finish. From there you "win" and secure that happy ending where the pods rebuild 2B, 9S, and A2 and give them their memories I believe. After THAT, you are told that the player who saved you had to sacrifice their entire save file to do it. As in, delete the save file they just completed every aspect of the game to get to that point. And its also implied, every single ship that got destroyed when you had that large group was another save file down the drain. After making you feel like shit about it, you then get offered to destroy your save file to hopefully save someone else. While also feeling like shit, you get told how this could be a person you don't even want to save, or could even hate, and do you REALLY want to delete your save because they aren't fucking around (I didn't believe it would not be a bluff, like a fool). You then sacrifice your save file obviously because you are not a complete monster are you, and that is ending E.
So yeah, should be obvious if you didn't really feel any of those final story points that had big meaning mostly due to the characters, that thing wouldn't hit at all either.
It is what it is though. There is no doubt Automata does things differently enough it is going to completely bounce off of some people. But when it doesn't it really is one of the most memorable experiences of all time.
Yeah, I definitely wouldn't have gotten that on my own. After 2 attempts at the credits, I was convinced it was a "me problem" and I was done.
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I also wasn't expecting a happy ending. The game was so bleak overall, that I assumed their version of happy ending would have been like "And then the PODs uploaded your memories to a server so your legacy didn't die." That's what I was expecting.
Alright. Finished the game for real this time, or at least as much as I plan on finishing it.
I completed Route B pretty quickly. It only took maybe 7 hours. It reused a ton of content, with only a few unique parts, so I was able to get through it pretty quickly. I also didn't think Route B did much to improve the story or the ending.
I also completed Route C and D endings. Thoughts on those below in spoilers.
So right off the bat, I am not a fan of the way they do the "endings" of the game. Calling the A Ending an ending at all is a bit of a disservice to the game or the story. A's ending is really more like a midpoint. And honestly, it's stupid that they ran the credits there at all, or made you think you were done. Maybe nobody except me thought they were done. But I went into this game completely blind. So I didn't realize it was a multi-path game with a bunch of endings and all that. And anyway, I was very irritated when I finished Route A and discovered that I was only 1/3 done with the game.
As I said above, I didn't think Route B did much to improve the ending either. It was still basically the same, but with a bit more context for what 9S was doing, plus maybe a few lore reveals that I didn't think really meant much. I also wouldn't call Route B's ending an actual "ending" either, and just as before, it was stupid that they roll the credits at that point since you aren't done, and since the story is really only about halfway complete there.
Route C added a ton more story, but I'm not so sure any of it was necessary. When I got to the end, the question I asked was "Did Route C improve the ending or the game in any way above what Route A or B did?" and I think the answer is "no." All that extra story and context, and it did not really do much to improve the ending. The A and B endings were both pretty bleak and unsatisfying. And the Route C ending managed to be even more bleak and even more unsatisfying. Route C might have actually harmed the game in my estimation. All that extra context certainly did not improve it.
I thought Adam and Eve made much more interesting antagonists, since they actually had a face, and motivations, and personality. The big giant round eyeball robot that you fight at the end of Route C was neither interesting, nor did it have any personality or anything to connect me to it. It was way too generic to be the final boss of the game.
I think Route B's reveal that humanity was already extinct also kind of harmed Route C. What's the point of any of it, if what the characters are fighting for doesn't exist anymore? I guess that was kind of the point of the game though, huh? And they just took us on this journey along with the characters. So at the end, the characters were unfulfilled, and I as the player was also unfulfilled. Is that good storytelling? Ehhh... I'm not so sure. Endings can be bleak and dark, but still satisfying. It's the unsatisfactory part that really pulls it down. I felt like all the questions raised, all the various plot reveals, all the twists and turns, and "what ifs," none of it really mattered.
Anyway, after having completed Routes A, B, C, D, and G, I was still left with a handful of questions. I've already deleted the game and plan on moving on to the next item in my backlog, so if there's more context to be revealed through additional playthroughs or chapter select, I won't get that context from playing more of the game. Feel free to spoil away if anyone wants to answer some of these questions:
1) Why did A2 defect?
2) Why did A2 tell them that it was Command who betrayed them?
3) Did A2 already know that Mankind was extinct? If she did, that was not made apparent. Especially since the story specifically goes out of its way to say that 9S was special and they knew that he would figure it out.
4) What was the point of Adam and Eve in the story? Given how much additional content was a part of the Route C story, the whole Adam and Eve plot basically felt like a giant red herring (and by extension, a waste of time).
5) We learn that the Androids' black boxes are made up of the cores of the Machines, which basically links them and makes them one and the same. Which is fine. I kinda figured they were going to do something like that with the story. So I wasn't shocked by this revelation. But I guess I don't understand why they bothered to make the revelation and then did nothing with it? It seemed like pretty irrelevant info, all things considered. It didn't change anything in the way the characters behaved or in the way the story played out. Knowing that they were made of the same stuff didn't in any way whatsoever change 9S's view of the Machines. I guess I just don't understand why this was even a thing, since it didn't matter to the narrative. It felt like just a random bit of trivia with no real purpose.
6) In the final moments of the game, we get one last revelation that 2B was actually 2E. And just like my point right above, my number 5, I'm not sure why they bothered to give this information. It didn't change anything. Not really. It's kinda like "All this time you thought this character's name was Bob, but really his name is Steve." But then that information has no meaningful impact on the story. When A2 tells 9S this in the final moments of the game, he just shrugs it off and continues with his murderous intent. I mean, yes, I realize that she also says that 2B (2E)'s secret mission was to assassinate 9S. But I also felt like *the* 2B that we played as throughout the game, the one who had a special bond with 9S (our 9s), she wasn't out to just assassinate him. If anything, 2B was the only character in the game who I thought had an interesting character arc, because she went from being a distant, uncaring person to actually having feelings and caring about 9S, and her friendship with him was real. And all of those times when she did kill him? None of them were because of a directive from Command. She killed him due to circumstance. When they touched their black boxes together, it was to destroy a whole gaggle of machines. And she died in that blast too. And when she choked him out in that super weirdly erotic scene at the end, it was because he had Machine corruption and was literally being possessed by the Machines, and killing him was the way to stop the spread of the virus AND on top of that, he asked her to do it.
Anyway, there was a lot I didn't understand about the game and the story.
Overall, I thought combat was interesting. It felt like a mix of Kingdom Hearts and Galaga.
I never did warm up to some of those fairly forceful and abrupt changes in camera angle.
The music of the game was the best part. Music was top notch.
I didn't like the re-use of areas over and over. Felt fairly lazy. It felt like they cut a lot of design corners by just reusing each area 2-3 times for various story beats. It felt like a really low budget game to me. Maybe it was. It was obviously highly experimental and weird. And maybe Square Enix didn't want to invest a ton of money into a game that was such a risk. So maybe it really was a fairly low budget game. I don't know. But the thing that bugs me is that it "felt" low budget.
Anyway, I'd probably give it a 6/10 if I had to put a number to it. It was pretty average.
I'll do my best to answer all of this, let's see...
Many people knew about multi-endings because Automata is deep in the line of games which are known for having multiple endings. It's not your "fault" you didn't know this, but it was an extremely known quantity. There's also that pop up notice at the end in case you didn't know. I will say the main thing I will fault you for is it's a deeply weird reaction to reach the end of the game, find out there's substantially more and... get mad? UGH, more content? More story, more gameplay? YUCK, why would they DO this to me? Honestly, if you're hating it, you should stop and I tried to phrase my earlier comments in a way to simply inform you that there was a lot more, not to ORDER you to keep going. As a huge fan of the previous game in the series, I honestly thought I didn't much like this one when all I had played was the A route. By C/D route, I found it a very worthy successor indeed, so that's why I don't think it's a good idea to make a judgment on the whole project while only knowing about... a third of the story?
The purpose of route B is mainly just spotting where 9S is at, what his personality truly is when we get his inner thoughts. I think gameplay wise, it's the weakest part of the game and possibly was budget limited? Teaching the players to hack turns out to be pretty important for the third route and the final ending, but I don't think most people needed a game length route of the same bosses to get there. The parts that are most similar to A just feel like a waste of time, tbh. I don't think you were grokking the story very well to claim that the story reveals in B aren't meaningful though. The entire stated purpose of Yorha is a fraud and Command kills people who find out. The game's premise has literally been turned on its head and you're... not sure what this meant?
When you say "improve the ending", this is where I have a lot of questions for you. An ending being bleak doesn't make it bad. What does it mean to you for an ending to be "satisfying", precisely? The true nature of all the conflicts in the game, a massive increase in the depth of literally every character, an explanation of just what has been going on the entire time, and you don't think it was necessary? From your questions, it actually does seem you didn't "get" it, in terms of some of the reveals were unclear or misunderstood, so perhaps that's the explanation for this take that seems quite strange to me.
The final antagonist of C/D are the leaders of the machine race, the eyeballs are literally just meaningless guards for that group. The "Red Girls", first spotted in route B are fully unmasked in routes C/D. The key understanding here is that the machines are HORRIFYINGLY stronger than the androids and Yorha. The entire hundreds of years long war has essentially been a game that the Red Girls have been playing with Yorha. They had a button that would end the game at ANY TIME, open the backdoors in Yorha (that were designed to be there from the start), kill all the androids, and wipe the slate clean. So in this context, we come to understand that all the weird kinds and cultures of machines were just lab experiments. "Will machines evolve into a higher life form if they devote themselves to religion, cultlike insane religion? What about if a machine decided to fall in love, would something happen from that? What if we let some machines escape the war and try to make peace with the androids, could anything interesting result from that?" etc. The reason for not pulling the trigger on the androids already was to provide a context for machine evolution, the endless war.
Which dovetails into the fate of humanity. The thing is, players of the first game already know humanity was doomed. So when they're told that a completely different issue has put them on the back foot... you're suspicious. Getting confirmation that the older game's lore is still EXTREMELY true makes that period dramatic irony. For a new player, you won't have the context of why humanity was already dead, but thematically it doesn't change much. Nier Automata is a game that's extremely anti-war, anti-nationalism, anti-authoritarian, etc. The war only produces suffering, the entire premise is a lie and the brokers of that lie are using it to give everyone "purpose." But that was an extremely misguided thing to do, a terrible task is being undertaken for a reason that doesn't exist. The final ending is basically a hopeful thought of "even if we don't have a 'reason' to exist per se, couldn't we find one? Wouldn't that be a lot better than inventing hateful lies just to feel better?" I could get more into this, but there's a lot more to go, so I'll stop on this point here for now.
Question 1) A2's route is explained in summary in the computer text when you beat the desert boss and go to the Resistance Camp for the first time. If you missed reading that (or decided not to), you essentially missed ALL of her character's background. That story is explained in detail by a stage play that was only performed in Japan. The creator has a uh... strange interest in expanding the story through any available method and a disinterest in summarizing anything important from those sources, leaving fans to pick up the pieces and inform each other. It's not a great way to be coherent. Basically, LONG before 2B and 9S were active in the war, A2 was sent to Earth to battle the machines with a squad of comrades. They met the Resistance and formed the first alliance between Yorha and that group. During their battles with the machines, they encountered the red eye virus that destroys Yorha in path C/D and were successful in removing it through hacking, like 9S uses. In the climactic battle to destroy a giant machine server located in a mountain, the group is separated and killed off one by one. The Red Girls reveal themselves to parts of the group and maliciously explain that they've improved the red eye virus (it is now resistant to being removed with hacking), so thanks for the test data on that. The Resistance leader and A2 both manage to escape separately, both through the sacrifice of comrades, both presuming the other to be dead. A2 realizes that the war is a sham and Command sent her team to die for nothing, she proceeds to declare her own endless war on the machines (it's attempted suicide by war, she's just a bit too talented to die so easily) and breaks from Yorha Command permanently. Command marks her as an enemy for knowing too much, this is a decision built into Yorha upper command structure to keep the androids from questioning the war and potentially refusing to take part in it (they're only there TO take part in it, so they can't have that happen).
Question 2) A2 warns 2B and 9S that Command are rats because they are and because she has no reason to hate 2B or 9S. She passively wishes for the best for her fellow androids, but is too traumatized and wary to ever actually attempt a team up again.
Question 3) I forget if she knew this specifically (I think yes?) but more importantly from her perspective, the war is a sham, the machines have an unassailable upper hand, and Command is complicit.
Question 4) Adam and Eve are a red herring in the grand scheme of how the story turns out, their purpose is thematic. To make the player STRONGLY question the idea that androids are good with a worthwhile purpose, while machines are evil and non-sentient. Their behavior tells you the premise of the story is definitely a lie, you learn the details of this lie as route B ends and route C/D pick up.
Question 5) Yeah, androids and machines are literally the same. Any difference that the races feel exist is imaginary. Far from meaning nothing, it exponentially increases the futility and cruelty of the war. It also drives 9S completely insane, since his last safe point to assign meaning to his behavior is that machines bad/ androids good distinction. If humanity is extinct, he still could have found meaning in defeating the machines and making the world safer for androids... except that there's no difference and nothing noble about this goal at all. Again, this is a key theme of the entire story, calling it "meaningless trivia" is.... extremely incorrect?
Question 6) I'm unsure if you understood this point fully. The beginning of Nier Automata isn't the beginning of these characters' story. 2B has murdered 9S A LOT of times. Understanding the scope of this completely unlocks the motivations of her behavior throughout the entire game. Her opening monologue from the very first second of the game was about "endless cycles of death and rebirth" and wondering if she could kill their creators to take revenge on what she's been forced to do all this time. The reason 2B acts so cold 90% of the time to 9S and then lets loose with emotional fondness in crisis moments is because she's built a relationship with him that ends in his murder too many times, her heart is broken over it. Saying her name wasn't her name, was essentially saying she was a different person, her role as you understood it was not real. It's thematically important, but also logically explains a number of things.
The budget of the game was certainly a medium level, nothing like a Final Fantasy. I think it's an incredible achievement to release such a memorable game with resource limitations like the ones they had, it puts the lie to the idea that only extremely high budget games can have really interesting story or gameplay twists. The game can feel repetitive and a bit small in scope at times, but there's also benefits of learning the game world in great detail for the many playthroughs, and the creative use of content makes you think about what's possible to do even if a dev team doesn't have unlimited resources to make a world as deep as GTA or RDR2 or whatever.
There's nothing wrong with not liking how the game turned out or being unimpressed with it. I can't really argue with your personal taste. It does seem like you didn't fully get all of the plot points as they came out, which is most likely explained by you losing interest the further the game went on.
Edit: Sorry if the tone of this is rude at any point, I was honestly doing my best to thoroughly answer the questions as given. I do feel there's a difference between "I don't get what they were going for with this" and "I don't think this succeeded at what it was trying to do." Your responses suggested the former several times.
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Rather than giving up if it gets too tough, look into all the help built into the game first is my main tip. There are chips to do various things, including using healing items automatically if you're bad at remembering to use them in time or auto aim help if you're having too much trouble with the Shmup parts. Some of these will require lowering the difficulty to easy, which again, you should do before giving up entirely. The story and creativity on display is worth the difficulty getting used to the ways that the game is a bit odd, imo.
I don't think this ever gets any better. It sometimes feels like Nier: Automata "solved" the age-old third-person free-floating action game camera problem by...periodically making the camera incredibly aggravating for the sake of style. It doesn't happen that often, just during a specific number of important boss fights, etc., right through the end of the game.
I'm also not a fan when the game decides that you're only going to see a particular part of the traverseable world from a particular camera angle, but at least usually it's somewhat cool looking, even if it makes navigation more annoying. The primary solution seems to be to ignore it and push through.
There's a lot of healing on hit and on kill chips you can slot in that help a ton too.
But the best advice I think is too set the game to easy and stop looking up any more info at all. There's a whole lot there to enjoy, and it's well regarded for a reason.
There is no armor. But you can get chips to equip that increase your defense to various damage sources, allow you to heal when doing damage, and increase the potency of healing items. That is basically this game's equivalent of an armor system.
I've been using chips, but they don't give me much room. The default list takes up a good half of the available space, and that doesn't leave me much room for customization. I've basically got an auto potion, a regen, and maybe a damage up on there or something. I'm not looking at the game right now so I don't remember for sure what I have equipped, but it's not much. Especially since one of the things I equipped took like 15 spaces or some huge amount.
There's a lot I don't understand about this game though. The numbers they use, and the UI presentation are needlessly convoluted, and not explained at all.
-I've upgraded my sword a few times now. It's level 4 I think. I understand the first line, where the damage numbers go up. But all the additional information of various things going up is over my head.
-When I loot a player corpse out in the world, before any of the UI or options or anything pops up, it always floats a number. Like +1015 or something. The number changes. But every time it floats a number and I have no idea what that number is. It's not money or XP, because those are explicitly detailed for you what you recovered when the UI pops up. It's just that one random floating number that I don't understand.
Is there not a junk tab? How do I know what's safe to sell? I've been hoarding everything and not selling anything because the game doesn't make it clear what I should be keeping.
One last major complaint. I'm finding these locked chests all over the place, and I can't open them. If they expect me to remember where all these things are, and re-explore later to open them all, they are crazy. There's no way I'm gonna re-explore literally every area to open all these chests. They're everywhere. I have found so many of them. And quite frankly it's irritating to be denied a reward for my exploration. I explore around, peek into the nooks and crannies and out of the way places, and then they tell me I can't open the chest I discovered. Seems like really poor game design. On the same topic, last night I was doing the Forest Castle area, and I found 3 different chests that I *was* able to open, but then 2B says "I don't have any use for this item" and puts it back in the chest. Again. Terrible game design. Why am I finding chests that they are denying me access to the contents? I assume that at some point down the road they're gonna give me access via an upgrade or something, and then they're gonna expect me to re-explore the entire game to open all these chests I've been finding. And when that time comes I'm going to tell them to go fuck themselves. I'm not gonna spend the time re-exploring every god damn area of the game when I've already found all the chests once.
You can eventually buy more chip expansions from vendors. That's probably one of the more important things you can get.
The second line of info on a weapon is the combo length. "Combo: Lt. 5 Hv. 3" means that 2B can do 5 attacks with the light button, or 3 attacks with the heavy button
The number you see when you loot a body is healing. You get some health back when you loot the body, and then you get the other items or buffs.
Any item whose description ends with "Can be sold for money" is safe to sell. It'll never be needed for an upgrade or quest. You can also safely sell chips if you've already got some of that type that're better, or if you don't feel like using that kind of chip.
Yes, those chests with the extra nub on them do require an ability you don't have yet. And yes, the game is going to contrive a story reason for you to revisit the areas after you get that ability. They're largely not necessary to progress, but you will be back at those areas in any case.
The chests 2B refuses to loot are super annoying, yes. They're part of a side quest, and she'll only actually take the stuff after the relevant quest is active.
There is a vendor at camp who will sell you chip space expansion, focus all the money you don't need for basic potions or whatever on that until you have max.
The best things to sell are like animal meat and things that literally say "this can be sold for money". Fishing is a source of infinite cash if you have the patience to do it, maybe put on an album you like or something.
You can combine chips at another camp location to make them more potent. If you see an asterisk or maybe a diamond (I forget) in the name, the cost to equip is lower than normal, try to use a bunch of those if you're struggling with space.
The locked chests have a good reason to be there. Explaining why would be a spoiler. The chests that 2B says she "doesn't need" are directly tied to a specific quest.
Regarding those locked chests, maybe there is a legit story/lore reason. But to me, right now, with where I'm at in the game it feels like forced inefficiency and I don't like it.
Once you find out the real reason, you might continue to dislike it for different reasons. But I'll just say it does what they meant it to do.
The whole game forces a lot of inconveniences on you, and keeps up through it for the whole game. Probably one of the reasons why there's a chapter-select option.
I guess I was at the end. Game beat.
I never did find a chip deck upgrade. I looked on the vendor in the resistance camp and didn't see anything of that nature. Oh well. Guess I didn't need it, since I was able to win with only 1/3 of the total deck space activated.
What ending?
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Yeah all I beat was the first story with 2B. The A Route.
Rude.
Actually, I just beat the game again on accident. I did click NG+ and started as 9S and almost instantly got the G ending just by following what seemed like the obvious path. Oopsie.
I really don't know if I want to play this game more times. I guess there's a lot of unanswered questions. The A ending didn't resolve anything at all. But ehhhh....we'll see. My backlog is so huge. Kinda disheartening to find out after seeing the ending credits roll that I'm only like 1/3 through the game or less.
Just to be clear, it's called "Ending A" but it's more like you finished a chapter of the story. The 9S part is very similar in terms of events, but introduces a lot of new mechanics and tons of new story.
The 2S A-Route story took me 15 hours on my save file. If the 9B route is approximately as long, that's 30 hours of gameplay which isn't bad. When I beat the game on 2S I was honestly shocked by how short the game was. So it makes sense that beating her arc isn't really "done."
If you do sidequests, 9S can take that long. It can also go faster if you beeline main story stuff. Knowing the map and how to play naturally makes it quicker as well.
I completed Route B pretty quickly. It only took maybe 7 hours. It reused a ton of content, with only a few unique parts, so I was able to get through it pretty quickly. I also didn't think Route B did much to improve the story or the ending.
I also completed Route C and D endings. Thoughts on those below in spoilers.
As I said above, I didn't think Route B did much to improve the ending either. It was still basically the same, but with a bit more context for what 9S was doing, plus maybe a few lore reveals that I didn't think really meant much. I also wouldn't call Route B's ending an actual "ending" either, and just as before, it was stupid that they roll the credits at that point since you aren't done, and since the story is really only about halfway complete there.
Route C added a ton more story, but I'm not so sure any of it was necessary. When I got to the end, the question I asked was "Did Route C improve the ending or the game in any way above what Route A or B did?" and I think the answer is "no." All that extra story and context, and it did not really do much to improve the ending. The A and B endings were both pretty bleak and unsatisfying. And the Route C ending managed to be even more bleak and even more unsatisfying. Route C might have actually harmed the game in my estimation. All that extra context certainly did not improve it.
I thought Adam and Eve made much more interesting antagonists, since they actually had a face, and motivations, and personality. The big giant round eyeball robot that you fight at the end of Route C was neither interesting, nor did it have any personality or anything to connect me to it. It was way too generic to be the final boss of the game.
I think Route B's reveal that humanity was already extinct also kind of harmed Route C. What's the point of any of it, if what the characters are fighting for doesn't exist anymore? I guess that was kind of the point of the game though, huh? And they just took us on this journey along with the characters. So at the end, the characters were unfulfilled, and I as the player was also unfulfilled. Is that good storytelling? Ehhh... I'm not so sure. Endings can be bleak and dark, but still satisfying. It's the unsatisfactory part that really pulls it down. I felt like all the questions raised, all the various plot reveals, all the twists and turns, and "what ifs," none of it really mattered.
Anyway, after having completed Routes A, B, C, D, and G, I was still left with a handful of questions. I've already deleted the game and plan on moving on to the next item in my backlog, so if there's more context to be revealed through additional playthroughs or chapter select, I won't get that context from playing more of the game. Feel free to spoil away if anyone wants to answer some of these questions:
2) Why did A2 tell them that it was Command who betrayed them?
3) Did A2 already know that Mankind was extinct? If she did, that was not made apparent. Especially since the story specifically goes out of its way to say that 9S was special and they knew that he would figure it out.
4) What was the point of Adam and Eve in the story? Given how much additional content was a part of the Route C story, the whole Adam and Eve plot basically felt like a giant red herring (and by extension, a waste of time).
5) We learn that the Androids' black boxes are made up of the cores of the Machines, which basically links them and makes them one and the same. Which is fine. I kinda figured they were going to do something like that with the story. So I wasn't shocked by this revelation. But I guess I don't understand why they bothered to make the revelation and then did nothing with it? It seemed like pretty irrelevant info, all things considered. It didn't change anything in the way the characters behaved or in the way the story played out. Knowing that they were made of the same stuff didn't in any way whatsoever change 9S's view of the Machines. I guess I just don't understand why this was even a thing, since it didn't matter to the narrative. It felt like just a random bit of trivia with no real purpose.
6) In the final moments of the game, we get one last revelation that 2B was actually 2E. And just like my point right above, my number 5, I'm not sure why they bothered to give this information. It didn't change anything. Not really. It's kinda like "All this time you thought this character's name was Bob, but really his name is Steve." But then that information has no meaningful impact on the story. When A2 tells 9S this in the final moments of the game, he just shrugs it off and continues with his murderous intent. I mean, yes, I realize that she also says that 2B (2E)'s secret mission was to assassinate 9S. But I also felt like *the* 2B that we played as throughout the game, the one who had a special bond with 9S (our 9s), she wasn't out to just assassinate him. If anything, 2B was the only character in the game who I thought had an interesting character arc, because she went from being a distant, uncaring person to actually having feelings and caring about 9S, and her friendship with him was real. And all of those times when she did kill him? None of them were because of a directive from Command. She killed him due to circumstance. When they touched their black boxes together, it was to destroy a whole gaggle of machines. And she died in that blast too. And when she choked him out in that super weirdly erotic scene at the end, it was because he had Machine corruption and was literally being possessed by the Machines, and killing him was the way to stop the spread of the virus AND on top of that, he asked her to do it.
Anyway, there was a lot I didn't understand about the game and the story.
Overall, I thought combat was interesting. It felt like a mix of Kingdom Hearts and Galaga.
I never did warm up to some of those fairly forceful and abrupt changes in camera angle.
The music of the game was the best part. Music was top notch.
I didn't like the re-use of areas over and over. Felt fairly lazy. It felt like they cut a lot of design corners by just reusing each area 2-3 times for various story beats. It felt like a really low budget game to me. Maybe it was. It was obviously highly experimental and weird. And maybe Square Enix didn't want to invest a ton of money into a game that was such a risk. So maybe it really was a fairly low budget game. I don't know. But the thing that bugs me is that it "felt" low budget.
Anyway, I'd probably give it a 6/10 if I had to put a number to it. It was pretty average.
That's a real shame. A real damn shame. Although it feels like you weren't vibing on the game at all and sounded like you were doing more out of obligation than desire to dive into it, so that's fair.
Steam ID XBL: JohnnyChopsocky PSN:Stud_Beefpile WiiU:JohnnyChopsocky
Also on that second spoiler
Your questions about Adam and Eve as well as the final boss machine seem like you missed something I don't think you needed a sidequest for. Adam and Eve were the machines trying to replicate Androids I believe. But they had their own mind and pretty much messed everything up as soon as they killed the Aliens that created the machines. Their point was to show how the machines obsession with humans led to what eventually became their main reason to exist after the Aliens were killed.
I think the point of the black box realization is that Androids always thought themselves superior to machines since they were not just controlled by a main frame when connected to their network, or maybe even just they thought they were fighting an alien enemy. They pretty much learn they are actually fighting themselves, the humans just used the tech to do it. I think its a "we thought we were different the whole time, but we were actually the same" which should have deep meaning on its own. I feel like there was something more obvious though that I am forgetting having not played in a long time.
That revelation is like, the biggest "oh shit" moment and I dunno how that can't hit hard. 2B's job was to kill 9S before he became too knowledgeable which is exactly what happens in the story when he basically goes insane. They essentially know S models are super advanced to the point of being dangerous, so they take all the intel they get for the base, then have an E model kill them to reset their actual memory to not let them get too advanced. 2B however, is implied to end up letting her emotions get to her even thought they are told not to for that very reason, and keeps regretting killing 9S. Think about a lot of the moments in the game. Many of them suddenly mean a lot more knowing that. Just the simple fact she doesn't want to call him nines is because she is afraid to get attached when she has to kill him and he forgets her all over again. Like, she always remembers caring about him, she sees him caring about her, then she has to kill him and watch him start ALL over again. She only starts opening up later in the first two endings and early in C when she sees he doesn't forget this time. That is why the A and B endings matter. Because she killed him and normally that was when all those memories she keeps, he lost, but then he found a way to remain in the machines. So her whole death hits harder when you realize she finally didn't have to see him lose those memories anymore. That is what I got from it anyway, but a LOT of little things you really would not have noticed happened to show her regretting that stuff. The intro sequence of the game ending with them both being destroyed was supposed to be showing her dealing with killing him to reset his memory. Yeah it had to happen, but they likely designed the story that way because if she just kind of randomly killed him, it wouldn't have been as much of a subtle thing. It would be like "oh thats random as shit, I guess that is important later?" Which isn't the style of storytelling in the game and why the storytelling is so good IMO. I should also mention, this is one of those things you get a piece of from a side quest, likely one of the most important one. It teaches you of the existence of E models. So you could start to wonder about this before the big drop, which makes that drop hit a lot harder.
Also, I should likely ask, you didn't say anything about ending E. How did you do C and D and not reach something that should have led to E? I mean, it sounds like E wouldn't have hit as hard as it should have, but if the games story makes sense to you ending E is likely one of the most powerful things you will ever experience in a video game.
This is how it went down:
During the D ending, I was presented with an option to either remain where I was or go with Adam and Eve on their rocket ship to the unknown. I picked to go on the rocket ship.
Then I went to chapter select, reloaded the final encounter and this time I picked A2 and got I guess a slightly happier ending than the 9S ending? It was like 3% less bleak. She hacks him and restores him to sanity, but then she merges herself with the white light, which I assume killed her. So at least 9S got to live in that ending. Still pretty bleak tho.
After the A2 ending (the Route C) ending, it went to the credits scene where you're playing an endless scroller shmup and you're blasting the names of all the folks who made the game. I died once, and it popped up a very oddly worded question, about whether I wanted to give up or something. I said "no" and it reloaded me from the beginning of the credits. I was annoyed at that point that that there wasn't any sort of checkpoint during all of that. I restarted and got quite a bit further the second time through the name blaster mini-game. But I did eventually die again, and the same strangely worded question popped up. This time I picked "yes" to give up, and it took me back to the title screen.
So if there was something else that I missed, I don't know what it was. Maybe I should have said "no" to going with Adam and Eve on their rocket? Would that have produced a different ending? Surely it would have been even more bleak still. The ending where 9S stays on earth, alone and friendless and full of the knowledge that everything he was created for was a farce.
Regarding why I was pushing through. I don't know if "obligation" is the right word. I had heard the game was good. A lot. Tons of people said it was amazing. So I was curious. I think playing out of curiosity is a better description than playing out of obligation. I wanted to see it for myself if it was really that good. Sadly, I wasn't super impressed. Oh well. Different strokes and all that.
Regarding the side quest stuff, I'm an RPG player of 30+ years and most of the time, side quests are just fluff and filler content. I've been conditioned over those 30+ years that side quests are usually skippable. Sure, they might give good coin, or an item, or whatever. But rarely are they essential to understanding the story. So if this is one of those rare cases where the side quests actually matter... I dunno. They needed to try harder to get me to want to do them. Or just make the important bits a part of the primary story arc. I dunno. I have a hard time accepting the fault for this one. I'd be willing to admit I was wrong if there were indicators that it was important to do them. But there really wasn't.
And for that matter, I did do a few of them. I did the one to kill the 3 YorHa deserters. That one was kind of a wet fart of a quest. Same with the stolen data one. Helped a dude up on a rooftop recover 3 stolen memory chips that the Machines had somehow stolen. There was another quest in Pascal's village, where a guy was just asking for money. And you had like 5 or 6 options of how much money to give him. I picked one of the middle options, for like 1000g or something, and was completely dissatisfied with what he gave me in return. So I did not go back or try again to reinvest in a higher dollar amount option. I guess what I'm saying is... I did do a few side quests. And apparently the ones I did were all the wrong ones, so they themselves trained me, once again, what I've known for 30+ years about RPGs that side quests are just fluff and filler. They reinforced that very notion. It's not like I was outright avoiding them. I did a few. And felt like I wasted my time with the ones I did.
Yeah, try try again was what the game wanted. And I'm disappointed that you didn't keep going but also understand why you didn't keep going.
Because on the one hand, that section culminates in a way that resonated immensely with me. But on the other hand I was super vibing on the game and doing it out of my desire to see what was next, and you obviously weren't vibing on it and were just trying to get things over with, so you'd probably be too irritated and annoyed to get the same resonance that I did.
A friend of mine had a similar experience with Nier Automata as you, where nothing was landing for him and he was just trying to get it all over with by the end. And it sucked, because I wanted to talk about the game with him, chat about what we thought about what went down, and we couldn't because I liked it and he just played it for trophies and let it all wash away immediately afterwards, almost resenting me for talking him into playing a thing he didn't mesh with. I understand where you're coming from, because you're not the first I've seen react this way to it.
So I'm sorry you didn't get from the game what I did, I suppose is what I'm getting at. Different people want different things from games, and Nier Automata was selling exactly what I wanted but didn't have what you wanted.
Steam ID XBL: JohnnyChopsocky PSN:Stud_Beefpile WiiU:JohnnyChopsocky
Fortunately for me, I was able to push through. I actually enjoyed the combat for the most part. I'd say the camera was the biggest obstacle, but that's always the case. The ground-based combat was pretty Kingdom Heartsy, and I love me some KH. But KH also suffers from the camera being your greatest enemy.
All things considered, I'd say I died and failed less on the flying parts than I did on the ground combat parts.
That one section right at the start of Route C, where you're playing as 9S and the EMP goes off and all your shit goes haywire was absolutely brutal. I died probably 20 times there. I was so frustrated and nearly at the giving up point, but I finally managed to beat it. That part was awful.
Read this if you legit never expect to try again, which I wouldn't blame you. From the way that credits thing went you definitely weren't feeling it so I don't think you would have gotten the intended experience
So yeah, should be obvious if you didn't really feel any of those final story points that had big meaning mostly due to the characters, that thing wouldn't hit at all either.
It is what it is though. There is no doubt Automata does things differently enough it is going to completely bounce off of some people. But when it doesn't it really is one of the most memorable experiences of all time.
Edit:
I'll do my best to answer all of this, let's see...
The purpose of route B is mainly just spotting where 9S is at, what his personality truly is when we get his inner thoughts. I think gameplay wise, it's the weakest part of the game and possibly was budget limited? Teaching the players to hack turns out to be pretty important for the third route and the final ending, but I don't think most people needed a game length route of the same bosses to get there. The parts that are most similar to A just feel like a waste of time, tbh. I don't think you were grokking the story very well to claim that the story reveals in B aren't meaningful though. The entire stated purpose of Yorha is a fraud and Command kills people who find out. The game's premise has literally been turned on its head and you're... not sure what this meant?
When you say "improve the ending", this is where I have a lot of questions for you. An ending being bleak doesn't make it bad. What does it mean to you for an ending to be "satisfying", precisely? The true nature of all the conflicts in the game, a massive increase in the depth of literally every character, an explanation of just what has been going on the entire time, and you don't think it was necessary? From your questions, it actually does seem you didn't "get" it, in terms of some of the reveals were unclear or misunderstood, so perhaps that's the explanation for this take that seems quite strange to me.
The final antagonist of C/D are the leaders of the machine race, the eyeballs are literally just meaningless guards for that group. The "Red Girls", first spotted in route B are fully unmasked in routes C/D. The key understanding here is that the machines are HORRIFYINGLY stronger than the androids and Yorha. The entire hundreds of years long war has essentially been a game that the Red Girls have been playing with Yorha. They had a button that would end the game at ANY TIME, open the backdoors in Yorha (that were designed to be there from the start), kill all the androids, and wipe the slate clean. So in this context, we come to understand that all the weird kinds and cultures of machines were just lab experiments. "Will machines evolve into a higher life form if they devote themselves to religion, cultlike insane religion? What about if a machine decided to fall in love, would something happen from that? What if we let some machines escape the war and try to make peace with the androids, could anything interesting result from that?" etc. The reason for not pulling the trigger on the androids already was to provide a context for machine evolution, the endless war.
Which dovetails into the fate of humanity. The thing is, players of the first game already know humanity was doomed. So when they're told that a completely different issue has put them on the back foot... you're suspicious. Getting confirmation that the older game's lore is still EXTREMELY true makes that period dramatic irony. For a new player, you won't have the context of why humanity was already dead, but thematically it doesn't change much. Nier Automata is a game that's extremely anti-war, anti-nationalism, anti-authoritarian, etc. The war only produces suffering, the entire premise is a lie and the brokers of that lie are using it to give everyone "purpose." But that was an extremely misguided thing to do, a terrible task is being undertaken for a reason that doesn't exist. The final ending is basically a hopeful thought of "even if we don't have a 'reason' to exist per se, couldn't we find one? Wouldn't that be a lot better than inventing hateful lies just to feel better?" I could get more into this, but there's a lot more to go, so I'll stop on this point here for now.
Question 1) A2's route is explained in summary in the computer text when you beat the desert boss and go to the Resistance Camp for the first time. If you missed reading that (or decided not to), you essentially missed ALL of her character's background. That story is explained in detail by a stage play that was only performed in Japan. The creator has a uh... strange interest in expanding the story through any available method and a disinterest in summarizing anything important from those sources, leaving fans to pick up the pieces and inform each other. It's not a great way to be coherent. Basically, LONG before 2B and 9S were active in the war, A2 was sent to Earth to battle the machines with a squad of comrades. They met the Resistance and formed the first alliance between Yorha and that group. During their battles with the machines, they encountered the red eye virus that destroys Yorha in path C/D and were successful in removing it through hacking, like 9S uses. In the climactic battle to destroy a giant machine server located in a mountain, the group is separated and killed off one by one. The Red Girls reveal themselves to parts of the group and maliciously explain that they've improved the red eye virus (it is now resistant to being removed with hacking), so thanks for the test data on that. The Resistance leader and A2 both manage to escape separately, both through the sacrifice of comrades, both presuming the other to be dead. A2 realizes that the war is a sham and Command sent her team to die for nothing, she proceeds to declare her own endless war on the machines (it's attempted suicide by war, she's just a bit too talented to die so easily) and breaks from Yorha Command permanently. Command marks her as an enemy for knowing too much, this is a decision built into Yorha upper command structure to keep the androids from questioning the war and potentially refusing to take part in it (they're only there TO take part in it, so they can't have that happen).
Question 2) A2 warns 2B and 9S that Command are rats because they are and because she has no reason to hate 2B or 9S. She passively wishes for the best for her fellow androids, but is too traumatized and wary to ever actually attempt a team up again.
Question 3) I forget if she knew this specifically (I think yes?) but more importantly from her perspective, the war is a sham, the machines have an unassailable upper hand, and Command is complicit.
Question 4) Adam and Eve are a red herring in the grand scheme of how the story turns out, their purpose is thematic. To make the player STRONGLY question the idea that androids are good with a worthwhile purpose, while machines are evil and non-sentient. Their behavior tells you the premise of the story is definitely a lie, you learn the details of this lie as route B ends and route C/D pick up.
Question 5) Yeah, androids and machines are literally the same. Any difference that the races feel exist is imaginary. Far from meaning nothing, it exponentially increases the futility and cruelty of the war. It also drives 9S completely insane, since his last safe point to assign meaning to his behavior is that machines bad/ androids good distinction. If humanity is extinct, he still could have found meaning in defeating the machines and making the world safer for androids... except that there's no difference and nothing noble about this goal at all. Again, this is a key theme of the entire story, calling it "meaningless trivia" is.... extremely incorrect?
Question 6) I'm unsure if you understood this point fully. The beginning of Nier Automata isn't the beginning of these characters' story. 2B has murdered 9S A LOT of times. Understanding the scope of this completely unlocks the motivations of her behavior throughout the entire game. Her opening monologue from the very first second of the game was about "endless cycles of death and rebirth" and wondering if she could kill their creators to take revenge on what she's been forced to do all this time. The reason 2B acts so cold 90% of the time to 9S and then lets loose with emotional fondness in crisis moments is because she's built a relationship with him that ends in his murder too many times, her heart is broken over it. Saying her name wasn't her name, was essentially saying she was a different person, her role as you understood it was not real. It's thematically important, but also logically explains a number of things.
The budget of the game was certainly a medium level, nothing like a Final Fantasy. I think it's an incredible achievement to release such a memorable game with resource limitations like the ones they had, it puts the lie to the idea that only extremely high budget games can have really interesting story or gameplay twists. The game can feel repetitive and a bit small in scope at times, but there's also benefits of learning the game world in great detail for the many playthroughs, and the creative use of content makes you think about what's possible to do even if a dev team doesn't have unlimited resources to make a world as deep as GTA or RDR2 or whatever.
There's nothing wrong with not liking how the game turned out or being unimpressed with it. I can't really argue with your personal taste. It does seem like you didn't fully get all of the plot points as they came out, which is most likely explained by you losing interest the further the game went on.
Edit: Sorry if the tone of this is rude at any point, I was honestly doing my best to thoroughly answer the questions as given. I do feel there's a difference between "I don't get what they were going for with this" and "I don't think this succeeded at what it was trying to do." Your responses suggested the former several times.