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Can you put into words what makes it special without spoiling anything? I played to the first boss. Found zero interesting. Stopped playing. Up to that point it

by gernb 4y ago

Can you put into words what makes it special without spoiling anything? I played to the first boss. Found zero interesting. Stopped playing. Up to that point it was just generic "game". Walk a character around, shoot stuff, repeat.

1270018080 4y ago
Every action from the first boss and beyond has meaning, and it gets more dramatic onward. But if you didn't latch on to the plot by the first boss it's probably fine to skip if you still have a refund available. If you are locked in financially I would still recommend playing.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  I played until the robot village or whatever it's called, did most of the side quests which are all run-of-the-mill meaningless fetch/find stuff, and stopped. Just looked up boss list: I passed three bosses. I never encountered this amazing dramatic storyline people keep gushing about. My guess is that these people never read enough books or watched enough movies, because Nier is just boring and predictable
  - sali0 4y ago
    It takes time for the game to develop it's story. In fact, the story doesn't even get very interesting until the second play through. But that is when it becomes exponentially better than probably 95% of all other games. I read a ton of fantasy and fiction, and would say this game is a really unique story. You haven't even gotten a taste of it, you should really not judge the players who've enjoyed it.
    - dmitriid 4y ago
      > It takes time for the game to develop it's story. How long of a time? > the story doesn't even get very interesting until the second play through I couldn't trudge through even once, how can I get to a second play through? :) > You haven't even gotten a taste of it So, to "get a taste of it" I need to a) play an unspecified long time and b) preferably two times > this game is a really unique story Robots have feelings and souls? Nothing is what it seems? Humans are the bad guys? With a few twists telegraphed two hours before they happen?
      - s-lambert 4y ago
        It takes ~30ish hours to get endings A,B,C,D,E; realistically they're 3 story chapters, with the 3rd chapter having 3 different endings. For a typical JRPG that isn't anything out of the norm, I would say the story gets interesting halfway through the first chapter and gets continually better in the 2nd/3rd chapters. The main theme of the game is one only a game could have and it's nothing boring like "robots have feelings". >Robots have feelings and souls? Nothing is what it seems? Humans are the bad guys? With a few twists telegraphed two hours before they happen? These aren't even the twists in Nier Automata, these are surface-level readings of the story from the first few hours of the game. Although, humans are the bad guys isn't even in the game at all, the humans are long dead. Which I thought was one of the more obvious story twists.
        dmitriid 4y ago
        > I would say the story gets interesting halfway through the first chapter and gets continually better in the 2nd/3rd chapters. Which chapter is robot village and Beuvoir? > These aren't even the twists in Nier Automata, these are surface-level readings of the story from the first few hours of the game. So, again, how many hours do I have to sink into the game before it becomes anything but a boring and predictable?
        hhjinks 4y ago
        >Which chapter is robot village and Beuvoir? Chapter 1. Roughly 1 hour into the game, if you play it for the story. Quitting at that point is like quitting The Fellowship of the Ring because you "predicted" that the Hobbits would leave the Shire.
        dmitriid 4y ago
        It definitely took me more than an hour. It's possible I've gotten further? I just don't remember exactly where I left it because there's barely anything there to remember. Xbox profile tells me I've got 20 hours played, 20% achievements obtained, 7 endings acquired.
Lammy 4y ago
At the beginning of Automata, pay attention to the worldbuilding/briefings given to the player character as they fly in to the opening battle. It’s a very linear battle which doesn’t feel that way in the moment, a really clever way to keep the player’s mind occupied just to the point that we feel as though our observations of the game’s world are self-motivated, neutral, and factual despite being force-fed exactly the same briefing as our character. Once you finish the first stage and get to explore the game world more openly, keep on the look out for situations where the game world presents small subversions or inversions of the assumptions the game made you think were your own. The game won’t call direct attention to this and relies on you feeling like something is amiss. This is probably what’s so “confusing” to some, but it wouldn’t work if the game told you which of your expectations are being subverted, because telling the player what they’re expected to expect would ruin the mind trick it pulled to get all that stuff in your head without you realizing it came from an external source. I love how the fake-self-realization trick puts the player into the same headspace as their on-screen character, but does so in a way that the player can’t realize how much of the game was a shared experience until much later. It’s such a cool inversion of the very concept of the video game, where the player is nominally in control of the character by pushing the buttons and moving the sticks, but everything the player causes to happen in the game instead compels the player toward introspection of their own existence in order to understand the growing disconnect they feel between the game-world-as-observed and the game-world-as-expected-to-expect. Just like our character, the player is presented with an “open world” with a limited list of things we can choose to go do. We both get just enough freedom of choice to feel like we’re in control without ever noticing all the ways the world effectively made our decisions for us by defining our limitations before we even got here so we won’t even realize it’s possible to question them. Do you want to smash robots in the desert, or smash robots in the grassland, or smash robots in the flooded city? Do you want to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or a computer programmer? Non-participation is only an option if you turn the game off, and that’s no fun. So I play the closed-off open world where I could theoretically command my character to go anywhere and do anything if both of us somehow realized we could choose what to choose. Still unknowingly placed in the same headspace as some very attractive computer code, the player can keep thinking about the nagging disconnect between the world as observed and the world as expected, but doing so is frustrating, fruitless, and the bad feeling goes away as long as you can distract yourself from thinking about it. Next mission; kill some evil machine lifeforms. The visibly robotic “machine lifeforms” are invading earth and threaten the fate of humanity itself. Their glowing angry eye-lamps look out from otherwise-featureless spherical metal heads on cylindrical bodies, stumbling/hopping around awkwardly, shrill agonized cartoon-robot vocoder wails when we smash them, brandishing oversized novelty-industrial weapons. They’re super cute. They’re the biggest threat to our survival. Earth’s defense force are the androids(/gynoids) taking orders from the moon base refuge of the last living humans. It’s such a noble cause for the androids that they were literally made in mankind’s image, visually indistinguishable from human at their most basic, up to walking talking fighting idealized perfection in the case of the YoRHa androids, especially 2B and her delicious 絶対領域 :d Over the course of the game, which group seems to be more human, and how? Which group embodies the essence of humanity? (What is the essence of humanity?) Which group are the mass-produced automatons just cycling through the few experiences they’re pre-programmed to live out? (Child. Child. Child.) That’s about as spoiler-free as I can get. It’s the backdrop for all the individual character storylines which I won’t even touch, but the real storyline IMO is the hidden one every player is unknowingly offered as they’re incentivized to define their own self in order to be able to better define the events of the game. The story threads weaved in from the original NieR (Replicant/Gestalt) tie it all together in a way that’s… I can’t really describe it. It’s good. I can’t think of any games that affected my perception of my own existence quite as much as these two. The climax for me wasn’t even any of the labeled “endings” as much as the instant realization of the way the two games fit together (and corresponding instant reversal of several assumptions about Automata’s backstory) when I suddenly found myself in the [redacted], instantly separated from the headspace of my on-screen character because I recognized the location but she never could. Then the optional quest line with [redacted] that comes across as joking fanservice at first until you unexpectedly find yourself back in [redacted]’s [redacted] where [redacted] [redacted] in the first game, but it’s too bittersweet because [redacted] doesn’t even [reeeedaaaccctttteeeddd] any more and aw fuck I’m crying again
seebo 4y ago
Traditionally Yoko Taro games have had weak gameplay and strong story. Nier auto was the first one to actually have some decent gameplay due to it being done by platinum. I think compared to other Platinum games, the Nier's game mechanics is roughly average Platinum. The strength of Nier auto is that it has good enough game play to not distract from the great story telling told through gameplay that Yoko Taro has been trying to do since Drakgengard. The story of Nier auto is about breaking the cycle of fate and how to find meaning in "life" for androids and machines. A lot of what makes Nier auto's story great is the execution of story telling through gaming. Nier auto does everything it can to lead you into thinking its a traditional story with a standard gameplay loop and building you up as the key hero against the machine invasion after the first 2 endings/chapters. Then the game really begins. And thats where you break with all the preconceived notions of what the game seemed to be about up until that point, along with probably a dozen other gaming tropes, and you feel the helplessness both in game and in story at that moment. Everything that was set up as a comfy gameplay loop is tore away and desperation just to survive takes over. Afterwards, there are major shifts in tone, gameplay, environment, story, characters, etc. The remaining game's story builds to a climax that is probably of one the best payoffs in gaming history and is why this is considered a master class example of the gaming medium as art.

by gernb 4y ago

1270018080 4y ago

Every action from the first boss and beyond has meaning, and it gets more dramatic onward. But if you didn't latch on to the plot by the first boss it's probably fine to skip if you still have a refund available. If you are locked in financially I would still recommend playing.

dmitriid 4y ago
I played until the robot village or whatever it's called, did most of the side quests which are all run-of-the-mill meaningless fetch/find stuff, and stopped. Just looked up boss list: I passed three bosses. I never encountered this amazing dramatic storyline people keep gushing about. My guess is that these people never read enough books or watched enough movies, because Nier is just boring and predictable
- sali0 4y ago
  It takes time for the game to develop it's story. In fact, the story doesn't even get very interesting until the second play through. But that is when it becomes exponentially better than probably 95% of all other games. I read a ton of fantasy and fiction, and would say this game is a really unique story. You haven't even gotten a taste of it, you should really not judge the players who've enjoyed it.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    > It takes time for the game to develop it's story. How long of a time? > the story doesn't even get very interesting until the second play through I couldn't trudge through even once, how can I get to a second play through? :) > You haven't even gotten a taste of it So, to "get a taste of it" I need to a) play an unspecified long time and b) preferably two times > this game is a really unique story Robots have feelings and souls? Nothing is what it seems? Humans are the bad guys? With a few twists telegraphed two hours before they happen?
    - s-lambert 4y ago
      It takes ~30ish hours to get endings A,B,C,D,E; realistically they're 3 story chapters, with the 3rd chapter having 3 different endings. For a typical JRPG that isn't anything out of the norm, I would say the story gets interesting halfway through the first chapter and gets continually better in the 2nd/3rd chapters. The main theme of the game is one only a game could have and it's nothing boring like "robots have feelings". >Robots have feelings and souls? Nothing is what it seems? Humans are the bad guys? With a few twists telegraphed two hours before they happen? These aren't even the twists in Nier Automata, these are surface-level readings of the story from the first few hours of the game. Although, humans are the bad guys isn't even in the game at all, the humans are long dead. Which I thought was one of the more obvious story twists.
      - dmitriid 4y ago
        > I would say the story gets interesting halfway through the first chapter and gets continually better in the 2nd/3rd chapters. Which chapter is robot village and Beuvoir? > These aren't even the twists in Nier Automata, these are surface-level readings of the story from the first few hours of the game. So, again, how many hours do I have to sink into the game before it becomes anything but a boring and predictable?
        hhjinks 4y ago
        >Which chapter is robot village and Beuvoir? Chapter 1. Roughly 1 hour into the game, if you play it for the story. Quitting at that point is like quitting The Fellowship of the Ring because you "predicted" that the Hobbits would leave the Shire.
        dmitriid 4y ago
        It definitely took me more than an hour. It's possible I've gotten further? I just don't remember exactly where I left it because there's barely anything there to remember. Xbox profile tells me I've got 20 hours played, 20% achievements obtained, 7 endings acquired.

Lammy 4y ago

At the beginning of Automata, pay attention to the worldbuilding/briefings given to the player character as they fly in to the opening battle. It’s a very linear battle which doesn’t feel that way in the moment, a really clever way to keep the player’s mind occupied just to the point that we feel as though our observations of the game’s world are self-motivated, neutral, and factual despite being force-fed exactly the same briefing as our character. Once you finish the first stage and get to explore the game world more openly, keep on the look out for situations where the game world presents small subversions or inversions of the assumptions the game made you think were your own. The game won’t call direct attention to this and relies on you feeling like something is amiss. This is probably what’s so “confusing” to some, but it wouldn’t work if the game told you which of your expectations are being subverted, because telling the player what they’re expected to expect would ruin the mind trick it pulled to get all that stuff in your head without you realizing it came from an external source. I love how the fake-self-realization trick puts the player into the same headspace as their on-screen character, but does so in a way that the player can’t realize how much of the game was a shared experience until much later. It’s such a cool inversion of the very concept of the video game, where the player is nominally in control of the character by pushing the buttons and moving the sticks, but everything the player causes to happen in the game instead compels the player toward introspection of their own existence in order to understand the growing disconnect they feel between the game-world-as-observed and the game-world-as-expected-to-expect. Just like our character, the player is presented with an “open world” with a limited list of things we can choose to go do. We both get just enough freedom of choice to feel like we’re in control without ever noticing all the ways the world effectively made our decisions for us by defining our limitations before we even got here so we won’t even realize it’s possible to question them. Do you want to smash robots in the desert, or smash robots in the grassland, or smash robots in the flooded city? Do you want to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or a computer programmer? Non-participation is only an option if you turn the game off, and that’s no fun. So I play the closed-off open world where I could theoretically command my character to go anywhere and do anything if both of us somehow realized we could choose what to choose. Still unknowingly placed in the same headspace as some very attractive computer code, the player can keep thinking about the nagging disconnect between the world as observed and the world as expected, but doing so is frustrating, fruitless, and the bad feeling goes away as long as you can distract yourself from thinking about it. Next mission; kill some evil machine lifeforms. The visibly robotic “machine lifeforms” are invading earth and threaten the fate of humanity itself. Their glowing angry eye-lamps look out from otherwise-featureless spherical metal heads on cylindrical bodies, stumbling/hopping around awkwardly, shrill agonized cartoon-robot vocoder wails when we smash them, brandishing oversized novelty-industrial weapons. They’re super cute. They’re the biggest threat to our survival. Earth’s defense force are the androids(/gynoids) taking orders from the moon base refuge of the last living humans. It’s such a noble cause for the androids that they were literally made in mankind’s image, visually indistinguishable from human at their most basic, up to walking talking fighting idealized perfection in the case of the YoRHa androids, especially 2B and her delicious 絶対領域 :d Over the course of the game, which group seems to be more human, and how? Which group embodies the essence of humanity? (What is the essence of humanity?) Which group are the mass-produced automatons just cycling through the few experiences they’re pre-programmed to live out? (Child. Child. Child.) That’s about as spoiler-free as I can get. It’s the backdrop for all the individual character storylines which I won’t even touch, but the real storyline IMO is the hidden one every player is unknowingly offered as they’re incentivized to define their own self in order to be able to better define the events of the game. The story threads weaved in from the original NieR (Replicant/Gestalt) tie it all together in a way that’s… I can’t really describe it. It’s good. I can’t think of any games that affected my perception of my own existence quite as much as these two. The climax for me wasn’t even any of the labeled “endings” as much as the instant realization of the way the two games fit together (and corresponding instant reversal of several assumptions about Automata’s backstory) when I suddenly found myself in the [redacted], instantly separated from the headspace of my on-screen character because I recognized the location but she never could. Then the optional quest line with [redacted] that comes across as joking fanservice at first until you unexpectedly find yourself back in [redacted]’s [redacted] where [redacted] [redacted] in the first game, but it’s too bittersweet because [redacted] doesn’t even [reeeedaaaccctttteeeddd] any more and aw fuck I’m crying again

seebo 4y ago

Traditionally Yoko Taro games have had weak gameplay and strong story. Nier auto was the first one to actually have some decent gameplay due to it being done by platinum. I think compared to other Platinum games, the Nier's game mechanics is roughly average Platinum. The strength of Nier auto is that it has good enough game play to not distract from the great story telling told through gameplay that Yoko Taro has been trying to do since Drakgengard. The story of Nier auto is about breaking the cycle of fate and how to find meaning in "life" for androids and machines. A lot of what makes Nier auto's story great is the execution of story telling through gaming. Nier auto does everything it can to lead you into thinking its a traditional story with a standard gameplay loop and building you up as the key hero against the machine invasion after the first 2 endings/chapters. Then the game really begins. And thats where you break with all the preconceived notions of what the game seemed to be about up until that point, along with probably a dozen other gaming tropes, and you feel the helplessness both in game and in story at that moment. Everything that was set up as a comfy gameplay loop is tore away and desperation just to survive takes over. Afterwards, there are major shifts in tone, gameplay, environment, story, characters, etc. The remaining game's story builds to a climax that is probably of one the best payoffs in gaming history and is why this is considered a master class example of the gaming medium as art.