NieR Automata: Game of the YoRHa Edition

I just find it so cool how this game consistently gets better and better as you play on (but it's also its biggest weakness).

Without talking about any story details, this game does have an intriguing plot initially, but it quickly slows down so it did take me a while before I truly got into it. I would always tell myself while playing "Wow, this is one good quality game" and I would always enjoy it whenever I booted it up due to the fun gameplay, but I never had a huge urge to play, causing me to play in bursts of a couple days and then take a break. While that does kinda suck, the pacing the game ends up having also allows everything to really really pay off later on so while this is probably my least favourite thing about this game, it still works very well (hang in there!).

Anyways! The combat is somewhat mindless once you start getting stuff (the chance of dying just becomes really low), but it still always manages to be really fun somehow. The game has a lot of different combat modes and they are so well integrated that you don't even think about it. They are also all easy to pick up, but none of them are particularly deep. The weakest combat mode would probably be the "hacking" mode, just due to not having enough puzzles so you will get a lot of repeats, but even then it always keeps you on your toes. Somehow everything you do manages to feel satisfying even though most of what you'll do won't be anything crazy, and that's super commendable (and this also goes for general movement).

Music is phenomenal. Nothing more to say there.

Graphics are mostly phenomenal. The world and characters and UI are all beautiful and well made. Shadows have quite noticeable cutting in as they get rendered to your screen which was a very minor annoyance to be honest but... oh well. The main issue graphically is more so how the games world is a bit deceiving due to them. As an "Open World" game you expect to basically go anywhere, but as you'll quickly find out... NieR: Automata's world isn't actually that big. This isn't a bad thing at all! It's good even! The issue is how so often it looks like you can go in a place but it's actually blocked off invisibly. It's a constant slightly immersion breaking experience and even happens in places you don't expect, causing me to rely on the mini-map more than I'd have liked to. Is this kinda a nitpick? Yeah probably, but it happened enough to be worth mentioning.

There are some more nitpicks I can bring up like how a few side quests are lame, the death system is a bit annoying, you get made to run around the map a bit too much for my liking, loading screens are too long, you unlock fast travel a bit late, whatever. But the more you play this game, the more you understand why so many things are the way they are and end up appreciating them, which I have to respect even if everyone won't like every decision.

Some of the most memorable moments I've had in a game ever came from here. It never failed to surprise me again and again and I'm still trying to process it all. An amazing experience.

Review taken from my Backloggd page.