Final Fantasy XIV is, in some ways, the pondering particular person’s MMORPG. The closest most MMOs come to creating a political assertion is asking whether or not you need to play because the pink ones or the blue ones. By distinction the newest FFXIV enlargement, Shadowbringers, offered an truly coherent metaphor for local weather change, introducing a world the place totally different communities reacted to impending catastrophe with quite a lot of very human reactions, from willful ignorance to frothing rage.
With that in thoughts, FFXIV might be the very best selection for a MMO crossover with Nier: Automata, a game which in some way glad each these searching for a compelling, deeply political, and well-told emotional narrative, and people searching for shameless anime cheesecake. Granted, the latter group usually appeared to overlook the finer factors, however regardless: Nier: Automata was fairly simply one of many most interesting gaming experiences of the final decade (don’t @ us. Actually, do, it’s good for engagement).
For this bold crossover of Square Enix properties, Nier collection creatives Yoko Taro and Yosuke Saito acted as visitor builders for the YorHa: Dark Apocalypse content material, serving to to create an all new four-boss raid, quite a lot of Nier-inspired gear units, and a singular questline to introduce the content material.
If you’re hoping for a narrative that furthers the themes and occasions of Nier: Automata itself, maybe capturing a few of that deep melancholic angst that made the game so compelling, you may be dissatisfied. The content material is nearly solely standalone, with solely cursory narrative threads main out and in to cut back the weird whiplash of encountering characters from a totally totally different game.
However, this isn’t to denigrate the precise content material on provide right here, as a result of it’s great. Given the restrictions and challenges of a crossover of this nature, it’s genuinely spectacular how precisely the raid captures the gameplay really feel and environment of the unique Nier: Automata. The environments have the identical haunting, decrepit magnificence, the music is a beautiful mixture of songs from Nier and remixes that make use of the plush orchestral theming of the FFXIV soundtrack, and the boss fights go a good distance in direction of capturing the fast-paced, bullet hell-style fight from the unique game.
The raid is the star of the present on this new content material replace. There’s a brief questline that results in it, but it surely’s extra of an elaborate in-fiction justification. Once you’re in, you navigate a collection of steel catwalks, descending deep right into a manufacturing unit stuffed with machine lifeforms. The first boss, the Serial-Jointed Command Model, is one thing of an introduction to these aforementioned bullet-hell-esque mechanics that intensify because the raid continues. It calls down airstrikes, summons robots with laser-beams, and swings its outsized arms like a centrifuge.
The second boss, a GLaDOS-like machine with a equally aggressive angle in direction of scientific testing, divides the raid into three, and topics every group to a bevy of stress exams. Some tank minibosses check the occasion between large boss brawls, a nice warm-up to a showdown with Engels, the titanic Goliath-class machine. Like within the unique Nier: Automata, he battles utilizing huge industrial saws, flamethrowers and missile launchers.
Once he’s defeated, it’s time for a ultimate confrontation with a reasonably acquainted face. We received’t spoil it, however this character makes use of a mix of YorHa and machine know-how and topics the occasion to a veritable smorgasbord of AOEs, bullet-hell bombardments, laser blasts, and even some return appearances from earlier bosses Engels and Serial-jointed robots.
If you’re a Nier: Automata fan, it’s in all probability not price levelling a personality for the primary time only for this. It’s a enjoyable piece of content material that’s surprisingly effectively crafted, but it surely doesn’t provide any actual developments for the Nier franchise. But should you’re a FFXIV participant, it’s best to completely play this raid. It’s characterful, atmospheric, and pleasantly difficult.
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