Nier: Automata PC assessment | SE7EN

Automata’s mechanics seems like a pure evolution of PlatinumVideo games’ already glorious motion system as seen in Bayonetta, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and, errr, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, however the sport additionally marks a maturation of types for visionary oddball Yoko Taro and his long-running but by no means that nice Drakengard sequence (and their spin-off, Nier, to which this can be a vaguely associated sequel). At lengthy final, Taro’s trademark weirdness, considerate philosophical narratives, and genre-smashing gameplay have fused collectively harmoniously within the fingers of PlatinumVideo games, amounting to probably the most authentic video games of current years.

You are YoRHa No.2 Type B (2B for brief), a platinum-haired fight ninja android with that conventional fight ninja android get-up consisting of a revealing, extremely tearable skirt, suspender tights, and cleavagey prime.  She’s a soldier for YoRHa, an android military tasked with preventing machines that pushed people from the planet 1000’s of years in the past. The machines had been commissioned by an invading alien race, whereas the androids are preventing on behalf of faceless people who’re floating round in house whilst you do their soiled work. Accompanying you within the struggle is boyish, schoolboy-shorted scout android 9S, who fights alongside you all through a lot of the sport.

Nier: Automata is, at its coronary heart, concerning the relationship between these two androids and their rising emotional dependance on one another in a melancholy, desolate world. Their bond is directly adolescent and extremely grownup, as they’re doomed to struggle and fall in perpetuity, with their reminiscences getting loaded from one android chassis to the subsequent upon dying. 9S’s disarming curiosity concerning the world and need for friendship slowly chips away at 2B’s austere, task-at-hand veneer, and the entire thing virtually seems like a high-school rom-com concerning the candy, geeky child charming the initially stuck-up cheerleader, albeit whereas slaying infinite waves of tin-pot robots, and with a much more tragic undercurrent.

But there’s extra to those rusty, retro and moderately cute ‘bots than you first assume, and what starts off as a fairly typical battle-against-the-machines scenario quickly builds in complexity. Supplemented by a hypnotic soundtrack, there’s a haunting tranquility to Automata’s post-human world; flora prospers within the fecund metropolis ruins (which give an entire new tackle the phrase ‘urban jungle’), and the wildlife – boars and moose, largely – has grown gigantic (and rideable, noteworthy if for no different purpose than ‘fun’). When 2B is stunned to see a flock of birds fly throughout the sky, 9S says that their resurgence is because of the truth that there aren’t any folks, suggesting that whereas the world could also be post-apocalyptic, there’s a purity to it, and a way that possibly the ‘bots are better Earth-carers than humanity – a welcome twist on the usual ‘humanity must prevail’ shtick.

Automata’s world has extra in frequent with Zelda or a 3D platformer than The Witcher III, with distinct areas and biomes branching off from a big barren central expanse of City Ruins within the center. It’s not a lot a world as a metropolis and its suburbs, and is designed extra with ambiance than infinite exploration in thoughts. Most of the quests you obtain will probably be from the hubs of the varied factions – human resistance fighters, pacifist machines residing in treehouses, or your fellow androids – who job you with nice if easy duties. Standout missions amongst these embody whimsical races towards a flying robotic, and showdowns with rogue Yorha brokers who indicate that possibly you’re not working for the great guys in spite of everything. These duties function light distractions from the compelling primary quest, moderately than deep sub-narratives unto themselves.

The ‘Taro’ mark of inimitable weirdness will not be acquainted to lifelong PC avid gamers, so I’ll sum it thusly: fourth-wall trickery, genre-bending, intelligent meta-narratives, and a wholesome sprinkling of androgyny. It’s this kind of stuff that’s earned the man’s video games a cult following, incomes him a rep as a maverick of the business. We see this within the fluidity with which Automata switches from its main third-person perspective to, at numerous factors, a shmup-like flying sport, a crate-pushing puzzler, a 2D platformer (full with conveniently-switched 2D mini-map) and a hacking mini-game. All these parts are carried out and built-in brilliantly, gliding from one to the subsequent as elegantly as 2B sprints throughout town ruins. There are technically 26 endings to the sport, although the overwhelming majority of them are, primarily, piss-takes. One instance is eradicating 2B’s reminiscence chip, which immediately fades the display to black, whereas an incident with a sure kind of fish may result in the credit rolling in a comical and abrupt conclusion. Classic Taro.

But it’s not simply weirdness for its personal sake, as a lot of it feeds into Automata’s  themes of dying and reincarnation. Anyone who’s performed the demo will know that it kind of begins with 2B and 9S dying – their reminiscence information then getting uploaded to their homebase the place they’re reincarnated in new our bodies. There can be a considerably Soulsian dying system whereby the corpse of your earlier incarnation stays on the spot you fell, and you may both retrieve it to regain the talent loadouts you arrange for 2B, or resurrect it to quickly struggle alongside you. Likewise, you are able to do the identical to the corpses of different gamers, in addition to praying to offer them HP boosts in their very own video games.

Each factor in Automata feels cleverly diegetic. The total UI within the pause display, for instance, is handled as 2B’s inside reminiscence, the place you possibly can verify the map, your quest log, in addition to experiment along with your weapon and talent loadouts. Your expertise are managed utilizing plug-in chips, and whereas the display might look intimidating at first, it’s really an ingenious strategy to distribute stats that can dramatically influence the way you play. You can, for instance, use the practically game-breaking mixture of ‘Offensive Heal’ and ‘Deadly Heal’, which inspires a Bloodborne-style strategy by rewarding you with well being for harm you do and enemies you kill. On the opposite hand, you could possibly throw within the ‘Counter’ chip, which provides a counter-attack to your move-set, or just construct up your defence and stagger resistance to develop into a tanky-type character. Chips might be improved by fusing them, and also you’re given just a few load-outs to change between for various conditions.

On the weapons entrance, you possibly can have two units of two weapons every – one wep in your commonplace assaults and one in your heavies. There are tens to select from, every with its personal stunning set of absurd animations consisting of things like boomeranging greatswords, cartwheeling spear assaults, and the traditional ‘stay suspended in the air by the momentum of your weapon’ assaults that those that have performed the likes of Revengeance and Devil May Cry will rapidly recognise. Many of the assets required to improve weapons don’t cross over both, encouraging you to experiment with totally different loadouts primarily based on whims so simple as ‘those gauntlets look nice,’ or ‘that spear is so me, y’know?’

Combat itself is quick, ludicrous, and primarily based round combos, dodging, and devastating counter-attacks. The robots give handy visible and acoustic tells for once they’re about to assault, so even when the display turns right into a jumble of explosions and swinging weaponry, you possibly can normally dodge your approach out of hassle earlier than leaping again in to trigger some hassle of your individual. Both you and 9S are accompanied by a pods, which have primary ranged assaults in addition to particular assaults that summon holographic-looking big hammers, spears and different pseudo-medieval weapons of the longer term. All of it’s, as you’d count on from Platinum, fashionable and extremely satisfying, whereas compromising a number of the combo complexity of their earlier, extra action-oriented video games.

Taro is a designer who revels in surprises, however these transcend the nudges and the winks and permeate the narrative itself. Returning to Automata’s Zelda connection, every new space is launched by a protracted shot, a title card, and the primary beats of the world’s theme tune. You can flip a nook from metropolis ruins, and stumble into in an amusement park that’s been revived by machines firing confetti, balloons and fireworks, or descend a quarry to be met with the macabre sight of these tin-can machines imitating the act of intercourse as a part of their studying of human behaviours (inevitably, they’re not very profitable). Beats like these construct up an incredible sense of pacing in Automata, its playfulness making certain that it’s by no means simply going by means of the motions of fight – which, irrespective of how good, might simply have develop into tiring in a sport like this.

Perhaps the best trick these devilish devs pulled is in Automata’s replayability. I’ve by no means actually been one for slogging by means of a sport twice, however when the credit rolled after my first playthrough, I used to be offered with a message kind of pleading me to have a second go. Ever the sucker for an excellent grovel, I bit, and located that the playthrough provided a brand new perspective on occasions, full with new mechanics, new cut-scenes, and entire new gameplay sequences. The third playthrough is much more distinct, primarily marking the true remaining chapter of the sport. Each run carries over expertise and ranges from the final, and whereas a single run provides a wonderfully poignant and satisfying conclusion, there may be far more right here for those who preserve going.

PlatinumVideo games don’t have a lot expertise in open-world design, and at instances this confirmed, with some ranges such because the Flooded City and Castle having distinct useless ends that you just then must run all the way in which again by means of whenever you full them. Yes, you possibly can unlock save stations that facilitate quick journey, so this by no means feels too egregious, but it surely nonetheless factors to an space of design that the devs are acclimatising to. There have additionally been fairly just a few complaints concerning the sport’s PC efficiency, with resolutions not scaling correctly, 60fps body caps, and full-on GPU crashes – significantly with AMD playing cards. Sadly, my rig wasn’t fairly as much as testing that 60fps restrict, nor did I expertise the opposite issues myself (editor’s word – we’ll be testing the sport on a wide range of GPUs within the close to future). To their credit score, PlatinumVideo games responded virtually right away with a patch fixing the crashes, so hopefully it’s a case of a shaky begin moderately than something inflicting long-term harm to the enjoyment of the sport.

In a approach, the quirky ingenuity of Yoko Taro is an ideal match for the zany model of PlatinumVideo games. Both will be predisposed for weirdness, and whereas Platinum have arguably been missing originality of their all-action system lately, Taro-conceived video games by no means beforehand had the mechanics to chop it among the many easiest. Nier: Automata is one thing of a breakthrough for each events; an clever, bombastic sport that’s in turns frenetic and tender, whereas deviating from cliche at each alternative (with the notable exception of the digital camera wantonly glimpsing the panties of its mildly fetishistic protagonist).

For all its use of gaming genres passed by, Nier: Automata has additionally delivered loads of concepts for future video games to chew on, experimenting with narratives in methods solely potential on this unusual medium of ours.Here’s hoping that is the beginning of a gorgeous growth relationship between a number of the most interesting, most twisted minds within the business.

Verdict: 9/10