One of the first games I ever played that made me reconsider how I think about art. I have played many since that I would consider better experiences in most regards, but I will always appreciate Nier Automata for being such a formative experience.

What is so surprising about Automata is its ability to tell a mature story while also maintaining many of the tropes of its genre. A character-action anime-inspired jrpg are not words that inspire confidence in terms of artistic merit, but here it works well.

I have noticed a trend in the games I consider excellent to adopt the languages of other mediums (typically cinema) in order to tell their narratives. Nier Automata is a game all the way down, and it is one the hallmark examples of medium as message.

And of course, the final credits are almost certainly the greatest moment in any video game to date.

Sinceramente, só baixei porque estava de graça.

Não esperava uma obra que criticasse abertamente seu consumidor, brincando com a própria estereotipagem de sua mídia. Nier é lindo, mas é autoconsciente, ele sabe que é ruim nos momentos ruins e sabe que é ótimo nos bons. Ele brinca com você. Não é uma aventura, nunca foi uma aventura.


(nota: quem foi o filhadaputa que quis fazer um anime disso?? Não imagino essa mídia tendo 50% do impacto que teve em qualquer outra mídia que não seja um jogo. Me recuso a ver pqp)

NieR: Automata means a lot to me.

This game has one of the best soundtracks in the history of gaming and media in general, if not the best.

An amazing Hack N' Slash combat that mutes into many other genres depending on the situation, which blew my mind back then.

And most important, great story and characters, who experience insane development, this game is the reason why im interested in philosophy, which i will never forget.

SPOILER WARNING: Contains almost insignificant details about how NG+ works, and details about the backstory that leads to the NieR universe, but, without discussing NieR Replicant nor spoiling Automata!

NieR: Automata, by Yoko Taro, is not going to be an easy-to-make review.
Taro in an interview discussed how, in a game, just a different camera angle can completely change its genre, and this game is proof of that statement.
While Nier is technically a third-person ARPG, likely hooking people in for the looks of the main protagonist, subverts any expectations by opening as a bullet-hell space fighter. The game continuously switches camera angle and genre, going from 3rd person to a platformer 2D, to a hack-and-slash isometric/diablo-like. The camera is one of the strongest tools of the game instead of a limitation as it often is.
The way all these camera angles and genres work so well when other titles struggle at the one thing they should do really shows the mastery not only of the team of Yoko Taro but Platinum Games as well.

The gameplay is probably one of the best and most refined ARPG platinum games ever made, so fluid and satisfying to fight in, satisfying with each movement and character feedback to my actions. I loved every second of it and never backed out of a fight! The game is full of secrets and often they are also well hidden but not unobtainable.

Nier's story begins with the alternative ending of a completely different game, Drakengard, in particular the E finale path. Here, Drakengard's protagonist and Queen Beast end up traveling through space and time to a modern-day Tokyo, where the fire-breathing hero defeats her.
The death of the Queen Beast unleashed what is known as the White Chlorination Syndrome. The disease known as WCS started in downtown Shinjuku and quickly spread, causing devastating effects. Most people who contracted it would gradually turn into salt, while others became violently insane.
By 2009, the country had become a warzone, with uninfected humans fighting against a mad, unstoppable horde known as "Legion".
This eventually leads to the events that take place in NieR: Replicant, which I won't get into as important, yet not necessary to enjoy Automata.
Eight thousand years later, in addition to all the issues caused by the WCS and discussed in NieR: Replicant, Earth is invaded by alien machine life forms. Eventually, the remaining human population decided that they had had enough and fled to the moon, where they could be relatively safe. From there, they can send combat androids to fight against the machines and reclaim their homeland.
This is where our story begins, following around 2B, an android part of the YoRHa team, and her adventures, featuring her companion 9S and another android. These are all playable characters at some point.
The game has 26 endings, the canon ones being A through E, and the rest are non-canon a bit more on the funny side. The game is HEAVILY focused on the concept of a pseudo-NewGame+, inviting the player to finish it and start again using the same save file. So much so, that the game must be completed several times to see all the endings, including the true ending. Like many NG+ in games, items are carried over and so are side mission objectives. Beating the game the first time will give you the A ending, but instead of simply restarting and increasing in difficulty, the game will offer a different POV to the story, in the second route, and wildly change in the third route etc.

As a player who started this game without any knowledge of the previous work of Taro, this took me by surprise and I have never found a title using a game machine so brilliantly.

The soundtrack is something absurd, always spot on and catchy; keeps up with the moment and mood you are going through very well. Tracks from this game, years after when reviewing this review, are still some of my favorite music.

Sadly, the PC version used to not be perfectly optimized when launched.
Hell, we didn't even know it would come out a week after PS4 until days before launch. It had some flaws, for example, in fullscreen the game would not be rendered at the targeted resolution but stick to 900p as on the console. But many of these problems were solved with the FAR mod quickly after release.
The great news is that after the release of NieR: Replicant on PC, Square came back to this title, patching and optimizing the game as it should have always been, fixing many optimization issues, and adding support to FSR and 4K icons for the HUD.
The game also has a DLC that is primarily an arena mode with unique objectives and costumes for all characters, fun overall!

The game is well deserving, and I don't think my describing it further would only spoil what a wonderful experience the game is.
Just know, it's hands down one of the games I suggest to anyone I know.
It is, without a doubt, one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had.

9.5/10

Yeah... this game is just not as good as I remember. 7 or so years ago when I first played this I was over the moon with it, I would call it a masterpiece, truly a one-of-a-kind game, straight 9-10/10. But now that I replayed it, I honestly can see what I meant, but how the fuck did I not notice all the GLARING issues.

The game looks and sounds great fat ass its so deep soundtrack amazing etc etc you heard this part a million times so I will skip to stuff people conveniently leave out of their opinions.

The story is interesting, it's unique, and has some twists and turns in there, so it's definitely worth the effort (up to a certain point). But then you have some characters who are pretty one-dimensional, not helped by dialogue and characterization that bounces from 'brilliant' to 'babies first edgy anime'. This is an issue with first Nier too, but to a way less egregious degree. 9S starts as a completely fine character, has his development, and then for the last third of the game I just wanted to quit playing because of how much of a fucking screaming fucking baby he became. I guess that's how Yoko Taro sees emotional breakdown or something? I don't fucking care, I don't want to play as a screaming, annoying child for 9 hours. A2 is literally nothing, she does nothing interesting or meaningful, she says nothing interesting or meaningful, she could easily be deleted from the story and nothing would change except they needed someone to play the opposite side of the screaming fucking baby.

The combat while flashy and cool for the first couple of hours shows its hand extremely quickly, in essence, it's shallow. Your move set is fine but busted right off the rip, the dodge and parry that give you complete invincibility and follow-up attacks are so goddamn easy to perform they make any fight a joke, playing 9S just turns the videogame off completely due to his hacking being so OP. None of that matters though because the enemies you face in this game are designed fucking terribly. Visually they are stunning like everything in the game. But when it comes to gameplay you will never do anything else but rush down the enemy and mash attack, dodge/parry the huge obviously telegraphed attacks. If you are 9s just hack. That's it, you never have to wait, bait out attacks, aim for weak spots, change weapons, or adjust your strategy. There are a couple of enemy types like ones with shields, flying, and electric ones, none of that matters. Your approach to combat will never change, and your strategy will never get tested. The combat becomes boring at hour 6, and you have to go for 23 more hours to finish the game. I was yawning and falling asleep so often during the second half of the game it's unbelievable, I would only become animated again once a cutscene started playing.

Some of that could have been avoided if the 100% completely pointless B-ending potion of the game did not exist. Basically, after you achieve your first main ending you do everything you just did again, and it's so fucking unbelievably boring and lame. Some idiots will try to sell you the idea that you get to see stuff from another perspective or something. Super, you dimwit, that could have been easily worked into the main campaign by having you play as certain characters for certain parts. They picked the worst possible way to go about this. This game REALLY feels like the devs wanted to waste your time between all the actually cool story stuff. I'm talking MMO bottom of the barrel quest design at points.

Part of the boredom came from the fact that the game is balanced terribly in a very specific way. I went through the game doing the main story and leaving side content for later. At some point, I remembered why that was a bad idea. If you progress too far in the game you get COMPLETLY cut off from completing/taking on certain quests. The game expects you to do as many of them as possible apparently because the enemies in the main campaign out-leveled me pretty badly at some point, turning every single enemy into a health sponge that did little to no damage to me? It's called a side quest for a reason for fuck's sake, why would you expect me to do them in order to beat the main story, even if you did, why would you make them impossible to do after certain points so that you can really fuck yourself over. This exact thing happened to me when I first played too because no other game functions like this because it's terrible design.

This game has so many great small details that not only builds up it's own story but NieR lore as a whole. But the sheer amount of build-up unfortunately causes the issue of the game itself ending at around the point where it climbs up to it's peak. For some that's perfect, if they want to immortalize the last part of the game for the most part, but for some it might leave them wanting more. An amazing game in terms of characters, story building and visuals, but unfortunately it needed just a bit more to reach it's maximum potential.