EU copy played on a PlayStation 3 Super Slim.
This was honestly a rollercoaster of an experience. I'd finished Automata a couple years prior to tackling this and the upcoming release of Replicatn v1.22... gave me the push to jump in so I could experience the original localisation first.
First up, I'm glad I'd played Automata first as it both set and disappointed my expectations. Set because I knew there would be a number of playthroughs involved to truly "finish" the game, and disappointed because those subsequant playthroughs were nowhere near as varied as Automata's. Automata is an improvement of every facet of this game, but there is still some worth to be found here.
After my obtaining ending A I was pretty pumped and happy - it took roughly 37 hours and I'd put the time in to do as many side quests and optional activites as possible. Movement and platforming felt a little janky at times but it was still perfectly playable and the weapons and combat in general felt fairly satisfying. The music was as great as usual for Keiichi Okabe's standards and the story was enjoyable, if a little lacklustre by the end twist.
Ending B was a bit of a different experience. I was hyped to start it since completing Ending A informed me I would get to experience "Kaine's story", however this was not the B story I was expecting due to having played Automata so was greeted with a simple visual novel before plowing through the same second half of the main game as Ending A with a few extra voice clips and additional context for the bosses you fight. Overall, it was well done and in the context of the entire story everything was pretty well done, but it all kinda just fell into the "everything is miserable and no-one is happy" mood that everything during this latter period of the game has. It was just a real fucking downer to play so I'm glad I at least did it in one sitting, plus the post credits scene helped bring the mood up a little too.
Endings C and D was where I ended up grinding a lot to obtain all the additional trophies for growing flowers, catching all the fish and upgrading all the weapons. Typical grinding experience of doing it all on auto pilot while listening to podcasts or watching youtube videos in the background so no much to complain about too bad really. In the C playthrough I was skipping through everything, having watched all the cutscenes and heard the voice clips twice now and getting a little weary of it all.
After C I went for the speedrun followed by going straight for Ending D. My intention was to watch and experience all the cutscenes in one sitting so I could get the full impact of the game's narrative, but in the end the depressiveness of those latter story beats were just too much and I skipped them bar everything leading up to the final boss.
So all in all, going by what I've written I didn't enjoy the game that much, but surprisingly I still have a lot of fond thoughts toward it. It feels like a slightly upgraded PlayStation 2 game with it's design choices and art direction and lighting, sure, but it's weirdly ernest in its presentation. The gameplay (bar the fishing) is altogether damn solid and entertaining and Yoko Taro's narrative, while exhausting at times does hit the mark more often than not. I think my main problem was just binging the entire game in such a short period of time. I played this game for just under 100 hours over the span of a couple of months (which isn't that big a deal, but doing an hour every morning before the day started for material farming was draining), but at the same time I can't say I've done that for many other games. I truly did play the absolute ever loving shit out of this game and found enjoyment in the vast majority of it.
This was honestly a rollercoaster of an experience. I'd finished Automata a couple years prior to tackling this and the upcoming release of Replicatn v1.22... gave me the push to jump in so I could experience the original localisation first.
First up, I'm glad I'd played Automata first as it both set and disappointed my expectations. Set because I knew there would be a number of playthroughs involved to truly "finish" the game, and disappointed because those subsequant playthroughs were nowhere near as varied as Automata's. Automata is an improvement of every facet of this game, but there is still some worth to be found here.
After my obtaining ending A I was pretty pumped and happy - it took roughly 37 hours and I'd put the time in to do as many side quests and optional activites as possible. Movement and platforming felt a little janky at times but it was still perfectly playable and the weapons and combat in general felt fairly satisfying. The music was as great as usual for Keiichi Okabe's standards and the story was enjoyable, if a little lacklustre by the end twist.
Ending B was a bit of a different experience. I was hyped to start it since completing Ending A informed me I would get to experience "Kaine's story", however this was not the B story I was expecting due to having played Automata so was greeted with a simple visual novel before plowing through the same second half of the main game as Ending A with a few extra voice clips and additional context for the bosses you fight. Overall, it was well done and in the context of the entire story everything was pretty well done, but it all kinda just fell into the "everything is miserable and no-one is happy" mood that everything during this latter period of the game has. It was just a real fucking downer to play so I'm glad I at least did it in one sitting, plus the post credits scene helped bring the mood up a little too.
Endings C and D was where I ended up grinding a lot to obtain all the additional trophies for growing flowers, catching all the fish and upgrading all the weapons. Typical grinding experience of doing it all on auto pilot while listening to podcasts or watching youtube videos in the background so no much to complain about too bad really. In the C playthrough I was skipping through everything, having watched all the cutscenes and heard the voice clips twice now and getting a little weary of it all.
After C I went for the speedrun followed by going straight for Ending D. My intention was to watch and experience all the cutscenes in one sitting so I could get the full impact of the game's narrative, but in the end the depressiveness of those latter story beats were just too much and I skipped them bar everything leading up to the final boss.
So all in all, going by what I've written I didn't enjoy the game that much, but surprisingly I still have a lot of fond thoughts toward it. It feels like a slightly upgraded PlayStation 2 game with it's design choices and art direction and lighting, sure, but it's weirdly ernest in its presentation. The gameplay (bar the fishing) is altogether damn solid and entertaining and Yoko Taro's narrative, while exhausting at times does hit the mark more often than not. I think my main problem was just binging the entire game in such a short period of time. I played this game for just under 100 hours over the span of a couple of months (which isn't that big a deal, but doing an hour every morning before the day started for material farming was draining), but at the same time I can't say I've done that for many other games. I truly did play the absolute ever loving shit out of this game and found enjoyment in the vast majority of it.