Disclaimer: I did not play this DLC. It did not seem worth money to me. However, my partner has the Game of the YorHa edition so the DLC was included for them and I watched them play it.
This DLC essentially contains 3 things: The combat arenas, the cosmetic options, and ending Δ.
The combat in Nier Automata is probably no one’s favourite thing about it. It’s passable, some people might even like it, but it didn’t get its 4.3 average rating on Backloggd because the combat is so fun. So a DLC where you spend most of your time just doing combat is already a pretty rough sell.
And then they went and utterly screwed it up. The combat itself is fairly boring. It’s the same enemies you fight throughout the game in an arena that is just a circle. The desert and the forest arena at least try to spice it up a bit by giving you rules to follow or making you fight as machines, and while the latter actually kind of works, the former is little more than a nice nod to Replicant. The flooded city arena doesn’t even attempt to make itself interesting.
The stories surrounding these arenas are also pretty bad. The desert arena is a worse execution of the ideas already explored in Facade in Replicant. The forest arena is a worse execution of the ideas already explored in the Father Servo side quest. And the flooded city arena is once again the worst, being a worse execution of the ideas already explored in this pretty niche game called “NieR Automata”, all the while being Spec Ops: The Line level of “you’re a bad person for playing this”.
But the worst part of all of this is the difficulty. I don’t mean difficulty in the good way; I mean that you need to be high level. The recommended level for the S rank battles is 90. If you haven’t played Nier Automata, you might think “Well yeah, you want your DLC to be endgame content, duh” and you’d be totally right! But at the end of the game, your level is probably going to be in the 50s. I don’t know how high it is if you have 100% side quest completion, but it can’t be above 70. So then, how do you reach level 90? You grind. A lot. It sucks.
So, the combat arenas are awful, but what about the rest of the DLC? Well, the cosmetic options are fine. In my opinion, Kainé’s outfit looks a bit weird on 2B, but the rest of the stuff looks good, especially Nier’s outfit on A2. The problem is that you get these cosmetic options as a reward for the battle arenas. And remember what I said about the level recommendations? Cool, now I can dress up A2 as Nier, but I’m basically almost done with the game, so I get to look at her like that for less than half an hour.
What about ending Δ?
It’s nothing short of amazing. If this DLC was just playing through the life of Plato 1728, maybe a bit expanded from what is in the DLC right now, it’d be 5 stars. Unfortunately, you have to do all of the battle arenas to even get to it in the first place.
It’s a beautiful story about capitalism, about how the disabled are mistreated, about escapism, about how those in power use culture wars to distract from their misdeeds, and of course also a bit about what it means to be alive. The song by amazarashi and the video that goes with it are also amazing.
My recommendation is to ignore the combat arenas and just watch ending Δ. It’s amazing, but I’m not sure if it’s worth going through the arenas and if you don’t have the Game of the YorHa or Become as Gods edition, it is certainly not worth your money in addition to that.
This DLC essentially contains 3 things: The combat arenas, the cosmetic options, and ending Δ.
The combat in Nier Automata is probably no one’s favourite thing about it. It’s passable, some people might even like it, but it didn’t get its 4.3 average rating on Backloggd because the combat is so fun. So a DLC where you spend most of your time just doing combat is already a pretty rough sell.
And then they went and utterly screwed it up. The combat itself is fairly boring. It’s the same enemies you fight throughout the game in an arena that is just a circle. The desert and the forest arena at least try to spice it up a bit by giving you rules to follow or making you fight as machines, and while the latter actually kind of works, the former is little more than a nice nod to Replicant. The flooded city arena doesn’t even attempt to make itself interesting.
The stories surrounding these arenas are also pretty bad. The desert arena is a worse execution of the ideas already explored in Facade in Replicant. The forest arena is a worse execution of the ideas already explored in the Father Servo side quest. And the flooded city arena is once again the worst, being a worse execution of the ideas already explored in this pretty niche game called “NieR Automata”, all the while being Spec Ops: The Line level of “you’re a bad person for playing this”.
But the worst part of all of this is the difficulty. I don’t mean difficulty in the good way; I mean that you need to be high level. The recommended level for the S rank battles is 90. If you haven’t played Nier Automata, you might think “Well yeah, you want your DLC to be endgame content, duh” and you’d be totally right! But at the end of the game, your level is probably going to be in the 50s. I don’t know how high it is if you have 100% side quest completion, but it can’t be above 70. So then, how do you reach level 90? You grind. A lot. It sucks.
So, the combat arenas are awful, but what about the rest of the DLC? Well, the cosmetic options are fine. In my opinion, Kainé’s outfit looks a bit weird on 2B, but the rest of the stuff looks good, especially Nier’s outfit on A2. The problem is that you get these cosmetic options as a reward for the battle arenas. And remember what I said about the level recommendations? Cool, now I can dress up A2 as Nier, but I’m basically almost done with the game, so I get to look at her like that for less than half an hour.
What about ending Δ?
It’s nothing short of amazing. If this DLC was just playing through the life of Plato 1728, maybe a bit expanded from what is in the DLC right now, it’d be 5 stars. Unfortunately, you have to do all of the battle arenas to even get to it in the first place.
It’s a beautiful story about capitalism, about how the disabled are mistreated, about escapism, about how those in power use culture wars to distract from their misdeeds, and of course also a bit about what it means to be alive. The song by amazarashi and the video that goes with it are also amazing.
My recommendation is to ignore the combat arenas and just watch ending Δ. It’s amazing, but I’m not sure if it’s worth going through the arenas and if you don’t have the Game of the YorHa or Become as Gods edition, it is certainly not worth your money in addition to that.