3D Mega Man X good.

The platforming is very fun, the weapons are varied and fun to use, and needing to switch weapons depending on the situation makes for good gameplay. Also, the levels themselves are very well designed with shortcuts that take you to the start of the level so that you won't need to waste time backtracking.

The visuals, soundtrack and humor are great, and the story is a good kids movie plot.

For the negatives, it has some issues due to being old. It doesn't have as many checkpoints as it should have, especially in the late game. The camera is not very good, making the combat harder than it should have been.

Finally, I didn't like most of the mandatory minigame sections, with the turret parts being the worse. I liked the spaceship parts though, once I figured how to shoot repeatedly.

Played for about 8 hours before just giving up. Before you think I am just a hater know that I have always been a huge fan Bethesda. I've put about 1000 hours into Skyrim over the years and I absolutely love Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Fallout: New Vegas (though I guess I should thank Obsidian for that one). I was incredibly hyped for Starfield up to release. Played it day one it was out. Unfortunately, I found myself incredibly disappointed just hours into the game.

I know it's gonna be an issue everyone is going to mention, but my god the loading screens between every little thing you do bogs this game down so much. I spent so much of my playthrough in loading screens. I was left bored with how much I had to wait to continue playing the game.

The dog fights are a bunch of fun; gun play is fine; story might be good I honestly don't know, though I'm growing a little old of how conversations are done in Bethesda games. Especially after starting Cyberpunk 2077 and falling in love with how it's dialogue system is so fluid and integrated into the gameplay.

There might be a fine game under the hood of this project, but it's crutch of loading screens everywhere just turned me off incredibly fast. Maybe I'll return to it in a years time to see if it improved, but I don't know.

This is one of the cases where the "emotional" aspect of a game is strong enough to make you overcome some flaws (I'm talking about myself of course, not in general, hope I don't have to make disclaimers all the time here :p). Obviously, all my ratings and reviews are based on my personal enjoyment of each game.

Having played Automata and loved it, I was really looking forward to the remaster of the first Nier, since it was too old and outdated for me to play today for the first time. So, let me get this off my chest right now: if you're thinking of playing this game because you liked Automata, I'd definitely recommend it, but be warned that in some aspects it remains a product of its time.

What I mean by that, is that, as a remaster, it stays as faithful to the original game as it gets, only changing the things that are absolutely necessary to do so, in order for the game to be playable and enjoyable today. For example, world and level design might seem a bit boring and outdated to some. Gameplay and leveling system does not have the variety that Automata has, but with the changes they made to the combat, they made it fun at least. I personally didn't have any problem with it. The other thing that could be better is the side quest design. Even though some of them have some memorable stories, they also require A LOT of fetching of items that have a small random drop rate, making them a grind and killing the pacing. Not to mention that some of them are necessary to complete for the true ending, since they give you weapons (But, they're the less grindy, so that's something at least). So, I suggest that, if you're not a diehard side quest completionist like myself, you might wanna use a guide to see which side quests you need to do and skip the others, since they do not give you EXP, just gold. But, if you want to see all the different side stories of the NPCs, go ahead but be prepared for a long grind. That's a shame honestly, at least they could fix the drop rate of the items needed...

Now that I mentioned the "elephant in the room", let's move on to the things that made me love this game. First of all, story and characters are not only interesting, but also well written with great and unique lines. The narrative and direction of the game, as well as the fact that you need to play though some parts multiple times while giving you more info about the story, support the themes and emotions that the story touches upon quite well. Sound design and OST are also phenomenal, creating a unique atmosphere, which further highlights each situation presented at the main cast. Voice acting is also top quality, with excellent performances from both the English and Japanese casts.

If I had to sum it up in one sentence withough giving away spoilers, I would say that it is a very emotional journey from beginning to end, while still being a video game to the heart. And what I mean by that is that Nier (and Nier Automata) tells you its story in a "video game way", experimenting with level design, different narratives, repetition etc. And that's what I love about these games the most.

Can't say more due to spoilers, but I'd say that if you loved Automata, you should check out that one as well. It can be grindy at times and the gameplay is pretty basic (but fun for me as well), but in the end, I felt that it was totally worth it.

Let me tell you an interesting story. Some months after God of War (2018) was released, me and a bunch of friends decided to try it, since it was at the spotlight back then. At the same time, I found this game at a discount. I had heard good things about it, so we decided to buy both, but play GoW first. That night, I gave it a try to see how it's like.

Guess which game we played first in the end! And guess which game ended up being one of my favourite games of all time out of nowhere.

Nier Automata is not a perfect game, far from it actually. While being a huge improvement over the first Nier -mainly thanks to Platinum Games' gameplay- one could say that its graphics were still a bit outdated, its world design basic and empty, side quests had fetching with random drop rates again, repetition of some parts of the game in order to get the whole story could be tedious for some and its performance issues on launch (especially in the PC version) were not few. Thankfully, most of them have been fixed by now, thanks to updates and patches.

But, do these things really matter to me? Yes and no. One one hand, I'm all for constructive criticism. It gives genuine feedback to the developers and, in a way, helps them understand what players did or did not enjoy in a game. But on the other hand, if the issues mentioned did not ruin my personal experience at all, then I'm not going to pretend to be "objective" and try to supress my own feelings about it. And for all the issues this game had, the experience it gave me is one of a kind.

Albeit being more action than RPG, Nier Automata introduces a unique take on the action-RPG genre. Playable characters are androids and thus, build customisation is based on the memory chips you install at each of them. With that system, you can customise your characters to be more offensive, defensive, balanced etc. Combat is a fantastic hack 'n' slash action combined with 'shoot 'em up' elements, designed by action genre veterans, PlatinumGames. But, the game does not stop there. In many sections, it transforms into a bullet hell shooter, giving more variety to enemy fights.

So, is there something better than combining fun gameplay with a fascinating story and atmosphere? Nier Automata's story is one of my favourite stories in games and just like its predecessor, its presents it in a way that gives prominence to the medium. For example, you still need to replay some parts of the game, but from a different perspective. Though fetching in side quests is still present, the drop rates are far more common and the quests contain some memorable stories of NPCs, highlighting the worldbuilding. Once more, soundtrack is amazing, along with the voice actors' performances, in both English and Japanese. I will not go into story spoilers here, since I think that the story and the way it's presented, is worth experiencing in-game. The game's world might be a bit 'empty' with not that many details, but it fits so well with the rest, that it made me extremely invested in it.

What I also loved about it is that, not only it touches some philosophical themes about humanity etc, but it presents them subtly in the background as food for thought, instead of "throwing" them directly in your face. And let's not forget these many times that the game does not take itself seriously at all, cracking one joke afther another. In other words, Nier Automata may tell a wonderful story, but it is first and foremost a video game, where having fun is above everything else.

As a conclusion, I'd say that my experience with Nier Automata taught me that, a game doesn't have to be "perfect" in order to be your favourite. It just has to speak to your heart (no matter how cringey or cliche this sounds) in a way that no other does, be it due to gameplay, story or whatever.

Would definitely recommend it.