Nier: Automata (for PC) Review

Nier : Automata is an action-RPG develop by Platinum Games, the studio apartment behind the Bayonetta games, and directed by Yoko Taro, the godhead of the Drakengard series and the original Nier. Platinum Games ‘ previous works excel on the gameplay movement, but their stories are broadly camp schlock. Taro ‘s games, on the other hand, are brilliantly depressing stories tied together with unaccented gameplay. Nier : Automata is a marriage of Platinum Games ‘ acute action battle and Taro ‘s balmy, yet drab storytelling, and is easily one of the better games released in 2017. unfortunately, Nier : Automata is a personal computer game that suffers from technical foul issues. The lack of developer support only compounds this, so you need to rely on fan-made patches to get the best performance out of the game .

A Series of Unfortunate Events

The first Nier game developed a recess following, thanks to its tragic storytelling, interesting cast of characters, outstanding soundtrack, and alone gameplay quirks. Nier, the titular protagonist, was a grizzle erstwhile valet out to save his daughter from grotesque manly creatures called Shades. Despite his lord pursuit, the heart of Nier ‘s report was misunderstanding, and how the breakdown of communication leads to tragedy and loss. The plot utilized fairly generic legal action fight in most scenarios, but besides spiced things up with bullet-hell styled projectiles, perspective puzzles, and even the odd text gamble section. Nier ‘s soundtrack, which featured a haunting blend of phantasmagoric vocals, mellow tunes, and catchy hooks, besides caught players by surprise. The combination of these elements resulted in a game that felt distinct from other japanese RPGs at the time .
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Nier : Automata shares many themes with its harbinger, including the music, storytelling, and gameplay. You play as 2B, an android tasked with defeating the automaton menace, and assisting other androids living in Earth ‘s wastelands. The Androids, 2B included, are biased against the automatic denizens that have taken over the world, and fight them randomly. You learn identical quickly, however, that robots are much more humanist than their cockamamie cylindrical appearances would have you believe, and the androids are n’t quite the heroes you are told they are. much like the master game, misunderstanding and misinformation bet key roles in Automata ‘s fib. This merely becomes more poignant on subsequent replays, which have you play as understudy characters with unique perspectives and scenarios.

Hard Android Action

Automata shares core gameplay elements with Bayonetta ( $ 19.99 at Humble Bundle ) and Metal Gear Rising : Revengeance, though it takes enough of inspiration from the original Nier and injects alone gameplay mechanics, besides. In Automata, movement is fast, satisfying, and fluent : You have a dash button like to Raiden ‘s Ninja Run in Revengeance. By holding this release down you can blaze through areas or around enemies at eminent accelerate. If you tap the button rather of holding it, you perform a contrivance. If you time your dodge to avoid an attack equitable before it hits, you trigger a reinforce and utilitarian perfect elude, which gives you extra indomitability frames and lets you perform a counterattack. This works similarly to Bayonetta ‘s Witch Time machinist, though in Automata ‘s case, time does not slow down .

You have light and heavy attacks that chain together to slap around your robotic adversaries. All of your melee skills are available from the start, so you do n’t unlock new skills to expand your arsenal as you do in Bayonetta or Metal Gear Rising : Revengeance ( $ 19.99 at Humble Bundle ). Combos are besides fairly simplistic, so you can chain light attacks into heavy attacks seamlessly, but predictably. Like Bayonetta, Nier : Automata lets you switch between alternate weapon sets, giving you more freedom to form jazz band on the fly .
While this may sound simplistic compared with early Platinum games, Automata has a few concern wrinkles that make combat highly enjoyable. You have a automatic pod company that serves as your long-range attack. Pod shooting besides lets you cut through the storm of bullets fired your room by enemies. Like the original plot, enemies fill the area with slow moving bolshevik ball that chew through your health if you ‘re careless. Your pod ‘s fire can cut through these orbs to create openings, making it a defensive and offensive tool .

Your pod can be equipped with range skills that mirror the magic trick spells in the original Nier. One skill, for model, surrounds you with whirling blades, complementing your melee assault. Another summons spears around you, temporarily impaling anything that gets hit. There are quite a few of these pod skills to purchase, and you can besides find a second base and third base pod to alternate between during battle. Each one can be equipped with a alone skill, giving you three brawny attacks to hertz between, in addition to your melee jazz band .
Like the original Nier, Automata besides has top-down shooting sections that are in the same vein as Ikaruga or Mars Matrix. During these sections, shooting is your primary generator of wrong output, though your melee skills can clear away bullets if you need some defensive options. These sections pop up from clock time to time throughout the story and are just challenging enough to keep you engaged, without being excessively frustrating or long-winded. I loved these sections, and appreciated the court to the original Nier ‘s far-out gameplay switches .
I thoroughly enjoyed Automata ‘s battle. It feels simplified and streamlined, but not to the luff where it is dumbed down. Automata is accessible enough that you can jump in and play without feeling harrowed or overwhelmed. The miss of a ranking system besides helps, since you do n’t need to worry about the game hanging your poor performance over your drumhead after every competitiveness : In Automata, you fight and improve because you want to .

My Android, My Way

As an RPG, Automata has a level organization and customization options, giving you a chance to improve and expand your abilities. You earn experience from combat, which levels up your health and persuasiveness. If you play through the crippled with some clean side request, you should be adequately leveled for most fib scenarios. You can besides improve the forte of weapons you find by upgrading them at shops with items you scavenge in the universe, which gives you a noticeable attack boon .
Automata lets you promote 2B via a alone chip system. You earn chips by completing quests, defeating enemies, or just buying them from shops. Most chip abilities are passive, with effects ranging from basic attack boosts to improving your motion rush. Some of the late chip abilities are highly potent, and can perceptibly alter how you play the game. One such ability, for example, slows down time whenever an errant fastball gets close to you, giving you ample meter to avoid the attack. In order to install a nick, you need enough storage space to accommodate it. Advanced chips have higher capacity cost, so you need to be choosy about which ones you want to install on the character. You can expand your capacity by purchasing repositing upgrades, but even at soap, you need to be selective about what you equip .
A good determine of chips can give you a massive advantage in a contend. however, it is easy to get in over your head and fight a mighty enemy much excessively early, and die. Automata uses a corpse-run automobile mechanic alike to the Souls games and older MMOs : if you die in Automata, you drop all the chips you had equipped at your grave. If you fail to retrieve your chips, or die trying to get them, those chips will be forfeit. Most chips, evening the rare ones, can be replaced late in the game, but doing indeed is dearly-won and boring, so losing them is very frustrating. fortunately, the game gives you a overplus of auto-healing chips and healing items to use, so if you do happen to get in over your principal, the chances are it was wholly your demerit for jumping the gun in the first place. death in Automata is the alone real gauge of your performance, so the hazard attached to dying is the game ‘s one bonus to get better at play. This ties back to the streamlined, laid-back manner of play that the crippled utilizes, which I very much love .

A Ruined World

Nier : Automata is set within an open environment, but it is n’t expansive enough, or content-rich enough to be considered a proper open-world crippled. Automata takes put within a branch ruined cityscape, which serves as the main hub. You can undertake quests at respective outposts, which usher you towards assorted areas in the city to complete them. The world is small enough that it makes effective use of the outer space that it has, so you ‘ll have seen all of what the city has to offer if you undertake most quests. At the same time, traveling from one degree to another takes plenty of legwork, so the environments all feel goodly and rewarding to explore. As the report progresses, the city changes and opens up, giving you more areas to explore and quests to take .
Automata ‘s quests are particularly matter to, largely because of how full-bodied so far absolutely mundane they are. The game ‘s quests, at their most basic, are childlike fetch jobs or escort missions. The context for quests is what makes them memorable. One of my favored quests involves two android lovers who have lost the will to fight and have deserted the electric resistance. They are hounded by a hunter for abandon, and you are tasked with determine parts for them to repair themselves at multiple points in the game .
At the conclusion of their quest line, the female android has tired of run, and asks that you wipe both their memories so that they may go back to the resistance and be reinstated. The male android volunteers to go first, but after having his memory wiped, the female android backs down. You learn that the female android has no intention of having her memory wiped, and lone suggested it to better mold her male spouse in the future, since his personality did n’t suit her. It ‘s a revolt revelation, and one that made this storyline digest out in my heed, but functionally it is a simple fetch quest. many of Automata ‘s quests undergo tragic twists upon their stopping point, or flesh out the world and characters of the crippled, making them well worth undertaking despite how bland they seem on the come on .

once you finish Automata, you restart the game from the begin, as an alternate character. Your second replay of Automata focuses on 9S, 2B ‘s male android partner. 9S is a good fighter, but lacks 2B ‘s beefier melee art. To make up for this, 9S ‘s heavy attack is a unique projectile that hacks the target ‘s memory. Upon successfully connecting with the attack, you are immediately transported to a top-down inject mini-game arena, where you must shoot grey obstacles to reveal the machine ‘s memory eyeball. Destroying this ball lets you destroy the machine outright or commandeer it if you hack it unawares. 9S ‘s combat demands commodity use of both melee and hacking damage, making your play back perceptibly different, even though you are exploring many of the lapp areas .
You besides unlock a third gear playthrough, which puts you in command of A2, an android adversary that is at odds with both 2B ‘s commander and the machines. A2 fights similarly to 2B, however her light attacks are weaker, her grave attacks are stronger, and she can taunt enemies to boost her damage. She besides gets unique fib scenarios, much as 9S does. These scenarios greatly enhance Automata ‘s floor and longevity. Platinum Games ‘ titles are broadly designed around replays, and the unique feel these alternate playthroughs offer work perfectly with that design doctrine.

Performance Issues and Minimum Specs

Nier : Automata has frightful strengths, so the current personal computer issues that plague the game are a great disappointment. At the meter of this write, there have been no major updates or patches to address the operation and settlement problems that Automata suffers from .
Automata has very noticeable texture pop-in issues, which no graphic set can change. Adjusting the resolution beyond 1080p frequently forces the game into windowed manner. Bumping the anti-ailiasing settings results in major performance drops with scantily detectable ocular improvements. I suffered from extensive crash during my beginning few hours of the game, particularly within the defect sphere. The bet on is locked at 60 frames per second, which is perfectly satisfactory, but I do get stuttering regularly. To make matters worse, Square Enix recently released DLC for the game, but did nothing to address the performance bugs .
There is a solution to this poor port matter, though it comes from the community rather than Square Enix or Platinum Games. A fan-made temporary hookup rectifies quite a few of the issues that Automata has on personal computer, and can be found at the acme of the game ‘s Steam forum. Installing this is highly commend if you wish to get the game in the meanwhile .
The game ‘s Steam page recommends that your personal computer have at least an Intel Core i3 2100 CPU, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 GPU, 4GB of RAM, 50GB of available storehouse, and the Windows 7 operate on system. As a Steam game, Nier : Automata supports Steam Achievements, Steam Cloud Saves, and Steam trade Cards .

A Sullied Gem

It is a shame that Nier : Automata has been so thoroughly snubbed on personal computer by the developer and publisher. It is a rightfully excellent game on all fronts : it has a capital ocular stylus, fantastic music, great gameplay, and a profoundly affect report. By all accounts Automata should be an Editors ‘ Choice style, but the negligence the game has suffered makes it hard to recommend and pace highly. If you want to bite the fastball and snap up Automata and install the community patch, you ‘ll be treated to a herculean and comforting action game. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I sincerely hope that Square Enix and Platinum Games releases an official mend .