Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 29, 2024, 08:21:27 AM

Login with username, password and session length

NieR: Automata - Square's Masterpiece

Started by Barry Admin, October 08, 2018, 09:39:27 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Barry Admin

God damn. This goes on sale pretty regularly, and I picked it up a while ago, and played it pretty earnestly over the last week. I finished it earlier, and have went straight into my second run, which I would never normally do.

Currently I can't get enough, though. It feels like I've thus far only scratched the surface regarding the themes of existentialism and relationships. There's real incentive to continue with it, and new gameplay mechanics to explore.

Just getting around the world is fun, it feels great, air-dashing all over the place. The combat is lovely too, again with a really nice feel to it.

There's just so much to love about NieR. So many weird and intriguing moments. It really is a masterpiece.

I would only recommend keep playing and then we'll really talk. If you think you're done, keep playing. I found it often frustrating and annoying but ultimately I will never regret it. We'll talk properly when you're ready.

Barry Admin

Yeah, and I need to get spoiler tags installed this week actually. But yeah, I've been sitting here thinking that the first ending didn't really clear much up for me - it just feels like the game is only getting started in some ways.

The way the ending (and beginning) was referenced in the start of the next play through was very cute.

I'm doing hard mode this time, so just trying to fully understand the best way to combine chips. As I progressed, I started manually setting my own chipsets, and I guess it might benefit me now to start swapping between some different options.

Ooh it's great, I bloody love it.

It's magnificent when it clicks, genuinely unique, like a Kojima kind of uniqueness (if that's not contradictory) minus the tits. Also one of the best soundtracks ever, I reckon.

Think of NG+ as the Second Act, and so on...

Moribunderast

It's a fucking amazing game. I never play games more than once but I played this through multiple times because, basically, it requires you to do so to get to the best shit. And it's not one of those boring games where you "need to get 15 hours in before it gets good." It STARTS good and then keeps going until it is something utterly wonderful. It feels so fluid to play and the world is great to explore but the story, as it unravels, is just something really special. And yeah, soundtrack is incredible.

brat-sampson

Best OST of 2017, over Persona 5, Mario or whatever. Just sublime. I enjoyed this at first and then just engaged with it more and more and more right up to the final credits*. I keep wanting to replay it, and that never happens with me and games usually. I posted a bunch of stuff in the original thread we had for it here, but it was probably mostly spoiler-related so I wouldn't want to repeat it just yet. Just keep us posted on how it's going.



*(A term with meaning here)

popcorn

I finished the demo and found it boring. I really want to like it, because of the arse, so I played it again a bit later, and found it boring again. I'm still tempted to try it one day because of the arse, just in case it's just one of those games with a boring beginning.

Barry Admin

Agreed about the soundtrack, especially the way it's now starting to bounce seamlessly between genres, like the game itself!

Man this is starting to get really intriguing, with the new cutscenes and stuff. I am fucking loving this.

madhair60

Found this one faintly embarrassing and traded it in quickly.

Barry Admin

YOU'RE faintly embarrassing and need traded in quickly!!

popcorn

I already traded St Eddie for madhair60 and I am not sure I made the right choice.

The Culture Bunker

I'm desperate for a decent gaming experience to get my teeth into, and perhaps I might be interested in this if it offered chance for fully-customable avatars rather than pre-set ones (unless I've misjudged what I've seen). Not entirely sure I can risk £25 on it, at least at the moment.

Quote from: madhair60 on October 09, 2018, 02:05:11 PM
Found this one faintly embarrassing and traded it in quickly.

Not sayin your a wrong un but do you still watch that girl high school band anime with your 4chan pals. Just checking

madhair60

Quote from: The Boston Crab on October 09, 2018, 06:09:32 PM
Not sayin your a wrong un but do you still watch that girl high school band anime with your 4chan pals. Just checking

You don't even see their arses. Believe me, I scoured every frame looking for them.

Quote from: Barry Admin on October 09, 2018, 02:55:02 PM
YOU'RE faintly embarrassing and need traded in quickly!!

That's fair.

Quote from: madhair60 on October 09, 2018, 06:16:55 PM
You don't even see their arses. Believe me, I scoured every frame looking for them.



Thursday

It would be better if every enemy in the game had their health bar halved/quartered/tenthed.

It also shouldn't be an open world game.

But it was just about worth it for the ending E. Just.

falafel

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on October 09, 2018, 04:59:46 PM
I'm desperate for a decent gaming experience to get my teeth into, and perhaps I might be interested in this if it offered chance for fully-customable avatars rather than pre-set ones (unless I've misjudged what I've seen). Not entirely sure I can risk £25 on it, at least at the moment.

Mmm, it's a much more authored story than that, I'm afraid. But it is staggeringly good.

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: falafel on October 09, 2018, 08:44:33 PM
Mmm, it's a much more authored story than that, I'm afraid. But it is staggeringly good.
As it may be, but I'm not sure it sounds the experience for me. I have a craving for games where I can immerse myself into the experience... XCOM2 and Dragon Age:  Inquisition gave me that and at least a vague feeling like my choices mattered (I don't care if they really don't, but at least let me suspend my disbelief). Pathetic as it sounds, I guess I like to pretend I really am the character in the game - when you're given a forced character with a set look, I find myself less involved.

Sin Agog

That's exactly why I always keep a sewing machine and a copious array of wigs on call. That was a fun weekend when I was playing Bayonetta.

Thursday

Actually, one thing is I don't understand is why people talked about this game as if you "have to play through it multiple times." Which is something that sounded massively off-putting, but at most you play through some of it twice from a different angle. Then once you've done that there's a whole fresh completely new campaign that carries on the story from where it left off. The credits basically mean the end of an act.

Mister Six

How much of this is spent looking at a CGI arse? Because Mrs Six will rip the piss out of me something rotten if she sees this on the TV for 50 hours:


Generally, she's wearing a skirt so you'll only see the arse every time you tilt the camera under the skirt, so every two to three seconds. If you are afraid of wearing out your right analogue stick, you can hold L3 and R3 to self-destruct and blow the skirt off her body. While this does expose the arse and might seem gratuitous, it also causes you damage so you can't keep doing it. You can only do it every eight or nine seconds.

popcorn

Do you reckon someone who found the demo boring (twice) could find much to like in the game proper?

Do you like Metal Gear type of auteur uniqueness? That's the strength of the game. You obviously aren't into the Platinum gameplay and there's lots of that. You'll get out what you put in, basically. I think it's sometimes quite boring but ultimately unbelievably worth it.

popcorn

I love MGS nonsense but have found all Platinum action-y stuff boring. Only thing of that ilk I enjoyed was Ninja Gaiden. Don't know why that was different.

madhair60

Quote from: popcorn on October 10, 2018, 08:18:30 AM
I love MGS nonsense but have found all Platinum action-y stuff boring. Only thing of that ilk I enjoyed was Ninja Gaiden. Don't know why that was different.

Because it's great, and lean, and it's got ninjas in it.

popcorn

I suppose the arse in Ninja Gaiden isn't half bad either.

Pdine

While I like a lot about this I do find the fucking awful LOD culling and pop-in very very distracting. I've played it on Xbox One and PC with eveything maxed and it's the same, except that the XB1 also stutters frequently.

Bhazor

#28
Quote from: popcorn on October 10, 2018, 08:18:30 AM
I love MGS nonsense but have found all Platinum action-y stuff boring. Only thing of that ilk I enjoyed was Ninja Gaiden. Don't know why that was different.

The difference is that Ninja Gaiden demands precision whilst Platinum games politely ask for style. You can kind of mash through most Platinum/character action games on the standard difficulty with just one or two combos while Ninja Gaiden requires that you know exactly what you're doing.
Have you tried Revengeance? Thats as close to Ninja Gaiden as Platinum has ever got and which is brutally demanding on the higher difficulties. Amazing though, especially once you click with the parry system. Which took me until the third playthrough to truly master. It's also filled with Metal Gear Solid insanity with one of the greatest final bosses ever and at least three or four hours of codec conversations about Mexican cuisine, horror movies and the validity of torture as a means of deterrence.

On Nier Automata. Its probably the shallowest combat system Platinum has ever worked on. 9S in particular sucks balls with a total over reliance on that shitty hacking minigame.

Barry Admin

popcorn, I think similar with the Platinum stuff in that I love it in theory, but find it doesn't really keep me that engaged in practice. NieR I love because the combat is great for an RPG, and it has a very compelling story and intriguing world that references philosophy and is dripping in weirdness. I usually get bored 75% of the way through an RPG, but I'm already into my second playthrough here, and loving it even more.