Nier Auotmata
So, before you ask, yes: It's from the developer of Bayonetta and the
publisher of Final Fantasy. It's also one of the weirdest games of this
generation. And after an endless succession of battle royales,
looter-shooters and remakes, we can all use a little weirdness in our
downtime.
The newly released Nier: Automata - Game of the Yorha
Edition ($40, PS4) is the easiest way to play the game if you haven't
before. (If you have, there's nothing new here; it's just the original
game plus all the various DLC that's come out since 2017.) This is my
first time through the bizarre and beautiful world of Nier: Automata.
Although I haven't yet fully explored the postapocalyptic Earth and
defeated all of the maybe-sentient machines that inhabit it, I would
like to add my voice to the chorus of gamers insisting that this title
is something special.
A multitude of games in one
One
thing I'll say about Nier: Automata is that it'll never bore you. In
the game's first level, you start off playing a bullet-hell space
shooter, dodging enemy projectiles and alternating your own light and
heavy attacks to take down enemies as they fly across the screen. But
there's no time to get accustomed to that, because then your plane
transforms into a giant robot. Now, you're playing a twin-stick shooter,
evading increasingly elaborate patterns of enemy fire while trying to
point your lasers in the correct direction.
Then, a few minutes later, you're on the ground, slicing and dicing
enemies with a sword. Before you can get fully accustomed to that, the
game tosses you a robotic companion that can fire both light and heavy
laser beams. When you confront the first level's enormous boss, you
start off with the standard third-person action/RPG combat, then
transition into a side-scrolling stage, then hop into another giant
mecha to finish the job.
If nothing else, Nier: Automata
has plenty of variety. And it's the kind of variety that should be
familiar to fans of other Platinum games. While you can crank the
difficulty way up and make every battle into a life-or-death struggle,
by default, Nier: Automata is much more concerned with fun than skill.
The battle system is light and breezy enough that the game can lean on
it most of the time, but it's not quite deep enough to sustain an entire
game. Platinum seems well aware of this and gives the player plenty of
opportunities to mix things up. It's an agreeable game progression, and
there's not too much grind required, either.
You can level up
simply from fighting enemies, but the more interesting way to build up
your character (a combat android named 2B; I'll get to her in a bit) is
to acquire chips. 2B can equip a fixed number of different data chips,
some of which improve her combat abilities (dealing more melee damage,
taking less ranged damage, etc.) and some of which add useful
information to the HUD (a health bar, an experience counter, etc.). It's
an interesting mechanic, since you'll need to decide whether you want
to get more at-a-glance information or gear up exclusively for combat.
Furthermore, as you increase the number of chips you're able to equip,
you can discover some very interesting combinations that give your play
style a unique feel.
Do androids dream of electric swords?
Nier: Automata is a fun
action/RPG, but the market is not exactly hurting for fun action/RPGs.
What sets it apart is that it has something to say — and a very, very
weird way to say it.
In the game, you play as 2B, a combat android
who, for some reason, looks like a Victorian/Gothic anime protagonist,
complete with silver hair, high heels, a blindfold (which, somehow, does
not impair her fighting skills) and an obscenely short dress. She and
her fellow androids exist to wipe out a race of alien machines that have
made Earth uninhabitable for humanity. All of the humans retreated to a
moon colony, where they cheer on the androids but never seem to show
themselves. (No points for guessing that something funny is going on
there.)
The story has enough sci-fi twists and turns to keep it
interesting, but the game is much more about theme than narrative. Using
androids to explore questions of consciousness, morality, life, death
and existentialism is hardly unique to Nier: Automata. But something
about the juxtaposition of "weighty philosophical questions" and "sexy
android blowing up robots in a giant mecha" gives the game a delightful
sense of strangeness that makes it hard to put down.
By all rights, the game's existential themes should make the story
feel pretentious and dull, but they don't. Or, failing that, the game's
zany anime gameplay should make the pop philosophy feel cheap or
superficial — but, again, it doesn't. Nier: Automata is sincere but
never takes itself too seriously, like the best philosophical novels.
Think Siddhartha, or Brave New World, or Ishmael, but with lasers and
sword fights, and you're at least on the right track.
What also
sets the game apart from similar stories is that it bakes the
philosophical questions right into its gameplay. You can't simply play
through 2B's arc and call it a day; once you finish the game, you have
to replay it a few times to see all sides of the campaign. Without
spoiling anything: You'll be asked to make some decisions along the way
that may seem purely mechanical but affect the story in subtle ways.
Game of the Yorha
For those who want
to know the specifics about the Game of the Yorha edition, it comes with
a PSN theme, 15 PSN avatars, the 3C3C1D119440927 expansion pack, and a
handful of skins and accessories for said expansion. Again, if you've
played the game before, there's nothing you really need here, but if you
haven't, it's an excellent way to get the full package.
As for
whether you should play it, I think so, if only because there's really
nothing else like it. Most philosophical games feature slow, thoughtful
gameplay, and most zany action/RPGs have similarly lightweight stories.
Nier: Automata is an intriguing blend of the two. It's also an
interesting evolution of the Drakengard series, if you played that back
in the day. (It's technically the fifth game in the series, but for all
practical purposes, you can play it as a stand-alone title.)
| |
|
Comments
Post a Comment