Disorder Reviews: Nier: Automata (2017)

Martintox

Mister Disorder
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NIER: AUTOMATA


Developer: Platinum Games
Publisher: Square Enix
Director: Yoko Taro
Producer: Eijiro Nishimura, Yosuke Saito
Release Date: 23 February, 2017
Systems: PC, Playstation 4, Xbox One
Composer: Keiichi Okabe, Keigo Hoashi
Genre: Action-adventure with RPG elements

After spending some time as a designer for games such as Time Crisis II (1998), Yoko Taro joined Cavia and directed Drakengard (2003) and its spin-off Nier (2010), both of which have established his unique use of the video game format as an extension of narrative. He is believed to be afflicted with the "Miyazaki curse" (named after Hidetaka Miyazaki), as he has an uncanny tendency to make excellent first installments, but awful sequels.

The review contains spoilers.


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It's taken me quite some time to come around to Nier: Automata. When it comes to breakthrough games like this, it's always hard to discuss them from the perspective of a prior fan, because if you have something profoundly negative to say, it's easy to interpret that as indignation for "selling out" or making an unforgivable change to the formula, if it's not outright jealousy that other people now have an accessibly entry into "my dear niche artist"'s works. In truth, I don't really mind, all those newcomers are going to watch an LP of Drakengard instead of playing it themselves, so I'm still part of the Yoko Taro intelligentsia. In any case, I feel it's especially worth bearing in mind the critical acclaim and the sales so ludicrous that Nier: Automata has singlehandedly catapulted the director from a niche idol into an industry sensation. PlatinumGames outright credit its success for keeping them afloat; when you consider the Nier-themed dungeon in Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers and the appearance of 2B in Soul Calibur VI, it's also clear they have been willing to ride this success all around town. The thing is that I wouldn't consider the game much of a sell-out move. Automata is as much a Taro game as Drakengard 2; there are plenty of nuances, but the core principle is the same. What made this particular iteration such a smash (beyond 2B's heaping assets)? I thought it was something surface-level such as the combat, but as it turns out, Automata has succeeded in exploiting the video game format to such a meta level that it took multiple years after its release for the director to bring its themes into full blossom.

First and foremost, we need to establish the premise: in the distant future after Nier's events, humanity has left the Earth following the invasion of "machine lifeforms", which operate as parts of a singular hivemind. In their stead, an android force under the name of YoRHa combats the machine menace. Through the game, the player has the opportunity to control three different YoRHa androids: combat model 2B, reconnaissance model 9S, and later on, the rogue attack android A2. However, things are not what they seem, and the situation unravels as these three characters discover the underlying truth. This is ultimately the central appeal of a Yoko Taro game: he plays with video game conventions to enhance his storytelling and convey his themes. Drakengard, for instance, allows you to kill an incredible amount of enemies as a standard hack-and-slash/air combat hybrid would, but uses this endless slaughter to drive home the main protagonist's use of violence as a cathartic release for pent-up emotional baggage. It has five endings, and each subsequent one requires you to kill even more people; accordingly, each is darker and more pessimistic than the last. To complete Nier: Automata in full, you actually need to do three playthroughs using the same save file, the idea being that each iteration peels back a layer of the world. When playing this game for the first time, I actually felt less and less compelled to finish it, but I now believe that I have profoundly underestimated Yoko Taro's genius. In truth, as the facade of the premise comes undone, so does the quality of the experience in turn.

As an innocuous example, let's take the gameplay. As an action-adventure, most of what you do is explore and battle enemies. This being a PlatinumGames title, there is plenty of freedom of horizontal and vertical movement, and many sections of the game require you to engage in some platforming as a result. Combat phases also solicit this freedom of movement, as there are enemies that take advantage of the vertical space. Your combat arsenal varies slightly depending on the player character: should you be using 2B or A2, you can equip two weapons, allowing you to chain combos with each of them in turn. Although 9S can only equip one at a time, he is also able to hack enemies to incapacitate them or deal massive damage -- this generally consists of a mini-shoot 'em up segment where you must eliminate a target in a short amount of time. Regardless of who you play, you also have a Pod, which you can equip with a variety of ranged weapons. Finally, you can use chips, which boost stats or give certain abilities; what's interesting is that the mechanic is also an extension of your character, as you can intentionally remove elements of the HUD to give yourself more space (you can also remove the life support chip and die). The result is an enticing experience that gives the player the opportunity to use this arsenal to its fullest through a multitude of varied, fast-paced battles... for the first playthrough.

The more I played, the more it came to light how shallow this aspect of the game was. Say what you will about the simplistic gameplay of Drakengard, where all you have is a handful of attack types and a magic ability; for what little combat mechanics it has, you are going to need every single one of them. In Nier: Automata, it became clear that it made little difference whether I used long swords, short swords, daggers, hammers, or spears. Yes, they offer different combo opportunities, but it's also extremely easy to find a dominant strategy for almost every encounter in the game (for me, it was using the spear's heavy air attack, which deals good damage and knocks down enemies). Once that happened, the only thing I did was switch between the Machine Gun Pod and the Homing Missile Pod from time to time, and once the luster of the flashy animations wore off, battles became a complete and utter chore. The customizability of chips does little to salvage the core experience. It's fortunate that you play 9S for much of the game, because his hacking ability will provide even the slightest stimulus once the excitement of combat turns into rigor mortis.

[cut-off due to the 10000 character limit]
 

Martintox

Mister Disorder
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Mind you, a big reason for this is that, in a move so bewildering it circles back to divine brilliance, you need to play the first half of the game twice. The aforementioned three playthroughs are known as routes A, B, and C, the latter of which has two endings depending on whether you pick 9S or A2 in a climactic sequence. In Route A you play as 2B, fight the machine lifeforms, and nothing particularly spicy happens. In Route B, you do the near exact same thing with 9S instead. The only major difference is that his unique ability opens the door for additional lore: boss battles now have small cutscenes that expand on their story, and in a sequence that takes place inside the hacking "interface", you explore YoRHa's database and discover that humanity had actually died off by the time the war against machines had begun -- the upper brass intentionally pretended otherwise so as to keep up morale. This design decision makes all the more sense when reaching Route C, where it turns out that the machine hivemind had orchestrated the war all along and set YoRHa up for constant failure. In other words, what most of the player has experienced thus far has already happened many times before.

In the same way that Drakengard makes you kill enemies to the point of complete exhaustion to convey the protagonist's insanity, Nier: Automata makes you completely sick of the game to drive home the cyclical nightmare in which the androids are trapped. The level design devolves from a fairly fleshed-out world into simplistic towers that offer borderline abstract platforming challenges, culminating in a sequence of giantic, empty stairways and elevators, as purposefully hollow thematically as they are to play. If you enjoyed the orchestral soundtrack on Route A, you'll find out sooner or later that it uses light touches of electronic and folk to pass off as something other than a bog-standard Hollywood film soundtrack, which it is only two steps away from being. Do you enjoy "Weight of the World"? Don't worry, there are three other versions of the same song, one of which is sung in a pretend French-Japanese hybrid language that comes off as more tacky than all the false Latin chanting in any Call of Duty. The Eurovision Song Contest has never sounded this artistically excessive! In truth, most of the best compositions are the ambient tracks, as they give their sparse melodies much more room to breathe and establish their atmosphere than the overblown orchestral tracks do. It seems that Keiichi Okabe is so talented (as the Nier soundtrack had already demonstrated) that he is also capable of making compositions so musically void that they crumble under the weight of their instrumentation, once again much like the facade that the characters perpetrate.

It's also worth mentioning some of the more meta elements of the narrative. The astoundingly inspired decision to name bosses after philosophers such as Karl Marx, Simone de Beauvoir, and Georg Hegel with little regard for the pertinence of their ideas within the context of the game (I've always felt this game lines up more with Schopenhauer than Marx, as there may be a correlation between understanding the intricacies of this game and having a large skull) further emphasizes the existential void of the first two routes. By metaphorically destroying these philosophers, 2B and 9S refuse to question their greater situation, and are thus complicit in the perpetuation of the cycle. (Is it any wonder that 9S would enter a mental downward spiral upon seeing 2B's death, even though it is implied that he knew she was designed to execute him every time he found out the truth?) In addition, once the player has completed all three routes (including both endings of Route C), the game degenerates so much in its presentation that you are made to destroy the credits themselves, as a way to symbolize the end of this cycle (and as a way to offer the player a legitimately exciting experience by virtue of the fact that it has nothing to do with the game proper). Once that is done, you famously get the option to delete your save file so as to help other players with this final section -- of course, I gladly did as such, because I do not plan on playing this game ever again.

[second cut-off for length]
 
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Martintox

Mister Disorder
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In its own right, Nier: Automata is already a masterwork (albeit an unconventional one on an enjoyment standpoint), but what has served to elevate it to the highest echelons of video game artistry is what has happened following its release. Putting aside the multiple cameos, there have been multiple Nier-themed concerts, allowing the most bourgeois of fans to experience orchestral music so overblown that it threatens to take physical form in the venue itself. The lynchpin of this theme, however, has only surfaced very recently with the announcement of the Nier: Replicant remake, which promises, among others, the appearance of 2B and 9S's VA in minor roles as well as a fully re-recorded soundtrack with additional songs. Not only has Taro intentionally made the playing experience of Nier: Automata decay as it goes on, he has also sought out to retroactively ruin his previous titles, thus making his entire catalog a powerful testament to existential futility. For the sheer guts that it must have taken to use his most successful work to promote his previous ones, I am unable to give this anything less than my highest praise.

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PERSONAL RATING: *****
RECOMMENDATION RATING: *****
LETTERED RATING: A+

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Chupathingy

CONTROL Agent
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He is believed to be afflicted with the "Miyazaki curse" (named after Hidetaka Miyazaki), as he has an uncanny tendency to make excellent first installments, but awful sequels.
First I've ever heard of this. I would hardly call DS3 an "awful" game, unless you're referring to one of the AC games he directed, which I haven't played.