So I'm sorry guys, I have a family emergency this weekend and I was not able to put in enough time to fully review Nier: Automata for you this week. But I did play enough to give you guys some early impressions of the game.
For reference I got about 3 hours into the game, defeated three bosses, and collected a bunch of random items and upgrades. Also I played this on PC, so some things don't count on the PS4 version.
So the first thing I noticed is the jarring nature of the game. The game's optimization is wonky to say the least. Gameplay is buttery smooth at 60fps, yet the cutscenes are not only capped at 30fps they seem to struggle with that. I was getting cut scenes barely hitting 20 fps and it really hurt my experience with the story so far as the jarring nature of it took me right out of the game. This isn't my system either as the 60 fps gameplay sections never falter, I never end got a slight 59.9 dip. So the struggle to run the cut scenes is clearly a problem with the game and not the system running it.
That being said the graphics confuse the fucking hell out of me. I mean our female robot character 2B is beautifully rendered and full of detail from her looks, to her animations. She moves through the world like a hot knife through butter, it's wonderful. Combat animations are badass, even her idle animations are full of life, which is weird because she isn't...alive. The world and the enemies so far are just horrible though. While the textures of the boring grey robots and boring grey metal industrial areas, ruined cities, and empty deserts are very good textures....it's still just a bunch of boring, uninteresting areas and enemies.
Combat is also not what I expected from a Platinum game. I went into Nier expecting a Bayonetta freakshow of awesomeness with robot parts flying all over the place. What I got, was a much slower game than I expected. Melee combat seems much more focused on whiff punishing than the brutal offense of other games from the developer. 2B takes a LOT of damage when she is hit, even on normal. And her best method of combat is to time your dodges to trigger counter attack combos on enemies. You also have a robot that will fire in the direction your character is facing so long as you hold down the button for it.
Which leads me to the controls. Let me start by saying I always play games for review using the default control scheme. I want to play the game the way the developers thought it best laid out to play. Yet someone over there at Platinum made the choice of putting the ever-important dodge button on the Right Trigger. In a game like this dodging needs to be a lightning fast reflex, and the right trigger is not only unintuitive but also the slowest button on the controller to push. I can't tell you how much damage I've taken because I'm trying to dodge using a button that makes more sense like "B".
Overall it isn't a bad game though, it is just different from what I expected. The game loves to shift perspectives from 3rd person action game, to side scroller, to bullet hell, to twin stick shooter, and maybe that's the problem. Nier is a game trying to do SOOO much, that it doesn't do any of the things particularly well so far.
As it stands I'm a little bit put off on Nier. But I'll continue through to get a better view of the title as a whole. I just wanted to get something up for you guys who love listening to be ***** about games.
For reference I got about 3 hours into the game, defeated three bosses, and collected a bunch of random items and upgrades. Also I played this on PC, so some things don't count on the PS4 version.
So the first thing I noticed is the jarring nature of the game. The game's optimization is wonky to say the least. Gameplay is buttery smooth at 60fps, yet the cutscenes are not only capped at 30fps they seem to struggle with that. I was getting cut scenes barely hitting 20 fps and it really hurt my experience with the story so far as the jarring nature of it took me right out of the game. This isn't my system either as the 60 fps gameplay sections never falter, I never end got a slight 59.9 dip. So the struggle to run the cut scenes is clearly a problem with the game and not the system running it.
That being said the graphics confuse the fucking hell out of me. I mean our female robot character 2B is beautifully rendered and full of detail from her looks, to her animations. She moves through the world like a hot knife through butter, it's wonderful. Combat animations are badass, even her idle animations are full of life, which is weird because she isn't...alive. The world and the enemies so far are just horrible though. While the textures of the boring grey robots and boring grey metal industrial areas, ruined cities, and empty deserts are very good textures....it's still just a bunch of boring, uninteresting areas and enemies.
Combat is also not what I expected from a Platinum game. I went into Nier expecting a Bayonetta freakshow of awesomeness with robot parts flying all over the place. What I got, was a much slower game than I expected. Melee combat seems much more focused on whiff punishing than the brutal offense of other games from the developer. 2B takes a LOT of damage when she is hit, even on normal. And her best method of combat is to time your dodges to trigger counter attack combos on enemies. You also have a robot that will fire in the direction your character is facing so long as you hold down the button for it.
Which leads me to the controls. Let me start by saying I always play games for review using the default control scheme. I want to play the game the way the developers thought it best laid out to play. Yet someone over there at Platinum made the choice of putting the ever-important dodge button on the Right Trigger. In a game like this dodging needs to be a lightning fast reflex, and the right trigger is not only unintuitive but also the slowest button on the controller to push. I can't tell you how much damage I've taken because I'm trying to dodge using a button that makes more sense like "B".
Overall it isn't a bad game though, it is just different from what I expected. The game loves to shift perspectives from 3rd person action game, to side scroller, to bullet hell, to twin stick shooter, and maybe that's the problem. Nier is a game trying to do SOOO much, that it doesn't do any of the things particularly well so far.
As it stands I'm a little bit put off on Nier. But I'll continue through to get a better view of the title as a whole. I just wanted to get something up for you guys who love listening to be ***** about games.
