Should I buy NieR Automata?

[Kotaro]

Just don't forget to buy a chip for automatic item pickup from Devola and Popola as soon as they move into the camp later on. It's incredibly convenient, and if you advance the plot beyond a certain point, you won't have another chance to get it from them until near the very end of the game.

But yeah, there's no real punishment for experimenting with your ability chips as long as you don't get overly-enthusiastic about fusing them and end up with ones way too big to equip.

Got the Deadly heal, auto-heal and evasion boost now. Gonna keep an eye out for that other stuff you mentioned.

Last thing (and more MINOR SPOILERS): If you have any sidequests you want to complete in the first chunk of the game, do them BEFORE going to the mission at the coast. Once you finish that bit, it's a point of no return for most of the sidequests.

Probable undiagnosed OCD FTW!

*Edit* Also, and I don't know why I even ask: Should I bother with the fishing mechanic? I mean, please dear god no, but if it really does yield results.........

Fish can be sold to shops for some extra cash, but that's really about it as far as I could tell. There was a lot more depth to the fishing in the first Nier, and it seems like just the bare minimum of it was kept in Automata for the sake of having it. So if you ever need a little bit more money, it's worth spending a few minutes fishing, but otherwise you can completely ignore it.

Unrelated, and you're probably already aware of this since it's one of the things about this game that everyone was talking about when it first came out, but FURTHER SPOILERS BELOW (though kept as minimal as possible to explain this):
You need to do New Game+ at least twice to unlock the true final chapter of the game (the second playthrough is the same game with some changed scenes and some new ones for a reason you'll find out when you get to it, and the third playthrough is a continuation of the plot from there). And then get both possible endings in the third playthrough--determined by which character you choose for the true final battle, though 9S also needs to say no when offered a deal in his final cutscene in order for it to count--to get one last minigame and the absolute final scene of the game after the credits.

 

[reignsupreme]

Deadly heal is extremely useful especially the highest level that gives you 30% of your health back per kill. Standard attack and defense chips were also pretty helpful I found. In my opinion stacking those was more helpful then shockwave on the first play through because you wanna get upclose and personal. Later on you can get chips that increase your dodge range and can even slow down time if you execute a perfect dodge (this is hella useful on hard mode). Doing the side quests is very useful as they can give you special abilities for your pods. Some of which are super good. Someone mentioned above about a place (flooded city that cancels all uncompleted sidequests ( I wish I knew that going in) if you fish at that location you can get a surprise!
I thought the game was very fun to play and the story really engaging. you definitely need to play it the three times to get the real ending. Even though the first replay is the same as the first in terms of events the game switches up some gameplay mechanics among other things to keep it fresh.

side note: one side quest is a series of races and it's infuriating. It was the only quest I didn't finish in the game despite trying 30+ times. Hopefully you have better luck!

Edit* if you fish in the sewers you can get a pretty poor weapon but if you want the full armory I think that's the only way to get it

 

[Kotaro]

Someone mentioned above about a place (flooded city that cancels all uncompleted sidequests ( I wish I knew that going in) if you fish at that location you can get a surprise!

side note: one side quest is a series of races and it's infuriating. It was the only quest I didn't finish in the game despite trying 30+ times. Hopefully you have better luck!

Edit* if you fish in the sewers you can get a pretty poor weapon but if you want the full armory I think that's the only way to get it

I completely forgot about fishing in the Flooded City to get that item. Thanks for bringing it up. On a similar note, be sure to comb the desert until you find a thing buried in the sand. Both of these items are very useful in certain situations.
The races are frustrating at first, but if you equip some high-level movement speed up and dash boost chips, they become very doable. At that point it's all about finding the optimal route.
I actually didn't know about fishing in the sewers. Huh. I wouldn't have thought to try that.

 

[The Eupho Guy_v1legacy]

I did, only because I thought it would be the kind of game that would hide something in a weird location like that. It's not a good weapon, so unless you're going for 100% completion I wouldn't worry too much about it. It is a nice call back, though.

Also with the thing in the desert, if your hearing isn't as messed up as mine is, it will emit a continuous high frequency ping when you are near it. The first time I knew about it was in a recorded video for an LP. I never heard it in game.

 

[jademunky]

Well anyway, due to work and beer friends watching hockey on TV and beer i've only been able to frnshinish about 3.5 hours of gameplay thus far. So far I have gleaned that:

Spoiler

I am the bad guy.

When the game goes open-world I encounter enemy robots that just wander around harming nobody. Of course I kill them anyway while they spout cryptic lines of mawkish dialogue about how they all want to be robot parents of robot babies, culminating in a cutscene where they desperately create a nanotech hybrid of Seperoth and Theon Greyjoy that will doubtless harbour some kind of fully-justified hatred towards me.

Also I spent 10K of in-game currency on a stupid-buster-sword-thing that I really wish I had not bought.

 

[Kotaro]

I am the bad guy.

It's a bit more complicated than that, but I won't spoil the plot for you. You'll see. But it does continue to be depressing and horrifying throughout the whole game, because it's Nier, that's what it does.

 

[The Eupho Guy_v1legacy]

To be fair, its more that its Yoko Taro in general, rather than just Nier. I mean, the first game he directed, Drakengard 1 was awful people doing awful things from beginning to end, so Automata's moral ambiguity is something of a positive step.

 

[Dalisclock]

To be fair, its more that its Yoko Taro in general, rather than just Nier. I mean, the first game he directed, Drakengard 1 was awful people doing awful things from beginning to end, so Automata's moral ambiguity is something of a positive step.

Apparently in Draknegard, the first ending is kinda sorta happy while each ending after that gets more and more bleak, with each ending requiring more effort and completion to unlock. The final ending apparently requires 100% completion and leads to the apocalypse in Neir. And it's also pretty wierd.

 

[The Eupho Guy_v1legacy]

To be fair, its more that its Yoko Taro in general, rather than just Nier. I mean, the first game he directed, Drakengard 1 was awful people doing awful things from beginning to end, so Automata's moral ambiguity is something of a positive step.

Apparently in Draknegard, the first ending is kinda sorta happy while each ending after that gets more and more bleak, with each ending requiring more effort and completion to unlock. The final ending apparently requires 100% completion and leads to the apocalypse in Neir. And it's also pretty wierd.

The first ending is certainly the least bad. It's still pretty weird (The final boss of the first loop is a 50 foot little girl that occasionally sounds like a 40 year old chain smoking man... yeah...) but at least most of the cast survives. Things get less ok after that.

Spoiler: However, it's on the fourth game loop where the game gets really crazy

Spoiler

Yes, those are giant floating babies coming out of what can only be described as hell portals.

 

[jademunky]

To be fair, its more that its Yoko Taro in general, rather than just Nier. I mean, the first game he directed, Drakengard 1 was awful people doing awful things from beginning to end, so Automata's moral ambiguity is something of a positive step.

Yeah I only finished Drakengard once,

Spoiler

never got so far as the giant fetuses. Do they make any sense in context if you finish all the endings?

 

[Kotaro]

I never had a chance to play Drakengard because it's gotten kind of rare and expensive. Though both Nier games have as their "final-final" endings the sort of "ray of hope" endings (things went bad, but it's not over and there's a chance of it getting better later) that I really dig for whatever reason, Automata especially.

 

[The Eupho Guy_v1legacy]

Spoiler

never got so far as the giant fetuses. Do they make any sense in context if you finish all the endings?

Spoiler

Not really, but then again the whole game is going batshit crazy by then, so flying giant fetuses make as much sense as anything else going on. Also, the final boss of the last loop is

Spoiler

a rhythm game against the queen of said fetuses... In the skies above Tokyo.

Spoiler: and your reward for beating said queen?

(If you want to skip the credits roll once it starts, skip to 4:25)

 

[Dalisclock]

I never had a chance to play Drakengard because it's gotten kind of rare and expensive. Though both Nier games have as their "final-final" endings the sort of "ray of hope" endings (things went bad, but it's not over and there's a chance of it getting better later) that I really dig for whatever reason, Automata especially.

I didn't play it, I watched a LP. Honestly, the combat looked pretty tedius and not particuulary fun and that's pretty much what the game is, just a bunch of grindy combat. The fact it's so dark with your characters(one of them is a child molester, which was heavily edited out of the US version but is pretty clear in the original Japanese, apparently) being total shits is why anyone remembers it.

And I've never heard anyone say that you should play it for the gameplay.

 

[Dalisclock]

To be fair, its more that its Yoko Taro in general, rather than just Nier. I mean, the first game he directed, Drakengard 1 was awful people doing awful things from beginning to end, so Automata's moral ambiguity is something of a positive step.

Yeah I only finished Drakengard once,

Spoiler

never got so far as the giant fetuses. Do they make any sense in context if you finish all the endings?

SO what I've been able suss out is that the giant Fetuses are supposed to be Angels coming to wipe out mankind because God is pissed or something to that effect. However, it's as clear as mud because Drakengard apparently(again, from what I've been able to dig up on the net) Drakengards wierd dark fantasy universe with giant seals holding back the apocolypse, demon babies, goddesses in human form and dragons was very similar to ours until about 900 AD when some unexplained catastrophic event occured and then history changes to became that.

If I'm wrong, please let me know.

 

[jademunky]

Spoiler

never got so far as the giant fetuses. Do they make any sense in context if you finish all the endings?

Spoiler

Not really, but then again the whole game is going batshit crazy by then, so flying giant fetuses make as much sense as anything else going on. Also, the final boss of the last loop is

Spoiler

a rhythm game against the queen of said fetuses... In the skies above Tokyo.

Spoiler: and your reward for beating said queen?

(If you want to skip the credits roll once it starts, skip to 4:25)

Yeah, I googled that exact video the other day. "Giant fetus monster" was all I needed to hear.

 

[jademunky]

Also, I had to uninstall FAR. It was, for some reason, causing the Total Warhammer games (both of them) to crash on launch.

 

[Kotaro]

Also, I had to uninstall FAR. It was, for some reason, causing the Total Warhammer games (both of them) to crash on launch.

That's... really weird. Can't imagine how it would cause that.

 

[jademunky]

Also, I had to uninstall FAR. It was, for some reason, causing the Total Warhammer games (both of them) to crash on launch.

That's... really weird. Can't imagine how it would cause that.

No idea, both games (and seemingly only those games) would crash when launched. After uninstalling the "injector" it all runs just fine. (*EDIT* except for the fugging aforementioned windowed-mode-problem again)

I am also getting a little bit of side-quest fatigue. Should I bother? (story payoff-wise?)

 

[ChupathingyX]

I am also getting a little bit of side-quest fatigue. Should I bother? (story payoff-wise?)

There are some quests with relatively important story information (mainly world building). However, when you complete the game for the third time you unlock a useful chapter select that lets you go back and complete any unfinished business so don't worry too much about point of no return and feeling the need to do everything before progressing.

 

[jademunky]

I am also getting a little bit of side-quest fatigue. Should I bother? (story payoff-wise?)

There are some quests with relatively important story information (mainly world building). However, when you complete the game for the third time you unlock a useful chapter select that lets you go back and complete any unfinished business so don't worry too much about point of no return and feeling the need to do everything before progressing.

Then I should probably just focus on the main quest since I seem to be in danger of falling into the open-world-side-quest-rabbit-hole and usually lose interest eventually when that happens.