Brushed your katana and set your plug-in chip in Platinum's latest action RPG, Nier: Automata
Bored with your typical action RPG? What about a crazy hybrid of all action genre infused with unusual mechanics? That is what game developer Yoko Taro and Platinum made in this crazy action RPG, Nier: Automata. Is it working as good as they hope? Or this crazy Frankenstein monster is simply awful?
Story, Writing, Characters (10/10)
+ Deeply emotional story, you better ready yourself because Nier: Automata will attack you with constant barrage of tragedies
+ Loveable and interesting characters, including the side characters
+ Great and entertaining script with tons of lighthearted humor and deep philosophical idea
+ Each time you start new game after finishing the game for the first time, you will get new story experience through new cutscenes, new main character, and new ending. By playing it multiple game, you can get the whole picture of the story
Gameplay, UI (9/10)
+ simple skill-based hack and slash combat. Each character have their own style of combat, 2B can combine light and heavy attack into endless combo while 9S can deal significant damage through hacking mini game
+ crazy mix of side scrolling action, vertical shooter, and twin stick shooter, each giving a fresh 'perspective' (and sometimes additional challenge) to the game
+ smooth and tight control, plus you can remapped the control buttons
+ upgrade your android characters through plug-in chips. Just like your smartphone, your character have a number of slots which you can fill with this chips that can give new ability as well as upgrade your attack, defense, and health gauge. The unique thing is, your android system also take some space so if you running out of space, you can go as far as take the whole HUD, map icons, and more. You can deactivate everything unless your OS because without it your android will ceased to function
+ you can also upgrade your melee and range weapon through various vendor in the world. Or you can use enhancement items to temporarily boost your character's stats
+ each time you die, your consciousness will be transferred to a new body with all of your weapon and current level (on the last time you save) minus all of your plug-in chips. If you want to recover your chips, you will need to find your old body and retrieve it, you can repair it so it will fight with you. If you fail to retrieve your body in time (or die again before retrieving), it will be corrupted and become enemy
+ regarding new story scenario on each new gameplay, if you use the new game+ feature, you don't need to do side quests you already finished
+ simple and easy to navigate UI
+ some gameplay feature will get customized accordingly to the story so be ready for a surprise
- there are no notifications or 'new' icon for every new plug-in chip you get
- awful 8 bit style map that will confuse you more than help you, funny thing is, you can complain about it to Yoko Taro himself which is available in the game world to explain the shortcomings of this game
- you can't activate/deactivate quest, makes your mini map crowded with mission icons...and i can't complain to Yoko about this
Graphics, Art, Performance (6.5/10)
+ unique character design for both android and machine
+ good particle effects
+ gorgeous animation for main characters
- poor texture quality, poor draw distance, poor lightning, and as icing on the cake, object and texture pop-in. In general, the game looks ancient in 2017
- there is no 'real' cutscene during in-game conversation, just two/three character standing and staring each other. And during random banter between 2B and 9S, you can see that none of them move their lips
- poor optimization on standard PS4, the game rarely stay on its 60 fps target, it mostly doing 40-60 fps. To add insult to injury, the frame time is all over the place, giving you a very stutter experience. The weird thing is this happens a lot during transversal in the world and not in intense combat sequence.
Sound, Voice Acting (8.5/10)
+ epic scores by Keiichi Okabe
+ the scores is dynamically change with your story progress, including on some side missions. It really help to set the grim tone of the story
+ great performance by the Japanese casts
+ nice sound effect
- not every conversation is voiced, which is weird considering the size of the game. For comparison, both The Witcher III and Fallout 4 is around 30 GB (blu-ray content) and both have fully voiced conversation (and both are much better looking game), Nier: Automata size is near 46 GB and they can't put all of those voice data?
Verdict (8.9/10)
Nier: Automata's greatest strengths are its great story, characters, and gameplay. It's a literal wild ride from start to finish. Yes, it's not a technical marvel and the performance is annoying, especially when Square Enix release it between Horizon: Zero Dawn and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands. It still a highly recommended title and one of the best game in 2017 so far.