Since I just finished the story for Nier Automata today, I decided to write something about this topic.
I just played the ending A, B, C, D, E within 3 days, so I am actually dead tired now.
Gameplay
I played the normal difficulty all the time.
At first, it started difficult for me as I got pounded near to death even when facing normal enemies and I always cheese through that by just using the gun pods all the time.
Though as the game progressed and I gained better plugin chips and weapons, the difficulty was just nice for me.
Near the end, I farmed too much and got too overleveled and the game got too easy for me. I mean I killed the final boss in 10 seconds.
The action was pretty intuitive and I got used to mix of long ranged pod shots and close ranged combat.
The game also switched between 3D and 2D platforming sometimes and I have to say they are not making these extremely difficult to face for someone who practically suck in all kinds of platformers. They do save those that require precise actions and jumping for some optional stuff, but I am happy that to say I just skipped them if I failed enough times.
The hacking part is pretty weird but I do get used to that, although I failed in the hacking part a lot.
Music
The tone of the music of game just fits the ruined and desolate world.
One particular song that I really liked would be Weight of the World in the ending credits.
Different languages (Japanese/English/Unknown language) of the song are being used in different endings and they are all great.
That amusement park theme was also memorable.
Plot
It is kinda obvious on the first route of the game there will be a twist happening and something shady brewing in the backend.
The three routes of the game blended pretty well and showed the plot happening from different perspectives.
It was all despair near the end and I am really surprised the way they started showing credits on the start of third route.
It’s like showing first and second route to just a prelude to the real story.
Characters
The obvious two main characters 2B and 9S have their own routes and obviously we get to see how they think and feel in the different routes.
But we only get to know who they truly are only near the actual end of the game.
There is also one another main character that I get to use near the end which I feel is quite underdeveloped though, due to a short time I have spending time with.
Side character like Pascal is pretty likeable when we get to know more about him and the feels I have with him near the end.
Conclusion
In my opinion, this is a really good game and pretty accessible for someone like me who button mashes my ARPGs.
Main game + 80+% sidequests took me about 40 hours to finish which is pretty short.
This looks to be a good year for JRPGs and currently this ranks second in JRPGs I have played in PS4 only below Persona 5.
I have finished only about 5-6 JRPGs in my PS4 though.
When I have time, I’ll write another piece on Persona 5 which is my favourite.