Recent reviews by Squermit

I wanted to like this game. The themes are of great interest to me and I enjoy this style of combat. But I can not recommend this game. I only finished route A. I will not make myself play any of the other routes. There may be good story in them, but after spending 16 hours on route A, I can't believe I would feel any better about the amount of time I'll have wasted with the busywork between good sections.

1) The game is too grindy. Everything is spread out, requiring lots of walking. Most side quests are functionally fetch quests for things sometimes on the other side of the world even before fast travel is unlocked. I found small world-building rewards insufficient to justify them. Fast travel is disabled for certain locations in some cases for no good plot reason. Farming has too high an impact on power level (both stat bonuses and weapon upgrades being locked behind a warehouse of meaningless item pick-ups). After spending 16 hours finishing route A while doing the majority of side quests, I feel like I only got 3 hours worth of meat. There are multiple escort missions of the bad variety.

2) The storytelling is unbearable. Movement between plot points can be summed up with the logic of "and then this happened" with little regard for cause and effect. Pacing is all over the place. Interesting themes and subject matter are constantly belittled by the absurd silliness of the world and the need to explain every bit of obvious subtext via dialog. Very early in the game, they make it clear that the machines are becoming conscious. But the main characters spend the majority of the game still making comments about how machines can't think or feel even though. At the same time, they're helping them with a slew of very personal side quests often involving family members. The androids are more poorly equipped to deal with the nature of their existence than I am as an outsider. 2B crying as 9S dies is evidence that the writers care more about forcing emotional scenes without thinking of the world in which they take place. 9S was just in the bunker and likely backed up 30 minutes prior. Instead, we get drama for drama's sake.

3) Player agency is not considered carefully. There were multiple points in the game where I would be put in front of an enemy without good motivation for attacking that enemy and the game would wait for me to do so. The game makes it clear in route A that you are a monster and doesn't allow you to do anything with that knowledge until the story is ready for it. This is solved in the majority of games by either having branching decision trees or by having agency taken away from the player in service of the plot. Instead, Nier:Automata puts you in front of a passive, one-of-a-kind character that defies everything your character has been taught. Then Nier waits for you to kill it. It doesn't attack you. It doesn't provoke you. There is no outside force that requires that you act quickly.

I'm done thinking about this game. I'm so disappointed.

Don't sell DLC when you're game is in early access.

Don't do that thing.

Love this game.

Fantastic game. Channels the original Metroid & Super Metroid in the best way possible.