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Simplifying it into a game that "just" loads Android with sensual outfits, this may be the impression that comes up every time the talk about NieR: Automata surfaced in cyberspace. The conversation always focuses on the figure of the main protagonist - YoRHa 2B who does show a pampering appearance, even enough to make it a prime target for cosplay and fanart scattered in cyberspace today. But NieR is not just about sweet Android and the destruction of the world. The brains behind it - Yoko Taro manages to concoct one of the best action game experiences we've ever tasted, especially from the way he sees the human side of "human".

For a short gameplay session that we made as the basis of the preview article, the initial attraction is still leading to the gameplay that is handled by Platinum Games, as well as the character of 2B itself that is difficult to ignore just like that. But believe it or not, the preview article is nothing more than just scratch the surface of what is actually offered by NieR: Automata this one. The deeper you dig, the more powerful it will show its other appeal. Something that will make you fall in love with the game time.

So, what is actually offered by NieR: This Automata? Why do we call it a game that presents something more than just looks? This review will discuss it more deeply for you:

Plot

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For those of you who are not too familiar, NieR: Automata is not the first series for this one franchise. He actually shares a common thread with the previous NieR series, which also deals with other Square Enix game concoctions - Drakengard. The good news? If you end up like us, with no basic knowledge related to it, you will still be able to enjoy NieR: Automata optimally as a whole story. While the gamers who are familiar and follow the previous NieR series will probably be able to explore further side of the existing story through the presence of "old" characters and information about the theme of Gestalt and Replicant. So, do not worry about that.

NieR: Automata tells the story of a distant scenario in the future where man is faced with a doomsday dream - an attack from outer space. But not at war alone, these aliens created killer machines whose tasks are only one - wiping out humans as a race. Of course, humans do not just stay silent. They decided to flee to the moon, take place there, while continuing to draw up a great plan to take back the earth. One of them? By creating a special Android troop named YoRHa designed to carry the sacred duty. To facilitate the logistics process, a space station named Bunker is placed in Earth's orbit.

So, what kind of conflicts should be faced by 2B and 9S? Who is also A2? Can they win the battle against the machines and save people? Or is a different world ready to greet them? All the answers to that question you can get by playing NieR: This Automata.

Visual is not a Priority

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In contrast to most recent release games that make visuals a priority, NieR: Automata is not exactly stunning in this part, at least from the version of Playstation 4 that we jajal. Of course it is not just a technical issue of the 60fps gameplay promise that is still difficult to fulfill on this non-pro Sony platform on this one, but also the presentation they show from the aesthetic side itself. The post-apocalyptic world of the NieR: Automata is not a world of vegetation-rich Horizon Zero Dawn with a subtle wildlife with it. It is a world that is counted "dry" with a similarly shaped machine to each other that inhabit for you to kill. It is a post-apocalyptic world that from the beginning gives a clear impression, a world of decisions.

Calling NieR: Automata as an open-world game is arguably a bit wrong. That the vast world he offers from the beginning is nothing more than a "way" to move from one point to another, with extra side missions in it. The activities you can do in it are minimal. You can only go fishing to get extra unique items to ride wild animals that are there to accelerate the side of your mobility. The rest? It is just a place to "hang" the NPC characters who will give you quests or just the machines you have to kill to summarize them. Outline? Regardless of the varied designs, from pastures, the ruins of the past civilization, the desert, to the jungle, it is not an open world of interest to explore.

However, all of this seems to be treated with the NieR character design that deserves thumbs up, especially for the main characters that exist, from 2B, 9S, and A2 to the various supporting characters that you find in Bunker. Even the same appeal they also offer from the boss design that you face, which is contrary to the ordinary engine enemy design that feels monotonous. Each boss you face has its own unit characteristics and strength, reinforcing that the engines you are enemies here are not a world that does not grow at all. These machines, just like you - Android, are something that represents the human side in a unique and strange way. They also offer an interesting combat scene too, at least at some point. We ourselves are quite disappointed that some of the battles against these machines, especially the massive ones, are often solved in a scripted format. Yet like Metal Gear Rising or Bayonetta 2, we hope the opportunity to fight in a straightforward manner by using your skills and not just adjusted from the side of the story.

So from the presentation side, there's not much to be commended about NieR: Automata in addition to the Android designs, characters, and boss machines you're dealing with. While on the other side, like the world or the enemies of the machine you have to kill, it ends flat. Not interesting? Maybe. But for unclear reasons, especially in terms of his post-apocalypic world design, he built a hopeless atmosphere that ended, in our opinion, worthy of the theme of the stretcher that NieR is about to offer: the Automata itself.

It’s Platinum!

You who had time to follow the action of Platinum action lunge, seems to have understood clearly lunge developers who deserve the title as one of the best action game peracik in this one game industry. Their games always support a fast, precise game style, with a dodge system that, when executed in the right timing, will produce a certain effect that you can exploit for strategic advantage in combat. The same thing happened in NieR: Automata this time.

2B itself will be armed with two types of weapons that can be used separately, or can be used for a combination attack with more effective damage. Divided into "Normal" and "Heavy" attacks, you can use them separately or combine them if needed. Platinum also provides enough weapons for use by Android, from a boxing glove with motifs, spears, large swords, to smaller swords. By collecting the various materials you get from exploration, side missions, or defeating enemies, you can also strengthen and improve the effectiveness of these weapons in the nearest blacksmith.

The rest, you seem to be able to predict. The battle runs fast like a typical Platinum game, with damage that will depend on the level of your game character itself, as it should be an RPG action game. Which are interesting? Once the precision of Platinum design, you who have the skill will be able to subdue the enemy with a higher level without problems, as long as you can utilize the timing of the attack appropriately. The enemy you face here also varies, although the design of the engine generally ends up like a robot with a strange head. The enemy comes with a variety of weapons, properties, shapes, and sizes. You will meet enemies that are two to three times your size, but that does not mean it is impossible to subdue.

Beyond melee attacks, your character will also be reinforced with the "support" weapon of your Pod. A small robot that will keep following you is not just a cosmetic for the side of the story, but can effectively, support your battle action. You can change the functionality of this Pod to be a range based weapon or missile for example, with a special attack that will be accessed like a cooldown-based time skill. He can fire powerful lasers, throw bombs within a certain time, into a big melee weapon, to throw a wave-shaped attack on the ground. Pod will also be your mainstay to overcome the enemies in the distance that may, ineffective with the sword attack that you live.

The cool thing is, it does not always hold up about just level increases that can be achieved with extra exp points like RPG games only, you can modify the characters by using the Chips system. Think of it as an accessory with a limited slot, Chips will allow you to wear certain buffs / functions according to the number of slots that can load them. You can add attack damage, making your dodge ability now have a time freeze effect in Bayonetta 2, making your HP recover in a certain percentage every time it crushes the machine, until just reinforce it. Through the options in the store you meet, you can also combine chips with the same effect to produce a chip with a stronger buff.

One unique thing is that this game is not purely hack and slash. To support the existing story, they also melded it into several unique and interesting formats. There is a gameplay session along with your mecha that ends like a two-dimensional plane game you tasted in the first arcade period, complete with a bullet hell that contains enemy shots that you should avoid with alacrity. Some stages will also change the movement format to two dimensions, just like a classic side-scroller game but retain all the things you can use. We ourselves do not mind too much about this, but admittedly, the movement at some stage ends up feeling awkward when it comes in two-dimensional format, especially when the focus starts on the platformer.

Gameplay mechanics is a surface that will lead you to fall in love with NieR: Automata after it may be pampered with the appearance of its main character. But believe it or not, this is just the beginning to make it into the abyss of action games that you may never have experienced before.

Not Enough!

One of the highlights of NieR: Automata is the fact that this game is not designed to be enjoyed with just one game, just like the previous NieR series. That in order to get a more complete and clear picture of the story with what's going on in the world you're facing, you have to taste it over and over again. But just calm down, this is not just a matter of repeating the game using one character in the same difficult difficulty level. Platinum Games, Square Enix, and Yoko Taro blend into something more innovative than that.

That once you have completed a playthrough, the next playthrough will contain a different character from the storyline that will enhance your knowledge of what is the story of NieR Automata, while providing a more definitive ending. The first playthrough will include the 2B iconic journey. Once you complete it, you will have the opportunity to play as a partner - 9S in the same storyline, but with a different perspective. When you use 2B, 9S is a loyal partner who will accompany your battle action as well as have a significant story role where he will sometimes come out of the story line to do another mysterious busyness. While when you start a second playthrough from the 9S side, you will have the chance to enjoy the same story but from that "lost" perspective.

The sequel to the true story with the definitive ending will begin in the third playthrough, where you will no longer repeat the 2B-9S scenario story in the previous playthrough. So, you need to at least finish this game three times to really be able to enjoy it. The good news? It is designed to the maximum extent possible to make your experience not end repetitive. As you move from first playthrough to second and then, to third, your character progress, including weapon level and chips design will persist. The enemy may be stronger, but your persistence to grind in one playthrough will still be sweet in the next playthrough. Which is more cool again? All the side missions you have completed will no longer appear.

In fact, this game offers a unique side mission for each character in every Playthrough. Like us you use 9S for example. With the new gameplay mechanics that he carries - Hacking, which makes him able to smash the machines from within their bodies through a unique mechanic that will rely on your performance in a shooting mini-game, 9S will have an extra side mission. He can now fight on a machine with a gold body that can not be killed by 2B, he can now save one of the machines trapped in his room and need a hacked key. And of course, there will be extra side missions also for the third playthrough that now contains different stories, conflicts, and characters. NieR: Automata ensures this experience is unlocked on the overly repetitive gaming sensation.

There are at least five story-based endings that you can pursue to perfect them, but they can be found in the third playthrough. NieR: Automata will open the "Chapters" mode which allows you to select and play back all scenarios from the first playthrough to the third instant. So, for the fourth and fifth endings that depend on just an option, this will be very convenient.

Fantastic Side Mission Design

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Working on an RPG action game with a side mission worth talking about is not something easy. The Witcher 3 does it very well, but games like Final Fantasy XV for example, make it end up like a big job that demands without feeling essence at all. If you include gamers who like to keep themselves busy with missions like this, the good news, NieR: Automata executes them fantastically. Probably not in terms of variants, but he ensures that he contributes to the atmosphere and the story itself.

Most of these side missions do end up asking you to collect or destroy something, but what makes it different is the fact that it has layers of stories designed to give a clearer picture of what's going on in the world of NieR: Automata itself, whether seriously or just a joke. The simple thing to support it comes from the 2B and 9S comments that consistently mingle about any side mission they deserve. The interaction between the two whenever preoccupied with a specific mission like this, sometimes gives a clearer insight about the happening. From how absurd the mission is, or just how 9s hate it, or how they try to translate it in their Android's moral standards. Stories are also built on the interaction of NPC characters involved, and help provide a new perspective by looking at a particular topic or even the NieR world itself.

The result is a side mission that is more than just a lazy design to keep you busy, and ends up being something worth pursuing on the basis of the story. Interesting again? Not all side missions that can be spelled out not too much from this quantity side, can be solved with just one game only. There are missions that will require you to keep coming back and back, with new conflicts, but with the same character. Like when you have to beat an obsessed machine to keep on strengthening itself, which you might at least need to bow five times before really once. Relax, the indicators to complete each of them are also clearly visible on the map provided. You know where to go and talk to whom. Although sometimes, some do not explain exactly what you should do.

A Game that is "Weight" and "Dark"

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One thing we never predicted we would get from NieR: Automata is how emotional this one game. That over the time you spend with it, you begin to understand that the battle story against the machines that turn out to have their own conflict is not a Disney fairy tale that will make your heart smile and be happy after tasting it. That in a world that has been destroyed and on the edge of extinction, despair and sadness is a normal emotion. And all, NieR Automata is well offered.

We ourselves like how the game looks at the concept that has always been romanticized like the word "Love" for example. That in games with a heavy theme though, Love is always positioned as a hope tower for something better or more positive in the future. But not in NieR. That love is portrayed as nothing more than a tool for mutual use on behalf of survival, or on the other hand, is difficult to distinguish from sexual passion and passion for the opposite sex. That, love is not the solution to the problem. In some cases, in the hands of those who are not entitled to it, it is an effective manipulation tool for achieving any pre-planned objectives.

Through their story style, NieR: Automata ensures you will build emotional attachments with many things, including for ordinary machines struggling to build a normal nonviolent life. You will be introduced about how they do their daily activities, how they perceive the conflicts that occur, and the various attractions that make the community difficult to be unloved. Then, NieR throws every one of them into the abyss full of lava and fire, pulls them from their heart, and then offers you a powerful question - "What are you going to do right now on behalf of mercy?". And he closed the question a gaping hole in your heart, which you never knew, was there when tasting this one game.

Her ability to strengthen herself with the theme of mature, heavy, and dark stories is a powerful reason that makes us fall in love with NieR: The Automata. We set out hoping to enjoy a typical hack and slash action game, and come home with a big hole in the heart.

The charm of Yoko Taro

As a gamer who is not too familiar with the work of Yoko Taro, see the figure of the brain behind the NieR is always present with a large mask on the head would make it feel like an eccentric character. But if you feel that his "weirdness" is nothing more than an action to make the Automata reap the attention, then you will be wrong. Tasting NieR: Automata finally opened our eyes about the figure who did not hesitate to explore games that he racik with features that are no longer countless absurd, but also crazy. That we ended up meeting someone else we could be crazy, "Hibi Kojima's" genius "for this kind of business.

Do not go far, we can talk about alternative ending in NieR: Automata. Waluapun only contains 5 pieces of ending associated with the main story, which is represented with the letters "A" to "E", he actually has 26 other ending variants, which are represented from the letters "A" to "Z". That's right, that much! But unlike the first five endings designed from the side of the story, the other 21 endings can be accomplished by doing a lot of absurd things you've never predicted before. Example? You can unplug the 2B Android OS chip that is clearly essential, make it die, and get a new ending. Or you can take the liberty to eat a mackerel fish that has been clearly warned toxic to Android, and get other endings. Or, blow themselves up in the Bunker and kill all the other YoRha troops. Wow!

Kojima-style approach and trolling is also presented on the side of the gameplay. For example when you find a machine variant wrapped in gold material when the middle of the walk as 2B in the first playthrough. The reaction of most gamers will of course directly confront these machines and attack them. But what do you meet? The skin is so thick up to 2B attack will result in minimal damage that makes it take a long time to be subdued. You intend to finish their HP with 2B? Go ahead. You may be satisfied with the achievement until you discover the fact that these golden enemies could be killed by 9S in the second playthrough, with his super-fast hacking ability. You will also encounter an enemy variant whose focus of attack is to damage the HUD / User-interface of your screen. The more often you are attacked, the lower the resolution and the colors you see on television, the harder it is to subdue them. Got us scratching our heads.

Through NieR: Automata, Yoko Taro also does something that has never been done by any Playstation game so far. Instead of letting gamers struggle to get every trophy available for maximum accomplishment - a "valuable Platinum Trophy" by having them complete each side mission, it makes it possible to be purchased with an in-game item with money in in Automata itself. Option that opens after the third playthrough is of course interesting and crazy at the same time, because it has never been taken by any developer. And they do not lie. Although it took a lot of money to do it, we managed to get Platinum by way of "cheating" this time with gameplay only about 32 hours. But of course, the story-related trophy will not get you this way.

But of all the crazy things done by Yoko Taro in this game is a "tickle" demand thrown by Automata for the fifth ending. In a game session that takes you in a battle of aircraft with a bullet hell condition that is impossible to solve by yourself, you can call other randomly generated aircraft that is a plane belonging to other users around the world. With the presence of 5 extra planes from other users, this session is easier to complete. However, there is one fatal consequence. The help aircraft you are calling for this help will lose their save data, permanently, if the end is destroyed when you call. This means, they have to play back their game from scratch. And once you complete this fifth ending, you are thrown a similar question. Will you help someone else's plane if your plane dies, you will lose your save data? We, with our cowardly instincts, said no.

This last design really tickles and feels meta. We ended up being a "selfish" gamer who has eliminated at least 4-5 user data from around the world because of our inability to finish the bullet hell stage cleanly. They are the ones who do not hesitate to answer "Yes" to that one strange question. People who do not hesitate to sacrifice themselves, to make sure others succeed. But when the question is returned to us who incidentally has sacrificed save other people's data to do the same, the process of weighing the positive and negative side surfaced, to the conclusion that actually makes us feel like a loser. Yoko Taro was able to do that.

So from his peculiar cold hands, Yoko Taro throws at us all the things that make it very difficult to dislike. Outside eccentricity, dark story concepts, absurd mechanical approach, to content enough to make you personally weigh your own moral values. Fantastic!

Exceptional Music

When talking about music in video games, there are two types of music in our perspective. There are games that come with the quality of the music in order to simply support your journey, and there are games that are able to make you want to include each OST into your music device. With great delight, we can announce that the original music that NieR offers: Automata without difficulty, is ready to enter this second category.

The music that he offers is really amazing and pamper the ears. In fact we do not hesitate to mention that none of the music he has to offer an endless memorable. Music with subtle vocals that can represent a mysterious technological sensation, but on the other hand, feels haunted by the emotional sensations that are full of tenderness and sadness at the same time seems to represent the quality very well. Can not believe it? You can enjoy from small things like the main theme song, to the music that plays when you are on stage like Amusement Park or when in Pascal Village for example. You will understand.

The thumbs up, or whatever thumbs it takes, deserve to be directed to music in NieR: Automata. No more words other than "WOW!".

Conclusion

NieR: Automata is an incredible RPG action game, no longer a better word to describe the experience we get from it. On the surface, it may feel like a super shallow action and slash game that just sells 2B's "ass" as the main attraction. But slowly but surely, as you begin to explore the world offered by this one Yoko Taro, you will begin to understand it is not a game you see just on the surface. In it, it contains an intense emotional storyline, intelligent side missions, a solid fight system, fantastic music, and a combination of insanity that Yoko Taro inserted in it. He is slow but certainly shows what the essence of the journey of the Android to save the world. Everything is offered in different character perspectives.

Although countless is not significant, NieR: Automata is still not a game that counted perfectly. There are some technical complaints such as an unstable framerate when engaged in a busy bout or its own less attractive world design. But from us personally, the first complaint that arises is the portion of a scripted bout that we think is too much. As gamers who fell in love with the Platinum Games approach at Bayonetta 2, we sincerely hope the giant bosses that appear can be dealt with bluntly with your swords instead of relying on mecha or other scripts. The design of a machine that has a minimal variance is also another extra note.

But beyond those deficiencies, NieR: Automata becomes one of the RPG action games that we will not hesitate to recommend to you. You may start coming because of the 2B character design, but this game will be enough to get you digging deeper into the world, story, and unraveling the mystery of what really happened, all executed in fantastic element proportions, from gameplay to music. A five-star RPG action experience in the end.

Advantages

• The character design of the protagonist
• Design boss
• Platinum action gameplay
• Mechanical oddity in the hands of Yoko Taro
• The story is heavy, dark, mature
• Side mission is done seriously
• Great music
• Not monotonous and repetitive
  -The combination of chips that make customization interesting

Weakness

• Too many scripted battles
• World design is not too interesting
• Enemy variant is too little
• Unstable Framerate (PS4 non-pro)

Suitable for gamers: RPG action lovers, lovers of action games from Platinum Games

Not suitable for gamers: who are unhappy with the "strangely" anime / manga / game story from Japan, who expect more activity in the open-world scheme.

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