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It just snowballs so far from where the game began.
The humans aren't even really an important part of this story, aside from being the reason and motivation behind a lot of things happening.
But it's kinda self-inflicted, because, like the saying goes "there is nothing new under the sun", every story has already been told, there is nothing original anymore...yet, it is possible to enjoy well done repeitions, I guess (and don't get me wrong, I've also my personal list of things that make me roll my eyes)
My point is...keep an open mind. Some people are saying Nier : Automata's philosophical message is pretentious and basic, even rudimentary, and add that only people that haven't played/red a lot can enjoy it. I find this quite dismissive. There is a lot to analyze and think upon in N : A, and yes, it's nothing new...but damn does it understand the potential of videogames as a medium. Plus, I kinda share its philosophical views so, that helps.
Don't worry you do not have to prove anything. I know very well that what I'm writing is just opinion. I just find it nice and insightful to discuss and read other opinions on this game.
I usually go blind into games so not to be hyped or spoilered and did the same for N:A.
Me growing tired of certain clichés is a thing I did not willingly inflict on me it just happened over time. But your assessment seems correct there. I personally would also not derive some intellectual high ground from this as I still like fragfests like i.e. Broforce.
@slandy @lessthanof @psyntifik
For me the problem is not, that I'm able to guess where the story will go.
The problem is that I'm sure a twist will happen that will invalidate all my progress or invert it in a way you have been the evil guy all along. This makes it hard to get emotionally attached to the characters, which should be the core of any good story.
And I guess this is one of the reasons I don't care for the characters at all.
The other reason is that we never get any background for 2B in the first route. We only get world background. So why should I care if this replacable android dies?
Another game another approach: The intro of Ori and the blind forest is maybe 5 minutes? But it manages to catch me emotionally and makes me want to help the little guy see its journey to the end.
We'll see where this game goes after route C.
Apart from the story considerations, I still think that the game is just mediocre in its mechanically execution. I will reconsider after route C but I do not have high hopes here.
I guess I can see why you would assume the game would go in the "your characters are the villains and the machines are the helpless good guys" direction, but it just doesn't. I'm not sure what else I can tell you, without just straight-up spoiling what happens.
No, this is not a story where the androids turn out to be the "real monsters" in the end, nor is it a story where the organization the main characters are working for become the main antagonists of the game after the main characters "learn the truth" and then become hunted by said evil organization.
You say you don't care about the characters because you're assuming these things about the story. Well, stop. Because your assumptions are incorrect.
As far as 2B is concerned, I can promise you there is way more to her character than what you saw. Again, I'm not going to spoil it, but I'll just say this: when I first played the game, for a while, she was probably my least favorite character, because she seemed incredibly inconsistent and sloppily written. I wondered why she was supposed to be this cold, unfeeling person, who doesn't care at all when her comrades die in combat, but then when 9S -- some kid who she just met -- is in danger, she suddenly freaks out and acts completely out of character. She acts this way throughout the story, and it just felt really bizarre to me.
But once I got to the end of the game, I realized that the way she was behaving made perfect sense and she became one of my favorite characters as a result.
This is what I was talking about before, when I mentioned Taro's writing style, and how this is the type of story that takes seeing to completion and going back through everything you just did with the end-game knowledge in order to truly appreciate the writing. Again, some people like this style of story-telling; some people don't, and just want a more cohesive, up-front plot. And that's fine.
I personally prefer more convoluted stories that give me a bunch of puzzle pieces and make me put them together in my head. It's just fun to me. But not everyone is going to feel the same in that regard.
Nobody is evil and everybody is a victim of circumstance.
Also you're not told about 2B for a good reason.
Different strokes, I guess :s
I'm excited for you to continue on with it, but do take the extra 20 minutes to stop at E instead of turning it off at C.
- The gameplay got even more annyoing with that repetetive hacking mini game.
- 9S intro was really poor. 2B fights through a cool factory and 9S fights enemies in a tube? Come on, I was expecting to see her in the background or something while I hover above.
- 9S transitions between the flight modes during the carrier boss battle were really random and did not make sense at all.
- The load times were still a chore.
- The amount of senseless running around doing poorly designed fetch quests stayed high.
- 9S combat is even more boring than that of 2B. Hack enemies to death, yeay.
So in short, the core gameplay loop stayed boring.
So was it saved by the highly praised story or plot twists?
Ehm, no!
Logical errors:
Quite frankly, the story has so many inconsistencies and logical errors, that it even destroyed suspension of disbelieve for me.
Example?
If 9S can remote hack machines from the bunker, why do they need ground units at all.
Not interesting:
Why should I care for any of the three generic anime androids? Because they fight in stiletto heels?
We get no character background and no motivation. Maybe this is the idea, but than I must quote myself from an older post: This artsy style gets old if you have seen it before.
Why should I care about generic machines? They try to be humans but cannot because they are machines.
Also about progress, to quote myself from before: What did you achieve during the course of the game? Some stuff happened, but in the end everything is meaningless.
And also to quote myself from before about a plot twist that invalidates all progress: Pascal! So this is here as well.
Tell instead of show:
Don't get me started here. All exposition is done via tell. This is the worst way of progressing or revealing a story in visual media.
So yeah, I gave this game its chance. But for me it is an overhyped game that brings a few new ideas but falls short due to bad mechanical execution and bad story and bad story telling.
You say the story has so many inconsistencies and logical errors, and yet you only name one: that the entire army is rendered useless because 9S can hack enemies through the bunker's terminal. This is about as silly as saying that ground armies are rendered useless in real life because we have drone strikes. And not to mention the fact that there are not too many S models within YoRHa, and there are literally billions of machines which are continually being mass produced within giant factories -- so let's just say that YoRHa decides to only focus on hacking the enemies from a safe zone. Each S model can only control one machine at a time, and these machines, on average, are far weaker than your average YoRHa model. So a handful of them are hacked, do some minor damage before they are killed, and then the machines double the numbers they lost, rince and repeat. A completely useless strategy. And it's not as if there were any known machine leaders that YoRHa could pinpoint prior to the ending to hack (Adam and Eve are hidden throughout the vast majority of their playthroughs, so they cannot be pinpointed either), so what exactly would this type of approach accomplish? And we know that certain types of machines, like the Goliath, are highly resistant to hacking anyways, since it took 9S several hacks in the first mission to allow 2B to merely subjugate its arm -- more than likely, attempting to subjugate an entire Goliath's brain would completely fry the S model. In addition to that, we know that hacking also carries an added risk of enemy corruption due to 9S becoming corrupted in endings A/B through his attempts to hack into Eve. Relying on this method exclusively would be extremely risky. Ground units, on the other hand, ensure that the YoRHa battle models are able to cleave vast amounts of machines per mission and have the potential to be replaced if their bodies are destroyed. Just two of them managed to bring down multiple Goliath class machines in combat. So to say "why do they need ground units at all" is completely ridiculous.
"Not interesting: We get no character background and no motivation. Maybe this is the idea, but than I must quote myself from an older post: This artsy style gets old if you have seen it before. "
Yes you do. You just weren't paying attention to it. If you want me to go into way more detail about 2B and 9S' past relationships prior to the beginning of the game, and their complicated relationship with one another, I will, but it will be a very long explanation, and I don't want to go through all the trouble if your response is just going to be "lol whatever, idc," because I've written about this a million times already in other posts.
"Why should I care about generic machines? They try to be humans but cannot because they are machines."
It's clear to me that you're not actually interested in giving any criticism in this post, just reductionist declarations. Honestly, I don't think I would be able to tell the difference between this and someone attempting to explain the story to me after only having read the wiki for 30 seconds. Again, I can go into massive detail about how the network wanted to maintain its original directive by the aliens by perpetuating the war, but evolved to the point of birthing a subset ego called N2, which altered the network's plan for the purposes of placing evolutionary pressure on itself so it could create the next step in machine evolution, Adam and Eve -- but only if you actually want to take the time to read it.
"Also about progress, to quote myself from before: What did you achieve during the course of the game? Some stuff happened, but in the end everything is meaningless."
Again, a very reductionist view of what actually happened. From the androids' point of view, you could see it that way. But then you're missing out on the entire point of ending E, which is their renewed chance of breaking away from the cycle they were trapped inside, away from their "god," (humanity) and instead are given the opportunity to create new meaning and purpose for themselves -- to be free. For N2, it found new meaning by relating to the androids and understanding their plight, allowing them to have their "god" on the moon if they really needed it, and instead left to go find a world of their own, rather than robbing the androids of theirs.
"And also to quote myself from before about a plot twist that invalidates all progress: Pascal! So this is here as well."
What does Pascal have to do with invalidating all progress? I don't know what you mean.
"Don't get me started here. All exposition is done via tell. This is the worst way of progressing or revealing a story in visual media."
The fact that you see it this way demonstrates that the more subtle parts of the story completely went over your head then. I bet you completely missed the giant reveal of how 9S knew the entire time that 2B had been secretly killing him for years prior to the events of the game in the Soul Box; how 2B's shadowy figure is shown to be taking away 9S' memories of their time together, and how he becomes enraged and stabs her repeatedly in order to stop her from doing this. This also ties back to what Adam tells 9S in Route B "You're thinking about how much you want to **** 2B, aren't you?" Replace **** with a word like "kill" and a lot of things begin to make sense. There are so many clever instances of story telling and character development reveals like this throughout the game, it's a shame that it seems like you missed literally all of them.
Hacking:
The way hacking is shown is, you hack a machine. Then this machine can hack the next machine and the first one explodes.
Perfect strategy to elminate all machines: Build a huge number of self contained hacking units and hack away. It would also be possible to give them flight capability and have them roam and hunt for machines.
Use of ground units:
Your argument with drones actually proves my point. Since we have had drones a huge number of assassinations were caried out with them.
If you don't care for civilians you could also just mass bombard.
Ground units serve other purposes. Capturing and holding territory. Operating in difficult terrain. Operations where civilians are involved, etc.
However in N:A all we ever get as campain goal is to destroy all machines.
More logic errors:
The thing is, I didn't want to produce huge walls of text so I started with the most glaring one.
Another one is the whole ressource problem. You talk about huge machine factories. Is this a conjecture or is this stated somewhere? If this is stated somewhere it is not logical why the androids would not target the factories.
Another one is the point how the teleporter (quicktravel) works. Does it create android copies? Than you could just mass produce 9S.
Character background / Generic machines:
You don't have to explain it in detail. I guess I'll search for a summary to find what I missed.
My criticism here is not that some information about the background is not in the game. It might be hidden somewhere. My criticism is that the dramaturgy is bad. To like a character, to root for a character, I need some information about this character and its motivation. If you hide this it is just generic machines.
This is why Pascal is the most likeable character for me in the game.
Pascal:
And this brings us to Pascal. I was estimating in an early post when I was still early in the game, that the game will pull something on me, exactly what it did with Pascal. Present you a likeable character, make you invest time in him (play with his children etc.) and then take everything away without the chance for redemption.
Exposition via tell:
You are totally right I missed these "subtle points" of the story. The thing is again, I criticise dramaturgy. If they are vital to the story they are not supposed to be hidden away. This is my inital criticism of artsy style representation.
Actually I had 83% side-quest completion. But some google source mentioned you need to read external material and do some specific side quest to figure this stuff out.
Well, I wouldn't mind, if the very fabric of the story wouldn't be based on this. Because then they are not "sublte details" but essential points.
To sum up:
In my opinion a good writer can write an entertaining story and hide a message in it or add multiple layers to the story.
A bad writer will just make everything so convoluted that he can feel clever. A typical movie director that follows this style is David Lynch.
An example for a good writer would be GRRM of "A song of ice and fire" fame. The whole point that Renly Baratheon is gay is cleverly disguised in the books and a lot of people will miss it. However while this an interesing twist on his character, missing the point doesn't make the story less entertaining.
The relevant information is obvious and unmissable. Everything else is just trivia.
Also I don't understand how you pick up on Pascal but not 2B or 9S when Pascal is less developed than them.
Edit:
Also Pascal is clearly designed to be thrown away for feels which is why they bluntly make you attached to him. But also Pascal is there to give you insight to the rest of the characters through the way they treat him, and how they react to the village getting hurt.
The fact that androids even give a damn in spite of being indoctrinated that machines are the enemy should give you plenty of insights.
just because you don't understand or dislike this philosophical game doesn't mean its bad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiOTSKBy6ME
"Perfect strategy to elminate all machines: Build a huge number of self contained hacking units and hack away."
Not really, again, because hacking opens up the added risk of virus infection, which I brought up earlier and you never addressed. This doesn't solve anything in terms of eliminating the machines more safely (in fact, it's worse because if a bunch of S models on the bunker got reverse hacked into by the network, they would wreck the bunker from the inside -- and then it's not just a simple matter of building new YoRHa bodies to replace losses, it's a matter of losing everything). So if it's more effective to use battle models for the sake of fast, hard-hitting attacks against targets, and if it's generally safer, in what universe are they rendered useless?
"It would also be possible to give them flight capability and have them roam and hunt for machines"
This is already a thing, and it's called flight units. Did you forget that the entire beginning of Route B involves 9S doing exactly this -- flying and doing recon inside the factory to find the anti-air defense nodes?
"If you don't care for civilians you could also just mass bombard.
Ground units serve other purposes. Capturing and holding territory. Operating in difficult terrain. Operations where civilians are involved, etc.
However in N:A all we ever get as campain goal is to destroy all machines."
Not everything is about killing machines. The androids have a very small grip on Earth compared to them, and yet they still need supplies and resources to replace their losses, which are going to be found in parts of the globe they need to take control of. Unlike the machines, the androids don't have the luxury of near-infinite means of replacing their losses or developing new and exciting models/weaponry.
"Another one is the whole ressource problem. You talk about huge machine factories. Is this a conjecture or is this stated somewhere? If this is stated somewhere it is not logical why the androids would not target the factories."
I "talk" about huge machine factories? There's a giant one at the very beginning of the game that the main characters *target*. What are you even talking about?
And remember, the game takes place on a very small part of the world. This war is going on everywhere, so of course this is going on in other parts of the globe. You think the entire war is taking place in this one spot? I'm not even sure what your complaint is to be honest.
"Another one is the point how the teleporter (quicktravel) works. Does it create android copies? Than you could just mass produce 9S."
They don't create android copies, there are empty bodies already stored inside there -- the access points transfer an android's consciousness from one body to the other.
"My criticism is that the dramaturgy is bad. To like a character, to root for a character, I need some information about this character and its motivation. If you hide this it is just generic machines."
I have no idea how you can look at a character like 9S in route C and claim that he had no motivation. I honestly can't. It reeks of you not paying attention to the story. There's no other way to put it.
And it's strange to me that you believe that making things subtle (like 2B's secret relationship to 9S, and how she has been killing him for years prior to the beginning of the game, despite how much it torments her), somehow makes it generic. How does that work? I'm genuinely curious.
"And this brings us to Pascal. I was estimating in an early post when I was still early in the game, that the game will pull something on me, exactly what it did with Pascal. Present you a likeable character, make you invest time in him (play with his children etc.) and then take everything away without the chance for redemption. "
That's not "all progress" being invalidated though, is it? Not every story has to ensure that every single character makes it out okay. What happened to Pascal, unfortunately, was inevitable. He and his followers, just like the other subset machine factions, were severed from the network so that the network would not destroy the androids too quickly. It did this because it was following its original directive by the aliens to "defeat the enemy," but in order to follow such a directive, they needed an enemy to fight. Destroying the androids too quickly would go against this directive. But because of their evolutionary potential, an ego based off of previously found human records was formed called N2, which altered the plan to use these subset factions and the androids to place evolutionary pressure on itself. Once it had evolved far enough (after Adam and Eve were birthed as the next step in machine evolution) it wiped out these subset factions and YoRHa because it no longer had a use for them, and to eliminate any potential threat (regardless of how slight) to itself. Pascal's fate was sealed long before the story even started, we just never knew it. It would be one thing if he was just killed/memory wiped completely out of nowhere just for the sake of drama -- that would be a legitimate complaint. But the entire thing was meticulously planned out. I know it's a shame that he got the short end of the stick, but Automata is a tragedy by nature.
"You are totally right I missed these "subtle points" of the story. The thing is again, I criticise dramaturgy. If they are vital to the story they are not supposed to be hidden away. This is my inital criticism of artsy style representation.
Actually I had 83% side-quest completion. But some google source mentioned you need to read external material and do some specific side quest to figure this stuff out.
Well, I wouldn't mind, if the very fabric of the story wouldn't be based on this. Because then they are not "sublte details" but essential points."
Well, as I mentioned before in another post, not everyone is going to enjoy Yoko Taro's writing style. A lot of important details are obfuscated for the purposes of reflection, rather than knowing everything up-front immediately. This really is just subjective opinion at this point. I love this type of story-telling, and you don't. I prefer it because I enjoy figuring stuff out and putting pieces together in my head to reveal key elements of the story I hadn't considered before. But the point I was trying to make was that your assertion that everything is revealed through exposition is just wrong. It's not. And it's not really up for debate.
"A bad writer will just make everything so convoluted that he can feel clever. A typical movie director that follows this style is David Lynch."
Again, this is just your subjective opinion. People like you always seem to get so personally insulted when a writer creates a story like this, because -- I don't know -- maybe you feel like you're being intentionally tricked while the writer laughs at you from his comfy sofa. Some people enjoy this type of style. As I said, I enjoy stories that are puzzling and take effort to piece together. Finding out key details regarding the story that end up changing my perspective of it makes the entire process feel rewarding and engaging. Finding out that a story has an entirely separate story within itself, buried under subtle hints and clever visual cues, and then going back to look at all of those hints I missed is insanely fun to me, especially when they completely change the nature of a character/plot thread upon closer inspection. You obviously don't like this to the extent that NieR: Automata did it. That's fine, but why do you have to make it seem like the writer is just some jerk who likes to fool people in order to make himself seem smart, when he's just writing something he enjoys writing, for people who enjoy reading/watching it? Personally, I like to write like this too, and I can tell you I don't do it because I want to seem "smart," I do it because I like writing stories that I would want to read.