"Do you think games are silly little things"
-Yoko Taro
Have you ever questioned what games are and what they can be?
This is the best game to release in 2017, arguably the best game to come out this decade, and in my opinion possibly the best game I have ever played. People look at Zelda or Mario 64 and see them as games--while not perfect, as games that managed to set the standard and define what great games can achieve in the late 90's to today. Nier Automata is the game that will define both story telling and gameplay from 2017 and beyond.

NieR:Automata defies expectations in both story and gameplay, combining them in ways I personally never thought to be possible. This is done by either straight up changing the genre of the game, hitting you with a heart-compelling character interaction, or a combination of both. The game plays the way you want it to. If you are feeling like it's too easy after setting it to hard mode you can remove HUD elements, increase damage taken, or dive into the combat system and learn 15+ weapon combos by combining your 4 equipped weapons and your pod. The game is meant to have you experience it the way YOU want to. If the game is too hard you can equip as many chips as possible and set the game to easy, basically having the game play itself by healing and fighting for you so you can experience the story the way YOU wish to.

In order to experince Nier:Automata fully, the game is designed to be played multiple times. After initially beating the game, you replay the game from another perspective. After that, the game opens up even more in a way you wouldn't ever see coming in a blind playthrough, opening the world up even more (quite literally). This idea of story telling may throw people off initially but can only truly be accomplished in this form of medium--as a game.

I never really saw video games as an art. Video Games have defining artstyles, music, atmosphere, themes, and so on...yet I never considered them as an artform, just something that is there to entertain me. NieR:Automata showed me the light. The atmosphere is truly something else. When it wants to, Nier makes you feel part of it's universe, and then a moment later you are catching your breath and you feel something off. You then remember that you are playing a video game. This is done intentionally and happened to me multiple times. As someone who enjoys phycological elements in entertainment, while questioning the motives of characters and diving into the meaning of character interactions, cutscenes, and atmosphere, I ended up questioning what I was doing as a player experiencing Nier:Automata.

As I was questioning myself, I was also wondering what made me want to question myself as a player. I have no idea how to describe that feeling other as looking into your heart. NieR:Automata is a game meant entertain your heart and make you feel something. It will likely be different for you, but I ended up feeling something amazing inside me up until the end of the game and past the credits.

And this feeling is something I wish for you, a potential player, to pick up and experience yourself.
Please play this game.
Even if my words are meaningless
I will sacrifice anything and everything if it helps even one person complete it, like I'm carrying the weight of the world.
-Planter