You all remember when I fell in love with NieR a few years ago, right? I regard it as one of the best games of the last generation, and it is finally getting a sequel this March. Needless to say, I am very eagerly awaiting NieR: Automata, as I have had it preordered since last June and am even more anxious to play it than I was for Pokémon Sun.
Right there, that should be a “holy crap, really?” moment for you, dear reader.
The Automata demo came out at some point recently, and I only just remembered to play it last weekend. For those who are ready to check out: I like it. I like it a whole lot. Like, it impressed me to the point where I am even more excited for the full game, if that’s even possible.
There is a lot left to be seen, though. For starters, Nier and Automata have very little in common besides art direction and basic gameplay elements. Nier is about grumpy old man fighting shadows to save his daughter. Automata is about androids fighting alien robots to save the world. As Nier and its sister series, Drakengard, are well-known for their insane gut-punch story twists, I’m sure that the alien robots in Automata will turn out to actually be the good guys and then we’ll regret having killed them all over the course of the game. Or something like that.
Really, all the demo shows off is the gameplay. And the main character’s pantsu. Oh, Japan. The game’s really fun, at least! It sets you in an “abandoned” factory, hunting down a big ol’ enemy robot. Of course the factory is absolutely swarming with li’l robuts, which you will mow down with reckless abandon. On the surface, it plays like a much more polished Nier, with you using a pair of massive swords to dice up your foes. Then you learn that your little flying robot buddy can also be used as a turret, adding long-ranged attacks to your arsenal. It’s a small change, but has a fairly significant impact.
Automata still plays a lot like a combination of a brawler and a shmup, and it feels really great. I don’t know if it’ll have more RPG-like downtime parts (farming, fishing, sidequests) like Nier did, or if it’ll be a pastiche of different gameplay styles like its big brother, but the core gameplay is solid. It’s very obvious that Platinum Games is behind this.
So anyway, after travelling through the factory and blowing up more robots than you can shake a Phoenix Spear at, you come up to the absolutely ginormous boss, who is a transformer and was hiding in plain sight as part of the factory that you were just bouncing around on. He’s got two massive buzzsaw arms, and constantly sprays a stream of bullets (which are big purple orbs) at you. Halfway through the fight, you board a small aircraft and the game becomes Sin & Punishment, as you’re now flying around the boss while trying to dodge his attacks and blast him in the face.
And then. Then comes the epic finale, in which you lop off one of the boss’ buzzsaw arms, assimilate it into your own arsenal, and then use it to bash his head in. And, you know, he’s a giant robot, so it’s not nearly as graphic as I made it sound. Just awesome. So very awesome. Also the “beating a robot’s head in with its own buzzsaw arm” thing is such a Platinum thing to do.
Following this awesome victory, three more of the giant factory robots emerge from the ocean, and the protagonists are all like “welp, we’re boned” and then use some kind of supernova self-destruct thingy in an attempt to at least take the giant bots down with them. Then the demo ends and I’m all like “whyyyyy I can’t wait two more months.”
I don’t know if NieR: Automata will appeal to me in the same way that the original game did, but it’s certainly making a strong case for itself. I mean, I kind of doubt that this game will feature watermelon farming, but that’s something I’ll just have to accept when the time comes. And if it does feature watermelon farming, well, we might just have the 2017 Game of the Year on our hands.
If you have a PS4, I absolutely recommend giving this demo a try (I don’t know for sure if it’s available on PC). Also, check out the sweet boss battle trailer from last year’s E3 that I’ve embedded below. It’s so amazing, and I know I’ve said it a dozen times already, but I simply cannot wait to play this.
Kinda weird that the game is still called Nier, even though the character that it is named after is ostensibly not in the game at all. I mean, it would be really shocking if he was. Maybe that will be the twist somehow. But given that Automata takes place after Ending D of the original game… That would be a pretty tough sell.