Game:

Nier: Automata (2017)

Category:

Review

Duration: 12:21

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The night that I first finished NieR: Automata I slept soundly. The night that I actually finished NieR: Automata I hardly slept at all.I had that high, that nervous energy, that hum in the back of my head that comes from an overtired brain trying to absorb an experience that was so much bigger than it initially seemed.It’s been a few days, and I’ll admit I’m still humming.It’s a story I thought I’d heard before. It’s the distant future and the earth is in ruins. Machines have replaced mankind, and therefore they must be destroyed. Cue the ethical dilemmas, the friendly machines. Cue the crisis on a shattered concrete stage, and of course the swelling orchestra. Nier: Automata did give me a lot of what I expected, but it also gave me a lot that I didn’t. Even when I’d seen the twists coming there was always still some surprise, some little (or not so little) knot left for me to unravel.This premise isn’t the only thing that felt familiar. Mechanically speaking, picking Nier: Automata up for the first time could result in déjà vu. Combat starts on the tried and true foundation of light attacks, heavy attacks, dodges and combo chains. Then there are the flight units, used sparingly for some of the bigger and more bullet hell-ish fights. Bullet hell-style gameplay (which generally involves dodging complex waves and patterns of enemy projectiles while fighting) figures into boss fights and hacking minigames quite heavily too. Though it’s not my favorite genre it never felt unwieldy, nor like it was getting in the way of more straightforward attacks.As for equipment, weapons from swords to fists to spears can be found or purchased, then upgraded with the requisite materials to increase their damage as well as the length of their combo chains and the stat bonuses they grant when equipped. Player character 2B has multiple weapon sets that she can switch between on the fly, and she can likewise switch between multiple equipped programs for her pod (a sort of support drone that specializes in ranged attacks like missiles and lasers.)That said, the bulk of your gear is not programs or weapons but chips — which even provide many of your UI functions. The mini-map is a chip, as is the HP gauge, as are items that will boost 2B’s attack power or allow for health regeneration. 2B starts with limited memory space and each chip has a cost, so early on I found myself unequipping non-critical UI elements to squeeze in that last upgrade chip. Memory space can be purchased easily enough, but even when it’s maxed out there will never be enough room to equip everything. I always had to weigh my priorities, though the ability to save different chipsets suited to different situations helped mitigate that.Speaking of chips, playing on Easy difficulty (which you can change on the fly in the settings) opens up use of a special category called auto-chips. When equipped all together, the auto-chips allow players to hit the left trigger and essentially let the game fight itsel
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Source: https://www.polygon.com/2017/3/6/14735646/nier-automata-review-ps4-playstation-4-windows-pc-square-enix-yoko-taro-platinum-games

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