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Voldenuit wrote:

About 50 hrs into NieR: Automata, and I'm blown away.

This game is a magnum opus, and while mechanistically it's fantastic (fluid controls, stylish combat, deep and accessible combat systems), I was truly astounded by how philosophical and existentialist the game is.

The game obscures its story from casual view, relying on not just multiple playthroughs to uncover the story behind its world, but also uses non plot elements like weapon stories, enemy back stories, and plain old player imagination to challenge the player with (unanswerable?) existential questions. What is the nature of self? Of sentience? Of humanity? How much of a semblance to the thing does a copy or abstraction of the ideal have to have before it becomes indistinguishable to the thing itself?

At first glance, it is mere coincidence that the names of various robot enemies and allies were taken from French and German existentialist philosophers (Pascal, Sartre, Beauvoir, Engels, Kierkegaard), but as I kept playing, the game engendered many moments of self reflection that challenged my preconceptions.

As a long time Planescape: Torment fan, I had been expecting Tides of Numenera to scratch my existentialist itch, but when that latter game fell flat with its trite pseudo intellectualism, it was from the completely unexpected corner of NieR: Automata that I was entranced and engaged.

Best game of the year? Too early to call. Best game I've played this year? It's got my vote.

The guy behind Nier has been doing stuff like this for years. Drakengard 1(Which is the quasi-direct prequel to NieR, despite having not much to do with it. The 100% ending for Drakengard 1 is the basic cause for the world of NieR) did the weapon story thing, and just about every one of his games is insanely dark.

Also, this is not the first Nier game. First one was on PS3/X360. If you got one of those, NieR(As it's officially known) won't be much. It will play very differently, though. The main development of this game was not handled by the people he usually works with, and that was probably the best idea he's ever had.

LostCat wrote:

And...now it's refusing to set 1440p, even though it was fine with it yesterday.

From the amount of whining on the internet I'm guessing it needs a patch.

See 'Fix Automata Resolution', it's a fan-made patch that fixes some of the resolution and rendering bugs in the game and also improves performance by optimizing unneeded lighting calls. TLDR; the game was doing some very weird things with resolution and not always displaying the correct resolution it was rendered at.

EDIT: Playing at 1440p myself, game is silky smooth on a 1070 and g-sync monitor with all the bells and whistles on, lighting set to 'Medium' in FAR.

I.S.T. wrote:

The guy behind Nier has been doing stuff like this for years. Drakengard 1(Which is the quasi-direct prequel to NieR, despite having not much to do with it. The 100% ending for Drakengard 1 is the basic cause for the world of NieR) did the weapon story thing, and just about every one of his games is insanely dark.

Also, this is not the first Nier game. First one was on PS3/X360. If you got one of those, NieR(As it's officially known) won't be much. It will play very differently, though. The main development of this game was not handled by the people he usually works with, and that was probably the best idea he's ever had.

Yeah, I've been catching up on Drakengard/NieR lore via youtube videos, and they certainly get very convoluted.

From the many complaints/reservations about gameplay mechanics in the older games, even from their fans, it seems that Platinum + Yoko Taro was a match made in heaven, as he finally got a development house that was able to match his vision with cohesive gameplay implementation.

I'm still mid-way through Route C, though, so I've been trying to stay away from the big spoilers.

Voldenuit wrote:

See 'Fix Automata Resolution', it's a fan-made patch that fixes some of the resolution and rendering bugs in the game and also improves performance by optimizing unneeded lighting calls. TLDR; the game was doing some very weird things with resolution and not always displaying the correct resolution it was rendered at.

EDIT: Playing at 1440p myself, game is silky smooth on a 1070 and g-sync monitor with all the bells and whistles on, lighting set to 'Medium' in FAR.

I know about it, but I have other things to do. I can wait for a patch.

Hell, I didn't need to buy the game at all but my friends are obsessed. o.o

LostCat wrote:

Voldenuit wrote:

See 'Fix Automata Resolution', it's a fan-made patch that fixes some of the resolution and rendering bugs in the game and also improves performance by optimizing unneeded lighting calls. TLDR; the game was doing some very weird things with resolution and not always displaying the correct resolution it was rendered at.

EDIT: Playing at 1440p myself, game is silky smooth on a 1070 and g-sync monitor with all the bells and whistles on, lighting set to 'Medium' in FAR.

I know about it, but I have other things to do. I can wait for a patch.

Hell, I didn't need to buy the game at all but my friends are obsessed. o.o

It's a derivative of SweetFX so literally all you have to do is unzip the DLLs into your NieR game directory, uninstallation is just as simple.

I.S.T. wrote:

I'm interested in Nier, but the way the female lead is handled makes me very uncomfortable. =\ Dunno if I'll ever pick that up because of it.

For all the fears that have been expressed about the game exploiting the female form (and it is not many people I’ve encountered, but some), the one and only nekkid butt that the game shows off belongs to a male android. His butt is practically shoved into the camera.

It was hilarious. And a little sexy, I’m not ashamed to admit.

God bless you, Yoko Taro. http://steamcommunity.com/app/524220/discussions/0/135513549089074076/

PS I know quite a few female players that absolutely adore the game, as well as 2B (the main female android, well gynoid). They also drool over the shirtless male androids, more power to them.

Voldenuit wrote:

I.S.T. wrote:

I'm interested in Nier, but the way the female lead is handled makes me very uncomfortable. =\ Dunno if I'll ever pick that up because of it.

For all the fears that have been expressed about the game exploiting the female form (and it is not many people I’ve encountered, but some), the one and only nekkid butt that the game shows off belongs to a male android. His butt is practically shoved into the camera.

It was hilarious. And a little sexy, I’m not ashamed to admit.

God bless you, Yoko Taro. http://steamcommunity.com/app/524220/discussions/0/135513549089074076/

PS I know quite a few female players that absolutely adore the game, as well as 2B (the main female android, well gynoid). They also drool over the shirtless male androids, more power to them.

I know. It's more the outfits and camera angles and etc. Not cutscenes.

I also know female players of the game. Doesn't change my comfort level. Us girls ain't a monolith.

I.S.T. wrote:

Voldenuit wrote:

I.S.T. wrote:

I'm interested in Nier, but the way the female lead is handled makes me very uncomfortable. =\ Dunno if I'll ever pick that up because of it.

For all the fears that have been expressed about the game exploiting the female form (and it is not many people I’ve encountered, but some), the one and only nekkid butt that the game shows off belongs to a male android. His butt is practically shoved into the camera.

It was hilarious. And a little sexy, I’m not ashamed to admit.

God bless you, Yoko Taro. http://steamcommunity.com/app/524220/discussions/0/135513549089074076/

PS I know quite a few female players that absolutely adore the game, as well as 2B (the main female android, well gynoid). They also drool over the shirtless male androids, more power to them.

I know. It's more the outfits and camera angles and etc. Not cutscenes.

I also know female players of the game. Doesn't change my comfort level. Us girls ain't a monolith.

And I respect that, just wanted to make sure you weren't missing out because of a misconception.

Voldenuit wrote:

I.S.T. wrote:

Voldenuit wrote:

For all the fears that have been expressed about the game exploiting the female form (and it is not many people I’ve encountered, but some), the one and only nekkid butt that the game shows off belongs to a male android. His butt is practically shoved into the camera.

It was hilarious. And a little sexy, I’m not ashamed to admit.

God bless you, Yoko Taro. http://steamcommunity.com/app/524220/discussions/0/135513549089074076/

PS I know quite a few female players that absolutely adore the game, as well as 2B (the main female android, well gynoid). They also drool over the shirtless male androids, more power to them.

I know. It's more the outfits and camera angles and etc. Not cutscenes.

I also know female players of the game. Doesn't change my comfort level. Us girls ain't a monolith.

And I respect that, just wanted to make sure you weren't missing out because of a misconception.

Thanks for the concern.

So far I'm not even sure what anyone's talking about at all, but I haven't gotten past the desert and my friend tells me it's a lot more exciting past that. (A quest took me a lot of backtracking to finish as they didn't drop the parts I needed and I didn't know what was going on at first.)

I do like how random some of it feels, like character names and choices you're given to completely ignore as you see fit. (Like do not remove your OS core! Which of course I did.)

I guess I've been a little bit preoccupied with EVERYTHING on my new computer though, and still hoping for a patch.

I just don't see what all the hoopla is surrounding sexuality in videogames. I personally find the levels of violence and the increasing detail to which they are depicted a much bigger cultural problem than the small amounts of sexuality that trickle through. If your problem is with the exploitation of sexuality or the over-sexualising of one thing or other, there are plenty of other more relevant places this is going on than in stupid videogames.

I haven't played the game yet but as far as I can tell it's not gratuitously handled, it's just there. So what's the big deal? Especially when you consider this is a Japanese culture game. Panties are par for the course for them. You got chicks with visible panties in practically everything. They don't have a problem with it.

The game could probably go without the butt, sure. I personally wouldn't prefer that. For the butt being there, I don't think it's making any kind of great derogatory statement.

In SR4 when you start off completely in the buff, I don't remember all this controversy about exploitation of the male form.

fhohj wrote:

In SR4 when you start off completely in the buff, I don't remember all this controversy about exploitation of the male form.

To be fair I don't think anyone playing any Saints Row is expecting it to be anything but ridiculous.

fhohj wrote:

I just don't see what all the hoopla is surrounding sexuality in videogames. I personally find the levels of violence and the increasing detail to which they are depicted a much bigger cultural problem than the small amounts of sexuality that trickle through. If your problem is with the exploitation of sexuality or the over-sexualising of one thing or other, there are plenty of other more relevant places this is going on than in stupid videogames.

I haven't played the game yet but as far as I can tell it's not gratuitously handled, it's just there. So what's the big deal? Especially when you consider this is a Japanese culture game. Panties are par for the course for them. You got chicks with visible panties in practically everything. They don't have a problem with it.

The game could probably go without the butt, sure. I personally wouldn't prefer that. For the butt being there, I don't think it's making any kind of great derogatory statement.

In SR4 when you start off completely in the buff, I don't remember all this controversy about exploitation of the male form.

Male nudity is almost always played for laughs, female nudity is almost always played for arousal. That's about it. I can only think of a few cases in fiction where female nudity was played solely for humor(Both of them revolve around the same idea, incidentally. Someone very awkwardly trying to get away from the naked situation. One has the naked person trying to get away, the other has the naked person's brother in law trying to get away) and they're both(underrated) movies.

Incidentally, if you want a case of male nudity played for both in video games, look no further than that one section of Metal Gear Solid 2 where Raiden is naked. There is no way Kojima is straight. No friggin' way.

All of this is not counting porn games and such, because that's cheating.

Besides, I didn't say it was some horribly sexist bull****. Just that it bugged me a lot. So I don't get why you're on the rant here.

Edit: For the record this is all coming from someone who *coughs* appreciates many types of nudity.

Started playing Nier a couple of days ago. Can't remember the last time I paid as much as $46 for a single game. A perfect storm of hype, and not having really been intrigued and engaged by an RPG in recent memory resulted in me pulling the trigger with no prior experience with the Nier universe or any of the developer's previous games (yes, I've never even played Metal Gear Solid game). So far so good.

Probably the largest detraction right off of the bat is that the developers didn't go to too much trouble to hide the fact that it is a PS4 port. Even navigating the menus feels a tad clunky with a keyboard and mouse (ie, need to use the "back" button/ESC to get out of sub menus when the parent menu is entirely on screen).

The music is exceptional, as everybody claims. However, this is surprisingly a bit of a double-edged sword for me. With less engaging background music in other games, it is easier to tune out when spending a while in one area. Because the music is so "realistic", some of the songs actually get a bit annoying after a while.

I'm only about 8 hours in, so I can't give the story much of a review, but it seems promising. We'll have to see if it extends beyond the usual cliches and tropes of stories that delve into the existential questions of what comprises consciousness, life, and whether something artificial can really ever feel or be alive, etc....

The game play is as good as any action RPG I've played - and probably better - but I just haven't had the chance to explore the fighting dynamics, combos, equipment, skills mix enough yet.

One of the most pleasant surprises, after reading about all the issues of white screens on Radeons, resolution glitches and other performance problems, is how well the thing runs on my Sandy Bridge era PC. Moreover, crossfire scaling/performance on my aging pair of HD 7970s is about as good as any game I've ever played. With the HD 7970s OCd to somewhere between 1150-1200 mHz (ie, about a 20% OC) I can maintain 2560x1600 at 60 fps in most environments with everything turned to high with the exception that I need to keep AA at 2x. While not very efficient compared to newer systems (ie, lots of power and heat), I am quite impressed how well this game runs on a 5-year old PC. What's more, it's completely stable. I actually tried that FAR mod referred to earlier in the thread RE fixing resolution problems, but it seemed to result in white-screen lock ups - I don't get them after I uninstalled it (might into this more later).

And as far as the main character having a skimpy outfit - meh. It was a tad distracting at first, as it was a bit of a novelty, but once you get into the game, you hardly notice it. I will say that it almost resulted in me dismissing the game entirely when I first came across it as some cheesy anime piece - which would have been a shame.

I must be the only one on the planet who doesn't like the music. I mean I don't hate it either, but it is 100% forgettable to me.

cynan wrote:

Started playing Nier a couple of days ago. Can't remember the last time I paid as much as $46 for a single game. A perfect storm of hype, and not having really been intrigued and engaged by an RPG in recent memory resulted in me pulling the trigger with no prior experience with the Nier universe or any of the developer's previous games (yes, I've never even played Metal Gear Solid game). So far so good.

Glad you're liking the game so far. I can't stress enough how much more value and experience you will get out of playing the different Routes in the game (A, B, C, D, E) - they are not simply rehashes of the A plot, and the game continues to surprise me and undermine comfortable assumptions I had made about the gameworld and mechanics as I keep playing it.

One of the things which most impressed me was the level of exploration the game has put into the themes of French existentialist philosophy, references which are more than just skin deep. For instance, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Kierkegaard and Pascal (among others*) are name-dropped within the game, and to me, an avid fan of Albert Camus, I was surprised to see no overt reference to Camus. Yet Camus' philosophies are indeed deeply ingrained into the game, in the various side and main quests that the game puts the player through.

For instance, in The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus explores the implications of humanity's struggle for significance in the face of an absurd and (apparently) meaningless external reality. His proposed solutions to the reader (and to himself) were:

1. PHYSICAL SUICIDE
2. PHILOSOPHICAL SUICIDE
3. ACCEPTANCE

Meanwhile, at some point in the main quest of Nier: Automata (the following description will be omitting as many story and character details as I can to stay mostly spoiler free), a tragic event happens to one of the game's main characters. The character, unable to bear the burden of the guilt that they are facing, begs the player to either kill them (PHYSICAL SUICIDE), or wipe their memory clean (PHILOSOPHICAL SUICIDE). Unbeknownst to me during my first complete playthrough, and completely untelegraphed to the player, one also has the option to ignore said character's request and to just walk away, leaving them to deal with their own grief and guilt (ACCCEPTANCE). The game acknowledges this choice, and the character will bemoan the player's actions in leaving them to deal with an unbearable burden. All three of the choices are gut-wrenchingly tragic, and there are not easy or happy outcomes, a common theme within this game (a theme which shares many resemblances to many of the quests in Witcher 3).

If a game designer had gone up to a publisher and said they wanted to make a game that explores the ideas and writings of 20th century French philosophers, most publishers would have either laughed at them or told them to make a more accessible and less high-brow project. It's a testament to Yoko Taro for his vision and for Square Enix's trust in him as a writer and game designer as well as the intelligence of the player base that something as unique and ambitious as Nier: Automata was made.

For me, at least, N:A has been one of the most memorable, emotionally resonant, and thought-provoking games I have played since Planescape: Torment (and even eclipsing said classic), something which I had been hoping for from Numenera but been disappointed by.

*EDIT: I also felt that the game subtly made allusions to modern 20th century theater, most especially Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot) and Tom Stoppard (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead). Seeing as Yoko Taro has dabbled in stage production in the past (there is a wonderfully eccentric and almost incomprehensible play of his called 'YorHa'), I am convinced that he is fully versed in the genre and that the similarities are not simply coincidental.