Vulpes Absurda

NieR: automobile

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The New game in the belove~er, cult classic? Sure let's go with that. Drakengard/Nier series is out on PS 4 and PC and seems pretty good.

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This game is GREAT

 

It features a simplified version of the usual Platinum Games style combat, with a dodge move that grants you invincibility frames and access to new moves and combos mixed with shmup-style shooting sections (of various flavours) and there are androids fighting machines on Earth in the year 11,300 (or thereabouts) and there are wild twists and turns in the story and your moveset and perspective and the music is astonishing and beautiful and invigorating and there are cute anime boys that are born from a robot orgy and there is Journey-esque sand surfing and moose riding and a robot that is modelled after the philosopher Sartre and the ability to rip and your own OS and die

 

EDIT: i love it

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3 minutes ago, Vulpes Absurda said:

Good to hear as right now it's really just kind of dull and blandly sexist.

 

Well, it's complicated.

 

Nier was actually way ahead of the curve in some areas. For instance, there were gay and intersex (and specifically intersex and not trans) characters in that first game, and they were shown to be fully rounded characters, with positive traits and character flaws. This game came out in 2010, and I can't think of another intersex character in games.

 

In Automata, 2B's design is referenced in game in a couple of ways. There is one line of dialogue that points at it (but it does also highlight that this game was made in a traditionally Male Gaze-y way), and there is an achievement that scolds you for trying to look up 2B's dress. But you can still look up her dress. Yoko Taro, the director of the game, said that he was trying to imagine a world 10,000 years and the future and didn't want bald space marines, but he also said that he just likes girls. There's no Kojima horseshit there, but it's still a knotty situation.

 

I got the impression playing through this that every element has been considered quite thoroughly. You still might not like them, but it feels like there is a point behind everything.

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The only thing that really tells me is that the dude is open about how it's kinda sexist it doesn't really tell me anything about how it in any way fits the game.

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I don't really have an answer for it. There are male characters who are sexualised, and there are other female characters who are not sexualised, and all of them have agency over their situation. But they're also all androids, and there are some references to their sexualities without any real answers. This is a game that is interested in asking questions of you every hour or so, sometimes frivolous, sometimes heavy.

 

Maybe there's a deeper reason for it, maybe that's just how the developers decided she should look.

 

Or as Anita Sarkeesian used to say, you can simultaneously enjoy media and be critical of its pernicious aspects.

 

That's not really an answer, but like I said I don't one.

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1 hour ago, Vulpes Absurda said:

Good to hear as right now it's really just kind of dull and blandly sexist.

What is it about the game that you've found to be 'blandly sexist'?

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Would you say the game overall hews more closely to the demo, which I understand is the opening sequence of the game, or the quick look linked above? They are paced and presented very differently for me, and I liked one and did not like the other.

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You spend a lot of time looking up and android's skirt at her thong and her general outfit is a tight leather dress that wouldn't look out of place in a CSI episode set in a BDSM club. It's sort of like saying you play a women in an MMO becasue you if you're going to stare at someones ass it may as well be a hot one to the ninth degree.

 

22 minutes ago, Atlantic said:

I don't really have an answer for it. There are male characters who are sexualised, and there are other female characters who are not sexualised, and all of them have agency over their situation. But they're also all androids, and there are some references to their sexualities without any real answers. This is a game that is interested in asking questions of you every hour or so, sometimes frivolous, sometimes heavy.

 

Maybe there's a deeper reason for it, maybe that's just how the developers decided she should look.

 

Or as Anita Sarkeesian used to say, you can simultaneously enjoy media and be critical of its pernicious aspects.

 

That's not really an answer, but like I said I don't one.

 

For what it's worth I don't expect an answer from you I'm really just stating how I feel about it and saying to anyone reading the thread "Hey this stuff is here" so they can take that into account in their purchasing decisions.

 

3 minutes ago, Badfinger said:

Would you say the game overall hews more closely to the demo, which I understand is the opening sequence of the game, or the quick look linked above? They are paced and presented very differently for me, and I liked one and did not like the other.

 

I haven't watched the quick look as I already bought the game and may as well avoid spoilers but so far the first few missions are just sort of open world fetch quests and not the set pieces of the first mission. It's fine-ish but I have heard it picks up to a pretty big degree later.

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I think she looks like a badass. I wish I could kick some teeth in looking like that.

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23 minutes ago, Badfinger said:

Would you say the game overall hews more closely to the demo, which I understand is the opening sequence of the game, or the quick look linked above? They are paced and presented very differently for me, and I liked one and did not like the other.

 

It has a good mix of both. There are main mission sections that do the third-person combat/shmup sections with cutscenes and story, and then there is the open world that connects everything. The world isn't huge, but it changes drastically at certain points in the story. I would recommend doing the main missions until you unlock the fast travel system, and then doing a few side quests. The side quests themselves don't always have the most interesting scenarios, but there are good bits of writing in them.

 

For what it's worth, I often get bored with open worlds in games but I didn't get bored in Automata's world.

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On 3/17/2017 at 5:50 PM, Vulpes Absurda said:

I haven't watched the quick look as I already bought the game and may as well avoid spoilers but so far the first few missions are just sort of open world fetch quests and not the set pieces of the first mission. It's fine-ish but I have heard it picks up to a pretty big degree later.

 

I liked the quick look and was turned off by the demo. I want the open world. Question answered!

 

I think this is a 50% off purchase that I will then consume guilt free sometime later this year.

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Huh the open world bits are by far the least interesting parts to me. It sort of just feels like a bunch of dully designed empty rooms one after the other. I haven't got super far in though.

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1 minute ago, Vulpes Absurda said:

Huh the open world bits are by far the least interesting parts to me. It sort of just feels like a bunch of dully designed empty rooms one after the other. I haven't got super far in though.

 

Just trying to coalesce my feelings about it. I liked a lot of the smoothness of the combat, but I really, genuinely disliked the part of the demo boss fight where you rip off a living oil rig's arm and use it as a sword. I do not like that kind of game. Running around in an open world and fighting half a dozen enemies zipping between them sounds good though!

 

I know most boss battles in games are contrived. It's hard for me to really explain when I like them and when I don't? I like when they feel more organic, so the very regimented style of oops you were actually just fighting the giant space frog's left eyeball now let's zoom out and you're fighting its left arm and there's no way to outsmart or outplay the scripting is kind of a bummer.

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That's fair. I will say the combat is sort of half way between Bayonetta and Kingdom Hearts in terms of button mashy-ness so if that doesn't appeal you may be able to skip it. I kinda dig Kingdom Hearts though so I'm enjoying the combat in this.

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I just got to the robot village for the first time, and I have to say: the side quests are overwhelming me. I don't like having ANYTHING undone in my quest log, and I've stopped playing games due to the "drowning in side quests" feeling before. I don't want to do that with this because I've really liked what I've seen so far otherwise. Anyone have tips for dealing with this?

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@miffy495 There are a lot of sidequests! Some of them add texture and detail to the world, and some of them are rubbish. I don't know how much you know about the structure of this game, but you will have opportunities to do them later if you're interested.

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most of the sidequests are really good for the things that happen, some are just cute little side things, some are devastating

 

what a fucking good game

 

there aren't that many sidequests, all said and done

 

if you want to do them, do them as soon as you can, because certain story events will make them become unavailable

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I rarely play games like this (that is combat-heavy 3D action games), but the setting and what I had heard of the story got me interested enough for me to buy the game. 

 

I had a pretty rough start as I discovered two thing simultaneously: (1) There is no way to save during the prologue, and (2) the auto-use of recovery items does not work in all circumstances. I didn't have much trouble with the prologue, but having to play the entire thing again* just because my gal got stuck between the buzzsaws fucking sucks. At that point I was just about ready to harpoon the Steam refund whale, but eventually decided to give the game another chance. Now that I can at least manually save, the game is more enjoyable, but I'm still not entirely sure why they went for this kind of system, or how it actually works. Like, I appreciate that saving has a counterpart in the game (uploading your backup to a server through a soda machine ?), but if even the game itself doesn't follow this scheme all the times (I died multiple times during the shooter part after first leaving the bunker, and got to start right at the beginning of the sequence), then why be such a dick about it in the prologue part?

 

That said, I like a lot of things about the game. The setting is nice, and I appreciate how clumsy and outdated the robot that took over the world look. I also like the fact that the user interface is, in a way, part of the character, and hope that this will have some interesting consequences later on. The combat has been fine so far, but I suspect things may get a lot harder soon (I just reached the amusement park). If things get too frustrating for me, I might just turn the difficulty to easy to see the story through.

 

At one point 9S asked me to go through the settings, and eventually highlighted a self-destruct option. I missed whether he asked me to enable or disable it, and in any case wanted to make sure what it did before I made any changes (I essentially did not want to play through the prologue a fourth time just because of a funny gag), and so I googled the thing. I found a forum thread where it was explained that self-destruct can be used to blow up your character's skirt, leaving you in a critical state. One commenter pointed out that this is a great move actually, because it destroys the nearby robots and you get to look at 2B's gorgeous butt afterwards. Is this what anime is about?

 

* Actually, I had to play through it three times because I tried the demo before buying the full game.

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Auto-recovery post-prologue requires installing a chip for it. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that. >_>

 

also wow that explains why it always looked like it wasn't 1080p

 

(i didn't really care that much tho because i don't know i just don't care anymore like i used to)

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Yeah, I noticed that I didn't have it installed when I was going through my chip configuration. I wasn't sure if it was because I let someone auto-optimize the chips before. What got me during the prologue was the dead time between consecutive auto-recoveries.

 

Edit: I haven't paid attention to the resolution stuff so far, but the cutscenes are sometimes very choppy, and not in a 30 FPS vs 60 FPS way but much worse. The unofficial patch is supposed to fix that, I think. I will try it tomorrow.

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5 hours ago, miffy495 said:

I just got to the robot village for the first time, and I have to say: the side quests are overwhelming me. I don't like having ANYTHING undone in my quest log, and I've stopped playing games due to the "drowning in side quests" feeling before. I don't want to do that with this because I've really liked what I've seen so far otherwise. Anyone have tips for dealing with this?

 

I don't know if this helps or not, but after finishing the game you can freely pick any point in the game to go back and do any side quests you've missed. That#s fully finishing the game though, not just getting an ending.

 

The side quests are good fun and I think most of them are interesting, though I played the whole game on easy so I cut right through the gameplay faster than you might on normal.

 

Also sometimes there's multiple spots on the map for a single quest, because you either can or have to gather stuff from multiple different sources. If you want advice on doing only some side quests, I'd suggest limiting your questing to ones you get from characters you like or involve ideas that interest you.

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Yeah, I'm totally just doing them all. Except that there are a few that I'm obviously not leveled enough for yet. Turns out that being level 14 and trying to take on that level 40 black belt robot doesn't really pan out. I'm also under-leveled to escort the robot parade. I did get all of the stamps in the park though, even that one that you have to do a bunch of fighting for. Turns out that these side quests are actually pretty good and worth doing, and I've got about 15% of them done after a day, so maybe it isn't so bad.

 

The one with the runaway robot kid has to be my favourite so far. The way that little guy hops from place to place is just damned adorable.

 

My big worry is that after tomorrow I'm out of town for a week, home for a day, and then out of town again for another 4 days. I'm really afraid of losing my spot and not remembering how to do stuff when I get home. Oh well. It's a damn good game.

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