#NieR
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Kaine seems to be the only one even aware of that prior to the endgame
and by the time NieR and Shadowlord are in the same room, I'd argue NieR has gotten over hate per se, but it's irrelevant since everyone knows only one of them gets their Yona at the end
the closest thing I can think of to an "attempt" might be when ending C/D Kaine gives the letter to the postman instead of tearing it up like in B
but that was like 1% of an attempt at best
I disagree that Nier ever gets over hate, I feel like adult Nier is defined by hate and it's why we don't get an attempt at breaking the circle.
back in the moment: 2nd Aerie visit, Kaine's "Rot in hell you fucking asshole!" in Japanese is "Die! <very long bleep>" so yeah English has a big leg up on that one
I love the difference between pre flashback nier and post flashback
most of adult Nier is definitely defined by hate, I'm not arguing that
I think what happens near the end is he gets shocked out of it by the relevation that he's been killing actual-in-some-sense people
and then settles on "well I'm gonna save Yona anyway"
Before he fights shade, but it's not really out of hate.
But skip 5 years and after a shade kidnapped his sister, and he's just not the same person.
I feel like boy near if he knew the truth would try, adult nier I am not so sure.
like, the way he talks to the Shadowlord at the end, I really don't think it's a personal grudge any more, if he'd let NieR's Yona walk away I don't think NieR would feel the need to finish him off
You could say his experiences have radicalised him, which is definitely very intentional
second bleeped line is also better in English lol
Yoko Taro makes it clearer in his Drakengard games, but I feel like a running commentary he has, is that the language of his video games is violence and he keeps giving us tragic endings.
Almost like that's where that leads to.
Everyone is Drakengard 1 is a piece fo shit, none excluded, and the endings are absolutely mostrous, no exception.
"get out half-breeds!"
now that strongly implies they think NieR's also shade-possessed
Here it's a bit less extreme
yeah, this framing reminds me of Spec Ops
Definitely
I also agree that if someone had given young NieR the revelation things might've been very different
I am not sure he would have been able to do anything about it, the problem shades have I feel is unsolvable, but he would at least have been empathetic to it
Spec Ops arguably went much stronger on that specific "the language of video games is violence" theme because in that game the only way to make a choice is to shoot X or shoot Y or not shoot, there aren't even traditional dialogue choices
right, I have no idea if there's a solution to this; by the time the problem is even articulated it's far too late to stop, nobody gets to stop, everyone's too busy screaming and danmakuing by then
we'd need to know so much more about wtf shades even are to begin answering the question
I have some info on that, a lot of it kinda comes from external material IIRC or confirmations of stuff that is just hinted at
After you did the last ending I'll give you a rough timeline, to see if it matches with what you gathered
meanwhile I keep slaughtering this Roc's babies
but you're right that the mechanics of whether or not shades need to munch on humans is secondary to the fact that nobody even seems to have asked the question much less looked for alternatives
it's not even clear if the Aerie's inhabitants are peacefully coexisting without anyone getting eaten or if the shades have sort of forced them to accept it
My read on the aerie ||is that some people in there are coexisting and some of them are allowing the shades to cohabit in their bodies like Yona did for a bit, well for Yona it wasn't allowing per se||
Some of the inhabitants don't seem to be happy with the arrangment tho, and are at least aware that if the word spread they'd probably all be killed.
that'd be my guess too, with what little we have to go on
"It's great to have you on our side, Kaine."
"Oh my god, shut up."

Also it explain why they hide in the houses all the time, sun is lethal to them and while they inhabit in a place where sun is relatively rare to hit directly, it's still pretty dangerous to go outside.
nice
I believe that's the only JP line with multiple bleeped phrases
now separately from the swearing
she has a line just after this which I glossed over on first playthrough but is super interesting now that I know more
"this goddamn mutant body"
in JP that's "minikui karada" which is basically "ugly/unseemly body"
"mutant" is significantly more specific
but the first time around you'd probably still assume she's talking about shade possession
also, the Aerie fights have by far the most collateral damage, don't they?
even this one topples several buildings
No joke 
"perhaps death is the greatest comfort we can offer her"
"that's not your decision to make!"
wow this hits different after C/D
oh



omg do I get to play as Kaine

fuck
wait, that means 3 years later, Emil's head still hasn't made it back from the desert?
guess I don't have to worry about optimizing this loadout
I think I can live with this
sweet, Kaine became the Now Loading girl too
the only downside to this is now I can't avoid looking at her butt constantly

Speaking of that
This is when you can gat that achievment
Miyu was misremembering the when, and I was afraid you troubleshooting could have spoiled you this
oh that's why it wasn't triggering anything
kicking the camera was a nice touch
speaking of how it's NieR: Silksong now
there's a scene in the adult NieR part when the party's just left the junk yard and are talking to each other about how they'll definitely save Kaine if she loses control, and for a few seconds the camera positions itself behind Kaine and zooms out, which got my hopes up that I was about to start playing as her, but then it shifted back to NieR like a troll

so TECHNICALLY I totally called this four endings ago but forgot to say so out loud here
I understand why this bit was cut from the first game, it's quite a bit extra shit to add on top of it
oh they're all just regular dead this time, no pocket dimension of words
now the real question is
do I just leave it in English for the rest of E

Hard question

Nice of them to explain ending 1
also this is the worst terrain imaginable to be running in high heels
Well and all the other endings
lol
are those flowers growing on all this metal tubing
I've yet to see a game where this is not fun
hi
It's the boy
with extra arms
Who do you think made that place after all?
It's not by chance this looks like a 3d printed copy of that place
does the game want me to attack this?
this feels like a bad idea

ah
oh no, we got texted again
we've gained the power of background images
so many questions
dude, wake up already
actually I think I'm good, I'll just go hook up with Emil instead
oh we're playing this game again
makes another manual backup
yes I'm sure, yes I'm really sure, Ixrec, go
the most important memory
was not expecting the giant flower
does this mean I've finished finished Replicant?
I am doubtful
it just keeps going
do I redo all the normal shadowlord palace stuff with this?
just gonna use this shortcut the speedrun taught me
ah internet says that really was ending E and I am done
well it's late so I'll assume that's true until someone says otherwise, I made a save up here with the new sword anyway
Yes, that's the last ending
Ok so, after all this, what I love about this game is that it was all essentially pointless.
Pointless but not meaningless
The world was ending, if anything Nier and Kaine actions accelerated the downfall
oops
They barely managed to carve out a bit of happiness for a few years for the protagonist family
But even if they didn't do anything, it was still going to happen.
The world was doomed, or rather, humanity was, or the large part of it at least
I feel like I'm missing a little clarity on what the state of the world even is after the madness of the last few endings, what The Administrators were even trying to do in the last part, and of course what Emil's been up to
but broadly I agree
The tree was a computer, which was tasked with creating replicants for the humans souls to go back to
at most we made the shades more disorganized, we certainly didn't save the replicants forever or make the souls any less likely to keep going gestalt
Overtime its memory got corrupted and got crazy
The problem is that what the original humans didn't expect, is for replicants to develop souls themselves
oh the tree made replicants too
When a gestalt goes crazy and attack humans, it's because the memory of that person got corrupted in the databse and its connection to the original soul is deteriorating
This also cause the replicant to exibit the black scrawl
I think that if you kill the gestalt the replicant is then fine for the rest of its life but it wont be remade in the next cycle
It's not very clear on this part
where is the corruption stuff and the black scrawl explained?
I have no idea, most of this info is from lore videos I watched over the years and I suspect a lot of it is inferred or in light norvels
ok
Devola and Popula as you might expect are different, they don't have gestalts, they are more like androids.
They were there expected to just sort of oversee the process
Until the replicant just started walking around and shit
And then they went "well, don't know what to with this, we are kind of fucked I guess"
and is "the black disease" that nearly wiped out humanity to begin with the same thing as "The Black Scrawl", or a different disease?
I think it's different
But I'm not super clear on that
So, Drakengard lore
In Drakengard the main character is fighting this demigod that mindcontrol an empire and then send this mindcontrolled soldier to attack his small kingdom and kidnap his sister
He is about to die and make a path with a dragon, which means that they link their 2 fates together, and start fighting the empire
In Ending E, which isn't canon, they teleport with this god to modern day Tokyo
And fight her there
At the end the god crumbles to dust and Kaim and the Dragon get missled by a Japanese military pilot.
Then the god turns into dust and spreads this disease, which people speculate is just essentially a pact with this god in which, you either serve her (and go berserk in the process like it happened with the empire, and try to conquer the world) or refuse her and turn into salt.
Incidentally, the dragon is also turned into dust and this red material it's where humans reverse engineer magic
And a way to separate body and soul, and the spells in the grimoires
Which si why all the magic in the game is red, all red dragon magic and shit
Oh right at some point the US nuke Tokyo to try to eradicate the disease but in the process just spread this dust all over the world
So everything is fucked
that does explain a lot of the loading screens
So it might be a manifestation of that same disease, since it turns the shade berserk, but my theory is just that it's data deterioration from the tree. it looks similar because they are both coming from the same type of magic
But it's not settled at all
was the whole replicant thing even going on back in 2053
I think they were developing it
Your first fight is at the height of the disease, the snow you see isn't snow, it's salt
I had been wondering about that
From the people
It's not clear to me tho, the flashback is very confusing
Exactly at which point the project gestalt was
I never did freeze-frame the project documents
They had to already have been far into development because the Grimoire Noir existed already
And that was after it
I think I've hit my limit for tonight
gotta let this all sit for a while
thanks for the additional lore

looking at the screenshots on https://nier.fandom.com/wiki/Project_Gestalt clears up quite a bit actually
first big one is that "Gestalt" is not a term specific to the human souls that've gone mad and started attacking Replicants, as I previously thought (was told? was implied???)
Gestalt is just the detached souls, and here Devola uses the term "relapse" for "the catastrophic loss of sentience"
hmmmmmm (I assume these were taken from the original game because "daughter")
Yeah Gestalt is all the soul versions of humans
the idea that replicant sentience necessarily means gestalt madness is... interesting
and might just be the final nail in the coffin of any hope there was even a theoretical happy ending in this setting that our heroes couldn't find
As I said, it was pointless, everything was going to shit no matter what and the whole project was doomed to fail from the moment it was implemented in its flawed state, they bought happiness for a few people for a few more years.
It's fatalistic and dire, but it doesn't mean that it was meaningless.
I assume that Nier Kaine Yonah and Emil lived their lives and then died, maybe of natural causes (well Emil is theorically ageless but the others aren't)
The Tree is gone so it wont produce any more replicants for the next attempt.
And that's how humanity died, at least as far as we know from Nier: Replicant
Funnily enough, the closest thing to human in the main cast is fucking Emil.
He was a human that was experimented on, the others never were humans.
The fucking skeleton.
sans is emil
so I think the really big, important gaps for me are:
- What was Devola and Popola's actual plan/goal with NieR's main quest? For a while I thought it might be reuniting the Shadowlord with NieR's body, but then why bother with all the key gathering to break into his palace? And clearly the Shadowlord can just go to their village whenever if he wants his body back, since he went there for Yona's.
- As discussed before, what even was the Black Scrawl? If it's a shade-possession thing, then the Aerie people seemed oddly unaffected. If it's a data corruption thing, then it's unclear why 2053 Yona Replicant had it and yet ~3400 Yona Replicant only caught it a month ago. Why was there a legend about the white book curing it? And after all that effort to save Yona, did we ever cure her? Does she just die five minutes after the credits?
- What the actual fuck were the Administrators doing or trying to accomplish in Ending E.
Ok I don't think I understand ending E so I can't help you there
For a few other things, yes Yona is essentially cured, because the shade version of her died, that's my understanding at least
Since the shade doesn't go into relapse, it wont cause the black scrawl for Yonah
oh the shade relapsing is what scrawls the corresponding replicant
That's my understanding at least
I do think that should've been at least implied in the game itself
I think you are kinda meant to guess that since before the Shadow Lord didn't care to attack the village to kidnap Yona, but within a month of her starting to relapse, he acts to procure her replicant in a much more aggressive manner
Keep in mind, this dude was out there for 4000 years
what i understand of ending E is that it ties into Automata and Kaine swears a lot
once I've been told that gestalt relapsing causes replicant scrawl, then yes, that's not too hard of a guess to make
From his perspective, he was also trying to save his sister, which makes sense, it's your character in a way.
Needed that body asap to reunite the soul with the body and stop the relapse
but that explanation for the scrawl isn't really reachable from the game alone, since none of the scrawled replicants we see have their gestalts show up at all except for about one minute of yonah's gestalt committing suicide after which as I said it's not even made clear if yonah's replicant still has it or not
I do think that the whole bit hits much harder as papa nier
A lot of it is implied.
Some of it might also be unconfirmed.
People making best guesses based on what seems to make sense within the story.
yeah I'm mostly trying to make sure I didn't miss anything huge within the game itself
did you have anything on the twins' plan?
For example we do know that Yonah is fine because it seems to be implied from the Ending E that after the Shadow Lord thing she didn't feel bad after, otherwise Kaine would have mentioned it in her bit
oooh that's right there was another three year timeskip during E
since we never even manage to see Yonah in that ending it remained not super clear and I didn't get a chance to think about it
I think I had a vague sense that they planned to use either Weiss or Noir or both of them to try to reunite the gestlats and replicants, since I know the books were related to the process of separating body and soul.
They were created by project gestalt and the reverse engineering of the other world's magic, but I'm not sure of the process.
At any rate it felt like a hail mary
right, the purpose of the books remains unclear, if they were more than just figuring out how magic works
oh yeah we also never found out what made Weiss a "traitor"
Also they were actual people before they were turned into books, researches of the project Gestlat actually I checked, more like guinea pigs not researchers, there is a whole story as to why they were turned into books but I don't remember it and it feels not super relevant to the story at present day anyway
I think Weiss was turned as a punishment for something, which might be what the whole "traitor" thing come from
so, did you have any lore on what the twins' plan was supposed to be?
Nothing specific, no
I don't think they ever clarify it
Except that they were essentially babysitting the replicants with the hope of eventually being able to put the gestalts back in them
yep, that much is guessable during ending A and confirmed by the project documents
By the way, this whole bit is probably the biggest trope inversion the game pulls.
Usually a JRPG is about saving the world
This game is about it being out of reach from the first moment
yep
part of the reason I was hung up on the specific question of whether yona's cured at the end is that it matters quite a bit thematically if all your fighting accomplished even that small scale victory of living the rest of your lives together
Yeah, that's true, but even that victory is so selfish given how many shades Nier ends up killing in the process.
It's such an interesting game about what you do in games and asking if it's worth it
speaking of inversions, I also thought it was interesting that the Shadowlord is heavily implied to not even be the strongest shade, considering Louise beats you within an inch of your life until distracted by the postman, and you don't struggle nearly that much with Shadowlord
really he's just the only shade with a magically locked dungeon between him and you
that you care about reaching
Yeah, I think he largely just have sway over other other shades is what makes him unique.
He can make them more stable or force them into relapse.
Which is why when he dies it's expected that other shades will go into relapse soon
and in ending B, none of the shades even mention the shadowlord IIRC, all the shade dialogue at the end is about protecting their final bastion and their babies and so on
I assume it's tied with him using grimoir noir
Oh yeah, that was essentially a storage facility for human souls
It's why when you go to the tree you can find the 3d printed version of the room, the tree probably created the Shadowlord castle in the first place, because where else to put the souls?
anyway, time for Automata
oh my god I forgot this was Platinum Games
windowed mode, 1920x1200, nihongo mode
let's go
"this game does not autosave. look for a save method within the game" lol
This will be a very different experience
I'm gonna laugh so hard if it starts playing a Rules of Nature-y song
all beings are designed to die out, boy that sounds familiar already
Anyway for your 2nd Taro game you understnad how things goes with him, there isn't happiness to find here.
Nier is the comparatively more cheery series too, compared to Drakengard
and all my allies are vaporized
that was fast
just finished the tutorial boss and met 9S
I'm already enjoying the combat more
"don't call me -san" 
we're robots and dammit we're gonna act like robots
Yeah in Replicant the combat is good compared to the original Nier, but in Automata it's just better IMO
Platinum is good at this
they talk about this place manufacturing "mechanical life forms" as if they aren't androids
I guess their bodies involve more organic compounds?
Playing it right after replicant the obvious comparison seem to be Popula and Devola
They also called themselves androids
indeed, at the time I wasn't sure how much to read into that word choice, but in retrospect we know those two were unique even among all the Replicants
to the point they arguably don't count as Replicants in the relevant sense
"they're just mimicking words from the old world, nothing the mechanicals do has any meaning"
where have I heard this thought pattern before
That said, this game is set so far in the future that it's hard to draw any immediate comparison
It's still peculiar
Fuck I'll have to watch a story recap if we have to discuss Automata in the following days
Replicant I can kinda keep straight in my head, Automata it's just fucked, I have no idea
My brain can't keep up
the backflip twirl on leaping over the top of a ladder is so unnecessary
Oh right one thing, unlike in Replicant I kinda advise trying to do the sidequests in this one, a lot of them have very important pieces of the whole puzzle
Like. it's not mission critical, if one seems pointless or annoying skip it but generally...
I did pick up a few in replicant but when they were mostly just fetch quests I didn't bother finishing any
so yeah I'll give them another shot here
other than what ending C requires?
There is one about a shade in your village
And you just find it threatening a kid and kill it.
If you do it during route B tho, you kinda learn that the two were friends
Because you can understand shades
this doesn't look dangerous at all
cool
well that answers the question of how robotic or organic their bodies are
wait we just telekinesised its arm off
now there's a classic "all that fighting for nothing" twist
oh these are the kind of nuke powered androids that get a emergency self-sacrifice option
"Thank you for uploading our data to HQ at the end."
oh so these aren't just body templates with blank memories each time, but they also really could've died there if the jamming had been slightly better
...oh, 9S did get reset
oh we're THAT far in the future
so... if humans are on the moon, sending androids down to earth to fight robots...
Oh shit you're already on Automata?
what happened to there being no humans left after replicant
That... Hm...
or have we just redefined "human" to mean the replicants from before, or gestalt+replicant pairs that fused successfully somehow after Replicant's events
the Replicants from NieR Replicant were bleeding regular red blood, so that's more organic than these Automata androids
yeah that's probably as far as I can go for now
50 gil says that in 20 hours we get a "in Project Gestalt v2, we put the souls in tin cans instead now, you've been killing humans the whole time AGAIN"
In the tutorial fight you cna hear Song of the Ancients btw
like against the big sawblade arm
Yes
No
It's fine... 9S... your voice is calming
I thought that music sounded familiar
I'm not sure if it's actually like relevant or if it's just "fuck it it was tutorial boss music before" lmao
why do I have a self-destruct option in the menu and why are you calling attention to it
this is an ending thing isn't it
I picked that too
Actual gameplay mechanic
See the first quote in this thread
I didn't find the self destruct too useful myself but it's worth doing once
"I'm in charge of your maintenance now"
that's an interesting choice if we're supposed to be not letting the androids develop feelings for each other
"don't call me -san" round 2
I can't remember what 9S tries to call her in English
It was either "Lady" or "Miss"
Ah, it was "ma'am"
"Mr. Ixrec why are you depressed about sexy androids?"
well while you do that i'm going to do more NieR raids and feed my trauma
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYtfnaAtKNY have this in the meantime
Nier: Automata - Song of the Ancients - Atonement Metal Cover by FamilyJules
🦵 ▼ Plots are thick in this game ▼ 🦵
(Tabs For All Parts Available on Patreon!)
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▼▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Get this cover!
🎵 http://www.bit.ly/SongoftheAncientsFJ
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▼▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
I just saw the Nier Orchestra Concert in LA two weeks ago and I've been dying to pl...
back to it
they are really big fans of that slogan
hm, only the director is allowed to speak directly to the lunar humans
I smell a tweest
It's a Touhou game
oh there's another group of NPCs hiding back here
someone teach Yorha that colors exist, seriously
What do you think about the Bunker being black and white?
hm, so there is some variety in wardrobe
(I don't have any specific thoughts on why this place is b&w yet)
I'm asking for how you feel about it artsyle wise, lol
well, that plus the music plus the first scene here, I guess vaguely sad and hollow?
just like me fr fr
Yeah it just tells you when you can fish on the UI
You can extend your healthbar with those chips
ping
That's literally what everyone that played the first Nier was asking when this came out.
meesen!
You can ride them
You need bait though
Never really used them that much because of how much more vertical Automata is
are they trying to break into a vending machine
bro they paid for the stuff it's just that it got stuck
IIRC she is a cameo from Drakengard
She doesn't play a major role in this one tho, it's mostly just to be quirky
In Drakengard 3 she is a sort of time/dimension hopper and plays a bigger role there, so it makes sense for her to be able to be anywhere if they want to
I think I remember correctly
Or maybe she is just mentioned and this is another person altogether
Been a while
just running around on rooftops because I can now

"maybe by making weapons, I'm just letting my nakama die even sooner..." oh no he's figuring out the ✨ THEMES ✨
It's something you might not have connected it right away, but a lunar tear is a flower that is said to cure every disease
Apparently even non existence
I assumed it was meant to be a lunar tear, but otherwise I was a bit more preoccupied with who what how why also how are they gonna get down from there
I assume that's because her strongest memory was of the boy telling her not to die back in the Aerie, since that was her dream transitioning into the Kaine part of E
That's a possible interpretation
lol
But my reading is that it's just a new replicant body that was made by the tree, and the tree has his young informations within it
"but mine's better"? 
right it's a new body either way
I would've thought the tree had all versions of the body if it had that much alt timeline info anyway
I mean at this point we are solidly in speculation mode, so your reasoning is as good as mine
Also flowers are a big symbolism in Drakengard 3
The main character has a flower sprouting from her eye, it's not subtle
sidequest achieved
oh wait, when you say "it only had boy Nier data", are you saying that's the size it always made Nier at, and he's always started out at that age?
The icon looks like Hooty
I think I've been assuming that they all grow up from a much younger simulated age than that
Yes, my assumption is that the tree memorised the data of when someone was entered into the system and their soul was split from their body
oh yeah, that makes sense
ending E gave me the impression it's borderline omniscient about all timelines so far considering it can just whip up bosses and enemies on the fly, so it would've had detailed data about everything up to adult Nier choosing ending D
but yeah there's no evidence on this
We knew it had the data to recreate Kaine copies from whenever
But Kaine might have been the exception
right, that's one of the things that gave me that impression
it specifically said Kaine at her strongest
The original Human Kaine is based on is kind of a supersoldier so it makes sense to keep her data handy
turns out ending E was short
I almost did that earlier but she looked like she was in great pain and maybe about to self-destruct so I decided to hold off until I was somewhere safer lol

I love this in automata
you buy how much UI you want
if you want none of that, you can just not have it
I just had the bare minimum
you can remove literally everything on the ui
a fun thing, try removing the OS chip
I think I've run out of resistance members to talk to but the objective still hasn't changed
...why does that vaporize only her skirt
Reasons
Yoko Taro likes girls
out of all the reasons one could give to justify that choice
fun fact: wearing the full 2B outfit in FFXIV makes your bust bigger
that's probably the only good one 
Yoko Taro hella based
seriously though what does the game want me to do now
I think the game will update you once you leave the resistence camp?
I've already been in and out a few times to do those first two fetch quests (only one of which I could actually complete)
looking at a guide
speak to the leader again?
did that too
and then leave
I'm just activating vending machines now
there is some red spots on the map?
motion blur
oh no, I found the low rez texture zone
I'm gonna assume this is a one-way gate for later
It's a shortcut
this looks like a terrible idea
laser
and it's dead
and another one spawned in
that's enough for now
and found what I needed for the 2nd fetch quest
"my left leg is the only part I haven't replaced yet"
oh no don't ship of theseus yourself
we're androids, we should be past this
the game is telling me that equipping multiple HP bar chips does NOT increase my HP
ok now the leader has a quest for me
so I really did need to do those two "side" quests
Yeah, it's a bit unclear
lol, the mothership map is just "classified"
doesn't asking me to go looking for a KIA android's black box fall afoul of that whole "having emotions" rule if the only motivation was "I liked her"?
ehhh as if the androids need feelings
why isn't 2B complaining about the operators calling her 2B-san 
oh, the tutorial factory area is just part of the big map
...was that my dead body I just got a hundred items from
I like how they tell you exactly how long each of these bodies has been abandoned out here
Oh yeah, grabbing your corpse from the tutorial is a good idea
found her
probably should've been here ages ago but I'm done getting lost in the underground sand caves now, how many robot bear asses do you need me to get
I do
I assume that's why I've found so many dead bodies to revive and/or nom#
were those robots wearing Facade masks?
hehehe
dang, they really want me to comb the desert
Pod, how many pointy sticks do I need to craft a giant comb
they're even wearing cloaks like the Facade King
these things are everywhere
we must be in the ruins of Japan
I just read the director's email saying I should do that
also this game has been great practice for my military nihongo
that was getting a bit rusty
dang, one of the bigger robots decided to jump attack right when I committed to lasering it
turns out the laser has more stagger power
I was not mentally prepared for the suicide bots
lens flare
2B knows I'm gonna jump off as soon as I'm done taking pictures
I assume you saw this
but yes it's not far off the other platinum games I've enjoyed
there've been a bunch of fights where I took zero damage by actually paying attention and trying which felt great
and others where I was taking zero damage until I got lazy and bonk
which is exactly what you want
our Archipelago game just got unblocked so I'll be pausing this after I finish the desert quest
"why are there so many android bodies here?"
"unknown"
you guys really can't think of a single reason
but also, damn, how many android bodies are "humans" manufacturing despite being stuck on the moon
ok we're making it this clear only a few hours in, sure, probably everyone was expecting this anyway
uh
it... doesn't seem to want to fight me
ok, I can't find a way out of here, you win game
time to be the genocidal asshole
congrats, we killed a baby of a probably endangered species
...hi
I can fish here!? this looks like a tarpit
what did you think about the stubbies bonking
THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION (it isn't)
"I'm just gonna not screenshot that since in context they're clearly imitating humans because they want kids and I already pointed out the latter"
lmao it caught me so off guard tho
Just because it's thematic doesn't mean it's not funny
I'm sure there's a deeper thematic meaning to the skirt vaporization too, even if I don't know it yet
I'm pretty sure that one is "I like girls"
There is a key item from a sidequest you can get that disables that, at least
So you can use the Self-Destruct without making it awkward
to be fair, at least there's no breast physics
instead there's skirt physics
which is pretty important when it's open world so you spend half the game watching 2B sprint to the next waypoint
saving and quitting in the bedroom the resistance just gave us
and we're back
"the truth is... we were dating" welp
Yoko said fuck ambiguity
"I think I'll change from defense to attack, so I can avenge her" NO, HAVEN'T YOU PLAYED REPLICANT
the real question now is which will be the sadder lesbian space robot game: this or Signalis
camera glitch
Yeah I triggered that too
oh no I can't fix it 
nvm it's fine now
I appear to be missing a main quest
or any quest actually
nvm they just called me
it's the obligatory sewer level! 
found a sword in a tree
but its stats are bad
what
Fun!
we're going to fucking disneyland apparently
to be fair
it looks more welcoming than Silent Hill 3's amusement park
"congrats, you're our first customer"
gee I wonder why
is that what I think it is

is this a boss fight
Yes
"is it okay to leave that tank alone?"
"if it's not harming anyone, fighting it's a waste of time"
thank you 2B
"humans called it a 'scream machine'"
TIL this is actually the Japanese term for 'thrill ride', that's not a everyone sucks at history joke 
best ost
hm, again with the locked gates
oh you can jump onto it
I looked all around for an interact button last time I was here
how are you doing that 2B
well I tried not to murder anyone, but the scream machine had other plans
they killed kenny you bastards
oh I've seen this before
AHHHHH
progress
this boss is gorgeous
give me my camera back goddammit
I can't see anything an inch away from me
boom
so, two things that jumped out to me about that fight
first, it was saying "I will be beautiful"
not human, but beautiful
so there's obvious overlap with Replicant but clearly they're not after the same thing
second
let's just get the weird part out of the way
that last phase of the fight added a clearly phallic part to the boss, previously hidden underneath the dress
so it's impossible not to think of Kaine here
I never noticed that
neat
Ah yeah, the friendly machines
to be fair, between Replicant, and all the phallic bosses in Silent Hill 3, I was extraordinarily primed to notice it 
but before I go to the village
wtf is this
looks like I can't do anything here but go "wtf" for now
There's a sidequest there later
and when I say "later" i mean "Not this playthrough"
huh, there's still enough humans/androids on the surface to shoot supplies into space

Hahahhaha
reinstalls Persona 4 Golden
"flag waving is fun" 
Fun things are fun
"white flags mean surrender" 
the things that survive millenia of apocalypses
literally having dead bodies in the middle of the village sorta dilutes the white flag thing
are these people who attacked the peaceful robots then failed to fight their way out?

oh no, someone finally called me out on having zero Japanese philosophy vocab
I think some of those words might've been realism and essentialism???
wait, is Sarotoru supposed to be Sartre?
yes it is!
I mean if you want my honest opinion, I think the whole concept of "essence" is fundamentally flawed so before we even ask whether it's prior to existence we need to- 
"I asked out the girl I liked and she turned me down, how am I supposed to go on living after this?"
2B: "
"
I'm pretty sure that's how much you're donating
At least until Route C
half the stuff I do have I don't understand what to do with
Most of it is crafting material, I think
Things like earrings and necklaces can just be sold outright
Same with fish
oh that's what I was missing
see, yanking camera control away from the player in a hub area really makes this harder than it needs to be
[Zelda you-solved-it jingle]
who does this weirdo think it is
FATHER SERVOOOOOOO
for today, let's start with a stupid question
why is Emil's face the icon for Automata and not Replicant
found a quest, let's go
...you won't open the gate to let me look for your lost nakama unless I run to the other side of the map to get a music box?
no wonder the robots are winning
does the lunar propaganda broadcast just repeat every N hours?
he got an upgrade
spongy, but easier than last time now that his attacks are so much slower
oh, without taking a single hit myself? now we're talking
within 30 seconds? ok this one might require coming back later after I'm OP
or not
timed and hitless, okay this is probably my limit
yep, this last one does need a little more DPS
I'm at level 13 now btw
Why not?
I mean did you expect 2B's ass face?
I think it's only after a certain point in the story
that's what I thought the first time, but then I got another one
I forgot aobut this quest until I finished Route E and beat it in under ten seconds 
we found imoutobot
Escort time
"Next time, tell me how babies are made!" 
It's a very entertaining set of dialogue, at least 
well this looks ridiculous
lol they sent another email too
ok it is different wording
nothing substantial but not a literal copy-paste
do I eventually get to warp between vending machines?
and only takes you halfway to each location, and is unavailable when a specific cutscene is required, so in practice I barely ever used him 
ok, that's all the desert and city center quests, on to depressionland and the village
wait a sec
Pod skin
welp, all sidequests just got cancelled
apparently this is such a big deal they turned off the color down here on earth
are you sure we need the flight unit? we just took this one out with our pods
omg so many waypoints
I had like five sidequests half-finished before all that so let's do them before going underground to talk to the alien mole people or whatever
man that wasn't even hard
yeah I can't do the 2nd one
it's spreading
"how does currency work in this world?"
"oh, we dismantle all the old stuff lying around, no point actually mining for metals when there's so much of it up here. And the unit of scrap value is a G."
"but what does the G stand for?"
"...that's top secret."
"some androids even use e-mails on purpose because they like the retro vibes" 
you can tell some of the world building is just some bored writer being like
"Yo Yoko, any reason why these super advanced androids still use email?"
stops looking up 2B lewds
"They like the retro vibe, whatever."
continues
I found the block puzzle sidequest
glory to the block puzzles
"the world is filled with love, is it not?"
Another escort, wheeeee
oh god all the trash mobs attacking us are level 30+
I don't think this is possible yet
Yupppp
"oh, stamps? have as many as you want!"
only gives 1
I found that part you kept talking about
what the actual fuck was that 
ok, how do I jump off the roller coaster into the central building again
the first time I was here it did that automatically I thought
I'm trying to reach the last stamp which on the map is right there
oh duh I forgot to check the lower parts of the theater when I went in there
my god the sponge
I've done like ten of these and there are still this many red dots
Yup, lol
9 complete, 12 in progress
I think that's enough for now, let's talk to the mole people
I was not expecting flying tapeworm bots
but now I have an autoheal chip
neat
well that was a lot

yeeeeeees I have benchwarp
I was prepared for that to be a super lategame upgrade
they inherited the absurdly long rule list
You found one of the arenas
I'm level 18 and it recommended 25
so, yeah, they're pretty spongy so far, definitely stopping after the first one even if I beat it
I did beat the first one

the spear guys in the third round needed so much dodging when even the tiny guys are not the usual 2-3 hit kills
I love you wearing the pink bow
it's thematically appropriate
I headcanon 9S asked about it and 2B explained the friendly robots will be more inclined to keep helping us with our mission if we use/wear their gifts

so does YoRHa stand for anything?
I also like how needlessly prominent the bow happens to be in the opening seconds after I load my game, with the camera zoomed in on her head
Trivia. The kanji used to write "YoRHa" in Japanese (寄葉) means "passing leaf."
huh, I haven't seen it in kanji yet
specifically, it's always been just the katakana yo ru ha so far, like here
bonus: the unusual capitalization in "YoRHa" is meaningful, unlike the capitalization of NieR which was done simply to make the logo look more interesting.
my dude made NieR just to look cool
is there any way to turn off or change waypoints for quests I can't/wont do
I haven't found anything like that in the quests menu yet
going the the "Map Icons" and selecting "Quest Markers" it brings up a list of all active quests and you can turn on and off whether they show up on the map or not.
wow
okay yeah I have a quest list over here
"I never thought it'd be this hard being cut off from the network"
that feels like the first hint I've gotten all game about why some robots are friendly and others hostile
Its a fact that the intenret causes you to go crazy
AYYY YOU MET EMIL
lining up the laser to hit multiple enemies is so satisfying
now this makes sense
lol
ping
at this rate I'm gonna wipe out the whole Forest Kingdom army before I find the kingdom
"you don't understand a robot's feelings" 
Route B thing
this place gives me Team Ico vibes
finally nailed hopping across all those pillars
"hinoki (cypress) stick", oh, ok
Jacas wants to see what happens when a Yorha body eats a certain kind of fish 
this 2D bit has a problem with enemies being in or right next to room entrances, so I'm constantly running into them and now just blind firing into every door by default 
you're just... refusing to pick this up?
we've picked up so much junk already, why not this piece
Important for a sidequest later
I guess I'll also come back here later
this weirdness again
ok the flying tapeworm is total BS when they take away your 3rd dimension
I don't think they fully understand the cultural significance of a samurai helmt
get used to seeing that dude if you want to upgrade to level 4
well, my swords are now levels 3 and 2 instead of 2 and 1
oh boy another one
at this point I'm just gonna post all of these for future reference
did you just kill a baby
interesting, she doesn't attack at all, but if I try to walk away 9S starts the fight for me
ugh, I have no practice at the dodge timing in 2d
glitchy physics

so... are we gonna tell Pascal that the Forest Kingdom bots were specifically planning to wipe out his village
"a Lunar Tear would look wonderful on you, 2B!"
"no thanks" she says with a giant pink bow
is this seriously how the flower becomes relevant here 
it is a pretty flower
also
can I just say how nice it is to have a straight-up quest completion percentage in the menus from mission one
makes it soooooo much easier to decide whether I have the appetite for all of it or need to start subsetting immediately
now that I'm playing it: in practice it's still representing both, because the minimap's content rotates to match my camera angle, while Replicant's had a fixed orientation, so this isn't even a downgrade really
I feel like I'm missing something crucial with this Yorha Traitor quest
it started with three red circles, I went to one, fought some yorha there, and then nothing ever happened in the other two circles, and after doing unrelated quests and coming back now I'm still not finding anything there
it is yep
consume the feesh
"using" the feesh
......it really is good. No wonder humans used to eat these, the android thought as her consciousness faded.
oh lord the speed credits
how many endings did you already got?
oh that's my first one
30 second hitless was a non-issue at level 22
the Bunker server admins have to remind the androids not to waste their personal cloud storage on video and music files 
"humans would put this 'lipstick' on their faces?"
"you should try it!"
"no"
someone needs to tell these forest bots to calm down
👀
BEST BOI
I wonder what you'll think
...when the map said douguya (lit. "tool shop") I was expecting, like, a tent or a stall or something, not this
CAR EMIL
https://youtu.be/EJnwWRuJR8w?t=294 he's a wonderful singer, too
Emil did nothing wrong
Humming 0:00 - 2:18
Random 2:19 - 4:36
Normal 4:37 - 6:54
Sped up Humming 6:55 - 8:03
Sped up Random 8:04 - 9:13
Sped up Normal 9:14 - 10:22
*If I missed a track it wasn't in this original rip. Excluding the boss theme, that isn't a shop tune therefore not groovy enough.
I guess this is just what happens when you're an immortal video game character who's run out of enemies to fight and friends to save
you become the item shop guy
Master Servo is now a horse
level 40 is SO MUCH SPONGE
I am leaving this alone for a while lol
nice try, but I need this Brand New Screw for another quest
oh the traitor yorhas finally appeared here
she mad
I thought Nines was glitching through the floor
she ded
and now to feel like shit about it
9S: "we just... killed NAKAMA..."

oh that's why it wouldn't let me repair the big guy yet, it was waiting for me to do all this fighting on its head
how needlessly specific
acquired Archive and Engels 110-B Record 0005?
oh god not Engels
ok, I'm feeling done with sidequests for now, and 30% feels like it's probably more progress than I'm supposed to have at this point in the main plot anyway
these feel like overkill
another not-this-playthrough door?
wait what the bribe worked
What was the bribe like
100g or something
Oh yeah 1000g is just funny
ok hear me out
on the left of the entrace will be this woman
talk with her 3x
have fun
sorry I'm already in the elevator
will be worth it
lmao
the director's gonna be wondering why those flight units have been sitting there for ten minutes while my nakama are dying
oooh an aircraft carrier
these still exist in the future
nom
nom nom
fun fact about this elevators
they are part of a dlc update
so for a long ass time nobody knew wtf they were for
add that to a nier game and people go insane
EMP boom
good plan, Nines
ping
the heck, it's still standing?
no reaction whatsoever to this yorha corpse? we can't even strip her for parts like the usual bodies?
I'd love to go looking for nines, but unfortunately I really need to get to bed now, and this is an ideal stopping point
that is a very good stopping point
how far into the game am I, very roughly speaking? assuming I go for all endings again?
my Replicant is at 44.9h apparently (and as with all my Steam games that includes quite a bit of "left it open while I did a thing" time)
I did A to C endings in about 47h
all that endings that matter are A-E the rest is joke endings
tho I recommend doing some of them for lore stuff and cool quests stuff
quests in this game matter way more in lore
cool, I think I'm off to a good start with sidequest completion
that 30% figure, is that really all non-main quest content, or just my first playthrough / ending A sidequests? or how does that work
If I recall it is all quests of the game
oh hey those two seems familiar
you know shit got real when you cant fast travel
oh NOW we care about talking to all the other yorhas littered around the beach
I'm running into a lot of familiar things today
oh crap there's some JP words I don't know
due to mechanical lifeform jamming efforts I was temporarily unable to update the Bunker servers, now uploading unsynced local memories
aww, they were roommates
triple roommates!
dude turns off the internet to experience humanity
I always appreciate it when the villains mean what they say and act accordingly, especially when they're saying bonkers stuff
welp, you literally asked for this
aww
why does the mysterious letter quest marker that I can't even do yet keep re-enabling itself, this is the third time I've turned it off now
I did the thing
memories resynced, resuming primary mission
quest completion at 33%, on to the Pascal factory thing I've been putting off
oh no is this a robot cult
BECOME AS GODS
MINNA DE SHINDE KAMI NI NARU
of all the things to die to, it was the belt smusher
fun side effects of making your pseudo-2d segments rely so heavily on predefined "tracks" for the player to go down
the bullets curve along those tracks
god I was rewatching stuff of nier automata to remember
ending B is just so fucking badass on how it is made, I am so hype when you reach it
found this optional treasure room with an "Engine Blade" weapon
oooh
there is a weapon there right
yep that weapon is cool af
it is from final fantasy
LMAO
it is crazy how much final fantasy and nier stuff collab
nooooo this one's locked
kami ni natta
yay, more ritual robot suicide
ping
interesting, there's a door in there which was locked in the prologue, unlocked now, but any attempt to walk towards it makes the game say NOPE
well fuck
(also can these resistance guys seriously not do anything on their own)
F
he mad
and unlike the last time an Onii-chan died in a NieR game, this little brother has superpowers
I can't tell if the health bar is supposed to be glitched like this or not
fuck
that pose has to be an artistic choice
and for the record, this scene is the first time either of their blindfolds come off
credits
I'm guessing K was the fish ending?
ah yes, when you give Yoko a real budget
huh, it kept my hair color, but not my ribbon?
Yep
That sums up nier automata
they let yoko fucking COOK
oh and 9S got my autoheal chips
the part where the audio turns off until you reactivate it had me confused because alt+tabbing also pauses audio 
lol
it is such a fucking cool detail
god this game have so much cool details and creativity
I cant imagine what yoko taro will cook next
now that he will have a fucking massive budget because of automata
mf will make A-E ending but every ending is a complete different game or something
why do I have access to 2B's mailbox
probably there is some lore reason
did it record exactly what button presses I made on this settings screen the first time around
oh no do I have to wait through however long I left the game running to go do some irl thing 
Yoko you fool
I have absolutely no idea what was happening when I did this the first time
it could very well be hours
or ten more seconds
but that's probably why there's a skip option
lmao
I feel like I shouldn't use it though
it is such a fucking cool detail too
this whole settings thing
automata took pretty much all the fun concepts of replicant and deal it to 100
lmao
as far as metatextual settings menus go, Stanley Parable Deluxe still has the best one
but this is pretty cute too
oh now it's pausing while past me shares the flirty third choice
...apparently past me left the controller somewhere the A was being held down by mistake
did you know there's a limit to how many button presses it stores 
ok, gotta stop there for tonight
fun fact it's called aji wo [K]utta
you're a Japanese nerd, you can figure out what that means
yep, I was 90% sure I saw something like that scroll by but the [] didn't mean anything to me at the time
too busy laughing at nyoom credits
the capital letter with the brackets is the ending designation
so a flower for m[A]chines is the one you got ptreviously
yep, I figured that out as soon as I got [A]
meanwhile i managed to kill myself within 30 seconds of starting the game
"Oooh, what happens if I remove the OS chip?"
clearly I'm not looking hard enough for silly endings
my eyes glaze over whenever I try to look at those customization menus, figuring out how to equip autoheal was my limit
oh and that one time I lost my big sword and had to re-equip it somehow, still no idea what happened there
though it was amusing that high heel kicks did that much damage
"we're going to land far from the camp to avoid leaking information"
for all the good that did them
in retrospect Anemone's reaction to 2B seems like a hint that she knows more about 2A than she ever let on
hm, the starter quests are here again, even though my quest % hasn't changed
I'm pretty sure the weird lady did not have a main quest marker over her head before
and I don't remember a "where do I go now?" option here before...
that was not there before?
ok maybe it was and I'm just dumb
but why did she have the main quest marker then
why did 2B get the goofy operator and 9S the stiff one
comedy
I'm pretty sure 2B and Nines "share" quests, meaning you can finish them as either character and it counts for both?
that's what I was expecting to happen, but apparently they each get a copy of the quest, and the quest % only cares if you did it at least once
or at least that's how these two worked, it could be just these two surprisingly mandatory starter quests
"this is the best I can do, but apparently there's a master who can do level 4 out there somewhere" oh that's why you said the thing when I found the samurai smithbot
yep still 33%
so these two you just have to do twice
jesus christ why does a sm0l level 25 enemy have that much health 
They're worth murdering
the important thing was another one of these Mechanical Life Form Cores, right?
ping
is it just me, or does 2B do a lot more damage as an NPC than 9S was doing
or is it just that the enemies are weaker relative to me than they were in A
I'm level 34 apparently
oh that scene was new
"god" came out of the volcano and told the robots to (verb completely missing) love, hatred, loneliness, several other emotions 
yush
Well 2B is a combat unit, not a support/scanner unit
oh boy, this is gonna take a while
yeah, if that's actually intentional, then bravo for being the rare game that makes narrative power levels have anything to do with in-game power levels 
TONK
which I never fought in A btw
oh, am I supposed to be selling the cores for money, or do they have a special use later if I hang onto them? (as I've been assuming since money's been a complete non-issue)
there
They sell for more in Route C is the long and short of it
and especially if you're upgrading weapons and buying chips to optimise it might get a bit pricey



