NieR

[solar cipher]

kk

is it like Replicant in that C is the "look up the scavenger hunt checklist online" route, and all the others are "just play normally"?

one of the ordinary bots just dropped a core lol

[hasty meteor]

I think C is just play normally too

they changed the full weapon from a story requirement to one to unlock an endgame superboss

[solar cipher]

good call

but, do I want the superboss?

[hasty meteor]

Maybe

[solar cipher]

I have a stupid amount of money and nothing I need to spend it on so I'm just gonna buy every weapon I see in shops from now on

I still want to know exactly why 9S is so sure Adam is a Mechanical Life Form instead of an Android

especially since we've established androids in this game are not exactly made of organic parts

can I hack Adam?

ow

got him that time

didn't really do enough damage to be worth it though

ah-ha, I'm pretty sure you were not a quest before

right, I need to figure out wtf happened to my ribbon

...ok that's not what I wanted

so... the hair sprays are girls only, but all the other accessories are player character only?

alas, seems like this is the best I can do for now

he's still being a dingus about robot rights so he gets the orb of shame

hm

the machines called them treasures

[royal pawn]

Not exactly, it still has story on it

and it is one of the best endings I ever seen in a videos game

or any media in general

it is fucking amazing

[solar cipher]

oh you hack these chests

[royal pawn]

yep!

[solar cipher]

I still think one kick from 2B's high heels would've reduced it to dust but oh well

what's the opera singer boss' name? I missed it again

[royal pawn]

in english is Simone

Beauvoir (Japanese version)

[solar cipher]

hm, I'm almost certain the- yeah it was different

ok I don't know the reference

wow, "Beauvoir" does not katakana-ize well

now it's getting real

yes, I get it, but who is he

oooh

humans cover themselves and gain intelligence from food, that's gotta be a Bible Adam's getting this from, surely

on top of the whole Adam and Eve name thing

still seems weird that Yorha androids are completely unaware that they have machine allies, if the resistance is regularly bartering supplies with them

so I'm back at the part where oil rig mechas appear in the city center and defeating them adds a crater to the map

and the fact that this part changes to semi-black and white makes me wonder if it's a hint about the Bunker being black and white

like, it represents the narrow, destruction-oriented mindset of a military operation

the giant mecha's name is Engels

right, it's the same one I pulled that archive from before

I keep forgetting to actually read any of the archives, I'm gonna do that right now instead of fight this thing

the forest king's name was "Ernst"? as in Hemingway?

no comments on the rest atm

and hacked to death

is that a tapeworm over there now

huh, kung fu bot goes down in a single hack

finally, the number went up slightly!

[royal pawn]

yay!

[solar cipher]

oh boy the dots are everywhere now

wait, this is another duplicate quest

how many of these are there

several apparently

that's lame

[solar cipher]

lmao

[solar cipher]

I don't like where this is going

oops, I fell down the main plot

guess I have to do this right now to reach a save point

that'll probably be a good place to stop anyway

here we go again

[hasty meteor]

I like your headwear

[solar cipher]

if I can't put a bow back on 2B, I'll settle for this

and there's my stopping point

[hasty meteor]

[royal pawn]

[solar cipher]

all right, time for a proper uninterrupted weekend NieR session

currently at just under 25 hours

with all the duplicate sidequests, I'm gonna try to do just enough of each that the waypoint stops being ??? and I can properly hide it, and then focus on actually incomplete ones

annoyingly the Sagebots (?) won't even let me un-??? them so I'll just have to memorize those red dots

[royal pawn]

Far as I know if you did it once

you dont need to do it again

the side quests

[solar cipher]

cool

we've already checked that the quest % definitely doesn't go up when I redo one

time to find out if this is the same as before or if they +10'd everyone's levels for route B

nope, I am totally levelled for this now

LET'S YUUJOU

oh fuck that jump is harder than it looks

that seriously insta-fails the quest?

"thanks to you, the parade wasn't completely wiped out" ...yes, that is an accurate description of this result

wow this one won't even let me fail to talk to him

ok, I need to FINALLY sell off this copper because it keeps bugging me that the game won't let me pick up any more of it

iron ore and crystals appear to be the only other items I have >50 of, so might as well sell most of those too

and I have so much gold lying around I'll buy every single pod and chip upgrade this camp sells

because I forgot the camp even sells those things and definitely will forget again five minutes from now

[hasty meteor]

UNLIMITED POWAAA

[solar cipher]

not gonna put any super serious thought into optimizing this, but I do want to at least fill up the space with chips that seem like they'd benefit me, since the game is no doubt expecting that of me by now

also since you brought it up the other day

[royal pawn]

lmao

[solar cipher]

I still probably won't find 90% of the joke endings even if I'm actvely looking everywhere for them

actually, are there any joke endings that involve letting something kill you?

if there aren't that'll save a lot of time lol

I found... an ancient cafeteria menu

that's a lot of potatos

huh, am I not allowed to warp to the forest because I haven't redone the main quest for it yet

it's letting me warp to plenty of specific vending machines I haven't revisited

the NPC android loves hopping around on nearby rooftops whenever the camera is 2.5D

"my son is a hikikomori and put an electric lock on the door"

hi

sorry about your door

[hasty meteor]

Dying in the tutorial as 2B gets you one

[solar cipher]

nice

huh, the runaway resistance couple quest is duplicated

but none of the other pascal village quests

seriously what are the criteria here

now to check if the arenas deleted my progress

ok good it remembers I've done the first trial

thank god they don't forbid hacking

without dodge, you really need that to keep it interesting

level 3 is...

"finish in 3 minutes"

welp I'm definitely not doing this until I'm closer to the recommended level

unless they let me abuse hacking

I abused hacking

ok I'm not doing the level 60 one

at best I'd be doing hacking minigames for the next half hour

how many tiers does each arena have?

[solar cipher]

again, really

[royal pawn]

I think there is

[molten galleon]

How hard is it compared to other games in the Genre?

[solar cipher]

given the nature of the game, and how subjective difficulty is, I'll have to ask which genre you mean and what other game(s) you have in mind as a comparison point

[molten galleon]

Does it have dark souls elements to it where you need to reach checkpoints?

[solar cipher]

well, checkpoints go way beyond soulslikes

I'm honestly not sure what exactly triggers enemy respawns, but the fact that I don't know tells you it's nowhere near as important as in, say, Hollow Knight

for specifically Souls-y mechanics, the only thing that comes to mind is recovering your body after death

but there's no estus-like limit on heals between checkpoints

no stamina bar stuff

I just wouldn't call it a Soulslike

if you're worried about the difficulty of the parts where you run around and swing swords at robots, the stuff you should be comparing to are other character action / spectacle fighter games like Platinum's other works

[molten galleon]

Ah right. It’s just I’ve been wanting to play it for a while but just didn’t know how the mechanics worked.

I do like playing games on the hardest settings but I’ve never played this before.

[solar cipher]

and at least compared to the other Platinums I've played (Bayonetta 1-2, Vanquish, Metal Gear Rising, Transformers: Devastation) it feels like entirely standard difficulty to me

(I have not played any of the Devil May Crys)

of course I also almost never play any games on the highest settings, so I dunno if I'm of any use regardless

if you normally play everything on hard then the worst case scenario is you lower it to normal lol

[molten galleon]

I’ve heard that some of the DMC Games on the hardest setting are really hard.

But you have gave me some tips.

[solar cipher]

I should also point out this is an action RPG

so difficulty depends heavily on playstyle in the usual RPG ways

and there's all the twin stick shooter segments which I've had no difficulty with but again if you're worried about hardness you should be aware they exist

[molten galleon]

I don’t mind segments that make you use both sticks unless the are inverted

[solar cipher]

oh, uh, that's not what "twin stick shooter" means

[molten galleon]

Oh.

[solar cipher]

that refers to games where you and the enemies are on a 2D plane, typically the left analog stick moves you in one direction, and the right analog stick makes you shoot in another direction

[molten galleon]

Ah those.

I get what you mean now.

[solar cipher]

NieR Automata works that way for various setpieces using the "flight units" including the very first section of gameplay, and (after the first playthrough) in all the hacking minigames

but the spectacle fighter RPG stuff is the bulk of the gameplay

(so far, I'm only ~1.5 playthroughs in)

[molten galleon]

I haven’t played a Twin stick in a while.

This was one of my favourites https://store.playstation.com/en-gb/product/EP9000-CUSA00062_00-ALIENATIONGAMEEU

[solar cipher]

I think for me a pure twin stick game is just too simple to hold my interest

I only just remembered that Flitter highly recommended Chippy, and I played it exactly once, and straight-up forgot about it

ok I finally found the cave they wanted me to find, back to actually playing the game

explain yourself

[molten galleon]

[solar cipher]

oh she also got it from someone else

round and round we go

[molten galleon]

Have fun!

[solar cipher]

huh, I can warp to the sunken city, but not to the forest

still confused

ok I think the sidequest for the couple in Pascal's village got "duplicated" because I only finished part 1 of it the first time around

[royal pawn]

oh yeah you need to finish them

[solar cipher]

I never talked to them out here because by the time I had the sunken city too much main plot was happening and deleting all my sidequests

yeah, sure, I have 50k in my pocket and nothing better to spend it on

...the little one literally lit itself on fire before coming at us

I was going to just warp away to another sidequest but IF YOU INSIST

"I was going to kill myself afterward anyway. You already killed all of my family and friends. I'm alone because of you. I no longer have any reason to live."

🎉 LEVEL UP: 🎉
Level 42

that really is the tone of the game in a nutshell

[hasty meteor]

That's just NieR in a nutshell

[solar cipher]

did sunken arena D and C ranks, stopping there

I like how this game doesn't try to pretend that the elevators are anything other than load zones, and if loading takes longer than it expected it just says "Loading..." instead of trying to secretly make the elevator take longer

[solar cipher]

though it's weird that some quests like the arenas do remember partial progress

I think it's all the inconsistency that keeps confusing me

so now I don't know which of these quests I actually need to do because there's a part 2 and which ones are just complete duplicates

oh

"I'm a type-E Yorha"

"A model for killing deserters and traitors... killing other androids..."

[hasty meteor]

That was a fun revalation to witness

[solar cipher]

sad music plays

[royal pawn]

oh shit this part

[solar cipher]

unrelated to that

I'm intrigued by this bit of random dialogue that happened when I went back to the desert city ruins

"Why did so many people live all in the same place back then?"
"Educated guess: Due to lack of land."
"But the earth is so big..."

partially because of the intended whoa deep shit aspect, but also because jumping straight to "lack of land" strikes me as a Japanese answer, whereas in America it's almost a silly answer

and now the reason I warped over here

found the historical artifacts that 210 wanted

well we knew this was gonna go south somehow

"I'll become the strongest hikikomori ever!"

indeed, it's here now

it needs three colored cables to complete its game?

like, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCA_connector ?

"I can't take living on the run any more, please wipe our memories and take us back to Anemone, surely that'll be enough for her"

uh

oh boy it got worse

🎉 LEVEL UP 🎉

oh no

oh noooooo

he finally learned that in anime the strongest beings are always exactly human-sized

"I'm so glad... I found someone I could use all my skills on..."

boom

edgelord bot

still no frame of reference for when, where or to whom any of these new-to-B interstitial scenes are happening

also still no explanation for this

I think that said 253 years ago?

forest king flashback

huh, waterfall bot just lets 9S through immediately, the only problem before was that 2B asked instead

[solar cipher]

128 this time

ok I think I'm gonna stop here in the forest stuff

33% -> 57% seems like decent progress for one day

[hasty meteor]

[solar cipher]

and just under 30 hours now

[hasty meteor]

i like how the endings are the only English on there aside from your name

[solar cipher]

yup

and even the K is from romanized Japanese

well, also "SAVE GAME"

[solar cipher]

so much autohealing

four hours ago, the retainer bots talk about how the king bot never gets any bigger (oops)

I bet this chest thought I was gonna forget about it

ping

since most weapons I've looked at seem to have roughly the same damage at each level, I dunno of a reason to switch off my two starter swords for now

just need 2 "pretty cables" to get the other one to L4

does the baby being ~140 years old make this better or worse?

decided to play the character and just hacked her three times without even trying to land a sword swing

they were always together

"Like the machines from Pascal's village, we have no reason to destroy anyone that does not harm us."

is it just me or did 2B go all in on pacifism where feasible sometime after we reached the B-route forest

you should probably take out some of those weapons stuck in your hull

so what is the deal with the sagebots? will they just start talking to me in C-E, or do I need to do something specific?

[solar cipher]

finally! it's interactive!

ping

[solar cipher]

yeah, I never would've found this one without the map marker

[solar cipher]

interesting

ok, Emil's memories are mostly gone because he made thousands of copies of himself while fighting the aliens

that makes sense

yahari

[royal pawn]

oh shit you there

[solar cipher]

and as a result of that sidequest, I finally have an accessory I want to wear more than the orb of shame

I believe that is all of the sidequests I can advance at this point, besides the arenas (which I'd rather put off until I'm a high enough level I can just do them all at once)

next up in the main quest is the whole coastal assault sequence so this is my stopping point

[royal pawn]

Doing side quests will get way easier later I tell you that

[solar cipher]

mm-hmm, most of the ones I've been doing are the kind where waiting more wouldn't help since the enemies are already super easy, or they don't involve enemies

[royal pawn]

this is kinda of a minor spoiler I guess, but you will unlock when finishing a chapter select

[solar cipher]

interesting

by then I'll have already done most of them

[royal pawn]

so yeah doing A-E endings is way easier this time

[solar cipher]

tbf most of these sidequests are just do X% of main quest so it makes sense to pick them up, then immediately run to all the waypoints and do the thing before main plot deletes the quest

[royal pawn]

yeah

[royal pawn]

Oh one thing you will want to do is finish all 3 colosseums for the dlc ending

it is fucking amazing

[hasty meteor]

... i didn't finish the colosseums...

[royal pawn]

u literally didn’t do one of the best video game endings ever

[solar cipher]

to plan out when I get back to them, what is the highest recommended level for an arena fight?

I think I'm Lv47 now

[royal pawn]

I would say 70 you can do everything

[solar cipher]

kk

[hasty meteor]

(ixrec no click)
||HE FUCKING TELEPORTED BEHIND ME ||

[solar cipher]

[hasty meteor]

I'm sure you'll find this bit Eventually™️

[solar cipher]

rare mention of pony: due to yesterday's events, Misty having a flower in her hair constantly reminds me of the Lunar Tear even though it's not even the same color

[hasty meteor]

well fuck that noise rn fr fr
i need to be max level i think to even have a chance

[hasty meteor]

This probably is an edge case for posting here but I got A2 in the Nikke event :3 (I already had 2B)

Unfortunately Cheremi Leigh didn't return to voice her but having English VA at all is nice after the last collab only had Japanese VAing (and yes, Kira did return for 2B)

[solar cipher]

I like how when I'm running through these big underground pipes 2B keeps sliding by me and then up one of the curved sides like she's doing skateboarding tricks

they have more clothing this time around

nice, he actually asked why he's Eve

even brought up Cain and Abel!

oh hey finally a new enemy type

chicken-bot with superlasers

and now for the long shmup section

still amusing

[solar cipher]

and you two again

guys, it's all text again

the triangle is talking for some reason

the machines are imitating all aspects of human culture, but there's no sign of them producing any new culture or viewpoints of their own

they repeat the same mistakes over and over again, without ever learning, almost as if failure itself is the goal

you don't believe in anything
you want to destroy everything
you've lost faith in everything
you want everything for yourself
you want to be loved by everyone

wait, no, Yoko, you can't just come out and say that

(I'm actually curious how often these screenshots make y'all go "oh yeah, that line" and how often you just have no idea about the parts I'm not translating)

[marsh lynx]

I am pretty confident I know what line that is

And I'm gonna tell you, it has multiple meanings

[solar cipher]

the machine's treasures include family, siblings, beauty and hatred

[marsh lynx]

The english version is also censored and is a 4 letter word, it's left up to interpretation which word that is

[solar cipher]

I can't tell if I'm an idiot or I broke the game or what, but I can't get out of this dang bed

oh, I had to hold right click

why did it suddenly forget I have a gamepad

the shipments to the moon are mostly empty containers?

oooh are we finally going to address that nagging question of whether there are any lunar humans or not

I am not sure what most of this means but it feels worth saving a screenshot of for later

yes, 9S, "lunar committee formation" as a subheading of "yorha project" is maximally sus

but we have no time for an existential crisis, 2B's in the BECOME AS GODS level

KAMI NI NARU NO DAAAA

floats over their heads

also backwards long jumping saves soooooo much time here

oh hai

I don't think this is the robot "I" showed up in last time

Gestalt Project Report 01!? 👀

ah, maso particles is literally 魔素 maso (the ma from mahou/magic, mamono/monster, etc + the -so suffix for chemical elements)

that seems so obvious in retrospect

"magicium"? "magium"?

lol, initial protests over the gestalt project were so strong they had to add PR campaigns to the schedule

waaaaait

was the robot death cult trying to imitate the Gestalt Project?

"9S, please come to the director's office"

"To be precise, humanity never went to the moon."
caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalled iiiiiiiiiiit

well okay they did in the 1900s but we know what you mean

granted, probably everyone who played Replicant was expecting that

oh cool, there's another android running to battle stations during this part

usually everyone in the world is static except for me and the bad guy

oooh we usually skip this part

hahahaha, from this perspective it just jump cuts from "2B is in combat" to 9S's flight unit crashing into the boss

I know you like her but man at least check if she's struggling first

[solar cipher]

oh right, before I forget... yeah that's clearly the east coast of North America

still unclear exactly where this ruined city is but that's a lot more information than we had before

I guess New York is the most obvious candidate

also

I am very glad I did my sidequest binge when I did

I forgot that 9S leaves the plot after the coastal defense sequence so that was actually probably my last chance to do them this time around

lol, they added the krakenbot to the map screen

"data corruption, recommend retreat"
nah, your checkerboard patterns don't scare me

did it record past me's movements here too?

WHO ARE YOU TWO

oh interactive credits

[hasty meteor]

HA

I missed that ending name the first time

[solar cipher]

pauses the credits to check the item shop

not seeing any secret stuff here

now that is new

[hasty meteor]

This is where the real game begins

[hasty meteor]

Did you do a sidequest about Emil?

[solar cipher]

do y'all not read the entire backlog?

you're supposed to be NieR fans

[hasty meteor]

true

well i'm guessing you did
that title screen will never change now, get used to seeing it

[solar cipher]

but yes, that's why my 9S was wearing a Lunar Tear at the end

[hasty meteor]

maybe

[hasty meteor]

oh hell yeah

[solar cipher]

(my original plan was to put on the blue ribbon when he stopped being a dingus, but I got the tear before that happened)

[hasty meteor]

oh you think he won't stop being a dingus?

[solar cipher]

oooh, C is set immediately after A/B

ok what is the deal with these suits and masks

like, are we trying to evoke WW2 imagery here

also "remember the pain of losing your homeland" is a weird thing to say to a bunch of androids that didn't even exist when that happened

[hasty meteor]

symbolism?

[solar cipher]

and back to the grind

I was hoping to get a better look at that weird suit but oh well

[hasty meteor]

Alas

[solar cipher]

now I'm getting chewed out for an off-screen robot blowing itself up

hmmmmm, near the end of B, 9S disabled something (updates? backups?) for himself and 2B because of weird server activity, and I think 11S just told him it's preventing the other Ss from updating now

[hasty meteor]

[solar cipher]

and yes, I went out of my way to hack the last bot even though the objective cleared itself after the 2nd to last

the operator was happy

so why are we doing this again when all the warp points on the surface are still intact

there, proper look at the suit

[marsh lynx]

Route 3 is a doozy

[solar cipher]

here we go

oh btw I'm level 50 now

so much hacking

what the hell are these suits for!?

greaaaaaaat

well good thing we let these two androids have emotions because boy did it give them plot armor

that was lot of friendly fire

hey Engels, what do you think of all this

lol

so you really can't detonate just one black box, they have to touch

wtf is a black box

"perhaps YOU have the virus"

is it time to find out why 2A is so angy

oh, it's not the director's evil plan, everyone but the three of us is infected now

welp, we've just murdered all but three androids in the known universe

make that two

cool shot

I dunno if we're gonna make it

HYPE

normally when fiction has one character walk in on an easily misunderstood moment it feels more than a little artificial, buuuuut this one actually makes perfect sense

roll credits ding

ding

...is this the C/D choice?

[hasty meteor]

Nop

[solar cipher]

well I'm starting with 9S since that's the more natural choice

[hasty meteor]

Basically you can swap between A2 and Nines as you feel like up to a certain point when you get these screens

[solar cipher]

oh hello

[marsh lynx]

[solar cipher]

I still get mail!?

and now for whatever these are

"A2's status: unknown"
I'm pretty sure that was a lie

"meat box"?

huh, one of the bigger robots one-shot me

I'm feeling like stopping here anyway

[royal pawn]

holy god I cant sleep and you get to C

[royal pawn]

this is where the game actually begins

[royal pawn]

this whole thing was just so fucking insanely cool

as I saw someone saying once

“the moment you realize you spent 40 hours playing the prologue”

[solar cipher]

but still over half of the game's runtime

[royal pawn]

this last few hours will be peak

PEAK GAMING

[royal pawn]

@solar cipher btw just you get a very good experience and do ending C first, because doing D you also do E. At certain moment of the game you will have a choice, you choose A2 first

[solar cipher]

but not this moment?

[royal pawn]

nop

will be another very obvious moment

[hasty meteor]

I think I did D first without any issues

[royal pawn]

ixrec do not click this: || doing D also makes do E, that deletes the save ||

[hasty meteor]

You only get to do E after doing C and D, if i recall

[hasty meteor]

You sure?

[marsh lynx]

I am pretty sure HC is correct

[royal pawn]

wait you need both?

Oh can be either

didnt knew that

[hasty meteor]

np, i swore i had D first

[molten galleon]

Ooooh there’s a demo

[molten galleon]

Wait the demo is 2016 and the game is 2019 I wonder how much different it will be from the demo to the full game.

[royal pawn]

demo is just the first few minutes of the game

[molten galleon]

Ah.

[molten galleon]

@solar cipher I played the demo and it was really fun. So I’ve bought the game

[solar cipher]

watching someone play NieR for the combat instead of the plot is going to be interesting

[molten galleon]

I’ll play it for both.

[solar cipher]

just to check, you're aware this is the second of the two NieR games? (the stories are mostly unrelated so the only downside is missing references in a few places)

[molten galleon]

Wait the first one was made in 2010?

[solar cipher]

yeah, it's been a while

oh, and you're also aware this is one of those games you're expected to play through multiple times to get multiple endings?

[molten galleon]

It’s only £10 in CeX I got the second one for £12

I’ve done games that have those so I don’t mind.

[solar cipher]

yep, just something you wanna know going in

[molten galleon]

Not a bad price for a game that’s 13 years old.

[solar cipher]

note that the remake NieR: Replicant is the better way to experience the original game, and that's a lot more recent

[molten galleon]

They remade the first one?

[solar cipher]

yes

[molten galleon]

Ah right.

[royal pawn]

https://youtu.be/xdeNi7HPH0I?si=PA49U4u2ALiWkoDc

[solar cipher]

I don't think I've gotten to this part yet

that's right, I left off after dying inside the "meat box"

oh yeah

I originally equipped the shockwave chip just because anime vibes why not, I only expected it to do chip damage (no pun intended)

but it feels like it does as much damage as a direct hit from the sword, effectively 5-10xing my melee range, which is ridiculous

am I crazy?

a lot of 9S's dialogue makes my mind go back to this one specific thing @marsh lynx said

Genryu — 09/11/2023 12:03 AM
Nier is a circle of hate story, in which you don't break the circle.
In fact perhaps in which it can't be broken, but still, there isn't an attempt done

especially here in the meat box, from the moment he started reacting to the machines' dialogue with lines like kikai ga kurushii wake nai darou / machines can't be in pain, the context of routes A-B plus the line delivery instantly convinced me he's in complete denial here

unlike NieR, he has no excuse of ignorance, 9S knows full well he's killing a bunch of sentient life forms, and that he's doing it solely for revenge (now that all the options for a "noble" motivation have been removed)

and now it's A2's turn

she has a very interesting dash animation, no idea what to make of this yet

[solar cipher]

I can't tell if this Hegel fight is too chaotic for me to tell what they want me to do, or if it's too late for me to be playing this game

the pods are doing a really good job of not giving the androids any obvious hints that they have their own agenda

"soul box"

ah, black boxes are based off machine cores, and these were chosen because putting a "normal AI" into yorha androids was deemed ethically unacceptable (talk about missing the forest for the trees)

but let's face it we kinda expected that, "what even is the difference between machines and androids?" had been a conspicuously under-addressed question from the start

the real question is who the heck made the androids

so there's still some of Eve inside 9S

"9S is becoming dangerously unstable" NO SHIT

[solar cipher]

wait, can I seriously just kill Pascal right now

thought so

ok that's enough for tonight, I will actually fall asleep if I try to push any farther

[marsh lynx]

Arguably this goes even a bit deeper.
In Automata you can even doubt if there is any killing actually happening,or if its just a bunch of things copying human behaviour in the total absence of sentient life.

How do you know any of the being involved is sentient, you are told from the get go that robots are copying humans, who knows maybe also androids are.

[hasty meteor]

BUT WHY D:

POOR PASCAL

WHAT DID PASCAL DO TO YOU?

[solar cipher]

right, left off with A2 being sent on the Pascal filter swap errand

still seems like an odd thing for them to get the Yorhas to do considering they've apparently been doing this for a while without us

since I started in the village and I have 100k G on me, I wanna find out if it's actually possible to "finish" throwing money at this inventor bot

"I made it to space, but unfortunately not to the moon"

"Instead I made it to Mars..."

oh well, now I have no money and 1% more quest completion

[solar cipher]

suddenly everyone's giving me sidequests, guess I've hit another lull in the game

[royal pawn]

gotta get those % up

[solar cipher]

ooooor not???

oh no most of my sidequest markers just got deleted

why would you do that literally one minute after I got handed all of those quests

oh my god

did they just give me a bad ending for trying to pick up one last sidequest before rushing to the main quest

"A2 suddenly felt like taking a walk. By the time she was done, Pascal's village was destroyed."

[royal pawn]

LMAO

[solar cipher]

what even was my save point before thsi

ok just before I warped to resistance camp

let's just do what I was doing before but don't talk to Anemone this time

[royal pawn]

I do think it is kinda intentional you receive all this side quests

just to have to ignore everything and run to the village

so much they even made the joke ending of it lol

[solar cipher]

oh no, he got trapped in the block puzzle

[solar cipher]

ping

er whoops forgot to change focus before pressing shift for a screenshot, sorry pascal

ok, now I've done all the sidequests

time to actually deal with the village attack

oh no they're going to ruin the giant slide I just built

really, right now the teleporters are disabled

[royal pawn]

welp

[solar cipher]

that's just silly

oh, we're fighting silly with silly now

fffff

that was a very Kojima moment

seriously wtf happened here

[royal pawn]

pain

only pain

[solar cipher]

feels like ending Z got us to exactly the same situation with less pain

rare close-up

[royal pawn]

pretty much

[royal pawn]

what did u choose for pascal fate?

[solar cipher]

so... funny story

before I answer that, does it matter later?

[royal pawn]

You pretty much set his life

From here onward does not matter anymore

[solar cipher]

so my serious choice would've been erase memories

but because of all that fighting before this moment I wanted to see if I could go save before making the decision

[royal pawn]

oooh

you did the third option….

[solar cipher]

and then when he told me not to leave I wondered if this was another of the non-standard endings

[royal pawn]

….

[solar cipher]

so I figured might as well get that while I was here

but alas

[royal pawn]

yeah…

this choice is hard

One choice ends this cycle of always fucking up

Other choice re-starts the cycle

The third choice… Pain

[solar cipher]

cycle? has Pascal been wiped before?

[royal pawn]

Not wiped before

Machines always end up fucking dying and killing

and erasing him now, will just make it do it again

Because he technically will learn nothing from it, since he is just a program

they will always do X

[solar cipher]

oh in that sense

[hasty meteor]

so like fucking dying
or fucking, dying?

[solar cipher]

moose photobomb

[royal pawn]

so pretty

[royal pawn]

pretty much

LMAO

[solar cipher]

god box

[royal pawn]

you about to witness some insanity

I am ready

[solar cipher]

oh we're back to A2... and the tower is being weird here too

oh no is A2 going to the same place as 9S

does creepy tower girl want that to happen

[royal pawn]

creepy tower girl knows everything

[solar cipher]

huh

nice to see you

hm, this next boss is a u gu su to, given all the other philosopher names that've gone by I'm guessing St Augustine

oh no, not the bucket heads

ping

that's not what the loading screen is for

nice

and thankfully they're actually good at this

[solar cipher]

ping

"I've had this dream before..." /s

ok, finally a save point

I need to go to bed now, I can barely still play competently

[hasty meteor]

BROTHER
BROTHER

[solar cipher]

NII-CHAN
NII-CHAN

[hasty meteor]

i found that boss more funny than tragic, honestly

like the callback all the way to the start of Route B just made me laugh

[solar cipher]

ok, I'm awake now, let's see if I can push through to an ending

[hasty meteor]

[solar cipher]

huh, I never noticed this before

the tower itself is one of these white cathedral-y hallways, but squished and twisted

sad

that doesn't bode well for 9S

is it just me or are the walls and doors getting more detailed

...oh

[hasty meteor]

welcome back to the library~

if you check the room across from popola/devola's you'll see a trophy room just like in Replicant

[solar cipher]

but this time it's full

[hasty meteor]

[solar cipher]

Special A Patient "Yona"

I'm starting to think we downplayed how connected this all is to Replicant

more sad

[hasty meteor]

very sad

[solar cipher]

...if they weren't androids, that would be some serial killer stuff he just did

[hasty meteor]

I mean, it's still pretty fucked up

[solar cipher]

ah, the book A2 started reading before the jump cut is here in the archives

if I'm reading this right, A2 being the sole survivor of that op proved her model was unusually good at responding to extreme situations, so they decided to use her personality data as a basis for all type E models that needed to handle top secret information

is the director a type E?

ok, Gestalt Projecet Report 11 says that they're ending the project after the Replicant events doomed it, and instead they're pursuing new types of androids

so the Automata androids were created by the entities managing Project Gestalt, that clears that up

I assume these are acceptable %s to be at for this point in the plot

oh I forgot to mention yesterday, I'm pretty sure 9S got level 59 by massacring all the 2Bs

about damn time you two weirdos showed up again

Obtained Item
You obtained an archive.
[Top Secret] Regarding the Disposal of Yorha Squad

ok this seems important enough to do word for word

[Top Secret] Regarding the Disposal of Yorha Squad

The following records cover the final stage of the Yorha Project.
*N.B. this document is to be treated as Secrecy Level SS, and must not be revealed to anyone involved with Yorha including the Bunker director.

[Project 03-01 Regarding the Disposal of Yorha Squad]
Battle data has been accumulated, and a backdoor opened in Yorha Bunker Base now that we're approaching the switch to next generation models. Abandon Bunker by deliberately making mechanical life forms attack it. As a result, all information regarding Yorha Project including this document will be destroyed, and the fabrication that humanity exists on the moon will be complete.

I know you've all read this in English already but that's as much to make sure I'm not glossing over a word of this as anything else

well that's an amazing coincidence

is it gonna be a 2B model or a 9S model or what

oh it's just so he can yoink the flight unit

this_is_fine.png

well good thing our little floating bread box is smarter than the planetary hive mind because that actually worked

[hasty meteor]

touhou time

[solar cipher]

uh... you might wanna move a little closer to each other if you're trying to land a hit

https://i.imgur.com/4thrz.gif

oh, this boss switched from A2 to 9S

the farther I get into this the more I'm convinced every single character is just running around committing random acts of violence without any long term plan, including all the machines

in Replicant there was always an overarching goal of save Yona/Kaine/NieR in each of the A-E endings

but here, even the pretense of maybe saving/helping anyone started out as a vague gesture at unseen lunar humans for A-B who of course turned out not to exist and now no one seems to care about anything but more fighting

"became god, became god, who became god?"
GOOD QUESTION

oh, are 9S and 2A fighting two different Roushis

we are machines, you are androids, we are enemies, why do we exist, why do you exist, fighting is our destiny, I see the light

ah, I thought so, 2A's enemy is コウシ Koushi and 9S's is ロウシ Roushi, I wasn't just being bad at katakana

is this a pair of mythological twins I haven't heard of

and there it is

nooo don't fight

I know that's the whole message of the game that fighting just makes more fighting inevitable but come on break character and hug already

[hasty meteor]

Hug hug hug hug

[solar cipher]

here's a good example of a Japanese word that I like, and can be expressed in English, but is never quite as concise in English so Japanese tends to use it more often and more metaphorically/emotionally

捨て駒【すてごまsutegoma】捨駒 noun:
sacrificial pawn; sacrificed piece - Shōgi term

9S just summed up the whole Yorha project thing as "all the androids, even 2B, were sutegoma from the beginning"

FUCK

this has to be the ending choice

where the hell was my last save

before A2 walked into the tower? in fact have I gotten to save once today?

ok we're doing 9S first

A2's what I want to do and feels much more true-ending-y, but I've read/played enough VNs/games that do this to know it's always more satisfying to do the routes in order

"Are you sure?" YES YOKO DO IT ALREADY

yeah this feels about right

lol, upside down credits

[hasty meteor]

happy ending!

[solar cipher]

so there was a second choice during the text only segment after they passed out, and I chose going with them

do I need to replay this once for the 9S -> "nah" path and however many times 2A has subchoices, or do I just go straight to 2A now?

ping

chapter select!

...and debug menu?

[hasty meteor]

it's like a cheat menu of sorts

[solar cipher]

welp, let's keep going

ok, so that's the debug room

ah loading this data puts me all the way back at 2B's opening route A monologue

well let's get that joke ending for dying here

"yorha squad was destroyed, and thus Earth became a paradise for the robots"

[hasty meteor]

Yay!

[solar cipher]

oh right, all the enemies here are level 60 now

in retrospect, right now we're probably flying over some of those Engels which show up later

oooh, it actually tells me how many quests I'm missing in each chapter

oh that is much more fine-grained than I was expecting

in that case let's just do the other choices right now

this is interesting wording

"I'll go... we yorha have no right to be here"
vs
"no thanks... we yorha have no right to be loved"

ok that is also ending D

lol

guess that is the correct way to phrase it

here we go

whoa, she gets a 3D fight?

dude wtf

well that was a glorious mess of a fight

and now I'm wherever this is

and the credits glitched

okay so the pods always knew about Project Yorha ending with wiping all data from all yorhas

brb fighting the credits

[hasty meteor]

did you enable Network Mode?

[solar cipher]

I have no idea

[hasty meteor]

well good luck
if you die enough you'll see what happens

[solar cipher]

argh I nearly had it first try

my god how many subcontractors do you have

fuck Business Division VI got me

[hasty meteor]

Damn Business Division VI

[solar cipher]

"Don't you think video games are silly?"

[hasty meteor]

No!

[solar cipher]

ok fine I'll take some help

this was clearly beyond my skill level as soon as SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. started shooting me

I think the farthest I got legit was MARKETING DIVISION

lol

the pods claim to have salvaged all the data and found enough spare parts to rebuild their bodies

and to make the ✨ THEMES ✨ extra clear, they ask if everything will just repeat, and sad silver pod clarifies it might, but it also might not, which is the whole point

Pod 153: "Ixrec, do you have anything you'd like to say to those struggling to finish NieR: Automata?"

ah so that's how this segment worked

I'd just assumed those were fake messages

[hasty meteor]

nop

[solar cipher]

lol, the location options include real countries, other planets, in-game locations, "Utopia", "the Continent of Mu" and so on

[hasty meteor]

this is the one i wanted to use

also that last option feels very Kaine energy

i miss Kaine

[solar cipher]

oh they have Replicant locations too

I like all the "actually this sucks play something else" options

"even in video games you aren't needed" yeeesh

ok I'm going with this, time to move on from these jokes

"do you want to save another player in exchange for losing all your save data?"

uh, maybe later

so... am I done?

like, I'm gonna try doing more sidequests now, see if the arenas are feasible at Lv60

but is that all the plot

[hasty meteor]

Good luck

[solar cipher]

for the desert ruins with no waypoint quest, am I doing this right? just wander aimlessly holding down LB until something happens?

I found one ore, whoopie

nvm found the thingy

dang he wants more than one thing, and still no waypoints

yeah I'm looking this up

her pathfinding got stuck again

[solar cipher]

yep, total quest count went from 52 to 53, and this chapter now says I've done all quests

let's try... the chapter just before coastal defence, I think that'll let me do arenas in peace

also do tell me which if any of the remaining joke endings are worth going out of my way to see

"this rule is so unfair... but start!"

[hasty meteor]

ummmm hmmmm

[solar cipher]

yeah the combat system is just terrible at supporting this challenge, you basically can't use 90% of the moves

it keeps randomly doing some weird move I don't even know about that throws her off the platforms

yeah I was close to doing second wave but with this particular rule it's just far too tedious when I'm not overlevelled

or I guess I could do it with 9S and just spam hacking, though that's hardly any more interesting

well if I run out of other quests we'll hack it

now this should be a cakewalk

[hasty meteor]

[solar cipher]

woohoo, chips I don't need any more

[hasty meteor]

[solar cipher]

dammit

ok I might have to hack spam through every arena if a ~20 level gap is as tedious as it sounds

[royal pawn]

i fucking love ending E

Everything in this game ends in shit

and in sadness

if you want a fucking happy ending

you need to kill god

(the creators of the game)

and it is just fucking amazing

and it is a boss you pretty much cant defeat without help from other players

also

https://youtu.be/z1Th4iOBzrI?si=MVLSd25Nv4ug_B64

this easter egg

is fucking insane

you just can see it if you very under level during the A2 fight

[solar cipher]

I tried to hack her several times during that fight but for some reason 9S lost the ability to aim at anything for me

sucks that the best hack in the game was effectively locked out by glitching for me

ok, turns out enemies whose every attack is a 1 or 2 hit kill are just too much

so since I don't exactly want to just grind out 20 levels solely to make a completion % go up

is there any other worthwhile content after doing endings A-E?

[hasty meteor]

OHHHH
THAT EXPLAINS THIS IN THE NIER EVENT IN NIKKE

The very last "Hacking mini game" leads you to the main menu

god
they put way too much effort into that event
like even the story is NieR-esque

[marsh lynx]

Okay so, I want to ask to Ix, how does Automata measure against Replicant in your estimation?

I avoided commenting too much during Automata since I played that a long time ago and I have a much less firmer grasp as to when things happen, and I was afraind to spoil major events by accident.

i think Automata is the better game as far as gameplay goes, that much is obvious, Platinum made it, and it's much more ambitious IMO, but there is something to say for the more cozy, closer to the characters story Replicant tells

In both I love how both games tell a story about how things go to shit, in various ways, for very human reasons, don't let you do anything about it, doesn't even tell you what should have happened differently, it just leaves you thinking about it.

[solar cipher]

I guess my most interesting response is that I'm honestly kind of puzzled by the claim that Replicant is so much more focused and close to characters than Automata

both of them are consistently focused on 1-3 point of view characters, both were 40-50 hours with 5 non-joke endings, the emotional arcs of those protagonists dominate all other narrative concerns, the initially presented large-scale goals of maybe saving the world turn out to be out of reach and largely forgotten about in later routes in favor of personal goals of saving or taking revenge on a specific other character, and my largest complaints with both come down to lore or side characters getting too little explanation

e.g. in Replicant I just don't understand what Devola/Popola are doing, and in Automata I still just don't understand why Adam/Eve exist and what they're doing

or Replicant's administrators and Automata's red girl hologram things that never got a name but are clearly just administrators again

[marsh lynx]

the initially presented large-scale goals of maybe saving the world turn out to be out of reach and largely forgotten about in later routes in favor of personal goals of saving or taking revenge on a specific other character
This is true, but even then I do feel like there is a significant difference between the perspectives of the 2 games.
Like even lategame you deal with people's problems in Replicant.
People are getting married but one gets killed, one brother died and the other wants revenge, stuff like that.

In Automata I feel like there is a bit of a more detatched overarching narrative, to go along with the bigger themes the game tackles through it.

[solar cipher]

lategame Automata follows Pascal losing his "family", Devola/Popola sacrificing themselves for personal reasons, then 9S and 2A being angy at each other

[marsh lynx]

Not necessarily detatched from the characters, but from the ground perspective.
Like even the revenge arc of 9s starts with huge sctructure sprouting and him going there to kill things.

[solar cipher]

like I see what you mean, but in the aggregate I don't think it's a large difference

[marsh lynx]

Fair

e.g. in Replicant I just don't understand what Devola/Popola are doing, and in Automata I still just don't understand why Adam/Eve exist and what they're doing
I think Adam/Eve are just part of the overarching machines search for identity

[solar cipher]

I do think Automata initially set up an expectation of a more large-scale detached narrative, with the planet-wide military campaign thing and everyone talking in formal military jargon, as opposed to my imouto caught a cold so I'm gonna sprint across the continent to get her a medicine fish

but mostly so it could then crush its protagonists under the weight of knowing how utterly meaningless it all was

[marsh lynx]

Like, if I had to pick the biggest theme Automata has, is identity, purpose and lack of it.

And the machines go through the whole game hopping from one thing to the next clearly looking for one, the other, or both

[solar cipher]

I think Adam/Eve are just part of the overarching machines search for identity

to be clear, I agree to that extent, and that's what I figured from the moment we met Adam in the desert, my complaint is that's not nearly enough for how much a part of the story they were (again, much like Devola's/Popola's plan being a big question mark by the end of Replicant)

[marsh lynx]

My interpretation of it, and as always I don't remember how much of it the game supports and how much it's just things my brain juice decided made sense, is that they were something the machine network created to help them find purpose, and as such controlled the machine hivemind.
Basically it was the same things as the administrators, but for the machine rather than the androids.

The machines purposefully copy human behaviour, while the Andoids do it despite their best efforts not to, but ultimately they both ended up in the same place

[solar cipher]

right, in retrospect it's clear that the way the hivemind seems to work is creating one or two dictators, and when those are destroyed it has to create new hivemind dictators, and we went through multiple cycles of that during the game

[marsh lynx]

Androids were left purposeless when the humans died, and had to create project Yorha to mantain the illusion, while the machines found themselves in the same situations when the invating aliens that created them died.

[solar cipher]

ok that brings us to one of the big things I'm unclear on

[marsh lynx]

Of course both of them would be without their creators, because it's a meatphor for normal humans, and the way we find to give our own lives meaning

[solar cipher]

were Adam and Eve created when we fought them in the desert early in the game

or were they created hundreds of years ago because they talk about having killed off their alien creators

[marsh lynx]

Not clear to me

[solar cipher]

because the machines killing their creators would put them in a very different situation from the androids who simply never had creators

[marsh lynx]

If I had to speculate, they were adiministrators before having their physical bodies, and in the desert we have seen their physical birth.

either that, or with the "us" they are talking about the machines as a whole and not them as individuals

[solar cipher]

(I'm excluding the Replicant-era androids that are no longer with us, since the Automata ones are apparently all fresh copies)

[marsh lynx]

Does it?

After Replicant can you say that Replicants didn't kill humans off?

[solar cipher]

I mean as far as psychology and identity go

they chose to kill their creators

according to Adam and Eve anyway

[marsh lynx]

Oh yeah, true

[solar cipher]

that's wildly different from the androids being lied to about having an exiled human race they're trying to save

[marsh lynx]

Also there is an interesting question that doesn't get explored directly.
The red eyes of the andoirds when they get the logic virus micks the white chlorination syndrome and how it'd take control of humans and make them go berserk

And machines also get red eyes when they go berserk

[solar cipher]

oh

I never got to see a chlorinated human so I did not know that

[marsh lynx]

So the question is, does it get adapted into a logic virus now that there aren't humans anymore and it just infects machines and androids

[solar cipher]

granted red eyes meaning evil is such a standard fiction thing that usually makes no sense in-universe if you really think about it that I just avoid thinking about it directly

[marsh lynx]

Yeah it's more obvious if you played drakengard since the main characteristic of the empire this comes from is that the soldiers there had red eyes

As they were mindcontrolled by this evil god

[solar cipher]

I'd rather ask is it even a different thing or is "logic virus" just the android-specific jargon

[marsh lynx]

I mean it does propagate differently since it can get uploaded in a server

[solar cipher]

we know so little about how any of these beings work, and much of what we do know is explicit similarities

[marsh lynx]

Rather than a disease that gets propagaded through air

[solar cipher]

ok I was talking machine red eyes vs android red eyes

I can't theorize about drakengard stuff

[marsh lynx]

It's interesting tho, maybe it's just aesthetic similarity because they could, maybe it's not.

But it's an element that repeats, a disease that make you go berserk and have red eyes

[solar cipher]

did the gestalts in Replicant have red glowy not-eyes?

[marsh lynx]

Which is a cute idea to throw into the mix

I don't remember

[solar cipher]

do I have a save close to actual gestalts...

[solar cipher]

looks like no, I'm probably just mixing them up with automata robots telegraphing their attacks with eye glows

[marsh lynx]

The most interesting part is Imo the "become as gods" bit

It's weirdly horrifying how in their look for identity and copying humans, go to the most extreme form of religion and worship in ritualistic suicide.
And the whole "become as gods" part makes sense when you know that humans are actually dead, so that's their worship, becoming as humans.

[solar cipher]

I'm still leaning toward that idea I had about it imitating Project Gestalt for a few reasons

the obvious one being that that's the area with the first few Project Gestalt documents which can't be a coincidence

[marsh lynx]

That's a good thought

[solar cipher]

but the other being, for "becoming as humans" to imply dying, that'd require an understanding that the humans were already all dead and not really on the moon; while the machines mostly seem to imitate without even the most superficial understanding, and of course half the game revolves around a giant cannon aimed at the moon which means nothing if they already knew

[marsh lynx]

More than knowing that they are already dead, they know that they die

While robots don't, not of old age at least

[solar cipher]

oh that they're mortal

[marsh lynx]

They are functionally immortal

[solar cipher]

well they did make it clear that robot bodies decay and require repairs

and even if the core is functionally immortal, it can't be put into a new body without wiping the memories

[marsh lynx]

It's an inversion right? For us to become a god would be to become immortal
But if your gods are mortal and you aren't, it'd be the opposite

[solar cipher]

so they're "less mortal" than humans but it's still a struggle

[marsh lynx]

True

[solar cipher]

hm, were the separated souls immortal? before stuff happened and they became gestalts anyway

well if this is unclear to us it sure as hell wasn't clear to the machines

[marsh lynx]

My interpretation is that gestalts were immortal yeah, it's the only explanation how the game can happen so far into the future

[solar cipher]

well

okay they definitely last longer than a typical human body

[marsh lynx]

They just endured until the data in the tree became corrupted causing them to go berserk and the replicant to deteriorate

[solar cipher]

still unclear how long, like we don't even really know if decaying into gestalts is inevitable or if black scrawl is inevitable or there were ways to avoid those fates that no one knew or was able to dsicover

[marsh lynx]

Yeah from my understanding was the deteriration of the database that caused it

And it was never meant to endure that long so slowly but surely all gestalt did deteriorate

[solar cipher]

I should probably think about this some more since we sorta went down a tangent of just the parts I think were too unclear and theorizing about unclear lore in general

[marsh lynx]

Personally I prefere Replicant but in general I just love the way Taro tells his stories.

[solar cipher]

so Replicant definitely has the stronger sudden shocking twist moment

[marsh lynx]

You see, that's because you played replicant first and were highly doubtful that humans were still alive

I didn,t and I wasn't, and the reveal of that was pretty big for me

[solar cipher]

Automata's biggest twists are that humanity's already dead and yorha was planned to be thrown away from the start, which (even if you hadn't played Replicant) are much bigger surpises to the character than the player by the time you get to them

no see Replicant only affects the first one, and even then I'm sorry but it's still pretty obvious

now even in Replicant it was obvious that shades were more human-y than we'd been initially told, but the whole "humanity died and they're what's left" was basically impossible to know in advance... if you hadn't played that specific Drakengard ending

[marsh lynx]

IDk, weirder things have happened.
I expected humans to exist but maybe in a form we didn't expect, like maybe kept alive in tubes became too frail to do anything

[solar cipher]

sure

ok not specifically dead but obvious that something was being hidden

[marsh lynx]

For the existence of humans on the moon to be a complete fabiraction made by androids to keep them going, was something I was not expecting at all

And it's so good too, it's such a human thing to do

[solar cipher]

right, who came up with it was unknowable

which it turns out is by design, the whole plan was to get everyone to believe that lie and then ensure everyone who knew it would be killed off so that none of the remaining androids would doubt it

presumably including whichever androids came up with this in the first place

(I am left wondering who triggered yorha going berserk, or if that was wired to a specific date and its just a wild coincidence that it landed on the day yorha might've won the war)

[marsh lynx]

Too much time has passed for me to speculate on that, I definitely don't remember the fine details well enough to make any guess

[solar cipher]

at the end I don't think there's any real candidate, so I'm left with implausible coincidence or character that was never introduced, i.e. no satisfying options

but let's move on from that, it's too easy to complain about missing parts

the core characters are what both these games actually put all their effort into

I have to say Emil and Kaine were more unique and fleshed-out characters than 9S and 2A

so that's another win for Replicant

maybe Automata's biggest win is playing as more than one of them for a significant length of time

and not following the traditional RPG format of "X's introduction scene is complete, X now lives in your pocket forever"; they split up when it made sense to split up

not to mention of course killing one of them off (before the endings), I certainly was not expecting that

[marsh lynx]

Not only one of them

The cover character

Like, the character that is in basically all of the promotional material

Taro got balls

[solar cipher]

yep, they pulled a Raiden

granted it becomes clear by the end that A2 is much more similar to 2B than we initially believed

[marsh lynx]

Yeah I think that the one is based on the other, as for models

[solar cipher]

the explicit lore is that after A2 unexpectedly survived the op that was supposed to wipe out her unit, she became the basis for all type E yorhas, including 2B

[marsh lynx]

Yes

[solar cipher]

but you only learn that when A2 reads the library book and then tells 9S atop the tower that 2B was a type E all along

i.e. I only learned it today

come to think of it that makes 9S having to slaughter a room full of 2B clones some good foreshadowing

[marsh lynx]

Also it's kind of implied that A2 is based on the Kaine replicant in some of the more obscure lore (I think this was in a fucking stageplay somehow) but it doesn't really matter in the story of either game, it's just a thing for the obsessed

[solar cipher]

fair, I did get some Kaine vibes from her

I feel like in most other aspects these two games are pretty even

I was definitely invested enough in both stories and both core casts that when we got to angy NieR/Kaine and angy 9S/2A I bought it and wanted to see if they could get past it

Replicant is probably the happier game, considering at least the main characters are all together at the end for however much time they have left together, while in Automata literally the only options are everyone dies miserable and alone and unfulfilled unless you pretend the story ends at A-B

and that of course is a personal preference thing, but I also think it was the smart move since "pretend to be a normal JRPG but" is not a move Yoko could just do twice, and by not pretending from the start he could build up to more despair later

[marsh lynx]

Agreed.
I wonder if at the time it was public knowledge that Nier was a Drakengard spinoff

Like, before it came out I mean

I have no idea

[solar cipher]

considering the unanimous voice of the internet is "don't waste your time with Drakengard" it makes little difference now

[marsh lynx]

Yeah but it's not because Drakengard story isn't good

It's that the gameplay is just really bad

It's really hard to stomach

In many ways Drakengard goes harder than Nier, it's bleaker than anything else Taro has made, but man it aged poorly as far as tech

Even original Nier, being on a console generation later fared a lot better

And that was also a game people said wasn't worth the hassle before the remake

[solar cipher]

the simple fact that you don't have to collect 30-something weapons to unlock ending C is a win for Automata

but I assumed that fell under "gameplay"

[marsh lynx]

Drakengard is actually worse on that

[solar cipher]

so I've heard

[marsh lynx]

Not only you have to get the weapons, you also have to upgrade them

And while it doesn't require materials or money, just kills, it's still pretty annoying

[solar cipher]

to me the question is why I've yet to hear anyone tell me "just watch Drakengard on youtube"

because if the story was as good as the NieRs, then I'd expect to be hearing that

[marsh lynx]

You should watch Clemps analysis on Drakengard for sure

[solar cipher]

starting at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__q_Nx9WbgY&list=PLI1L9JVl6TFdwfvKUuebNp_zOAL5XXDT5 ?

[marsh lynx]

Yes

[solar cipher]

this does sound like the perfect use of a weekend

[marsh lynx]

It has seriously weird shit, if nothing else, that's worth a watch

[hasty meteor]

i like Clemps

[solar cipher]

but first I need to finish my silly programming videos

[hasty meteor]

oh god this video was made before Automata came out

IT'S OLLDDD

[solar cipher]

the playlist includes NieR videos later on

[hasty meteor]

am aware
but GOOD LAWD 7 years ago

[marsh lynx]

To put you into the mood, the ost is also pretty weird: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFytrQP4efE

[hasty meteor]

i'll put it in my own to watch later list
goes back to watching DBZA commentary

[marsh lynx]

But it's weird good

[solar cipher]

I guess I'mjust finding it hard to neatly wrap up my NieR opinion, so we keep coming back to asking questions because that's easy

I'm definitely glad I spent the time playing these games and there's a lot of good story, character and theme stuff in them, but I also feel there's a bunch of missed opportunities or unnecessary flaws that are hard to fully articulate

[hasty meteor]

man
i'm disappointed at the lack of NieR music in the Nikke event
Like the original stuff is good, Nikke has a good OST

but like, compared to NeiR I wish they just used a few tracks from the game itself, lmao...

[marsh lynx]

It's the usual JRPG fare IMO.
They all have maybe 1% of Kingdom Heart bullshittery of deep lore and you take the good with the bad

[solar cipher]

and after two games some of that is clearly Yoko's style, like, he just doesn't care about explaining anything which doesn't smack one of the protagonists right in the feels

which is a pretty legit take tbf

[hasty meteor]

plus it's mkaes for fun speculation

[marsh lynx]

Yeah you wont have the complete narrative, it's something I to a decent extent like, but it can be frustrating depending if you like to have your story tied with a neat little bow by the end of the game.

[solar cipher]

and you know I'm fine with ambiguity in stories, but there's places where the story clearly set up an expectation of more clarity

e.g. I don't care that we know nothing more about the aliens in Automata

"the machines killed them" covers everything I was led to expect an answer to

[marsh lynx]

Yeah they weren't important

The focus are the machines so the fact that they killed them is all we need to know

[solar cipher]

and thematically appropriate since humans are also missing

arguably it even counts as foreshadowing that

the actual story was always about these two groups of artificial life locked in a war for reasons that turn out to be total nonsense and then wtf do they do with that

...okay I'm gonna do the easy thing and ask another basic plot/lore question

why did half of Pascal's village turn into cannibals

[marsh lynx]

Ok, here is my take

[solar cipher]

like, besides "so Pascal could be sad"

because that's what it feels like, which is why it feels like a missed opportunity

[marsh lynx]

Does this happen when Adam die? I don't remember specifically

[solar cipher]

(the part where the kids die did get a strong explanation from Pascal himself and that's great)

it's well after Adam and Eve are dead

too long after and too sudden for that to be the answer

[wooden badge]

So I've played Nier: Automata. Where should I go from there?

[marsh lynx]

I am not 100% sure, I thought I had an answer but I don't remember the events enough

[solar cipher]

specifically, you talk to Pascal about a book he'd like, then you walk ten minutes to the resistance camp, and suddenly he's calling you and everyone's screaming on fire

[marsh lynx]

Finished all the endings?

[wooden badge]

Yeah

[marsh lynx]

I mean so far there are 2 games

[solar cipher]

A-E specifically, I don't think A-Z is required

[marsh lynx]

So you can play the 2nd one

Replicant

[solar cipher]

a.k.a. the 1st one

[marsh lynx]

Yeah kinda

[solar cipher]

well, not even kinda, it's a remake of the first game

first chronologically, first released, first remade, it's only not-first in the sense that the remake came out after Automata

[marsh lynx]

Yes but like, you can play Automata and never know

[wooden badge]

checks. Have ending A, B and A2's?

[solar cipher]

uh, which one is "A2's"?

well your save file should have ABCDE on it

[marsh lynx]

There are 5 main endings, A B C D and E

[wooden badge]

I played in october though so i don't remember

[marsh lynx]

That's gonna be a problem

[solar cipher]

to clarify:

[wooden badge]

Let's time the download speed

[solar cipher]

...also my Automata can't figure out which language it's in, presumably because I fired up English Replicant for five minutes

[wooden badge]

5 minutes to download and install the game

[solar cipher]

oh right, I should raed the list of all joke endings

[hasty meteor]

raid

[solar cipher]

pffff

to get only one joke ending and have it be that one

[wooden badge]

❓

[solar cipher]

W is the "I died in the tutorial" ending

anyway

the good news is D and E are quick and easy to get starting from a C save

you just use chapter select to hop straight to the A2 vs 9S fight and make different choices

[wooden badge]

Oh yeah that, i didn't understand some thing or other in the tutorial and got wrecked

[solar cipher]

looks like all the other jokes are run away or kill an NPC or otherwise just don't do the obvious story objective so yeah not worth trying to collect all of them

they're still a fun experience when you stumble into them naturally, glad it has so many

[wooden badge]

I think i'd probably (or maybe already did?) check the other two endings on youtube, no real desire to re-do those fights and/or the bullet hell garbage

[solar cipher]

ah, fair enough then

[wooden badge]

But yeah then just Replicant for added stuff, unless I want to go real old games if I understand right?

[solar cipher]

yes, NieR: Replicant is the remake of the first game, and it's just straight-up better, no reason to play the original original

[wooden badge]

First being Automata, or something else? Drakengard something?

[solar cipher]

NieR: Automata is the 2nd NieR game

the Drakengards come before the NieRs (and barely matter really)

the first NieR game was originally just titled "NieR" when it first came out, and its 2021 remake is "NieR: Replicant ver.1.22474487139..."

[wooden badge]

[solar cipher]

and this is one of those franchises where you really don't need to understand the timeline before playing them

especially since you already played Automata first, so everything else is retroactively a prequel for you

[wooden badge]

[solar cipher]

but this is the standard meme answer I've been shown before:

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F3jb1y7sh53mb1.png

mostly because it's funny

[royal pawn]

you can play in any order that really does not matter much

[solar cipher]

I still have no idea what half of this is actually about

[royal pawn]

besides references here and there

[wooden badge]

[solar cipher]

tbf the Replicant and Automata connections are probably stronger than NieR to Drakengard

but they'll work in either direction, since we're looking at a multi-millenium timeskip between NieRs

[royal pawn]

yep

[solar cipher]

the aliens from Automata's backstory are not a thing at all in Replicant, for example; even that happened post-Replicant

[royal pawn]

I do wish they remake Drakengard

I wanna experience the story

Far as I know the games are shit and almost unplayable now days

but the story is fucking evil