NieR: Automata (2017)

I'm reading the novel Yorha Boys and that made me want to play Nier Automata again. I already finished and got the Platinum Trophy, so I decided to challenge myself and play it in hard... but I didn't expected to be THAT hard.

After repeating five times the intro because I was dying in two hits I realized that was a dumb idea and started playing again in Normal.

Then I die again.

Anyway, I'm replaying Nier: Automata, still one of my most beloved games of all time.

After sitting doing nothing for a while and just feeling generally indecisive about which of my current games to play, I decided to redownload this. I played it way back in 2017 but dropped it after hitting ending A and playing a little of B. It's always irked me that I did that because I really did want to see what the rest of the game had to offer.

Figured I'd download it on the steam deck and start a totally new file to see if playing it on something new would give me the drive to go all the way and see what lies beyond the initial ending. Good news! It runs great on the deck and I managed to get through that pesky overly long opening level without needing to reset and lose an hour of progress.

Here's hoping I stay motivated enough to see this through.

Nier Automata est un action RPG avec des phases de shoot 'em up, le tout dans un monde semi-ouvert post-apo et SF.

Bien qu'a prime abord le scénario de la Run A peut paraître un peu bateau, le jeu aborde des questions philosophiques et contient beaucoup de référence a ce sujet (et pleins d'autres références également).

A début, tout cela a l'air bien subtile mais les grosses révélations du jeu vont apparaître vers la fin de la run B. Sans vouloir spoiler, c'est a partir de la 3em Run (Run C) que le jeu part complètement en "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥" (dans le bon sens du terme), et oui, personnellement j'ai adoré !

je peux comprendre que certains ont du mal : Premièrement, on a l'impression de refaire tout le jeu depuis début une fois la Run A terminée, les phrases de boss sont parfois très longues (sans être difficiles) et le système de sauvegarde en a surement rendu fou plus d'un (salut).

Malgré ces défauts, le jeu apporte une grande originalité au niveau du gameplay, les phases de changement de caméra inspirées du jeu NIER (PS3) sont très réussies, les phases shoot 'em up sont très satisfaisantes également. Niveau ambiance le jeu est beau, il y'a pleins de détails sur les personnages et de références culturelles mais surtout le scénario et les musiques sont pour moi les plus réussies.

Je ne vais rien spoiler car niveau scénario, tout se joue sur les révélations qu'offre le jeu vers la fin. Mais pour moi ce qui fait de ce jeu une masterclass c'est qu'il n'est qu'un support pour faire passer un message, comme un ghost in the shell, le jeu se contente de poser des questions mais sans jamais y répondre. Si on est sensibles a ce genre de questions philo/SF, on ne peut que tomber amoureux !

Pour conclure, j'ai adoré le jeu et je le conseil chaudement (pour un publique averti tout du moins). Les musiques et le scénario me m'ont pas laissé indifférents (j'avoue que j'ai lâché une larme vers la fin).

En tout cas, voici la note (totalement subjective) :

-scénario : 9/10

-personnages : 9/10

-level design : 6/10

-décors/ambiance : 10/10

-musiques : 10/10

-dialogues/texte : 10/10

-physique : 9/10

-gameplay : 7/10

-difficulté : 7/10

-graphismes (2017) : 8/10

-doublage : 10/10

-IA : 7/10

-duré de vie du jeu : 8/10

note finale : 8,5/10

Kudos to those who can follow the dialogue during boss fights. Best believe I have zero idea what was being said at those times. I was too focused trying to survive to read the text or to recognise what I was hearing. I am hoping watching the anime will flesh out the details I missed.

Finished the game once. At first, I didn't think I'd want to do it again, but here I am playing as my boy 9S. Didn't do some side quests before (and failed one) so I want to do those now.

This game really grew on me. It seems that I just needed it to open up more and my character to not be always on the brink of death. Still struggling to read the map, and I've nearly given up on ever being able to understand it completely.

Around three years ago, a colleague jested that I only play cartoonish-looking games. I disputed that claim because that can't be true but upon further reflection, I cannot think of a game I played and finished that contradicts his statement. I was then concerned that that might have been the issue when this game was not clicking for me but today I started to really enjoy playing this game so never mind all that.

I love how they incorporated motion sickness issues in the game, and I thank that NPC for the camera adjustment that they made. I played for more than 2 hours and no headache.

Watching Trigun Stampede made me want to play this again, and I'm thinking of adhering to a regular schedule of short sessions so I can make progress even though games like this give me headaches. It would make me happy if I finish this by March.

Motion sickness aside, I am still struggling with the controls, especially during combat. This bothers me more than usual since the display loses colour when you're low in health, so I'm seeing everything in black and white almost all the time now.