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I heard about Nier Automata when it came out and ended up never playing it until a few days ago. I always thought the whole game was about sexy robot lady 2B destroying machines. Honestly? I was shocked when I tried it for the first time on the End of Yohra edition on the Nintento Switch. The game is far more from just "sexy robots fightings" and I know understand why the whole community went berserk about the game, at the point where even I who never tried it had seen multiple farnarts, cosplays, memes, etc.
The gameplay feels very dynamic, whenever you get to fight multiple ennemies at once, you find yourself dodging a lot, slashing and shooting at the same time, quickly switching between weapons, always repositioning yourself or making sure the NPC you're supposed to protect is safe.
I knew the universe and sceneries of the game would look good and they didn't disappoint. The whole map is a wasteland, from a post-apocalyptic city taken back by nature, a desert with ruins of the past, a forest surrounding an old castle or even an oil platform now home to a weird cult, everything feels how it should feel. And you surprise yourself exploring everything, looking for details you're afraid to miss, every demolished building, every growing plant, every wild boar, and every rotting corpse, makes for a very dying yet lively world to explore where at some point you feel lonely or overwhelmed by everything around you.
I did not expect the game to be an action RPG, which was a very cool surprise. I found myself leveling up my character and farming money to buy every weapon I could, and honestly having some kind of grinding mechanics really got me addicted to this game. I felt the urge to do every single quest I came across, yet felt a bit sad when I ended up fighting the final boss and noticing only during the last cutscene that it was the end of the game.
Or was it?
Well, I was not expecting this either, but the game is actually pretty short. Why? Because you're supposed to play it multiple times! I simply played the game as it went and never noticed that while I was playing, I made choices, took paths, and I only noticed when they told me at the end of the credits, but when I run a NG+, I get to actually experience the game differently, by playing another character (2B's partner 9S), and choosing to take a different path.
Just like I said for Darkest Dungeon, it really depends on what you're looking for in a game, I would definitely recommend Nier Automata, because for me it's not just "a game", it was a real experience. I play a lot of games and most of the time I don't have specific expectations, I just explore my possibilites and try to have fun. But here, it hit me in the face very hard, I wasn't expecting to be so invested in a story, I usually get bored very quickly in Open-World games, the last one that managed to get me invested was Breath Of The Wild, for similar reasons.
Nier Automata doesn't nearly have an Open-World as big as most of the games, but it's big enough to have fun exploring it. There's a lot of hidden details, loot to find and characters to meet, and I definitely recommend the experience.
There's actually three elements I'm not going to elaborate on but still worth noting. The first one is the original soundtrack. The sound design and the music is actually amazing and even if the game does not interest you, maybe you could check it out. The second one is the "flying" part. Those happen multiple times in the game and the gameplay looks like old shooter games but with a more modern twist. Those might not be my favorite segments of the game, but I still enjoyed those, they felt refreshing between the on foot fightings. And lastly, the hacking minigame. This minigame happens when you play as 9S and it has such a great arcade feeling. It gets a bit repetitive because you have to play it all the time, might it be for hacking a lock and open a door or a chest, or for hacking ennemies which is the best way to deal massive damage to them (since 9S' fighting style is way weaker than 2B, which is explainable by the fact 2B is a fighting unit while 9S is a scout).
If you read this log, as well as the others, feel free to send me a DM on Fediverse! I would be happy to hear that some people are interested in my shenanigans!