NieR: automobile

[Twig]

Those higher level ones can be done...later.

[Nappi]

I spend most of today's play session running between places to complete side quests, then played the next story mission and got the ability to teleport. Well, at least I will make more progress tomorrow. Hopefully, the next story missions will fix the map and the email system. It seems though that instead of doing something about the issues, the developers just decided to acknowledge their shittyness in-game.

 

Apart from those, I'm enjoying the setting, most of the story, and good chunks of the gameplay quite a bit. However, the Dark Souls rules regarding chip collection from your dead body make me handle most situations in the most boring way possible, i.e. staying far away from the enemies and letting my bullets and 9S do the killing. I doubt this is intended, but it results directly from their design decisions.

[SecretAsianMan]

Nothing to do with the game but SGDQ this year opened with Nier Automata being run by Halfcoordinated, who is a disabled gamer that plays everything with one hand.  It's a pretty amazing run and if you're not afraid of spoilers I really recommend checking it out once the archives are up.

[SuperBiasedMan]

  On 7/5/2017 at 7:12 PM, SecretAsianMan said:

Nothing to do with the game but SGDQ this year opened with Nier Automata being run by Halfcoordinated, who is a disabled gamer that plays everything with one hand.  It's a pretty amazing run and if you're not afraid of spoilers I really recommend checking it out once the archives are up.

 

AFAIK it only spoils up to ending A, so even if you haven't fully finished the game, it may not be spoily.

[Nappi]

I just "finished" the game. The gameplay is okay, but definitely not my favorite thing in the world. I think I was quite overleveled for the last few mission, which I did not mind at all. I was expecting the story to get more crazy/interesting. Likewise for the gameplay, e.g. in terms of UI corruption or something. Right now I'm unsure – on a personal, not technical, level – how to proceed. 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Playing through the story from 9S perspective is interesting on paper, but I think I will get bored during the middle portion. The boss battles were not that exciting to me, and as the enemies are on a higher level now, I probably can't just breeze through everything (I'm on level 35 at the moment). I'm also not sure, how many more side quests I want experience, because they seem quite repetitive gameplay-wise.

 

I'm sort of intrigued to see how the ending plays out and what the third playthrough is about, though. How long did it take you guys to finish route B? How about route C? To be honest, I'm pretty happy with the 18 or so hours I have put into the game at this point, but I might still play some more eventually.

[SuperBiasedMan]

  Reveal hidden contents

I would recommend still going, though maybe knocking the difficulty down to make it go by faster? Route B took me a little less time than A, but not that much less (though I only started doing side quests properly in Route B ).

 

The more interesting directions of the story really come out over the next few routes. I felt a similar surprise to you, because I expected ending A to have some big reveal the entirely upended Route B, but it didn't. There is more fleshing out as you play through B, but it's not the same kind of big upset I expected. Those really only come out towards the end of B and through C-E, which are all entirely different. You wont be replaying Route C just as a third character.  

 

I 100% think it's worth sticking with, because Route A was just the basic level of the games themes, there's much more to unpack.

[Atlantic]

  Reveal hidden contents

Route B took me about half as much time as Route A. It offers new mechanics and recontextualisation of the plot so far. Route C-E is where the crazy parts you probably want live (for reference, Route C-E is one "playthrough" and not another three. It... has a lot of new things to offer.

 

 

 

[Nappi]

Thanks for the clarifications!

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I guess I will keep on going, although I may play less intensively from now on. Thinking back at the first playthrough, I should be able to get to the spot where the paths diverge in a reasonable time. I think much of my time in the first playthrough was spent doing side quests and running back and forth before I learned how to teleport. If I ignore the side quests I already completed as 2B (I finished all except 5 or so. I'm not sure if I can even replay the ones I completed) and only play the 9S specific ones that seem worthwhile, I shouldn't get too bored. How is Route C in terms of difficulty? Should I side-quest-grind during Route B already?

[Atlantic]

  Reveal hidden contents

Side quests that you completed as 2B remain completed as 9S. For the ones that you haven't completed, some of them save your progress through them and some you need to start from the beginning again. 9S also has a few exclusive side quests that are related to his place in the world and the different mechanics he has (but if you miss any you are given a chance later to go back and do them). The whole game has a fairly steady difficulty curve. I don't remember Route C as being extra difficult, but it adds some new mechanics that keep it fresh. You won't need to grind!

 

[Twig]

The part you're on now is super easy and bosses will be absolutely trivial.

[Nappi]

Finished route B

  Reveal hidden contents

9S part of the story was definitely more interesting, and closer to what I expected from the game. I appreciated that you could trivialize the boss encounters by hacking (although, those minigames got quite tricky as well), but I'm still not quite sure about the decision to force you to play the middle section again practically unaltered, apart from some added cutscenes. The beginning and the end were much more interesting gameplay-wise. 

 

I'm looking forward to the new stuff in Route C-E, but I'm also a bit bored of running from one quest marker to the next and killing the same types of enemies over and over again.

[miffy495]

Before I click on any spoilers, I'm doing pretty much everything I can to get every sidequest done in my first playthrough. I'm actually doing a damn tonne of them and really enjoying it. Can people confirm that once they're done, they're done? Like, any sidequest I finished on playthrough 1 is automatically done for any +s?

[Twig]

Yep!

[Atlantic]

I had one or two that reset my progress but I had the resources to be able to complete them right away. Otherwise, everything that you completed stays completed.

[Twig]

Yes it will reset progress for some (but not all).

[Nappi]

Finished Routes C-E

  Reveal hidden contents

The story definitely got more interesting and there were some cool gameplay moments. It did not blow my mind (ign.com) or anything, but it wouldn't be fair to expect it to either.

 

By the time I reached the part with the boxes I was so fucking tired of the standard combat and hacking that I had to really force myself to see through the story. I really wish they had found a way to present 9S story without making people play through a bunch of identical missions, as I feel that this was a large contributor to my fatigue. I wish A2 had been a bit more different from 2B in terms of gameplay. Also, with all the weapon upgrades, chips, and level-ups, the boss fights in the third route (with the exception of the last robot) did not feel special in any way anymore, at least on normal. They just took some more shooting than regular enemies.

 

Overall, I still enjoyed many things about the game, just not the constant going back and forth between familiar locations (I detested every side guest that forced me to go back to the factory) and the endless combat. Before I bought the game, I was worried that this type of gameplay may not be for me in general. Perhaps I was right.