nier automata game review
NieR Automata - Perfectly oiled mechanicsNieR Automata is a video game lover project taken over by a dream team. Determined to offer the series a suite that exceeds all the expectations of its fans, the experience is coupled with solid gameplay capable of attracting the attention of new players. With the creator of the series Yoko Taro at its helm, the vision of producer Yosuke Saito (Dragon Quest) and the musical genius of composers Keiichi Okabe and Keigo Hoashi, all back in their respective roles, this NieR: Automata started on solid universe side bases. If the UFO NieR of 2010 offered a multi-faceted gameplay somewhat sealed by blunders, this sequel offers the expertise of the PlatinumGames studio (Bayonetta, Vanquish, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, etc.). Add to the formula a chara-design signed by the pencil stroke of the artist Akihiko Yoshida (Final Fantasy) and you get, on paper at least, the ingredients of a very big game. This is confirmed he controls in hand? Response without further delay.
Technically speaking, the Xbox One X version delivers upscaled 4K in a constant 60 frames per second. Overall, the picture is sharper than on PlayStation 4 Pro, although this improvement is not immediately noticed once the game is launched. Some textures are even quite blurred, especially if you have fun sticking the camera to the objects that make up the terrain. The gain is therefore there, but we would have hoped for more purely graphic efforts in order to be at the level of our crazy expectations on One X. It should be noted that the title does not offer a choice between several viewing options (from resolution or fluidity type). On Xbox One S Classic, the result is, unsurprisingly, more sparkling, especially in the levels where we find grass and trees.
DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?
The action of this NieR Automata takes place on Earth thousands of years after the events of the first installment. Driven from the surface by an army of machines sent by a mysterious alien race, humanity has found refuge on the Moon. All hopes of reconquering the planet are placed in the organization YoRHa which, from an orbital base, sends battalions of androids in order to lead the front against the robotic invader. "Glory to Humanity!" they chant in chorus as the violence of the fighting rages on the surface.The player embodies the YoRHa 2B unit, a combat android sent on a mission to take over certain strategic positions from the machines. NieR: Automata begins with the mission offered as a demo last December on PS4, when 2B infiltrates the mechanical mazes of a huge industrial complex with the 9S reconnaissance unit. From the first minutes, 2B appears to be strong, confident and entirely dedicated to its task. The sexy allure of its chara-design combined with the grace of its animations and an outfit that does not hesitate to rise at the slightest breeze create a very successful contrast with the relentless and deadly facet of the character. Conversely, the more teenage appearance of 9S agrees with its more enthusiastic and curious character. The two units form a very endearing duo and give rise to many dialogues, sometimes humorous, often philosophical, about the very condition of the machines.
Despite the thick blindfold around their eyes, they manage to release many emotions and radiate with a rare humanity with which Yoko Taro takes great pleasure in playing. This is about personal identity, sentimental attachment and a good deal of other metaphysical questions that only the multiple endings of the title (5 in total) can satisfy. Like its predecessor, NieR Automata is not an adventure that is put away in the closet once the first end credits appear on the screen. The title offers you to relaunch different parts from several perspectives of characters in order to make you live its fabric of its history in its entirety.
What if I didn't play the first NieR?
Do not panic if you have never laid hands on the first NieR released in 2010 on PS3 and Xbox 360. This episode Automata certainly takes place in the same universe, but in a future so distant and upset that it establishes its own narrative frame. Fans of the license will enjoy noticing the multiple references slipped into the game (characters, weapons, places, etc.) while newcomers do not have to worry about having a truncated experience of its keys to understanding.
POWERED BY ANDROIDS
As soon as the game is launched, he already takes us with him in his constant identity crisis. If presented as an action-RPG, NieR Automata does not hesitate to become a Shoot them Up, a platform game or even a Twin Stick Shooter on multiple occasions. These gameplay variations are accomplished through absolutely natural camera angle transitions. From varying play styles to fighting choreography, everything is incredibly fluid in the Automata experience. Most of the fighting revolves around the expertise of PlatinumGames in terms of Beath them all nervous. The studio manages to create a balance between a relatively simple handling and technicality pleasant enough for all lovers of the genre. Two buttons to attack, many combos to be made by alternating between the two weapons of the characters, from the remote shooting management thanks to our support pods, the gameplay of the title is an undeniable success without being as demanding as that of 'a Bayonetta in advanced difficulty setting.The oiled mechanics of the clashes transform each clash into a deadly choreography where your ability to dodge attacks at the right time with the R3 key will be rewarded with a frame of invulnerability and a powerful counterattack. The player will also have to learn to use the different capacities of his PODs in order to acquire new attacks or powerful defense tools. Forget the somewhat awkward fights of the 2010 installment, the Automata PlatinumGames cure does a lot of good for the license and increases our gaming pleasure tenfold. The hordes of robots are dismantled with mad class while the boss fights, numerous and epics often turn into deadly choreography with impeccable staging in the midst of a massive rain of projectiles to be avoided with the agility of a cat. In short, despite a slight lack of variety in the casting of robotic enemies, fights like that, we want more!
The game also thinks of all those that the technicality of the clashes can frighten or the public much more interested in its J-RPG aspect than in its Beath them all side by offering an easy mode in which a good part of the combat actions can be automated. at will (dodging, shooting from the pod, care, etc.).
CHIP TUNE
As an additional way of playing with the codes of the video game in order to break once again the thin partition of the fourth wall with which Yoko Taro so loves to play, NieR Automata offers the player to make himself a tailor-made interface. At the start of the game, you will not see your damage, the health of enemies, or even the experience gained after a fight. This will require equipping 2B (or the other controlled androids) with different chips to recover to personalize your gaming experience. Beyond this interface sold as a kit, the character enhancement system is based on a series of combat chips stack to create a wide variety of “builds”. Fancy an offensive and fast 2B or a character much more resistant to attacks? A parade rather than a dodge,? Shock waves when hit? The more you progress in the adventure and unlock slots for chips, the more the personalization of the styles of play will be there.As a strong reminder of From Software productions, the death of your character marks the transfer of his “robotic consciousness” to another body that is identical to the previous one. However, you will have to go and collect your chips on your own lifeless automaton or transform its empty carcass into an ally capable of fighting by your side for a short time. If you play online, it will be possible to fall on the corpse of other players in order to perform the same actions as those available for your mechanical draft. Note in passing that the Soulienne reference does not stop there since an interface allows the player to accompany his body with a message articulated around different groups of predefined words.
2B OR NOT 2B
NieR Automata has now won his hands-on exam on the RPG side. Because if the first images of the game insisted heavily on the action very supported, the title also proposes to explore an open world full of NPCs, quests, merchants and secrets to find under the rubble of a humanity driven from his planet. The introductory chapter finished, on the way to a small resistance camp hidden between two ruined buildings in the middle of a city invaded by robots and nature. This is where 2B and 9S recover their first missions and return regularly enough to stock up on consumables or even improve their weapons with the different materials collected around the world (and let me tell you that there will be a lot of things to pick up!). Everything reappears during zone transitions in Nier Automata: enemies, loot, materials; it is therefore rather easy to get caught up in the little game of the farm in order to improve one of his weapons or ability.However, do not plan to trample on a universe as vast as that of a Horizon: Zero Dawn or of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to name only the two tenors of the open world of this month of March 2017. The world of NieR Automata is made up of a handful of open areas articulated around a ruined city populated by robots and a lot of emptiness. Very early on, moreover, the player unlocks the ability to transfer from one point to another on the map, all the more accentuating the feeling of evolving in a universe divided into atmospheres like a theme park. giant. Each of the environments does indeed have a very special charm: desert in which to surf on the dunes of the Journey, vast forest with an atmosphere straight out of a production by Team Ico, abandoned amusement park, factory eaten away by rust, everything is just ruins on this post-apocalyptic Earth with a deliberately dull and washed-out color palette. The zones still reserve a good number of secret passages or shortcuts to unlock in order to smooth the progression and offer additional challenges.
MECHANICAL VARIATIONS
However, it only takes a few main or secondary quests to crack the varnish of this apparent desolation. The world of NieR Automata is filled with narrative frames of rare intelligence, funny encounters and philosophical reflections on the nature of the condition of machines. Prepare to laugh, to cry too, and to constantly question what you take for granted. If things are finally quite varied on the side of the side missions, there are still some good old Fedex harvest quests not necessarily the most interesting to play. On the other hand, the production shines much more during more original activities such as urban races or even small games of puzzles capable of creating variations in its rhythm of play.Yoko Taro and his teams reflect on mechanical consciousness with his robotic figures capable of emotion, fear, and even love. It will not be enough to settle for a single game to answer the many questions raised by the script. Once the first narrative loop is completed in 10 to 15 hours, the title invites the player to relaunch the game from the perspective of another of its protagonists. This is the case during five acts during which we will go from surprise to surprise and we will rub new gameplay variations within a title which takes great pleasure in deconstructing itself. All the facets of the scenario are however not at the same level and a certain redundancy can be installed in particular during the part devoted to the character of 9S. However, rarely has an action game made us think so much, rarely has a title been able to play with its own codes to constantly amaze us.
NOT REALLY BEAUTIFUL, WE WON'T deny it ...
With the praise over, it is now time to point the finger at some of the title's shortcomings, starting with its dated technical section. It is a fact, PlatinumGames and Square Enix have chosen to sacrifice many effects, shaders and other detailed texture resolutions on the altar of fluidity of display. To put it simply, the game runs at 60 frames per second both on classic PlayStation 4 where it appears in 900p and on PS4 Pro where it manages to reach 1080p with some rare additional effects. Nevertheless, the production regularly seems straight from the PS3 / Xbox 360 era. Quite poor modeling of urban decor, cheap vegetation, pop-in of some distant decor, if the title is not to its advantage pure technical side, he manages to compensate for this weakness thanks to an artistic direction full of charm and originality accentuating the strong feeling of nostalgia of this world certainly desolate, but also imbued with mystery and melancholy.We will also note some micro-jerks encountered during 2B high speed sprints. Fortunately, the fighting is not affected by these slight hiccups of display stability. Remember to regularly record your progress near the beacons scattered all over the map, because the game does not have automatic save. If this absence goes hand in hand with the claimed technicality of the title, it sometimes proves to be frustrating when it comes to restarting an entire sequence of more than 20 minutes of play. Especially since two or three times, some scripts of NPCs refused to launch during our test session, forcing us to restart the game to remedy the problem. As if to constantly maintain a delicate balance between its shortcomings and its qualities, NieR Automata offers excellent entertainment. Robots with an industrial design and voluntarily grotesque gestures evolve alongside combat androids with graceful movements whose animations of attacks still manage to transmit the impact of the blows. The PC version of the game, confirmed for March 17, could refine certain technical angles without being able to rank among the references of the genre.
The title is dubbed in Japanese, English and has a complete and quality French text translation. If the purists will probably embark on the adventure in the original Japanese version, the English voices are quite successful and do not sink into the exaggeration often characteristic of American dubbing of J-RPG.
And how to conclude this test without mentioning the thrill of pleasure felt when listening to the soundtrack of NieR Automata. Already at work behind the magic of the themes of the first NieR and Drakengard 3, the composers Keiichi Okabe and Keigo Aoshi sign here a very high-quality musical dress to be classified without any harm in the pantheon of the most beautiful compositions of modern video games. Borrowing from classical music, soaring lyric flights supported by the soft timbre of the voice of singer Emi Evans, the music plays a major role in shaping the world of play. Sometimes soothing as the theme of the resistance camp, sometimes mechanical and brutal, the tracks are linked by multiplying the references (Ghost in the Shell, productions by Team Ico, NieR first of the name, etc.). In short, go ahead and listen to this little auditory gem even if you don't plan to play NieR Automata!
The notes
+ Positive points
A captivating story to discover from several angles
The overall construction of the game is of rare intelligence
Intense, technical battles, simply beautiful to look at and pleasant to take in hand
Personalization of the difficulty à la carte thanks to the chip system
Androids and robots ultimately very human, animated with talent
Regularly reinvents itself
An often bewitching atmosphere
Hair fluidity at 60 fps
And what a soundtrack! Your ears will say thank you.
Negative points
Big technical gaps on the decor side
An open world rather empty and poor in details
No automatic backup
A few rare collision and script trigger bugs
Slight lack of variety in some additional scenarios
More than a successful sequel, NieR Automata is a multifaceted gem of rare intensity. If some will undoubtedly make the mistake of judging by its simple dated technical envelope, they will miss an experience full of twists and turns of intelligence. Endowed with a captivating scenario raising many reflections on the condition of the machines, the project swaps, for our greatest pleasure, the somewhat wobbly gameplay of the first part of 2010 for a grip endowed with all the know-how of the PlatinumGames studio. Original in many aspects, surprising by many, fascinating to live and listen to, NieR: Automata has all the advantages of a memorable game.
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