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NieR: Automata (Deep Dive)

I have never played a game quite like Nier Automata. The 36 hours I clocked into its deeply intricate and visceral mechanical world is not one that will leave me soon. It’s not the greatest game I have ever played, but by far one of the most memorable video game experiences, I’ve ever strained my fingers against. Here’s my Deep Dive into my experience with Nier Automata.

Let’s deconstruct Nier on a surface level before we sink into the nuances of the game. Nier is a high-speed combat action-RPG exclusive to the PlayStation 4. You take control of androids tasked with combating against the machine menace that plagues a vacant planet earth. Developed by Platinum Games, masters of combat, and published by Square Enix, a company I worship despite how many times they mistreat me.

The combat of Nier is something to behold, and differs in style based on which of the three playable characters you are controlling 2B, 9S, or A2. Your character is not the only thing to consider in Nier’s combat, in the height of a fight there are numerous layers to juggle. Light vs heavy attacks and the combo combinations, dodging, switching between your customizable weapon sets, the actions and abilities of your pod companion robot such as changing their type of ammo, and special ability known as a pod program. Learning to properly switch between all of these on the fly to best suit your need for that battle is all a part of fighting in Nier. Though the game makes it easy to execute all these elements as all are associated with a single button press. Intelligently the game gives you the option to choose between either pre-set control schemes, or to fully button-map your controller in a custom control scheme. This is much needed for how much button pressing is done mid-fight, and how potentially tired your fingers can get, you want a control scheme that is as comfortable as possible. I mainly kept control scheme A as my configuration, except that I swapped Pod Program with Ammo fire. So, that the Pod program was R1 and firing was mapped to L2. With how much firing you need to do in combat for me it was more comfortable to hold down a trigger versus a bumper.

Fighting is incredibly fast-paced and flashy. Intense metal on metal action as you slash your way through waves of machines, with sparks and bolts of light jumping off every attack. Each combination of the four types of weapons (Small swords, heavy swords, spears, and combat bracers) along with their position as ether the heavy or light attack have create different attack combinations. A Small sword and a heavy sword weapon set will have different combos then if you have two small swords equipped. If you have two different weapon types equipped, the combos will change depending on which is set as the light or heavy attack. Though combos are certainly finite there is a good amount of variety, and as you play through the game and upgrade the weapons and extend their combos, new life is breathed into familiar button combinations. Even without this watching the characters flip, spin, and strike never got old for the whole playthrough.

Where Automata separates itself from others in its genre are in the common elements of weapons and stats. Instead of how in most rpgs you acquire new weapons by simply progressing through the story and reaching a new location that sells weapons, provided you have the funds to purchase said weapons. In Nier this is not the case; though there are of course several weapon venders within the game; in terms of weapon strength they don’t vary much, and never restock what they have later on in the game. Some vendors even offer you weaker weapons then those that you initially encountered. Obtaining stronger weapons comes down to the player choosing to explore the environments for chests and the occasional hidden pedestal to find the truly worthy weapons. The upgrade adds deep value to even your starter gear, older weapons can become more useful by gaining a better ability or being stronger in the long run. Constantly breathing new life into weapons so it never feels like your carrying around junk waiting to be sold.

Though Nier is the same like all other RPGs in that enemies are a certain EXP value and defeating them adds to your experience leading to you leveling up, and leveling up increases your base health, attack, and defense, but the similarities stop there. For instead of equipping armor and gear to enhance your stats, since you control androids and they are a form of technology, you equip plug-in chips. These chips that can be bought and found not only enhance attack, defense, movement speed, and base health, but enhance your combat ability. Chips that can make 9S hack faster, or cause a glittering shock wave to fly out of every attack of your weapon, or one that adds a Bayonetta’s Witch time-like ability that slows down time briefly if you can dodge at the exact right time. These chips help make your version of the characters distinctly your own since there are tens of categories of chips each with varying power levels that can be increased by fusing chips of the same functionality together.

The characters in Nier have some differences gameplay but not too many. A2 and 2B play identically with light and heavy attacks and fast paced action. Slight differences being 2B’s ability to occasional do an execution move on smaller enemies. While A2 has a longer dodge range that becomes a short glide if held down, and the ability to taunt enemies by holding down the light attack. The distinctness between them ends there as they play virtually the exact same. 9S plays very differently as his attacks are slightly slower, as well as lacks a heavy attack. Instead he gains the ability to hack by holding down the heavy attack button. This activates a hacking minigame that upon completion will either destroy, or cause major damage to an enemy. With smaller enemies giving you the option to occasionally control them and use them against their machine allies.

Initially when you finish 2B’s section of gameplay and start 9S’ the experience drags. Your combat is severely limited as you now have only one weapon and only one attack button that functions slower. Adding on to this that since 2B and 9S spend a considerable amount of time together, you are experiencing not only a lot of the same dialogue but a lot of the same cut scenes again for the second time. With only little tidbits of different story occurring in the moments where they were separated to give the story greater context. But its these minor contextual elements that show the true strength of Nier Automata’s story and how its presented.

At the begging of playing 9S, his campaign combat wise does seem a bit lack luster, but as you progress through the game your weapons advance some more variety gets added. And when you reach later elements of the story and combat gets harder and enemy numbers become intense, having the ability to hack enemies to make up for his limited combat abilities is a welcome skill. Without it later elements of the game would become more tedious and long winded, challenge without purpose.

I was never that perturbed by his lack of combat skills, for he is a scanner unit, while the other characters are combat units. Within the first minutes of 9S’ introduction he mentions how fighting “isn’t really his thing”. And even if you are very down on 9S first play through on a gameplay stance the story elements that are just thrown in front of you without warning entice you to keep going to see more and learn more. Tiny tidbits of context, and seeing the same elements again open you to a grander story. One that makes you realize that some things in the first playthrough that were brought up were never fleshed out or explained. Further enticing you down the rabbit hole the game continues to dig.

From the second playthrough the game’s story begins to unfold like a flower slowly revealing more and more on its own. And it shows great respect to the player by presenting the story elements beat by beat, but forcing the player to piece it all together in their own mind to really figure out the deeper meaning of everything that is going on.  By the end of the 3rd segment of the game where an important choice must be made in order to access the final few endings of the game, choosing and repeating the choice gives a huge payoff in finally piecing together on your own, the significance of things even way back in the first playthrough that were secretly important or relevant in the end.

But its more than just the presentation of the story itself but how it tackles these topics that also leave huge impacts on me. The game covers ideas such as existence, purpose, humanity, reality, perception, family, and consciousness. Not only does the game cover them in a way that isn’t pretentious or shallow, but in ways that are still emotionally impactful, insightful, and even inspiring. Nier Automata leaves the player to think about their own concepts of these topics, all while understanding it’s still a game and meant to be fun. One of my favorite moments comes at the end of Ending B, where an anime style preview for section C occurs, with a literal preview of the cut scenes you will watch comes up. Like a trailer for the game you are already playing and for what you are about to do. That is brilliant. Such an over the top and self-indulgently dramatic moment for the game to include, but it’s more than just surface value, the drama serves a dual purpose.  Not only to literally preview and poke fun at the game’s obvious anime inspirations, but also to show the emphasis of the second half of the game. A visual warning to the player saying “Get ready. The surface has only been scratched, get ready for the real story.” Such intelligent and purposeful imagery.

Nier Automata is an intense nihilistically hopeful, and all around beautiful video game that is a ride all the way till the 5th credits. Slight curveballs are constantly thrown at you that subvert your expectation of what “should” happen next in a video game. It challenges the player to take a deep look at the story being presented in front of them in order to understand, and ultimately figure out what the game means to them. And to me, that is art at its most pure form, giving the viewer a piece of itself that they use to amplify their own perception of reality, life, and the world.

Glory to mankind.

Thank you Nier Automata

[darkneonblog]

Twilight Princess HD Review (Used Game Reviews)

In 2006 with the launch of the Wii, the world was graced to a new form of Hyrule. One that lacked the bright-eyes cell-shaded cartoon visuals of 2002’s The Wind Waker, nor the morbid and frightening vibes present in Majora’s Mask. What the world got was what fans of the Space World 2000 tech demo of a 3d modeled Link fighting Ganondorf expected. A more realistic and gritty Zelda Adventure that takes full advantage of 21st century gaming hardware. Now over a decade later Twilight Princess is still beloved by many for its take on the Zelda series, being slightly darker in more ways than one, not only with its story telling but its plot elements as well. Many saying it refined elements set by Ocarina, Majora, and Wind Waker to make a game that is sometimes considered The Legend of Zelda series at its core. But is this always a good thing? We’re here to determine that.  How well does Twilight Princess really hold up in 2017? Here’s our Used Game Review of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD for Wii U

In 2006 much praise went to Twilight Princess for its darker take on the Zelda franchise, being harsher and grittier in its tone and storytelling. The game is to this day still the only Zelda game to earn a T for Teen rating by the ESRB for some slightly aggressive imagery including Link’s initial transformation into his wolf form, and Ganondorf being chained up and stabbed by the sages of the Gerudo desert. In terms of looking for a “darker” Zelda experience, grabbing a copy of Majora’s Mask 3D would suffice as most of Twilight Princess keeps the same standard level of danger and threat as its contemporaries and never pushes the envelope in terms of harsher or more intense themes.

But in saying this is not a slight towards the story presented in Twilight Princess itself for what is presented is a well-meaning and well-told story centering around the character Midna and her plight to restore her realm of twilight and the people she resides over as their Princess. Aside from Midna, and the antagonist Zant there isn’t much to many of the other main characters resented in the game. Link remains the standard well-mannered silent hero with the heart of gold for players to project themselves onto; and neither Zelda nor Ganondorf appear early enough in the game for any true fleshing of their characters and who they are besides the standard battle of good vs evil. But it’s the struggle between the worlds of light and twilight, and the dichotomy between light, dark, and the world between that truly shows the narrative strengths of the game. And with Midna being the most integral character within all of these it’s very easy to get invested into her story and the world surrounding her, which in turn affects Link and all the characters around them giving the story some emotional weight. Even with these limitations they ending fells natural and carries the plot to a conclusion that isn’t void of emotion.

Despite the main characters being limited, the variety of side characters met throughout the game often have unique personality traits and quirks. Such as the Goron Patriarch Darbus who is a towering force of rock-hard muscle that refers to you as “tiny human” in simplistic caveman like speech. Or the child Malo, who despite being around 5 years old, runs a shop all on his own, and is often seen criticizing other characters harshly under his breath. These and other side characters make the land of Hyrule feel more lived in and developed than other mainline Zelda entries.

In addition to the characters, the expansive nature of the world map of Hyrule adds to this scope. With a variety of entry and exit points in accessing the different provinces Hyrule feels like a varied Kingdom of different races that is worth exploring. Chest and secrets cover the land that will give you pieces of heart and rupees for taking the time to search. No major secrets, and the abundance of rupees makes them trivial later on in the game but the pieces of heart and the introduced howling stones always feel worth the price of taking your time to get to them. Traversal isn’t issue as Link’s horse that you have the ability to name can be summoned at any time if a certain flower is in your area, and if they aren’t the world map shows you wear. Hose riding controls the same in Ocarina of time, with a certain number of sprints allowed before they need to charge as signified by 6 spurs on the bottom of the screen. Controlling the horse can be kind of tricky, as it doesn’t turn very well or as accurate as we would like. In the open areas of the Hyrule field where you will be spending most of your time on horseback, this is not an issue, other areas where you ride, this problem showed itself again.

Camera movement is mapped differently than it is in most games. Pulling down on the control stick zooms out instead of looking completely downwards. Being able to change the camera’s distance from the Link is new to the series. And has its advantages in choice, especially in encounters of enemies that either fly or tower above you zooming out very much lets you get a better scope of your surroundings and how to proceed in a fight All other movements of the camera were perfectly fine but some problems arose.

Depending on camera angles, game can get confused as to which way you should be heading when climbing or walking. If there is a sudden shift in camera angles holding up on the control stick may be tacking you forwards at one moment, but then suddenly you’ll be heading left for as the camera changes up on the control stick will take you to the left instead. This caused for one or two fatalities. not on our own volition when climbing and instead of climbing to the left we proceeded to climb down to our death

IN some instances, in certain areas where there are walls that are close-knit but can be climbed over, the camera can begin to stutter violently causing the whole screen to shake. A simple rotation can cause it to cease, but this problem was especially worse in the Gerudo Desert dungeon where with so many climbable objects in tight corners there were two times where no camera rotation would stop the shaking, and it just had to be dealt with until we could physically move link to a new area.

The game begins with an excellent tutorial segment that integrates the basic mechanics of movement, targeting, standard attacks, and calling your horse, all within the introductory story segments of the game, instead of just generic text boxes with words and button prompts. Combat is identical to that of Ocarina of Time, and Skyward sword. Z-targeting is used to focus on the enemy, and they are slashed with the sword until they are down. With differences depending on the enemy type, and if it is a boss encounter or not. The mechanic of finding the Howling stones in order to learn new combat techniques besides the basic dodge and slash are incredibly worth it and not only give you variety and types of strategy in your gameplay but also enhance you in a proper way that makes you as a character are actually growing with link in strength. Some may see it as a little overpowering in the game as tougher endgame enemies prove as little challenge with your advance skills. But certain enemies still put up a fair amount of challenge as enemies began to wear increasing number of amounts armor and shields to carry.

 The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess is a relatively easy game. Enemies will always do the same things and Its often praised for being a Zelda game at its utmost core which is both a blessing and a curse. The puzzles of h dungeons in the games are varied and are often relatively straightforward in how to accomplish them. It’s the layout that is the same that shows the game at its weakest. You will enter in, and progress your way through until you face a mini-boss exactly halfway through. Upon defeat the mini-boss will give you the newest equipable item that you will then use for every puzzle for the rest of the dungeon until you reach the boss which will also require you to use the new item.

Most of the bosses in Twilight Princess are memorable in design enough, and the task of how to take them down is never immediately apparent in how you are supposed to use the item, and only gets increasingly more challenging to figure out the later on in the game the boss is. But once you have figured out how, every boss becomes very minimal in challenge as the item is catered to take down that enemy once it’s used a certain way three times.

Around 45% of the game will be spent as Link in his Wolf Form in one way or another. This transformation offers a variety in gameplay as since as a wolf Link cannot use any weapons or items, but is much faster, and has the ability to sense things in his surrounding with a sort of animal 6th sense. Wolf Link adds a welcome variety to puzzles and combat as you have to think a little differently to accomplish both in that form. When the game allows you to later change into either form freely, some encounters can be accomplished easier in your wolf link form, so forgetting about using it for combat could only hinder you.

Though one problem with wolf link is the act of transforming. The game prevents you from transforming in front of any NPC characters as it would realistically cause a ruckus to see a young boy transform into an anima or vice versa. But certain areas that should let you transform, do not. Even when there is no one in your immediate view, nor can they see you, it will prevent your transformation, forcing you to move to another area, even if only a few steps.

The interface is simple and intuitive. The start button takes you to a menu where all your equipable items are, where down on the d-pad takes you to a collection screen where you can change into other outfits, and check the amalgamation of objects you have found. This also the portal to where the amiibo functionality occurs.

The amiibo is a tricky thing. It can be used as a way to save your game progress to it and bring it to another Wii U to continue to play. A very niche functionality that doesn’t provide a real use in a current gaming landscape. It also unlocks the chamber of shadows challenge. Where you enter more and more rooms of increasingly difficult waves of enemies, locked into your Wolf Link form. Based on the amount of hearts you saved to the amiibo last, that is the amount of hearts you are able to recover only once during your time in the chamber

What foils the game is its use in The Legend of Zelda Breath of The Wild. The amount of hearts you have save are the amount of hearts a wolf link companion will have in Breath of the Wild, which becomes a hindrance is the final section. The final 3rd of the chamber unlocks after you have completed 90% of the game. And the difficulty spike is high as it provides the most difficult challenge in any kind of gameplay throughout the entire game. Much harder than any moment in the main game.  But the new hearts can be saved only when you complete the whole dungeon. When before you could save hearts after only 6 floors, by the end of the game you can only save after clearing all 40 which is an incredibly difficult task. And the incentive to complete the trials is less enticing as completing it is not necessary to awaken wolf link in Breath of the Wild but becoming nigh impossible to have a wolf link with perfect health, unless one goes through the trouble to find enough pieces of heart in the world to max out hearts to have enough to even survive the cave of shadows. An ability to exit the dungeon with the remaining hearts at certain intervals should be added for those who don’t feel like struggling through the cave in order to save hearts they already earned in the normal playthrough.

Looking back Twilight Princess isn’t the groundbreaking experience it was once revered for, as its design is a standard Zelda format at its most simplistic that isn’t void of minor issues. In that Twilight Princess HD offers nothing short of an enjoyable adventure into Hyrule with updated and distinctive visuals and amiibo support that is creative and enhances the experience in this game, and another. Anyone who has found any enjoyment in any 3d Zelda game before should take the time to join Link and Midna in their quest to restore peach to the land of Twilight.

It should be knowns, if you plan on playing Twilight Princess HD AND then play with the amiibo in breath of the wild, max out your hearts and try and get a damage less run in the cave of shadows before entering the realm of twilight.

[darkneonblog]

I had an anecdote in my previous post about being demolished by sentinels. Here’s the actual video of it happening. After landing on an especially beautiful planet. I quickly learn that "threatening" level sentinels are NOT to be trifled with.

[darkneonblog]

In Defense of No Man’s Sky

18,446,744,073,709,551,616. The number of planets available for discovery, exploration, and excavation in No Man’s Sky. But anyone who’s given even an iota of attention to the game for more then the last month of the game’s marketing campaign has already seen this number plenty of time’s before. With that many planets in virtual space being offered as a playground for it’s players, it’s not false in saying that a number such as that is a fair representation to the level of expectations No Man’s Sky had in the little over two and a half years from it’s debut. Buzz and excitement of that magnitude did to No Man’s Sky what it did for every other game that gets very hyped up long before it’s release date, turned it into a deity. A literal god in the gaming world. An object so revered, not for anything it has ever proven or shown as fact, but as an ark for hope what it could possibly do for all those that give it the time of day.

But as the saying goes, the bigger they are, the harder they burn up in the stratosphere when caught inside a planet’s gravitational pull, for when the game launched it was not showered with praise and 10/10s across the board. But met with lukewarm, and some outright negative reactions. And so the false prophet was revealed. It’s not that Hello Games didn’t deliver on their advertising promises. Their certainly is over a trillion trillion “planet-sized planets” in the game for the player to explore, with the basic story element of the game to be to try and get to the center of the universe. But it’s what populated the the expansive worlds that fell short of many people’s expectations, that being repetition.

Every single planet in the game has it’s own varied environmental conditions, look, design, and wildlife to be interacted with. The numerous amount of planets come from a combination of hundreds, possibly thousands of elements that give each planet it’s unique identity.  But with a game that is procedurally generated, the algorithm of elements the game has to pick from to create these worlds has a finite limit. Seeing more than one element again whether it be a type of leg on an animal or the type of flower growing on a rock is not unsurprising. But to detractor’s of No Man’s Sky this is an issue. Either after a few or a number of hours seeing sort of similar looking beings with planets that had sort of similar features became a stale process. However; in my opinion it’s those slight differences that make the game such an incredible experience.

Every time I land on a new world I have to consider a variety of different factors if I want to be successful on my objective their. First is immediately climate condition. Is it free and clean air that allows me to wander round aimlessly? Is it bitter cold that will limit my time to around 15 mins if i have a full hazard protection gauge? In addition to the weather it’s the type of wildlife, how mountainous the terrain, as well as how he weather conditions change with the type of day are factors needed for consideration.

It’s all of these and more that make each planet I face so exciting every time. I strive to push my limits within the environment and see how far I can go and how long I can last in order to accomplish my goal.

I often look for elements to mine to get better upgrades to my ship, gear, and multi-tool. It’s completely unknown whether the rare copper I am looking for will be in abundance in an open and unpopulated area of the planet’s map. Or hidden deep within a cave that needs to be explored. Or it could be barre of copper entireley, but I won’t know until time to land and explore as far and wide as I can and that is where the sense of discovery comes form. With each new planet, I can guess what I’m going to find, and experience, but I never really know until I take that plunge. If it pays off then that’s superb, I’m that much closer to getting new cool stuff. And if it doesn’t then maybe the next planet will, and I’ve got a reason to go there. Of course once I find the copper, I need the blueprint for a strong new upgrade to use it for, and it adds to this cycle of exploring and discovery. And between the points of finding each new thing,I have some of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had in an open-world (open-worlds? open-universe) game before. One of them was so heart-pounding it had me audibly cursing througout my bedroom.

I landed on one of the most beautiful planets I had seen up to that point. Lush teal grassy fields against a navy blue sea and purple land. With flora forming an elegant cross between deep forest and grassland. On that planet the sentinels were reported as aggressive which meant anytime they saw me they attacked. Sentinels are often easy to take down requiring no more then a single clip of bullets. and the worry of your life fades the more equipped you get, but one experience had me fighting two aggressive sentinels as a very fast and aggressive animal proceeded to attack me form three sides. I was able to escape the animal and take down the two sentinels with no more than a third of my shield down.  I chose run behind a tree to catch myself and locate a path back to my ship, but was greeted by a sharp phase beam too the face. I turn to see a four legged sentinel  barreling down on me from what looked like over a km away. I tried to combat it but quickly realized how outmatched I was as two hits had me down 1/3 of my shield. And as luck would have it, the beacon for the dog-like sentinel is so strong that four flying sentinels raced up next to it and proceeded to pummel with laser blasts. I was so scared that I couldn’t find my ship and tried to just run away in a circular pattern to try and avoid blasts, to no avail. I eventually jet packed and limped my way back to my ship and and quickly took off to the stars away from the planet that I would upload and name “Angry Ass Sentinels” a warning to all and me, to never set foot there again.  Citing one review of the game, Ben Moore of Easy Allies states that he never felt in any kind of danger throughout his 30 hour experience Sentinels being nothing more then a brief nuisance and target practice. My own experience couldn’t be more far off. This goes to show just how individualized and personal anyone’s experience can be when they are traversing this near infinite universe.

No Man’s Sky is by no a mean’s a perfect video game. Heck it’s not even a perfect space game. it’s not without it’s flaws. Prior to the 1.04 patch the game was a crashing messed. Shutting down on me a total of 8 times. With 4 of those times coming from one night where upon trying to load up the game I couldn’t make it past the title screen. The game also has various other annoyances like number puzzles being repeated with the exact same numbers, and way points not being actual markers making returning to visited landmark virtually impossible. But it’s the pros that vastly outweigh the cons.

No Man’s Sky never makes me feel like my efforts are in vain for anything I have done because I’m always getting rewarded in some way. The extreme satisfaction I get when I get a new multi tool another slot in my exosuit keeps me exploring so I can test out the new features on the next planet as I search for materials and items to upgrade everything I own and make it better so that I am prepared for any and all challenges that face me on any planet.The game feeds my strategic and collective nature, which may not be for everyone, but that doesn’t diminish the value of what the game has to offer. Just because I don’t like Skyrim doesn’t mean it’s not an incredibly vast and well made RPG. And I love RPGs.

So to the people of the internet jury, I prepare my closing statements. No Man’s Sky is a great game in my opinion, and I would find it simply criminal if I let it’s legacy go on as nothing more than an over hyped game that didn’t live up to expectations. For it is so much more than that, it’s a very very vast literal universe to explore. Discoveries and wonders illuminated by billions of digital stars, calling for ambitious followers of the Atlas to bring them into existence and claim their land for their own. For not everything similar, is the same and no Man’s sky is proof. For when I stop playing and move on to the next game, I‘ll have comfort in all the amazing sites and memories I made in that game. And I know that I can always come back to make brand new ones, for light years to come.