Nier: Automata is a unique RPG masterpiece
CALL ME jaded, but some of the first things I noticed about Nier: Automa, the Japanese action RPG sequel to the cult favourite Nier (2010), were its shortcomings.
Firstly, its lighting model. The game’s general reliance on muted colours coupled with its many barren environments gives it the look of a last-generation title that has been “up-resed” for modern displays. (The PS4 version runs at 900p on the standard PS4 and 1080p on the PS4 Pro.)
On the more technical side, I couldn’t help but notice frame drops, aliasing issues and, annoyingly, invisible walls that cut off places that look traversable.
But if you had to choose between a game that was a polished known quantity – like one of those annualised, blockbuster series – or one that was a little ragged around the edges but simmering with unruly energy, what would you choose? I’d select the latter.
Nier: Automata is a wonderful game where real beauty lies beyond its immediate details. The game dares to get better after the credits screen.
It follows the story of two sword-wielding, ship-flying androids: 2B and 9S. The androids work for the YoRHa corporation which is tasked by a moon-dwelling human colony with repelling “machine life forms” that conquered Earth at the behest of their alien creators, or so it seems.
From the game’s opening hour, its encyclopaedic, one might even say nostalgic, embrace of different conventions is apparent. It shifts from a vertical spaceship shooter to a twin-stick mech shooter, to a 3D third-person brawler, to a 2D sidescroller and an overhead combat game. Noticeable in the first hour is how the designers like to toy with the player. It’s possible to flub the intro near the end and be forced to play the whole thing over.
Such needling is but a prelude to the more interesting mind games that Nier: Automata dishes out down the line. In a twist, it keeps its finest moments a secret until players have completed their first playthrough.
(New gameplay systems and crucial narrative elements are reserved for later playthroughs.)
Although Nier: Automata is an action game to its core, a philosophical element runs through it. Yoko Taro, the game’s director, is known for seeding his games with philosophical questions. Why do people kill each other and why do they make the same mistakes over again? Philosophers, too, are namechecked. I don’t know why a boss is named Hegel but it was amusing to encounter, in a village of pacifists, a robot named Jean-Paul who’s fond of spouting the existentialist credo that existence precedes essence.
For 9S, the reconnaissance unit assigned to help the fighting unit 2B, the issue that vexes him the most is how machine life-forms like Jean-Paul – the historical enemies of androids – are capable of higher-order thinking. He is sometimes bemused and sometimes amazed that machines can do things like form familial attachments or seek vengeance. That an android should look down on a machine life form is, of course, ironic. 9S’s high-handedness draws attention to the relative values we apply in our assessment of others. His mistake is to view his perspective as the most natural, and his story is one of several the game uses, inviting players to consider issues of consciousness.
What truly makes Nier: Automata a fascinating title is that its narrative delivery is as restless as the gameplay. As Taro said during a 2014 GDC talk: “The number of well-made games has increased but at the same time the number of games that make my heart beat and give the feeling that I have no idea what to expect, that excitement, has gone down.”
An escalating feeling of uncertainty is precisely what kept me hooked. During one sublime moment, after the visuals on the screen began degrading before my eyes, I really felt as though I didn’t know what the game might throw at me. At that moment, I wondered if it was right to call Nier: Automata an experimental action game. I can’t wait to see what Taro does next.