Re: Review The Last Game You Beat
Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2017 2:52 am
NIER AUTOMATA
I got a love/hate issue with this game. Art direction here is minimalist with a kind of soft pastel palette over its world, and it really elevates this game to beauty status even though graphically this game could pass up as a PS3 title at times. But the animations are so silk smooth wonderfully done (along with its soothing soundtrack) that I didn't mind at all crossing the entire game world by foot back and forth several times over.
Now it's in the combat mechanics that I have the most gripe with. I'll break it by parts. On the STG aspect, there are frequent moments of camera transition where your avatar shifts from a fighter jet mode to a combat robot suit one in which control of your character is taken away from you and she is not moving at all during the part. It's very brief, but when there is an incoming fire during that sequence, you will get hit. It's a non issue if you're playing on normal or even hard mode, but on the highest difficulty you'll die for certain. But you shouldn't get hit anyway in the first place if you are not in control, so this is broken. Speaking of difficulty, the game is unbalanced on that front. Players are even able to change difficulty settings mid battle if they opt to.
As of the melee aspect, the combat is stylish as hell and I love it specially when you can cancel attack animations at any instant into another attack or dodge. But the visual effects are a bit overdone as they can often cloud your vision of incoming attacks, and that also apply to enemies doing it to you. And here lies my main problem with the combat. You can choose to engage enemies with a machine gun like weapon safely from the distance instead. It has unlimited ammo and even a powerful canon like attack (though with a cooldown period). PLUS, you also are granted from the very beginning of the game an immortal AI partner that can do all the close quarters fighting for you while you just chip damage from afar making the hand to hand fighting a discouraging affair. That certainly 100% applies specially on the 2D platforming and overhead perspective gameplay sections where you can't see shit as things gets so visually messy and the camera so zoom out on the details of the ongoing action. Also, the camera shift from one action perspective to another can sometimes be very abrupt and disorienting to the point it can get you killed.
Plot wise I wouldn't have an issue but here it affects the gameplay negatively on the second act, as I am forced to revisit the game with the same plot points but now with an emo character and mechanics focused basically on a mini-game. It's such a visual and gameplay downgrade in my opinion.
On the positive side, the chip system is an awesome mechanic. Basically it allows the player to customize the character with a great variety of special skills and enhancements like counters and slowing down time. Depending on your time investment on the system, your 2B will unlikely be like other players' 2B.
Now the game really shines and hits its stride with its third act, as it's in here that the player can make full use of its gameplay with actual skill and justify the investment on the aforementioned game's chip system. There's finally a new mechanic at play here that actually encourages you to go full melee at all times with no AI partner as a clutch and it's genuinely fulfilling. Now only if the game could start from here instead...
Still, it's such a joy and relaxing experience to take a stroll in this post apocalyptic "heaven". Besides that, there are some really amazing and memorable action set pieces that are by now a trademark of PlatinumGames.
Score: GOOD but done better by the folks at PlatinumGames... 3/5