Hiku said:
What I'm referring to there about Nier are two specific parts of the game, and not the whole game overall, since the topic is asking about moments.
It's always nice to find a game that feels special that you're passionate about. But after I finished it, even though I had a lot of things I wanted to talk about, I didn't know where to begin of how to structure the topic. So I thought about making several separate topics. One for the music for example, because aside from having one of the best OST's I've heard, it does something very interesting with the music in that it has like 5 or more variations of almost each track, that change dynamically based on your actions. If you've seen some of my comments about it before, you may have seen me recommend a particular review of it. But either way, I'll link to it again because I think he did a much better job at expressing his thoughts about the game than I can. I always recommend it as it's a very good watch.
The thing about its smaller open world setting is that I ended up associating things to specific landmark locations, based on what had happened there. Which includes some side quests. And so when you pass by those locations again, you're reminded of those things. And that's an upside to centering the events around a few landmark locations. But having vastly expansive new terrain to explore like in Skyrim also has its upsides of course.
Well there is fast travel some hours into the game. And some shortcuts you can activate (getting back to the village you get to after the amusement park for example)
Yeah some areas in the main city look very monotonous and bland, and same can be said for most of the desert area.
There's actually an email you get that suggests you go get the items you lost, but I think it was a bit vague. The game doesn't push you in that direction though, and it's very possible to miss it if you don't keep your eyes peeled. How did you come across it? Was it because of the email, or did you just find it randomly? |
First of all I just want to say - thank you so much for replying and giving me a well thought-out explanation. This is exactly the kind of thing I wanted, and it was quite rude of me to take so long to respond. Partially it was because I was busy, you know, playing a lot of games, which I rarely do and it was quite refreshing to do so, and also it was partially because I just didn't feel like coming on this site much. But the few times I came on I should have responded to this reply instead. So thanks for your patience.
I know that you were talking very specifically about two separate parts - I just felt like asking because you seem to be (and going by this reply, are) very good at articulating your thoughts on games, and I've seen you use Nier as a reference point to games in general numerous times. So it seemed like a good time to ask why the game in general was held up so highly.
I also want to say I wasn't trying to imply that my problem was that the areas are too small, if anything, kind of the opposite, they're pretty appropriately sized but during the more subtle moments of the game traversing the world can be kind of boring.
As for the video: It's pretty good and I think I've actually seen it before, long ago. Granted, a lot of it kind of involved just using big words with heavy emphasis as descriptors and that got a little tiring after a while, some parts of video games are also just naturally very hard to describe and I got the feeling that Skill Up wanted to explain feelings that were just nearly impossible to explain (even before he came out and outright admitted it in the video). Overall while I wouldn't say I got anything new out of the explanation (since a lot of it chalks up to it being revolutionary, unique, and something that can only be done in games - which is naturally quite commonly mentioned when referring to Automata), it did remind me of why I am so eager to try out the title again, even if very much so on a surface level. It's hard to get into what makes a game like that brilliant without just going straight into spoiler-territory, and I actually found myself wishing he showed a little less in his video or didn't explain the fact that character-swapping happens each new campaign. I have to admit though half-way through the video I started to realize that this was the same guy I had listen to a few weeks earlier saying in his God of War review that the game took "lots of skill" and that in comparison Devil May Cry involved button mashing "a lot of the times" - which just brought back the cringe. It's funny to think about though and I don't have anything against him lol, just one of those things that was made light of on Reddit when DMC5 came out and I find it funny that midway through I just realized it was the same guy xD. I would also say his assessment of Dark Souls is sort of wrong in that regard, I seem to remember the original having areas that change quite a bit based on repeat visits but admittedly a lot of that was probably static and just a case of me waiting till I was a higher level to go back (though things like characters do change, even outside of Fire Link).
I must admit I'm a little bit scared of the definition of "revolutionary" though, because I find that this has been in pretty consistent use in the past few years, and it's usually too lightly. There's generally three ways you can apply that - how much it changes the industry, how much quality the product has, how unique it is in it's respective franchise, or how unique the product is. Often the mixture of these three elements make the use of the term very complicated, and when used wrongly, asinine to use. I was going to give examples in Breath of the Wild and Smash Ultimate - how those games are both very revolutionary and both very much not so for different reasons, but I've realized I do not want to delve too much into semantics.
I also have to say while you are right about the music I think this is something Platinum Games actually does pretty consistently and a decent amount of games have done it before and after Nier, though I will admit it's not done enough and it's a cool idea indeed.
I guess I will never know until I jump in and find out for myself - which means I'll have to play it, eventually. On the topic of how I found out about the dead body in the tutorial area - I realized that after exploring the part of the city you're first dropped off in, it's like to the left of where you start. I have a very bad habit of basically restarting a game any time I've been away from it for a substantial amount of time - which can include just a couple of days. I've basically replayed the first few hours of Automata probably around 8 or more times, maybe even up to around 12. Like I said it's a very bad habit of quitting and restarting, which probably doesn't help my motivation for seeing the game through.
Yes, I think I have gone past the Circus area before even.
