Update Three Hundred and Sixteen: 2 July 2019

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

NieR:Automata has the longest cold open of all time. It’s a cold open that took me, personally, three weeks to get through—and then I finished the rest of the game in about two days. It’s a game about cycles, and humanity, and how, while you might make the same mistakes over and over, they’re still YOUR mistakes, your choices, to make. Embracing them and moving forward anyway, motivated by nothing but the meaning you give yourself, is the only way to keep going.

Also, asscheeks.

I’m not going to do a lot of setup about the game—you’re here on this site, you’re on SG, I know all of you motherfuckers are plugged in to the pulse of games as a whole. You’ve heard about this game. It’s a Platinum stylish action game, with an emphasis on combat and fluid movement and sicknasty combos. The splash it’s made has been undeniable, and while I can see exactly why… I also can’t exactly say I agree.

Let me put it like this: NieR:Automata is a game that emotionally affected me very much… but not one I’d recommend to people who aren’t already interested. It was, somehow, able to make me go from ‘okay, this is okay, I’m fine’ to ‘weeping openly’ in one musical cue, but it also took me three solid weeks (that’s where I went!) to actually finish just the first route. It’s uneven and weird, not in a Katamari Damacy way, just… for every benefit there’s a drawback.

That drawback is the A and B routes. It took me 17 hours of playtime to finish both of those routes, which are essentially the same routes just as different characters, with a couple of new scenes added in route B. Sure, I did sidequests and shit in route A, but I blasted through route B at a dead sprint, literally running everything I possibly could so I could get to the part everyone said was good. And, yes, route C did do what everyone said it would—finally got me hooked and actively enjoying playing the game. It just sucked that it had to take THAT long.

The nature of cycles is that, well, they need to cycle. You need to do shit for a bunch of times before the doing of that shit has meaning and weight behind it… just, before that meaning is built, doing that shit is kind of boring and unfulfilling. Adam and Eve make for really underwhelming antagonists, and until the shit gets going, the stuff the game goes through is pretty average. The soundtrack alone was what carried me through much of those routes, which is a LOT of heavy lifting.

My experience with the game was made worthwhile in Ending E, which was a really cool move and one of my favorite final boss fights I’ve ever had. (And, if you’re wondering if I did what was asked of me at the end: yes I did.) What it asks of the player, what it feels like and means? That’s the goodest of good shit.

I just don’t think I can say with my chest that the rest of it really was worth getting there. Enough people love the fuck out of this game—I’m sure you’ve all heard it enough to influence you in one way or another. I’m glad enough that I got to experience this… though I truly wish it had stolen my heart like it’d stolen everyone else’s.

Oh, well. There’s always this dope ass song that I’ve been listening to non-stop.

Next up: Something short short short!

See you soon!