Topic: Nier: Automata

It looks really cool and I want to get it but this whole having to complete the game multiple times is kinda confusing me.
Is it the same game three times ?

@Bread-Not-Toast Locations are the same but characters and story are different. Every review I've read said it gets better and better not worse and worse so it doesn't worry me.

Another game delayed from Amazon! And another £5 added to my gift card balance (first was for HZD). Will not play it this weekend! Oh well, more Horizon for me then.

lol I just played my first run through in one sitting, 15 hours (with a 2 hour break) watching credits now! Wasn't sure at first but it really picked up in the last 3rd, looking forward to the next 2 play throughs. Will probably take my time a bit more with the next two. Wanted to get to the meat of the game!

Not played a game this much in one go for a long time, it became strangely difficult to stop!

I've got it an played a bit. Really love it when they implement a perfect dodge mechanic, makes me want to learn the controls. It's incredibly stylish and kind of beautiful despite the fact that the graphics aren't 'the best'.

@finalstan The graphics are straight up bad in places, especially coming from Horizon, it's hard to believe the developers were making the game for the same console. But it's occasionally quite beautiful in its own way.

@KratosMD Yep, I do know when you finish it for the 3rd time you unlock "chapter unlock" so you can go back and do the side quests and anything else.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2017/03/10/heres-what-happened...

Must say I've not read it all yet but worth a look I'd say. (spoiler free)

@VotesForCows I only buy game OSTs I absolutely adore (I need to love at least 70-80% of the tracks). Hence, I only have Chrono Chross and plan to get Xenoblade Chronicles. This is the third I will get, it has been amazing.

A good soundtrack will go a long way toward keeping me playing a game. It's the main reason I can play Skyrim for 100 hours but can't stand Fallout.

Having a hard time getting through my second playthrough. Only differences are very subtle in the story (occasional 20 second, random clip) and hacking is just...not fun. Honestly the combat didn't win me over like it has for others, I often lost track of my player and had a very difficult time knowing where I was in relation to enemies, especially groups of them, so I basically just constantly dodged every few sword swipes and spammed my range (what point is there in making me hold down a button the entire time to do range if there's no skill beyond...holding the button?) Also I hate that the targeting doesn't change upon killing a target so I spam the targeting button as well. Notice a trend? LOTS OF SPAMMING. World feels incredibly desolate, REALLY nailed the robot atmosphere, personality characters are few and far between. How are none of the humans used to inject some character? 9S is the only one with any charisma, 2B is kinda a bore but hot and good at fighting so everyone gives her a pass.
Also, ANIMAL BAIT? I have to open the menu and scroll ALL THE WAY down to use bait so I can wait for an animal to shuffle over so I can ride it for 20 seconds. Really inefficient. Cant I just equip animal bait trousers and call it good to ride whenever. 2 animals is pretty lame in terms of options. On this world, all you get are machines, fish, moose and...boars? Sounds legit alright. Randomness is not a virtue, sorry.

RANT CONCLUDED. I did actually enjoy certain aspects of the game (song boss was wonderful, easily best part of game, also only good part of 2nd playthrough so far / soundtrack is solid, but I liked Nier's better / amusement park was wonky but novel)

Edit: I might not have spammed in combat if it wasnt clearly the most effective option. I have yet to die in combat, so don't even know how the save yourself mechanic really works beyond what ive read

@KratosMD I used range attack all the time because it's sub-optimal not to use it. I play games in the best way available to me, as I'm not a fan of self-imposed difficulty. That's on the devs. I could up the difficulty myself, but then I'd be even more inclined to use range constantly. I see your point, but I'm not a fan. I definitely use melee for most of my damage output, with many dodges in between. Also, half the time I get the automatic air attack there is no enemy in the air with me? I get that there's multiple ways to attack, but the enemys all called for the same strategy to defeat so again it shouldn't be on the player to mix up gameplay rather the devs to make enemies that demand different approaches.
The different perspectives are interesting and the transitions neat at first, but eventually I found them tedious as well. There's just no strategy/tactical requirement (swerve back and forth, hold down fire button, or spam melee) and they last too long.
Another harp (sorryy): Pascal's village is confusing AF. Kudos on them for making such a small, uneventful village so convoluted and difficult to navigate (damn you ladders, making me auto-climb half the time I try to walk by!)

10 hours in & I'm still feeling indifferent about Nier Automata.

The game really doesn't look that great & I'm having major performance issues on my OG PS4. The game literally freezes for a second every now & then when I'm running through the village and the carnival. Anyone else having these issues as well? I'm playing Horizon at the same time & that plays & looks like a dream.

Story has me intrigued. Combat is great & the soundtrack is incredible. Every track is fantastic.

I hated it at the beginning, but it's growing on me. That theatre boss fight.... =O !!!
I've read that the real game starts after the 2nd playthrough, kind of mad that you demand such a player investment before 'it gets good'.

Apologies if this has been answered but to those that have finished playthroughs/ the game, what carries over?
Do you keep the level, equipment & quest progression when you start over?

@Lonejester Hmm I don't use the autolock unless I'm picking out a particular enemy to hack, so it makes ranged combat a bit more difficult. Can't say I've ridden an animal more than once, seems pointless. I quite like the hacking feature. I like the world, it's open, but small and very easy to get around with the fast movement speed, so I don't feel like I'm wasting so much time traversing like other open world games. I agree the second play through doesn't seem to have many significant changes but I'm getting to a point in that play through where, based on the first one, I expect things will need to be quite different.

I'm about 30 hours in at level 42 and overall I'm really enjoying it, but I do hope the differences are a bit more substantial in the 3rd and 4th "campaign" though.

I'd say it's a bit easy on normal difficulty, I died once or twice in the first run but haven't come close since and it's easy to spam health potions. In hindsight I should have played it on a harder difficulty but I thought normal would be quite tough. Haven't needed to use any status effect potions either, but there seems to be quite a few of them?

@Fight_Teza_Fight In my experience everything carries over (items/level/weapons, etc) along with completed quests. But incomplete seem to start over. I did read once complete you can pick which "chapter" to replay and finish up any quests you might have missed then.

@kyleforrester87 Thanks that's good to know. I'm doing all the quests I come across & i'm totally not saving up all my gold to buy myself a platinum ^^ !

@Fight_Teza_Fight Selling machine cores is a good way to make dollar, from what I understand you don't need them for anything else!

@kyleforrester87 Interesting, I'm just so trained by games like Souls to use lock onto enemies that doing otherwise feels wrong. Hacking isn't awful, but I do feel like I play the same "level" too often. I do appreciate the size of the world and the ability to navigate it decently well sans full menu map. I'm beginning to think I should up the difficulty as well...and yeah, haven't bothered at all with status potions outside of a couple range damage up's on the goliaths, and I have no idea what I'd be farming with the luck status increases....cores?

@Lonejester Autolock is actually disabled on difficulties over Normal so if you do increase it you'll need to go without. I do agree though it is generally flawed in a lot of ways but I'm just finding it incredibly enjoyable (to the point I've set aside Horizon to focus on this.)

That said I am really hoping it picks up toward the end of the 2nd run through and that the 3rd and 4th are as good as people have made out.

Also, get used to the double jump, x+R1, r2 combo to get around the environment in places, found a few cool secrets that way!

At the end of the 2nd run through, tings getting pretty cool

@KratosMD I'm in the same boat... the OST is amazing. I cannot wait until it's released later this month! I just started my 3rd playthrough, no spoilers but did anyonce else notice a pretty significant difficulty spike on the 3rd playthrough?