Morality in video games has evolved into a narrative perk that transcends into the gamer’s lifestyle and has a cathartic effect, just like literature, movies and other media. This design aspect can be easily implemented in any sort of genre, but seems to exalt in open world franchises.

NieR: Automata is Yoko Taro and Platinum Games’ latest worldwide hit, making its way to the PS4 and PC (Steam). The long awaited sequel to the dramatic NieR, the popular PS3 title. Automata is set many years after the events of its predecessor, where aliens attacked Earth with robot sentient beings, humans counter attacked by creating YoRHa, an organization that made highly advanced human-like androids capable of many feats depending on their models; such as combat, weapon handling, hacking expertise and intelligence. These androids became the bane of the robots but these are just too many to handle.

THE EXTENSION OF DYNAMIC ENTERTAINMENT

This is a role playing game, which allows you to first play as the female android 2B, a feminine designed character with a solid attitude towards things and a great fighter. You are supported by 9S, a young android that is capable of hacking into machines and has a more thoughtful approach to events in terms of planning and execution. Both characters are sent together to Earth to do various missions involving mostly to destroy robots and investigate facilities, cities or mysterious environment discoveries. As you go through the main missions, the playground changes and so does your characters. Like most RPG games, you have to chance to obtain new weapons, upgrade them, buy and loot chips which give you passive buffs and are highly customizable; all these aspects make Automata a thrill to enjoy and to have a blast with Platinum Games style of fast pace action.

The amount of places you can discover and explore gives you quite a lot of freedom; you will find collectibles, secret passages, and loot. You will encounter many NPCs, most with their own stories to share, side quests and their thoughts on the current events. Some will aid you towards developing your android, while others will simply repeat their lines.

The whole design of the game has this strange color palette, which is neither too oblique nor too shiny; it’s grungy and decaying, suitable for the style of the lore and contrasting with the fine design of the android models. It does feature amazing lightning, great particle effects and it all combines in such a fantastic way with its orchestral soundtrack, performed with an invented language which simply sounds great and has seamless cues to specific events. The whole audiovisual aspect to the game is overwhelmingly appealing.

BEING AN ANDROID VS HUMANITY

Automata is a difficult game to explain in terms of the lore without spoiling it. Similar to NieR, the game has many endings, which the player can experience mainly focusing on 3 main endings from which one unlocks after completing the previous one, or various joke-styled endings that can happen on specific events of the story. The whole purpose of the game is to allow you to enjoy the

first 3 main endings which make the game whole; however, the narrative is so rich that even by ending the game once it could still be a solid experience.

But how much does Automata cling to the first title in the franchise? It’s very vague in this term as its most likely thousands of years into the future, but it does feature some familiar characters who have interesting implementations in the game in terms of gameplay mechanics and lore. Some make surprising appearances, some do strangely limited things, and others can completely mind blow you on climax story events, even clearing some of the fog that the first game left, but also just enough to not overwhelm the Automata story and leave it as the “protagonist” of course.

ETHICS AND EXISTENTIALISM

Remember that first paragraph talking about morality? NieR Automata has quite a bunch of events that will make you scratch your coconut, decision making can be two sides of the coin in this game, but if you look as the big picture it can truly dig deep into your play through depending on your way of looking at existentialism and life. Actions in these sorts of games will have consequences, whether they affect the environment, gameplay, characters or overall story depends on the magnitude or the game’s design, but most are thrilling and enjoyable. It is important to note that the game offers a lot of replayability once you finish through the first 3 main endings, allowing you to go back and replay every single chapter and do anything you missed, then again also remember this is a Yoko Taro game, and that’s all I’m saying on that matter.

The game puts your through interesting cinematics in which antagonist characters search deep into your characters mind, it is almost a metaphorical yet also literal way of psychology. Things are mentioned, as like a character's hidden or deep intentions or pleasures, all which may or may not be true, but who is to know other than the person him/herself? Its a great aspect that is heavily implemented in the game giving it so much character.

NieR Automata is exciting, captivating and utterly fantastic. You will learn so much from the characters and even get attached to them, agree or disagree with their ideals, play the way you like and explore this vast world with plot twists, secrets and a lot of bada** combat.