okay so theres so much going on in this game there’s really no way to discuss it without giving away huge chunks of what happens / how things happens / how the story unfolds
it’s honestly pretty incredible because you can’t even talk about Loop B or anything at all really without giving away key details about the game
this thread…is dangerous…enter at ur own risk!! haha
when you start as 9S, who is a lot less stronk than 2B is, he gets an additional attack where he can hack an enemy. the game literally transitions into a short constrained bullet hell shooter with a chiptune version of one of the songs from the original NIER playing.
that’s a thing that happens in this 2017 ass modern videogame
so loop 2 sets itself up fundamentally the same way loop 2 of the original Nier does - with most of the enemies remarking that they’re scared of you or that they’re generally afraid of androids
the difference between the way it’s handled there and here is that your characters will actively remark on not understanding why they’re saying that at the beginning so it doesn’t feel like the game going “haha! you are bad person who kills innocent” because your charaters are showing agency in how they respond
Actually all the hacking music is a chiptune version of the song currently playing. If you buy the soundtrack packs and play them on the jukebox of the resistancd camp you find out they made a chiptune arrangement of every single song in the game. It is kind of amazing. It is not quite the modular and effortless transitions between locations in the original but it is amazing they switch at best between normal and chiptune!
can you meet Emil in the first loop? I only met him late in the second loop. Supposedly there are a bunch of requirements to fight him as a bonus boss.
I met him in the first loop
yeah, you can meet him in the first loop if you just walk up the stairs to his secret elevator on the way to the forest castle
the requirements to fight him (I looked them up even though I’m only 1/3 of the way through the second loop) are absurd though, definitely not going to be doing that
I still admire how effectively this game swings between really heavy-handed and just wonderfully evocative. I’d probably be happier without the heavy-handedness but it just constantly redeems itself
I’m finding playing as 9S a little tedious but I like that the shooter sections actually have a good challenge to them for the most part!
are there any sidequests I should Definitely Not Miss?
there’s a sidequest without a prompt as 9S where you find a couple of robots standing out and looking at the world and they ignore you if you try to talk to them, but you can hack them. it’s definitely very…interesting
i also really liked every interaction with jackass so i wish she had more quests than she offers. another good one to do is the quest for the robot who has a damaged memory chip.
as 9S, you can also get a quest from the bunker. if you go to the operators table in the main communications room on the left side and talk to his operater (20 i think) she’ll give you a quest that’s not on the map.
And I am saying meet and the side quest involved as opposed to his cameo apperance.
I liked the payoff of the parade quest.
The inventor quest has great rewards but is best for late game. Then again if you start selling fish and machine cores you have absurd amounts of money.
Make sure to equip the chip that sucks up items I think devola sells it.
I will let y’all set the pace of this thread but have you noticed anything in the cutscenes of loop 2?
Also getting every ending sounds like an exercise in doing the wrong thing at all times for meager reward. Are any of the other endings sustantial?
Spoiler there are 26 endings.
I eyeballed a list of how to obtain them and it seems like a pretty exhausting probing of “the wrong thing to do” at all times in the game
arguably nier lends itself to that in the first place but other than the really obvious/silly ones (like the mackerel) I imagine I’ll wind up looking up a lot of them when I’m done
jackass’ timed fights on my first loop were pretty fun, as was escorting the lost girl robot back from the desert. the sokoban puzzle was really slow and easy, I feel like this game is constantly admonishing me to get on its level. not in the worst way though.
I love how a lot of the lore, particularly around the first game, is basically a mostly-failed-effort-atop-a-mostly-failed-effort to cope with the end of the world.
I also admire how stingy the palette is
I met him but I did not get a sidequest.
Jeez, I thought I got a decent amount of weapons in this game the first playthrough. Literally just noticed that with a ton in every category, I still only have about 53% of all of the weapons in the game
Lots of the weapons are in hacked cases for 9s to find. I will try to post the weapon location hints from famitsu tonight.
they probably should’ve made the world geometry just slightly less inconsistent and oppressive given how much hidden stuff there is to find
I feel like the amount of ledge-jumping the game wants me to do is somewhat unearned, and it doesn’t work in spite of itself the way the lack of enemy variety does
Has anyone else got the glitches? In the ending of part 2, 9s and 2b were surrounded by flickering people
Man I met Emil a lot in Loop A, and even had to do a whole sidequest for him and got to ride his elevator down and it was pretty great.
I am missing a lot of weapons.
Ending G made me cackle at my TV.
Yeah I got that several times! The reason…doesnt really explain it!
Even hacking is pretty enjoyable.
Man I want to listen to all the soundtrack to this game.
