Playing this in 2010 versus 2021 I am struck how the story is about the disregard in caring for a dying loved one long term (which I have significant experience with now.) at a certain point they are just long term dying so you go back to having your own life or doing things “in their service.” Then you get a phone call. It’s over they are gone. You didn’t get to say goodbye. You’re stuck with a thousand regrets. You read their letters. I should have stayed by their side. I should have listened. Why did I yell at them? Why wasn’t I just nicer to them. They were dying. Why did I fuck off with my friends so much? You don’t remember the stress. Just the regrets. And now you have to live with that.
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you’re talking about automata here right
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it’s equally true in both games!
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other than the lighthouse lady I cant think of any memorable sidequests in replicant. maybe the one in facade about the missing girl
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Helping characters with their relationships (red bag guy), getting swindled hardcore by those out to take advantage of you but you still gain skill (fisherman’s gambit), the very brief but super sad tale of the man who lost his dog, etc.
You learn about the world, but you also learn more about the relationships between Weiss, Nier, and the other characters like Toups said.
Of course, you might not really want to bother with the stuff and that’s cool too. I personally love it!
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the red bag guy was my favorite. I know people like that IRL. I love when you complete the optional sidequest which culminates in you having dinner with him and his wife, every time you use the ferry he talks your ear off about some asinine argument they got into. it’s so true to life! and it actually makes it hit so much harder when he is killed off in the added segment. probably my favorite addition of the remake.
also I gotta say… ending A definitely hits harder with father nier. maybe this is just a cultural difference but the entire dynamic between nier, the shadowlord, and yonah makes way more sense and has more dramatic weight as a father/daughter relationship. it still works fine this way, but I think I still ultimately feel the story is more emotionally resonant with papa nier.
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This thing was how I realized that Yoko Taro loves to waste your time and to not trust anyone who says ‘do everything!’ in a Yoko Taro game.
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I haven’t finished this version yet but kept wondering why not split the difference and make shadowlord Papa Nier?
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I like that idea in a vacuum, I just feel like it would require a lot of the backstory to be rewritten. maybe I’m forgetting the deep lore but isn’t the idea that replicant nier rejoining gestalt nier is sort of the key to saving humanity? except by the time of the events of the game, everyone has lost sight of that?
also, incidentally: if this has anyone else wanting to play automata, the steam version is currently marked down to $20.
the original save-humanity plan was that the soulless husks known as replicants could become future hosts for the gestalt human souls once that disease that turned humans into pillars of salt went away. Obviously this didn’t work out and humanity was doomed forever after. In classic Yoko Taro fashion, the only possible conclusion is the total extinction of humanity because edgelord gotta edge
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Spiderman puts on his glasses and can identify this plot as FFIX
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This new bit in the main quest was certainly shoved in here.
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God damn there are a lot of quests in part one. I forgot how good some of the side quest and fishing stuff is. That red bag couple argument could have gone on and on and I would not have cared.
I’ve noticed that part of the secret sauce here is that there is no fast travel. It makes the world seem much bigger and the side quests much more tedious but also gives everything more weight despite the tedium. You actually have to make the same kinds of decisions that someone doing all this tedious rubbish would do in terms of stocking up on and planning efficient routes. Subtly, it also guides you away from stopping by your house since it’s just time out of your schedule, and so the player starts to care less and less about coming home, unless they have to do quest cleanup and eventually meet Yonah to get her a pumpkin or whatever.
On to part two!
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Sudden memory flashed by in my mind and a bit of searching on my drive it turned out I did actually save it. This comic must’ve been made in 2011 I think?
Happy End
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Gestalt Nier is the only human capable of merging a Gestalt and a Replicant back into a human being. They couldn’t do this right away because of the war between the androids and Red Eye, so they protected all the gestalts during the war, and kept their replicants in a holding pattern. As the war and the cleaning program ended, however, they had a new problem of replicants gaining self awareness, which complicated the process of rejoining them to their gestalt.
At the start of the game this has basically been solved, and the androids are beginning the process of restoring humanity (this is what’s happening in the hanging city). Gestalt Nier isn’t exactly playing game, however, because he refuses to cooperate with anyone unless they also cure Yonah, which they can’t, because the cycle only works for a small percentage of humanity, and Yonah wasn’t one of them. 2000 era Nier forced the government to put her through the process anyways, and she’s been in magical ICU for the past 3000 years.
If Shadowlord Nier, or Replicant Nier, or Gestalt Yonah, or Devola and Popola, or Kaine had ever taken a moment to ask for help and tell anyone else the truth, instead of deciding that they already knew what was best, then things would have probably turned out better. Instead everyone blazed forward on their on path and ended the world in tragedy.
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right, that’s why it only makes sense when replicant nier and gestalt nier are literally the same person. one can’t be father if the other is a brother. though I suppose you could imagine rewriting things to where that scenario would work?
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Wow this is all a lot stupider when just written out.
Art is amazing.
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Within the fiction of the world it could work, sure, since Replicants grow old and die, so a replicant of any age could see their gestalt stuck at the age they were when split. But having them look the same is much faster visual shorthand that’s more elegant than the exposition that would be required otherwise.
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