So I Tried… Nier Automata

Each edition of So I Tried… I will try a game that I have never tried before. Will I find something new to love? Will I find something new to despise? I'll take a full half hour, no matter how bad it gets or how badly I do, to see if this is the game for me. This time I went for the Xbox One version of Nier Automata.

What I thought it was

A third-person hack & slash in a Dark Souls vein, where I would be punished for the slightest misstep. That was, somehow, related to the Drakengard series despite there being no dragons. Not that I knew a ton about that series, either to be fair… I had only recently become aware that this wasn’t the first title in the franchise, though I was aware that 2B is very popular in the realms of Rule 34 fan art.

What it actually is

Well, I got a shock when the game started off in a shoot ‘em-up, before changing into a third-person hack & slash & shoot. Then the camera kept changing, with side-scrolling and top-down sections. This game has many levels, and not all of them are apparent just from screenshots and dodgy fan art. Of course, I had heard many people say how good this is, and was aware that it has won awards, but given how I had brushed it off as a soulslike, I really gave it a disservice.

Will I keep playing

Yes, I’ll definitely keep playing. And, after writing what it actually was, I did play some more. Mainly because the first half an hour left me with 101 questions - why do they hate machines when they apparently are machines? Why does the shop let me buy multiples of things I already have like additions to my HUD? So many more that I came across in the second half an hour! I’m glad that I gave this a chance, and not just because you can see right up 2B’s skirt when she climbs ladders.