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Pollyanna posted:Is there anywhere else to upgrade weapons to max besides the blacksmith in the forest? Gonna start working on bringing everything to level 4. Start clowning around. He doesn't get rubber until the late/post game, though.
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Apr 1, 2017 01:54
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Whoever was griping about the Pure Water item grind is not going to be happy when they learn about Simple Gadgets.
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Apr 1, 2017 01:57
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Pollyanna posted:Is there anywhere else to upgrade weapons to max besides the blacksmith in the forest? Gonna start working on bringing everything to level 4. The robot vendor at the amusement park sells a bunch of upgrade materials, apparently including natural rubber. Its inventory is different between the A/B and C chapters, though.
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Apr 1, 2017 01:57
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Emil sells high end machine upgrade parts that aren't outright body parts in route C. On that note, I have a theory. He sings when he sells upgrade materials and hums when selling chips. High-speed zooming around when it's the high-end version of these shops.
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Apr 1, 2017 02:12
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So can I ask something about 9S and 2B? End game talk. I talked with a few friends on the topic of love and we're kinda butting heads. Chatted up different forums and more butting of heads from multiple sides. I read the game as 9S and 2B being in love romantically. A kind of tragic romance that both sides are unable to come out with. Couple friends agreed and that was that until talking with another who said "nah it's family love, like a brother and sister. Not romantic at all." which, despite the family theme from Adam and Eve I didn't really get from the two of them. Now a few places I've been too and mentioned it seem to be butting heads as well and I'm kinda lost. Is it a romantic situation or more family?
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Apr 1, 2017 04:21
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ThisIsACoolGuy posted:So can I ask something about 9S and 2B? End game talk. Could be either, really. Best off just sticking with personal preference instead of getting into silly debates about the lives of pixel people.
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Apr 1, 2017 04:28
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ThisIsACoolGuy posted:So can I ask something about 9S and 2B? End game talk. I mentioned it earlier in the thread, but I kinda thought (and liked) that it was a mix of both loves. I feel that it fits the themes a bit better that they try to imitate humanity in their love of each other but get confused in doing so. They aren't family, so its not weird for them to care for each other and not know where the boundaries are for each other.
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Apr 1, 2017 04:29
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really queer Christmas posted:I mentioned it earlier in the thread, but I kinda thought (and liked) that it was a mix of both loves. I feel that it fits the themes a bit better that they try to imitate humanity in their love of each other but get confused in doing so. They aren't family, so its not weird for them to care for each other and not know where the boundaries are for each other. Yeah, I feel like not being able to tell / it being a weird mixed sort of love was kind of the point and enforced the idea that they're just aping what they think human love actually is without really 'knowing' it.
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Apr 1, 2017 04:31
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ThisIsACoolGuy posted:So can I ask something about 9S and 2B? End game talk. I like how they leave it strongly ambiguous. You're thinking about how much you want to **** 2B
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Apr 1, 2017 04:33
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I had a conversation with a friend who suggested that the **** in "you want to **** 2B" isn't actually 'gently caress,' it's 'kill.' My response was that I'm pretty sure it's both. Taro kind of has this conflation of sex and violence theme going on in his work, not in the skeevy sexualized violence way but in a way that, like, he seems to consider both of them base, impulsive things humans do because we're flawed, foolish beings. And that gently caress/kill duality is a recurring theme for 9S and 2B specifically--the end of routes A and B in particular is very explicit about it, with the way 2B straddles 9S while strangling him. 9S and 2B have a really weird, fraught relationship with a lot of different emotions all mixed up together to the point where you can't really tell where one feeling ends and another begins and the wires are all crossed. Trying to say "they're in human romantic sex love" or "they're in human platonic family love" is kind of missing the forest for the trees, I think, because it's kind of both and kind of neither. It's some kind of love, but what does love even mean for an artificial being whose entire concept of "love" is something they scavenged from the ancient remains of their long-dead creators? It's kind of one of the game's big themes. Basically the answer is "it's complicated." Opposing Farce fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Apr 1, 2017 |
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Apr 1, 2017 04:41
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Apr 1, 2017 04:49
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Some reason it never occurred to me to think of it as both, or rather give it much thought. This has been a pretty fun read though so thanks for the replies.
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Apr 1, 2017 04:51
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 quote:i had a dream earlier today that I unlocked pants for 2B, except they went all the way up to her neck. @jiebadiah made that dream a reality, love you jieb.
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Apr 1, 2017 05:04
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Grapplejack posted:Yeah, I feel like not being able to tell / it being a weird mixed sort of love was kind of the point and enforced the idea that they're just aping what they think human love actually is without really 'knowing' it. I agree that it's kind of mixed, but I don't think that they're simply imitating it. Rather, I think love is one part of humanity they've been able to achieve. Without things like sex or ego to muck things up, you might even say that they've surpassed humans. One theme of the game is finding meaning within meaninglessness; all androids and even some machines seem to show an ability to love that brings meaning to their ultimately meaningless existence. In the same vein, 9S ends up only being able to find meaning in hatred, the second achieved aspect of humanity, during route C. I think real love and hate being the only two things that transcend humanity is a beautiful contrast to the failure that machines experience in other aspects.
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Apr 1, 2017 05:17
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ThisIsACoolGuy posted:So can I ask something about 9S and 2B? End game talk. I'll throw a wild card it's destructive romantic love preprogrammed into their being to make recurring executions "easier" that's unhealthy and damages both. It's really hard for me to see it as a positive romantic story at all Nina fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Apr 1, 2017 |
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Apr 1, 2017 06:00
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I'm on Route C. That is all
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Apr 1, 2017 06:29
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i really wish this game had a level scaling option for replaying on the same file. i'm going for all achievements and i'd really like combat to stay fun and engaging but i'm just one-shotting everything at lvl 68 with almost all my weapons at lvl 4.CharlieFoxtrot posted:I'm on Route C. condolences in advance for your broken heart Cardboard Box fucked around with this message at 06:40 on Apr 1, 2017 |
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Apr 1, 2017 06:37
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ThisIsACoolGuy posted:Is it a romantic situation or more family? It is a romantic tragedy. I know I keep going back to it, but watch ending A/B very carefully: 2B bobs her hips while she's strangling 9S to death. It's a gently caress pose; they're in love, but neither one wants to admit it because of the circumstances they find themselves caught in. Opposing Farce posted:Taro kind of has this conflation of sex and violence theme going on in his work, not in the skeevy sexualized violence way but in a way that, like, he seems to consider both of them base, impulsive things humans do because we're flawed, foolish beings. It's not just Taro. Sex and violence are fundamentally linked in a weird, uneasy way in the human psyche. To quote an anecdote from Israeli military psychologist Ben Shalit: quote:On my right was mounted a heavy machine gun. The gunner (normally the cook) was firing away with what I can only describe as a beatific smile on his face. He was exhilerated by the squeezing of the trigger, the hammering of the gun, and the flight of his tracers rushing out into the dark shore. It struck me then (and was confirmed by him and many others later) that squeezing the trigger - releasing a hail of bullets - gives enormous pleasure and satisfaction. These are the pleasures of combat, not in terms of the intellectual planning - of the tactical and strategic chess game - but of the primal aggression, the release, and the orgasmic discharge. This intimate link is frequently used (think of characters like Bloodrayne, old Lara Croft, or even James Bond), but rarely commented upon directly. Automata takes the step of simply confirming this link openly and visibly. It does this in a number of ways:
The reason for all of this beyond mere shock factor will probably vary depending on a person's reading of the game as a whole. My reading is that Automata is a game about the question of, "What attributes make something human?", and its given answer is, "A human is someone who makes connections to others." Neither the androids who control YoRHa nor the Terminals that control the machines really understand this through most of the game's runtime: both sides think that human beings are defined both by their love and their hate, but they only take the physical element of those two things (sex and violence) into consideration. The emotional reason - the connections that people have - isn't considered. In a war, a person commits violence for their country because they believe in its ideals, or because they want to protect their family, or because they think the other side is a bunch of bastards, or any other number of reasons - but it's because of their connections that they choose to fight. The YoRHa androids fight because they were built to fight and are quickly killed if they dare do anything other than fight (or indirectly facilitate in fighting, such as with the Observer models). The machines, driven by their implanted directives, are in the same boat, save for a small few splinter groups who were (briefly) allowed to break apart from the collective in an attempt to further accelerate their evolution. What this all comes down to is that the bulk of the game's violence is totally meaningless, both from a diegetic (that is, the narrative context of the game) and an extradiegetic (the actual mechanics of the game as a video game) perspective. A lot of the fighting you do in this game is simply because robots appear onscreen and start attacking you, so you attack them back, mirroring the absurdity of the Forever War the two sides are locked in, both fighting for masters who no longer even exist. Consequently, given the aforementioned link between the two, the bulk of the game's sexual element is also meaningless: the only reason 2B wears a clipped dress and thigh-highs is because she's mandated to wear them, because the overseers of YoRHa think that imitating the physical aspects of humankind (wearing sexually attractive clothing and killing) is what will bring androids closer to becoming human. The sex and the violence in the game only gains any kind of purchase when it's infused with an underlying stream of emotional love/hate. Consider the choking scene of route A/B: this was a game where the cinematic director had ample opportunities for gratuitous panty shots, but the only time the cinematic camera gets a glimpse under 2B's skirt is after it's been nearly blown off, right before the moment where her sexuality actually is meaningful (her intimate moment with 9S). Similarly, the actual choking of 9S is one of the few moments of violence in the game that feels appropriately raw and powerful. It's not just a woman swinging a sword around and blowing up robots for no reason beyond them being there: it's two lovers, caught in an awful situation, where one has to commit a terrible act because of their affection for the other. This is mainly why I lean on, "A human is someone who makes connections to others," as the game's ultimate "answer" to the question of what it means to be human: the game repeatedly contrasts contextless violence and sexual elements (blowing up robots while 2B's skirt flaps around) with moments of intensely meaningful violence and sexual elements (the ending of route A/B), which are only made meaningful through the connections that you, the player, have made with the various characters of the game. Vermain fucked around with this message at 06:48 on Apr 1, 2017 |
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Apr 1, 2017 06:42
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Nina posted:I'll throw a wild card it's destructive romantic love preprogrammed into their being to make recurring executions "easier" that's unhealthy and damages both. It's really hard for me to see it as a positive romantic story at all gonna quote myself from earlier in the thread cuz someone else mentioned this as well. also the 2b in a literal pantsuit is great Fereydun posted:
Fereydun fucked around with this message at 06:59 on Apr 1, 2017 |
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Apr 1, 2017 06:53
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So as a mechanical question, just to make sure I understand right: Now that I've gotten at least one Route C ending and unlocked chapter select, if I want to go back and do Emil's Memories and see the related content, I need to select a Route A/B chapter, do the quest, play the game to a Route A or B ending, and then load a Route C chapter for the Route C stuff concerning Emil's pad? Or are there unnecessary steps there?
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Apr 1, 2017 06:55
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Vermain posted:This intimate link is frequently used (think of characters like Bloodrayne, old Lara Croft, or even James Bond), but rarely commented upon directly. Automata takes the step of simply confirming this link openly and visibly. It does this in a number of ways: Not to interject into a thoughtful post with a bit of nitpick-y completionism, but I think it is worth mentioning the Jackass combat challenge sidequest where the game very explicitly makes that connection textual. Jackass going on about how androids get pleasure from fighting isn't the most significant or thematic place the link comes up, but it's probably the most explicit. At any rate, I think that's a pretty good read of the game's themes, and you're right that the whole sex and violence thing is far from a Taro-specific theme. I just meant that he has a tendency to call attention to and explore the link as part of his games, though I think that idea is significantly more important in Automata than it has been in any of his other games. Except maybe Drakengard 3 I guess, that's actually the only one I don't know much about but it seems like sex and violence is probably a big thing there. Opposing Farce fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Apr 1, 2017 |
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Apr 1, 2017 06:57
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SpaceDrake posted:So as a mechanical question, just to make sure I understand right: You can use the chapter select to jump from any point in the game to any other point in the game from the main menu or any save point.
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Apr 1, 2017 06:58
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SpaceDrake posted:So as a mechanical question, just to make sure I understand right: All you have to do is find Emil in A, B, or C, and do the quest. You do not have to play until you get an ending. Edit: There is one part related to Emil's quest you have to do in C after completing a certain quest. That quest is Gathering Mementos. Hommando fucked around with this message at 07:04 on Apr 1, 2017 |
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Apr 1, 2017 06:59
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Opposing Farce posted:You can use the chapter select to jump from any point in the game to any other point in the game from the main menu or any save point. Hommando posted:All you have to do is find Emil in A, B, or C, and do the quest. You do not have to play until you get an ending. I knew about Gathering Mementos, but now the save will just keep track of everything I do even if I just save off, quit to title, and jump to a different chapter? Cool deal. Time to do Emil's stuff, be Nines, get ending D, and then finish things off, it looks like. edit: I'm refraining from commenting on ending-related black bars since there's still a bit I need to do.
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Apr 1, 2017 07:07
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I came in here to ask a question about perfect dodge but now I am gonna leave because this thread is one giant succession of black bars and I am afraid to touch my mouse.
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Apr 1, 2017 07:41
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Araganzar posted:I came in here to ask a question about perfect dodge but now I am gonna leave because this thread is one giant succession of black bars and I am afraid to touch my mouse. Androids wear blindfolds to hide the fact that they are all being piloted by other, smaller androids.
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Apr 1, 2017 07:42
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Araganzar posted:I came in here to ask a question about perfect dodge but now I am gonna leave because this thread is one giant succession of black bars and I am afraid to touch my mouse. When you do the thing and it makes four copies of you that's a perfect dodge. Combo with a pod attack or a light attack after for either an explosion or a launcher, if you have a counter chip you autodamage them if you dodge into them.
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Apr 1, 2017 07:47
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Finished Emil's Determination 
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Apr 1, 2017 08:02
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Almost got the savegame chip editor ready for release, here's some examples of tiny overpowered chips you can make:
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Apr 1, 2017 08:03
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:I'm on Route C. Hey there Route C buddy. Do you need a hug? Because I do.
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Apr 1, 2017 08:07
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And I'm done here What a special game
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Apr 1, 2017 08:47
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SpaceDrake posted:I knew about Gathering Mementos, but now ]the save will just keep track of everything I do even if I just save off, quit to title, and jump to a different chapter? Cool deal.[ You don't even have to save and quit, it's an option right from the message/save/transport terminals.
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Apr 1, 2017 10:38
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I didn't pick up a Powerup Part S after defeating a set of gold robots and now I only have two out of three. Is there any way to farm them?
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Apr 1, 2017 11:52
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So the implication is that the Emil in the game might be the original but because of his amnesia he was just thinking he was one of the clones right?
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Apr 1, 2017 12:04
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Man, gently caress Speed Star. Just gonna put that out there.
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Apr 1, 2017 12:21
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Nina posted:What a special game i seriously think it's one of the best games i've ever played and i don't make claims like that often. if this game gets overlooked during game of the year discussions i'll be really sad Gnome de plume posted:Man, gently caress Speed Star. Just gonna put that out there. the last couple races really requires you to have the full +20% speed bonus from chips Cardboard Box fucked around with this message at 12:35 on Apr 1, 2017 |
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Apr 1, 2017 12:27
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3wScHE28K8 There's an It's pretty funny just to look at him all masked up. e: Tell a lie, my captions just weren't working. Gonna say it's not full spoiler safe though just as a precaution Josuke Higashikata fucked around with this message at 12:35 on Apr 1, 2017 |
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Apr 1, 2017 12:28
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Cardboard Box posted:i seriously think it's one of the best games i've ever played and i don't make claims like that often. if this game gets overlooked during game of the year discussions i'll be really sad This game is definitely going to be my game of the year. When it comes to GOTY discussions, I have a feeling Breath of The Wild is going to take it.
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Apr 1, 2017 12:38
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Mazerunner posted:You don't even have to save and quit, it's an option right from the message/save/transport terminals. Yep, it was handy. The actual window for Emil's Memories is a bit thin, though - it's some time after the forest but you need to do it before accepting the carrier quest, because that'll get in the way of reaching a flower and you can't go to the house after you find the flower. And well, that's Automata beaten. I am glad to have ridden Yoko Taro's wild ride. Vermain's take on a lot of things is in line with my own (and I think it's pretty clear that's the authorial intent w/r/t what was being discussed, but there is one aspect I haven't seen discussed quite a bit and I'm a little torn on how the game handles it overall: Existential meaninglessness. So obviously a huge point in the game is that the whole Machine War has, from the absolute start, been utterly pointless, especially for the androids. The Terminals have managed to find something resembling a purpose to it (in order to drive machine evolution), but even this is somewhat dubious and for the androids it's completely pointless, because the odds of humanity being revived from the moon server are slim and YoRHa is extra screwed by design. The antagonists are trying to find meaning in life, and 9S is driven to believe it's not possible by the time of the final showdown. Even Emil ties into this, as his various clones are pretty much mad from pain and no longer see a point in existence but they're immortal. And then, of course, Ending E pretty much asks the player what they think, and ties back into the "humanity is connecting with others" idea - you probably complete the credits by getting help from others, and the ending does rather "want" the player to lean towards the idea that existence has however much meaning you elect to assign to it. My main complaint is that I do wish this got a little acknowledgment from the characters who we end up saving-via-inference in the credits. While it's a cute reveal to see the Pods re-assembling all three, I find myself wishing that 9S, in particular, got a little time to ponder a denouement from his peak of despair right at the end of the Tower. Yes, we get something like that in Ending D, but Ending E still feels a little abrupt and unfulfilled without some acknowledgement of the arc of the journey from him, since he's really the main character. It might get a little cheesy, yes, but to continue the food analogy, the sandwich just doesn't seem complete without some cheese. Perhaps I'm a big sucker for cheesy endings, but as neat as the conceit of Ending E is (with the Pods, of all things, finding the most solid purpose in their "lives" before anyone else and 042 discovering the stream of embarrassment that is life) it did feel a little light, especially after the relentless onslaught of existential despair that is 9S' path in Route C. Anyway this is a great, great game and people should play it and enjoy it. edit: Nina posted:So the implication is that the Emil in the game might be the original but because of his amnesia he was just thinking he was one of the clones right? He might be, yes, and it would make a little more sense for him to be, but like a lot of things in the game, it doesn't matter whether he is or not; what matters is his situation now, and how he can make the best of it while perhaps respecting what came before. Emil's kind of a microcosm of the game's entire theme. Cardboard Box posted:i seriously think it's one of the best games i've ever played and i don't make claims like that often. if this game gets overlooked during game of the year discussions i'll be really sad It is also going to be going up against the English version of Persona 5, and that's another major, major GOTY candidate for a number of reasons. Q1 2017 (and the first few days of April) have seen a ton of unbelievably strong games come out, and on some level they all deserve "GOTY". This is a Good rear end Year for videogames. SpaceDrake fucked around with this message at 12:41 on Apr 1, 2017 |
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Apr 1, 2017 12:38
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Hommando posted:This game is definitely going to be my game of the year. When it comes to GOTY discussions, I have a feeling Breath of The Wild is going to take it. yeah i came immediately off of playing breath of the wild and didn't really think anything would top it for my personal pick but then this game blew me away immediately. i expect most publications to pick zelda for overall game of the year but i hope this game gets recognized for the things it does that are leagues ahead of its contemporaries like story and music.
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Apr 1, 2017 12:40
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