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chiasaur11 posted:Miss the mark, or play it different? I don't think there could have been a better English dub. I just think the Japanese VAs work better tonally in this situation. Caphi posted:Anime Japanese is pretty much to regular Japanese as dub English is to regular English. I'm so used to anime Japanese that even after learning to enunciate close to proper Japanese I still process them both at pretty much the same level, separately. Maybe you can do the same to anime dub English. Politicians and YouTube vloggers both sound really odd when directly compared to casual English conversational dialects.
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Oct 26, 2017 00:51
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In my experience people that blanket prefer Japanese dubs to English dubs are extremely harsh on the English dubs. Stuff like "the English dub couldn't have been better but the Japanese was better" is basically saying that you always prefer Japanese dubs. Which is fine but it makes conversation pointless. Why bother talking about the merits of voicework when one language is always going to be preferred? It gets especially annoying when it gets injected into random conversation because people can't wait to tell you that 2B's Japanese voice actress voiced this particular line better. Even in the interview I linked earlier, Kira Buckland mentioned that sometimes if she mentions to fans of Automata that she voiced 2B, some of them will flat-out tell her to her face that they don't care because they listened to Japanese audio. I've personally met people in real life who refuse to go with English dubs and as a rule they're insufferable people - one dude said that English dubbers are 'a bunch of youtubers' and not worth considering. It's a frustrating mindset that is one of the worst parts of the general 'anime' fandom to me. It turns off a lot of people trying to get into these kinds of work when I've literally seen people judge other people for preferring English dubs. Bit of an rant but it's semi on-topic when you see this behavior directly affects the voice actors for this game.
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Oct 26, 2017 01:01
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KamikazePotato posted:In my experience people that blanket prefer Japanese dubs to English dubs are extremely harsh on the English dubs. Stuff like "the English dub couldn't have been better but the Japanese was better" is basically saying that you always prefer Japanese dubs. Which is fine but it makes conversation pointless. Why bother talking about the merits of voicework when one language is always going to be preferred? It gets especially annoying when it gets injected into random conversation because people can't wait to tell you that 2B's Japanese voice actress voiced this particular line better. I hear what you are saying and I agree in some points. If it helps, I preferred the english VAs in FFXV over the Japanese version? To me, in some english VAs, it's over acting, bad acting, or just tones that don't match. Plus, there are Japanese animation tropes that just plain don't translate well (for me) to english. (like the overly interested Operator senpai notice me thing). To credit you and everyone else that likes the english VAs, these are probably present in the Japanese versions as well but since I'm not familiar with the language, I may not notice it. ...and I like it that way. So I guess I'm insufferable but at least I'm not calling your point of view "pointless" to talk about nor am I calling you insufferable. edit: Again, to reiterate, much respect to Kira and everyone else. I know and I've seen people critical to her on her streams and I get why people are defensive about this. Professor of Cats fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Oct 26, 2017 |
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Oct 26, 2017 01:09
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Kibayasu posted:I would agree if I get to be nitpicky and annoying and say that I agree that Weight of the World English is better with how the lyrics sound in conjunction to the instruments but the lyrics themselves are, uh, on the nose to put it generously. This is why the fake language version is actually the best. I think understanding the lyrics actually gets in the way of the purpose of the music, which is less about meaning and more about tone and emotion.
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Oct 26, 2017 01:50
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KamikazePotato posted:In my experience people that blanket prefer Japanese dubs to English dubs are extremely harsh on the English dubs. Stuff like "the English dub couldn't have been better but the Japanese was better" is basically saying that you always prefer Japanese dubs. Which is fine but it makes conversation pointless. Why bother talking about the merits of voicework when one language is always going to be preferred? The choices made during Automata were nowhere near as bad as the ones made during D3's development, but I do think the localization process ultimately made 9S a slightly less sympathetic character for the later half of the game.
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Oct 26, 2017 02:02
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I find it hard to get behind the idea of Zero being monotone when like, all the cutscenes show her as abrasive and angry just in terms of body language and actions alone.
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Oct 26, 2017 02:15
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When I tried learning Japanese, I started really enjoying English dubs more, because once you reach a certain point in learning the language, the Japanese dubs sound just as fake and overacted as the English ones. There's differences in the performance between versions, sure, but Japanese isn't automatically better just because. Once you start to understand what natural speech sounds like, anime voices just all sound the same, regardless of language.
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Oct 26, 2017 02:19
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Professor of Cats posted:To me, in some english VAs, it's over acting, bad acting, or just tones that don't match. Not to be harsh on you, but it seems like part of the reason you listen to it in Japanese is you can't tell when the acting is bad. That being said, " I listen to stuff in a language I can't understand so I don't know when the acting is bad," is a logically sound, if somewhat odd position to have.
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Oct 26, 2017 02:39
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I took the Japanese voice option for Onimusha: Warlords, but that's because early PS2 Capcom english voice acting was just baaaaad. I prefer the English dub for Nier: Automata, though I only played it for about 30 minutes with Japanese voices. I ended up missing the English voices. The 2B/6O stuff just wasn't as fun as it had been in English, but a lot of that probably has to do with me being able to understand the language and inflections.
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Oct 26, 2017 03:04
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Abhorrence posted:Not to be harsh on you, but it seems like part of the reason you listen to it in Japanese is you can't tell when the acting is bad. Without a better understanding of the language, I have to trust that the developers made the right decisions with the original voice tracks. I can, however, imagine a scenario in which a character is improved by the localization process.
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Oct 26, 2017 03:27
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All VA in all languages is bad. lol if you don’t switch off VA and just use subtitles in every game. Except for the games with bad subtitles, in which case turn those off too.
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Oct 26, 2017 03:35
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The conversation right before the Grun segment is all you need to prove the English version is better 
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Oct 26, 2017 03:39
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also 9S: [incoherent howl of rage]
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Oct 26, 2017 03:41
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Abhorrence posted:Not to be harsh on you, but it seems like part of the reason you listen to it in Japanese is you can't tell when the acting is bad. No worries at all - You're not wrong.  And again, for what it's worth, I wasn't a fan of the Japanese VAs on FFXV. Professor of Cats posted:To credit you and everyone else that likes the english VAs, these are probably present in the Japanese versions as well but since I'm not familiar with the language, I may not notice it. Professor of Cats posted:...But maybe that's because I think anime stuff is corny in general and having a foreign accent hides some of the cheese for me. ... e: (minor reading comprehension issues lol) Professor of Cats fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Oct 26, 2017 |
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Oct 26, 2017 03:53
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It might also be a difference in how the industries handle the VAs. As I understand it, the US industry generally has VAs dub their parts alone, with a day or two tops to look at the script, and rarely given any context for the scene or even a chance to watch the scene before they dub it. And unless it goes completely wrong, there's only one take. While I could be wrong, I was under the impression that the Japanese industry treated its VAs a bit more like actual actors, with a concomitant rise in quality.
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Oct 26, 2017 03:59
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The Sandman posted:It might also be a difference in how the industries handle the VAs. As I understand it, the US industry generally has VAs dub their parts alone, with a day or two tops to look at the script, and rarely given any context for the scene or even a chance to watch the scene before they dub it. And unless it goes completely wrong, there's only one take. It seems like that, at least in the case with that a mini-stage/play reading of that post-automata story. It seemed pretty legit and I enjoyed the performance. [-said the apparent dolt, who listens to foreign people talk because he doesn't know any better]
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Oct 26, 2017 04:10
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chiasaur11 posted:I didn't even say that. Networked machines are self-aware individuals when not put in kill androids mode.
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Oct 26, 2017 04:12
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Professor of Cats posted:It seems like that, at least in the case with that a mini-stage/play reading of that post-automata story. It seemed pretty legit and I enjoyed the performance. [-said the apparent dolt, who listens to foreign people talk because he doesn't know any better] That was a reading for the fans, not an official production, and so is not indicative of actual VA practices. Kyle McCarley does talk a lot about the industry over the course of his Nier Automata and Nier playthroughs, however.
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Oct 26, 2017 04:25
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Kibayasu posted:I would agree if I get to be nitpicky and annoying and say that I agree that Weight of the World English is better with how the lyrics sound in conjunction to the instruments but the lyrics themselves are, uh, on the nose to put it generously. The lyrics in the Japanese version are more nihilistic (the Japanese version is called "Song of the Broken World") but the lyrics are about equally on-the-nose. The part that goes "So we're gonna shout it loud, even if our words seem meaningless" in the Japanese version goes (roughly): Yes, both of us, right now Oh, it's worthless but we still cry out That song of the broken world Yes, both of us, right now Oh, it's meaningless but I still wish Only for a future with you May your smile on that day lovingly disappear I actually think the tonal differences are intentional, because Weight of the World plays for 2B's route and Song of the Broken World plays during 9S's route, and overall the difference in lyrics suits each of them (Weight of the World is sung by "only one girl" but Song of the Broken World is sung by "boku", which is the pronoun 9S uses)
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Oct 26, 2017 04:39
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...! posted:All VA in all languages is bad. Nina posted:Networked machines are self-aware individuals when not put in kill androids mode. just a robit!
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Oct 26, 2017 04:43
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for what its worth, my girlfriend is a fluent speaker of both japanese and english and she said that it is basically equal levels of corny, just sometimes in different directions
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Oct 26, 2017 04:58
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I played Steins;Gate recently — which has no English VA — and the Japanese VA sure sounded cheesy and cornball to me even though I couldn’t understand a word of it. I don’t see how English VA could have sounded worse. I still remember people being downright pissed at not being able to pick Japanese VA when Dragon Quest VIII first released. That game has no Japanese VA; the Japanese version is text only. But people sure were up in arms about not getting to hear that non-existent VA. 
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Oct 26, 2017 05:24
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I don't think this video has been posted here yet. ValkyrieAurora and Clemps joined up to discuss how Automata plays with expectations. Endgame Spoilershttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va0HewnLM6w
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Oct 26, 2017 05:30
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The Sandman posted:It might also be a difference in how the industries handle the VAs. As I understand it, the US industry generally has VAs dub their parts alone, with a day or two tops to look at the script, and rarely given any context for the scene or even a chance to watch the scene before they dub it. And unless it goes completely wrong, there's only one take. As far as I'm aware, Japan uses group recordings more often, so the actors can actually act together rather than just reading takes and going off what the director says, but otherwise there are a lot of similar practices. Scripts are handed out when they arrive at the studio, for instance, so most actors go in blind and don't realize what they're going to be saying until they turn the page and read it. For example, James Earl Jones had no idea prior to recording that Darth Vader's line was "I am your father", he only read it when he was in the booth and had to do a double take. Really though, that's one of the benefits of voice acting, you don't need to memorize lines since you can just hold the page and read it. This is true both here and overseas. That's also part of the reason they don't have context for what they're reading, since they're given just the pages and lines they're expected to read that day. It's not unusual for there to simply not be anything ready for the scene they're recording. Disney movies, for example, almost always record VA before animating. Oh, and US productions always, always do more than one take, and it's not unusual to have to redo a line later as well. They have four hour recording sessions for a reason.
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Oct 26, 2017 06:05
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SatansBestBuddy posted:As far as I'm aware, Japan uses group recordings more often, so the actors can actually act together rather than just reading takes and going off what the director says, but otherwise there are a lot of similar practices. Yeah. I've read that five lines in a day is how you tell someone is really prolific. Depending on director, you might get a general read on your character and the scene, but not specific context. At least, for most recordings. Some places do multiple people in a room, or have full scripts, or other unusual methods, but, you know. Not the norm.
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Oct 26, 2017 06:39
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chiasaur11 posted:Yeah. I've read that five lines in a day is how you tell someone is really prolific. Depending on director, you might get a general read on your character and the scene, but not specific context. At least, for most recordings. Some places do multiple people in a room, or have full scripts, or other unusual methods, but, you know. Not the norm. Yeah, it depends on the director really. Some can be really specific about what they want and some are kinda loose and leave it up to the actor to interpret. Sometimes they'll give you a full rundown on what's going on in the scene, though sometimes you'll get "be more _____, less _____" Really voice acting is almost entirely in the hands of the voice director, since they'll be the ones who have the full context of what's going on and know exactly what they want and need. The VA's job is to show up and act.
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Oct 26, 2017 07:05
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A good example of bad Japanese and bad English is Persona 4. Japanese Teddie is dreadful. English Chie (either) is dreadful. basically, play that game with voices off.
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Oct 26, 2017 15:23
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...! posted:lol if you don’t switch off VA and just use subtitles in every game. Except for the games with bad subtitles, in which case turn those off too. I'm pretty sure I would have finished Child of Light if text didn't display due to some bug, reading all that troper poetry gave me headaches
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Oct 26, 2017 19:49
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Transistor was a piece of poo poo game because that stupid sword wouldn't stop commenting on every little thing. Sometimes less is more and I would appreciate much less out of that loving sword.
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Oct 27, 2017 07:58
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I think I realized why the characterization in Automata falls flat for me. In all other Yoko Taro narratives you have this character dynamic of a character who commits reprehensible actions, this usually being the main character. But they also have a character they’re very close to who’s very ”pure” and despite the reprehensible character’s actions the pure character cares for them and their interactions breathe humanity into the overall characterization of the darker character. Like to show despite all the murder or whatever they’re a person capable of compassion and that makes them a rounded out realistic person. If Nier was just Nier going about murdering shades alone it’d be a really unsatisfying story and you’d probably just end up hating the guy if he didn’t have other characters to bounce off of. Similarly Zero would be entirely unlikable without the moments when she actually shows care for Mikhail. Pascal and Emil appear in Automata but you simply don’t spend enough time with them to achieve the same effect, even less so because they’re characters the main characters actively dismiss.
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Oct 27, 2017 08:23
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Automata is a flawed game for quite a few reasons, one of which is that it hides some important character moments behind random side-quests. Is there a particularly bad character in your mind, or does the entire main cast suffer from the problem equally?
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Oct 27, 2017 11:01
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I think all of the main cast suffers because most of the time the main party interaction amounts to 2B and 9S having very samey chatter about the machines or the mission or what have you. And when someone interacts with a quest NPC it’s usually 9S with 2B being left so blank it feels jarring by Yoko Taro standards after the original Nier where all of your party expressed personal opinions about variety of topics and each other that helped you learn about them. The only interaction between actual main characters that actually made me feel like added decent characterization was all the vitriolic banter between A2 and Pod. The game suffers from it the most during 9S’ solo bit in Route C because there’s absolutely nothing to offset his doom and gloom and it’s a lot longer part than the bits without Emil at the end of Nier. He loses my sympathies a lot because of it. To add, the dynamic of a serious burdened character and an innocent character does happen between 2B and 6O but because there’s so little of it and 2B is a very secondary character by the end of the story it’s not used to the same effect. Nina fucked around with this message at 11:12 on Oct 27, 2017 |
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Oct 27, 2017 11:09
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Nina posted:I think all of the main cast suffers because most of the time the main party interaction amounts to 2B and 9S having very samey chatter about the machines or the mission or what have you. And when someone interacts with a quest NPC it’s usually 9S with 2B being left so blank it feels jarring by Yoko Taro standards after the original Nier where all of your party expressed personal opinions about variety of topics and each other that helped you learn about them. The only interaction between actual main characters that actually made me feel like added decent characterization was all the vitriolic banter between A2 and Pod. I mostly agree with your assessment. Routes A/B are pretty dry, and Route C is just grim. Late game revelations help explain their behavior, but 2B and 9S are still not particularly likable characters. 2B is essentially a silent protagonist, so we have to infer a large chunk of her character from the few moments where she lets her guard down. 9S is defined by his complicated relationship with 2B. It reminds me of how Christopher Nolan writes the characters in his films. You either fully buy into their motivations, or they end up feeling incomplete. The main pair are more concepts than characters. Emil should have had a larger role in the main story (I know what happens after his two optional boss fights). I like to think that a story-based DLC featuring Emil would have been the 'Artorias of the Abyss' that this game needs. After the initial release of Dark Souls, FromSoft developers had a chance to take a step back, reassess cut content from the main game, and craft self-contained story that ended up being the highlight of the entire series. The dismal sales of the first DLC seemed to have scrapped any planned story expansions. I'm pretty sure the entire dev team has either moved onto an entirely different project or have shifted their focus to the next title in the series. ---Intermission--- The character designs throughout Automata do not help connect the player to the world. All the Resistance members look the same. All the YoRHa members look the same. Almost all of the machines look the same. This is intentional, but it is also very off-putting and makes it difficult to find a solid character to latch onto. Pascal's unique design goes a long way towards establishing him as an actual 'person'. It felt at a few moments to me like the game was setting up a 'P Route', which could have been a good opportunity to flesh out the character who is the closest match to a traditional protagonist. Pascal is one of the few characters whose decisions and actions actively have an impact in the world. Anemone is woefully under-utilized throughout the game. She should have been a major actor during A2's section, but I'm pretty sure we don't ever see her in a cutscene, leave the camp, or accomplish anything on her own throughout the entire game. She is reduced to a talking head who occasionally triggers main quest events. Jackass suffers a similar fate, only appearing in a few small side-quests and in a post-credits correspondence. The Commander has similar issues during Routes A and B, but her role in Route C makes up for it. Devola and Popola also suddenly take on a much bigger role during Route C after being absent from much of the game. Adam and Eve had a huge amount of potential with their introduction, but they end up as one-note jobbers. All of the sphere bosses are tough to emotionally connect with because of their design. Simone is in many ways the highlight of Routes A and B. She has a unique design, and her tragic flaw is fully explained to the player during 9S's playthrough. Grün's story is tragic, but he ends up just being a giant murder hobo. They could have framed him as an Iron Giant-type character who was built for mass destruction but tries his best to avoid hurting anyone. I think that covers all the major players throughout the game, aside from the main antagonist of Route C. I'm still a little afraid of going full-on spoiler talk in this thread, but I will say I wasn't super impressed with how they were utilized. ---Final Thoughts--- I'd love for the next Drakenier title to go more in the direction of Drakengard 3. Each of Zero's sisters had unique color palettes, clothing choices, and radically different personality types. The exaggerated nature of the characters made them easier to follow when truly weird stuff starts happening during the final parts of the game. D3 also features a sizable chunk of dedicated story DLC that helps contextualize the tragedy of each one's eventual downfall. Generally, Yoko Taro leans a bit too much on explaining important character information in materials that exist outside of the game itself, but that choice is his one of his trademarks and will likely continue to be a part of future releases. I'm excited to see the next step. Automata is a deeply flawed title, but I still think about it regularly long after finishing the game.
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Oct 27, 2017 13:14
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One of the strangest story decisions in late game is IMO how A2 is the character present at the deaths of all the most sympathetic characters she’s also had the least interaction with such as Pascal, Devola and Popola and even Emil depending on your choice on who to take into his superboss. Sometimes I feel like either A2 should’ve been the main character or 2B’s role should’ve been vastly expanded to also include the things A2 ends up experiencing. It doesn’t help A2’s backstory is only in the game as text and abbreviated to a dire extent.
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Oct 27, 2017 13:27
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Endgame Discussion: A2's character development may have been cut short in order to focus on Pascal's story. There may have originally been an extra section to her route that better explained her sword-memory-connection to 2B and how that ends up affecting her personality. We got a short scene after the desert boss after which she throws her sword at the image of 2B. A2 mentions her connection to 2B in passing when she first talks to Anemone, but I don't believe it comes up again until the end of the game. We never get a clear in-game view of A2's personality prior to inheriting 2B's memories, which ends up being yet another wasted character development moment. Like the other two playable protagonists, A2 is dragged along by the events of the world. This must have been a deliberate design choice. Everyone in this world is trapped in a cycle that they can not escape on their own. The 'happy ending' is achieved after the player fails to beat the final boss and actively accepts help from sympathetic third parties (or is otherwise really really really good at shmups). It's important to note that accepting or rejecting assistance is entirely in the hands of the player. I've seen several streamers refuse help and attempt for several hours to get past the ending credit scroll on their own. I compare this game quite often to Dark Souls. That series is known for having a punishing game world, but even Dark Souls gives players the tools to reasonably win on their own effort. It's like if Dark Souls expected first-time players to go through the entire game without upgrading their weapons, leveling their character, or saving at bonfires. While it's technically possible for an experienced player to win without help, it's effectively impossible for casual players to grind their way to the ending. NieR:Automata punishes every character who attempts to have a positive effect on the world. The final choice the game offers is a sacrifice. We are offered the choice to be a 'hero' in the sense of a soldier jumping on a bomb to save their allies. We don't get to be Batman. We don't get to be James Bond. The only option NieR:Automata offers to players who want to make a difference in the world is for them to burn their total accumulated progress so that other people have the option of accepting or rejecting the assistance. Depending on your worldview, this sacrifice could be seen as either a worthless action in order to feel some resolution after the game spends its entire runtime constantly cockblocking the player or as a Wonka-esque 'good deed in a weary world'. A lot of the side-quests are flat-out bad, the gameplay is not deep enough to justify Route B, I lost sympathy/interest in many prominent characters by the end of the story, and this might be my favorite game.
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Oct 27, 2017 15:31
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Emil's recollection short story: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mXRWT7VYLi7vqB6pGzbkmfzG14YxHi_UVk89-wriSK0/edit Finish the game before reading it. I've not read it all yet but I'd be surprised if it doesn't spoil everything. That bit about the boar though. 
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Oct 27, 2017 15:52
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Know Such Peace posted:
You know, I disagree with almost everything you wrote there - especially the "effectiveness" of the Route C antagonist. But I do agree with the comments on character design. Overall, I think the game was just TOO grey, and while the basic machine design is pretty genius throughout the game, I was disappointed how many machine bosses were just one or more collections of boring spheres. Less spheres, more designs like Simone, y'know? That fight really feels like one of the best-presented ones in the game - not necessarily just by story, of course, Simone's pretty much a sidequest. Not sure where you've got the idea from to compare this game to Dark Souls, tho. Like... it's tough to be more different. Level design, storytelling, design approach, music? Unless this is just  and I should feel silly
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Oct 28, 2017 23:57
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Torquemadras posted:Not sure where you've got the idea from to compare this game to Dark Souls, tho. Like... it's tough to be more different. Level design, storytelling, design approach, music? Unless this is just Miyazaki puts the combat system above all else and assembles a game's plot from random pages of Berserk. Yoko Taro puts cathartic emotional experiences above all else and assembles the combat system from the last three games he played. The difference between the two approaches makes them complementary in my mind. They are otherwise both critically-acclaimed action/role-playing games that were created by Japanese auteur-directors known for their use of flavor text. Both series also experienced low sales numbers in early titles that were eventually offset by positive word-of-mouth in subsequent releases. Metal Gear is the next closest series comparison that comes to mind, but I'm much more familiar with Miyazaki than Kojima, so I stuck to what I knew. Thoughts on Route C's Antagonist :My brief mention of the 'red girls' was in the context of how characters tended to be under-developed when shoved into a standard story structure. The vast majority of writers would have slotted a known character into that role. The Commander, Pascal, Anemone, or A2 would have double-crossed the protagonists in order to upload the logic virus to the Bunker. The player would then be emotionally invested in getting revenge and/or answers during the final act of the game. When compared to all the other potential 'big bads' the story could have used, the machine twins show up out of nowhere. The bomb was in the Bunker long before we had any clue about the threat. They even end up having to monologue their thoughts towards the end of the game in order to properly explain their motivations to the player. They are forces of nature instead of relatable characters. I understand why the choice was made. Their disorientating display of power plays a huge part in the effectiveness of Route C's introduction. Their late-game fake boss fight left a bad taste in my mouth, but the alternatives at that point would have been equally rear end-pully.
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Oct 29, 2017 03:06
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Another problem with them is their history with A2 is nowhere in the game when they’re her personal adversaries. The summary of operation Pearl Harbor omits them completely so you have to have had seen/read the stage play to know where these antagonists are coming from.
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Oct 29, 2017 10:24
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Know Such Peace posted:They are different in the same way that Devola and Popola are different from each other. I don't think that comparison is valid at all. These points are superficial at best. You're guessing at the creator's methods, and you're comparing the game's reception in very general terms, which hardly seems important next to the actual GAME part, no? I think that, at best, you could make a point that both series have excellent storytelling in ways that only a videogame could, but even then, they do so in vastly different ways: environmental storytelling + deliberately blank slate of a main character + clear focus on exploration, versus anime elements + heavily scripted sequences + hilariously escalating tragedy. You're more comparing the directors than these particular games. Let's just drop this, I mean, you didn't even bring up any DS comparisons anyway  Thoughts on Route C's Antagonist :First of all! Some meaningless sperg-out  : the red girls are not twins, "they" are one entity representing the entire machine network. It's even given the name N2 in the postgame. That's the whole point of the fake boss fight  I noticed that you bring up quite often how the player just doesn't spend enough time with the characters and, therefore, cannot relate. With some helpful suggestions on how it WOULD be better. (Kind of a red flag.) I disagree - I think the game is pretty remarkable for knowing exactly how much presence certain characters need, and brutally cuts them short once they've served their role. Automata is kinda unique in that it makes this work in hindsight: sidequests suddenly throw something else into another light entirely, later relevations complete character arcs after they've already died. 2B, Eve and Pascal are all left incomplete by the end of Route A. There are exceptions, like Anemone (who pretty much has no arc anymore, as she is doomed to observe and survive) and A2 (who is a non-presense before Route C, and completes her whole arc in a normal way - no revelations here, A2 is exactly what you get). Now, the red girls? They break with this. They are not characters, they are omnipresent narrators, literally ordering poor 9S around by mocking them from their giant, always visible speaker system. They exist only to force 9S into a direction, because they're immortal, they have killed their gods, they're BORED. I actually think their fake boss fight was particularly awesome for that reason - after several episodes of being mocked, being jerked around, being frustrated and utterly humiliated as 9S (hell, they even pull a move where they unceremoniously shove a plot revelation into your inventory, tell you that they did, and don't let you read it AFTER Nines' freakout, bwahaha), here's A2, facing the manifestation of an entire race's arrogance. And she defeats it... conceptually. I think it's very unique, creepy and quite a ballsy move. N2 very much cannot exist without 9S' humiliation, because that was its point all along. I don't think they "came out of nowhere" - they are the malevolent force of the plot, getting off on pulling 9S to tragedy until it can make him its own. Also, keep in mind that their is no final confrontation between the N2 and 9S, because he is pretty much psychologically incapable of defeating it. No, the end boss is A2, the only possible end point of his tragedy. N2 is "defeated" with A2's actions: the machines may still throw a few fights your way, but as players in the story, they're off the table. Their millennia-old arrogance has been shaken, they have to rethink where they can go as a species, now it's just the inertia of their tools heading to a collision on their own (and the greek chorus' entrance, another unique and amazing setpiece... especially for how minimalistic it actually looks). For all that silly jabbering I just wrote about fighting concepts and giving enough time for characters, LET ME IMMEDIATELY SUBVERT THAT by saying that, yeah, I wish the game did some of these better. I would've KILLED for a playable Pearl Harbour sequence, which would feel very appropriate for Anemone, A2, hell, even N2 in the end. No idea where it could go - Route C doesn't exactly allow for a lot of room to breathe - but, man, the possibilities. Why not drop it in as a hidden file in the menu, that seems in the spirit of the game
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Oct 29, 2017 13:29
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