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 "My doctor wasn't very happy about the condition of my liver. But I'm still drinking a lot. I might drop dead at any minute." - Yoko Taro ***** Hmm... Huh? What do you want? I said I was busy and didn’t have time for any more Let’s Pl—huh? What? What do you mean someone let Taro Yoko make another game? C’mon man... how?! It better not be another goddamn Draken—oh it’s a Nier sequel? I... poo poo... ... Fine... FINE! Goddammit! Let me get dressed...  What is NieR: Automata? NieR: Automata is an inexplicable sequel to 2010’s Game of the Year Absolutely Nobody Played (GOTYANP™) NIER. Cavia might have fallen, but somehow Taro Yoko keeps getting work. And this time he was given an actual competent development team in the form of Platinum Games. Like their A-Team too. Not the skeleton crew of interns making all this subpar licensed properties like Legend of Korra or Ninja Turtles. Or even the band of cardboard cutouts standing in a room with Hideki Kamiya pretending Scalebound was ever going to be a real game. Like competent people good at making a video game! I know, I’m as surprised as you! Do I need to have played the original NIER to enjoy this? Nope! NieR: Automata is set thousands of years in the future past the original game and has very little to do with it plot wise. It does have very overt references and some returning characters you’ll miss out on. While I’ll point out anything calling back to the original, I will be working under the assumption you’ve played the first game and spoil the hell out of it. If you’d like to learn more about the original game, I heard there’s a pretty good LP of that over here: NIER And while we’re at it, this is technically set in the same universe as the Drakengard games. Which I also might have LPed in some hazy point in the past: Drakengard Drakengard 3 How are they related? Well... It’s a long story I don’t have time to get into here. And almost not as all as far as this game goes. Except for the direct references. But err... Don’t worry about it too much! That was like four apocalypses ago! It doesn’t even matter much anymore. Mostly. So what actually is this game? It’s an open world action-adventure brawler RPG twin-stick shooter side-scroller platformer with the occasional visual novel element. Wha...? Yes. I cannot believe you’re doing a SSLP for this Platinum action game! Please do an LP custom tailored to my tastes! Analysis: Shits given - 0. Proposal: Nothing is stopping you from making your own LP or finding a suitable screamboy on YouTube or Twitch playing this, champ. This game actually has buzz. It's not just me screaming into the void it's real good this time! If you'd like to have a series of articles going in-depth on all aspects of the game from how it plays to the weird dumb lore, hi. That's me! And what I'm going to do. This will be more comprehensive than any other motherfucker on the internet is gonna do. And there will be videos for every single part you'd actually care about. If that's not good enough for you... tough poo poo, hoss!  Or better yet: GO PLAY IT YOURSELF! It is legit a really loving great game! I want you to go play it if you can. How do you pronounce "Automata"? Like "automaton". Auh-toe-mahta. With that said, let’s begin... The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Mar 14, 2018 |
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Mar 30, 2017 02:40
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 Fanart and assorted junk made in the LP thread goes here. Spoilers a-plenty, obviously. Sheesh!  Rirse reminds us of 2B's voice actress' dark origins.  AndwhatIseeisme knows the score.  Obnoxipus axes us a question.     Adnor chronicles my journey through Kingdom Hearts 2.   Fredrik1 has some top boys for us.  Elkyrie shares some little dudes having fun.  AirborneNinja has prohibited fun on this roller coaster.  Elkyrie shows us the eternal plight of 2B.  Morbi has an interesting interpretation of 2B's eating habits.   Morbi should know jokes are prohibited.  Morbi holy poo poo...  Obnoxipus has regrets for their words and deeds.  Fioaimes (my wife) came tumbling down with this.  Ledgy has questionable ethics when dealing with orb boys.  Fioaimes has created an actual murder machine.  Ursine Catastrophe has shown a corrupting influence.  FrostyJones knows the path to deification.  megane knows a top boy or two.   TurnipFritter wants a quiet life for 2B.  TurnipFritter has different ideas about hacking.  FeyerbrandX reminds us of much more dire times.  Fredrik1 knows class.  NHO picked the forbidden  Gutter Owl questions YoRHa's place in the world.  MShadowy has a deep cut for us.  Neddy Seagoon sums up Yoko Taro's writing process.  Adnor sees good things in 9S's future.  KamikazePotato is just trying to help.        Solar Tornado is receiving a C&D order from Yukiko Yoko's lawyers as we speak.  Jetamo has returned from the darkest timeline.  Tunicate is a bad person but totally right here...  Nohman really wants to **** 2B.  RoeCocoa is here to blow our minds.  The Ayshkerbundy questions the Red Girls' fashion decisions.  Tunicate has peered into the machine cores.    .JPG) .JPG) .JPG) My son has some NieR: Automata commentary to share. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-XtMNYHsZc Seshoho Cian steams a mean ham.  Occasionally I'm an irresponsible parent but... c'mon... This is pretty good.   Doodmons I'll be the roooooundabout! The wooooooords will make you out 'n' out!  Malachite_Dragon is immune to FoxDie.  Squarely Circle implores you to visit Mt. Emilmore. 
The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 03:17 on Mar 17, 2018 |
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Mar 30, 2017 02:40
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 Episode I: A Cautionary Tale  New Music: Significance .jpg) Welp... We’re somehow here. Honestly, of all the games I LPed over the years, NIER was at the very bottom of ones I expected to ever get a sequel. The game sold gently caress all. Cavia, the development studio, shuttered months after it was released. I was more of an ad campaign than Square-Enix put out. And well... it wasn’t exactly a game that screamed for a sequel in the first place. But here we are! Limbo of the Lost 2 is going to be announced any day now. .jpg) First things first, as soon as we hit New Game we’re told this game does not have auto-save. There is no auto-saving in this game! It is entirely on you to save your game. There’s a reason for that. It’s a bad reason and the single worst mechanic in the game. But save points are incredibly generous in stock most of the time so it’s not a big deal. Usually... We’ll find that out later in the game!* * “Later in the game” means after the Prologue. The Prologue is 30-40 minutes your first time through. .jpg) The first order of business is naming our save game file. In the original Nier, the player had to name the main character, Papa Nier. Yeah, they named a game after a player character you could rename at the start. Indeed, the name “Nier” is... actually verbally said _once_ in either of these games! But that’s not the case this time around! They only ever use the name here for our data entry. So I’ll just name the save file after myself. I *probably* won’t have to erase myself from existence. That’d be silly! .jpg) There are four difficulty levels present in NieR: Automata. Easy, which absolutely anyone can beat with no problem. The game will literally play itself in battles if you so desire. Normal, which is the recommended difficulty initially. Hard, which is err... well... for advanced players. And Very Hard, in which literally everything kills you in one hit. If you spec correctly 1.5 hits. Well heck, I’ve played the first game and my fair share of character actionish titles. Let’s give Hard a whirl! .jpg) Hey, what the hell?! You literally JUST told us there is no auto-save in this game. Please explain what is happening in the top right of the screen right now, mister. I’ll wait... I cannot believe it is 20 seconds into the game and we’ve already been lied to. .jpg) This doesn’t bode well... Oh well. Let’s just start the drat game and hope for the best, eh? Music: ENDS .jpg) We are perpetually trapped... in a never-ending spiral of life and death. Is this a curse? Or some kind of punishment? I often think about the god who blessed us with this cryptic puzzle... and wonder if we’ll ever have the chance to kill him. New Music: Alien Manifestation .jpg) For all the insane happenings in the Yoko Taroverse, murdering deities has never come up. The rhythm battle abortion on the giant pan-dimensional Grotesquerie Queen above the skies of Tokyo was probably the closest it ever got. But this planet is about four apocalypses deep at this point. If God exists in this universe, to his credit it's at least not a malicious absentee landlord... Anyway, have a sweet future fighter jet! .jpg) Our flight is interrupted by a radio transmission and large holographic display... outside the aircraft. That seems off, but what do I don’t know future tech? .jpg)  Autopilot systems green across the board. .jpg) We’ve passed the 50-kilometer threshold and are proceeding toward the target.  Understood. Once you reach their anti-air defenses, proceed to manual-attack formation... then destroy the Goliath-class unit by any means necessary and gather what data you can. Understood..jpg) Hey umm... What did that IFF code say? 12H? 12H... you’ve got some red on you...? Not sure what’s up with th—aww CHRIST! .jpg)  AAAAAAHHH—*crackle*.jpg) All units, activate manual mode and rely on visuals to evade.  Already engaged. Free movement unlocked. Origin point of long-range lasers confirmed. .jpg) Alright. We can move up and down now. I hope Drakengard 3 acclimated you to having characters named after numbers because this time around a decent chunk of the cast is a number and a LETTER. That’s the power of a bigger budget at work already. We are controlling unit 2B according to that IFF tag. It’s the identical black one there with the Manual: Move notification there. .jpg) So umm... 11B. I’m not sure if we’re at a higher rank having a lower number or if you’re at a higher rank with the larger number. Regardless. You might wanna consider abandoning your current cour— .jpg)  Aaaaa—*crackle and disconnect*.jpg)  Our Ho229 cancellers are ineffective. .jpg) Yeah... I dunno what any of that means. And I’m not expert on aerial combat of the future But maybe let’s try flying under the radar here? Sticking above cloud cover has resulted in the death of one-third of the squad on a mission that commenced a minute ago. That’s not going to reflect well on the performance review of the operation... .jpg) .jpg) [Radio Ring] Requesting permission to engage. Permission granted!.jpg) We now have the ability to fight back and actual enemies to engage. We’ve got infinite ammo with no cooldown here, so we’re free to just dump into the distance like any good shoot ‘em up. .jpg) Our enemies are initially those little flying saucers there. Spoilers: A couple thousand years after NIER ended, aliens invaded the planet! A pan-dimensional entity unleashing magic into a non-magical world and summoning a monster army, a disease that erodes people’s souls, and mankind being split into weird clone bodies and shadow creature souls wasn’t quite enough apocalypses for this planet... The flying saucers all shoot out orbs vaguely in the direction of 2B and the other units. Orbs come in two colors, a pinkish purple which can be destroyed by any attack and a darker purple which is immune to all but the strongest offensive techniques. This is straight from the first game’s mechanics. .jpg) Unfortunately, our newfound bullet fire ability isn’t really helping against the one-shot laser plaguing our forward assault team’s advance... .jpg) 7E down..jpg) Boy that one didn’t even get a chance to scream before dying. By the way, turns out we can evade by tapping RT/R2/whatever insane button the terrible keyboard controls are assigned to. That might have been useful tutorial information earlier... Ya know, before 66% of the team died to a fixed point weapon firing in the distance. .jpg) Evasion will make 2B’s craft perform a barrel roll with incredibly generous i-frames and a speed boost if moving left or right. It’s a fairly key ability in this game. .jpg) .jpg) So surely, now with our Evade ability this laser beam blast from the horizon ought to be no trouble at all. Let’s watch Captain 1D masterfully circumvent this next beam like a pro... Err... Captain, you’re just kind of hanging out in this very clear particle effect. You don’t need to wait to the last second for dramatic effe— .jpg) .jpg) ...Maybe playing on Hard was a mistake. .jpg) .jpg) Apparently 2B is now the ranking officer on-site and is taking command. Usually, you don’t want to point out who the team leader is in the middle of an active combat zone. Especially when your side has been decimated. Almost literally. But what do I know? 2B is now team captain and her on-field promotion nets her a sick white paint job for her Ho229. .jpg) .jpg) Becoming Captain unlocks the ability to perform Heavy Attacks. This causes 2B to straight up do a Star Fox-style barrel roll that deflects/neutralizes all projectiles hitting the barrier it forms. .jpg) As the name implies, it can also deal heavy damage at close range, one-shotting most enemies early on. It’s a risky maneuver. But one that can really pay-off if executed pr— .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) ...Err.  .jpg) Err... Well... Huh. ... ...Short game.    Video: Episode 1 Highlight Reel (Whoops. This should work now!) The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Mar 30, 2017 |
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Mar 30, 2017 02:40
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Analysis: Maybe don't have a pint of Scotch before starting a LP thread. (The end video should work now.)
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Mar 30, 2017 03:15
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Episode I-B: Not Hard.jpg) Welp. That happened. Hey. Guess what?  DO NOT loving PLAY THE PROLOGUE ON HARD OR VERY HARD!!! DO NOT loving PLAY THE PROLOGUE ON HARD OR VERY HARD!!! DO NOT loving PLAY THE PROLOGUE ON HARD OR VERY HARD!!! The game said it didn’t auto-save. There’s not any save or checkpoints until after the prologue. There are no achievements for playing on Hard or Very Hard. You are a dingus who ripped their shirt out and flapped your dick about before getting owned if you die on the tutorial and deserve any ridicule you get, you masochistic dumbass. Keeping that in mind, that was one of the 26 Endings of NieR: Automata. Yeah... there's an ending for every letter of the alphabet this time around. That was Ending W. All but five of them are mostly for loving up badly during the course of the game. We'll be hitting all of 'em as we progress through this title. I'm not even allowed to do the fake everyone dies gag anymore. Yoko Taro stole it all... Jerk. With that said, let’s put the difficulty back to Normal and play the game as it was intended... Music: Alien Manifestation .jpg) If the player dies at ANY point until the tutorial is over, it’s a restart from the very beginning. Again, do NOT play on Hard. You die in two hits. It is very easy to gently caress up and get insta-gibbed early on! Let’s skip back to where we were, shall we? .jpg) As previously stated, Heavy Attack gives us a protective aura in addition to attacking. Strangely, this tech destroys ALL enemy orbs. It’s the only attack in the game that destroys BOTH colors of attacks. But it’s only available in the auto-scrolling top-down shooter segments. What does that mean? Well... .jpg) Permission granted. Switching to all-range mode! .jpg) .jpg) Say, how are you at dual-stick shooters? Cuz this is now a dual-stick shooter. We can fire in 360-degrees as enemies slowly scroll in firing from all directions. .jpg) Our Heavy Attack is now a 360-slash that fires out a full-screen attack in the direction it’s aimed. It still has the dark purple orb destroying attribute. We also have a Light Attack that doesn’t get a prompt tutorial. This just does a slash in one direction in all-range mode and ahead of us in the auto-scrolling shooter segments. This does NOT destroy purple orbs. .jpg) All-range mode introduces new flying saucers that scroll across the screen firing a concentrated laser blast. Best to take them out early, even if the Evade function can dodge through the laser fire. Gotta get that High Score! This game has no score system or anything telling you how much you’ve sucked in battle like most Platinum games. That poo poo is dumb. .jpg) You should evade. It is right trigger. R2? Oh, Christ... are you playing with keyboard and mouse like an idiot? It’s double-tap a direction. It’s bad. Why would you even do that? There are many instances where keyboard and mouse is demonstrably NOT the best option. This game is one of them you fo— .jpg) Fool. I’m still calling you a fool. I don’t care if you just died in a fiery explosion. Don’t play this game with keyboard and mouse next time! .jpg) .jpg) *ring* 2B to Operator 6O. All allied units down. The operation is compromised. Awaiting further orders. .jpg) We need you to rendezvous with unit 9S and begin gathering data on the local terrain. Understood..jpg) Alright. Got it. Back to plane mode. There’s also Star Fox-esque head on shooter modes of gameplay. I’m still playing here. We’ve got Y and X axis controls but Z-axis is just gonna keep trucking. .jpg) And if you haven’t noticed, our mission destination is finally revealed: a coastal industrial facility. While the original Nier sort of a post-post apocalyptic setting where societies had sprung up again after things went to pot, we’re a couple more apocalypses deep and more of just a straight up post-apocalyptic setting now. You’ll see... .jpg) Anyway, 2B are you maybe going to cool it with your jet assault. I know the rest of your team got vaporized on the approach, but I *think* you’re within the safe zone at this point... .jpg) No? You’re just going for it...? Alright, I mean that’s on y—  WAIT poo poo! I’M STILL PLAYING! PLEASE SLOW DOWN 2B! FRICK! .jpg) Alright. Are you gonna slow down, now? That wasn’t cool. Just take it ea— .jpg) Oh. Now it’s Gradius. Side scrolling shooter sections have the same mechanics as the top-down scrolling segments. Heavy attack is again the “DESTORY EVERYTHING” orb. .jpg) NieR: Automata retains the rather arbitrary leveling up system of the original game. We gain a full heal and our stats all go up with each level gained. We’ve got more health and we hit harder. This, of course, applies to bullets as well. Our bullets are now stronger. That’s just science. .jpg) Levels are more important in this game than the original, as we now have access to enemy levels as well and a dude 10 levels higher than you WILL gently caress up your day. But let’s not worry about that for now. Everyone we’re encountering now is Level 1 or 2. We’ve got this! .jpg) Even if it suddenly shifts to a twin-stick shooter mode again. It’s still fine. On Normal, the reasonable difficulty, the game will briefly slow down time when we’re in critical health. AND it will auto-use a healing item, of which we’re given 15 regardless of difficulty, if we’re truly nearly hosed. That is disabled on Hard and above. .jpg) DONOTPLAYTHEPROLOGUEONHARD! DONOTPLAYTHEPROLOGUEONHARD! DONOTPLAYTHEPROLOGUEONHARD! DONOTPLAYTHEPROLOGUEONHARD! DONOTPLAYTHEPROLOGUEONHARD! DONOTPLAYTHEPROLOGUEONHARD! DONOTPLAYTHEPROLOGUEONHARD! DONOTPLAYTHEPROLOGUEONHARD! DONOTPLAYTHEPROLOGUEONHARD! DONOTPLAYTHEPROLOGUEONHARD! DONOTPLAYTHEPROLOGUEONHARD! DONOTPLAYTHEPROLOGUEONHARD! DONOTPLAYTHEPROLOGUEONHARD! DONOTPLAYTHEPROLOGUEONHARD! DONOTPLAYTHEPROLOGUEONHARD! DONOTPLAYTHEPROLOGUEONHARD! DONOTPLAYTHEPROLOGUEONHARD! DONOTPLAYTHEPROLOGUEONHARD! DONOTPLAYTHEPROLOGUEONHARD! DONOTPLAYTHEPROLOGUEONHARD! .jpg) The final challenge of this segment is a new enemy... kinda. I mean, they just sort of taped five of the flying saucers together. .jpg) Though bound as they are, they’re capable of spinning around rapidly producing a damaging whirlwind if you... happen to fly into it as it slowly advances towards 2B’s craft. This is countered by just kinda backing up... .jpg) Since that doesn’t exactly work well, the craft opts to fire up lasers and slowly rotate clockwise around the screen. This is countered by err... circle strafing slowly in the same direction while firing at all times. .jpg) .jpg) All the additional crafts can be individually destroyed to take out their lasers at this point, though only the middle craft counts to depleting the enemy’s HP. .jpg) Still, not a hard task. You’ll notice we’ve gained Unit Data from wrecking enemies. There’s a whole big codex of all enemies we’ll get to later. But for now... .jpg) Time to keep advancing down the tunnel that seems to be the same length as the runway from the end of Furious 6. .jpg) Err... 2B... I am pretty good at dodging obstacles and whatnot but err... You’re not giving me a lot of wiggle-room here. 2B? 2B...?  Break away on impact planes is the latest in safety innovations in the future. .jpg) .jpg) That’s an angle... .jpg) Better. .jpg) That’s my go-to response for farting. Granted, I don’t know if that’s quite eff— .jpg) .jpg) Oh. A sword... Right. Short range attack gear... That makes more sense! .jpg)  Yes. I’m aware of that.So meet our protagonist and the Grimoire Weiss support boy stand-in (voiced by a much less dickish sounding DC Douglas aka Grimoire Noire.) .jpg) Tune in next time for this game actually starting properly.  Video: Episode 1B Highlight Reel   2B Character Art – Look, I know we’re not playing on Hard anymore but you don’t have to do this blindfolded... The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Mar 30, 2017 16:46
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Weeble posted:How many babies has that katana killed? Will we find out? Spoilers: Weapon History stories are back in a big way and they are CONSIDERABLY more hosed than Nier 1 or Drakengard 3. Like I need to keep a murder/suicide/child death counter on that poo poo because DANG. Edit: Hargrimm posted:Also, Fixed. Thanks. The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Mar 30, 2017 |
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Mar 30, 2017 17:07
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Meiteron posted:I recall reading in an interview from a little while ago Yoko Taro saying that Automata had already broken the lifetime sales of Nier, or like first year of Nier, or something along those lines. Granted that is (unfortunately) not that high a bar to clear but he was certainly happy about it. The story goes he was destined for the Square-Enix mobile game gulag after Drakengard 3 bombed. His friend Yosuke Saito (now the Dragon Quest X producer) threatened to walk if they did him like that and then Platinum rolled in wanting to work with Square-Enix and asked to do a Nier sequel. And he kind of drunkenly woke up one day going "WAIT WHAT?!" to all of that transpiring. Rirse posted:This was super easy to do since 2B outfit is mostly black, but since it was pointed out she the same lady from the Trapped games.. Nice. VVV Ya. That's definitely a confirmed thing. They were offered to make a game for Squeenix and could choose what property they wanted to work with and they immediately went with Nier. I mean Drakengard 3 only happened because Square-Enix's loving president at the time was a weird fan of Yoko Taro and pulled strings to dig some money from a couch to fund that game. Dude apparently gets super drunk and makes a bunch of weird friends in high places. Presumably while still wearing the Emil mask. The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Mar 30, 2017 |
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Mar 30, 2017 18:14
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Any posts of Yoko Taro being an amazing weirdo is approved for this thread. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhDL3Q86ofY Also there will be another update later tonight. The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Mar 30, 2017 |
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Mar 30, 2017 20:51
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Episode II: Marx Music: Alien Manifestation .jpg) Welcome to NieR: Automata’s primary gameplay: melee combat! And its primary enemies: dopey wind-up figurine little dudes. They can walk but they move at roughly half a mile per hour. So their primary means of movement is bunny hopping towards 2B. .jpg) Combat in this game is definitely worlds better than the original game. But it’s also very much not a technical skilled based character action game. We’ve got light and heavy attacks. Light attacks are quick and combo longer. .jpg) Heavy attacks hit harder and slower. 2B initially is equipped with a normal sized katana type sword and big gently caress-off Sephiroth sword for light and heavy attacks respectively. .jpg) That is not at all how the weapon system works. Indeed, we can swap our weapons at any time (by pressing up on the d-pad) to make the big sword do the light (still harder hitting and lower speed, but wide radius) and small sword to heavy (now big flourish and far traveling attacks.) There’s combos and such depending on when heavy or light attack is triggered when mashing attacks but it’s not particularly deep. Well animated as hell though. You should watch the video of combat at the end! .jpg) Enemies, on the other hand, are VERY forward about telegraphing their attacks by flashing their eyes red before striking. For these basic boys, that means literally doing a derpy windmill arms advance in 2B’s direction. They’re trying REAL hard, OK? .jpg) They also blow up *really* well. I hope you enjoy explosions. Literally 95% of the enemies in the game explode in a spectacular fashion. .jpg) 2B is also a very mobile lass. She’s got a good eight foot vertical jump. Not that jumping is often a factor in combat. That’s more for the side-scrolling platformer segments. Err... heck. I’m getting ahead of myself. .jpg) .jpg) As soon as we take out the first set of robots, a new set drops from the ceiling. These ones are equipped with turrets. They shoot out damaging orbs. 2B can slash these orbs out of the air with her sword. If you thought the weird 3rd person character action bullet hell aesthetic was a budget limitation of the original game, I’ve got some bad news for you. That’s just Yoko Taro’s jam. .jpg) This time around, we’ve got a rather powerful counter to that. We’re so far in the future that the world has gotten over that whole magic thing the first game had going. It’s all just cutting edge technology these days. Such as Pod 042 and its infinite ammo machine gun. Holding R1/RB will cause our sidekick to fire light damaging attacks infinitely at either our locked on target or whatever we’re facing. This in no way interrupts 2B’s melee attacks. .jpg) Pod 042 has no cooldown or ammo limit. There is absolutely no reason to not be dumping at all times. Targeting is disabled in Hard Mode, which is another factor as to why it’s garbage to start on.) On the other hand, on Easy it’s possible to make our Pod automatically dump on the nearest target at all times. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) In any case, as soon as those first boys are scrapped, a new chufty boy enters the ring to take on 2B. This one definitely got the upgraded tier of robot design. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Much like his predecessors, this big boy telegraphs his attacks with a flash of its eyes. In this case, it’s either a big downward stomp or a Falcon Punch. Now is as good a time as any to show off the most broken ability in this game:  Perfect dodging. 2B is mobile as hell and has a dash in any direction by mashing R2/RT. It alone is lousy with i-frames mid-dash. But if we wait until just as an enemy is attacking, she will do a Perfect Evade of which entirely evades the attack. This completely renders the attack non-functional, moves her out of the way, and allows a counter-attack depending on the button pressed and weapon. If you’ve ever played Bayonetta, it’s similar to Witch Time just without the time slow down after dodging we can equip an upgrade that just does just that and LITERALLY turns it into Witch Time. .jpg) .jpg) As I said, counters depend on the attack pressed after perfect-evading and is weapon dependent. On our default load-out Light Attack will counter with an upward slash that can juggle lesser enemies in air (those little dudes from earlier are susceptible to that business, not this large child.)  What I feel is personally the best counter is using the Pod’s shot, which converts it into an AOE charged shot that will absolutely wreck and stun most common enemies. It’s by far the most reliable of the lot and is frankly, to use technical terminology, “loving rad”. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Eventually, 2B manages to body this chump and clear the arena of enemies. Job well done. .jpg) Not quite..jpg) New Music: Song of the Ancients ~ Atonement (You should listen to this whole OST.) .jpg) Did anyone order a 30 foot buzz saw mid-boss? No? Tough poo poo! This is now happening! .jpg) Meet the first boss of the game: [REDACTED]. 2B is not able to decipher the machine language, so we just get [ANGELIC TEXT] runes as a boss name. Spoilers: This eventually changes in the second playthrough. But it’s not like NIER’s second playthrough where suddenly Tyrann was a party member translating the Shades’ language and revealing we’re being kind of a huge dick. It’s just boss names having a naming theme of philosophers. In this case Marx. As in Karl Marx. Now, this game will have some deep philosophical questions on the nature of what it means to be alive and what is a soul and what not. But the boss names? The machines just did that for funsies. So I don’t care about spoiling that one early. .jpg) .jpg) Negative. This enemy is unrelated. Proposal: Dispatch it swiftly as possible. You don’t say..jpg) It’s time to fight a giant buzzsaw named after an 18th century Prussian philosopher. Sure, why not? .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Marx’s greatest weapon is perhaps the camera. It will sheer its buzzsaw across the arena, but any dodging remotely in its range will negate its attack and it leaves itself open for a counter-attack. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) There’s not a whole lot to be said about this encounter. A two story buzzsaw fails to flail in the direction of a very athletic lady. Evading in the same tri-state as this mid-boss will perfect dodge any damage and everything from Pod gunfire to all melee attacks will ruin its day. .jpg) .jpg) Laser communications recovered. 2B... transmitting...*static* Pod prog...*static*.jpg) .jpg) We’ve got to hold about a thirty seconds before our “Pod Program” is installed. The Pod Program is short for this game’s analogue for magic attacks. .jpg) .jpg) In this case, how’d you like a giant gently caress-off laser beam attack from the err... Laser attack. There’s no MP in NieR: Automata. All .jpg) .jpg) Marx isn’t a particularly difficult encounter. But 2B is part of a party that got nearly entirely annihilated by stationary beam cannons. So that isn’t counting for much yet... .jpg) .jpg) Proposal: loving DODGE 2B! Don’t be like whatsherface at the end of Prometheus. .jpg) .jpg) Nice. There you go. You’re already up the protagonist ladder. .jpg) Psst. 2B is totally wearing her blindfold in the same way as Papa Nier's eyepatch. .jpg) .jpg) And hey totally not Emil Blindfold cosplay boy... .jpg) Says the dingus in the blindfold. Huh...? What do you mean they’re actually super advanced android goggles? That’s dumb... You’re dumb. Err... Wait... androids? Wait... everyone is an android...? Huh?  Video: Episode 2 Highlight Reel The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 05:15 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Mar 31, 2017 04:42
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Obnoxipus posted:I love those little hoppy robots. Forget 2B, I'd like one or two of them on my desk. XavierGenisi posted:I absolutely adore the designs of the machine enemies. Especially the adorable wind-up-toy-like enemies. Those tiny guys aren't at all threatening, but bless them, they try. It's early in the game for me to be gushing, but I adore those little dipshits' design. They made some Amiibo like figures of those little dudes, I'd go bankrupt buying them all. wiegieman posted:You can always count on Platinum animations to be completely impractical and completely cool. After we get a few more weapons, I'm doing an entire video that is showing off the animation flourish when 2B stops attacking cuz HOLY poo poo they're good.  Dabir posted:It's Angelic, it's a thing, he uses it throughout the whole series. Ya it's the same cipher that's been all of Yoko Taro's games. It was the Watcher language in the first game, Intoner magic in Drakengard 3 and magic's text in Nier 1.  NHO posted:Will you show one of best things in the game - petting the pod? Analysis: We're mid-mission. It wouldn't be appropriate. Proposal: gently caress yeah I will. OmegaCake posted:Fun fact about the pods is they don't tell you that there ARE combination attacks with them. If I remember correctly, hitting jump and the pod primary fire button at the same time in the air has the pod twirl you around and toss you at an enemy for some damage, while hitting light attack and the pod button at the same time in the air has the pod boost you for a small spinning upward kick. In fact, I'm sure I don't KNOW all the special attacks you might be able to do! This game likes to vomit tutorials into the menu with the only prompt being text in the corner popping up for 2 seconds while you're in the middle of fighting a dozen dudes. Pod Counter is definitely in there. All the movement techs with Pods, on the other hand, are not at all documented. It's like some weird clause in Platinum Games' contracts that at least 20% of gameplay features must go without any documention. I'll show those off when we get to it being a relevant factor. GimmickMan posted:They didn't waste time remixing Song of the Ancients. I expected it to show up for major boss fights, not in the first half hour of the game. One of my major worries about this game was they'd lean hard into the first game's soundtrack. And they do... entirely solely for rad loving boss battle remixes. Wait until Song of the Ancients comes back with vocals kicking in... And it ends up not even being in the top ten tracks in the game. This game's OST is REALLY loving good. Also hey... the thread is already Gold after like a day and change. That's nice. Another update later tonight. 
The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Mar 31, 2017 18:16
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Episode III: A Real Junk Heap.jpg) Destroying Marx and seizing the means of production has leveled 2B up again. Just about every boss fight will provide a level and top off our character’s health afterwards. So that’s nice. Wouldn’t want to barely scrape by a boss encounter only to take chip damage and die before getting to a save point. Anyway, who is this dingus kid? .jpg)  My name’s 9S. I’m here to provide support. Copy that. Soooo, was that big ol’ buzzsaw the Goliath you came here to take out? No. Just another defensive system. Oh, Well, uh... I guess we have to find the target then, huh? I’ve got a flight unit, so I’ll take a look around the perimeter. All right. I’ll work my way inside from the ground. Music: Alien Manifestation .jpg) Alright. Later 9S. Try not to get shot down by a stationary laser beam. Had some real issues with that and our co-workers lately... .jpg) So let’s take a moment to cool down and go over our menu. There’s a whole lot going on in here and we may as well get its functionalities out of the way early. .jpg) We’ve got a map we can access at almost any time. It’s strange 3D approximation of the overall area. It can be rotated and whatnot to get our bearings. But it can be err... fickle. Just like the original game, there’s a giant red marker pointing in the direction of our primary objective at all times. So no getting stuck on the wrong dock and rage quitting the game like a doof. .jpg) The quests tab will let us view all active sidequests. Oh you’d better bet your rear end sidequests are back. There’s 60 of ‘em this time around. But Platinum chilled out on <some> of the trolling and missable quests. There are points of no return that will fail quests for a particular playthrough. But there’s a very generous means of going back to do ‘em at a later time. There’s exactly one thing in the entire game that can be permanently missed and it’s a bad ending. But we’re not gonna worry about that anytime soon. .jpg) The Items tab is where all our junk is slotted. Restorative items are what the name says on the box. There’s a 99 item cap this time around instead of Nier 1’s tiny 10 item limit on heals. Enhancement and Support Items are buffs we’ll forget to use 99% of the time. Materials are weapon upgrade drops. Key Items are plot/sidequest relevant junk that is segmented off so there’s no way to accidentally sell ‘em. And fishing is back. There are no quests linked to fishing this time around. Just an achievement for getting a certain percentage of total fish. We’ll get into all that another time. .jpg) As far as items we start with, we’ve got 15 Small Heals (I used one) that recover 25% of health. 50% for Medium. 75% from Large. Melee Defense/Attack is a 30 second buff to those stats. It’s rare worth using those. Rusted Clump and Broken Keys are materials dropped for weapon upgrades. Yep... that’s all back again. Wouldn’t be a Drakenier game without ‘em. Finally, we can just turn our Pod’s model into Grimoire Weiss or cardboard textures thanks to Pre-Order Bonus DLC. But that seems highly disrespectful. Also cosmetics don’t show up on cutscenes because they’re all pre-rendered. .jpg) The Weapons tab is where all of our weaponry is kept. 2B can equip two weapons at a time. As stated, the first slot will be for light attacks. The second slot is for heavy attacks. Also weapons are put into two Weapon Sets that can be swapped any time by tapping up on the D-Pad during gameplay. We’ll play around with this when we’ve got some more weapon types. .jpg) Skills are where we can tune our character and the equipped Pod Program we want to use. .jpg) Right now we only have the Laser. We’ll gain a whole mess of abilities later on. A whole lot of ‘em are the Sealed Verses from the original Nier just redone with super advanced technology instead of magic. Magic has almost entirely left this world by this point in time. It’s all nanomachines, son. .jpg) Plug-in Chips are where we can slot in permanent (as long as they’re equipped) upgrades/buffs on 2B. I’m not going to get into that too heavily right now. We cannot really do anything with it until after the Prologue. Properly abusing Chip upgrades is the way to become as gods in this game. .jpg) The intel tab is this game’s Codex/Logbook/General Mess of Info that will fill up entire future updates. Tutorials all get stuck in here. As do Weapon Stories. Yep, weapon histories are back in a big way. I think some told Yoko Taro that they’d gotten a bit soft for Drakengard 3 and NIER 1 because HOLY poo poo I’m gonna have to keep a running tally on how many stories end in massacres, suicides, gory deaths, or child killings. But, we’re not going to look into that just yet. We don’t even have the means to upgrade our weapons and we might not keep the ones we’re equipped with past the Prologue. Don’t worry. They’ll be coming soon enough. .jpg) Unit Data is a huge inventory of all the enemies we’ve encountered in NieR: Automata. Small Stubby are the default little dudes we’ve encountered. Medium Biped was that chuffy boy we saw before fighting Marx. Small and Medium Flyers are from the shoot em up segments. .jpg) In the Unit Data we can zoom in with a model viewer and check out a few animations. Also their equipment loadout can be changed with accompanying animations (the guys firing orbs have a little cannon grafted onto their stomachs.) I’ll probably make a compilation update for all the new Intel Data at the end of chapters for everyone to barely skim. Ya ingrates.  .jpg) But that’s enough farting around cycling through menus. Let’s get back into the game and begin exploring the Factory Zone. .jpg) I got a bit ahead of myself showing off the Pod’s gatling fire. Here’s where the game decides to let us in on that little snippet, if we hadn’t bothered to see what Fire did when on foot. .jpg) .jpg) We’ve got to shoot down a steel beam to make a bridge to the other side of the factory. Frankly, this is kind of a bad way to do a tutorial since it proposes that there will be environmental hazards we ought to shoot at to make progress. That... is not at all the case. We’re made to fire on something to progress like... maybe one more time the entire game? .jpg) A better tutorial is that there will be aerial enemies descending and firing out of reach and we should probably just dump on them instead of attempting to get into melee range. Smart. Lock on is disabled on Hard difficulty and above and frankly... it’s just kind of annoying instead of adding challenge. Especially when enemies have already been buffed to the point where a couple stray energy orbs will grease 2B. .jpg) Upon destroying enemies, a piñata of junk will rain down in their wake. The little holographic rings and screws are G, this game’s currency. G will automatically be collected if 2B runs near it. G will fade away and be lost if not collected about 10-15 seconds after it drops. But 2B can absolutely haul rear end at all times so Hoovering up any cash drops in the middle of fight isn’t too hard. .jpg) The glowing orbs, on the other hand, are item drops. These are NOT collected automatically. 2B needs to manually grab ‘em. There is an ability to auto-collect junk but it’s not unlocked until WAY later in the game. Which is unfortunate because next to every single encounter will lead to an item drop. All upgrade materials fall from this. The random health pick-ups primary source is here. You name it. poo poo drops CONSTANTLY! .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Material drops are mostly what you’d expect from scrapping machines. Screws. Metal Ores. Gears. Gizmos. Batteries. A Nintendo 64 cartridge that made nerds so mad it had to be removed in a patch. Yes, that really happened with the Japanese release. Gamers will at no point stop being gigantic weird babies. .jpg) Our trail through the factory will lead us upwards. This opening area was the PS4 demo and is rather linear in its layout. The game opens up a lot once we get past the Prologue. Radio Codec ring... .jpg) What is it? I was going to send you the map data I collected earlier. Do it..jpg) We’ve now got a mini-map. Unlike the overworld map in the demo and its vague outline of areas, the mini-map is rather concise about the regional layout and exactly what direction our next objective will be. It stays at an overhead angle that rotates with 2B’s current direction. There’s a reason for that... .jpg) .jpg) You know how the shooter segment shifted angles several times? That also applies to the on-foot segments. This is now a side scrolling shooter/platformer/brawler. 2B is locked to a 2D plane for these segment. .jpg) .jpg) Which is nice because things can get hella hectic with machines falling from the sky and trying to give 2B the business.  But since we’re on a 2D plane and everyone is on a flat horizon, Pod Program Laser can REALLY mess up some machine lifeforms’ day all at once. Later nerds! .jpg) While we’re mostly locked to a 2D axis in these segments, the game isn’t above hiding secondary areas by jumping off the beaten path. For instance, there’s a broken guard rail and a crane just below. .jpg) This allows us to double-back the way we came and grab some goodies. .jpg) .jpg) For instance, we’ve got a treasure chest over here we can break into. 2B doesn’t have time for prolonged loot crate opening animations. She’s got poo poo to do. So she’ll just kick those open with her boot and move on. Smart. .jpg) Speaking of kicking things, there’s a ladder up here that 2B can kick down to create a shortcut past the 2D segment on that tower. .jpg) .jpg) Likewise, she can use a console to lower a crane providing a path back to the arena where we fought the Marx bot. It’s not a huge shortcut. But anything helps traveling through this area. We’re gonna be back here again. Quite a few times. The Factory is Automata’s Junk Heap. .jpg) But enough about backtracking in the future. Let’s head inside this tower we’d been climbing. ALARM BLARES! .jpg) So open it. Negative. Nearby enemies are jamming our signal. Nothing’s ever easy...New Music: Alien Manifestation (Vocal) .jpg) Fine. An arena fight. Let’s do this. .jpg) .jpg) I mentioned earlier that Pod 042 should ALWAYS be firing if possible. There’s another reason for that besides shooting infinite ammo having zero drawbacks. Concentrated gatling fire can stun machine lifeforms, allowing 2B to perform a critical attack. In this case, she just punts that sonuvabitch. It exploded as soon as 2B’s boot made contact with its face. But if its HP endures it will get launched right into his nearest friend. So that’s a fun time. .jpg) .jpg) It’s easy to accidentally get nicked in the middle of battle. Just like the first Nier, we can access our restorative items at any time. Action does NOT pause during this, however. So we gotta be quick in chugging our recovery items. .jpg) The machines play fair and as soon as everyone in the area has been destroyed, the signal jamming ends and the Pod can unlock the door. Pod 042 is an incredibly useful tool. Radio Codec ring... .jpg) Why? Scanners like me mostly work alone. Scouting ‘out enemy lines and all that? I don’t usually get a partner. It’s kind of fun! ...Emotions are prohibited. EEK! S-sorry, ma’am! And another thing... Stop calling me “ma’am”. Huh? It’s unnecessary. All right, then. 2B it is!.jpg) No emotions! Also stop calling me ma’am, you’re making me sound like an old woman, ya dick. Those seem like conflicting reports, 2B. Anyway, take a look at this bridge. We cannot access it right now. But just keep it in mind for later. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) This factory did look pretty expansive on approach earlier. But uhh... yeah. It’s frikkin’ HUGE on the inside. There are hundreds of machines tooling around working in the background. Thankfully, only a few dozen of ‘em notice our advance through the complex. .jpg) .jpg) As we continue along, we find a mysterious chest hidden behind a staircase. 2B cannot access this chest right now. It’s best to start keeping a mental log of these locked chests. It’s gonna be ohh... I dunno... 20 hours until we can deal with unlocking them... .jpg) Also further ahead is a locked elevator we won’t be able to access for quite some time. We’re gonna be back here again. And again... and again. Don’t you worry. .jpg) .jpg) As we continue onward, we eventually reach a shipping hub where machines are loading machine lifeforms into shipping crates. Good to see the alien machines adopted humanity’s shipping container specifications. 9S calls again... .jpg) I guess humans used to use it as a weapons factory. But now it’s just crawling with machines. The enemy seems to have repurposed the facility to increase their overall machine production. So if we don’t destroy it, they’ll just keep coming. .jpg) .jpg) We’re not only limited to side-scrolling combat segments. We do have some overhead conflicts as well. .jpg) .jpg) Overhead sections can get a little bit hairy. Most character action games, the good ones anyway, reduce aggro on enemies when the player is facing away from them. Since nobody likes getting kicked in the back of the head from off-screen. NieR: Automata does the same thing. Except well... when the camera is overhead, that’s disabled, making enemies somewhat more aggressive. It also can be tougher to notice the eye flashing attack tells with the camera pulled out like this. .jpg) This camerawork can also be used to hide what should be obvious secret paths. Like right here to the right. That platform about is where we entered this area and it looks just like a raise wall. But... .jpg) Wouldn’t you know it? There’s a sneaky boy hiding back here with some treasure chests. It’s just a medium recovery and another locked chest we cannot deal with. But more importantly... .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) The door in the back of this hidden room lets us lower the bridge and do a rather substantial shortcut back to the early part of the level. Which is real nice... But let’s get back into the factory proper. We’ve got a mission to complete. The PA system crackles to life as a female automated voice speaks... .jpg)  Lot 33 to Lot 20. Materials on-route. Work Party B to Material... ...What? It’s just accessing random nonsensical data from the old world. There’s no actual meaning behind anything machines do. Thank you for another day of hard work. Please *crackle* for a job well done..jpg) .jpg) Woo! It’s quitting time. Time for the machine lifeforms to punch out and hit the bar. It’s hard work cramming into a freight container all day, I’ll tell you what. .jpg) Oh, c’mon 2B. That’s just mean. Roboto just wanted to do karaoke with his mates. .jpg) .jpg) Eventually we find our way out of the looping catwalks of the blast furnace area and find what is almost certainly another combat arena. Alright, what are you bring to the table this time, guys. Whirling arm boys aren’t exactly doing the job. .jpg) Close-range combat is advised. I know..jpg) .jpg) Would you look at that? The little guys got cute little welding mask shields. As Pod 042 suggest, our bullets are ineffective against shielded enemies. .jpg) Quality android steel, though? Instantly disassembles their shielding. And now they’re back to square one. Well, at least they made the effort. .jpg) Medium Bipeds also gain a shield as well. While the Stubby machines have trouble keeping their bearings towards 2B given their half foot teeny legs, shield carrying machines rotate like they’re on a Lazy Susan or are moonlighting from Dark Souls 2. We’ll just have to take them head on. .jpg) You know what these shields are NOT durable enough to stand against? Lasers. Lasers melt shields and the robot carrying them. .jpg) Alright. We’re good to go. Let’s finish our scouting of the factory. The top of the facility is just ahead. Radio ring... .jpg) Maybe they... I dunno. Moved it somewhere?Music: ENDS .jpg) I mean... that’s one theory. Let’s see if we cannot get a better look from atop that tower, eh? .jpg) .jpg) You mean the birds?.jpg) Hmm... is that right? You know, I’m just now remembering NIER 1 and having to grind eagle eggs... ... .jpg) Threat identified. Eliminating. Directive: gently caress birds. .jpg) .jpg) Alright, let’s head down ahead. Real Turok 2 kinda fog rolling into the area this afternoon, huh? I’m sure blowing up several hundred machines hasn’t improved air quality. .jpg) It’s a bit of a hike, but should we check it out? ..... It’s not like Command to get a location wrong. I guess even they get bad intel from time to time, huh? ..... Hmm. I wouldn’t bet on that..jpg) *sigh* C’mon 2B. Nothing good has ever come of saying that sort of thing. Next you’re going to tell me you think “it’s too quiet” or “you’ve got a bad feeling about this”. .jpg) YOU SEE! Dammit! New Music: Bipolar Nightmare .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Ya know, that buzzsaw gambit from early probably would have gone better for the machines if 9S hadn’t intervened. What do you say we give it the old college try again? And also double the amount of 50 foot buzzsaws? .jpg) .jpg) Tune in next time for a swift upward trend in machine lifeform combat escalation.  Video: Episode 3 Highlight Reel  Factory Concept Art The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Apr 3, 2017 |
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Apr 1, 2017 21:53
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DoubleNegative posted:These few sentences read kinda weirdly, and I'm not really sure what's being said. Can I get a little clarification? I rewrote it and fixed the typo. Basically, poo poo drops from enemies CONSTANTLY. The end of every battle is running around grabbing all the drops. Weapon upgrade poo poo. Health pick-ups. Buffs. You ever play a JRPG? You know all the poo poo that drops after random battles. Just imagine that but you've got to manually pick it up every encounter. It's kind of a pain... and the automatic pick-up ability is like loving 20 hours into the game. My thumb hurt from mashing B by the end of this game. Also, let's not link to supplementary material. I can do that when it's appropriate. We're 30 minutes into the game. You know the sub-forum's YO DON'T DO SPOILERS IF THE OP SAYS THAT AIN'T COOL is literally from Drakengard 1's LP, right? That video early wasn't a big deal. But I'm just gonna put a nix on that because Nier 1's LP had a big issue of jerks just linking to a Google Doc of the spoiler as poo poo Grimoire Nier document multiple times and not seeing what the big deal is. I know everyone is enthusiastic about this game, but let's cool it, huh? Unrelated: I was totally going to post this thread on April 1st originally. My wife talked me out of being a total fuckhead.
The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Apr 2, 2017 |
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Apr 2, 2017 04:27
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 The controversy was from this item. It was just vendor trash you could get from fishing (there is an absurd amount of fishing vendor trash.) It's actually referencing the MIM-64 Mauler a SUPER early drone anti-aircraft system. Ya know... cuz of all the frikken robots. And this game kinda being a commentary on drone warfare being hosed. The item icon is literally a fuckin' rocket launcher... But, gamers assumed they were dunking on the precious the Nintendo 64 and got super mad because they're huge man-child dipshits. It's real dumb.
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Apr 2, 2017 05:33
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Episode IV: Engels Music: Bipolar Nightmare .jpg) Welp. This is happening now. Buckle up because the rest of the prologue here uhh... escalates. One might say dramatically so. .jpg) No response from long-range communications. Doesn’t matter. I’ll just take ‘em out..jpg) Even however long in the future this game takes place, they never really locked down Codec frequencies getting jammed. All that high end text was lost long ago in the mythic time known only as the “‘80s”. .jpg) Marx fights about the same way it did the first time around. I mean... there’s only so much a giant buzzsaw can do, if you really get down to the heart of the matter. It can buzz horizontally and vertically... That’s kinda that’s physically going for a circular saw, no matter how big you make it. Maybe if the machines had some kinda Robot Master that could SHOOT the buzzsaws, then there might be a paradigm shift in saw offensive tech. Alas... .jpg) .jpg) The primary issue this go around is that here are TWO building sized saws tearing up the place in 2B’s general direction and sometimes they get clever and roll in from opposite directions. .jpg) .jpg) 2B’s window for dodging the saw attacks are still ridiculously generous and can be chained by spamming the dodge until she’s successfully flipped to safety as much as about a half dozen times. .jpg) There’s an extremely brief window where i-frames end between dodges that it’s possible to get very unlucky with timing and take a hit. But it’s far less of a serious concern than you’d think. A direct hit from a saw only takes off about a fifth of 2B’s energy and we can immediately negate that with the smallest level of healing item. .jpg) .jpg) Offensively, the tactics haven’t changed since the first Marx battle. After completing a saw assault, both of the Marx units will simmer down for a moment, giving 2B ample time to get some melee hits in while they rest up for the next wave of attacks. And that’s on top of concentrated Gatling fire from our Pod and the Laser program whenever we’ve got a decent shot. .jpg) .jpg) We actually only have to get the two enemy units down to 50% HP for this fight. It’s possible to come back here at a way higher level and discover that health bar is just for show. This is a timed battle.  .jpg) .jpg) Alright, so the buzzsaw carving up this bridge thing obviously isn’t working too hot guys. What’s the back-up plan here? Is it a third buzzsaw? Are you getting one more friend? Music: ENDS .jpg) .jpg) Uhh... come again? .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Hey, that’s the platform we ran over and shot some birds off of earlier. Good times. Goddamn birds. So whatcha doing connecting to th— .jpg) .jpg) OH FRICK! New Music: Bipolar Nightmare (Vocal) (You should listen to this. And most music.)  ...THEY’VE GOT A METAL GEAR!? .jpg) Welp. This is happening now! Meet [REDACTED] the actual real deal boss of the Prologue and what 2B and her highly incompetent co-workers were here to destroy. As I said earlier, the game will eventually rather unceremoniously start translating the boss names. This one is Engels. As in Friedrich Engels, the co-author of the Communist Manifesto and Karl Marx’s number two dude. I mean technically, our goal was stated to seize the means of production from the machines in the facility. I suppose this naming scheme checks out. .jpg) Anyway, we’re now fighting a sentient oil rig with buzzsaws for arms. That’s not where I saw this mission going, but here we are... .jpg) .jpg) Engels will use its newfound Marxist limbs in an attempt to crush 2B’s theories of surplus value. This comes in the form of a dual-arm strike which 2B is best off just hanging out in the middle of the platform to avoid. Turns out there’s a sizable physical gap in the middle of two pieces of heavy machinery being slammed down into a road. Who’d a thunk? .jpg) .jpg) The communist doom bot can also release a volley of rocket artillery to pepper 2B’s position. I swear the hitboxes on these missiles are either broken or way more miniscule than their models. I’ve had them explode right next to 2B before and do absolutely no damage. .jpg) Unfortunately, we’ve not got a lot of options for taking on this angry oil rig. Unlike Marx, which farted around after attacking, Engels quickly recoils after buzzsaw attacks. And peppering the thing with our Pod’s gunfire is only doing so much when it’s an enemy a couple levels ahead of 2B. .jpg) .jpg) Ah. Good timing. So did anyone at command tell you the machines had a Metal Gear? I think that should have been made clearer in the mission briefing. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) 2B opts to perform a sick dodge. Just to make it seem like she was getting somewhere in this fight and not basically firing a stapler gun at a bulldozer. .jpg) .jpg) This is the target. I’m going to destroy it. Uh... right. I’ll provide support!.jpg) 9S is now providing back-up and will fire his aerial unit’s guns the same place 2B fires her Pod. Hmm. I mean... yeah, it’s a lot of 5s and 6s popping out of that thing’s face now. But is that the best you’ve got for help, kid? .jpg) Meanwhile, Engels has absolutely no interest in 9S’s intervention and keeps up the pressure on 2B. Not much more we can do than continuing to fire and get in the occasional close range swipe. Don’t worry! We’re definitely making progress. .jpg) Eventually, Engels decides it’s going for a swim. That usually doesn’t bode well... .jpg) Proposal: Evade..jpg) .jpg) Yeah! Thanks, Pod. I got that! I died on that stupid collapsing bridge with the helicopter like five times in Metal Gear Rising. I have no idea if failing to evade is an instant kill. Never tested it because... we still haven’t hit a save point. I don’t want to replay 20-30 minutes of this opening. I guarantee there’s a terrible at video games streamer out there that has long since solved this cryptic puzzle. .jpg) .jpg) This revolution in science continues its assault on the bridge. Hey, 9S... Could you maybe chip in a little more? I feel like this fight isn’t going great... Don’t tell anyone. It’s almost entirely mechanically a timed scripted event. Still really rad! .jpg) .jpg) The condition of the working class in England is not improved by Engels destroying this infrastructure like this. It can’t be helping the machines either. You’ve seen their tiny little baby legs! This is going to be terrible for their commute! .jpg) .jpg) After a little bit more evading overhead strikes and the occasional missile, 9S decides to chime in again and do something. This better be good, kid! .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) What dummy put Wi-Fi into the missiles and didn’t set a secure password? Everything that happens now is entirely your fault, Engels. IT security is no laughing matter. Music: ENDS  <! ! ! REVERSAL OF FORTUNE! ! !> .jpg) Huh... Nice work, 9S. You took it out! Well done... .jpg) ...I cannot believe you frikked this so bad, 9S. .jpg) .jpg) Welp. It’s hopeless. Nothing left for 2B to do but join her comrades in the CouldNotEvadeASlowMovingAttackWithLiterallySeveralSecondsofNotice Club. .jpg) .jpg)  On the one hand, you did Red Hot Kick that buzzsaw with a mech. On the other hand, you did get almost instantly owned. I’m gonna call this one a wash on your performance review, 9S... .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) We haven’t really had anything to gauge how well androids hold up from fall damage. He’s probably fine, right? That was only... what? A couple hundred foot drop. Tops. .jpg) .jpg) On the bright side, Engels has managed to get tucked out from this whole mess and takes a nap right on the end of the factory bridge. Music: Alien Manifestation (Vocal) .jpg) 9S black box signal detected. No response to communications. I’m going after him!.jpg) .jpg) Alright, time for a rescue mission. It’s going to look really poor on our after-action report if literally the entire team dies on assignment. Unless 2B is secretly a sexy robot HUNK type character. .jpg) .jpg) Unfortunately, Engels naptime was VERY brief and it’s up and active again. I’m not sure if it knows we’re running around on its back. That’s got to feel gross if it does. .jpg) Negative. Communications have been jammed..jpg) There are a few Stubby machines roaming around on Engel’s back now. I’m not even going to ask how they got on there. We don’t have time for this. .jpg) .jpg) All the way to the top we go. It’s worth mentioning that 2B has retained Papa Nier's goofy ladder hopping fast climb technique from the first game. I was happy to see that dumb animation back. .jpg) .jpg) Ouch... Turns out androids are terrible at handling fall damage. Good to know. .jpg) .jpg) Machines, on the other hand, tank fall damage like champs. A set of stubby bots have seemingly been orbital dropped to 2B’s position to be a nuisance. .jpg) That’s cute you’re trying to defend the holy family here. But we do need to attend to 9S. He’s gonna need a green herb or two here. Outta the way! Music: ENDS .jpg) *cough* *choke* Pod, get me staunching gel and logic-virus vaccines. Then access the—.jpg) Dr. Pod 042’s diagnosis. Cut that there boy loose, girl. He done WAY too hosed up. You gotta Old Yeller his rear end, dawg. .jpg) *choke* *hack* 2B... Just go... You shut up too!.jpg) .jpg) .jpg) These androids over here getting all sappy and emotion and Pod 042 is just shaking its head going “you know we’re still riding that giant robot, right?” .jpg) It ain’t got time for this poo poo. It’s gonna have to handle business itself. .jpg) .jpg) HINT! HINT! said the robot internally as it slotted itself into the surprisingly intact war machine. .jpg) ..... ...All right..jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Tune in next time when a battle android fights an alien AI controlled oil rig with a jet/mecha suit as NieR: Automata’s prologue comes to a close.  Video: Marx and Engels Boss Battle (Watch this.)  9S Concept Art – Three belts on each of your boots. You androids grab those shoes from the Tetsuya Nomura Kingdom Hearts surplus supply? The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Apr 3, 2017 |
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Apr 2, 2017 22:30
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Episode V: Black Box New Music: The Sound of the End (Vocal) .jpg) Alright, you lousy GoBot. Let’s do this thing! .jpg) The kiddie-gloves are coming off. What was 9S even doing when he was firing at this machine? He was only doing damage equal to our Pod early. Look at all of those 6 HPs of damage he could have been dealing out if he really put some effort into it. Tch. .jpg) Also Engels now has a laser pelvis. It’s best to evade that. It’s probably a bad scene. I mean, would YOU want to be involved with a laser pelvis? I thought not... The red laser bit is just a helpful hazard warning for where it’s going to fire. The massive circular explosion afterwards is the bothersome bit. .jpg) .jpg) Now that 2B is in control of the flight unit, Engels is suddenly interested in swatting at the thing outside of cutscenes. And frankly, I’m gonna be real here. I think the part where 9S got owned was entirely a fluke while it was flailing from the earlier hit. .jpg) We haven’t fought in head on camera mode in the flight unit. 2B is permanently locked onto the bootleg Transformer’s position. We can rotate her 360 degrees around Engels’ perimeter. We can sort of nudge her upwards and downwards. But the camera will gradually shift her back to mid-range. There’s no approaching closer to the enemy unit. .jpg) So our only means of attack are the chain gun fire and the rather useless Heavy Attack’s sonic boom projectile. That only does like 50-60 HP of damage and will briefly halt 2B’s ability to move. Considering the turrets are doing 6 HP x A Billion Shots at all times, it’s not worth it. Also related to head on movement, 2B’s evade is less of an invincible speed boost and more of just giving her i-frames briefly. Which is all we really need. .jpg) ..... It... talks? I didn’t know the machines had that kind of intelligence. <radio ring> 2B... I found a weakness in the target... H-Hacking in... to provide support..jpg) Huh. 9S is still in the fight. You know, in retrospect maybe we should have... I dunno... tied him down to something up top there? He cannot be having a fun time trying to hack this machine one-armed while desperately hanging onto a railing by his leg or whatever is happening up there. .jpg) Engels still has access to its missile pods. Which... all kind of seem like they’re firing from up where we left 9S. Now I’m just imaging that poor android kid as rolling out of the way of opening missile tubes while hanging onto a railing by his foot and cracking a Unix system with his remaining arm. Dude is having a rough day... .jpg) <radio ring> 2B... The control... on the enemy’s upper arm... Use your Pod... Sh-should be able to... take it over... I told you to shut up!.jpg) I dunno, 2B. I know you don’t want him moving around too much since he’s really banged up and now stubby bots have shown up are throwing wrenches at him on top of everything else. But... I kind of want to know what “control of the enemy’s arm” entails. .jpg) .jpg) Or you could just get punched 3-kilometers away. I suppose that works too... .jpg) .jpg) Marking weak point... Got it..jpg) .jpg) We don’t know a whole lot about this Android vs. Machine war yet. But, I’m definitely rooting for the androids based on their Macross-esque mecha tech. I’m down with any robot that can also turn into a jet at will. Limited use case be damned. .jpg) 2B switches back to all-range mode but maintains ramming speed. I like where all of this is going. .jpg) Affirmative..jpg) Behavior table adjusted. Balance controls overridden. .jpg) Enemy unit subjugation complete..jpg) Yo, guess what’s happening here. Yep. It’s exactly what it sounds like... .jpg) WE STOLE THAT ROBOT’S loving ARM!  “Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!” declares 2B in early foreshadowing that androids are actually just the mean older siblings of the machine lifeforms. Engels is telling mom when she gets home from her shift at the rhythm battle conference. .jpg) .jpg) As it turns out, smacking about a giant robot with its own bucket-wheel excavator mercilessly for a minute is FAR more effective than pelting it with small-arms fire. .jpg) Satisfied with her work, 2B discards the Marxist arm. Probably time to go back and make sure we didn’t accidentally squish 9S dur— .jpg) Huh?!.jpg) Oh... It’s still truckin’, huh? I guess I’m starting to see why they sent out a whole squad of androids just to deal with this single bot. Just a shame they only sent 1.5 competent ones and a mess of red shirts. .jpg) .jpg) Out of options, 2B is just going for it with a head-on assault. I mean we *are* within the realm of cutscenes. All weapons' firepower is massively compromised and in flux depending on how radical the situation gets... .jpg) I made a bunch of Metal Gear jokes about Engels for obvious reasons. But really, it reminds me way more of a Transformer. Right down to the most glaring design issues of Transformers: none of them EVER seem to transform themselves a proper helmet or headgear. Even if my face was plated with iron, I’d still want a little bit of protection in key structural areas. Like, I dunno... At least some googles? .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Engels straight up stops attacking at this point. The machines seem to have limited intelligence. That said, it still totally wants to see where she’s going with this move. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Ouch. Okay... Yeah. Big guy, you definitely should have seen that one coming... .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) These androids really need to work on their lands. This is getting embarrassing. Papa Nier could take falls better than this and he was just the soulless clone shell of a magic Gary Busey. Music: ENDS .jpg) In any case, Special Machine Unit Engels is at least decommissioned. Job .jpg) .jpg) Oh... Huh. Right... Maybe we’re jumping the gun here on congratulations. .jpg) Well, at LEAST we didn’t accidentally squish 9S in our rather zealous pounding Engels to death with his own arm approach. I would not look past Yoko Taro to make you accidentally murder the poo poo out of a character due to performing sick finishing moves at an inappropriate time. 9S helps 2B up... .jpg) Heheh... Talk about... bringing the battle to them... huh, 2B? Contact Command. Request assistance. No... It doesn’t look like that’s... going to be necessary....jpg)  Kill... Kill... Kill... Kill....jpg) WELP! .jpg) Kill... Kill... Kill... Kill... I don’t imagine that *cough* ...this is going to end well.New Music: Widespread Illness .jpg) It’s ready. ...Right..jpg) So these cubes are kind of important. These are the androids’ black boxes. If you don’t know what a black box is, it’s a system in which you can put junk into it. You can see what junk comes out of it. But you dunno what’s going on under the hood in the middle process. In sci-fi story terms, it’s usually a handwave for “look science is happening, shut up and don’t worry about it!” Usually... it err... isn’t LITERALLY a black cube... .jpg)  Requesting... destruction of enemy hostiles via black-box reaction. ..... Request accepted. .jpg) The honor was mine..jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Alright... 2B... 9S... Let’s go ahead and form that Pact. And by that, I mean... .jpg) .jpg) Blow the gently caress up in a nuclear explosion. .jpg) Thus concludes the first part of the Prologue of NieR: Automata. Buckle up. That was probably the most straightforward part of the game.   Video: Engels Battle Part 2 and Factory Prologue Ending (Watch this.) The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Apr 3, 2017 |
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Apr 3, 2017 17:45
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Episode VI: Diagnostics.jpg) .jpg) Welcome to space. Little known fact: It’s completely desaturated up there! Damnedest thing. As soon as you bring down any photos from space, the photos return to color immediately. It’s something astronauts don’t like to talk about... It’s freaky. So let’s be respectful and not dwell on this. The last couple of times the world got completely desaturated, it lead to cataclysmic rap battles... .jpg) Anyway, welcome back. Don’t worry about all that before! 2B is just fine. And in space, to boot. So she’s frankly better off than she was previously. We now find ourselves within a space station and there’s an objective marker ahead. Let’s go check it out, eh? .jpg) Oh hey, 9S! You’re looking fit for someone who had a couple limbs blown off and got nuked just a scene ago. What’s crackin’? .jpg) The Goliaths were wiped out, and we secured a route into enemy territory. Now we can— 9S? Yeah? Thank you. For uploading my data to the Bunker. ...... Um, I did that? Sorry, I don’t remember. There wasn’t a whole lot of bandwidth down there, you know? I probably only had enough time to back up your memories. Mine are only intact up to the point just before we rendezvoused. ...I see..jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Well, good talk 9S. Got a little weird there with the humanity worship screed. But hey, good to see you’re mostly alright... Just learn to bind Quick Save to a convenient key sometime before the next mission, eh? .jpg) Hmm... 2B seems slightly upset about something. I’m sure it’s just stress from getting blown up earlier for not entirely clear reasons. .jpg) At this point we can connect online. This game does feature some important/weird features with online play. But none of the bullshit like Dark Souls invasions. So, sure. We’ll opt in! .jpg) .jpg) Also, we can finally save our game for the first time! We’re in the clear. You can go play on Hard if you want a poorly implemented difficulty spike! Do to your heart’s content now without fear of replaying the entire tutorial mission. You did it! There’s no achievements for playing on any difficulty and nobody cares. But go you! .jpg) Anyway, enough about that. Who would like some backstory? You may be confused as to why there are nothing but androids facing hordes of deadly robots and why we’re hanging out in space now. Also what anything happening has to do with the original NieR. Let’s try to clarify that a little bit! A very little bit. For starts, let’s jump ahead to the year 5012. Some 1646 years after Papa Nier made a mess of everything in the original game. .jpg)  5012 AD. The year mankind’s glorious history came to a sudden and abrupt end... when the world was invaded by aliens from beyond the stars. .jpg) So the rap battle and exploding dragon that produced a magical epidemic and a legion of salt monsters and humanity needing to jump through hoops separating its very soul wasn’t QUITE bad enough for Yoko Taro’s version of Earth. After all of that, a race of hostile aliens rolled in to invade. Seeing that this planet was already having some REAL issues in its past, they opted to spam “machine lifeforms” (the official name of the dudes we’ve been dealing with) to deal with the planet’s current residents. .jpg) So let’s do a recap here of my own: In the original Nier, humanity had some REAL issues with magic leaking in from Drakengard’s world (which was a dark fantasy medieval definitely not-Berserk type parallel Earth.) This included a plague which turned people into salt monsters or just outright killed them and there was precious little to be done about it other than shoving all that magical energy back into Drakengard's dimension. And that was gonna take a WHILE to clean up. So, in order to evade magic extinction, humanity was forced to use science-magical means to separate their souls into something called a Gestalt. Which turned out to be Shades, the primary enemies of the original game. Humanity spent a millennium or so as weird liches in this form. Also produced from this were Replicants, scientifically cultivated soulless shell human clones, for lack of a better term, that were resistant to magical disease nonsense. These were meant to just kind of hang out leading passive lives until things were sorted out with the magic business. Optimally, they'd eventually stick the Shades/Gestalt back into these Replicant husk bodies and humanity could keep on truckin' having overcome Drakengard. The problem was that Replicants eventually became sapient and started rebuilding their own societies and leading lives and whatnot. At the same time, being stuck as a weird shadow monster didn’t do the best for human souls and Gestalts started going loony. Also the break down of Gestalts caused their corresponding humanoid Replicant body to get basically Fantasy Cancer. An angry Replicant dad had his daughter fall prey to this. His solution... involved a lot of murder and kind of breaking everything without ever getting around to curing his daughter's ailment. Also, he might have killed the dude that key to the entirety of this plan and the back-up plan was uhh...? We'll get back to you on that one... But uhh... regardless. Humanity was kinda boned there! Or so we thought. Somehow, they turned it around in the intervening years. Good on them! Until the aliens showed up... At which point, the remainder of humanity NOPED the gently caress out and are now chilling on the moon. Honestly... perfectly reasonable response at this point. .jpg) Alright, let’s jump ahead 192 years. Pfft... Those quaint soft reboots doing a century timeskip to get a clean slate. .jpg) 5204 A.D. Humanity launched its counterattack, deploying an army of androids from a network of orbiting bases. But after more than a dozen large-scale descents upon the enemy, we still haven’t managed to repel the invaders. So this line is key and something they kind of glaze past. There’s an intro to the game. Much like in the original NieR or Drakengard 3, it’s spoilery as poo poo! Like 90% of it is from the back quarter of the game. But it does have one key bit of info... When they’re talking about these “over a dozen large-scale descents”. That wasn’t individual combat drops, like the Factory mission.  This is the middle of the 14th full-scale war humanity and its androids have waged retaking Earth from the machines. The current year is 11945 AD. If you need to crunch some numbers real quick. That makes it: 9942 Years since Caim and Angelus performed a trans-dimensional abortion and were blown-up over the skies of downtown Tokyo. 8579 Years since the original NieR concluded. 6933 Years since the Aliens initially invaded. 6741 Years since the androids attempted their first counter-attack. This ain’t going great, huh...? .jpg) That is why you, the YoRHa forces, exist: To break the stalemate once and for all. .jpg) .jpg) You are our ultimate weapon... and you must put an end to this war. .jpg)  Understood, sir. I wish you good hunting..jpg) .jpg) .jpg) And thus concludes today’s briefing with the Council of Humanity, live from the moon to its newest Special Forces army: YoRHa. What does YoRHa stand for, you ask? I mean... isn’t it obvious? No...? Tch... Well... Fine. I suppose it’s OK to spoil it early. Warning you though: This is a game changer. Read at your own risk... Yo REAL HOT androids. .jpg) But that’s enough about an endless proxy-war between extra-terrestrials and moon humans. Let’s move onto something completely different. New Music: Fortress of Lies .jpg) First, you’ll want to check your brightness settings. .jpg) Err... alright? First of all, 9S, you’ve gone text only on me. We’re still in the prologue. We cannot go full dialog boxes yet. Secondly... can’t do anything. .jpg) ...Still nothing, my dude. And what are you recording, exactly? .jpg) Okay, I found the guide! If you can just follow that, it’ll make things easier..jpg) Huh...? Oh, I have to hit the frikkin’ D-Pad? I was using the control stick. That’s dumb. Both should work in menus... .jpg) Alright. Fine... ugh. I hate setting brightness by these icons. It’s always just slightly too bright or too dark, despite the recommendation. .jpg) Okay? Probably. I just know we’re going to get to an outdoor area and the colors will all be blown out. But no... no. It’ll do. .jpg) Roger that. Oh, and I should probably let you know that this entire process is being recorded for posterity. Auto-Mode Engage > .jpg) Seems your voice recognition is set to mute, which isn’t gonna work. I’m gonna call out to you now—make sure you can hear my voice. .jpg) <manually raising volume level> Uh, hellooo? Go ahead and adjust your settings so you can hear me, all right? Adjust the settings until you can hear my voice. Er, could you try and pick up the pace a little bit? This is getting embarrassing... Ma’am? Are you there? Can you hear me? Uh, helloo—.jpg) Alright. My volume is adjusted, 9S. You don’t have to repeat dialogue. I speel my DRINK! And of course I’m taking the embarrassing dialogue option. .jpg) Er, hold on. Your self-destruct permissions are missing. Wait a sec, we need to restore those. Auto-Mode Engage > .jpg) ...Yeah, uh. I know we blew ourselves up earlier today. But I’m not entirely comfortable with that being a setting. Gonna go ahead and leave that off. .jpg) No... No I don’t. Yeah... you can’t really do that. It needs to be turned on except in very specific cases.I disagree. I’m afraid I can’t leave this as-is, ma’am. Please give your permission. I’m pretty sure 2B outranks you. So naw... Not into it. Hey, come on now! I’m just trying to follow regulations here. That how it is, huh? You gonna narc on me? You a cop? You look like a cop... Hey, come on now! I’m just trying to follow regulations here. Alright... you’re repeating dialogue. FINE! I’ll put on the drat self-destruction option. .jpg) Okay, good. If things go wrong during an op, you may have to sacrifice yourself in order to finish it, sooo... Once you’re finished making adjustments, you can go ahead and close this. Actually, you know what...? I’m changing my mind. I’m uncomfortable with the self-detonation mechanic. Sounds dumb. I know no one LIKES the idea of self-destructing. But that’s what regulations call for. Still, I’ll keep it a secret from the Commander. Hmm... OK. Fine. I’ll put the drat self-destruct on and leave it. Just because I don’t fully trust you yet and think you’ll flip on me immediately if the cops ever pinch you. .jpg) We could exit now but ehh... let’s double check the settings and see if... Huh. I knew it. They forgot to turn on the control vibration. I’m not playing an action RPG on keyboard and mouse like an indoctrinated PC-only idiot. Let’s fix this... .jpg) I’m gonna tap you on the shoulders, all right? <minor control vibration>.jpg) No. 9S that was my hand vibrating. My shoulder is very much undisturbed. Try it again. Huh? That’s odd. Everything should be set up correctly. Here, let me try somewhere else. I’m gonna tap you on the arm this time, okay? <moderate rumble>No, 9S. Still my hand. Yes, my hands are attached to my arm. But you should specify. Regulations and all. Huh? Really? Well, if you say so? How about this? <advanced rumble>I mean, it rumbled. But you didn’t specify where I ought to feel it. That could have just been a driver fluke... *exasperated* Are you serious...? You didn’t feel anything just now...? Well then, let’s try something else. <controller goes nuts for like 10 seconds> ...Well? Hmm... I don’t know what’s causing this, so we’ll need to run some precision diagnostics later. Regardless, that’s the end of the check for now. .jpg) Alright then. That’s enough messing with our options menu and fourth wall breaking for one session, eh? Let’s get out of here... New Music: Fortress of Lies (Vocal) .jpg) .jpg) Morning. Ugh... Uhh....jpg) 2B quickly puts on her tactical blindfold and climbs out of bed to greet 9S. I can’t believe he’s been doing this whole thing with the blindfold off. What a creeper! .jpg) The Commander’s put me in charge of your maintenance, ma’am. That means I’ll be performing regular checks on you from now on. ...I see. Oh, don’t worry. We 9S models are the best around, you know. Though I suppose we’re not exactly known for our modesty. ...9S. Hm? What is it, ma’am? Stop calling me “ma’am.” Huh? There’s no need to be so formal. A-All right. If you say so. ..... Oh, I almost forgot—The Commander was calling for you. We’d better go see what’s up, ma—er, 2B! .jpg) Welcome to 2B’s quarters on The Bunker, the YoRHa base of operations. There’s not much to mess with in here right now and we’ll be back later. So let’s head out. .jpg) Our next objective of Main Mission: Reboot is to go speak with the Commander, who we briefly saw during the Council of Humanity briefing. She’s hanging out not far from 2B’s apartment. But there’s a couple things on the way. .jpg) You can see access points on the close-range map. Be sure to save often!.jpg) So these big computer terminals are NieR: Automata’s save points. Just being within the vicinity of one lets us do a Quick Save from the menu. Quick Save is a bit of a misnomer here. It’s the only kind of a real rear end save. A manual save from the System menu just lets us change which of the three slots we save our Quick Saves into. It takes roughly .8 seconds to pop into the menu and tap Quick Save when near these gizmos. You don’t even have to stay in the menu for it to complete. There is NO AUTO-SAVE and this takes ALMOST NO TIME AT ALL to do when in the area. If you gently caress up and die, losing hours of progress because you’ve grown into a soft busta over the years, that’s entirely on you! .jpg) By manually accessing a Terminal, we can also look-up 2B’s mail. We will periodically receive mail updates that can only be accessed here. These range from Side Quest triggers to rewards to just world building fluff. Also, you can see what time I was playing the game for the LP because E-Mails are sent based on the player’s real time clock. So that’s fun. .jpg) Now, we could go seek out the Commander but... hmm... There’s just this one persisting bit of unresolved business that’s lingering in my mind. You see... I went into the options menu while farting around saving and saw the controls. Apparently, clicking both thumb-sticks and holding them on the controller will initiate 2B’s self-destruct system. Now... I just... Well. We DID just save, right? You’re curious too, aren’t you...? What’s the worst that could happen? We’ve got to reload from 20 seconds ago? C’mon, 2B. Lemme see your Kimahri impression. .jpg) AYHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! UUUGGH!! .jpg) Somewhere in the depths of space, the Commander still floats about with a stern look on her face. .jpg) ...In retrospect, I should have seen that coming.  Video: Episode 6 Highlight Reel The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 13:06 on Apr 6, 2017 |
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Apr 4, 2017 21:32
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Episode VII: Bunk Beds.jpg) Welp... That happened. Who’d a thunk detonating an android’s fusion core next to the hull of a space station would lead to the entire thing going up like a firecracker? OSHA of 119th Century’s standards have frighteningly deteriorated. Music: Fortress of Lies (Vocal) .jpg) .jpg) Let’s just 3D Print us up another 2B and pretend that whole lapse of judgment didn’t happen. Right, 9S? We’re just not going to talk about that timeline where we blew everyone into the cold vacuum of space. Or need I remind you that YOU were the one to insist 2B activate her self-destruct functionality? I mean, if we really think about it... that was entirely your fault, 9S... Really irresponsible behavior. .jpg) .jpg) Since we *did* just blow-up the Bunker, maybe we ought to refrain from farting around too much and just head straight to the command center. Which is just down the hall a bit. The Bunker is actually a fairly small area. .jpg) Welcome to the YoRHa command center. We saw it briefly during the Council of Humanity’s briefing on the war that’s been fought for several millennia. I like to think they play that sizzle real of world events once a month and all the androids just roll their eyes, give the “Glory to Mankind” line, and hope the humans don’t call back anytime soon. .jpg) .jpg) There’s three levels to the command center. The top entry here, which is just an observation deck with an elevator. A second level full of computer consoles where the Operator androids work. 2B’s handler during the last mission, 6O, is one of those. And of course there’s the ground level where the Commander is hanging out. Let’s take a minute to look around and chat up some androids. Like you! On the catwalk to our left. Sup? .jpg)  What’s your problem? Get outta my face before I rearrange yours! ... Back off! This is none of your business! *looks away* ...Yeah, just a minor annoyance. Nothing to get your undies in a twist over. *turns back* Hey, didn’t you hear me the first time? Make like a machine and get outta here!Well, aren’t you the rude one? Ya know, 2B could make like a machine and explode. Lemme, tell you, ya snippy broad, that AIN’T gonna go well for you...  Oh well. The first other YoRHa Soldier we met was a dick. But maybe the Operators are nicer. Let’s chat them up while we’re in the neighborhood. Try to maintain a friendly work environment...  Hi there. Boy, you two are thick as thieves, aren’t you? I know you’re only working together by coincidence, but it’s still nice that you’ve become friends. Have you gotten used to engaging in missions on Earth? There’s only so much we can do from here, but we’ll back you up as best we can. Good luck!Err... Don’t know if we’d call 9S a friend quite yet. Expendable sidekick, maybe. Your bodies automatically register information from slain enemies to the database. It was a practical design decision to allow combat units to also collect intelligence. ...Yes? Do you need something? If not, I suggest conserving your energy for more important matters. That’s a good reminder I do need to go back and show off the Intel logs on all the machine lifeforms we scrapped during the prologue mission... Are you checking your mail regularly? Sometimes important mail sits around for weeks because the recipient doesn’t know how to check ‘em. So don’t be that person! Check your mail regularly at a transport terminal, all right? When you’ve got a complicated mission, explaining everything verbally is tough on both of us and you, you know? That’s why we use a mail system. That way, you have a permanent record of all the details. Don’t worry, we won’t miss any mail. Between the blinking notice on the HUD and the Pod verbally announcing it every time. Plus, you know... the whole 100% LP thing... Want a piece of advice from someone who’s been in your shoes before? Back up your data whenever you can. If you do that, it doesn’t matter if you lose your body. You can just upload the back-up data to a new body and be on your merry way. Oh, and if you register your personal info at a transport terminal, you can back up data from Earth as well. Well, so long as you’re within transmission range, anyway.THERE IS NO AUTO-SAVE IDIOT! .jpg) There is one named operator here, Operator 21O. She basically just politely tells us to get back to work or she’s going to file a report with HR. Not sure what her problem is or why she’s named... She’s 9S’s Operator. .jpg) Let’s see what the folks on the eastern half of operations have to say... Do you need something? ...No? All right then. Urgh... I’m so tired...Hey. Not everyone is here to ramble tutorials and world fluff at a curious protagonist. Some NPCs are just here for their 9-5 and a paycheck. And I can respect that. Say, I’ve got a question for you: Are you using your Pod effectively? Random, I know! But the thing is, you can install these things called Pod Programs that let you use special attacks. There are a bunch of different ones, so start tinkering and see which work best for you. Oh, and once you find a program you like, don’t forget to set it! Don’t worry, we’ll get to all those “This is the Bunker. Go ahead. ...Say again? You lost your Pod!? Uh-huh... Uh-huh... Yes, I see... Well, a lost Pod will emit a distress signal, so try to locate that and then search the surrounding area. Bunker, out.” *disconnects* And maybe don’t LOSE IT NEXT TIME! Honestly... ..... ...Oh. Hello there. Sorry you had to hear that. But yes, apparently one of my units managed to misplace her Pod somewhere in the desert. If you happen to find it, make sure to give it a good home, all right? This is a hint for a big upgrade later on. Also the bit about it emitting a sound might be important... If you’re not too old and can still hear certain high frequency sounds. We’ll get to that later... Did you know you can install plug-in chips to improve your body’s performance? If you want to install a bunch of chips, go talk to the S-type model in the server administration room. Plug-in chips remain in your body after you die. So don’t forget to recover your body if you want them back.That’s a few mechanics we still need to touch on later when it’s more appropriate. The latter being one of the dumber design decisions in the game... But, all in due time. Before we get back to business, Operator 6O is hanging out around here. May as well say hi to her in person. .jpg) Majestic trees... Pretty flowers... Cute little animals... I love it all! Um, is there a problem? Did I forget to upload intel or something? Uh oh. I’m gonna get yelled at again, huh? No, you’re fine 6O. Go back to posting cat pictures on the Bunker’s Discord channel. Also, if you’re wondering why all the Operator androids have weird veils, they’re future headsets for communications, just like the YoRHa soldier blindfolds are actually tech goggles. .jpg) But enough about that... We’ve got work to do! Let’s take the elevator down to the ground floor. .jpg) .jpg) There are some more androids hanging out down here. But they’re all mostly either busy/confused with mission prep or doting on their partners worriedly if it’s an Operator. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) The big situation room screen displays unintelligible combat data, YoRHa unit status reports, and tracking outposts on Earth. It’s probably not a good sign all the ones in the western hemisphere are offline, huh? Hey, Operator working this thing. What’s up with that...? .jpg) For the most part, I’m the operator in charge of communicating with the Council. They don’t contact us much, so most of my job is just keeping them up-to-date on the latest Earth happenings. They must really trust us, huh?Pfft... If I know humans, and I do, they’re probably just flaking on scheduled check-ins while they’re all getting shitfaced on moon beer and whatnot. They’re probably knocking back pints of lunar lagers right now while we’re out here fighting. Jerks... .jpg) Anyway... that’s enough dicking about in the Bunker. Here we see the Commander. She’s got a great big red arrow over her head denoting that she’s the main quest trigger NPC. Talking to her will advance things along. There will be points in the story where triggering a main quest story beat will lock things out permanently for that playthrough. So it’s best to be sure we’ve taken care of everything before chatting up the MVP. Sup, Commander? .jpg) Maintenance finished? Yes, Commander. You detonated your black box in order to defeat the enemy. Bold, but risky. Try not to be so reckless next time. Understood. I know you’re fresh out of maintenance, but I have another mission for you. I need you to head to the surface, rendezvous with the Resistance, and do some recon. Doesn’t YoRHa have a dedicated Resistance contact already? We haven’t been able to get in touch with them. So we’ll need you to look into that as well. Understood..jpg) Alright... Back to Earth, huh? That briefing went well. She didn’t even bring up the time we blew up everyone. Very understanding, tolerant leader. .jpg) Better head for the hangar! Heh. Usually we can’t get NEAR flight units. They’re way too expensive for us grunts..jpg) 9S, we blew up TWO flight units earlier today. I’m sure it’s not that big of a deal. 2B didn’t even have to trash hers. She just wanted to make a stylish character reveal. .jpg) We can explore a bit more of the Bunker while we’re in the neighborhood. There’s not a lot to see. It’s just a big circular path with quarters for assorted androids. 21O and 6O both have rooms around here, though there’s nothing of interest there. 9S’s quarters are also down the hall from 2B. I suppose we can drop in on his room. .jpg) Not that there’s much to do here....jpg) You say that, but the option to rest is right here so... .jpg) 9S, go wait in the hall. 2B needs a nap and she’s taking your bed. NO, you are not permitted to enter 2B’s room or leave the area. That’s an order. .jpg) Sleeping in a bed is just another means of saving the game. At no point is there a bed that isn’t within spitting distance of a save terminal so I’m not entirely sure of the point. But hey, it’s a thing! .jpg) .jpg) We can swing by 2B’s room once more. I notice she’s got an alternate pair of knee high boots for days when the thigh high ones are a bit too warm. And as 9S says, we can access the terminal here to load up on supplies. .jpg) .jpg) Welcome to the first shop of the game. Here we can purchase assorted supplies for our mission. I went over what most of the healing items and basic buffs were earlier. The thing is now, we lost ALL of those supplies when 2B blew herself up. The only reason we have one Medium Heal is because I raided a chest hidden behind the elevator in the command room. .jpg) As such, it’s a REALLY good idea to maybe buy a handful of Small Recovery items. The upcoming sequence of the game might be one of the few points I ever died in my first playthrough entirely due to attempting to tank a hit in a tight spot and realizing I had zero heals just as it was too late. Whoops! Won’t make that mistake again. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Everything taken care of on the Bunker, we can now head up to the Hangar and finally complete the first chapter of NieR: Automata. There are a handful more androids loitering about the area. May as well be social. This is the last time we’ll be back to the Bunker for a while. .jpg)  Her balance sensors got damaged, so she gets motion sickness. No matter how many times I repair the sensors, the problem comes back. It’s almost like it’s in her head or something... You guys take care of yourselves so you don’t end up like her, all right? *turns to soldier* How are you feeling? Ready to get back out there? N-no... Whole world... still spinny... *urp* Right-o. I’ll make sure to tell Command that you’re not fit to use flight units for a while. Maybe programming androids with the capacity to get dizzy wasn’t a great design choice. But hell, the original Nier established they programmed androids with the ability to get drunk. Humanity in this universe has always been kind of dipshits with bad future planning... .jpg)  I’d give almost anything to spend more time in a flight unit... We’d all like that! But they’re expensive, delicate pieces of equipment, so they don’t just hand ‘em out willy-nilly. And you combat types are the worst! Last time you used a flight unit, it came back with huge scratches on the side! Who do you think fixes that, huh? We do! We work our fingers to the bone to get you a beautiful ride, and you go and crap all over it! All right, all right! I get it! Sheesh... Flight units are great and all, but why doesn’t R&D just install wings and jets on our bodies? That’s a GREAT idea! Then you could stop damaging my precious flight units! Yeah, I asked about that once. They said it would put too much strain on our bodies. Also something about it not being “financially feasible.” Ha! They would say that.Look, the military budget has really had to tighten up after 14 world wars in a row. Just be happy androids have 10 foot vertical leaps, alright? .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) In any case, let’s buckle up and head back to Earth to start the game properly as Chapter 1 of NieR: Automata draws to a close.  Video: Episode 7 Highlight Reel  YoRHa Commander Official Art – That whole outfit is gonna be a nightmare if the anti-gravity field ever goes offline on the Bunker. The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Apr 6, 2017 |
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Apr 6, 2017 14:43
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Thisuck posted:<Please don't do this> Boy, could you maybe not link to poo poo I'm eventually going to cover later in the LP? That'd be cool if you didn't do that. And that goes for everyone else. Was it something I covered in the old LP? This one? No? Then maybe I'll get to it eventually and you can cool it, eh? I have a document about as long as the first three pages of this thread planning out most everything and when I'm going to do it. Trust me. I KNOW about whatever. Edit: Also I'll get that voiced conversation in a return visit. Getting that gag ending makes it so that conversation gets disabled until we return, for whatever reason. Also I've got a rip of all the game's audio files and can make a video of it so you can actually hear it clearly without the background music and hum of the Bunker half drowning it out. The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Apr 7, 2017 |
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Apr 7, 2017 02:21
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 Episode VIII: The Last of Bots New Music: Crumbling Lies .jpg) If all they want is intel, we Scanner models are built for that kind of thing. Orders are orders. All right, all right..jpg) Time for another shooter segment. The last one for quite some time. 9S is joining us for this fire mission. Unlike the previous YoRHa squadron of redshirts, 9S will actually pull his weight in battle. Generally, his AI will fire if 2B is doing so and he will try to move a bit away from 2B’s position so as to hit other enemies and not just double fire on 2B’s targets. 6O establishes contact. .jpg) I’ll put up instructions for you.2B and 9S fly below the cloud line to... .jpg) Hm? Ruined city stage, huh? Nice. Shoot’em up classic area board. 2B’s flight unit now has access to a missile barrage as its stand-in for a Pod Program. .jpg) .jpg) Missile Barrage, well... it does about exactly what you’d expect from the super shot in a shooter segment. It shoots a ton of missiles in the area in front of 2B (and in a spiral in all directs when in all-range mode.) Much like Pod Programs, it’s on a cool down timer (flat 12 seconds between charges.) No particular reason to conserve it if there’s mess of targets to go all Macross on in front of her. .jpg) .jpg) After taking on a not particularly remarkable assortment of enemies, as a final challenge were tasked with taking on TWO of the big jerk carriers. This was my first actual death, not counting blowing up the Bunker like an idiot. This was almost entirely because I hadn’t realized they took away all the healing items because err... well they got vaporized with 2B’s old body. .jpg) .jpg) My death mostly was a result of one of the two carriers doing the spiral of orbs while the other one closed the distance and did the laser spiral and those two going at the same time from opposite directions? Kinda problematic when you’ve got like 15 minutes of this game’s shooter mechanics experience at that point. Regardless, 2B and 9S manage to take out the carriers with little problem and 6O chimes in again soon afterwards. .jpg) I’ve set a landing point for your flight units. You’ll be touching down quite a ways from the Resistance camp, unfortunately. Sorry for the trouble, but we can’t risk the enemy discovering their position. Understood. Good luck down there!.jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Alright, everyone out. No more fun with mechs. We’re lucky we even got permission to set foot in another one after 2B and friends trashed six units on that last mission. Though thinking about it now... I guess Pod 042 just peaced out back to space with 9S’s unit, huh? It’s nice he didn’t want to interfere with the drama at the end of the prologue mission and all. But, kind of a dick move. 2B probably could have climbed back in, we could have duct-taped 9S to the roof and made a tactical retreat... .jpg) .jpg) Given that the flight units just fly back to space on their own, it’s not like 2B had to pilot the thing. What the hell, Pod? I thought we were friends. I knew something was screwy when Albert Wesker is voicing you. .jpg) .jpg) Our first order of business is probably to get a lay of the land here. We haven’t done a tremendous amount of platforming yet. 2B will automatically vault up any platforms she edges near while jumping around. So that’s nice. 9S’s AI tends to perhaps have some difficulties with that which are resolved by him just warping into existence behind 2B when the camera isn’t facing him (and sometimes even then.) But enough about that, welcome... New Music: Rays of Light (Quiet) .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) The City Ruins, the hub area of NieR: Automata. The original Nier was more of a post-post-apocalyptic setting. The world as we know it had long ended and a big reset button had been pressed on civilization. But despite that, new civilizations had risen up in the ruins of the world, with scraps of the old world being novelties whose purpose was long lost or dangerous ruins full of weird poo poo that everyone kept their distance from if they were smart. Plus magic and shadow monsters had permeated throughout the land. It was a neat setting that worked with the limitations of its budget, even if mechanically it was rather rough. NieR: Automata is just plain post-apocalyptic setting of the society collapsed and nature reclaimed the land variety, despite the endless war backdrop. It’s honestly one of the big things I think the first game did better. I mean, this game has some pretty locales and some cool stuff later on. But the bulk of it is like this and frankly... we’ve all seen post-apocalyptic human ruins before. Pretty sure I shot a bunch of mushroom zombies and hobos as an angry murder dad a few blocks from here not too long back. .jpg) Proposal: Proceed to target location..jpg) There’s a big red X on your map at all times leading you to the proper location. If you get lost, just look there and follow it! Don’t be a Justin McElroy. .jpg) Despite 6O’s claim that the resistance camp is pretty far away from where we touched down, it is actually like... two city blocks away. If you know where you’re going it’s maybe a 40 second dash. But besides our destination, you may notice a bunch of tinier red blips on the map. Just keep those in mind for now. .jpg) .jpg) Straight over thaddaway is the Resistance camp. Our first order of business should probably be finding a way off this derelict building’s rooftop. .jpg) There’s a few ways to get down from here. For instance, a nearby office building had part of its façade collapse onto its neighboring little brother, forming a convenient bridge within. .jpg) .jpg) We could take this downstairs. The stairwell is remarkably intact for 10000 year old ruins. Japan’s construction codes back in the day were no joke.  There’s also an open elevator shaft with a ladder worthy of Snake Eater drifting in that leads all the way from this building’s (currently blocked) roof down to ground level. But you know what...? That’s a real dull way to get off a roof...  So gently caress it! Let’s just jump off the top, much to 9S’s startled protest. Pod 042 isn’t just there for infinite ammo suppressing fire and digital laser blasts. 2B can also grab onto her Pod’s arm and use it to slow her descent off huge drops. What a helpful lad. You’d never even dream of Grimoire Weiss letting Papa Nier grab hold of one of his pages to drift down from anywhere, now would you? .jpg) On a note of jumping off buildings, 2B can also just drop like a rock off of here and be mostly fine. There’s even a freefalling animation when she hits terminal velocity and has officially gone “gently caress it!” and she’ll land with a knee-breaking super hero pose. There is fall damage in NieR: Automata. This drop takes about a fifth of 2B’s health. I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to die from fall damage. Even jumping from the highest point in the game will just take 2B to 1 HP. I’m sure Hard might outright kill you because it’s an unfun slog in every other regard, why stop? .jpg) Anyway, welcome to the Hyrule Field equivalent of Nier: Automata. We’ll be getting VERY well acquainted with this area. All roads either dead end past the City Ruins or eventually loop back around here. This region might get increasingly hostile as the game progresses. But for now it’s quite serene. In fact... .jpg) According to our intel, none of the machines in this area are hostile. We’ve been seeing more and more enemies like this lately. They just stand there and stare into space. It’s pretty weird.Yep. Not unlike the Northern Plains in the very early parts of the original NieR and its Shades, the machine lifeforms in the City Ruins are just chilling out enjoying a nice day in the sun. They’re not shut-in nerds like those dork androids in their Bunker. .jpg) That’s not to say they’ll remain non-combative if 2B decides to be a jerk. Indeed, all nearby machines will aggro if 2B takes out her aggression on some poor little dude just minding his own business. But hey, at least we’re not a dumb angry dad murdering children’s souls this time around. There’s no somewhat alarming used coloring book or old toy vendor trash drops from the machine lifeforms. .jpg) Continuing onward, there is a pa—wait... Hold up. We’ve got a new enemy. It’s not like any machine lifeform I’ve ever seen... Wait. It’s not a machine at all. Is that a...? Yeah... Yeah it is... .jpg) .jpg) MOOSE! There is some wildlife to NieR: Automata. Well, not really... there’s just the majestic tyranny of the moose. Something had to take over the ecological niche the sheep left after they went extinct. If you’re wondering, yes. We can eventually ride a moose and it owns. Your follow-up question to moose riding is no. We cannot drift a moose. That would be utterly ridiculous. Boars are also back and they’re still the Drift King, baby! .jpg) .jpg) The plural of moose is still just moose. Also, it's best not to mess with a moose. They are by far one of the most dangerous enemies in the game and if provoked, can destroy 2B far easier than a sentient oil rig could. We’ll be back to tame these mighty, nigh unstoppable steeds another time. We’ve got work to do! .jpg) .jpg) Past the wrecked overpass and down a back alley, just in front of a couple buildings with clearly shoddier building upkeep than the ones earlier, we come upon... .jpg) .jpg) A lovely little clearing with a gentle stream having reclaimed the abandoned field. This is the Resistance camp’s little corner of the world. We’ll be passing through this field roughly 800 times. So take in the sights. .jpg) .jpg) The Resistance camp’s entrance is denoted by the most half-assed barrier and a few ratty tarps tossed over them. Machine lifeforms cannot walk up steep hills. Everyone knows that. No need for anything more to guard the entrance to the camp. Speaking of which... New Music: Peaceful Sleep .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) Welcome to the Resistance Camp, what will be our actual base of operations for the duration of NieR: Automata. Gonna be honest... bit of a step down from Papa Nier and Yonah’s village. .jpg) We should probably go talk to their leader first thing. .jpg) .jpg) That’s some pretty solid advice from 9S. We can attempt to chat up the Resistance members loitering about. But most of them wonder who the hell we are, why are we dressed like such assholes and that we should probably talk to Anemone, the camp leader. .jpg) I’m going to hazard a guess she’s the one with the big red arrow over her head. I like to think she sees 2B just glaring at assorted soldiers and just rolls her eyes and toggles the red arrow on to get 2B’s attention. I’d definitely passive-aggressively do that to clueless dipshits if everyone had AR vision.   Number Two... Hmm? You know about 2B? Um... Yes, well, the Bunker told me to expect you. My name is Anemone. I’m the leader of the android Resistance that controls most of this territory. You must be the new scouts we heard about. Well, I’m sure my people will have plenty of information for you. Please, feel free to ask them anything you like.Right then. Mission accomplished. Contact established with the Resistance. Tune in next time when we get acquainted with the Resistance, go over the finer points of some gameplay mechanics, get a NieR: Automata version of that side quest flowchart and maybe even start checking out some Weapon Histories. Should be fun!  Video: Episode 8 Highlight Reel  City Ruins Concept Art – The moose’s domain. The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 23:14 on Apr 8, 2017 |
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Apr 8, 2017 18:35
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Moose are dangerous as hell if provoked for a few reasons:
The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Apr 9, 2017 |
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Apr 8, 2017 23:12
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Episode IX: Learning the Ropes New Music: Peaceful Sleep (Vocal) (You should listen to this. The vocals only come in once we finish speaking to Anemone.) .jpg) Also, there’s this girl near the entrance wearing the head of a machine lifeform... She’s a bit of an odd-ball, but she’s really smart, so I’m sure she’s got lots of useful information for you. .jpg) Yeah, yeah... We’ll get right on top of that, Ranunculaceae Flower. What’s going on with your desk here? Let’s see... vague landmass maps. Can’t quite make those out... Machine lifeform concept art... smart. Hammer, wrench, technical documents, bulky future tablets. And oh... it’s good to see AK variants have survived 10,000 years into the future and are still in use. .jpg) As Anemone suggested, we ought to go speak with a few key NPCs in the Resistance Camp. Indeed, we cannot hit the next plot beat until we do so. However, there’s something far more pressing just to the left of Anemone’s work station... .jpg) ...Jukebox jams. .jpg) Ska is prohibited. I could tell you were a connoisseur just by looking at you! Here, have this. This is what people used to call a “jukebox,” a machine that plays music. You can play any song you like on it, as long as you have the necessary records. It’s yours to use! .jpg) .jpg) The music enthusiast android forks over the first of five Sound Data files. This allows us to listen to tunes in the Jukebox here. It’s just the tracks from the prologue mission up to exactly this point. The Jukebox is actually fairly robust with what it will play. You can pick from a track, which variation of it there is (Quiet, Upbeat, Battle, etc.) and whether or not to play the vocal layer if applicable. .jpg) 2B can also take a seat on a nearby bench if she wants to chill out for a bit. The war against the machines has been going for longer than recorded human history at this point. It can wait a few more minutes. .jpg) But, alas... We must get back on track. Red arrows herald new legs of this quest to get acquainted with the locals. Let’s start with the Weapon Trader. .jpg)  I deal in weapons, if you’re interested in that type of thing. What kind of weapons? Basically, I rebuild and repair relics from the old world. Although to be honest, my tools are in pretty sad shape at the moment. But if I can get the servicing device in that toolbox up and running, I could start fixing and selling weapons again. Take a look at it, will you? *examines toolbox* That looks busted, all right. Guess what this mission really is about? If you guessed “sidequest tutorial” then ding-ding-ding! We have a winner... .jpg) <Help him out> You mean it? That’d be a huge help! Looks like the servicing device shorted out. Must have put too much load on it. I’m thinking four complex gadgets will be enough to fix it. Any idea where I’d find complex gadgets? Folks say you can find ‘em over in the city ruins—although I also hear the place is crawling with incredibly aggressive machines. .jpg) And so we have our very first of many sidequests in NieR: Automata. If we want to get the Resistance Camp’s weapon merchant up and running, we need to go harvest four “Complex Gadgets” from the gritty noir reboot of Inspector Gadget. Or at least, a few blocks away in the City Ruins. .jpg) Any active sidequests are kept track of in the Quests tab of our menu screen alongside a handy blurb reminding us who gave us the quest and why. These first couple of sidequests are all but mandatory given how easy they are to complete and the benefits they unlock. But for reasons I’ll get to shortly, we’re going to be shelving most sidequests early on until a more appropriate time. .jpg) While we’re browsing the menu screen again, how about we have a little bit of fun. Since we are dealing with the weapons trader, I reckon we ought to get to business with an old tradition with this series. Let’s take a closer look at our weapons... or should I say weapon. .jpg) 2B only has her default small sword, Virtuous Contract. Virtuous Treaty, her accompanying large sword in the prologue, was lost when 2B blew herself up. Don’t worry, we’ll get it again later. Weapon upgrading is back once more, like the rest of the Drakenier series. It’s still four levels of upgrade to max. This time around, weapons gain special attributes alongside their stat (and combo) increase. For instance, Virtuous Contract gains an Attack Speed increase while equipped and upgraded to Level 2 onward. At max level, weapons receive a secondary special attribute. Some of which are unique to the weapon. In this one’s case, it gains Holy Blessing which will increase 2B’s attack power if she’s at max HP. Not bad... Honestly, this sword can carry 2B through the game. It’s quite good for a default weapon. .jpg) But the real reason we want to upgrade our assorted weapons is Weapon Histories. If you’ve never played any of the previous games in this series, every weapon in the game has a short story to go along with them. The range from silly little tales, to gruesome crude edgy messes, to the most metal poo poo around. Lemme tell you about the time a guy hacked off his own leg, carved a dagger out of his bones, and shanked a guy. NieR: Automata is no different with its weapon histories. And BOY have they gotten the most brutal they’ve been since the original Drakengard. So that’ll be a treat to look forward to. Additionally, all weapons now have a little mural to go along with their weapon stories. Some are completely unique to a particular weapon. This one is not... But its story is. Let’s take a look... .jpg) How long can I fight amidst this bloody vortex of a battlefield? How long, I wonder? How long can I continue to protect what I love amidst this endless war? How long, I wonder? How long can I continue to believe in a world laden with deceit and folly? How long, I wonder? How long can I lie to myself as I despair at the dark future of this world? How long, I wonder? .jpg) But please, tell us how you really feel, 2B... I’ll be providing the full weapon stories as soon as we obtain a new weapon. Otherwise it’s just going to be a giant infodump of 30 weapon tales at once because hell if I’m upgrading more than one or two weapons to max until necessary. On that note, NieR: Automata does break from tradition. Unlike Drakengard 1, 3 and NIER, the final ending is NOT gated behind collecting all the weapons in the game. The story can fully be completed by just running around with 2B’s default sword and her fists, if you wanted. On the other hand... there is post-game story content that IS gated around collecting all weapons... And upgrading every single one to max level... So... frick! At least it’s not replaying the entirety of Drakengard 2 two more times for just a single ending each. That LP was a mistake... But what’s not a mistake is moving on to the other merchant in the area! .jpg) You some kind of supply trader for the Resistance? You know it. Every item here is hand-crafted from abandoned parts and stuff plundered from enemy corpses. So then! To business. What can I get you? .jpg) The Supply Trader possesses much of the same goods as the Bunker’s terminals. However, there are a couple new key items. The most important of which is the Sachet. This is caked in presumably moose urine and will prevent beasts from immediately fleeing from 2B when she's in their vicinity. That doesn’t mean they won’t get hostile and attack her. They just won’t be as instantly squirrelly. I’m going to go ahead and purchase that since it’s a permanent upgrade. Animal Bait can be used in tandem with a Sachet in order to secure an animal to ride. The bait has to be tossed down and the moose has to start chowing on it before it becomes docile and allows 2B to hop onboard. This is all a lot easier method than having to battle a Doom Boar by hanging out on a rock for ten minutes lobbing magic during a side quest. Amazing what technological feats 10,000 years will bring. .jpg) You mean those little doo-dads that serve as power-ups for your body? ‘Fraid not. I’d love to sell plug-in chips, but I don’t have the necessary raw materials. Now, if I happened to GET those raw materials, I bet we could do business. But until then... Say! Now there’s an idea: what if YOU got the materials for me? I’ve got this bum leg, see? Can’t really get around myself. Can’t you just repair your own leg? You work in the supply trade, after all. If only! Unfortunately, all of our parts are dedicated to the war effort. Can’t spare any for myself. Personally, I’m hoping you wipe out those machines so I can start dancing again. But until then, will you look for what I need? All right. Aw, thanks a million! Okay, so I need one broken spring, one small gear, and one broken circuit. You can smash up a few small machines to find ‘em. You can obtain them from enemies at the big open area towards the left when you exit the camp. .jpg) .jpg) And now we have our second (not actually optional) sidequest. A small gear and a broken key and circuit. You think he’d refuse a fully intact key? What about a pristine circuit? Course not. Those are separate drops, idiot. .jpg) One big improvement over the original NieR, at least for these kinds of sidequests, is that the location we need to go farm materials is marked on the map. And the quest spawns enemies at that location with a guaranteed drop of everything we need. Just gotta go there and beat the materials out of the trash can robot piñatas holding ‘em. It’s certainly better than “I dunno, go grind the Junk Heap for two hours” of days of yore. .jpg) The third on the list of NPCs we’ve been sent to chat up is this oddball who had a Machine Lifeform Helm drop and DAMMIT, she’s gonna wear it! What’s your deal, lady? .jpg)  Hmm? My mask? It’s an electromagnetic-wave shielding device. I wear it to limit unnecessary information from the world. ...Ha! Just kidding..jpg) Strange Resistance Woman doesn’t give the first poo poo about your 4th wall and is here to explain some business bluntly. Let’s just go down the line seeing what she has to say. We were directed to do so, after all. > How do I save? .jpg) First of all, remember that this game doesn’t auto-save. Once you activate a terminal, you can save from anywhere nearby so long as you’re within range. When there’s a connection icon displayed on the top right of your screen, you can go to the System Menu and quick save. You can use the access point here to return to that orbiting space station thingy of yours. The other access points are still undergoing maintenance, but you should be able to use them for transport soon. But—and I can’t repeat this enough—don’t forget that there’s no auto-save! Connectivity is limited to certain areas, but you should be able to save in more locations by activating access points. Oh, and let me say it again... There’s no auto-save!They say if you forget to auto-save, lose a significant portion of progress and bitch about it on the internet, Strange Resistance Woman will come to your house and cave your head in with a brick. Nobody knows what the brick has to do with auto-saving. But you’ve been warned. > What’s an access point? An access point is a piece of YoRHa equipment. More specifically, it’s that thing. You can save and check your mail there. They’re all disguised as wrecked vending machines outside the camp. They have a couple other functions, but I guess you’ll learn about that when you use ‘em. Sometimes enemies will attack terminals. In those cases, you won’t be able to use them again until you get rid of the enemies. Yeah... so most of the save points are derelict vending machines. We’ll go hunt them down at a later date. > What should I do if I die? .jpg) After a YoRHa body is destroyed, only its memory data is transferred to the new body. That means items aren’t transferred—so if you die, you need to recover plug-in chips from your previous body. If you die again before recovering your plug-in chips, they’ll all be lost, so take care. Basically, you need to recover everything from your previous body immediately. Here’s a taste of the single worst design decision in the game. You know Dark Souls? You know the whole body retrieval mechanic from that game? They kinda went for that in NieR: Automata just... in the shittiest way possible. Imagine if you died in Dark Souls, instead of losing all your souls/currency, an entirely disposable resource, you lost all of your armor you were wearing. And when you respawned you were a naked beef jerky man and had to do a corpse run to retrieve it. And if you died whoops! That armor is gone forever! That’s sort of what this game does and it’s terrible. There are more functions to the whole corpse system. But we’ll cross that bridge another time. > Where should I go now?  You’ll be fine so long as you follow the red marker. Yeah, Justin... > I feel motion sick... If you have any system-related questions, ask Maintenance. They handle everything from body maintenance to Pod adjustments. > This game is too difficult! You can change the game difficulty at any time on the System Menu. In Easy mode, enemies are weaker and you can use special auto chips. Equip them and LT/L2 will activate automatically and evades. Normal mode is a standard level of difficulty. The enemy gets stronger in Hard mode and you can’t use any lock-on features. In Very Hard mode, not only is lock-on disabled, but the enemies are... Well, they’re kind of insane. It’s almost stupid difficult, but more daring players seem to like it. And hey, just between you and me, if you go to “Intel” and select “Tutorials,” you may find out some things you didn’t know. May be worth checking out if you’re ever bored out of your skull!.jpg) I’m good. Thanks for your time, weird tutorial lady. We may come back later in the game to speak to this woman. She has a very special function late game. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) As the Strange Woman mentioned, we’ve got to manually activate these terminals to save our game in the area and also get a more detailed overworld map. It’s possible to teleport back to the Bunker from JUST this terminal, early in the game. Fast travel will eventually unlock between all save points. We... do need to burn through about the first third of the main plot to get to that point. Imagine I’m making direct eye-contact right now. Listen to my words: DO NOT DO ANY SIDEQUESTS UNTIL YOU UNLOCK FAST TRAVEL! THERE IS A MAIN QUEST THAT TASKS YOU TO INVESTIGATE A VERY LARGE HOLE! MAINLINE THE PLOT UNTIL YOU GET TO THAT QUEST! Trust me on this one. You can thank me later. .jpg) Data may be displayed from the system menu. Map data, huh? It’s hard to get an accurate picture from this—our satellite resolution isn’t so hot. Hopefully they deploy some new satellites soon. A general idea is good enough. Heh. You don’t let anything get in your way, do you?So those were the three NPCs we are directed to chat with here. In order to progress, we do have to go complete those sidequests first. But we’ll get to that in due time. .jpg) There’s not much of note going on with the androids around the camp. Some are stoked YoRHa is here since they’re badasses. A few give some general directions and whatnot. .jpg) It’s worth mentioning that yep... the planet is still kinda broken. There’s still no day-night cycle. At best it’ll be something approaching twilight. The sun still isn’t up there either. There’s a really bright point in the sky but there ain’t any glowing orb behind it. And there’s still no rain or any weather more threatening than somewhat overcast cloud cover. These were all elements from the original game that were all due to magic having REALLY hosed up this planet .jpg) Strangely, this tour of the camp omits what is probably the single most important merchant in the game. So let’s take one more mercantile pit stop. .jpg)  This is the Maintenance Shop. I service and consult on all types of android bodies. .jpg) This is the maintenance shop. This merchant is solely responsible for a LOAD of upgrades. That item trader? There’s like a half dozen of him. Weapon shop guy? Two other bozos can do his job. NOBODY has the same function as this merchant. Which makes it really weird she’s not even pointed out as someone worth chatting with during this whirlwind tour of the camp. .jpg) Much like the Strange Woman, MSO has a variety of topics she’ll illuminate us on. Let’s just be thorough and get it all out of the way in one update, eh? > Android Bodies Android bodies are just that: bodies that belong to YoRHa androids. There are two way to enhance them: experience points or plug-in chips. Everyone knows what experience points are, so I’m not going to waste your time with a long-winded explanation. Plug-in chips are items that enhance bodies. They have various functions. However, we recognize that the process can be a tad confusing, and we don’t want you rage-quitting over it. So, I can actually recommend a chip setup based on what you’re carrying right now. Wanna give it a try.No, we’re good. Since we don’t have any chips. Also, it’s really not recommended to let the game auto-equip chips. They tend to stick on stupid poo poo you cannot even use yet. > Upgrading Pods Pods are tactical support units provided to YoRHa. There are two ways to upgrade them. The first is to take them to a maintenance shop like this one right here. It’ll cost money and materials, but you’ll end up with a stronger Pod. The second way is to equip them with new Pod Programs. There are various types of Pod Programs, and they do everything from firing attack lasers to jamming enemy movements. I’ve got a couple on sale here if you’re interested.Ugh... The former option here... > Acquiring Additional Pods You can equip multiple Pods at the same time, but they’re pretty rare, so we don’t ever get them in stock here at the shop. If you manage to find another Pod or two, however, it’ll make your life a lot easier! I sometimes hear about Pods lying around in the desert or being dropped in the sea...Hey. Here’s a hint: There’s two additional pods we can get. They’re in the desert and by the sea. Spoiler: There’s an area in the desert and one by the sea. They are, in fact, there. > Weapons The latest YoRHa models can equip weapons from the Weapons tab in the System Menu. You can equip two different sets with two weapons each, so try a few combinations to see what works for you. > Motion Sickness Yikes! Well, before you barf everywhere... Try going to System > Settings > Camera and changing its behavior.Yeah, go turn both axis to inverted like history’s greatest monster. That’ll make the sickness go away. .jpg) That was a lot of jabbering. As I mentioned, this merchant has a lot of unique functions that only she will perform. For instance... .jpg) This is where we purchase like... half of the Pod Programs available in the game. We’re not going to buy any of ‘em anytime soon because, well, they’re not very good. Most of the Pod Programs are analogs to abilities from the original NIER. For instance, Mirage above is just straight up Dark Phantasm from the first game. A big sphere grows when activated and anyone within gets owned by a R030: Hammer – Summons a mass of energy that unleashed a devastating blow upon its target. (It’s Dark Fist. Instead of a giant rad fist it’s a big digital hammer. It’s way too drat slow to be worth a drat.) R040: Blade – Spins a Pod around the player at high speed, wreaking havoc on any enemies it touches. (Dark Whirlwind. It’s yellow now. It’s effective but boring.) R050: Spear – Produces a mass of energy that spouts from the ground in the shape of deadly spears. (Copy and pasted Dark Execution. Kind of random. I never used it.) A060: P Shield – Deploys a protective barrier that blocks melee attacks. (You have a ridiculously OP dodge ability. Why are you face tanking attacks?) R070: M Shield – Deploys a protective barrier that blocks projectile attacks. (Same but magic orbs. This one at least blocks the dark purple ones.) .jpg) Really, like one of those attacks is worth a drat (It’s Dark Mirage.) But enough of that. The actual extremely important function of this character is expanding the total chips slot for 2B. The importance of this will make a lot more sense when we look at chips in a minute. .jpg) This merchant is also the only place to upgrade our Pod (and any future Pods.) You see this? You see this screen right here? Those materials on the left. This is the single biggest grind in the entire game. Getting all the weapons to fully upgraded? Not a big deal. Late game merchants sell literally every upgrade material necessary. It just costs a fortune. But Pod upgrade components? poo poo outta luck there, buddy. It is all non-guaranteed harvest points and random drops for more than one of the most necessary components. Pure Water is this game’s Eagle Eggs. To put it in perspective, by the time I hit all of the story endings I had upgraded one of the three Pods exactly once. And that was while doing all but maybe ten side quests. By the time I had done all side quests? Still only one. The time I upgraded every single weapon to max? You know it, baby. Just one! Upgrading all Pods to max was the second to last achievement I accomplished in this. It sucks! And the upgrades? Next to worthless. A Level 2 Pod gets a charge shot and does like 3% more damage with its shots. Whoopee... .jpg) Fusing we cannot do right now because we have no chips. We’ll come back to that one. It’s probably the most poorly explained mechanic due to the fact it straight up does not have a tutorial. .jpg) If you obtain any new chips or programs, make sure to try them out!.jpg) Let’s save our game real quick and take a brief look at the Plug-in Chip system. Chips are plug and play abilities that will buff 2B or add special abilities. These range from attack boosts to increased item drops to shooting sonic booms when you do physical attacks and all manner of junk in-between. Getting a handle on the Plug-in Chips is the easiest way to break this game over your knee. We can make three different chip loadouts that can be swapped in the menu. For instance, if we wanted a special set-up that was all speed boosts for say, theoretically a really poo poo race side quest against a total fucker... We could make that our Set Type C loadout so as not to interfere with our main rolling around set-up. .jpg) The chips themselves are divided into different categories. They’re all fairly self-explanatory. Support is usually the more unique of abilities. Chips themselves take a certain number of slots. Right now 2B only has 40 slots to work with and 20 are already occupied by HUD functions. That’s why expanding the number of total slots is one of the best early game upgrades available. Chips will take up more storage space the stronger they get. A single chip could take up to 28 slots, so it adds up quick early on. .jpg) Right now the only chips we have equipped are all HUD functions. It’s entirely possible to rip most all of these out to gain more Plug-in Chip space. Don’t want a mini-map? Already memorized where save points are? No need for numbers to pop out of enemies on damaging them (you hosed up joyless poo poo)? Rip ‘em out, even if the space REALLY isn’t going to make that much of a difference. But in a pinch, disabling a bit of the HUD to squeeze in a tiny bit more performance is always an option. .jpg) This is only ONE chip that absolutely should never be removed. That’s the one containing 2B’s Operating System. As it turns out that’s kind of important for an android to have installed. It says right there... Removal means death. .jpg) Like I said, you SHOULD never remove this chip. That doesn’t mean they’re going to stop you in any way. So... We’re gonna be curious, huh? Wanna see what happens? Tch... Alright. .jpg) .jpg) You immediately die, just like it said you would! You stupid idiot! 9S is, as we speak, freaking the gently caress out because 2B just stuck her hand into the back of her head, pulled out her brain, and flopped over dead. I hope you’re happy... The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Apr 10, 2017 |
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Apr 10, 2017 02:53
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Bholder posted:Eh More power to you if you wasting time unnecessarily for zero reason. Mazerunner posted:Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there another person who sells the same stuff? up in the bunker, in the terminal section Although, not really a spoiler since we were pointed in his direction last update, just didn't actually go visit. I forgot that one. Mostly because I've played this game 70+ hours. That technician was only ever in the Bunker while I was around a grand total of twice. She may as well not exist. Alavaria posted:So... I take it this game has delightful gently caress-yous to people trying to be completionists. The final joke ending you can possibly unlock is the only thing in the game that's 100% possible to miss forever. bman in 2288 posted:Still following along with this despite not having the game. Have a question: Unless otherwise noted, everyone we meet that looks vaguely humanoid is an android. The Resistance are all leftovers from previous Machine War descents. YoRHa androids have only been around for a decade or so, tops. Most of the Resistance has been stuck on planetside for at least a century or more. Iretep posted:I thought the corpse system was kind of dumb at first but then i realised that the game doesent auto save. Which means that as long as you can get your corpse back you dont lose any progress. If you lose your corpse youll just have to reload from your last manual save. Its technically a pretty forgiving system as long as your corpse doesent get stuck in a place where you cant get it safely. Which there arent many. It's fundamentally lovely mostly because you respawn at the last save point so... you might as well just reload the last save instead of doing a de-powered corpse run. The only time it'd likely come up is if you're playing on Hard and that already has enough bullshit without a half-baked Dark Souls online mechanic. There's also the other half of it which is... Sindai posted:I wondered what was up with Pure Water. When I finished the game I had like 2 and never got to upgrade a pod once. Pure Water only spawns in the tiniest area of the game. One which is PRETTY clearly unfinished one considering it gets a title card, has a decent amount of concept art and is... a minute long in-game. Nobody went back and thought to sell that poo poo somewhere.
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Apr 10, 2017 05:43
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Oh yeah, someone asked me why there's no video for the last update. Most of the town/sidequest initiation dialogue that isn't main plot related is all text only. The only voiced line that entire update was three line exchange 9S and 2B had about the map terminal activation. So that's why! Ditto with everything in the Bunker talking to NPCs.
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Apr 10, 2017 23:47
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I'm busy the early part of this week. But I'll leave you all with a powerful secret technique to mull over in the mean time. Rub the touch pad on PS4 or shake the mouse while in neutral stance on PC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTeExtkRhzA
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Apr 11, 2017 03:19
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Hey. Idiots. Stop talking about poo poo I haven't gotten to yet or I'm locking the thread. There's a main Games thread if you want to talk about literally anything past where the LP is. Go there. The last like dozen posts are loving this up. Sheesh. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3773002 The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Apr 11, 2017 |
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Apr 11, 2017 15:28
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Cool it!
The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 00:37 on Apr 12, 2017 |
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Apr 11, 2017 20:46
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Alright. Let's just simmer it. I'm not actually mad at anyone for jumping ahead of the LP. I'm just putting the kibosh on that early because this ain't my first rodeo and this can go REAL wrong. There's no need to yell at anyone if they're not certain and are overzealous about junk. If it's not something that's been in the LP yet, just keep it to yourself. I don't care about talking about the finer points of the combat system. We've touched on that. But I ain't said dick about fishing so maybe don't go there yet. Just take anything ahead of the LP to the Games thread. I'd appreciate that. There's a whole lot of this game left. Let's pace ourselves and try to get along here. It's literally like 90 minutes into the game... Anyway, there will be another update later tonight. Also, I've been doing a weekly Twin Peaks watching stream with some folks who'd never seen it Tuesdays at 10:00 PM EDT if that's your kinda thing. It's in the middle of the poo poo part of Season 2 and I've had a bad day and will be drinking. But you're free to stop by for that over here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/2a7ywrawYVH
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Apr 12, 2017 00:38
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bman in 2288 posted:What episode are you guys on? Important if I need to start binging to catch up. Tonight is Episode 12-14 of Season 2. Also the update will be late tonight because I drank a bunch and finished Mob Psycho 100 with a friend. Fedule posted:One of the really cool things about this game that isn't so apparent in this format is how completely Platinum have managed to apply their dynamic music schtick they've been toying with since Revengeance. That game only really employed it for boss fights - extremely loving well, but in limited scope all the same. NieR: Automata has it basically everywhere. It doesn't seem to transition between "verses" like Revengeance did, but hub areas have like five or six different tracks that fade in and out as you wander around. They've done an excellent job of matching the tracks to the atmospheres of the areas they play in (or don't), and pretty much any given area has at least one dynamic track. The official soundtrack (don't search it, thar be spoilers) does an admirable job of presenting all of this as a bunch of mixes you can listen to, but we're rapidly reaching the point where many game OSTs require a mixing deck to properly appreciate. The original Nier also did a poo poo load of layering music tracks dynamically and it was really good. It's bizarre how much Platinum and the remnants of Cavia meshed extremely well in a lot of ways. Also YEAH, don't look up the game's OST if you don't want spoilers. Also for the love of god, don't look up the trophies/achievements. Or Steam Cards. They're all full of spoilers to a ridiculous extent. The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Apr 12, 2017 |
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Apr 12, 2017 02:15
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Episode X: Fishing Lore.jpg) 2B #5. Good to have you with us! 2B #4 was a real idiot. Pulled out her own OS brain chip in the middle of the Resistance Camp yard. Just crumpled in a dead heap like a ragdoll. 9S is still kinda freaked out about that one. So just play it cool talking to him... .jpg) Speaking of talking to 9S, we can speak with him at any time to alter his combat behavior. At no point is anything besides Balanced necessary and some are downright detrimental. Balanced – 9S will jump in messing up dudes as soon as 2B initiates combat. He’ll use all tools at his disposal appropriate to his range. Close-range – 9S will only use melee attacks on all enemies. Or more likely, run around like an idiot chasing enemies or futilely trying to swipe at flying enemies bunny hopping around like a moron. Long-range – 9S will run away and dump with his Pod on whatever enemy 2B is targeting. This actually isn’t too bad. But he’ll do that when appropriate on Balanced so... Aggressive – 9S has NO chill and will immediately shoot at and draw aggro of everything in the tristate region even if they aren’t paying the first bit of attention to the androids. Works like Balanced otherwise. Real dumb except in a few specific instances (read: escort mission.) Cautious – 9S will hang back and only engage with an enemy after 2B has already been wailing on for a while. Full Tails sidekick mode. Passive – 9S is taking a YoRHa union mandated break and ain’t doing dick unless something attacks him. In which case he’s just going to fall back to light up another smoke and loiter about. We’ll be keeping this Balanced unless otherwise noted. But enough about that. Let’s head out into the field and get crackin’ with those sidequests. .jpg) Now that we’re out in the field, we’re reminded that we should probably check into those access terminals while we’re out in the field if we want more than the one save point. We’ll get right on that, overbearing tutorial prompt. New Music: Rays of Light (Medium) (There’s like a half dozen variants of this track and they’re all increasingly good.) .jpg) Oh yeah. It was quite the city, 9S. You should have seen it at its height. Massive skyscrapers dotting the land, tall towers with dragons impaled on them, the whole thing covered in magic salt. It was a real spectacle! 2B’s radio beeps and 6O pops into frame. .jpg) This is 2B. Nothing to report. Good to hear. Say, how’s the weather on Earth today? Good? It’s fine. Does that question have anything to do with our operation? Not really! I just figured it might feel nice to have some good weather. Feeling nice has no bearing on completing missions. Hee hee! That is SO like you, 2B. Anyway, talk to you later!Yeah, yeah. That’s real nice, 6O. But there’s a more pressing matter...  HOLD B: START FISHING .jpg) Yes, fishing has returned in NieR: Automata. Kinda... Personally, knowledge of that before the game’s release might have made my skin crawl. That goddamn trolling fisherman and his dozen sidequests... I’m glad he’s dead... But I digress. Fishing is back in the sequel but it is entirely a non-factor. There are no sidequests involving fishing. No main plot quests either. Indeed, there is zero prompt or reason to ever engage with fishing in this game and seeing it completion. There’s just one achievement/trophy tied to it but it’s not too much trouble. .jpg) .jpg) Mostly because the fishing mini-game has been boiled down to basically nothing. If there is a body of water at least ankle deep, 2B can start fishing in it by holding B/O. This extremely shallow stream is perfectly within acceptable fishing parameters. Fishing is now performed by summoning a hologram chair to chill out on, having 2B point in a direction in the water and Pod 042 hurling itself to that position to commence its fishing runtime program. .jpg) The actual details of fishing are as follows: the Pod will float in the water. If he suddenly bobs underwater, we’ve got to press A/X. .jpg) Pod 042 will then proceed to catch the fish. Or... whatever the hell this is... But, that’s it! That’s all there is to fishing. Hang out, enjoy the music, press the action button when the Pod moves. Done. No mashing the button to reel the fish in or positioning 2B’s body the appropriate direction. No chatty books scarin’ ‘em away. No upgrading poles or lures or whatever the hell it was, I’ve blocked all of that from my memory and drank away the parts I couldn’t. No advanced level docks next to amateur docks to trip up dumbass game reviewers. That’s it! That’s all there is to fishing! Is that extremely simple and barely a mini-game? Yep! Do I care? gently caress no. Fishing was MISERABLE in the original game. And if we’re being real, just about ANY game fishing is usually mediocre to actively bad. No, this is not an invitation to list counter arguments of supposedly good fishing mini-games. You’re broken in the brain and in denial just like those idiots who thought Blitzball was a good mini-game. .jpg) Catching our first fish (yes it was a fish and I caught two seemingly but not actually identical versions of it) will unlock the Fishing Encyclopedia in the Intel Menu. The achievement for fishing requires 20 different fish to be caught. FISH to be caught. It’s also possible to catch assorted trash during fishing as well. But that’s another story... Now while fish don’t have any sidequest benefit and are entirely an optional part of the game. They DO occasionally have a mess of world building fluff. .jpg) For instance, the notion that androids considered weaponizing tiny fish to screw up machine lifeform circuitry but were shot down by Android PETA lobbyists. .jpg) Also, that the machine lifeforms are not just limited to trashcan bots and assorted giant cybernetic monstrosities. They’d also been screwing up the environment by introducing robotic fish into Earth’s ecosystem. .jpg) Yes, there’s machine fish out there and they do count in the 20 for the achievement. And BOY is there a lot of lore dumping on some of ‘em... .jpg) The third Finding Nemo film will be entirely about coping with the cyber-fish invasion and will be a gritty war drama which eventually leads to the Cars universe in which mankind has fled to the moon and only sentient machines reign. I’ve got this whole 90 minute YouTube video you can consult for this theory and more. .jpg) There is one final functionality to caught fish: they’re all vendor trash and the best source of income early in the game. Zone out, put on a podcast, go fishing for an hour and you’ll never want for funds for the entirety of the first playthrough of the game. .jpg) But enough about that, let’s get down to business. Our first sidequest takes us back to the open field we first encountered when arriving in the city ruins. All we have to do is bust up a trio of machine lifeforms rolling around -- two small boys and a single bigun’. We could just run over there and smash ‘em. But... .jpg) Fuckin’ bushes! .jpg) But... we did buy that Satchel soaked in moose mess or however it functions. Moose will no longer take off running immediately. They can still randomly decide they’re into androids and gore 2B. That’s where the second step comes in... .jpg) .jpg) Let’s just toss down some tasty animal... cubes... for our moose friend and let one of them chow down. And just like that, as soon as it starts feasting on some cubes, it is now fully tamed! .jpg) Subjugation Complete. We are now the Moose Master. It’s time to retake earth. .jpg) Did you know moose have MAD ups? It’s true. A moose has a ten foot vertical leap. Under the tutelage of the wise androids, a moose can reach its full potential and easily bound atop a speeding bus if it so desired.  But the thing we really want a moose for is its charge which, at all points in the game, will be an extremely powerful technique that will one-shot most smaller enemies and do considerable damage to larger boys with basically no penalties because NOTHING stops a moose’s charge other than releasing the charge button or casting it down a deep enough chasm to kill it. Remember, beasts such as moose are the only enemy that levels up alongside our player character. They’re always deadly when available. .jpg) After our brutal moose based assassinations, all we have to do is run around and scoop up the remains for the Supply Trader’s Request. They’re all guaranteed drops. As stated early, sidequests are thankfully not at the whims of RNG. Just upgrading junk if you’re a masochist. And even with sidequests involving material collections, it’s not mandatory to go kill these particular enemies. If 2B has scooped up the necessary junk (since all that junk is already common drops for enemies in the area) she can just instantly turn it all in. Which I appreciate. .jpg) Man, these chores are a real pain in the butt, huh? The Resistance is a valuable ally to YoRHa. By helping them, we also help ourselves. So no, I don’t think they’re a pain. Yeah, yeah....jpg) Remember how the Strange Resistance Woman mentioned save terminals were disguised as old vending machines? Well, either these machines have a bag of Doritos jammed up in there and have lost their collective poo poo. Or more likely, this is one of those aforementioned terminals. .jpg) .jpg) We’ve just got to clear out those machines and we’re left with a really ratty looking rusted vending machine with a single bag of 10,000 year old Doritos, a couple things of sour cream and onion chips, and probably like... mediocre no-name brand cookies in the blue bag. .jpg) .jpg) The actual purpose of activating these terminals is to basically expand our .jpg) .jpg) There’s another terminal a few blocks ahead we can grab while touring the area to expand coverage further. There’s yet another one at the edge of the city we’ll get another time. Really, other than a dead zone hole in the central part of the city and near the transition zones to other areas (which all have a save terminal just as you enter the area) we’ve got fairly comprehensive coverage when traveling through the central hub of the game. Which makes the “aww shucks I forgot to save ever and lost progress” whining ring even more hollow than usual because we’ll be passing through this area literally a hundred times by the game’s end. You’re just a negligent dumbass if that happens. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) The second side quest in this area takes us back past the Resistance Camp, following the stream down the ruined street until we reach a rather large tree leading into an open, somewhat less damp field. New Music: Rays of Light (Battle) .jpg) This is the place that weapons trader was talking about... Uh oh. I’m picking up hostile machine lifeforms. .jpg) Unlike the earlier encounter when we had the noble moose’s aid, the bots here are a wee bit more fearsome and are ready to rumble with sick cyber-battle axes. I feel like the giant gently caress-off axe is an underutilized armament in rumbles. .jpg) .jpg) Axe Bots attack exactly how you’d expect. It’s all giant overhead lunging swings and wide sweeps with big wind-ups. So much as the slightest thought of hitting evade will cause 2B to effortlessly dodge any of these hits. But they can do a decent amount of damage if such measures fail. .jpg) These fellows, being Level 6 as opposed to the 1-3 we’d been facing, are stouter stuff than earlier enemies. But offensive tactics haven’t changed a lot. Pod laser blasts still sends machine lifeforms rocketing on their rear end, regardless of battle axe. .jpg) One nice thing about 9S’s AI is he will actually draw aggro with his attacks rather than be just a minor nuisance the AI ignores. There were AI partners in the original NIER and they may as well have not existed for as little notice any of the Shades took of them usually. The ally AI is just good enough in this so you’ll notice they are, in fact, contributing to battles a bit without outright stealing kills. It’s decent stuff! .jpg) .jpg) There are three axe wielding machine lifeforms in all. Though none of them drop the desired materials for this sidequest. When given “yo I need 5 sheep pelts” type quests, the game will either spawn enemies with guaranteed drops for what we need or spawn guaranteed drops guarded by hostile machines. The latter is just slightly more irritating because it means circling the target area finding the spawn points. .jpg) Earlier I mentioned the body collection mechanic. I’ll show it off on our side later when there’s enemies worthy of 2B potentially taking a dirt nap against. But here’s the side we’ll mostly be seeing: other player’s corpses. Someone named “Forteces” died here during this side quest and here’s what’s left of their version of 2B. We can interact with their corpse here and there’s a couple options available. .jpg) If we click on the corpse, we’re given a couple options along with the android’s death epitaph. Death messages are something we can customize. I’ll need to show that off later. It is a... robust list of permutations. Honestly, I think this might be a default one. Lazy jerk. Death message aside, we have two options: Retrieve and Repair. There’s actually a third option only on PS4 and I have no idea why it’s disabled on PC “Pray”. The options do the following: Retrieve – 2B temporarily gains 3 random effects based on the chips the player had equipped when they died. Plus more or less a full heal and a small handful of money. It’s a minute or so long buff. It’s PROBABLY what you’re going to be doing most of the time with player corpses since you can get some REALLY GOOD, well above your pay grade level buffs out of them. Repair – The dead player’s corpse is converted into a ghoulish revenant AI partner that will assist in battle for a few minutes using whatever weapon the player died with. This can be fairly useful if combat is certain (the AI is really bad at following 2B across long distances and doesn’t teleport like 9S will.) Pray (PS4 Only) – The other player will receive free healing and a random item next time they retrieve a corpse. No idea why it doesn’t exist on PC. Apparently they just folded the Retrieve/Pray options together on that platform (you always get healing as opposed to only getting it if someone Prays first.) .jpg) .jpg) In this instance, since the battle is already concluded, I’ll retrieve the corpse. Which in this case nets 2B Melee Defense (take a punch better) Overclock (turn Perfect Evade into literally Bayonetta Witch Time with time slowdown) and Max HP (guess...) .jpg) See on the HUD’s top left under the life bars next to 2B’s current level there’s a little computer chip icon? As long as that’s on the HUD, 2B retains her temporary buff. I wish there was an actual timer attached to it but hey... I guess it’s better than nothing. 2B collects the four Complex Gadgets... .jpg) Plant life has claimed most of the central area... Big plants, too. Report: Records show that vegetation has grown to an abnormal size since the departure of humans. Hmm. Wonder if there are any huge boars and such too?.jpg) 9S PLEASE! We’ve just come to grips with the moose menace. We cannot tackle the boar barons this same day... But what we can do is head back to camp as we’re done with our sidequests. .jpg) .jpg) One kind of lovely thing with the level design of NieR: Automata is it is kinda lousy with unlikely invisible walls. Early on there are just streets with Resistance built barriers built. You see this half-assed barbed wire fence? Totally impregnable. That clearly open clearing in the wall? Invisible wall. Meh... .jpg) Music: Peaceful Sleep .jpg) Whatever. It’s a bummer. But it’s not hard to make our way back to the camp. At this point, we may as well turn in all our quests. .jpg) Now I can start upgrading and crafting items for you. I imagine you can spare a few of these supplies to fix your leg? Yeaaaaah... no. Why don’t you tell us what’s really going on. See, it’s my left leg that’s all busted up. And my left leg is the one that’s fully original. I’ve repaired this ol’ body of mine a hundred times over during this war. I’ve swapped parts in and out so many times I can’t even keep track. But this leg? This left leg? It’s never been touched. So if I go and replace that, what happens? I mean, would I even be ME anymore? Or would I just... ...... Anyway, it’s my own problem. Didn’t mean to trouble you with it. I should be getting more inventory soon, so swing by when you can..jpg) .jpg) And so we complete our first sidequest with the Supply Trader of Theseus. Unlike the first NIER, most all sidequest have OK rewards. There’s no Life in the Sands where you devote two hours of your life to getting a total loving third of the reward we just got. You MOTHERFUCKERS, CAVIA! .jpg) Completed quests also get an outro blurb in the menu status screen. I’ll not be consulting those in the future. We’ll get MOST of the gist of a quest’s end rather bluntly here on out. But here’s just an example of the text. .jpg) .jpg) Upon talking to the merchant in question, he now sells Plug-in Chips. We’ll go ahead and take a Max HP UP chip as an example for this system. This eats up 11 Chip Slots total, as you can see for 5% more HP. We’ve got 9 slots left to work with in the future without altering anything... We’ll see how that turns out down the line... In the meantime, let’s check out the other merchant and his sidequest... .jpg) Well, how do you like that? Looks like I’m back in business! Good to hear! You know it! I make these weapons to keep my friends safe, after all. Although sometimes I wonder... What if my weapons are just making my friends die all the faster? ...... Ah, never mind. Forget I said anything. Anyway, come back in a little while, all right? I should have some new gear for you then..jpg) Occasionally, sidequests in this game are “Reported” instead of “Completed.” Usually, this means we need to piss off out of the area to trigger the next leg of the quest. But in some cases, like this one... It just means we need to talk to the dude again... .jpg) I wanted to say thanks for helping me get things up and running again, so I whipped up some upgrade materials..jpg) Some crystals, dead endangered animal skins, and literal garbage... Plus 5,000 G. Thanks, I suppose? .jpg) .jpg) Completing this side quest does unlock the first Weapon Trader merchant and the ability to upgrade weapons. And it just so happens the side quest’s payout is exactly the materials we need to boost Virtuous Contract to Level 2! Which has an upgrade that ain’t at all anything to sneeze at overall... .jpg) On that note, beyond Amber, a common drop everywhere in the City Ruins I’d picked up just dicking around, everything else is not even touched upon in upgrade materials... .jpg) Beyond that, the weapon merchant now sells three blades... Beastbane... .jpg) Ancient Overlord... .jpg) And Beastlord... We can afford one of these with our current war funds... .jpg) Beastlord IS the one that was featured in most promotional materials and concept art for 2B in NieR Automata. Who am I to reject that? Fine... Let’s go with that one... After all, it is a returning weapon from NIER 1. Indeed, it was Papa Nier’s concept art/first upgrade sword as well... It’s weapon story back in 2010 was... Beastlord posted:Once upon a time there were three brothers in a kingdom. The eldest of the three was the ruling king of the country. The king was very cruel and feared by everyone. .jpg) But that’s ancient history. This incarnation of the big-rear end sword now tops out with...  Well, that sure took a turn towards the end... Tame end of Weapon Histories ends here... .jpg) Hey, so where do you get these older weapon models from? Oh, the lady who owns the place sends ‘em over every once in a while. Her name’s Accord, and she’s the proprietor of this here business. I just tend to customers and keep all the repair devices humming. I only see her every few years, to be honest. She mostly just uses delivery drones to drop things off. I don’t know where she gets this stuff, but most if it’s in pretty good condition! Say, if you ever happen to run into her, say hello for me, all right?.jpg) MOTHERFUCKIN’...  WAIT A GODDAMN MINUTE, CHIEF! ACCORD? The Accord from Drakengard 3? That Accord? Let’s back up here a minute...  Accord was a character from Drakengard 3. She was a really weird fourth wall breaking apparent time traveler librarian type girl that had apparently read that game’s entire script and got to be really annoyed the characters in it kept loving up and having bad endings. In the end, she sacrificed herself for... another goddamn Rhythm Battle end game to settle things in Drakengard 3’s weird rear end multi-verse timelines.  Also, she was a loving android. One of many, tasked with fixing the hosed timelines of the Drakengard universe. Which was a really big non-sequitur until you realized Drakengard 3’s final ending was a backdoor callout to a NIER sequel. So... NONE of that matters in this game. There is a character in Drakengard 3. She had had a big interest in fixing timelines but primarily she dug weapons from Yoko Taro’s past games and is reselling them in the new ones in a weird meta thing. Don’t worry about it. Accord never actually appears in this game. She’s just referenced a few times as a weird blatant Drakengard 3 reference. The Time Traveling/Inter-Dimensional Androids of that game are not a factor in this game’s plot. Who the gently caress knows what that’s about overall...  In any case, that’s a wrap for the first of dumb sidequest in NieR: Automata and the first of our big oversized weapon cache. Tune in next time in which... actually, it’s more early game sidequests and then everything gets REALLY hosed... Stay tuned...  Video: Episode 10 Highlight Reel BONUS: Secret Technique. Do not share. Classified! The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 19:04 on May 7, 2017 |
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Apr 12, 2017 08:02
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Hey. There will probably be a new update tomorrowish. In the meantime: https://twitter.com/TheDarkId/status/852273728889249793
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Apr 13, 2017 03:07
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Episode XI: An Elusive Request Music: Peaceful Sleep (Vocal) .jpg) Now that we’ve completed the two sidequests in the Resistance Camp, Anemone once more has gained the quest giver icon to advance the story. Let’s hit her up. .jpg) There have been lots of reports of dangerous machines appearing in the desert recently. This is very unusual, so it may be indicative of something bigger. Now, I hear you YoRHa types are pretty good at examining things. You think you can look into this whole mess for me? <Help her> Thanks! I knew I could count on you! I’ll tell our allies in the desert that you’re coming. Be careful out there, okay?Off to the desert, huh? There’d better not be a million wolves out there. I can’t do that again... .jpg) We’re not quite going to do that yet. I know I said not to do sidequests until unlocking Fast Travel later in the game. But there is an exception to that. We’re going to beam ourselves back up to the Bunker for a bit. .jpg) Sorry, 9S. There’s only room for one in this thing. I’m going to suggest you acquire a stout catapult to make the return trip to the Bunker. .jpg) Music: Fortress of Lies (Vocal) .jpg) .jpg) Oh... You’re already here, huh? Awkward... Apparently these terminals work by beaming 2B and 9S’s consciousness to a temporary android body that just happens to be identical in every way. Don’t think about it too hard. It’s a video game. .jpg) They just couldn’t help doing a LITTLE bit of completionist trolling. There is exactly one quest that only has the briefest of windows. It’s only available between reaching the Resistance Camp up until departing to the Desert. This is the second to last quest I ended up completing because hell if I knew it existed! It’s not like there’s much of a reason to return to the Bunker immediately. The Commander is the quest giver in this instance. Let’s see what she has lined up. .jpg) We need your help improving the network environment between the Bunker and the surface. Doing so will allow us to carry out our operations in a more efficient manner. First, I need you to transport the required materials to the leader of the Resistance camp. I’ll have an operator explain how to obtain the materials once you touch down. Yes, Commander..jpg) .jpg) Alright, quest received. Commander, I feel like you could have just sent an e-mail instead of making us go back to space to be told to go back to Earth and await instructions... .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) While we’re in the neighborhood, there is a secondary side quest available back in the Bunker’s Hangar. It’ll trigger as soon as we enter the room where the flight units are stashed... .jpg) Yes, but— Thank goodness! My name is 16D. My instructor, 11B, was one of your squadmates in the assault on the abandoned factory. I don’t suppose she... She was shot down during the battle. I... I see... What a shame. She was the closest thing I had to a mentor. She was so strong and admirable... What happened to her body? I don’t know. I know it isn’t my place to be asking you for this... But... Well, if you happen to run across anything of hers, would you mind bringing it back to me? It’s not a priority or anything. Just if you have the time. I’ll keep an eye out. Thank you..jpg) Negative. 11B’s black box has yet to be recovered. She was shot down near the abandoned factory, right?.jpg) There’s the second sidequest for the Bunker – returning to the Prologue factory and retrieving a token from one of the dead redshirts in the intro. Sure, we’ll get that done if we’re in the neighborhood. .jpg) That’s all for The Bunker for some time. 9S, just shove yourself into a barrel and eject out an airlock or something. See you planetside... Music: Peaceful Sleep .jpg) ...How do you keep doing that? Tch. Whatever. Let’s get to work. Incidentally, I’m really curious as to why they have that PS2 rear end texture looking box right next to the save point that will undoubtedly get used the most the entire game. It’s not fixin’ to load a higher resolution version of that texture. It’s just that ugly. SOMEONE had to have noticed... 6O rings in... .jpg) We need you to collect the materials to improve the network environment. You’re going to need a rusty bolt, a small gear, and a spring. You should be able to find them on small-sized enemies. Once you have everything, please take it to the Resistance leader, Anemone. Understood. *sigh* I know it’s a bit of a pain, but good luck! Target location data obtained. Marking on map..jpg) Well, we’ve already got the Small Gear and err... a broken key? Didn’t she just say a spring? How do you get a spring out of a broken key? Whatever... we’ve got one already. We just need one Rusty Bolt. That shouldn’t be too hard to find considering we’re fighting rusty trashcan bots at all times .jpg) Like with previous quests, the map is marked with spawned enemies that possess a guaranteed drop. The mission zone is due north of the camp right next to the only Save Terminal we neglected to activate earlier. As we leave the camp, Pod 042 contacts 6O. .jpg) Coordinates confirmed for location specified by Resistance Leader. Understood, 042. Placing marker on target. The desert heat is going to make resupply efforts difficult, 2B. Please make sure you’re ready before you go..jpg) Alright, got it. The desert is northeast of the camp. It’s nearly a straight shot down the road from the building we started this chapter on. But we’re gonna go clear up that first sidequest first. .jpg) .jpg) Except... crap. E-mail. One somewhat annoying thing this game does is have a tendency early on to shoot e-mails 2B’s way just as we’re out of reach of a terminal. The biggest sin being the fact the notification will override voiced quest dialogue in some instances. And that’s just an unforgivable oversight. .jpg) .jpg) Remember 2B had that other big sword in the Prologue? Turns out we can go retrieve it if we can make it back to the factory. Good to know... New Music: Rays of Light (Vocal) (You should listen to this.) .jpg) .jpg) Following the stream we were fishing in the previous update, we’ll eventually come to a lightly wooded field with a derelict radio tower. .jpg) .jpg) There are some boys raging at a wayward pack of Cheetos once more. Taking them out will unlock this Terminal, giving us Quick Save in just about all four corners of the map. Always handy. .jpg) .jpg) A new model of machine lifeform, medium dudes, make their appearance here. As the name suggests, they’re the middle ground between the hulking armored guys with their machine battleaxes and the stubby guys with barely functional limbs. Being able to dash up to 2B and sucker punch her is their one big tactic. .jpg) It ultimately doesn’t work out too well, even if they did have a few levels on our Android. .jpg) Taking out all the machine lifeforms will *hopefully* (there is occasionally a drop that falls an awkward place that’s not retrievable, but it’s rare) drop the rusted bolt we needed. Just the one bolt and only one with rust. It’s essential it be rusty. Very technical reasoning is behind that. We grunts don’t need the details... 6O chimes in again... .jpg) Looks like you found all the necessary parts to improve our network environment. Nice work! You can conclude your mission by bringing everything over to Anemone..jpg) Yeah, sure we can do that. But I’m going to have to climb this tower first and jump off it. Also that’s an unfortunate angle. There is, unfortunately, an achievement for looking up 2B’s skirt ten times in a playthrough. It was the very last achievement I got platinuming the game because I’m not a degenerate. Dammit, Japan... .jpg) All that’s on top of the tower is a chest with some upgrade materials and a nice view. .jpg) There’s a huge ominous bridge further north where the stream ends. There’s nothing unlocked quite yet over there. We’ll just remember the path. .jpg) Back to the Resistance Camp we go. 9S do NOT tell the Commander we were abusing our Pod privileges for this base jumping tomfoolery. Music: Peaceful Sleep (Vocal) .jpg) These are the parts we need for our network structure, right? Thanks for bringing them over. It’s not much, but I have a reward for you. Oh, but don’t tell the Commander—it’s probably against regulations..jpg) Huh. That’s not too shabby a reward for a brief fed-ex quest. At least for this point in the game. It was a bit trifling when I had over a million G and was Level 92 by the point I did this quest... 2B contacts 6O to report in one final time... .jpg) Copy that. Good work! I see the Commander’s as much of a slave driver as ever. It’s like she was built to be as efficient and hard-assed as possible. Aw, she’s not so bad. A-are you serious? Totally serious! The Commander actually lets a lot of things slide on the side. Like, did you know that she leaves piles of clothes strewn everywhere? The cleaning team is SO sick of it. Oh, and she never performs regular maintenance on herself. A lot of the “hard-rear end” nature you mention is just for show. How do you know all this? Hee hee! I can’t tell you that... Operator 6O out. *disconnects* ..... What the heck was all that about?.jpg) Look, 9S read between the lines... Not saying the Commander and 6O are space lesbian robots... But the Commander and 6O are *probably* space lesbian robots. And there’s nothing wrong with that. So concludes the only really easy to miss quest. Tune in next time when we swing back by the Prologue factory and maybe begin the trek to the Desert. Be sure to pack a durable mask...  Video: Episode 10 Highlight Reel  Anemone Official Art – Always pack a tactical cape. You’ll live longer that way. The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Apr 15, 2017 |
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Apr 15, 2017 03:08
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Geemer posted:I'm just glad I found out about this thanks to you so I don't end up with it or similar as the last achievement I get and Steam constantly showing it to me as the most recent achievement.  *sigh* Edit: This cannot continue... The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Apr 16, 2017 |
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Apr 16, 2017 00:16
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Episode XII: 11B Music: Rays of Light (Vocal) .jpg) I know the first thing I said about sidequests was to skip all of them until fast travel unlocks. But, well... the first optional couple are an exception, since fast travel only shaves off about three minutes of commute. It’s the ones after this point where it’s a 20 minute addition of travel time just running from Point A to Point B that are the issue mitigated by being able to teleport to areas. Anyway, we did get an e-mail about a new weapon and a sidequest, both involving a return trip to the Abandoned Factory from the Prologue chapter. See that building over there? That’s where we touched down the beginning of this chapter. .jpg) Now let’s just pan over about 90 degrees, just past the next building over from where we started. See that collapsed overpass? That’s the Factory peeking out just past it. .jpg) .jpg) It’s just a matter of scampering over an incredible rusted but surprisingly sturdy wrecked truck and dashing down the mostly intact overpass. Fun fact: 2B is supposed to be around 330 lbs. Living tissue over a metal endoskeleton ain’t light. Also Terminators were totally androids, not cyborgs. James Cameron, you idiot. .jpg) .jpg) There’s a bit of the factory we didn’t encounter, including a small parking lot/cargo shipping area leading to a stairway and a Save Terminal. This is the only save point available in the Factory at the moment. The map, annoyingly, displays a couple more in the general region really early on. Yeah... those aren’t accessible until about 85% of the way through the playthrough. Don’t bother searching for like 20 minutes to get to ‘em. Not that I did that or anything... Music: Ends .jpg) .jpg) Climbing to the top of the stairs, we find ourselves... right back at the end of the Factory section. Up there is where we ran over Engels to reach the bridge where quite a bit transpired. So... I don’t know... maybe that opening mission would have been more successful if they took a land route over the city, landed around where 2B and 9S did early, and just... walked to the Factory? I don’t think Engels could have zeroed in on everyone as well as it did when they were flying in with zero cover over open water. Just a thought. .jpg) And there’s the bridge itself, which is not in the best of shape after Engels flying head-butt it a few times. Oh and the whole android black box detonations. That couldn’t have helped matters. We never do see that supposed facility on the other side of the bridge. .jpg) .jpg) Traveling toward the new edge of the bridge, we find 2B’s old sword sticking out of the ground, having been conveniently blown just far enough away from the blast to avoid sinking into the ocean. .jpg) Much like Virtuous Contract, Virtuous Treaty is a fairly viable option throughout the majority of the game. It’s a wee bit faster than Beastlord, even if it doesn’t have quite the range. At Level 2 it gains a boost to attack speed and at max level, it also gains Holy Blessing (more damage at max HP.) But who cares about that? That’s ages from now. It’s time for another Weapon History! Virtuous Treaty posted:
.jpg) OK, then... 2B, these are your default weapons. Have you been in for your quarterly psych evaluation lately...? Just curious... .jpg) We’re not quite done on this bridge. Just ahead of Virtuous Treaty is another android corpse. This android corpse is special. As it turns out, it’s 2B’s dead body from the Prologue. .jpg) .jpg) Collecting the body will restore all the materials and the mess of healing items/buffs we had during Chapter 1, as well as the Auto-Item Chip that 2B had installed during the opening. Auto-Item will, as the name suggests, automatically use a Small Heal item if 2B’s health falls to critical range. It does have a momentary lag between 2B falling to critical health (which briefly slows down time) and the item’s use, in which 2B can still get ganked if an enemy follows up quickly. And it doesn’t work if she gets one-shot (i.e. it’s all but useless on Hard/Very Hard.) But hey, for early game this isn’t a bad security blanket if this ain't your kind of genre normally. This is one of the few Auto-Chips that work on difficulties above Easy. .jpg) That’s enough about 2B’s corpse run. Let’s tackle the factory. We did have a sidequest to recover something belonging to 11B, who if you’ll remember was the second android to fall at the very beginning of the opening mission. According to the map, something of hers managed to make its way into the Factory zone, despite the fact she died in a fiery wreck about twenty miles from land. New Music: Wretched Machinery (Quiet) .jpg) We’re given a very broad range of where this sidequest’s objective could be. Spoilers: It’s literally back at the start of the region, where we fought the first Marx. .jpg) .jpg) Right at the start of the Factory was a dead android named Ken(yes) I decided to revive. It seems to be quite stoked to be revived as a ghoulish thrall. Revived Androids come packing the Slot 1 weapon the player was carrying when they died. In Ken(yes)’s case... bare fists. Great... .jpg) .jpg) In practice, revived androids act like a dumber 9S that are always set to be Aggressive behavior. They’re a useful distraction but not that much of a boon. Especially in an area with weak enemies like this. This is just a matter of going through the same exact encounters from the Prologue, but in reverse. .jpg) Thankfully, we did open up those shortcuts early, so that shaves off a good five minutes of not particularly interesting encounters. Ken(yes)’s short life came to a close just as we reached the first shortcut hidden by the camera. Revived AIs only last for about two minutes before exploding violently. Said explosion will damage any nearby enemies. So that could help... if there were any. 2B’s self-destruct is also transferred to revived androids, if we want to manually explode the fallen comrade. .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) With the lowered bridge and cranes from early, we’ve got a fairly straight shot back to the initial battleground for 2B. Ah the memories. If we approach right back to where 2B landed with dramatic flair, we find... .jpg) 11B’s corpse made its way here. Somehow... I’d like to think it got blown out of its Flight Unit and skipped across the ocean like a stone at high speeds before slamming through the wall here. But let’s investigate. .jpg) So this is where you landed... Pod, can you access her black box? Negative. Unit 11B’s black box has been irreparably damaged. Hmm. Proposal: Unit 2B should recover any usable weapons. Fragmented data detected in memory region..jpg) This might be relevant in the future, but despite 11B having her black box be trashed without back-up and thus she is super dead, YoRHa weapons can hold memory data as well. It’s more of an actual plane’s black box recorder. And accessing 11B’s gets us this: .jpg) So unlike the rest of the non-2B YoRHa assault crew, 11B just faked her death to go AWOL. And then immediately completely hosed up her escape plan and died within an hour later. I don’t know if that’s better or worse than having just outright gotten blown out of the sky from a stationary laser beam. .jpg) Violation of regulations detected. However, due to the death of the unit in question, corrective punishment is impossible. ...... I’ll bring this weapon back to 16D in the Bunker..jpg) That is our first of sixty Resident Evil-esque text file Archives. There is... there’s a LOT of lore junk in this game. Honestly, not a lot early on. And then a metric ton by the late stages of the game. So look forward to that. .jpg) .jpg) In any case, we’ve fulfilled our request for the android on the Bunker. Unfortunately, even with shortcuts, we’ve still got to backtrack through the entire Factory zone. Only this time with no enemies because they don’t respawn until we leave the area or reload a save. .jpg) .jpg) But really, only the run back to the Resistance Camp is the time that would have been saved with Fast Travel. And that’s only a two minute job since 2B absolutely hauls rear end once she gets going. Music: Fortress of Lies .jpg) .jpg) I found 11B’s body, along with this weapon. *hands over 11B’s belongings* The battle log is still intact on this... She must have fought right up to the end. I always knew she was the bravest of us all... Thank you, 2B. But I think you should keep it. You’re a combat model, after all, whereas I’m a defense unit. I’m sure 11B would be happy knowing it was being put to good use. All right..jpg) OK. Nice, we’ve got a free weapon out of the deal. Not a particularly great one. But... We’ll look at that in a moment. First...  We are given a choice at the end of this quest. 16D didn’t look at that battle log we read. We can reveal the truth of 11B’s dereliction of duties before her death or keep it ourselves. The latter choice is just a line of 16D admitting she and 11B were lovers and she's deciding to switch jobs to a Combat model. But, if we choose to reveal the truth... Well... New Music: Broken Heart (Vocal) (A lot of side quests conclude with some rarely played music this go around.) .jpg) Let me see... Wait. She was planning to abandon her post? ...... Heh... Pffft...aaah ha ha ha ha! What’s so funny? It’s just that... she was always such a hard rear end, you know? To think she wanted to run away just... Ha ha! And what a miserable way to die. Serves her right for the way she used to heap abuse on me... She always looked down on me because I wasn’t a combat model, and now... Thank you, 2B. Thank you for showing me this. Now I can dedicate myself to my job with a clear mind. ...... Oh, and here. You should take this. I don’t have a reason to protect myself anymore....jpg) Yeah well... The reward is the same either way. Just not the part where 16D takes a heel turn with her relationship. Ok... So about that weapon? .jpg) It’s the bog standard all non-main character YoRHa soldiers have equipped. Its first upgrade gives a 30% discount in stores run by YoRHa or the Resistance while it’s equipped. At maximum level, it gains Pod Charge, which reduces the cooldown on Pod Programs. But let’s do the important part. YoRHa-issue Blade posted:
Yeah... Hey 9S, what do you say we head back to Earth? People are weird in space. .jpg) That takes care of the last of early business in Chapter 2 of NieR: Automata. All that’s left available to do now is to head for this Desert region and investigate the Machine Surge coming from the area. Getting to the desert isn’t much of an issue. Remember the overpass to the Factory? .jpg) .jpg) We’re just going to run right past that, continue down the, surprisingly intact for 10,000 years of poor maintenance, road to its end. And there is the entrance to the desert region just past those collapsed buildings. Tune in next time to Chapter 3 of NieR: Automata. In which things get REAL loving weird really fast...  Video: Episode 12 Highlight Reel  Factory Concept Art – They really downgraded the bridge to this joint, huh? The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Apr 17, 2017 |
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Apr 16, 2017 20:34
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 Episode XIII: Jackass .jpg) Despite the initially vast appearance of the City Ruins and its place as the central hub of NieR: Automata’s game world... it turns out the whole place is only about three city blocks wide by maybe four blocks long. Give or take some collapsed infrastructure. New Music: Memories of Dust (Quiet) .jpg) Just past a sandy stretch of road on the outskirts of the city, we come upon one of the few Save Terminals not under assault by irritable stubby machines. This is the final android outpost before leaving the city. .jpg) We’ve got a bit of a buffer zone to transverse before we reach the Desert proper. But this is the last chance for resupply before we head out. There’s a sole Resistance member manning the camp. Let’s see what their story is... .jpg)  We’ve got a squadmate waiting in a rocky stretch up ahead. Head on over. Just remember that there’s nowhere to resupply out there. If you need anything, best to take care of it here while you can. What can I help you with?.jpg) This guy sells the same junk as the supply trader back in the Resistance Camp proper. Thanks to those couple of sidequests early and retrieving all our Prologue supplies, we’re more than prepared for the journey. But thanks anyway, guy. .jpg) .jpg) The old world’s intact ruins have definitely dried up a bit out in the encroaching desert sands. At most all that is left is the occasional skeleton of an ancient building and an oil pipeline, which will be our guide toward our final destination. But before we can begin exploring, the Council of Humanity chimes in with a broadcast. .jpg) Currently, our struggle against the machine lifeforms is at a stalemate. This battle has raged for far too long. I am sure all of you find the effort grueling. But now is not the time to give up. Now, more than ever, we must forge on. Remember that several hundred thousand humans on the moon want nothing more than to return to Earth. Glory to mankind. Those Council broadcasts are always so stiff. .jpg) Look, 9S. Let me tell you about human broadcasts back in the day and how you should be lucky that message didn’t conclude with a 90 second ad for Squarespace. It’s worth noting, the Council of Humanity’s broadcast concludes with dropping a text file of the speech into 2B’s email. Just in case any androids were busy doing their job or something. Council of Humanity’s less than effective pep talk aside, there isn’t much in this new zone. There are some nooks and crannies we could explore, including a subterranean cave network beneath. But at this point in the game, it’s just a frustrating to negotiate series of dead ends with mediocre loot. So we’ll avoid that for now. .jpg) Machine lifeform wise, there’s a few Stubbies and the occasional roaming larger guys wandering the wastes. But there’s also... these guys. .jpg) ...Yeah. These stacked up fellers. Umm... So they very slowly wander around aimlessly until 2B and 9S approach. At which point, they just turn and... stare. That’s it... That’s all they do. They just silently watch the androids. They literally cannot attack and make no effort to defend themselves. It’s really creepy the first time it’s encountered. .jpg) .jpg) A strong attack can knock off their stacked segments until they’re just a little stubby boy, if you wanna be a jerk/don’t like the cut of their jib. They’ll still make no effort to do anything but stare. 9S takes this as a signal to go wild and start killing all stacked machines anywhere remotely nearby. .jpg) It’s not like there’s a drought of weird creepy Pokey bots in the area, 9S. We’ll be here all day if we try scrapping them all. Chill out. Let’s continue with the mission. .jpg) .jpg) The rusty oil pipeline eventually dead ends at a crudely constructed but currently impenetrable barricade being overlooked by another Resistance member. We were told to contact them when we arrived and that is where the big red .jpg)  Name’s Jackass. Nice to meetcha. I hear you’re planning to take out all the machines in the desert? Guess that means we need to get that entrance open. Looks like it. So, um, Jack...rear end, was it? Err... What are you doing all the way out here? Hmm? Oh, that. Well....jpg) .jpg) Don’t go trying to be a hero, all right?.jpg) Right, then. Barrier problem solved, I suppose. So that was Jackass. She’s the best android in the game. We may see her a few times again in the future. Explosives and science may or may not frequently be involved. .jpg) There’s gotta be an easier way, right? Oh, 9S... Stop your bellyaching. We’re through, right? What’s the alternative? A catapult to get over the cavern system? That’d be a completely irresponsible use of YoRHa resources. So about this newly opened cave... .jpg) .jpg) There are some... interestingly dressed machine lifeforms in here. Insofar as they’re well... dressed. That’s new. Also there’s the part where they’re wearing Façade masks from the original Nier – a weird desert dwelling tribe of masked people that had a society bound by an absurd amount of rules. Hmm... I’m sure that’s just a strange coincidence. .jpg) .jpg) The mask and cloak has no tangible benefit in combat, as it turns out. These machines are functionally identical to the ones we’ve already encountered sans clothing. At least they’re better dressed for the desert than our YoRHa operatives. .jpg) .jpg) So earlier, I said we were in more of a connection zone leading to the Desert proper. So... welcome... .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) ...to the actual Desert Zone – the largest area in the game. 9S, I think we’re just a wee bit overdressed for this mission.  Video: Episode 13 Highlight Reel (If you cannot hear an ear-piercing high pitched sound at the end of this video, congrats! You’re old and your hearing is starting to get hosed!)  Desert Resistance Member Concept Art – I wonder how many android generations back was the one with all Splinter-Cell goggles, cargo pants and cloaks. The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Apr 18, 2017 |
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Apr 18, 2017 01:17
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Yeah, I don't care about that. There's two optional HUD elements that are 5000 G a pop. The sound one makes a soundwave icon in the top right corner of the HUD. It picks up in-game music so... it's pretty useless. I guess if you're completely deaf and don't feel like resorting to looking up where Pod Program upgrades are (you can still just visually ID them in the right spot.) There's also one for Fishing that will err... automatically notify you if you can fish somewhere. Spoilers: If you're in ankle deep liquid and stay still for one second, it'll tell you if you can fish so... They're both complete wastes of money and Chip slots.
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Apr 18, 2017 03:53
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In regards to not hearing the sound while playing the game yourself: remember, this game 100% made you manually gently caress with the sound setting during the Prologue. That sound is dictated by voice volume It's the Pod screaming for help!
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Apr 18, 2017 23:43
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Episode XIV: Another Life in the Sands New Music: Memories of Dust .jpg) Welcome to the Desert Zone. Yeah... it’s uhh... it’s pretty big. And there’s a lot to cover here. Our first order of business should be discussing transversal of the desert. Unfortunately, we cannot order 9S to plank and ride him like a sleigh down the sand dunes. It’s against YoRHa regulations, you see. With that in mind, you’d think crossing sand would be... problematic considering 2B’s choice of high heels. Granted, the same could be said of rocky canyons or grassy fields or cracked roads. You’d think that, but...  This sand sure is slippery.As it turns out, 2B suffers zero impediment to her movement speed on sand and can, in fact, do sick slides down sand dunes at speeds slightly above her top dashing speed. She’s an android. She has VERY good motor controls and balancing. Unless it’s an area boundary, 2B will only begin sliding when going down slopes. She can sprint straight up most inclines and keep going without a problem. She’ll only begin sliding if she stops running. I fully appreciate such agility. Especially when playing other games with slope sliding mechanics. I’m looking at you, Geralt... I’d say the same to Link, but his shattered corpse is currently jutting at odd angles at the bottom of a ravine. .jpg) Investigating the machine surge involves venturing to a number of hotspots on the map and rumbling with any machine lifeforms we find poking about. Sounds simple enough. There’s also a Save Terminal blip along the path, which ought to be helpful getting around this massive sandbox. .jpg) On to the first hotspot, where we find several masked machines exploding from the ground, ready to throw down. Oh, and also... .jpg)  De...sert... K-Kill... Mee...meat... These machines are... talking. Yeah, I heard from the Resistance that they’ve been seeing this a lot lately. Couldn’t tell you why, though..jpg) .jpg) OK, fine. The machines are talking. Engels and friends could talk... kinda. Just the one word. And that machine was an idiot. It’s no big deal. Neither is dealing with the masked machines. Swords wielding ones get a bit feisty with lunging attacks and wide sweeping blows that are faster than what we’ve seen thus far. But, it’s easily managed. .jpg) On to the next position. The hotspots make a big sideways U across the desert, with that aforementioned Save Terminal where the U bends. Position #2 holds... .jpg) Ex...terminate...enemy... Sssss...cared... Enemy...scary... Do you think they even understand the concept of being scared?.jpg) .jpg) Not sure about that one, 9S. Maybe one day they could learn to be scared. But for now, they’re fairly fearless. Oh, and some of ‘em have welded a buzzsaw to their chests. Buzzsaw dudes can be quite annoying. Their attacks all involve flailing rapidly in 2B’s direction and if accidentally ran into, they can get a decent combo on her for a good chunk of health. They’re also surprisingly high poise for having such little health, so their flailing is difficult to knock ‘em out of safely. .jpg) But, there’s always the tried and true option of just hanging back and shooting ‘em. .jpg) .jpg) Our next stop is one of two Save Terminals in the desert. And this is the only important one, if we’re being honest. I’d hate to have been the androids that had to drag this thing to exact middle of the desert. .jpg) At the terminal, we can check the e-mail we received from the Council of Humanity. It’s just a reworded version of the earlier radio broadcast moral booster. But we do learn the League of Assemblymen are the ones doing the broadcast on the behest of the Council of Humanity. Why do I get the feeling all the remaining humans have given themselves several increasingly verbose titles? Look, Bill the Chef insisted his title be changed to William the Scion of the Culinary Arts and Janitor Tom wants to be called Thomas, the Arbiter of Hygiene when the androids are around, OK? .jpg) The terminal’s activation gives us a clearer view of the Desert Zone. Hmm... Yep... yeah, that’s still REALLY big, huh? The western section of the desert is still rather nebulous. But there’s a good reason for that we’ll get to momentarily. .jpg) First we’re going to go on a little field trip. The Machine Surge hotspots aren’t going anywhere. Our first destination are the ruins southwest of the save terminal’s position. .jpg) There are a few more talking machines in the area. Though, these lines are said by any machines we first encounter roaming the desert. It isn’t just the hotspots that have hostile machines. The desert is just lousy with pockets of angry boys. But they’re not why we’re investigating these definitely not the ruins of Façade. .jpg) .jpg) This is why. In the back of this set of ruins we find an elevator with a rapidly bowing machine in front of it. Unlike most machines we’ve encountered thus far, this one isn’t hostile. Indeed, we can straight up talk to it. So... .jpg)  You are fortunate enough NOT to be qualified to enter! Oh but how cruel the gods can be, to allow such misfortune to occur! Please, you must get away from here as far as you can! Just standing here will be detrimental to your health, as you will be slowly consumed by rage! There is only one thing I can do for you now! I will... Nay, I MUST self-destruct! This will result in a rain of useful materials. They are yours to keep! One day you will discover the truth, of that I am sure. May you live a long and healthy life!.jpg) And then, true to its word, it explodes leaving behind a rain of useful material in the form of... 80G... .jpg) This elevator is still locked and up until literally just as I was writing this update, there was absolutely nothing that could be done with this nor any indication of what it was meant to do. It’s now been revealed, this is (one of three) entrances to NieR: Automata’s upcoming DLC. What’s revealed so far is a Battle Arena with some additional cosmetics such as a Kainé outfit for 2B and a young Brother Nier outfit for 9S. And maybe some other stuff. I’m sure I’ll purchase it and show it off eventually. But considering the content shown included a Level 85 boss, not for some time... Also don’t link to the DLC information just because I briefly talked about it, you dingus. Go to the main Games thread if you wanna talk about that. Sheesh. .jpg) Getting back on track. Remember how I said the western part of the desert was still rather nebulous? That’s because there’s a raging sandstorm at the boundary of the desert with winds so strong you’d think they were invisible walls. There is a way past the sandstorm and land to explore behind it. But that’s beyond the scope of today’s tour. .jpg) .jpg) Continuing eastward from the Apologetic Machine and its locked DLC gate, there are a couple points of interest. To the south through that narrow stretch of land on the mini-map is another save terminal and some other goodies. We’ll get to that in a moment. First, remember that previous update? And the beeping I told you to listen for...? .jpg) That beep is an in-world sound. It’s an indicator of a Pod related upgrade. The sound is a high pitched frequency that it’s possible your ears can no longer hear as you age. But the beep does get louder, the closer we get to the tone. .jpg) .jpg) At this point on the map, roughly right between the two save points and the entrance to the area, we find an abandoned Pod. Aww... What happened to this little guy? .jpg) Hypothesis: The owner discarded this pod and left it in safe mode. Motives unknown. Why was it abandoned...? Pod, reactivate it for me. If it’s usable, try to overwrite the original owner with my ID. Activation complete. Access granted. Previous owner ID successfully overwritten. Special weaponry now available. .jpg) 2B now has access to TWO pods. Pods can be switched with left or right on the D-Pad. So what does this secondary Pod do, you ask? Well, firing infinite ammo bullets is fine and dandy.  What if instead it shot infinite homing missiles? Now that sounds like a fun time, right? Well that’s exactly what Pod 042B does. The missile volley is fairly good against weaker targets and definitely handy for the bullet shielded ones. It has overall a lot less DPS than the Gatling and is much poorer at stun-locking enemies. But it’s satisfying. Additionally, the second Pod can be equipped with a different Pod Program in the menu (once I go get a second one, at least) that has its own cooldown timer. So it’s quite possible to combo Pod Programs together now. .jpg) .jpg) But wait, there’s more! A sort of undocumented feature it took me about 50% of the way through the game to realize. We can now hold the Pod Program button and it will charge the attack with our second Pod tagging in to do double damage with two blasts from the same Program. It’s a PRETTY good feature to never really tell the player about... Pods are extremely powerful friends. .jpg) .jpg) While we’re in the neighborhood, we may as well hit the secondary Save Terminal in the region. This one is in the southernmost part of the area, right next to an oasis. .jpg) Or uhh... make that an oil field. Well, can you really ruin the environment when it’s a barren desert? .jpg) .jpg) Remember how I said 2B could fish in any ankle high liquid we came across? I used the term “liquid” instead of water intentionally, as you totally can go fishing in this oil spill. Though I doubt our Pod enjoys this one as much as a pleasant stream. .jpg) We can even get some, uhh... interesting catches in here. Here’s a few examples of what I caught in a brief fishing session... .jpg) Just a giant sardine covered in oil. I dunno, I think my cats would probably still eat it. .jpg) The machine lifeforms made machine carps. They’re not malicious or anything. They just liked carps. .jpg) They did, however, make robot piranha blowfish hybrids. The Alien R&D lab must be an interesting thing to behold. All of these ought to cover the expenses of buying another Pod Program for our Missile Buddy next time we’re in the Resistance Camp. .jpg) .jpg) Before we leave the oil slick save oasis, there is one more item of note in the region. We can climb up the canyon’s perimeter to find a small base camp being staffed by a couple of YoRHa soldiers. What are you jerks doing around here...? .jpg) We’re investigating this area. If we can minimize machine activity in the desert area, we’ll be able to transport the oil safely. It may be unexciting work, but if it can help save even a single ally, I’ll do whatever it takes. I know we both have serious missions to do, so let’s give it our all. .jpg) I just want you all to keep in mind those two are up there. We’ll check back in on their operation in the future. For now, let’s get back to our task of clearing out those hotspots. .jpg) Backtracking a ways, the next targeted destination are a set of ruins just north of the central Save Terminal we hit up before going on a field trip. Here we find... .jpg) Whyyyy... N-no... Stay...away... What’s with the weird-looking outfits? I’ve seen that sort of thing when I was going through some old data. It looks like what humans used to wear long ago. Certain human collectives used to use face paint like that, too. Huh....jpg) Yeah, well. Not anymore... Bad run in with a Doom Boar. Long story... .jpg)  The penultimate targeted region is back to the east a decent clip. Machine patrols get somewhat heavier in this direction. But we’re only worried about the one right now. .jpg) ...elp...meeeee... Help...me...! !? 2B, it’s fine. Their speech doesn’t mean anything. They’re just emitting words at random. If they wanted help, why would they be attacking us? ...Yeah..jpg) Alright, that’s a fair point. Kill ‘em all! Flying masked machines have absolutely no difference from the normal ones. They’re a couple levels higher. That’s it. They just shoot orbs. .jpg) .jpg) We’re almost done with the Desert Zone. We have one final destination to the northeast, near an opening in the canyon’s face. Unlike the other areas, there is only a sole machine hanging out. .jpg) You picked the WRONG day to go take a stroll alone, buddy. .jpg) .jpg) Unlike the last handful of machines that talked about being scared but fought to the death, this one actually chooses to bug out once its HP falls below 30%. It does this by doing a flying head-butt into the sand and burrowing underground. .jpg) .jpg) Pod 042 doesn’t want this jerk getting away and used its scope view to target him. Our new goal is murdering the poo poo out of that particular machine. gently caress that guy! Nobody escapes 2B’s wrath. .jpg) Our pursuit leads us to the end of the Desert Zone area. Tune in next time... .jpg) .jpg) .jpg) ...for some aggressive real estate brokering. And the first true “what the gently caress?!” NieR: Automata will offer.  Video: Episode 14 Highlight Reel  Desert Machine Lifeform Concept Art – I wonder how many rules there were against cosplay and robots. The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Apr 20, 2017 |
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Apr 19, 2017 18:32
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I am purposefully going to avoid showing off that enemy type for at least 20 updates now. Also stop talking about stuff not coming up for 20 updates now. I'll get to it!
The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Apr 19, 2017 |
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Apr 19, 2017 19:12
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Next update will probably be Saturday. In the meantime, a preview... Owowowowowow. Scared. Dying. Scared. Are... are we the baddies? *kickflips off dying machine* Pfft. Nothing the machines do means anything, 2B. Now strike a pose. Imma get the Pod to upload this to YoRHatube.
The Dark Id fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Apr 21, 2017 |
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Apr 21, 2017 02:45
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