…become as gods! …become as gods! …become as gods! …become as gods! …become as gods!

I finally really finished Nier: Automata. And i finished it on the flowers for m[A]chines, and i had been under impression by it

A very confusing impression that needs a semi-philosophical ramble of text

# Part one

Last time we stoped on the entrance to the Shopping Center. Going through it i got to the Forest. In the Forest i got to meet and kill a bunch of robo-knights that were protecting their King. Then i got through the castle to the throne room i met the King… Well it was more of a Prince… Specifically it was a robo-baby in the robo-crib. No need to worry, my bigotry towards the machines is not big enough to hurt a baby. But my kindness didn’t help it then deserter YoRHa named A2 got to it. She killed the kid. Then i got the order to kill the deserter and we fought. I almost won and the bitch escaped with words “I am not an enemy, your command are your real enemy”. And i hadn’t seen her after that. This whole plotline is practically abandoned by the story. Maybe if got to complete “Traitors of YoRHa” i would get answers, but i wasn’t able to do that

I walked back from the Forest using the shortcut kindly provided by Pascal. From there i transported back to rebel base, there the leader given me the mission to protect a missile on the Sunken City shores. She said that there was nowhere to hurry and if i had other YoRHa business to do i could do it before dealing with the rocket. And i should’ve listened to her

# The moment of no return

That was one of this moments that just automatically made all non-completed sidequests into the failed state. And i can understand such practice for the last hour of the compain, but there were at least 4 full hours of game after that >:(

I hadn’t mentioned him before, but i had a companion during my adventures. His name was 9S and he irritated me :)

Sooo, in the Sunken City after i fought off some machines , me and my companion 9S got summoned to protect the aircraft carrier. And about 3 minutes later that carrier got eaten by a robo-whale weaponized with a machine factory, tonns of guns and radiowave jammers. I wasted about 20 minutes on destroying the jammers on this whale’s back. Then played a mini-game of “press the button B then the Whale opens it’s mouth”. And then Pascal got to help us the best he could. And 9S made up an ingenuious plan of me doing the same shit and him shooting the Checkov’s missile

Results: Whale is dead and stands in the sea, dozen of androids(including 9S) got spread on the map, and i was dealing with all of the consequences

# Fight club or how i killed Adam

To find 9S and other YoRHas i was issued a scanner. And i found all missing androids exept for 9S

And while i was searching for the boy on the shores of the Sunken City i found an underground fight club where androids beaten uping machines. I got to win one fight and was gifted a pack of hair dye. But after i saw that machines in there were having same rights as circus lions, i had no wish in continuing my participation in this

On the way back i finally found breadcrumb trails of 9S. They got me to the elevator in the caves next to the Alien Mothership. Going down this elevator i saw the small town built of white voxels built by non-other than Adam. The same Adam who got born this morning and same Adam i beaten up twice. He was surrounded by corpses of players(corpses here work in the same way lost packages work in Death Stranding). And since our last confrontation he got some nice clothes and capture 9S. We fought for the third time, i killed him after two attempts

The best part of this fight was that 9S got damaged enough to be laying in the hospital till the finale :)

The interesting part was in the Adam’s monologue. As it was characteristic to the machines’ fascination towards the humanity and human way of life, Adam wanted to feel all of the aspects of the human life. That was the reason behind creating this town, that was the reason of him disconecting from the network, and that is why he wanted to die

That was the moment i knew — the things go towards real serious themes i had started this game for

# Back to the factory

As in any good story, in Nier: Automata the story is built in the cycle. After killing Adam, i got a call from Pascal. He asked to assist him on the peace treaty talk with other settlement of the machines. They were living in the factory from the beginning of the game

Entering there me as Pascal got to see the religious life thriving in the place previously promoting progress and industrial triumph. They had all signs of centralized religion: they wore robes and funny hats, spoken about god and chanted songs, all that stuff. They were not dangerous. Until we got down to meet their leader

Then we got to the throne room, their leader had lost his head, and the surrounding choir started chanting “His grace became a god!”, “We will become as gods!” and most importantly “You will become as gods!”. They attacked us and blocked off the main entrance. So me and Pascal needed to take a long way around the factory

And belive me or not, this was the hardest moment in the game for me. And reason is simple: this cultists come out of nowhere and have suicide bombers

Remember that after death 2B leaves a corpse? Well this corpses contain all of your chips except for the HUD and OS. And i lost all of my upgrades to the one-shoting industrial press. Which ment i had lost: running speed, HP regeneration, melee and gun damage, item magnet, autouse of healthpacks on low HP and damn good fishing spot detector >:(

And without this chips i cannot react to this &#Ъ%!@$ machines and started constantly dieing

After wasting an hour of my time on suicide bombers and presses, me and Pascal finally ran of the most infuriating part. And i am thankful for this marathon of pain, because after third attempt i started seeing that not all robo-cultists wanted to kill us, they had no interest in dieing themselves. They were hiding in the corners, praying for their god, they feared for theirselfs and their friends

The peak of this pain was the last fight with cultists. In it among attacking machines there were scared machines that just got into the fetal pose and prayed for help. Both sides wore same robes, same funny hats, had same models, same voice and same faith

After that i had beaten the boss, which really hadn’t mattered

And then everything was over, me and Pascal got to see the soulcrashing image. In the smeltery cultists started throwing themselfs into the pit of melted metal with maniacal laughter and words like “I feel good!”. Repeating “God… God… God… God…God… God… God…”, “All we need is to die”, “I am scared”, “We will be free of our tourment” and to give me a proper gut punch they said “Bye-Bye”… The whole factory was full of corpses of dead machines in robes…

And it seems Pascal got traumatized enough to get a fuge and forget what was happening in there, the only thing he said is that the factory was huge and he wanted to revisit it

I was sitting in the shower for about an hour thinking of this scene…

# flowers for m[A]chines

And now finally, finalle

I will not spoil it, but i’ll say a thing: i had tricked you again

I hadn’t really finished with Nier: Automata. Because flowers for m[A]chines even if it has real credit sequence and zeroes out the safe, is still a fake ending

It was an overly soppy and underdeveloped. Right after catharsis of the Abandoned Factory last two hours of the game felt meaningless. It hadn’t added a thing to the metaphorical dialog between me and Yoko Taro. This was nothing. Story just ended with absolutely tasteless, nothing-burger sequence of events unusually boring for this game. After credits i felt far less emotions than after eating Mackerel thanks to my stupidity

And i was ready for this ending. Because Nier: Automata is a game with whole english alphabet and one greek letter worth of endings. And it was obvious that the ending with main condition of “just finish the game for the first time” will have nothing of value

And even without knowledge of the alphabet i would anyway expect this result due to dozens of locked out locations, the fact that some sidequests are not completable due to this locks or even just absence of needed characters. Or that names of some bosses are written in sci-fi hieroglyphics. Or even the hacking minigame that in this story featured exactly once in the easily dodgable attack of one of the bosses. And most importantly: plotlines with no resolution

So yea, i hadn’t completed Nier: Automata