With the amount of attention 2B has gotten, you’d think NieR: Automata is some kind of hentai game. It is, in fact, not a hentai game. It’s not even as risque as Bayonetta. 2B is a prim and proper lady compared to her. NieR: Automata is an action adventure RPG developed by Platinum Games and published by SquareEnix. It does deal with some mature subjects, but boobs and butts are not among them.
NieR: Automata takes place in a world where long ago, aliens attacked Earth, and humans fled to the Moon. Earth was trashed by the alien’s machines, and humans sent androids to fight them on Earth. The war between the androids and machines has been waging ever since. You play as 2B and 9S, who are android members of YorHa, which is basically the android army. Their base of operations is on a space station orbiting Earth, called the Bunker. There are also more androids living on Earth who are fighting the machines, but are not part of YorHa. They are the resistance.
The game is split up into 3 acts. In the first act, you play as 2B with 9S following you around. The second act is a retelling of the first act from 9S’ point of view. It’s a lot like the first, since 2B and 9S work as a team, and are together most of the time, but there are new scenes that expand on the machines’ motives, and all of your non-story progress carries over, so it goes by quicker. The third act is the epilogue, and also lets you play as A2, that other android on the cover. I enjoyed every act, but I don’t think playing through most of the first act again as 9S was really necessary. It would have been perfectly fine if I just played from 9S’ perspective sometimes. 9S’ playthrough just isn’t different enough to warrant a nearly full playthrough of the first act. I bet a lot of people just stopped playing it there, because it just seems like a new game +. If the game wasn’t rolling the credits every chance it got, it wouldn’t seem so much like a new game +. There are 26 “endings” in the game, but they’re not really endings, it’s just a credits roll. The story is not actually over. The game is nearly 60 hours long.
This is open world game, but it’s not exactly Breath of the Wild or Grand Theft Auto. It reminds me more of Ocarina of Time. You have a big area connecting everything in the middle, and new areas open up around it as the game progresses. You’re not opening the way to new areas with items or skills here, though. The environment will change and open up as the story progresses. For example, at one point, some buildings are destroyed, opening the way to a new area through the exposed sewer tunnels.
I really like the world of NieR: Automata, but the actual storytelling is just OK. It takes a long time for it to really get going. I spent a lot of the game wondering what the purpose of me being here was, besides killing machines. Or was the point to make me ponder my own existence? I wonder. I spent most of the game running errands for YorHa and the resistance, just waiting for the machines to do something for me to react to. A lot of the game is really just MMORPG style fetch and delivery quests.
What I really loved about this world was the disturbing things the machines did, and the way the androids reacted towards them. Androids are just robots that look like humans, yet they treated the machines like inferior things that could not feel or think for themselves. When machines started doing things, like caring for babies, and talking about love and family, the androids denied that they could actually feel and think for themselves, and chalked it up to them imitating humans. The game is full of this kind of stuff.
The combat in NieR: Automata is sort of like Bayonetta on easy mode. You have your quick and strong attacks, guns, and your dodge and jump moves, but there are no complex combos, or strict timing required to do different attacks, like in Bayonetta. You just kind of mash buttons. You can even hold the attack buttons down to do automatic combos. I’m fine with the combat not being as deep as in other Platinum games, because this is an RPG, and the main focus is the story.
But NieR: Automata is more than just a Non-stop Climax Action game. This is also a 2D shoot 'em up, a side scrolling action platformer, and a twin stick shooter. The game switches between all of these modes often. The shoot 'em up sections have you flying on a YorHa flight unit, which looks like something straight out of Macross, and they play like a lost Treasure game from the Dreamcast days. The twin stick shooter sections are the game’s hacking minigame, which is 9S’ specialty, so you’ll be playing a lot of those in Acts 2 and 3. I’m not a big fan of twin stick shooters, like Geometry Wars, but it beats most game’s hacking minigames, and they usually aren't too annoyingly difficult.
I appreciate the amount of options and workarounds the game gives you to customize your game. You can change the difficulty on the fly, customize the buttons, and change a lot of things about how the camera behaves. There’s also the Plug-in Chips, which are a way to customize your gameplay. You can equip chips that regen your HP while not taking damage, chips that increase your damage, your run speed, HP, give you new moves, like a counter, and a bunch of other things. There’s even a chip that slows down time after successfully dodging an attack, like Bayonetta’s Witch Time. There’s also chips to customize your HUD. It’s a pretty cool system, but may be a little confusing, since the UI for it kind of looks like the HDD defragging UI in Windows.
There’s a few confusing and annoying things about the UI, like the Plug-in Chip interface and the map. The entire UI actually has an in-game explanation. It’s the android’s operating system. That’s why it looks like a computer. The map is supposed to be satellite data from the Bunker. That's why it only maps the surface. There’s actually a guy in the game that gives you excuses for these things. The developers must have known that reviewers would have issues with some of this stuff. Having in-game explanations is neat and all, but it doesn’t make it any easier to deal with as a player. The map is especially hard to deal with, because since it’s only mapping the surface, it’s completely useless for anything underground, or simply in-doors.
This game is no technical marvel. It doesn't look like it had a big budget. There are a lot of reused models and textures all over the game, making some areas look a little bland. The game definitely has style, though. The environments are cool looking, even if the textures aren't great. I love the whole theme of nature reclaiming the ruined city and machines living in nature. I also loved the color palette used in the environments. The game uses very muted colors, which remind me of the Ico games. The design of the machines can be both cute and scary, and the 3 playable androids have very distinct and cosplayable designs.
The music in this game is outstanding. I’m not surprised it won best music at the Game Awards. It has a very mellow, haunting soundtrack, with both electronic and acoustic themes. All the music also has a retro video game version, which will play when you go into 9S’ hacking minigame. The English voice acting is also spot on. 2B sounds like a very restrained woman, 9S like a naive teenager, and A2 like a jaded veteran who has seen through the world’s lies. The Japanese voices sound good, but it’s really hard to read subtitles while playing an action game.
I thought I might like this game, since I’m a big fan of Bayonetta and Metal Gear Rising, but I was apprehensive, because all the attention focused on 2B’s ass. But this game isn’t perverted at all! It’s a serious action RPG with a unique style. If you like the sound of a Platinum action game with a big open world, a thought provoking story, and RPG elements, then you’ll probably love this game.
The Champion's Ballad is the final piece of DLC in the Breath of the Wild Expansion Pass. This is the big one. This is the one with the new story content and dungeon. It’s not necessarily post-game content, but you are required to have completed the original 4 dungeons before starting the Champion’s Ballad quest.
The Champion’s Ballad’s story takes place after you’ve finished the 4 original dungeons, but before you’ve killed Ganon. As soon as you start your game, Zelda will contact you telepathically, and give you the new quest. Zelda is still trying to contain Calamity Ganon, and this DLC does not have anything to do with the story that was hinted at in the 120 shrines ending.
The Champion’s Ballad quest starts at the Shrine of Resurrection on the Great Plateau, where you first start the game. After inserting the Sheikah Slate in the stone where you first found it, a disembodied monk voice will talk to you and start “The Divine Beast Tamer’s Trail”. The trials start with you getting a special weapon, the One-Hit Obliterator. This weapon looks kind of like a 4 pronged tuning fork with shide hanging off it. This weapon will kill anything in one hit, but will also make it so you die in one hit. You must use this weapon to finish 4 new shrine quests and shrines on the Great Plateau. You cannot heal, use any other melee weapon, or unequip this weapon during these trials. You can use all your runes, shields, armor, and bows, though. You also can’t leave the Great Plateau during the trails, or you’ll have to start it over. You won’t have to start the whole trial over if you die during the trials, though. It’s not that hardcore.
In these trials, you’ll go around the Great Plateau and kill camps of enemies to unearth new shrines. These 4 camps are all over the Plateau, and you'll have to put your BotW skills to use to clear them. The One-Hit Obliterator has a short cooldown after 2 uses, so it’s not like you can run in, smack everyone around, and be done with it. You’ll have to use the environment and your runes to your advantage. There’s even a shrine up in the snowy mountains, so you’ll also have to use your cold resist gear or consumables. The 4 shrines in the Great Plateau will put both your puzzle solving and combat skills to the test. They will have you using your runes to solve puzzles and overcome obstacles, and you’ll even fight some Guardians. Each of these shrines will reward you with a Spirit Orb, so you can get 1 more heart container. You’ll be leaving the One-Hit Obliterator in the Shrine of Resurrection when you clear these trials, so the one hit stuff ends then.
These trials on the Great Plateau might seem harsh and unfair, but they’re there to help you relearn how to play the game. Some people might not have played this game in 8 months or so. They really took me back to when I first played BotW, and could die at any moment. I enjoyed the refresher. You’ll definitely be needing these skills for the rest of the trials in this DLC Pack.
Before you open the new dungeon, you’ll have to go through the trails the rest of the Champions went through 100 years ago. These trials will have you traveling to the 4 major areas surrounding the Divine Beasts, and reliving the trials that Revali, Daruk, Urbosa, and Mipha went through to take control of the Divine Beasts, and the battles against the Ganon blights in which they died in.
Once you’re done with the trial on the Great Plateau, 4 quest trackers will appear near the Divine Beasts, and Sheikah pedestals will be waiting for you at these spots. Each column on these pedestals has a piece of a map showing you where you need to go to find the trails that will open the shrines. There is no way to track these spots, and the map looks like an overhead picture, and not like the map on your Sheikah Slate, so even figuring out where these places are on the map is a puzzle onto itself. Once you get to these spots, you’ll be doing a number of different types of quests to open the shrines. Some will require you to solve a riddle, one will have you gliding through markers, like in a Pilotwings game, there’s a sand seal race, and you’ll even fight some world bosses.
The new shrines run the gamut of shrine puzzles and obstacle types. You’ll be doing everything from making ice block stairs, and moving metal blocks around, to shooting bombs out of cannons, and connecting electrical currents. I didn’t notice any new types of puzzles, but the shrines do include more types of puzzles in a single shrine. These shrines do not reward you with Spirit Orbs, so you can’t get any more heart containers.
After you’ve completed the 3 trials and shrines, you’ll relive the battles against the Ganon blights which the Champion’s died in. The twist here is that you’ll be doing these fights with preset armor, weapons, and consumables, like food and arrows. You can still use your runes. These fights might be a bit harder without all your gear, but I think the hardest part was remembering the trick to killing them. After you beat these bosses, you’ll see a new memory similar to the ones in the main game. They are fully voice acted and reveal new details about Zelda’s relationship to the champions. I thought they were very well done, and liked learning more about the Champions.
Once you’ve completed the 4 Champion's trials, you’ll open the new dungeon. This new dungeon is labeled as a Divine Beast, and works like the rest of the Divine Beasts. I’m not sure what kind of beast it is, but the dungeon map looks like a motor, so maybe it’s the Master Cycle’s motor. This dungeon has 4 wings and a new boss. It’s not the biggest, or the most difficult dungeon in the game, but it is really good.
After completing the final dungeon, you’ll be rewarded with the Master Cycle, which I guess is another version of Link’s Mario Kart 8 bike, which is also called the Master Cycle. I wonder which branch of the timeline Mario Kart 8 fits in. The Master Cycle is a rune, and not like a normal horse. You can summon it anywhere you can summon a horse, without the need for the new saddle. You still can’t summon it in the Gerudo Desert, or on Death Mountain, just like with horses. This bike does run out of fuel. You can throw pretty much anything in it to fuel it, though. I’ve been throwing apples in the tank, because Epona likes apples, and this bike has a horse head. It’s a cool reward, but what am I supposed to do with it now? I’m done with the game. I’ve already done all the shrines, quests, and collected 900 Korok seeds. Hmm. I have an idea.
Along with the new main quest, you’ll also get a bunch of new side quests which will reward you with new items, like a saddle that lets you summon your horse anywhere, and Zelda character clothing, like Wind Waker Link’s blue lobster shirt, and Ravio’s hood from A Link Between Worlds. These side quests start by leading you to a journal, which will then update your quest log with hints for where to find all this stuff. All of these side quests are treasure chest hunts, which have you travel around Hyrule. I don’t think hunting for chests is very fun, but at least the items are cool.
This was a great way to finish off the Expansion Pass, and a great send off for BotW. The Expansion Pass is definitely worth the $19.99, for those who have finished the game. Those still trying to beat the original 4 dungeons should probably hold off on it until they get that done.
The Mummy Demastered is the latest game from the makers of Contra 4, Aliens Infestation, and the Shantae series, WayForward. It’s an action adventure platformer which combines elements from many classic games. It is unapologetically a Metroidvania, and will feel very familiar to fans of the GBA and DS Metroid and Castlevania games. It’s available on XBO, PS4, PC, and Switch for $19.99. I played the NS version for this review.
The Mummy Demastered is a movie-tie in game, something we don’t see a lot of on consoles anymore. It’s based on the recent movie, The Mummy. Not the one with The Rock in it, the 2017 one that nobody saw, including me. I don’t think this game even has anything to do with the Scorpion King. In it, you play as a faceless special agent tasked with taking out the evil mummy woman, Princess Ahmanet. You’re just one of many, G.I. Joe character looking agents. This actually plays into a big mechanic in the game, because when you die, you actually start over as a different agent.
This game looks like it could run on 3DS. The sprites are drawn in a very low resolution, and they look very pixelated on both a TV and on the NS screen. It reminds me of how GBA games look on Wii U Virtual Console. They are good looking sprites, though. The art style of the graphics reminds me of the GBA and DS Castlevanias. Even though this looks like a 3DS game, there are framerate drops on Switch. It doesn't ruin the game, but it is noticeable. It’s weird, because WayForward themselves have made a better looking game, that runs better on Switch. The music sounds OK, but there aren’t a lot of tracks, and all of them loop very quickly.
This game’s map design is straight up Metroid. There’s a lot of horizontal scrolling areas, which lead into vertical areas, which branch off into more horizontal areas. Each area is full of platforms you can’t reach until you get a special skill, tricky enemies, and doors that require special weapons to open. You open the path to new areas with grenades instead of rockets, roll under small spaces instead of using the Morph Ball, and save at computers instead of save stations, but it’s all still very familiar. Every area is full of breakable environment pieces, like hanging lanterns, crates, and diamond clusters, which give you health items and ammo, and there’s also helicopters which let you quickly travel around the map, so there’s definitely a lot of Iga Castlevania influence here too.
Your agent plays a bit like a Contra guy. The controls feel like an evolution of how Aliens Infestation played. All your weapons are real-world weapons, like shotguns, flamethrowers, C4, and assault rifles, so your attacks definitely look more like Contra than Metroid or Castlevania, but they serve the same purpose as a lot of items in those games. You can hold R2 down to plant your feet and aim in any direction, much like in Samus Returns, but only in 8 directions. You can also get abilities from magical scrolls and trinkets found around the world. These scrolls and trinkets are tied into the mummy lore, and give you powers, like a dash that can break walls, a ceiling clinging ability, and the ability to run and jump underwater. You can also find items that increase you max ammo, max health, and area maps. The map also looks like it’s straight out of a Metroid or Castlevania game.
Your default submachine gun has infinite ammo, but everything else has limited ammo, including your grenades. You do run out of ammo, but you can always get more pretty easily. You can even go to the trunks where you get weapons and refill all your ammo. You can only carry 2 extra guns with you, so you also use these trunks to switch loadouts. It’s kind of like Resident Evil. All these trunks are linked together, so you don’t have to go to specific ones to get your stuff. You can only carry one type of grenade, but I never found a reason to go back to previous versions after getting the upgrades.
This game has some pretty cool bosses. There’s a giant spider, a giant scarab, and a giant croc. I guess the themes aren’t too creative, but the fights are good. The one that sticks out in my mind the most is the giant crocodile. It reminds of the Metroid Queen fight from AM2R and Samus Returns. It’s a giant fire breathing croc that doesn’t even fit in one screen. It breaks the wall behind you, and forces you to run into another room like 4 times. It’s a very intense fight, and it’s only the second boss.
The regular enemies aren’t as good. Most of them are very cheap and annoying. I mean, like Ninja Gaiden bird annoying. There’s actually a few areas full of crows coming at you from all directions. There are also zombies that rise out of the ground right underneath your feet, and sarcophagi that rise out of the ground right in front of you, open their door, and shoot out a ghost at you super fast. You only get about half a second to respond. These cheap enemies really made me dread traversing the world at times, because the game is also incredibly stingy about giving you health pickups, which look just like Metroid health pickups too.
If you’ve ever played Phantasy Star Online, Diablo 3, or WoW you might be familiar with the corpse run. That’s the mechanic in which when you die, you have to run back to your corpse to get your stuff back, or face some kind of penalty, like losing your money. This game has it’s own version of the corpse run. When you die in this game, you become a zombie, and the game autosaves immediately. You then start back at the last save room you saved in, with a “new” agent, with nothing but your default gun, 100 HP, and your scroll and trinket abilities. You have no extra health, no other guns, and no grenades. You’re almost as weak as you are when you first start the game, and you have to go kill your zombie to get all your stuff back. Your zombie is also much tougher than any enemy in the game. It’s basically a miniboss. So, say you died in a place full of cheap enemies, you’re going to have a hard time getting your stuff back. You don’t even get your HP filled all the way when you kill your zombie, you only get about half of it, so you have to go grind to fill it back up, and since the game is so stingy with HP pickups, that’s going to take a while. It’s actually a lot faster to just make a copy of your save when you have full health, and just reload that when you die. That’s what I ended up doing.
If you’re into Metroidvanias, this is a pretty good game to spend a couple of days with. It’s not a masterpiece, but it’s a very solid one of those.
Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are a new take on the usual 3rd version of a Pokémon game. It’s kind of like a different cut of a movie. The scenes and dialogue are a little different, but it’s still the same story. Pokémon USUM has a new script, new and different vignettes, new characters, and new trainer battles, but at the end of the day, it’s still a lot like Sun & Moon. The real new content in Pokémon USUM comes after beating the Elite Four. There's a new post-game episode, a bunch of legendaries from old games to catch, and 5 new Pokémon, bringing the new total to 807. Don’t worry, you don’t have to catch 'em all. Actually, you can’t really catch 'em all here, because there is still no National Pokédex in the game.
In Pokémon USUM, you play as a young trainer who has just moved to Alola from Kanto, the region in which Pokémon Red and Blue took place in. The real story of the game is about Lillie and her Cosmog, Nebbie, though. Nebbie is a new unknown type of Pokémon, so Lillie is traveling around Alola trying to find out more about it. The story is not particularly good, and there’s a lot of it. It seems like there’s someone waiting to talk to you everywhere you go. This combined with the extremely linear path through the game, and the fact that I’ve already played this, makes for a very slow and uninteresting experience.
Much like in every other Pokémon game, you’re constantly blocked off from certain areas and funneled down a path. There is very little room for exploration, until you progress through the story. US and UM do let you have early access to BP items, move tutors, trading with Sun and Moon, and importing from Pokémon Bank, so you can at least play with the Pokémon you want, and experiment with items and moves as you play through the story again.
The new post-game story, Episode RR, has you battling against Team Rainbow Rocket. A new organization led by Giovanni, who has recruited other team bosses, like Maxie and Archie from Ruby and Sapphire. Giovanni actually pulled them in from other dimensions, through wormholes. Yeah, some Pokémon games take place in different dimensions. The Zelda timeline has nothing on the Pokémon timeline. This new episode is a short trip down memory lane, with a lot of callbacks to old villain organization lairs and bosses from old games to battle. Someone out there has nostalgia for teleporter mazes and rooms full of one way conveyor belts, right? Well, this episode is for those people. Aside from a bunch of references to old Pokémon games, and a few items, there’s not much here. You don’t need to play through this episode to catch the new Pokémon.
If you’re like me, you’re getting this game for the 5 new Pokémon. The new Pokémon are; Poipole, Naganadel, Stakataka, Blacephalon, and Zeraora. Naganadel is the evolvolved form of Poipole, Stakataka is exclusive to Ultra Moon, Blacephalon is exclusive to Ultra Sun, and Zeraora is the new distribution event only Pokémon. You can get 2 Blacephalons/Stakatakas, so you can try to trade the extra for the other version’s exclusive. I guess you’ll have to trade or wait for a distribution event if you want both Poipole and Naganadel for a living Pokédex.
USUM also has every Ultra Beast from Sun and Moon, and every legendary from all the games for you to catch. No mythical Pokémon, like Mew and Celebi, though. The Sun and Moon legendaries are waiting for you around Alola, after beating the Elite Four, and the old legendaries and Ultra Beasts can be found in the Ultra Space Wilds. The Ultra Space Wilds are small areas you can visit by going through wormholes in Ultra Space. There's a little Star Fox-like minigame in which you fly through Ultra Space on a Lunala or Solgaleo and collect rings, which make wormholes with rare Pokémon appear. The flying in this minigame is very sluggish and inaccurate, because you are constantly being pulled towards the center of the screen, so it feels like you’re fighting with the control the whole time. It’s very easy to miss rings and wormholes, so it can be very time consuming and frustrating to try and get all the legendaries like this, but a trainer's gotta do what a trainer's gotta do to catch 'em all, I guess.
The graphics in this version are exactly the same as in the originals. The framerate in single battles is better than in X, Y, and ORAS, but it still takes a dive in doubles and multi battles. The art style in the game is very nice, and Alola is a beautiful region, but the graphics look like they’ve been dialed back from even what X and Y were doing. There is also still no stereoscopic 3D in the game.
They did change the UI from Sun and Moon, but I’m not sure if it was for the better. It looks different and now you have to press Y to save and can’t scroll down to the save option with the d-pad or stick. I’m not sure how that’s an improvement.
One thing I really wanted upgraded was the PC space. It’s still 32 boxes with 30 spaces, for a total of 960. That’s fine if you only have 1 of each Pokémon, but doesn’t leave long-time collectors and breeders with a lot of room to play with, if they’re keeping a living Pokédex. Sure, that’s why we have Pokémon Bank, but constantly messing with Pokébank has its own share of problems.
Throughout my playthrough, I kept thinking that I want this formula to change. I don’t want more story, and I want to be able to explore more. I’d be perfectly happy with a game with no story besides me wanting to be the very best, like no one ever was. I just want to explore the world, catch Pokémon, battle, get badges, and become the Pokémon Champion. I don’t care about Lillie and her mother and the wacky scientists. Just let me live out my trainer fantasy. I also want the way in which these third versions are delivered to change. We live in the age of Internet connected videogame systems. There’s no reason (besides greed) why USUM couldn't have been DLC for Sun and Moon. I don’t want to play through a 20-30 hour game again to play a new 2 hour episode and catch 4 new Pokémon.
If you want the 5 new Pokémon, you’re going to get this game anyway. I didn’t have much fun replaying the story, but there’s plenty of fun to be had after it. This is still the game you’ll want to get to do all your breeding, raising, and battling in.
