Yoko has been particularly vocal in the past about his disdain for most female characterization in gaming, and his critiques are backed up by his excellent writing here. Their decisions and actions are almost never dictated by men, because they have far more pressing things to worry about. 2B, Anemone, the Commander, and other complex, nuanced women dominate Automata’s narrative. It’s also worth noting that NieR: Automata has some of the best female characterization I’ve seen in a game. Yoko is, without a doubt, a developer preoccupied with making art with a capital “A”, and this game is his most fully-realized work to date. In a world where gaming’s idea of “complicated narratives” is “kill a person or don’t,” Automata makes many other philosophical pursuits in gaming look like child’s play by comparison.
It’s not a game that one can expect to just “get” once they finish it. Even then, there are plot threads and ideas that will leave players asking questions long after they’re done. Robots questioning the tenants of Nietzsche, questions on the idea of gender as a social construct, moral problematizing of human and machine relationships, whether or not society is just a false construct that we use as a security blanket-there’s a lot of heavy philosophical lifting required to entirely grasp the narrative here. Which is to say, Yoko goes off the rails in the fantastically bonkers way that only he can. After players reach the first main ending (of which there are several, each with their own long narrative thread,) Automata shows its true face to the audience.
That’s before the remaining, oh, 20 or so hours happen. From the outset, it seems like a narrative that is very easy to grasp and something that mainstream audiences will be comfortable with. Only then can the humans come back and repopulate the planet, restoring the natural balance. They’re told that human beings are alive and well on the moon, and that their job is to destroy the berserk machines dominating the planet. On a very surface level, though, NieR: Automata is a post-apocalyptic action game about androids protecting a ruined earth. If anyone is going to make a game that defies accurate classification, it’s Yoko. He’s an interesting guy, to say the least, in the same league as other famous gaming auteurs like SWERY and Yoshiro Kimura. Yet it is, undoubtedly, very much its own strange, beautiful thing.īut then, what else could be expected from the famously elusive and oblique Yoko Taro? This is the man who ended his first major title with an army of mutant babies ripping a tear in the space-time continuum, and whose most recent title featured a cornucopia of dragon piss jokes. Sure, elements of different genres are here, snippets of stylistic choices from other titles. It’s precisely because of this that, among several other reasons, that NieR: Automata is so fascinating-from start to finish, it refuses to be classified. Yet the genre divide continues, mainly because it’s what we’re used to, and because it makes selling games easier.
#Nier automata mechanical swordfish series#
Shooter fans that think RPGs are “too complicated” may not realize t hat their favourite online game utilizes role-playing-esque levelling mechanics RPG diehards who dislike action games often don’t realize newer entries in their favourite series are cribbing things from hack ‘n slash titles. “Genre” is an artificial construct that serves marketing execs more than consumers-at least as far as gaming is concerned.
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