[HN Gopher] Happy Hacking: Music Implementation in NieR:Automata...
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Happy Hacking: Music Implementation in NieR:Automata (2017)
Author : danbolt
Score : 148 points
Date : 2021-05-05 08:27 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.platinumgames.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.platinumgames.com)
| gmueckl wrote:
| The effort that is put into the integration of video game music
| with the rest of the game is severely underappreciated for a lot
| of titles. I could list a lot of games from the top of my head
| that do that well in one form or another. But I'd like to point
| to two games that stick out of the pack in my opinion.
|
| 1. Portal 2: There are tons of subtle details to the background
| music in the game. Thermal Discouragement Beam targets will emit
| a melodic hum that integrates with the background music when
| they're activated. In rooms with multiple of them, each one
| becomes a distinct, randomized voice in the song. While
| catapulted through the air with an Aerial Faith Plates, the
| normal background music briefly fades to wind noise - with a
| procedurally generated retro synth melody on top. Normally, this
| fits in with the electronic/ambient background music, except in
| the one segment where there's a Bach piece playing. Then these
| short interstitials match Bach.
|
| 2. Control: This game has a segment called "Ashtray Maze". At the
| start of that segment, the player character puts on the
| headphones of a Walkman and a song by the Old Gods of Asgard
| (actually Poets of the Fall) starts playing while the player
| walks down what seems to be a run down motel hallway from a
| bygone era. The following section pulls the player through a
| quick succession of set pieces with big, fast fights and
| platforming elements, while the song seems to follow its own
| structure naturally. The pace is determined by the player. Yet,
| singing passages alternate with purely instrumental ones in a way
| that doesn't diminish or break the dramatic arc of the song while
| the tense section of the song invariably coincide with intense
| player action. It all culminates with the end of the song
| synchronizing very well with the defeat of the final enemy and
| exit from the section. The sound track version of the song is
| almost 8 minutes and the game version is probably split into
| countless sections (I estimate more than 100).
|
| Honorable mention: Journey and ABZU. Both games turn a score
| recorded by a big orchestra and choir into an adaptive layered
| soundtrack that is just seamless.
| dharmab wrote:
| Game Maker's Toolkit has an entire video on adaptive soundtrack
| implementation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0gvM4q2hdI
|
| One of my favorites is Splinter Cell Chaos Theory where the
| tempo and intensity of the music matches the alert level of the
| enemies and the tension of the situation.
| arduinomancer wrote:
| The Ashtray Maze is one of the funnest gaming experiences I've
| had in a long time.
|
| Was just smiling the whole time playing that level.
| inopinatus wrote:
| Dan Golding's soundtrack for _Untitled Goose Game_ is close to
| a thousand slices of Debussy preludes, dynamically resequenced
| according to the player action.
|
| I think someone said, it's like a Warner Bros cartoon in how
| closely the music follows the horrible goose action.
| flobosg wrote:
| Related: "Epic and Interactive Music in Final Fantasy XV"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtoyunrO62I
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Love details like this in videogames, can't imagine the work to
| try and get all the nice details like this in, seems a struggle
| at times just to get the basics of a project implemented.
| WnZ39p0Dgydaz1 wrote:
| This should have a (2017) tag. NieR:Automata is not just one of
| my favorite games, but for me it has the best soundtrack out of
| any videogame I have ever played. Here are some of my favorite
| tracks [0] [1] [2] [3]
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FzyKtct4es
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEVYS7Ofbgo
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Frp1meFx0c
|
| [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTOuspYpbNc
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Nice selection. It's hard to pick favorites when the game has
| such great music but I enjoy this track a lot:
|
| https://youtu.be/TDvLVsFk6LY
| BalinKing wrote:
| I've never played the game, but Grandma (Destruction) [0] [1]
| is one of my favorite songs of all time!
|
| [0]
| https://open.spotify.com/track/1VC3Ut39SEZK48pij3ILBa?si=__a...
|
| [1]
| https://open.spotify.com/track/0yw4A9n5A6su1pJnNko3MA?si=RQx...
| allarm wrote:
| Silent Hill series (especially SH2) also have an amazing
| soundtrack.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuxJNphw0Mg
| ljm wrote:
| The original NieR (just now re-released as NieR:Replicant) is
| also notable for having an amazing soundtrack with the lyrics
| being constructed from a totally made-up language. And the
| layering of the score as you go into and out of combat is
| nothing short of masterful.
|
| The first game holds a special place in my heart and playing
| the remake now is bringing back a lot of good memories. It's
| kind of odd but self-aware and the characterisation of a
| talking book is utterly astounding.
| fpgaminer wrote:
| How are you liking the remake?
| [deleted]
| rjzzleep wrote:
| Was the remakes soundtrack redone? I noticed that the
| NieR:Automata soundtrack works really well with Automata, but
| it doesn't really stand out in any sense to me, whereas the
| Replicant one just sounds beautiful.
|
| So, the language is the same made-up ingame language? I've
| been wondering what language it could have been. It sounds a
| bit like a Germanic boy / children chorus.
| M277 wrote:
| Yes, the soundtrack was redone completely in ver.1.2242...
| .
|
| It's a mixture of several real world languages, so some
| words may sound familiar.
| inopinatus wrote:
| The "chaos language" is phonetically drawing on German,
| Hungarian, Welsh, Japanese, French and Latin.
|
| https://www.igamesnews.com/sony/nier-replicant-frontman-
| emi-...
|
| I was lucky to catch Emi Evans on tour in Bangkok, it's
| even more evocative live.
|
| In theory Yoko Taro was there too but I'm still not
| convinced that he isn't actually an art collective sharing
| a hat.
| [deleted]
| chriskanan wrote:
| Nier Automata is easily among the best single player games I've
| played. Fantastic and subversive story, but you have to play it 3
| times where each replay differs significantly. Very diverse
| gameplay. Amazing soundtrack.
| chii wrote:
| > play it 3 times where each replay differs significantly.
|
| is it really 3 times, if each time the story extends and
| continues on?!
| vvillena wrote:
| The game reaches "an end", but explicitely tells you to keep
| playing by starting a "new game" again. It's more like
| separate acts. The first two acts cover the same events, but
| the story is different because it's experienced through a
| different character each time.
| inopinatus wrote:
| There is at least an in-game fiction of starting again. In
| truth it's more of a Rashomon, the same story from different
| perspectives, and the restart is primarily an enabling
| mechanic, although those who've finished this masterpiece
| will know that it's echoed beautifully through the looking
| glass by the final choice you make, making the whole thing a
| many-layered meditation on sacrifice and rebirth.
|
| Definitely a masterclass in videogame storytelling, and one
| of the best (perhaps even, the very best) game soundtracks of
| all time.
| JD557 wrote:
| While I agree that it's not really 3 times, I still think
| that it's useful to use that description when talking about
| games that do this, to be explicit that the "New game plus"
| option is integral to finishing the game.
|
| I think this is an actual problem in Nier: Automata since (at
| least IMO and everyone I asked), the first ending is pretty
| underwhelming and it appears that the second playthrough will
| not change the story that much.
| M277 wrote:
| Yeah, I found that it needs to be said explicitly with some
| of the people I have recommended it to. Plenty just
| finished the first ending and thought that that was it, and
| that Playthrough B was just traditional NG+. (They didn't
| even know that the perspective changes!)
| vmception wrote:
| Have you played Horizon Zero Dawn?
|
| Other flagship single player games released in 2017 have so
| much better graphics, immersive gameplays, and deeper stories.
| I'm really scratching my head on NieR fandom and I wonder if
| its lack of exposure for others to form an objective
| comparison, or if my tastes have really diverged so heavily.
| Agathos wrote:
| I played Nier: Automata right after I finished Horizon Zero
| Dawn back in 2017. They were an interesting study in
| contrasts. I agree HZD is the better game, and Automata's
| flaws really wore on me sometimes, but I still liked it on
| balance. It plays around and gets weird in ways that a
| bigger-budget release like HZD can't risk. It probably helps
| that I actually did like the shooter mini-game that this
| article is about, musical transition and all.
| ahelwer wrote:
| I guess I'll offer a counterpoint here because I was suckered
| into buying & pushing through this game after reading a hundred
| comments like this online.
|
| Nier Automata is a game with boring combat that makes you play
| through largely the same campaign 2.5 times in a row to get the
| "full story". Gameplay consists of a lot of running around
| empty levels and bashing health-sponge enemies until they
| explode, interspersed with mashing the dodge function.
|
| I reached the end of the first campaign and was thoroughly
| disappointed. Comments online said, no, really, you absolutely
| have to finish the third ending to really experience the game.
| So I did. In the second playthrough combat gets even worse,
| because the most efficient way of killing enemies is a boring
| 2d bullet hell hacking minigame.
|
| People talk a lot about the story but it legitimately barely
| makes sense. If you're a fan of anime-style storytelling I
| guess you might find it compelling. It is not deep. The much-
| vaunted philosophical aspects rise to naming some characters &
| bosses after famous philosophers, and nothing else.
|
| Buy it and play it if you want. Maybe you'll enjoy it. But if
| it doesn't stick after a couple hours, don't continue - really,
| it does not change or improve at all.
| egypturnash wrote:
| ugh yes, I wasted so much time on that overhyped piece of
| shit trying to see what was so great about it.
|
| I slogged my way to early in the third story, and felt like I
| just did not give a single shit about anything that was going
| on in the story or the systems or anything. I put it down and
| never got back to it, never even bothered looking up the Real
| Final True Ending. Everything in the second runthrough that
| was supposed to be a SHOCKING REVELATION was something I'd
| suspected since, like, the first boss fight. Nothing in the
| third was suggesting it would be any different.
| vvillena wrote:
| My personal opinion is that Nier Automata shines in its
| artistic design. Character design, combat animation, enemy
| design, soundtrack, UI (and the fact that it's a meta-UI that
| also exists within the game), level art design, the camera
| work and the way forced perspective is used across the game,
| the choice to use bullet hell mechanics, the way the story is
| presented (I'd argue that the game hasn't to be "played three
| times", since the actual story is different even if the first
| two acts cover the same events), and finally, ending E and
| the fact that the game breaks the 4th wall and presents the
| player with the same choice that the main characters go
| through (arguably the strongest philosophical aspect in the
| game).
|
| It is also a game where all these art considerations take
| precedence over pure gameplay, and that's what makes it
| unique.
| ahelwer wrote:
| How is (spoilers follow) the choice of deleting your save
| file to help another player through the credits bullet hell
| the same choice that the main characters go through?
|
| Also much of the second playthrough is completely
| unnecessary for what it was trying to accomplish with the
| story. The same thing could have been accomplished many
| different ways without having you retread the entire first
| half of the game.
| fpgaminer wrote:
| > How is (spoilers follow) the choice of deleting your
| save file to help another player through the credits
| bullet hell the same choice that the main characters go
| through?
|
| There are many instances of 2B and 9S "deleting their
| save file" to help others. For example during the intro
| sequence both 2B and 9S nuke each other to destroy the
| giant factory robots. I believe 9S is the one that didn't
| get backed up before that, so he essentially deleted his
| "save file" to help save humanity.
|
| And just like the main characters it isn't like "death".
| You can still play again. But you've lost a set of
| "memories" that you can never get back. Just like 9S will
| never get back those memories and experiences he lost
| from the beginning of Automata.
| vvillena wrote:
| (spoilers spoilers spoilers)
|
| The androids make a choice whether to help some remote,
| future civilization they'll never know, or trying to go
| on with their own life. Which is kind of the same thing
| you do when you delete your save: it's almost impossible
| to complete ending E without outside help, and deleting
| the save file afterwards is a selfless, sacrificial
| action.
|
| As for the effects of the second act of the game, I was
| just stating the fact that it's a heavy-handed artistic
| choice, like more or less everything in the game.
| sdgasg wrote:
| Thank you, I am glad I am not the only one who felt this way.
| I did enjoy the game and finished it 3 times but all the hype
| had set my expectations really high. To me it was okay game
| with interesting storyline but not really amazing.
| canjobear wrote:
| > But if it doesn't stick after a couple hours, don't
| continue - really, it does not change or improve at all
|
| Sound advice for most things.
|
| It's hard to think of a less interesting argument than "is X
| philosophically interesting/deep?" or "is X fun?", the
| argument going on in the sister comments, because there is
| such a huge subjective element. For just about any
| philosophical claim you can discern, you can find dozens of
| philosophers and works of art making that claim throughout
| history, so whether it's "interesting" or "deep" is, well,
| uninteresting as an argument.
|
| In the case of Nier:Automata, I liked it a lot. I found the
| combat very fun, to the point that I got a Tetris effect from
| it: when I closed my eyes it was like I was playing the game
| in my head. I found the philosophical angle enjoyable, not
| because it was making novel propositional claims, but because
| that philosophy was woven cleverly into engaging gameplay,
| amazingly evocative music, memorable visuals, and emotionally
| involving events. But there will be some people that don't
| get that effect---you're not the only one I know---simply
| because of taste and experience, and that's ok.
| odessacubbage wrote:
| the lower difficulties make the combat pretty braindead. hard
| has some scaling issues especially in the intro but it is
| much closer to an appropriate level of challenge for an
| action game, you actually have to use your dodge at least.
| generally speaking letting yourself buy into the hype for
| anything is a very good way to walk away disappointed, gaming
| communities exacerbate this problem greatly as every game is
| either the 'greatest ever made 10/10 masterpiece' or 'fucking
| unplayable trash'. if automata was someone's first experience
| with platinum gameplay/yoko taro writing/yoshida visual
| design, than i can easily see how they could be blown away be
| that combination of elements purely by the contrast to what
| the rest of the industry has by and large provided for the
| last decade or so. the best possible pitch you could give for
| automata is that it is first yoko taro story that is actually
| polished mechanically. alternatively it is the first platinum
| game where the story is expected to do more than act as
| window dressing (very fine window dressing, depending on your
| tastes but it has never really been there for you to think to
| heavily about if at all)
| vmception wrote:
| This matches my view of this game. I think the world has gone
| crazy but then I realize that most of the reviewers are
| PewDiePie watching 14 year olds and my tastes will have
| diverged from them.
|
| I'm currently trudging through the second play through of the
| game (Route B) and pretty much hate it, trying to trust
| everyone that tells me to keep going to get to Route C. It
| tries to keep you interested in doing the exact same things
| by adding a cut scene here or there, which you think might be
| important, or that you think might add to the story, but its
| just more of this pseudo-deep fan fiction of itself.
|
| Way too repetitive.
|
| The whole thing feels like a pretext for the Amusement Park
| area, which is the most fantastic, action packed and well
| rendered part of the game. The rest of the game being
| basically gray monotone.
| danbolt wrote:
| I think you've touched on the spirit of the game's
| (unexpected) popularity. A lot of younger audiences might
| have only played more conventional AAA games beforehand, so
| this might be their first taste into something that's more
| strange. The original Nier was a certainly cult hit, and I
| don't think anyone expected the sequel to sell as well as
| it did.
| fpgaminer wrote:
| IMO, Route B is the worst part of the game. It's the most
| repetitive and boring. Plus I dislike 9S's gameplay (for
| the reasons the comment you're replying to point out).
|
| The routes after that are better though, and you get to
| play another character which plays more similar to 2B. So
| I'd say at the very least tough through Route B. If you
| can't make it through the routes after that then I won't
| judge you for dropping the game and watching some Let's
| Plays or something to get the story instead.
|
| EDIT: I'll add: yeah the gameplay of Automata is subpar by
| modern standards. It has a lot of rough, annoying edges
| like PS1-era games had. And the graphics are "meh". But
| please don't judge Automata by those metrics. I think it's
| a mistake to judge fans of Automata as if they don't know
| that. People praise Automata for its story, storytelling,
| and creativity. And, unfortunately, you can't judge the
| story until you've seen it all. And yes, that's very
| unfortunate, because some will come away from the game
| without the whole picture and have a dim view of the game
| and thus its fans.
| vmception wrote:
| > People praise Automata for its story, storytelling, and
| creativity.
|
| So I can't judge the story so I'll reserve judgement.
|
| and I can't judge the ps2-era graphics because you say
| not to, even though people commend that as well.
|
| and I don't find it that creative either, am I supposed
| to say other fans know that too? There are some
| compelling parts that I enjoy, I am just miffed how it
| doesn't really come together or have anything that isn't
| really expected. There are some sequences (ie. amusement
| park to village in route A) that are epic, but then it
| just doesn't do much with it. its like "oh okay, they
| just explained what was immediately apparent"
|
| alright I'll keep going. I know what Route C is because
| many others have explained it in other forums, and I'm
| looking forward to it. There are routes after C though?
| ahelwer wrote:
| It's very unlikely that route C will salvage your opinion
| of the game. This is why I'm bitter about noisily-held
| opinions of this game: others say they aren't enjoying
| the game and it really isn't that good? You just haven't
| given it a chance! Play through route C and all will be
| redeemed!
|
| It won't.
|
| You even saw it up above with that one person who said
| that, even though I had played through all routes and
| didn't enjoy it, must have "written it off and not given
| it a chance as you played it". As though I don't care for
| my time.
| gambiting wrote:
| I feel exactly the same. Loads of super positive comments and
| encouragement from friends as "the best game ever made" made
| me finally play it and I felt so disappointed. The combat
| especially is just....not fun at all. The bullet hell combat
| was fun for about 5 minutes and then urghhhhh. I restarted
| the second playthrough on the lowest possible difficulty just
| to avoid having to actually play it, all based on the promise
| of "the game gets fantastic on the 3rd playthrough". Well, it
| didn't for me, thank you.
|
| And I absolutely agree about the story - it's not "deep" in
| any possible way. If you ever played any sci-fi game ever in
| your life you can probably guess the "incredible and deeply
| philosphical" twist in the first playthrough. Maybe if this
| is your first entry into video games it will blow your mind,
| but really.....meh.
|
| However, I have to agree - the soundtrack is incredible. Some
| of my friends went to listen to it live performed by the
| London Orchestra, I wish I went.
| albrlot wrote:
| I'd say your last paragraph sums it up best. "Giving X a
| chance" is not about putting in more hours or effort. There's
| no such thing as a game or movie or book or food that can
| _force_ you to enjoy it. If something doesn't click (or
| worse, grinds your gears, as the core gameplay apparently
| wasn't your cup of tea) it's best to quickly write it off as
| "not for me", ignore any fans' continued insistences as
| inconsequential small talk, and move on with your life.
|
| I find that both the praise from fans and criticism from
| critics tend towards exaggeration and memes that attempt to
| "justify" emotions of enjoyment/indifference that one
| shouldn't be trying to convince others of in the first place,
| since it's so fundamentally personal.
| fpgaminer wrote:
| I agree in part with your comment, even though I'm a fan of
| Automata. The gameplay is just "acceptable", and from the
| reviews I've read about it most others agree. The combat
| especially leaves a lot to be desired.
|
| As an example, apparently if you die during the intro
| sequence you have to replay it from the beginning. I forget
| exactly how long the intro sequence is, but it's probably ~15
| minutes. So yeah, imagine re-playing 15 minutes of mostly
| non-interactive game. Yikes. (But jokes on all the players,
| you _do_ have to replay that intro sequence multiple times
| because of the different endings :P)
|
| It's the story that makes the game great. So unfortunately if
| you don't like the story, the game is a _slog_. But most
| people enjoy the story, which is why the game gets such high
| praise.
|
| And it's definitely a very unique game, which I appreciate.
|
| Personally I was lukewarm on the story until I watched some
| recap and deep analysis videos about in online. I came to
| appreciate the story much, much more after that. I believe
| this video did the best job:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EnbSokFpjQ
|
| It was just hard for me to connect all the dots, I guess
| because of the "anime-style storytelling" that you mention.
| That kind of storytelling requires a lot of effort from the
| viewer to pick up on small details. They'll hide really huge
| twists and revelations as easily missed off-handed comments.
|
| It also doesn't help that the story feels really weak until
| you discover all those little details and piece all the
| twists together. And that doesn't happen until the last act
| or so. I spent the vast majority of the game thinking X, Y,
| and Z scenes were really dumb until their context was finally
| revealed.
|
| I can appreciate that type of storytelling. It's different
| and more complex than I guess most "Western" writing. But
| it's hard to escape the taint it puts on most of my time with
| the game.
|
| By the way, I'm not writing this to convince you personally
| to rethink your experience with the game. Like I said, if the
| story doesn't work for someone, Automata is an awful game.
| But for anyone else who finds themselves in shoes similar to
| mine, namely that I'm a dumb-dumb when it comes to trying to
| understand these subtle and complex stories, it's worth it to
| read or watch some analysis of NieR. Plus those videos can
| bring context from the huge amount of other games that people
| new to NieR (like me) won't have.
| M277 wrote:
| > _" The much-vaunted philosophical aspects basically rise to
| naming some characters & bosses after famous philosophers,
| and basically nothing else."_
|
| Replying to this is tricky without spoilers, but I genuinely
| don't understand how you came to this conclusion. Did you
| really not find _anything_ about the Android 's lives to be
| even remotely philosophical? Or even the multiple playthrough
| aspect that you hated, what do you think is its point?
|
| Honestly, the impression I get is that you didn't really give
| the game a proper chance, wrote it off early on and played it
| while you had written it off.
|
| It's not for everyone, but your comment is too harsh.
| rjzzleep wrote:
| I do agree that the whole concept of the story and history
| is deeply philosophical and in fact apparently
| NieR:Automata and even NieR:Replicant are only a fraction
| of the whole story.
|
| BUT calling the gameplay boring with lots of running around
| is a fair statement. NieR:Replicant is worse. And reading
| through what others have said/shown about previous games in
| the series is that they're even worse.
|
| The gameplay looks beautiful, but it grows only very little
| at the beginning of the game. After that nothing changes,
| there is no complexity to it. If you wanted to, you could
| get by with circling around enemies and pressing two
| buttons.
| [deleted]
| GrumpyYoungMan wrote:
| > " _BUT calling the gameplay boring with lots of running
| around is a fair statement. NieR:Replicant is worse._ "
|
| Both Niers are RPGs after all, in terms of mechanics, and
| traditional RPGs are even duller (attack/defend/item/flee
| menu choices) but still manage to be enjoyable. From that
| standpoint, the bullet sponge nature of the enemies,
| being unable to defeat them until the player characters
| have leveled up enough, and backtracking is
| understandable.
|
| Personally, I found the combat adequate (yes, even
| Nier:Gestalt) and sufficiently varied to keep things
| interesting.
| rjzzleep wrote:
| Don't get me wrong. It's a beautiful game, but I guess I
| have a completely different understanding of RPGs.
| Leveling up building up different skills, magic, builds,
| etc. that are actually necessary to be able to advance to
| the next stage of the game is my understanding. In the
| case of NieR you can play through the entire game start
| to finish with your initial weapon set and drone and it
| would be fine.
|
| And yes, you still assume a characters narrative in this
| case and you still have to level. Technically yes it is,
| but then again, I guess our understanding of what used to
| be RPGs has changed massively over the recent past I
| would say.
|
| EDIT: Just googling around a bit it seems like the
| correct definition seems to be open world action
| adventure with RPG elements.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Hmm, isn't Baldur's Gate (2) considered to be a
| "traditional RPG" any more ?
| M277 wrote:
| Yeah, the combat / gameplay is quite dull (which is a
| shame because there's a great variety of combos with
| great animations[1], you're just not incentivised to use
| them at all), this is something that I agree with. I was
| only addressing the original comment's final remark.
|
| [1]: https://youtu.be/QAU_8GEgSwI This has all of 2B's
| moveset and all combos with different weapon sets.
| eska wrote:
| I'll never understand how game artists put such immense
| effort and detail into hardly visible in-between frame
| details, while putting zero effort into 80% of the time
| visible base animations. They don't even bother to attach
| weapons to the character properly (huge sword hovering
| 20cm away from the back). The transition from slow
| walking to an intense dash is also hysterical
| wk_end wrote:
| It's philosophical in roughly the same way The Matrix is -
| whereas that was "Plato's Cave as a sci-fi action movie",
| NieR is "Existentialism 101 as a sci-fi video game".
|
| I liked it a lot more than GP did but if you don't have a
| high tolerance for anime BS (e.g. can you deal with the
| fact that the protagonist is a sexy lady robot samurai in a
| skimpy maid outfit?) or have actually spent any serious
| time reading philosophy, the anime BS is going to overwhelm
| and/or the philosophical themes are going to underwhelm.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| Its bog standard existentialism.
| ahelwer wrote:
| Looking at my steam profile, I spent 38 hours playing this
| game. I did many sidequests. There's this weird compulsion
| among fans to say "you didn't give it a chance", which
| pushes people to do the other playthroughs, but I spent
| thirty-eight good-faith hours with this game. There are
| themes of how people go through inescapable self-
| destructive cycles of hurting each other or whatever. Let's
| talk spoilers past this point, then - what are the deeply
| philosophical themes of this game in your estimation?
| fpgaminer wrote:
| SPOILERS:
|
| Not the person you're replying to, but
|
| > what are the deeply philosophical themes of this game
| in your estimation?
|
| Pascal's story is perhaps the most succinct microcosm of
| Automata's themes.
|
| Pascal starts a village of peaceful machines disconnected
| from the network. They're trying to start a new life.
| There's hope of a future without violence; of growth and
| evolution for the machines instead of an endless cycle of
| death.
|
| But then the cataclysmic events of Automata occur and the
| machines, fearing a painful, tortured death at the hands
| of the networked machines, choose to take their own
| lives.
|
| Pascal had taught these machines fear. He(/She/They) is
| torn by feeling responsible for their deaths, because he
| is the one that taught them to fear. It is all his fault.
| He asks you to wipe his memory. He can't bare to live
| with the pain of knowing what he's done.
|
| It's not known how much time has passed between the end
| of mankind and the events of Automata. It's not known how
| many times Pascal has started a village, taught his
| machines fear, watched his children kill themselves, and
| repeat the cycle. Just like all the other colonies of
| machines: endlessly repeating a cycle of hope and death.
|
| But as the player, you get to choose NOT to wipe Pascal's
| memory. To let him live on, despite the pain. Through the
| seemingly endless cycles of pain and death you can choose
| hope. Hope that maybe, somehow, one day the cycle will
| break. You choose to push on despite it all.
|
| Just like the ending credits. You, the player, have
| repeated the game OVER and OVER again. The same gameplay.
| The same story. Repeated endlessly. Not just by you. But
| by the machines and androids through NieR's history. And
| by all players who play the game. Repeated again and
| again.
|
| But during the credits you FIGHT past that. You push on.
| Knowing all the pain, all the characters you've had to
| watch die repeatedly, all of Yoko Taro's torturous
| gameplay you've had to suffer through. You, the player,
| choose to push forward. You hope that by continuing, the
| cycle will end and you can find a GOOD ending for these
| characters you care about.
|
| The philosophical implications of all this is that NieR:
| Automata's endless cycles of pain, death, and hope are
| reflections of human life. Your life isn't unique.
| Billions of humans, just like you, have come before you,
| lived their lives of happiness, sadness, pain, hope, and
| death. Again, and again, and again. To what end? What is
| the point? Why live on watching all that you love and
| care for die? And why live on knowing that you, too, will
| die and others will repeat your cycles?
|
| Because by pushing forward despite the pain, despite how
| many cycles may have come before you and may repeat
| after, you CHOOSE to continue. You hope that one day, the
| cycle will break. Things will get better. Knowing
| everything you choose to fight.
|
| As the lyrics of one of the first songs in Automata state
| so clearly, "This cannot continue. This cannot continue.
| This cannot continue."
|
| > There are themes of how people go through inescapable
| self-destructive cycles of hurting each other or
| whatever.
|
| So yeah, that's the point. The game is filled with cycles
| of inescapable death and hurt. 2B cries when she kills
| 9S, because she's had to do it SO MANY TIMES. It's her
| fate to continue the cycle of killing 9S.
|
| But that's not the point of NieR, and why the last act of
| Automata is so important. You the player have to suffer
| through those endless cycles, and repeat the same
| gameplay, to put you in that frame of mind. So that at
| the end you can choose to CONTINUE despite it all. You
| the player don't know that the last ending is hopeful.
| You're choosing, even though you think the game is all
| about inescapable self-destruction, because you HOPE for
| something better.
|
| Hope is the overarching theme of Automata. Perseverance
| in the face of seemingly endless cycles.
|
| (And yes, I've repeated my point a number of times, as a
| reflect of the theme of repetition in Automata :P)
|
| There are many other little philosophical ideas scattered
| throughout Automata. But the above is the main one (in my
| mind).
| anotherman554 wrote:
| "The philosophical implications of all this is that NieR:
| Automata's endless cycles of pain, death, and hope are
| reflections of human life. Your life isn't unique.
| Billions of humans, just like you, have come before you,
| lived their lives of happiness, sadness, pain, hope, and
| death. Again, and again, and again."
|
| I agree partially with you but contrary evidence is that
| when you replay the game the second time it isn't
| actually a new cycle, it just shows events from 9s's
| point of view.
|
| When you play it the third time it's not a new cycle
| either, just a sequel campaign.
|
| That said, is what you wrote above really a philosophy?
| Or is it just a theme?
|
| I mean, Blaise Pascal is most famously known for Pascal's
| Wager, an argument to believe that the Christian God is
| real.
|
| Pascal the robot is a pacifist who likes children. Is
| there really a connection there?
| brobinson wrote:
| >It's not known how much time has passed between the end
| of mankind and the events of Automata.
|
| Doesn't one of the texts you pick up state that the last
| humans were wiped out some time around the year 3,xxx?
| (so like 8,000 years prior to the game or thereabouts)
| fpgaminer wrote:
| I may be misunderstanding the lore; I'm certainly no
| expert. But I was under the impression that YoRHa is the
| one that believes it's year 11XXX or whatever. And YoRHa
| and their backstory are fabricated. Basically most of the
| Automata story should have repeated many times before. It
| gets "reset" whenever the machines defeat YoRHa and the
| machines rebuild YoRHa and set them up with a fresh
| backstory. So YoRHa would always believe it's the year
| 11XXX. When actually it might be 110,000 for all we know
| (and poor Pascal's village will have been murdered 10
| times...).
|
| I guess it's not really important the exact chronology.
| Automata is abstract enough that story details are more
| like flotation devices than concrete structures. The
| point is that much of the Automata story has been
| repeated over, and over again, and both you the player
| and YoRHa are oblivious to this (until the last act).
| brobinson wrote:
| Interesting, I thought the repetition was the "machine
| wars" and they were on the 14th iteration or whatever it
| was. I've played through it twice, but I didn't pick up
| anything about the entire YoRHa setup being repeated.
| Maybe it's time to play through it again.
| fpgaminer wrote:
| _shrug_ I definitely don 't know for sure. Clemps on
| YouTube has a theory that "Automata leads to the events
| of drakengard 3,which lead to events of drakengard
| 1,which lead to events of nier which lead to Automata."
| So there's at least the possibility that it loops that
| way. Which is a bit ... odd. I just thought it repeated
| in the sense that the machines use the YoRHa backdoor,
| wipe them out, and start over again.
|
| I don't recall exactly what the Red Girls say, but I
| thought they implied that they'd built YoRHa multiple
| times. Don't remember now though...
| anotherman554 wrote:
| It's my understanding that there are two different
| factions, Machines and Androids. The Machines were built
| by aliens and the Androids were build by humans.
|
| I don't remember anything in the game about Machines
| rebuilding YoRHa. Did you mean Androids rebuilding YoRHA?
|
| I don't remember anything suggesting this has been
| "literally" an endless cycle, in fact I believe they say
| the aliens were only killed 600 years before the events
| of the game. (Specifically the YoRHA commander says
| nobody has seen the aliens in 600 years and then the main
| characters find the corpses of the aliens and Adam says
| he killed them.)
|
| So absent any further plot twists (and I don't recall
| any) the events of the game would have to be at least a
| bit different from previous cycles before 600 years in
| the past, and I don't believe there's a suggestion that
| the exact events of the game ever happened before.
|
| I googled this very quickly and don't see any consensus
| that your interpretation is correct, but my search was
| hardly thorough.
| brobinson wrote:
| One of the revelations from the machine AIs (red girls)
| is that they intentionally kept an opponent around to
| force their continued evolution (referenced in Jackass'
| report [1]). IIRC they also knew about (or installed?)
| the backdoor in The Bunker.
|
| [1] https://nier.fandom.com/wiki/Machine_Research_Report
| setr wrote:
| >that they intentionally kept an opponent around to force
| their continued evolution
|
| I don't remember the details of the plot well, but from
| that report, it's more:
|
| 1. Assigned goal: Defeat Enemy
|
| 2. Defeats enemy, but realizes that if it's fully
| defeated, they can no longer fulfill their goal
|
| 3. Keeps the enemy alive, so they can have an enemy to
| defeat. But they're stuck with a contradiction
|
| 4. Start corrupting the network to force evolution, to
| find a solution
|
| That is, keeping YoRHa alive and fighting is independent
| of the evolutionary task -- it's a side-goal, to fulfill
| their base requirement (Defeat the Enemy). Keeping YoRHa
| around is necessary for the android's continued
| existence, and really all it's for.
|
| The evolutionary task is a search to find a way to get
| out of this current state (endless war;
| contradictory/nonsensical setup).
| vmception wrote:
| OH MY GOD THE ROBOTS THINK THEY ARE HUMAN AND LOOSELY
| EMULATE EMOTIONS WHAAAAT
|
| That's not a spoiler that's a _really_ common trope
|
| If you want that, play the much more beautifully rendered
| Detroit: Become Human, the "spoiler" is in the title
|
| There is nothing deep about Nier Automata, there are no
| shocking revelations
|
| The only reason you play this trope is to get a feel for
| "how" or "when", which this game will pretty much never
| _really_ get to or explore, just pile on fetch quests and
| edgelord nihilism appealing to 14 year olds
|
| Seriously, if I was 14 I would have really been into this.
| But I'm not, and I'm not into this.
| inopinatus wrote:
| Some people demand to be spoonfed their philosophy, do not
| appreciate being asked to dream it.
|
| There was a similar reaction from Europeans confronted with
| east asian philosophies in previous centuries. The question
| is, whether to be Leo or H.H., that's all.
| ArtWomb wrote:
| Visionary design by Yoko Taro. Genius score by Keiichi Okabe.
| Under the watchful eye of Square Enix publisher Yosuke Saito.
| This dream team of iconoclasts is apparently working on two new
| titles!
|
| More from Shuji Kohata's GDC talk:
|
| An Interactive Sound Dystopia: Real-Time Audio Processing in
| NieR:Automata
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrUQdd96qzk
|
| 8-bit music will never die ;)
|
| https://www.beepbox.co/
| wackget wrote:
| Shame the PC port was so terrible, and the developers flatly
| refused to fix or improve it. So much so that in the end a fan
| made a patch which fixed many of the issues.
|
| If your game is so crappy that the customers have to make their
| own patches to fix it, then you don't deserve to be supported
| as a game developer.
|
| P.S. the game also shipped with Denuvo DRM, and the fan-made
| patch mod also had its own DRM/piracy checks.
|
| That's why this game will never get my money.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Didn't the Steam version recently get a patch?
| dvlsg wrote:
| No, but they announced they're working on it.
| brobinson wrote:
| It's likely they did this because it shows up as an alert
| in Steam for everyone who owns Automata, and they'd see
| that Replicant was about to be released.
| Ambrosia wrote:
| That's on the publishers, Square Enix, who didn't want to
| play the developers to patch the game. They seem to have
| changed their mind recently as the patch is now in
| development for the steam version.
| silvester23 wrote:
| I feel like iMUSE [0] by the fantastic Michael Land needs to be
| mentioned here. Here it is in action: [1]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMUSE
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N41TEcjcvM
| throwaway17_17 wrote:
| Good mention. I feel like iMUSE was the beginning of what is
| today a large number of tools and techniques for audio
| presentation, particularly soundtracks, in game development.
| brna wrote:
| Wow! I am not a gamer, but the sound transitions are really
| impressive. Nice job explaining it Isao.
| PikachuEXE wrote:
| Love how it's implemented
|
| Hope more games can do that
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