NieR:Automata™

Helpful reviews

• Recommended66h played · 14 helpful

  If you’ve played any Yoko Taro game before, you pretty much know what kind of emotional damage you’re signing up for. The game is genuinely amazing, but having played NieR Replicant first, the story didn't hit me quite as hard or feel as emotionally impactful as Replicant's narrative did. Still, pretty much everything that felt boring or annoying in Replicant has been completely fixed here. The combat is so much smoother, the side quests feel better designed, and having a Chapter Select feature instead of mindlessly replaying entire chunks of the game makes the whole experience miles better. Absolute Cinema by Yoko Taro again.

• Recommended56h played · 13 helpful

  Great unique game, but narratively overhyped. 7/10 NieR Automata is an open world post-apocalyptic RPG featuring one of the best soundtracks in gaming history. The game covers themes such as existentialism and grief. Story: Your mission is to secure Earth and rid it of alien machine lifeforms that invaded long ago. There are subtle mentions to the events that happened in the previous game, but you don't have to play it to understand this game, Its effectively a standalone title. There's multiple endings, but only 5 of them are canon. Ending E is the most satisfying conclusion I've seen to a game. POD-042 IS GOATED! The Flaws - Pacing & World Design: The biggest issues with this game are its world design and pacing. It's quite a time investment to reach the best segments of the story because you're forced to replay the game a second time doing the same events you did first time around, only from a different perspective. There's also no motive or much reward for exploring, the world is dull. The playable characters don't undergo any meaningful development until late game so its difficult to care for them early on. Side Quests: There's a total of 60 of them. They're mostly ga

• Recommended66h played · 9 helpful

  NieR:Automata is one of the greatest games ever made, if not the greatest Playing NieR only once is like hearing a joke all the way up to the punchline, but not the punchline itself. I knew it was important to play the game a few times to get the full experience, but I cannot stress this enough: you absolutely MUST play the game multiple times to even experience what it's trying to do. The first playthrough is just the setup. Other games are basically begging you to play them again, but they're such a slog because you already know what's going to happen. New Game+ is usually just the same game again with bigger numbers or some new little variation, artificially padding a game that is already over. Meanwhile NieR is like, “Oh, you thought we were done after you finished the game twice already? BANG, let me recontextualize the entire story and your understanding of it real quick.” “You thought we were done after you finished it four times? Well here's this entirely new, awesome thing that you've never seen before in your previous playthroughs.” How the f*ck do Yoko Taro and PlatinumGames keep getting away with it and keep us hooked for so long? And it doesn't stop

• Recommended49h played · 8 helpful

  Context I played this game — or rather, finished it — for the first time in 2026. Caveat There are minor indirect spoilers while discussing narrative and storytelling structures. I stay away from plot spoilers in my review. Introduction NieR:Automata is n interesting game even before you play it because it turns out PlatinumGames was on the brink of financial bankruptcy while getting ready to publish it. It is a heavy game to parse because it marries fast-paced combat, cryptic questing, orchestral music and every storytelling and narrative trick in the book into an esoteric, almost avant-garde game design that is ostensibly not for the average gamer who just wants to switch off from life and kill some baddies. Narration/ Storytelling NieR:Automata starts like few do — so, e prepared to set aside 45 minutes of your time when you begin . The game uses retrospective narration to set the scene and immediately immerses you into the combat, setting the stage for what is going to be the central theme of the game — war between androids and machines. The game is structured like a visual novel with multi-route storytelling, uses non-linear narration to the fullest, and employs a Ra

• Not recommended18h played · 6 helpful

  Surely one of the most overrated games of all time. The general atmosphere of positivity around this game along with certain takes holding it up as a high mark for action or writing in video games had me genuinely confused as a few hours into Nier: Automata it slowly began to dawn on me that I wasn't enjoying any aspect of it. The game was moving along from set piece to set piece and location to location—I was clearly making progress, yet despite my expectations for the plot to start going somewhere interesting, it continued to remain incredibly trite. "Le machines... have... le feelings?" is basically the first and last word in this game's supposed incredible writing, alongside some nonsensical 11th hour plot twists that meant nothing to me. The combat oscillates between being braindead easy and outright unfair. Platinum Games unfortunately phoned in this one—anyone who's played any of their other actually well designed games will quickly realize that dodge spamming leaves you basically invincible, making the combat ultimately boil down to just button mashing. The JRPG mechanics are pointless at best and misery-inducing at worst as if you fail to complete the utterly ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ b

• Not recommended59h played · 5 helpful

  I just can't. I need to stay true to how I feel, even though many people will not like it. The game is overrated and mid at best. I 100% completed the game and ihave to say, every time I had to play as 9S, I wanted to kill myself. The bullet-hell minigames were so annoying that I threw my controller. Twice! The best and most fun I had was playing as A2, because she had the same pissed-off mindset as myself. I didn't get what people were saying about it being "thought-provoking" and so on. It's just two AIs fighting each other. One is more sophisticated and the other more brutish, like elves and orcs. The "main villain" makes no sense story-wise. He behaves as if he was just created, but at the same time  has been around for a few hundred years. The combat was okay, but nothing groundbreaking. Having 26 endings, with like 22 of those being different game-over screens, is nothing to brag about, in my opinion. I can only say it was my first and last NieR game. Sadly, I fell for the overhype and got brutally disappointed.

• Recommended57h played · 4 helpful

  def one of the the best games ive ever played i actually never planned on finishing it, played the intro when it came out and cod got in the way but recently i played drakengard 1 and rlly loved the story looked into it more online and was surprised to see it was a prequel to nier, so im proud to say my first yoko taro game was drakengard because it made me appreciate this game so much more, like so much u have no idea i LOVE this game. the world the characters the tone and message of the game is very beautiful yet a little empty. so much of drakengards dna is in this game especially sections like the forest kingdom the non stop slaughtering. the pacing. if u have read berserk and watched neon genesis evangelion ur gonna see alot of influence in these games from those works, especially the pacing which i never see people talk about but something ive noticed his games can be one thing u think it is and than get deep into it and the game has become a completely different animal very much like in berserk during the golden age and than the eclipse hits and all of sudden ur reading a completely different story yoko taro very much uses this same style of writing in his games and it just

• Not recommended23h played · 3 helpful

  It is harsh of me to not recommend nier, since it has some great gameplay and is still relevant in 2026. And while I did enjoy my playthrough until the first ending, I did NOT enjoy what came after. You replay everything you just did as 9s with minimal differences and one story reveal. Then (after doing EVERYTHING again) you can go on as 2a, (I believe that is the name) but this is where I just quit. I'm playing on the easiest diffulty and I am dying and dying. I did not enjoy it any more, and just looked up the endings and yeah, glad I did not invest more time. Nier has some strong points, like 2B's ass, multiple (mini)games in one, but it also has 60fps framelock. And the game takes itself way to serious with the story, that never really goes anywhere. The enemy design is very repetitive. Sidequests can be fun, but mostly they are just time wasters. My rating is mainly a warning of the multiple playthroughs which just don't add much and are repetitive and boring in my opinion. Recommended for fans, or if you only play until the first ending.