Their personal dramas take too long to unwind, which prevented me from fully investing in their fates. I was happy to see familiar faces from the original Nier.The bigger issue was the disconnect I felt from 2B and her fellow androids. (To be fair, one event did have me pretty darn misty-eyed.) It's as if the game's lead writer Yoko Taro wanted to make me cry and was casting about for ways to make that happen. There are also some emotional moments that struck me as forced. Try as I might, I couldn’t always understand what was happening, even after I played through several of Automata’s multiple endings. Like its predecessors Nier and Drakengard, Automata does have an unfortunate tendency to wander into uber-convoluted territory, and this is where problems start to arise. It works, for the most part, due to a couple of bonkers plot twist and well-done voice acting that helps sell the more outlandish bits of allegory. The quirky, full-tilt drama that unfolds as you bounce between Earth and the moon is an intriguing one, touching on existential themes like the meaning of life and humanizing those on the other side of war. First as an android named 2B and later as other characters experiencing the same events from different perspectives, your job is to fight the alien machines and bring an end to the war. The story that takes place amongst the tumbled remains of abandoned superstructures is bizarre and entertaining, if somewhat haphazard. That, or I was too enchanted with the soaring, chorus-filled soundtrack to really notice Automata will definitely be joining its predecessor’s score on my playlist. I did encounter a few hiccups that knocked the frame rate below 60fps and witnessed a fair share of texture pop-in, but they only pockmarked Automata’s lovely features ever so slightly. It doesn’t go above 1080p on the Pro, but colors appear fresh and vivid, while better lighting and shading bring the world into sharper focus. Automata's striking art style and enormous sense of scale are mesmerizing.Īutomata’s striking art style and enormous sense of scale are mesmerizing to look at on the PlayStation 4, but especially on the PlayStation 4 Pro.

It’s a world where lush green tendrils of ivy coil around the massive skeletal remains of crumbling skyscrapers and tears of rust streak down the sides of old factories, with rotund buildings and looming cranes dominating the skyline. Nier: Automata takes place in a desolate but stunning futuristic dystopia where humanity has fled to the moon after an extraterrestrial invasion, leaving behind an army of androids to fight the aliens’ more primitive but prolific machines.

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