WARNING! This post contains spoilers from NieR:Automata!
I didn't think I would take three posts to talk about my experience with with NieR:Automata but here we are. It's a game that really can't be justified in short so I guess it's just fitting that I end up spending three posts talking about the three different playthroughs you need to do to finish the game.
This post will focus on the third and final playthrough needed to do to fully finish and understand the story of NieR:Automata.
The premise
From start to finish this is a playthrough of ultimate sadness. While the first two playthroughs were quite depressing on their own this one takes it all a step further. There's a lot of character development I didn't expect to see at all.
What makes this playthrough different from the first two is that it actually progresses the story. This was unexpected to me as I thought perhaps we would be playing as A2 during the events of the first playthrough. Instead it starts off quite differently. Instead we launch an all out attack on earth with one goal in mind; destroy the machines and take back our home.
This does not end well once the other YoRHa units starts turning on us. Turns out both YoRHa and the Moon Bunker itself has been infiltrated with a machine virus. This whole thing spirals out of control rather quickly and ultimately ends with the death of 2B at the hands of 2A. Luckily not in cold blood. This is the first taste of sadness.
Throughout the whole game this hit me as the biggest surprise. I did not expect what is fronted as the main character to die off like that. This is a brave move from any game developer and I absolutely loved it. This sparks the beginning of this playthrough.
A2 or 9S?
From here on out you're given two choices. Play as 9S or 2A? I chose 2A without a sliver of hesitation. I had just spent close to 20 hours running around as 9S so I was ready for a change. Also I was extremely curious to see how 2A works and what she has in store.
As we take on her role we also take on her lifes mission. To destroy all machines. At least that's where it starts. Throughout this playthrough we see her changing from this ruthless machine killer to a somewhat understanding person who ultimately takes the machines side. We have Pascals altruistic personality to thank for this.
The roughest part of this playthrough is at the end after Pascals villagers have been slaughtered and we're tasked with factory resetting him. I sat looking at this screen for a while before pushing the button. Once we do so Pascal as we know him ceases to be and the playthrough ends. This was the second taste of sadness.
9S
Turns out the choice we made earlier was just a choice of which branch to play first. We get to play as 9S anyways and I'm glad we do. There's not a single plot point to this game that I want to miss.
This whole branch is pretty much nothing but sadness. 9S is devastated at the loss of 2B and goes into ultimate rage mode. This is in contrast to his chill and kind personality that we've seen for the rest of the game. From this moment on 9S' mission is simple. Destroy the machines.
This section of the game does a great job of tying up some lose plot threads I've been curious since the first playthrough. The fact that humanity was eradicated early in this war and is in fact not hiding on the moon for instance. I felt like there was something off about this whole plot point since the beginning and this just confirms it.
Ultimately this playthrough leads us to a giant tower that sprouted out of the ground where it all culminates.
There's a lot of weirdness going on in this tower. For instance the machines have replicated 2B who keeps on pestering 9S and his sanity.
There's also these creepy ass girls who turns out were the main bad guys all along. These are basically a fabrication of the machines personality who have silently been pulling the strings from behind the scene all along. They are in fact responsible for pretty much everything that has happened.
We also battle it out with these giant machines both as 9S and 2A. Throughout the fight we swap between them and fight one each. This was a pretty cool segment. Especially seeing as once we get to the top of the tower they merge and 9S and 2A end up killing the merged machine together.
The very hardest part of the game, at least for me, comes at the very end when 9S and 2A can't settle their differences and you're given the choice to play as one to kill the other. I sat for a long time at this screen before finally picking 2A. Seeing as 2A has already finished off 2B I decided this was the best ending to the game for me.
Now this is where the game blows my mind. During this ending it's revealed that 2B was actually a YoRHa unit named 2E all along. The E-model androids were created for one thing; destroy androids who came to close to finding out the truth about YoRHa, humanity and the aliens. This is why 2B brushed off everything 9S says throughout the whole game. Why she is so cold towards him. She doesn't want it to get personal when she has to kill him again. This explains why 2B at the end of the firs playthrough, after killing 9S, says "It always ends like this".
Wow.
This game was simply amazing from start to finish. I feel like no matter how hard I tried to write this and the preceding posts it's hard to give it justice. There's about a million things that have been left out and if I were to talk about all the feelings and thoughts I had throughout this game it would probably come close to 10000 words in total. Even when limiting myself this post ended up at close to 1100 words.
I hope it makes some kind of sense.
All images in this post are screenshots taken by me.