In this meaty episode of Void Arcade, Join guest host Jackson [Local Yoko Taro Expert], and Brando [Die-Video Gamer-Man], as they dive deep into the narrative, themes, rhetoric, nuances, and meanings found within the critically acclaimed video game NIER AUTOMATA. We are accompanied by the game’s soundtrack in the background, done by the masterful Keiichi Okabe. ;
Jackson's shoutouts →
Himself: https://www.instagram.com/xcoolguy69/ ,
Digital Artist: https://www.instagram.com/zach_advanced/ ,
Cosplayer: https://www.instagram.com/pigtailspower/ ,
Sketch Artist: https://www.instagram.com/moriah.e.davies/ ,
Brando: https://youtube.com/TheNameBrandOfficial
Show Outline
9S becomes a robot over the course of the game
Michael Saba’s video on logical conclusions and subverting expectations with real philosophers
Ending A
2B is the worst character everyone knows
Story is told in the only medium it could exist: as a game, the Yoko Taro way of working backward from emotion
first big plot twist aliens are dead
talk about marionette boss Simone and the camera not looking at her (coming back to this)
2B is the surface level character for learning the world
how long we spent playing
Kaiju boss fight
meeting A2 in the forest for the first time, some players never see her again
Fighting Adam, rescuing 9S, killing Adam is the first real death in the game that matters
eve final boss, making machines berserk
the “happy” ending
Pascal is important and helps during the 2B storyline
Ending B
Playing as 9S is a lot clunkier and hacking is overpowered and used a ton
Playing as 2B/9S (Combat models) is like playing Devil May Cry
Talk about how upgrades and weapon comboing works
opening of the game with 9S and the two robots
how the game starts becoming different because 9S is a scanner model
Simone & the quest to be loved by Jean Paul, philosophic teachings turned on their head
sympathizing with the stories of the robots you fight through cutscenes and internal dialogue causing you to think deeply
the shopping mall, “Nines”, Emil
“we’ll come back to why Emil is an important character later”
Kaiju fight, getting pooped on by your superiors
9S learns the truth about the humans
learn about the truth of Earths axis stopped rotating
the interesting concept of fighting a proxy war for dead civilizations because you’re programmed to
Adam and Eve reading the bible
Talking about the Christian influence, eastern views, and Western Ideologies: “I’m going to blow your mind at the end of this podcast” (this was the bit about nirvana, right?) “we’ll come back to this whole belief system later”
“we’ll talk about [how] the machines emulated humanity ‘better’ than the androids when we get to A2”
9S gets infected with the logic virus and then uploads his data to the machine network
Ending C & D
9S made an oopsie uploading himself to the machine network because he was reverse engineered by the machines and now all the Yorha units have the nasty zombie logic virus
2B and 9S get separated. 2B goes to the shopping mall for her final very sad moments. A2 shows up... right as 9S appears on the bridge and then... “Nines” boom dead “I’m going to kill you A2!”
he falls into the ravine, and you’re given the option to play as A2 or 9S... most people pick A2
“My mission is to kill all machines” “There’s a large machine life form in the desert”. Then you learn about “B” mode or Berserker mode. Similar gameplay to 2B
2B’s sword has her memories. Causes A2 to have a small identity crisis
Other Topics discussed
“It’s religious commentary” - probably talking about Become as Gods
“H.H. Holmes and the murder hotel”
Devola and Popola, the twins, getting back into the 9S storyline
Talked about the ending you can get by killing Pascal as A2
Game kinda revolves around loss
Cheesing bosses in the towers with lots of hacking
think we were talking about how the machines end up killing themselves because they can’t comprehend humanity (like the race robot and the one contemplating existance)
9S is just having the worst time of his life. Didn’t just fall out of the bed, he fell out of the bed and down the stairs and into the toilet
Devola and Popula end up sacrificing themselves feeling like it would make up for all the harm their models caused to the androids
“this is joker, eastern version”
talkin’ about letting the machine ai girl get a logic virus by duplication (and how I didn’t bother to use the pod chips to get around them like a wimp lol)
“Roshi”
Talked about the “final” choice - A2 or 9S
Talked about the 9S ending D, 9S killing A2, because A2 hesitated in combat thinking about her promise to 2B
Talk about how Adam and Eve ask 9S if he wants to go with them
Talk about the A2 ending and how it’s not the top down hacking, sacrifices herself
Ending E, fighting the credits is way hard
Talking about the coca cola connection (Michael Saba)
Losing the save data, excellent parallel to what the characters went through in the game, not even an achievement, just a menu screen (& sick looking screensaver)
makes the player the capstone of the emotional rollercoaster that YokoTaro calls Nier Automata
Jackson explodes my mind with the (nirvana?) connection
Talking about Emil again(?)
Game was engineered to have a resonating story that you think about for a long long time... kind of rare to have a thinking, rhetorically speaking game that goes deeper than killing bad guys and fulfilling a story arch. Probably a by product of all the philosophical questions within the game.
Got a subtle layer of the game asking you to think about stuff deeper, look at situations at different angles, etc.
Game should reach a bigger audience but is poo poo’d by its face value by lots of people
Never goes on sale, but it’s worth it, even though it’s 4 years old it still holds up pretty darn well. We both give a pretty dang good recommendation for it, even if it’s your first Nier/Yoko Taro game
Talk about that killer Keiichi Okabe soundtrack and how it’s so good
Games got tons of locations and themes and is pretty open world feeling even though the story makes it kinda linear
You were talking about how the black and white color scheme is kinda symbolic
Me talking about playing through replicant
closing remarks, etc.
Definite Bullet Points (in kinda no particular order)
Emil’s importance
The mind blowing nirvana connection
Talk about how the machines emulated humanity better than the androids
Pick up the “narrative” right around the part where A2 starts having an identity crisis
Devola and Popola
9S hacking the resource towers, learning stuff
Pascals children killing themselves over fear
Machines are trying so hard to emulate humanity, but they just can’t comprehend it
Going into the tower, fighting the 2B clones, 9S getting crapped on by the machine AI and all of its realizations
Ending C with A2 and Ending D with 9S
Killing the credits and your save data
the soundtrack being mega good and transformative
absolutely recommend
Brandon Pre-show notes
Brief overview of game, 2017, platinum games
My overall playtime and experience - 40 hours, over the course of two “play periods” went ham the second time around
Impressions right on the get go - honestly loved it, have really been diggin’ it.
Specific stuff
Game deleting my data
Kind of similar to A2 and 9S in ending C
Kind of upset about it honestly but honestly it’s similar to 2B and pod 042(?) sacrificing themselves. And the android twins. I guess there’s a lot of themes revolving around sacrifice actually lol. But ending C is the biggest comparison? I think 9S also does a similar deal back when you’re fighting Adam or something
Right, like, I could have read the posts online talking about how you can pretty easily manipulate your save data so you can keep the file or whatever. And I could have played the game all the way to 100% of it. But it’s so much more impactful this way because it’s like... I know I haven’t lived “a full life”. I had dreams of completing missions and upgrading weapons, real things to do in that world. But sacrificing myself so that others can have help in completing the game, or getting ending E or whatever, despite that... Idk, it’s just a beautiful thing, really intense Kojima level game design that gives me a feeling I haven’t had in other games. Because like, it’s actually gone forever. The save data has actually McFreakin’ died. Never coming back. I checked, because I was so upset, you know, to see if I could recover it in some way, because we’re talking 40+ hours of work I put into that thing. Nope, no way, no how. The image on the title screen changes to prove you done it, but that’s it. Beyond that, it’s a fresh video game. And despite all that I’m all depressed with thinking about uninstalling it lol, always do for some reason. Even though there’s literally no data to back up other than the change to the title screen. Which is backed up in the cloud.
but like, again, with the whole “living analogy” did A2 have things to do besides take care of 9S? did she want her life to end by sacrificing herself to save 9S in ending C? You know and likewise with all the other “sacrifice” parallels in this universe. They’ve got hopes and dreams and aspirations, but when you die you die. So same the whole, delete your save data to help a player, you know what I mean? It fits in the universe. It makes those last emotional notes of the story hit home a thousand times harder. You feel like you’re the capstone of the story as the player. really, really cool stuff.
Something that impressed me constantly was how the visual gags and light jokes would lead to more profound areas of thought. Like, haha, how peculiar is it that this machine is trying to calculate the meaning of its existence, very cute. And then you progress the quest a few steps and the dude commits suicide because it can’t compute why it exists and for what purpose, right? Or like, lol, it’s funny that this machine Jean Paul keeps rejecting the romantic interests of other machines. And you progress that quest to its conclusion and you learn about why that boss in the carnival, the marionette lady(?) like even existed in the first place? Because it was trying to look beautiful for that guy. Just wild, every detail sends you into a whirlwind of thought, incredible stuff.
The story and world elements have similar thought provoking ideas. One I came back to a lot was the idea of this machine and android war taking place ages beyond humanities existence, beyond the aliens existence. Fighting a war for factions of beings who no longer exist. Programmed to fight and fight and fight until the end of time. Fascinating really. And then come to find out that the majority of the whole thing was a fabrication, right? With the whole “backdoor restart the simuation” situation. Crazy stuff.
Overall I really loved how the story flowed from character to character, perspective to perspective. I think, endings A and B are kind of repetitive, and thus, why I took a break for a few months before jumping back into it. But even then, 9S learns so much more in his free time about the whole situation, lore wise, that I thought it was a really cool maneuver with how it all ended up. Even though you basically play through the same story arc twice, ya know?
And I mean I can keep gushing about the experience and the lore and the world building, but how about that combat. Man that’s some dated stuff lol. Even for 2017 standards it seems clunky. At least the PC port does. The freakin’ cutscenes and stuff sometimes run at 15fps, which is a thing I wish I didn’t have to deal with. (gah and there’s probably a fan patch, I was just lazy). The combat is VERY platinum games lol, it’s virtually identical to Bayonetta paha. After a while I started to get sick of hacking everything with 9S. The minigame was fun to do for awhile and it allowed me to cheese my way through some level capped stuff but man. After a while, you just used to how easy the hacks are and it’s just not compelling anymore. Some of them just take a long time... and bah. In the end I just started fighting things with weapons and crap.
