Nier: Automata Review

Yoko Taro's structural stunt is the point: the credits roll, then the game asks you to play it again as a different machine with different senses, and the second and third passes reframe everything the first let you assume. Ending E turns the difficulty curve itself into a statement about other players, which is the rare case of a mechanic making an argument rather than illustrating one. PlatinumGames handles the combat, so the action is fast, weighty and pod-assisted, sliding between hack-and-slash, twin-stick shooter and side-scroller without ever feeling like a minigame detour.

Keiichi Okabe's score is the best of its decade, chanting in a constructed language that makes the ruined city sound genuinely mourned. The seams are real: the open world is drab and underpopulated, side quests are fetch-heavy, and the PC port shipped broken enough that a fan patch became mandatory. But the spiral of loyalty and self-deletion running through 2B, 9S and A2 is philosophy that earns its melodrama outright.