One way to resurrect a struggling franchise is to bring in a new development team. All the better if said team has the kind of status that helps fans forgive past mistakes. Capcom did it when it gave control of Devil May Cry to Ninja Theory, and now Square Enix is hoping for similar success by giving Nier Automata to Platinum Games.
2010’s Nier wasn’t, by any measure, a success. A mixed critical reception was followed by sub-par sales and boxed copies filling bargain bins. By combining so many complex elements in an action RPG, Nier was far too convoluted and confusing to be fun. It was a game that was less than the sum of its parts, albeit one with a passable story in comparison to other examples in the genre.
Bringing in Platinum Games should immediately enhance two areas: combat—which the studio is famously brilliant at—and audience interest. After all, saying there’s a sequel to a half-arsed action RPG is one thing. Saying there’s a new game from the creators of Bayonetta, Vanquish, and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is quite another. Having played Nier Automata, I can confirm that the game bears Platinum Games’ trademark over-the-top combat—and the fact that I’m writing about it hints that there’s audience interest. Job done, then? Well, maybe.
As an android developed by the last remnants of humanity to fight against an invading alien life-form, the premise of Nier Automata is a tad corny to say the least, but the combat is extremely impressive. Chaining dodges, slides, sword swings, and gunshots into a single combo results in a pleasingly garish display of explosions and flashing lights, and the slick animation is leaps and bounds ahead of that in the original Nier. Where most RPGs favour tactical planning over instant gratification, Automata abandons that approach entirely, something that even Square Enix’s flagship RPG Final Fantasy XV hasn’t quite been able to leave behind, despite its real-time combat.
This does, however, raise the question of longevity. What I’ve played so far has been very straightforward. Square Enix explained that Platinum Games has been brought on, in part, to make combat more exciting, but not necessarily more difficult. Battles are most certainly positioned on the shallower end of the difficulty curve. To sustain Automata‘s lengthy running time (we’re talking tens if not hundreds of hours here), the reduced combat challenge must be replaced by either constantly shifting enemy types and attack patterns, or a regular set of new skills to learn. Ideally you’d want both. Right now, with only a few minutes of gameplay under my belt and Square Enix keeping the rest of the game under wraps, it’s not clear whether that’s the case.
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