** Beware of possible spoilers below: NieR:Automata trailer discussion and YoRHa stage play references appear below. **
Did you guys catch the NieR:Automata presentation at TGS2016? Check the video below if you haven’t!
I needed a day or so to recoup from being on my feet all day there… so I’m sorry for the delay in writing anything about it.
Here are some of my notes from the presentation:
- Producer Saito Yosuke was the first out on stage, quickly introducing Yoko Taro as his “Black Mannequin” that was last used for the NieR Piano Concert in 2012. Yoko didn’t appear in person on stage because the presentation was schedule to last for a full hour. Yoko only has 30 minutes of life remaining whenever he appears with the mask on himself…
- Pod042 is read as “Pod Zero-Four-Two”. Same with Pod153: “Pod One-Five-Three”
Yoko Taro joked when Pascal’s image went up on the screen that designer Taura Takahisa wouldn’t work on the project unless Yuuki Aoi was hired to voice a character. Of course, later when Taura comes on stage, he says that it’s true that he likes her voice but anything more than that was a lie.
Operator 6O is read as “Operator Six-Oh” & Operator 21O is “Operator Two-One-Oh”. The O is an additional code name that stands for “Operator”. Yoko Taro was a little upset it’s easy to misread these names and if you can take anything away from the presentation, he wanted you to at least remember this one fact.
Yoko Taro on Adam’s design: “I heard that guys in shirts like this are pretty popular among girls, so we added that in. Oh, and we also heard the same with glasses, so we added that to his design, too.” (Of course, he’s joking here… lol)
Yoko Taro was having second thoughts about adding Devola & Popola…but decided on going through with it in the end.
And there are some other interesting things hiding in the TGS trailer as well, many of which are in that short sequence of flashing numbers and Japanese text across the screen. The majority of it is extremely difficult to get any meaning out of it since all the “letters” are scrambled, but there are a few frames that are clear, and here’s one of them:
This is actually two separate images spliced together to make this more clear…but in the portion that I put a red box around, it says “Pearl Harbor Descent” … The rest of the phrase is cut off after the fourth kanji, but this directly relates to the YoRHa stage play, which depicts the Pearl Harbor Descent Mission in 11941. Here are some other interesting words and phrases to note during this sequence (in no certain order):
- The full phrase mentioning Pearl Harbor reads “failure of the Pearl Harbor Descent…” From the YoRHa stage play, we know that mission was a so-called failure.
- Survivors of the Resistence
- sun
- giant
- contamination
- captive androids
- battle
Also the text that stays centered on screen lists the date, but it never gives anything definitive besides five digits. We know the YoRHa stage play takes place in 11941… and 2B mentions the year 11945 from the NieR Music Concert & Talk Live, so I would guess this is around that time.
Actual Game Play Section
- When Taura’s playing the game with Pascal as 2B’s companion, we see similar zomed-out locations that really excentuate the beauty in the backgrounds. Yoko Taro comments here that the guys at Platinum Games are known for creating such beautiful backgrounds, so he wanted to show off their work. “You can ignore 2B.”
- Pascal will not engage in battle because she is a pacifist.
- This is when a ton of enemies start closing in.
Yoko: Don’t die, Taura.
Taura: I’m doing my best, but it looks like I might die here, so let’s move on… - Bio-machines that have a flashing red light on their heads are kamikaze drones that will rush you and explode.
- We saw the two sets of equipped weapons that you can switch between. Here’s an example of the weapons that Taura had equipped during his first run-through of the gameplay.
Set 1
1: Wicked Oath
2: Wicked Blood Oath- Set 2
1: Type 3 Gauntlet
2: Type 3 Tactical Sword
There will be traps and other things that will instantly kill you if you’re not careful. The wall/door at the top will crush you when you’re directly under it.
- There will be three difficulty levels that you can freely switch between at any moment: Easy, Normal, and Hard. Easy Mode will also come with an Auto Mode that you can activate at any time. This is as close to invincibility as you can get in the game, which could help those who merely want to experience the story rather than be frustrated with gameplay.
Pod will also have special attacks besides his usual bullet attacks. These special abilities will have a time gauge that you have to wait for it to replenish before you can perform another skill.
- They are planning on making some DLCs… and they joked that they’d make whatever you want as long as there’s money involved.
The NieR Music Concert & Talk Live that was held this past April will be released on Blu-ray! Release date TBA.
Here are the new goodies that were available at the SQEX booth. These items will also be added to the SQEX e-STORE in the coming days. (International sales have not been confirmed)
NieR:Automata Black Box Edition open for pre-order now! Includes the game, a figure of 2B, a CD soundtrack from the NieR Music Concert, novelized edition of NieR written by Eishima Jun, a roughly 64 page artbook with comments and other information (it’s recommended not to open this until you’ve finished the game due to potential spoilers), and a bonus code to be used within the game. (25,800 Yen)
Now let’s take a closer look at everything that comes with the Black Box Edition. Please note that the majority of the images below have been edited by me in order to view the angelic script more clearly, so the color may be off a little bit. The corresponding Japanese and English text was also translated by me. Enjoy!
A collection of artwork, short stories, and other comments by Yoko Taro among others.
CD: Live recording from the NieR Music Concert & Talk Live, 15 tracks.
Novel: Novelized retelling of the NieR story from the perspective of Devola & Popola. Written by Eishima Jun.
Figure: 150mm tall, pre-painted, comes with stand
The angelic script has no letter for “x” so it is replaced by an “s”.
Plus…
- Bonus Item Code: Special item code to use within the game. Further details on what this may be have yet to be revealed.
Pre-orders for the NieR:Automata “Black Box Edition”
are currently open to Japan residence only.
[ Pre-order here ]
- Demo version of NieR:Automata ought to be available by the end of the year!
- In the second half of the presentation, the Yoko Mannequin fell over and crashed on the stage with a HUGE bang (you can’t hear anything on the live stream). When they raised the mannequin up… it was clear the Emil head had received massive damage:
- Yoko said that he had paid 50,000 Yen of his own money to commission the mask from sculptor yoshi. After the accident happened, yoshi commented, “Wow, looks like something crazy happened, huh? haha Shall I make another? haha”
At the very end, Taura was mentioning how strange it is that such an old fart like Yoko could create a story so emotionally beautiful… he said, “the flower of Yoko’s insane world will bloom once more”… Very interesting choice of words, I thought. Taura also said that there were many parts during testing that he felt very ill and had to take a brake in the toilet. Yoko says, “Why would you tell such lies? When we get back to Osaka, you’re dead!” lol
Lastly, if you happened to notice a certain red head in the crowd during the presentation… that would have been me. xD I got to the presentation area around 10:30 and managed to snag a sweet spot in the front. <3
A day after TGS, I wrote to a couple of the guys. Saito Yosuke said that he could see me clearly in the front, and how I scowled a couple times during the presentation. lol I was more than likely reacting to Hanae Taura when he tried to see what 2B had underneath her skirt… And Taura is what they say about him, being “ikemen“. He was a very good looking guy. <3