Review

Overall, I liked it. Automata seemed pretty much wholesale better than the previous game in most every way. It's competent where it needs to be, clever in places where it didn't have to be, and the general word I would use to describe the game is 'confident'.

One complaint I do have is that the game feels very front-loaded. When I think back to some of my favorite moments, it's mostly the first playthrough where you're getting to know these interesting robots and the weirdo things they're doing for the first time. I didn't mind the subsequent playthroughs. In particular, I like how 9S ends up becoming the central protagonist after you've whacked and smashed with 2B and then have to fall back on bein a little minx who's up to no good and hacking the enemies from far away. I enjoyed how we built him up from that to a proper brawler who can annihilate armies. But I do feel that that second playthrough drags a noticeable amount. We're introducing some new information, but it's in drips and drabs. Mostly recontextualizing some of the bosses with a little bit of background on each. And even though there's bits of the story that boy is knocked out for, and thus the second playthrough shouldn't technically be as long, it did feel like we were being expected to do quite a lot of work for little reward. That general structure of playing through the same events from two perspectives works a lot better when the two people aren't standing next to each other for the vast majority of it. Again, it's not bad. But I think there's clear room to tighten things up in the middle.

I have somewhat the same complaint about the third playthrough. While I liked the structure of switching back and forth between girl and boy, I also felt that we were being asked to do a lot of stuff for not as much plot as I would have liked. I think this does delve a little into anime-ism. Where characters are acting a bit stupider than otherwise I think they really should be considering past behavior. It takes us a really long time to get that the robots and the androids are the same. I think that in general took the wind out of my sails in the third playthrough. Because that's kind of the lynchpin of it all, and that seemed obvious from the beginning. None of the second or third playthrough are like a death march or anything. Again, I just think there's room for tightening things up and allowing more of a suspension of disbelief.

I do quite like the central conceit of the game of seeing how these automated systems have fared well after humanity is gone. That's one of my favorite little tropes. Things running on automation long past the point where what they're doing has lost meaning and we've forgotten why we're even doing it. Loved seeing the robots recreate human stuff in the absence of anything else to do without really understanding any of the context of why they're doing it.

One thing that I will heap great praise upon is the very end where you're deleting your save file. Very very good. It's one of my core beliefs about the general gamer psychographic that people have this mental wasting disease where they insist on assigning value to completely meaningless bullshit. Gotta do everything, gotta see everything. Gotta get every achievement and at the end have the golden save file that does nothing but gather dust. Seemingly value every part of the experience that is not how the piece of media actually made you feel or if it changed you in some way. I fucking can't stand it and it drives me insane watching people insist that the crayon game is the best and that, Kings of Kings that they are, these gamers could want for nothing more. All lands having already been conquered. So I really enjoy the game saying "You've seen the end, fucking delete your save and go outside now. We've had fun together and now we are done." Again, it exudes confidence. They understand the assignment and what parts of the game have genuine value.

I felt the end with the credits delved a little bit into my friends are my power. Just because it's a little incongruous with the themes of the game itself. The bit where we're asking "Are games art?" I get that we did have to go through that whole stage, but the game came out in 2017. I feel we were well past that by then. Not miserable or anything, just a little bit saccharine. I did really enjoy the actual mechanics of what you are doing. Like I mentioned while watching, I love whenever games fuck with the credits in some way. Love the image of the little hacking spaceship doing the Death Star run on SQUARE ENIX and blowing it to hell. And again, love sacrificing your save to help others. Anyone that says no at that point, I think can safely be put on a list.