#that chorus

I’ve never really given much thought to the whole “are videogames art?” conversation. I’ve always thought that, obviously, they are, and I don’t really care to persuade anyone of this or if the mainstream acknowledges this. But still, I’ve never had too many games to point to and use as good examples for games as art. If someone doesn’t think games are art, you can’t really point at the common rabble and hope that’s enough to persuade them.

For me, for a game to be art, it just needs to exist, really. It’s art by definition.

For it to be great art, it needs to make you feel.

NieR: Automata is one of three games that’s made me feel so much from beginning to end.

Yoko Taro is famous for his depressing stories taking place in depressing settings populated by...complicated people. Going into this, I knew not to get too attached to anyone. Never know who’s next on the chopping block.

So when 2B died in the first 30 minutes of Route C, I knew it was just Taro being Taro, telling a story in a very unconventional way. It’s what he knows.

I knew that when 9S saw A2 run 2B through with her own sword, there’d be no swaying him from killing her. Either one or both were gonna die. I was right again.

But when Ending E happened, all my expectations crumbled along with that blindingly white tower.

Ending E in the original NieR was something you only got through supplementary material -- Grimoire Nier. It’s a happy one, all things considered, and, I think, the only other example of a happy ending in a Yoko Taro game. I won’t detail it here. It’s very easy to find. But it’s still not truly a replacement for what you’ve lost. It’s still very Taro.

But even with that said, Ending E in Automata ends on something I never thought I’d see in a Taro game: hope.

I don’t know what got me more: the last few seconds of the game, where we see the sleeping bodies of the newly reconstructed 2B, A2, and 9S, or the bit before that, where you have to fight the game itself to achieve that happiness, and just when things are at their hardest, when you can’t see yourself winning but refuse to give up anyway, you receive help from another player. 

And another. 

And another.

And every time one falls, another is quick to take his or her place.

I’m thankful, really. It’s probably the only real time I’ve truly felt connected to a wider community in a game. No MMO, competitive multiplayer game, or arena shooter could hope to replicate that feeling. Knowing that they all paid a very real, very steep price to give you that help, it’s impossible not to be moved to tears. That chorus doesn’t help, either. I’m weak to a spontaneous chorus.

Every loss during that sequence asked you a question, about life and meaning, about the point of it all, about giving in to impossible odds, but what really got me was...

“Do you think games are silly little things?”

And after all the game had put me through, I could only answer honestly.

I said no.

NieR: Automata really shows the uniqueness of videogames as an artform, how it can do things no other medium can do. The end sequence is a perfect example of that. After all your struggling, seeing characters you’ve grown to love die one after the other, everything they’ve built and fought for dying along with them, you reach a point where, for once, you’re given not only respite, but help -- from your peers, no less!

So that’s why I felt and continue to feel so damn much for this game. I cried, but not because I was sad. Yoko Taro’s legacy warned me that there’d be sadness long before I bought the game.

I cried because this hope, that help, buried under 40 hours of constant strife and grief, were even there in the first place.

It subverted my expectations even when I went in expecting it to subvert my expectations. That’s very Taro. He never makes the same game twice.