Hey gang,

If you've frequented the "Nier" forum lately, you'll notice I've posted a few times with several misgivings I've had with the game. Now please understand, I've REALLY tried hard to enjoy this game. I've tried multiple different ways to play it, different difficulties, everything you could imagine. But I just had a moment that took the cake so much I've had to shelf it.

If you saw my other thread a couple of weeks ago, you'll see I got an ending that I didn't expect. I'll quickly summarize it to save you from looking for it:

I'm doing the start of playthrough C. Glad to be back in control of 2B after what I felt was quite a tedious runthrough on playthrough B as 9S. It wasn't boring as such, just felt super tedious to not be able to really do the core gameplay, instead being relegated to 6 hours of a hacking minigame. I finally got through it, after some difficulty with the final boss, and was happy to get onto playthrough C, the one I've been told was really excellent.

So I started up playthrough C, eager to jump back in. I did the first area, where you have to fight several small groups of enemies. Warning bells had already started here. The enemies were 20 levels higher than me. I didn't think this was really a problem, as being competent at the game aleviated most of those problems- if you could play well, you could overcome a lot. I made it through them, adn moved onto the next big task. At this point, 2B is hit with an EMP of sorts, and disabled, and you're back in control of 9S. More warning bells. There was a fuckton of enemies, and with them being 20 levels higher than me again, it took AGES to kill them all. More hacking minigame, but it's pretty easy, so no prob.

At this point, I was finding myself running low on health consumables. I was a little worried, but for the most part the game gives you ample chance to stock up, so I carried on. I battered all the enemies, and got to a moment. From what I gathered, 2B has been hacked, and you had to hack HER to remove a virus. No big deal, I thought. Now, I had a hard time targetting her, as she's surrounded by about 20 friendly NPC's, who you can ALSO hack to cure them. I hacked EVERYONE, then kinda stood around for 15/20 seconds waiting for the game to carry on.

Out of nowhere, I got a duff ending. Confused, I looked it up, and it claimed that I had "Ran away from the battlefield, abandoning 2B". But I didn't. When I went to /v/, they informed me I must have missed 2B in the curing section, thus relegating me to a bad ending.

I was pretty upset. I spent 90 minutes/2 hours doing this section, so for the game to force a bad end on me left a really sour taste in my mouth. So bad that I bought Horizon: Zero Dawn, and played that for the next 2 weeks (It's a fucking masterpiece, you absolutely must play it)

So here's where I get to the point where I explain why I quit. I loaded it back up about an hour ago, eager to get back into the game and finish it off. To my surprise, I was dumped right back to the start of my playthrough. Now I know what you're thinking: That's only a couple of hours to get back, right?

Well, the game decided that I didn't get a chance to restore my healing items. At all. It would't let me go back to the bunker, it wouldn't let me go to the Village, nothing. I was shit out of luck.

I put the game down to easy, and enabled auto-chips, thinking I'd let the game do the hard work. It turns out even with all the auto-chips on, even the game can't keep up with all that shit.

So there I was- Stuck with no chance to get any healing items, with enemies that were 20 levels higher than me, with nowhere to go. I just ejected the disk, and put it away for good.

I was so dissapointed too. It was a terrific game. It looked amazing, sounded even better- it really was the real deal. Up until the part where I had to play it.

I'd recommend the game, but be warned.

Thanks for reading!

Well, that's your loss, but did this really warrant a thread?

And how on earth did you end up under-levelled by twenty? That just doesn't seem possible unless you really go out of your way to avoid combat. It's easier to find yourself over-levelled by such a margin than under.

Honestly just sounds like you made bad decisions (skipping combat, not stocking up on restoratives, buying Horizon)

Weirdly enough I don't remember ever having any issues with any of the actual fighting in the game. Perhaps it's because I did a lot of the sidequests and leveled up from that or who knows, but the fight you specifically reference wasn't all that difficult. As I remember you just hack a few of the corrupt Yorha units, they blow up, and then you hack 2B when you get an opening. Perhaps you are playing on Hard which I've read is very challenging and fairly punishing (read on and see thats not the case). If anyone ever told you "oh man if you're not playing on hard you're not doing it right" don't listen to them. The gameplay is fun enough in Nier but it's not nearly evolved enough to warrant playing it on hard where enemies hit like a sack of bricks. This is a game about story and bumping it down to Easy in order to get through this part you're having issues with is probably the best route to take, although I'm not sure how you're still having a hard time getting past this even on easy. Not to boast or anything, and I know this isn't helpful to you since obviously you're having some real issues here, but I beat the entire game on Normal without hardly ever using healing items. I don't mean this to come off as one of those awful people in Dark Souls threads that remark how they beat every boss on the first try and it was super easy for them, I merely think maybe something is off with your game or something because it definitely shouldn't be that hard. A very useful chip to use, if you have it, is one that gives you back HP for the damage you deal to enemies. That really helps in keeping you tanked up while fighting. If you already bumped it down to easy then I'm not sure what else to advise.

Of course by this point you're probably soured enough on it where it wouldn't make much of a difference and thats understandable. I remember having similar problems with otherwise great games in the past, albeit technical issues, that annoyed me enough where I had a hard time getting back into the positive mindset even after I had finally resolved them - as such finishing those games became almost an obligation. If you're having more fun with Horizon then I dunno just stick with that and maybe watch the endings for Nier on YouTube. (Personally I wouldn't call Horizon a masterpiece as it's pretty clunky in some areas but it is a lot more straightforward). From personal experience I can tell you that as much as I enjoyed my time with Nier, getting those remaining endings does eventually become a bit of busywork. I was still enjoying the game enough to power through it, but at some point I did make a conscious decision to skip everything along the way and beeline each arch to it's conclusion - I really loved the "world" so to speak and all the cookiness, but so many hours into it and having traversed those handful of areas so many times back and forth and back and forth I was kind of ready for it to be over. So like I said, no harm in simply watching the endings online at this point since you won't get ALL that much from playing it and it seems like you're actively disliking that part of the game at this point anyway so no point to keep forcing it.

@humanity: There actually is harm in watching the endings on youtube, since ending E loses almost all impact to anyone besides the person playing, and that's absolutely the most unique, defining moment in that game.

Not saying this guy should torture himself into finishing the game for it or anything.

Thats unfortunate, Nier does a lot of things greatly, though it has some flaws. Too bad they stopped you from playing.

I also wanted to type something about spoilers, but I'm sure everyone and their dog as played through the game by now.

@gunslingerpanda: Hey, don't overdo it. Horizon well deserving of its praise. Probably the best ps4 game besides Bloodborn and in my opinion TLG.

You got any decent chips equipped? The section you mention was probably the hardest part of the game aside from the bullet hell credits.

Nier's alright!

@teddie: ehh I mean sure but it's not like going through the credits yourself is somehow tailored to each individual player. It's still "cool" to just see it and since he's not having fun playing the game anymore there won't be that connection to it that makes that ending really impactful.