Thread: Revelations from Patch 5.3

Originally Posted by YianKutku

I did make a point earlier in this thread that it's actually not, and that's an even bigger problem: the Yorha raid treats it as some brand new out-of-context problem, while our character should probably just go "yeah, this sort of thing happens surprisingly often".

Specifically I'm thinking of Omega.

I'd actually argue that some Garlean and all of Allag's tech rivals if not exceeds that of YoRHa, and while the Eorzeans and such do not have the same level of technology they're still capable of doing things on par with or exceeding YoRHa's capabilities thanks to magic. (Well, other than space travel, and Allag could probably have done that too... which makes the idea they were wiped out by a cataclysmic earthquake somewhat strange.) Omega clearly exceeded YoRHa though.

What bothers me about it is how absolutely nonchalant the characters are about it all, despite all of said tech being utterly (and literally) alien. In-universe there's been no explanation or context given for anything, other than a few lines from 2B about the P-units (and presumably their Bunker) being YoRHa knockoffs made by the Machines. There are strange little machines, giant killer machines, realistic, self-willed androids and gynoids, a mysteriously appearing factory, and a crashed space station that were all hiding in the mountains of Kholusia... and nobody seems to question where it all came from or what it's there for.

You can get a little background and context if you play or read up on Automata, but you shouldn't need to do that and it's not adequate to explain what it's all doing on Norvrandt.

And the angle it appears to be going for - the relationship between mechanical lifeforms and souls - was thoroughly explored in Automata itself and done pretty recently with Omega in this game as well, so I'm rather apathetic to where the story seems to be headed.

Originally Posted by Iscah

5.3 Thoughts and Feelings

Y'shtola's Gaffe

Your later posts...

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels like Elidibus was out of character. I really resonate with your feelings on the MSQ. Very similar feelings for me too. For Nier as well, though I have a lot of funs with the fights. The fight design is chef kiss

As for Y'shtola and the problem she presents... well I suppose it's up to G'raha really, and he does introduce himself that way. I've never been heavily invested in Miqote antics, because I'm not a fan of cat people(though Hrothgar cat-dads are really growing on me). I suppose it's more me for some reason losing my taste and even growing agitated with the character of Y'shtola. I'm up to Stormblood now on a full rewatch, replay of the game in my Let's Play, and I've found myself growing more cross with her, despite her having the highest nostalgia factor for me, being my first playthrough's starting Scion.

As for the trifling disagreement on soul destruction and aether blades, the soul does not need to be contained before blasting. Examples: Lahabrea killed by Thordan. Emet-selch killed by us(though he did have auracite shrapnel pierce his form, it did not contain much of him). It comes down to power, and the blow was intended to kill the WoL. The original reason for containment was to prevent them fleeing to the Rift/fleeing at all, and for mortals that's not applicable, anyway. Perhaps Ser Zephirin's, "Spear of the Fury" wasn't intended purely for soul destruction, but it was intended to kill and keep dead an Echo-gifted being, the context being killing the WoL as advised by Lahabrea. It's worth thinking about.

From a gameplay perspective it makes it impossible to heal the physical body for a time, and deals so much damage that it will outright kill any non-tank level 80 character. Not that gameplay always counts, especially in regards to extremes that come from a Minstrel, but the way some people seem to act about it, it's as if, "Oh that thing was never a real threat. No more of a threat than an extra crispy Fire IV or something." <--- (this is exaggeration).

Originally Posted by Iscah

The thing is, it's going to be very hard for this shocking third-act twist to be meaningful if I don't care about what little I've seen happen so far.

The characters are just there. They've barely shown a personality beyond "fight the enemy". I don't feel like I know enough about them for there to be a twist that changes my understanding.

Are they simply relying on prior familiarity with the characters, despite no guarantee that players have it, or is the writing like this in the original too?

TL;DR: Basically.

As the story is presented in the original game, the first two routes ("Endings") don't give much context beyond an alien-created machine army conquering Earth, humanity fleeing to the Moon, and the PCs (2B and 9S) being soldiers in the war to reclaim Earth. As YoRHa they strive to keep their emotions to a minimum and carry out their tasks with mechanical efficiency, to the point 2B's catchphrase is "Emotions are prohibited." Further, the machines are cast as all nothing but mindless automatons carrying out their programming; excepting those not linked to their network everybody treats them as just fodder.

Then you get a bunch of whammies that recontextualize everything:

• Having assimilated a lot of data on humans into their network, the machines have become for most intents and purposes human other than their mechanical bodies.
• YoRHa units are made using repurposed machine cores, so they're effectively the same.
• Both the aliens and humans the two factions fight on behalf of are extinct (the machines turned on their creators when they realized they had no use for them, while humanity went extinct as a result of what happened in the original NieR; there's nothing on the Lunar Base except an incomplete human genome and a propaganda center).
• 2B is actually 2E (Executioner), created to kill 9S whenever he gets too close to the truth about the war and has done so several times before. (The "A" Ending has her strangling him to death and hinting at this while she does so.)
• The war is designed to be unwinnable on both ends.
• In the event YoRHa gains an edge over the machines, there's a backdoor into their orbital Bunker that allows them all to be infected with a Logic Virus that will effectively turn them into zombies.

... but most if not all of that interesting information is locked behind hours of gameplay, requiring a runthrough of the same story twice from different perspectives. However once you do that you learn the YoRHa units are far from emotionless as the above revelations take a severe psychological toll on the characters - 2B succumbs to the Logic Virus but not before confessing her love for 9S in an audio log, and 9S himself essentially goes insane with grief and rage.

But yeah, for the first two routes you aren't given much context or details on what's going on other than "go kill the evil machines to reclaim the Earth for humanity." It's certainly a poor way to hold your audience's attention if they don't know your MO though.

As for the story in XIV itself, it does appear to be relying on familiarity with the characters and story of Automata to keep your interest... which is a problem.

Don't misunderstand - I'm not saying what we've gotten so far is "good" by any means (given we've barely gotten anything at all). Just that Yoko Taro's MO is to withhold context until the final act, and make said context sad and tragic to elicit pathos from the audience.

That makes it predictable to a T, like how there's always a twist in the ending of M. Night Shyamalan's films; once you get the trick, it's boring.

(And like I said elsewhere it doesn't appear to be going anywhere the original Automata didn't, and that theme was pretty recently explored using Omega within XIV itself, so... whatever.)

EDIT

Originally Posted by SecretCrowds

Question about our dear Elidibus and his motives.

Sorry if this has been discussed already. But something still confuses me about the MSQ. What was the reason for Elidibus making all those people see the starfall and think they are the Warriors of Light? I can’t seem to piece it together with what he did at the climax, summoning all those other-world heroes to fight the scions and all.

As a primal, Elidibus is powered by faith. It's to make people put their faith in Warriors of Light (of which he is the first ever in context), which he draws on for strength, rather than keeping their faith in the Warrior of Darkness (the PC).

Step 1: Awaken normies to the Echo.
Step 2: Say they're Warriors of Light and encourage them to be heroes.
Step 3: Give them engineered threats to put down via Black Masks, increasing faith in the Warriors of Light.
Step 4: Profit!