When comparing Brawlhalla vs NieR: Automata, the Slant community recommends NieR: Automata for most people. In the question“What are the best action games on PS4?” NieR: Automata is ranked 11th while Brawlhalla is ranked 22nd. The most important reason people chose NieR: Automata is:
The combat in NieR: Automata is fantastic. It has a hack-and-slash feel to it, with an emphasis on agility and showy acrobatics. With the fluid and responsive controls, you can switch seamlessly from using swift attacks with your weapon to devastatingly strong attacks as you combo them together. You also use customizable ranged missile attacks from your personal robot pod, such as powerful laser beams or a giant hammer attack. It can be difficult to win battles sometimes, especially on the harder gameplay settings, but it's worthwhile to keep at it and watch yourself progress and improve.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Completely free to play
Brawlhalla's developers have a strict "no pay to win" philosophy. There's an in-game store where you can buy things like alternate looks for your characters, new taunt and KO animations, etc., but there's no power-ups, no new mechanics, nothing that would give someone putting money into the game an edge.
Pro The controls are very good
Controlling a character in Brawlhalla is great because everything is so responsive and just flows perfectly. Not only does this make performing combos and special moves easier, but it simply feels good to play.
Pro Very rewarding gameplay
In game, some of the moves are completely over the top, and when you connect with them it's just so satisfying. There's not much quite like being deep into a game and pulling off a ridiculous combo that clinches the victory for you.
On top of that, fighting games inherently have a lot of room for improvement, even for the top players in the world, and Brawlhalla is no exception. You can spend hours practicing your favorite characters and still want to get better. After spending all those hours practicing, it's great to put the beat down on an opponent in true Brawlhalla fashion.
Pro Tons of different ways to enjoy the game
Brawlhalla is a 2D fighting game where you choose a character and fight in matches that are one of the following: 1 versus 1, 2 versus 2, 4 versus 4, and 4 or 8 person free-for-alls. Every game mode has a different reason to love it, from the fierce competitive feeling of the one on one match up, or the all-out ridiculousness of an 8-man free for all, Brawlhalla has a way for everyone to have fun.
Pro You're able to test your skills against others via a ranking system
Brawlhalla offers a ranked game option if you're into competitive play. In ranked games, each player has 3 lives and you battle until one player loses all of them.
Every player has an ELO rating, essentially a number that shows your rank. Winning games will raise your ELO, while losing will lower it. Every player also has two other ratings: the Matchmaking Ratio (or MMR), which is hidden from everyone, and an ELO for the character they're playing.
Your MatchMaking Ratio (MMR) is a secret number that determines what other players you'll be playing, and how quickly your ELO will rise or fall with victories and defeats. The ELO for the character your playing has a distinct effect on your MMR - a character you're not as good with will place you against lower ranked people than the character you're best with.
Pro Playing is addictive
Pro Fast-paced, action-packed combat
The combat in NieR: Automata is fantastic. It has a hack-and-slash feel to it, with an emphasis on agility and showy acrobatics. With the fluid and responsive controls, you can switch seamlessly from using swift attacks with your weapon to devastatingly strong attacks as you combo them together. You also use customizable ranged missile attacks from your personal robot pod, such as powerful laser beams or a giant hammer attack. It can be difficult to win battles sometimes, especially on the harder gameplay settings, but it's worthwhile to keep at it and watch yourself progress and improve.
Pro Unique storytelling with a real emotional impact
NieR: Automata's outlook on storytelling is incredibly special. To get the full experience, you have to run multiple playthroughs of the game, each of which offers a new experience and perspective. Your world view of the story events and characters expands drastically as you complete each playthrough, playing on your expectations to help you develop a deeper emotional bond with the protagonists and become invested in their plight.
Things take a real turn on your third playthrough, putting you on an emotional roller coaster all the way to the true ending. The plot twists and knocks on the fourth wall elevate the story to a truly unique place. Getting all the way to the very end can be a religious experience from how much heart and meaning you discover in the symbolism.
Pro It's got a hauntingly beautiful environment
NieR: Automata is set in a post-apocalyptic landscape after Earth has been overrun by hostile machines, and the artists really nailed what that would feel like. Abandoned and overgrown cities litter the landscape along with old refineries, graveyards, and eerie forests. When you add the beautiful soundtrack to the experience, it fills you with a bittersweet mix of loneliness and hope.
Pro Varied genre-spanning gameplay elements
NieR: Automata has different types of gameplay to keep things interesting. From the very start, you're on an on-rails bullet hell section, and then you switch over to the more traditional action RPG style of fast-paced combat. Things change up again not long after with some side-scrolling platforming from a 2D view. Later on in the story, there's a hacking mini-game where you navigate a tiny ship through a short puzzle, with the music changing to a charming retro sound to fit the theme and mood. This is a game that doesn't stay boxed in a single genre.
Pro An incredible amount of content
Outside of the main story, there's plenty of optional content to dive into. The side quests are the best way to get to know the characters and lore of the world, with some of them giving clever and subtle foreshadowing of the game's most critical events. There are also weapons to collect and upgrade, each of which offer nice little tidbits of lore after you get them to max level. And after reaching a certain point in the story, you get access to Chapter Select that lets you go back and replay whatever you want. You can easily spend 60+ hours exploring the world and still have much more to do.
Pro Gorgeous, ethereal soundtrack with amazing vocals
NieR: Automata's music is out of this world. It's so stunning and elegant in a way that nothing else can really live up to. The soundtrack manages to emotionalize the game through music, from the action-packed tracks with hard-hitting wind instruments and percussion, to the softer, somber songs that encapsulate the hauntingly beautiful environments and story moments you encounter. Vocals in the lore's indescribable language makes the music even more memorable, adding to the ethereal quality of the sound. This soundtrack is definitely one that you can go back to again and again without getting sick of it.
Cons
Con The community can be rather mean
Like most popular competitive games, it attracts a lot of people who are less than sportsman-like. The toxic community doesn't represent the majority of players, but a significant enough portion that it's a problem.
Con Limited open world
Even though NieR: Automata is technically an open world game, it doesn't always feel like it. It's more that there's a big open space in the center of the ruined city you explore, with branches that lead off to vastly different environments, like a desert, a village, and a few other places. These locations aren't that spacious, either, and it's a bit of a stretch to even imagine all of these places being so close together in the first place. It's not too much of an issue as long as you find the story and combat engaging enough.
Con Second playthrough can get repetitive
Once you get to Route B, your second playthrough, you may find that too much is the same. There are some big differences, such as the new way you get to see things play out, but a lot of it rehashes Route A, your first playthrough. There's a ton of hacking you have to do as well, which gets pretty boring after repeating it over and over again. But if you stick with it, Route C and onward are absolutely worth the time spent getting to that point.
Con Some boring fetch quests
The pacing gets messed up when you're forced to run certain fetch quests near the start of the game. This is somewhat forgivable after the fun and action-packed introductory level, but the quests themselves are still a drag to play through. Some of the side quests can also boil down to the same thing. Even though these quests give a lot of useful information about the world, they're not all that fulfilling, and you may dread having to repeat them when playing through the game again.
Con Buggy on PC
Some players complain about the game crashing, freezing, their save files mysteriously disappearing, and more. As of June 2018, over a year after the game's initial release, there is still no patch to fix these problems. Not everyone on PC will have these bugs, but it's still quite prevalent. If you continually run into issues, your best bet is to find a mod or play the console versions instead of waiting on an official patch that may never happen.