When comparing Final Fantasy XV vs NieR: Automata, the Slant community recommends NieR: Automata for most people. In the question“What are the best JRPGs for PS4?” NieR: Automata is ranked 4th while Final Fantasy XV is ranked 18th. 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 Great interaction between the main characters
It was enjoyable to watch how the main characters dealt with the story as it progressed from fixing a broken car on the way to a wedding, to avenging the destruction of their home to eventually saving the world and dealing with the issues along the way. What stuck out the most though was the interactions between the characters while just playing the game. They will make comments while fighting battles, banter with each other while riding in the car or on chocobos. They even make comments when you are trying to catch fish. These small interactions between the characters were a great detail is not always found in other games.
Pro Powerful soundtrack
The soundtrack in this game is grand and inspiring, going the extra mile to help plenty of moments stick out in your memory alongside the music. The prologue alone gives a great preview of a fiery level you'll reach later in the story, playing the song "Hellfire" with an energized chorus singing over a strong mix of percussion instruments. Music for regular boss fights, called "Omnis Lacrima", is as whimsical and intense, with a determined chorus singing in Latin over frenzied violins, pianos, and brass instruments. Certain story sequences are heartfelt with "Love Lost" playing in the background, featuring wind instruments and pianos that are strong enough to affect you emotionally. The music overall does a great job of elevating the plot with its huge sense of scale and emotional impact.
Pro Impressive visuals
Final Fantasy XV is an epic game that knows how to put on a show with its visuals. Some of its best moments are visually awe-inspiring, standing out from other games through sheer ambition and huge proportions, like fighting boss battles against enormous foes. Even during regular battles, if you're at low HP and you need to finish off a group of enemies, you can summon a giant, god-like being to instakill the enemies at the cost of not gaining any experience points. The summon animation for the thunder god Ramuh is amazing, with the whole sky shifting to a violet lightning storm as the huge deity comes down from the sky, using his scepter to rain down crazy amounts of lightning to kill everything in your path. Instances like these are more of the norm instead of the exception, making for some unforgettable scenes throughout the game.
Pro You can fly a car
When the right upgrade parts are found, the Regalia is given an additional travel mode of flight. While the controls take some getting used to and might result in death, hopefully amusing death, it does allow for an interesting new mode of travel.
Pro Lets you choose which weapons to use to best suit your playstyle
There is a wide range of weapons that Noctis can equip, such as greatswords, lances, short swords and even guns. Four different weapons can be equipped to Noctis at once and when in battle, the weapon being used can be switched with the press of a button. This allows for you to select weapons that might be beneficial for certain fights, or for a preferred playstyle, and switch between them with ease when the situation calls for it.
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 world can feel empty at times
The majority of Final Fantasy XV takes place in the area known as Lucis. Lucis is comprised of one main town, a beach resort, and various little outposts that mainly serve as places to get food, gas for the car, rest, and obtain hunts. The lack of multiple large towns makes the world feel rather empty at times compared to previous Final Fantasy games. The feeling of emptiness is further enhanced by some areas having few monsters encounters while exploring.
Con Not really an RPG in the classic sense. More like a moderately interactive movie.
Too linear, with weak story and combat.
Con The battle system is too simplistic
Compared to previous games in the series the battle system is weak and just is button mashing. Feels more like Devil May Cry than a FF game. Hated this game.
Con Weak story
Because the Final Fantasy series is known for its great stories, it's frustrating that the one here is badly executed. There are a lot of payoffs in the plot that the writers intended to be dramatic and emotional, and yet you probably won't feel the full impact of them since the buildup to those moments is lacking. There's too much missing with Final Fantasy XV's storytelling, all but abandoning the plot to land on its face by the end credits.
Con The magic system is a downgrade from previous Final Fantasy games
In most Final Fantasy games, magic spells are unlocked by leveling a character up or acquiring them through other means, such as nodes on a level grid, equipping gear that can teach a spell, or from items found in the game, such as Final Fantasy VII's materia system. Final Fantasy XV reduces the magic casting to collecting fire, ice and thunder energy from nodes near campsites, and them filling up flasks with the energy in various combos, and sometimes drops from enemies, to be able to create a spell. The ability to add what you want to a flask does allow for the creation of strong spells or spells that end up being cast multiple times, but it ends up being limited by the resources you have.
The worst part though about the magic system is that casting the spells is done by throwing the flask like a grenade causing an explosion of the spell, damaging friend and foe alike. The only way to prevent friendly fire is the Ring of Resistance accessory, which is obtained from paid DLC. It should also be noted that the ring only protects from the initial affects of the spell, which means the party can still be paralyzed from a thunder spell if they are standing in water.
Con Just feels boring and unengaging
Con Core character development for Noctis' companions isn't in the main story
The weak story in Final Fantasy XV links back to Noctis' companions--Ignis, Gladio, and Prompto--and how you won't get to know the guys all that well unless you play the paid DLC. You have to reach certain points in the story before these DLC stories are available, and without the context in this content, you won't have a solid understanding of the main characters beyond the tropes they represent. Aside from a few heartwarming moments in the story, it's all too easy to dismiss Prompto as a happy-go-lucky guy with little depth to him. It isn't until you play through his DLC, Episode Prompto, that you get to know him in ways that should have been in the main story. It's a poor business decision that prevents the story from standing on its own two feet.
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.