When comparing Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus vs NieR: Automata, the Slant community recommends NieR: Automata for most people. In the question“What are the best story-driven games on PS4?” NieR: Automata is ranked 23rd while Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is ranked 39th. 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
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Pros
Pro A well polished singleplayer experience
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus doesn't have a multiplayer, so the entirety of the development resources went into creating a great single player experience. As a result, the graphics, the sound, the level design, the gameplay, and even the story is really well done, making your death-spreading voyage through a world ruled by Nazis really enjoyable.
Pro Excellent gameplay that supports any playstyle
Wolfenstein II is simply fun to play because any approach works for beating a level. You can go in with guns blazing while dual wielding shotguns, shredding Nazis with a cloud of bullets. You can also move from cover to cover while picking off enemies with headshots using an assault rifle. You can even be stealthy and sneak past guards, taking out just the commanding officer. Whichever approach you choose, it will feel like the right way to play the game, making killing Nazis that much more satisfying.
Pro Tons of collectibles
For those wanting to do something extra on top of creating a long trail of dead bodies, there are a multitude of collectibles hidden in each level. This includes gold treasures, concept art, and even newspapers that provide additional backstory on the ongoing events. These small side goals make exploring Nazi bases much more enjoyable.
Pro Great story
Wolfenstein II is a story-driven experience unlike most FPS games. The setting, the main plot, and the various subplots are interesting. It has a relatable main character, likable side-characters, and even a fearsome villain. The dialogue is interesting, quirky, and sometimes funny, striking a perfect balance between being serious and humorous. As a result, Wolfenstein II keeps you interested with more than just excellent gameplay, which is a nice change of pace.
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 No real boss fights
There are the regular Nazis and Nazi robots, and slightly stronger versions of them. There are no epic showdown with especially fearsome baddies with amazing abilities or gigantic guns, so it can feel quite disappointing to players expecting difficult hurdles along the way.
Con Very short in length
May only take about six hours to complete after skipping cutscenes.
Con You might need to play the prequel to fully appreciate the story
Even though Wolfenstein II tries to fill you in on what happened in the prequel, it does it very poorly. You might feel like you've missed a key story element because characters will keep referencing events and characters you have absolutely no recollection of. This can create a sense of disconnection, potentially ruining your immersion.
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.