When comparing Nex Machina vs NieR: Automata, the Slant community recommends NieR: Automata for most people. In the question“What are the best sci-fi PC games?” NieR: Automata is ranked 3rd while Nex Machina is ranked 19th. 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 Responsive controls
Since you only have a short window to dodge hazardous laser beams on the field and maneuver your character around swarms of enemies, it's great that the controls are tight and accurate. You can pull off dodges and risky swerves to save a human NPC with ease as long as you master the angles and timing. With a challenging game like this, you don't need to worry about input lag getting in the way of more aggressive playstyles.
Pro Great synthwave soundtrack
Complimenting Nex Machina's speedy, chaotic gameplay, the soundtrack matches the sci-fi setting with hard-hitting, energetic synths and modulations. The electronic beats are catchy and fun to listen to while blasting through the game's metallic levels and robotic enemies. The tracks fit into the idea of what it would have been like to play any retro sci-fi game without the musical constraints on games in the 80s and 90s.
Pro Boss battles truly test your skills
At the end of each level are difficult boss fights that crank out bullets and beams in all directions that you have to dodge while dealing damage at the same time. The bosses are all different in design, such as a giant ape that lumbers around the field and throws obstacles at you, to a more stationary tower that bombards you with other enemies that you're forced to prioritize instead. Each boss is a comprehensive test of the skills you've learned up to that point, encouraging you to make the best use of your power-ups and dodge timings.
Pro Difficult yet rewarding gameplay
Nex Machina's bullet hell gameplay is fast-paced and challenging, with dozens of robotic enemies rushing at you while you use every skill at your disposal to survive and increase your score. Not only do you have to avoid enemies, but you also have to use your ability to dodge hazards on the field such as laser beams.
There are also optional human NPCs to save who are usually taking damage by waves of enemies. Clearing the surrounding robots while dodging any nearby lasers to save these humans will award you with extra points to your score, so it's worth it to go after them whenever you can.
As you defeat enemies, they'll sometimes drop power-up items, such as shields that will absorb damage that would normally kill you, and tools to increase the range of your bullets.
Clearing a level with no deaths earns you a nice score boost at the end, encouraging you to run through the game as best as you can. It takes a lot of precision to dodge lasers while killing the enemies that come at you from all directions, but pulling it off is a rewarding, addicting experience.
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 game is very short
Your first playthrough will only take about an hour or two, which may not be worth it. There are plenty of new paths and secrets hidden across the levels, so a completionist playthrough will take about five or six hours.
Con Deaths can be too punishing at times
In Nex Machina, you'll die after a single hit from an enemy, causing you to drop one of your power-ups, like your ability to dash three times in a row or increased weapon spread. You'll then have to return to the spot where you died to collect the power-up that you dropped. If you lose all of your lives, you're forced to use a continue, leaving you with only power-up. It'a a punishing system that makes you work harder with fewer tools after continuous deaths.
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.