When comparing MLB The Show 18 vs NieR: Automata, the Slant community recommends NieR: Automata for most people. In the question“What are the best single player games on PS4?” NieR: Automata is ranked 19th while MLB The Show 18 is ranked 108th. 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 Great handling in the gameplay systems such as hitting and catching
While the baseball ruleset has been kept intact perfectly, the most noteworthy aspect is how well the player characters control and handle. Whether you're hitting a homerun, pitching a curveball, or making a diving save in the outfield, the input feels great and responsive. Hitting feels natural and challenging, without being easy enough to feel cheap. A feedback system allows you keep an eye on your swing timing and contact. Connecting just right and watching the ball soar is one of the game's biggest thrills.
In the field, players move realistically in terms of speed thanks to the redesigned physics engine. To catch the ball, you'll have to pay attention and time your movements so you can be in the right place at the right time. If you miss the catch and the ball goes bouncing off a wall or tumbling through the field, you'll need to react fast so baserunners don't get extra time.
The great handling comes together in an exciting and realistic way that makes MLB 18 one of the best representations of baseball in video games to date.
Pro Highly enjoyable and rewarding Road to the Show mode
One of the most fun and interactive modes is Road to the Show. After creating and customizing your own character, you'll start out as an underdog in the AA and AAA leagues.
Skill are handled in an RPG style where your skills improve or decline based on your performance. Hit too many foul balls or accumulate too many strikeouts, and your batting performance will suffer. Failing to catch balls in the outfield or throwing them your infielders will further damage your abilities. On the flip side, hit enough home runs or make some incredible plays and you'll start to get noticed by scouts. Since it's incredibly challenging to get noticed by a scout and drafted into the big leagues, there's a distinct sense of accomplishment when you finally go pro. This makes it a very satisfying mode to play.
Besides the onfield action, you'll also have talks with your manager from time to time. These talks include dialogue choices that may effect your career. For example, you may be asked to switch from infielder to outfielder. You can agree and attempt to build your skills in the new area, or you can outright refuse. If you constantly decline or give your coaches a hard time, you may be benched or even traded.
Between improving your abilities through skillful play, watching your career evolve over time, and playing your heart out to get drafted into the big leagues, Road to the Show mode is a highly enjoyable and rewarding experience.
Pro Great variety in the play modes
There are 3 game modes, tackling various aspects of baseball. Franchise mode allows you to make all the managerial decisions that go into making a team such as trading players. Diamond Dynasty mode allows you to earn collectibles such as cards by playing ranked head to head matches online or a draft based multiplayer ladder. Road to the Show is a career mode that has you playing as a character in his attempt to rise to the top.
Pro Extremely polished baseball experience
It's easy to get into the action when everything looks and sounds incredible, down to the smallest detail. The graphics are breathtaking, with a photo-realism in the field and players that's hard to find in other baseball games. Uniforms have more textures and the numbers on the back have a defined shine to them.
The animations of players hitting with a bat, pitching, and throwing are smooth and consistent. Ball physics are spot on, and the camera and replay shots look beautiful. Even the number of attendees in the crowd change based on your wins, losses, and day of the week.
The commentary is also excellent, featuring popular commentators. They recorded the dialogue together in the studio, so that when played out in-game, comes off as real and organic banter instead of copy and pasted lines.
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 Online play is laggy
The online play is plagued by input issues and lag. There is sometimes a delay between the pitcher winding up to throw the ball and when the ball actually leaves his hand. There's also some lag between the batter's swing and connecting with the ball. This can make pitching and hitting an exercise in frustration. Input delay persists in other cases as well, such as when throwing the ball from the outfield to tag out a base runner. All of these issues add up, making MLB 18's online play a sloppy experience.
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.