When comparing God of War (2018) vs NieR: Automata, the Slant community recommends NieR: Automata for most people. In the question“What are the best story rich games on PC?” NieR: Automata is ranked 38th while God of War (2018) is ranked 65th. 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 Encourages exploration
While there's still a linear story to follow, there are plenty of optional side areas that you will have to discover on your own. While your son Atreus may point out a few of them, most are found via thorough exploration of your surroundings or taking on side quests. By traveling off the beaten path and straying away from the main storyline, you'll find collectibles, treasure chests, challenging enemies, and various loot, so it's always rewarding to poke around and seek out the secrets.
Pro The Leviathian Axe is just a downright fun and satisfying weapon
Slicing through enemies and throwing your ice-imbued Leviathan Axe around never gets old. It starts off with a basic light and heavy attack, but as the game goes on, you'll be constantly upgrading it with new and improved powers by killing bosses.
One of the most satisfying aspects is throwing it like a boomerang. It sails through the air as it cuts up enemies, and then with a 2nd button tap you can recall it back into your outstretched hand as your controller gently rumbles. If you line it up properly, you can even throw it in your foe's face for a bloody headshot.
This throw effect is not only used for combat, but also for environmental puzzles and smashing obstacles. Even with no enemies in sight, it still remains fun to just toss it around and see what you can smash with it.
Pro Seamless, immersive camera work
God of War is played from start to finish as one continuous camera shot without interruption. Every single frame features Kratos, so it's easy to stay intimately wrapped up in his state of mind and emotions at all times. Through moments of grief, silence, and anger - you are with him for all of it.
Certain game mechanics cleverly use this camera work to their advantage. For example, fast travel around the game world is handled through the seamless camera trick of stepping through a gateway as if it's a door.
Unless you die, there isn't a single loading screen. This continuous shot with an unwavering focus ensures you are fully immersed in the character and story at all times.
Pro Super enjoyable combat
Combat is just plain enjoyable and fun. Hacking and slashing with the axe feels brutal and impactful. Watching an enemy being cut in two in a bloody splash or staggering backwards emphasizes the power in your swings. Throwing your axe and having it boomerang back to you also never gets old. Blocking with the shield at just the right time provides some strategic elements. Unleashing special moves feels great since they reward careful timing as opposed to just mashing buttons. Atreus, your son, fights alongside you stunning and shooting enemies, and is way more of a boon than a hindrance that has to be micromanaged. God of War also sheds the cumbersome quicktime events from previous games in the series. Now you just press 1 button to unleash bloody and bone crushing finishing moves.
Pro Engaging father-son dynamic that ties into the gameplay
The dynamic between Kratos and his son Atreus is not only for plot purposes, as it also ties incredibly well into the combat and gameplay itself.
Atreus fights alonside Kratos in battle shooting his bow at enemies and occasionally stunning them. However, like a son obeying his father, will only unleash his most powerful attacks when you order him to do so. Weaving his shots and runic ability in with your own attacks creates a great synergy between the two in combat, and helps to emphasize their relationship as a father and son team.
While Kratos may be the protective father and leading the charge, he also learns a few things from the boy during their journey. During exploration, Atreus will often point out side paths you have may have missed. Additionally, Atreus is the only one who can read the many Norse mythology and lore runes scattered around the game world. All of these gameplay elements combined help to constantly reinforce the dynamic between the pair.
Pro Great graphics
This is one of the best looking PS4 games to date, and really sets a benchmark. It truly pushes the hardware to its limits and showcases what the system can do.
The Norse-inspired landscape of rolling mountains and grassy valleys is breathtakingly beautiful featuring realistic textures and shadows. Every rock and blade of grass is done in exquisite detail. The sky and water are photo realistic. Sometimes just standing and looking at the mountain peaks in the distance can provide a sense of awe. Even the leather and fur on armor looks and reacts realistically during movement.
From the textures, character models, and everything in between - it's hard to find a better looking game on any system.
Pro Highly immersive thanks to attention to small details
There are a lot of small details in God of War that help add to it's immersive atmosphere. For example, when traveling with Atreus and you stop too long to admire the view, he will start complaining about how bored he is. Snowflakes will actually stick to armor when in a snowy environment. Flames on candles blow and move based on the breeze. NPCs rarely ever repeat the same lines. When looking at Kratos, you can see every vein on his muscled arms. All of these small details add up making the game world feel like a living, breathing place.
Pro Excellent voice acting
The deep and commanding voice of Kratos, voiced by Christopher Judge, is extremely fitting and exactly what you would expect from a powerful god killer. Lines are delivered with real conviction and come off full of emotion and real depth.
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 Fixed camera can be a disadvantage during combat
Since you can't zoom in and out at will, you are always locked in the fixed view that the camera wants you to be in. This can be rough to adjust to in some combat situations, like enemies sneaking up behind you.
Con Block and Runics use the same button
The same button used to block enemy attacks is also used to activate some special moves called Runics. Sometimes a mixup in the heat of combat can cause a Runic to go off by accident. It's not the end of the world, but it will force you to wait for the cooldown before you can use it again.
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.