Neil: Mechanical Era Review: Yoko Taro's Venus

Players familiar with Yoko Taro's earlier works know that what he is best at is not making a very good game, but is good at making "defective products" in the mind of players. "The Cavalry on the Dragon's Back" and "Neil" are the same, there are no small shortcomings in the gameplay, but they can find a breakthrough point outside the gameplay. For those who like it, it can be seen as giving deeper meaning outside the game, for those who don't, it is a kind of self-expansion.

But whether you like it or not, this Neal: The Mechanical Era is here, and so is Little Sister 2B. In the face of little sister's charm, all disputes seem insignificant, who says beauty can't save the world? However, after playing, it will be found that the theme and gameplay of this game are "missing", and it is just "missing" that makes it complete, which is still a typical Yoko Taro work. In view of the success of 2B little sister, we may call this work "Yoko Taro's Venus".

The Venus with the broken arm is only a common name, and its proper name is the Venus of Melos. Friends who understand Venus will find that there are too many ancient Greek views of women on her body, her beauty was born in foam, refused to Zeus after being forced to marry the blacksmith, and later fell in love with Ares, and gave birth to a small god of love, the Trojan war also miss her figure, after all, she directly participated in the abduction of Helen, which is one of the starting points of the Trojan War.

However, her arms were later broken, and the Venus de Milos became the "Venus with a broken arm". Lost arms at the same time, but also gained a lot of imagination space, like 2B little sister's human design, and the logo skirt slit. The lost skirt allows the player to see the white jumpsuit intentionally or unintentionally, becoming a gray area between the romantic and the lewd, the black eye mask and the clothes of the upper and lower materials, so that the overall shape is free from the evil and the gentle two media. With Platinum Studio's always famous action design, and the full performance of the sword dancer, 2B becomes the highlight of the entire game.

Why use a paragraph to talk about 2B people. Of course she deserves it, on the one hand, it's worth talking about, on the other hand, her character design echoes the core of the game. The gameplay and plot of "Neil: Mechanical Era" reveal beauty in the imperfections, and deepen the game between the two textures.

Rather than being a 3D game, the gameplay is closer to a 2D game. At the beginning of the game, players are masturbating, many BOSS battles are also masturbating, and a large number of levels are designed with horizontal plates. The whole game does not have a large number of reading screens, but chooses to adjust the perspective at key positions, creating a new experience for players. The world is integrated, but the levels are independent from each other. When you take away a player's ability properly, new strategies will emerge, and this is clearly reflected in this game.

For example, a level of the sea BOSS, in the face of huge monsters, the game requires players to break each protective shield one by one. Each shield is designed on the same principle, even the exact same moves, spraying lasers and firing projectiles. However, while the game is constantly adjusting the perspective, the player's combat ideas are also changing, such as the roundabout chop in the "machine war" mode, which can only attack the front and back directions in the side axis, and can attack the whole body in the vertical axis perspective. It also allows players to use two strategies when facing the same monster design, saving development costs on the one hand, and bringing a new experience to the game on the other.

Of course, these are just examples, but as a whole, Neil: Mechanical Era is a 3D game, but it uses a lot of double joystick shooting and horizontal board level design. For its 3D game characteristics, there is no doubt that it deprives the player of part of the operating space, but it makes the game perfect in the deficiency. Because each BOSS is impressive, coupled with a large number of chieftain battle plot performances, the plot of this game has become a highlight.

But at the time of Kaguan, a lot of drama is painful. For example, when facing Adam, a number of cutscenes are divided according to the leader stage, which is amazing at first viewing, but when the card is closed, the player will feel very slow and want to skip all the story.

The plot design of "Neil: Mechanical Era" is quite ingenious, and it is easy for players to reach a certain ending, such as my first experience of this game, after uninstalling the OS system, I reached a painful ending. This is very similar to Yoko Taro's previous works, in addition to several orthodox endings, many endings will be added to make people laugh, and a large number of endings add interest to the game, while adding a sense of substitution.

Yoko Taro continues not only the setting of multiple endings, but also the setting of multi-cycle goals. After completing a week's game, players will use 9S to experience the story, feel new perspectives and gameplay, such as the core of 9S "hack" combat. If you want to achieve a true ending, then the player needs to go higher in order to do so. From the perspective of each character alone, the game experience is not complete, but from the perspective of the player experience, the differences between the different characters complete the entire world view.

In fact, the game creates enough of a sense of engagement to build a complete worldview, so a lot of work goes into it outside of the game. For example, this plug-in system, yes, is the plug-in that uninstalls the OS system will end, he requires players to match skills in a limited plug-in, quite a reasonable use of storage space feeling, close to the artificial setting. For the character, these are equivalent to passive skills, which can speed up or chop Shockwave, on top of which Yoko Taro also allows the player to freely uninstall the game's deep plugins, such as you can uninstall the health bar plugin to hide their health and so on. Few players actually do this, but it's this slightly redundant action that creates a sense of engagement and gives the player freedom of choice.

There is also the huge desert map, in terms of game design, this empty and unnecessary huge terrain design is undoubtedly to be streamlined, but Yoko Taro has kept it, and through the action of "sliding sand" to improve the player's movement efficiency. The huge map, as well as the constant desert storm, let the player find an oasis, will be excited and "discover the oasis" mood. From the point of view of completing the game, this design makes no sense, but from the point of view of experiencing the game, this design gives the player a feeling and mood, which is exactly what a role-playing game should do.

Is Neil: The Machine Age beautiful? Beauty is not only 2B, but also the whole plot. Yoko Taro found too much content on the game, it is difficult for us to bring ourselves into it by telling the story background alone, after all, the protagonist of the story is an artificial man, and the sentence that sounds quite obvious "for the glory of mankind", for the player, this sentence is too difficult to bring into.

But it does a good job of creating the world, bringing the player into the story through a variety of systems and Settings outside of gameplay. Rather than inserting the player into the story, Yoko Taro establishes a connection between the player and his own world, and what Yoko Taro does is lead the player to the bridge.

Along with the plot, there is BGM, Neil Mechanical Era is one of the rare games in BGM to add a voice. It happens to have some kind of strange chemistry with the setting and theme of the story, after all, in the world view of this game, humans are also an environment. The addition of vocal BGM allows the game to discuss humanity without being immersed in it, finding a balance between viewpoint and theme, and ultimately making music and story the two highlights of the game.

The overall game plot of "Neil: Mechanical Era" is like the world in the bubble, fantastic and charming, and there are many author elements in the game, which can be seen to be somewhat capricious. Whether it is the plot and the gameplay, through the method of changing the perspective, ultimately bring the players a more profound experience, and the part that should be the crack has left the space for the player to imagine and think, so that the player can see the "beauty" in it, just like Leonard said, everything has a crack, that is where the light comes in.

Yoko Taro interprets his imperfect beauty and regrettable beauty in Neal: Mechanical Era, making it a spectrum through the cracks, communicating the player and Yoko Taro's thinking about humanity and life, and echoing the slightly Nakaji line in the game - "for the glory of mankind." The beauty in the fissure and the reflection on life ultimately resulted in the "Neal: The Mechanical Era" brought to us by Yoko Taro.