Back in 2017 I didn't know this game existed was in production or otherwise like as say Final Fantasy XV or Persona 5. I tried the demo January of 2017 on a whim shortly before its official release in February and instantly felt I have to have this game. I own Drakengard and Nier on the Ps2 and Ps3 but Nier Automata(NA) is the JRPG for me that is at the calibur of my personal favorites Lunar 2, Skies of Arcadia, Suikoden 2 and Breath of Fire 3 in being the total package of sight, sound, story, emotion and all out fun. This is an action game, but unlike any you have ever played. As a NA not only switches from third-person action game (Kingdom Hearts) to top-down shooter (Ikaruga), to Twin Stick shooter (Enter the Gungeon), to Geometry-Based Twin Stick shooter (Geometry Wars), to side-scrolling shooter (Contra), it also switches SEAMLESSLY between them. There's no load screen. The camera simply shifts or fades out and the controls stay the same. Combine that with a soundtrack that also switches seamlessly between 8-bit and orchestral versions, and quiet and dynamic versions (with and without vocals!) to adjust to what is happening, and you have something completely new in games. You have a game that changes the sights and sounds dynamically on-the-fly in tandem so that the visuals and audio are always expressing exactly the same emotion based on what you do. This is similar in concept to the game Rez, where your actions to destroy enemies make different sounds depending on what you do, but that game (while awesome), only performs on rails in 3D, and features one version of a song that you riff off of. Nier's audio/visual experience is a whole other beast entirely. The first act of this three act (or three play-through, if you will) game ought to make you says "Wow!" quite a few times. I know that I was consistently surprised, shocked, amazed, and delighted in those first 15 hours. Once you get past that tutorial (don't give up! the game is teaching you how to play, I promise!), you are in for a roller-coaster of a ride. You'll have many "What the heck?!" moments followed by some of the most intense boss battles you've ever seen. The structure is, again, like Kingdom Hearts. You head somewhere, a cut-scene kicks in, you have somewhere to go, or something to do, you fight Machines along the way, encounter bosses, get new items, equip them, and unlock new places to go, etc. It's just that this core gameplay is taken to it's adult limit in terms of the unexpected and awesome. You have plugin chips that radically alter how you fight and heal, but they also can take away elements of the UI if removed (or even kill you!), you have many equitable weapons for both close range and long range attacks, and this means if you aren't enjoying the game you need to alter your combat style and equipment to reflect your personal taste and the situation at hand. Many people who don't like this game complain about it's flawed mechanics/execution. It's open-world, but there's invisible walls where you can't go. Your attacks don't evolve as you level up and the combat is repetitive. The game varies from too easy to too hard. There isn't enough character development. The plot isn't explained obviously enough/doesn't make sense. They don't like replaying the first campaign a second time. I agree with others who have stated a 10 out of 10 doesn't have to be about perfection of mechanics and execution. It can be about being revolutionary in concept, and in a competent execution of said revolutionary concept. This game is not PERFECT. It has flaws and weaknesses. But it's 4th-wall-shattering revolutionary execution of it's concepts is so groundbreaking that the flaws just don't matter if you get what the game's creator was trying to make you experience. A lot of people have talked about the music of this game so I'll be brief. Not only is the music amazing but it dynamically changes in response to what you are doing in the game. You need to play the game to understand what I'm talking about but suffice it to say that you need to both play the game and listen to the score on its own to fully appreciate it, because it really is THAT good. Just when you think you're starting to get tired of it and think you'll soon never want to hear it again, it gets stuck in your head. The first play-through of 15 hours is a shock-and-awe masterpiece of Grade A Action Movie Awesome. It tells a complete story, it's fun, it's fulfilling. But it's pretty obvious by the end that you known NOTHING about what's really going on. The second playthrough introduces a new hacking mechanic which is/can be used so often that many get tired of it. That said, it is certainly interesting, and adds, along with the new cut-scenes, a completely new dimension to the second playthrough. The second playthrough also grants you a new perspective, and has a HUGE revelation to the plot at the end that you probably saw coming a hundred miles away. Even so, it definitely adds to the game. The third playthrough takes everything you have seen up to this point and dials it up to 11. You gain ANOTHER completely new perspective, everything you known and love is completely destroyed, and you'll likely find yourself yelling at your TV along with the protagonists "WHAT IS GOING ON!?!?!?" It's not as "fun" as the first play-through, and the big shockers are in the plot, not in the gameplay, so in a sense it's not as "good" as the first play-through. That said, it carries the majority of the emotional weight of the game, and let's you play as my favorite character (and it's the second half of the story), so if you want to see the entire story I think it would be absolute madness to give up after beating only the first play-through as 2B. The overall plot has elements of everything from the Holy Bible, Shakespeare (yes, the themes of his plays are buried in there, and even the character names are references), to The Matrix, Battlestar Galactica, and the anime Akira. The character development is subtle, and if you like your plot points and character development anvil-dropped on your head you may miss the subtleties. A clenched-fist and mysterious quiet musing here echoes across multiple breakthroughs. ALL of the voice actors who worked on this game deserve accolades. There was ample opportunity to cheese-it-up on this game, but every voice actor in the English dub gave a heartfelt nuanced performance. This game is the total package.