The Let's Play Archive

NieR: Automata

by The Dark Id

Part 132: Episode CXXVII: Auguste

Episode CXXVII: Auguste




Music: Song of the Ancients ~ Atonement



So I guess this is happening now. A2 is here and she can’t just walk off. She needs to have a boss fight too. So here is this goofy machine lifeform configuration to fill that hole.



Analysis: YoRHa unit 9S is still alive. Query: Why would unit A2 be concerned with the status of unit 9S after turning on YoRHa?
Shut up!



C’mon, Pod. Were you actually expecting a straight answer out of A2? She’s goddamn awful at communicating with anyone. Did you just see her interaction with 9S in which she went about things in the single worst fashion possible given an already bad situation? The only way she could have handled that worse is if she teabagged 21O’s corpse after putting her down.



Like with 21O, this fight doesn’t officially begin until A2 fights back against the enemy. Meet Auguste, named after the 1800s French philosopher, Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte (he just went by Auguste Comte.)

Wikipedia on Auguste Comte posted:

Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte (19 January 1798 – 5 September 1857) was a French philosopher who founded the discipline of praxeology and the doctrine of positivism. He is sometimes regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term.

Influenced by the utopian socialist Henri Saint-Simon, Comte developed the positive philosophy in an attempt to remedy the social malaise of the French Revolution, calling for a new social doctrine based on the sciences. Comte was a major influence on 19th-century thought, influencing the work of social thinkers such as Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, and George Eliot. His concept of sociologie and social evolutionism set the tone for early social theorists and anthropologists such as Harriet Martineau and Herbert Spencer, evolving into modern academic sociology presented by Émile Durkheim as practical and objective social research.

Comte's social theories culminated in his "Religion of Humanity", which presaged the development of non-theistic religious humanist and secular humanist organizations in the 19th century. Comte may have coined the word altruisme (altruism).



Named after the dude that came up with the word altruism, huh? Well, you’re just fucking done son. You don’t belong in this world. But let’s talk about the boss fight. His means of attacking is centered around a magnetic link with the linked sphere “arms” he’s sporting. This includes such techniques as extending them to make a bit electric fence or launching ‘em out to form a crude electric wall.



He can also quickly slam the linked spheres together for a slapping attack with a mild AOE effect from the impact. That’s neat, I guess.



Auguste is fairly easy to stun as far as bosses go. Any major hit, such as an evade to Pod Fire follow-up shot will send him flying and briefly disable his arms until Auguste hops back onto his feet to resume the fight. Despite being a comparable level to our A2, this boss has surprisingly low overall HP. I had to slow down a bit here because it can be curb stomped in about 30 seconds if we just went for it attacking.



Once Auguste falls below 66% health, something odd... happens.



Big... brother!
Big... brother...

A bunch of Stubbies with buckets on their heads now begin jumping into the fray and attacking A2. These bucket Stubbies are called Friedrich after the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. You should probably know who Nietzsche is... I mean Pascal dunked on him earlier in the game already.



Anyway, Friedrichs are... just standard Stubby machines but with a bucket on their head and hollering about their Big Brother, Auguste. I like to think the machines panicked that 9S immediately marched over to the next Resource Unit and this is the best half-assed thing they could come up with to fuck with him on short notice. That is until one machine, that earned himself a promotion, remembered they had the corrupted 21O to fill in.

Alternately, this is all they had on hand in case anyone other than 9S ever showed up here looking for a fight.





After the Friedrichs show up, Auguste gains a couple more less than spectacular abilities. It can now drop its arm orbs turning them into dangerous bouncy balls that lazily boing around the arena.



Auguste can also extend its arms and utilize that old machine lifeforms tactical mainstay – spinning around like a dingus. Elite YoRHa models laugh at this kind of dumb thing but “Spinning Machine Lifeform” is actually the number seven overall cause of death among Resistance androids in an 11944 battlefield study.



That said, Auguste is probably one of the easiest bosses in the game. So you know how this ends.



Music: ENDS



Big brother!
Biiiiig brother!
BIG brother!
Big... Brother...





The Friedrich Stubbies all begin to desperately revive their completely jacked Big Brother or else start begging A2 to show mercy.



We’re given control back to A2 here. This is actually a completely pointless morale choice!





A2 can just turn around and leave at this point. The scene just fades to black and we continue on to the next scene completely unceremoniously. All this does is change the Unit Data entry slightly to say A2 spared them for some reason.





But ehh... All the machines A2 liked are dead or whatever you’d call Pascal’s current morbid oblivious status. Plus there’s an extra cutscene if we off them. So...







And with that, Chapter 16 and the Resource Unit keycard collection story arc is completed. Tune in next ti—








—me as we finally see what the deal is with The Tower as NieR: Automata’s final chapter begins! Except for all the stuff after the final chapter. And the actual final chapter. Look, it’s complicated...






Video: Episode 127 Highlight Reel (Probably worth watching.)





NieR: Automata Western Cover Art – A game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey goes horribly wrong.