NieR: Automata Part #19 - Episode XVIII: Carnival Night Zone

Part 19: Episode XVIII: Carnival Night Zone

Episode XVIII: Carnival Night Zone

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...9S, are you seeing this shit? What the fresh fuck is all this?! Didn’t we just get back from fighting a teleporting machine built Ken Doll? How are we already at something even weirder? YoRHa better be paying us overtime for this.

New Music: Amusement Park (Vocal) (Listen to this immediately.)

What are those?

Oh, wHat fUN! Oh, whaT FUn!

What the...

Well, this is weird.

LeT’s bE haPPy toGETHer! TOgetHer! ToGethER!

Right... this is happening now. None of these machines, who are in full clown and jester costumes, complete with face paint, are remotely hostile. The small ones are content with frolicking about the square throwing handfuls of confetti or using their mega buster attachment to shoot festive balloons into the sky. You can attack them and they will go hostile and defend themselves. But that seems like a huge dick move! If you are ever watching someone stream this or something and they immediately attack every machine in the area, slam that tab closed because you’re watching a real dipshit!

The machines have also installed a bronze bunny-eared statue in a still functional fountain. I suppose crafting statues isn’t too far out of the machines’ ability set considering they’re fabricating thousands of barely mobile robot bodies every day. Still, this seems excessive.

Any of the machines that aren’t participating actively in the festivities are all willing to speak with the androids. Err... I’m good, Big Brother Machine. I saw what you guys and love produ—

Oh. You’re just giving gifts. Well, that’s nice of you. I’m gonna sell it immediately, since it is vendor trash. But hey. It’s a start to positive android/machine relations.

The road towards the castle, and presumably our objective, is also filled with a parade of clown machines with an infinite supply of confetti on hand. Maybe this is the ultimate goal of the aliens. Converting earth to a giant tacky amusement park. It’s actually the intergalactic version of the Disney corporation using eminent
domain laws on backwater planets and things going awry.

Jutting off from the center of the main pavilion are two back alley paths. The one to the north is currently closed over to android access. But the eastern one is open for business. We’ll keep that in mind as we explore.

We also got some more prizes for being the Amusement Park’s very first customers.

New Music: Amusement Park (Medium)

Watch this game turn out to be a backdoor sequel to Kingdom Hearts. All these machines are some fifteenth offshoot of Heartless. Adam was just another goddamn incarnation of Ansem. 9S is actually Sora’s shadow or some shit. I’m gonna be so pissed!

Together! Together!

(Child) Oh, what fun! Oh, what fun!

(Mother) Throw down your weapons! Surrender to love! Hey! Hey!

Uh huh... Machines labeling themselves with established familial roles is... probably still just meaningless babble from old records, right? Let’s see about getting to that castle.

Maybe there’s another way around.

Alright, no dice going through the main gate and smashing through an iron barrier is absolutely out of the question. YoRHa command already sent us a reprimand for damaging so much infrastructure back at the Abandoned Factory. So we’ll just have to navigate our way through back channels.

New Music: Amusement Park (Quiet)

Such as this creepy alley. The music in this area fades between the different layers depending on the location really well. Go just off the main festivities path and suddenly everything seems extremely menacing. But that’s not actually the case here. The couple robots here are still friendly, if significantly more shady than the ones out in the lit areas.

For instance, we find a merchant machine hanging out here. If all these items seem rather odd, that’s because this fellow sells assorted weapon upgrade material. His stock will upgrade as the game progresses. NieR: Automata is actually extremely forgiving with weapon upgrade materials, especially compared to its predecessor. There are vendors for literally everything needed to upgrade each weapon to Level 4. Granted, some of the vendors are... difficult to wrangle the desired merchandise. But still, it’s better than grinding Eagle Eggs in a single spot for two hours straight.

Also in a secluded corner of this back alley, we can find a Lunar Tear – a rather important flower from the original Nier. And the source of a huge headache if you were going for all the cheevos in the game. There’s nothing to be done with it at the moment. But it’s nice to see they’re still around some 10,000 years later.

Nothing here, you know.

Yeah, that’s not suspicious at all, clown. Step out of the way. YoRHa investigation team is on the case!

Alright, I’m calling bullshit. There is zero way one of those spinning rocket amusement rides lasted this long. Those at all times seemed like they were moments away from an errant bolt on a key structural point shattering and killing everyone on the ride.

We need a way through.

Let’s look around for a route we can take.

We’ll get to that in a moment. First, let’s activate the only Save Terminal in the region and get the lay of the land. Looks like if we continue down the one path ahead of us, we’ll get fairly close to the castle. Well, that works out! Better check our email before we go. I’m pretty sure I saw a notification. It could be important.

Of all of humanity’s many accomplishments over the eons, I’m glad our robot children inherited the blessing of emoticons.

The solution to advancing further ahead is a light bit of platforming across the (surprisingly intact and able to sustain the weight of 300 pound androids) amusement ride cars to reach a further gated off area.

Boy, the south side of the Magic Kingdom has fallen on some hard times after that last recession. At this rate, I feel like we’re going to turn down an alley and find a dead Goofy with a needle in his arm or a rusting animatronic Donald Duck willing to do some debauchery for just 100G.

Junk! Danger!

Yeah, pfft. Broken junk. What’s new? When’s the last time you saw anything that was in good condition on Earth? I mean... other than the pristine looking castle with a fully functional fireworks display...

Let’s play! Let’s play!

Let’s sing! Let’s sing!

Let’s play! Let’s play!

Hell yeah. The Party Tank is here! This shit is on now! That isn’t tank exhaust coming out of that thing. The machines are hotboxing the inside of that tank. They know how to have a good time. C’mon 9S. Let’s get in on that action. Time to get 2Baked.

As a side note: The Party Tank may be all about partying and fun times. But it DOES have a responsible designated driver who uses proper breaking and turn signals while while harmlessly driving around the lot having a good time.

We’ll regret it later if we let them escape, so let’s take ‘em out!

9S... you square, bitch-made narc motherfucker. I cannot believe you’d propose attacking the Party Tank. Yeah, they’re heavily armed... with festivity and joy. They retrofitted their cannons with party streamers, confetti and balloons. I don’t even think that’s physically possible, but they’ve engineered that feat on top of just blowing pot vapors into the air for our benefit. And you just want to let out your latent machine racism and attack them without provocation. I knew an idiot baby dragon once that was a lot like you just with wyverns...

No, 9S! We’re leaving now. When you’re in charge, you can be a dick and attack the Party Tank. But you’re not, so shut up and c’mon! Now nobody gets to party with the machines...

If they aren’t hostile, fighting them is a waste of time.

In case you’re wondering, yes can absolutely go fight the Party Tank and it’s a mildly challenging mini-boss. It has a guaranteed drop of the most valuable vendor trash in the game. But don’t worry. There will be other tanks that won’t make us feel like a huge tool for attacking. Now let’s continue on to this err...

Analysis: It is a device that propels humans on rails at high speeds for the purposes of amusement. It was commonly referred to as a “roller coaster.”

Humans sure are strange creatures...

Alright then! Let’s hop on board and go for a joy ride. Err... No, 2B... 9S... You’re supposed to climb into those seats there and hold onto the safety bar. That’s not how you... Oh... forget it. You do you. Don’t listen to the human and his safety tips.

Music: Amusement Park (Vocal)

Yes?

People who know me well usually call me “Nines,” sooo...

Oh.

.....

Of?

I mean, if you want to call me Nines, it’s totally okay.

.....

I’m good.

Oh. Um... all right.

Shut up, 9S. You giant dork. I know damn well you don’t have any other friends and nobody calls you Nines. Stop trying to start a nickname or else your designation is going to become 9Steve. Is that what you want, 9Steve? No? I didn’t think so. Now get your shit together and help shoot some robots.

They did mention the robots past this point were broken, hence why we’re suddenly being attacked by clown bots and some decidedly less dressed up machine lifeforms while this coaster careens around the park. Thank goodness this doesn’t feature any loops. It wouldn’t look good on our androids' after action report if they both died due to car surfing a roller coaster and falling to their deaths.

Eventually the roller coaster reaches a point over our destination at the castle and the two androids opt to disembark. Hopefully this is the right spot and not some locked storage attic.

Music: ENDS

Well, you heard the Pod. The MIA Resistance member androids are all gathered beneath here. Maybe it’ll turn out OK and they all just decided to hang out and party with the machines. They’re all taking turns doing bong rips off a Stubby right now.

I like to think YoRHa are programmed to automatically smash through objects and enter superhero crouch poses. That sounds like some dumb thing a human programmer nerd would sneak into their algorithms.