NieR: Automata Part #63 - Episode LXI: Electric Boogaloo

Part 63: Episode LXI: Electric Boogaloo

Episode LXI: Electric Boogaloo

As nice as it would be for 2B to just go “fuck this noise” and retire to a life of fishing with the occasional assassin duel for desertion, I’m afraid we’ll be opting out of that future and dealing with the crisis at hand.

Music: Birth of a Wish

Our first order of business is to cleanse the camp of all the rampaging android flesh eating machines. This camp was already kind of cramp. We’ve definitely got no room for all of these bulky trashcan bots.

The few Medium Bipeds in the area seem to have borrowed spears from the Forest Kingdom for the City Ruins invasion. But otherwise the machines in the area are less than noteworthy, other than having a huge aggro rage and being far more aggressive with attacking than usual.

Once the main area of the camp is cleansed of psychotic machines, we need to head out back to sort out the robots causing a ruckus in the back of the camp. Quite a few Resistance androids didn’t make it. But... it’s entirely unnamed androids ones we didn’t know. All the merchants, the weird headed tutorial duo and the redhead twins are not among the corpses.

Also the jukebox is fine, in case you were worried. Now the YoRHa android that told us about the jukebox? Her ravaged corpse is on the other side of Anemone’s tent. But the music player itself is fine. So that’s nice.

Heading to the rear of the camp, we immediately run into Anemone trying unsuccessfully to deal with all the guys in her base killing all her dudes. Let’s see what she has to say...

2B! They came out of nowhere. Overran the entire camp. We tried to fight back, but our shots have no effect!

Alert: Energy shields detected on multiple enemy fighters. Physical attacks recommended.

Got it. You get the other androids out of here!

Good luck!

With that, Anemone runs off leaving 2B to handle the machines utilizing the impenetrable defense of a... medieval style shield. By all accounts the previous 13 Machine Wars went poorly because the androids never researched anything more advanced than an AK-47 to combat the machines at an infantry level.

The back lot of the Resistance Camp is lousy with sawblade wielding Stubbies, shielded punchy Medium Bipeds and one Goliath Biped just kinda hanging out at the back. The Spear Pod Program continues to be extremely good when dealing with all of these jerks stuck to a 2D plane, other than the Goliath Biped.

On a related note, unless I’m forgetting something this is the only time a 2D segment requires a fight against a Goliath Biped. Those enemies don’t translate very well since their attacks are limited to just flailing in 2B’s general direction and anything more advanced has been disabled. It doesn’t help their survivability.

In any case, as soon as all of the machines in the area are dismantled we can return to the central area to give Anemone an update. Let’s go do just that.

Music: ENDS

What’s going on here?

I have no idea. They came out of nowhere and just—

Huh!?

That was outside the camp!

......

Everyone... They’re all... No. Some of them must have managed to escape.

An ominous rumbling in the distance is never good news in any situation. Much less a full blown invasion involving flesh eating hordes. Let’s go see what’s wrong.

Music: The Sound of the End (Vocal)

No, 2B. Don’t be silly. You destroyed So-Shi. Sliced it into bits and it exploded, remember? The machines aren’t great at putting themselves back together after exploding. This is just a remarkably similar looking unit, Boku-Shi. Boku-Shi is the Japanese pronunciation of Mozi a Chinese philosopher from the early Warring States period who thought Confucianism and Taoism were bullshit and founded the school of Mohism.

Don’t worry about any of that. It’s another spider-bot. But one with a near completely different moveset, despite the very similar looks to the previous boss. Most notably, it has swapped out its front pincers with a trio of cannons which fire orbs in scattershot and fun circular configurations.

But that’s not all! The cannons can also power up and fire a concentrated energy blast. Boku-Shi will rotate itself to sweep the entire ground level of the area with laser fire. Granted, if 2B has the high ground it’s kind of a non-issue. But that’s not going to allow us to beat this boss, now is it?

The primary gimmick of Boku-Shi is that it is hanging out in the pleasant pond in front of the Resistance Camp. And it has electrified the entirety of it while it’s active. This is one of the few points in the game where Volt-Proof Salve is incredibly useful. Unless we’re gonna plink away at this spider-bot with Pod fire, we’re probably gonna want to attack it directly.

Boku-Shi has the same design flaw as So-Shi in that destroying one of the plates on its legs will stun the machine. When stunned, the electrical flow into the pond will be deactivated for a time.

Boku-Shi also comes equipped with a butt and a big drill snake that comes out of it with accompanying glowing weak point. I’ve never actually seen this version of the Personality Core knock-off use the drill snake in an attack. It’s just kinda there to get attacked if the machine becomes stunned.

After falling to around 50% HP, Boku-Shi lets out a screeching mechanical scream of pain which triggers one of the key differences between this fight and So-Shi...

This is never going to end...

Hypothesis: The Goliath-class enemy’s scream has summoned the local machine lifeforms. Proposal: Destroy the Goliath.

For the second half of this battle, unlimited numbers of Stubby machines start pouring in to help out its larger comrade. Like a ton of ‘em. While not usually much of a threat, that changes when getting swamped by 6-8 of them at once from all sides.

Plus, they serve as a distraction from Boku-Shi which gives it time to reactivate the electrical current in the pond and that could be bad news for 2B if her Volt Proof Salve has worn off at a bad time. Machine lifeforms are immune to electricity so the Stubbies don’t care if the water is on full electric blast.

Rounding out the last of Boku-Shi’s attack is a classic missile volley on 2B’s position if she hangs back for too long plinking away instead of honorably battling him in the electrified quagmire below.

Once we get Boku-Shi down to around 25% HP, like its predecessor it retracts its legs and goes into full Anger Sphere mode. Though this time instead of rolling around, Boku-Shi opts to bounce around unleashing energy shockwaves in its wake. It’s actually kind of a pain in the ass to take out here if it manages to get some distance away from 2B since the only way to pursue is to bunny hop over shockwaves like a dingus.

Once Boku-Shi drops to about 5% health it decides to stop taking damage and 2B is unable to seal the deal finishing it. Also...

Boku-Shi unleashes a Cutscene Shock which sends 2B flying across the area. 2B is going to have to rethink her strategy. Or...

Up in the sky... Is it a bird...? Is it a plane...?

No, it’s 9S destroying another goddamn Flight Unit! 9S, what the FUCK?! We were just mildly inconvenienced by that thing but otherwise had it mostly beaten. You could have just flown down here and provided support and we would have had that fight. Why did you think the best idea was to kamikaze it from space with your war mobile suit?! You stupid idiot child! Goddammit!

As a small consolation, we do get to immediately see 9S totally eat shit hard after his antics. So that’s fun.

You okay?

Good thing I... landed that direct... hit—

The two’s reunion is interrupted by some rummaging coming from Boku-Shi’s direction.

Uh oh.

You know, I think Eve might be kinda pissed. I dunno. Just this weird vibe I’m getting from him lately. Not sure what that’s all about.

All the remaining machine lifeforms in the area converge on Boku-Shi’s wreckage. I don’t like where this is going. Last time this happened, they turned into a giant robo-womb and gave birth to a Sephiroth...