NieR: Automata Part #6 - Episode V: Black Box

Part 6: Episode V: Black Box

Episode V: Black Box

Alright, you lousy GoBot. Let’s do this thing!

The kiddie-gloves are coming off. What was 9S even doing when he was firing at this machine? He was only doing damage equal to our Pod early. Look at all of those 6 HPs of damage he could have been dealing out if he really put some effort into it. Tch.

Also Engels now has a laser pelvis. It’s best to evade that. It’s probably a bad scene. I mean, would YOU want to be involved with a laser pelvis? I thought not... The red laser bit is just a helpful hazard warning for where it’s going to fire. The massive circular explosion afterwards is the bothersome bit.

Now that 2B is in control of the flight unit, Engels is suddenly interested in swatting at the thing outside of cutscenes. And frankly, I’m gonna be real here. I think the part where 9S got owned was entirely a fluke while it was flailing from the earlier hit.

We haven’t fought in head on camera mode in the flight unit. 2B is permanently locked onto the bootleg Transformer’s position. We can rotate her 360 degrees around Engels’ perimeter. We can sort of nudge her upwards and downwards. But the camera will gradually shift her back to mid-range. There’s no approaching closer to the enemy unit.

So our only means of attack are the chain gun fire and the rather useless Heavy Attack’s sonic boom projectile. That only does like 50-60 HP of damage and will briefly halt 2B’s ability to move. Considering the turrets are doing 6 HP x A Billion Shots at all times, it’s not worth it.

Also related to head on movement, 2B’s evade is less of an invincible speed boost and more of just giving her i-frames briefly. Which is all we really need.

.....

It... talks? I didn’t know the machines had that kind of intelligence.

<radio ring> 2B... I found a weakness in the target... H-Hacking in... to provide support.

Huh. 9S is still in the fight. You know, in retrospect maybe we should have... I dunno... tied him down to something up top there? He cannot be having a fun time trying to hack this machine one-armed while desperately hanging onto a railing by his leg or whatever is happening up there.

Engels still has access to its missile pods. Which... all kind of seem like they’re firing from up where we left 9S. Now I’m just imaging that poor android kid as rolling out of the way of opening missile tubes while hanging onto a railing by his foot and cracking a Unix system with his remaining arm. Dude is having a rough day...

<radio ring> 2B... The control... on the enemy’s upper arm... Use your Pod... Sh-should be able to... take it over...

I told you to shut up!

I dunno, 2B. I know you don’t want him moving around too much since he’s really banged up and now stubby bots have shown up are throwing wrenches at him on top of everything else. But... I kind of want to know what “control of the enemy’s arm” entails.

Or you could just get punched 3-kilometers away. I suppose that works too...

Marking weak point...

Got it.

We don’t know a whole lot about this Android vs. Machine war yet. But, I’m definitely rooting for the androids based on their Macross-esque mecha tech. I’m down with any robot that can also turn into a jet at will. Limited use case be damned.

2B switches back to all-range mode but maintains ramming speed. I like where all of this is going.

Affirmative.

Behavior table adjusted. Balance controls overridden.

Enemy unit subjugation complete.

Yo, guess what’s happening here. Yep. It’s exactly what it sounds like...

_{_{WE STOLE THAT ROBOT’S FUCKING ARM!}}

“Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!” declares 2B in early foreshadowing that androids are actually just the mean older siblings of the machine lifeforms. Engels is telling mom when she gets home from her shift at the rhythm battle conference.

As it turns out, smacking about a giant robot with its own bucket-wheel excavator mercilessly for a minute is FAR more effective than pelting it with small-arms fire.

Satisfied with her work, 2B discards the Marxist arm. Probably time to go back and make sure we didn’t accidentally squish 9S dur—

Huh?!

Oh... It’s still truckin’, huh? I guess I’m starting to see why they sent out a whole squad of androids just to deal with this single bot. Just a shame they only sent 1.5 competent ones and a mess of red shirts.

Out of options, 2B is just going for it with a head-on assault. I mean we *are* within the realm of cutscenes. All weapons' firepower is massively compromised and in flux depending on how radical the situation gets...

I made a bunch of Metal Gear jokes about Engels for obvious reasons. But really, it reminds me way more of a Transformer. Right down to the most glaring design issues of Transformers: none of them EVER seem to transform themselves a proper helmet or headgear. Even if my face was plated with iron, I’d still want a little bit of protection in key structural areas. Like, I dunno... At least some googles?

Engels straight up stops attacking at this point. The machines seem to have limited intelligence. That said, it still totally wants to see where she’s going with this move.

Ouch. Okay... Yeah. Big guy, you definitely should have seen that one coming...

These androids really need to work on their lands. This is getting embarrassing. Papa Nier could take falls better than this and he was just the soulless clone shell of a magic Gary Busey.

Music: ENDS

In any case, Special Machine Unit Engels is at least decommissioned. Job ~~well~~ done...? I don’t have a metric to know how these kinds of operations usually go. And unlike most Platinum games, there’s no ranking system. So ehh... Well, I’m gonna go ahead and say that PROBABLY wasn’t an S-Rank performance. But hey, any mission you can walk away from...

Oh... Huh. Right... Maybe we’re jumping the gun here on congratulations.

Well, at LEAST we didn’t accidentally squish 9S in our rather zealous pounding Engels to death with his own arm approach. I would not look past Yoko Taro to make you accidentally murder the shit out of a character due to performing sick finishing moves at an inappropriate time.

9S helps 2B up...

Heheh... Talk about... bringing the battle to them... huh, 2B?

Contact Command. Request assistance.

No... It doesn’t look like that’s... going to be necessary...

Kill... Kill... Kill... Kill...

WELP!

Kill... Kill... Kill... Kill...

I don’t imagine that *cough* ...this is going to end well.

New Music: Widespread Illness

It’s ready.

...Right.

So these cubes are kind of important. These are the androids’ black boxes. If you don’t know what a black box is, it’s a system in which you can put junk into it. You can see what junk comes out of it. But you dunno what’s going on under the hood in the middle process. In sci-fi story terms, it’s usually a handwave for “look science is happening, shut up and don’t worry about it!”

Usually... it err... isn’t LITERALLY a black cube...