Part 129: Episode CXXIV: My Memories

Episode CXXIV: My Memories





Back at it again at the Flooded City. It’s a wee bit foggy steamy out today out on the coast today. Seems like the perfect kind of weather to have an existential crisis or two. So let’s soldier onward towards...







...Our second temple Resource Unit tower to continue 9S’s quest to access The Tower and err... well... I don’t think we have a plan beyond that from Hackerman. But there’s bound to be a mess of machines in there to murder and 9S seems into that sort of scene lately.



Now that the Resource Unit has entered defense mode, it’s now lowered its entrance to the ruined highway’s level allowing 9S easy access into the structure. So let’s hop right in and begin our ascent.



It reads “soul box.”





I dunno. I think “soul box” sounds infinitely more inviting than “meat box.” But maybe that’s just me. In any case, let’s head on in and get this dungeon started.



The interior of the Soul Box Resource Unit is somewhat better lit than its Forest Zone companion piece but has otherwise an identical architectural style. Could use some music if you ask me. No, I didn’t forget to add a music link to this update. It’s completely silent from the Resource Unit title card until further notice. Anyway, let’s continue upward to find...



...No enemies?



There are indeed no enemies, yet the elevator at the far end of the room is deactivated. There is, however, a solitary hackable container suspiciously left in the very center of the room. If the machine lifeforms had any sense, this would totally be a Mimic. Sadly, that piece of human lore has been lost to the ages.



Since we did spend the entire last update scouring an optional area to unlock every single wayward sealed chest we could find, it’d be foolish to pause when another one presents itself.





Welp, something is already amidst. Every single locked chest in the game has had the very most basic hacking mini-game variant. This is clearly not that!





In fact, this is a completely unique layout for a hacking mini-game. I guess that makes this a mimic chest of a sorts. Regardless, Hackerman has had far greater hacking challenges. This is no Weird Machine kid hacking job.







I have to break the system protection before I can reach the core. Huh. So that’s how it works.



Indeed it is, 9S. The last Resource Unit was entirely a combat gauntlet. This one is all about the putting 9S’s hacking skills to the test. I suppose it’s a good thing 9S took an interest in these things and not A2. She’d probably be throwing that locked chest at walls and cursing at it for not opening right about now.



On to the second floor. This one is a bit unique. There is a chest we need to hack right next to the elevator on the far end of the area. However...



...there are several common chests lining the perimeter of the area. These are all actually special chests that aren’t guaranteed to appear. Let’s open the first one and see why.



Now they’re just messing with us...

So the unlocks on these chests are all tied to stats and percentages of tasks completed in the game thus far. Some of the requirements are identical to trophy/achievement unlocks but it’s not necessarily 1:1. For instance, this first chest was for “completing machine lifeform requests.” There’s a trophy for completing 80% of sidequest total. But NieR: Automata also breaks down the sidequests into Android and Machine Lifeform (depending on the race of the sub-quest client) percentages in the stats screen and tracks those as well.

I want to say it’s over 50% completion to unlock this chest since way more of the bullshit, easily skippable quests involve machine lifeforms and I’ve still seen this one pop. The reward is a decent chip with a disgustingly large plug-in cost making it kinda worthless. The same goes for almost all of these rewards plug-in chip wise.



This chest is for doing over 100 hacks as 9S. I do not know how you could possibly miss this playing the game normally. Then again, I know not to doubt the lengths video game players will go to play things wrong. This is not an invitation to proudly spout out your accomplishment because you hated the hacking mini-game. Nobody cares and you’re a socially inept dipshit if think that anyone would.



This is the android equivalent of the machine lifeform sub-quest completion percentage. If you’re wondering, Emil is classified as an android quest giver. He’s a weird magic cartoon orb head that was one a human a few millennium ago. That at least puts him closer to humanity’s robot children than sapient trashcans created by extraterrestrial Space Penises.



Apparently this one is for collecting 500+ items during the course of the game. I believe it’s limited to items actually picked up in the field from destroying machines or harvest points (not counting G.) This seems like another one that’d be hard to miss. Especially if you have any sense and have the item vacuum plug-in chip. That’s it for this side of the room. Let’s move on to the opposite end of the circle.



Oh my! Look at all the machine lifeforms you’ve murdered! Such dogged persistence is worthy of a special present!



This is the only noteworthy reward given by the Soul Box tower and the penultimate weapon acquisition in the game. Faith is a fairly decent Small Sword which gains an Attack Speed up bonus with basic upgrades. At maximum level, it gains Bullet Absorb which restores HP when melee attacking energy orbs. That’s not too bad actually, given how frequently those are a thing.

Faith appeared in the first NieR. It was a reward for helping all the people from the text adventure purgatories in the Forest of Myth. It was also the strongest short sword available (and thus the best weapon in the first half of the game.) Faith also appeared in Drakengard 1 and 2 under the name Nobuyoshi (Drakengard 1’s composer being Nobuyoshi Sano, who does a whole mess of Tekken music actually.)

But enough... Let’s get some weapon stories. Only one more left after this.


Ahh... that’s the stuff. One more grimdark murder-suicide out of nowhere for the road. Let’s get back on task.



That’s all the chests we had spawn. That’s actually two more than can potentially crop up. They’re both kinda bullshit. One is for collecting over 100 android bodies over the course of the game. There’s also an achievement for that one. For the most part, I kind of stopped collecting android bodies back around Route A outside the occasional one in my way since it takes a good 10 seconds to do the whole animation and menu navigation and it’s largely a waste of time. That yields the reward of a Max HP +6 plug-in chip.

The other chip requires dying over 50 times during the course of all Routes thus far. I have not reached double digits in dying during the course of NieR: Automata ever and I currently have 135 hours put into this game if Steam’s counter can be trusted. Yeah... not gonna get that one anytime soon. The reward for doing so is a bloated Reset +6 plug-in chip. If you’ll recall, that’s a useless as shit chip that has X% chance of auto-reviving upon death. Nice troll, Tower System Services.





All our rewards aside, we need to actually hack this solitary locked chest and complete another unique hack configuration to unlock the elevator to the next level of the facility. Not a problem.

An elevator ride later...



Proposal: Hack into all blocking devices.







Two chests to hack. Got it. One is down below on a lower platform. The Highlight Video at the end of the update has all of the hacks in full if you wanna see them in action. The reward for unlocking this chest is a Cure All Status item. In case 9S wants to go on a bender again or something. I’ve not glazed over any status effects since that EMP attack at the beginning of Route C. I’ve literally never gotten hit with one in both total playthroughs of the game outside that event and one boss fight we’ve yet to see. Err... recreational drug and alcohol use aside.





The second chest is located on a platform up above overlooking the elevator. Hacking this one open produces 10,000 G. But more importantly, it also gives 9S a new Intel file.



...Nothing about this sounds good. Seems The Tower is some kind of super computer for data compression software and launching device for an unknown payload. Also something about digesting androids seems not cool, if you ask me. Let’s hear 9S’s thoughts.


Music: Alien Manifestation (Vocal)



A structure that size could probably shoot something into space pretty easily.
......
So this is some kind of cannon aimed at the human server on the moon?
Insufficient data. Cannot confirm or deny.
Damn it!



OK, 9S... I’m going to go ahead and say jumping from The Tower being some kind of launching device to “THEY’RE GONNA BLOW UP THE MOON!” is kind of a leap to conclusions, my dude... Maybe they were just gonna start up a television broadcast system to put on stage plays and need to launch a couple of satellites off the ground so everyone can tune in. You ever think of that?

Going up!



Yeah, and I hack into all of ‘em, right?





That’s generally how it goes, 9S. The first two chests are found on the western half of the room on adjacent platforms. The first one yields a Resilience +6 (avoid staggering if HP is above a certain level, 20% in this case) chip.



The chest next to it produces a post-hack treasure of a Powerup Part M for those Pods we’re never going to max out. I may actually have the materials to get Pod B (Laser) to Level 3. But hell if anything else is ever getting upgraded past that.





The final chest is once more located in an elevated position overlooking the elevator. This one’s hacking defeat produces a Cure All + Heal All item that we’ll never use. But more importantly, it also holds another Intel file. This one is kinda important...



So hey... YoRHa’s black boxes, the android equivalent of machine cores, are actually just made out of recycled machine cores. That’s a new bit of information. YoRHa are actually some weird android-machine hybrids. Since it would be inhumane to send normal androids AI that were almost certainly to die horribly in irreparable ways like everyone from A2’s Pearl Harbor Descent. Well, that’s something...



Note: Hey, if you played this game around launch through a couple months post-release, you might have had an extra paragraph or two in this file! That was an error that has since gotten patched in all versions of the game. Originally this file contained the content of two separate but related files, the latter of which was a LATE game intended (like within a half hour of the ending late game) archive. It was kinda confusing since it was just two copies of the same thing, with 9S reacting WAY poorer to the second copy. So the game accidentally spoiled itself there. Whoops!

That’s since been corrected. So don’t talk about the part that is missing now nor should you do any of that obnoxious knowing spoilers masquerading as all too on the nose speculation. A couple of you have been doing that a lot lately and need to knock it the fuck off. You know who you are... The hell is wrong with you? Cut it out!

Anyway, let’s see how 9S deals with this new info...



It’s made from cores from the machines? That’s... No. That can’t be true!



Just going to go with the full denial mode, huh? Well, that’s more reasonable than the machines plotting to blow up the moon with a city sized cannon. But we can worry about that later. Onward to the top floor!

Music: ENDS



This looks pretty similar to the Meat Box’s summit. No defenders this time around nor is the Resource Unit core begging for help because it’s a baby machine.



I feel like 9S could probably have just stabbed this thing or had the Pod laser it again and called it a day. But in keeping with the spirit of the rest of this tower, 9S opts to hack this core as well. And...


VIDEO: Click here to watch the rest of the update contents. (You should probably just do this.)



Well... this is different. We’re now playing as a digital 9S running around hacking space with a simple polygonal representation of his Pod and weapon following him around. There’s only way route and that is to the north...



Huh? What’s going on here...? My body...



Those are... my memories. But why?



That’s an awful lot of dead androids hanging out with your memories, 9S. I mean, that’s pretty on brand given your past, but... still...



All of 9S’s memories have a rather common theme to them...



Yep. That’s it. Hey 2B. Still dead, huh? Bummer. Boy, you have that memory of 2B throttling you to death still in the forefront, huh. That’s umm... Yeah.



That’s 2B’s data...



<starts walking forward>



I know these are just memories... but still...





Before 9S can start getting creepy about this, the projections with his memories begin getting overrun by black cubes and winking out of existence.



<gasp>



No, don’t...





Don’t do this!







Sorry, kid. No one stops! It was this whole thing. Ask Emil or Popola sometime. Neither of them will have any idea what you're talking about but for some reason they'll have a lingering feeling like they should.



The 2B hologram transforms into a humanoid figure composed of the memory destroy black cubes. 9S is not at all happy with this thing messing with his memories of his time with 2B.


Music: The Sound of the End (Quiet)



...oh my GOD DAMN MEMORIES! These belong to me and me alone! Get away from them!







Boss fight time. This digital creature is actually a hybrid of Adam and Eve as far as fighting it goes. Mostly the parts where Adam was a Cubemancer prior to his death match with 2B and made cube walls/summoned a sets of cube projectiles. The rest of his moves are derived from Phase 1 Corrupted Eve where he summoned debris to do huge sweeping/overhead strikes and did a wild flurry of haymakers at close range.



All of the foe’s attack have huge wind-up times that are tremendously simple to dodge. I have absolutely no idea why there are so many player corpses lining this area other than the game seems to keep tally of boss arena bodies far more than anywhere else to give some flavor to the fights.





In any case, if this wasn’t already a mash-up of bosses we’d already faced, 9S has ten levels over it and is having none of its bullshit. This fight is over in short order.



...You’re going down.



Raaaaahhhh!





<stab> They’re mine! <stab>



<stab> My memories, you hear me!? <stab>

Music: ENDS



<continued stabbing and hollering>



<continued stabbing and screaming breaking down into sobbing>



Raaaaaaarrrrghh!







<crying>



<crying turning to insane laughter>



Err... Umm... Well... Mission Complete! Thus ends Chapter 15 of NieR: Automata and the last of 9S’s missions from the chapter select. Tune in next time for the continued adventures of 9S’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day and A2’s bogus journey as our two storylines merge again. I’m sure it’ll all go fine...






Video: Episode 124 Highlight Reel (You should watch this.)
NOTE: CLICK HERE to Skip to Core Hacking Sequence! (Definitely watch at least this.)





Resource Unit Concept Art – Getting a real Final Fantasy VII Mako Reactor vibe from the concept art versus the final game’s Half-Life 2 Citadel vibe.