Part 50: Episode XLIX: Carrier

Episode XLIX: Carrier


Music: Rays of Light (Quiet)



The tyranny of the sidequest block has ended. With possibly a couple exceptions, we’re locked into main plot quests from here on out until we hit the first ending of NieR: Automata. We have opted to skip a few available quests. Most will be canceled with this next story beat. But that’s fine. We’ll have another chance to do them later. They are:

• Robo Dojo Part 3 – Father Servo’s newest evolution in his quest to become RoboRyu is buff to the point it is a massive slog to fight him now.
  
• Half-wit Inventor – We don’t have the cash for that to be advanced meaningfully and it isn’t going anywhere.
  
• Parade Escort – An escort mission involving a slow moving crowd of friendly machines marching across the City Ruins while a massive horde of Level 40+ enemies tries to murder them. We are absolutely not equipped to remotely deal with that right now.
  
• Lord of the Valley – Involves fighting a Level 50 Goliath Biped that will take forever and a day to battle right now.
  
• Wandering Couple – Failed because this game has some real stupidly put together gating. We’ll get another chance to do it at a later date.
  

In order to initiate the next story beat quest, we need to return to the western edge of the Flooded City. A variety of machine lifeforms are hanging out admiring the missile launch platforms in the distance.



Among the machine lifeforms present are a handful of Medium Bipeds and Fliers...



...the disappointingly non-dinosaur like, despite leg configuration and tail attachment, Reverse-Jointed Goliath...



...and a Medium Flyer to cap it off. He brings some shield-wielding Stubby friends. It doesn’t go well for any of ‘em. As soon as the area is cleared, the Commander rings up our party. No doubt she’s wondering why the hell it took 2B and 9S like over half a month to finally get their asses to the other side of the city and do their jobs. I somehow don’t think the Commander would be thrilled with “helping a machine clear out a rival gang of wild hogs” or “murdered a moose so local Resistance fighters could make moose burgers” as reasons for our dereliction of duty.



Commander?
Emergency orders incoming. The carrier ship that was sent to resupply has come under attack. It’s currently being engaged by a swarm of machines. I’ve asked all YoRHa troops in the city ruins for assistance, and I’ll need you to provide backup as well. I’m sending flight units and coordinates now. Good luck. Out. *disconnects*


New Music: The Sound of the End (Medium Instrumental)



Well, it’s been a while since we last did a shmup mission. Guess what the entirety of this next segment is going to involve heavily...? Before jumping in these flight units, if you’re not too hot on dual-stick shooters, Deadly Heal chips make this next portion of the game utterly trivial. 2B may as well be invincible. Unless she’s in Hard Mode or above, in which case she’ll still die in like 2-3 hits. Hard Mode is still extremely poorly balanced.



Whoo-pch!
If she didn’t order others around, what kind of leader would she be?
Hmm... If you say so.





9S, come on my dude. Her name is literally YoRHa Commander. That’s kind of her thing. That’s like bitching about Murderbot being a robot that keeps murdering people. You know what you’re getting into as soon as you hear the name. And besides, you two have slacked off from doing this job for weeks. If she was a slave driver she’d have phoned up days ago and demanded to know what hell you were doing back while you were desecrating a grave or photographing flowers.



We’re immediately thrust into a shmup section against a swarm of fliers passing through the area, switching several times between auto-scrolling and free movement. There’s no difference from previous shooter segments. We now have the Laser weapon as an alternative fire mode. I don’t care much for the laser in shmup parts. The limited range of the attack and its somewhat sluggish movement when changing direction are really evident here. It is effective taking out lines of enemies quickly with its penetrating fire. But ehh... firing traditional bullets just feels right in a top-down shooter.

It is worth remembering we now have THREE missile spamming super attacks. One for each pod weapon type. That’s some major damage output if utilized correctly.



It’s also worth mentioning that strangely shooter gameplay segment enemies are the only main plot foes that fully level-scale along with 2B. They will always be within her level range. If we power leveled to max Level 99 we’d come here facing a squadron of Level 99 Flyer machines. And then the very next ground based mission we’d be back to facing like Level 25-30 boys again. Couldn’t tell you why this is the case. Since the same doesn’t hold true for bosses or even mid-bosses in these sections.



Eventually, we come upon the Resistance carrier under siege. No fancy sci-fi technology here. There’s just a 20th century aircraft carrier still active in the Pacific several millennia later. I guess they built those things to last...



Requesting support from any friendly units in range. We’ve come under heavy fire from the enemy. Our escort ship has taken damage and is unable to engage. We’re currently resisting with all remaining support fighters, but we can’t hold them off for long.
I repeat this is carrier Blue Ridge II. We need immediate backup from any available android forces.





Sorry Blue Ridge II. Though 2B and 9S may have a rather lackadaisical work ethic when it comes to completing primary assignments, they also seem to be the only YoRHa units that seem to ever do anything in the region. I somehow don’t think those two YoRHa soldiers getting stoned out in the desert are going to show up to this shindig...

Several dozen destroyed machine fliers later...



Looks to be 2.8 klicks southwest of us!



Well that’s new. It’s nice to see the aliens actually had some flying saucers among their invasion forces. I’d frankly be disappointed otherwise. There’s a drama CD involving Emil that suggests they started out straight up having War of the Worlds type crafts before the machine lifeforms got involved.







We should probably go ahead and take this thing out before it gets any funny ideas and tries to Independence Day the carrier. We don’t need any more sequels to ID4. That first one was dreadful enough.



Meet the Goliath Flyer. We technically saw a few of these trashed behind the glass in the buried alien mothership. But this is the first one we’ve seen in active service.



Like most all shmup gameplay enemies, this thing just loves spamming energy orbs all willy-nilly. There’s not much of a tangible pattern to the orb spam. It just sweeps the area in general waves.





The Goliath Flyer also possess a fairly damaging laser beam attack. This can be slightly tricky to dodge because the beam starts at an angle off-screen and can sweep weirdly. Its hitbox is also far larger than the beam looks. Also sometimes you might find yourself spacing out concentrating fire on the ship and just eat it when a plasma cannon fires in your grill. These things happen...



Finally, the Goliath Flyer has some missile pods. Same sort of extremely lazy semi-seeking variety that was equipped on Engels. The machines weren’t the most inventive when it comes to anti-air technology. Orbs. Laser cannon. Missiles. That’s all you need, right? Done.







Despite its size, the Goliath Flyer has only middling overall HP and goes down in a matter of minutes. No second phase or follow-up units. It just rolls over and explodes. Well that was easy! What were you muppets even freaking out over? 2B had that handled. 9S was also present, I guess.



Reverting back to area reconnai—
Wait! I’m still picking up a large enemy presence!
Didn’t I kill that already?
What on...? If it’s that big, we should be able to see it...



...One of these days we’re going to fully succeed with one of our missions. No strings attached. No sacrifices to destroy the enemy. No Pyrrhic victory. Just a straight across the board mission success on 2B and 9S's records.

This is not one of those days...





Welp. This is happening now. Tune in next time when 2B and 9S take on a leviathan named after a 19th century German radical socialist and ponder the need for a bigger boat.






Video: Episode 49 Highlight Reel (You should watch this.)







Blue Ridge II Carrier Concept Art – Yep... That’s a big ole ship right there. It could probably afford to be carrying more, honestly.