This is a bit of a rambling, stream of consciousness mess, apologies if it’s hard to parse, I’ll try to reword it more clearly later.
I don’t think there’s a specific lore reason why Yorha androids dress the way they do, but rather instead it feeds into, like, some of the meta-textual themes of the game.
I'm gonna spoil a whole bunch of Nier Automata here.
I think, the Yorha androids all being dressed in, like, skimpy dresses (or overly body hugging catsuits during the start of C route) while at the same time being discouraged in expressing emotions due to it being “inefficient”, kinda helps to build on the contradictions within the struggle against machine lifeforms. Like, we have these sexily dressed but sexless characters characters Vs rusted wind up toys that are running the full gamut of human emotion. One example that immediately springs to mind is the scene where Adam is born, where 2B and 9S are surrounded by various simple machine lifeforms expressing their affection to each other, like there’s a parent rocking a crib and a couple fucking and, like, 2B and 9S keep insisting to eachother that they’re just repeating words and actions they don’t fully understand, which is later proven to be wrong as they begin to encounter and interact with machines in ways other than violence and begin to understand them as people, and then even later as 9S discovers the Yorha androids are built from reverse engineered machine lifeform cores.
There’s a lot of playing around with and subverting how a lot of media likes to do a sorta humanoid=personhood thing where the more attractively that person is portrayed, the more of a person they are.
—I go a bit tinfoil hat below—
Admittedly i might be me reading too far into it is that there’s also this recurring beat of 9S’ infatuation with 2B and how it pathologises into this sorta sex/death thing. There’s a bit close to the end of B route, (about the time you find out humanity’s been dead the whole time) where 9S keeps getting these intrusive messages from an unknown person confronting him about his desires. Stuff like, “you want to #### 2B, don’t you?” where it’s left ambiguous whether it means fuck or kill. So get you this sense of, like, how do I say it? Like, sorta second hand objectification. This annoying little twerp who (as far as he knows) has just met you is, like, oggling you and shit and the outfit 2B wears kinda help keep you aware of this.
Thats about the best explanation I’ve been given or found yet. I’m curious about that theme being half assed, or whole assed apparently, into stellar blade now.
All of that sounds like an interesting story, but it feels very ill-suited to such an extremely long game. It feels like a story that could be told effectively in a 2-hour movie or a single novel instead of being needlessly padded by grindy fetch quests in huge empty areas.
Actually, now that I think about it, a story similar to that was already told effectively in novel form. Isaac Asimov’s “The Naked Sun”.
Seconding this. I just got bored silly by all the fetch quests and repetitive button-mashing combat after a few hours. I remember the last thing I was doing was crossing a desert. When I found out from fans that I had to play the game multiple times to figure out what was going on, I just gave up on it entirely.
As much as I dislike the fan service in Nier Automata it does tie back into the game’s themes.
I didn’t really play enough of it to find out why she was dressed like that. Would you mind telling me?
This is a bit of a rambling, stream of consciousness mess, apologies if it’s hard to parse, I’ll try to reword it more clearly later.
I don’t think there’s a specific lore reason why Yorha androids dress the way they do, but rather instead it feeds into, like, some of the meta-textual themes of the game.
I'm gonna spoil a whole bunch of Nier Automata here.
I think, the Yorha androids all being dressed in, like, skimpy dresses (or overly body hugging catsuits during the start of C route) while at the same time being discouraged in expressing emotions due to it being “inefficient”, kinda helps to build on the contradictions within the struggle against machine lifeforms. Like, we have these sexily dressed but sexless characters characters Vs rusted wind up toys that are running the full gamut of human emotion. One example that immediately springs to mind is the scene where Adam is born, where 2B and 9S are surrounded by various simple machine lifeforms expressing their affection to each other, like there’s a parent rocking a crib and a couple fucking and, like, 2B and 9S keep insisting to eachother that they’re just repeating words and actions they don’t fully understand, which is later proven to be wrong as they begin to encounter and interact with machines in ways other than violence and begin to understand them as people, and then even later as 9S discovers the Yorha androids are built from reverse engineered machine lifeform cores.
There’s a lot of playing around with and subverting how a lot of media likes to do a sorta humanoid=personhood thing where the more attractively that person is portrayed, the more of a person they are.
—I go a bit tinfoil hat below—
Admittedly i might be me reading too far into it is that there’s also this recurring beat of 9S’ infatuation with 2B and how it pathologises into this sorta sex/death thing. There’s a bit close to the end of B route, (about the time you find out humanity’s been dead the whole time) where 9S keeps getting these intrusive messages from an unknown person confronting him about his desires. Stuff like, “you want to #### 2B, don’t you?” where it’s left ambiguous whether it means fuck or kill. So get you this sense of, like, how do I say it? Like, sorta second hand objectification. This annoying little twerp who (as far as he knows) has just met you is, like, oggling you and shit and the outfit 2B wears kinda help keep you aware of this.
Thats about the best explanation I’ve been given or found yet. I’m curious about that theme being half assed, or whole assed apparently, into stellar blade now.
All of that sounds like an interesting story, but it feels very ill-suited to such an extremely long game. It feels like a story that could be told effectively in a 2-hour movie or a single novel instead of being needlessly padded by grindy fetch quests in huge empty areas.
Actually, now that I think about it, a story similar to that was already told effectively in novel form. Isaac Asimov’s “The Naked Sun”.
Please feel free to ramble about Automata whenever. This is lovely analysis, and I think you are on the money in that last part
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Seconding this. I just got bored silly by all the fetch quests and repetitive button-mashing combat after a few hours. I remember the last thing I was doing was crossing a desert. When I found out from fans that I had to play the game multiple times to figure out what was going on, I just gave up on it entirely.
Each playthrough is different though and has you doing different things.
The fetch quests are mostly there to show you the world before it … changes. Before everything changes.
The first playthrough is the worst. The second is like wait what? Wait…what? The third is
It’s worth it to trudge through the first playthrough. I think at least.
Lol same exact thing happened to me. Music was sooo good though.
Visuals too. Even on the original Switch. It’s one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever been bored out of my mind by.
Amirite.
Jokes aside very pretty game. I remembered the 2010 Nier to be a pretty fun romp but maybe I’m just nostalgic