If you, like me, picked up Nier: Automata on PlayStation 4 recently, here is a tip that will CHANGE EVERYTHING: Remap the buttons.
As you may notice when you first start playing Nier, the default control setup has a few weird quirks. Evade is mapped to R2 while shooting is mapped to R1, making it tough to dodge while you’re also firing bullets (which you want to be doing constantly). Lock-on is mapped to L2 and your pod’s special attack is mapped to L1, so you have to do some uncomfortable finger twisting if you want to shoot laser beams at an enemy you’re targeting.
Wisely, the folks at Square Enix and Platinum decided to offer full button remapping. Here are the two tweaks I made that turned Nier: Automata into a way better game:
1) Swapped Evade (R2) with Action (Circle).
2) Swapped Pod Program (L1) with Toggle Light (L3)
My setup now looks like this:
Evade on circle feels far more natural than it does on R2, and being able to shoot laser beams at enemies while ALSO targeting them is much, much better than the alternative. Those two tweaks were a game-changer for me.
Also, I’m about five hours into Nier: Automata and it turns out it’s pretty good. Why didn’t anyone mention that anywhere on the internet?
Comments
6 responses to “Nier: Automata Is Even Better If You Remap The Buttons”
Nier is amazing.
it’s my number 2 game of the year so far (nothing can dislodge Zelda from 1st)
Swapping Evade and Action seems like a good idea, actually. I never had a problem with Pod Program being on L1, though, because you can just tap L2 to lock on instead of just holding it.
I’ve played far too many PlatinumGames titles to go swapping evade off the R(2) trigger now!
I did however move fire over to the L2 button, and lock-on to the R1 button.
Since lock-on target is both ‘hold to lock on, release to stop’ as well as ‘tap once to lock, and tap once to stop’ it made it a pretty easy move once I realised that you didn’t HAVE to hold it down and that you had the choice of either.
edit: although which button lockon is set to is a moot point when I eventually move to hard mode – it’s disabled!
The first thing I did was remap the buttons. Evade on circle is used by many games so that was a natural change, but I don’t know why you’d put Fire on R1 when the standard for most games is R2. I also never used the light or lock on so L1 being the Pod program was never a problem for me. Really all you need is light attack, dodge and fire mapped to the most comfortable buttons because the game isn’t really that difficult on normal mode and you can get away with just mashing those buttons most of the time.
I didn’t have to remap anything. Felt pretty good. And I don’t have lock on because I play on hard difficulty. But I did try and button changes. Didn’t go so well since I got used to the layout on the demo.
Oh look, yet another thing PC gamers have had for years that finally makes it to the lesser cousins.