10 Video Games Made INTENTIONALLY Bad To Prove A Point

A common complaint about Platinum Games' standout RPG is that the combat mechanics leave much to be desired.

Your player character moves strangely, so the navigation of combat settings themselves are a veritable minefield to move through. The evasion mechanic works in a slightly counterintuitive way with a small vulnerability window at the end of the evasion animation.

Most games with a dodge mechanic like this call the type of animation an "i-frame" animation. This stands for invincibility frames, implying that the usual trend is to not allow your player avatar to take damage while evading attacks.

When NieR purposefully flaunts this, and combines it with some other difficult or obtuse elements of its combat design, it is making a point about violence. In NieR, you are not some invincible avatar of destruction, you are fragile, and are trapped within cycles of violence.

Combat is meant to be tricky, confused and sometimes not very fun. The existential concerns of NieR mean that even the combat is geared towards thinking about our state of being.