YMMV / Taro Yoko

• Applicability: In an interview about the sequel to Nier, he states that he thinks the interpretations of Nier's themes and messages are awesome, but that he personally wasn't working on the game with any particular themes in mind.
• Creator Worship: Ever since his rise to popularity with NieR: Automata, he's been worshiped left and right by his cult fanbase and the growing new fans coming in.
• Funny Moments:
  • What was his reason for skipping E3 2017?
    No E3. I have to eat tacos.
  • The man has a way of putting things in humorous terms (his quotes page is a decent selection), such as his remarks on his fame and how in his hypothetical decline of his career "I'll take as many people with me as possible"
• Growing the Beard:
  • Though the original Drakengard won its fanbase on the merits of its nihilistic, pitch black story and characters, many in the game's fanbase consider NieR to be an improvement writing-wise because it keeps things dark, oppressive and weird but has much more sympathetic (if still heavily flawed) characters and a Rousseau Was Right view of humanity. Drakengard 3 isn't quite up there but the Disciples aside from Dito are nicer and more humorous than the cast from the first game, and ultimately Zero is fighting for a good cause, flawed as she is.
  • NieR: Automata is Yoko's greatest success thus far, in no small part due to PlatinumGames picking up the slack in the gameplay department, which was always the weakest part of his games.
• Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: His games are celebrated for their unusually dark, oppressive storylines and characters, but the games themselves usually suffer from technical problems and gameplay that ranges from tediously boring and broken at worst to serviceable at best. This is partly due to having a pretty poor budget for most of his games, as well as the lack of experience or talent of the staff working under him. Part of the reason that Platinum Games was brought on for NieR: Automata was to finally avert this, considering the developers' expertise in crafting action games. Given the game's much warmer reception and strong sales it is safe to say it was a success.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The image of Yoko wearing the No. 6 mask during the 2015 Square-Enix press conference (during which the New Nier Project was announced) went viral, due to the majority of people not being familiar with his Reclusive Artist persona and finding it incredibly bizarre.
  • NIER AUTOMATA-SHIRT! NIER AUTOMATA T-SHIRT! NIER AUTOMATA T-SHIRT! S*HT SQUARE-ENIX!!! ^Explanation A promotional video for the pre-order bonus t-shirt for Automata, where Yoko very suddenly pries the t-shirt from game designer Yasuhisa Taura's body and rolls on the floor holding it, while shouting the aforementioned. The S*HT Square Enix stems from his frustration over how many takes he had to do.
  • 'Cause Yoko Taro ^Explanation A usual response when talking about works where Yoko has been involved due to their often bizarre, tragic and often unpredictable nature.
  • Very cute! I believe she’ll sell well!! ^Explanation In the character reveals for SINoALICE, whenever Taro was asked to comment on the characters, he would only state this line, repeatedly.
  • Yoko Tako's next game will continue from ending ___: ^Explanation Many fans love to joke how he creates good games out of the joke endings. To be fair, Nier coming from the infamous ending E in Drakengard is the only instance this happened, but that doesn't stop the fans from joking this will happen in future games.
  • "I just really like girls." ^Explanation  During PAX East 2017, one of the questions that Yoko received regarding NieR: Automata was the following: Why does 2B, a combat android from the future, wear high heels? Yoko replied that he designed 2B this way as part of his vision of the far future 10,000 years from today... before bluntly admitting that his biggest reason for doing so is that he enjoys attractive female characters. In light of the debates surrounding blatant fanservice and sexualized female characters in fiction, Yoko received both praise and grudging respect for giving an honest answer instead of a contrived excuse for 2B's design, in contrast to the reactions towards Hideo Kojima's infamous attempt to justify Quiet's stripperiffic outfit in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.
• Player Punch: Many of his games have subversive elements that are intended to make players uncomfortable and question the violent nature of video games that is often taken for granted, which frequently involves this. Most notable at Nier during several points, including Fyra's death, the deaths of your entire party and every single important NPC in the game during the raid on the Shadowlord's Castle, and the reveal that you're a mass murderer who's just doomed humanity.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: A common quirk of his works tend to be that they often end up taking quite a while for them to truly get going, often seeming disjointed and confusing before the story starts to pick up steam. A lot of this can probably be chalked up to his "Reverse Script writing" directional style.

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