I agree in part with your comment, even though I'm a fan of Automata. The gameplay is just "acceptable", and from the reviews I've read about it most others ag

I agree in part with your comment, even though I'm a fan of Automata. The gameplay is just "acceptable", and from the reviews I've read about it most others agree. The combat especially leaves a lot to be desired. As an example, apparently if you die during the intro sequence you have to replay it from the beginning. I forget exactly how long the intro sequence is, but it's probably ~15 minutes. So yeah, imagine re-playing 15 minutes of mostly non-interactive game. Yikes. (But jokes on all the players, you _do_ have to replay that intro sequence multiple times because of the different endings :P) It's the story that makes the game great. So unfortunately if you don't like the story, the game is a _slog_. But most people enjoy the story, which is why the game gets such high praise. And it's definitely a very unique game, which I appreciate. Personally I was lukewarm on the story until I watched some recap and deep analysis videos about in online. I came to appreciate the story much, much more after that. I believe this video did the best job: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EnbSokFpjQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EnbSokFpjQ It was just hard for me to connect all the dots, I guess because of the "anime-style storytelling" that you mention. That kind of storytelling requires a lot of effort from the viewer to pick up on small details. They'll hide really huge twists and revelations as easily missed off-handed comments. It also doesn't help that the story feels really weak until you discover all those little details and piece all the twists together. And that doesn't happen until the last act or so. I spent the vast majority of the game thinking X, Y, and Z scenes were really dumb until their context was finally revealed. I can appreciate that type of storytelling. It's different and more complex than I guess most "Western" writing. But it's hard to escape the taint it puts on most of my time with the game. By the way, I'm not writing this to convince you personally to rethink your experience with the game. Like I said, if the story doesn't work for someone, Automata is an awful game. But for anyone else who finds themselves in shoes similar to mine, namely that I'm a dumb-dumb when it comes to trying to understand these subtle and complex stories, it's worth it to read or watch some analysis of NieR. Plus those videos can bring context from the huge amount of other games that people new to NieR (like me) won't have.