Done with Nier Automata Route C and therefore, the whole game.
I wouldn't say that Route C changed my opinion on the game very much, but it definitely had better battles and lots of story elements. Talking about the story, I had to look up quite a few things after my completion only to find out that the essential parts (and even some characters) were introduced by either the first Nier (not sure why they didn't just explain these parts again.) or - and that surprises me even more - in a completely different game series. So the Nier series is basically a spin-off of the Drakengard series (which I never heard before) and from what I understand, Nier follows the story of an alternate ending of one of the Drakengard games. *mind blown*
Still, the problems I mentioned before remain.
The best parts of the game were the characters, followed by the story (the antagonists of Route A and B were pretty weak though, so thank god there's something else in Route C) and the battle system.
Mixed feelings:
World design. Some good stuff, some very repetitive stuff. You end up in the exact same locations multiple times throughout the story (and many more times during side quests).
There's quite some enemy variety but it still feels a bit lacking since you're fighting them over and over again.
At first I really liked the SHMUP sections, but they clearly lack variety. There are even less potential enemy types to fight in these section so it feels like you've played all of them before.
Side quests were also mostly just fetch quests. Meh.
As for the bad things: lots of backtracking, the map, unnecessary Route B to get to the real 2nd part of the game.
7.5/10
