Being locked out of pursuing any more side quests, I pressed onward with the story and finished 'Route A'.

To surmise what happened as well as my thoughts:

The search for 9S lead me to the 'Copied City'. My first question was where this structure even was? It connected with an elevator and seemingly extents infinitely. Not to mention how much silicon was required to form this place.

Either way, you find 9S and a boss fight with Adam shortly ensues. Like the previous encounters with the twins, it was more of a nuisance fighting him than anything else. In Adam's journey to comprehend emotion and the complexities of human nature he disconnects from the network and allows 2B to kill him so that he might understand why humans feared death.

The city collapses and you escape with 9S. Upon getting back to the surface Pascal informs you of another machine factions interested in forging a peace treaty which isn't suspicious whatsoever. Player then meets up with Pascal at the abandoned factory (again...) but at least this time you explore a new part of the factory instead of revisiting the opening area. I didn't try killing any of the cult members before entering the main room but I'm guessing there's a hidden ending if you do so.

Expectedly, the treaty does not go to plan and all hell breaks loose. I was sufficiently overleveled so didn't run into any problems with the enemies. Pascal took the whole situation rather well considering; more intrigued if anything.

But not long after that you return to find the resistance under attack from machines. The other brother Eve is running rampant at the loss of his brother Adam. The fight is decent enough I suppose requiring a varied use of your arsenal to take him down.

The "ending" felt hastily concluded but obviously this isn't really the end instead just the prologue to the rest of the game.

Before that I must now replay the game and go through 9S's route. Immediately after starting and trying to help a robot fix his big brother - I finish the game - well its more a joke ending but still. The opening level plays out from 9S's perspective this time serving as an extended flight unit section and introduces his unique 'hacking' mechanic which I quite like. The integration of 'hacking' could be considered jarring and maybe doesn't flow as well as doing combo strings with 2B but regardless the mini bullet hell arenas are fun.

Had a chuckle at watching the boot up sequence from 9S's point of view, which shows the player recording of the tutorial during 2B's route. Kind of embarrassing having to watch me take my time tinkering through all the menu options.

Can't say if the additional lore and scenes justifies forcing me to do a 2nd playthrough to reach the rest of the game as of yet.