Super boring. One of the only games I've refunded on Steam.

I played it immediately after trying out Hollow Knight, so it was grating how uninteresting it was to play from the beginning.

Aesthetics won't carry me through an experience I don't like playing in most cases, and unfortunately this was one of them.

Is it a deeply flawed game? yeah
Is it mind numbingly easy? without a doubt
Are there several stupid moments? 100%

is it still a 5/5? Yes. Why? I have brain worms

NieR Replicant has a great narrative, that does a good job at building up characters and setting up a world that provides context to this narrative, and the way that each route gives new context and perspectives is interesting, however not handled as well here as in Automata, even though I found this games story to be more engaging overall.
The combat here is fine, is a fairly typical action RPG combat system. The fun comes from the varying magic abilities that progressively get cooler and more effective through each route. The bosses provide a very well done spectacle, even though they may be lacking in mechanical depth.
The world was fairly fun to explore, although I do wish there was more in it. The soundtrack here is excellent and varied depending on the environment, more calming songs for world exploration, unsettling ones for those situations (such as the mansion), and more loud tracks for the spectacle bosses mentioned before. Its varied, and each type of track always fits its purpose well.

My biggest issue with the game is with the routes and how to get the true ending you have to play the same thing 3-4 times, depending on if you know what your meant to do. For some reason you need to collect every weapon in the game to reach route C-D, which makes side quests mandatory, and farming for money to buy these weapons. This was extremely tedious and I almost gave up on the game here because of it.
Also I was having issues with the performance here. I have a fairly powerful PC and was only getting frames of like 40, even though my specs are above the recommended. Whether its just a bad pc port, or if the game was just disagreeing with my setup is something I'm unsure of. It wasn't a huge deal and didn't really hurt the experience.
There are some other small nitpicks, but I cant be bothered going into it now.

also this game made me sad aaaaaaaa