Tbh I will play basically any game if it has a good soundtrack. Been a fan of Nier since the first one on the ps3, really enjoyed Automata also. Emotionally I only really felt sad during the 9S ending and that was primarily due to the excellent VA on the english side. To everyone who cried during the final ending song I can't say I number one of them. Game interested me enough to play through it and get all the major endings, but didn't effect me, in terms of cast and main story, nearly as much as the OG nier and its remake. It felt like a novel game experience, had really good music, gameplay was better than the original nier, lore is cool. I think its better than most games that came out in the 2010s.

I'm glad you enjoyed the game as much as you do. I have zero nostalgia for the game so that definitely shaped my views on it. My issue with a lot of the checkpoints in this game is that not only do they put you decently far back, but they also carry over the resources you had pre-death. You'd die to an encounter since in many ways its less an actual skill check and feels more like a knowledge check. My cause of case was x so I'll use y to solve it. This would mean I'd frequently walk into an encounter, die, then be set back with less resources than I started with. I also find it amusing how you love a game that frustrated me immensely :)