Reconsidering My Thoughts On Nier Automata

I quite like Yoko Taro's works, or at least those I've experienced in some way: I've yet to play Drakengard 3, but the first one has a special place in my mind, and NieR Replicant might be one of my favourite games ever. What about Automata, though? I didn't love Automata. First of all, I knew it as "the best game ever that's done things no game has ever done before", and that's always a red flag for me. Second, the first two routes explore certain themes in a way that made me think multiple times "I could be reading Asimov", my favourite author of whom I still have to read way too many books1. It's not that I didn't find it compelling, it's just that I kept thinking "Is that it?" and got increasingly annoyed at the fact that... I really didn't like its protagonists. Enter YoRHa Boys. I've read the book this year and liked it a lot. I thought I was only invested in the stories of the machines2, but these guys really made me yearn for more! I started a reevaluation process that…