It unfortunately takes a long while to pick up. When it picks up, it really goes all in though, there’s a reason it and the first game in the series (NieR Replicant) are praised as some of the best stories in video games ever made.

It just… really takes its time. I would say Replicant gets into the meat of everything sooner while Automata is a slow burn until it’s time for the game to twist everything on its head. Completely fair if you don’t like that kind of thing, but there is good reason for the praise.

Edit: Was using Memmy for this and it duplicate my comment twice, sorry!