The game's combat might not be for everyone. I don't usually play open-worlds, but I definitely enjoy fluid melee with airdashes and combos, so I never felt bored with the combat. It's a subjective thing, of course, so I can see how people that don't enjoy Automata's combat will have a hard time finishing the game, although as the game progresses some important quality of life improvements become available, like showing items on the minimap or item auto-pickups.

Another thing is that the enemies scale very linearly, and doing side-quests will put you ahead of the curve, making the game very easy. There are also fairly exploitable chip setups like shockwave+lifesteal which will enable you to stay at range and get healed without much risk. I probably played conservatively, which enabled me to avoid deaths most of the time, but I can see how dying during initial tutorial section can be offputting because of the heavily sequenced nature of it. Oh, and there's getting to know the world, including remembering enemy spawn points which happens if you play the game long enough, which enables you to avoid trouble if you're not looking for it. This was what allowed me to not die during 2B's infected section, so there's that.

At the end of the day, however, the game will be remembered for its tons of nuance and detail, its themes and its music, so even if the experience isn't smooth for everyone, I definitely think that the game will leave a lot of good memories for anyone who bothered to get the 5 main endings.

On a side note, I'm always glad to find a channel with long and thoughtful videos. I watch/listen to these while playing something online or working on scale models, so length in addition to quality is a big plus for me, so thanks for all of your work and I hope to see more of it in the future. :)

The game's combat might not be for everyone. I don't usually play open-worlds, but I definitely enjoy fluid melee with airdashes and combos, so I never felt bored with the combat. It's a subjective thing, of course, so I can see how people that don't enjoy Automata's combat will have a hard time finishing the game, although as the game progresses some important quality of life improvements become available, like showing items on the minimap or item auto-pickups. Another thing is that the enemies scale very linearly, and doing side-quests will put you ahead of the curve, making the game very easy. There are also fairly exploitable chip setups like shockwave+lifesteal which will enable you to stay at range and get healed without much risk. I probably played conservatively, which enabled me to avoid deaths most of the time, but I can see how dying during initial tutorial section can be offputting because of the heavily sequenced nature of it. Oh, and there's getting to know the world, including remembering enemy spawn points which happens if you play the game long enough, which enables you to avoid trouble if you're not looking for it. This was what allowed me to not die during 2B's infected section, so there's that. At the end of the day, however, the game will be remembered for its tons of nuance and detail, its themes and its music, so even if the experience isn't smooth for everyone, I definitely think that the game will leave a lot of good memories for anyone who bothered to get the 5 main endings. On a side note, I'm always glad to find a channel with long and thoughtful videos. I watch/listen to these while playing something online or working on scale models, so length in addition to quality is a big plus for me, so thanks for all of your work and I hope to see more of it in the future. :)