I'm not a fan of Automata though I would say it's more middling than out right awful. The story which was ranged from ok to cringey and only got worse the more routes I did to see the full thing, B is such a time waste and C is so try hard. It's a jack of all trades master of none leaving a middling experience to me personally. I think as you sort of mentioned the fan base talking the game up as some kind of miracle descending from heaven just doesn't help as it could never reach those expectations. I disagree with you on the soundtrack though, I did really enjoy that and I liked a lot of the character art design even if the world itself felt bland and nothing actually felt cohesive.

@Steinco - "five stages of grief" - This is an accurate description here lol.

@Imshitting430 - 🤔 This actually makes a lot of sense as a comparison actually as I can't stand Evangelions plot or characters either...

My favorite Dungeon Crawler is Shining the Holy Arc on the Sega Saturn. Would recommend if you have the hardware to emulate it as an original copy isn't easy to get now days. Otherwise as part of the same series might I recommend Shining Force? Easy to get on most platforms. An early SRPG.