The opening village has a library. It's the same one you visit in one the endings to Nier Automata.

I'm looking forward to seeing many more connections. I'm just playing on easy to get through quickly as it doesn't seem to restrict story behind difficulty.

Beware of side quest hell.

I'm interested to hear some opinions from people who played Automata first.

Don't worry, every difficulty is poorly balanced and easy as fuck so if you feel you're missing too much boss dialogue from killing things too fast don't be afraid to bump it. Also look up a guide

The first nier is a great game that I still listen to the music for but I don't know if I could ever go back and play it again.

I'm looking forward to hearing your opinion on it after playing automata first

From what I’ve heard I don’t think I could go back to this one, but keep us posted.

Glad you're giving it a shot, the story holds up even if the gameplay doesn't. For the last couple endings they make you jump through hoops so I ended up looking them up on Youtube. I still think this game has Laura Bailey's best performance though.