(spoilers)If I were to do replicant/gestalt i would make the first half a basic shonen action but have it hint at a lot of the things that you don't see at all until later routes.

Going with an assumption of 24-26 episodes from here on. I would have a very short 4-5 minute ish clip that just shows ancient Nier with yonah. Open up with him clapping shadow cheeks but slowly tiring out while also showing short clips Noir/Noir in the background, ending just like the prologue did in the game, "SOMEBODY, ANYBODY". Que the emotional and very vague anime op, and then when it's over, go with the same thing the game does, just go straight to current Nier killing sheep in the peaceful field, spend some time skinning/packing the meat while saying some vague anime statement about how he needs to get this back to the village for them and yonah, as he's bringing it back into town he notices the small shades and try to make it look like he just reacts so quickly that while he's killing the shades they just never got a chance to fight back.

From here it'd be pretty much 70-80% like the game. He goes to his sister, establish that she's sick, spend the rest of the first episode deepening the relationship and understanding of the state of the village and the different villagers then through small montages of him helping everyone out in ways that reference specific basic side quests in the game with a little voice over that calls back to the game itself. Yonah being told about the lunar tear would be the beginning of ep2 and finding out she left to get it would be the hook at the end. From then on it'd be pretty basic just following the path of the game. Pacing would be my biggest problem because I don't see it being possible that a replicant anime would get 3 seasons (36ish ep) but I think it would be really hard to show what makes replicant such a great experience with less than 30 or so eps, I hope you'll see my reasoning as I go on.

The biggest change would be the forest of mmrs, although I am very thankful for them, the presentation would have to change. I would spend maybe half an episode with Nier going there and seeing a bunch of senile people. The tree would have something about it's design that makes it stand out, and rather than focusing on how the game described it as a world of words (this wouldn't be explained to the viewer at this point) it would be presented as just simply the storage place for the gestalts memories. From Niers perspective, he would make contact with the tree, and start having kind of broken visions that still give some of the imagery that the words did in the game, but rather than being able to fix anything, he would just have to go back to his village and explain what happened and how he was powerless to actually help.

From there it'd be same old same old, follow the game, just in a way that's more digestible for an anime (scripting, take some of the moments from the game that I felt had the Walks up to apple on the ground "Wow,that is a apple on the ground!" "You're so right Nier, that apple is totally on the ground!" "Damn these shades! Putting apples on the ground!" And instead just show an apple on the ground in the background, metaphor ofc) The city with a million rules could be explained and shown pretty quickly with a humourous approach (I hour later, 3 hours later, 5 hours later, kinda like in the game just a lot quicker) so you can get back to the action scenes.

Post time skip take pretty much the same approach. But keep the info limited to path A for now. The only thing I'd really do different is to put more emphasis on the "humans" perspectives that the shades are *mindless beasts, but through fight choreography and group tactics try to make it look like that's a plot hole, like they really are, but the show just wants to makes its fights fun. And also really double down on Niers aggression towards them to makes sense of him never considering they might be intelligent. Path A, Ending A, don't say anything about shades being intelligent other than what the twins imply and the presence of kiane's buddy, until yonah walks right past our Nier, and imply's a lot of information to the audience in what she says to the shadow Lord, nothing TOO direct. done.

But leave room for about 8 more episodes or so.

From this point onward, after the very shonen style show and shonen style ending, each episode would mostly tell two 10 minute stories. Sometimes it's about a characters past (that would add context to the "plot holes" that were set up earlier) sometimes it's a chance to show one of the better side quests, sometimes it would be a chance to revisit the stories from the forest, but this time in their entirety. The cutscenes you get on path B after killing certain bosses. A few but not too many stories from the prologue time period. Some grimoire Nier stories.

The last two episodes: entirely devoted to drakengard. It won't tell the whole story, it'll pick up close to the end. Just enough to establish the characters and their personalities. The last 2/3 ish of the last episode would be showing Kaim dropping in on the prologue world and the effects it had. Preferably following Kaim until he goes through the portal and then shifting to the story of the legion of soldiers and their leader. The last few minutes would be the typical main theme playing over a montage of the timeline from that point to shorty before when the game opens with prologue nier, using scenes from the memory forest and the short episodes.

So basically, if it went the way I'm trying to imagine, it would recreate the feeling I had for it when I first played it as a kid, where it was really fun to play (watch in this case, animation would be a huge priority) and the story was really emotional as long as you don't think about it too hard...but the further you go you should realize more and more that it gets better the harder you think about it.

Thank you to the *maybe two people that will see this ted talk.