Playing Nier Automata just now myself, it's lovely!
The story in TWE is pretty surreal anyway, so anywhere you jump in it's going to be a bit bewildering by design I think. Greg's right about the difficulty too, the first one is way less forgiving on the default. I'm sure I read the devs felt like they balanced those difficulty levels one notch too high, so for the second game Hard is closer to the first game's Medium etc.
Love those games, and the first one is great, but the second one was a real step up. Definitely worth playing both, especially if you like your old school survival horror.