>>717398728
The setup is fine even if Ichiban is hamfisted into Hawaii. The problems arise the instant Kiryu appears in the picture (Chapter 3). He completely overshadows Ichiban's entire story and goals. Kiryu gets the cool parts, Ichiban basically exists to ask him about how he's doing or call him super cool, and then is constantly doting over Kiryu due to the cancer.
Eventually Kiryu gets told to get some rest and there's a party split to do so at which point Ichiban's side has nothing but filler upon filler upon filler to pad out the time. One chapter is literally running across all of Hawaii fighting pretty much neverending mook spawns every three steps to get to a boss fight against a boss you've fought twice at that point. Two of his four split up chapters are like this while the other two are just getting access to a gauntlet which takes you to a boss fight that ends the chapter.
Kiryu's side, however, gets all the important reveals, all the important story beats, has all the major threats, has all the best boss fights, and is the direct instigator for a huge amount of what converges in the endgame even if his first chapter was a tutorial for all the mechanics introduced.
The ending of the game completely mixes up who should get what final boss, forgets Ichiban's entire reason why he went to Hawaii in the first place and sidelines it (With a throwaway explanation what happened in the epilogue), forgets not one but two major characters established throughout the game, and has Ichiban essentially pulling a Jesus for a character that does not deserve it at all. It's actively insulting to everyone who got to that ending. One of the characters they forget is literally set up before the split as the major motivation for why Ichiban is doing something and isn't even spoken of whatsoever, not even an implication of them, until you find the character in the final area of the game at which point another character has to explain who they are.
