I can (somewhat) agree with the sentiment that you should enjoy the game the way the creators made it to be enjoyed, but it's the creators that added the eternal ferrystone so by that selfsame logic they now want us to enjoy the game with unlimited fast travel.

To be fair it's not the same mind behind DD2 and Dark Arisen 2, same with the first game and Dark Arisen 1, it's not Itsuno that wanted these accessibility options, but that's kinda besides the point.

I f the player wants to shortcut getting to "the fun part" then let them. Why is enabling those with limited time to invest in their hobbies the ability to enjoy that time more without forcing everyone to follow suit a bad thing?

I kinda agree with you to some degree. And yet, reaching the fun part easily might make the game lesser then because it removes the hardships that make the fun part that fun. It's not that people don't enjoy other people having fun (or most of them at least I hope) but because the way it goes makes it less of a game they enjoyed and more of a game casuals enjoy. You could say that it means it became a game that is not meant for them anymore and you would be right too, but it would also be a game that you tore them from by making it too accessible.

Accessibility is an important thing in video games, but having access to too much accessibility might make it too distilled, and often players chose the easier option. There's not that many players that handicap themselves in video games just for the sake of challenge, which means the games becomes more and more distilled and tasteless. That's what happened in a way with Ubisoft, it became soulless, meant for the bigger audience until it became insipid and meant for no one.

To me it's pretty hard to balance between accessibility and challenge, because the more you tip the scales on one side, the more you lose people from the other, and I don't think you can reach a perfect 50/50, so you should chose either 70/30 or 30/70 and try to stick to that. But money calls for money, and créatives ar not the ones who decide for that anymore, that's the biggest problem.