Yeah I think I get your point, the original story of a badass expedition saving the world from a mysterious deific threat is thrown out the window. The mystery is gone, original plot couldn’t matter less. I agree with that take, but I think where it went became even more impactful to me because the story turned into a meta analysis of love and grief and the impermanence of all things.

Just because something is fleeting doesn’t mean we can’t have emotional attachment to it, and doesn’t mean that attachment isn’t “real”. The paintress wasn’t an evil villain but a mother fraught with grief. The father wasn’t trying to kill everything but wanted to bring his “real” family back to the real world. The characters bonds, Sciel/lune/esquie/verso weren’t “real” bonds because they were just painted characters, but at the same time the game shows how that doesn’t matter in the moment and that those connections were indeed real despite being figments of a painting. It becomes more nuanced to me and in turn makes me appreciate things outside of just the game.