The biggest pain point for me was the "tour" of Solution Nine. WoL got dragged along by the writer to watch Wuk Sue and Not-Emet flirt with each other. This was immediately followed by an "escort" mission, where Wuk Sue and Not-Emet conversed only with each other at every MANDATORY stop. There was no reason whatsoever for WoL to be there, except for the reason that the writer wanted them to be the cameraman to tell the player a story. This made it clear to me, that at that moment, I am an audience member, and the character I've been playing as since I started in Stormblood is not my avatar, but a convenient tool. This feels exactly like a Dungeon Master forcing the player to watch him roleplay a date scene between his DMPC (with massive main character syndrome) and another NPC that he plays, and the player has no choice other wise the game won't progress.

Never in my life have I ever seen a JRPG actively dissociate the player and the player character. The level of bad writing here is so far beyond comical, it's depressing. Listen, if you want to tell a story with no involvement from the audience, then save us all some time and just write a damn book.