Can I beat up an NPC in the story eventually?

[Rymm]

I agree, but Asahi was slightly better?

Sorry if I was unclear, but I meant better written, not a better person. Personality-wise, Asahi was as awful as the rest of them (even if he didn't show his true colors right away) but at least he was slightly more interesting than just a walking, talking tragic backstory for Yotsuyu, meant to do nothing more than soften her own outlandishly evil actions and paint her in a more sympathetic light. I have the strong suspicion that SE went too far with Yotsuyu in making her evil enough so everyone would hate her and then had to one-up themselves with the "evil step-parents" trope in order to soften that hate and try to ensure that their 4.3 finale would have enough of an emotional punch.

Honestly the whole main story line dealing with Yotsuyu from 4.0 to now was very heavy-handed and at times it really felt like SE was leading us along by the nose from quest to quest going "Here, feel this emotion" or "Now have this reaction." I get that all storytellers do this to some degree but most have the finesse to not make it so danged obvious. At times they might as well have been holding up those "Applause" or "Aww" cards for a studio audience. I was genuinely surprised by how much I did enjoy the end and impressed with the tiny bit of depth they gave the story at the very last part of the last cutscene.

4.3 spoilers-

I.e. how Yotsuyu was neither totally evil (as she was in 4.0) or totally innocent (as she was with amnesia) but had the teensiest bit of grey in her lingering affection for Gosetsu. Still, I was relieved both when she was still an evil, vengeful b*tch after recovering her memory and when they killed her off.