ah the good ol "the reason i planted the seedling all along is for you to have a journey and find out why and meet all these people", not saying that "the treasure is the friend we made along the way" trope is bad, this was just done hastily and piss on the whole journey, and not like this journey, the whole journey, like the plot of finding makie's mother was a major plot point, you can't just brush it aside
personally i find it to be a slow burn experience and is pretty emotionally engaging, but i guess a lot of people find it to be boring, too bad this got axed