Took me two playthroughs to come around on this but damn do I love this game now. While the big change in direction the story takes halfway through does ruin the pacing what it accomplishes with this change in direction is unlike anything else I've ever experienced in any piece of media and took this beautifully realized mechanically polished, masterfully told story to the level of being an all time great. When people talk about how Empire Strikes back or Majora's Mask had mixed reception at launch before going on to become generation defining masterpieces, the reception around this game is how that looked back then.