Flawed, unfocused, thematic whiplash, philosophically opaque ... but also wonderful, beautiful, emotionally honest, grandiose, empathetic and just ... such a great time. I have a lot of thoughts on this, I think it's filled to the brim with ideas and stories and themes that it doesn't manage to meaningfully connect or synthesize to a wholly satisfying gesamtkunstwerk, to the point that it sometimes feels like it actively works against some of the themes of the original. But I really honestly feel like in the end, once everything is done, once you fought your way through the 75 final bosses, you really do feel on a visceral emotional level what it's all about and why it's worth it to care, and what the game is trying to say about our world and our place in it.

It takes very long to get there and there are large stretches where nothing much relevant happens (or, and this is my biggest criticism, where the game is implying all sorts of different threads and ideas that it then doesn't really follow up on), but it does get there. And what I got to play in-between is one of my favorite JRPGs ever, with what might be my favorite combat system of all time, some phenomenal environment and creature design, series-best character and cinematic direction, very clever structure and mission design, a never-ending stream of creative and unique ideas ... and genuinely one of the best soundtracks of all time. Holy shit, the music in this is so good, it's unbelievable how a soundtrack this versatile and this inspired, one that has to do so much heavy-lifting both in terms of background music and emotionally leading a scene, can be so consistently great. Good stuff.

Hot take: Queen's Blood isn't actually all that great. Sorry!