i think people are missing the point by complaining about filler being present (would you consider your own fucking around as a 10yo with your friends 100% vital to your own story arc as a person?) but a certain character whose name begins with "sweet" and ends with "heart" just has too much screentime and the game thinks it's being funny by doing this. it isn't. characters like this peaked with wendy oldbag.

the game every quirky indie jrpg looks up to, earthbound, has godtier filler. undertale also nails this. omori is one-half a decent attempt at this and one-half a pretty compelling story. the way both halves work in conjunction and the contrast between them is actually very good. it's just that this game can only gain from its filler being made more fun.

that being said it's still pretty great and i enjoyed my playthrough overall. maybe the long dev process made the devs overconfident in how good the two dream world "protagonists" are though