For what it’s worth, I wasn’t a huge fan of the story at first. It took me a few hours and a few quests to actually get into it. It suffers from Kingdom Hearts 2/The Witcher 3 Syndrome: The two hour long intro/tutorial is absolutely the worst part, which is a shame. The game really begins to shine once you get to Meridian, but that’s several hours in.
That copyright thing was never actually tested in court though, because they settled before the trial began. The “copyrighted keys” argument was what Nintendo originally used to bring the lawsuit, but it was never actually tested because it never went to trial. In fact, many legal experts say it likely would have been thrown out in Yuzu’s favor. But Yuzu didn’t have a legal fund, so they couldn’t afford to actually take it to court and fight it.
I actually enjoyed the story. Some of the themes and motifs were heavy handed, but that’s par for the course. Honestly, the biggest issue with the story is that players have come to expect a big plot twist. Bioshock 1’s twist hit first-time players hard, so later games have tried to replicate that. But the issue is that it only hit players hard because they never knew it was coming. They only remember it because it was truly shocking the first time you played through it.
So now players have come to expect that from the series, which means the series can’t replicate it; When players are looking for a big plot twist, you can’t really hide it anymore. Because as soon as you start foreshadowing it, players catch on. And if you’re too subtle with your signals, then players who have been looking for it will say that doesn’t make any sense.