Apparently I was so desperate to get out of Kolosten that I didn't notice chapters 27-28 tucked away in a way that made them look like extra side missions. Thankfully they barely involved the shithole city, and were a lot shorter.
The Durandal mini-arc was kind of weird, I'm guessing the 'Will of Stigma' is some kind of reflection of Kevin that wants to keep Humanity as-is rather than transform them. Durandal being revealed as Kiana is a bit odd, but sure, whatever, Siegfried apparently being alive/conscious and being locked up in some torture chamber by Kevin on the other hand is completely insane. Why do I need to know this, why would Kevin even do that, how's the dude even alive after having a bomb dropped on him in the 2nd eruption. It kind of gets swept under the rug so I guess it's not going to be brought up again soon, if ever.
Chapter 28 was decent, was cool seeing Otto's plans throughout the whole game up to this point actually pay off. Still has the usual technobabble nonsense, but it didn't take long overall, and I do think the chapter ended on a fairly high note considering everything else. I'm probably going to miss this scheming shithead after this sendoff though.
Amazing how much more 'tolerable' the pacing was when it didn't involve the stupid open-world/area crap to pad stuff out.