Fair enough on the story telling from the last few scenes. For the sake of scene flow, I feel that some story elements need to be interpreted by player themselves, but they could have been explained better in the text itself.
On the first note, Ashe does care for Mila. She just wishes to live her own life separate from the organization that caused her such trauma. I don’t think she would consider Mila close, just because they have spent so much time apart from each other and they have grown into their own people. She trusts that Mila will be fine on her own.
Rinaldo can be seen a number of ways depending on your perspective. He did save many lives while he was alive, but also did awful things to his family. Its only natural that those that were close to him could see him as deplorable. It’s a grey area, much like with many dead legends..
In the case of a vampire reverting to how they were before, you could say that the “hold” a master vampire has over the ones they turn is more like a powerful suggestion. In certain cases, a victim can still recall their old feelings. It would depend on how deep their level of corruption goes. A victim whose mind has been completely shattered by their master will have no will of their own. In the case of the boss of the mistress of the castle, she left her minions in a healthy, but controllable state, enough for them to fend for themselves as pawns. Needless to say, if she were in the room when these redemption scenes occur, their will would be easily broken (such as the scene where the last minion is in the room with her mistress near the very end of the game).
I should probably toss this lore into a book somewhere for players to find on their own, because you bring up a fair point.
On that last point about the difficulty, I scaled the boss to be around HR 50. I took my play testing into account, and I dont like to grind too much, so HR 50 felt like the sweet-spot to me, while leaving plenty of room for players to grind if they want to. The final battle is rather easy, admittedly. I mainly wanted it to be cinematic than difficult, which is why I made False Memory I, to scratch that challenge itch.