I'm very interested in low-key horror lately. I'm not sure I want to play an actual horror game though... In any case, please like and subscribe! I put extra effort in editing this one!
Yeah, I share the feeling. For a long time, I wasn't interested in horror at all since all I knew were cheap and boring jumpscares. But lately, I've been playing a lot of games with horror (or psychological horror) elements, and I love it when it's well done. To cite a few, Outer Wilds, Oxenfree, Omori, and Dredge were amazing
@@bellangerdorian8286 Oh, you remind me that I still have to play Outer Wilds and Oxenfree! I would also recommend Alien Isolation if you want that fear of being chased around. Beyond that, stealth games also do give me anxiety when I first played it, like Dishonored series.
this is why i love the comic style scenes in zzz, it's able to show scenes in much more detail than 3d models standing around doing the same generic motions
Yes! It's a creative solution for a monetary reason. It's pretty obvious that Hoyo just doesn't want any more Genshin-level games in their catalog. Genshin does give them big money, but it's VERY EXPENSIVE to run. Creating a new playable region every couple of months is just so expensive. I'd bet they spend at least 200 million USD per region. That's why their latest games, Star Rail and ZZZ tried their best to limit the amount of work required for artists. And it seems to work pretty well. Star Rail makes more than Genshin while keeping the production cost down. The problem is, I am very bored on Star Rail's world design. ZZZ solves the storytelling boredom by using four different mediums of storytelling: CG cutscenes, in-world conversation, Visual Novels, and comic strips. All of them are relatively low cost and keep things fresh.
I think so too! In fact, I believe that the development team of ZZZ invests the budget wisely between environment and animation, and so on. The idea of using TVs as a means of travel is a great idea to save time on creating map areas. We want quality, not quantity, and ZZZ is delivering that with creativity
There's a good quote about this. "Limitations Breed Creativity" By limiting resources you force developers to innovate and find creative workarounds towards problems that they can't just throw money at. A lot of iconic games were great because of this. Like Silent Hill. The fog wasn't just an atmospheric choice, they just straight up didn't have the draw distance, so that limitation was covered with fog and became an iconic strength of the series.
@@rs4902 I wish I could tell that to the generic AAA games today. Like seriously... I don't need another 300 GB of HD textures in a generic FPS. Give me something unique!
I refer to the "3d models standing around doing the same generic motions" as "gently undulating torso dialogue scenes". I feel like it describes it well, and I really hope it's off putting enough to make Hoyo not want to do it anymore if it catches on. :D
I cannot believe the Hoyoverse game with an active skip button is the one with the least confusing story and most engaging character dynamics that you will find yourself not skipping the dialogues at all
@@robertjaysonalcantara7016 It's baffling. It's almost like they are daring you to do it. "We know you'd like the skip button, but here's a very good story for so you don't want to skip! 😂😂"
Yea, pretty much the only time you'd skip it is if you've already seen it happen and there are no branching out. I actually saw a vtuber choose an option in the scene where Billy compares you to some dog, which was meant as a big compliment which got explained in the dialog path said vtuber did not choose. but even then you probably won't skip the cutscenes since most of the 3d full cutscenes are so well animated, the comic ones are also fun, and the more generic talking 3d cutscenes have branching options
ZZZ's comic style cutscenes are so good because not only do they allow the story to show us details rather than yap about it, it also gives us insane eye-candy artwork that leaves more of a lasting impression. I swear I took so many screenshots of it
Yeah! It's a creative way to save money from making expensive CG cinematic while also showing some eye candy. I wish we can download the comics separately though. The artwork in 2D is just way more expressive than in 3D.
Is there any way to remove ui or hood in zzz story mode or comic mode because I cant find it anywhere when I want to screenshot cutscenes, and I find it weird that zzz dont have hide hood feature when hoyo other games have that
@@sunglassfrog89 I wish there is a way to do that! But it seems that you just have to extract the images from the game files for now. Maybe if we voice our opinions on the next survey, we should be able to make them create an export function.
The ether corruption scene also helps make it more believable as to why we do side quests. Theres a lot of quest dialogue where a character asks for help finding someone or something and they explain they cant go because they've been there a while looking already and are at risk of ether corruption.
Yes! I would also imagine that there's a big pay gap between those with high and low ether aptitude, which can be a good story idea for an opposing faction. I just wished they could make the side story as interesting as the main one. The narrative there is a nothingburger.
The fact that ZZZ devs also includes HIA npc and animate her together with eous to show the tension during the appearance of nineveh really telling us that the game is story-driven not just playable characters-driven like Star rail
That scene would be an excellent horror scene if 1) Nineveh actually destroy something and 2) Miyabi didn't just show up and anime run slash that monster. I guess it's more of a power level showcase to show just how big the gap between regular investigator and HSOS6 Squad.
@@FeyHunt The issue is Miyabi barely did anything to that monster. So it also accomplished the goal of showing that even the top dog of this verse might not be enough for more larger threats.
@@proto245 Of course. It wouldn't make sense if there's just one person who can save the world. It will go against the entire spirit of the game where a Proxy and a team of Hollow Raiders work together. I would be genuinely upset otherwise.
i think another thing to tell is that, most of the time the storytelling around gacha games, is either Grand Adventure (Fighting Evil or Helping for Goodness), a dying world where people try to survive in apocalyptic chaos way and the MC trying to become a hero, or basically making it a movie like tragedy. but ZZZ is rather making it casual, in a way very similar to Cyberpunk 2077 where the world is dying but the people know that making it hysterical won't them do any good so they just accepted it and live with it. Even Monster Hunter follows this rule too, making stories like these very grounded and believable.
@@DlolFace Exactly my thoughts as well! This is all we've been asking from movies and video games alike: an RPG series where we don't fight a god at the end (yet). We're just vibing with friends here. That doesn't make the story boring. It's a different story altogether.
Exactly. I love how grounded the plot is because a lot of the story beats instead revolve around the factions and how they're trying to make it in a world where the major conflict is already addressed. There are hints of Belle and Weiss trying to address an overarching plot but for the most part they're just trying to pay the rent and help their friends, not save the world.
ZZZ is the same as genshin. We are looking for our teacher(sibling), we are going to end up in situations were we save people. A small community then the people on the airship. We have fairy our pin that drags us into having to partake in saving new eridu which is the last city. More than likely our teacher is involved somehow.
Its very realistic to be seen as these hollow are normal to mc and we players have 0 kowledge of it. Imagine this. You in real life what counts as "normal", you wont be yapping about it normally... but to others who have 0 idea needs explanation and thats where the "show, not tell" comes to life... we dont "tell" whats normal. We show them.
@@gazztears2140 Exactly. That's what's weird with Genshin, Honkai, and WuWa's yapping. "As you may know..." is a very weird choice for dialogues. It's not intended for the people in the scene, it's for the audience. And that breaks the fourth wall. That's where ZZZ shines. The storywriters just show us what's wrong with this world. They didn't start yapping on things they already know. Well summarized here, good sir!
@@FeyHunt Yes. I love how they put the story in the background which leads to many questions. for example. we dont really know how much of an impact these "Hollows" do to earth but when in a cutscene where _Lycaon Jumps onto an airship_ , they show how the moon literally *SWALLOWED* by these hollows. this shows how serious of an apocalyptic settings to the point people just cope with literal Death.
@@FeyHunt I agree. the story telling is always a good thing about zzz compared to the other big gacha games. genshin and wuwa especially often tell us, not show us what is the case. while zzz became slow because of it, but it is a lot more enjoyable to watch.
@@Scatterblades i cannot stress MIHIYO ENOUGH by saying "goddammit genshin show us what 500 years old war befor looks like... stop making raiden, venti, or zhoglngli yap how horifying it was... SHOW ME A CUTSCENE OF THAT TIME"
the fact they showed you that one second you're fine and another second you're in hollow is enough to tell you that zzz world isn't a place you want to live in
Nope, I definitely don't want to live there! You either live as a sheep waiting for something to go wrong, or you're a Hollow Raiders which will develop side effects like dementia later in life.
Its a post apocalyptic game. This hollow disaster literally wiped off almost all life from both the earth and the rest of the universe apparently with half of the moon being covered by hollows. In the story trailer we have been shown a literal *dark wall* that might be surronding the last surviving city and even then the untouched territory gets even more reduced by both Hollow zero and its companions. We like to be distracted by both the bangboos, the interactions between characters and the beautiful city but we can't deny the fact that this world is dying. The game has *no choice* but to show us the existential crisis that this civilization is facing day by day if it wants to have a good story.
I think I would have to go back and watch their promotional contents to get more info on the lore. I think there's that live action trailer on the origin of Hollows. That is actually one of my concern about the lore so far. We know that the end is coming, but bringing that end will break the status quo of the game's relaxing atmosphere. So they can't go full in "world is ending" trope.
I've seen that tag on the game but it really dont feel like it is...unless in this "outer ring" that has been mentioned and the outside is like mad max in a way. Lol
Another example of the writers leveraging the horror aspect of the world is at the end of chp2 when Friday, Gretta, and Hans are absorbed by the boss. While the time spent with them is brief they display their capacity for emotion and independent thought further supported by the existence of sentient androids like Billy, Qingyi, and Elfy. And yet in an instant their consumed and turned into an amalgamation of machinery an corruption. This is a much more brutal display than for example Teppei who died offscreen or even Signora despite her having a much larger role in the plot.
Oh yeah! I should've included that in this video! And Grace did later say that they were scrapped for parts. This could've happened to Billy and Qingyi too. Their robotic parts are more vulnerable than humans against that monster. We haven't seen a human instantly turn into Ethereal yet. That's also quite disturbing.
@@FeyHunt I think the reason why is that the boss is a special case and that the robots have already been going through corruption for a while now, and have been exposed to ether for a while already. And we haven't seen the heavy hitters affect our story yet. Considering that the rest of the world (even the moon) should have much bigger hollows we really haven't seen the heavy hitters like Nineveh in action, and she's relatively weak compared to the rest of the world's hollows which should be much bigger than her and therefore have much more powerful ethereals. Hell I think we haren't seen the extremes of what's possible for ethereals. A super powerful ethereal as smart as a human (herrscher from GGZ/HI3) or even a god-like ethereal that's hell-bent on destroying humanity (Will of the Honkai from GGZ) could be possible. tbf ZZZ borrows a lot of concepts from the rest of their franchises (yes they've done evil entity on the moon before) and I think we'll see familiar concepts return in ZZZ. The main difference is that we're not playing as the 'MCs' with the BS powers that will allow us to save the world.
All these comments and not a single one refers to Rina's companion quest where we end up following a case of long term consequences of diving into a hollow, not to mention the horror of having some place close to your heart suddenly trapped in an apocalypse zone.
Haha, I've just finished Rina's Agent story last night. If I had played it before, I would have include it into this video. We did get a glimpse of a random Hollow appearing out of nowhere with Belle getting trapped in the Hollow as mentioned in the video. I have some doubts if our playable characters will suffer the same fate, since their Ether aptitude is pretty high. That old lady was unlucky that she has low aptitude to be affected so badly while only spend several hours to rescue the babies (presumably). The babies themselves seem to okay from the way Rina said that they have grown into fine adults. But then again, we don't know if there's something accumulating inside their bodies with every visit to the Hollow.
@@FeyHunt I have a theory about that. Do you know the stalagmites of ether corruption you see on background and some rally mission. I think the air is filled with tiny ether particle which overtime accumulate into your body and from the guy from ch 1 who turn into a hollow, the ether particle can also stick and form things from your outer body as well. And also another theory, is that the ether particle that went into your body would primarily target your brain. You see, some people with high ether aptitude probably have something in they're body that allow them to block or slow down significantly ether particle from reaching the brain which is why they are fine when coming out and back because the ether particle doesn't target your organs or muscles. And this is also solidified by the fact that the ch 1 transforming guy have a black hole (?) forming from inside his head and that's also the reason all ethereal have black holes as they're head and the reason why the grandma from Rina story quest got dementia, because the ether particle that finally got to your brain would first erase what makes you, you.
@@imgood3374 That's a good theory! Kinda similar to Arknights Oripathy, where it's the Originium Dust that got you. It also makes sense that it targets the brain. From a line in this latest event, we already know that only "sentient" beings can turn into Ethereal, like humans and advanced AI. So it makes sense that the Ether will target the brain first. That's why we can have corrupted machines like in Grace's agent story where its processor got corrupted long before the body showed any sign of corruption. I think I will present this theory in a video later on!
I went in this game with no expectation and the story and lore experience absolutely blew me away, I have not played any other gacha game that came even close to having story and dialogues that are this to the point and consistently entertaining throughout, with such interesting and digestible world building. And then I go on the Internet and to my absolute (non)surprise a lot of people think the story is boring. We've come to a situation where regardless of writing quality as long as a game has extended story segments people are gonna cry about it. And while for something like Genshin, these people could mask their disdain towards experiencing story and worldbuilding behind actual criticism, in this case they are all exposed.
Yeah, it also kinda rubbed me the wrong way too. And then there are those who would say Genshin's story quests are amazingly written. Like, seriously! What the heck! I'm all for being a fan, but you have to recognize the shortcomings of your favorite things. Otherwise, it's just unreasonable devotion, like a cult.
I'm really glad someone brings out how great worldbuilding is in ZZZ compared to other gacha games. I really feel like other games always take scenaristic shortcuts (such as amnesia) to have the whole cast explain the whole world to the protagonist. The world of ZZZ lives on its own, and we, as the protagonist, are part of it like every other characters in the game. I heard many people criticizing the story in ZZZ but i actually feel like it might be one of the best written games from Hoyoverse
You got it! It is the best thought-out story in all of Hoyo's lineup. My favorite storytelling so far is reading the Inter-Knot. It's like you're learning by reading instagram or Tumblr posts. I think that's far better than the in-game wikipage in Honkai Star Rail. It also makes sense for Belle and Wise to read on it on their phone. They would just scroll past it or correct the mistakes, while we can learn so much about their world.
@@FeyHunt yeah the game is making you discover the world through media (inter-knot/TV/written press and even movies) and while wise and belle would likely know most of the information that they give, we as the player get to discover something new. This is such a clever way to introduce the world. I'm really eager to see what they're cooking for future updates because so far I just love this universe.
You missed the other Horror element of the hollows. In Rina's sidestory, we got to see the nurse/beauty queen and the Hollow's effect on her. Even though she didn't turn into a monster her mind is ripped from her over time, she became demented. So now there is ANOTHER element of horror to the Hollows. Even if you don't turn into the monster, there is the slow ticking clock of whether or not you will lose your mind.
Well, I've only just finished Rina's Agent Story last night. But yes, I would've added it into this video as a side note if I can. So it seems that the Ethereal transformation scene is rare. Most people just got very sick from the Hollow, to the point where they died being attacked by the Ethereal or spent the rest of their life bedridden. It's actually crazy. That old lady spent probably several hours tops, but because she got low Ether aptitude, it's like she's walking into Chernobyl as a cleanup crew. Horrifying.
Now, if they want to push this point into the main story, I bet it'll do even better. Let's put this risk on Belle or Wise, or if we'll have a Firefly-like or Dunyarzad-like character in the future. My biggest concern is that they will try to ease up the horror in the Hollows and make it like it's something you don't have to fear anymore. That's what happened to a lot of things on ANY stories. Something starts up horrifying, but then it becomes less and less scary. Until in the end, it becomes the butt of a joke.
there's also the young girl who had terminal ether disease, who needed a suit just to get out of her room. It was one of the zzz trailers for Nicole. Given that children tend to explore these places without their parents or guardians knowing, or even end up in there by accident just raises the concern.
@@batperson3532 Haha, we still never got the explanation on why does ghost exist in this world, didn't we? What did those dolls do, and the ghosts in the HDD screen, or the twins? Is it an anomaly in the Hollows? We'll never know... 😂😂
@@FeyHunt Mihoyo dont to spoonfeeding the lore. Lore is most of the time told from the perspective of a narrator which is heavily biased and open to interpretation. Ballet twins "died" on an elevator "accident". or were they "sacrificed"?
@@batperson3532 No, my point was not to ask Hoyo to spoonfeed us the lore. Hoyo has a tendency to leave many unresolved plots hanging for far too long and I hate that. That's the puzzle box writing. For example in Genshin's "The sky is a lie". Also yes, ZZZ doesn't spoonfed us, but Hoyo certainly does. Take a look at Genshin and any Honkai games. They are notorious for this problem.
I totally agree! It's actually impressive what Hoyo can achieve if they just put more attention on the story as well as they do on their artists. Let's hope they keep improving the story!
That was an incredible analysis!! When I did come across these "horror" scenes, something kept making me feel uneasy and on edge which never really happened for me in other games even if they had a messed up backstory or villain or theme. The writing team at zzz is truly killing it
Thanks for your kind words! And that's why I find this game worth delving deep into in these video essays. I'll be sure to make more if you're interested about more analysis videos!
@@FeyHunt oh yeah definitely! You have all of my attention with these video essays and analysis videos on zenless! Zenless is definitely one of my favourite gacha games out there rn and there aren't many people making high quality videos on it, I hope to see more!!
This might be off topic but I just completed a quest that revolved around a bangboo and his ‘best buddy’ the bangboo trusts his buddy with his life since, according to his friend, they’re practically brothers. But later, you figure out that all you knew before was a lie and that the bangboo was only a sort of spy tool for the man. It showed a the oblivious bangboo being experimented on, begging his friend for help as he continued to say it was ‘for the greater good’ or something. That scene alone was so hard to watch, and I most definitely didn’t expect it in a game like zzz. I’ve seen people who are villains and experiment on other beings in games before, but never had it shown in such a way. That quest alone just shows zzz isn’t scared to bring darker topics into their game, nor are they scared to show the effects of them.
@@Faelollz Yeah, ZZZ definitely has some darker aspects beyond what I explained in this video. People have been saying that there are recordings in Hollow Zero that are just disturbing. And now this too. What's the name of the quest?
@@FeyHunt something about being a detective.. I forgot the full name. The quest is in Lumina Square close to mewmew between a man named Rost and a Bangboo named North!
took me a few of main chapters in genshin to realized that hilichurl used to be humans...meanwhile zzz just showed from the start what hollows originated from
Yeah. That Memories of Inteyvat chapter is just really weird. So you just revealed that Hilichurls used to be humans. Okay... so what? The game doesn't shame you for killing more hilichurls. If the game itself doesn't feel that is a big deal, then I don't see how I should take it seriously.
@@FeyHunt To be frank, you had good points in the video but this is bad take. Hilichurls aren't the same as Ethereals, sure on the surface they are alot alike but the horror aspect your focusing on doesn't apply to both of them. Ethereals are horrifying because they are an ever present danger in multiple ways. While Hilichurls are decidedly just plain tragic monsters, sure their is a horror angle to their existence and origins but what we see of Hilichurls now is just pitiful husks who have lost any trace of their former humanity. There isn't meant to be any shame for killing them because there is nothing human of them left.
@@PaulonTheBrave You're missing the point. In the previous comment, I was criticizing what the story did with this fact, not the horror aspect of it. Dainsleif didn't give us anything on what we should do with his former brethren. Genshin gave us the fact that Hilichurls used to be humans... and did nothing about it beyond that chapter. They can do so much more with this idea. Should we gather them into a protected sanctuary so that they can live peacefully? Or should we kill every single one of them to end their suffering? They seem content to just let them be. I'd say they used to be humans is a huge deal. You wouldn't treat humans with mental disabilities as less human, just because they don't act like humans. And the fact is, they still do act like a human, with longing or shame on their face, and hide it behind the mask. So should we help teach them how to be human again? Perhaps Ella Musk would help them find themselves again. Perhaps you can create a story about sapient Hilichurls who still remember what they were. Or you can take ZZZ's approach with Ethereal, by making this Hilichurl a curse that will befall anyone. Create a story where someone who found forbidden knowledge suddenly gets turned into a Hilichurl. Dainsleif himself doesn't even seem to care that much. Is he angry about whoever cursed them? Does he see their fate as a right punishment? If the story doesn't do anything about it, then the impact of this revelation is null. It might as well never be told and nothing will change.
@FeyHunt I don't really care for your point. If you're going to disregard a key piece of lore because it isn't crazily elaborated upon, then why bother listening to you on anything else.
@@FeyHunt I feel like people seemed to misunderstand the whole Hilichurl debacle. Hilichurl being former humans isn't that big of a deal because death is probably the best thing you can do for them. They are husks of their former selves that are slowly decaying unable to die due to the curse. And they did show people trying to release the curse in the interlude chapter in the Chasm, and it is literally causing them more pain instead of helping them; they are trapped with no way of escaping their undying fates. Plus, no one knows about their tragic fates other than Dainsleif, the Travellers, and probably Venti and Zhongli; so no one is going to view them other than some other race that are hostile to them.
I remember the first time I played the game, I was mesmerized by how cozy(?) the environments in New Eridu were. Compared to Genshin and Star Rail, where the mc is either unaware or amnesiac and has to explore unknown lands and worlds (which is the intention as the appeal of both games latch onto your curiosity about these new worlds and the stories behind them), as unfriendly as the world outside New Eridu is, the city itself feels full of life, and nearly everyone in Sixth Street knows you. I think it's a good contrast to the fear of Hollows, its nature and the consequences of staying in one too long, as well as whatever tf is going on with the rebels and the mystery of the Sacrifice.
That's a great way to put it! The cozy and welcoming nature of New Eridu works well within the scope of the storytelling too. It gives you an actual reason to protect this city from the Hollows because you love the city and the people here. I have a video coming up about how New Eridu feels so good to explore.
@@FeyHuntAnother aspect of the game that I feel has so much story potential is how relatively normal(?) the characters feel. You have Zhu Yuan for example, who has lived a normal life, and the potential threat that New Eridu could be under what with the Sacrifice and other conspiracies would probably force many ordinary people like her into complicated situations, especially as an officer. Another example could be the entirety of Belobog Industries because they're pretty much manual laborers, and while the Cunning Hares ARE technically Hollow Raiders, outside of that, I'm pretty sure none of them expected to be involved in the whole Sacrifice conspiracy just from acquiring a strongbox. We literally have Ellen - a member of Victoria Housekeeping (currently the ONLY faction to know of the Sacrifice prior to the main story) - living a normal life as a highschool student! Whatever is going on, I know that a majority of the playable characters are going to being dealing with even bigger fish in the future. All because of a strongbox.
@@freshcorn1431 Yep! This is one of the thing I will bring up in a future video. Everyone and everything is set up brilliantly so the plot drags them in. Now everything and everyone is invested to help Phaethon to solve this issue. There's that continuity with the "because of X, now Y happens". That is a mark of a great writing!
Thats exactly what this game does well, however many people out there think ZZZ has a boring story and yap a lot lol so your last recommendation probably wont have an effect since most gacha players dont really care about the stories of their gacha games or how they tell the stories, just look at the bad feedback the grid system for this game had, despite of being also a very genius way to immerse the player in the story by playing the story while moving eous in those TVs and not only that but within said tvs events happen and you actually play them instead of just getting them told just like other gacha games do.
Hey, thanks for the reply! They said it's boring...? That's hmmm... I think the story is structured well. It's actually the best-written story in recent gacha games. I get that not a lot of exciting moments are happening. It's not like we're saving the world, yet... But wow, calling it boring will be a stretch. If anything I would say the side quests in this game are boring as frick. It becomes very repetitive and the amount of grind needed to level up a character is just insane. Plus the combat could use some improvements. I didn't know that I have such a different point of view than normal players... I may need to reflect on this...
@@FeyHunt people just enjoy Hero on a Journey MC than a day in life of an MC. I'm fine either way since the latter one really gives a breath of fresh air in storytelling since we usually see the first one a lot
@@DlolFace That's what I've been thinking as well. I think people have the wrong expectation when going into this game. ZZZ is all we've been asking from movies and video games alike. An RPG where we don't fight a god in the end. We're just vibing with bros, having fun goofing around. What I wanna see from ZZZ though, is a stronger character story arc at least at Koleda's level. But now do it for every character in the story.
You can't have a really good story right out of the gate without character building, especially in games that has so many characters. How can you call a story good if you arent even invested in the characters.
@@OokamiKuro39Ch That's right. I think ZZZ managed to build these characters well into people that we care about. My biggest criticism about Genshin and WuWa is the fact that they spent hours telling stories and yapping, but they haven't built most of their characters into people that we care about. We don't even know them! There is an argument to be made on storytelling efficiency. You can make us care about the characters in a shorter time than Genshin. And that is a sign of good writing.
We don't know that exactly. There's still a chance that she may get hit with dementia, like the old lady from Rina's agent story. I think that lady doesn't realize the impact until decades down the line.
@@TenchiSawada Well... I would agree with you if Miyabi didn't just anime-run her way to slash that Nineveh. That whole scene is less horror and more to showcase how OP she is and the rest of HSOS6. She is not at all afraid when other experienced Hollow investigators just trembles in fear.
What I really loved about that scene is the sense of claustrophobia they created by keeping the camera looking down on the HIA npc and Eous. There are zero moments where we see the sky or anything that might indicate we’re in an open area up until Nineveh shows up. The NPC’s scanner breaks, there are screeches in the background, she’s freaking out, we feel like we’re trapped in a box, and we still have no idea what’s going on. Then the moment we peek out of the box, peek out of a gap between the buildings, Nineveh instantly shows us why going into hollows is a bad idea without doing a single thing. The HIA employee’s reaction tells us everything we need to know. It’s because of this scene establishing how horrifying Nineveh and Hollow Zero are that Miyabi’s fight scene is elevated. She ran right at that monster without even hesitating and wiped the small mobs without breaking a sweat. I loved it so so much. Saying Section 6 is the best doesn’t really tell us anything, but showcasing Miyabi and gang like that tells us everything.
@@sky3fall866 Great breakdown! This is another example of show, don't tell in action. If this is any other gacha game, they will start yapping in the camp about "HSOS6 is the best squad we have!". In ZZZ, nope! You just have to see it for yourself. Then we'll call them the greatest squad. Seeing in believing.
with 1.1 and undercover r&b mission out, i must say, i LOVED how zzz tells the story of the police guys, moving the MC aside and NOT forcing him into a story that he does not take part of, making the story exclusively about the actual police characters (jane, seth, zhu yuan and qingyi) this is something i rarely see, as most games just try to force the MC into every single story/mission they get into trying to make them some kind of problem solving god, but this story really caught my eye because they just take the mc completely out of the story and focuses more on the characters that actually are a part of it, i really liked it!
Yeah! I think that's what we can expect when we have future Special Mission from now on. I think my next 2 videos will cover some aspects of v1.1. For once, we actually have a smart character that is actually smart.
Thank you! It's just so sad that I have to leave Genshin around Sumeru's last desert expansion. I just can't handle it. The storywriting never improved after I've played it for so 2.5 years. And I especially don't like what they're doing with Story Quests, including some in ZZZ as well. Some of them are just a waste of time, and I think I want to discuss that in a future video for later.
@@FeyHuntit's fine if you don't want to go back to the game but I'd say the story improves a lot in Fontaine! The character quests still suck besides a couple tho 😮💨
Simple yet Effective is what zzz story writing is. and it's better than most gacha games out there. this is the reason i stay even tho now is just endless grind waiting for the next version. glad they give nicole for free so at least i can call her everyday. edit : oh, and you can try Sword of Convallaria too. it has a great story writing.
Indeed! That's why I always wonder why Hoyo insists on NOT INVESTING in great writers in Genshin. Stories alone can make a gacha game last forever and you can make the players pull for characters if you establish their characterization well.
Honestly, the demos of ZZZ drew me in to the characters and made me so invested in them already, so I'm enjoying the story very much :D I love the characters so much I want a ZZZ anime!! I need to see more of them
Heck yeah! Honestly, ZZZ is just the best Hoyo game to get an anime adaptation. It's already using a Saturday Morning Cartoon formula for its chapters. I don't want Genshin anime, I may want Star Rail anime (minus the yapping). But ZZZ? Sign me up, dude!
I’ve never liked Nor played any gacha games before in my life before but ZZZ presentation and characters manages to capture that sort of grounded aspect of new eridu and had me engaged with the larger plot for the future.
there was that one mission at an inter-knot 40+ where you need to save someone from getting killed. What I never expected was that there's a catch: one or few deviations will get him, her, or both of them killed. TV screens minimize the gore, but knowing that someone just got ganged up and killed in front of you, because you took a wrong turn or grabbed some gear coins, made me question what I did wrong. Luckily you can repeat. But if they made it permanent, it would've haunted players for it.
if I recall correctly, it is called Bangboo Limbo You encounter it by talking to an HIA personnel near the helmet guy in Lumina Square (closest to Parking Lot). Talk to her, she'll ask you to do something for her, talk to her colleague who will go without her, and talk back to the personnel, and you get a commission.
Its really a damn shame how the boring story of recent gacha games can catapult on other gachas even though it can be good. I actaully felt suprised zzz has a good and charming story even though everyone says it was mid, unskipabble and so on so forth. Funnily enough zzz has the best and unique world building, along with coherent plot better than Genshin,Hsr,Wuwa and other big gachas. ZZZ is now the third best gacha story for me behind Guardian tales (second) And Limbus Company
Hey, thanks for sharing your thoughts! Yeah, I'm very surprised at how cohesive the story is. Everything is a series of set up and payoffs, and it does work well to build up a sense of mystery and conspiracy in this post-apocalyptic world. That's why I want to make this video, to highlight just how good their storywriting is. It's not an exciting story, but it's competently written. We're not trying to fight god and save the world, we're just vibing with frends. I keep hearing praises about Limbus Company being the best-written gacha game. But the artstyle is a bit too disturbing for my taste. But is it really that good?
@@FeyHunt Yes its absolutely is! Limbus company has the best story because how good the character writing is. theres so many reason why the story is so damn good and why people enjoy it so much. but i think the game is best experienced blind. The artstyle is disturbing because limbus don't hold your hand easily, people left or right died in the game. and the brutality of it makes you feel the impact. Its the best gacha game by a long shot because even the side characters have genuine personalitys. their design is crazy good too. (the monster/abnormalities is an absolute horror) The worldbuilding on limbus tops all other gachas because its been built brick by brick by their previous (non gacha game) Lobotomy corporation, and library of ruina. theres a reason why it has a cult like following. it breaks all the mold of being a standard gacha game, it doesn't even feel like a gacha styled writing. thats how good it is. I'd say if you want to give it a go play it until Chapter 4 / Canto 4 not disregarding all the previous chapter but chapter 4 is so good because it completes one of the character arcs.
@@leifmochi5082 That's the highest praise I've ever heard for a gacha game. I will check it out as soon as I can. It's now on my top list of next gacha games to try.
I enjoy this time for this Main storyline that the Main Antagonist is not out in the open and presented straight away. There is a Mystery around the Main Antagonist and the only reason they are slowly being exposed now is due to unforeseen circumstances that lead Wise and Belle to get themselves involved starting with the AI Fairy. SPOILER below warning so do not progress farther since I'll be explaining how everything is connected. It is made clear that Fairy was intended to go to someone else but due to the events of her being stolen, it resulted in her accidently becoming part of Wise and Belle's life instead of going to the person she was originally intended for. The second event that lead Wise and Belle to becoming involved in this kind of secret war against this unknown Antagonist is the events in Chapter 1. What looked like a act of a corporation being greedy and evil was nothing more than a cover up for this organization to destroy the only evidence of their existence being the Sacrifice. It was only after Chapter 2 when the guy being manipulated realized he was manipulated which lead to events of Chapter 3. Chapter 2 is when we learn the connection to the Fall of Old Eridu and a possible origins of Hollows involving this Secret Organization though discovering the fate of Koleda's father and discovering this Sacrifice. Chapter 3 is when we learn that there are people fighting against this secret organization and this is not a recent event. This secret war has been going on far longer through espionage, manipulation, contracts, and etc. This is not a war being publicly known and seen, this is a war that happens in the shadows of New Eridu while the majority of people living ordinary lives remain unaware of this war. It is only by unforseen circumstances why Wise and Belle got involved in it.
I totally agree! That's the beauty of ZZZ's writing. Everything is a series of set up and payoffs to build up a bigger mystery around the true conspiracy. The lore starts to hit me around when I'm playing Soldier 11's Agent Story. Why are there rebels if New Eridu is so peaceful and great? What are they fighting against? And you also leave out the greatest part of them all. All of the factions now has their own motivations to help Belle and Wise. Koleda and Belobog wants to know what was Khors doing. Cunning Hares have beef against Perlman. Victoria has been looking at this longer than us, and now our interest aligns with them. It's so good! 😄😄
I'm curious about the lore you mentioned here. I'll appreciate if you can provide me some clarifications. When did we learn in Chapter 3 where this shadow war has been going on for long? I get that the Victoria Housekeeping is probably hired to fight this, and that they are involved with the fall of Old Eridu. I got the impression that you are saying it's something far before Old Eridu fell. I'm still digging through the side stories right now 😄😄
@@FeyHunt Belle and Wise always mention a Mission and their Teacher through the storyline. We know currently little about what that mission is and who is their teacher but it always comes up when the Sacrifice is involved and the thing their teacher been looking into has been something he was already involved in before he took in Belle and Wise after the Fall of Eridu. So far we do not know what it is but we know it involves the Hollow for some reason.
@@orrthehunter Yeah, I noticed that. So I guess the conspiracy begins around the fall of Old Eridu. Maybe the fall itself is an experiment gone wrong, where these people want to harness the Hollow's power.
as a C&C player ZZZ story is kinda right up my alley dissaster struck human have to adapt new mineral appear as deadly as it is useful 2 side of human lock at war goverment with shady side and terrorist with a nugget of truth
C&C as in Command and Conquer? Yeah, that sounds about right. I was thinking more along their Honkai series before Star Rail, with multiple factions, world-ending threats, and such. If you expect big events to happen, I'm afraid you will have to wait for a while. ZZZ is still a slice-of-life at heart, and big events tend to disturb the slice-of-life monotony.
One thing I love about the "show, don't tell" is how it helps to see and feel the recordings lost in Hollow Zero. Without the context of the threat these would feel odd and/or bland. Another reason I love the TV system is that it makes our brains to unconsciously develop the world building that the game can't show right now.
That's one of the big advantage of written media (novels) over graphic (movies and games). Your imagination can go wild at different places, if you decided to spend time reading it. That's sometimes a huge ask these days 😂
0:55 the way ZZZ handled their worldbuilding is certainly better than _certain_ other gachas, who tell you that they have an expansive world only to make you stuck in a war zone for 8 chapters.....
Haha, I assume you're talking about Arknights? Or is it other open world gacha game? 8 chapters is just way too long for any gacha game, full stop. Wrap the plot and tell a new story, please!
@@lancergt1000 I have to give them props for at least archiving the events for future players. Genshin didn't have that, which makes some things very weird at times. Like, if you don't know that Mona and Fischl met in an event back in v1.1, you wouldn't know why they suddenly decided to hang out together.
@@FeyHunt bc AK events are way more in Genshin every region is covered by the main story, so everyone will eventually experience it in Arknights their main story _loves_ to stay in a single wartorn region for literal years (it took AK 1.5 years to finish the Ursus arc, and 2 years to "finish" Victoria arc), so the only way to see every other region is from events
@@lancergt1000 I wonder why they chose to do that though... A version of Arknights in my head where you are deployed to different crisis in the whole world is way more interesting to me than what we have right now.
this is what makes me choose whether to play a gacha games. I play reverse 99 and they have really good storytelling, how deadly a storm can be, and the syndrome pre storm that can happen, so hours before storm is always tense.
I guess I'm glad ZZZ was my first gacha game then. That scene was a perfect way to world-build in general for all the reasons in this video but showing the player what happens first also kind of calibrates their expectations - and gives them something to hunt for in the story later. "Why the hell did that guy turn into that thing?!" In general, that sort of 'consequences, then explanation' method pulls in the person experiencing the narrative. If you do it too hard you run the risk of overloading your reader/player with too many unanswered questions but that's just a problem of good pacing.
@@crassirus Welcome to the gacha game world! Yes, you got the just right. Every narration is always a balancing act. Too much exposition, your players get bored. Too little, they won't understand what just happened. Writing a story is not easy, but by pointing what works and what doesn't, we can help the writers improve their writing by giving our feedback. On the sidenote, I feel kinda bad if you ever want to try other gacha games. They will fall short out of ZZZ's writing standard 😄😄
You make a great point here, and i think EVEN zzz can push the show don't tell more. But its still a big improvement on other games. also with the immersive storytelling being a comic book, the tv mode sometimes displaying story, they have multiple different ways of conveying the story and its new and fresh.
@@laams_ Oh yes, ZZZ CAN and SHOULD push show, don't tell even more. They still rely on white text on black screen to explain a lot of activities, which is kinda lame. Especially in a lot of Trust Events.
Yeah... It does remind me of the Chernobyl cleanup crew. Each of them are given like 2 minutes before the radiation gets deadly. But I have some doubts if our playable characters will suffer the same fate, since their Ether aptitude is pretty high. That old lady was unlucky. She has low aptitude and was affected so badly while only spending several hours to rescue the babies (presumably). The babies themselves seem to be okay from the way Rina said that they have grown into fine adults. But then again, we don't know if there's something accumulating inside their bodies with every visit to the Hollow.
@@FeyHunt Rina said regardless of the ether aptitude they will all develop it... .-. The babies right now are fine adults but they will still have it once they're older...
I also really love what they did with the TV system in Chapter 3 as a kind of brooding horror feeling. They managed to emulate dark hallways with supernatural beasts that can kill you at any moment. While it wasn't outright scary, it certainly set the mood. It honestly reminded me of a super old game I played when I was a kid "Pathways into Darkness" which was an FPS where you could only see a few meters in front of you and you could stumble upon a monster at any moment keeping you on your toes and the hairs on your neck firmly standing up.
Yeah! It does set a "haunted house" mood since the Ballet Twins are said to be haunted. I'm still not sure how does ghost fit into the lore of this game. Are they Ethereals? If so, how did they just turn off the lights?
Yeah! That's the big part of why the horror works. Granted, I would like it if they lean more into that danger beyond the gameplay mechanic. Maybe we'll have those "noble sacrifice" scene where a character push another out of the Hollows and let themselves get corrupted.
Path to Nowhere... Is this the gacha game that is similar to Arknights' tower defense? If so, that is right down my alley. I'll be adding that to my list.
@@FeyHunt It's a gacha game. Played it too but stopped because it's time consuming since I'm playing GI and HSR already. It's a really good game. It's a visual novel with tower defense mechanics,
I think it's also thanks to the comic book segment that they are able to show more things, it costs less money than fully animate scenes, I really like the narrative of zzz
Haha, I was close to do it on some of the agent stories... Main Story is great, but character quest, not so much. Perhaps I should make a video about it one day.
finally CC that crediting storytelling in ZZZ is Jenius. While opinions on a story's quality can be subjective and influenced by genre preference, good storytelling can elevate even a simple narrative into something extraordinary. You earned my subscribe
Thank you, good sir! I think you will appreciate my next video where I break down even deeper why the story is set up perfectly in this game. I have a feeling that most gacha game players are just not used to the actual markers of good-quality storytelling. They are tuning their standards to some weird stuff...
@@muhammadrafif6160 Oh yeah, there will also be other games as well, but I think I'm going to farm ZZZ's story first since there's a lot to talk about. 1 hour into v1.1 Main Story and I already have 2 video ideas... In the future, I think I want to talk about Wuthering Waves and Arknights again, and maybe some other gacha games that I haven't tried yet.
Zenless seems to understand pacing far better than the other Gachas I am playing. PGR, Genshin, and Wuwa all take too long to make simple points. Zenless has a few ways to tell stories and this keeps it fresh and well paced.
This! It all comes down to the story being so focused on key objectives. You don't have many weird side quests in this game. Any yapping is eliminated from the story and put into your phone instead. I think I will need to explain this better on the next video!
kinda would have loved that there would actually be a timer every single time you are in the hollow… as the player you are not really in any danger of losing or losing any characters, it is only in story.
@@kuromiLayfe That would effectively turn ZZZ into an extraction shooter, would it? Like Escape from Tarkov? It would be a nice concept, not gonna lie.
What CN writer does not understood apparently is that everything as to be poetic, everything has to be complex as hell, nobody shall defeat you, and apparently it does not work everyone! Surprise surprise giving a 10 min lore dump with weird ass jargon and slogan made me sleep no matter how novel it is! And having the npc cast or even main cast licking my boots does not work too! Why would I help or have sympathy if none of the setting show urgency? WHY YOU GIVE ME MANGOOSTEEN??!?!?!?!
comic style is very nice. you can tell a story without the need to make a 3d model like in a cutscene. but comic style is not easy to do since the art has to be consistent with the ingame model of characters.
Oh, I'm pretty sure Hoyo is not running out of artists at any point in the future. They could just hire more and more people. So keep em coming, Hoyo! I want more comics!
why not both? i play because of nicole, but the story writing is just chef's kiss. still played for nicole tho. i mean i completed all the story already and it left me with endless visit to HIA or outpost.. 😢 nicole made my day.
I def agree with you~ I only have Genshin as a comparison since I'm not a hardcore player but recently I noticed that they have been improving/trying out things in their storytelling. Example is the scene with making kites during this years lantern rite, they showed a picture instead of just yapping about it, also noticed that in the bedtime story, during the twins scene. I hope they can incorporate the manga/comic style aesthetic but I'm unsure if it will totally fit. We'll just have to wait and see.
@@DemiCreation-c2f I really wish Genshin the best, but I feel bad for the new players. They will have to suffer through a lot of mediocre or bad storytelling until they get to the good part. I think they should try to rework earlier stories to make new player experience smoother.
That Ether transformation scene is even more brutal in the CBT, you can see White Fang's lower jaw pop off as he turn. They had to tune it down for mainland lol
I would love to play r1999! It's been a while since I played any card games. I used to play it like crazy. Plus, r1999 kinda touch on my favorite tropes: Victorian settings and time manipulation.
One gatcha game with good “horror” writing is Nikke, surprisingly enough. You start off learning how Raptures, (the in game enemy) have the ability to corrupt nikke’s and make them into their puppets. Then within the first chapter, you have to shoot and kill one of the nikke’s on your team after they get corrupted. Later you learn you can “save” a Nikke by wiping their memory, but in a way you are still killing the person they were. We also see the memory wipe happen to another Nikke travelling with us. These things stay as a constant aspect of the story and drives the player character to try and find a cure to stop nikke’s from being corrupted.
Nikke has been on my radar for a while because of its high concept worldbuilding. It's the classic question of "what is a human?" in robots setting. I don't care about their gooners energy from their new Nikke, if the story can be as good. Though, I have to admit, I've already been spoiled a bit about M's death and resurrection.
One gamr that so horror really well is Reverse 1999. While a lot of it does play out like a visual novel, they take many points to showcase the threat of the storm, the threat of Manus, and so on. We experience what happens to people affected by the storm syndrome and what the storm does to people when it hits. We witness what happens to people who put on the Manus masks, as well as their plans, helping create a sense of why they should be threatening. It also uses the Visual Novel aspects to showcase disturbing or triggering subject matter without having to show it. The game features suicide in it, as well as other disturbing imagery, but it's told, not shown. I see this as a positive, since these matters can be tasteless to be shown. It also helps push back the chinese sensors, so that's nice
@@divineshrek3307 Yep! A week ago, I am still giving the benefit of the doubt that people haven't made the connection. But I think I've been radicalized to think that these people just don't read the story at all.
I don't know if you've played it but a game that does this in a great way is Path to Nowhere, most of the terminology used is explained through context by showing us exactly why mania is terrifying
@@ladypmr7 I have actually installed Path to Nowhere in my emulator. I haven't got a chance to try it though. I'm very interested with its gameplay, since I do play Arknights. They seem to share the same concept, but different executions. Can't wait to delve into that world!
Limbus Company is another Gacha that makes impeccable use of horror (though, it is a psych’ horror game). In one of the story chapters, you come across a group that is adamantly against prosthetics, eliminating people who use them for whatever reason. Instead of telling you about them, the game spends the opening moments having one of your teammates having full on panic attacks due to your proximity to their operating area. Then, when you eventually find them, the first thing you see is the carnage they wreak on whatever area they find. (Honestly, Limbus just has *INCREDIBLE* writing throughout.)
I think one of the horror moments I remember in Star Rail, was when we encounter “Something Unto Death”. The fact that the level itself is already creepy because we’re in a dream, and interacting with some items tells the player that “something is watching you from shadows…” or “avoid touching it for the sake of your mental health” pretty much tells the player that despite your encounter with powerful entities and people, there are things out there in the unknown and the void, that is beyond our comprehension and is better off left alone; And with what “Something Unto Death” is capable of doing: reaping our character’s soul in battle, that part of Penacony creeped and if I don’t have any chests to look for or do; I practically stay out of that level. That’s the horror element in Star Rail, for me.
@@genoveus Thanks for sharing your experience! I wish I could've gotten to Penacony immediately. HSR story is... fine. But I really don't enjoy the gameplay. I'm still stuck in Belobog.
Visiting Scott Outpost left a big impression on me. There are not many instances where you can see a hollow from the outside, but the view from there is terrifying.
Yeah, this too. I kinda wish they made Scott Outpost layout to have a long walkway so we can walk for like a minute from end to end to showcase just how big this Hollow is. We never actually see the Hollow up close from the HDD. It's terrifying.
the way they showed hollow zero is genius. having multiple hollows that you can actually see from the outside (i.e. the construction site hollow and the ballet twins hollow) shows what they look like, but having you see hollow zero from the outside makes the sizes of the other hollows pale in comparison, and it just shows how malevolent it is
@@inhalerisinsane Good point! Yes, the scale and power level is just outright scary. I kinda wish they put Hollow Zero introduction after Ballet Twins, not the other way around. Ballet Twin is the first time we see the scale of a regular Hollow.
@@FeyHunt and the fact that you can see floating rocks around hollow zero while there are nothing floating around the other hollows makes it feel like hollow zero is actually pulling in everything rather than just consuming what it can touch
@@inhalerisinsane Do we have a confirmation about that? I know Hollows look like a blackhole, but is it actually sucking things in? I thought that those floating rocks were just affected by Ether energy, which is basically space magic and such.
ZZZ is different from all those other open-world gacha games so far. ZZZ shows, you don't need an elaborate open world for a player to have fun in it. It reminds me of "Megaman Battle Network", where you could explore the overworld in peace, but you can switch to the "deeper" level anytime, if you want to fight. The fact, you are actually controlling characters in a danger zone adds a bit of urgency to every mission. Combine this with certain story events, tension is built on top, even further elevating that urgency. I think, we may see a few more "closed world" gachas, ZZZ and Snowbreak are two of those already.
The term you're looking for is "small open world". This is already a trend with regular AAA games back in the late 2010s with open-world fatigue. I have a video coming up discussing this.
From whatcI gathered, New Eridu is the last civilization on Earth, everything else was swallowed up by a massive Hallow slowly devouring the planet, we can see even the Moon is nearly swallowed up by a hallow, honestly pretty terrifying stuff. But yeah the people have accepted this and are trying to live a normal life as much as they came
It's actually genius that they are making a chill game on a FREAKING POST-APOCALYPSE! There's a tonal irony in there, but it's actually realistic. My only concern will be if they started to ramp up the story into "saving the world" type of story. Then we'll have a bigger tonal dissonance.
Fun fact (that I'm sure is well known) the corruption scene was censored for the full release. The core originslly had blood and bones and teeth swirling around it to show his body literally desolving into the core. So the body horror lean was even stronger. It makes you wonder how much was cut before it made it into the game.
Even if I don't like a specific part of the story, not having all the exposition yap yap yapping is amazing. I hate Genshin quests, because no matter how good the payoff is, it doesn't make up for the hours of --> characters yap exposition at me, walk (don't run! stamina is a thing) to another character so they can yap exposition at me, rinse, repeat. Add to that the excellent "cut to comic book" scenes replacing a bunch of the "gently undulating torso dialogue" scenes and I'm pretty happy with it. The other games should take note.
Yes! I think having characters awkwardly standing around to wait for their turn to speak should really go out of style. It's clear that gacha game companies are not willing to animate every conversation, so just stick to VN/comic strip then. Show us something!
Hoyo have always been pretty good at horror inspired moments, like HI3 as a whole is pretty dark but not so much "horror". Then you get the Herrcher Of Rimestar and Ana's mind still being in there trying soooooo hard to not become a monster only to fail, or Herrcher Of Dominion being able to obtain it's hosts by preying on the mentally weak and often implied suicidal members of society. even much earlier in the story (like year 1) You have Sakura Samsara which is eventually revealed to be a time loop situation of Yae Sakura reliving the worst section of her life over and over and over again for over 500 years of constantly failing to change the outcome in a positive way (an idea which was later reused as the foundation of the "day you vanished with the starts" event story). like sure anyone can write a story where countless people are killed by monsters and we have to kill monsters but stories where they DON'T ALLOW characters to die? Good examples of those are much rarer/rarely done well.
@@dracotias Yeah... I wouldn't call those HI3 moments as horror, but it is quite disturbing. More important part for HI3 is that they do use these moments as a way to tell a story about its characters. You can easily lose sight on what actually matters when writing these high-concept scenes. Now that being said, some of these stories are quite unsatisfying in terms of its conclusion. The Day You Vanished with the Star has a great concept, but the ending is just "leave". Yes, the timeloop does proof that the Captain cares a lot about Kongming and that there's no timeline where Kongming live, but that's basically just avoiding the concept altogether. I still prefer Sakura Samsara when it comes to the timeloop execution. It's more like Groundhog Day or Edge of Tomorrow. Maybe I should make a video about this later. Both of those are great stories on their own right.
I think my favorite part about zzz is the fact that the main character is already part of the world from begining. what i mean by that is the mc isnt detached from reality because theyre been in a coma, got amnesia, got created recently (like the mc in hsr and wuwa) etc. these trope are such a copout for lazy worldbuilding because then everything is gonna get explained through exposition and the mc asking everything they don't know, it is the very antithesis of show dont tell.
Hmmmm, I understand that we're all tired of the self-insert/amnesiac MC in the gacha game market, but I don't think it's quite fair to paint the trope itself as a mark of lazy writing. It can be done well, but it's just so difficult to pull it off. Truth is, these gacha game writers never had a chance to do it, because they only use the trope as a convenience to explain the world itself. It's a leftover from the less-good anime trope. To pull off an amnesiac protagonist well, you must have a good payoff to explain what is hidden in their past. In most of these gacha and anime, they didn't. So in summary, blame the writers who can't pull it off well. Not the trope itself. In my opinion, if you can't pull it off, just choose another trope, like ZZZ.
I like the part when you mentioned that hollow can appear anywhere. *spoilers* Like in Koledas agent story a small hollow appeared next to a school, and as you progress through the story the hollow suddenly grew in size because of certain incidents inside the hollow. Hollows unpredicatability makes them a threat to everyday lives and that's what makes them terrifying.
I did play Koleda's Agent Story. I think I may have subconsciously choose "sister to school" example in this video from that Agent Story. Again, it's just another reminder that you are never safe. Those kids better have strong Ether aptitude. Otherwise, they will end up like the granny on Rina's Agent Story. Though, I have to wonder why the Hollow expansion rule is inconsistent. So in the main story, we are told that killing the Dead End Butcher may shrink the Hollow. But now in Koleda's story killing them may destabilize the Hollow and expand it?
It's not because the Hollow suddenly appear near school, it's the fact that the fricking principal just let it grew without reporting to officials just for the sake of his selfish desire. He and that guy named Rost (who killed his own Bangboo partner) are straight psychopath.
@@nox1462 Yeah, that's what Koleda said. I wonder how does that work? Supposedly, if you take something out of a place, the overall energy/mass should go down, right? How does it expand instead? The only thing on my mind is that the Hollow is similar to how a star works. Its own energy mass creates a collapsing force that keeps it from expanding. When the fuel is expended, then that collapsing force no longer exists, hence the expansion of the Hollow. But if this is true, then the Hollow can never be gone. But then destroying the Ethereal inside the Hollow will cause it to shrink... so does that mean you can ONLY shrink the Hollow by killing as much Ethereal as possible? Where does that energy go to? Eh, kinda weird...
First of all, great video! I’m so glad that someone talks about this. Unfortunately a lot of people complain about the story, saying that there is too much 'yapping'. I literally did not understand what those people were talking about because there is so much LESS unnecessary dialogue than in other gacha games (especially HSR). I hope that the writers don’t listen too much to this unfounded negative feedback and keep doing their thing. They already cut out a lot of TV segments in 1.1 in favor of more combat, which worries me. The lore teaser they put out not too long ago looks very promising though.
@@cawashka Yeah, me too! I don't know what they're talking about. It's already so much better than ANY gacha game. It's almost pure story here! They really made the worldbuilding as simple as possible. I wish they have the guts to say "This is what we intended to design the game. Good day".
I'll admit I'm not playing ZZZ for it's story, but that is indeed a fine talking point about it, and it gets the ball rolling very well. And the fact that Hollows are a massive threat for normies persists as a constant narrative element throughtout the whole story so far. Unfortunately, as the plot progresses, I cannot say that the full story is that excellent at this point. It's a strong start, but they didn't quite stick the landing with it, at least as of the completion of Chapter 3. They more than make up for this with good gameplay and incredibly badass cutscenes and some of the most fleshed out characters I've seen in a long time, so I cut them some slack. Especially on the character end - every single playable character has so much personality that it's something that other gacha's would honestly murder for.
[Spoilers for people that haven't finished the story so far] What do you mean, Sarah is still out there with an unknown partner with a plan to create super ethereals (sacrifices) that can fuse with other beings and machines, and the chief of the police may or may not be that secret partner which is acting as a good guy in front of the public, not to mention the things we learn through agent missions, which are shown in the same casual way as the beginning did (check Koleda's and Rina's agent missions).
Agreed! So far, my favorite chapter is still the first prologue chapter. Chapter 1 with Cunning Hares has chronic case of dumb characters syndrome. Chapter 2 with Belobog is the second best. Chapter 3 is... meh. Aside from the gameplay, I think they should add more character development moments for every character. If they do that, we'll have the winning strategy to get the BEST WRITING that could even rival single player RPGs. I wish they put more effort on polishing the story as much as they put efforts on animations in this game.
Who is this Sarah? Is it the lady that talked to Perlman? I can't speak for the commenter above, but I think they were not talking about the weight of the lore in the later stories. They were criticizing the quality on how you deliver the story. Sure we got a lot of bombshell lore reveal, but we don't have strong character moments like when Nicole decided to risk her own life to trust Phaethon will come back.
@@FeyHunt Chapter 3 was very much set up to be an exposition for the next chapter. That reason alone, it's always going to be, unfortunately, mid. There is one character moment in Ch 3 that was touched upon that I wished they explored more. That would have made this Chapter less mid and it might even make it significantly better. It was a brief dialogue but it had weight on it. Non-verbatim, "I must thank you for helping a girl achieve her dream." Lycaon said this about Phaeton saving Corin in the Hollows. There's weight in those words that could potentially point to a compelling character moment for Corin. But it was left just as that. I do understand that VHK is like a pseudo-underground group and disclosing personal info from them that early is prolly detrimental to their work. But Corin was an exception to that rule and it really would have been cool if we got to know more information about Corin, how she decided to become maid and what happened to her prior that prompted her to make that decision. It doesn't help that Lycaon does have a soft spot for Corin and prolly sees her as a budding apprentice. When you switch from Corin to Lycaon, he will usually say, "You've done well, Corin." Like, if only we just got shown that type of dynamic in any of the cutscenes, that would have been great
@@Law-of-EnTropy I disagree. A chapter can be great while still setting up the next story. Look at any Marvel movies before Endgame. They still manage to tell a great standalone story and tease the next installment in the story. But you hit the point straight in the head. Most gacha games' main stories often put too much emphasis on the plot and don't properly develop their characters along. It almost as if the character is being dragged along by the plot all the time. I want more gacha games that do both at the same time. Tell a great plot, while also developing all characters. Problem is, most of them just didn't invest enough in great writers. All the money goes to artists.
I knew that I'd be hooked with this game and its story even before it got released, it is a HOYO game after all. I'm playing Genshin Impact, HSR, and now ZZZ. Hoyo is genius, they make games that are different from one another with different story telling mechanism, different vibes, and world building designs. By just looking at their main characters you know they're diff from the rest. 1. Genshin (Open World) Aether/Lumine - They're not your typical hero protagonists but they're the witness to a world that is ever changing and memories that can be manipulated 2. HSR (Turn-Based) Caelus/Stelle - They're not your siblings to choose from but rather 1 entity who plays an important support role to all characters we meet along the way 3. ZZZ (Action Combat RPG) Wise/Belle - These siblings aren't your playable fighting characters but unlike the 2 previous games, you literally work together with your sibling and dispatches agents to work with us into the hollows.
Well... if you've seen my past take about Genshin, I think you would understand why I don't share your enthusiasm about the writings, especially Genshin. HSR is fine, I just think the gameplay is boring until you get some great 5* characters.
I like this cause another gacha that has an INCREDIBLE story uses this same technique... NIKKE! (SPOILERS AHEAD) . . . You don't get a dialogue exposition about the raptors and why they are so dangerous as the first experience, you're literally thrown into a battlefield in the middle of an attack from the raptors as you fight for survival and command the nikkes to fight these raptures during the tutorial, and then when you think you've got the upper hand and you're about to escape, the Nikke that saved your life ends up being corrupted by this creature and you're forced to KILL said Nikke before she loses control of herself and tries to harm you. From that scene alone you imediatelly understand that not only you (the commander) are completely outmatched as a character and NEED the nikkes to fight for you (which is important when later on the story puts you in situations where your nikkes are heavily injured it puts your character in a tough spot where sometimes they are forced to retreat and fail the mission at hand or risk total death of the party) and even when you have the uperhand against these robotic creatures you should NEVER underestimate the raptors cause you never know when a stronger one will arrive or worse... one of your nikkes gets corrupted and now you have to fight the raptors AND the corrupted nikke And this is from the tutorial alone, later there is more nuances like the government structure and your limitations as a simple commander vs the power manipulation someone higher up could have and the struggles of humanity living underground and having to reconquer the surface against this seemingly overwhelming force that later on you find out is actually starting to become sentient and even have mixes of nikke and rapture in their ranks which makes things even more difficult for the cast. And all of this is shown through your own discoverings during the missions, YOU witness the first sentient Raptor as it speaks back, YOU see the first fusion of NIKKE and raptor as you are forced to fight it in the middle of a mission, YOU find out the government is fucked up and you have no power when they order other squads to attack you to obtain something they want from you and you are not willing to give.
I see! I understand what're getting at, but I think it's not the same kind of horror. I think NIKKE is more about the classic post-apocalyptic helplessness. Everyone has to do bad stuff to survive, even if someone else had to suffer. For the greater good. If I read the tropes correctly, NIKKE is more about the question of "what is a human?". Is Nikke a human? Is humanity worth protecting? And when the needs of a NIkke and humanity clashes, who would you save? It's definitely something I need to see and read for myself. The high concept is filled with potentials. Hopefully they pull it off well.
@@cruzard9566 So I've heard! I got about 20 people in this comment section alone recommending it to me. It's definitely my top gacha game to try next. 😄😄
@@cruzard9566 Hehe, I am a man of my word 😂😂 Plus, I do like talking to people about these kind of topics. This is part of me reaching out into the aether that is youtube.
You totally missed the point in that scene. It was Koleda's character moment. Koled spent her entire life to this point thinking her father is someone she can't trust. A villain. A traitor. But as the story goes, she realized that her father did it for a reason. He's willing to die to protect this monument. So when she speaks out the name of that machine, it is symbolic of her trusting her father again. This type of character-based moments are very common in any media, even though it looks like a Deus Ex Machina powerup.
As much as a fan of Wuwa, I have to say your point is correct with all of the games mentioned. I mean the story is quite good with how realistic it get most of the time. "Your cat die? Oh no. My condolence... Anyway your rent is due in 3 days.." or "Dayum someone just turned into monster! Hope it's not me next time haha". Like reality of this interaction is borderline happening on this world and will be if the world turned into hollow tho. The cyberpunk 2077 style really got me hooked with the story making so interesting. At first I was like "Dayum the world is so restricted". But after going through the story a lil bit it became bearable although the yapping is still there but It resonates well with me that make me think for a moment or caught my attention instead of pressing skip all the time.
@@anzheilen5217 Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I also love WuWa, but I can't ignore the fact that the story is just not put well together. Like, it's just a series of random happenings. You can't follow or guess what will happen next, which means you can't get invested in it. I think that should be the topic for the next video. I'm not sure what you mean with Cyberpunk 2077 style though... Do you mean the story writing or the aesthetic? Aesthetically, it's closer to old japanese-style games like Jet Set Radio. I think some people called Retro-Harajuku which is confusing. Cyberpunk aesthetic is more about body implants, neon signs, and the synthwave music.
@FeyHunt By Cyberpunk 2077 is I mean that people are dying everyday in the world yet no one seems to give it much thought like it's a normal thing happening in the world.
@@anzheilen5217 Oh yeah, that's accurate! I haven't played Cyberpunk coz my PC is potato. But from the intro of Edgerunners, yeah... Living in that world sucks if you're poor.
Oh my god, is it really that bad? I'm still at Belobog after the Stellaron quest is done. The story overall is decent, but the gameplay is a big turnoff for me. I don't even know if I want to continue on.
@@AbinGaming My problem is with the enjoyment of the game. The combat just doesn't feel good to me. I've played a lot of turn based games before, but Star Rail is just a number-based combat. You already know if you win or lose. There's no intense expectation of clucthing the victory. And the game does have that annoying artifact grind again... It's gonna be a slog to get through. Is it possible to complete the main story in Luofu and Penacony without any great relics?
@@FeyHunt They made sure you can clear story quests without investing huge time and resources for relics. All you need to do is just upgrade your characters and their traces and you're good to go. I mean, they nerfed a story boss because he's too difficult to clear due to his annoying mechanics.
Bro, I didn't want another gacha game to clog my iPad's memory, but ZZZ's story sank it's hooks in me so deep that I literally had to delete a lot of apps just to make room for the game 😭
Haha, glad I'm not alone in enjoying the story then! Does iPad allow for an SSD expansion? If so, it might be worth it to upgrade, since ZZZ file size is only going to get bigger and bigger over time.
Actually, they inherited a lot from Honkai Impact 3rd in case of writing, but made it even more engaging with comic panels (HI3 has them on the side with ingame links). I wonder what you rate HI3 though. For me it's the best story and world building among all games and anime I've ever played/watched as 28 year old veteran. But the storytelling itself in ZZZ is better imo, not the story yet but who knows where will we get from a cool exposition like 1.0
I did play and read all comics in Honkai 3rd. The comics are absolute banger, and a far better storytelling than the game itself imo. Like Kallen's and Otto's origin in Clan Palatinus (I think that's the title?). Or heck, even the ACTUAL INTRO to the series Escape from Nagazora who is not included in the game for some reason. That's just so a weird choice. Or the 2nd Impact comic about Sirin. It's just so good! One thing I find weird is that they stop making those past Chapter 9. I wonder why?
@@TanyaKory Hmmmm... I don't exactly find that sad, more like a heroic moment for her. But it's totally okay! We have our own life experiences that resonate with us as we read stories. Perhaps there are some things in your past that relates to her in a way. Who am I to judge, right? 😆
Not a gacha game, but when you mentioned using horror to show why something is terrifying, a very specific scene in Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers came to mind. (Just in case: spoilers for Shadowbringers) Basically, in one area, you get shown exactly why dealing with Sin Eaters is so terrifying: the more powerful ones can transform people into more Sin Eaters. Then, you witness it happen to a NPC that you spent a few quests getting to know, and you can only watch while she undergoes one of the most horrific transformations I've ever seen outside of a horror game like Parasite Eve or Resident Evil. I'm pretty sure that anyone who's played Shadowbringers still has that cutscene burned into their memories whether they want to remember it or not.
Yeah! I did see that scene out of curiosity when I was reading some pages on TVTropes. It is quite horrifying. The last words she said was like "forgive me", before she lost herself entirely. Parasite Eve... I haven't heard that name in almost 15 years. Is it really a horror game though? I only saw bits from the PSP release where it's all third person shooter.
@@FeyHunt I was actually thinking about like, the rat transformation and the dog transformation. I still can't bring myself to actually watch them, I look away when that happens XD
this one is not a gacha but the Tesleen transformation in FF14 - Shadowbringers expansion, you get to see first hand how a victim turns into a sin eater (the main enemies in said expansion) /watch?v=qOMge2WFW_A&t=60s
Oh I did watch that years back. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this scene happens in the middle of the story, right? I wonder if that scene is for shock value (like in ZZZ) or for tragedy value. That girl was supposed to be your companion, right? I think that's a brilliant example of using as tragedy, a curious video idea for the future, I suppose!
AFAIK most writer in devs know that but they just don't have the budget and you have goldfish brain who click "skip" within 100ms when cutscene appears. ZZZ in CN is attacked for "plot is boring" which I don't know what those people is on but that's the reality of the gacha market. you need to please IQ 80.
Ugh, that's what bothers me the most. As good as a gacha game can be, it will still cater to the mass audience, which usually happens to be borderline idiots. I wish Hoyo will have the guts to stand firm on their principles.
Has anyone ever told u to try see Nikke story telling technique? Cuz idk but somehow having character actually voiced n mostly dialog is more bareable than full on visualnovel narrator technique, Or thts just me
Yes, I felt that way too. That is the huge barrier of entry for me to read the entire 100 hours of Arknights VN story. Nikke is already on my list of games to play, so hopefully I will have time to do it soon.
A bit of a personal story, so 1 week after ZZZ's official launch, I decided to trade-in my old phone in order to play ZZZ (among other things). And while it was a bit unwise (because my old phone was still okay ish 😅), oh boy was I glad to do so 😁 Also, this video of yours makes me love ZZZ even more 🤟 and I hope more people would make this kind of video for any game. Especially for the "goofy" ones
I would keep making these deep dives video for as long as people will keep watching them. And it seems that I just got a huge boost from youtube. This video is an absolute banger on my channel so far!
I think in inazuma story for genshin, they did the showing tho it was...tell then show Other showing are also done subtly in the layout like islands etc. Inazuma did that well
Hmmm... In general, "tell, then show" is always worse than "show, then tell", because if you want to show it later, then why tell us now? That's an unnecessary yapping. Of course, Genshin also has its moments where it executed "show, then tell" very well, like the examples in Inazuma islands or the Orobashi's skeleton long before you heard of her power. Another great example is the three giant robots in Sumeru. I will not make any brash claim that Genshin NEVER did it well. In general, Genshin is always great at environmental storytelling. It's just when it comes to the actual main story, I often find it... wanting.
Haha, unfortunately, I didn't play Honkai Impact at its prime. I played it around the HoD arc before Kolosten. That is a glimpse of a great writing direction for Kiana's arc. However, everything went downhill since then.
The thing about ZZZ is that it feels character driven rather than story driven. There’s no sense of urgency to the story…there’s a conspiracy going on but the MC isn’t fully aware of how deep it is so they have to just live on with their daily lives for now. It’s not like genshin where you know the MC has something important he needs to do but instead has to go through seven nations and waste time at events instead going straight to his final destination.
Haha, I get your point, but I have to correct you a bit. There's no sense of urgency in the overarching narrative (yet). A sense of urgency is always important in every chapter to push the characters to achieve their goal, like how we need to save Rain in Chapter 3. Without urgency, there will be no tension in the story. Genshin is just weird. They started out with a goal but no urgency. So the traveler is just meandering about like a headless chicken. I'm glad they kinda drop the fake urgency all together in Star Rail and make it literally episodic like Star Trek.
@@FeyHunt Very true. At first i wasn’t digging ZZZ pasting but then i realized it felt more natural. Like yeah in chapter 3 there is urgency to the story and the situation not only demands you to act quickly, but it also gets to the point because you wanna rescue rain. Also yeah Genshin’s weird in this way. Like, if i were separated from my siblings and stranded in a strange world i would do everything to find them instead of wasting time with floating ear-soar. They completely messed up the pasting of the story.
@@FeyHunt no offense to zzz. i think you're observations are correct, but it's sad that a lot of gacha games story is just a massive exposition dump. i dont know how anyone can get invested in wuwa for example but to be fair i only played it for an hour. the bar shouldn't be so low that we're impressed by zzz but here we are. i hope that zzz will raise the standard a bit and stuff like this can at least become the minimum for games of its caliber.
@@kiteofdark That was my impression as well when I first get into gacha games. I have a theory that they really don't care about stories as long as they keep pulling gacha money. What they are starting to realize is that if you write a good story with good characters, people will stay longer and spend more. Yes, gacha game standards are pretty low. But I take small victories when I get them. Praising them when they do right, and criticizing them when they do bad. That's how they'll improve.
![[Game Designer Explains] The Healer's Burden: Why Nobody Likes Playing Healers](/img/n.gif)
I'm very interested in low-key horror lately. I'm not sure I want to play an actual horror game though...
In any case, please like and subscribe! I put extra effort in editing this one!
Yeah, I share the feeling. For a long time, I wasn't interested in horror at all since all I knew were cheap and boring jumpscares. But lately, I've been playing a lot of games with horror (or psychological horror) elements, and I love it when it's well done. To cite a few, Outer Wilds, Oxenfree, Omori, and Dredge were amazing
@@bellangerdorian8286 Oh, you remind me that I still have to play Outer Wilds and Oxenfree! I would also recommend Alien Isolation if you want that fear of being chased around. Beyond that, stealth games also do give me anxiety when I first played it, like Dishonored series.
You might be interested in limbus company story
@@DT-bo1zk So I've heard! I've installed it last night. I just need to find the time to do it.
@@FeyHunt have you ever tried out Reverse 1999? The story there is amazing and can often be really dark!
this is why i love the comic style scenes in zzz, it's able to show scenes in much more detail than 3d models standing around doing the same generic motions
Yes! It's a creative solution for a monetary reason.
It's pretty obvious that Hoyo just doesn't want any more Genshin-level games in their catalog. Genshin does give them big money, but it's VERY EXPENSIVE to run. Creating a new playable region every couple of months is just so expensive. I'd bet they spend at least 200 million USD per region.
That's why their latest games, Star Rail and ZZZ tried their best to limit the amount of work required for artists. And it seems to work pretty well. Star Rail makes more than Genshin while keeping the production cost down.
The problem is, I am very bored on Star Rail's world design. ZZZ solves the storytelling boredom by using four different mediums of storytelling: CG cutscenes, in-world conversation, Visual Novels, and comic strips. All of them are relatively low cost and keep things fresh.
I think so too! In fact, I believe that the development team of ZZZ invests the budget wisely between environment and animation, and so on. The idea of using TVs as a means of travel is a great idea to save time on creating map areas. We want quality, not quantity, and ZZZ is delivering that with creativity
There's a good quote about this.
"Limitations Breed Creativity"
By limiting resources you force developers to innovate and find creative workarounds towards problems that they can't just throw money at. A lot of iconic games were great because of this.
Like Silent Hill. The fog wasn't just an atmospheric choice, they just straight up didn't have the draw distance, so that limitation was covered with fog and became an iconic strength of the series.
@@rs4902 I wish I could tell that to the generic AAA games today. Like seriously... I don't need another 300 GB of HD textures in a generic FPS. Give me something unique!
I refer to the "3d models standing around doing the same generic motions" as "gently undulating torso dialogue scenes". I feel like it describes it well, and I really hope it's off putting enough to make Hoyo not want to do it anymore if it catches on. :D
I cannot believe the Hoyoverse game with an active skip button is the one with the least confusing story and most engaging character dynamics that you will find yourself not skipping the dialogues at all
@@robertjaysonalcantara7016 It's baffling. It's almost like they are daring you to do it.
"We know you'd like the skip button, but here's a very good story for so you don't want to skip! 😂😂"
Funny how the only Hoyo game with Skip dialogue button is the only one I didn't wish to skip at all!
@@louisthewolf0816 Hoyo man, they keep giving us what we don't need! Haha 🤣🤣
Yea, pretty much the only time you'd skip it is if you've already seen it happen and there are no branching out. I actually saw a vtuber choose an option in the scene where Billy compares you to some dog, which was meant as a big compliment which got explained in the dialog path said vtuber did not choose.
but even then you probably won't skip the cutscenes since most of the 3d full cutscenes are so well animated, the comic ones are also fun, and the more generic talking 3d cutscenes have branching options
Only Hoyoverse with a skip button? Have none of you played Honkai Impact?
ZZZ's comic style cutscenes are so good because not only do they allow the story to show us details rather than yap about it, it also gives us insane eye-candy artwork that leaves more of a lasting impression. I swear I took so many screenshots of it
Yeah! It's a creative way to save money from making expensive CG cinematic while also showing some eye candy.
I wish we can download the comics separately though. The artwork in 2D is just way more expressive than in 3D.
Is there any way to remove ui or hood in zzz story mode or comic mode because I cant find it anywhere when I want to screenshot cutscenes, and I find it weird that zzz dont have hide hood feature when hoyo other games have that
@@sunglassfrog89 I wish there is a way to do that! But it seems that you just have to extract the images from the game files for now. Maybe if we voice our opinions on the next survey, we should be able to make them create an export function.
The ether corruption scene also helps make it more believable as to why we do side quests. Theres a lot of quest dialogue where a character asks for help finding someone or something and they explain they cant go because they've been there a while looking already and are at risk of ether corruption.
Yes! I would also imagine that there's a big pay gap between those with high and low ether aptitude, which can be a good story idea for an opposing faction.
I just wished they could make the side story as interesting as the main one. The narrative there is a nothingburger.
The fact that ZZZ devs also includes HIA npc and animate her together with eous to show the tension during the appearance of nineveh really telling us that the game is story-driven not just playable characters-driven like Star rail
How is star tail just character-driven? What do u mean?
That scene would be an excellent horror scene if 1) Nineveh actually destroy something and 2) Miyabi didn't just show up and anime run slash that monster.
I guess it's more of a power level showcase to show just how big the gap between regular investigator and HSOS6 Squad.
@@FeyHunt The issue is Miyabi barely did anything to that monster. So it also accomplished the goal of showing that even the top dog of this verse might not be enough for more larger threats.
@@proto245 Of course. It wouldn't make sense if there's just one person who can save the world. It will go against the entire spirit of the game where a Proxy and a team of Hollow Raiders work together. I would be genuinely upset otherwise.
i think another thing to tell is that, most of the time the storytelling around gacha games, is either Grand Adventure (Fighting Evil or Helping for Goodness), a dying world where people try to survive in apocalyptic chaos way and the MC trying to become a hero, or basically making it a movie like tragedy. but ZZZ is rather making it casual, in a way very similar to Cyberpunk 2077 where the world is dying but the people know that making it hysterical won't them do any good so they just accepted it and live with it. Even Monster Hunter follows this rule too, making stories like these very grounded and believable.
@@DlolFace Exactly my thoughts as well! This is all we've been asking from movies and video games alike: an RPG series where we don't fight a god at the end (yet).
We're just vibing with friends here. That doesn't make the story boring. It's a different story altogether.
Exactly. I love how grounded the plot is because a lot of the story beats instead revolve around the factions and how they're trying to make it in a world where the major conflict is already addressed. There are hints of Belle and Weiss trying to address an overarching plot but for the most part they're just trying to pay the rent and help their friends, not save the world.
And the fact that the MC (Wise & Belly) doing illegal business while making video store as money-laundry place 😂
Elysia
ZZZ is the same as genshin. We are looking for our teacher(sibling), we are going to end up in situations were we save people. A small community then the people on the airship. We have fairy our pin that drags us into having to partake in saving new eridu which is the last city. More than likely our teacher is involved somehow.
Its very realistic to be seen as these hollow are normal to mc and we players have 0 kowledge of it. Imagine this. You in real life what counts as "normal", you wont be yapping about it normally... but to others who have 0 idea needs explanation and thats where the "show, not tell" comes to life... we dont "tell" whats normal. We show them.
@@gazztears2140 Exactly. That's what's weird with Genshin, Honkai, and WuWa's yapping. "As you may know..." is a very weird choice for dialogues. It's not intended for the people in the scene, it's for the audience. And that breaks the fourth wall.
That's where ZZZ shines. The storywriters just show us what's wrong with this world. They didn't start yapping on things they already know.
Well summarized here, good sir!
@@FeyHunt Yes. I love how they put the story in the background which leads to many questions.
for example. we dont really know how much of an impact these "Hollows" do to earth but when in a cutscene where _Lycaon Jumps onto an airship_ , they show how the moon literally *SWALLOWED* by these hollows. this shows how serious of an apocalyptic settings to the point people just cope with literal Death.
@@FeyHunt I agree. the story telling is always a good thing about zzz compared to the other big gacha games. genshin and wuwa especially often tell us, not show us what is the case. while zzz became slow because of it, but it is a lot more enjoyable to watch.
Jokes on you, I see the Hollows everyday
@@Scatterblades i cannot stress MIHIYO ENOUGH by saying "goddammit genshin show us what 500 years old war befor looks like... stop making raiden, venti, or zhoglngli yap how horifying it was... SHOW ME A CUTSCENE OF THAT TIME"
the fact they showed you that one second you're fine and another second you're in hollow is enough to tell you that zzz world isn't a place you want to live in
Nope, I definitely don't want to live there! You either live as a sheep waiting for something to go wrong, or you're a Hollow Raiders which will develop side effects like dementia later in life.
Its a post apocalyptic game. This hollow disaster literally wiped off almost all life from both the earth and the rest of the universe apparently with half of the moon being covered by hollows.
In the story trailer we have been shown a literal *dark wall* that might be surronding the last surviving city and even then the untouched territory gets even more reduced by both Hollow zero and its companions.
We like to be distracted by both the bangboos, the interactions between characters and the beautiful city but we can't deny the fact that this world is dying. The game has *no choice* but to show us the existential crisis that this civilization is facing day by day if it wants to have a good story.
I think I would have to go back and watch their promotional contents to get more info on the lore. I think there's that live action trailer on the origin of Hollows.
That is actually one of my concern about the lore so far. We know that the end is coming, but bringing that end will break the status quo of the game's relaxing atmosphere. So they can't go full in "world is ending" trope.
I've seen that tag on the game but it really dont feel like it is...unless in this "outer ring" that has been mentioned and the outside is like mad max in a way. Lol
@@theSixPathsOfTrains Dude, if the Sons of Calydon is Mad Max territory and the writing quality keeps going up, we're cooking in 1.2!
What I feel while playing ZZZ than other 2 Hoyo titles is it feels like watching a movie.
@@gratjia It is! It feels like watching a Saturday Morning cartoon back in 2000s.
The retro aesthetic and the music does sell it well.
And it fits the setting and reoccurring theme perfectly 💯
Another example of the writers leveraging the horror aspect of the world is at the end of chp2 when Friday, Gretta, and Hans are absorbed by the boss. While the time spent with them is brief they display their capacity for emotion and independent thought further supported by the existence of sentient androids like Billy, Qingyi, and Elfy. And yet in an instant their consumed and turned into an amalgamation of machinery an corruption. This is a much more brutal display than for example Teppei who died offscreen or even Signora despite her having a much larger role in the plot.
Oh yeah! I should've included that in this video! And Grace did later say that they were scrapped for parts. This could've happened to Billy and Qingyi too. Their robotic parts are more vulnerable than humans against that monster. We haven't seen a human instantly turn into Ethereal yet. That's also quite disturbing.
@@FeyHunt I think the reason why is that the boss is a special case and that the robots have already been going through corruption for a while now, and have been exposed to ether for a while already.
And we haven't seen the heavy hitters affect our story yet. Considering that the rest of the world (even the moon) should have much bigger hollows we really haven't seen the heavy hitters like Nineveh in action, and she's relatively weak compared to the rest of the world's hollows which should be much bigger than her and therefore have much more powerful ethereals.
Hell I think we haren't seen the extremes of what's possible for ethereals. A super powerful ethereal as smart as a human (herrscher from GGZ/HI3) or even a god-like ethereal that's hell-bent on destroying humanity (Will of the Honkai from GGZ) could be possible.
tbf ZZZ borrows a lot of concepts from the rest of their franchises (yes they've done evil entity on the moon before) and I think we'll see familiar concepts return in ZZZ. The main difference is that we're not playing as the 'MCs' with the BS powers that will allow us to save the world.
All these comments and not a single one refers to Rina's companion quest where we end up following a case of long term consequences of diving into a hollow, not to mention the horror of having some place close to your heart suddenly trapped in an apocalypse zone.
Haha, I've just finished Rina's Agent story last night. If I had played it before, I would have include it into this video. We did get a glimpse of a random Hollow appearing out of nowhere with Belle getting trapped in the Hollow as mentioned in the video.
I have some doubts if our playable characters will suffer the same fate, since their Ether aptitude is pretty high. That old lady was unlucky that she has low aptitude to be affected so badly while only spend several hours to rescue the babies (presumably). The babies themselves seem to okay from the way Rina said that they have grown into fine adults. But then again, we don't know if there's something accumulating inside their bodies with every visit to the Hollow.
@@FeyHunt I have a theory about that. Do you know the stalagmites of ether corruption you see on background and some rally mission. I think the air is filled with tiny ether particle which overtime accumulate into your body and from the guy from ch 1 who turn into a hollow, the ether particle can also stick and form things from your outer body as well.
And also another theory, is that the ether particle that went into your body would primarily target your brain. You see, some people with high ether aptitude probably have something in they're body that allow them to block or slow down significantly ether particle from reaching the brain which is why they are fine when coming out and back because the ether particle doesn't target your organs or muscles. And this is also solidified by the fact that the ch 1 transforming guy have a black hole (?) forming from inside his head and that's also the reason all ethereal have black holes as they're head and the reason why the grandma from Rina story quest got dementia, because the ether particle that finally got to your brain would first erase what makes you, you.
@@imgood3374 That's a good theory! Kinda similar to Arknights Oripathy, where it's the Originium Dust that got you.
It also makes sense that it targets the brain. From a line in this latest event, we already know that only "sentient" beings can turn into Ethereal, like humans and advanced AI. So it makes sense that the Ether will target the brain first. That's why we can have corrupted machines like in Grace's agent story where its processor got corrupted long before the body showed any sign of corruption. I think I will present this theory in a video later on!
I went in this game with no expectation and the story and lore experience absolutely blew me away, I have not played any other gacha game that came even close to having story and dialogues that are this to the point and consistently entertaining throughout, with such interesting and digestible world building.
And then I go on the Internet and to my absolute (non)surprise a lot of people think the story is boring. We've come to a situation where regardless of writing quality as long as a game has extended story segments people are gonna cry about it. And while for something like Genshin, these people could mask their disdain towards experiencing story and worldbuilding behind actual criticism, in this case they are all exposed.
Yeah, it also kinda rubbed me the wrong way too. And then there are those who would say Genshin's story quests are amazingly written. Like, seriously! What the heck!
I'm all for being a fan, but you have to recognize the shortcomings of your favorite things. Otherwise, it's just unreasonable devotion, like a cult.
I'm really glad someone brings out how great worldbuilding is in ZZZ compared to other gacha games. I really feel like other games always take scenaristic shortcuts (such as amnesia) to have the whole cast explain the whole world to the protagonist. The world of ZZZ lives on its own, and we, as the protagonist, are part of it like every other characters in the game. I heard many people criticizing the story in ZZZ but i actually feel like it might be one of the best written games from Hoyoverse
You got it! It is the best thought-out story in all of Hoyo's lineup. My favorite storytelling so far is reading the Inter-Knot. It's like you're learning by reading instagram or Tumblr posts. I think that's far better than the in-game wikipage in Honkai Star Rail.
It also makes sense for Belle and Wise to read on it on their phone. They would just scroll past it or correct the mistakes, while we can learn so much about their world.
@@FeyHunt yeah the game is making you discover the world through media (inter-knot/TV/written press and even movies) and while wise and belle would likely know most of the information that they give, we as the player get to discover something new. This is such a clever way to introduce the world. I'm really eager to see what they're cooking for future updates because so far I just love this universe.
@@joker8042 Hopefully they will stick to their principles and expand on it, instead of altering the game to fit "mass audience".
You missed the other Horror element of the hollows. In Rina's sidestory, we got to see the nurse/beauty queen and the Hollow's effect on her. Even though she didn't turn into a monster her mind is ripped from her over time, she became demented. So now there is ANOTHER element of horror to the Hollows. Even if you don't turn into the monster, there is the slow ticking clock of whether or not you will lose your mind.
Oh this one. This hit hard when i played it. Just coming out of Hollows safe is not enough, you get scarred for life
Well, I've only just finished Rina's Agent Story last night. But yes, I would've added it into this video as a side note if I can.
So it seems that the Ethereal transformation scene is rare. Most people just got very sick from the Hollow, to the point where they died being attacked by the Ethereal or spent the rest of their life bedridden.
It's actually crazy. That old lady spent probably several hours tops, but because she got low Ether aptitude, it's like she's walking into Chernobyl as a cleanup crew. Horrifying.
Now, if they want to push this point into the main story, I bet it'll do even better. Let's put this risk on Belle or Wise, or if we'll have a Firefly-like or Dunyarzad-like character in the future.
My biggest concern is that they will try to ease up the horror in the Hollows and make it like it's something you don't have to fear anymore. That's what happened to a lot of things on ANY stories. Something starts up horrifying, but then it becomes less and less scary. Until in the end, it becomes the butt of a joke.
there's also the young girl who had terminal ether disease, who needed a suit just to get out of her room. It was one of the zzz trailers for Nicole.
Given that children tend to explore these places without their parents or guardians knowing, or even end up in there by accident just raises the concern.
@@countereclipse Oh, I have to see that myself. Your kids could just end up in a companion Hollow at random times too...
**SPOILER**
It was a bad idea to finish the Victoria Housekeeping quest at 2am alone. The twins fking terrified me.
@@batperson3532 Haha, we still never got the explanation on why does ghost exist in this world, didn't we?
What did those dolls do, and the ghosts in the HDD screen, or the twins? Is it an anomaly in the Hollows? We'll never know... 😂😂
@@FeyHunt Mihoyo dont to spoonfeeding the lore. Lore is most of the time told from the perspective of a narrator which is heavily biased and open to interpretation. Ballet twins "died" on an elevator "accident". or were they "sacrificed"?
@@batperson3532 No, my point was not to ask Hoyo to spoonfeed us the lore.
Hoyo has a tendency to leave many unresolved plots hanging for far too long and I hate that. That's the puzzle box writing. For example in Genshin's "The sky is a lie".
Also yes, ZZZ doesn't spoonfed us, but Hoyo certainly does. Take a look at Genshin and any Honkai games. They are notorious for this problem.
Honestly, out of all the gacha games i've played, ZZZ has me the most engaged in the story.
I totally agree! It's actually impressive what Hoyo can achieve if they just put more attention on the story as well as they do on their artists.
Let's hope they keep improving the story!
That was an incredible analysis!! When I did come across these "horror" scenes, something kept making me feel uneasy and on edge which never really happened for me in other games even if they had a messed up backstory or villain or theme. The writing team at zzz is truly killing it
Thanks for your kind words! And that's why I find this game worth delving deep into in these video essays. I'll be sure to make more if you're interested about more analysis videos!
@@FeyHunt oh yeah definitely! You have all of my attention with these video essays and analysis videos on zenless! Zenless is definitely one of my favourite gacha games out there rn and there aren't many people making high quality videos on it, I hope to see more!!
This might be off topic but I just completed a quest that revolved around a bangboo and his ‘best buddy’ the bangboo trusts his buddy with his life since, according to his friend, they’re practically brothers. But later, you figure out that all you knew before was a lie and that the bangboo was only a sort of spy tool for the man. It showed a the oblivious bangboo being experimented on, begging his friend for help as he continued to say it was ‘for the greater good’ or something. That scene alone was so hard to watch, and I most definitely didn’t expect it in a game like zzz. I’ve seen people who are villains and experiment on other beings in games before, but never had it shown in such a way. That quest alone just shows zzz isn’t scared to bring darker topics into their game, nor are they scared to show the effects of them.
@@Faelollz Yeah, ZZZ definitely has some darker aspects beyond what I explained in this video.
People have been saying that there are recordings in Hollow Zero that are just disturbing. And now this too. What's the name of the quest?
@@FeyHunt something about being a detective.. I forgot the full name. The quest is in Lumina Square close to mewmew between a man named Rost and a Bangboo named North!
@@Faelollz Oohhh, I saw that guy. Haven't taken the quest yet, so I'll see it for myself tonight!
took me a few of main chapters in genshin to realized that hilichurl used to be humans...meanwhile zzz just showed from the start what hollows originated from
Yeah. That Memories of Inteyvat chapter is just really weird. So you just revealed that Hilichurls used to be humans. Okay... so what? The game doesn't shame you for killing more hilichurls.
If the game itself doesn't feel that is a big deal, then I don't see how I should take it seriously.
@@FeyHunt To be frank, you had good points in the video but this is bad take. Hilichurls aren't the same as Ethereals, sure on the surface they are alot alike but the horror aspect your focusing on doesn't apply to both of them.
Ethereals are horrifying because they are an ever present danger in multiple ways. While Hilichurls are decidedly just plain tragic monsters, sure their is a horror angle to their existence and origins but what we see of Hilichurls now is just pitiful husks who have lost any trace of their former humanity.
There isn't meant to be any shame for killing them because there is nothing human of them left.
@@PaulonTheBrave You're missing the point. In the previous comment, I was criticizing what the story did with this fact, not the horror aspect of it. Dainsleif didn't give us anything on what we should do with his former brethren. Genshin gave us the fact that Hilichurls used to be humans... and did nothing about it beyond that chapter. They can do so much more with this idea.
Should we gather them into a protected sanctuary so that they can live peacefully? Or should we kill every single one of them to end their suffering? They seem content to just let them be.
I'd say they used to be humans is a huge deal. You wouldn't treat humans with mental disabilities as less human, just because they don't act like humans. And the fact is, they still do act like a human, with longing or shame on their face, and hide it behind the mask. So should we help teach them how to be human again? Perhaps Ella Musk would help them find themselves again. Perhaps you can create a story about sapient Hilichurls who still remember what they were.
Or you can take ZZZ's approach with Ethereal, by making this Hilichurl a curse that will befall anyone. Create a story where someone who found forbidden knowledge suddenly gets turned into a Hilichurl.
Dainsleif himself doesn't even seem to care that much. Is he angry about whoever cursed them? Does he see their fate as a right punishment? If the story doesn't do anything about it, then the impact of this revelation is null. It might as well never be told and nothing will change.
@FeyHunt I don't really care for your point. If you're going to disregard a key piece of lore because it isn't crazily elaborated upon, then why bother listening to you on anything else.
@@FeyHunt I feel like people seemed to misunderstand the whole Hilichurl debacle. Hilichurl being former humans isn't that big of a deal because death is probably the best thing you can do for them. They are husks of their former selves that are slowly decaying unable to die due to the curse.
And they did show people trying to release the curse in the interlude chapter in the Chasm, and it is literally causing them more pain instead of helping them; they are trapped with no way of escaping their undying fates.
Plus, no one knows about their tragic fates other than Dainsleif, the Travellers, and probably Venti and Zhongli; so no one is going to view them other than some other race that are hostile to them.
I remember the first time I played the game, I was mesmerized by how cozy(?) the environments in New Eridu were. Compared to Genshin and Star Rail, where the mc is either unaware or amnesiac and has to explore unknown lands and worlds (which is the intention as the appeal of both games latch onto your curiosity about these new worlds and the stories behind them), as unfriendly as the world outside New Eridu is, the city itself feels full of life, and nearly everyone in Sixth Street knows you. I think it's a good contrast to the fear of Hollows, its nature and the consequences of staying in one too long, as well as whatever tf is going on with the rebels and the mystery of the Sacrifice.
That's a great way to put it! The cozy and welcoming nature of New Eridu works well within the scope of the storytelling too. It gives you an actual reason to protect this city from the Hollows because you love the city and the people here. I have a video coming up about how New Eridu feels so good to explore.
@@FeyHuntAnother aspect of the game that I feel has so much story potential is how relatively normal(?) the characters feel. You have Zhu Yuan for example, who has lived a normal life, and the potential threat that New Eridu could be under what with the Sacrifice and other conspiracies would probably force many ordinary people like her into complicated situations, especially as an officer.
Another example could be the entirety of Belobog Industries because they're pretty much manual laborers, and while the Cunning Hares ARE technically Hollow Raiders, outside of that, I'm pretty sure none of them expected to be involved in the whole Sacrifice conspiracy just from acquiring a strongbox. We literally have Ellen - a member of Victoria Housekeeping (currently the ONLY faction to know of the Sacrifice prior to the main story) - living a normal life as a highschool student!
Whatever is going on, I know that a majority of the playable characters are going to being dealing with even bigger fish in the future.
All because of a strongbox.
@@freshcorn1431 Yep! This is one of the thing I will bring up in a future video. Everyone and everything is set up brilliantly so the plot drags them in. Now everything and everyone is invested to help Phaethon to solve this issue.
There's that continuity with the "because of X, now Y happens". That is a mark of a great writing!
Thats exactly what this game does well, however many people out there think ZZZ has a boring story and yap a lot lol so your last recommendation probably wont have an effect since most gacha players dont really care about the stories of their gacha games or how they tell the stories, just look at the bad feedback the grid system for this game had, despite of being also a very genius way to immerse the player in the story by playing the story while moving eous in those TVs and not only that but within said tvs events happen and you actually play them instead of just getting them told just like other gacha games do.
Hey, thanks for the reply! They said it's boring...? That's hmmm...
I think the story is structured well. It's actually the best-written story in recent gacha games. I get that not a lot of exciting moments are happening. It's not like we're saving the world, yet... But wow, calling it boring will be a stretch.
If anything I would say the side quests in this game are boring as frick. It becomes very repetitive and the amount of grind needed to level up a character is just insane. Plus the combat could use some improvements.
I didn't know that I have such a different point of view than normal players... I may need to reflect on this...
@@FeyHunt people just enjoy Hero on a Journey MC than a day in life of an MC. I'm fine either way since the latter one really gives a breath of fresh air in storytelling since we usually see the first one a lot
@@DlolFace That's what I've been thinking as well. I think people have the wrong expectation when going into this game.
ZZZ is all we've been asking from movies and video games alike. An RPG where we don't fight a god in the end. We're just vibing with bros, having fun goofing around.
What I wanna see from ZZZ though, is a stronger character story arc at least at Koleda's level. But now do it for every character in the story.
You can't have a really good story right out of the gate without character building, especially in games that has so many characters. How can you call a story good if you arent even invested in the characters.
@@OokamiKuro39Ch That's right. I think ZZZ managed to build these characters well into people that we care about.
My biggest criticism about Genshin and WuWa is the fact that they spent hours telling stories and yapping, but they haven't built most of their characters into people that we care about. We don't even know them!
There is an argument to be made on storytelling efficiency. You can make us care about the characters in a shorter time than Genshin. And that is a sign of good writing.
Well, at least we know Belle has a good Eather aptitude to be in a hollow so long and not mutate for the future
We don't know that exactly. There's still a chance that she may get hit with dementia, like the old lady from Rina's agent story. I think that lady doesn't realize the impact until decades down the line.
The scene in Hollow Zero where the boss shows up and you get lucky to escape was honestly terrifying. It's really well done!
@@TenchiSawada Well... I would agree with you if Miyabi didn't just anime-run her way to slash that Nineveh. That whole scene is less horror and more to showcase how OP she is and the rest of HSOS6. She is not at all afraid when other experienced Hollow investigators just trembles in fear.
the fact that the hollow investigator just says "it's her" followed up with the terrifying screech scared the ether aptitude out of me
What I really loved about that scene is the sense of claustrophobia they created by keeping the camera looking down on the HIA npc and Eous. There are zero moments where we see the sky or anything that might indicate we’re in an open area up until Nineveh shows up.
The NPC’s scanner breaks, there are screeches in the background, she’s freaking out, we feel like we’re trapped in a box, and we still have no idea what’s going on.
Then the moment we peek out of the box, peek out of a gap between the buildings, Nineveh instantly shows us why going into hollows is a bad idea without doing a single thing. The HIA employee’s reaction tells us everything we need to know.
It’s because of this scene establishing how horrifying Nineveh and Hollow Zero are that Miyabi’s fight scene is elevated. She ran right at that monster without even hesitating and wiped the small mobs without breaking a sweat. I loved it so so much. Saying Section 6 is the best doesn’t really tell us anything, but showcasing Miyabi and gang like that tells us everything.
@@sky3fall866 Great breakdown! This is another example of show, don't tell in action. If this is any other gacha game, they will start yapping in the camp about "HSOS6 is the best squad we have!". In ZZZ, nope! You just have to see it for yourself. Then we'll call them the greatest squad. Seeing in believing.
with 1.1 and undercover r&b mission out, i must say, i LOVED how zzz tells the story of the police guys, moving the MC aside and NOT forcing him into a story that he does not take part of, making the story exclusively about the actual police characters (jane, seth, zhu yuan and qingyi)
this is something i rarely see, as most games just try to force the MC into every single story/mission they get into trying to make them some kind of problem solving god, but this story really caught my eye because they just take the mc completely out of the story and focuses more on the characters that actually are a part of it, i really liked it!
Yeah! I think that's what we can expect when we have future Special Mission from now on. I think my next 2 videos will cover some aspects of v1.1. For once, we actually have a smart character that is actually smart.
I love both this and genshin, your criticism towards genshin was great. Constructive. Unlike some people just being destructive. You did great.
Thank you! It's just so sad that I have to leave Genshin around Sumeru's last desert expansion. I just can't handle it. The storywriting never improved after I've played it for so 2.5 years.
And I especially don't like what they're doing with Story Quests, including some in ZZZ as well. Some of them are just a waste of time, and I think I want to discuss that in a future video for later.
@@FeyHuntit's fine if you don't want to go back to the game but I'd say the story improves a lot in Fontaine! The character quests still suck besides a couple tho 😮💨
@@asahi6487 Haha, I may try to login for a week sometime in the future. I want to see where they go with it.
@@asahi6487no it didn't lmao
in fact fontaine have worse writing than sumeru
@@kittikorn6674 agree to disagree lol
Simple yet Effective is what zzz story writing is. and it's better than most gacha games out there. this is the reason i stay even tho now is just endless grind waiting for the next version. glad they give nicole for free so at least i can call her everyday.
edit : oh, and you can try Sword of Convallaria too. it has a great story writing.
Indeed! That's why I always wonder why Hoyo insists on NOT INVESTING in great writers in Genshin. Stories alone can make a gacha game last forever and you can make the players pull for characters if you establish their characterization well.
Honestly, the demos of ZZZ drew me in to the characters and made me so invested in them already, so I'm enjoying the story very much :D
I love the characters so much I want a ZZZ anime!! I need to see more of them
Heck yeah! Honestly, ZZZ is just the best Hoyo game to get an anime adaptation. It's already using a Saturday Morning Cartoon formula for its chapters. I don't want Genshin anime, I may want Star Rail anime (minus the yapping). But ZZZ? Sign me up, dude!
I’ve never liked Nor played any gacha games before in my life before but ZZZ presentation and characters manages to capture that sort of grounded aspect of new eridu and had me engaged with the larger plot for the future.
You took the words out of my mouth, friend! This is the contender for best gacha game this year for me!
there was that one mission at an inter-knot 40+ where you need to save someone from getting killed. What I never expected was that there's a catch: one or few deviations will get him, her, or both of them killed. TV screens minimize the gore, but knowing that someone just got ganged up and killed in front of you, because you took a wrong turn or grabbed some gear coins, made me question what I did wrong.
Luckily you can repeat. But if they made it permanent, it would've haunted players for it.
Oh, I so happen to be at level 40 right now. Can't wait to see it! What's the quest called?
if I recall correctly, it is called Bangboo Limbo
You encounter it by talking to an HIA personnel near the helmet guy in Lumina Square (closest to Parking Lot). Talk to her, she'll ask you to do something for her, talk to her colleague who will go without her, and talk back to the personnel, and you get a commission.
@@countereclipse Got it! I'll try it as soon as I can!
Its really a damn shame how the boring story of recent gacha games can catapult on other gachas even though it can be good.
I actaully felt suprised zzz has a good and charming story even though everyone says it was mid, unskipabble and so on so forth.
Funnily enough zzz has the best and unique world building, along with coherent plot better than Genshin,Hsr,Wuwa and other big gachas.
ZZZ is now the third best gacha story for me behind Guardian tales (second) And Limbus Company
Hey, thanks for sharing your thoughts! Yeah, I'm very surprised at how cohesive the story is. Everything is a series of set up and payoffs, and it does work well to build up a sense of mystery and conspiracy in this post-apocalyptic world. That's why I want to make this video, to highlight just how good their storywriting is. It's not an exciting story, but it's competently written. We're not trying to fight god and save the world, we're just vibing with frends.
I keep hearing praises about Limbus Company being the best-written gacha game. But the artstyle is a bit too disturbing for my taste. But is it really that good?
Aye, CnC mention in a ZZZ video? Unexpected, but very welcome!
@@FeyHunt Yes its absolutely is! Limbus company has the best story because how good the character writing is.
theres so many reason why the story is so damn good and why people enjoy it so much. but i think the game is best experienced blind.
The artstyle is disturbing because limbus don't hold your hand easily, people left or right died in the game. and the brutality of it makes you feel the impact.
Its the best gacha game by a long shot because even the side characters have genuine personalitys. their design is crazy good too. (the monster/abnormalities is an absolute horror)
The worldbuilding on limbus tops all other gachas because its been built brick by brick by their previous (non gacha game) Lobotomy corporation, and library of ruina.
theres a reason why it has a cult like following. it breaks all the mold of being a standard gacha game, it doesn't even feel like a gacha styled writing. thats how good it is.
I'd say if you want to give it a go play it until Chapter 4 / Canto 4 not disregarding all the previous chapter but chapter 4 is so good because it completes one of the character arcs.
dafuq do they mean unskippable???? every story scene has a skip button I'm pretty sure
@@leifmochi5082 That's the highest praise I've ever heard for a gacha game. I will check it out as soon as I can. It's now on my top list of next gacha games to try.
I enjoy this time for this Main storyline that the Main Antagonist is not out in the open and presented straight away. There is a Mystery around the Main Antagonist and the only reason they are slowly being exposed now is due to unforeseen circumstances that lead Wise and Belle to get themselves involved starting with the AI Fairy. SPOILER below warning so do not progress farther since I'll be explaining how everything is connected.
It is made clear that Fairy was intended to go to someone else but due to the events of her being stolen, it resulted in her accidently becoming part of Wise and Belle's life instead of going to the person she was originally intended for.
The second event that lead Wise and Belle to becoming involved in this kind of secret war against this unknown Antagonist is the events in Chapter 1. What looked like a act of a corporation being greedy and evil was nothing more than a cover up for this organization to destroy the only evidence of their existence being the Sacrifice. It was only after Chapter 2 when the guy being manipulated realized he was manipulated which lead to events of Chapter 3.
Chapter 2 is when we learn the connection to the Fall of Old Eridu and a possible origins of Hollows involving this Secret Organization though discovering the fate of Koleda's father and discovering this Sacrifice.
Chapter 3 is when we learn that there are people fighting against this secret organization and this is not a recent event. This secret war has been going on far longer through espionage, manipulation, contracts, and etc. This is not a war being publicly known and seen, this is a war that happens in the shadows of New Eridu while the majority of people living ordinary lives remain unaware of this war. It is only by unforseen circumstances why Wise and Belle got involved in it.
I totally agree! That's the beauty of ZZZ's writing. Everything is a series of set up and payoffs to build up a bigger mystery around the true conspiracy.
The lore starts to hit me around when I'm playing Soldier 11's Agent Story. Why are there rebels if New Eridu is so peaceful and great? What are they fighting against?
And you also leave out the greatest part of them all. All of the factions now has their own motivations to help Belle and Wise. Koleda and Belobog wants to know what was Khors doing. Cunning Hares have beef against Perlman. Victoria has been looking at this longer than us, and now our interest aligns with them.
It's so good! 😄😄
I'm curious about the lore you mentioned here. I'll appreciate if you can provide me some clarifications.
When did we learn in Chapter 3 where this shadow war has been going on for long? I get that the Victoria Housekeeping is probably hired to fight this, and that they are involved with the fall of Old Eridu. I got the impression that you are saying it's something far before Old Eridu fell.
I'm still digging through the side stories right now 😄😄
@@FeyHunt Belle and Wise always mention a Mission and their Teacher through the storyline. We know currently little about what that mission is and who is their teacher but it always comes up when the Sacrifice is involved and the thing their teacher been looking into has been something he was already involved in before he took in Belle and Wise after the Fall of Eridu.
So far we do not know what it is but we know it involves the Hollow for some reason.
@@orrthehunter Yeah, I noticed that. So I guess the conspiracy begins around the fall of Old Eridu. Maybe the fall itself is an experiment gone wrong, where these people want to harness the Hollow's power.
as a C&C player ZZZ story is kinda right up my alley
dissaster struck human have to adapt new mineral appear as deadly as it is useful
2 side of human lock at war
goverment with shady side
and terrorist with a nugget of truth
C&C as in Command and Conquer? Yeah, that sounds about right. I was thinking more along their Honkai series before Star Rail, with multiple factions, world-ending threats, and such.
If you expect big events to happen, I'm afraid you will have to wait for a while. ZZZ is still a slice-of-life at heart, and big events tend to disturb the slice-of-life monotony.
@@FeyHunt now i just hope that the leader of villain faction is as good and glorious as Kane
@@Rat_Fบcker ONE VISION ONE PURPOSE
Excellent video. This is an aspect of the game nobody ever brings up, or at least I have not seen anyone else point out. 10/10.
@@Karlsefni-tu4zf Thank you for the kind words! I will keep making them then! 😄😄
I play the game on Japanese dub, and I didn’t realize that the scene where Silverfang is corrupted sounded so haunting.
Oh, does the Japanese dub hold off the growling part? The dub really sold the horror for me.
One thing I love about the "show, don't tell" is how it helps to see and feel the recordings lost in Hollow Zero. Without the context of the threat these would feel odd and/or bland.
Another reason I love the TV system is that it makes our brains to unconsciously develop the world building that the game can't show right now.
That's one of the big advantage of written media (novels) over graphic (movies and games). Your imagination can go wild at different places, if you decided to spend time reading it. That's sometimes a huge ask these days 😂
0:55 the way ZZZ handled their worldbuilding is certainly better than _certain_ other gachas, who tell you that they have an expansive world only to make you stuck in a war zone for 8 chapters.....
Haha, I assume you're talking about Arknights? Or is it other open world gacha game? 8 chapters is just way too long for any gacha game, full stop.
Wrap the plot and tell a new story, please!
@@FeyHunt yes this is about Arknights, who's worldbuilding are only covered in events that are only rerun a year after they come out
@@lancergt1000 I have to give them props for at least archiving the events for future players. Genshin didn't have that, which makes some things very weird at times. Like, if you don't know that Mona and Fischl met in an event back in v1.1, you wouldn't know why they suddenly decided to hang out together.
@@FeyHunt bc AK events are way more
in Genshin every region is covered by the main story, so everyone will eventually experience it
in Arknights their main story _loves_ to stay in a single wartorn region for literal years (it took AK 1.5 years to finish the Ursus arc, and 2 years to "finish" Victoria arc), so the only way to see every other region is from events
@@lancergt1000 I wonder why they chose to do that though... A version of Arknights in my head where you are deployed to different crisis in the whole world is way more interesting to me than what we have right now.
this is what makes me choose whether to play a gacha games. I play reverse 99 and they have really good storytelling, how deadly a storm can be, and the syndrome pre storm that can happen, so hours before storm is always tense.
The more people recommend r1999, the more excited I become to try it out. I just need to carve up some time to do it.
@@FeyHunt use the english VA, EN VA direction is top notch in reverse 99
@@joshuakevin1232 That's the first time I've heard praises for EN VA. Usually people throw shades at them. 😄😄
I guess I'm glad ZZZ was my first gacha game then. That scene was a perfect way to world-build in general for all the reasons in this video but showing the player what happens first also kind of calibrates their expectations - and gives them something to hunt for in the story later. "Why the hell did that guy turn into that thing?!"
In general, that sort of 'consequences, then explanation' method pulls in the person experiencing the narrative. If you do it too hard you run the risk of overloading your reader/player with too many unanswered questions but that's just a problem of good pacing.
@@crassirus Welcome to the gacha game world! Yes, you got the just right. Every narration is always a balancing act.
Too much exposition, your players get bored. Too little, they won't understand what just happened.
Writing a story is not easy, but by pointing what works and what doesn't, we can help the writers improve their writing by giving our feedback.
On the sidenote, I feel kinda bad if you ever want to try other gacha games. They will fall short out of ZZZ's writing standard 😄😄
You make a great point here, and i think EVEN zzz can push the show don't tell more. But its still a big improvement on other games. also with the immersive storytelling being a comic book, the tv mode sometimes displaying story, they have multiple different ways of conveying the story and its new and fresh.
@@laams_ Oh yes, ZZZ CAN and SHOULD push show, don't tell even more. They still rely on white text on black screen to explain a lot of activities, which is kinda lame. Especially in a lot of Trust Events.
There's also the horrible fate of all of our playable characters in their later years... According to Rina's story quest ; ~ ;
Yeah... It does remind me of the Chernobyl cleanup crew. Each of them are given like 2 minutes before the radiation gets deadly.
But I have some doubts if our playable characters will suffer the same fate, since their Ether aptitude is pretty high. That old lady was unlucky. She has low aptitude and was affected so badly while only spending several hours to rescue the babies (presumably). The babies themselves seem to be okay from the way Rina said that they have grown into fine adults. But then again, we don't know if there's something accumulating inside their bodies with every visit to the Hollow.
@@FeyHunt Rina said regardless of the ether aptitude they will all develop it... .-. The babies right now are fine adults but they will still have it once they're older...
@@xenosnake Oh, I have to recheck the story then. I think I missed that one.
@@FeyHunt yeah thats why rina say if she ended up like she'll be more stubborn... ; ~ ;
I think the best part of the first corruption scene is that later when you fight ethereal you just remember than they were once human.......
That's the disturbing part! And I can imagine that the Butcher or any bigger Ethereal might be former humans that eat other humans 😱😱
I also really love what they did with the TV system in Chapter 3 as a kind of brooding horror feeling. They managed to emulate dark hallways with supernatural beasts that can kill you at any moment. While it wasn't outright scary, it certainly set the mood. It honestly reminded me of a super old game I played when I was a kid "Pathways into Darkness" which was an FPS where you could only see a few meters in front of you and you could stumble upon a monster at any moment keeping you on your toes and the hairs on your neck firmly standing up.
Yeah! It does set a "haunted house" mood since the Ballet Twins are said to be haunted.
I'm still not sure how does ghost fit into the lore of this game. Are they Ethereals? If so, how did they just turn off the lights?
I didn’t think the first 2 audio log in ZZZ would get this dark.
I'll be sure to get those logs as soon as I can. I've heard crazy stuff.
What I find interesting about the playable characters is that despite they have less chance to get ether corrupted, they still aren't safe from it.
Yeah! That's the big part of why the horror works. Granted, I would like it if they lean more into that danger beyond the gameplay mechanic. Maybe we'll have those "noble sacrifice" scene where a character push another out of the Hollows and let themselves get corrupted.
Path to nowhere is a great gacha game that incorporates horror elements.
Path to Nowhere... Is this the gacha game that is similar to Arknights' tower defense? If so, that is right down my alley. I'll be adding that to my list.
@@FeyHunt It's a gacha game. Played it too but stopped because it's time consuming since I'm playing GI and HSR already. It's a really good game. It's a visual novel with tower defense mechanics,
ballerina twins has legit make me terrifying because combination between the scene and music
Haha, It certainly is tense! I do have some adoration for puppets-like enemy types, so I was just fascinated with their ballet movesets.
I think it's also thanks to the comic book segment that they are able to show more things, it costs less money than fully animate scenes, I really like the narrative of zzz
Exactly! Limitations breed creativity and it turns out it was better! 😄😄
The game has great vibes from so many sources.
@@Jokervision744 It does! I have a video coming up explaining these vibes.
i have never used the skip button in zzz, I love the way quests are played
Haha, I was close to do it on some of the agent stories... Main Story is great, but character quest, not so much. Perhaps I should make a video about it one day.
finally CC that crediting storytelling in ZZZ is Jenius. While opinions on a story's quality can be subjective and influenced by genre preference, good storytelling can elevate even a simple narrative into something extraordinary.
You earned my subscribe
Thank you, good sir! I think you will appreciate my next video where I break down even deeper why the story is set up perfectly in this game.
I have a feeling that most gacha game players are just not used to the actual markers of good-quality storytelling. They are tuning their standards to some weird stuff...
@@FeyHunt can't wait for the next video. Not just ZZZ, other games welcome too.
@@muhammadrafif6160 Oh yeah, there will also be other games as well, but I think I'm going to farm ZZZ's story first since there's a lot to talk about. 1 hour into v1.1 Main Story and I already have 2 video ideas...
In the future, I think I want to talk about Wuthering Waves and Arknights again, and maybe some other gacha games that I haven't tried yet.
Zenless seems to understand pacing far better than the other Gachas I am playing. PGR, Genshin, and Wuwa all take too long to make simple points. Zenless has a few ways to tell stories and this keeps it fresh and well paced.
This! It all comes down to the story being so focused on key objectives. You don't have many weird side quests in this game. Any yapping is eliminated from the story and put into your phone instead. I think I will need to explain this better on the next video!
kinda would have loved that there would actually be a timer every single time you are in the hollow… as the player you are not really in any danger of losing or losing any characters, it is only in story.
@@kuromiLayfe That would effectively turn ZZZ into an extraction shooter, would it? Like Escape from Tarkov? It would be a nice concept, not gonna lie.
What CN writer does not understood apparently is that everything as to be poetic, everything has to be complex as hell, nobody shall defeat you, and apparently it does not work everyone! Surprise surprise giving a 10 min lore dump with weird ass jargon and slogan made me sleep no matter how novel it is! And having the npc cast or even main cast licking my boots does not work too! Why would I help or have sympathy if none of the setting show urgency? WHY YOU GIVE ME MANGOOSTEEN??!?!?!?!
comic style is very nice. you can tell a story without the need to make a 3d model like in a cutscene. but comic style is not easy to do since the art has to be consistent with the ingame model of characters.
Oh, I'm pretty sure Hoyo is not running out of artists at any point in the future. They could just hire more and more people.
So keep em coming, Hoyo! I want more comics!
@@FeyHunt yesss comics. more!
The story:
The community: Nicole booby booty ahahah
Hahahahaha
Nicole? Nah bro, we're all about Jane Doe now
@@oxhidoupsil W-well... I might accidentally take a peek or two.
But I'm more into Qingyi's robot thighs. Can't wait to pull for her next patch!
@@FeyHuntWHOAH BASED
why not both? i play because of nicole, but the story writing is just chef's kiss. still played for nicole tho. i mean i completed all the story already and it left me with endless visit to HIA or outpost.. 😢 nicole made my day.
I def agree with you~ I only have Genshin as a comparison since I'm not a hardcore player but recently I noticed that they have been improving/trying out things in their storytelling. Example is the scene with making kites during this years lantern rite, they showed a picture instead of just yapping about it, also noticed that in the bedtime story, during the twins scene. I hope they can incorporate the manga/comic style aesthetic but I'm unsure if it will totally fit. We'll just have to wait and see.
@@DemiCreation-c2f I really wish Genshin the best, but I feel bad for the new players. They will have to suffer through a lot of mediocre or bad storytelling until they get to the good part.
I think they should try to rework earlier stories to make new player experience smoother.
That Ether transformation scene is even more brutal in the CBT, you can see White Fang's lower jaw pop off as he turn. They had to tune it down for mainland lol
Oh, I want to see it now! It's good that they intentionally do make it terrifying.
@@FeyHunt pretty sure you can find it when you look up zzz cbt cutscenes, lot of people uploaded it back then
@@ElliFong I'll definitely check it out then!
i think reverse: 1999 is also a great example
I would love to play r1999! It's been a while since I played any card games. I used to play it like crazy.
Plus, r1999 kinda touch on my favorite tropes: Victorian settings and time manipulation.
One gatcha game with good “horror” writing is Nikke, surprisingly enough. You start off learning how Raptures, (the in game enemy) have the ability to corrupt nikke’s and make them into their puppets. Then within the first chapter, you have to shoot and kill one of the nikke’s on your team after they get corrupted.
Later you learn you can “save” a Nikke by wiping their memory, but in a way you are still killing the person they were. We also see the memory wipe happen to another Nikke travelling with us.
These things stay as a constant aspect of the story and drives the player character to try and find a cure to stop nikke’s from being corrupted.
Nikke has been on my radar for a while because of its high concept worldbuilding. It's the classic question of "what is a human?" in robots setting.
I don't care about their gooners energy from their new Nikke, if the story can be as good.
Though, I have to admit, I've already been spoiled a bit about M's death and resurrection.
One gamr that so horror really well is Reverse 1999. While a lot of it does play out like a visual novel, they take many points to showcase the threat of the storm, the threat of Manus, and so on. We experience what happens to people affected by the storm syndrome and what the storm does to people when it hits. We witness what happens to people who put on the Manus masks, as well as their plans, helping create a sense of why they should be threatening.
It also uses the Visual Novel aspects to showcase disturbing or triggering subject matter without having to show it. The game features suicide in it, as well as other disturbing imagery, but it's told, not shown. I see this as a positive, since these matters can be tasteless to be shown. It also helps push back the chinese sensors, so that's nice
W-what?! What is going on in Reverse 1999? I swear I have never heard any of their stories so far. I guess I'm in it for a treat.
Keep saying, people saying the game has no story are the same people who don't listen or watch the story.
@@divineshrek3307 Yep! A week ago, I am still giving the benefit of the doubt that people haven't made the connection.
But I think I've been radicalized to think that these people just don't read the story at all.
@FeyHunt Or just don't have any story comprehension lol
Doesn't help that the game's beginning only just released.
I don't know if you've played it but a game that does this in a great way is Path to Nowhere, most of the terminology used is explained through context by showing us exactly why mania is terrifying
@@ladypmr7 I have actually installed Path to Nowhere in my emulator. I haven't got a chance to try it though. I'm very interested with its gameplay, since I do play Arknights. They seem to share the same concept, but different executions.
Can't wait to delve into that world!
@@FeyHunt oohhh boi, you're in for a treat
You forgot that hollows appeared all over the world, new eridu is one of the last cities, and a single corrupted escaped killing tons of people.
Oh, I think I did miss that. What is this corrupted? Sacrifice?
Limbus Company is another Gacha that makes impeccable use of horror (though, it is a psych’ horror game). In one of the story chapters, you come across a group that is adamantly against prosthetics, eliminating people who use them for whatever reason. Instead of telling you about them, the game spends the opening moments having one of your teammates having full on panic attacks due to your proximity to their operating area. Then, when you eventually find them, the first thing you see is the carnage they wreak on whatever area they find.
(Honestly, Limbus just has *INCREDIBLE* writing throughout.)
Yeah, a lot of people have been recommending it to me in this comment section alone. I think I should try it as soon as I can!
I think one of the horror moments I remember in Star Rail, was when we encounter “Something Unto Death”.
The fact that the level itself is already creepy because we’re in a dream, and interacting with some items tells the player that “something is watching you from shadows…” or “avoid touching it for the sake of your mental health” pretty much tells the player that despite your encounter with powerful entities and people, there are things out there in the unknown and the void, that is beyond our comprehension and is better off left alone;
And with what “Something Unto Death” is capable of doing: reaping our character’s soul in battle, that part of Penacony creeped and if I don’t have any chests to look for or do; I practically stay out of that level.
That’s the horror element in Star Rail, for me.
@@genoveus Thanks for sharing your experience! I wish I could've gotten to Penacony immediately.
HSR story is... fine. But I really don't enjoy the gameplay. I'm still stuck in Belobog.
Visiting Scott Outpost left a big impression on me. There are not many instances where you can see a hollow from the outside, but the view from there is terrifying.
Yeah, this too. I kinda wish they made Scott Outpost layout to have a long walkway so we can walk for like a minute from end to end to showcase just how big this Hollow is. We never actually see the Hollow up close from the HDD. It's terrifying.
the way they showed hollow zero is genius. having multiple hollows that you can actually see from the outside (i.e. the construction site hollow and the ballet twins hollow) shows what they look like, but having you see hollow zero from the outside makes the sizes of the other hollows pale in comparison, and it just shows how malevolent it is
@@inhalerisinsane Good point! Yes, the scale and power level is just outright scary. I kinda wish they put Hollow Zero introduction after Ballet Twins, not the other way around. Ballet Twin is the first time we see the scale of a regular Hollow.
@@FeyHunt and the fact that you can see floating rocks around hollow zero while there are nothing floating around the other hollows makes it feel like hollow zero is actually pulling in everything rather than just consuming what it can touch
@@inhalerisinsane Do we have a confirmation about that? I know Hollows look like a blackhole, but is it actually sucking things in? I thought that those floating rocks were just affected by Ether energy, which is basically space magic and such.
ZZZ is different from all those other open-world gacha games so far.
ZZZ shows, you don't need an elaborate open world for a player to have fun in it.
It reminds me of "Megaman Battle Network", where you could explore the overworld in peace,
but you can switch to the "deeper" level anytime, if you want to fight.
The fact, you are actually controlling characters in a danger zone adds a bit of urgency to every mission.
Combine this with certain story events, tension is built on top, even further elevating that urgency.
I think, we may see a few more "closed world" gachas, ZZZ and Snowbreak are two of those already.
The term you're looking for is "small open world". This is already a trend with regular AAA games back in the late 2010s with open-world fatigue. I have a video coming up discussing this.
From whatcI gathered, New Eridu is the last civilization on Earth, everything else was swallowed up by a massive Hallow slowly devouring the planet, we can see even the Moon is nearly swallowed up by a hallow, honestly pretty terrifying stuff. But yeah the people have accepted this and are trying to live a normal life as much as they came
It's actually genius that they are making a chill game on a FREAKING POST-APOCALYPSE! There's a tonal irony in there, but it's actually realistic.
My only concern will be if they started to ramp up the story into "saving the world" type of story. Then we'll have a bigger tonal dissonance.
Fun fact (that I'm sure is well known) the corruption scene was censored for the full release. The core originslly had blood and bones and teeth swirling around it to show his body literally desolving into the core. So the body horror lean was even stronger. It makes you wonder how much was cut before it made it into the game.
Oh, really? Is there a source for the original corruption sequence? I would like to see it.
Even if I don't like a specific part of the story, not having all the exposition yap yap yapping is amazing. I hate Genshin quests, because no matter how good the payoff is, it doesn't make up for the hours of --> characters yap exposition at me, walk (don't run! stamina is a thing) to another character so they can yap exposition at me, rinse, repeat. Add to that the excellent "cut to comic book" scenes replacing a bunch of the "gently undulating torso dialogue" scenes and I'm pretty happy with it. The other games should take note.
Yes! I think having characters awkwardly standing around to wait for their turn to speak should really go out of style.
It's clear that gacha game companies are not willing to animate every conversation, so just stick to VN/comic strip then. Show us something!
Hoyo have always been pretty good at horror inspired moments, like HI3 as a whole is pretty dark but not so much "horror". Then you get the Herrcher Of Rimestar and Ana's mind still being in there trying soooooo hard to not become a monster only to fail, or Herrcher Of Dominion being able to obtain it's hosts by preying on the mentally weak and often implied suicidal members of society.
even much earlier in the story (like year 1) You have Sakura Samsara which is eventually revealed to be a time loop situation of Yae Sakura reliving the worst section of her life over and over and over again for over 500 years of constantly failing to change the outcome in a positive way (an idea which was later reused as the foundation of the "day you vanished with the starts" event story).
like sure anyone can write a story where countless people are killed by monsters and we have to kill monsters but stories where they DON'T ALLOW characters to die? Good examples of those are much rarer/rarely done well.
@@dracotias Yeah... I wouldn't call those HI3 moments as horror, but it is quite disturbing.
More important part for HI3 is that they do use these moments as a way to tell a story about its characters.
You can easily lose sight on what actually matters when writing these high-concept scenes.
Now that being said, some of these stories are quite unsatisfying in terms of its conclusion.
The Day You Vanished with the Star has a great concept, but the ending is just "leave". Yes, the timeloop does proof that the Captain cares a lot about Kongming and that there's no timeline where Kongming live, but that's basically just avoiding the concept altogether. I still prefer Sakura Samsara when it comes to the timeloop execution. It's more like Groundhog Day or Edge of Tomorrow.
Maybe I should make a video about this later. Both of those are great stories on their own right.
I think my favorite part about zzz is the fact that the main character is already part of the world from begining. what i mean by that is the mc isnt detached from reality because theyre been in a coma, got amnesia, got created recently (like the mc in hsr and wuwa) etc.
these trope are such a copout for lazy worldbuilding because then everything is gonna get explained through exposition and the mc asking everything they don't know, it is the very antithesis of show dont tell.
Hmmmm, I understand that we're all tired of the self-insert/amnesiac MC in the gacha game market, but I don't think it's quite fair to paint the trope itself as a mark of lazy writing. It can be done well, but it's just so difficult to pull it off.
Truth is, these gacha game writers never had a chance to do it, because they only use the trope as a convenience to explain the world itself. It's a leftover from the less-good anime trope. To pull off an amnesiac protagonist well, you must have a good payoff to explain what is hidden in their past. In most of these gacha and anime, they didn't.
So in summary, blame the writers who can't pull it off well. Not the trope itself. In my opinion, if you can't pull it off, just choose another trope, like ZZZ.
@@FeyHunt yea i suppose you're right, gotta blame the player not the game itself
I like the part when you mentioned that hollow can appear anywhere. *spoilers* Like in Koledas agent story a small hollow appeared next to a school, and as you progress through the story the hollow suddenly grew in size because of certain incidents inside the hollow. Hollows unpredicatability makes them a threat to everyday lives and that's what makes them terrifying.
I did play Koleda's Agent Story. I think I may have subconsciously choose "sister to school" example in this video from that Agent Story.
Again, it's just another reminder that you are never safe. Those kids better have strong Ether aptitude. Otherwise, they will end up like the granny on Rina's Agent Story.
Though, I have to wonder why the Hollow expansion rule is inconsistent. So in the main story, we are told that killing the Dead End Butcher may shrink the Hollow. But now in Koleda's story killing them may destabilize the Hollow and expand it?
@@FeyHunt I think what destabilized the hollow was the constant foraging of ether crystals found inside a hollow.
It's not because the Hollow suddenly appear near school, it's the fact that the fricking principal just let it grew without reporting to officials just for the sake of his selfish desire. He and that guy named Rost (who killed his own Bangboo partner) are straight psychopath.
@@nox1462 Yeah, that's what Koleda said. I wonder how does that work? Supposedly, if you take something out of a place, the overall energy/mass should go down, right? How does it expand instead?
The only thing on my mind is that the Hollow is similar to how a star works. Its own energy mass creates a collapsing force that keeps it from expanding. When the fuel is expended, then that collapsing force no longer exists, hence the expansion of the Hollow. But if this is true, then the Hollow can never be gone.
But then destroying the Ethereal inside the Hollow will cause it to shrink... so does that mean you can ONLY shrink the Hollow by killing as much Ethereal as possible? Where does that energy go to? Eh, kinda weird...
First of all, great video! I’m so glad that someone talks about this. Unfortunately a lot of people complain about the story, saying that there is too much 'yapping'. I literally did not understand what those people were talking about because there is so much LESS unnecessary dialogue than in other gacha games (especially HSR). I hope that the writers don’t listen too much to this unfounded negative feedback and keep doing their thing. They already cut out a lot of TV segments in 1.1 in favor of more combat, which worries me.
The lore teaser they put out not too long ago looks very promising though.
To these people, talking for more than 5 seconds is yapping
@@cawashka Yeah, me too! I don't know what they're talking about. It's already so much better than ANY gacha game. It's almost pure story here! They really made the worldbuilding as simple as possible.
I wish they have the guts to say "This is what we intended to design the game. Good day".
@@fefega We're doomed, aren't we? In five years, all gacha games will only speak in EMOJIS!
I'll admit I'm not playing ZZZ for it's story, but that is indeed a fine talking point about it, and it gets the ball rolling very well. And the fact that Hollows are a massive threat for normies persists as a constant narrative element throughtout the whole story so far.
Unfortunately, as the plot progresses, I cannot say that the full story is that excellent at this point. It's a strong start, but they didn't quite stick the landing with it, at least as of the completion of Chapter 3. They more than make up for this with good gameplay and incredibly badass cutscenes and some of the most fleshed out characters I've seen in a long time, so I cut them some slack. Especially on the character end - every single playable character has so much personality that it's something that other gacha's would honestly murder for.
[Spoilers for people that haven't finished the story so far]
What do you mean, Sarah is still out there with an unknown partner with a plan to create super ethereals (sacrifices) that can fuse with other beings and machines, and the chief of the police may or may not be that secret partner which is acting as a good guy in front of the public, not to mention the things we learn through agent missions, which are shown in the same casual way as the beginning did (check Koleda's and Rina's agent missions).
Agreed! So far, my favorite chapter is still the first prologue chapter. Chapter 1 with Cunning Hares has chronic case of dumb characters syndrome. Chapter 2 with Belobog is the second best. Chapter 3 is... meh.
Aside from the gameplay, I think they should add more character development moments for every character. If they do that, we'll have the winning strategy to get the BEST WRITING that could even rival single player RPGs.
I wish they put more effort on polishing the story as much as they put efforts on animations in this game.
Who is this Sarah? Is it the lady that talked to Perlman?
I can't speak for the commenter above, but I think they were not talking about the weight of the lore in the later stories.
They were criticizing the quality on how you deliver the story. Sure we got a lot of bombshell lore reveal, but we don't have strong character moments like when Nicole decided to risk her own life to trust Phaethon will come back.
@@FeyHunt Chapter 3 was very much set up to be an exposition for the next chapter. That reason alone, it's always going to be, unfortunately, mid. There is one character moment in Ch 3 that was touched upon that I wished they explored more. That would have made this Chapter less mid and it might even make it significantly better.
It was a brief dialogue but it had weight on it. Non-verbatim, "I must thank you for helping a girl achieve her dream." Lycaon said this about Phaeton saving Corin in the Hollows. There's weight in those words that could potentially point to a compelling character moment for Corin. But it was left just as that. I do understand that VHK is like a pseudo-underground group and disclosing personal info from them that early is prolly detrimental to their work. But Corin was an exception to that rule and it really would have been cool if we got to know more information about Corin, how she decided to become maid and what happened to her prior that prompted her to make that decision.
It doesn't help that Lycaon does have a soft spot for Corin and prolly sees her as a budding apprentice. When you switch from Corin to Lycaon, he will usually say, "You've done well, Corin." Like, if only we just got shown that type of dynamic in any of the cutscenes, that would have been great
@@Law-of-EnTropy I disagree. A chapter can be great while still setting up the next story. Look at any Marvel movies before Endgame. They still manage to tell a great standalone story and tease the next installment in the story.
But you hit the point straight in the head. Most gacha games' main stories often put too much emphasis on the plot and don't properly develop their characters along. It almost as if the character is being dragged along by the plot all the time.
I want more gacha games that do both at the same time. Tell a great plot, while also developing all characters. Problem is, most of them just didn't invest enough in great writers. All the money goes to artists.
I knew that I'd be hooked with this game and its story even before it got released, it is a HOYO game after all. I'm playing Genshin Impact, HSR, and now ZZZ. Hoyo is genius, they make games that are different from one another with different story telling mechanism, different vibes, and world building designs. By just looking at their main characters you know they're diff from the rest.
1. Genshin (Open World) Aether/Lumine - They're not your typical hero protagonists but they're the witness to a world that is ever changing and memories that can be manipulated
2. HSR (Turn-Based) Caelus/Stelle - They're not your siblings to choose from but rather 1 entity who plays an important support role to all characters we meet along the way
3. ZZZ (Action Combat RPG) Wise/Belle - These siblings aren't your playable fighting characters but unlike the 2 previous games, you literally work together with your sibling and dispatches agents to work with us into the hollows.
Well... if you've seen my past take about Genshin, I think you would understand why I don't share your enthusiasm about the writings, especially Genshin. HSR is fine, I just think the gameplay is boring until you get some great 5* characters.
I like this cause another gacha that has an INCREDIBLE story uses this same technique... NIKKE! (SPOILERS AHEAD)
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You don't get a dialogue exposition about the raptors and why they are so dangerous as the first experience, you're literally thrown into a battlefield in the middle of an attack from the raptors as you fight for survival and command the nikkes to fight these raptures during the tutorial, and then when you think you've got the upper hand and you're about to escape, the Nikke that saved your life ends up being corrupted by this creature and you're forced to KILL said Nikke before she loses control of herself and tries to harm you.
From that scene alone you imediatelly understand that not only you (the commander) are completely outmatched as a character and NEED the nikkes to fight for you (which is important when later on the story puts you in situations where your nikkes are heavily injured it puts your character in a tough spot where sometimes they are forced to retreat and fail the mission at hand or risk total death of the party) and even when you have the uperhand against these robotic creatures you should NEVER underestimate the raptors cause you never know when a stronger one will arrive or worse... one of your nikkes gets corrupted and now you have to fight the raptors AND the corrupted nikke
And this is from the tutorial alone, later there is more nuances like the government structure and your limitations as a simple commander vs the power manipulation someone higher up could have and the struggles of humanity living underground and having to reconquer the surface against this seemingly overwhelming force that later on you find out is actually starting to become sentient and even have mixes of nikke and rapture in their ranks which makes things even more difficult for the cast. And all of this is shown through your own discoverings during the missions, YOU witness the first sentient Raptor as it speaks back, YOU see the first fusion of NIKKE and raptor as you are forced to fight it in the middle of a mission, YOU find out the government is fucked up and you have no power when they order other squads to attack you to obtain something they want from you and you are not willing to give.
I see! I understand what're getting at, but I think it's not the same kind of horror. I think NIKKE is more about the classic post-apocalyptic helplessness. Everyone has to do bad stuff to survive, even if someone else had to suffer. For the greater good.
If I read the tropes correctly, NIKKE is more about the question of "what is a human?". Is Nikke a human? Is humanity worth protecting? And when the needs of a NIkke and humanity clashes, who would you save?
It's definitely something I need to see and read for myself. The high concept is filled with potentials. Hopefully they pull it off well.
@@FeyHuntIt has some horror elements.
You should play Limbus Company. It's confusing but when you get a hold of it. it's was amazing
@@cruzard9566 So I've heard! I got about 20 people in this comment section alone recommending it to me.
It's definitely my top gacha game to try next. 😄😄
@@FeyHunt Yo, You aren’t lying about commenting every comment.
@@cruzard9566 Hehe, I am a man of my word 😂😂
Plus, I do like talking to people about these kind of topics. This is part of me reaching out into the aether that is youtube.
That was a nice way to explain it, and it may be one of the reasons why I like it so much, other than for combat (I like horror in general)... .-.
Yeah! If they can keep this up, this is a huge contender for the best game awards.
I liked it when fire unit waifu’s father says “you need to say this thing” and then she says the thing and wins. Totally not bad writing
You totally missed the point in that scene. It was Koleda's character moment.
Koled spent her entire life to this point thinking her father is someone she can't trust. A villain. A traitor.
But as the story goes, she realized that her father did it for a reason. He's willing to die to protect this monument.
So when she speaks out the name of that machine, it is symbolic of her trusting her father again.
This type of character-based moments are very common in any media, even though it looks like a Deus Ex Machina powerup.
I never thought about horror being in zzz
Too bad i skipped the entire story bruh
That's a shame, but you can open up the archive in the game to see some parts of it!
As much as a fan of Wuwa, I have to say your point is correct with all of the games mentioned. I mean the story is quite good with how realistic it get most of the time. "Your cat die? Oh no. My condolence... Anyway your rent is due in 3 days.." or "Dayum someone just turned into monster! Hope it's not me next time haha". Like reality of this interaction is borderline happening on this world and will be if the world turned into hollow tho. The cyberpunk 2077 style really got me hooked with the story making so interesting.
At first I was like "Dayum the world is so restricted". But after going through the story a lil bit it became bearable although the yapping is still there but It resonates well with me that make me think for a moment or caught my attention instead of pressing skip all the time.
@@anzheilen5217 Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I also love WuWa, but I can't ignore the fact that the story is just not put well together. Like, it's just a series of random happenings. You can't follow or guess what will happen next, which means you can't get invested in it. I think that should be the topic for the next video.
I'm not sure what you mean with Cyberpunk 2077 style though... Do you mean the story writing or the aesthetic?
Aesthetically, it's closer to old japanese-style games like Jet Set Radio. I think some people called Retro-Harajuku which is confusing. Cyberpunk aesthetic is more about body implants, neon signs, and the synthwave music.
@FeyHunt By Cyberpunk 2077 is I mean that people are dying everyday in the world yet no one seems to give it much thought like it's a normal thing happening in the world.
@@anzheilen5217 Oh yeah, that's accurate! I haven't played Cyberpunk coz my PC is potato. But from the intro of Edgerunners, yeah... Living in that world sucks if you're poor.
HSR everytime we're Luofo: YAP YAP YAP YAP ACTION EXPO YAP YAP EXPO YAP
Oh my god, is it really that bad? I'm still at Belobog after the Stellaron quest is done.
The story overall is decent, but the gameplay is a big turnoff for me. I don't even know if I want to continue on.
@@FeyHunt tbh i think you should. the story ramps up so much in penacony, even if it's not perfect
@@AbinGaming My problem is with the enjoyment of the game. The combat just doesn't feel good to me.
I've played a lot of turn based games before, but Star Rail is just a number-based combat. You already know if you win or lose. There's no intense expectation of clucthing the victory.
And the game does have that annoying artifact grind again... It's gonna be a slog to get through. Is it possible to complete the main story in Luofu and Penacony without any great relics?
@@FeyHunt you can beat luofu and penacony with just mid relics
also level up character, light cone and traces and u'll probably be good to go
@@FeyHunt They made sure you can clear story quests without investing huge time and resources for relics. All you need to do is just upgrade your characters and their traces and you're good to go. I mean, they nerfed a story boss because he's too difficult to clear due to his annoying mechanics.
Bro, I didn't want another gacha game to clog my iPad's memory, but ZZZ's story sank it's hooks in me so deep that I literally had to delete a lot of apps just to make room for the game 😭
Haha, glad I'm not alone in enjoying the story then! Does iPad allow for an SSD expansion? If so, it might be worth it to upgrade, since ZZZ file size is only going to get bigger and bigger over time.
Actually, they inherited a lot from Honkai Impact 3rd in case of writing, but made it even more engaging with comic panels (HI3 has them on the side with ingame links). I wonder what you rate HI3 though.
For me it's the best story and world building among all games and anime I've ever played/watched as 28 year old veteran.
But the storytelling itself in ZZZ is better imo, not the story yet but who knows where will we get from a cool exposition like 1.0
I did play and read all comics in Honkai 3rd. The comics are absolute banger, and a far better storytelling than the game itself imo.
Like Kallen's and Otto's origin in Clan Palatinus (I think that's the title?). Or heck, even the ACTUAL INTRO to the series Escape from Nagazora who is not included in the game for some reason. That's just so a weird choice. Or the 2nd Impact comic about Sirin. It's just so good!
One thing I find weird is that they stop making those past Chapter 9. I wonder why?
That’s exactly why I felt said “connection”. Nekomata interlude made me really cry and I forgot when cried the last time over a game 😅
Oh, I see... Which interlude with Nekomata exactly? I don't quite remember any parts that are sad about her.
@@FeyHunt where she decides to sacrifice herself to Vision to save people
@@TanyaKory Hmmmm... I don't exactly find that sad, more like a heroic moment for her.
But it's totally okay! We have our own life experiences that resonate with us as we read stories. Perhaps there are some things in your past that relates to her in a way. Who am I to judge, right? 😆
Not a gacha game, but when you mentioned using horror to show why something is terrifying, a very specific scene in Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers came to mind.
(Just in case: spoilers for Shadowbringers)
Basically, in one area, you get shown exactly why dealing with Sin Eaters is so terrifying: the more powerful ones can transform people into more Sin Eaters. Then, you witness it happen to a NPC that you spent a few quests getting to know, and you can only watch while she undergoes one of the most horrific transformations I've ever seen outside of a horror game like Parasite Eve or Resident Evil. I'm pretty sure that anyone who's played Shadowbringers still has that cutscene burned into their memories whether they want to remember it or not.
Yeah! I did see that scene out of curiosity when I was reading some pages on TVTropes. It is quite horrifying. The last words she said was like "forgive me", before she lost herself entirely.
Parasite Eve... I haven't heard that name in almost 15 years. Is it really a horror game though? I only saw bits from the PSP release where it's all third person shooter.
@@FeyHunt Eh, I'd argue that some of the transformation sequences shown in the cutscenes of Parasite Eve were pretty gnarly :P
@@Biklingchan85 Oh, I do remember that concert scene at the start where people just got blended.
@@FeyHunt I was actually thinking about like, the rat transformation and the dog transformation. I still can't bring myself to actually watch them, I look away when that happens XD
@@Biklingchan85 Oh I don't remember that scene at all... Maybe I should grab an emulator and play it again!
this one is not a gacha but the Tesleen transformation in FF14 - Shadowbringers expansion, you get to see first hand how a victim turns into a sin eater (the main enemies in said expansion)
/watch?v=qOMge2WFW_A&t=60s
Oh I did watch that years back. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this scene happens in the middle of the story, right?
I wonder if that scene is for shock value (like in ZZZ) or for tragedy value. That girl was supposed to be your companion, right?
I think that's a brilliant example of using as tragedy, a curious video idea for the future, I suppose!
Nikke is really good at this too
I see! A lot of people have recommended to me as well. It's already on my PC, so I just need to find some time to play it.
AFAIK most writer in devs know that but they just don't have the budget and you have goldfish brain who click "skip" within 100ms when cutscene appears.
ZZZ in CN is attacked for "plot is boring" which I don't know what those people is on but that's the reality of the gacha market. you need to please IQ 80.
Ugh, that's what bothers me the most. As good as a gacha game can be, it will still cater to the mass audience, which usually happens to be borderline idiots. I wish Hoyo will have the guts to stand firm on their principles.
Wait till this dude hears about Limbus..
@@nabhaswiangthad7364 I have heard people recommending Limbus a lot. I have installed it last night, just need to find time to play it.
Has anyone ever told u to try see Nikke story telling technique?
Cuz idk but somehow having character actually voiced n mostly dialog is more bareable than full on visualnovel narrator technique,
Or thts just me
Yes, I felt that way too. That is the huge barrier of entry for me to read the entire 100 hours of Arknights VN story.
Nikke is already on my list of games to play, so hopefully I will have time to do it soon.
A bit of a personal story, so 1 week after ZZZ's official launch, I decided to trade-in my old phone in order to play ZZZ (among other things). And while it was a bit unwise (because my old phone was still okay ish 😅), oh boy was I glad to do so 😁
Also, this video of yours makes me love ZZZ even more 🤟 and I hope more people would make this kind of video for any game. Especially for the "goofy" ones
I would keep making these deep dives video for as long as people will keep watching them.
And it seems that I just got a huge boost from youtube. This video is an absolute banger on my channel so far!
@@FeyHunt keep it up mate! And you just earned yourself a new subscriber 😉
@@Krisna404 Thank you so much!
Help me I can't stop comparing this with the Project Moon universe
Everyone keeps saying that. I WILL have to check out Limbus Company soon.
I think in inazuma story for genshin, they did the showing tho it was...tell then show
Other showing are also done subtly in the layout like islands etc. Inazuma did that well
Hmmm... In general, "tell, then show" is always worse than "show, then tell", because if you want to show it later, then why tell us now? That's an unnecessary yapping.
Of course, Genshin also has its moments where it executed "show, then tell" very well, like the examples in Inazuma islands or the Orobashi's skeleton long before you heard of her power. Another great example is the three giant robots in Sumeru. I will not make any brash claim that Genshin NEVER did it well.
In general, Genshin is always great at environmental storytelling. It's just when it comes to the actual main story, I often find it... wanting.
Zzz story was so good reminds of honkai impact at the old good days
Haha, unfortunately, I didn't play Honkai Impact at its prime. I played it around the HoD arc before Kolosten. That is a glimpse of a great writing direction for Kiana's arc. However, everything went downhill since then.
The thing about ZZZ is that it feels character driven rather than story driven. There’s no sense of urgency to the story…there’s a conspiracy going on but the MC isn’t fully aware of how deep it is so they have to just live on with their daily lives for now.
It’s not like genshin where you know the MC has something important he needs to do but instead has to go through seven nations and waste time at events instead going straight to his final destination.
Haha, I get your point, but I have to correct you a bit. There's no sense of urgency in the overarching narrative (yet).
A sense of urgency is always important in every chapter to push the characters to achieve their goal, like how we need to save Rain in Chapter 3. Without urgency, there will be no tension in the story.
Genshin is just weird. They started out with a goal but no urgency. So the traveler is just meandering about like a headless chicken. I'm glad they kinda drop the fake urgency all together in Star Rail and make it literally episodic like Star Trek.
@@FeyHunt Very true. At first i wasn’t digging ZZZ pasting but then i realized it felt more natural. Like yeah in chapter 3 there is urgency to the story and the situation not only demands you to act quickly, but it also gets to the point because you wanna rescue rain.
Also yeah Genshin’s weird in this way. Like, if i were separated from my siblings and stranded in a strange world i would do everything to find them instead of wasting time with floating ear-soar. They completely messed up the pasting of the story.
@@domb.1522 *Pacing. And that's why I don't like Genshin anymore. That and the constant lore tease without any sufficient payoff.
my god is the bar low
Please do tell me why do you think so. Let's talk about it!
@@FeyHunt no offense to zzz. i think you're observations are correct, but it's sad that a lot of gacha games story is just a massive exposition dump. i dont know how anyone can get invested in wuwa for example but to be fair i only played it for an hour. the bar shouldn't be so low that we're impressed by zzz but here we are. i hope that zzz will raise the standard a bit and stuff like this can at least become the minimum for games of its caliber.
@@kiteofdark That was my impression as well when I first get into gacha games. I have a theory that they really don't care about stories as long as they keep pulling gacha money.
What they are starting to realize is that if you write a good story with good characters, people will stay longer and spend more.
Yes, gacha game standards are pretty low. But I take small victories when I get them. Praising them when they do right, and criticizing them when they do bad. That's how they'll improve.
@@FeyHunt totally agree