I WANT to absorb all the story, I want to love it, I'm intrigued by so much of the lore, but I swear sometimes it's like I'm actively trying to get absorbed in the story and the game is just daring me to not zone out. I started the aranara quest line excited and hopeful, by the end of I was spamming the skip dialogue button, I know for a fact there would have been a ton of interesting snippets and lore in there, but the delivery just beat me down over time
I start almost every quest like "ok let's see what this is about i'll actually listen and read and pay attention", but by the end of it I'm aggressively spamming skip like "yesyesyes I understood thank you you said that already let's go goo lord how long will this take...!"
Yep, me too. That's why they refuse to add a skip button when games like HI3rd and ZZZ have one. It would expose the lack of actual gameplay content per update.
@@fiaschampion3379it's less that and more to make it difficult to multi-account. If everyone could easily multi-account then you could spread out your wishes across several accounts and focus on different characters/teams on each fully f2p. By making this difficult to do with mandatory time investment minimums, only the most dedicated players can achieve this. And those same players are still the most likely to spend money when backed into a corner because of the sunk cost of their time investment.
Good video. I agree with most of what you said here. When people claim Genshin's story they are praising the worldbuilding not the writing itself. Those are two very different different things.
im one those people who praise the world building (yes i know the difference too dont worry) I agree the storytelling in Genshin might not be the best but I personally like it, a lot but that's a topic for another day. But I really like the way Genshin handles its world building and background lore. I don't like being spoon-fed the lore and would rather spend the time collecting the pieces and connecting the dots and making sense of the bigger picture. I feel that Genshin executes this part pretty well. That brings me great joy.
Going off what you said about the nature of a gacha game harming character development, that's one of the things that really bothers me about Genshin's story. For example, I like Albedo. I think he's cool, and I like the story set up with him being this genius but also slightly insidious. Rosaria seems to think he's not trustworthy, and there's a chekov's gun set up with Albedo claiming he has the power to destroy Monstatd. He has so many compelling stories that could be told with him as the central focus. But this is a gacha game, and the characters are the product. Albedo has consistently had some of if not the lowest sales of any premium character. Mihoyo isn't likely to spend the significant amount of money to invest in stories surrounding Albedo because he isn't going to make them their money back. Which leads to his really compelling story being all but dropped. And now I feel more jaded about getting invested in the lore and story of new characters because, unless they're really popular with the community, their stories might just end up pushed to the side for the next new popular character.
Yeah Albedo is a great example! And also one of the perfect examples of the issue with time-limited content - the event stories focusing on him were great, but they're just gone now...
@@raptori So true. It feels like those time limited events shouldn't even be considered when talking about character representation in the story because they're completely missable. If Mihoyo would let us replay those old events then it'd be different, but they're married to the FOMO strategy.
@@strideytidey8665 Yeah exactly, but then if you *don't* consider them then several characters lose like half or more of their backstory... so it sucks either way. It's so stupid, people would still feel the FOMO just for the rewards, even if they could still play the story later on...
He has the carisma of a literal prince more than Aether, he can be a good antagonist and I COMPLETLY forgot about that sentence of him beaing a treat to Mondstad.
Genshin's lore legit could have led to a story in the same league as RDR2, Horizon, etc... such a shame that it's been a miss so far. Really curious how it'll come across in the anime!
potential is there but not that far, they had potential but after 4 years and a lot of burnout i lost hope, and the game seems to follow the lighter side formula maybe after the 4 year difference between the first mention of fake sky and the newest one it will lead somewhere but who knows
The anime has been put aside for priority over the anime studio, they won't take the risk. It will be complete when ready... that is a trouble for us, they are taking too much years and Hoyo played the Marvel card "Show prior before ready and not probably soon (so whats the point then?)"
The writers don't really have many options. They have to satisfy the fans of every playable character so they are stuck with making all of them "main characters". They can never be used as a means to improve the story of another character. They are too important for that. We have other side characters for that but because of the clear distinction between the important playable ones and the nameless NPCs, i cant really be invested in those NPCs characters. Another factor is the fact that a gacha game has a never ending always expanding story, so they cant really finish a characters story properly since they will have to bring them back in the future. You don't have many options for a satisfying conclusion in this case. Because of these factors ive been mostly uninterested in the story save for some cool moments and that really sucks
The dual city set up was something that got me REALLY excited when we first landed in Fonaine, and I was sos ure it wuld paly a big part in the Archon quest, so I think that's why I'm doubly disappointed that didn't happen 😔
@@saurusnessit's too bad too because they used the class divide in those Fontaine locations in world quests, a few story quests, and as backstory for several characters, but this never was brought forward in the archon quest. I have a suspicion that this partly because focusing too much on class divide would be uncomfortable for some rich/whale players and turn them off? It's the only thing that makes sense because they spent a lot of time on it and weaving it into a lot of the key Fontainian characters' history. The more I think about it the more I'm sure that's really what it is and it's like gacha and mobile concession issues rear their ugly heads again ..
One change I wish they do is TO MAKE THE TEXT SPEED FASTER. Jesus I played the pokemon games in the past and they're notorious for having a simple plot, bloaty dialogue, and heck, the whole game is unvoiced, unskippable too. But the thing is, I was able to stomach those and still understand what's going on because when they talk, I could just skim their sentences and get the whole gist of what they're saying. Fast enough to hold my attention for a bit to comprehend it In Genshin, with how SLOW the text speed is, I space out ALL THE TIME, especially if I'm not interested with what they're saying. The text speed is annoyingly slower than our reading speed. Leading us to just spam the mouse button to just get on with it. Not reading anymore
The biggest problem for me is that world quests and arcon quests hardly connect together. We do something in there somewhere, but it's almost never reflected in the main story, and vice versa. it is also a bit annoying that, apart from events, and Fatui there is very little connection between the nations. Natllan is at war, meanwhile no other nation really cares? There is a feeling that when leaving the previous nation, someone goes there and turns off the light, and everyone who is there ceases to exist. Of course there are also good examples, but in my opinion there are not enough of them, it would be nice to see conection between all nations in the main story, not only in events.
What I've been thinking about lately is Genshin's characters and characterization, which is an important element of storytelling. Xilonen is the character that made me start thinking about this. In the story (Archon quests and tribal chronicles), she's presented as a crafts-person. She's an artisan who takes her work very seriously, but also needs to take frequent breaks to replenish. (I think many people who do creative work can recognize that). But in gameplay, she's presented as a musician--not just any musician, but a DJ (Yun Jin and Xinyan are both musicians, but types of musicians that aren't extremely popular these days). Those two things, being an artisan and being a musician, are totally unrelated, and in fact there's absolutely nothing in the story that mentions that she even has any interest in music. There's ONE story in her Profile that tries to excuse it, but it feels like a pretty lame and arbitrary insertion into an otherwise coherent character story. It's hard not to think that what happened was the marketing department decided that an artisan wasn't cool or sexy enough for mass appeal, and told the gameplay designers to ignore everything the writers put so much careful thought into. This feels like a change from most Genshin characters up to now, whose gameplay has usually had some relation to their personalities. (Edit: I'm not saying it's impossible to believe that someone could be both an artisan and a musician. I'm saying it's impossible to believe that Xilonen could be both, given how much time she needs for naps.)
I think it's a bit unfair to criticize lack of things like big world changes in a game that needs to fit on a mobile phone. We do get some, like removal of the fog on Tsurumi Island, the tree in Vourukasha Oasis, or the disappearance of Tower of Ipssimus. And we got one decently sized temporary change, where the whole Poisson is devastated and you need to proceed in the archon quest to go through its renovation. But I'm afraid any large scale changes are out of the question for purely technical reasons. The story for me was always bit and miss, I didn't like the Mondstadt and Liyue stories until I replayed them on my alt account and found them much better than I remembered. And I actually did like all the story from then on. If there are parts that leave me questioning my sanity, I write it up to its Chinese origin, plus need to stick with Anime kind of storytelling (I guess) that just delivers things in a different manner than I'd normally expect.
i cant even finish the natlan archon quest at this point 😭😭 all that dialogue in this game i went through after playing for 3 years makes me just just uninterested in any story they want to present
I want to give Genshin some credit here. While the points in this video are valid (repeated dialogues, lackluster cinematography, not delving into lore while having it), comparing it to AAA video games or franchise shows and movies is not very fair. If you compare Genshin to MMO’s or gacha games that came before and even after, its storytelling through constantly evolving contents is stellar, especially at the rate of their rapid update schedule. Many games find it very challenging to even be consistent through times and multiple languages. (Like Eowyn’s ‘do you not know’ moment can be misinterpreted so horribly) Also the game can’t really afford changing landscapes and provide different experiences. People shouldn’t have been disappointed that Inazuma story didn’t end up in a civil war with more casualties because it would destroy all the development done in that region and character developments no matter who won the war.
Another point was about the time-limited stories and hidden lores, and I think this is where the devs trust the community for sharing. Their core business model is FOMO, so somethings have to be lost in time, but by enabling free discussion and hiding things strategically, they can still be uncovered and they can thrive together with CCs. I recently subscribed to you because you analyze overlooked aspects about the game really well. I wish I had time to look and find out for myself but I dont have enough tjme. So thank you for all your videos and please keep up the good work!
I see Genshin as a Light Novel presented in a video game format and In order to love Genshin's story and lore u have to be patient like the world building of this game is insanely good but all of that is locked behind these long world quests and other in-game materials that u have to actively find and experience for urself. Someone that understands the lore will have a vastly different experience than someone that just plays the Archon quests and that's it...But yeah when U said that genshin has bloated dialogues I completely agree tho Natlan actually feels as a great improvement like I don't remember anything being bloated like I did in Fontane every single WQ and AQ has been incredible so far and I have yet to touch the new 5.2 WQs..!!!
nah fr tho, genshin is very dialogue heavy and i can see why that's not to everyone's taste. But it's weird for me because i hardly relate to any of these complaints because im always a 100% enganged and interested. Maybe I just like reading walls of text 😅
Only just starting the video, but I'll say that I absolutely hated Mondstadt through Inazuma and it isn't until Natlan that I've actually 'liked' the storytelling and not just the themes. Sumeru and Fontaine are both steps up from the first 3 regions, but they still feel bloated in the moment, which leads to me just wanting them to wrap it up whenever going through them. Natlan has been the first time in the main story where I'm fine locking in and paying attention throughout because the pacing is tolerable now. Part of the problem is the incredibly low quality cutscene direction. The storytelling in this game is 90% the characters standing in a circle and yapping at each other, which is boring and is frustrating when you know how much money MHY actually has but budget titles made by exponentially less devs and availability to resources put in the work. Also, like with how I feel about Dark Souls, 'lore' is not story. The sidequests also being largely unrelated to the main story makes them feel pretty pointless as well, as they won't matter to the actual narrative for the most part. Edit: Glad to see Fontaine's ending show up, because I felt largely the same for the same reason. I also did not give 2 craps about Folcalors because literally who? If the game wanted me to actually feel bad, they'd have had the stones to kill Furina, but since the only people that actually suffered permanent losses were NPCs (RIP to some real ones though), it further enforces the idea that, as long as a character is playable, they are under no risk of a serious consequence in their story, so the story putting them in situations that should be risky ring hollow. Edit Edit: I saw a clip of Tectone about that Arlecchino animated video, actually! I don't follow him, but he brought up specifically how annoying it was that they released the Arlecchino vid before Arlecchino actually dropped, so the entirety of her subquest is a complete waste of time if you've already seen it because you already know and the ingame version does nothing with that information to make it interesting otherwise.
This was a really good watch. I like how well you articulated so many of your opinions and I do agree with most them. However, one thing that I find a bit surprising whenever I watch a critical think piece about Genshin's story, is that there never seems to be a discussion that tries to evaluate Genshin’s storytelling in relation to the massive technical and logistical scope of the game. I’m no game dev, but I would think Genshin’s live service and open world nature has to have a direct effect on the quality of the story and content that can be properly written, fleshed out, approved, storyboarded, animated, localized and dubbed in time before the release each new patch. Especially when considering the 45 day windows between each version. One could make the argument that a company that makes billions could simply throw money to hire more people and make it work, but I think there’s a limit to how much time one can buy even with unlimited resources given how aggressive their deadlines are. Now, I don’t think what I’m trying to say invalidates your criticisms, but I’d love to see if you had any opinions on this.
I try to comment only if it feels like it adds to the conversation and I think as a whole Genshin does get it right I think areas like Dragonspine Enka and even the 5.2 area show Genshins environment story telling there are also areas that people don't revisit but do exemplify each nation's strengths Genshin suffers from anime writing which is common with Eastern Games but the nature of Gacha doesn't help Events and NPC's are underrated same as world quest and its a shame that they don't get used as reference for the quality of Genshin writing Freminet helping a mother who lost her child still sits with me same as Gendou or Jeht which I will always find more meaningful then the worst examples of HSR who sometimes flings PC characters into a story because that's how players keep retention I would say to anyone slow down go into a Liyue or Inazuma turn off your UI and just Walk Same with anyone who has a backlog of quest take a second and just see what the faceless NPC's have to say TLDR Genshin could be better in the same sense that most JRPGs could if only they didn't vap about(maybe it's Eastern Sensibilities) but there are more good then bad I wish people could experience events. Going back to Enka Talking to Albedo even Ying'er and Timeuas are done so well AQ are important but there the surface level of Genshin. Fighting Beihst Natlans(Spoilers) Fighting Rhodeia with her unique mechanics the Co-Op Whopper Flower battle So many aspects players don't see or see once. It's such a shame because if players could see Genshin as a whole see everything that came and went they would see why people played a Gacha game for 4 years It's why a Skip button is so contentious you only experience aspects of the game once You only get to be in game gets some clues and read the last message Kayae father gave him once That's Genshin Game and Gacha Game
I’m only in the sumeru archon quest rn but so glad I’ve finally gotten there lol, there were obviously elements of the story that felt compelling before this point but ngl a lot of it felt so boring, badly written, etc. sort of like they just want to waste time :/
the Samsara was a real pain for me that i ended up disliking Nahida so much. i won the 50/50 for her but "kept her imprisoned in Surasthana" !! i must have gone two weeks before i finally used her !! 😂
@@binsarm9026 omg samsara is to this day in m opinion the worst story quest experience in the game! I absolutely adore and love Nahida more than any other character but that quest will forever haunt me. When my alt account got to that point I had to mentally prep myself and organise plenty of other distractions to get through it for the second time 😂
@saurusness when we were first faced with the deduction process i thought it would be very engaging but it got so sloppy in the logic setup that it wasn't really possible to deduce things and it became just a brute force exercise of going thru the options. my antipathy stemmed from her saying she respected her people but then proceeds to coerce them with mental manipulation.
Unfortunately some players do seem to need the repeated dialogue- otherwise they get confused. Genshin is an interesting case because it is trying to appeal to such a wide audience. That audience includes people who only half pay attention to the story and lore and so I think they don't want to make Archon Quests with a lot of missable subtext lest those players become completely confused. But a lot of the world quests do have some great subtext which is cool
And is even worse then the pieces don't even show up to begin with. Like Paimon. We know as much of Paimon back in 1.0 as we know about her now. Let that sink in.
I think the main reason why more complicated changes to the overworld aren't implemented is just because of the rapid pace of Genshin's content. Like, the fact that there are new patches every 6 weeks and new areas at least every 12 weeks with very few delays is kinda amazing, but also limits what they can actually do. Games like RDR2 or BG3 took years to make and so they were able to add more depth and interactability to the overworld. I think if Genshin tried to do that they would have to considerably slow down their pace of releases which would frustrate a lot of fans.
The time-gated lore is the main reason as to why i hate Genshin's storytelling. I took a break from 2.3 to 4.4, and my god i missed waaay too much lore. Reading is one of the most fundamental parts of Genshin, both in lore an gameplay. However, in this case, is not a "reading issue". Is a "you came here a bit too late issue". Which is, as you probably know, the main problem with live service games: punishing players for arriving late. Before it was gameplay parts. And now is lore?! You know, something I love about Star Rail has to be the permanent events. Sure, the rewards are minuscular compared to when these arrived, but the simple fact that i can learn about said events without an external website makes it worth enough. Huohuo is my favorite character in the game, and i'm so glad i could meet her for the first time months after her first release. Now imagine being an Albedo fan in Genshin.
Sometimes it feels that everything interesting happened hundreds of years ago and nothing of note was happening in the recent history. The worst offender being the Cataclysm and everything else that happened 500 years ago.
all your points about the story telling are valid but i think it's really unfair to compare Genshin with studio made games that are setup with a clear story and is complete upon release. (not to mention not being free) i never knew what gacha games were about and played Genshin more as a story. i also have never played story games (not even Tomb Raider) so i can only imagine the quality you are expecting when you want something along the lines of a LOTR movie! the first scene that really hit me was when Kazuha faced the Raiden Shogun on the steps of Tenshukaku, the visuals and the sweeping music will make that forever my most memorable scene. the gradual revelations of Furina's background story would be next. for a free to play game, i will happily take these few and far between gems and just appreciate the open world exploration and "ignore" the many deficiencies that do STILL exist despite the vast improvement, which perhaps has peaked in Fontaine. we now seem to be going thru a "lore bomb phase" so the story goes into less depth into the newer characters who seem to be more shallow, so much so I'm now enjoying playing Razor going thru Natlan. I'm not sure why you said nothing changed post-Fontaine flood, or post-Natlan war, Melu & Silver died, and Poisson did experience loss, but ofc they're not going to show much other than cosmetic changes in the environment because they want the focus on the non-NPCs who "bring in the money". anyway, Natlan is really a low-point and has broken the immersion for me. I'm not expecting much from here on in, so I'll just imagine I'm one of my favourite characters exploring this world.
People focus a lot on Genshin being free, but it's literally one of the most profitable games in the world. They could absolutely afford to invest in storytelling! The lore which is already there is fantastic, it's just the storytelling which is sub-par, which is why it stands out so much. Also specifically post-Fontaine flood and post-Natlan war, it's specifically the *world* which didn't change. Not even a single leaf was out of place after a gigantic flood! The game is fantastic outside of the story though, so I'm happily playing despite its flaws 😁
@@raptori if you look closer at things around Poisson they did change *a bit*. you can't expect major terrain changes without substantial file downloads. in any case, they are profitable BECAUSE they focus more on the trivial aspects which are geared to "selling the characters" rather than spending more effort in making them have more depth. ...vroom-vroom anyone?? 🤮
@@raptori I get your point about investing more because it makes sense if you look at it from a distance, but that logic falls apart a bit when you start to think about what that actually entails. On one end, it's safe to assume to Hoyo has invested more resources into storytelling given their improvements since Mondstadt's archon quest. On the other hand, those changes have been slow and gradual which tells me that no amount of money spent is going to buy them the time to speed up the production process. Hiring new talent, interviewing and training people to work in a project of this scale unfortunately takes a significant amount of time, especially when you consider how fast they have to push out new content. This is why I agree with @binsarm9026 about the comparisons not being fair, despite the criticisms in the video being perfectly understandable.
I actually did not watch the short but was not confused by arlechino, things started snapping into place as soon as the ghost girl started saying things that didn’t correlate to current time
16:54There are a few NPCs that have disappeared after 5.1AQ, such as the legendary Scout who appeared in AQ, with only his accessories and a memorial bouquet remaining 20:27Armored Core 6 also has external story issues, and the protagonist's colleagues are only explained in the trailer, and there is almost no mention in the story. But Armored Core 6 has some good subtext
I think an issue with having any quest affect the world in a material way is that if it can harm side quest progress then it just can't happen. This is less a technical issue and more a business decision. If you can't complete a world quest you started because of a decision in the archon quest, people would complain because of the lost primos gems. Its why every time there's a quest with multiple outcomes you get an achievement with different text but the same primos no matter what even if one of them is "bad". They would have to account for possible states of your quest progress and provide alternates (like moving a chest or puzzle, something they already have done in the past)
Tbh i think it beacuse they HATE making the characters do anything special unless its in a cutscene. When was the last time you saw a character move there legs and arms while talking? When was the lost time you saw a character hold an item instead of levitating it? When was the last time a character use their facial expressions?? Aloy uses her hands and face to portray an emotion. Clenching fists, grinding teeth, soft smile, strenched hands. It shows emotion which genshin cant.
the natlan archon quests so far have been great, lots of good writing, good character development, best cutscenes so far, insane lore drops etc. so i don't really get what you mean. 16:33 I have to disagree. After the sumeru 3.2 archon quest every single book about greater lord Rukkhadevata changed in such a way that she wasn't part of the book anymore. Saying the story doesn't have an impact on the environment is really not true. In natlan, this is also true. Something that really caught my attention is that after the 5.1 natlan archon quest your decisions during the war actually mattered. After the war you could look around the map and see certain npc's and saurians are missing depending if you saved them or not and which ones you saved first.
And it has good lore content, the current side quest is good... but they tend to sacrifice time and hurts the momentum. The extense of unnecesary dialogue and what for me is worst is that you get stand with no freedom to move around by walking. This resumes the plot trouble for me.
Tbh the story in 5.2 was handled in the worst way possible. We didn't see any npcs dying before us, they were just numbers in a board and you don't feel anything from fictional characters that you don't even know dying off screen. For a greedy company that does anything to get money they don't animate most of the important scenes(NPCs death in natlan, collei's PTSD, any scenes involving the traveler except in the few instances in the main story quests,etc..). In a visual story telling something will always have less impact than showing a thing.
True. I left Genshin and just recently came back (still stuck in Sumeru). The character's in Arknights feels so much more alive than Genshin. I just did Jeht's event and she feels more real of a charcater than Ayaka ever did.
Hmmm, I came at this with an open mind since generally I enjoy your videos and voice, but I feel like a lot of the criticism here is summed up as "Genshin's story isn't perfect." Which, while true, I could say is also true about any story. A lot of the things you say Genshin doesn't do, it actually does do in another instance (ex. the environment is affected by your decisions in Natlan, the disappearance of Rukkhadevata and Scaramouche affects all aspects of the world and game) - instances you bring up yourself (ie, Baizhu). And much of the storytelling now is nothing like at the beginning, which you point out it has improved in probably every area you critiqued. Though even the beginning is not as bad as you make it out to be, as you point out you simply didn't know where to look to find the details. But that just feels like you were unfamiliar with Genshin's different style/mode of storytelling, which I admit isn't for everyone but really rewards those willing to dig deep. In short, I feel a little confused listening to this because there are all these little easy to point out contradictions.
Looking at the coms, it's really interesting to see so many people despise natlan overall story while Mrs Saurus over here praise it for being more and more inclined towards pretty good world building story. On a side note, what did you think of the 5.1 story Mrs Saurusness? For me it is probably, objectively speaking the best worldbuilding story of genshin so far, but I guess people really like constant bloated dialogue with wriothesley in fontaine act 3 just because bro got that jojo character model🤨
Genshin's approach to story/lore is like a person who has a closet full of beautiful outfits but chooses to wear coffee-stained track pants every time they go out lol. There is a wealth of interesting, creative material that just isn't getting used to it's full extent.
The story is told in a very drawn-out and often unfocused way, intended to make it feel more immersive; tightly-crafted narratives can be great, but can also lack impact (haha) because they're more obviously constructed to cause a specific emotion. "For sale, baby shoes, never worn" isn't even a story so much as an attempt to remind you of a sad story or experience you once had. But the Genshin method backfires if people see it as bloated and stop paying attention. I think this is why it's so polarizing. I feel like the word "slop" applies more to disposable content with no underlying structure, which definitely isn't the case here, with the kajillion words of in-universe writing building out a world far more complicated then you'd ever know about from just the archon quests. It's a slow-burn story, which partly makes sense when you want players to stick around for years, but is also paradoxical for a gacha game funded by impatience and FOMO. The duality of gamers. For the most part, I'm in the "it's great" camp, though it's not without problems. I guess the Fortress of Meropide chapter was supposed to be where they utilized the tale-of-two-cities setting, but it was so terrible and unpleasant for all the wrong reasons that we collectively blocked it out of our memories. And important event stories disappearing forever is the biggest reason I'd hesitate to bring new players onboard. The recent Sumeru event was such a perfect epilogue for Nahida and the region as a whole, and now it's just gone.
I can totally see that being their intent, but for me, drawing it out and adding content which feels irrelevant just dilutes the story. Instead to make it feel more immersive, you want the other stuff to dovetail with the main plot, to touch on the same characters, etc. Thinking about it, the event stories often make me feel way more immersed in the world than the world quests do, because they tie in the characters we know, and as a result they have to continue developing the relationships and storylines there, even if they're side characters. 🤔
What is Teyvat. That is the question keeping me going and almost fully answered, me seeing a landmass right behind the moon/sun got me going at launch. Everything else was just a bonus
I think Genshin has an amazing worldbuilding but an unremarkable storytelling. The change I wish they do is to lean more to organic storytelling; The characters are interacting naturally and they develop themselves. There are instances of organic storytelling but I wish they do more. The Traveler and Paimon are way too nosy in everyone's business. I know, they're the witness, but Genshin is leaning way too much to it that characters don't have meaningful stories, relationships and development because they're tethered to the Traveler and Paimon's existence. Basically, The devs are doing a solipsist approach where characters don't exist unless the Traveler is in the vicinity. In all honesty, I kinda get why they do things like this because they have to sell characters. That's why it's kind of hard to find genuine good storytelling in gacha games.
Realizing I've lost interest in a cutscene, have been skimming/not paying attention, and suddenly require Paimon to repeat most of what she just said was very humbling. But also annoying. I don't have this problem in other story-heavy games!!! GI dialogue overstays its welcome something terrible!!! Fontaine's lack of consequences felt super weird to play thru, too. Personally thought the impacts on characters werent even enough - the trial is never discussed again, nor does Furina ever speak of her divine self. Those ppl who saw Furina revealed as "fake" Archon - what did they do?? Did they tell anyone?? Like?? Heaps of stuff feels brushed over. Dont even get me started on Meropide as a whole lol
I enjoy the commentary, in the future I would suggest maybe turning down the OST music down some in your audio mix, its often drowning out your voice. Thanks!
I enjoy the commentary, in the future I would suggest maybe turning down the OST music down some in your audio mix, its often drowning our your voice. Thanks!
I enjoy genshin's story very much though I think the inazuma archon quests could have been done better. Sumeru broke my heart n the conclusion in Fontaine made me more curious about the future of Genshin. What I hate though is that there are parts of the archon quest that drag on alot for no reason n though the end result was satisfying I felt like it was too tedious. (The endless dream in sumeru n the prison activity in Fontaine) But the rest to me is just too enjoyable. Genshin has it's flaws but it's still be far my best Gacha game in terms of story telling
I have to disagree with some points in this video. Genshin has always been good at environmental storytelling, they put a lot of details in the open world to tell you stories of the past. The reality is: most environments are telling stories, but most stories are not told by the environment, there are sooo many stories in the game, but the environment and game assets are limited, as a result, most stories just can't be told by the environment. Take the fontaine example you made: the two different sides of the city and the conflict between them played an important part in the lore related to the Narzissenkreuz storyline, but it's unrelated to the archon quest.This doesn't make it bad. There is no way for genshin to create environments for most of its story like some other games you mentioned. Same goes for the problem of Cinematography. The games you listed with "better storytelling" will never be able to put out new story content as fast as genshin, and having new content every patch is important for a gacha game.
As someone who loves Genshin’s story and the writing and firmly believes it’s objectively GREAT most of the time, I watched this video with an open mind and, sure enough, come out politely disagreeing with most of it by the end. The level of detail Hoyo pours into everything is incredible, and I don’t just mean the lore. But most of this video is just saying it wants Genshin to be like these other games that did things a different way. That Genshin doesn’t do those things doesn’t make it bad. I hugely, hugely, hugely prefer Genshin to RDR2, for example, and would never want it to do what RDR2 does. Sorry, Saurus. Usually like your videos, but this one didn’t click with me.
@@raptoriSubtext is great. Genshin has tons of subtext though. The criticism in this video though is that ‘Genshin has subtext here and there except where it doesn’t’ and that’s just…empty, at least to me. What does that even mean? Is every single line of dialogue supposed to be subtext for something else? Of course not. If I had to pick a key point of disagreement here, it’s probably around player choice. Take the house example Saurus mentioned for RDR2. I don’t value player choice in a game; I value the story. Killing the people so they never finish the house means nothing to me. Is it a cool detail? Sure. Doesn’t mean everything needs to do that or be that to be good.
@@kylegreen6711 Ah, I think that part is more like... Genshin has issues with consistency when it comes to that kind of thing. Some of the archon quests are pretty great when it comes to stuff like subtext, but then there's one like the new interlude quest where it's painfully bad (to me anyway). Definitely improving over time, though it's hard to separate it from the excessive dialogue! And yeah can totally see that re: player choice! I think that's just an example of one way that games add consequences and weight to things that happen in the game - definitely agree that it doesn't belong in every game. Stuff like the (complete lack of an) aftermath to the Fontaine flood and the Natlan war is what matters to me (and imo is what Saurus focused on too), and that wouldn't require any influence from player choice!
@@raptori I’ll grant that I can’t pretend every Genshin quest is on the same level of quality, so there’s definitely a level of inconsistency there (though I would posit that’s inherent to any game with a main story and side quests.) But I’m pretty sure you don’t mean that every quest in the game would have the same level of subtext versus when it doesn’t. I haven’t finished the interlude quest yet, so I can’t speak to it, but in general, I’ve found Genshin’s writing to use subtext appropriately. There’s not a complete lack of aftermath to the flood and war though. Several characters talk about it, and in Natlan, several are permanently deleted from the game. The object layout in Poisson is slightly different too. Abyssal withering zones in Natlan after the war sounds like an awesome idea, but it wouldn’t be consistent with the lore in Genshin, so having it there would actually be a writing inconsistency. The Sacred Fire canonically gets rid of the Pylons, and the Traveler is the only character (supposedly) who can cleanse the corrosion from people. If the sludge were to get out of hand, like in the Chasm, we might even see a Celestial Nail come to Natlan, which the story definitely isn’t ready to handle at this point.
@@kylegreen6711 Yeah fair point that the side quests definitely shouldn't be given the same level of attention as the main quests! I still feel that there's a disconnect there, but it could just be that I'm expecting too much from them. I just think back to side quests in other more narrative-focused games and how badly the Genshin side quests compare to them, and think about what could have been (since Genshin's world really hits the spot for me)! I legit haven't noticed any visible changes in the world tbh! Characters talking about it is one thing, having some obstructions or visual changes would be on a different level. I'm sure if they were motivated to do that they could've found some way to make it fit the lore - for example it could just be that some of the monsters themselves were left behind, rather than the pylons; or maybe it'd be non-abyss enemies run rampant while the humans were recovering!
Personally, I think fontaine, inazuma and sumeru had pretty decent storytelling (the previous two regions are rather mundane), but natlan destroys everything that was good about genshin's storytelling. The themes are disgusting, the characters don't think like humans, the philosophy is incorrect and not based in reality, the ideals are dangerously unrealistic, and there is literally 0 character depth. To make things worse, gameplay wise natlan is a nightmare of game design. The geography sucks because in order to traverse the area, you HAVE to use the surians, and it's never a good idea to force players into new content because it just offsets that region from the rest of the map... EXCEPT THE SURIANS CAN'T EVEN MAKE IT UP THE CANYON WALLS (except the geo surian, but you have to completely run out of phlogiston to make it up, and there are little to no ways to refill it at the top of the canyon walls).
@ Child soldiers was just one thing, but it’s the superstitious aspects, rituals, the fact that no one has a problem with the ode of redirection relying on good teammates to literally determine whether they live or die, and the philosophically incorrect view of friendship from the People of Springs that’s advertised as the “correct,” “superior,” or “wholesome” view, despite the fact that it ignores (and omits) the very core of friendship. (edit): not to mention the fact that the culture natlan is based on offered sacrifices to their false gods by throwing children into volcanoes
@@AndrewMinich hm I see, thank you for the explanation. I can’t really comment too much about those things cause I frankly don’t remember much about the people of the springs view on friendship and the like atm. However I do agree that Natlan feels more shallow than previous nations (and there was a lot of moments I really didn’t like) though personally I want to wait for the AQ to be finished before coming to a full conclusion. Edit: corrected some spelling
It's so amusing for me that someone still trying to feed on this topic after 4 years. At this point everyone knows what they playing. Yes, it's bad and never gonna be even a bit better, deal with it. For me more funny is how bad actually HSR story telling is, and cancer community manages not to see it lol.
![[FULL] RETROSPECTIVE : Final Fantasy Tactics](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RUBmYqs1jZ0/mqdefault.jpg)
I WANT to absorb all the story, I want to love it, I'm intrigued by so much of the lore, but I swear sometimes it's like I'm actively trying to get absorbed in the story and the game is just daring me to not zone out.
I started the aranara quest line excited and hopeful, by the end of I was spamming the skip dialogue button, I know for a fact there would have been a ton of interesting snippets and lore in there, but the delivery just beat me down over time
I start almost every quest like "ok let's see what this is about i'll actually listen and read and pay attention", but by the end of it I'm aggressively spamming skip like "yesyesyes I understood thank you you said that already let's go goo lord how long will this take...!"
I am convinced Genshin's dialogue is deliberately filled with word diarrhea to pad the play time.
same 😅
Yep, me too. That's why they refuse to add a skip button when games like HI3rd and ZZZ have one. It would expose the lack of actual gameplay content per update.
@@fiaschampion3379 They have included a skip button. But apparently only for Hangouts where you are repeating nodes already played.
@@fiaschampion3379it's less that and more to make it difficult to multi-account. If everyone could easily multi-account then you could spread out your wishes across several accounts and focus on different characters/teams on each fully f2p. By making this difficult to do with mandatory time investment minimums, only the most dedicated players can achieve this. And those same players are still the most likely to spend money when backed into a corner because of the sunk cost of their time investment.
Maybe, I also thought they could be using AI generated text
Good video. I agree with most of what you said here. When people claim Genshin's story they are praising the worldbuilding not the writing itself. Those are two very different different things.
im one those people who praise the world building (yes i know the difference too dont worry)
I agree the storytelling in Genshin might not be the best but I personally like it, a lot but that's a topic for another day.
But I really like the way Genshin handles its world building and background lore. I don't like being spoon-fed the lore and would rather spend the time collecting the pieces and connecting the dots and making sense of the bigger picture. I feel that Genshin executes this part pretty well. That brings me great joy.
And recent events fucking gutted the world building so I’d say the story is currently in the worst state it’s ever been
Going off what you said about the nature of a gacha game harming character development, that's one of the things that really bothers me about Genshin's story.
For example, I like Albedo. I think he's cool, and I like the story set up with him being this genius but also slightly insidious. Rosaria seems to think he's not trustworthy, and there's a chekov's gun set up with Albedo claiming he has the power to destroy Monstatd. He has so many compelling stories that could be told with him as the central focus. But this is a gacha game, and the characters are the product. Albedo has consistently had some of if not the lowest sales of any premium character. Mihoyo isn't likely to spend the significant amount of money to invest in stories surrounding Albedo because he isn't going to make them their money back.
Which leads to his really compelling story being all but dropped. And now I feel more jaded about getting invested in the lore and story of new characters because, unless they're really popular with the community, their stories might just end up pushed to the side for the next new popular character.
Yeah Albedo is a great example! And also one of the perfect examples of the issue with time-limited content - the event stories focusing on him were great, but they're just gone now...
@@raptori So true. It feels like those time limited events shouldn't even be considered when talking about character representation in the story because they're completely missable. If Mihoyo would let us replay those old events then it'd be different, but they're married to the FOMO strategy.
@@strideytidey8665 Yeah exactly, but then if you *don't* consider them then several characters lose like half or more of their backstory... so it sucks either way. It's so stupid, people would still feel the FOMO just for the rewards, even if they could still play the story later on...
He has the carisma of a literal prince more than Aether, he can be a good antagonist and I COMPLETLY forgot about that sentence of him beaing a treat to Mondstad.
But the story hasn't been dropped. We just got confirmation that we going back to durin.
Genshin's lore legit could have led to a story in the same league as RDR2, Horizon, etc... such a shame that it's been a miss so far. Really curious how it'll come across in the anime!
the potential is there!
potential is there but not that far, they had potential but after 4 years and a lot of burnout i lost hope, and the game seems to follow the lighter side formula maybe after the 4 year difference between the first mention of fake sky and the newest one it will lead somewhere but who knows
The anime has been put aside for priority over the anime studio, they won't take the risk. It will be complete when ready... that is a trouble for us, they are taking too much years and Hoyo played the Marvel card "Show prior before ready and not probably soon (so whats the point then?)"
@@albepaidman the anime will be horrible but we all know genshin fans will say it's the best.
Genshin lore is all over the place half of it doesn't even make sense, no where near Rdr2 level.
The writers don't really have many options. They have to satisfy the fans of every playable character so they are stuck with making all of them "main characters". They can never be used as a means to improve the story of another character. They are too important for that.
We have other side characters for that but because of the clear distinction between the important playable ones and the nameless NPCs, i cant really be invested in those NPCs characters.
Another factor is the fact that a gacha game has a never ending always expanding story, so they cant really finish a characters story properly since they will have to bring them back in the future. You don't have many options for a satisfying conclusion in this case.
Because of these factors ive been mostly uninterested in the story save for some cool moments and that really sucks
The comparison with Arcane is right on the money. The Fleuve and Meropide felt very underwhelming.
The dual city set up was something that got me REALLY excited when we first landed in Fonaine, and I was sos ure it wuld paly a big part in the Archon quest, so I think that's why I'm doubly disappointed that didn't happen 😔
@@saurusnessit's too bad too because they used the class divide in those Fontaine locations in world quests, a few story quests, and as backstory for several characters, but this never was brought forward in the archon quest. I have a suspicion that this partly because focusing too much on class divide would be uncomfortable for some rich/whale players and turn them off? It's the only thing that makes sense because they spent a lot of time on it and weaving it into a lot of the key Fontainian characters' history.
The more I think about it the more I'm sure that's really what it is and it's like gacha and mobile concession issues rear their ugly heads again ..
One change I wish they do is TO MAKE THE TEXT SPEED FASTER. Jesus I played the pokemon games in the past and they're notorious for having a simple plot, bloaty dialogue, and heck, the whole game is unvoiced, unskippable too. But the thing is, I was able to stomach those and still understand what's going on because when they talk, I could just skim their sentences and get the whole gist of what they're saying. Fast enough to hold my attention for a bit to comprehend it
In Genshin, with how SLOW the text speed is, I space out ALL THE TIME, especially if I'm not interested with what they're saying. The text speed is annoyingly slower than our reading speed. Leading us to just spam the mouse button to just get on with it. Not reading anymore
The biggest problem for me is that world quests and arcon quests hardly connect together. We do something in there somewhere, but it's almost never reflected in the main story, and vice versa. it is also a bit annoying that, apart from events, and Fatui there is very little connection between the nations. Natllan is at war, meanwhile no other nation really cares? There is a feeling that when leaving the previous nation, someone goes there and turns off the light, and everyone who is there ceases to exist. Of course there are also good examples, but in my opinion there are not enough of them, it would be nice to see conection between all nations in the main story, not only in events.
"I know writers who use subtext and they’re all cowards." Might as well be a quote from the Genshin writing team.
What I've been thinking about lately is Genshin's characters and characterization, which is an important element of storytelling. Xilonen is the character that made me start thinking about this. In the story (Archon quests and tribal chronicles), she's presented as a crafts-person. She's an artisan who takes her work very seriously, but also needs to take frequent breaks to replenish. (I think many people who do creative work can recognize that). But in gameplay, she's presented as a musician--not just any musician, but a DJ (Yun Jin and Xinyan are both musicians, but types of musicians that aren't extremely popular these days). Those two things, being an artisan and being a musician, are totally unrelated, and in fact there's absolutely nothing in the story that mentions that she even has any interest in music. There's ONE story in her Profile that tries to excuse it, but it feels like a pretty lame and arbitrary insertion into an otherwise coherent character story. It's hard not to think that what happened was the marketing department decided that an artisan wasn't cool or sexy enough for mass appeal, and told the gameplay designers to ignore everything the writers put so much careful thought into. This feels like a change from most Genshin characters up to now, whose gameplay has usually had some relation to their personalities.
(Edit: I'm not saying it's impossible to believe that someone could be both an artisan and a musician. I'm saying it's impossible to believe that Xilonen could be both, given how much time she needs for naps.)
I think it's a bit unfair to criticize lack of things like big world changes in a game that needs to fit on a mobile phone. We do get some, like removal of the fog on Tsurumi Island, the tree in Vourukasha Oasis, or the disappearance of Tower of Ipssimus. And we got one decently sized temporary change, where the whole Poisson is devastated and you need to proceed in the archon quest to go through its renovation. But I'm afraid any large scale changes are out of the question for purely technical reasons.
The story for me was always bit and miss, I didn't like the Mondstadt and Liyue stories until I replayed them on my alt account and found them much better than I remembered. And I actually did like all the story from then on. If there are parts that leave me questioning my sanity, I write it up to its Chinese origin, plus need to stick with Anime kind of storytelling (I guess) that just delivers things in a different manner than I'd normally expect.
i cant even finish the natlan archon quest at this point 😭😭 all that dialogue in this game i went through after playing for 3 years makes me just just uninterested in any story they want to present
I want to give Genshin some credit here. While the points in this video are valid (repeated dialogues, lackluster cinematography, not delving into lore while having it), comparing it to AAA video games or franchise shows and movies is not very fair. If you compare Genshin to MMO’s or gacha games that came before and even after, its storytelling through constantly evolving contents is stellar, especially at the rate of their rapid update schedule. Many games find it very challenging to even be consistent through times and multiple languages. (Like Eowyn’s ‘do you not know’ moment can be misinterpreted so horribly) Also the game can’t really afford changing landscapes and provide different experiences. People shouldn’t have been disappointed that Inazuma story didn’t end up in a civil war with more casualties because it would destroy all the development done in that region and character developments no matter who won the war.
Another point was about the time-limited stories and hidden lores, and I think this is where the devs trust the community for sharing. Their core business model is FOMO, so somethings have to be lost in time, but by enabling free discussion and hiding things strategically, they can still be uncovered and they can thrive together with CCs. I recently subscribed to you because you analyze overlooked aspects about the game really well. I wish I had time to look and find out for myself but I dont have enough tjme. So thank you for all your videos and please keep up the good work!
I see Genshin as a Light Novel presented in a video game format and In order to love Genshin's story and lore u have to be patient like the world building of this game is insanely good but all of that is locked behind these long world quests and other in-game materials that u have to actively find and experience for urself.
Someone that understands the lore will have a vastly different experience than someone that just plays the Archon quests and that's it...But yeah when U said that genshin has bloated dialogues I completely agree tho Natlan actually feels as a great improvement like I don't remember anything being bloated like I did in Fontane every single WQ and AQ has been incredible so far and I have yet to touch the new 5.2 WQs..!!!
nah fr tho, genshin is very dialogue heavy and i can see why that's not to everyone's taste. But it's weird for me because i hardly relate to any of these complaints because im always a 100% enganged and interested. Maybe I just like reading walls of text 😅
Only just starting the video, but I'll say that I absolutely hated Mondstadt through Inazuma and it isn't until Natlan that I've actually 'liked' the storytelling and not just the themes. Sumeru and Fontaine are both steps up from the first 3 regions, but they still feel bloated in the moment, which leads to me just wanting them to wrap it up whenever going through them. Natlan has been the first time in the main story where I'm fine locking in and paying attention throughout because the pacing is tolerable now.
Part of the problem is the incredibly low quality cutscene direction. The storytelling in this game is 90% the characters standing in a circle and yapping at each other, which is boring and is frustrating when you know how much money MHY actually has but budget titles made by exponentially less devs and availability to resources put in the work.
Also, like with how I feel about Dark Souls, 'lore' is not story. The sidequests also being largely unrelated to the main story makes them feel pretty pointless as well, as they won't matter to the actual narrative for the most part.
Edit: Glad to see Fontaine's ending show up, because I felt largely the same for the same reason. I also did not give 2 craps about Folcalors because literally who? If the game wanted me to actually feel bad, they'd have had the stones to kill Furina, but since the only people that actually suffered permanent losses were NPCs (RIP to some real ones though), it further enforces the idea that, as long as a character is playable, they are under no risk of a serious consequence in their story, so the story putting them in situations that should be risky ring hollow.
Edit Edit: I saw a clip of Tectone about that Arlecchino animated video, actually! I don't follow him, but he brought up specifically how annoying it was that they released the Arlecchino vid before Arlecchino actually dropped, so the entirety of her subquest is a complete waste of time if you've already seen it because you already know and the ingame version does nothing with that information to make it interesting otherwise.
This was a really good watch. I like how well you articulated so many of your opinions and I do agree with most them. However, one thing that I find a bit surprising whenever I watch a critical think piece about Genshin's story, is that there never seems to be a discussion that tries to evaluate Genshin’s storytelling in relation to the massive technical and logistical scope of the game. I’m no game dev, but I would think Genshin’s live service and open world nature has to have a direct effect on the quality of the story and content that can be properly written, fleshed out, approved, storyboarded, animated, localized and dubbed in time before the release each new patch. Especially when considering the 45 day windows between each version.
One could make the argument that a company that makes billions could simply throw money to hire more people and make it work, but I think there’s a limit to how much time one can buy even with unlimited resources given how aggressive their deadlines are.
Now, I don’t think what I’m trying to say invalidates your criticisms, but I’d love to see if you had any opinions on this.
I try to comment only if it feels like it adds to the conversation and I think as a whole Genshin does get it right
I think areas like Dragonspine Enka and even the 5.2 area show Genshins environment story telling there are also areas that people don't revisit but do exemplify each nation's strengths
Genshin suffers from anime writing which is common with Eastern Games but the nature of Gacha doesn't help
Events and NPC's are underrated same as world quest and its a shame that they don't get used as reference for the quality of Genshin writing
Freminet helping a mother who lost her child still sits with me same as Gendou or Jeht which I will always find more meaningful then the worst examples of HSR who sometimes flings PC characters into a story because that's how players keep retention
I would say to anyone slow down go into a Liyue or Inazuma turn off your UI and just Walk
Same with anyone who has a backlog of quest take a second and just see what the faceless NPC's have to say
TLDR Genshin could be better in the same sense that most JRPGs could if only they didn't vap about(maybe it's Eastern Sensibilities) but there are more good then bad
I wish people could experience events. Going back to Enka Talking to Albedo even Ying'er and Timeuas are done so well
AQ are important but there the surface level of Genshin. Fighting Beihst Natlans(Spoilers) Fighting Rhodeia with her unique mechanics the Co-Op Whopper Flower battle
So many aspects players don't see or see once.
It's such a shame because if players could see Genshin as a whole see everything that came and went they would see why people played a Gacha game for 4 years
It's why a Skip button is so contentious you only experience aspects of the game once
You only get to be in game gets some clues and read the last message Kayae father gave him once
That's Genshin Game and Gacha Game
Fontaine was the best story so far imo
I’m only in the sumeru archon quest rn but so glad I’ve finally gotten there lol, there were obviously elements of the story that felt compelling before this point but ngl a lot of it felt so boring, badly written, etc. sort of like they just want to waste time :/
That's what it feels like!
the Samsara was a real pain for me that i ended up disliking Nahida so much.
i won the 50/50 for her but "kept her imprisoned in Surasthana" !!
i must have gone two weeks before i finally used her !! 😂
@@binsarm9026 omg samsara is to this day in m opinion the worst story quest experience in the game! I absolutely adore and love Nahida more than any other character but that quest will forever haunt me. When my alt account got to that point I had to mentally prep myself and organise plenty of other distractions to get through it for the second time 😂
@saurusness when we were first faced with the deduction process i thought it would be very engaging but it got so sloppy in the logic setup that it wasn't really possible to deduce things and it became just a brute force exercise of going thru the options.
my antipathy stemmed from her saying she respected her people but then proceeds to coerce them with mental manipulation.
Unfortunately some players do seem to need the repeated dialogue- otherwise they get confused. Genshin is an interesting case because it is trying to appeal to such a wide audience. That audience includes people who only half pay attention to the story and lore and so I think they don't want to make Archon Quests with a lot of missable subtext lest those players become completely confused. But a lot of the world quests do have some great subtext which is cool
My biggest gripe is adding mysteries then answering years later when we already put the pieces on our own and it is no longer satisfying
And is even worse then the pieces don't even show up to begin with. Like Paimon. We know as much of Paimon back in 1.0 as we know about her now. Let that sink in.
@ I could go on a whole rant about paimon’s “secret” identity
I think the main reason why more complicated changes to the overworld aren't implemented is just because of the rapid pace of Genshin's content. Like, the fact that there are new patches every 6 weeks and new areas at least every 12 weeks with very few delays is kinda amazing, but also limits what they can actually do. Games like RDR2 or BG3 took years to make and so they were able to add more depth and interactability to the overworld. I think if Genshin tried to do that they would have to considerably slow down their pace of releases which would frustrate a lot of fans.
The time-gated lore is the main reason as to why i hate Genshin's storytelling. I took a break from 2.3 to 4.4, and my god i missed waaay too much lore.
Reading is one of the most fundamental parts of Genshin, both in lore an gameplay. However, in this case, is not a "reading issue". Is a "you came here a bit too late issue". Which is, as you probably know, the main problem with live service games: punishing players for arriving late. Before it was gameplay parts. And now is lore?!
You know, something I love about Star Rail has to be the permanent events. Sure, the rewards are minuscular compared to when these arrived, but the simple fact that i can learn about said events without an external website makes it worth enough. Huohuo is my favorite character in the game, and i'm so glad i could meet her for the first time months after her first release.
Now imagine being an Albedo fan in Genshin.
Sometimes it feels that everything interesting happened hundreds of years ago and nothing of note was happening in the recent history.
The worst offender being the Cataclysm and everything else that happened 500 years ago.
all your points about the story telling are valid but i think it's really unfair to compare Genshin with studio made games that are setup with a clear story and is complete upon release. (not to mention not being free)
i never knew what gacha games were about and played Genshin more as a story.
i also have never played story games (not even Tomb Raider) so i can only imagine the quality you are expecting when you want something along the lines of a LOTR movie!
the first scene that really hit me was when Kazuha faced the Raiden Shogun on the steps of Tenshukaku, the visuals and the sweeping music will make that forever my most memorable scene.
the gradual revelations of Furina's background story would be next.
for a free to play game, i will happily take these few and far between gems and just appreciate the open world exploration and "ignore" the many deficiencies that do STILL exist despite the vast improvement, which perhaps has peaked in Fontaine.
we now seem to be going thru a "lore bomb phase" so the story goes into less depth into the newer characters who seem to be more shallow, so much so I'm now enjoying playing Razor going thru Natlan.
I'm not sure why you said nothing changed post-Fontaine flood, or post-Natlan war, Melu & Silver died, and Poisson did experience loss, but ofc they're not going to show much other than cosmetic changes in the environment because they want the focus on the non-NPCs who "bring in the money".
anyway, Natlan is really a low-point and has broken the immersion for me. I'm not expecting much from here on in, so I'll just imagine I'm one of my favourite characters exploring this world.
People focus a lot on Genshin being free, but it's literally one of the most profitable games in the world. They could absolutely afford to invest in storytelling! The lore which is already there is fantastic, it's just the storytelling which is sub-par, which is why it stands out so much.
Also specifically post-Fontaine flood and post-Natlan war, it's specifically the *world* which didn't change. Not even a single leaf was out of place after a gigantic flood!
The game is fantastic outside of the story though, so I'm happily playing despite its flaws 😁
@@raptori if you look closer at things around Poisson they did change *a bit*.
you can't expect major terrain changes without substantial file downloads.
in any case, they are profitable BECAUSE they focus more on the trivial aspects which are geared to "selling the characters" rather than spending more effort in making them have more depth.
...vroom-vroom anyone?? 🤮
@@raptori I get your point about investing more because it makes sense if you look at it from a distance, but that logic falls apart a bit when you start to think about what that actually entails.
On one end, it's safe to assume to Hoyo has invested more resources into storytelling given their improvements since Mondstadt's archon quest. On the other hand, those changes have been slow and gradual which tells me that no amount of money spent is going to buy them the time to speed up the production process.
Hiring new talent, interviewing and training people to work in a project of this scale unfortunately takes a significant amount of time, especially when you consider how fast they have to push out new content. This is why I agree with @binsarm9026 about the comparisons not being fair, despite the criticisms in the video being perfectly understandable.
I actually did not watch the short but was not confused by arlechino, things started snapping into place as soon as the ghost girl started saying things that didn’t correlate to current time
16:54There are a few NPCs that have disappeared after 5.1AQ, such as the legendary Scout who appeared in AQ, with only his accessories and a memorial bouquet remaining
20:27Armored Core 6 also has external story issues, and the protagonist's colleagues are only explained in the trailer, and there is almost no mention in the story. But Armored Core 6 has some good subtext
I think an issue with having any quest affect the world in a material way is that if it can harm side quest progress then it just can't happen. This is less a technical issue and more a business decision. If you can't complete a world quest you started because of a decision in the archon quest, people would complain because of the lost primos gems. Its why every time there's a quest with multiple outcomes you get an achievement with different text but the same primos no matter what even if one of them is "bad". They would have to account for possible states of your quest progress and provide alternates (like moving a chest or puzzle, something they already have done in the past)
Tbh i think it beacuse they HATE making the characters do anything special unless its in a cutscene. When was the last time you saw a character move there legs and arms while talking? When was the lost time you saw a character hold an item instead of levitating it? When was the last time a character use their facial expressions?? Aloy uses her hands and face to portray an emotion. Clenching fists, grinding teeth, soft smile, strenched hands. It shows emotion which genshin cant.
the natlan archon quests so far have been great, lots of good writing, good character development, best cutscenes so far, insane lore drops etc. so i don't really get what you mean.
16:33 I have to disagree. After the sumeru 3.2 archon quest every single book about greater lord Rukkhadevata changed in such a way that she wasn't part of the book anymore. Saying the story doesn't have an impact on the environment is really not true.
In natlan, this is also true. Something that really caught my attention is that after the 5.1 natlan archon quest your decisions during the war actually mattered. After the war you could look around the map and see certain npc's and saurians are missing depending if you saved them or not and which ones you saved first.
And it has good lore content, the current side quest is good... but they tend to sacrifice time and hurts the momentum. The extense of unnecesary dialogue and what for me is worst is that you get stand with no freedom to move around by walking. This resumes the plot trouble for me.
Tbh the story in 5.2 was handled in the worst way possible. We didn't see any npcs dying before us, they were just numbers in a board and you don't feel anything from fictional characters that you don't even know dying off screen. For a greedy company that does anything to get money they don't animate most of the important scenes(NPCs death in natlan, collei's PTSD, any scenes involving the traveler except in the few instances in the main story quests,etc..). In a visual story telling something will always have less impact than showing a thing.
True. I left Genshin and just recently came back (still stuck in Sumeru). The character's in Arknights feels so much more alive than Genshin. I just did Jeht's event and she feels more real of a charcater than Ayaka ever did.
Hmmm, I came at this with an open mind since generally I enjoy your videos and voice, but I feel like a lot of the criticism here is summed up as "Genshin's story isn't perfect." Which, while true, I could say is also true about any story.
A lot of the things you say Genshin doesn't do, it actually does do in another instance (ex. the environment is affected by your decisions in Natlan, the disappearance of Rukkhadevata and Scaramouche affects all aspects of the world and game) - instances you bring up yourself (ie, Baizhu). And much of the storytelling now is nothing like at the beginning, which you point out it has improved in probably every area you critiqued. Though even the beginning is not as bad as you make it out to be, as you point out you simply didn't know where to look to find the details. But that just feels like you were unfamiliar with Genshin's different style/mode of storytelling, which I admit isn't for everyone but really rewards those willing to dig deep.
In short, I feel a little confused listening to this because there are all these little easy to point out contradictions.
Looking at the coms, it's really interesting to see so many people despise natlan overall story while Mrs Saurus over here praise it for being more and more inclined towards pretty good world building story.
On a side note, what did you think of the 5.1 story Mrs Saurusness? For me it is probably, objectively speaking the best worldbuilding story of genshin so far, but I guess people really like constant bloated dialogue with wriothesley in fontaine act 3 just because bro got that jojo character model🤨
Genshin's approach to story/lore is like a person who has a closet full of beautiful outfits but chooses to wear coffee-stained track pants every time they go out lol. There is a wealth of interesting, creative material that just isn't getting used to it's full extent.
The story is told in a very drawn-out and often unfocused way, intended to make it feel more immersive; tightly-crafted narratives can be great, but can also lack impact (haha) because they're more obviously constructed to cause a specific emotion. "For sale, baby shoes, never worn" isn't even a story so much as an attempt to remind you of a sad story or experience you once had. But the Genshin method backfires if people see it as bloated and stop paying attention. I think this is why it's so polarizing.
I feel like the word "slop" applies more to disposable content with no underlying structure, which definitely isn't the case here, with the kajillion words of in-universe writing building out a world far more complicated then you'd ever know about from just the archon quests. It's a slow-burn story, which partly makes sense when you want players to stick around for years, but is also paradoxical for a gacha game funded by impatience and FOMO. The duality of gamers.
For the most part, I'm in the "it's great" camp, though it's not without problems. I guess the Fortress of Meropide chapter was supposed to be where they utilized the tale-of-two-cities setting, but it was so terrible and unpleasant for all the wrong reasons that we collectively blocked it out of our memories. And important event stories disappearing forever is the biggest reason I'd hesitate to bring new players onboard. The recent Sumeru event was such a perfect epilogue for Nahida and the region as a whole, and now it's just gone.
I can totally see that being their intent, but for me, drawing it out and adding content which feels irrelevant just dilutes the story. Instead to make it feel more immersive, you want the other stuff to dovetail with the main plot, to touch on the same characters, etc.
Thinking about it, the event stories often make me feel way more immersed in the world than the world quests do, because they tie in the characters we know, and as a result they have to continue developing the relationships and storylines there, even if they're side characters. 🤔
What is Teyvat. That is the question keeping me going and almost fully answered, me seeing a landmass right behind the moon/sun got me going at launch. Everything else was just a bonus
I think Genshin has an amazing worldbuilding but an unremarkable storytelling.
The change I wish they do is to lean more to organic storytelling; The characters are interacting naturally and they develop themselves. There are instances of organic storytelling but I wish they do more. The Traveler and Paimon are way too nosy in everyone's business. I know, they're the witness, but Genshin is leaning way too much to it that characters don't have meaningful stories, relationships and development because they're tethered to the Traveler and Paimon's existence. Basically, The devs are doing a solipsist approach where characters don't exist unless the Traveler is in the vicinity.
In all honesty, I kinda get why they do things like this because they have to sell characters. That's why it's kind of hard to find genuine good storytelling in gacha games.
Realizing I've lost interest in a cutscene, have been skimming/not paying attention, and suddenly require Paimon to repeat most of what she just said was very humbling. But also annoying. I don't have this problem in other story-heavy games!!! GI dialogue overstays its welcome something terrible!!!
Fontaine's lack of consequences felt super weird to play thru, too. Personally thought the impacts on characters werent even enough - the trial is never discussed again, nor does Furina ever speak of her divine self. Those ppl who saw Furina revealed as "fake" Archon - what did they do?? Did they tell anyone?? Like?? Heaps of stuff feels brushed over. Dont even get me started on Meropide as a whole lol
I enjoy the commentary, in the future I would suggest maybe turning down the OST music down some in your audio mix, its often drowning out your voice. Thanks!
I enjoy the commentary, in the future I would suggest maybe turning down the OST music down some in your audio mix, its often drowning our your voice. Thanks!
I enjoy genshin's story very much though I think the inazuma archon quests could have been done better. Sumeru broke my heart n the conclusion in Fontaine made me more curious about the future of Genshin. What I hate though is that there are parts of the archon quest that drag on alot for no reason n though the end result was satisfying I felt like it was too tedious. (The endless dream in sumeru n the prison activity in Fontaine) But the rest to me is just too enjoyable. Genshin has it's flaws but it's still be far my best Gacha game in terms of story telling
I have to disagree with some points in this video.
Genshin has always been good at environmental storytelling, they put a lot of details in the open world to tell you stories of the past.
The reality is: most environments are telling stories, but most stories are not told by the environment, there are sooo many stories in the game, but the environment and game assets are limited, as a result, most stories just can't be told by the environment.
Take the fontaine example you made: the two different sides of the city and the conflict between them played an important part in the lore related to the Narzissenkreuz storyline, but it's unrelated to the archon quest.This doesn't make it bad.
There is no way for genshin to create environments for most of its story like some other games you mentioned. Same goes for the problem of Cinematography. The games you listed with "better storytelling" will never be able to put out new story content as fast as genshin, and having new content every patch is important for a gacha game.
Storytelling, Hell they can't do characters right. Ganyu might be the worst written character I ever seen.
As someone who loves Genshin’s story and the writing and firmly believes it’s objectively GREAT most of the time, I watched this video with an open mind and, sure enough, come out politely disagreeing with most of it by the end. The level of detail Hoyo pours into everything is incredible, and I don’t just mean the lore. But most of this video is just saying it wants Genshin to be like these other games that did things a different way. That Genshin doesn’t do those things doesn’t make it bad. I hugely, hugely, hugely prefer Genshin to RDR2, for example, and would never want it to do what RDR2 does.
Sorry, Saurus. Usually like your videos, but this one didn’t click with me.
Huh that's super interesting! I always love to hear other perspectives - is it the stuff like subtext etc which you prefer to not have?
@@raptoriSubtext is great. Genshin has tons of subtext though. The criticism in this video though is that ‘Genshin has subtext here and there except where it doesn’t’ and that’s just…empty, at least to me. What does that even mean? Is every single line of dialogue supposed to be subtext for something else? Of course not.
If I had to pick a key point of disagreement here, it’s probably around player choice. Take the house example Saurus mentioned for RDR2. I don’t value player choice in a game; I value the story. Killing the people so they never finish the house means nothing to me. Is it a cool detail? Sure. Doesn’t mean everything needs to do that or be that to be good.
@@kylegreen6711 Ah, I think that part is more like... Genshin has issues with consistency when it comes to that kind of thing. Some of the archon quests are pretty great when it comes to stuff like subtext, but then there's one like the new interlude quest where it's painfully bad (to me anyway). Definitely improving over time, though it's hard to separate it from the excessive dialogue!
And yeah can totally see that re: player choice! I think that's just an example of one way that games add consequences and weight to things that happen in the game - definitely agree that it doesn't belong in every game. Stuff like the (complete lack of an) aftermath to the Fontaine flood and the Natlan war is what matters to me (and imo is what Saurus focused on too), and that wouldn't require any influence from player choice!
@@raptori I’ll grant that I can’t pretend every Genshin quest is on the same level of quality, so there’s definitely a level of inconsistency there (though I would posit that’s inherent to any game with a main story and side quests.) But I’m pretty sure you don’t mean that every quest in the game would have the same level of subtext versus when it doesn’t. I haven’t finished the interlude quest yet, so I can’t speak to it, but in general, I’ve found Genshin’s writing to use subtext appropriately.
There’s not a complete lack of aftermath to the flood and war though. Several characters talk about it, and in Natlan, several are permanently deleted from the game. The object layout in Poisson is slightly different too. Abyssal withering zones in Natlan after the war sounds like an awesome idea, but it wouldn’t be consistent with the lore in Genshin, so having it there would actually be a writing inconsistency. The Sacred Fire canonically gets rid of the Pylons, and the Traveler is the only character (supposedly) who can cleanse the corrosion from people. If the sludge were to get out of hand, like in the Chasm, we might even see a Celestial Nail come to Natlan, which the story definitely isn’t ready to handle at this point.
@@kylegreen6711 Yeah fair point that the side quests definitely shouldn't be given the same level of attention as the main quests! I still feel that there's a disconnect there, but it could just be that I'm expecting too much from them.
I just think back to side quests in other more narrative-focused games and how badly the Genshin side quests compare to them, and think about what could have been (since Genshin's world really hits the spot for me)!
I legit haven't noticed any visible changes in the world tbh! Characters talking about it is one thing, having some obstructions or visual changes would be on a different level. I'm sure if they were motivated to do that they could've found some way to make it fit the lore - for example it could just be that some of the monsters themselves were left behind, rather than the pylons; or maybe it'd be non-abyss enemies run rampant while the humans were recovering!
:]
Personally, I think fontaine, inazuma and sumeru had pretty decent storytelling (the previous two regions are rather mundane), but natlan destroys everything that was good about genshin's storytelling. The themes are disgusting, the characters don't think like humans, the philosophy is incorrect and not based in reality, the ideals are dangerously unrealistic, and there is literally 0 character depth.
To make things worse, gameplay wise natlan is a nightmare of game design. The geography sucks because in order to traverse the area, you HAVE to use the surians, and it's never a good idea to force players into new content because it just offsets that region from the rest of the map... EXCEPT THE SURIANS CAN'T EVEN MAKE IT UP THE CANYON WALLS (except the geo surian, but you have to completely run out of phlogiston to make it up, and there are little to no ways to refill it at the top of the canyon walls).
Wait I’m curious what themes were disgusting? Was it the fact that there were child soldiers(Kachina)? Or was it something else?
@ Child soldiers was just one thing, but it’s the superstitious aspects, rituals, the fact that no one has a problem with the ode of redirection relying on good teammates to literally determine whether they live or die, and the philosophically incorrect view of friendship from the People of Springs that’s advertised as the “correct,” “superior,” or “wholesome” view, despite the fact that it ignores (and omits) the very core of friendship.
(edit): not to mention the fact that the culture natlan is based on offered sacrifices to their false gods by throwing children into volcanoes
@@AndrewMinich hm I see, thank you for the explanation. I can’t really comment too much about those things cause I frankly don’t remember much about the people of the springs view on friendship and the like atm. However I do agree that Natlan feels more shallow than previous nations (and there was a lot of moments I really didn’t like) though personally I want to wait for the AQ to be finished before coming to a full conclusion.
Edit: corrected some spelling
Better story telling than honkai star rail...whole ass novel just for fukin bird anology like hello simplified it dammit....
For some reason I feel like a Roblox game is better at this than Genshin..
It's so amusing for me that someone still trying to feed on this topic after 4 years. At this point everyone knows what they playing. Yes, it's bad and never gonna be even a bit better, deal with it.
For me more funny is how bad actually HSR story telling is, and cancer community manages not to see it lol.