12:18 THANK YOU!!! Ive been so confused why the fandom seems to be mourning her like she was as precious of a friend as Himeko in HI3 and i couldnt understand why when our character had met her at most a couple of hours ago 😅 The Trailblazer was affected deeper than the player is meant to be for the reasons you laid out, because theyre a character in their own right, we arent meant to take their behaviour as a cue for what we are meant to be feeling 100% of the time!
So glad you also recognized Aventurine as having so much potential to be one of the best characters of the game... Too many other people playing the game were just like "I CAN'T TAKE HIM SERIOUSLY BECAUSE HE'S SO GAYYYYY" and it's so fucking annoying.....
@@assassinparaiso Thats the whole point. We know he is from a race of people who are known for deception. A flamboyant personality hiding the true intentions. Look at the Joker from DC. He is flamboyant in the way he talks, will ask a question that will seem weird, only for it to be a metaphor for what he is about to commit.
Agreed. The same thing happens when a group of dudes hang out and having a moment in games like Persona series. People (mostly girl consumers I see) are like "omg they're so gay! Just make out already!" I mean like... people!, can't bros just be bros having bro moments??, why should *everything* be romantic!?, and why should a flamboyant dude be gay??, it's rude to assume someone's orientation just by judging its appearance y'know. So yeah your comment just reminds me of that thought.
@@gtoyadhatagyab8013 Like, persona 4 can be acceptable. Kanji is always eluded to being gay, and Yosuke's social link had a cut route where there was romance. Persona 5 though, there isn't that. Like I get it, Yusuke is fruity and flamboyant, but he isn't gay?
What I love about Penacony is how everything is fast, chaotic and deep. Every storyline, you feel as if the character is hiding something from you - everybody has a hidden agenda in Penacony ... even us! The fact that everything happened in a snap of a finger was crazy. I felt like I couldn't wrap my head around everything especially Robin and Firefly. I feel bad for the MC because you could literally tell that they were hyperventilating with the scene with Firefly and to be suddenly thrown into a scene with Robin in like what? a few hours? It was crazy
You couldn't wrap your head around anything cause the game provides less than nothing to wrap your head around to begin with. ALL you get is he said she said for most of it lmao
@@justsomeguy727 the certainties i had were 1. I hate Sparkle's personality, even if it's just a mask 2. Aventurine is literally just Childe but blonde 3. Black Swan is traumatized by Acheron
@@justsomeguy727 and that was on purpose, this one like a third of the whole storyline, it’s more like a setup. The twists and turns will happen later.
First of all, great video!! I agree with all the points you’ve made especially the one about the Nameless. The Astral Express Crew are my favorite characters, so I hate the fact they feel so underutilized. They mentioned this feature in the latest stream that will allow to see the other character’s perspectives. Hopefully it doesn’t just apply to Acheron and Aventurine and the Express Crew as well.
Ty I'm glad I'm not the only one to notice how horribly bad Loufu was in terms of everything it felt as if every writer in existence took a break. Then again this is what happens when you have too strong of a start everything else after has a higher chance to fall flat. However, I do have a few gripes one of them being Dan that remains not to have any develop or screen time AGAIN. He is supposed to be the original cast. I was never hyped on his transformation or his banner because there was just nothing to him I was hoping he'd join but noppppee completely forgotten. No mention of him peroid its just whatever at this point. Penacony is definitely far better than loufu by leagues.
they take turns into who's getting screen time - first it was everybody ... March, Dan Heng and Us, Part 1 of Luofu was mostly focused on the Stellaron but Part 2 was mostly focused on Dan Heng, we weren't even in like half of those stories. Dan Heng deserved a break after what just happened in the Luofu. I feel like if we went through what he went through, i also just want to be alone. Also, it was confirmed that Dan Heng was back in Luofu while we were in Penacony - if you noticed in the Chinese New Year short, he was the only one there and no crew in sight. It was also confirmed that life in the Luofu and Belobog are currently ongoing so - we might see a finished robot in Belobog soon or a new Luofu
@@thatsaber01 it wasn't really focused on Dan even in loufu, I mean yes it was but the writing never really helped him, plus how is the short canon? Was it even remotely confirmed? How can the express mystically go back and forth? When it clearly between jumps to every new planet takes time? Why would pom pom or anyone allow the train to leave from a important mission just for one person without discussing it as a crew?
@@Balbaneth Animated shorts are canon - one example is when you first meet Acheron and Black Swan, Black Swan says that she danced with Acheron at one point .. and the animated short is them dancing.
@@Balbaneth as for the express, i think they can? also I think that there is another interastral travel that is available considering how Misha said that he was going to take a vacation break and travel to other worlds but when we offer to have him stay in the Express, he declines it and decides to travel on his own for now so Dan Heng could've used that rather than using the Express
@@thatsaber01 yes I know most are, but I find it again hard to believe that the express during a important mission would leave penacony just for one person. Least that is what I'm getting when you said during Penacony.
I'm a little biased because mystery is my favorite genre, but I truly think Penacony is shaping up for something great. We got just enough to make our theories and the six-week format between patches has actually helped the plot sink for players before finally revealing the answer. Fingers crossed they won't drop the ball on this.
With Acheron in 2.1, maybe Welt could get some moments since she’s similar to Raiden Mei from hi3. I can see March getting some stuff with Black Swan, but at this point it seems better regulated to an interlude or something
I think the nameless will always be one of the least “involved” characters in any arc, because they go to planets mostly to trailblaze or help them out, as that’s the will of the Aeon they follow. They don’t have any attachments to the planets otherwise, unless they make strong friendships with the locals (but whereas someone like March might be up for making friends, Himeko and Dan appear to care more about finishing their business and heading off to the next planet)
This chapter's been great so far, refreshing after The Luofu. I somehow missed the false ending in this part despite looking for it. (Whenever the game gives you a choice look for that false ending.) Sad I can't be on the Discord to talk about it but I still have a few months to go on my legal fight with them over my insane account deletion -__- I'm still recording everything, lot of good it does when I just keep all the recordings on my local HDDs.
Absolutely. It's brought my interest back in, that's for sure. And sorry to hear about that. Noticed you were gone but it makes sense now. Hope everything is going well!
This is a neat analysis! I'm actually gonna disagree with you on the main Astral Express- yes, they're pushed to the sidelines and I wish they would be utilized more by the story, but in this case, I think it's by design. Think of how much this story and the external characters in the arc are trying to manipulate both us and the trailblazer. What's one of the best things to do if you're trying to manipulate someone? Cut them off from their support structure. Maybe we didn't all wake up in the same Moment because the Family didn't want us poking about. Sparkle, despite being seemingly overall positive towards the Trailblazer, just doesn't care enough not to thrust them into a bad situation with someone she's marked as dangerous. Black Swan would most likely absolutely be able to group us up with the other Nameless, but why would she do that when it would make it harder for her to manipulate us?
Why no talk on clockie or mishka? Jokes aside what you said is something i agree with. Penacony is setting itself up and it better paces itself proper. One thing i noticed and correct me if im wrong...but the story felt shorter ..like I cant tell if its engaging or not but that introduction to penacony feot like it was act 1 scene in terms of length but the story itself felt like it should be mid way to act 2 or near act 3 if that makes sense. Im hoping im just misinterpreting things because it feels different than with belobog who had a clearer 3 act structure Or genshin which has since taken to having 5 acts to sapce things out
Kinda agree. The reason why I dont care about firefly is because I feel like her time whit her was incredibly short too make you care about the character. Yes. The roof scene and the photo was a cute moment, but that is the only one and single time you can have something whit her. Then her dead... My sweat lord. Remind me the dead of Soap in Modern Warfare 3, witch is not a good sight. If she died at the end of the story, maybe was more sad about her dead, but looks like the writher deside too kill her just too get out of the way and make a sad moment. Witch work for some, but not for me. I understand the story of feeling shoorter, since the 2.1 looks like will be the end of the ark witch i really hope is not the case and these more story too tell.
God I've been _waiting_ for your vids. You have this lovely way of simplifying things for my ADHD brain as lot of the story dialogue makes it difficult for me to consume entirely.
i have faith in shaoji (writer of Penacony and Hi3rd) his writing evovled a lot from 8 years ago, what i know for sure about him is he isn't afraid to kill off a cast one, multiple or all of them (happened before in HI3rd) if it was to enchanced the story and frankly i hate to admit it but one of the situation where he killed off all of the cast was his peak writing. and for some odd reason at the livestream he gives off sign that is a possibility-nahhhh he couldn't....could he?
The point about, why does this game have an ensemble cast if they're going to be basically pointless is so real. And its so awkward to have one character stay behind for no reason, like Dan Heng in Penacony. Like on the Luofu there was a reason for Dan Heng staying behind and on Jarilo, it seemed like Welt and Himeko wanted to see how the younger squad would handle things on their own before stepping in when needed. But on Penacony and in future areas, why? One of my favorite things of this game, in theory, is the ensemble cast, because it means that the narrative can break away from the MC pov in a way that is very hard in a game like genshin. It means that the MC can have a character distinct from March and Dan Heng, in contrast to genshin MC, where it often feels like Paimon and MC are the same character or Paimon is just a mouthpiece for the traveler. It drove me crazy in Yoimiya Quest 2 where she asks about MC's sibling and Paimon responds with "According to her, nothing has changed with the sibling." Let the traveler speak. But it seems like its not going to utilize the cast, in practice, in a way that is actually interesting, especially when they are always going to have to share screentime with new characters for new regions, it really seems like the main story does not have enough time to do all of the characters justice.
Dan Heng stayed behind because he got a lot of attention during the Xianzhou quest. Doesn’t matter if it was well-written, he’s still gotten plenty of attention recently in the main story, they likely wanna focus Penacony more on Welt and Himeko.
Firefly was sorta a problem In thst since cause she cut EVERY MAIN CHAR OUT of the story which is frustrating cause why, why is march and himeko not with us that makes no sense
I *really* hope Penacony sticks the landing, as every great mystery does. I also hope the Express members become more relevant, the game could easily go "we only learn about them and see them in action on their designated exposition planets" but I love them and want to see them do more, hopefully the "Nameless on Penacony" storyline can help with that. Anyway wonderful video! Watching your videos always helps me organize my thoughts and notice (obvious) things I never thought about
earned a subscribe because i agree with your assessment of aventurine and his thematic role 😭 i see so many people dismiss him so quickly and it breaks my heart
I partially feel most of penacony is just killing people for the shock factor so far Like we knew firefly for around a day at most, yeah sucks to see her go but who is she anyway? Trailblazer doesn't know she never told them the truth The intrigue is nice but the attachment is overexaggerated But until the mystery is revealed I won't complain too hard, it could succeed or fail I do think it would be interesting if they actually did the perspectives of March and Himeko than just the trailblazer. I understand that there will be other perspectives in the story but not theirs so only the trailblazer has emotional stakes because of Firefly. Also constantly having at least one character stay behind leaves them to feel underutilized like we've been taking turns with dan heng, himeko, and welt? Only March has been on every expedition. The only way I'd feel attached to himeko is if I play Hi3 first because she's just there in HSR.
I really, really do hope that the Express gang at least have some meaningful dialogue between Acheron. Being essentially set within another universe and with Welt being the only proof that these universes connect with each other, there is just no way they can not give Welt a conversation with Acheron.
@@ThreeTimesFaster yeah I know that but what I meant that the gang (or at the very least Welt) should have at least some sort of meaningful exchange with Acheron seeing that she's so similar to Mei.
Penacony's vibe is pretty cool, but I found the plot to be weird and trying to overcapitalise on the death shock value of Firefly, which I didn't really get considering while she's seen as dead, acheron did pretty much the same thing to us to knock us out of a dream as was done to firefly, so not only does it seem like she's not actually dead and it's just for the shock value, but we knew her for like a couple hours before she bit the bullet, like, who tf are you? Idc bout you, I don't even know you dude. Right?
love your videos!!! and not to be that person but i think playing/reading/watching all HI3 related things will enhance not only your knowledge but also your appreciation for the story of HSR. obviously its a huge commitment as it is a multimedia story, but if you are passionate about the lore of HSR to any extent, HI3 will only serve to enhance it
@@Balbanethgood thing i didn’t suggest that hi3 was mandatory ! it’s obviously optional; HSR has its own story, but for people who enjoy the lore it will only further benefit them to know the lore of its predecessor
Opposite effect for me. Especially since hi3 took a fat nose dive in story quality after Otto's arc was finished (and a couple times before that as well) Retcon impact 3rd
It certainly seems like everyone has their motives, but I do feel like there's too many of them at once. Within the 2-3h of the main story, we are introduced to Acheron, Aventurine, Robin, Sunday, Dr. Ratio (if you haven't done the event) and Mika alone in the first 20 minutes or so. Then once we land we get Firefly briefly with mr. Bloodhound, Clockie and "Sampo" which kinda felt like a wound up arc for listing all the dreamland tutorials. Then Sparkle sends us deeper into dreamland where we get Black Swan, the reincarnation of death(?) and Sam. It's a lot to get through, and it certainly sets up how big this scene is. But during all of this, I frankly don't understand our own motive. Why are we in the midst of conflict? What do so many of the cast characters want from me? We are NOT after the watchmaker's legacy, nor here for any power struggles. We're here to have fun and look into the invite/past trailblazers footprints. For a plot to have suspense, the mc needs to have a stake in the outcome like personal gain/loss or if it affects someone they care about. Like you said, we don't trust anyone here. And we also don't have a massive motive for getting involved, at least in all the death battles. Ngl, looking at the conversations between characters with MC's absence, I can't help thinking this plot would be more interesting and better paced if we just weren't in it
Very interesting video, you saw some things I didnt. However I still disagree, while the story was handled fairly well (at least in hoyoverse terms), still doesnt have a hook for the main theme, since as you say a story must have a goal, but wtf is the goal of HSR's stories so far? visit planets to save and solve mysteries? That alone was the reason why I couldnt care about this blabbering in poetic way to hide a mistery, because there isnt a path to follow or a destination to go. Also I'd like to know what do you think of killing one of the most hyped characters like Duke inferno off screen?
For hsr, I think the ultimate goal will be the akivili mystery. Hoyoverse takes forever with set up though. We still barely know anything about Kheanri’ah in genshin despite it being one of the main themes. Or the primordial one, heavenly principles, etc. HI3 took awhile for their story too but I haven’t kept up with it since Elysian realm so I can’t comment on that.
Heres how i feel about this chapter.......its hard to judge cause all this chapter really did was set up for next part of the story (like 99% of stories)..........only flaw i can think of is that firefly just sidelined all the main chars (march welt himeko dan heng).....which is frustrating cause dan heng been resting for 3 quests in a row,(my god he feels so unfinished as a char) himeko needs something to do, and can welt actually MENTOR the express crew like he wants too🤦♀️.....(march is fine idk any problems with her cause she knows when to Shutup)
You hit it on the spot that the main cast haven't felt well utilized, and that to keep the mystery everyone talks super cryptically. Thus the delivery of mysterious points don't interest me, like the music box with Himeko, Silverwolf's phone call, or collecting Firefly's memories were clues that are happening around us and we're apparently wrapped in them because we were invited, while in mystery writing someone like Holmes takes the initiative to find the clues and removes suspects from the possible murderer list. In Bellabog Cocolia was framing us, and in Luofu Dan Heng's banishment was our personal stake in the story. It is my assumption each minor update we solve the answers, but until then I don't understand why many of these characters put in the effort to the trailblazer specifically (since they don't seem like they're aware of our stellaron?) besides characters want to pull the Nameless faction to their side in sideplots no one has properly ACTUALLY addressed to us besides the meme killing people and finding the Watchmaker. By making us guests, it sort of creates a locked room scenario in which all of the masterminds are looking at each other, but because Penacony is a place everyone flocks to, there's really nothing storywise limiting them from using other locals instead of us specifically. The greatest part of mystery writing is using the clues to deduct your own suspects. The nonlinearity they mentioned in 2.1 stream to watch other character's viewpoints in Penacony with impactful story choices is essential to the mystery theme and makes me happy that they mentioned it. It's exactly what I meant to take initiative in mystery writing in determining our own clues and paths. But I also have certain gripes with the delivery of other things in Luofu I'm not the most optimistic they'll reach the heights I'm thinking of.
BRO this is one of the best HSR videos on youtube and I didn't want to click on it each time it was recommended because I thought it was gonna be overly negative lmfao like anti-clickbait.
Thing is the story isnt even a mystery plot line. It's a politcal intrigue plotline thats trying to use vague wording to tack on an "element" of mystery. Meanwhile the actual plot currently is a revolving door of people from various factions who just say "dont trust X or Y person" without any lies or truths to really discern at all. If it IS a mystery, it's already failing quite miserably in that regard then for me. Stacking "mystery" on top of "mystery" with no real anything to pick apart as truth or lies is so .... Bad lol eventually you just lose your reader by doing that cause they have been given 425 mysteries to solve but zero substance to dissect the truths from the lies. Especially when it's pretty obvious that what they're trying to go for is the "expose the land of supposed harmony as not actually so harmonious". I dont even need the other parts of the story to release to know that this is where its narrative is going since its quiet similar to Danganronpa 2 chapters 5&6 in a few ways so ive seen this stuff before already. Idk. Im not a fan personally. Thought i would enjoy it more than the Luofu but it ended up feeling just as banal to sit through cause it's a bunch of nothinburger interactions and just everyone telling you don't trust the next person while Adventurine schemes whatever he's up to in the bg. Then you have these weird inconsistencies like why is the trailblazer falling to their knees over a character whom we knew for all of 30minutes, but when we spent much more time with the residents of belobog and bronya fell to her knees over cocolia, the trailblazer was just like 🗿 ? Im glad folks are liking it but i really couldn't get into it at all. Especially not when im having a character hamfisted down my throat by Shaoji yet AGAIN (i cant stand elysia and that arc was so much of the Elysia show it made drop hi3) so that certainly isn't helping. Edit: im sorry but there's nothing sad about firefly's "death" . They shoved yet another tour guide down my throat, used 80% of her time on screen for exploration tutorials instead of making her compelling, then suddenly dump all this traumatic backstory stuff on you as if you've known her your entire life and the writers just EXPECT you to become attached so the cheap shock value when the Meme appears can trigger an emotional response. It's so bad imo and is a prime example of why death doesn't automatically equate to compelling storytelling.
I keep getting hopeful and disappointed by the direction of Star Rail each update, ans still havent made progress figuring out how i feel about it, and a good example of that is the treatment of the Express Crew: When i got an idea of how the player character was being set up with an ensemble cast that would be the consistent ones as we travelled the universe, i had hope that this would be the happy medium between Genshin and Honkai Impact bc it seemed like an ideal way to have both a core cast getting regular development beyond the surface-level stuff that Genshin is stuck doing, while still leaving plenty of room for proper exploration on a universal scale that doesnt drip feed us new faces and places like HI3. But... So far that just isnt happening. I was confused when Dan Heng's backstory got attention so early on when ideally wed have gotten to know the crew better on less personally invested adventures before those adventures became about them, and sure enough it was riddled with the hand of the author waving a sign telling us we should be invested and shocked here, cheering there etc. That said, it did show us that other forms of the same character can exist in a way that Honkai has so many of that they lost all meaning and that Genshin seemingly will never do, so, again, i had that bit of hope for the future, theres potential for the important characters to actually change because their old forms and ways of fighting are allowed to still exist in the game (think about how Old Scaramouche will never be playable but 4* Dan Heng is). But for now theres so little sigh that theyre actually going to make use of that potential properly... Now we're at Penacony and im both cheering at the glimpses of good character interaction (thank GOD theres actual conflict between characters, weve got some bastard characters who are allowed to be bastards, who are allowed to be layered, THANK GOD!!) and wincing at the Crew being rendered even more meaningless than before (how did we go from the kids casually facing a crisis for all of Belobog with the adults only needing to give a little hand from the Express which in itself told us how normal these stakes are for them, to Welt seemingly just standing back during the finale to the battle with Phantylia when by all accounts he shoule be a freaking badass when the stakes get high enough? And now here they were just set up for the start of the mystery and then a reminder that we're only accessing a tiny fragment of the entire dreamworld, and thats practically it 😅?).
Right now I feel Genshin's Sumeru has handled alot of the stuff for penacony better, minus maybe the characters cuz while Sumeru explores them they might not be as strong as Fontaine's. Plus Penacony seems to want to set up ALOT more mysteries compared to Sumeru (which stuck to irminsul, scara, and afew other things), Fontaine and maybe even Loufu.
awesome vid! makes me appreciate the penacony story more than i did before. (btw pom pom as well as all the aeons are reffered to with they/them pronouns)
My biggest gripe with Penacony is it's trying to do abd set up too many things at once YET AGAIN (Xianzhou Luofu war flashbacks). Oh and I do agree that Firefly was just used as a plot point for us to be involved in the faction struggle, though with all her lying I was immediately put off byher that when that Death Meme scene happened, I literally laughed 😂 I wasn't able to establish any sort of emotional connection with her. We'll see how they play this out in 2.1.
My only concern for Penacony is that story elements will get all dreamy-weamy. Like because dreams don't have to make sense, I'm worried shit will just start happening for no real reason.
Nice video. I was waiting for a video like this one since I’m interested in what people find valuable in this quest. I’m kind of on the other side since I’m disappointed by Penacony's Story. It's unfortunate because I had a lot of fun with every other element of Penacony. But the quest has several issues which really make it difficult to enjoy. First, the continuity in the beginning is kind of atrocious. Characters are just bumping into each other with very little cause and effect. I find it hard to get invested in a story presenting a great city going beyond the horizon while every major character is just twenty meters away from the main character. I mean... if the trailblazer stopped to buy an ice cream upon arriving in the land of dream, they would not have met Firefly and the story would not have happened. To me, it feels like a story not driven by Worldbuilding or character but more by the hand of the author, constantly moving piece at the perfect place in the perfect time. Speaking of Firefly, the argument "we're not supposed to be sad about her death"... yeah I'm not sure about that. Because, beyond likeability, what does Firefly have? A vague backstory which teases more to come. To me, she kind of is the poster child for: "like my character and be emotional about her death". And I don't even dislike her, it's just so transparent it's not really something I'm invested into. I think the attempt was to make a likeable character (which, let's be clear, work on some people, I've seen people commenting that they find the whole thing very emotional) but it's just one that doesn't have a lot of relatable characteristics which can lead to a difficulty to like the character. If we put aside the question of the likeability, I have also two minor issues which kind of ruin the whole death scene: 1. People cannot die in the dreamland. Several side-quests establish it as a rule. Now, it's clear the meme has some particularities which change the rule but, in the moment, I was not sure about what the rule was and so I didn't really get the stakes and I was left confused. 2. Black Swan says in one of her conversations that Firefly was not in the nightmare anymore and it was impossible for her to go back there. Which doesn't seem like a lie to me since, why lie about that? And the fact it isn't brought up again. Feels more the writer installing a sense of security in order to increase tension later. Which, once again, show the hand of the author and contradicts Black Swan’s competency. About how Firefly’s death gives the trailblazer a stake in the story… well, the trailblazer already has stake in the story. We have Acheron and the déjà-vu pointing to a link to the trailblazer’s past, Aventurine’s antagonism and the goals of the trailblazers as a faction. While these elements are not developed for now, this is a first act. Setting up these elements would have been enough instead of going on how a nice but random girl gets murdered. And there’s the big thing: how much this emotional link can actually matter in the long run? I’m always up to be surprised but at the end of the day, this part has an uphill battle to fight. Either Firefly is actually dead and her part in the plot just stop, or it’s a fake-out death and we will look back at the Trailblazer’s reaction as wasted time which could have been used with, for example, the rest of the gang. The most I can see would be having the trailblazer’s having an active role in bringing her back. But, at the end of the day, I don’t see this first part as something actually enjoyable or meaningful.
the thing about people not dying in the dreamscape is so true. they literally never explain it other than some abstract throwaway lines about the dreamscape being "safe". but what annoys me the most is that the trailblazer just seems to accept that firefly is dead instantly. like how tf does he know that dying in the dream to the death meme is actual death? i feel like thats not the first thing trailblazer shoudlve assumed, especially when it hadnt been explained yet. like why didnt he ask black swan if thats what really happened? or what happened to her real body?! im fine with this now because they somewhat rectified this and explained it more clearly in the 2.1 quest (they actually ask what happened to her body) but ive been malding about this specific point for the entirety of the 2.0 update lmao.
Inazuma was a good story that suffered from poor implementation, Luofu is just bad as it was just a pile of exposition where none of the characters had any meaningful relationship or development. I hope they don't try to bite off more than they can chew with Penacony and the plot doesn't become a mess with all these plot lines.
as a new player i had no ... clue what was going on in penacony. Too many sht going on at once, too many characters, youre supposed to know things you dont know about and make judgments about things you see for the first time. Its even worse than on belobog or loufu, even tho loufu comes close
The most dissapointing part about Penacony so far is, that the Thashking was somehow not part of the main story. I think we all agree that our MC would be way more invested in the whole plot from the beginning if that was the case.
Sometimes faith and devout religiousness in specifically Christianity can be something a person with ulterior motives shields behind, I get the sense that the angel/bible themes are definitely not the "holy and pure" kind but "eldritch horror" kind if that makes sense,,, no offense to any Christians. I just think the existence of the Halovians is so interesting because in this context, what even IS an angel to this universe... what do the motifs and aesthetics of Christianity have to do with the overall plot... I wonder how they'll tie it in with everything
The thing i like about star rail is how some people are still bad people when playable. Scaramouche had to become a "good guy" as wanderer. Blade wasn't "fixed" to become a good guy, similairly with Kafka, Sparkle, Ruan Mei, and others alike, they aren't really on your side when made playable. There's a lot more conflict between characters than in genshin. In Genshin, other than the fatui, there is almost no passive aggresiveness between characters other than for comedy. High cloud quintet really have problems with each other, Aventurine is distrusted because of his heritage, everyone just clowns on Sampo (understandable), and probably other examples.
Wanderer was never redeemed as a good guy at all lmao what ? Media literacy? Hello? Also no conflicts between characters? Diluc and Kaeya ? Yelan / Itto / Xiao during the chasm? Al Haitham in general towards pretty much everyone he comes across? Like, holy disingenuous. Also just because hsr has "more" of it doesn't make it better inherently. Dan and Blade's conflict is written like complete ass (the same for the HCQ in general) for starters. The stellaron hunters are just the Fatui 2.0, but somehow MORE CRYPTIC about their goals, and everyone else is just kind of in the background anyway.
I don't think it's totally fair to say the Nameless have no goal, it's more that the idea of the former Nameless left on Penacony all those years ago gets obscured by all the other mysteries. That was one of Welt and Himeko's initial reasonings to go, as well as Welt and Himeko discussing the distress signal hidden in the message. While they might not be as involved as the Trailblazer yet, I don't think it's at all fair to say they don't have ANYTHING going on
Problem is I can’t tell if it’s bad because I can’t even tell what is supposed to be going on, am I supposed to feel bad for firefly that was introduced just to die but not really?
I do agree in some ways, tho i dont think it was really that good. The theme ist...what again? Not trusting people? Nothing ist as it seems? Its kinda too muddled in my opinion. A theme should Connect Charakters Not Just superficially, but also in other ways, Like Goals, Back Story, Charakter development and role in the plot. Penacony doesnt really do that. Although i could have missed that, tbh. I didnt Like Most of the Dialogue, Just because Most of it fehlt kinda...pointless. its the typical rpg npc Dialogue that doesnt really Catch Attention, even If it reveals information. Good vid tho
Penacony is just a big hi3 reference lol (you got welt Mei and adventurine looks like Lyle , very Elysian realm) My suspicions are firefly’s disease is like Honkai corruption from Honkai impact
dreams manipulate memory, like false memory why in a diffrent house!, now i wonder if NDEs peaople see the mind is ALSO manipulated? like they "understand it all" then dont once come back. what side is manipulating us, are all them manipulating us both wakind and sleep and NDE or just one or two of them were manipulated? i think its all 3 personaly.
Penacony is definitely a step up from Luofu, and the story is waaaay more interesting. Though it's kinda hard to follow because everyone tends to talk in riddles or in a context that the player don't know yet (namely Aventurine, Sparkle, Sunday, and Acheron), they threw in a bunch of new names and terms that often threw me off the loop in few details. I guess I could say that their sudden subtlety surprised me, because usually Hoyoverse latest works aren't really a fan of subtlety, otherwise they won't create Paimon to shout the obvious to our ears all the time. So this, while it caught me off guard, is a good change of pace, I just wish that they could tone down the dialogue complexity a bit, because characters talking in circles alluding to upcoming events in a complicated language is kinda tiring after awhile.
While everyone seemed to like how 2.1 ended up. I'm kinda disappointed about it. Yes we did have a nice characterization with Aventurine, but in exchange it sacrificed some depths with others character, which in this case is Acheron. Acheron's part in this patch just seemed so forced she was just there for us to basically give us the players the informations which in turn, ruins her whole character.
And Firefly and Robin. I feel that they should've mixed 2.2 with 2.3 and fill the gaps there. Having the epilogue as a separate patch is dumb now that I think about it.
I wish i could get into these stories but its so obvious that their personalities were decided on a whiteboard. Like "okay guys, whats our ideas for a aventurine?" "Im thinking gambler" "yes, gambler, betting, cool. Got that. What would be the opposite? You know, so we can create some character depth." " What about poor child from war torn place?" "Oh thats great! Anything else?" "Dead family?" "Isn't that a bit over done?" "Yeah, they dont care. Just make him shiney." "Ooh! Shiny! Write that." "Got it. Okay." "So shiny rich boy from poor place that wins through luck aka slumdog millionaire." "Yep, done."
I was so excited for the loufu after seeing blade's cinematic, but the whole thing was a pointless terribly executed mess, without any meaningful effect on the story or the characters. Penacony is promising, but the visual design of the jazzy world is an awful eyesore.
Great observations. I agree with you wholeheartedly that this arc's final quality assessment will be determined by how well the future of the story pays it off, but I'm not fond of it as a standalone entity. On the one hand, I really enjoyed Penacony's 2.0 story as I played through it, and think the location has a lot of potential, but there is one major disappointment I have after having come out the other side. I love having to puzzle things together; I love ARGs, I watched and loved LOST (and its ending), and it's this kind of enjoyment that got me hooked on Genshin in the first place (Enkanomiya got me good). However, the "cardinal sin" Penacony commits with its first act is being essentially completely unreliable. I could come up with a bunch of theories (and did), but the more I did so, the more I realized that all of them were both valid and invalid simultaneously, because any of them could easily be invalidated by something not being true. While I understand that this could be the case in any story at any time, if you don't give your story a firm enough foundation, there's nothing to stand on. Different theories can be given different amounts of "weight" based on how much would need to be untrue for it to be unlikely/impossible, but that's also a lot of work for how little time we have (and how little time future players who can blow past it will spend) thinking about the possibilities. In a nutshell, what bothers me most about Penacony is how unfun thinking about the possibilities quickly became. After maybe a week or two, I had transitioned to feeling it wasn't worth my time to think about and to just let the story give me more info first, which I don't think is what the writers intended. That said, to circle back to how I started this, this first act's quality will predominantly be determined by what they build upon it, and I've reserved that judgement appropriately.
Returning to this ever so briefly, I will say that while I do think Act 1 is somewhat redeemed in present hindsight, the answers to the biggest mysteries didn't even have that much seeding in the first act in the first place. The first act truly was introductory, with most of what we see being a misdirect (without even being able to clearly discern what is and isn't), and that's kind of lame. I had some theories that turned out to be true, but they were mostly baseless in Act 1 (other than Firefly, that one was pretty obvious).
EXACTLY. I've seen people make arguments that Penacony is a set up for a lot of characters, especially since most of them aren't even from Penacony. But here's the things, Penacony is still an arc with its own story. Not to mention that the characters who went there had goals in mind.
@@bruhwtf2662 Penacony was a lot of style and only some substance. Was overall disappointed with it but I think mostly everyone did their jobs well. The writers are the only ones I’m not completely happy with, but I recognize that my dislike of certain things is subjective. The best part of the story was Aventurine’s character quest, and even that was bloated. lol
I don't agree with you AT ALL in regard to the express crew. In fact I have no flippin' idea what you're talking about. They've been at the center of all the events we've been witnessing on all the worlds. And the dan heng stuff is really weird to me especially because he was literally the most important non-phantylia person on the Loufu. Very weird opinion you have there dude
Like I say in the video, being involved in the plot is not the same thing as having stakes in the plot. Bronya is involved in the plot of Jarillo 6 but also has stakes. March isn't an equivalent there, even tho she's technically involved in the plot of Jarillo 6 as well. The Luofu certainly has Dan Heng involved in the plot, but he has not stakes with what's occurring on the planet. He happens onto Blade, is attacked, transforms, and fights a bad chick. There's very little more to him on the Luofu even tho the world wants to pretend there is. You can watch my full video on the Luofu if you'd like, but the Express has been incredibly underutilized as characters, even tho they've existed in the stories that we've had so far.
We have zero stakes here. Literally what's the reason for the TB to be here instead of telling everyone piss off while they hang with Dan Heng on the express? There is none lmao
I feel like you should get into HI3 even if its just seeing the cinematics because as an outside viewer who might get into their games its easier to tell where the effort is being made. The use of tragedy and over arch story of "Honkai" has more weight and better used in that game of theirs than Star rail. Star rail feels like its about to fall into a Kingdom Hearts hole where ur an outsider jumping into worlds that seems to have its own plot without you being any significant participate based on what u are saying in their early story arcs. If u compare this to HI3 which feels closer than Genshin you might see this should be getting quicker to like mid HI3 story where its somewhat grittier or substance. But that's my 2 cents looking outside in
It starts with a bang and wimpers out with a bland, grey girl boring me to tears. For a mistery we investigate absolutely nothing, what little we gather together is uninteresting and practically thrown at us. Plus we are cut off of the people we learned to love and put together with a bunch of antipatic psychos. It's to the point I'm almost starting to miss Kafka, and I hate her with a passion, but as pretentious and obnoxious she is at least she knows when to f off and irritate someone else for a while. But the worst is that we get no agency at all. Of course every story this far was fairly linear but here it's suffocating. In other stories we at least have the excuse that we're helping people, lives are are at stake so we have to do what we do. Here we're aimlessly wandering around with Firefly (even though we could fling a rock around and it would hit a more interesting npc) in mandatory pointlessness distracting us from whatever is going on with Penacony. We deliberalety twidling our thumbs while somwhere else the plot is happening, and that makes me feel like the Trailblazer lost half of their IQ in an accident they just doesn't remember it. No amount of slot machines and walking billboards will convince me a place is cool if I'm restricted to do anything fun and all I can wait for is to somehow stumble upon the mistery. Let me do something more exciting in the land of dreams than the world's most boring escort mission! I was almost grateful for the monster that it got her off of my back, I'm just sad it couldn't kill her before her dragging me through the whole city for no reason. My perception might be warped because I absolutely didn't enjoy the time with Firefly and the "let's talk like we all are on LSD" together with the disgustingly smug personalities of most characters I spoke more than two sentences with made me question this story line. I hope in the second part we do something more than navel gazing until the plot finds us and get to talk to characters who don't irritate the living soul out of me.
I was completely checked out after Firefly death. She had death flags all over, and the death itself was clearly for shock that I rolled my eyes, not able to get any emotion out of that, while my blank slate MC was crying despite knowing she was lying and deceiving us from the beginning. 2.1 didn't help and since I didn't care about Aventurine, well... let's say I have a gacha game less to worry about
I like the character designs but the characters in the story are very underwhelming. They trying to stretch out this story way too thin its moving at a snails pace. They want you to feel for the characters without doing much work with all the tragic backstories and abrupt "deaths". People saying Aventurine was the best character story in the game so far shows just how bad and honestly incomplete a lot of the characterization is in this game is. They output 2-3 characters every patch and the story is only a few hours at best. There is no time to actually learn about these characters or care about what they are doing. Next patch they will have 2-3 more characters they need to make relevant to the story it just doesn't feel like a good formula for a story to me.
![COLOMBIA vs. CHILE [4-0] | RESUMEN | ELIMINATORIAS SUDAMERICANAS | FECHA 10](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/TDjN4W3yy1k/mqdefault.jpg)
“Aventurine might be the arc’s protagonist”
Bro hit the biggest nail in the world with how on point he was
"Aventurine might be the best character that's ever been introduced in any game."
STRAY MAVERICK THIS AGED LIKE FINE WINE. 2.1 IS. IT- WOW.
12:18 THANK YOU!!! Ive been so confused why the fandom seems to be mourning her like she was as precious of a friend as Himeko in HI3 and i couldnt understand why when our character had met her at most a couple of hours ago 😅
The Trailblazer was affected deeper than the player is meant to be for the reasons you laid out, because theyre a character in their own right, we arent meant to take their behaviour as a cue for what we are meant to be feeling 100% of the time!
So glad you also recognized Aventurine as having so much potential to be one of the best characters of the game... Too many other people playing the game were just like "I CAN'T TAKE HIM SERIOUSLY BECAUSE HE'S SO GAYYYYY" and it's so fucking annoying.....
i don't think he's gay though, he's flamboyant, and i am enjoying the story so far, there is a lot of intrigue rn
@@assassinparaiso Thats the whole point. We know he is from a race of people who are known for deception. A flamboyant personality hiding the true intentions. Look at the Joker from DC. He is flamboyant in the way he talks, will ask a question that will seem weird, only for it to be a metaphor for what he is about to commit.
How the fuck is he gay?
Agreed.
The same thing happens when a group of dudes hang out and having a moment in games like Persona series. People (mostly girl consumers I see) are like "omg they're so gay! Just make out already!"
I mean like... people!, can't bros just be bros having bro moments??, why should *everything* be romantic!?, and why should a flamboyant dude be gay??, it's rude to assume someone's orientation just by judging its appearance y'know.
So yeah your comment just reminds me of that thought.
@@gtoyadhatagyab8013 Like, persona 4 can be acceptable. Kanji is always eluded to being gay, and Yosuke's social link had a cut route where there was romance. Persona 5 though, there isn't that. Like I get it, Yusuke is fruity and flamboyant, but he isn't gay?
What I love about Penacony is how everything is fast, chaotic and deep. Every storyline, you feel as if the character is hiding something from you - everybody has a hidden agenda in Penacony ... even us! The fact that everything happened in a snap of a finger was crazy. I felt like I couldn't wrap my head around everything especially Robin and Firefly. I feel bad for the MC because you could literally tell that they were hyperventilating with the scene with Firefly and to be suddenly thrown into a scene with Robin in like what? a few hours? It was crazy
You couldn't wrap your head around anything cause the game provides less than nothing to wrap your head around to begin with. ALL you get is he said she said for most of it lmao
@@justsomeguy727 the certainties i had were
1. I hate Sparkle's personality, even if it's just a mask
2. Aventurine is literally just Childe but blonde
3. Black Swan is traumatized by Acheron
@@justsomeguy727 and that was on purpose, this one like a third of the whole storyline, it’s more like a setup. The twists and turns will happen later.
First of all, great video!! I agree with all the points you’ve made especially the one about the Nameless. The Astral Express Crew are my favorite characters, so I hate the fact they feel so underutilized. They mentioned this feature in the latest stream that will allow to see the other character’s perspectives. Hopefully it doesn’t just apply to Acheron and Aventurine and the Express Crew as well.
i've been waiting for this, love ur vids man
Aww, thank you! That means a lot
Ty I'm glad I'm not the only one to notice how horribly bad Loufu was in terms of everything it felt as if every writer in existence took a break. Then again this is what happens when you have too strong of a start everything else after has a higher chance to fall flat. However, I do have a few gripes one of them being Dan that remains not to have any develop or screen time AGAIN. He is supposed to be the original cast. I was never hyped on his transformation or his banner because there was just nothing to him I was hoping he'd join but noppppee completely forgotten. No mention of him peroid its just whatever at this point. Penacony is definitely far better than loufu by leagues.
they take turns into who's getting screen time - first it was everybody ... March, Dan Heng and Us, Part 1 of Luofu was mostly focused on the Stellaron but Part 2 was mostly focused on Dan Heng, we weren't even in like half of those stories. Dan Heng deserved a break after what just happened in the Luofu. I feel like if we went through what he went through, i also just want to be alone.
Also, it was confirmed that Dan Heng was back in Luofu while we were in Penacony - if you noticed in the Chinese New Year short, he was the only one there and no crew in sight. It was also confirmed that life in the Luofu and Belobog are currently ongoing so - we might see a finished robot in Belobog soon or a new Luofu
@@thatsaber01 it wasn't really focused on Dan even in loufu, I mean yes it was but the writing never really helped him, plus how is the short canon? Was it even remotely confirmed? How can the express mystically go back and forth? When it clearly between jumps to every new planet takes time? Why would pom pom or anyone allow the train to leave from a important mission just for one person without discussing it as a crew?
@@Balbaneth Animated shorts are canon - one example is when you first meet Acheron and Black Swan, Black Swan says that she danced with Acheron at one point .. and the animated short is them dancing.
@@Balbaneth as for the express, i think they can? also I think that there is another interastral travel that is available considering how Misha said that he was going to take a vacation break and travel to other worlds but when we offer to have him stay in the Express, he declines it and decides to travel on his own for now so Dan Heng could've used that rather than using the Express
@@thatsaber01 yes I know most are, but I find it again hard to believe that the express during a important mission would leave penacony just for one person. Least that is what I'm getting when you said during Penacony.
I'm a little biased because mystery is my favorite genre, but I truly think Penacony is shaping up for something great. We got just enough to make our theories and the six-week format between patches has actually helped the plot sink for players before finally revealing the answer. Fingers crossed they won't drop the ball on this.
With Acheron in 2.1, maybe Welt could get some moments since she’s similar to Raiden Mei from hi3.
I can see March getting some stuff with Black Swan, but at this point it seems better regulated to an interlude or something
Yeah, besides Black Swan and somewhat Aventurine, the other Nameless haven't really interacted much with anyone. Hope that changes in 2.1!
March could actually have a lot in stake for this arc, apart from Black Swan. March and Firefly have suspiciously similar eyes.
the devs mentioned in the recent livestream that Welt will be interacting with Acheron in 2.1
I think the nameless will always be one of the least “involved” characters in any arc, because they go to planets mostly to trailblaze or help them out, as that’s the will of the Aeon they follow. They don’t have any attachments to the planets otherwise, unless they make strong friendships with the locals (but whereas someone like March might be up for making friends, Himeko and Dan appear to care more about finishing their business and heading off to the next planet)
This comment aged like milk but for the better
Press F to pay respects for Mikhail
This chapter's been great so far, refreshing after The Luofu. I somehow missed the false ending in this part despite looking for it. (Whenever the game gives you a choice look for that false ending.)
Sad I can't be on the Discord to talk about it but I still have a few months to go on my legal fight with them over my insane account deletion -__-
I'm still recording everything, lot of good it does when I just keep all the recordings on my local HDDs.
Dayum man, good luck.
Absolutely. It's brought my interest back in, that's for sure. And sorry to hear about that. Noticed you were gone but it makes sense now. Hope everything is going well!
@StrayMaverick well we are going back to the Xianzhou ship again as the dev confirmed of course cause China
This is a neat analysis!
I'm actually gonna disagree with you on the main Astral Express- yes, they're pushed to the sidelines and I wish they would be utilized more by the story, but in this case, I think it's by design.
Think of how much this story and the external characters in the arc are trying to manipulate both us and the trailblazer. What's one of the best things to do if you're trying to manipulate someone? Cut them off from their support structure. Maybe we didn't all wake up in the same Moment because the Family didn't want us poking about. Sparkle, despite being seemingly overall positive towards the Trailblazer, just doesn't care enough not to thrust them into a bad situation with someone she's marked as dangerous. Black Swan would most likely absolutely be able to group us up with the other Nameless, but why would she do that when it would make it harder for her to manipulate us?
Why no talk on clockie or mishka?
Jokes aside what you said is something i agree with. Penacony is setting itself up and it better paces itself proper.
One thing i noticed and correct me if im wrong...but the story felt shorter ..like
I cant tell if its engaging or not but that introduction to penacony feot like it was act 1 scene in terms of length but the story itself felt like it should be mid way to act 2 or near act 3 if that makes sense.
Im hoping im just misinterpreting things because it feels different than with belobog who had a clearer 3 act structure
Or genshin which has since taken to having 5 acts to sapce things out
Kinda agree.
The reason why I dont care about firefly is because I feel like her time whit her was incredibly short too make you care about the character. Yes. The roof scene and the photo was a cute moment, but that is the only one and single time you can have something whit her. Then her dead...
My sweat lord.
Remind me the dead of Soap in Modern Warfare 3, witch is not a good sight. If she died at the end of the story, maybe was more sad about her dead, but looks like the writher deside too kill her just too get out of the way and make a sad moment. Witch work for some, but not for me.
I understand the story of feeling shoorter, since the 2.1 looks like will be the end of the ark witch i really hope is not the case and these more story too tell.
God I've been _waiting_ for your vids. You have this lovely way of simplifying things for my ADHD brain as lot of the story dialogue makes it difficult for me to consume entirely.
Ah yes another video from my favorite youtuber. Already looking forward to your next one
Great video, and you have the best story analysis I have seen in this fandom.
THANK YOUUUUUU FOR THIS RECAP BEFORE 2.1
Absolutely! Hope it helped you remember all the craziness that's going on. Lol
i have faith in shaoji (writer of Penacony and Hi3rd) his writing evovled a lot from 8 years ago, what i know for sure about him is he isn't afraid to kill off a cast one, multiple or all of them (happened before in HI3rd) if it was to enchanced the story and frankly i hate to admit it but one of the situation where he killed off all of the cast was his peak writing. and for some odd reason at the livestream he gives off sign that is a possibility-nahhhh he couldn't....could he?
Coming from 2.1, I am SO EXCITED for the 2.1 story review!
The point about, why does this game have an ensemble cast if they're going to be basically pointless is so real. And its so awkward to have one character stay behind for no reason, like Dan Heng in Penacony. Like on the Luofu there was a reason for Dan Heng staying behind and on Jarilo, it seemed like Welt and Himeko wanted to see how the younger squad would handle things on their own before stepping in when needed. But on Penacony and in future areas, why?
One of my favorite things of this game, in theory, is the ensemble cast, because it means that the narrative can break away from the MC pov in a way that is very hard in a game like genshin. It means that the MC can have a character distinct from March and Dan Heng, in contrast to genshin MC, where it often feels like Paimon and MC are the same character or Paimon is just a mouthpiece for the traveler. It drove me crazy in Yoimiya Quest 2 where she asks about MC's sibling and Paimon responds with "According to her, nothing has changed with the sibling." Let the traveler speak.
But it seems like its not going to utilize the cast, in practice, in a way that is actually interesting, especially when they are always going to have to share screentime with new characters for new regions, it really seems like the main story does not have enough time to do all of the characters justice.
Dan Heng stayed behind because he got a lot of attention during the Xianzhou quest. Doesn’t matter if it was well-written, he’s still gotten plenty of attention recently in the main story, they likely wanna focus Penacony more on Welt and Himeko.
Ya but he been resting for THREE QUESTS ON A ROW he feels so unfinished so give him SOMETHING to do@@DG_Toti
Firefly was sorta a problem In thst since cause she cut EVERY MAIN CHAR OUT of the story which is frustrating cause why, why is march and himeko not with us that makes no sense
@@DG_TotiIssit even focus on welt and Himeko lol, firefly had more LINES than what they have IN THE ENTIRE GAME
I *really* hope Penacony sticks the landing, as every great mystery does. I also hope the Express members become more relevant, the game could easily go "we only learn about them and see them in action on their designated exposition planets" but I love them and want to see them do more, hopefully the "Nameless on Penacony" storyline can help with that.
Anyway wonderful video! Watching your videos always helps me organize my thoughts and notice (obvious) things I never thought about
You were spot ono about Aventurine
earned a subscribe because i agree with your assessment of aventurine and his thematic role 😭 i see so many people dismiss him so quickly and it breaks my heart
I partially feel most of penacony is just killing people for the shock factor so far
Like we knew firefly for around a day at most, yeah sucks to see her go but who is she anyway? Trailblazer doesn't know she never told them the truth
The intrigue is nice but the attachment is overexaggerated
But until the mystery is revealed I won't complain too hard, it could succeed or fail
I do think it would be interesting if they actually did the perspectives of March and Himeko than just the trailblazer. I understand that there will be other perspectives in the story but not theirs so only the trailblazer has emotional stakes because of Firefly.
Also constantly having at least one character stay behind leaves them to feel underutilized like we've been taking turns with dan heng, himeko, and welt? Only March has been on every expedition. The only way I'd feel attached to himeko is if I play Hi3 first because she's just there in HSR.
I really, really do hope that the Express gang at least have some meaningful dialogue between Acheron. Being essentially set within another universe and with Welt being the only proof that these universes connect with each other, there is just no way they can not give Welt a conversation with Acheron.
The 2.1 Special Program already confirmed an Acheron/Welt mission
@@ThreeTimesFaster yeah I know that but what I meant that the gang (or at the very least Welt) should have at least some sort of meaningful exchange with Acheron seeing that she's so similar to Mei.
Penacony's vibe is pretty cool, but I found the plot to be weird and trying to overcapitalise on the death shock value of Firefly, which I didn't really get considering while she's seen as dead, acheron did pretty much the same thing to us to knock us out of a dream as was done to firefly, so not only does it seem like she's not actually dead and it's just for the shock value, but we knew her for like a couple hours before she bit the bullet, like, who tf are you? Idc bout you, I don't even know you dude. Right?
love your videos!!! and not to be that person but i think playing/reading/watching all HI3 related things will enhance not only your knowledge but also your appreciation for the story of HSR. obviously its a huge commitment as it is a multimedia story, but if you are passionate about the lore of HSR to any extent, HI3 will only serve to enhance it
Yeah, I've definitely heard a tonnnn about HI3. Maybe I'll have to do a series about it on the channel sometime!
You shouldn't need to go to hi3 to enhance or appreciate...a story outside of its thing.
@@Balbanethgood thing i didn’t suggest that hi3 was mandatory ! it’s obviously optional; HSR has its own story, but for people who enjoy the lore it will only further benefit them to know the lore of its predecessor
@@koriandcr my apologies xD I didn't mean anything bad by it. Not picking any fights I do play all of Hoyo games too.
Opposite effect for me. Especially since hi3 took a fat nose dive in story quality after Otto's arc was finished (and a couple times before that as well)
Retcon impact 3rd
The true story is in the side quest where the lore and all the secrets of Penacony can be uncover , is with that i know where we going in this mystery
It certainly seems like everyone has their motives, but I do feel like there's too many of them at once. Within the 2-3h of the main story, we are introduced to Acheron, Aventurine, Robin, Sunday, Dr. Ratio (if you haven't done the event) and Mika alone in the first 20 minutes or so. Then once we land we get Firefly briefly with mr. Bloodhound, Clockie and "Sampo" which kinda felt like a wound up arc for listing all the dreamland tutorials. Then Sparkle sends us deeper into dreamland where we get Black Swan, the reincarnation of death(?) and Sam.
It's a lot to get through, and it certainly sets up how big this scene is. But during all of this, I frankly don't understand our own motive. Why are we in the midst of conflict? What do so many of the cast characters want from me? We are NOT after the watchmaker's legacy, nor here for any power struggles. We're here to have fun and look into the invite/past trailblazers footprints.
For a plot to have suspense, the mc needs to have a stake in the outcome like personal gain/loss or if it affects someone they care about. Like you said, we don't trust anyone here. And we also don't have a massive motive for getting involved, at least in all the death battles.
Ngl, looking at the conversations between characters with MC's absence, I can't help thinking this plot would be more interesting and better paced if we just weren't in it
great video like usual!
Thank you so much! 😀
Very interesting video, you saw some things I didnt. However I still disagree, while the story was handled fairly well (at least in hoyoverse terms), still doesnt have a hook for the main theme, since as you say a story must have a goal, but wtf is the goal of HSR's stories so far? visit planets to save and solve mysteries? That alone was the reason why I couldnt care about this blabbering in poetic way to hide a mistery, because there isnt a path to follow or a destination to go.
Also I'd like to know what do you think of killing one of the most hyped characters like Duke inferno off screen?
For hsr, I think the ultimate goal will be the akivili mystery. Hoyoverse takes forever with set up though. We still barely know anything about Kheanri’ah in genshin despite it being one of the main themes. Or the primordial one, heavenly principles, etc. HI3 took awhile for their story too but I haven’t kept up with it since Elysian realm so I can’t comment on that.
This was a great watch. I totally agree with you
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed the vid!
Definitely liked it more than the Luofu, now that was a train wreck
Heres how i feel about this chapter.......its hard to judge cause all this chapter really did was set up for next part of the story (like 99% of stories)..........only flaw i can think of is that firefly just sidelined all the main chars (march welt himeko dan heng).....which is frustrating cause dan heng been resting for 3 quests in a row,(my god he feels so unfinished as a char) himeko needs something to do, and can welt actually MENTOR the express crew like he wants too🤦♀️.....(march is fine idk any problems with her cause she knows when to Shutup)
nice video! it is a lot to take in. what is the BG playing at 15:00 or so. thanks!
you cooked so hard with the analysis on aventurine oh my-
You hit it on the spot that the main cast haven't felt well utilized, and that to keep the mystery everyone talks super cryptically. Thus the delivery of mysterious points don't interest me, like the music box with Himeko, Silverwolf's phone call, or collecting Firefly's memories were clues that are happening around us and we're apparently wrapped in them because we were invited, while in mystery writing someone like Holmes takes the initiative to find the clues and removes suspects from the possible murderer list. In Bellabog Cocolia was framing us, and in Luofu Dan Heng's banishment was our personal stake in the story. It is my assumption each minor update we solve the answers, but until then I don't understand why many of these characters put in the effort to the trailblazer specifically (since they don't seem like they're aware of our stellaron?) besides characters want to pull the Nameless faction to their side in sideplots no one has properly ACTUALLY addressed to us besides the meme killing people and finding the Watchmaker. By making us guests, it sort of creates a locked room scenario in which all of the masterminds are looking at each other, but because Penacony is a place everyone flocks to, there's really nothing storywise limiting them from using other locals instead of us specifically.
The greatest part of mystery writing is using the clues to deduct your own suspects. The nonlinearity they mentioned in 2.1 stream to watch other character's viewpoints in Penacony with impactful story choices is essential to the mystery theme and makes me happy that they mentioned it. It's exactly what I meant to take initiative in mystery writing in determining our own clues and paths. But I also have certain gripes with the delivery of other things in Luofu I'm not the most optimistic they'll reach the heights I'm thinking of.
BRO this is one of the best HSR videos on youtube and I didn't want to click on it each time it was recommended because I thought it was gonna be overly negative lmfao like anti-clickbait.
yeah its strange titling but ig "is it trash" is a series of his
A surprise to be sure,but a welcome one.
For sure. Especially after the Luofu. Lol
Thing is the story isnt even a mystery plot line. It's a politcal intrigue plotline thats trying to use vague wording to tack on an "element" of mystery. Meanwhile the actual plot currently is a revolving door of people from various factions who just say "dont trust X or Y person" without any lies or truths to really discern at all. If it IS a mystery, it's already failing quite miserably in that regard then for me. Stacking "mystery" on top of "mystery" with no real anything to pick apart as truth or lies is so .... Bad lol eventually you just lose your reader by doing that cause they have been given 425 mysteries to solve but zero substance to dissect the truths from the lies.
Especially when it's pretty obvious that what they're trying to go for is the "expose the land of supposed harmony as not actually so harmonious".
I dont even need the other parts of the story to release to know that this is where its narrative is going since its quiet similar to Danganronpa 2 chapters 5&6 in a few ways so ive seen this stuff before already.
Idk. Im not a fan personally. Thought i would enjoy it more than the Luofu but it ended up feeling just as banal to sit through cause it's a bunch of nothinburger interactions and just everyone telling you don't trust the next person while Adventurine schemes whatever he's up to in the bg.
Then you have these weird inconsistencies like why is the trailblazer falling to their knees over a character whom we knew for all of 30minutes, but when we spent much more time with the residents of belobog and bronya fell to her knees over cocolia, the trailblazer was just like 🗿 ?
Im glad folks are liking it but i really couldn't get into it at all. Especially not when im having a character hamfisted down my throat by Shaoji yet AGAIN (i cant stand elysia and that arc was so much of the Elysia show it made drop hi3) so that certainly isn't helping.
Edit: im sorry but there's nothing sad about firefly's "death" . They shoved yet another tour guide down my throat, used 80% of her time on screen for exploration tutorials instead of making her compelling, then suddenly dump all this traumatic backstory stuff on you as if you've known her your entire life and the writers just EXPECT you to become attached so the cheap shock value when the Meme appears can trigger an emotional response. It's so bad imo and is a prime example of why death doesn't automatically equate to compelling storytelling.
I'm honestly more exited to find out more about Acheron's part than the mysteries in the story so far
"I haven't played HI3, don't crucify me". Ok but like, HI3 video when tho?
I keep getting hopeful and disappointed by the direction of Star Rail each update, ans still havent made progress figuring out how i feel about it, and a good example of that is the treatment of the Express Crew:
When i got an idea of how the player character was being set up with an ensemble cast that would be the consistent ones as we travelled the universe, i had hope that this would be the happy medium between Genshin and Honkai Impact bc it seemed like an ideal way to have both a core cast getting regular development beyond the surface-level stuff that Genshin is stuck doing, while still leaving plenty of room for proper exploration on a universal scale that doesnt drip feed us new faces and places like HI3. But...
So far that just isnt happening. I was confused when Dan Heng's backstory got attention so early on when ideally wed have gotten to know the crew better on less personally invested adventures before those adventures became about them, and sure enough it was riddled with the hand of the author waving a sign telling us we should be invested and shocked here, cheering there etc. That said, it did show us that other forms of the same character can exist in a way that Honkai has so many of that they lost all meaning and that Genshin seemingly will never do, so, again, i had that bit of hope for the future, theres potential for the important characters to actually change because their old forms and ways of fighting are allowed to still exist in the game (think about how Old Scaramouche will never be playable but 4* Dan Heng is). But for now theres so little sigh that theyre actually going to make use of that potential properly...
Now we're at Penacony and im both cheering at the glimpses of good character interaction (thank GOD theres actual conflict between characters, weve got some bastard characters who are allowed to be bastards, who are allowed to be layered, THANK GOD!!) and wincing at the Crew being rendered even more meaningless than before (how did we go from the kids casually facing a crisis for all of Belobog with the adults only needing to give a little hand from the Express which in itself told us how normal these stakes are for them, to Welt seemingly just standing back during the finale to the battle with Phantylia when by all accounts he shoule be a freaking badass when the stakes get high enough? And now here they were just set up for the start of the mystery and then a reminder that we're only accessing a tiny fragment of the entire dreamworld, and thats practically it 😅?).
Excellent content. Thank you
Right now I feel Genshin's Sumeru has handled alot of the stuff for penacony better, minus maybe the characters cuz while Sumeru explores them they might not be as strong as Fontaine's.
Plus Penacony seems to want to set up ALOT more mysteries compared to Sumeru (which stuck to irminsul, scara, and afew other things), Fontaine and maybe even Loufu.
awesome vid! makes me appreciate the penacony story more than i did before. (btw pom pom as well as all the aeons are reffered to with they/them pronouns)
I wasn't aware! I'll definitely keep that in mind
They're fictional characters.. and pronouns are well... 🤡
My biggest gripe with Penacony is it's trying to do abd set up too many things at once YET AGAIN (Xianzhou Luofu war flashbacks).
Oh and I do agree that Firefly was just used as a plot point for us to be involved in the faction struggle, though with all her lying I was immediately put off byher that when that Death Meme scene happened, I literally laughed 😂 I wasn't able to establish any sort of emotional connection with her.
We'll see how they play this out in 2.1.
Tf
3:34 All Aeons are genderless.
My only concern for Penacony is that story elements will get all dreamy-weamy. Like because dreams don't have to make sense, I'm worried shit will just start happening for no real reason.
Nice video. I was waiting for a video like this one since I’m interested in what people find valuable in this quest. I’m kind of on the other side since I’m disappointed by Penacony's Story. It's unfortunate because I had a lot of fun with every other element of Penacony. But the quest has several issues which really make it difficult to enjoy. First, the continuity in the beginning is kind of atrocious. Characters are just bumping into each other with very little cause and effect. I find it hard to get invested in a story presenting a great city going beyond the horizon while every major character is just twenty meters away from the main character. I mean... if the trailblazer stopped to buy an ice cream upon arriving in the land of dream, they would not have met Firefly and the story would not have happened. To me, it feels like a story not driven by Worldbuilding or character but more by the hand of the author, constantly moving piece at the perfect place in the perfect time.
Speaking of Firefly, the argument "we're not supposed to be sad about her death"... yeah I'm not sure about that. Because, beyond likeability, what does Firefly have? A vague backstory which teases more to come. To me, she kind of is the poster child for: "like my character and be emotional about her death". And I don't even dislike her, it's just so transparent it's not really something I'm invested into. I think the attempt was to make a likeable character (which, let's be clear, work on some people, I've seen people commenting that they find the whole thing very emotional) but it's just one that doesn't have a lot of relatable characteristics which can lead to a difficulty to like the character. If we put aside the question of the likeability, I have also two minor issues which kind of ruin the whole death scene:
1. People cannot die in the dreamland. Several side-quests establish it as a rule. Now, it's clear the meme has some particularities which change the rule but, in the moment, I was not sure about what the rule was and so I didn't really get the stakes and I was left confused.
2. Black Swan says in one of her conversations that Firefly was not in the nightmare anymore and it was impossible for her to go back there. Which doesn't seem like a lie to me since, why lie about that? And the fact it isn't brought up again. Feels more the writer installing a sense of security in order to increase tension later. Which, once again, show the hand of the author and contradicts Black Swan’s competency.
About how Firefly’s death gives the trailblazer a stake in the story… well, the trailblazer already has stake in the story. We have Acheron and the déjà-vu pointing to a link to the trailblazer’s past, Aventurine’s antagonism and the goals of the trailblazers as a faction. While these elements are not developed for now, this is a first act. Setting up these elements would have been enough instead of going on how a nice but random girl gets murdered. And there’s the big thing: how much this emotional link can actually matter in the long run? I’m always up to be surprised but at the end of the day, this part has an uphill battle to fight. Either Firefly is actually dead and her part in the plot just stop, or it’s a fake-out death and we will look back at the Trailblazer’s reaction as wasted time which could have been used with, for example, the rest of the gang. The most I can see would be having the trailblazer’s having an active role in bringing her back. But, at the end of the day, I don’t see this first part as something actually enjoyable or meaningful.
the thing about people not dying in the dreamscape is so true. they literally never explain it other than some abstract throwaway lines about the dreamscape being "safe". but what annoys me the most is that the trailblazer just seems to accept that firefly is dead instantly. like how tf does he know that dying in the dream to the death meme is actual death? i feel like thats not the first thing trailblazer shoudlve assumed, especially when it hadnt been explained yet. like why didnt he ask black swan if thats what really happened? or what happened to her real body?!
im fine with this now because they somewhat rectified this and explained it more clearly in the 2.1 quest (they actually ask what happened to her body) but ive been malding about this specific point for the entirety of the 2.0 update lmao.
What a nonsense
Inazuma was a good story that suffered from poor implementation, Luofu is just bad as it was just a pile of exposition where none of the characters had any meaningful relationship or development. I hope they don't try to bite off more than they can chew with Penacony and the plot doesn't become a mess with all these plot lines.
as a new player i had no ... clue what was going on in penacony. Too many sht going on at once, too many characters, youre supposed to know things you dont know about and make judgments about things you see for the first time.
Its even worse than on belobog or loufu, even tho loufu comes close
11:03 i mean i dont blame him. aint we all?
The most dissapointing part about Penacony so far is, that the Thashking was somehow not part of the main story. I think we all agree that our MC would be way more invested in the whole plot from the beginning if that was the case.
Sometimes faith and devout religiousness in specifically Christianity can be something a person with ulterior motives shields behind, I get the sense that the angel/bible themes are definitely not the "holy and pure" kind but "eldritch horror" kind if that makes sense,,, no offense to any Christians. I just think the existence of the Halovians is so interesting because in this context, what even IS an angel to this universe... what do the motifs and aesthetics of Christianity have to do with the overall plot... I wonder how they'll tie it in with everything
The thing i like about star rail is how some people are still bad people when playable. Scaramouche had to become a "good guy" as wanderer. Blade wasn't "fixed" to become a good guy, similairly with Kafka, Sparkle, Ruan Mei, and others alike, they aren't really on your side when made playable. There's a lot more conflict between characters than in genshin. In Genshin, other than the fatui, there is almost no passive aggresiveness between characters other than for comedy. High cloud quintet really have problems with each other, Aventurine is distrusted because of his heritage, everyone just clowns on Sampo (understandable), and probably other examples.
Wanderer was never redeemed as a good guy at all lmao what ? Media literacy? Hello?
Also no conflicts between characters? Diluc and Kaeya ? Yelan / Itto / Xiao during the chasm? Al Haitham in general towards pretty much everyone he comes across? Like, holy disingenuous.
Also just because hsr has "more" of it doesn't make it better inherently. Dan and Blade's conflict is written like complete ass (the same for the HCQ in general) for starters. The stellaron hunters are just the Fatui 2.0, but somehow MORE CRYPTIC about their goals, and everyone else is just kind of in the background anyway.
I don't think it's totally fair to say the Nameless have no goal, it's more that the idea of the former Nameless left on Penacony all those years ago gets obscured by all the other mysteries. That was one of Welt and Himeko's initial reasonings to go, as well as Welt and Himeko discussing the distress signal hidden in the message. While they might not be as involved as the Trailblazer yet, I don't think it's at all fair to say they don't have ANYTHING going on
Problem is I can’t tell if it’s bad because I can’t even tell what is supposed to be going on, am I supposed to feel bad for firefly that was introduced just to die but not really?
Yo Mav Sumeru story when?
In a year that begins with a 2, probably
@@StrayMaverick see you in the year 20000 then
it's a promising plot, but I get the feeling the pay-off won't be enough
hopefully I'm wrong!
Lol I hope so as well. I'll be here to say it's dooky if it is tho. 🤣
I do agree in some ways, tho i dont think it was really that good. The theme ist...what again? Not trusting people? Nothing ist as it seems? Its kinda too muddled in my opinion. A theme should Connect Charakters Not Just superficially, but also in other ways, Like Goals, Back Story, Charakter development and role in the plot. Penacony doesnt really do that. Although i could have missed that, tbh. I didnt Like Most of the Dialogue, Just because Most of it fehlt kinda...pointless. its the typical rpg npc Dialogue that doesnt really Catch Attention, even If it reveals information. Good vid tho
Penacony is just a big hi3 reference lol (you got welt Mei and adventurine looks like Lyle , very Elysian realm)
My suspicions are firefly’s disease is like Honkai corruption from Honkai impact
4:58 that voice ☠️
dreams manipulate memory, like false memory why in a diffrent house!, now i wonder if NDEs peaople see the mind is ALSO manipulated? like they "understand it all" then dont once come back. what side is manipulating us, are all them manipulating us both wakind and sleep and NDE or just one or two of them were manipulated? i think its all 3 personaly.
Penacony is definitely a step up from Luofu, and the story is waaaay more interesting.
Though it's kinda hard to follow because everyone tends to talk in riddles or in a context that the player don't know yet (namely Aventurine, Sparkle, Sunday, and Acheron), they threw in a bunch of new names and terms that often threw me off the loop in few details.
I guess I could say that their sudden subtlety surprised me, because usually Hoyoverse latest works aren't really a fan of subtlety, otherwise they won't create Paimon to shout the obvious to our ears all the time.
So this, while it caught me off guard, is a good change of pace, I just wish that they could tone down the dialogue complexity a bit, because characters talking in circles alluding to upcoming events in a complicated language is kinda tiring after awhile.
While everyone seemed to like how 2.1 ended up. I'm kinda disappointed about it. Yes we did have a nice characterization with Aventurine, but in exchange it sacrificed some depths with others character, which in this case is Acheron. Acheron's part in this patch just seemed so forced she was just there for us to basically give us the players the informations which in turn, ruins her whole character.
And Firefly and Robin. I feel that they should've mixed 2.2 with 2.3 and fill the gaps there. Having the epilogue as a separate patch is dumb now that I think about it.
I wish i could get into these stories but its so obvious that their personalities were decided on a whiteboard. Like "okay guys, whats our ideas for a aventurine?" "Im thinking gambler" "yes, gambler, betting, cool. Got that. What would be the opposite? You know, so we can create some character depth." " What about poor child from war torn place?" "Oh thats great! Anything else?" "Dead family?" "Isn't that a bit over done?" "Yeah, they dont care. Just make him shiney." "Ooh! Shiny! Write that." "Got it. Okay." "So shiny rich boy from poor place that wins through luck aka slumdog millionaire." "Yep, done."
I was so excited for the loufu after seeing blade's cinematic, but the whole thing was a pointless terribly executed mess, without any meaningful effect on the story or the characters.
Penacony is promising, but the visual design of the jazzy world is an awful eyesore.
8:29 I only see two sams
Great observations. I agree with you wholeheartedly that this arc's final quality assessment will be determined by how well the future of the story pays it off, but I'm not fond of it as a standalone entity. On the one hand, I really enjoyed Penacony's 2.0 story as I played through it, and think the location has a lot of potential, but there is one major disappointment I have after having come out the other side.
I love having to puzzle things together; I love ARGs, I watched and loved LOST (and its ending), and it's this kind of enjoyment that got me hooked on Genshin in the first place (Enkanomiya got me good). However, the "cardinal sin" Penacony commits with its first act is being essentially completely unreliable. I could come up with a bunch of theories (and did), but the more I did so, the more I realized that all of them were both valid and invalid simultaneously, because any of them could easily be invalidated by something not being true.
While I understand that this could be the case in any story at any time, if you don't give your story a firm enough foundation, there's nothing to stand on. Different theories can be given different amounts of "weight" based on how much would need to be untrue for it to be unlikely/impossible, but that's also a lot of work for how little time we have (and how little time future players who can blow past it will spend) thinking about the possibilities.
In a nutshell, what bothers me most about Penacony is how unfun thinking about the possibilities quickly became. After maybe a week or two, I had transitioned to feeling it wasn't worth my time to think about and to just let the story give me more info first, which I don't think is what the writers intended.
That said, to circle back to how I started this, this first act's quality will predominantly be determined by what they build upon it, and I've reserved that judgement appropriately.
Returning to this ever so briefly, I will say that while I do think Act 1 is somewhat redeemed in present hindsight, the answers to the biggest mysteries didn't even have that much seeding in the first act in the first place. The first act truly was introductory, with most of what we see being a misdirect (without even being able to clearly discern what is and isn't), and that's kind of lame. I had some theories that turned out to be true, but they were mostly baseless in Act 1 (other than Firefly, that one was pretty obvious).
EXACTLY. I've seen people make arguments that Penacony is a set up for a lot of characters, especially since most of them aren't even from Penacony. But here's the things, Penacony is still an arc with its own story. Not to mention that the characters who went there had goals in mind.
@@bruhwtf2662 Penacony was a lot of style and only some substance. Was overall disappointed with it but I think mostly everyone did their jobs well. The writers are the only ones I’m not completely happy with, but I recognize that my dislike of certain things is subjective.
The best part of the story was Aventurine’s character quest, and even that was bloated. lol
next pt 2 review when?? part 3 released already
It's out now! 🥳 lol
24:55 UR SICK 💀💀
Here after 2.1 and by God the Xianzhou sucks balls even more than before.
I don't agree with you AT ALL in regard to the express crew. In fact I have no flippin' idea what you're talking about. They've been at the center of all the events we've been witnessing on all the worlds. And the dan heng stuff is really weird to me especially because he was literally the most important non-phantylia person on the Loufu. Very weird opinion you have there dude
Like I say in the video, being involved in the plot is not the same thing as having stakes in the plot. Bronya is involved in the plot of Jarillo 6 but also has stakes. March isn't an equivalent there, even tho she's technically involved in the plot of Jarillo 6 as well. The Luofu certainly has Dan Heng involved in the plot, but he has not stakes with what's occurring on the planet. He happens onto Blade, is attacked, transforms, and fights a bad chick. There's very little more to him on the Luofu even tho the world wants to pretend there is. You can watch my full video on the Luofu if you'd like, but the Express has been incredibly underutilized as characters, even tho they've existed in the stories that we've had so far.
We have zero stakes here. Literally what's the reason for the TB to be here instead of telling everyone piss off while they hang with Dan Heng on the express?
There is none lmao
So far Penacony story is the most boring. I am forcing myself to play and is about to abandon the game.
I want Robin still alive
If I were a betting man I'd say it's more likely than not that she is. Lol
The Luofu made me quit the game, but Penacony brought me back, let's hope the writing only gets better from here
Sparkle best girlXD. I mean there is a reason why so many ppl love her. Her character is not „flat“. We don’t know what she will do next.
I feel like you should get into HI3 even if its just seeing the cinematics because as an outside viewer who might get into their games its easier to tell where the effort is being made. The use of tragedy and over arch story of "Honkai" has more weight and better used in that game of theirs than Star rail.
Star rail feels like its about to fall into a Kingdom Hearts hole where ur an outsider jumping into worlds that seems to have its own plot without you being any significant participate based on what u are saying in their early story arcs.
If u compare this to HI3 which feels closer than Genshin you might see this should be getting quicker to like mid HI3 story where its somewhat grittier or substance.
But that's my 2 cents looking outside in
It starts with a bang and wimpers out with a bland, grey girl boring me to tears. For a mistery we investigate absolutely nothing, what little we gather together is uninteresting and practically thrown at us. Plus we are cut off of the people we learned to love and put together with a bunch of antipatic psychos. It's to the point I'm almost starting to miss Kafka, and I hate her with a passion, but as pretentious and obnoxious she is at least she knows when to f off and irritate someone else for a while. But the worst is that we get no agency at all. Of course every story this far was fairly linear but here it's suffocating. In other stories we at least have the excuse that we're helping people, lives are are at stake so we have to do what we do. Here we're aimlessly wandering around with Firefly (even though we could fling a rock around and it would hit a more interesting npc) in mandatory pointlessness distracting us from whatever is going on with Penacony. We deliberalety twidling our thumbs while somwhere else the plot is happening, and that makes me feel like the Trailblazer lost half of their IQ in an accident they just doesn't remember it. No amount of slot machines and walking billboards will convince me a place is cool if I'm restricted to do anything fun and all I can wait for is to somehow stumble upon the mistery. Let me do something more exciting in the land of dreams than the world's most boring escort mission! I was almost grateful for the monster that it got her off of my back, I'm just sad it couldn't kill her before her dragging me through the whole city for no reason. My perception might be warped because I absolutely didn't enjoy the time with Firefly and the "let's talk like we all are on LSD" together with the disgustingly smug personalities of most characters I spoke more than two sentences with made me question this story line. I hope in the second part we do something more than navel gazing until the plot finds us and get to talk to characters who don't irritate the living soul out of me.
I was completely checked out after Firefly death. She had death flags all over, and the death itself was clearly for shock that I rolled my eyes, not able to get any emotion out of that, while my blank slate MC was crying despite knowing she was lying and deceiving us from the beginning.
2.1 didn't help and since I didn't care about Aventurine, well... let's say I have a gacha game less to worry about
I like the character designs but the characters in the story are very underwhelming. They trying to stretch out this story way too thin its moving at a snails pace. They want you to feel for the characters without doing much work with all the tragic backstories and abrupt "deaths". People saying Aventurine was the best character story in the game so far shows just how bad and honestly incomplete a lot of the characterization is in this game is.
They output 2-3 characters every patch and the story is only a few hours at best. There is no time to actually learn about these characters or care about what they are doing. Next patch they will have 2-3 more characters they need to make relevant to the story it just doesn't feel like a good formula for a story to me.
Lmao Sparkle is a biiiiiiiiiii-
-iiiiiig character in the arc. 😀
I agree Loufu was bad, but Inazuma was just diarrhea, hopefully they don't mess up what they set up on Penacony
3 yr old story arc lmao
Promo-SM 🌹
First
lol wut
@@davestew5135 was first
It’s the same as inazuma. Great concept with TERRIBLE writing. They can just coast by on the fact that all the weebs are distracted by the waifus.
Yippee. Been waiting for this