Honkai: Star Rail's Storytelling is Amateurish (Here's how to fix it...)

[@SeraphLore_]

Reuploaded to fix the audio balance. Sorry folks, I moved to a new place and its very echo-ey so I recorded by throwing a blanked over my monitor and doing it that way lmao

[@basty_gaming5750]

Hi, are you gonna play Limbus Company?

[@mooseoncaffeine]

The biggest issue I have with Hoyoverse's storytelling overall is how much they tell without showing. 6 minutes of straight yappage on a still image of a bird...

[@shutup1037]

^^

[@jakkees]

One...

[@Artorias96pl]

Penacony really is just Hi3rd post Flamescion arc. Endless yapping, frankly pointless phhilospoical questions that only sound wise and lots of technobable. Funny enough, I saw through what Penacony would become from trailers alone, where it was obvious Hoyo would try and play on peoples hearts for quick drama. Why can't they just focus on simple story telling like Belobog and the Xianzhou? And now they're really pushing Hi3rd connection with HSR because they starting to realize that no one cares about Part2 where the yapping is even worse.

[@blockeontheleafeon]

@@Artorias96pl Now I understand why they posted that weird monkey video. *That* was the easy part to explain. As in, you can simply turn your brain off and enjoy it without worry.

[@nu_kercat1]

@@jakkees ...day, after dinner, while my younger sister and I were lounging about in Mr. Gopher Wood's yard, we spotted a fledgling Charmony Dove all on its own. That baby bird was tiny, it didn't even have all of its feathers, and it couldn't sing. When we found it, it was already on its last breath, having fallen into a shrub -- probably abandoned by its parents. We decided to build a nest for it right there and then. However, thinking back, that winter was unusually cold, with fierce winds at night in the yard, not to mention the many poisonous bugs and wild beasts in the vicinity… It was clear that if we left the fledgling in the yard, it stood no chance of surviving until spring. So, I suggested we take it inside, place it on the shelf by the window, and asked the adults to fashion a cage for it. We decided that when it regained its strength enough to spread its wings, we would release it back into the wild. The tragic part -- something that we'd never considered -- was that this bird's fate had already been determined long before this moment… Its destiny was determined by our momentary whim. Now, I pass the power of choice to you all. Faced with this situation, what choice would you make? Stick to the original plan, and build a nest with soft net where the Charmony Dove fell? Or build a cage for it, and feed it, giving it the utmost care from within the warmth of a home? I eagerly await your answer.

[@Bruhbruhbruhruhruh]

Im guessing because this is a CN game, that the writers do love their 1000+ chapter web novels with their insanely oof pacing

[@Aiolet]

We all know about Journey to the West, and it's probably the closest example I can think of to this. And you're 100% correct.

[@Khn_2102]

Also because the story writer is paid by word count

[@lusamini]

FINALLY! So I'm not crazy! I love the Penecony (the best cast and planet overall) but it was draining, and at times FRUSTRATING to follow along. After I finished, I went on here to find a summary because I wasn't clear on some parts, but listening to the synopsis made the plot x10 more interesting than my playthrough. The quest +20 hours long, which could have easily been condensed into 8. This has become a story quest problem in general. I get we receive updates every 2 months and they want to keep us busy, but what's the point if the experience is unenjoyable? I can't bring myself to catch up on other quests because of the drag pacing and unengaging story telling (black screen with text, static camera angles, characters standing around and dumping lore). Some people like this style of story telling, which is FINE, but if they want to keep this direction they should give us a skip button like ZZZ.

[@FouCh-q2p]

You're not alone, it made me question my reading ability since I haven't been reading in a while 😅

[@PigeonPie]

I honestly didnt enoy Penacony because of this. I enjoyed the Xianzho and Belobog stories much more, even though they too were a bit of a slog. The conversations dont flow, people repeating the same things, getting diverted, repeating again, some things felt tacked onto and not relevant (sparkle ship storyline in particular). Its not hoyo - because I dont find the same issue as much in their other games. ZZZ has great story telling, and Genshin while sometimes a little slow, is no where near as slow or confusing as HSR. The closest was the aranara quest with all the confusing terms.

[@jerryeljeremy7790]

Overall for Honkai Star Rail story: • *Plot:* Really Good • *Dialogues:* Bloated & Hard to follow • *Cinematic:* Lacking • *Pacing:* Rushed • *Lore:* Interesting • *World-building:* Excellent • *Non-verbal storytelling:* Lacking • *Message:* Deep • *Humour:* Brainrot lvl • *Emotional:* None (There are some potential) • *Character interactions:* Really great

[@Cynicalhamptur]

to elaborate on the pacing, its more like: first 2/3 of the story having a pace like a damn snail, then the last 1/3 of the story blazing through the plot at lightspeed.

[@yyny0]

The HSR world building is probably my favorite from any media _ever_, but unfortunately it's in a Gacha game that's more interesting in keeping you playing and showing you the new characters that you should spend money on rather than the actual world they built. Most of the interesting things that have a lasting impact on the world happen in the background.

[@jerryeljeremy7790]

@@yyny0 yeah "tell not show" is hoyoverse favorite way of telling story unfortunately. But I have to give HSR credit with how they handle their lore to be more.. interactive through SimUni/DivUni and not just readables.

[@whatisthis252]

Money isn't the only currency you pay with; everyone, including all f2p, pay with their time as well. They want to bloat their playtime metrics. They won't add a skip feature because of that but also because it would put pressure on them to tell a story worth not skipping. Auto-text pauses on "choices" meaning you can't walk away and you can't speed through text because you have to wait for animations to finish. Dailies and grinding serve this as well, though they arguably have other insidious reasons for being the way they are in addition. Their main goal is to keep the game open as long as possible and re-opened as often as possible.

[@pralenkaman8105]

I've been getting into zenless and I really wouldn't mind if they made slideshow cutscenes, sometimes star rail adds a static png to illustrate a moment in the story and those generally look really good, like the luka vs boothill one Zenless does this for some cuscenes with multiple illustrations and they all look good and it's definitely better than a black screen saying what happened or a whole cutscene of character models effectively t-posing and talking Impact 3rd also uses that method and yeah, both zenless and impact 3rd sometimes have characters talking without much animation looking straight at the screen, those moments are not very common when compared to star rail where it's 80%+ of the cutscenes Just having interesting stuff happening on screen other than exposition would already be a better system, let me walk around and explore the region, let characters talk during battle more often, anything really to make the 6 hours of exposition more engaging, because if I become bored just listening to characters talk, it doesn't matter how interesting or intriguing your story is, I'll not remember it as much as a story that gives me cool shit to look at while the characters are talking about important plot details Tell me to explain to you a generalized summary of penacony's story (around a 20 hour part of star rail's whole story) and I'm bound to get some things wrong, however tell me to summarize in some detail the whole story of a game like xenoblade chronicles (around 80 hours) and I can easily write pages and pages about the plot, characters, antagonists, ideals, themes of the story, etc. Because that game, besides having an amazing story, gave me amazing moments of cool, heartwarming, heartbreaking, thrilling, tense and more shit happening for reference when remembering it It's not a coincidence that out of everything in penacony the moment I remember best and the segment of the story that actually made me want to pull for a character I wasn't thinking of pulling was kakavasha's story, it was actually good, it had heartwarming moments, heartbreaking ones, it had more illustrations to depict what was happening which helped me get a better sense of what was happening and to top it all off it ends with a boss fight against him and with a cutscene of acheron literally splitting the sky in half, like how can you not remember that in detail

[@yeorelz]

I agree with your points! I call this typical Hoyo style storytelling (with the exception of Tears of themis and ZZZ, dk about Hi3) Hoyo tends to have overly bloated dialogue that, as you say, runs for 8mins when you only need maybe 2-3 sentence to get to the point. What doesn't help is that the EN dub speaks so slowly and why are most of them speaking in riddles? (I get it when March complains about this, bc same girl) Is it a rule to make the story as long as possible? Don't get me wrong I love the EN dub and i love HSR's story so far. But seriously it needs to evolve from a yap fest to a well-paced story. A good place to reference great story within Hoyo is Tears of Themis. I will say it is by far the most well written story in hoyo game in the form of episodic stories. ToT is a detective mystery game. ToT gets down to business almost immediately and divulge information where neccessary while keeping the players constantly making theories in their head with what little hints they get. So that when the truth comes to light, there's a sense of Eureka for the players. This helps to connect the players' emotions to the characters/events to an even greater degree (and boi believe when i say ToT is a heart wrecker, I've cried countless times) In hope that HSR will continue to improve their story writing, I will keep giving them feedback.

[@brightlight8852]

I think that's because the narrative for TOT primarily focuses on the MC's perspective which cuts down on the yapping because there's no place to have it. The perspective being followed is the MC who is capable of moving the story forward and the MC is treated like an MC so the story stays focused.

[@PigeonPie]

It feels way worse in HSR than Genshin for me, though ZZZ feels better than both.

[@r.e.z9428]

I just think they need a new writer whos better with pacing. Its not that what we have isn’t interesting or terrible, but man is it a slog to get through sometimes. I’m still trying to figure out why or how everyone is ok with MC being a walking Stellaron like its no big deal and that he/she is able to basically walk multiple paths.

[@jerryeljeremy7790]

They need to hire manga writer from Japan cuz these chinese writers are.. decent but not that great at pacing & dialogues

[@t.v.1201]

to clear up your second question, when talking about paths in hsr you're referring to one of 2 things. Either the path the character follows in lore which usually relates to their personality or journey in some way or you're referring to their gameplay path which just signifies their role in combat (i.e abundance character are healers, harmony are buffers etc.) The trailblazer is switching their gameplay path which just signifies them changing roles like going from a sheilder to a support, their actual path in the story is still the same which is the path of the trailblaze. Most characters in game don't follow their canonical lore paths, sparkle follows the path of elation despite being a harmony character, jing yuan follows the hunt despite being a erudition character etc. The path you see on the character screen is strictly for gameplay purposes and usually has no bearing on the story which some characters like Acheron, Robin, and Feixiao being the exceptions.

[@sardine6068]

​@@jerryeljeremy7790 why specifically manga writer from japan?

[@Doralga]

@@jerryeljeremy7790 Japan maybe better at pacing but terrible with execution example's raging from JJK rush narrative to FGO's Koyanskaya's twist I'd say Korean writer can do this best since Nikke story is easy to digest with no technobabble we just have to deal with fillers.

[@stiflash]

​​@@Doralga Friendly reminder than almost all mangas writer like gege for JJK work under shonen jump with a set deadline to finish their stories, wich forces them to rush things

[@cutsceneskip]

I'm so glad you mentioned the comparison to XIV! I've felt the same way about all of miHoYo's games I've played (GI, HI3, HSR, ZZZ) ever since starting Genshin in 2020... In XIV, while the cutscenes are still dense and there's ample dialogue throughout, just about every line feels like it serves one or more purposes: building upon character, setting, or plot. Meanwhile, the vast majority of cutscenes in miHoYo games-with some exceptions, since they do have their moments-feel like they serve a singular purpose: force the player to spend more time in game. At least their character interactions are generally really well-written, but they just as often feel like superfluous fluff without any heart or depth. Worse, cutscenes are not only unskippable, but you can't even speed up the dialogue askjhakljshdaKLDHLKaj Their gacha is already predatory enough, I'd usually rather drop the game altogether than slog through this, but I was forced to come back when they found my only weakness: Magical Girl Herta (╥﹏╥) note: I should add that my username was originally meant to be ironic lmao. I'm a huge lore nerd and I *don't* skip cutscenes in XIV. It's one of my favourite stories in any game ever, whereas I'd trade in my C6 Keqing for the ability to skip miHoYo's cutscenes (〃￣ω￣〃ゞ

[@literalpleb]

Finally someone put my jumbled thoughts on hsrs story in words ;u; I honestly love hsr, but I want to love it more! I hope the developers work to make that wish come true. Great video!

[@OppaiHunter77]

What I hate most in penacony is how dirty and cheap writing tricks they used to bait people to love Firefly, she purely wood paper waifu material with 0 depth, but mr.Shaoji or whoever was in charge of this sht spectacle made people fall for her with fake death and drama stuff, such a manipulative moves to make her sales great. The moment she died I knew no fkn way they would kill her in this game even they really were killing characters in HI3. What is the point of doing dramatic music and etc if they even left hints nobody really dies in penacony right in the same chapter. I genuinely felt displeased by this shtshow and how people from genshin and even HI3 easily believed it. Anyway I got her because she is cute and robot is cool.

[@mrswhatdoyoucare2947]

finally someone who said something Based.

[@oliviasalazar1634]

The way you complained and then said it’s cute made me laugh a bit, it was funny xD, but I agree, I didn’t even have time to really care about the character and they killed her so I didn’t even care about it that much just to bring her back to life like nothing

[@Artorias96pl]

Once I saw her in the trailer I knew something was off. Then the community confirmed my suspicions when I started seeing shorts and art with her god damn everywhere. xD

[@mrswhatdoyoucare2947]

@@Artorias96pl the community was so insufferable, the things i've seen with her were so cringe ngl...especially that most of the Firefly Simps were EXACTLY the people you expect to fall for such a trap...Incels, Neckbeards, Cringy Otakus, etc... like, i am not even lying, the amount of grown ass fat men who were simping for her in a 'i can fix her' way in the most obsessed way ever was absoutely disgusting

[@nathanhuynh7078]

Too many dislikes on this video lol, but I always praise well done pacing. Smart writing is not just people sounding super philosophical or blasting you with a lot of technical jargon all the time, but what is a lot more important is laying out your content in a distributed manner. Time efficiency is king imo Work smarter, not harder.

[@SeraphLore_]

I'm saying something bad about a hoyoverse game. This is to be expected.

[@Mu-vm4ij]

Sorry if this is random, but How can you see dislikes?

[@nathanhuynh7078]

@@Mu-vm4ij There's an extension on Opera GX to reveal dislikes, not sure how accurate the tracking is but it tends to make sense

[@anapple6912]

@@Mu-vm4ij you can also add an extension called "return youtube dislikes"

[@GolgothianSylex]

It... Depends? Like Anathem is praised, Blindsight also(worse case). And it's by literature circles. Both books are heavy on their jargon/worldbuilding/sci-fi mind fuckery.

[@LCardosed92]

Reminder that Penacony was written by Shaoji, who is by far the worst writer in the entire Hoyoverse. He is an amateur. He really relies on vaguely mentioned foreshadowing for his plot twists, which is not a good writing habit. So many times throughout the entire game has it been 'we fed z but you thought x BUT JUST KIDDING IT'S JUST Y!!' making many build ups fall flat. Luckily I heard he wont be the main writer in Amphoreus , so it cant be as bad as Penacony.

[@jerryeljeremy7790]

Fan Chuan also not good and is Amphoreus main writer this time Honkai writers are not that great like people keep telling you. From HI3 you can see that they always have pacing problem.

[@Azure_Sky222]

Really? I find Penacony so compelling that everything else makes me feel bored. There isn't an emotional connection to the characters as well as Penacony. I saw someone say Aventurine part was a bore and they skipped dialogue, but to me every sentence of his seems purposeful and he ended up being the most relatable down to his every word. After Penacony, the new Loufu quest seems kind of stale and generic. And people think the story is hard to follow? I don't know, I just read...

[@shutup1037]

​@@Azure_Sky222it has some good parts, but they rush the conclusion too much. Agree the Luofu part for next arc is unmemorable though

[@krys9463]

He is? I've heard that accusation being leveled at whoever wrote the Luofu arc (they also wrote Inazuma apparently?). When Shaoji's name came up as being the writer for Penacony I saw a lot of people praising him and treating the Elysium Realm arc as one of the best parts of Honkai Impact, honestly I think all the praise I saw contributed towards my own disappointment. Penacony isn't bad, in fact there are parts I like but there's also a lot I didn't like.

[@basedsammo2831]

@@Azure_Sky222 Yeah, the Wardance arc was insanely generic. It was alright but the only thing that kept me going was the Yanqing/Yunli/March interactions.

[@Cap-br6oh]

i just fear that their forced retcon of the imaginary tree to fuse hi3 and hsr will indirectly make Amphoreus end up as a spit on the face to hi3 with its probably insanely simmilar plot to the elysian realm but everyone is "better" and we get the inevitable "everyone survives and remains marketable and happy" ending

[@haveagoodday7021]

Star Rail (and Hoyo games in general) are like having the finest materials and blueprints to build your house, but the people building it can't even build a wall properly. I.e good potential and ideas with poor execution. I understand a skip button feels like disrespect to the writers, but until they condense the writing down, it feels almost required. Though all in all I am still excited for what 3.0's story brings. So maybe I'm the chump all along for still having hope that Hoyo actually delivers on the ideas they present.

[@killerpanda2086]

The lore is pretty good, but I'm always scouring the internet to find summarys of what I just played 😭

[@shrimppine8429]

I CAAAAN'T ! i can't keep listening to this guy without imagining nerd-animator-comic-geek Welt being the one that rants. Your voice is far but also so close to Welt's my good sir.

[@tybanosaurus]

i think the writers just want to inflate the story material that they have to fit a considerable amount of player retention every new update which is why we get still scenes + philosophical debates. they also seem to really love what they have written and would instill that to the players even if it meant streeeetching out a simple back and forth. i have high hopes for amphoreus tho since it spans 8 chapters and the story would be better paced

[@eherden2169]

From Penacony all I remember a good amount was the dialog between Welt and Acheron, the other one being Aventurine with Sunday interrogation. Maybe it was interesting to me or easier to follow. Everything else I remember its just bits and pieces because it dragged on too much to get the message by.

[@blancka4200]

Welt and Acheron interaction was really good ngl

[@anapple6912]

@@blancka4200 honestly the only best one out of penacony.... maybe also adventurine and sunday interrogation.

[@blancka4200]

@@anapple6912 Nah, that's taking it too far. Penacony does have it amazing moments (albeit a few), other than the character interactions you mentioned.

[@Black_Sun_Dark_Star]

I hate the over-convoluted conversation over nothing.

[@Lexxicator80]

I fault Genshin for that. People didn't oppose this bloated narrative there and now we have it everywhere like it's some sort of a cliche rubber stamp for all gacha games. I very much liked how HI3 was at the start. Short impactful pieces of gameplay+narrative and then huge cinematics. Even HSR started not that bad. Belobog was great. But after that it's all down the hill. Now it's just "skip-skip-skip for the rewards" gameplay. Truly sad, I think Penacony was great, but I couldn't care less about everything when it's told this way. It's the same with HI3 part 2 now. They really missed the mark with the story there. Just bloated to utter limits with no impact (hah, pun)...

[@anapple6912]

yeah. but the only reason i am still playing both is because i am really interested to how it all wraps up or ends. genshin is VERY close to ending assuming kha'nriah is the last stop or "the end of the journey" so maybe 3 more years to go?

[@ffcmobilelegends2825]

Pretty on point video, tho im not reinstalling hsr for 3.0 until they at least add a summary with a skip button (they probably won't)

[@mooseoncaffeine]

Honkai and Genshin devs when a player doesn't want to sit through 15 hours of dialogue:

[@anapple6912]

@@mooseoncaffeine but they still gobble it up.

[@FouCh-q2p]

It's a story that feels like it budgets the time it has based on the update cycle of 6 weeks, and the need to introduce and involve new characters in the main story before / alongside their banner. Completely agree with what you've brought up - there is also an overload of terms (think factions, in-universe technology / magic jargon) that are not immediately relevant and honestly, without taking down some notes it's very hard to understand anything beyond the basic outline of the current plotline.

[@mrswhatdoyoucare2947]

Firefly was literally the worst story decision ever, like, wow you arrive in Penacony and suddenly you meet a girl that you have (atleast nowhere hinted at the game) never met before and suddenly, after like knowing this character for 5 Minutes, the game suddenly shifts to the vibe of "This is wife" even with no build up, hinting or whatsoever - suddenly, the TB is HEAD OVER HEELS for this character. Like, we meet her, we walk around with her through Penacony and suddenly there is this 'over the top' sad scene on the rooftop with the music and her talking about her illness and what not and the whole tone shifts to how much 'pain' the TB is in, even if he literally never had met her before (at least not in the viewers perspective) and then she gets killed by the Mem and like...wth was even that, why was this so dramatic? Why was the TB so traumatized by this? It's not like he literally saw Tingyun having her neck broken before all of this happened so why was the whole scene so pushy? Like, i would have understood if the game would have thrown hints at Firefly's existence (maybe have her faded in some flashbacks of the TB during his time with the Stellaron Hunters or what not) or at least give her some sort of existence or build up with the TB before expecting us to believe that suddenly Firefly became EVERYTHING for the TB in like a span of 30 Minutes. and worst of all, the Fandom literally SWALLOWED her whole - i never was more annoyed at the Fanbase than the time when Penacony was still new and the thing with FF happened like holy moly cow, all of these sad lonely incels literally ate this up and left no crumbs. Honestly, i never really understood her hype, especially with how cringy Hoyo pushed the agenda of FF x TB and it literally became so annoying (ESPECIALLY during the 'sacrifice' scene during the Lumina...like wtf, if i want to see cringy anime romance that makes no sense, then i watch Anime) And now? She literally disappeared without any trace, as if she had no impact at all? Like, if you have a build up with the TB falling in Love with FF then PUSH THROUGH IT! Don't just use this character as a cheap plot device and as a glue trap for the lonely incels. And i am not even going to talk about how she is SAM and how that all plays out, it literally makes no sense to me at all. Like, i just don't get it, i remember back in the day when the Character Quest for Jingliu came out and we saw how they apparently all fought for Baiheng and how the fandom lost their minds because she felt like a 'cringy self insert' and they literally hated her....and now we have FF who literally feels the same and the whole fandom starts simping for her? Like, seriously? Yes, i am a profiessional FF hater and i don't care, the character design itself is cool and the thing with Sam would be cool if it had more substance to it, but the whole thing with her being the dramatic sad and tragic female protagonist made as a plot device for the protagonist is just...eh.

[@Pandanananananananan]

I remember just giving up on understanding the story and just skimmed through it all 😅 esp when it got to Aventurine’s part

[@makosocksoff]

tuned out of Penacony very early on by the point Sparkle and Aventurine were standing on the street yapping (can't for the life of me remember what that was about), it all just felt incredibly pretentious and drawn-out. Will be tuned-in for Amphoreus tho. Just excited to get out of Penacony at this point.

[@yamatanoorochi3149]

For the entirety of penacony's storyline, I thought I understood absolutely nothing except for some barebones details, only to find out at the end that I did actually get it, it's just that the vague and incredibly indirect way everything was told made me constantly think that I was missing a huuuuge part of the story So I didn't like it as much as I felt I should have Thinking back, I believe I felt more or less the same about the Xianzhou, just that in its case I really couldn't be bothered to give a rat's ass about its story, at all...

[@ChannelRaznoff]

The FFXIV comparison is even deeper for me. The Dawntrail arc killed my motivation to continue playing the game for the first time since 1.0 and the Penacony arc in HSR just about did the same thing for that game. If it weren't for the fact that I'm a sucker for Greek mythological themes, I wouldn't be playing HSR anymore. I'm looking forward to 3.0, but if it's handled as bad as Penacony, I'll likely drop the game. Right now ZZZ and WuWa are just doing a better all around job and deserve more attention.

[@MiZZpe1l3d]

A lot of things I want to see moving forward, but most importantly, I think they should just use more still images for storytelling instead of going to Seclusion zone and Belobog every fucking time when traversing through flashbacks.

[@lavanderkay]

Ironically penacony was the only story to hold my attention. Played in 1.0 and didnt care about budget arcane and the xianzhou so i quit after fu xuan first banner, but my friend told me i would love penacony and was correct! I think it really comes down to whether you resonate with the characters currently involved in the story or not

[@nullcase404]

Amphoreus is gonna be a year long...A YEAR LONG.

[@SupaSaiyanXP]

100% agree. I actually hated the Penacony story, it started great but then from 2.2 the story was terrible. I’m trying to be optimistic that 3.X will be better but yeah I’m worried. I’ll likely drop the game if 3.X story is still bad. I mainly play games for the story & lore so yeah it matters a lot to me.

[@blancka4200]

Sameed

[@brightlight8852]

The problem started with 2.1. It just messed up the pacing and placed too much focus on unimportant sideplots while actively forgetting to connect it to the main plot.

[@SupaSaiyanXP]

@ I do actually agree with that. I did enjoy Aventurine’s story, but rolled my eyes hard when it immediately got pushed aside to a “one-liner” about his fate in 2.2 and even the small IPC plot in 2.3 didn’t connect to 2.1 at all, it was like Aventurine’s actions were for nothing. Would have been perfect as a companion mission (which for some reason hoyo seem to have forgotten all about, apart from 2 during 2.X) if they had no intention to connect it to main plot at all.

[@blancka4200]

@SupaSaiyanXP Exactly, Aventurine's backstory should have been in companion quest, NOT IN THE TRAILBLAZE QUEST goddamnit

[@brightlight8852]

@SupaSaiyanXP Funny thing is that it was for nothing. They even acknowledge it multiple times that his actions had no effect on the story. We have no reason to follow his perspective. What makes it worse is that that didn't need to happen, and his actions could have mattered if he was allowed to properly interact with characters not affiliated with the IPC. What makes it even worse is that 2.0 set up him working with characters not affiliated with the IPC, like Sparkle, Trailblazer, and Black Swan. It also made him look dumb that he had the chance to Team up with them but for some reason didn't and instead to work with Ratio, who himself even admitted that his actions were pointless.

[@polyethylene187]

you're literally reading the thoughts out of my brain

[@Cynicalhamptur]

You do a better job explaining the major flaws in Penacony's story compared to Ryuuku Sensei. Who does so in a more harsh and offending tone, which upset a huge majority of the playerbase. In my opinion, Ryuuku Sensei's video came across like he was personally slighted by the story and is just complaining and taking out his grievances for its poor execution, more so than make the game try to improve its story. While your overall tone of the video is explaining the video in a level-headed manner. A sub to your channel c:

[@ymi8238]

I loved penacony story, but your criticism is so true. The story is so good, but it suffers from bad pacing 😔 For the animations I don't mind at all, as someone who know how the animation pipeline goes, and how little time they seem to have, I don't expect more from them. They're already really fast by industry standard. Though I would love more, It would be a huge feat from the dev team to do so.

[@redflagsbisexualver]

If there were much more violent scenes in honkai star rail I will be much more thrilled and interested

[@ashy969]

Not all points are wrong, but...One thing you forget: hsr and Genshin are mobile first. They cannot use 38473892 cutscenes because these games even without them are 80G... It is also why they have slow pace cutscenes and repetitive dialogues (on the go you pay attention less) But yes, they do drag out the stories to much.

[@yingyang7000]

Hoyo needs to remember that their game's mainstream audience is a generation with a short attention span and not a die-hard fan of light novels. They shouldn't trap the player in a long cutscene for information. Instead, they should leave the cutscene short and informative while hiding extra lore in the reading material. I think only Zzz has the best story dialog pace out of all Hoyo games

[@broccoli5176]

Hoyo just understands who their main audience is. It is a pity that a vocal minority considers itself more important than it really is. The example of Genshin proves this perfectly.

[@cutsceneskip]

Diehard fan of novels, light novels, visual novels, and story-heavy games in general here~ o/ I can't stand miHoYo's storytelling; it has nothing to do with my attention span and everything to do with how it's delivered lmao

[@iwanaga_sensei]

You're a really great reviewer, please keep up with your great commentary! By the way I'm working on a story of my own, and I'm hoping that you would take a look at it and tell me your thoughts to see what I can improve on my writing (besides the grammar issues)

[@sushi3620]

I agree with some points, namely pacing issues and I also think they have an exposition problem where you're just dumped with info by a character from time to time I do think the jargen can be toned down a bit but I also think the suggestion of having someone translating is not ideal and would just be more time consuming. I think some is expected considering just how vast the lore is (like just look at the stuff you learn reading the SU expansion stories or even just curios, occurances and relics) Story telling can be tricky cuz would you rather conform to the masses and make something they can understand or rather stick with your own vision even if it leads to some not understanding? Hoyo games in general need to strike a balance between the two

[@dragonchan8234]

Based Hanya enjoyer.

[@RoshawnGreen-r4x]

I love penacony nobody will change my opinion tbh

[@anapple6912]

if only hoyo listened 😓😓 i really wish hoyo could change how they structured it, minimum cutscenes, low effort slop with really interesting ideas and a story that keeps me playing until the end of it, if only it was actually high quality with some passion put on to it... right now these games just feel like they are replicating genshin because of how successful it got feeling soulless well.. compared to hi3 which felt really geeky to me. who knows maybe when a new director comes in it will improve or if alot of chinese players complain about it...

[@rinoakirova1548]

I agree with all your points. We could get better pacing and have characters speak with less metaphor. However, I don't see an easy fix to the recurrent lore jargon. How do you talk about these concepts without using their name? I guess you could get a translator for the layman, but then you are just doubling the length of every scene; people who are actually paying attention to the story will get annoyed, and the people who don't care will just be mashing to skip for longer.

[@Horsaz]

You know you used to play too much Genshin when you think that HSR's storytelling is super entertaining... and yeah I'm talking about myself.

[@brightlight8852]

I think that the writing didn't start becoming bloated until 2.1 when they introduced character perspectives. That resulted in the characters yapping about random shit that had no effect on the story.

[@RoshawnGreen-r4x]

Bettern than zzz story

[@oscar4674]

hahaha yes

[@noobartist6009]

The Yapanese in 2.2 was pretty bad, nothing compared to the worst that Genshin has to offer but it does get tiresome how reliant they are on exposition.

[@pallingtontheshrike6374]

bro talks at barely 50 words per minute and criticizes hsr it's not that the criticism is wrong it's just funny irony

[@broccoli5176]

This is the same funny irony as the clowns from twitch who can't shut up for a second on their streams - complaining about HSR dev yappers

[@lixovsk]

now do it for zzz 🫵