My Biggest Complaint About The 2.2 Story | Honkai Star Rail

[@XgoSolo]

As of now, I have not finished the story. I Think I'm knocking on the door of the final boss. However, Even if the last 5 or so hours end up being absolute peak, It won't fix the issue Highlighted in this video. Put the Game, back in Video Game. This issue was also in version 2.1, but NOT in 2.0. This is not a tall ask. It's possible. The devs just need to learn when to let moments breath. Edit: Judging by community Reactions, the common consensus is that the story was to much this go around. Glad to know I’m not the only one

[@berny8463]

that's usually an unfortunate problem with some stories: so many great ideas--- but when clumped together quickly, it makes it harder to initially have a strong reaction to a reveal since everything has been coming at you fast (btw i havent even finished the 2.2 story lol, im just guessing what all this is about based on experience)

[@marknavarro4592]

ap yap yapping, apparently genshin is good for complaining content so go there make a clout video not in hsr

[@berny8463]

@@marknavarro4592 both games are prone to criticism, it's ok as it just gives ppl a chance to discuss

[@sai_neko_reddy]

I think they did added gameplay elements regrettably at the end of the quest at sundays puppet show with puzzles and battles Before that it was a light novel more than it was a game i agree but I also think there was nothing much you can add as a gameplay elements in this story because of how the progression was If they were to add gameplay elements between each major plot point of 2.2 It most probably would have turned out to be more like aranara quest considering how much lore we just witnessed in 7-8 hrs of gameplay And people would have hatted more than they are hating it now for not having gameplay elements If u want to know what quest I am referring to please go and check the genshins sumeru region aranara quest

[@sai_neko_reddy]

And we also gotta include the point that it is a turn based rpg game , unlike open worlds like genshin If they were to add like 3-4 fights between each plot point i definitely think it would have annoyed people more I understand your critisism towards the execution of story quest and I do agree with some points For me the whole 2.0 quest gave me the one piece vibes slow begining of the story then it starts picking up pace and ends with a high emotional bang Let's see what are they gonna do with 3.0 cause 2.0 story direction is already set in stone most probably the next story element in 2.3 is also gonna be shit ton of dialogue

[@Wilmadiamond]

WARNING SPOILERS My guess because the Hi3 writer (shaoqi) is in charge, the presentation is going to be similar, in HI3, especially with the later chapters, it’s a lot of talking, moving around with the occasional battle. Maybe because Shaoqi is working on it that’s how he wants to present it? The fake out ending was executed well imo and the fact that the weekly boss is fought twice is cool. Also some interesting philosophy debates as well.

[@MikailMyres]

I some what agree with this. I'm used to the sitting and just listening to hours of cut scenes having played games like ace attorney, arknights, or persona. I didn't even notice this until it was actually pointed out, since it was a format I was used to. however looking back I understand where the OP is coming from, long boxes of texts can be well boring if not done well, or a style people aren't used to. Comparing belobog to this i found belobog so boring because it gave me characters I could honestly care less about even though the story was fasincating i found myself skipping through the text because i just couldnt find characters i cared for. however in pelocony I found characters i liked and want to learn more about hence the story seemed super cool for me. I think a balance can be achieved, or there are times it can be done right.

[@RyuuKishiTheSeventh]

Word of advice, if you're talking about spoilers in a comment, it's better to just press spacebar a couple of time so that the "read more" option is available in your comment after posting it. That way, people won't actually see the spoiler since it'll be in the read more section of the comment

[@ale-hl8pg]

@@MikailMyres Yeah I agree with this, the characters here were a lot more built up than Belobog Personally I was fine with the amount of dialogue because it was coherent, it seemed like it was there to give you more insight to the characters and how they arrived at the thinking where they arrived Even if you disagreed with the conclusions they arrived at, they still illustrated their story as to how they arrived at said conclusion (or opinion if you will), which imo is good writing even if there was a lot of it

[@letsrank9349]

The general direction of the story was amazing, but the execution was so bad it literally makes me only remember the end + a few parts. I say Shaoji's writing style is similar to Gen Urobuchi (Madoka Magica, Fate Zero writer etc.), but was done in a way that is padded af to make it look bigger/longer. I'm not really sure if that is his style or some exec at Hoyo is instructing the writing team to pad it.

[@Kafkaia]

I think firefly’s death was really bad because it wasn’t deep enough

[@skyescribble]

You're not wrong. Even semi-speeding through it, I clocked in around six and a half hours to finish 2.2. And I probably missed a lot but at that point I was zoning out anyways.

[@sai_neko_reddy]

I took a 6 hr break then came back and finished the rest of it lol English is not my first language, which made those riddles filled dialogues so hard to understand i had to Google like 10-15 new words whose meaning I didn't even knew 😂

[@obihz2415]

@@sai_neko_reddy and i think that Is pretty cool

[@sai_neko_reddy]

@@obihz2415 it is cool but also kind of annoying that I have to watch 2-3 KZbin videos after it to actually grasp everything

[@rillzy9637]

Split it up. It obviously wasn’t meant to be a speedrun. It’s 10 hours

[@skyescribble]

@@rillzy9637 Not when the entire world spoils it a hour after release. Nah. And don't even say "then stay off the internet" cause that aint possible in this day and age son.

[@mahirunotsuki9]

New Sweet Dreams Curtain Call video: Q: So, why do life slumber? A: The answer is not important So basically the climax line that everyone reposting over and over on twitter doesn't matter anymore because the story itself doesn't matter. Many people who never actually read a book will keep pretending Penacony has a good story.

[@monochrome4937]

Basically: They forgot it's not supposed to be a visual novel.

[@projectmoonsleeperagent]

I mean when you ask the guy who wrote HI3 (essentially just a visual novel) you shouldn’t be surprised that the story is like a visual novel lol.

[@yhwach1]

@@projectmoonsleeperagentthe difference is that in hi3 the dialogues are not bloated and stretched and they are actual dialogues and not philosophical yapping

[@Jmantheomega]

@@yhwach1 psychosocial yapping is there, actually. Just sets in the latter half of the story.

[@aaravgoyal2397]

Basically the gist of the story : ipc wants penancony send aventurine who figures out he must die to learn the truth Acheron was there bcs of some promise with a trailblazer(friend of mikhail)??*i think this point can be contested am not sure about Express crew solving the whole mystery and managing the different parties Robin became suspicious due to vocal abnormalalities investigates gets poked by meme which is a transport b/w real and family maintained dreamscape Mikhail watchmaker leaves behind his knowledge in dream bubble in form of misha and clockie but misha being a vestige of mikhail goes out of the dream bubble on arrival of astral express creating confusion Sparkle being a masked fool and super intelligent already knows everything and is just creating confusion and f*cking with everyone Gallagher being a friend of mikhail is doing everything in his power to protect penancony Sunday and dream master seeing human suffering decides everyone should just stay in a dream and tries to revive ena aeon of order by taking power from every oak member of the family gets destroyed by boothill and his galaxy ranger buddies This is summary if the story and i know a ton if things i didnt cover but this is the basic gist of it P.S why the f*ck everyone talks in fucking riddles or like they are writing a poem mumbo jumbo and shit just makes the story 10 times harder to understand This is perfect case of more talking and less showing at least 50-60% dialouge can be represented in a better and consice way making the story easy to understand and much more enjoyable Pls discuss and tell if some point are wrong

[@aaravgoyal2397]

Acheron and Sunday gets the award for saying shit in the most roundabout way There is genuine frustration in my mind after playing the story regarding their dialogues

[@aaravgoyal2397]

The wholesome story is finished just f*cking focus on the gameplay mihoyo

[@bacongod5759]

The talking in riddles and being a poem dialogue is so god damn annoying that’s why I was glad when boothill showed up

[@Dado_nastro]

​@@bacongod5759 What the fudge are you saying? -Boothill. (Maybe)

[@bacongod5759]

@@Dado_nastro boothill his a very direct character with what he says and works as comedy relief for me

[@Saxonius]

Dude, I'm a visual novel player, and even someone like me, who spends way to much time just reading a game was getting exhausted with the padding and overall lack of game to play.

[@gh0str4bbit12]

Yeah, that's what I felt like, too. The story had some great moments and revelations, but they were overshadowed by the padding. I was skipping the dialogue so I would just get to the final boss, which is a really great fight but those last few moments before said boss really grind my gears because at that point I just wanted to be done. And don't get me started on those walking on walls levels, that went on for so long that i was starting to get motion sickness. It's just disappointing because the story of penacony was good so far up until the end where it seemed to take noise dive in both quality and writing.

[@U2Rulez]

"But there's so much lore bro" Me waiting to Sunday to finish his monolog about having endless sundays within a week: 😐

[@maingrader4434]

Its literally like 4 hours of quest every 40 days and we dont even get them for 4 months just calm down it was much better than loufu

[@northmoth]

Me Waiting For Everyone To STFU So My Space Pig Can Absolutely Obliterate Sunday

[@Dado_nastro]

@@maingrader4434 There's no way that's 4 hours.

[@maingrader4434]

@@Dado_nastro idk I didn't notice the time

[@natweigel]

Sunday yaps so much that my 1 brain cell couldn't keep up with the plot. xD

[@emilyerben4782]

Battles in the story of HSR are a stylistic device. You don't really have mandatory battles in the story where there isn't some sort of conflict in the plot itself that escalated enough that the characters involved in it are literally fighting each other. As that didn't really happen a lot in the 2.2 quest it is understandable in my view that there aren't a lot of mandatory battles. And honestly in my opinion that's fine, a story doesn't have to fulfill a sort of battle quota to be a good story. I can enjoy any type of story told in a game as long as it's written well enough, regardless of the amount of battles I have to do in it.

[@kaoru288]

I guess people wanted to try their new toy out (new characters) and possibly use them in the story just in case things get ugly. and when youve spent ~6+ hours on the main story barely touching your freshly pulled 5 star, it kinda feels disappointing/unsatisfying.

[@yhwach1]

@@kaoru288we hadn’t one chance to try out boothil in story. What was all that about him coming and he didn’t even do shit besides calling the rangers and even then we dont even see A SINGLE RANGER

[@_Rhode_]

nice bloom into you pfp

[@emilyerben4782]

@@_Rhode_ thanks :3

[@VovaMykytenko]

Well, since the main writer for the Penacony story is Shaoqi from HI3rd, and all of the stories in HI3rd are basically just visual novels, it is not surprising that when you ask a visual novel guy to write a story for your game, he will write a fucking visual novel. I enjoyed the story, but I agree that there was too little gameplay.

[@XgoSolo]

You forgot the other side effect of that guy taking over He can, and will, at any moment. . . kill himeko.

[@denvplays8011]

me who play HI3 sitting most of the time like watching a visual novel while i eat. remember shaoqi writing. you are dead you are also dead everyone is dead 🤣🤣

[@abslzero]

@@XgoSolo himeko is safe for now

[@-Exen-]

going through the 3 acts with Sunday was genuinely torture.

[@auk1124]

Well thats a different topic entirely since thats actually the small amount of gameplay that we do get. He was trying to say that we want more gameplay within the huge visual novel shift

[@welachutmelexcel]

As someone who with a group of my friends watching someone play, yes it was really boring, especially since that gameplay kind dragged too long and didn’t mention anything new.

[@muslimlobster3062]

I would rather do firefly's 3 "deaths" then 3 of those dialogues chapters, exept for the boss fight

[@blackroun6764]

This constant repetition of old things and philosophical debates are incredibly tiresome.

[@grogash90]

I usually am all for gameplay over plot but I was feeling engaging with the story more yesterday. And I did and I was enjoying myself until those 3 acts. I enjoyed a lot the philosophy behind the plot as well, but at some point the philosophy started to feel like a mean to pad the plot instead of being a way to convey the plot or a message.

[@fyw_delta]

I agree with dialogues being bloated and being unnecessarily long but the climax payoff was so good for me personally, it felt like playing elysium realm in hi3 again

[@ricardokojin7]

I get it, but personally I can't agree... I got so bored with the way the story was presented that I just let the long videos play on auto and honestly I have no clue how I even got the harmony trailblazer unlocked... so the payoff to me makes no sense because I gave up following the story midway.

[@fyw_delta]

@@ricardokojin7 that's rough

[@letsrank9349]

I 100% agree that the final moments felt incredibly good. But the lore dump is so bad it makes you wonder if the great ending was even worth pursuing.

[@thereza3]

​@@letsrank9349 the watchmaker part in the place they go after they "die" had me snoozing 😭😭 loved the quest but that part was like 99% talking and the other 1% is walking from one destination to another

[@samrockwell940]

For me the only major issue was that souldglad tournament thing, it was unnecessary But overall i really enjoyed the quest

[@CaptainMeleon]

bro i just wanted to buy a light cone from the MoC and when i tpd in i was jumpscared by boothill and a billion hours of text

[@gunnarclinedinst8257]

Same here

[@duekaslana246]

to be fair i didn't even notice the slow pace though that's probably because i'm already use to shaoji's writing style as i'm a HI3rd veteran though, i honestly think the slow pace is good since IMO it helps with extending a players attention span

[@duekaslana246]

by that, i mean people would eventually get used to shaoji's writing and condition themselves to expand their attention span, that's what i think atleast

[@soloxd8396]

hi3 they gave u more times to actually play

[@duekaslana246]

@@soloxd8396 one word, Moon Arc

[@soloxd8396]

@@duekaslana246 good point, that arc was ass.

[@GolgothianSylex]

@@soloxd8396 no, like from Arc city it is mostly walls of text with some bossfights in-between. And spare me from Star Rail combat even in story, please, I would anyway click auto.

[@zaboono]

Game spoilers so don't scroll down if you havent played yet I'm kinda sad a few of the plot points never actually got addressed, like why sparkle was even on Penacony really, and they set a chekhov's gun in the small bombs she gave to everyone that wasn't brought up again, and the whole deal with Aventurine being basically absent during the whole story but coming back near the end (this could be content for a later patch). Other than that though it was pretty good apart from some characters (cough Sunday) often repeating dialogue, or even the same flashback happening two or three times with slightly altered text. Definitely preferred 2.1 though, Aventurine's story was very good

[@MikailMyres]

spoilerssss I thought the same thing! There was so much build up with sparkle only for it go no where? and aventurine was assumed dead by the main cast so him just coming back having no reaction felt so weird to me. however I do thing its to set up things in the future (at least i hope)

[@Thailandsmostwanted]

penacony isn''t finished btw, theres the sparkle stuff, theres the acheron sam fight in white night, and jade still has to show up, basically the epilogue is yet to come

[@Thailandsmostwanted]

@@MikailMyres again it continues in 2.3

[@joachimsienkiewicz341]

Sparkle's presence was adressed in previous patches. She was hired by someone (who's identity is for now hidden) to go there and put things in motion.

[@Stanzbey69]

Penacony is not done. Sam hasn’t fought acheron yet.

[@rinrainaozora4254]

This is like the reverse of the Luofu. Penacony had a long quest to explain everything, but the consequence of essentially being 6-8 hours long is that it won’t keep your attention long enough. On the other hand, the Luofu was rapid and fast-paced to the point where it was jarring. As much as I love DHIL, the whole reveal went way too fast. We weren’t left with much time to breathe. But I will say for 2.2, the player could play the quest in increments rather than just go through the whole thing in one sitting. (I wish we were more thorough on Luofu lore because it genuinely interests me, and it doesn’t help that there were way too many loose ends for DH's arc to end like that and I’m a lore digger. You can say I’m clutching at straws here and maybe I am, but I’m hopeful that we get some closure in the future.)

[@sleepymerc]

This is the exact same problem i had with The Day of Transcending Finality in Hi3, there is nothimg to do, you walk around, and every character you meet starts spouting some philosophical/quantum mechanics nonsense, or they just trauma dump and try to make it seem like they are in the right because they are so far up their ass with their delusions (looking at you Kevin/Hare) Not to mention that Sunday's entire motivation is essentially just a recycled Kevin character arc, he's depressed because his family died, and has seen so much misery that he figured that the only way to save humanity is to trap everyone in a dream forever so they can't get hurt

[@soullight4158]

I realised i have to complain about the story even.. I finished the quest yesterday in 2 goes. Also took me a whole day because I kinda explored all areas around the main events venues. And I had a weird feeling that smth was off. Something was not according to my expectation. I listened to Robin's "Inside" ep in advance and not gonna lie during the whole final quest I was expecting to have smth finally worthy of the energy and lyrics of "Hope is the thing with feathers". Half of the way I was this close to support Sunday instead of Trailblazers because their arguments for freedom were weak and the way that freedom worked on Penacony WITH Harmony didnt make sense. In the end battle the only way the writers could think of to wake all people is make them fear for their life? So basically forced reboot. Threatening them to death to make them accept the "freedom" in a form of same old Sweet dream because trailblazers "know better". And because all those pple are weak and we "dont trust them" with wanting to wake up on their own. How on earth, pray tell, is this different from what Sunday said and was gonna do? The way "we" heroes and Sunday treat people is basically the same. The quest didnt even want to try and talk about human nature being smth else but weak and prone to sins. I get it. Writers are definitely on pessimistic side and also didnt want to repeat the same old "we gathered all wishes together and won". Yeah.. instead we gather the wills of "select few" and won. They did explain that waking everyone up with only BS using her memokeeper abilities would take too long. But I see it only as an excuse. Writers dont have a faith in humanity despite pretending to have it😂 We could use the chain reaction to wake more people or at least show that some people within Penacony here and thete woke up themselves like Robin, like Firefly. Instead we portray them ALL as useless puppets. Besides the whole Robin song was wasted in the midst of battle fighting effects and she didnt even appear there excpect for 2 seconds and final hug. Ok, fine she wasnt really there (?) But bro they could execute this whole cutscene and battle in a much more emotional way to make that song some justice...😢. And then we wake up to a real Penacony with supposed real Harmony... and nothing... basically nothing is different. They had few moments in 2.1 2.2 explaining that Sweet dream is like that (basically fruitless empty escapism/ indulging in all most useless things like money and fame) since the harmony on the planet has been stained with smth wrong.😂 so. Where s real harmony

[@soullight4158]

Half of thr quest they were convincing us that select few strong pple deciding for everyone what to do - is bad. And then we did exactly that😂 And even before us - the Harmony did the same making a newly freed Penacony another prison under the rule of Family. The very Family that didnt go anywhere btw. And no one can convince me the only problem there was an Oak fam with order.. Wb Alfalfa family with only and single wish to have more money and regarding that a single virtue. Any human has moments of weakness. Anyone also has those moments of inspiration and seeking "flight". Trailblazers are same. And so are people of Penacony. Instead of showing the real dual nature of people they again devided us into heroes and mobs.

[@soullight4158]

Robin's song last words.. In the face of God we rose as one. That could be all of Penacony..

[@TheRickJF]

I tried to speedrun the story and still was like 5 hours or 6 It was very visual novel experience like you said and all the battles were pretty easy tbh but hey I guess its made for people who just want to casually read and not play that much

[@rullieaa2399]

The thing is, I would beg to differ, as a theory crafters even for like many story based games like tales of series, kinda stuff of indie games.. I enjoyed the 2.2 story so much it filled my notes, I wrote down all the detail and it surprised me how deep it goes with the lore of the Aeons war especially how Ena and the Qlipoth practically triggered HooH to join.. but the remain of mystery is the death of Ena, I still don't know since Xipe and Ena shares the same ideology, but can they separate again when they "goes on different path of ideology" like how Fuli and Mythus literally came from "MEMORY".. I guess it's just different from people to people, I'm the kind to enjoy the talking as much as the fight

[@Djrobledo1]

I agree with you it’s all up to the person and just like the video said this update is more like a visual novel and as some one who loves visual novels this update was right up my alley. I think this update will divide but also show what players like for their story telling some like just hitting auto and just listen to the story being told and some want to have gameplay and be apart of it neither is wrong but when telling a story you can’t always have both.

[@clawsthewolf89]

i kinda feel the same way but i do agree that the padding was bad tho

[@vermilion6966]

the point -> you

[@Djrobledo1]

@@vermilion6966 I always find it interesting when some one comes in firing in the comments like some one stole something from them just because they have a different opinion then you. The original comment didn’t try to start a fight or put someone else’s opinions down just stated that they disagreed and didn’t find that the story had the same faults that the video did they just stated their opinion just like me you and everyone can.

[@AIA222-yu5ml]

@@vermilion6966 people are allowed to have disagreements lil bro.

[@ogcipher4967]

It's funny cause I'm so down with 9h of storytelling, I don't need to fight things, I'm already doing that daily, just give me that juicy lore and character development.

[@daydream10.18]

This! Plus we'll be doing that in our exploration! The 3 acts with Sunday was just torture and so unnecessary.

[@ogcipher4967]

@@daydream10.18 totally agreed, tho the automatons do have cool designs

[@nicolas._.2294]

​@@daydream10.18fr fr! I was like, when is this fighting over???? I anyway fight simulate universe, eat up my nerves dayd after day trying to beat moc and pure fiction, just give me the dam story already! I

[@daydream10.18]

@@nicolas._.2294 I honestly have no problem with the quest. The only part I hated were Sunday's 3 acts. It was a torture and completely pointless to the plot.

[@Bianca-nt3po]

All I’m getting from majority of comments is that people lack 1. Reading comprehension 2. Have a VERY short attention span 3. Don’t like to read Because I loved the story and lore, I had fun the entire time I was playing

[@edmonddantes6051]

You know, I just finished the story. And after watching this video and reflecting on my experience, I too was wondering, "is it done yet?". Like the story was great but it just dragged on a bit to much. Could have made the whole 3 acts thing with Sunday into a lore piece of readable text you can pick up before entering the theater for a boss battle. Idk, hope the events are good

[@thejuggernight1406]

so I will admit that I hammered through the event sleep deprived and got through it in 5 hours. (just how I "absorb" the story) so I will admit the general gist how I would summarize it was good. that being said I mashed like a mad man (like I always do). anyways I do have a few story related thoughts that I will now press enter a bunch in hope youtube shows a show more sign so if you haven't finished the story don't click the show more. boothill kind of did nothing. he showed up we learned a little lore and then shot a bullet into the sky and called it a day he had basically no actual purpose in the grand scheme of things they set him up and then he was just kind of there. we didn't even see the payoff on screen of all the galaxy rangers coming to aid. he doesn't even have a train voiceline in the fight I actually really did like the fake out final act I will say I noticed that something was off but I did like it I think they executed that well. making the nameless be the pioneers of penacony is fine but it does feel like the rest of the universe is just incompetent like penacony had a nameless fight for their freedom make their ideals and probably tuck them into bed of a bedtime story and give them a kiss goodnight. making the watch maker an actual devote harmony worshiper would have made the conflict of order VS harmony more meaningful. I also feel like they didn't really explain why only the astral express could see misha. I was fine with the vague heart thing for clockie because it was vague and wasn't meant to be a full explanation it didn't really need one. word bloat is a thing in every gatcha I play so I tend to just ignore the word bloat. I am not saying the world building isn't cool I really liked the reason why boothill came to penacony and the lore behind what acheron took I just wished you got to see what impact he had with the final fight. also aha laughs in the final fight just like phantylia so he is still watching our progression. the story itself is fine it is just executed terribly sometimes. I do think they did a decent job connecting small details like for example the acheron firefly misha scene where they actually don't mention misha at all directly at the time I was just assuming that acheron was talking to him but the actual convo you have he is just kind of there. I think you nailed how to describe the story though. it is good not great but good.

[@HonestToCritic]

I have been literally saying the EXACT same thing since Penacony started. I also said it feels like a visual novel, except they don't put me to sleep. I just completed the Farewell chapter, and you couldn't even get me to agree the story was good. It was convoluted as hell, full of repetitive twists, and had some of the most exposition heavy/boring dialogue I've seen awhile. And ppl complain about Genshin having fluff dialogue, but it's never once made me skip it like Penacony. Gameplay is carrying HSR atm, but i don't know if that'll be enough for me personally... 🤷

[@Bruno_Silv96]

Honestly in regard to the story a visual novel is what i want, i want characters to just interact with each other and yap all they want, want a good chunk of gameplay that is harder after completing it tho, memory of chaos and pure fiction dont reset often enough, or give us more modes that are like those, put more modes on rotation to help remedy this

[@nicolas._.2294]

Same, but the fights were killing me, had to restart so many times

[@alejandronunez5110]

Nlg there were moments where the story confused the fuck out of me.

[@idontspeakjapanese6289]

In shorter terms the entire Penacony Arc revolves around a battle of philosophies AKA Harmony against Order.

[@AntiNihilist]

Just listen to Sunday and Robin. They're the only ones making any sense with their dialogue.

[@SoilKilonova]

The only parts in Penacony's story that have confused me are designed to for a later date where it gets explained. People needa realise being confused admist a mystery story is intentional and part of the fun as you slowly understand everything.

[@ryxxue]

skill issue

[@aaravgoyal2397]

@hanging_with_my_normies916 true so freaking true

[@zente3003]

Something to add to this. For some reason,whenever[SPOILER] speaks they will always take like a 2 seconds of break after a sentence and then continue on only to repeat the same BS. As if they wanted to make the runtime even longer, as if it wasn't long enough. Also [SPOILER] felt very lacking for some reason. It doesn't help that the cryptic dialog makes all the characters motivations very unclear [SPOILER] specifically felt very underused, but maybe they will be better utilized in the future who knows. I meant Firefly

[@sunnypa7101]

Exactly. We need more combat in the story. Just try to keep combat scenarios wherever you can and use those opportunities to let us use new characters for trial. I'll say this tho, the past present future boss battle is really cool. I just wish they gave us some cool fights like that.

[@tannguyenthanh7718]

After 8h endlessly listening to character dialogue, I completely agree with you complaint. There i was, finishing update the game then automatic black-> jump straight to the story for 40+ minutes(because I was on the Express). Needless to say, story was good but it just lore drop after lore drop and you can't do anything with the trial charater just walk to A to B. The only battle I experience within the story were the Elite Mob + Boss fight, I think... That all I can yapp about. Great video BTW.

[@thawingkarma233]

I finished the entire story. I’s INSANELY good, but the execution is horrible. I ended up skipping most of the unnecessary dialogue like talking to random NPCS and it still took me about 6-7 hours to finish the entire thing I was so desperately trying to finish it like, I was done. It gets SO much better as you near the end though, no unnecessary yapping or any of that stuff. I genuinely feel that if they had just taken a huge portion of all the yapping and talking to NPCS, (minor spoilers ahead) ….and literally completely changed that part where you go to a show and have to go through multiple stages with yapping, a bit of fighting, puzzles and more yapping involved, it would’ve been fine. They tried to make more than what was needed and ended up filling the story with unnecessary dialogue and interactions while leaving the actual good parts at the very end of the story.

[@sai_neko_reddy]

For me there was nothing unecessary because they did foreshadowed a lot of future stuff in those dialogues And other npc dialogues were fun with their pop culture references but I get your point It took me 11 hrs to complete it so yeah probably horrible execution 😂

[@MrShamus22]

Although there was some bloat here and there, I was glued to my PC the entire story and I will gladly say that not one bit of dialogue was a waste of time, yes some dragged here and there though. Sparkle didn’t need to go around talking to a bunch of NPCs for 10 minutes, but hey, I wasn’t expecting perfection. In my opinion this is Shaojis best work so far

[@ale-hl8pg]

the area around the theater seemed pretty lengthy for what it was yeah, but idk, most of everything else was perfectly fine to me I think a different execution wouldve required a different story, one of the main themes here was mystery after all, the dialogue was misleading us while foreshadowing things at the same time

[@thawingkarma233]

@@ale-hl8pg Honestly it was just a bit unexpected how long the story was. I don’t think most people are used to Hoyoverse stories being THAT long, so that might have been a factor. The ending is 1000000% insanely good, but I still feel conflicted over just how much yapping there is for the other hours and hours of the quest.

[@daydream10.18]

The only part I hated was Sunday's 3 Acts.

[@LegendsOfSushi]

I love visual novels. I love games like Danganronpa and Ace Attorney. But when I play Honkai Star Rail, I didn’t want a visual novel experience. This game did more yapping than you did on gacha cast. This game reiterates plot points multiple times to pad out the length of the story when it didn’t need to. It was frustrating and my thinking was like yours. “Are we there yet?” It made the really smart finale have less of an impact than it should. It still made me giddy. But I felt a wave of relief because we finally got the pay off. It’s like being constantly edged for hours. Honestly. The third act of this story should of been half the length of what it had and it would have been awesome.

[@Null82085]

The story is absolutely amazing, but I had to skip though half of the dialogue but I still got the full story, and I was still very happy, and I’m fine without more battles and stuff, and that’s just me. So yeah, they could’ve done a much better job

[@clarinet800149]

My only issue with the story was that it never felt like I could stop playing because the dialogue sequences never took a break. I have maybe 20-30 minutes of uninterrupted time to play and experience the story but the dialogue sequences pushed past that several times which gave the choice of either stopping the game and having to go through that portion of the story again or be exhausted with the story (even though I like the story). They have to find a way to tighten up their story beats while still presenting the lore and character motivations.

[@Sinon0017]

the 3 acts with sunday i was at the point of begging for the torture to end

[@kmh4076]

Yeah, that part was the only problem for me 😅😅

[@Dado_nastro]

Same.

[@cheshireyordle9586]

so you were affected by too much talks and when yu got gameplay you begged for the torture to end ? make it make sense

[@kaoru288]

it wouldve been nice if said 3 acts were actually presented as an actual puppetry show in the theatre, pausing at the end for the sub-boss fight"

[@amigoot]

I personally think that the story was amazing. However, I do understand where you are coming from. I am very used to visual novel styed games, so I didn't mind the whole sitting down and just reading/listening, but it could have been much better, like you said. I really agree with your point, especially with the whole past, present, and future thing. The only actual gameplay in the story was so ass which was very disappointing, and not even being able to use Robin or Boothil in battle was a letdown. It's great to see that people like you are making videos about these increasing issues and not just trudging through it. I really hope the wider community realises that criticism will make the game better and is not there to hurt your or the devs' feelings because the way they take right now is just childish.

[@AndrewSnake]

Glade im not alone , like not only we have litter to do gameplay ... but it feels is drag so much ,and man i love when both main character and NPC start yapping what already know, remind us why and that is could be false ....and feel some part could be cut off and stil give the same delivery The finally is amazing but have to deal with all this before it ....i already saw the crack of the story last update .

[@CalamityGaming]

"put the game back into video game" THAT IS THE BEST WORDING FOR THIS BECAUSE. Yes it is a story at the end of the day but i barely felt like i was DOING ANYTHING and if you dont have any story to do once you complete it there isnt much to do in the game anyway besides grinding which you can auto anyway. There is no consequences in the hsr story nothing you do seems to hold any meaning there was so much hype for character deaths because of the one writer but all we have are no Penacony deaths and a loufu foxian plot hole. The story is the central part of the game but it is an absolute chore to get through because the talking has NOTHING going on on screen they are just Mannequins looking at each other for 40 MINUTES that's insane like LET ME DO SOMETHING ITS A GAME making dialogue choices isnt gameplay in a game like this

[@zowie.nvermind]

@@CalamityGaming and they don't even care to animate anything besides a character raising a hand. And all other actions are described in a black screen. THE GAME IS A PIECE OF MEDIA, YOU CAN PORTRAY IT WITH ANIMATIONS! i can't believe how much they make and they are this lazy

[@HydroC0]

there's one thing i agree with whole heartedly from this video, from experience, the fact that you're thrusted into dialogue the second i go to the express, like i had JP voices on (personally i like to hear not read my story not read, i am lazy, fight me) and i was sitting there spamming trying to skip, and got bored after like 2-3 minutes. So i had a thought: maybe if i could just restart my game i will not be in dialogue and be able to actually listen to the story in a language i can understand, unfortunately my 2-3 minutes were wasted. spoilers after a while i got to change my voice to English dub again after 10 minutes. (yes i skipped every single dialogue before i was able to move)

[@Alcemin]

I've started playing Honkai Star Rail on June 19. I've been prioritizing the story to be able to get to the point where I can farm the things needed for my Firefly. The Space Station was ok, Belobog was great and Xianzhou was pretty good. I enjoyed playing through most of them. But Penacony... Oh god. The story was interesting, I liked it, but as you said it was waaaay too long. I kept asking my boyfriend, who had finished the story, if I was near the weekly boss fight. There were too much parts that were unnecessary and boring.

[@reloadreload8723]

Very well said. As an old school JRPG fan myself the best story arc execution for me in this game is the very first patch of Belobog. It has a really good balance of cutscenes, story-telling and gameplay. You don't get left out gawking at your screen for hours and at the same time still have a full grasp of the story while it unfolds as you do quests and tasks. I think this is the problem with newer games. Even Xenogears and Chrono Cross with real complex storyline doesn't leave you hanging for hours with unskippable cutscenes. The only game I've played that has this level of cutscenes is MGS4 but the game is still progressing and you still get to play the game the way its meant to be played.

[@eh1165]

I feel like im going crazy 😭 i really enjoyed this patch, the only part that actually felt like torture were the three Sunday arcs

[@eh1165]

Then again, I like visual novels lol

[@pumkinpatchwork]

nah, most people who are used to the genshin/ honkai 3rd format are used to this lol. then again I understand why people may not enjoy this way

[@newbeginner6461]

@@pumkinpatchwork Actually, I do not enjoy this format. Although I'm a Genshin player, the long Sunday's arcs are unnecessarily stretched to the point that I lose my patience and I have to quit the game during these dialouges. And I have been enjoying Penacony's story from version 2.0 to version 2.1, but version 2.2's story's highlights (in my opinion) are the boss fight against Sunday and the unexpected twist that we are still stuck in the dream.

[@todd2.08]

I just don’t like what his yapping is about, it’s like repeating things we already know about Penacony. I wish he talked more about his past with the Ena cult

[@ihatetheheat4524]

Do we ever find out what we're in the boxes sparkle gave the people in the dreamscape? I honestly don't remember

[@Thailandsmostwanted]

penacony is not done, it continues through 2.3, sam and acheron fight in white night and we haven't seen that yet, the whole sparkle thing, and jade is coming

[@lachede]

It was the firwworks at the end I would assume. Thats why we got a shot of her and fireworks in the sky

[@Decodedvirus]

fireworks

[@emiliabaran6830]

Wait was it actually fireworks?

[@lachede]

@@emiliabaran6830 possibly

[@kanamelow]

Peak writing but damn.I was so tired with so much talking, I was desperately looking for mobs to kill in the story as a breather. I started playing HSR letting everyone finish their voice dialogue but 2.2 was too much had to just read the script to make it faster.

[@apsect_3]

ok before someone says i didnt watch it i did and i can see where you come from especially with the whole 40 minute lock out from dialogue however it definitely comes down to personal preference as i played it an hour after it came out and watched it like a movie a 9 hour one but a movie none the less and enjoyed it very much. for most players this was likely too much i felt like last update was too long likely because the result of the build up was locked behind another patch but regardless this one played of well and resulted in a very fun ending

[@tactaillike]

It's kinda painful agreeing with basically everything said in the video, but it is what is will say though I thought a lot of the dialogue was genuinely interesting (mostly the penacony lore and robin/sunday's story) but that's obviously not true for the entirety of 2.2's runtime... and i didn't really think about the importance of having all the little breaks in between dialogue sections until now in hindsight it feels really weird coming from 2.0 to 2.1 and now 2.2 with the increasing amount of yapping, like wtf is going on hoyo

[@RedCoreX725]

Hoyo has been doing things like this in Honkai too tbh (yes that includes the Regression and ER arc) At the start it's very well executed but by the end it kind of starts to fall off. While they're still great arcs Hoyoverse often had problems with delivering a well executed ending for their arc nowadays This 2.2 story arc feels hella rushed if we compare it to the Aventurine story in 2.1. I know Sunday was sus but damn there wasn't much build up to it and he's just kind of shoved in as the final villain. They really should've built his dilemma more as a character before he finally decides to enact the villain role

[@ricardokojin7]

Maybe they are trying to attract the genshin players lol it would explain the yapping.

[@tactaillike]

@@RedCoreX725 It really does feel like HI3 writing (not surprising)... well, newer HI3 at least, cus I don't remember the earlier chapters being anywhere near as yapping-prone

[@maliniras]

@@RedCoreX725 This is why i have issues with both Sunday AND robin's ideal. They're both flawed but since hoyo trynna make robin ur typical morally white, pure, cliche heroine, they trynna force their way into making us believe that her ideal is what best for everyone when that's clearly not the case.

[@cristianavideira2545]

FINALLY someone who says it! i first realized how TERRIBLE the story pacing is when i started a new account and had to suffer thro the sludge that was Herta's Station + Belobog (which i count as the tutorial stage of the game since the game gives you NO agency). it was pure torture. then luofu was... yeah... i dropped the game after getting Kafka on her first banner, returned for Penacony, thought the game was FINALLY picking up, only to be proved wrong again. hoyoverse has good writers, it has good stories to tell, but by god they REALLY need to fix their dialogues

[@bacongod5759]

Too much filler for playtime 😭

[@Gixin]

IDK what you're talking about with saying Belobog was sludge, Belobog is still in my opinion the best part of HSR. The way the story is told is actually straightfoward and paced well, where you can fully understand most of what is going on at any given moment. You meet characters and learn their backstories and motivations, and it makes you want to help them. Xianzhou and Penacony are just full of the entire cast talking like they need to hit the word count on their essay and I have yet to care much about saving/getting justice for ANYBODY on these planets aside from Aventurine. Belobog makes you care about saving everyone, the other planets just make you want to get it over with.

[@Zwei22]

@@Gixin He has higher levels of ADHD then the initial OP. It's clear he goes into gacha games so he can grind.

[@etchbekey]

As a wrestling fan I kinda get your point. My complaint is like there was too many swerves in the story. Even at the end I was like "oh you got to be fn kidding me, am I getting swerve?" There are still some plot left unresolved. Like what is the deal with Sparkle's button. It seemed like a big deal but nothing happened.

[@nunyabusiness3652]

The only part I find interesting was Misha's story. But I feel like they could've use him more than just appearing for few minutes then never show up for the rest of the story.

[@PringlesManTheGDGamer]

Moment of silence for our people who logged on into the cutscene on the express, I am with you all 🙏

[@rillzy9637]

My only complaint: What would’ve made the ending hug hit so much harder is if we learned more about Robin through her perspective instead of just Sunday.

[@skipthewave]

Tbh I was pretty much fine with the pacing and amount of gameplay, I even really enjoyed Sunday's "3 Arcs" despite all the comments on how it was "torture". I do agree, however, that the dialogue itself feels full of poetic padding sometimes, and that + some mishandlings of the mystery aspects in 2.1 and 2.2 really brought it down from 10/10 to just really good to me.

[@grismatics]

i just kinda feel like i'm alone in disliking shaoji's writing (it feels like he can't write a story without killing characters) they killed two playable characters and none of those deaths felt that special to me they likely killed gopher wood in one of the least satisfying ways possible and they possibly even killed sunday (we will find out in the next update) this is pretty much what i just talked to a friend about

[@incominginkling]

misha was so wasted!! people are forgetting that misha proved he had become his own person with his own hopes and dreams and relationships the moment he left that dream bubble. he deserved to join the astral express, not be fed memories that aren't his own and told that they are his and then kill himself. i really hated how they treated his character arc especially after giving him such a cool backstory. MISHA's character arc is DIFFERENT from MIKHAIL's. i can't speak for gallagher because i stopped playing after misha died out of disappointment.

[@grismatics]

@@incominginkling yeah i agree misha's death kinda sucked - what's worse is that we now won't see him and gallagher in future events and they both felt pretty incomplete gallagher's was bad too he just kinda said "welp guess i'll cease to exist" when no other characters were present so they pretty much off-screened him

[@incominginkling]

@@grismatics yeah, i ended up finishing the quest and both of their deaths were really stupid. such a shame because a lot of this quest was so good! (concept wise. not in execution.)

[@CryoConnoisseur]

6:40 I am actually one of the people that had that issue and what you can do is log out and before you log in & click on the train to start you can change the settings there

[@gamerhero9559]

Phew...I just got done with the story and I had to avoid zoning out a lot myself. I love the story and how the Penacony arc ended, but I wish they actually trim the fat and have the second half of this update in Boothill's update so that way it will be least overwhelming. The twists and the climax still tops Jarilo-VI, so I was entertained!

[@KaleidoAbridged]

I loved everything about the Watchmaker and Robins involvement. Sunday just came out of nowhere to me, I was like: I guess were doing this now?? Boothill will have his own quest I hope, felt kinda wasted here altough he was a very pleasant presence.

[@SoilKilonova]

I dont see this as an issue tbh. You're playing the story and you get introduced to new areas, puzzles and enemies throughout. Most of the "gameplay" of hsr is through the end game modes. As usual for a gacha game there's yapping but the only parts i felt were unnecessary were Sunday's choices, a lot of the dialogue in the fake ending and sparkle going around at the start. The rest just felt like normal character development and worldbuilding you'd see in a tv show. Penacony at it's core felt like a tv show to me. That also introduced some cool stuff i can play later.

[@letsrank9349]

If I have to wait 2 weeks for a TV episode and the episode is bad, it makes me wanna drop the series.

[@titaniummechsx3324]

In the whole update I spent most of the time in dialogue and the fun bit is when you fight Sunday (Robin’s song which plays during the fight is a banger so I can’t stop fight Sunday again and again)

[@humbertolopezdimitri2593]

It does sound like a fair argument for someone that wants to play. Cause not everyone wants to "watch a movie" when playing a videogame

[@geckogekko]

I also forgot and closed the game after doing an MoC run, returned after the update and the story immediately started. I couldn’t get into my dailies until I got through what felt like hours of stories. While I’m ok with the visual novel aspect it really needs to have breaks between cut scenes and let you really test the characters. Lack of battle scenes is definitely another issue. So far the best story for pacing is HuoHuo’s. Completely agree that story wise Penacony is very good and during the part where you get to be in Sunday’s shoes and make those difficult choices really made you think. But execution was definitely bad, I can only play at work so I had to restart very long dialogue scenes many times. I started right after the update and only now did I fight the boss. 😅

[@scrappy_horns8139]

This is personal preference and i kinda get what you mean…i played 2.2 with no expectation (except for wanting to know the entire mystery of the story) and enjoyed myself…i do agree the dialogue was overwhelming tho…but i dont stream, i took my sweet time and finished the main quest in 4 days…

[@SengokuTheGouda]

Persona (especially 5) prepared me for this. You have some snacks, a drink, and a low attention game on your phone. I did feel like 2.2 did a better job of breaking things up than 2.1 personally. There all the dialogue was front loaded with the only short break with the model city at the start, and then the theme park at the end. Here there were at least several maps and things to explore in between.

[@XgoSolo]

I played person 5 three times. It never felt this bad. Then again. That game also had a skip button

[@drpaimon2369]

Never ever did I think I would say this. But yeah I think I enjoyed Fontaine more than Penacony. That's crazy. Belobog still the best HSR arc not gonna lie.

[@Tacos_Sauce_Zea]

oh cruds... I really enjoyed all the lore and characters of penacony so far, and my experience with HSR's story has been so much better than most of the stuff there is in Genshin... so the line "it feels likes the genshin writers took over for this one" really doesn't bode well 😬I guess I'll just hack at it 30 mins at a time and speedrun my dailies while waiting for Boothill and Sam - not that I'd complain, Hades II just came out and I'd much rather be mechanically invested in that than trying to squeeze content in an update where devs decided they would'nt put any

[@Tacos_Sauce_Zea]

Update : thank you for making it sound absolutely awful, because I found it very bearable, far from the luofou debacle. Maybe because this time I was actually invested in what was being recounted to me. I do agree it's a whole bunch of talking and no gameplay tho

[@sofialu226]

I think that's a You Problem, I enjoyed 2.2 A Lot, even more than 2.1. From what you said, what I agree on is they giving us Trial characters but not allowing us to use them in Battle, that was lame! But personally the only part I was like "what's this? SKIP" Was Sparkle/Robin at the beggining, Sunday nrrating Pencacony Story and the Superficial Talk after Fakeout Boss. I guess it was intentioionally made to feel Odd due to the situation? But idk... I still found that boring. Beyond that, the rest I liked it A LOT. I guess is like other coments say, depends of the Person, I really liked THE STORY so I didn't even care how much fighting we got as long as we have some and the Finale Boss is SO MUCH FUN to fight! But honestly about your video overall, I think is better to Finish something before talking about it.

[@KarpJeff]

Whilst I enojyed the immense amount of dialogue simply due to hwo I like my games, I 100% agree that this story could be a terrible experience for people who dont share the same tastes as me meerely due to the execution. The execution is very similar to Persona storytelling with the only difference being that the gameplay periods in Persona are generally longer than the HSR story. You are absolutely right with what you're saying and they absolutely should change how they present teb story. Sure I and some other people enjyed it, but we are the happy few. They should aim to please the majority and not the small percentage of the playerbase like me.

[@RisingMooon]

I personally have a big tolerance for lots of talking as someone who's enjoyed a lot of long-winded visual novels. Because of that I personally didnt have an issue with the 2.2 story, in fact, i had a great time, but i can absolutely see your point. This type of storytelling really doesnt fit this type of game and they could've really used some more gameplay in there

[@HazZzel-]

Usually i dont like endless character dialogue, but I liked 2.2. maybe it's because i resonated so much with what Sunday was saying My main gripe is THEY SHAFTED SPARKLE SO BAD

[@kerroseir4764]

Funnily enough i only interact with hsr through youtubers and edited cutscene movies And before watching this video I think my main issue is how lackluster the reveal was at the end for both scenarios I just feel like there shouldve been more emotion a literal breakdown by both characters rather than a "oh chill its you" and "yeah i knew you were thr villain all along now let me monologue and then do what act one did which basically means blud aint dead" It feels like they shouldve been emotive, crying, their voice breaking or even a hug/ attempt at resistance

[@dontusethesamenicknameonthenet]

i was so hungry for the new plot i fr finished it in one sitting at 1 am 😭 and i had nothing to do in the second half of 2.1 so i was just desperate. i even cried at the compassie part bc it just... just did smth to me

[@Ronule]

I definitely understand the issues you're talking about, however, for me, I love the large amount of lore dumps and dialogue. I played a lot of old school JRPGs, particularly Final Fantasy, and also loved the Metal Gear Solid Games, so to say long winded and preachy narratives are my bread and butter would be an understatement. So while I feel for your issues with the game and understand you wanting to see change in future installments, I have to say that this is something I personally prefer.

[@Enthriex]

Agree with everything! Also, it was super awkward how they cut parts like... *Spoilers, don't read if you care about that* The first scene where Dan heng appears there's no intro whatsoever you are just supposed to accept stuff happened off screen rendering any kind of surprise or potential epic scene be automatically impossible. Also with the scene of the children and the grandma where you meet Robin there's not even an appropriate scene of her turning around to look at your group it only awkwardly jumps to her already speaking to you like... Ok...? Same with the siblings reunion, that's another scene I remember, I wanted to see some scene of them reuniting even if it wasn't a cinematic and it just cut before that and you only see a pair of dialogues if you talk to them. It was supposed to be important so why even cut that?? It was too much exposition without even allowing me to immerse in what's going on even because of the weird cuts and scenes of just accept it happened off screen and deal with it. Rushed is what everything felt like. They couldn't bother to pace/show things correctly and just shoved everything in an awkward exposition dump. it's odd cause it was really long and yet still felt rushed.

[@illadelph42]

This is literally the best opinion I have ever heard about this game! I agree 100% anyone who disagrees has their head so far up their ass. Serious every time I hear/read people blow smoke up this games ass or praise the story is fucking insane! I'm honestly surprised this isn't a main talking point when it comes to this game.

[@Accountthatexists]

Ya ngl at many points it was kinda annoying I got thrust into 40min cutscene..........and just had to wait, it was, why?

[@josephoyek6574]

40 minutes???

[@aquasis995]

@@josephoyek6574I assume he means Sunday meeting you at the end of the Moment of Scorchsand. There is no “40 minute cutscene” anywhere in HSR but when your attention span is shot, things do seem much longer than they actually are.

[@letsrank9349]

I quit HSR last patch. And you are one of the last ccs who I watch HSR from. Im kinda sad and happy at the same time. Sad because the game I used to love showed signs of deteriotation and happy cause I feel vindicated cause no one seem to agree with me at the time. Hopefully HSR reverts back to its old writers again. Im ok with a barebones story thats fun, than a padded experience.

[@welachutmelexcel]

Remember, this story isn’t recommended/meant to be finished in one sitting lol. I found this one relatively short for what the plot and content had, compared to 2.1. Besides Sunday’s extra yapping and the pretty useless theatre part, I liked it, even if it wasn’t as engaging, as a deep thinker, this one really connected with me. I did enjoy the filler parts too, it was immersive enough.

[@gypsyofthebard]

I disagree with the reason, as I do feel like the lack of combat isn’t the biggest issue. I do recognize it is an issue to some degree. Letting us have the perspective shift and then not letting us actually experience it in full felt misleading. It was like the game cheated us out of something. Honestly the biggest issues with the story is just the beginning. Boothill feels like product placement and isn’t doing anything for the story. He feels like a waste of time and distracts from the actual plot that’s happening while also highlighting the combat issue. Imagine putting in product placement and not even showing the full ad. The thing just freezes in place halfway through but you still gotta wait the rest of the time for it “finish” the time slot. I’m going to stress that I disagree with the take that HSR should put the game back into video game. Figuring out the story is part of the game. Some of the engagement comes from paying attention to the story, and the payoffs for this update have been great. There is in fact a reason some people play the game on auto, they aren’t interested in combat. They don’t read the abilities of their characters, they don’t read what Relics do, they just slam their head to win. Some people just want the story and only the story. I just think this update did a bad job balancing between the two main audiences. It 100% caters to the people in it for narrative at the cost of combat. Final Fantasy 14 does this too, quite often even

[@punpun7164]

I 100% agree, the story is so good I can't deny that BUT this is a video game. It feels like I'm not doing a video game story, most of the time it feels like I'm reading a book. As someone that has played a lot of story driven games like GoW, RDR, The Witcher, TLOU and etc. Mihoyo isn't utilizing the medium to it's full imo. TLDR; The story is good BUT the way it is being told is not.

[@nobLTheProphet]

I love watching ur videos instead of reading

[@pralenkaman8105]

I like how long it is, I didn't like how much of that time I was basically doing nothing Look, I mainly play jrpgs so I'm used to 30+minute cutscenes, but when the first 2/4 hours of the updates is only cutscenes with maybe a battle or 2 in the middle (I chose a dialog option that I later discovered skipped a boss when I saw my friend playing through the update) and 30 minutes of exploration I have a bit of a problem The last 3 hours of the update were good, great even, because I could actually play the game, solve puzzles and battle while the characters were spouting their exposition on the background Also I would say the exposition is needed, again, this is an rpg, there's a lot of terms, factions, situations that mean nothing if there is no exposition and will only confuse people, but I do agree that it could've been done so much better The story was good, I liked acheron's moments, sunday's backstory, misha's plot relevance and who ghallagher actually is, but the execution was indeed bad, to the point where I was in my phone half of the time just to make the wait a bit more barable, because what you see on the screen isn't even engaging since it's only characters statically talking to each other

[@bandi642]

yeah like the luofu phantylia execution like dan heng gets a new form and everyone is like "ok bro"

[@pumkinpatchwork]

coming from the RIDICULOUSLY bloated dialogues from genshin impact, filled with hours of pointless NPC garbage and characters taking twenty lines to say one thing, I found HSR quests actually pretty refreshing lol. hardly any NPCs all with barely any lines and characters relatively cutting to the chase when speaking (yeah they still said a lot but at least it wasn’t a billion pointless things, and thank god for no paimon). then again I also played honkai impact 3rd for 8 years and am pretty used to this visual novel format and in fact wasn’t expecting anything different, and quite enjoyed how it turned out, I was very engaged sitting there and listening to characters talk to each other because that’s what I’m here for- character interactions and story and development (involving important playable characters, not NPCs no one cares about). it didn’t even occur to me that some people may not actually like this format and weren’t expecting like an 8-hour minimum runtime. so really, to each their own ig

[@F1ash1056]

I mean 2.2 was exactly the same, a lot npc and a lot of boring dialogues

[@pumkinpatchwork]

@@F1ash1056 there were hardly any NPCs and the dialogues were actually story/lore relevant though. if it were genshin, they would probably bring in NPCs that would be alongside us the entire trip (like micah but there for the whole time with 10x more lines) and half the quest would be genuinely pointless garbage dialogues

[@samasaja4872]

that's where HI3 is now a perfect game without any complaints from players about story telling congrats

[@lunabi3586]

I thought this update was great! I said after fast reading dialogue and slowly losing attention as I went through the story. Also final boss fight was easy. I enjoyed the story and all, but I was missing fights and action. Also you pointing out the fact we can't use story characters in battle is valid :(

[@chronohax7186]

Agreed tho for me i dont really mind lack of gameplay cus the ending is peak gameplay storytelling which makes up for it, having puzzles etc gonna make it even harder to skip especially considering hoyoverse track record of always making stuff to have rules of three. My main of problem is they yap too much most of the times

[@LunaeOverMoon__]

Honestly, as much as a lore guy that i am, i just skipped the dialogue as fast as possible bc 1: i didnt have much time and 2: the time that i did have i was tired because i barely slept that night And it took me like from 9:09 am to like 1:00 pm to finish the quest, which is more than what 2.1 and 2.0 took me without skipping dialogues

[@leedandy2368]

thank God XgoSolo Think the Same

[@IdeasAreBulletproof]

My Main gripe about the Story was that Argenti wasn't being Voiced (Maybe Adam Micheal Gold wasn't there to Voice Argentisan) but still I found that weird Yes the story was Yappy and Long (Some people like it and others hate it) but I did enjoy the Story.

[@tudor-sama1046]

I completly agree, I spent 11 hours finishing the quest and I must say it felt less rewarding than the 2.1 quest and too much dialogue like 2.1 took me 4-5 hours and this one double with less rewards, at least the boss and other cutscenes were very good, that kinda “saved” the day for me

[@BigDanGaming]

Hoyoverse quest design - 5% gameplay 95% yapping

[@XgoSolo]

Lmao, you are the last person I expected to see commenting on a StarRail video

[@raihanrusli2720]

Maybe they should also separate the missions into 2 like genshin, so at least we can know where we are at rn and have the feel of reaching a milestone. 1 single penacony trailblaze mission itself is as long as 2 archon quest. I planned on completing this on the first day of the update, but I have no idea how much of the story was left. I tried to look at youtube, and boy no one had updated the complete mission at the time

[@Nax_Snax]

Idk if this is a hot take but if inserting more gameplay in would reduce the size of the story told by even 1/5 I would still take this version. At this point theyve been doing it for a year so its obviously how the game is set up to be experienced. Just like how HI3 was made that way for years. Its prob not gonna change and if you dont enjoy it id probably peace out now before you waste your time.

[@Nax_Snax]

I hated the Xianzhou for the opposite reasons that you dont like this one, there were far too many in-betweens when i was forced to just fight enemy after enemy that ive fought like 500 times before that during farming and SU that it took me out of the story rather than in it. My point is, game modes are the gameplay, the story is the story, If hoyo has decided to keep those separate then there really is no changing their mind, especially for this year at the very least.

[@Redhood_Ghost]

my biggest issue is that when they would return to previously shown backstory scenes, they'd replay part of the previous portion before showing new parts, and because they did it with so many characters, it DRAGGED!

[@kingnightblade9926]

I'm glad that I'm not the only one that feels this way about 2.2s story this is the only video ive found giving what i feel like a honest take of the way the story was rolled out after finishing the story myself i think im going to take a break from star rail for a bit.

[@thatoneguy4504]

I sympathize with you. Cause in regards with the story there are highlights especially as a HI3 Player I’d say “wow this discussion on birds flying is really interesting” then right before and right after it would be surrounded by terrible yap, and dialogue bloat, it’s kinda painful knowing that if someone was there to say “trim the fat” penacony might have been truly great

[@laurenphilipp4337]

Totally agree with a lot of this Information got repeated so much imo. Felt like I had multiple Paimons in the story instead of just one. I can deal with one Paimon, but multiple? By the end of 2.2 my neck was all weirdly tense from the stress lol. The story was good, but the way it was told felt like a bit of a mess. Some of the POV shifts felt a bit unnecessary to me. I did enjoy Sundays POV/story - but I also felt there was too little of it. And there were so many instances of the characters just telling me things and I found myself constantly thinking/saying out loud things like "I know this already" or "I can see that. You dont need to spell it out for me." All in all, story > storytelling I guess.

[@lllock]

as someone who is fine with visual novels it doesn't bother me as much but i agree the lack of gameplay across honestly all of penacony is pretty disappointing 2.0 had some stuff but 2.1 was definitely a yap fest with 2.2 being no different

[@daniii_BH]

You are so right omg, 2.0 story was so good to watch and play, 2.1 was boring and 2.2 was even worse, I skipped like half of it!

[@AverageUser69]

I feel like the presentation of the 2.2 story feels more like a novel. There are a lot of foreshadowings and meaningful dialogues that shows off the characters' personality. However, nobody wants to read all that when all the hype moments is separated between these needless talks.

[@nicolas._.2294]

I want to read all that👁👄👁

[@vindemia]

It’s funny because this is going to be entirely opinion based for everybody. I loved it. But I also love reading books and such. I tend to have a hard time focusing on things, but the story hooked me and I did not speed through the dialogue at all (except for most NPC stuff, which is understandably boring). When I was confused about something, I’d take a moment to try to understand what was being conveyed before continuing to listen. If I got bored, id put my phone down to come back later, and when I came back I got invested again. This comes down to opinion and those who prefer more actively playing the game instead of reading. But this is still the story mission in HSR. We tend to get used to the quick fighting gameplay of end game content while waiting for new story. When there is hours worth of reading once per patch, those who don’t like reading as much might have a hard time with the story portion. There were parts that obviously were a bit ,icy, but mostly just stuff like the tournament thingy before meeting with Sunday. I genuinely loved the story and had 0 problem with the pacing. And this isn’t just meat riding, I didn’t enjoy the Xianzhou story too much. I didn’t expect much so what was served blew my expectations in a good way.