Finally finished patch 2.4 main story...

[cashew]

If you want detailed responses, see previous two posts.

Specific to Part 9:

A slightly interesting moment is the contrast between 雪衣's situation juxtaposed to 丹恒's situation in terms of identity. The game writing just kind of leaves it there, but in the hands of better writer, there's a lot of room to explore what makes up the identity of a person. Are memories enough? Imagine a deeper delve into 雪衣's philosophy of "my memories are intact, therefore I am the same person" contrasted against Dan Heng's philosophy of "I don't care if I inherited memories, I'm still my own person, I'm different from that guy!" I feel like having these two hash out their differing world views (doesn't have to be a fight, having small talk over tea would be enough), would add a lot to both characters.

Meanwhile, am sooooooooo getting tired of edgy boy 貘泽. The only thing remotely interesting is his point about "I have responsibilities for which I'm ready to die" versus 丹恒's "I have friends who are waiting for me so I need to live". I really wanted that conversation to go on a little longer, have the two guys blow up at each other a bit, and then 寒鸦 could jump in and be like "OK, shut up, I'm the commanding officer here, if anyone's dying it's me."

Further getting the sense that each ship in the Xianzhou Alliance functions as an autonomously governed region, much like feudal states. Technically the ships are supposed to be helping each other and coordinating, but it sounds more like everyone kind of have their own political priorities. Also, it sounds like 曜青 is predominantly Foxian, seeing as Hoolay commented his main grudge is actually with 曜青, not Xianzhou at large. Plus threats about how "relations between 曜青 and 罗浮 might be sundered", which implies there's some kind of treaty binding the ships together politically. (And wasn't 白珩 also from 曜青? It's beginning to sound like 曜青 is the de facto homeland for Foxians in the Alliance.)

Finally, regarding some people thinking the generals were being "stupid"...I think this is a case of fans being bad at clarifying bad plotting vs bad execution (of which HSR has both), and not being clear when they're bitching because they're just responding emotionally to the story sucking.

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In summary:

• I maintain that this arc is set up around the politics of "some politicians hate Jing Yuan so now we have this mess". I get that it's meant to introduce new characters, but if that's the only drive, they really should've just have the story take place on another ship.

• One of the main problems with HSR writers is the inability to separate writer knowledge from character knowledge: Jing Yuan's reaction makes no sense when placed into the context of him knowing he's being targeted politically. Why write the plot such that he places himself into a vulnerable position constantly? Even in a "using himself as the bait" trope, this is really poor writing. (Plus, using himself as bait also does not inspire "genius tactician" vibes...)

• Feixiao is... I want to like her, but she's just a collection of tropes at the moment. Gimme more Jingliu. She's both metaphorically and literally cooler.

• Yunli is awesome. I like her. I will not hear another bad word against this girl.

• Yanqing continues to be feckless and annoying.

• The entire jail break stuff is just...an excuse to get the party into a new map. It's not very good. Also what is even the point of the super dramatic cutscene with 丹恒 throwing his spear and then we fade to black?

• Too much over explaining banal details, not enough showing, and not enough clarification of details that actually matter. Like, age is a big fucking deal in terms of understanding character, especially in East Asian cultures. 辈分 is huge in terms of social dynamics and relationships. Why is the game so reluctant to give this information?

• I really, really, really need one of the Xianzhou Alliance officers at some point say the line "宁仙舟人负我，毋我负仙舟人". This is such a key part of the (good guy) officers' mentality and I'd like to see it explored by having it come up against outsiders who believe self preservation is of the utmost importance. Especially since I think this is what's causing the clash between the other long lived species and Vidyadhara. But also the line is just cool, so I wanna hear the voice actors say it.

• Maybe I'm reading the situation wrong, but I feel like Jiaoqiu is still, hm..., what's the word for 顾全大局? He has his selfish reasons for doing stuff, but when it came down the wire, he seemed to pick the selfless option. But his voice actor sucks, and combined with the a lot of deliberately vague lines, it's like...you can read him as a traitor or read him as someone who's being strategic. Both seem pretty valid at the moment. We'll have to see how later patches play out.

Now...where do I find the sidequest cutscenes again?