like i'm on the very last ques now and i just... have not cared

yeah

Natlan just doesn't let you actually feel like there's anything at stake really

even though it should

there's a lack of tension that the harbingers or fatui usually bring that's somewhat more dynamic than "look at this big evil abyssal entity" that somewhat lowers the personal involvement.

i feel so bad because i checked out really really hard and missed out on all the abyssal lore

there are a lot of overall issues that i have with natlan that i wish i didn't have with natlan because i actually really enjoy the saurians a lot.

like i have no idea who the dragon we just fought was

and yeah i was excited for the saurians especially after all the stuff that was revealed in fontaine

i wasn't very into the character designs either

like what do you mean there's a bat boy and i feel nothing for him

lmao really i love ororon, he was probably one of the few i really enjoyed.

HE'S BETTER THAN MOST Like

the ony one i actually wanted was xilonen

and i got her

his baby persona bait and switch trauma is a kind of different than a lot of other characters we've gotten.

yeah lore wise he was interesting

i'm asol ike

disappointed i guess that there wasn't more exploration into a human archon

this plurk really sums up my overall feelings on natlan

tbh i think that's a weird outlier that wasn't entirely intended, given both zhongli and venti's prior archon-focused bgs. mavuika says she hasn't met any of the archons in her sq, which means that the archons from the archon war were different (with possibly longer lifespans).

so then the ones ...... that ........ were around to hang out with the og crew, were they different everytime they got together?

this has been plaguing me for far too long.

yeah it like

it feels SO disconnected rom evverything else going on

ALSO THE HOLE iN thE SKy WE JUT BEW PASt

It did have it's high moments. I actually really liked the 'war' segment where you're running around as the situation gets more and more desperate.

YEAH THAT WAS COOL

But it took way too long for the story to introduce anything that felt like actual stakes.

but i was admittedly like, "this would mean more if i had attachment to these areas and people"

it's partially also bc i feel like the tribes themselves don't have a strong identity outside of specific tropes.

which is a bit disappointing

yeah

i'm also kind of taken out of the fact that the celebration iss just standing for photos rn

like

i think actually this sums up my isues with natlan

but there's also no exploration about how traumatic it is to constantly die AND GUYS WE FUCKING LET KACHINA DIE

SHE'S LIKE 12

i was checked out enough that i was letting cutscenes play and going into another room and i'd come back and IT WAS STILL GOING

the big problem with Natlan is that the characters are devices with which to drive the story, rather than the story being a device to drive the characters

Yeah, overall I think it had a similar issue to Inazuma, where it relied way too much on people already being familiar with and attached to Raiden Mei/Raiden Shogun and Himeko/Mavuika, but didn't put in enough legwork to make you care about them or the region they oversee.

yeah

i didnt really car eabout anyone's struggles except ororon and then chasca

chasca's design is still bad

Which is a really sharp contrast to how the story used Furina and Nahida. Or even Zhongli and Venti!

oh my god this whole autograph signing section is awful

why

like, Fontaine was so beloved because it was about the characters. It was Furina's story. It was Navia's story. It was Neuvilette's story.

But Natlan's story is.... just Natlan's story???

you could exchange the characters involved with literally anybody else and it wouldn't actually matter because it wasn't about them

no that's so it and i hate it

Agreed.

the characters are so boring and superficial

and like the land itself feels underdeveloped

oh that's definitely because people kept complaining about the desert. lmao i guarantee

it was sold as a war heavy nation and like listen i am okay with them backing away from harmful tropes and stereotypes but the whole system is broken.

there's no weight

it's especially frustrating because then we get the Summer Resort story quest, which is very character focused! and it's like damn where was this quality of writing for the rest of Natlan??

also rnadom sidebar but i ffelt weird about not acknowledging the bodyjacking of sentient creatures AJFAKHF

there were a few interesting events that added a lot of dynamic that i sort of wish was in the msq, like there's the ifa event that talks a lot about how the tribes themselves and their relationships and how they fall apart when no archon is chosen.

i accidentally drowned one

it goes a bit more into mavuika's flaws and how she really bullhorns her way into a lot of the things that she wants.

but it was ... an event ...

8') wonderful

Genshin locking character relevant lore behind an event???? never

ssigh

i hope nodkrai is better

nod-krai has a fatui faction so it most likely will be

i still sometimes think about how most players still don't know the weird lore about the sky because it was locked behind a 1.x event that never reran and never will

MAO YEAH THE SKY BEING FAake

begleiter that lore made it into the msq

Oh, I'm proud of them.

the fact that's also the first time we met wanderer

it very much drives the end half of sumeru's story.

when dottore makes the deal with nahida, and then partly wanderer's interlude quest.

man i was realy hoping i was at the end of this quesst

But i dont think i am

i think the other thing that's been bothering me about genshin is that natlan is ike... SO different from everywhere else and it's not fully explained or explored why

maybe it was and i missed it but there are so many more mechanics and things here that aren't in play in other areas of teyvat

and they just keep loredumping at me

ooh

wy is tere a gian eyeball in the sky

oh god i just realized you missed the shades animation.

i loved natlan, but i definitely agree that they did a lot more telling than showing - and that I think is because they realised "shit we've not done enough to keep people up to date on lore that doesnt involved diving into artifact stories and books".

hence Nod-Krai existing to go into Moon Lore in more depth, instead of going on to Snez as originally expected

oh god does it explain stuf

Teyvat Chapter Interlude Teaser: The Gods' Limits | ...when you're done with the msq.

so there is a reason Natlan is so different, and the short answer is because its ley lines have been fucked for so long that it's been extremely isolated from the rest of the world

oh

hello god of death

yeah, you're about to get more info

so okay did mavuika become the archon immediately after the cataclysm

oh okay there we are natlan's rules are because someone learned coding

like okay genuinely

my current theory on teyvat is it's a simulated world, or a world that's in the same fucked up situation that amphorous is in honkai

and yeah i feel like natlan's story would have been so much better if hey centered each character's personal relationship with life and death

it's implied by Raiden's voice lines that Mavuika was present for the Cataclysm in Khaenri'ah

bbc mavuika's whole story is fascinating but it's coming at the eleventh hour here

Mavuika was made archon just before the cataclysm, she has an animated short that ties in a bit to it

"When I arrived in Khaenri'ah five hundred years ago, I saw a battlefield of scorched earth on the level of Musoujin Gorge. The fury of the Pyro Archon... that was said to be the cause. Now, I have the opportunity to meet that human once again..."

ohhhhhhhh gotcha okay

man same with capitano

this was hinted at and i like it

but i also woud've liked him to do..... more

the ending ... yeah, in som e way im glad capitano got to be the middle finger, but it also made mavuika avoid the consequences the entire aq was about so i'm like

sure

yeah

yeah i think mavuika dying would've actually been more powerful and like... added to the point that previous archon quests were building to which is humans ruling and governing themselves and accepting the consequences that come with that

man khanrieya was really oout there making a bunch of bad decisions

oh capitano was hot

i do wonder if maybe Mavuika dying was the original intent and then there was a bunch of pushback somewhere in development

because B O Y killing off the Himeko character is sure a way to trigger a fandom

yeah i feel weird that its capitano dying bc we hae not had a lot of time to get emotionally invested in him or this reveal

aw

his boyfriend is going with him

bye guy

i think its also very funny that they did not give the lord of the night a character model

its just a sentient swirl

ad yeah okay this is my natlan issue

its SO MUCH exposition

is she himeko, or is she just the priestess from legend of saha

(there's a lot of debate in the fandom about this)

eyes wahats the legend of saha

hadal: i do not think she's himeko - but i do think she might be a variant of Shakespeare, from Durandal's manga backstory

(full name Marian William Shakespeare )

minimoffs: the mihoyo creator's original flash game - Legend of Saha Wiki | Fandom

that which came before all honkai

ooooo

gotca interessting

also okay ive got 40 pulls for lauma

fjdkls oh sorry, that was a bit of a joke.

but yeah what's above.

i do think theres collective agreement that they need to give her her tribe outfit and not the biker zipper disaster she has. i love himeko but the wardrobe is terrible..

there's an old, old genshin lore post that outlines potential connections from saha, and i have dug it up.From the Genshin_Lore community on Reddit

oh right okay watching the shade animaionn and then starting the paralogism interlude

oh i am gneuinely surprised dahlia is a person and not a dragon

oh hello ruler of death

okay so these are all paimons. big paimons.

im obsessed with istaroth

make sure you listen to one voice in particular

OH

OHHHHHHH

i would actually love... playabe ronova...

so if you didn't pick up on it

Venti and Istaroth have the same voice. this is intentional.

NO I DID

Iirc there was something somewhere about how wind and time is a shade of istaroth or was created by her right

I forgot where that turned up at

in all languages too

the wind and time poem was alllll the way back in mondstadt

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

yeah they've been cooking the Venti-Istaroth connections for years, it's kind of wild.

oh my god diluc look hilariously out of place

will his model ever get a glowup

also it sucks this entire section is unvoiced but i get it

diluc's deadpan babyface

(his skin fixed it a little bit, a very small amount)

yeah he needs an update big itme

oh god it's so noticeable on Diluc in particular

they are sunsetting the ps4 version of the game as well as some older os versions, i'm assuming bc it's actually time for a glow-up.

they are apparently actually updating some models in the near future

let that leak be true, please

wil they finally give me the buff itto of my dreams

yes, actually, that was in the leak

what

but it was a leak so idk when/where/how accurate it is

yeah if the leak is true that will in fact be happening

GIMME BUFF ITTO

also a less ugly albedo

since we have wrio and varka now, i'm assuming we'll get slightly buffer itto

god poor albedo

the traveler needs a glowup like crazy too

he had the FUNNIEST gap between splash art and actual art

actually i think that tite still beongds to diluc

bc he just look like he's still rendering

it's childe's crotch star to me

they have learned how to do SO MANY new impressive things with models since 1.0

i actually did a comparison between Diluc and Kaeya's face shapes and you can really kind of see how messed up Diluc's is

FAHFKJAH YEAH

there's also a zhongli skin that's been rumored for fucking ever and semi-teased in cinematics and im like

goddamnit it just give it

PLEASE

his eyes are lower and face just overall looks smaller in proportion to his massive hair

yeah he just looks out of place and unfinished

like a placeholder model

wait albedo calls alice his aunt

... wait why is it tallking about mini duran like i should know huim

i assume it's like "auntie"

did i miss a quest

did you not do simulanka?

i

do not rememer

oh

scaramouche summer quest in the land of toys

no nope i started it and then didnt have time

so i guess... i need to watch that and figure out whats happening

jarring to go ffrom natlan explaining every little sneeze to "hey here's a mini duran"

oh man the traveller is talking a lot now

... did paimons voice change

WAIT SPACESHIP

SPACESHIP???

re: paimon's voice, yes

the old voice actor either got fired or stepped down in the wake of the strike and their specific horrible role in it

i honestly like the new va a Lot better