Genshin Impact: A Failure in Storytelling | Sumeru

love your analysis on the conclusion, it says "Rukkha getting erased = bad", "memories of her getting erased = bad", "no conclusion to the story, no landing" without explaining why. even if you have a legitimate reason for it, it's kinda funny how you absolutely avoid explaining why...IN AN ANALYSIS AND CRITIQUE VIDEO.

9:21 there a very simple fix for the janky animations in some heavy scenes. they could literally just show a static image for the scenes that require a unique pose they do it in hi3 and even in starrail all the time yet they somehow cant figure that shit out in genshin

23:42 I guess that you'd like to see these two fighting each other, but there's quite a logic reason why this could not happen. To put it simply, Tighnari cannot just attack a Harbinger. He knows too well that he doesn't stand a chance in a battle against the 2nd Harbinger. Boy, even Nahida herself knows that and she gambles the price for the 2 gnoses. So yeah, like you said he has all right to be mad at Dottore, but he knows too well the consequences of such act. Though the "high school debate" could've surely been handled better. I find it still with the character. Also I would like to know why exactly the conclusion of Sumeru's story arc was so terrible. As your argument that killing Rukkhadevata is lazy does not convince me as it is not supported by anything. I see it as a ok way to end Nahida's story that otherwise would need another 3 hour quest to be wrapped up. Overall, I think the story of Sumeru was written quite well. I really enjoyed the amount of cohesion in that story and that small details, which at first glance seemed not to be important, but later on, played minor or major role in the story.

I havent watched the video yet but i still agree, genshin seriously fails at some important story elements yet the fanbase just keep licking the toe of hoyoverse (i wrote my complains in reddit and got downvoted to hell) 1.traveler is not being even a character and just a tool/floating camera to follow Hoyoverse doesn't know if they wanna make traveler a self-insert or an actual character so they try both and fail at both 2.having too many characters syndrome Archon quests having too many characters so not being able to tell their story other then the most cruial ones 3.incredible long quest yet not long enough to flesh out characters Archons quest on average could take 2 Hour, on sumeru we had 6 quest, that sums umto 12 hours of story, yet they still are unable to flesh out the characters and the story (other games can tell a good story in 8 hour) 4.main villians not having a reason to be villians Game presents the fatuis as the villians but they forgot the most crusial part of story telling, emotional investment, fatui and traveler doesn't have a reason to be enemies other then the obvious 'we are the bas guys!!!' stick that doesn't even work so we dont even have a emotional investment in their conflict Even though theres a very easy group to make the main villains, abyss, think abyss was shown to make very bad things and travaler has a emotional investment in this conflict as their family is in abyss, they have a reason to hate them Genshin impact full off these kind of things yet the fanbase refuse see any of them

I don't agree with your point that the doctor and Tighnari should have fought. Like do you want both collei and tighnari to die? He is the second Fatui harbinger the best he is comparable to a god. Tighnari the best could have done is run. It the opposite is true they could have used the scene, where collei was hiding from the doctor and tighnari was doing the best to concealed her. This would have made the doctor even more terrifying.

I’m ngl this vid is rather disappointing. Most of your points come off as more nitpicky than actual criticism and explaining why you have that certain issue with the story. The only things I really seem to agree with you is a missed opportunity to have Collei interact with Dottore and how the flow of the story from one nation to another doesn’t feel all that natural (which also feel a bit nitpicky tbh). Idk this video seems rushed and not really all that thought out. You don’t elaborate on why you think Sumerus ending falls short…no explanation, it just does because Rukka got erased? Not to mention you don’t even talk about Scaramouche considering how important his role is and what happens to him afterwards (which admittedly I’m not a fan of but I digress).

I love watching a story analysis without any analyzing its so fun when there are zero points being made

These videos make me laugh and the comments express it well

While I agree it isn’t the most greatest story in Genshin even, for some reason, this was the only quest that genshin made me cry. Even during Furina my favourite character in the game’s final dance I just had a big lump in my throat and a very very sad face. However Dance of Sabsereuz genuinely made me just bawl at my screen and I still don’t understand why. Maybe it is the beauty of seeing someone’s dying wish be fulfilled. That face of Dunyazaed just gazing with joy is so so emotional. Which makes it even worse that they kept her alive and DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WITH HER 😭 Genshin’s plot can be so fucking good sometimes and just derail into mediocrity. It’s like that one meme that’s like We are so back, it’s over. Also I respect ur opinion but I major disagree with your Dunyazard opinion. She is so much better than Teppei as we actually get to see her backstory, her reason for loving Kusanali sm unlike Teppei who we literally know 0 about

i need therapy after reading this comment section so much stupidity and lack of regard for the video AAAAAAA

Probably one of your most controversial video lol, but I agree with most of your takes. Many people really think highly of sumeru AQ because it came after inazuma AQ, which was such a let down that anything above that bar of storytelling is basically a good story for this game. I come back to genshin again after the sumeru AQ were finished (3.4) because I saw lots of good things from popular content creator and from genshin main sub about the story, praising it, calling sumeru AQ to be the best AQ in the game. At first the introduction of the region is mediocre at best, but I like collei's characterization at the start, her english voice actress basically hard carried the first act, since I read the manga, it's even better. You brought up a good point that her sudden trauma outburst were portrayed badly by the game (no animation and just jump cut ), I didn't notice it because her voice over basically concealed it but after you brought it up it just made me disappointed about this game. But overall, I consider the first act to be serviceable as an opening for the region, because I didn't like the 2nd act. IMO the 2nd act should've been shorter, I already get what they want to tell by the 2nd loop, there should've been an option at least if you know that there's something wrong so you can stop doing the loop thing, the fact that the story continues on and on just made this act becoming overdone with this repetitiveness for me. From act III to IV, I thought it would get better, but no, the dialogue become so bloated that I have to smash the skip button until the plot actually progress. The fact that hoyo made the setting jump so many times to random important lore location thinking that the majority of players would actually read the lore is just bad story design for this kind of game imo. For the first half of the final act, I found it ok, the scara boss fight and the music is so cool, I thought the same that this would be it for the ending, but no, they have to do the irminsul erasure, probably the worst plot device that this game ever used in their archon quest history. All of nahida's character development from act 2 is practically rendered for nothing since it turns out, she always has been the great dendro archon from the start, but locked up by the academia, her previous 500 years of suffering just become less significant. I also agree that dunyarzard should've died, I'm so confused why they do all the thing in act 2 but kept her alive later in the story, looking back, even if she die, her story would've been ruined anyway by the irminsul memory wipe in act v. Other than that, Dottore's character is pretty boring imo, I thought they would not stray away from the manga, but they did, the fact that they make his character glued with the segment thingy was so disappointing because at that point I knew that there's no way that hoyo would make collei confront dottore to complete her story, because they definitely didn't want to put the bare minimum effort to make an actual story, they will use dottore's segment's plot device to basically avoid that, which they did. Scara's characterization in the AQ is a bit edgy for my taste that I can't take him seriously at all, but I enjoyed every time he's on screen, I guess there's that.

Im still questioning what's canon after the erasure cause all of that felt like a i skip and wasted my time It feels like im back from the start and its ending at the same time that it enraged me 😡

after watch it all the previous nahida point of all her old memories become forgotten now make sense with the recent new dainslef quest but sadly like you mention in the last part of the video you have to wait for a long time already cleared that quest and it feels not much really change at all because ironicly the Genshin lore theory group ALREADY predicted it way before the recent dainslef quest out oof the only part that bugging me about the wanderer quest since we finished and "altered" history about him does that mean player who already cleared the mikoshi furnace world quest become meaningless?

I liked the time loop arc, but everything after that is a blur, so many filler dialogues ... It feels like each scene is at least 5 times longer than it has to be. Fountain is a bit like that too, the trial are all good, the last one is great even, but everything else feel padded. I play a lot of CRPG, I don't mind reading dialogue for hours even if they are unvoiced, but I have to feel like each scene is going somewhere. In genshin so much content feel like filler designed to be as long as possible.

Kallen eating a sandwich gif is the peak of Video Essay qualification.

So many salty genshin fans. I’m convinced half of these comments are hoyo bots. There’s no way actual rational human beings are still defending this mediocre game

i dont know why this video has so many dislikes your points are valid, cutscene animations can be animated way better, the npc quests honestly aren't that memorable to me i haven't played genshin since faruzan came out and i cant for the life of me think about an npc quest that stood out to me or was memorable in any way. I honestly think if they got rid of paimons yapping and added an option to skip the unimportant unnecessary dialogue id probably have a better time engaging with the story.

Okay actually it's ironic but the way the sumeru archon quest was rushed at the end is the same as your video being rushed to the end I think you actually said out loud the problem is that irminsul is a pretty stupid concept but don't elaborate specially with Scaramouche.

Now commentate Wuthering Waves. Don't worry you'll get through the main story in LESS than a month. I grinded hardly so I did it in like 4 days

U know my guy? You can just say you didn't enjoy the story that ok , but claiming the story was bad as fact ... is just straight up a stupid take I'm sorry