I didn’t mind Kokomi during the Archon Quests, although I thought her story quest trying to build her up as a master strategist by… writing everything on a notebook… was lazy and corny. But when Sumeru’s finale came out and Alhaitham showed all that and more, I was so disappointed and I felt so bad for Kokomi. The “master strategist” she could’ve been was Alhaitham. I just wish someday in the future, they remake Inazuma Archon Quests and put it on the same level as Sumeru’s.

I could imagine that they design characters to look better or more complex from behind because that’s how you see them most of the time. But that’s just a wild guess.

And add an Epitomized Path for the standard banner too

+1 for increasing the limit. Honkai Star Rail has 180, and I find that it’s a good limit.

This is an unpopular opinion I don’t share. I liked it because of the new things they tried to do, like they did something new with the camera work, the fact that the Archon Quest had five acts instead of the usual three, the new “contemplation” mechanic where you have to interpret and associate different thoughts to find the correct conclusion (and you get to hear the Traveler talk more). A lot of the characters had enough character development, too. Tighnari appeared at the start and towards the end but we still got so much insight into who he was, his work ethic, how he views the Akademiya, and how much he cares for the forest. Collei was the same, and although we’ve only seen her on the manga prior to this, she had a great arc on the Archon Quests, and players who haven’t read the manga prior to this had enough of an inkling to know the pain and suffering she was going through. Dunyarzad was how Teppei should’ve been; we find out her story, what motivates her, and the story spends enough time with her to grow an attachment with her, so when she “dies” we have a connection to her and we feel her loss.

And the story line, particularly Act II (Sabzeruz Festival Samsara), was intriguing, to me at least. The way it was written was just miles ahead of the previous ones, I think. For example, the divine knowledge capsules were teased in Act I, and it kept returning to the story until the end. The concept of samsara was the entire thing of Act II, and it appeared again in Act V. Basically, there were only few loose ends to the story, and everything they set up in the beginning were closed before the story ended. The concepts and lore were explored enough to satisfy the audience without the entire thing being just a glorified fetch quest.

I also just liked it for the reason that Hyv tried to learn from their mistakes with Inazuma.

Having said all of that, still it has flaws. The dialogue is too much words, which is I think the reason why some people (probably including you) didn’t like the story. The dialogue is too tiring to read and listen to.

Sumeru’s storyline had two big problems:

• The main antagonist, Scaramouche, wasn’t properly developed. He just parachutes into the plot, with his backstory and motivations assumed from earlier event lore drops and voice lines. That is bad storytelling.
• Nahida’s plight wasn’t really developed in an interesting way, and devolved into a standard rescue the princess plot at the end. The heist aspect was promising but wasn’t done creatively enough IMO.

The samsara chapter is rightly praised, and I think it’s one of the best parts of Genshin’s storyline so far in terms of execution. But the bigger plot and the stuff before and after it doesn’t measure up IMO.

Out of the four regions so far, I actually found the Liyue archon quest the most interesting. Yes, it dragged a bit in the middle, but overall the plot felt cohesive, with solid use of foreshadowing (e.g. introducing the old gods and their history with Liyue, before the Osial reveal), and the twist was executed pretty decently.

Fontaine is rumored to be steampunk, and we’ve already seen Charlotte so I have high hopes of modern clothing (or at least as modern as the industrial revolution lol)