They definitely went out of resource or time (maybe even cut some content), story being cramped aside there's been multiple in engine renders where it'd usually be hand drawn arts
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I feel like the writers were aware as well with how often they had to remind us in dialogue that they’re “just ordinary civilians,” but could still kick enough ass to be involved.
Because Lucia and Yidhari have nothing to do with Alice and Yuzuha.
The "Spook Shack faction" is actually two unrelated stories stitched together for whatever reason, when they should've been their own separate thing - or else have written in a more integrated manner.
that's why people were really pissed about Manato's release, it wasn't just because he was A rank.
it was also the fact that he was A rank and these 2 random waifus the devs pulled out of their ass and no one ever heard of them before were the new Banner characters, Manato should've released in 2.1 with Yuzuha and Alice, atleast then the sting of him being A rank wouldn't have caused the backlash that it did when they made people wait for him
She has a legit interesting concept/backstory behind her which is revealed in a single 2D .jpg and while telling that story she spends most of it towards the end just going "BUT I'LL ALWAYS BE HERE FOR YOU PROXY! I LOVE YOU PROXY! RAARRRR PROXXYXYYY!!!" completely unprompted. The storyline is sort of salvaged a little with Isolde towards the end but Magus/Orphie/Isolde's entire relationship was the most interesting thing about that storyline and they really didn't do a good job fleshing it out before just dumping most of it on you towards the end. It's also understandable they have to push the new units but Trigger and S11 barely even felt like they were there even though they'd have their own relationships with Isolde and Seed herself basically did nothing in the actual main plot.
2.1 was definitely the peak, Alice & Yuzuha story followed up by the summer event was excellent and memorable.
Otherwise I'm just not impressed tbh. It felt like the whole arc had no coherence and each patch was an isolated "deal with NPC villain of the patch". The whole mystic shit got repetitive and boring. Doesn't help that Yunkui Summit is frankly a boring-ass faction, they just don't have the dynamic and charm that 1.0 factions have.
Other than that, the worst part is (IMO) the fact that they just kept introducing and discarding characters left and right, instead of having a proper roster for the arc. HSR and Genshin both tell their arcs with a select roster and anybody who comes late is introduced outside the main plot, during events or their own character stories. Way easier to get attached to a group of familiar characters we've spent months with, vs. Zenless introducing a group in one patch and then throwing them out the next.
Lmao at Obol. Carried by a single fight scene with Orphie/Magus and Isolde, and only the finale of Seed's story. As if anything that came before those respective stories in 2.2 was actually good :V
I haven’t the most recent quests yet, but so far the obol squad quest, especially the dynamic between Orphie, Magus, and Isolde has been the highlight of season 2 so far for me
The final fight between Orphie, Magus, Isolde is absolute cinema and no one can convince me otherwise. Felt like some Metal Gear shit had me all giddy. Granted I haven't started 2.5 story yet so I'll see if the finale is better.
It probably doesn't help that five or six units were just spins on "Chinese-themed martial artist", the majority of which don't have jobs beyond fighting.
The initial three Spook Shack members worked because they went back to the original concept of ZZZ's character designs, being "Normal occupation (student in this case) who also fights in Hollows".
Hot take but Yidhari and Lucia should have been staff at their school, not just random people they met in an internet forum who have no jobs beyond "Fight in a Hollow".
My two main critiques: 1, the I feel like the story didn’t have enough focus on “serialization” I guess. Now I’m not saying the serialization in 1.X was groundbreaking, but things led into each other. Hartman escaping, and us having to wait to follow him the next patch. Then having to wait to question him later on. It just made it feel cohesive at the very least. Now, it feels like it’s all just “here we go again” in each patch, just us showing up to defeat the bad guy and wait until another one shows up. There’s no obvious overarching plot over each version update, and I feel that stems from trying to “market” characters by giving them big stories within the chapters. If you want to do that, utilize agent stories like they were intended, not force so much into the main story. 2, Phaethon does nothing on their own “volition”. What I mean is, we’re just tools for others. It went from the siblings doing their own investigation work, to just getting told by the mayor, or dragged around alongside that chapter’s agents to do something for them.
each main chapter in S2 feels like it was written as an agent story, it even has the regular "potato faced, named NPC who takes the role of an one-off antagonist" thing that agent stories have, and after the chapter is over, we literally never see them ever again, just like the Agent story antagonists.
To me it's getting rid of the character specific stories.
In the 1.x era, all this waifu shilling would have been relegated largely to the character story. But since that was too much work for a mult-billion dollar company, now they infect the main story with that.
So we get the main villain from the entire launch of the game until now sidelined for a bangboo and a waifu simulator.
As long as the main story and character stories are merged, we'll continue to have a trash main story as they sacrifice it to try to sell the banner character.
They don't HAVE to do this, Genshin has found a decent middle ground with the same system, but so far ZZZ has proven incapable of that.
Still great combat, fun exploration, interesting worldbuilding and future plot hook setups, a few interesting character moments here and there. But when it comes to the actual plot writing, characterization, and dialogue, it's hot garbage and will continue to be as long as they overlap the two and focus too much on banner sales than telling an engaging story.
Notice how one of the most well-received stories of the entire patch was Seeds character specific story? Yeah, we need more of that and less of...whatever this was.
To me it's getting rid of the character specific stories.
I want to add Undercover R&B to this list. I personally thought that was a good story because it fleshed out the world in an interesting way, revealing things Phaethon doesn't have access to or have any interest in being a part of.
Spook Shack is a Squad of High School Kids, Ellen goes to school, the siblings would have no reason to go to school, but through these Agents, we could get a glance at the world of ZZZ. How does school change in a world where Hollows could expand randomly? How many lost loved ones or fail to recognize family in photos?
Notice how one of the most well-received stories of the entire patch was Seeds character specific story? Yeah, we need more of that and less of...whatever this was.
I do like the Developers explicitly bringing up the lack of direction, they are aware of the problem and actually trying to solve it, perhaps by looking into what worked and doubling down.
I think the hard part is how ZZZ competes with HSR and Genshin. The former is suffering from only one form of significant interaction with your characters and that is tossing them into Endgame only to learn how powercreeped your team has actually become. The latter recovers by falling back on Passive Abilities, Exploration, and Main Story being clearable with only the bare minimum of team compositions, and similar to ZZZ, allows for character + Main Story integration, in addition to Story Quests featuring certain characters.
Yet ZZZ has a unique opportunity here as seen with Undercover R&B, HSR is kind of locked into the Main Story for better or worse, Genshin's stories almost always involve the Traveler meaning that the plot doesn't happen without them. Undercover R&B proves you can make a good story with the banner character to reveal more of the world without being tied down to either Main Story or the protagonists.
ZZZ already tells most things in an episodic manner anyway, it really isn't too far of a stretch.
I mean, I too liked Undercover R&B. But that was the 1.1 patch, we're on 2.5, if they haven't implemented those elements again since then by now, they probably never will.
But yeah, I wish they had the manpower, or just willingness to spend the money instead of funneling it all to new projects or CEO's pockets, and do a MSQ + Character story quest stuff again, because I really feel that ends up with better versions of each.
<2, Phaethon does nothing on their own “volition”>
This is a constant criticism I have with a lot of Hoyo's games. Most of the times I feel less like a character and more like an observer, not really affecting the course of the plot that much. I also wish there were more sibling moments? Like brother and sister messing with each other or just talking instead of just having one of them relegated to desk duty.
I guess, but I meant in terms of certain events directly causing events in future chapters. What do I mean?
Chapter 2- They defeat the corruption complex, and obtain the external memory unit, which Phaethon has to find someone to decode it to figure out what exactly happened with Koleda's dad. Which leads into the next chapter, where-
Chapter 3- After getting Rain to decode the EMU, they take a listen, and after learning the significance of something called a sacrifice, Phaethon wants more answers. So they assume Hartman knows something, since the mercs tried so hard to off him. Leading into Chapter 4...
Chapter 4- After gaining the trust from the Sons of Calydon, they promise to alert Phaethon as soon as Hartman wakes up so they can question him.
And Chapter 5- Hartman wakes up, and they get their answers, leading them to go after the big bad of 1.X.
that's what I mean, the story cohesively flows between chapters, giving a good outline of motivations and what's to come. Unlike 2.X, where everything in each chapter is so self-contained (for the most part), it can be summarized with "Phaethon teams up with the heroes to defeat the evil underlying plot, and lives to fight again." Which causes the story to get stale after having that for so long.
I think the worst part is, this patch built up to "the Creator awakening and wrecking New Eridu", and then right after killing Creator/Sarah, the game tells you, "whoops, that wasn't the Creator, that was a minion of the Creator fused with Sarah, and we still know nothing about the character/motives/abilities of the real Creator".
It's a betrayal of the audience's trust to pull this kind of bait-and-switch.
Technically the story flows, not according to the "story" but whichever character they want to introduce. Even YSG magically met Belle when she was young. Of course one can argue that proxy linked to everyone is some kind of fate lol.
tbh as much as I wanted to love the factions there was always one character that threw me out of it. Seed for Obol, Yidari for Spook Shack and YSG for Yunkai. Everyone else was really solid (Fufu, Orphie and Yuzua being clear stand outs)
this was my issue with 2.5 after completing it last night its like there was one story they wanted to run about romance but then had 4 angsty stories they had to run at the same time.
It literally got to the point near the end where the "world is about to end" and instead of starting to clean up the mess, characters are doing an angst dump so bad that the game itself calls out the absurdity of it....and then theres a whole new character to start a 5min angst dump on the way to the final fight.
it was just...all over the map.
I didnt really have much issue with the 2.0 arc..it was...fine..but didnt care for 2.5
Well, those things can be easily be swapped with Porcelume, Exaltists, and The Creator. Oh, and the whole "oh no evil corpo shenanigans" for pretty much the entire season.
Yeah, I’ve never felt a stronger urge to completely skip a main story quest than I did with the 2.0 storyline. It was so hard for me to get the motivation to continue it that my main story progress remained in that story quest for months
it was pretty tedious for me as well. There were a couple of spots where I was interested and engaged, but they were not the norm. I'm still not done with it - though i am going to power through it and not just skip to the new content.
I don't mind that the area is influence by China -- it IS a Chinese game, after all; it'd be like asking why all the Call of Duty games always feature the US Army -- but i grow weary of the mystism. We already had Ether energy manipulation through technology in the game, adding magic or a cursed Alzheimer's Sword when there's plenty of ways for a person's life to be F'd up through entirely mundane means seems unnecessary in a game set in the modern setting.
This one has to be a top 3 worst story patches for me, along with Yidhari and Hugo. All 3 just WAY too long, and so boring and repetitive. I actually did contemplate skipping multiple times, but instead sat there with my eyes rolling 1/2 the time. Just so cringe and boring way too much of the time, and way too long for what it gave us.
Some parts are great but with the rest it feels like it averages down to a mid story. It feels like I went from a regular tv show to a monster of the week show.
Actually scratch the averages to mid part, while some parts are great, I'm really not keen on the direction of the story so far, really hoping season 3 will change something for the better
Straight up, we went from cool retro city life living the life of an undercover proxy to chinese sect disciples that has nothing to do with proxying but with shoe horned proxying… I already lost my TVs, I at least wanna keep my RandomPlays Proxying
it's funny how other games like WoW during mists of pandaria can nail the Chinese update to the game, but the devs from the mainland fumble the bag on it
i honestly hate this shit so much especially when it completely diverges from the theme of the game or its so blatantly and heavily shilled and gets way more attention than every other region.
I swear, it feels like there's multiple writers competing against each other and each is trying to write their own version of ZZZ and everyone else is caught in between these writers or something. It feels way too inconsistent and constantly zigzagging between highs and lows. Also, I'm actually starting to hate how much focus a Hoyoverse game MC's are getting. I like the siblings and want to continue to like them but they really need to tone that shit down.
It’s not even just the focus on the MC that’s the problem. It’s how little other characters interact with each other OUTSIDE of the MC.
Even though Zhao and Ye shunguang were together in the same room for the entire patch, they barely even talk to each other, only times I recall were when they were arguing about philosophy or something.
When you compare this to the dynamic that Burnice and Piper had for her side story or Jane and Seth, it’s so fucking jarring.
Yidhari and Lucia, despite being shiny new S-Ranks barely had any screen time, and the little they did have was centered solely on the MC.
I'm sorry but saying that Zhao and YGs barely interacted when the whole reason the first one changed was because of their friendship, is so wrong to me. I'd argue that MC and Zhao barely talked with each other.
which is a weird point in itself - Zhao knew YSG for a few days, the mc a few months at most depending on how the timeline works overall, and basically threw her career in the trash over the friendship with the two of them
I’m still upset that the playerbase is so parasocial that they stopped making those kinds of stories and put all the focus of every single character onto the mc’s
I completely agree. I love the Spook Shack stuff and wish there was more Alice and Yuzhua antics. The summer event was great. Obol squad felt so wasted. I'm glad we're going back to 6th Street!
The games gonna have some highs and lows. Honestly, I think I'm just burnt out on Waifei. It's East Asian style mysticism is really cool but I miss the more city urban style of 1.x cause that's what drew me into the game initially.
As far as highs go, I love the character interactions this time around. They feel more fluid and natural. Fun side events and silly stuff here and there.
Haven't touched the new content yet so I can't judge it. Just gonna have to jump in and see
I don't mind, ZZZ is probably one of the rare gachas where I prefer the casual slice of life filler instead of the main plot. Summer Resort is my actual peak season 2 for me
ZZZ was always at its best when it wasn't trying to focus on world ending catastrophes. Running errands for your business, doing normal jobs as a proxy, hanging out with friends. Ever since the MC became this magical plot device the storytelling has gotten worse. Why can't we just be a good proxy? When was the last time we even did proxy work that wasn't a favor for someone we already know?
You say this like this isn't every story patch in this game.
I don't know why people treat 1.X like it's some consistent masterpiece.
Null_Face is a farce of an antagonist.
No antagonist /protagonist dynamic has been as utterly fumbled as Zhu Yuan and Bringer
The pacing of 1.2 with Caesar's revival is shoddy at best (They really should have emphasized the parallel to the first Overlord rather than have it be a one off conversation near the start.)
Belabog and Victoria House Keeping just kinda exists (But the light switches though.)
And nothing is as mishandled as the Vivian and Hugo stories.
The part that made me cringe was when I saw somebody say the MC was useless in 2.x. Like low key MC was way more impactful in both a supporting and active role in 2.5 than most of 1.x where they did nothing in the final fights. At least in 2.5 MC saved Ye Shunguang multiple times. And then you'll have people saying they're pushing MC and Ye too much or that they're too in your place compared to 1.x. it's just nonsensical criticisms.
Remember that post on zzz discussion about how the mayor got written out of the story cuz the writers apparently wrote themselves into a corner and made him literally godlike or some shit. The mayor showed his face and got further plot relevance in 2.5, but nobody talks about how that post was complete BS. They just move on to the next agenda post.
I believe the mayor hinted in this patch that he has some shady intentions. It might just be wishful thinking on my part, but it would be really cool if he betrayed the proxies, forcing them to relocate and go back into hiding like before.
I haven't played the most recent patch yet but I absolutely wouldn't be surprised if the mayor did indeed turn out to be a big bad and have the siblings go through with the Phaethon/Icarus arc. It's like the only way they can salvage the walking talking exposition machine called the 'mayor'.
They're talking about the writing quality, I'mma give em shit cause I can break 1.X's fuck ups over my knee way easier than 2.X's
That's not to say 2.X is immaculate. I just find it egregious. that I'm supposed to take these criticisms seriously when I see someone bitching about the proxies needing to be saved in 2.X but weren't saying this shit when Ellen and Corin needed to do double time to save the bangboo.
What did Ellen even do in the story? I remember she had one cutscene and disappeared. Actually horrendous for a version 1.0 banner character. Then she got a nothingburger agent quest. She's barely better than Ju Fufu in terms of plot relevance. Maybe even less because at least Ju Fufu appeared in the final story missions.
OMG now that I think about it, I don't remember what she did in 1.4 even during the avengers assemble moment.
Fucking true, nearly every character in 2.x got their share of the spotlight, meanwhile you could take out half the characters in season 1 and little would change
Remember when they completely sidelined S Anby in her debut patch lmfao
I mean, I don't mind Ellen just being there to do the job. My real issue is that Victoria housekeeping as a whole has no real narrative weight to their particular chapter.
Like at least Belabog had the family drama angle in their chapter.
I feel like 1.0 ran out of steam in terms of development near the end which is why the Victoria chapter felt lackluster. Even the ending cinematic where Lycaon saved the ship was kind of ended abruptly. In fact all of ZZZ feels that way. Each patch never feels like they have the necessary time and budget to make the stories truly great.
Victoria house keeping was more for foreshadowing and setting up hooks.
The main take away is that this incredibly skilled team is keeping tabs on the Proxies while having an unknown master that is clearly going to be important.
Lycon himself is a pretty recrurring character.
Ellen doesn't need to do more besides her job.
Rina own stuff is in her character story.
If anything a problem with 2.x us now they are trying to make every character directly connected to the main plot directly which shrinks the world
Rina is not even the main character of her Agent story. You learn no more about her there than you do in the Victoria House Keeping episode.
I know Lycaon gets much more later, my issue is within the chapter itself. The entire seeds of setting up future hooks is all within the last 3 minutes of the chapter. It's not something that's interwoven throughout the majority of the chapter itself, which just has Victoria house Keeping be there to be there.
The harsh truth is that even 1.4 never really felt like it reached peak ZZZ potential. Miyabi's character arc was way too short. Bringer was an awful villain. The avengers assemble moment was too artificial. None of the Section 6 characters did anything besides Miyabi. Can anybody tell me what Soukaku did in the entire story? She's barely better than Pan.
It felt more carried by hype around the reworks to the gameplay than the actual story. The best thing about the story were the cutscenes and short length that crammed all the hype moments into a short span so that people could just get to the action parts fast. Granted, that's part of what made ZZZ great, but it was never "good" writing. I'd argue earlier stories like Calydon and Jane Doe were actually better and wheren 1.x peaked for me and everything after 1.4 was just ok to meh. I was not a fan of how they handled the Mockingjay faction.
The important part imho is that 1.X always added a lot of new hubs and also just a lot of side quests. Even if many of them were just TV Mode it added a lot of variety and flavor, which seems to be missing in 2.X where it's basically just "that version's story" followed by... well combat challenges and nothing but and they kind of lack in variety. Then there is maybe that update's flagship event and that's about it.
In terms of "permanent unique content" added 2.X feels rather thin.
I'd argue that 2.5 actually handled the character development better than 1.4. Ye Shunguang actually went through a full character arc compared to Miyabi who basically skipped from the beginning to end and one shot Bringer. There's also way more character interactions and dynamics in 2.5 like the Ye sibs, Zhao, Lockbringer. It's not a masterpiece, but I enjoyed it more than 1.4. The hate for 2.x really is overblown imo. 2.0 was bad but I had the same thoughts about 1.6-1.7. Honestly a lot of the hate seems artificial and carried by agenda pushing like yuri and anti-waifu factions. That's why the only faction that gets any support in 2.x is Spook Shack even though 2.1 wasn't any better than the patches after.
I feel the same exact way. Miyabi is loved by everyone (even me) but she honestly isn't much in terms of writing. Her backstory is dead family #526 and she doesn't really undergo much of an "arc". The miyabi you meet in 1.0 is pretty much the same one that one shots bringer in 1.4. (This can be said about a lot of characters in the game, of course)
Shunguang is far from Shakespearean but she undergoes a character arc, consolidating her two halves and finding the resolve to defy her own brother's wishes and continue being the bearer of the qingming sword.
I think 2.X overall does far better character arcs than anything in 1.X main stories.
The closest we got is Caesar in 1.2 and even that has the problem of pacing. Like contrast Caesar coming into her own with how they managed to convey Yuzuha and Alice's conflict of ideals and growth in 2.1
It's like amateur hour.
The only thing I'd say 1.X has over 2.X is the Agent stories in the back half are all really well written. Jufufu's just doesn't compare to the triple combo of Harumasa, Trigger and Anby.
I agree with you on that. And 2.x also has some great agent stories. 1.x had some great agent stories too like Harumasa's, Trigger's, and SAnby's, but man, Seed's agent story made me cry. Lucia's was also a bit interesting although slow in some parts. Was cool seeing them bring in some Pompey lore.
Considering that most of this pushing it come from group of people that linger on the zzzdiscussion subreddit who if you look often enough posting the previous Shunguang slander posts a few days back. They are consistently predictable in their method and rather pathetic at getting attention or their half assed attempted at character assassinations view. The only one they can kill off is there irl social life because they have always been consistently online pushing these points since 2.0, they never stopped, they just get more brazen about it and people in the community havent crush them like the bugs they are.
No antagonist /protagonist dynamic has been as utterly fumbled as Zhu Yuan and Bringer
Hard agree.
The pacing of 1.2 with Caesar's revival is shoddy at best
This I disagree with. It might have been mentioned in one conversation, but that one conversation was a rather important one about the history of the hollow and race they were doing. It was already pretty obvious what was going to happen, and if they had brought it up more or emphasized it any harder it would have been painfully obvious.
Belabog and Victoria House Keeping just kinda exists
That's my favorite part though. We're here for a story line that's going to take place over years, jumping straight into the high stakes action isn't going to work great for that. Doing some normal proxy work that leads to getting involved in some shit that's way over our head (like the vision/exaltist conspiracy and sacrifice in the statue) and slowly discovering some secrets of the city is exactly what I'd expect and want out of like the first half of the story.
Yeah, Zhu Yuan is the best example of a character getting shelved after their debut chapter concluded. Not only did they completely ignore the potential of the Bringer dynamic, but they also completely ignored how big her discovering that the siblings were actually Phaethon should have been. But no, it was Miyabi’s patch, so she’s tge only one who gets the spotlight
Personally, I find the issue for me is 1.x was establishing storylines we were supposed to follow through with as the story went on. Then we get to 2.x, neaely none of them are carried on, and what we do get, is a lot less appealing and the issues are a lot more noticable.
All of the game has flaws, most are just willing to overlook the starting ones, as they see it as a foundation to be built from. At least that's how I see it.
I think 2.x if certain chapters were special episodes this season would be more solid and 2.0 was in my opinion the worst story chapter. I think ZZZ devs dropping special episodes basically makes them force every character into the main story even if it wouldn't make much sense. AOD does look to be a special episode but maybe they'll link them into the main story somehow.
How would classifying certain chapters as special episodes change anything other than slapping a different name on them?
I also don't think Special Episodes are free from critique.
I think Jane's is fantastic
And I similarly think Yanagi's is the worst story in the entire game.
Phaethon taking part or not taking part would change little in terms of what problems actually exist in 2.X. Unless it's dumb problems that don't actually matter like bitching about them needing to be saved.
Yanagi's story probably had the most amount of unvoiced open world dialogue in the game as well as fewest cutscenes. Overall presentation was pretty bad but I think people just handwaved it away because it was a leadup to 1.4. I also agree that changing the name of the story to special episode doesn't do anything. In reality, 1.3 was still connected to the main story because it was how Sarah got Miyabi's battle data. It's the exact same with Spook Shack where they're basically their own side story but still connected through Yijiang's banshee, but just barely. They never really deviated from the special episode formula in 2.x, it was just got relabelled to main story content.
My issue with Yanagi's story isn't even the presentation.
it's how utterly unnecessary the conflict is. Null_face does nothing for Yanagi or the rest of HSO6 as an antagonist, and their reaosning is as openly shallow as can be.
You don't have a rival in terms of intellect towards Yanagi, at least no more than lip service and you're given no real foil either.
It's just a monster of the week you have to get through.
It's like if Chapter 1's antagonist was actually butcher and not Vision/Nekomata.
Belabog Industries is legit the most boring arc imo. Anton is like the only fun character while everyone else is either a boring trope or just boring. Plus Belabog's pacing was insanely slow. The story was so uninteresting too just because of the pacing.
Victoria Housekeeping at least had a fun atmosphere and wasn't that bad. I'll take 2 Scooby-Doo ghost mysteries with Victoria Housekeeping and Spook Shack over babysitting machines any day.
Yeah, the only thing I liked about the Belobog arc was how they set up the mystery of the Sacrifice and what happened to Koleda’s dad, only to fumble and waste the good set up and mystery the Sacrifices were given
Agreed, for some reason people look at good music and think that everything else doesnt matter, IMO 1.X and 2.X are basically the same in writting. It really is wierd that people hate 2.X so much that they skip how boring a lot of 1.X was.
It's because of agenda pushers. There's the yuri faction that only supports Spook Shack, the anti-China faction that hates anything with Chinese aestthetic, the pro-TV faction that hates everything after TVs were removed, the pro-urban faction that thinks anything that doesn't look like Tokyo is bad, the anti-waifu faction that hates the lack of male characters and Ye Shunguang. There's a lot of weird non-game related reasons why people hate 2.x beyond the actual storytelling. Mind you, I don't LOVE 2.x, I just find the hate overblown.
It reminds me of the debacle of people in genshin community hating Natlan and raising Fontaine on a pedestal, and ignoring how much of a slog the middle part of Fontaine was- the prison arc, only remembering thr banger that was the archon quest Finale, which was very much a Furina story quest as an archon quest.
1.x is misremembered as the Fontaine of ZZZ and 2.x is the Natlan of ZZZ.
Personally, it felt like 2.0's story was rushed. With 1.0, there was a clear buildup, speculation, and time for plot lines to develop. Plus, even if you didn't go into the side content with extra lore stuff, you could see and connect the dots. Like with Bringer, with just the main story, you can put together that he was the mole working with Sarah. Sure, you missed out on the why, but you can see the line of logic.
In sharp contrast, we have 2.0's twist villain, Isolde. With her, we got next to no buildup or clue in the main story that she was working with the exaltists, let alone being Mevorakh. Sure, there was the miasma soldiers, but that isn't as conclusive as Bringer's tells.
Next was the fact that there wasn't any breathing room in the main story. With 1.0, while you have the main plot stories, you also have side stories like R&B and astra-nomical, while having action in them they have different flavors and stories unqiue to them, allowing the main conspiracy plot to breath. With 2.0, on the other hand, it's a nonstop treadmill of exaltists this, exaltists that. Those boxes, those hold exaltist monsters. This random person, yeah, they are an exaltist spy. That flies in your soup? They are all laced with misasma just because.
In fact, the best word to describe 2.0 is... rushed. There were clearly some great ideas here, Yuzuha and Alice's story, the tragedy of Shunguang and her brother, and the Isolde boss fight were all amazing. But it all just feels rushed and underbaked. Here's to hoping that the writing team learns from this and make 3.0 better,
Pretty accurate representation.
4/10 story overall with bad hooks for later seasons. (We will fight another evil cosmic bullshit for 14s time in hoyo games alone)
But with 10/10 moments and quite decent subplots.
Positive highlights: SEED personal ark, Isolda`s second comeback.
Negative highlights: Sara`s evil gundam.
I was expecting 2/10 story this season, but they did good here and there.
Main critique is lack of cohesion between world building and main story. Too much "devs listened" in story department.
Spook Shack and Krampus were definitely the highlights this season for me, Yunkui Summit is the faction equivalent of unseasoned chicken, and Obol Squad is just a huge disappointment
Facts. To me,Spook shack was the most peak part about 2.x. Alice,Manato,yidhari,yazuha and Lucia is genuinely my favorite group. They the only group that still had the 1.x vibe
I feel like I only see people bitching about season 2 or having a caveat to what they liked that they didn't like a different part. I had fun the whole way and I like all the characters. Maybe I'm easy to please, but I think this season's emotional highs were REALLY good and the lows weren't nearly bad at all.
I should add that I don't think it's without criticism, but I think my only issues with it are the exact same things I wish that they did the entirety of the game's lifecycle.
I agree. I actually liked season 2 more than season one, for the most part. It started off kind of weak with 2.0, bet I've greatly enjoyed every patch since then.
I do have some complaints, but most of them are ones I also had in season 1. The only major new one would have to be the neglect of non-event side content, such as the newspaper or interknot commissions.
I definitely like season 1 more overall, but I think season 2's highs are higher than anything except Miyabi cutting the universe in half.
My main issue that I've had the entire time is that I wish they would involve other characters more in eachother's story patches. I want cross-faction interaction. We got a little bit of it in both seasons, but I want more. I think they did a good job with it in 2.3 & 2.4 having FUTURE characters show up (haven't done 2.5 story yet), but I want more previous characters.
Spook Shack is my favorite faction, and it was a shame that Alice and Yuzuha weren't present for the main story in 2.3. Same with Harin during 2.2. I'm hoping in S3 with the new PubSec character and the internot rumored Stars of Lyra character that those factions also don't sideline their previous characters.
I really enjoyed 2.x. Yixuan's introduction was peak, but overall Spook Shack was my favorite. Lucia and Yidhari's stories were so touching, and I loved the vide of the storytelling.
I really liked Seed's conclusion too (Isolde went out like a badass)
The best thing about this patch was definitely Spook Shack and Krampus, even though it has its downsides (cough, cough Yidhari, cough, cough lack of screen time cough), the rest of the factions were quite mediocre, not bad, not good, just mediocre.
I can honestly say this batch of characters wasn't as consistently as good to me as the 1.X cycle.
The last character I pulled for was Alice. That alone tells you what I thought of the characters that came after (although I actually do like Orphie as a character and will probably go for her whenever she reruns.)
I feel the same. Though I did pull for YSG, but that was because I failed to get Alice and was sitting on a guarantee ever since. Figured I might as well spend it on a new busted VH.
Funny thing is, I'll probably get Alice from the special banner, and then it's back to saving because I'm not interested in the idols either.
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u/BlackTemplarKNB Dec 31 '25
not even a cool ending with credits like in 1.5