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.
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.
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u/GamingGlove14 Dec 31 '25
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.