I did not expect this video to be nearly a hour long, but it is what it is lmao. I’ve always felt this way about a lot of these story quests in Genshin Impact and now that almost 2 people are watching me in real-time, I can now express my opinions about them.
Background Music Used:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b542mwVVJzg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N2EeZ3oWrw&t=52s
Discord: https://discord.gg/azzhJ24KeP
#genshinimpact #yelan #storyquest
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I'm seeing comments addressing Dehya and Kazuha's Story Quests and it burns me because I WAS going to talk about them in this video but I literally forgot ☠☠☠So I'll just say my opinion here. Kazuha's story quest, was indeed garbage. I don't know why the fuck we're apparently in Jojo Part 3 trying to figure out about a talking sword, but as far as I can remember, Kazuha's story quest was done mad dirty because the SAME time it released, the GAA event with Kazuha's island gave us an arguably better story quest for him alone, it actually explored his past. Then we complete Kazuha's story quest, and it gives us a sword, that doesn't even fucking work on Kazuha, Hoyoverse had ONE job bro ☠☠
And I'm not going to talk about Dehya for too long because once again, character's damage will get lower and lower but for as much as I clown on Dehya, her story quest was indeed good, and surprised me since it surrounded her with NPCs that were once affiliated with her and along with them, Dehya learns more about her father and both of their pasts and how she was actually adopted. It was a good story quest.
Maybe because i haven't double checked for year but yae storyline with his yokai friend implied that there was going to be a commute pretty "soon TM" which my mind associated with the event of yokai thingies so thats why at least for me excused the yae story line because something came out of it, and that festival made the yokais more friendly and kirara etc etc but i could be wrong
14:37 finally someone understands my pain… release us from this suffering… we r slave to paimon…
these npc story quests is the reason why i don't wanna touch kazuha's story quest and he is my favorite character. like his entire story with his clan was explored in a FUCKING LIMITED EVENT AND WHY TF IS HIS FATHER AND ANSESTOR IS NPC?????????
also some of the hangouts r pretty good. like beidou's. do u know the meaning of her name?
also i tell u hsr treats their characters better story wise. in main quests 2 major characters get character development and form a bond as they didn't trust each other before. 1 character shares something about their brother tht we didn't learn from main story. even the one tht wasn't as emotionally driven still had some wholesomness as a child character sold her teddy bear to buy present for her dad as the dad did the same. another story tht reveales tragig past of4 friends and one of them is in a main group tht travels with us
in genshin i skip paimon and npcs' dialogs but in hsr i read everything and npcs r less annoying for some i even feel bad for. ALSO HSR ALLOWS US TO BE PIECE OF SHIT TO NPCS ITS' GREAT!
This 44 minute video summed up my feelings about the story quest perfectly
31:00 GOAT 😂
unrelated but Gorou hitting 5k perfectly at 10:29, made me cream. I love seeing perfectly numbered damage.
doesnt tighnari mention the robot thing in one of his voicelines (dont quote me on this i dont have bim😢)
I think they are fine though. Its not like we came to their house, sipping some tea and be like "tell me your life story". (What kind of idiot would do that?) Most of the time we just encounter them doing their own thing while we are traveling and decides to come along. We see their personality in the ways they do things in the present, what moves them and give them joy and giving you wonder whether she experienced something like this before which deepens the character. If you really want to know you can ask them in their character profile. Example is hutao. You wouldnt know that she got some beef with baizhu unless you read her character profile about him or do baizhu story quest because they have some interaction in them.
i do agree in a way … all the story quests you mentioned as bad are the ones i speedrun lol …even tho i tried to pay attention to Ayatos one i still found it not that fullfilling … like at the end i was like what about Ayatos storyyy T T … it was ok as a story to see how Ayato manages conflicts but where his story, where his struggles, he has such an interesting past …come on … ugh … and not mention Miko and hear cool background that was not explored oof
The biggest takeaway of writing character stories in this game is,
It should be a story about the character
Not a story with the character just in it
This video was basically made for me. I have thought these exact things for so long. Nilou's is by far the worst. If they had just swapped it so it was her dad that was the scholar dude it would have made it ten times better.
Venti story quest is peak because it got me sad for a random guy stanley who has been there since the beginning
I also feel like the "story quest" are annoying bec ghey all look the same like itf they had unique designs i feel like they would lowkey make then better
I feel crazy because I found Itto's quest god-awful in terms of writing, emotional aspects and motivation
Which has killed my motivation to read any other story quest
I Honestly don’t know how to feel abt Navias story quest either. I really like her character, and even though we learned a lot from her alone in the main quests, we learned more about the people she’s leading and how she wanted to keep her parents memories alive.
Though I feel like hoyo really pushed the idea of Navia liking the traveler…i was honestly surprised when the traveler actually spoke in the end because they usually only speak in important cutscenes in the main archon quests or wtv. Idk I feel like it kind of ruined the vibe and made it sound more like fanservice 😅 at first I didn’t like Navia at all because she kept calling us “partner” and we just met her lol. But then I started to sympathize with her story, but again the end of her story quest felt so forced, like did that really need to be there…😭
Yapping Impact
Genshin has a weird fixation with random NPCs yapping on and on even though their main selling point are the playable characters. Also, The Chasm is probably the only quest where the playable characters interact and banter with each other instead of an NPC talking about how their left ass cheek is bigger.
One point of disagreement: While a character may have a great backstory, those can't usually be the subject of a story quest, because we are the Traveler, here, today, in the present.
You can't have an entire story quest of flashbacks with nothing for MC to do. Yes, you can sometimes have someone from their past show up with a new problem that reveals their old story, but there's only so many ways you can contrive a good plot using that.
Furina's quest was barely saved. I was so excited to play her quest because I was really invested in her life after being exposed. But they sidelined her for a random NPC that we don't even get to see. Sure, there are some good moments here and there and that final song and cutscene was pretty good but why is a character getting sidelined by NPCs. Just have the NPC one have a world quest and just lemme spend that time with the pretty water woman
Haven't seen anyone talk about Yoimiya's second story quest, but it is definitely my top (not one of but the top top). The little girl in the wheelchair, the shooting stars and how we had to tell a well intentioned lie to preserve dreams, the lens, the aranara all tied her character together beautifully. Although we didn't learn anything new about her, I do love how the quest is like an embodiment of who she is as a person. Seeing the little girl get out of her wheelchair and run was also very emotional.
I think a major issue with story quests is that (from my memory) they always take place in modern day. So we never really get to see characters develop because they’ve technically already gone through their challenges. I think it would be great that instead of random domains for character trials, maybe change it up to be use experiencing something from their past. Ex: let’s say that traveler goes to talk to a character and they end up talking about their past. Instead of just reading what happened we would go into a challenge where we play as that character and experience what happened.
Finally someone talks about it,the new ones are kinda better but there’s still room for improvement
icl i stopped caring about the story a while ago
The story issues you talk about are what made me quit during the original Eula banner, and not play again until Furina came out.
To me, the biggest problem is that there's too many characters who share similar backgrounds and motivations. This results in the great breadth of characters having extremely shallow depth. You could easily combine Barbara + Fischl + Mona, or Jean + Lisa + Rosaria, or even Ganyu + Keqing + Yanfei into a single character with a complete story arc and unique personality. Instead, individual characters cannibalise each others' development because too many plot points, backstories, and lessons are shared between them.
NPCs can be used to direct the story and focus on the character in question; unfortunately, in many cases, the NPC or conflict is centered on the NPCs in a story without meaning or repercussions for others.
Fontaine quest are better now, one good example is Furina quest:
The NPC's story is interesting because it relates to something we did in the past. The NPC's story mirrors Furina, and this makes her change, or we can learn more about her. In the end, the NPC and the character we care about have a resolution that supports the character future story.
Yet another person who completely misses the point of NPCs in story. This isn't even a Genshin thing, this is just storytelling 101 and as you consume more stories from other media you should notice this.
its piamon right
I feel they improved a lot with the more recent ones. Mind you I rarely cry, but Neuvillette’s story quest made me tear up and love him even more as a character.
Some of these stories would definitely work more as 'flashbacks' that go through their past lore and you play as THEM the whole way through. Too bad this isn't what they chose. I'd imagine going this path would probably lock you into the quest so maybe that's one of the reason why they didn't
genshin is about players spending money who in the hoyoverse cares what we think.i know i have a 5 star character named albedo but wasn't it Cryo nuns story, Where is the story of albedo stabbing himself, who tf is albedo ,isn't the old event story quest is the original archon level teyvat quest. I'm going to quit genshin as they can't even provide a proper story for the characters .why even play the game if we can't get any kind of entertainment from it.
its fun when you realize World quests are more entertaining than Story quests
After all this time they haven't listened to the players complaints about Paimon screeching and completely dominating the dialogue with stupid and rude remarks in every.single.relevant.event. Even though they have good VA's for Aether/Lumine. I have no hope for character quests when the protagonist is the silent sidekick in their own game.
AYATO ACT 2 WHEN…??
Well maybe you can play with japanese voice and dont suffer bullshit bad VAs.
the way you simp yelan is almost as deranged as the way i simp wanderer
tf 12:08 mean btw
My MAIN issue with genshin and honkai by proxy is that just how the dialogue is written I would be so much happier if I could actually skip through lines once I read it instead of being forced to wait for the NPC to cross their arms so I can go the next scene
i see some people in the comments stating that "characters' story is about their past and traveler wasn't there" and i'd like to argue that its not the best argument in this situation. having characters story being flat out written without anything surrounding it is boring. as a person who can barely concentrate on quests, this is even worse. plus from what ive heard its a genuinely nad way of telling a story.
besides, hsr while also being a hoyoverse game does it in a much better way. i havent completed ALL the companion missions, but the ones that i have completed explore the character's past in a really nice way. ones that do not do that are still good (hook's cm made me CRY) and they don't try to be all about npcs or whatever.
anyway, yes, showing npcs is also important but it can be done much better. as a fellow xavier lover, i feel like this guy should be in at least someone's sq. and i genuinely like how he has multiple quests and then appears in an event and actually builds relationships with playable characters. may all of the npcs be like him lol
What really was so disrespectful for Ayato's character, was that he was not a part of the Inazuma story at all, He was introduced last out of the 2.x Inazuma characters, and they decided to give him That travesty of a story quest. These writers clearly didn't care about him and you can see from that whole anti-Ayato debacle the general issues people think about him. If the writers don't care about him, why should we?
Thank U for addressing this – my boy Ayato deserves so much better than his intro event and character mission being about whole ass other people
I think story quests are a little limited to the setting. they’re only rlly set in the current/future since we can’t really time travel.. but hearing about their past in these quests with cool cutscenes would be great.
another thing, there’s way too many date quests. or quests that despite involving the character, don’t feel like they truly represent the character. ganyus for example- she had this whole cool thing about being insecure and not feeling like she fits in with humans or adepti because she’s neither fully human nor adepti.
then they threw that away and she only returned because some npc’s couldn’t handle her work load.. give her a break man she obviously needs it
a lot of others are basically just date quests. no cool story. just dates. kokomi, ayaka, and ei’s first as some examples I can think of
another thing, I wish more story quests thought about these characters interactions with other characters instead of only npc’s- like kazuha’s, I think his quest was good as it helped us learn about his ancestors, with the sentient sword and such. and, this might partly be bc I love heizou and the ship of kazuhei, but I would’ve loved to see him there too. in the arc where we were basically doing detective work- since it’s canon that they’ve helped eachother with investigation type stuff
This is why ittos character quest was is and will be my favourite ever character quest. God i love that guy
chat i think he may like yelan like a little bit maybe im just throwing darts here but i think he
honkai star rails quests goated fr
yoimiya’s second story quest is perfect example of a good story quest, you get to know more about how she thinks, her dreams, and how her personality shines throughout the whole quest
To be honest, they have alot of good NPC Story chain quest that are interesting, but hoyoverse didnt even think of using voice actors on this "unique" quest (like the ghost child in inazuma, the aranara quest, fontain prison kid escape and the fontain bubble boy knights) if they just going to make stand there and read the whole content. Then they should just hire some minor voice actors or a skip button
I feel like the Story Quests got a bit better now in fontaine,personally i really liked neuvillette and Lyney's story quests