#'genshin would never' but really most gacha games would never

[undyinglantern]

hsr hasnt even been out for a year yet and theyre already giving everybody a free limited 5 star. amazing.

[maybeamiles]

Hot gacha game take: but a good gacha shouldn't be afraid to get a little freaky with their characters. Put a furry in there. Give a man a very visible zipper on his pants. Let the characters be weird and unconventionally attractive

[noxinara]

Obey Me! Brothers and what kind of games I think they'd play

this is a very biased list (and long post) based off of games that I've played before :) (jk its really not biased, just games I think they would play!) I made this because I couldn't sleep last night and had brain worms-- Will probably make one for the dateables sometime soon, but this list is just the brothers!

Lucifer

Traditional Board Games.

There have been MANY times where he's been playing various board games with you, Diavolo, and Simeon.

Gets VERY competitive over games like Sorry!, Monopoly, Trouble.... Candy Land???

Will only let Diavolo win.

Shows no mercy to anyone else, including you. Sorry, love.

Card Games.

Particularly amazing at Poker. He would not let Mammon know this... until you guys have an in-house Poker night and he literally takes all??? Has the best poker face you've ever seen.

Won't even let you guys beat him at Uno or Go Fish. Boooooooo.

Puzzle Games.

I could see Luci being very good at Tetris for some reason?

One time Levi challenged him to the game to try and get out of going to RAD one day...

Let's just say he had to go to RAD that day and also had to stay over on cleaning duty. Courtesy of getting absolutely DESTROYED.

Controversial Pick: Rhythm Games.

I could 100000% see Luci tearing up some OSU! But only when all of the brothers are asleep and he's completed most of his work.

They help him unwind.

...Was that rhythmic tapping you heard when walking by his office late one night..? Interesting.

You saw him wearing Levi's VR headset playing Beat Saber one day.

No, you will NOT bring it up and you will NOT let him know of that video you took.

Oh. You posted it on Fab Snap?

Good luck. You're gonna need it.

Mammon

Gambling Games/Apps.

Where I live you can just gamble from home because it's legal to have and play gambling apps?

He would have SO many on his D.D.D. They're taking up so much of his storage space.

Plays them a lot when you're around because he thinks that you're his good luck charm.

He also goes on a lot of Horse Racing and Sports Betting sites...

It got so bad that Lucifer had to figure out how to IP block him from these. it doesn't stop him--

Gacha Games.

Has absolutely insane luck for some reason??? Only on gacha games, tho.

Has definitely played Genshin Impact and Honkai Starrail because of Levi.

He got those 5 star and Ultra Rare pulls he wanted in his first 1-10 pulls? But you? It took you over 100 pulls to get what you wanted. WTF?????

You swear he must be cheating the system somehow. There is NO WAY.

Racing Games.

Particularly the ones that you can have a full racing setup for.

He's splurged thousands of Grimm on this.

Gran Turismo? Forza? F1? iRacing? He has them all.

He is VERY picky about who he lets touch his decked out setup... He'll let you use it any time you want, though. :) You're his treasure, ofc

Controversial Pick: Old School MMOs

Definitely played Old School RuneScape or Black Desert Online or Classic WoW and created gold farming empires.

Doesn't even do end game content, he's just a guild leader making bank off the work of his members.

He probably hosts fun events though.

Would definitely be the kind of guy that makes up scavenger hunts/fashion shows/trivia nights/etc. and gives out sick prizes...

Might also rig these to make sure you or his officers win the best prizes. How sweet.

Leviathan

He is literally THE gamer.

There probably isn't a single genre of game he hasn't played.

His favorite games are definitely MMORPGs and Visual Novels/Dating Sims/Bishojos/Gal games.

Could see him as a raid lead in all of the biggest MMOs like WoW, FFXIV and GW2.

He also 100% visits the degenerate RP server places like Moon Guard's Goldshire and Balmung's Quicksand.

He's definitely not a BLUSHING MESS and rushing to close his game if you catch him in one of these places!!! He would never go there!!! Oh... you want to join him? DEFINITELY NOT.

He would get too jealous of anyone daring to look at you to even let you breath in the vicinity of these degen realms.

He's also done plenty of MMO Ironman challenges and was one of the first people to complete Classic Hardcore WoW entirely solo. Didn't even group for dungeons. What a MAN.

Bishojo/Gal games are his guilty pleasure, how could they not be?

He gets all the waifus with none of the jealousy, right???

What do you mean he picks the same one every time? He can't just cheat on them MC!!

Loves JRPGs and Soulslike games.

Has definitely beaten Elden Ring more times than he can count. Knows literally all of the ins, outs, and secrets and is eagerly anticipating the DLC.

Has probably played every single Final Fantasy game and beaten them all. Would very much have a soft spot for FF4, FF7, and FF9.

Could definitely see him playing MOBAs and 4x strategy/Grand strategy games.

He's not the Grand Admiral of Hell's Navy for nothin'. He knows strategy games like the back of his hand.

The only brother that ever rivals him in strategic knowledge is Satan. (and Lucifer, but we're talking about GAMES here.)

He spends countless hours on League of Legends.

He mains JG/Mid and gets very toxic.

Has favorite characters, but honestly just plays whatever is in meta.

Owns every skin for Ahri, Lux, Katarina, Evelynn, and Akali.

He's definitely in Challengers.

Would 100% make a Smurf account if you wanted to play and would duo bot with you.

He'd play ADC and do anything to protect you, his loving support.

Would not be toxic in your games (unless you are too).

Faker who???

Controversial pick: Casual Mobile Games

Played Flappy Bird all the time when it was popular, still has a cracked copy on his D.D.D... I don't think anyone is beating his high score.

He's got a ridiculous amount of hours on Candy Crush, Angry Birds, and Fruit Ninja.

Would throw his D.D.D into his fish tank and have Henry 2.0 guard it before he'd ever let you catch him on one of these 'normie' games...

But... he secretly likes them so much.

Satan

Hear me out, Satan would be a SUCKER for CYOA (Choose-your-own-adventure)/IF (Interactive Fiction) text games.

Would have Choice of Games, Hosted Games, and Heart's Choice hidden on his D.D.D.

He LOVES immersing himself in story games and creating various MCs.

Oh, look! An RO that reminds him of you? Don't mind him self-inserting.

Probably has character sheets made for his favorite MCs. 

Will play through his favorite stories many, many times.

It all started with Choice of the Deathless and now he owns every game on each platform? (I'm jealous)

Also goes on Dashing Don... What do you MEAN author hasn't finished this story yet? AAAA-

Detective/Mystery/Escape Rooms Games.

I don't think any explanation is needed here. It's just who he is.

Would definitely get all of his brothers (minus Lucifer) together to do a virtual escape room... Unfortunately, it became so chaotic they never finished it. Oh well.

Once played Phasmophobia with Levi, Beel, and Belphie. Was very proud of himself for figuring out the ghost... Definitely did not sacrifice his brothers for the info.

Life Sims.

Specifically ones that let you own or are centered around cats.

Has played every single Sims game and bought their cat and dogs expansions.

Definitely did NOT recreate you and himself with 6 cute cats!!!

He did NOT get the mod that extends household size so that you two could own 97 cats. He wouldn't do that, no way!!!

...Was there actually a baby in the household, too..? Why did it have his hair and your eyes...? SATAN?!?!

you know the Catz DS game? He owned every single version and will NOT let you touch them... Okay. Maybe he gave into letting you touch them, but ONLY when he's supervising!

Very much enjoys RTS Games.

He's scarily good at games like StarCraft Brood Wars/2, the Age of Empires franchise, or Rise of Nations.

He's also gotten into 4x games like Stellaris and Civ. Thanks, Levi.

Don't try and challenge him, he can beat the hardest bots and WIN... THE BOTS LITERALLY CHEAT.

HOW DOES HE DO IT? 

Controversial Pick: Fighting Games

Specifically games like Guilty Gear, Street Fighter, Tekken, BlazBlue, etc. Courtesy of Levi again. Thanks, Levi.

It helps him temper his wrath.

He'll sometimes play Mortal Kombat just for the finishers?? Why is he this way?

He could spend hours learning all the combos and tech of his favorite characters.

Has created himself some tech books and would only show them to you, esp. if you showed interest in learning the games with him!

I could see him and Levi settling disputes by doing best 3 out of 5 1v1s against each other.

Could see him maining Giovanna or Leo from GGST? Tends to prefer rushdown characters. (this one is completely biased, i named my cat after Giovanna from GG--)

Asmodeus

Dress-up/Fashion/Stylist Games.

SuitU, Love Nikki, Covet Fashion - you name it.

He has all of them on his D.D.D and will shell out major Grimm to get any outfit he likes.

Might try to make the outfits he gets in these games for himself and you, because you're the perfect model!

Has a lot of fun with it and might try and talk you into playing with him.

Will definitely post amazing outfits he makes in-game on Devilgram. Will also post countless photos and videos of you two modeling those outfits he brings to life.

...NSFW/Eroge Games.

Not gonna go into detail on these ones because you already know what I mean.

Enjoys playing those games that haunt the front pages of my Steam.

Would proudly play them in front of you to laugh at how ridiculous they are sometimes (as long as you're 18+)

Like Satan, I could see him enjoying Life Sims...

Unlike Satan, it's not because he wants animals.

Plays games like the Sims, Stardew Valley, and Sun Haven.

Self-inserts himself and will romance EVERYONE.

Has the mods where you can marry every single villager and the bed mod that makes your bed MASSIVE so all your husbands and wives can sleep with you.

Made a Sims save with just himself romping around town... No sim is safe from Asmo.

Also has a Sims save with you and him that he openly enjoys more. It has both of you enjoying that Sims Nightlife as celebrities and living in a MASSIVE mansion he custom decorated.

Will also play any Visual Novel/Dating Game that is recommended to him by Levi.

Bonus points if it never shows the MC so he can self-insert himself.

Controversial pick (in this case, not really): VR Games

Specifically things like VRChat or Chillout VR.

Would be extraordinarily popular and have custom avatars of HIMSELF made with so many toggles that it'll make your head spin.

He would always be hanging out in night club or bar worlds.

Occasionally Mammon joins him.

Sometimes he also invites you to join him~! (Would not like it if people started hanging all over you, tho, and would probably bring you to a hot home world with just you and him if that happened...)

Beelzebub

Sports games.

No doubts about this one.

Could definitely see him playing FIFA or Madden.

Levi thinks these are SUPER normie games and is offended to have them in the house.

Beel doesn't care.

Ooo, they made a game of Fangol?!?! He becomes an expert so fast, you have no idea. Would 100% teach you how to play with him.

Loves Cooking Games or Food-themed Games...

He just can't play them for long, however.

One time you got him to play Cooking Mama with you, Luke, Simeon, and Solomon but you had to stop because he got so hungry that he was trying to eat the television????

Would have to bring in MANY snacks and vow to make dishes from the games if you wanted to play these with him around... Which is a shame because he genuinely enjoys them. 

I could see him loving Multiplayer Party/Minigame Games like Mario Party or WarioWare.

You mean he gets to play silly mini games with all of his favorite people?

He doesn't care if he wins, he just loves having you guys around.

Almost always comes in last place when he's playing with you, Belphie, and Levi but that's okay. The faces you guys make when you get your stars are worth it.

Controversial pick (and I mean this one is VERY controversial): FPS games

Now, I know what you're thinking. Beel is a gentle giant and wouldn't play these types of games...

But! I could see him forming 5 stacks with you and his brothers in games like CS2 and Valorant and being scarily good because of his amazing hand-eye coordination and reaction times?

Like he and Levi could easily carry you guys to high Asc/Low Immortal lobbies.

He would just play fill when everyone's around, but his mains would be Kay-O and Breach.

He would always be the initiator in Counter-Strike, following Levi's IGL calls perfectly.

He would also probably love playing games like Squad or Modern Warfare or Battlefield with all of his brothers, you + the dateables.

Belphie

Our resident Horror Game lover.

They give him ideas on how to prank his brothers dreams.

Once made Mammon go through Outlast in his dreams (nightmares??).

You better run, little pig.

But he genuinely enjoys them... When he can stay awake through them.

Hey, you, why don't you just play for him?

Loved playing through games like Amnesia... Unfortunately for you, his love for puzzle psychological horror probably contributed to how he acted in Act 16 OM--

Loves Psychological Dramas and those Interactive Media Games.

You know. The ones where you're combing through footage or watching videos and making choices to find out the hidden/deeper/darker meanings?

He LOVES those.

Usually has you or his brothers playing for him. It's most likely Satan.

You all get equally invested.

Idle Games.

He can run these while he's asleep.

There's nothing more to be said. 

These are the simplest type of games there are....

He's probably got a cookie empire.

Has a soft spot for Kart Racing Games.

Will regularly be in the room when you, Levi, Beel or Mammon are playing.

He's honestly pretty good at them??

When he's not falling asleep behind the wheel that is.

Controversial pick: Auto Battlers

These are games like TFT, Hearthstone Battlegrounds, and DOTA's Auto Chess.

He naps in between rounds and wakes up in 20s increments to prepare for his turn... Why does he have the timing down to a tee???

You're sure you've even seen him pick perfectly in his sleep??? How does he do it?????

Regularly comes in the Top 4, usually first or second.��

What do you mean he's a Challenger TFT player??? Wtf how???

Will not coach you if you ask, but you're free to watch!

Will definitely cuddle with you the whole time he's playing these.

All Brothers, with a bonus YOU!

I could honestly see them ALL enjoying CRPGs as a group.

They always get the mods that let you increase your party size.

Went through Baldur's Gate 3 with you on your recommendation.

They all fought over who would get to play Astarion and Mammon won?!?!

Satan got Gale

Beel got Karlach

Levi was Laz'ael

Lucifer was Wyll

Belphie got Shadowheart

And Asmo made a Dark Urge Bard that looked exactly like himself????

He literally doesn't even make any Dark Urge decisions.

He doesn't want blood staining his clothes. 😔

You got to choose whatever you wanted though!

You took the Dark Urge from Asmo and he just played a normal, flirty bard with impeccable fashion sense.

This playthrough took MONTHS and MONTHS... but you all had a blast!

Literally.

You cannot count the number of times Satan 'accidentally' hit you with fire balls. (He claims he was aiming for Lucifer.)

Lucifer somehow ended up getting you all the luckiest ending? How did he roll 3 nat 20s?????

You're on to play Divinity: Original Sin II next...

Satan has already claimed Fane.

[gacha-incels]

you’re never going to have a real conversation about racism, colorism, misogyny, pedo-pandering etc in regards to gacha if you’re looking at one single game, especially a relatively new one. like anything, this will be a superficial look at these problems with no understanding of root causes. this has been most apparent when users will say “don’t play X gacha, play Y gacha instead.” these are industry-wide problems. you’re not doing anyone any favors pretending otherwise. I’m not saying this because I love or hate any of these games, I don’t really care, I’m not coming into conversations about this with the mindset of a “fan”. You need to objectively look at the function of these games in the society from which they come and the relation they have with their target market. Your frame of mind needs to be out of “fandom” mode to do this. You need to understand the target market these games try to reach and their reputation in their country of origin. The games are technically “free” - the consumer is not paying for the story, music, worldbuilding, etc. they are paying large amounts of money (for actual big spenders, thousands per month) to gamble for singular characters, so in turn these characters’ designs must reflect what the consumer most desires to an extreme extent- and this is of course informed by a lifetime’s worth of societal conditioning (media/advertising/gov/etc) and the prejudices that entails. essentially, because everything is banking on selling these characters, the designs are a direct reflection of the consumerbase who in turn are reflections of the society they’ve been conditioned by. they get shown what they want to see and expect to see what they get shown in what eventually becomes a feedback loop that enforces itself, this isn’t unique to gacha (though it’s extremely visible), you can see this happening in other forms of media as well. for something more benign, an example is in US media the eagle’s cry was replaced by the more dramatic sounding red tailed hawk because that’s what viewers expected it to sound like, and after seeing so much media where the eagle is associated with the hawk sound clip this falsity became reality to them through this “movie magic”. It doesn’t matter what reality is, it matters what the viewer’s perception of reality is. Power produces reality. media like this is used not so benignly. this is why good representation in media is fought for, there’s the ability to have a huge effect on a populace, also why “all art is political” it’s who greenlites it, who funds it, who hosts it, where is it shown, who sees it, etc this is all politics. all of this is related.

I would say the average gacha design/character doesn’t want to challenge anything but use the signifiers of contemporary stereotypes already rigidly in place to flatter the consumer’s already held beliefs- and typically it boils down to this is the “demure” (most often East Asian) girl who will fuck you, this is the “exotic” (most often generic fantasy SWANA-like stereotyped) girl who will fuck you, this is the “motherly” girl who will fuck you, this is the “little girl” who will fuck you, this is the “angry” girl that says she hates you but you still own, this is your “cool bro” who is designed to not make men feel uncomfortable. by doing this they are also entering the feedback loop of, for example, racial stereotyping, so this absolutely isn’t to say these designs are harmless.. one year thigh straps are in, one year bare feet are in, one year tech accessories are in, every year racism is in, every year misogyny is in. If you’re coming into this thinking a game like Genshin is leading the pack in any of these areas besides being an open world game and its UI you’re kidding yourself. There are thousands of these games, they’ve been coming out since like 2012 with Puzzle & Dragons, LL:SIF was huge on this website when Nozomi was the designated “thick” anime girl (plus ça change), FGO started in back 2015 and continues to reach new heights of pedophilic design and racism each day. The reason why you will sometimes see riskier design choices in music, NPCs, side stories, background design is that no one is paying to gamble for those things.

[multifandomlandfill]

All the people who say if Death Note took place today Light would be financially ruined by Genshin/Gacha games/similar things are wrong. If Death Note took place today he'd be obsessed with competitive Microsoft Excel.

He'd treat it with the same seriousness as the tennis match and his murder spree, and he'd be ridiculously good at it. Regional champion at least, but possibly one of the best in the world. Except...there is one detective who never sleeps and is incredibly fast on a keyboard...his arch enemy, the one person who could defeat him.

The Kira case happens the same as in canon except any time they have to analyze a large amount of data on the killings or cross reference anything, it's the most competitive, psychosexual, spreadsheet-making known to man. They have to do monologues and show montages of the sheets because Light and L are so extra about it it's unavoidable.

From the perspective of the rest of the task force, they just make lovely spreadsheets really fast and it's convenient and takes a lot of work off of Matsuda's shoulders, at least. They have no idea about the battles waged over formulas and color coding, how quickly the data can be entered, and how streamlined the use.

[crystallinestars]

Wow, it’s such a relief to find people who don’t like Haikaveh either. Was really disappointed when I read Sethos’s voiceline.. I am bisexual and I think that Haikaveh (along with many other pairings) is queerbaiting and some type of fetish. I’ve made a long written analysis on why I think it is and how I think it’s offensive, simply because I find it interesting and enjoy analyzing things. Really love their duo and they’re great parallels but they fit a sibling / platonic soulmate duo better than a romantic one 🤦‍♀️ It’s getting annoying at this point and I wish Hoyoverse would stop, but it earns them attention and money so why would they? Just want to enjoy my favorite character without him being used as an accessory for another. Disappoints me that other gay people don’t notice (or care) that they are being stereotypical themselves and that Hoyoverse is basically using our sexualities for accessories and money. Haven’t looked into the translation thing with Sethos’s voiceline but if it’s true it was more neutral in CN, then that’s interesting. The same Haikaveh defenders will yap about how “CN is the original!1!1!1” but if you bring something like this translation up they lose it. Hoyoverse has never been a “gay representation” company, it’s a queer-baiting one. 🤦‍♀️ But at the same time, I don’t really even care. I’m not a gay person who cares much about my sexuality or others, but things like this are frustrating. Wish there were more people who understand my view on why I think their presentation is harmful.

- 🪷 / 🪽

Hello 🪷/🪽 Anon! (Let me know if you want to go by both emojis or just one) Welcome to our small club of not being into Haikaveh (or most Hoyoverse queer ships).

I agree with you that Kaveh and Haitham have a very sibling/platonic dynamic. In fact, their bickering reminds me a lot of my younger siblings’ bickering, so I view them as brothers, as well. It’s just unfortunate that the fandom rejects any interpretation that’s not romantic.

I also wish Mihoyo would stop, but they’re obsessed with tossing ship crumbs, and only to the most popular ships. As you said, it makes them money, so they have no reason to stop.

There is definitely some queerbaiting in Genshin, but I would say it’s not as bad as in HSR. HSR sometimes made me very uncomfortable with the fetishization of some of their ships, and I wondered if a man wrote it for a straight male audience…

Mihoyo has always had a history of wanting to include same-sex pairings in their games. Honkai Impact 3rd has a confirmed lesbian MC, and also two other female characters who canonically kiss (but due to updated laws in China, they had to remove that scene).

It doesn’t surprise me that they want to do similar things in Genshin and HSR, but they never commit to the ships. They only tease and hint at them, ala “There might be something between these characters, but also not really, but what if…?” and this is pretty much exclusive to same-sex pairings. This teasing and hinting makes the fandom so much worse to be in. Lots of other gacha games don’t do this, but for whatever reason, Mihoyo does.

I suspect some of the employees working on the game may be queer or have a huge interest in BL and GL (though it’s probably a mix of both), which is why they make all these ship crumbs. There’s nothing wrong with having queer relationships in games and other media, but the way they go about it feels… fetishizing, I guess? It doesn’t feel genuine. I can’t quite put my finger on what feels so off about this. You would know about this far more than me since you analyzed this already, so if you have interpretations you want to add, I’ll gladly hear you out.

It sucks because they market their games as being for all audiences, but then do things with a heavy bias for certain ships. It makes it so difficult to enjoy characters the way you want when the developer and fandom constantly shove in your face that your favorite character has an implied relationship or some other such thing.

Regarding the Sethos voiceline… my friend in China, who also dislikes Haikaveh, complained to me about it the other day. She said the original Chinese text felt like it was implying something between Kaveh and Haitham. Of course, that is just her personal interpretation, and some people don’t see a deeper meaning behind the words. However, it goes to show that even the Chinese audience can tell something is up with the voiceline, so it might not be as neutral as we hoped.

I’m all for more media having queer rep, but Mihoyo doesn’t do it right. I really wish I could just play their games without having ship teasing slapped in my face, but alas, they won’t ever change. At this point, it’s better to not play any of their games (though maybe Tears of Themis can stay) and ditch the fandoms for your peace of mind.

[cinnamonest]

I know nothing about Persona let alone Goro Akechi but after reading the bsf and yan profile post I want to give this man a hug (and my tits). His story seems so sad ;-; and he's so pretty and for what?? 💢

Honestly, as much as I enjoy genshin I never truly found it to have any meaningful or extremely well written characters (which is not a bad thing, I just can't take them seriously when they all look like that lmao). All credit to making me think twice about them goes to writers and artists in the fandom. So the change in content feels soooooo nice. Made me appreciate your writing in another way

I've heard about Persona a LOT for years, but I didn't have a huge drive to play it until your liveposting (p.s I love the LP so much) and especially the posts with that one insane policeman guy who is a loser (affectionate, also giving him my pussy). Any recs? 😅

HE IS MY BABY BOY you're so right he is so pretty 😖😖😖 Akechi is genuinely an excellently written character, and Persona 5 Royal is one of the few games I think fully deserves to be so hyped as it is.

Tbh I think the problem genshin and similar games has is that there's so many characters, you have to essentially go out of your way to dig into lore to get anything beyond surface level from them. This happens a lot in series with lots of characters — like with Danganronpa for example, your experience of a lot of characters completely changes upon playing their free time events. A lot of genshin characters get very little screen time on the main story, so all their characterization is in their quests, lines, and character profile content. Which to be fair, with a game of this nature that's kinda the only way to really do it, so, I'm just glad they give us that extra content tbh. I've played some gachas that would introduce new characters but give very little beyond a design and name which is kinda sad when you want to know more about the lil guy you're playing with.

But AAAAAAAAAAAAAA thank you so much anon I am going to ramble here, but I'll put a tl;dr at the bottom!

Soooo if you want to get into Persona, I'd recommend the series in a certain order with some notes. There's 5 main entries in the series and a lot of spinoffs.

A word of advice in general with marathoning a game series: with any series it's a good idea to play in order of chronological and thus technological progression, especially if you intend to play the series back to back, otherwise going from a more recent game to an older one can damper your experience due to the decrease in graphical quality, gameplay smoothness, and general content quantity.

However for this series, the ideal order to play really depends on the factors of 1) which version of Persona 3 you choose to play, and 2) if you want to play Persona 1 & 2.

Regarding Persona 1 and 2: These are some of those games where your enjoyment will strongly depend on whether or not you're a person who is okay with some of the frustrations, limitations and slowness/jankiness common to old games (they came out between 1996-1999). I know some people don't mind or see it as a sort of vintage charm, while others get very frustrated with that — if you're the latter, I'd recommend saving yourself the frustration and skipping them, but if you like old games or have a high tolerance for jankiness, you could start here. I will also say that, even amongst the vintage/90s games fan crowd, P2 is definitely more popular and considered better than P1. It's also much better on the aforementioned issues.

Also, unless you have an original PlayStation or PSP, you'll have to emulate these.

Regarding Persona 3: there's several versions — the original came out in like 2006, then there was a remake version called P3 FES which added an epilogue (which is being added to the recent remake soon anyway), then a PSP remake called Persona 3 Portable (which has ports on modern consoles), then the most recent remake, Persona 3 Reload, came out just a few months ago in 2024.

Obviously the newest remake has vastly improved graphics and added lots of gameplay content. However, one of the biggest differences is that P3 Portable had the option to play as a female protagonist — this altered a lot of aspects of the game and is exclusive to that version (which has disappointed a lot of people hoping she'd be in the 2024 remake), so you can't play as her if you play Reload (unless, I believe, you play PC, there's a volunteer team currently making a mod for her).

Personally, I bought P3 Reload, and couldn't get into it, so I dropped it. Then I bought P3P on a whim and LOVE it so far. Getting to play as the girl protagonist makes a massive difference in my opinion, and more than compensates for the older graphics/gameplay. It's not just the romance routes either, her dialogue options, interactions, music, and overall vibe is different enough that it changes the feel of the story.

It really depends on what you value more — 2024-tier visual quality/gameplay and the epilogue, versus the Female Protagonist experience, so just pick which you prefer.

For the order thing, if you choose to play P3P (or the original/FES for whatever reason), I'd start here, but if you want to play Reload, I'd play it either last or just before P5 Royal.

Moving on, Persona 4: Golden and Persona 5: Royal are both the definitive editions of their respective games. They're remakes of the originals with a lot of added content, and unlike Persona 3, there's no reason to play the older versions over these. Notably their themes/vibes are kinda opposite of each other (big city world-scale societal rebellion versus small rural town murder mystery), I wouldn't say either story is better or worse, they're not really comparable and more a matter of personal taste.

As for the stories, admittedly if you've read my posts, you've essentially already been spoiled on the identity of the killers, but honestly it's still worth experiencing the story, there's multiple big plot twists before and after the reveals regarding Akechi/Adachi.

I would play Persona 5 Royal last, largely because it's widely considered the best entry to the series and is by far the longest. However if you only intend to play one game, it should definitely be P5 Royal. The only real flaw to P5 is it's much easier than previous games.

From here, there's a few more spinoff games, whether or not you want to play them really just depends on if you enjoy the genre. There's a bit of lore in some of them but nothing critical.

Dancing All Night/Starlight/Moonlight - dancing rhythm games

Arena Ultimax - fighting game, acts as an epilogue to P3&4

Persona Q 1&2

These are Nintendo DS spinoffs with chibi style art. I haven't played these and admittedly don't know much about them, I think they're dungeon crawler genre? It's popular for the aspect of which it involves the characters of the different main games, so you get to see them interact with each other.

The downside is that these games are oddly expensive, I think because there weren't too many copies. I intend to get them eventually.

Persona 5 Tactica/Strikers:

These are P5 spinoffs that put the cast in alternate stories, strikers is the closest to a true sequel from my understanding, tactica is more of a dungeon-crawler. I didn't get them because Akechi isn't in strikers and is just minor dlc for tactica.

The Phantom X

This is upcoming I believe, it's going to be a mobile game with a new cast.

The TL;DR of my advice:

- Play P2 only if you're into vintage gaming

- Play P1 only if you're REALLY into vintage gaming

- Play Persona 3 Portable if you really value the female protagonist/male character romance experience, otherwise play Persona 3 Reload

- If you play the original Persona 3, FES, or P3 Portable: start with that, then P4 Golden, then P5 Royal

- If you play Persona 3 Reload: play P4 Golden FIRST, then both P5 Royal and P3 Reload in either order.

- Play the spinoffs just based on what type of games you like, if any.

[hsr-texts]

I have faith that Hanabi's insult has a deeper meaning in the plot, they have been building it up too well to remain in nothing!

There have certainly been racist things and off-topic comments in Hoyoverse games, but never like this, there has to be something!

The thing is, I really feel that it is too early to say whether the insult was unnecessary or not, because racism is a real issue and there is no problem in representing it, there is no problem in representing minorities... The thing is, I really want to believe, that it is missing, because there is still a lack of story, and they haven't finished with Aventurine to say that it was a bad representation, more people may even appear!

I really have a lot of faith in Hoyoverse, because for me they are MiHoyo, that company that makes beautiful games and gives the opportunity to dozens of people to be artists, writers, musicians and also bring joy. MiHoyo gave me and gives me beautiful moments, but it can also be crude when dealing with its topics

k The story of Aventurine is missing, the story of all the people like Aventurine is missing, so much is missing, as marketing is doubtful, but I am not going to rush to criticize something that is NOTHING finished

If in the end everything was for nothing and they wasted that opportunity to address a serious issue, then I have to cry, no way, you don't defend the indefensible, but I don't want to unfairly cross out something

There is still about 3 weeks left to find out about Aventurine and if everything was really "unnecessary", and until then it seems fool to me to criticize something unresolved and so obvious, which is for the plot

¿Do you want to make your villain racist because your story lends itself to that? You can do it, but it will take time to develop, and we don't give it the time, there are still 1 or 2 updates left

I won't deny that Hoyoverse has provided tons of comfort and joy to billions of people all over the world. I won't deny that there's a beauty in their games. There's absolutely no shame in taking comfort in these games and consuming it. I can't blame anyone for being attached to genshin or hsr or hi3 or tears of themis, you get the idea.

But I can't lie to you guys and say that there's still a possibility that this would turn out well. I've witnessed how Hoyoverse handled the entirety of Sumeru. Are there some aspects of Sumeru that were good? Undoubtedly. It's one of the regions I had the most fun exploring.

However it's extremely telling to me that they haven't learned at all from that situation considering they keep insisting on adding racism plotlines to their story.

My faith in them to handle this properly and with care is in the absolute negatives since the Sumeru situation. I fear for what will happen when Natlan finally drops and to no one's surprise, the archon is gonna be white again and this whole song and dance will repeat just like a samsara.

At the end of the day, Hoyoverse is just another money hungry gacha company who wants to drain your wallets.

It's evident from the dogshit anniversary rewards in genshin,

it's evident from how they always design their characters to be these appealing anime waifu or husbando without ever straying from the standard formula of "thin white/slightly tan character with clothes that make fans bark like a dog",

it's evident in how they seem to drop more money on advertising than they drop on actually improving the game,

and it's evident with how little they actually listen to players' feedback.

Selling these characters and turning up a profit comes first, the story comes second. I'd rather trust a racism plotline in the hands of an indie creator who actually cares about the storytelling medium and does research than a corporation who HAS the resources to do the research but chooses not to.

Hoyoverse is special to many people, but it's time to wake up. Clinging onto a multi-billion company like this isn't healthy.

[rosemxze]

about the 10/19 update:

reminder: criticism is okay but do not be hateful, or send PB or anyone hate.

so, apparently a lot of players are really mad right now. the CN players pointed out PB's lack of transparency in their emergency maintenance notice. they pointed out that they were reducing store benefits while increasing exchange prices. to some players, they feel like PB is turning WHB into a cash cow.

additionally, allegedly some people have lost money from the shop passes where if you had previously made a purchase, you would have to pay again since PB had made adjustments to the rewards 😭 also they've also hidden the old levelling reward in shop passes according to this tweet. overall, it's super confusing so i'll just leave this topic as it is.

honestly, i do understand that PB needs to earn money to pay their employees but i think the way they package their bundles and paid gems are terrible and just doesn't seem to be worth the money.

for their 113+7 gems pack i can't even afford 1 lesser key, whereas for around the same amount of money i can spend it on arknights's monthly card which gives 11 pulls or genshin's welkin pass which gives 16 pulls.

so i just come to the simple conclusion that i'm going to stay f2p. it's just not worth it if i can spend it on a different game and get more. it's not a big deal for me as long as banners eventually get rerun ahahah

some were also upset about no maintenance compensation which i think is fair because the maintenance would usually have some sort of compensation in exchange for their player base not being able to play/grind during that time period. i feel like PB could have gave guilty gems, lesser keys, or solomon's tears. or even gold/books or jelly or any of the upgrade materials that is difficult to farm for right now. or even pies which is even more difficult to collect than tears atm.

there should also be compensation for those who have lost their money through this update :')

there were also some criticism regarding how they "fixed" the store instead of the bugs. not only that but more bugs appeared such as some units are now unable to be deployed after the update or how the secret shop's vortex will appear every time you log in but the shop itself never appears.

the more common topic at hand is the solomon tears. some players have argued that this is what you're supposed to expect when you are an f2p player. however, i would like to also argue that it shouldn't take months to fully max a single character— which includes promotion, skills (2 for most, 3 for L-tiers) and unholy board (for L-tiers).

reminder that this game is eventually going to have 80 casts (or more if they add the angels and humans like obey me has done) in the future. that is a lot of characters and they will each have different copies and versions of each of them in the future too.

using arknights as an example, that game is farmable for f2p players like myself. i never spent money on arknights but i was able to upgrade multiple characters much faster which is good for tower defense games where you need to strategise with different characters. albeit WHB is easier in that aspect of strategy, it still doesn't change how it is definitely a little more challenging in WHB to build characters.

though, i can also go on the other side and argue that perhaps PB didn't mean for us to speedrun the content either.

i'm personally okay with grinding and being patient as long as the event stages are reasonable and can be cleared without very high difficulties.

also i'm also personally okay if their gacha banners have a reasonable pacing and pity system. since that is my personal main concern as a gacha addict :p

though, seeing all the others' feedbacks also kind of influenced me a bit and made me skeptical of PB. this single update kind of made me look at them in a different light and not the positive kind 😅

but!! they still have another update on 10/25 so i guess we'll just have to see how that one goes. maybe there will be improvements? who knows. i'm just praying for the better because i do enjoy this game so far and want it to do well in the future too 🙏

reminder: again, it's okay to criticise and give feedback but please do not be malicious and hateful 🙇‍♀️

[buggaberry]

NXX Video Game Headcanons

Rosa:

Avid player, plays multiple genres of games. She frequently drags all the guys into games together.

Does she play Genshin? — Absolutely. Lumine main.

Star Rail? — What do u think, her Pela is probably shredded.

Luke:

Grew up with Rosa, so he's a gamer by default. They played games together all the time, this guy has every type of console in his house.

Plays Nintendo games the most, he was probably into Zelda and Professor Layton.

Equal footing with Rosa in terms of skill, they don't really take games too seriously though.

Does he play Genshin? — Probably mostly does Spiral Abyss, otherwise he's goofing with Rosa in co-op. His gallery is full of photos. Heizou main.

Star Rail? — He's definitely playing, probably mains Jing Yuan.

Marius:

Absolutely a gamer in his free time, probably played with Giann sometimes when he was little.

Mostly plays PvP and FPS games— Valorant, Call of Duty, Halo, Star Wars. He's probably into Pokémon too.

Rosa kicks his ass at every game. He only manages to win if he teases her enough.

They played Phasmophobia together and he chickened.

Does he play Genshin? — He played a little when it first came out but dropped it after a little while. Definitely whaled on some of the early banners. Started playing again because of Rosa and grinded to catch up. C6 Childe main. (until he pulls newer characters) Star Rail? — Oh yeah, he's got it running in the back on his computer. He plays it more than Genshin. Blade main.

Artem:

Dabbles in video games, not a particularly avid player.

He probably had a Nintendo DS growing up, the man was born in 2001. He played Ace Attorney, Mario Kart, and Cooking Mama.

Only really plays when Rosa asks him to, he'll brush up on his skills in his free time so he can play decently with her.

Does he play Genshin? — He played the quests for the lore but he doesn't really do dailies or the Abyss. Built his characters so he could play with Rosa, he had dumb gacha luck and got C2 Zhongli, so he mains him for the co-op shield. Star Rail? — Rosa introduced it to him, Artem more so casually plays but he got Luocha out of stupid gacha luck and mains him. Vyn:

Nope. Never touched a console once. He's completely clueless.

Vyn grew up as nobility is Svart, he's unfamiliar with a lot of games. He mostly just played with toys by himself when he was tiny.

NXX probably introduced them to him and he was very eager to learn. Rosa very patiently taught him and he wound up having fun. He started to dabble more in his free time to get better tho because Marius being better than him was a crime and he wasn't going to let the other guys one up him.

Ends up liking RPG and simulation games the most, he psychoanalyzes characters and likes more laidback games. He would like Persona 5 and Stardew Valley.

Does he play Genshin? — Rosa really likes it so he decided to give it a try. He made a pretty garden in his teapot to run around with Rosa. Baizhu main. Star Rail? — Again, Rosa probably introduced him to the game. He doesn't like it as much as Genshin because he can't run around with Rosa, but he picks it up and likes the plot. Imbibitor Lunae main.

[watchmakermori]

I enjoy both genshin and honkai star rail but I feel like people vastly overestimate why hsr is more 'generous'. giving out a free 5 star is great but they would not have done that if the playerbase hadn't declined since it first launched. they're not just doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. it's a business decision. and it worked on me, to an extent - i booted up hsr for the first time in months because I wanted dr ratio.

the reason genshin has always had pretty crappy rewards is because they can get away with it. the game blew up without them needing to be generous, so they aren't. I'd like them to give a free 5 star, and I think it's dumb as fuck that they don't have a standard banner character selector like hsr does (I'm coming up on 4 years with no jean), but the hsr devs don't do these things to be nice

while it does drive me mad that hsr has added so many good endgame combat modes while genshin never has, i think it's important to compare the relative effort that goes into both games. genshin requires way more investment. the combat system is far, far more complex and the development of the character animations is a lot more involved. the world design is also way more complex - hsr is nothing in comparison.

I do wish genshin would add proper endgame content, but there's enough going on in genshin that it's not essential. hsr does not have much going for it outside of combat. It's fun in short bursts, but it's never managed to get a grip on me like genshin did when i first played it

my interest in genshin has waned a lot, but that's mostly because I've got so many fucking characters now and my account is really highly invested. there's not the same incentive or need to improve, and I was always going to reach that point eventually. but I do think it's quite telling that genshin was so many people's first gacha game, because it shows that what drew most people to it was not the rewards. it was the features of the game itself. by contrast, I tend to stay interested in hsr only for as long as I'm pulling for characters and getting new stuff, so my enjoyment of the game is a lot shallower

they're fundamentally quite different games and there's a lot they could learn from each other. but I think a lot of people ignore that hsr isn't just....a nicer game with nicer devs or whatever. they're both predatory gachas, they're just relying on different tactics to get their players spending money

[cloud-ya]

As a fellow hi3rd turned hsr player, how are we feeling about Star Rail now that some time has passed? I remember disliking it because new ppl wouldn't use Honkai Star Rail as the tag and would flood the HI3rd tag with a lot of "x reader" fics with the Star Rail men.

I dropped playing it after Seele's banner and haven't really felt a huge desire to progress past the Ice Planet. Idk, I worry that it'll go the Genshin route and become aimless and boring.

I do enjoy the designs a lot more than genshin's but still not as much as HI3rd. I like that we have an MC who doesn't feel completely unrelated to the story like how it feels in genshin, and Stelle actually talks instead of having a small flying companion speak everything for us.

Gameplay wise I think it is more fun than any of the previous games, but visually lacking a little. (Kind of biased here since I adore turn based combat) I guess I'm just waiting for the "WOW‼️" moment with this game.

Honkai Impact 3rd really won me over with the main cast of characters as well as the reveal with Sirin. I might not have loved every decision made along the journey of Part 1, but I never really felt bored or distanced from the story like I do with the other two games.

I've been playing Star Rail ever since its release, the only long breaks being between events and new patches because I didn't feel the need to grind constantly and I've been pretty burnt out for a while.

geez I surely do hate people who mess up the tags. it still happens, but on way lower frequency now I think. it's even more annoying when you wanna find one hi3 character with their very own tag but end up seeing just their HSR counterpart with messed up tags - big issue as a Murata Himeko enjoyer, smh.

the game is as if Honkai Impact and Genshin had a child. it's somewhere in-between in quality I guess, though it leans more towards HI3 (because it's a Honkai game, duh). the maps really be giving you this feeling of not-so-open open worlds from HI3. I guess the story is fine, though I've seen people saying it's rushed; ngl I was kinda surprised to see Jarilo-VI part being already concluded in just one version lol. I don't mind anything in the trailblazer, only that the trend of more and more gacha games deciding on the either full or partial self-insert with dialogue choice doesn't sit well with me.

while I'm not repulsed by the turn based combat I think I prefer the hack and slash combat of HI3, or just the types of combat that let you move freely. personally I try to have a taste of every combat type.

I love the most of HI3's part 1 too and while I lost interest in the story after HoV disappeared for good, the only thing that really bothered me besides the hov death bias was the finale which was soo damn rushed just to end before Star Rail's premiere, and other dumb things in it like the whole Ai-chan self-insert bullshit

[eerna]

THIRD SUMERU ACT?? WOAH what did you think of inazuma questline. sumeru questline. nahida as a character. I'm SO curious of your opinions on those -

Also, why did you hate them? Especially sumeru cause, it's not particularly a favorite of mine but it's hailed as an example of genshin's best writing before the fontaine region came along and blew it out of the water. so--

Inazuma questline had fantastic music, I lost my shit when the hype overworld theme started playing in the boss battle! It also had a cool animatic intro into one of the Archon battles, but I forgot which one, just that I was like AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HYPEEEEEEEEE. Sumeru questline was where I gave up because it was simply boring, the timebending element should have been so cool but really wasn't. I never met Nahida (outside the mental convos; I stopped playing the moment I got to the desert) so the only thing I can properly say about her is WHY DID THEY MAKE HER A CHILD THEY KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOING WHY WHY WHY.

Now to answer the hate. FIRST OFF I AM ABOUT TO BE REALLY MEAN TO THE GAME so anyone who isn't here for that look away if you don't wanna see it

I feel like it would take me hours to properly rant about why I dislike the game, but this video comes pretty close to my opinions? In short, I think it is badly written and forces you to witness that bad writing through the absence of a skip conversation button, its main goal is to sell things and make people addicted to its toxic mechanics, and the fanservice makes me wanna stab my eyes out. I was playing it at the lowest points in my life because the game is specifically designed for short term dopamine hits. I'm fantastic at shutting out my emotions and not even knowing I am in a bad place, but if I got a Genshin craving it was a safe hint I'll be descending into sadness soon, and the craving left the moment I felt better. People laugh at my personal beef with the most famous gacha in the world but that's the truth lololol

[kougeru]

Zenless Zone Zero

Genshin Impact was really interesting when it came out. But I had a ton of issues with it. The story being unskippable was my personal biggest gripe but in recent updates the performance has also dropped even with my 3080, and it was capped to 60 to begin with. There's definitely a lot to do but I often felt overwhelmed tether than like I was having fun. So I wanted to focus on the main story but I was constantly stalled due to characters being "busy" in other quests. I'm currently years behind even though I have some of the top tier characters that released recently. I enjoy the game but I don't love it.

Star Rail gave me new hope for a game with cute and cool waifu/husbando that I might enjoy a lot more. I like turned-based RPGs. I liked the designs of the first set of characters, especially Bailu and the dragon boy. But again the story failed to hook me and I was quickly overwhelmed by the tons of other things that exist. Today when I log into the game, it's always worse than I remember. The UI is so overwhelming with around a dozen or so buttons in the menu and way too many different things to do. It really feels impossible to keep up with. More than that though, I ended up being letdown by the combat. It didn't feel as deep as I hoped it would be. If I had enjoyed the story it might've been "good enough" but with both aspects being subpar and the UI being as bad as it is, I just couldn't bring myself keep up.

Then Wuthering Waves came out. I had no expectations. The character designs were pretty generic but the combat felt a lot better than Genshin and I loved the animations. The story was a mess and the world was ugly, but it was fun. There was a lot of issues that caused the developer to give away a ton of characters/resources so I had most of what I wanted early on but by the time Jinshi (dragon girl) banner came out, I realized I wasn't enjoying the daily grind and that I didn't care enough about the story.

This is pretty normal for gacha games that I like most. I'm usually out within a month. One of the few exceptions ever was Dragalia Lost. I enjoyed the gameplay a lot, the characters, and the story enough that I played it daily for years. I've been looking for something like that again.

After Wuthering Waves burned out, Zenless Zone Zero conveniently launched. The first few days I complained about the combat being brain-dead (basically 3 buttons), the UI being a mess (I still believe this), and the story being bland. But I was really depressed around that time and I had nothing else to do or play. So I forced myself to keep playing every day. The issues with the menu become less of a problem as you go. The combat became much deeper as levels increased. And the story is actually really interesting when you really pay attention. And a major aspect that I've found ZZZ does much better than Mihoyo's other games, is that they made the main character actually interesting.

Belle and Wise have actual personalities rather than being self-inserts like Traveler is and they're no where near as generic (personality AND looks) or boring as The Trailblazer. I've actually found this to be the case with every character in ZZZ. They're all very different in looks and gameplay. This felt so good after playing Genshin where most characters were really just different bodies for weapon styles with different specials. Every aspect is different in ZZZ. Visual appearance, heights and body shapes, weapons, combat animations, and special abilities. They're all unique and fun to play. The animations especially shine. I think being a more condensed/isolated world helped the developers focus on these things, as well as the performance and visual quality. The game is the first from Mihoyo with fully unlocked fps and I've never seen it fall below 100 fps. This gives the game an unrivaled level of smoothness, especially when combined with the fantastic animations.

Even random NPCs have great designs that aren't overused much in the same area, including one chunky cat.

The production level of the cutscenes is also very high. Gorgeous animations for the fun characters. Later on, it became clear that the combat actually has more depth than I thought. Like Genshin, a lot of it is really before the battle starts with setting up the character's gear. Then in combat there's mechanics such as switching at the right time, and to the right characters for that situation and things like Disorder. In most content, especially story content, none of this matters. But in the end game content it's a ton of fun to adjust your gameplay to push for the S Rank clears.

Zenless Zone Zero also has a gorgeous 90s/00s Retro aesthetic. This was really nice since older gamers generally don't get catered to these days.

The main missions are done in a strange maze of CRT screens connected by a "thread" that the player travels along. It was quite irritating at first due to the length of the missions but they've already taken feedback to alleviate this. In Patch 1.1 content I haven't found anything to take too long. In fact, it only took me a few hours to clear all the new content and I already have nothing left to do other than daily grinding. But even that has remained entertaining for over a month thanks to the great combat and fun-to-watch animations. I do think drop rates for higher quality mats needs to be improved or that the battery costs need to be reduced. With the way things are now, leveling up and powering up more than 3 characters takes over a month as f2p and some of the end game content requires multiple parties of different elements. Overall, I think this is the first time I've felt that a Mihoyo game has a lot of promise for my tastes personally. Now to pray that we get Jane Doe quickly on the next banner...

[dead-salmon]

I did 100% mean to send that to you. What happened was seeing so many of Nasu and Takeuchi's decisions lined up made me realize wow, these two literally never get told no except Nasu from Sakurai every once in a blue moon. Its literally two yesmen acting like we have consulted the team on this one when the team is the two of them.

well yeah, that's practically the issue in whole. look, nasu and takeuchi singlehandedly caused type moon to exist, i'm not against them having a big influence on the directions their games and stories take. they are the creators after all.

the issue is in my opinion that they have way too much influence, specifically takeuchi

this is me going on on a tangent so apologies anon, if you want the entire rant it's under the cut

but basically tl;dr: nasu and takeuchi fail to realise that type moon is a way bigger company than just the two of them. and since no one (fans or tm members) really directly opposes their whims they get to continue doing whatever they want, even if it directly goes against their writers and fanbases wishes.

just to recall, some of the worst tm decisions were caused by what? takeuchis whims (and nasu's, but mainly takeuchi). wu zetian as a child? takeuchi wanted it. young moriarty in traum? takeuchi wanted it. summer beast eresh for anniversary, ciel for summer? takeuchi&nasu wanted it ("thought it fit better"). aesc as anniversary unit? takeuchi wanted it. lb6 summer? nasu & takeuchi wanted it. oh and if we get camazotz? well, takeuchi wants it.

the issue isn't even that they indulge in what they like, it's that they don't give a single fuck about their actual fanbase or writers goals (and why should they, they get money and praise either way most of the time).

type moon grew into quite the company, fgo is unironically one of genshins/honkais best gacha competitors despite it's outdated playstyle. however as you put it, "the team is the two of them". nasu and takeuchi seemingly forget that type moon isn't just nasu and takeuchi anymore, but many writers, developers, artists and a big fanbase alltogether

in regards to your previous ask, if anything that shows to me that nasu is a pretty happy dude. he earns a lot of money, gets admired&praised by many people, is famous in the vn scene w/o anyone knowing his real identity. he gets to do whatever he and his bestie want without too much pushback and gets to see whatever he wants to happen in fate's stories.

hell, we only got fate/samurai remnant because the guy in charge fangirled over nasu and musashi hard enough to convince nasu to let them make a game. and even then, nasu had to "lay down the groundworks" before the actual writers team could write f/sr.

-> since in nasu's mind, tm lore is at such a level that outsiders would have to make way too much research to create actual new stories. (read both of this in an interview translation, i can find them again but it'd take a bit) imo it's a little arrogant, sure tm lore is very extensive but you don't need to know every single piece of it's lore for one story. but that's just my opinion.

so in conclusion: yeah, i entirely agree with you. since they get to do whatever they want and get money for it, of course they continue doing whatever they want. gotta hand it to sakurai for trying to push back a little though. and i wonder how much longer they get to do that. type moon's biggest winning quality has always been their loyal fanbase, supporting them so much so that fgo as a gacha gets to keep up with hoyoverse gachas of all things. and said loyal fanbase seems to slowly get more frustrated too with each whimsical decision

[blueskittlesart]

It’s not often you see a BotW fan AND Genshin Impact fan…what are your thoughts on the game mechanics in both that are extremely similar? Do you think one stole from the other?

oh 100% i think genshin impact stole its initial design and mechanics from botw. it's hard to pretend like it's a coincidence when one game came out 3 years after the other and almost everyone's immediate impression of it was "it looks just like botw!!" I remember when it first came out i IMMEDIATELY had people telling me i would like it because it was so similar to botw. just for that reason, nothing else. no mention of story or combat mechanics or gacha, just... it's exactly like botw. lol. and ESPECIALLY in mondstadt and liyue, where the open world is a lot of flat plains populated by the remains of ruined civilizations and monster camps, the. im going to be nice and say the INSPIRATION from botw is undeniable. they look exactly the same. I wouldn't be surprised if the grass asset was like. legitimately datamined and stolen line-for-line because they look so similar.

I will say that the open world is about where the similarities end between the two games. botw is a AAA big-name franchise game which spent multiple years in development and was a complete story upon release, and has a rich history of prewritten lore in the form of other games and media to back it up. Genshin is an online gacha game which, on release, was only 1/7 finished. and yes, teyvat is huge and there's a shit ton of lore and worldbuilding to be found, but unlike botw there was no foundation of lore to stand on when writing genshin, which means 100% of that worldbuilding must be found in-game, which leads to extremely long, wordy, and hard-to-understand quests, plus a ton of lore that just ends up buried in side quests or npc dialog that the average player will never know about. story-wise.... i mean. i could list similarities if i desperately had to, but aside from amnesiac protagonist (which was an established trope before botw anyway) there's really not a ton to say here. genshin's story and lore is decent, in my opinion. I don't think it compares to botw, in concept or in execution, but like i said before, genshin has no preestablished lore to get a foothold on. they're doing everything from scratch. and there are plenty of places where the story and lore falls short, either in concept or in execution, but comparing genshin's story to botw's when their circumstances and even the way their content is produced and released is so different just seems... unfair. like. of course botw is going to be better LMAO.

One of the most interesting things to me about the way genshin has developed is that the longer they go on releasing content the more they seem to be trying to distance themselves from the initial similarity to botw. one of the more notable ways this manifests is in the fact that they've almost entirely phased out the botw-style dungeon segments that were the domains in early-game mondstadt. the initial 6 or so domains you have to complete in mondstadt's archon quest were VERY similar in mechanics to botw's dungeons, in that it was less about fighting enemies and more about puzzles to solve. Now, though, even domains that are one-time completion dungeons are largely combat challenges rather than puzzle dungeons. I think they probably did this to distance themselves from botw in some way because open-world mini dungeons were like. one of botw's main mechanics. The newer locations like inazuma, the chasm, and sumeru also bear significantly less similarities to botw's terrain design than mondstadt and liyue. this may simply have been an effort to distinguish the nations from each other visually, but with sumeru being physically connected to liyue and mondstadt and yet lacking nearly any of the open plains and stone ruins that defined those two nations, it seems to me like a deliberate effort to move away from the botw aesthetic and develop a more unique style of worldbuilding for the game. Which is 100% a good thing!! i just kinda wish mondstadt and liyue were allowed the same thought and time that have clearly been put into inazuma and sumeru.

The fact that genshin appears to be actively attempting to branch out and create a coherent story and aesthetic for its world without.... "taking inspiration" from botw so heavily now that it's gotten a foothold in the industry is a really good sign to me. If I had to guess, the emphasis on the botw-like open world in the early days of its marketing was an attempt to capitalize on botw's insane popularity at the time, and tbh i think it was a smart move by their developers if a little underhanded. the nature of genshin's story is such that upon release they had almost NOTHING to draw people in except the initial conflict: "your sibling is gone and you have to find them." and they could PROMISE that more story content was coming in the future, but without something to satiate fans and draw new players in in the meantime the game was going to drown. a large open-world serves two important purposes: 1. drawing in new players who loved botw's worldbuilding and were looking for something similar, and 2. provide endgame content for returning players while the new story quests were being worked on. (this model doesn't work quite so well nowadays, with so many players stuck in a fairly underwhelming endgame for months at a time between updates, but when the game was released it was probably the perfect solution.) In any case, now that genshin has some notoriety and name-recognition of its own, it no longer has to rely on word-of-mouth "this game is just like botw!" to draw people in, and it's exciting to see that they recognize this and are taking the opportunity to branch out. i'm excited and cautiously optimistic to see where they'll take the game in future patches!