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tanithryudoFinally completed the Archon Quests up through the end of the Nod-Krai arc this past weekend. *Huzzah!* On reflection, I decided to do a personal ranking of how I liked the main Archon Quest story arcs. First up, the TLDR:
Sumeru > Nod-Krai = Natlan > Fontaine > Mondstadt > Liyue > Inazuma > Abyss Interludes
By Abyss interlude, I am lumping all of the extra acts at the end of each nation's archon quest, centered around Dainsleif and our main character's sibling.
To be clear, this ranking is *just* for the Archon Quests, and I'm trying not to include other elements such as character story quests, world quest chain story arcs, map exploration elements, background lore, etc. This is because a lot of this stuff doesn't get added in order (for example, Skirk first showed up in the Fontaine AQ, but her character was released during Natlan arc, her story quest takes place in Liyue, and her backstory is non-native to Teyvat altogether). And also, because I still haven't done 100% of the character quests, and have barely scratched the surface of world quests and so forth.
Now, looking back at my list, aside from the outlier that is Sumeru, it does feel like the newer arcs are ahead of the older arcs. I think this showcases very clearly, that the Genshin writers have been steadily improving, both as technology and game mechanics had improved, and some credit also needs to be given for listening to player feedback.
Specifically, it feels like the latest arcs such as Natlan and Nod-Krai have addressed a lot of the worst complaints from the early arcs. For example: The player character being a complete mute while Paimon who speaks for the MC is often obnoxious (and EN voice was grating). Starting from Natlan, the player character has started to speak up more, to the point of often having voiced lines in Nod-Krai. I also feel that Paimon has also been dialed down a little in Natlan and Nod-Krai, sometimes even having parts of the plot where the MC is separated from her.
Looking back, I feel like the "characterization" of the player character is also pretty central to how I end up ranking the story arc too. The early game's habits of making the MC a blank slate, and then forcing him/her to *remain* a blank slate, has done the story no favors, and is actually bad for immersion, IMO. Let's go through each of the arcs one by one...
Mondstadt is a prologue arc, where the focus is more on teaching you the game mechanics as you level, so sometimes the awkward main plot suddenly derailing into a gliding tutorial or domain tutorial can be glossed over. It also helps that it had a simple but very classic storyline for its main arc, which is really hard to actually do *wrong*.
Liyue, despite rose-tinted culture goggles, doesn't have this excuse, but still feels like it's a prologue extension. Its central story feels like it takes place completely independent of the player. Although we appear to be involved, we are more going with the flow of an already pre-orchestrated play. (If I really think about the reasoning behind the plot of this story, I actually don't think the player being involved really was all that of a "good thing"...) And if the player hadn't been involved and the "test" failed...we find out afterwards that there wouldn't have been any disaster involved. Which leads to the glaring fact that... the entire arc has little suspense, and barely any stakes. It is no wonder that many people criticized this arc for being "flat".
Then came Inazuma...and whoo, boy, this arc stepped on so many mines, from mechanics and gameplay, to narrative structure, to character design and display.
The pacing was horrible, with Act I spending half its time still loitering around Liyue. Act II forced you to play two banner character story quests that spoiled any built up tension with sudden dating sims. Act III completely rushed through a complex political setup with no payoff, to a bare non-ending that had to be supplementally concluded by Raiden's story quests (which are mechanically optional).
The plot setup was also a complete mess, at once trying depict the realistic problems of feudal JP politics but not commenting on it in favor of the game's custom metaphysical philosophy, and ending up doing neither well. The worst part is that a lot of elements in the story showed promise and the players could *imagine* how they could've been if written well...but that potential never went anywhere.
Sumeru, IMO, is probably the writers taking a hard look at their failure in previous chapters and doing their best to fix it. To give them props, they did succeed really well. Starting here, the AQ length was stretched out from 3 acts to 5 to accommodate the more complex narrative.
Act I did a good job in jumping right into the new area, introducing the new element and mechanics, while also providing setting up background info and Chekov guns. Act II introduces and organically builds up a friendship with the Dendro Archon, giving the MC and player reason to care about her and impetus to get involved with the problems of Sumeru.
Afterwards, although if you squint at each individual quest section the player is still often going along rails, the general feeling though is that the player is the center around which the rag tag team of revolutionaries form and plot around. We are the one who has the actual link to the archon. We are the one who has the crucial information that brings disparate parties and their mishmashed plan together. We are the only one who can perform the crucial steps needed for the plan. Our victory at the end boss felt like it was earned, and it mattered both on the small scale, and in the grand scheme of things.
I also liked a lot of the major character designs in this nation, but that's another ranking...
After that came Fontaine, which a lot of the fandom hold to be the pinnacle of Genshin storytelling. But personally, I can't agree. I think a lot of what the fandom puts on a pedestal is just the climax in Act V, which is really well done and leaves a deep impression. But IMO it doesn't make up for the lackluster earlier acts.
I felt incredible railroad whiplash going from being unhappy at Lyney & co for hiding their Fatui spy status from us, their freaking attorneys, to being completely trusting best buds with them in later arcs. Yes, I know that individuals shouldn't necessarily speak for a group. But coming out of Inazuma and Sumeru, where the Fatui have been doing some really horrible stuff, the sudden friendship in Fontaine feels very much it's there to sell certain banner characters.
The whole segment in Meropide prison was tedious to slog through -- I get where the devs are coming from, trying to get across the prison being a horrible place by making the experience horrible for the player too; and that might work fine for a normal literary work, but in game design, making anything purposefully "unfun" is going to overshadow any other deeper theme you're trying get across.
By Act V, it's a miracle that Furina's presentation was able to carry the entire arc, despite having only vague and superficial presence throughout all the previous acts (and despite being tossed away immediately after the climax with the closure moved to her story quest -_-). Let's face it, she carried this whole story narrative wise, just as much she did in-story.
...which brings up another critical point: The player character is again acting the role of bystander and witness to this entire arc, and has very little impact on the core conflict. It's not called out as much as Liyue is, because the story they witness is a lot more dramatic and there's honest suspense and the risk of failure that wasn't present in Liyue. But in terms of player character agency, this arc is definitely a step back.
I have more to say about Furina's story arc, but thinking more about it, it could be moved to its own rant post. So I'll just leave Fontaine here.
Next up is Natlan, which I had heard wasn't well received by the fandom. After doing some more browsing after I finished its arc, it seems that opinions about it are somewhat polarized. I think some of it has to do with the fact that it's based on a mish-mash of africa + latin america + modern USA, which caused some players to overly identify with it. And then follow up with the skin color controversy... let's face it, Hoyo was never going to make any character with actual "dark" skin tones, no matter what the sentiment over diversity is like here.
The other accusation I've often seen is that Mauvika, the Pyro Archon, is a Mary Sue...because she is powerful, competent, well-socialized, well-liked, and her plan A for Natlan's core conflict ultimately all worked out without any emphasis on tragedy or trauma. Em... to that I have to say, this same profile can be applied to Zhongli as well, both in the past as Morax and in the present Liyue arc. But I haven't seen anyone complain about him as a Gary Stu, and most people take it for granted that the representative deity of the CN expy nation would be "perfect". But when it comes to a female ruler/deity, must they be relegated to damsels in distress (Sumeru, Nod-Krai), or traumatized woobies (Inazuma, Fontaine)? *rolleyes*
Mauvika fits perfectly into the role of a 爽文 female protagonist, a genre that I happen to enjoy reading. So for me, I am more than fine with how she is presented. (Again, going more into this will lead into another rant, tying into the one about Furina, so will stop the thread here).
Besides, Natlan does not lack for suspense and tragedy. The entirety of Act IV and the special mechanic they rolled out to show the Abyss war was a masterpiece of meshing gameplay with narrative and getting 1+1>2. (It's a pity they didn't manage to successfully take advantage of this mechanic in Nod-Krai, but I guess NK was already really lengthy as it is without adding more to the plate.) It's the first arc where we get to see dead bodies everywhere, people who we fail to save. And despite the player going with the flow of Mauvika's plan A, the general feel of the narrative still make it feel like we are a critical contributor to the war effort, and a core part of the victory.
Also, I have to say, Natlan did the Fatui antagonist-turned-ally much better than Fontaine. It didn't dumb anyone down and suddenly make us friendly with former foes with a sob story. It provided a organic flow where a team up is forced due to common interests and common enemies, where trust and friendship is earned through actions and sacrifice.
Finally we get to Nod-Krai. It's almost unfair to compare it to the early arcs: For one, it had 8 acts to do its storytelling compared to Liyue or Inazuma's 3. The art design for environment and character modeling, have visibly improved since then as well, that it's actually visiually jarring to put old characters next to the newest ones.
This arc is also responsible for spelling out a lot of the background lore that's only hidden in world quests, object descriptions, books, etc. which most casual players are unlikely to do or remember. So this arc also gets bonus points for all the moments where we finally get "official" confirmation of what was previously "only" speculation on the setup of this game world.
Now, all that aside, the narrative itself of Nod-Krai was pretty well done. Having 8 arcs could easily have become tedious or dragged out, but it never got to that point. The smaller climaxes every other act were well designed to give appropriate feeling of "conclusion" each patch, while still leading up to the ultimate grand climax at the end. It also features time travel/loop and paradox, and managed to not mess up the logic and causality of such a plot, which is another rare plus for these kind of themes.
The central character, moon goddess Columbina, undergoes character development on-screen, with each step catalyzed by the actions of the protagonist. It's fanservice waifu selling, sure, but also much more well done than the awkward "dating" story quests from the early game (looking at you, the 2 story quests forced on us by Inazuma's AQ). That said, some of the waifu elements are actually turnoffs for me (such as her art design, and her blank slate personality at the beginning of the arc), so there's that.
The central villain, well, the two main villains, were each well done. Rerir got a complex tragic backstory that still doesn't hide the banality of his past evils, and an eternal purgatory as his end. Dottore is as always the villain we love to hate, with no attempt at whitewashing his megalomania. The fact that both still have fans rooting for them despite their on-screen sociopathy is telling.
Going back to my original list, let's talk about the Abyss interludes and why I ranked them bottom. These interludes take place at the end of each nation's AQ arc, and generally center around the meta-arc of our players teamups with Dainsleif, and our search (and later chase) after "our" sibling.
Since these take place after each AQ, then obviously, in terms of storytelling *mechanic*, they have improved with the times as well. But IMO, these acts are also proof that, just having better tools for writing/showing a story doesn't automatically make it good. -_-
The common criticism online regarding these acts are that the meta-story is very slow to progress, again, due to only getting one act per national arc. So for day one players, it's often easy to have completely forgotten about the last one before the next one comes up. For me though, this excuse doesn't work, since my entire experience with the AQ have been compressed to under 3 months.
But I still think they suck. Why? Because these arcs are the most heavily railroaded stories in the narrative. It feels like every time one of these acts rolls around, our somewhat savvy player character drops half his/her IQ, and conveniently never asks the really obvious questions...in favor of forcibly generating a mess of vague vagueness of nonsense and maybe future non-expectations. Ugh.
As for Dainsleif, I get he has quite the following because his design is stylish and cool, and he talks big. But honestly, if you look at his actual accomplishments in the story...he is constantly being played like a fiddle by the Abyss. All the hypothetical power he might have at his fingertips do nothing (outside of forum vs fight disucssions), and doesn't prevent the Abyss from getting what it wants from him, every. single. time. *bleh* Incompetence is un-sexy for me, let's just put it this way.
If all of the main Archon Quest arcs of each nation are about our player character being successful at doing something, or even just being a bystander witness of historical turning points...then the Abyss interludes are a track record of the player consistently failing. Failing at whatever short term goal of the narrative, failing at stopping the plans of the Abyss Order, failing at getting to the truth of things, failing at holding a decent conversation, failing at being fun. And that, is why I will always rank these last.
Sumeru > Nod-Krai = Natlan > Fontaine > Mondstadt > Liyue > Inazuma > Abyss Interludes
By Abyss interlude, I am lumping all of the extra acts at the end of each nation's archon quest, centered around Dainsleif and our main character's sibling.
To be clear, this ranking is *just* for the Archon Quests, and I'm trying not to include other elements such as character story quests, world quest chain story arcs, map exploration elements, background lore, etc. This is because a lot of this stuff doesn't get added in order (for example, Skirk first showed up in the Fontaine AQ, but her character was released during Natlan arc, her story quest takes place in Liyue, and her backstory is non-native to Teyvat altogether). And also, because I still haven't done 100% of the character quests, and have barely scratched the surface of world quests and so forth.
Now, looking back at my list, aside from the outlier that is Sumeru, it does feel like the newer arcs are ahead of the older arcs. I think this showcases very clearly, that the Genshin writers have been steadily improving, both as technology and game mechanics had improved, and some credit also needs to be given for listening to player feedback.
Specifically, it feels like the latest arcs such as Natlan and Nod-Krai have addressed a lot of the worst complaints from the early arcs. For example: The player character being a complete mute while Paimon who speaks for the MC is often obnoxious (and EN voice was grating). Starting from Natlan, the player character has started to speak up more, to the point of often having voiced lines in Nod-Krai. I also feel that Paimon has also been dialed down a little in Natlan and Nod-Krai, sometimes even having parts of the plot where the MC is separated from her.
Looking back, I feel like the "characterization" of the player character is also pretty central to how I end up ranking the story arc too. The early game's habits of making the MC a blank slate, and then forcing him/her to *remain* a blank slate, has done the story no favors, and is actually bad for immersion, IMO. Let's go through each of the arcs one by one...
Mondstadt is a prologue arc, where the focus is more on teaching you the game mechanics as you level, so sometimes the awkward main plot suddenly derailing into a gliding tutorial or domain tutorial can be glossed over. It also helps that it had a simple but very classic storyline for its main arc, which is really hard to actually do *wrong*.
Liyue, despite rose-tinted culture goggles, doesn't have this excuse, but still feels like it's a prologue extension. Its central story feels like it takes place completely independent of the player. Although we appear to be involved, we are more going with the flow of an already pre-orchestrated play. (If I really think about the reasoning behind the plot of this story, I actually don't think the player being involved really was all that of a "good thing"...) And if the player hadn't been involved and the "test" failed...we find out afterwards that there wouldn't have been any disaster involved. Which leads to the glaring fact that... the entire arc has little suspense, and barely any stakes. It is no wonder that many people criticized this arc for being "flat".
Then came Inazuma...and whoo, boy, this arc stepped on so many mines, from mechanics and gameplay, to narrative structure, to character design and display.
The pacing was horrible, with Act I spending half its time still loitering around Liyue. Act II forced you to play two banner character story quests that spoiled any built up tension with sudden dating sims. Act III completely rushed through a complex political setup with no payoff, to a bare non-ending that had to be supplementally concluded by Raiden's story quests (which are mechanically optional).
The plot setup was also a complete mess, at once trying depict the realistic problems of feudal JP politics but not commenting on it in favor of the game's custom metaphysical philosophy, and ending up doing neither well. The worst part is that a lot of elements in the story showed promise and the players could *imagine* how they could've been if written well...but that potential never went anywhere.
Sumeru, IMO, is probably the writers taking a hard look at their failure in previous chapters and doing their best to fix it. To give them props, they did succeed really well. Starting here, the AQ length was stretched out from 3 acts to 5 to accommodate the more complex narrative.
Act I did a good job in jumping right into the new area, introducing the new element and mechanics, while also providing setting up background info and Chekov guns. Act II introduces and organically builds up a friendship with the Dendro Archon, giving the MC and player reason to care about her and impetus to get involved with the problems of Sumeru.
Afterwards, although if you squint at each individual quest section the player is still often going along rails, the general feeling though is that the player is the center around which the rag tag team of revolutionaries form and plot around. We are the one who has the actual link to the archon. We are the one who has the crucial information that brings disparate parties and their mishmashed plan together. We are the only one who can perform the crucial steps needed for the plan. Our victory at the end boss felt like it was earned, and it mattered both on the small scale, and in the grand scheme of things.
I also liked a lot of the major character designs in this nation, but that's another ranking...
After that came Fontaine, which a lot of the fandom hold to be the pinnacle of Genshin storytelling. But personally, I can't agree. I think a lot of what the fandom puts on a pedestal is just the climax in Act V, which is really well done and leaves a deep impression. But IMO it doesn't make up for the lackluster earlier acts.
I felt incredible railroad whiplash going from being unhappy at Lyney & co for hiding their Fatui spy status from us, their freaking attorneys, to being completely trusting best buds with them in later arcs. Yes, I know that individuals shouldn't necessarily speak for a group. But coming out of Inazuma and Sumeru, where the Fatui have been doing some really horrible stuff, the sudden friendship in Fontaine feels very much it's there to sell certain banner characters.
The whole segment in Meropide prison was tedious to slog through -- I get where the devs are coming from, trying to get across the prison being a horrible place by making the experience horrible for the player too; and that might work fine for a normal literary work, but in game design, making anything purposefully "unfun" is going to overshadow any other deeper theme you're trying get across.
By Act V, it's a miracle that Furina's presentation was able to carry the entire arc, despite having only vague and superficial presence throughout all the previous acts (and despite being tossed away immediately after the climax with the closure moved to her story quest -_-). Let's face it, she carried this whole story narrative wise, just as much she did in-story.
...which brings up another critical point: The player character is again acting the role of bystander and witness to this entire arc, and has very little impact on the core conflict. It's not called out as much as Liyue is, because the story they witness is a lot more dramatic and there's honest suspense and the risk of failure that wasn't present in Liyue. But in terms of player character agency, this arc is definitely a step back.
I have more to say about Furina's story arc, but thinking more about it, it could be moved to its own rant post. So I'll just leave Fontaine here.
Next up is Natlan, which I had heard wasn't well received by the fandom. After doing some more browsing after I finished its arc, it seems that opinions about it are somewhat polarized. I think some of it has to do with the fact that it's based on a mish-mash of africa + latin america + modern USA, which caused some players to overly identify with it. And then follow up with the skin color controversy... let's face it, Hoyo was never going to make any character with actual "dark" skin tones, no matter what the sentiment over diversity is like here.
The other accusation I've often seen is that Mauvika, the Pyro Archon, is a Mary Sue...because she is powerful, competent, well-socialized, well-liked, and her plan A for Natlan's core conflict ultimately all worked out without any emphasis on tragedy or trauma. Em... to that I have to say, this same profile can be applied to Zhongli as well, both in the past as Morax and in the present Liyue arc. But I haven't seen anyone complain about him as a Gary Stu, and most people take it for granted that the representative deity of the CN expy nation would be "perfect". But when it comes to a female ruler/deity, must they be relegated to damsels in distress (Sumeru, Nod-Krai), or traumatized woobies (Inazuma, Fontaine)? *rolleyes*
Mauvika fits perfectly into the role of a 爽文 female protagonist, a genre that I happen to enjoy reading. So for me, I am more than fine with how she is presented. (Again, going more into this will lead into another rant, tying into the one about Furina, so will stop the thread here).
Besides, Natlan does not lack for suspense and tragedy. The entirety of Act IV and the special mechanic they rolled out to show the Abyss war was a masterpiece of meshing gameplay with narrative and getting 1+1>2. (It's a pity they didn't manage to successfully take advantage of this mechanic in Nod-Krai, but I guess NK was already really lengthy as it is without adding more to the plate.) It's the first arc where we get to see dead bodies everywhere, people who we fail to save. And despite the player going with the flow of Mauvika's plan A, the general feel of the narrative still make it feel like we are a critical contributor to the war effort, and a core part of the victory.
Also, I have to say, Natlan did the Fatui antagonist-turned-ally much better than Fontaine. It didn't dumb anyone down and suddenly make us friendly with former foes with a sob story. It provided a organic flow where a team up is forced due to common interests and common enemies, where trust and friendship is earned through actions and sacrifice.
Finally we get to Nod-Krai. It's almost unfair to compare it to the early arcs: For one, it had 8 acts to do its storytelling compared to Liyue or Inazuma's 3. The art design for environment and character modeling, have visibly improved since then as well, that it's actually visiually jarring to put old characters next to the newest ones.
This arc is also responsible for spelling out a lot of the background lore that's only hidden in world quests, object descriptions, books, etc. which most casual players are unlikely to do or remember. So this arc also gets bonus points for all the moments where we finally get "official" confirmation of what was previously "only" speculation on the setup of this game world.
Now, all that aside, the narrative itself of Nod-Krai was pretty well done. Having 8 arcs could easily have become tedious or dragged out, but it never got to that point. The smaller climaxes every other act were well designed to give appropriate feeling of "conclusion" each patch, while still leading up to the ultimate grand climax at the end. It also features time travel/loop and paradox, and managed to not mess up the logic and causality of such a plot, which is another rare plus for these kind of themes.
The central character, moon goddess Columbina, undergoes character development on-screen, with each step catalyzed by the actions of the protagonist. It's fanservice waifu selling, sure, but also much more well done than the awkward "dating" story quests from the early game (looking at you, the 2 story quests forced on us by Inazuma's AQ). That said, some of the waifu elements are actually turnoffs for me (such as her art design, and her blank slate personality at the beginning of the arc), so there's that.
The central villain, well, the two main villains, were each well done. Rerir got a complex tragic backstory that still doesn't hide the banality of his past evils, and an eternal purgatory as his end. Dottore is as always the villain we love to hate, with no attempt at whitewashing his megalomania. The fact that both still have fans rooting for them despite their on-screen sociopathy is telling.
Going back to my original list, let's talk about the Abyss interludes and why I ranked them bottom. These interludes take place at the end of each nation's AQ arc, and generally center around the meta-arc of our players teamups with Dainsleif, and our search (and later chase) after "our" sibling.
Since these take place after each AQ, then obviously, in terms of storytelling *mechanic*, they have improved with the times as well. But IMO, these acts are also proof that, just having better tools for writing/showing a story doesn't automatically make it good. -_-
The common criticism online regarding these acts are that the meta-story is very slow to progress, again, due to only getting one act per national arc. So for day one players, it's often easy to have completely forgotten about the last one before the next one comes up. For me though, this excuse doesn't work, since my entire experience with the AQ have been compressed to under 3 months.
But I still think they suck. Why? Because these arcs are the most heavily railroaded stories in the narrative. It feels like every time one of these acts rolls around, our somewhat savvy player character drops half his/her IQ, and conveniently never asks the really obvious questions...in favor of forcibly generating a mess of vague vagueness of nonsense and maybe future non-expectations. Ugh.
As for Dainsleif, I get he has quite the following because his design is stylish and cool, and he talks big. But honestly, if you look at his actual accomplishments in the story...he is constantly being played like a fiddle by the Abyss. All the hypothetical power he might have at his fingertips do nothing (outside of forum vs fight disucssions), and doesn't prevent the Abyss from getting what it wants from him, every. single. time. *bleh* Incompetence is un-sexy for me, let's just put it this way.
If all of the main Archon Quest arcs of each nation are about our player character being successful at doing something, or even just being a bystander witness of historical turning points...then the Abyss interludes are a track record of the player consistently failing. Failing at whatever short term goal of the narrative, failing at stopping the plans of the Abyss Order, failing at getting to the truth of things, failing at holding a decent conversation, failing at being fun. And that, is why I will always rank these last.
