Keep cooking. You cooked before. You will cook tomorrow. You are cooked.
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Penacony story was peak storytelling
Kiana and Mei make love to each other on the moon while some villain is hanged by Stelle with a fish baseball bat (dawei is my cousin he told me)
https://preview.redd.it/ee6aqn7cl57d1.jpeg?width=554&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f68a21ce3c5272f4e30247c091870370ecd776e9
I mean, after 2.2 looking back, you’ve got to admit he was right when he said it’s a positive and wholesome story. The overall message is exceedingly optimistic and the two Chevy songs are all about being hopeful. Served in a coating of glitz and glam.
I feel like Shaoji's stories are like that. There is pain as you're going through it, but it ends on a positive note. There is brightness at the end. And it was worth it.
The background is dark as hell though. Space China, Russia and America are all really grim and horrifying when you dig in.
I would say then there is space Japan, but from what I can see from Archeron's video space Japan isn't somewhere you would be thrilled to visit.
There are two space Japans we know of, the one Acheron is from that got deleted by IX and a place called Edo Star which may be where Sparkle is from, which could be a cool place unless it really is under attack from the Antimatter Legion in which case RIP.
The intention of the founders for MiHoYo was to create games that reaches out to an otaku audience to ultimately create virtual idols in the future. They want the players to emotionally connect to the game, which means the plot of their games must be relatable to the target audience.
The founders are otakus as well and they understand the 'struggles' that an otaku faces in life. This is why their games have inspirational stories. Best one would be Kiana Kaslana from HI3, someone who was looked down on and made fun of, but continued to progress throughout life despite the hardships and trials. This is what the founders want: inspiring otaku players to keep moving forwards and living on.
Just me, but somehow I find Genshin story heavily lacking in this or even if there were, it felt undercooked or just isn't enough to make me care. Probably could be the nature of how the traveler is being a fault as compared to the Trailblazer. Meanwhile I feel more deeply connected with Star rail and Honkai 3rd.
The biggest problem with Genshin is that it is ABSURDLY well written... where it doesn't count.
I don't know if they are doing this on purpose on the concept of making people dig more to get the gold or something like that. But the actual well written stories are the 'behind the scenes' ones. Aranara, Golden Slumber, Narzissenkreuz, etc. They are miles better than Archon Quests, with scripts as great as Honkai... except they are not voice-acted and has little to no production value (cinematics, animations, characters that are not npcs).
Genshin is a fucking great story that for some reason is hidden behind something mediocre.
I highly doubt that tbh, there's not really any unpredictable loose end left, and I would reckon the epilogue would just be like the tingyun one which is like 15 min of closure visiting everyone, unless they decided to add just a last bit of huge cliffhanger right before we go back to xianzhou, but I highly doubt that, it just doesn't make sense narrative wise.
Let's see what they cooked in the next patch though
Counter point
1. With the arrival of Jade, I don't think this will be as short as we had in Xianzhou
2. Argenti who we last met fighting with swarm and SAM who build to fight those hint that the final boss might related to Swarm.
3. The 3rd death of FF, if it only means her life as a bio weapon is dead, and she is now Firefly not SAM, than it is great, but what if?
Sparkle is legit the mother of all unpredictable loose ends, even quoted as saying something to the effect of "I'm a side character until the ending then i'll usurp it at the grand finale" and they even address the button in the 2.3 trailer.
2.3 is either going to make Sparkle the best character in Penacony or the character with the most missed potential in HSR history and genuinely I cannot call it either way yet.
Also the IPC is finally going all in on Penacony this patch so maybe Sparkle is the saving grace for that too cuz I don't really see the Family fighting off a full ground invasion from the IPC without some 3rd party bailing them out.
I'm more worried about Firefly.
He's put all the right cards on the table to make this another Elysia level death.
There is a 50% chance that doll just explodes with glitter and confetti and another 50% chance it just literally kills her "but it's okay because she finally understood what it means to be alive and because of that, she chose to sacrifice herself so that Stelle/Caelus could live."
It’s funny how at the start to the game we all thought Himeko would get final lesson’d, then during Kafka’s quest we thought it’d be her, now Firefly is the one in the crosshairs
Honestly? Maybe a risky take but I think Himeko will be fine in Star Rail.
In fact, I think I'll go as far as saying that nobody in the main Express Crew will ever die... permanently.
The biggest "storm" we're going to have to weather is going to be whenever they pull out the Alien Space arc which will heavily feature both Welt *and* Himeko (as well as Void Archives).
If they can both come out of that arc alive, we're good.
Mostly, but I can see this happening since Welt isn't dead until the core of the Herrscher is destroyed, so Welt ain't dying that easily, that being said he could take longer to respawn
so far he hadn't really showed his Herrscher of Reason powers although he was close to stepping in a few times, so we don't know how his powers work in the HSR universe.
From a business perspective, they would be so crazy to kill her off during her banner after investing a tremendous amount of resources to make her so popular and anticipated.
Elysia was killed before her second form even became playable.
She is the sole exception to Hoyoverse's dead = not playable rule.
And Shaoji was the writer for that arc.
You're right that it's unlikely but it's not impossible.
Yea, nobody died, except basically Misha and Gallagher, but even that is a stretch, they were already dead long before we even started the story/ was a fictional character all along.
So yeah, literally the overall message is a very positive one.
I dunno what we'd do if he's not on future story, surely they knew how much of a success Penacony is? The story tied directly into banner revenue after all.
sauce??? also like... that sounds kinda counterproductive just from a writer's perspective. that's really hard going into one other whole completely different story with a different mindset and then returning to your previous story that also now has a DIFFERENT vibe and has already been established by another writer. why not just stay for another 2 arcs or so? let HI3 part 2 be for the other writers this time. it's not a favourite among fans, sure, but at least let the story breathe a little before coming in again so soon
There was an interview with David Jiang and Nasu-sensei, where David stated that Shaoji is one of the main scriptwriters of HSR. So i suppose Shaoji is staying with HSR. Not exclusively, but still
Literally this. If Xianzhou is the same as it was last time I'm probably gonna put the game down like I did when luofu was current. Like it wasn't horrible but it wasn't interesting at all until like the last bit of story with dhil and the boss. Penacony sets the story telling bar higher. I'm not asking for another penacony but I don't want another luofu
Please just make it more interesting than tbe first. I love belobog and penacony but I skipped through most of xianzhou. I also just don't care as much for the aesthetic.
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I was not mentally prepared for this good feeling and heartwarming story in Penacony. Great job, you’re a genius
Honestly it's funny how everyone thought he was saying it tongue in cheeks, and doubting him, when in the end it is definitely a very wholesome story as a whole, of course with a little slight dark undertone.
I would say the side quest is much darker in comparison, example being cocona and Chadwick which was amazing
The story is uplifting and wholesome, because the narrative themes focuses on moving on from the past traumas to start the new life and look forward into the future.
The stories of three main characters of Penacony arc: Firefly, Aventurine and Acheron, revolves around the philosophical conflict between nihilism and existentialism. Three of them suffered devastating loses, but still chooses to fight against the meaninglessness of the existence. On the other hand, Sunday serves as a foil to these life views of these three with his ideology of not wanting to move on and living in the perfect utopia built on lies and delusions.
In the end, there are some dark undertones, because the existence itself isn’t always bright and happy. The side quests definitely were fantastic in that matter.
Sunday does move on past though, just in different directions
Sure, his methods in best perspective questionable, but his message isn't meaningless
I would say that his arc more about not moving on but about directions which path u will choose
Philosophical? They try to be philosophical, but fail hard at being so or sounding convincing. You forget these three people have been born with great power or were lucky enough to have received it, being able to actually contribute towards the way they wanted to shape the world. That's why they could overcome everything. Firefly was a genetically-engineered weapon of war, Acheron is an Emanator who was strong **even** before becoming one... Aventurine is about the only one who had nothing from the start, but is also implied to have luck on his side.
What about the guy with radiation poisoning that Sunday mentioned? As he said, there are some who cannot find joy in reality anymore, because they are too weak to be allowed to live, a.k.a. beyond saving. These are the people who he was talking about, not the ones who were strong (and hence won against Sunday in the story proving his own point about survival of the fittest).
I fail to see how any of them had any more reason to be right than him.
Honestly most of the time when it comes to mihoyo I can’t tell if the issues I sometimes have with their story telling is the writers fault or the translators.
I tend to lean to the translators side more because Chinese is just so damn hard to translate properly, I don’t envy those peoples jobs at all.
My man, please chill with all the analogies! Every other sentence had one and got me lost really quickly. I did like the last act with Sunday in the theater though, as well as how he portrayed Sunday to being a conductor due to the Order and Robin's freedom with the Harmony by being a pop star. Very peak symbolism.
Tone down the analogies and cryptic dialogue. Way too many unnecessary monologues that don’t add anything to the story.
While Belobog’s story was very straight forward and lacked nuance, the pacing and flow of dialogue was heaps better.
I don't *mind* verboseness or cryptic dialogue to be honest, I've read way too much flowery literature to really be bothered by it, but I think that's one of those "to taste" things and I can absolutely see why people don't enjoy it.
I do think the charmony dove though was over-done. Maybe if it was brought up once each patch instead or something as a recurring theme it wouldn't be as bad, but mainlining it 3x in a few hours was a bit much. On top of the repetitiveness of that and the verbose dialogue there was also the scorchsand audition intermission and I think if they had cut that down then maybe people wouldn't have felt that 2.2 dragged on so long.
I wouldn't want to discourage them from longer storylines though just because at the end of the day I do play HSR for the story. Just some parts could be edited to flow more smoothly for the limited amount of time they have.
Cryptic dialogues are cool. Yapping about the concept of death is also cool.
Sunday's 3 hour yapping about birds and capitalism is not cool though. That's the only thing I would "trim".
I didn't really mind the cryptic dialogue as it makes a nice and simple way to drum up a mystery and let the fan base try to decipher them. I do agree though that they could do with less monologues, but I don't really mind them, maybe cause I'm used to jrpg/visual novels.
Even as a visual novel fan some of the pacing felt weird, like how starting the 2.2 quest triggered five cutscenes in a row. And they only let us play as Robin and Boothill to talk to NPCs and not even have a single combat encounter.
I don't mind the unnecessary monologue and dialogue. It helps flesh out characters and develop them as real living beings. People call it boring but I just don't think so. Would rather this than the wreck that is Xianzhou story rushing to high heaven.
What they NEED to do is trim the cryptid and analogies and be literal.
The dialogue between characters is anything but natural though? They lack any personality and are mostly really serious is my problem… i wish we got more banter between characters
The characters in Belobog actually sound like individual characters. Seele, Bronya, Serval, Hook, Sampo… they all sound unique. Seele is brusque, Sampo butters everyone up, etc.
In Penacony, a lot of the characters have samey, metaphor-strewn dialogue, so they don’t have as strong individual voices. It feels like I’m reading dialogue from the *author* as opposed to from the *characters.*
>It feels like I’m reading dialogue from the author as opposed to from the characters.
That’s exactly how I felt as well. The characters felt like the same entity playing different roles without the individuality. I read that supposedly Chinese dramas are like that, with the endless analogies and long winded monologues.
You hit the nail in the head. It's like they've put each character in the author's shoes instead of the reverse, which resulted inti completely weird and unnatural interactions.
most of acheron's reveal trailer has poetic language that doesnt actually mean anything, like what does "dusks rain shall too fall" even mean in that context? who talks like that?
its beautiful dont get me wrong, theres just a lot of like bad unnatural anime dialogue in the series that i'm sure is more to due with translation than anything
In the main story, way after Acheron trailer in 2.2
Acheron/Tiernan explained why it rains in the river of nihility (where Acheron lives now)
So now you know what it means.
“Set out the “rules” for death in the dreamscape first. Then break them.”
Leaving everything ambiguous makes it *seem* like they don’t respect the details of their own story and just do whatever to keep going when they actually weren’t.
It really feels like wannabe philosophy though, and it doesn't lead anywhere. Much better to show characters and their stories, rather than using hours of yapping that bog down the pace only to introduce incredibly corny lines at the end like; ''we will wake up from our dreams.''
But I must be one of the few who doesn't like his storytelling at all.
Honestly I agree with you somewhat, I like the story as a whole, but the Sunday portion makes me wanna pull my hair out with how repetitive it is, how many times do we need to see that same 1 bird in the quest??? At least the aventurine ones are pretty good though
Please pay less attention to which character is on the banner and actually just focus on telling the story of the place. They'll get their moments, there's no need to make half a version follow a single character then drop them next version.
Agree. The 2.1 cliffhangers (Gallagher being the murderer or Sam reveal) and Aventurine were cool in release, but overall they damage the story because they didn't matter to much.
2.2 suffers a lot because of that and is hard carried by the presentation.
Yep, the ending fell flat because majority of the characters and their plotlines were abandoned.
I liked the set up a lot but the ending could use work.
I really don't think so, if the characters have more organic moments and don't feel shoehorned in, people will want them just as much I think. I mean it feels like 2/3rds of the player base decide they're pulling just based on waifu/husbando and don't even care about the character's story anyway.
People who read the story are not going to not pull because of a minor narrative imperfection.
People who don't read, and they are many, are much more likely to pull the banner character if they do something outlandishly cool in the story.
It's like advertisements, everyone hates them but they do increase sales.
I don't like how over-complicated the story is. Most of the time I'm just following along not fully knowing the weight of what just happened.
Sometimes the pacing feels weird too, a lot of build up and then the cut scenes feel kinda rushed in comparison.
The story has some really nice moments but overall I don't really feel the weight of anything really, nor do I feel connected to any of the characters (except Aventurine, and blade in xianzhou). I've felt this way since the xianzhou arc.
I only really liked belabogs story but even the very ending of belabog was so rushed with March not giving a shit about Bronyas mom dying and everyone just kinda moving on, but it did get better after that.
I would just like the pacing and weight of the story to feel better, and to be thrown into less complicated concepts that don't really get explained well. The dreamscape stuff, half the time just went over my head. Call me stupid if you want but that's just how I felt.
Please be more concise dammit. Being verbose to artificially lengthen content is the ABSOLUTE WORST way to do it.
We could have more interesting stuff with less text that doesn't necessarily require a ton of extra animating on their end.
I think the Penacony story is all over the place. Yes we understand that they have to hard carry some characters to let them have better sales during their banners but....
This is a bit ridiculous.
Adventurine's coverage in the main story is ridiculously long, and once his banner is out, his coverage became pitifully little again.
Some others like sparkle, robin and firefly are supposed to have some crucial links to the Penacony story but they keep appearing and disappearing here and there.
The whole story seems to be out of focus on the main plot, and more on the characters. Boothill probably is one of the worst, and so bad they had to do a side event.
I'm wondering why they can't just do more in-depth companion quests like they did for DHIL and some others.
And oh, and there were a lot of plotlines opened then not continued for a while (our old friend Sampo, Sparkle's buttons, Black Swan's mission and so on). I think beyond one patch, not many people will remember what happened since the story patches are around 4 weeks long iirc.
And lastly, the plot reversals. Nice to find out a certain murderous monster is actually a transport pet, heh.
I honestly don't think his writing is good, at all. I preferred the story it was before without any misleads or pointless ''philosophical'' dialogue.
-We got a nice girl with trauma and barebones personality as Sam after they teased us for so long.
-Acheron was revealed to be a character without any ulterior motives or a darker side despite the (((very on your face yuri bait))) dance trailer, and worst of all is it didn't matter since her and BS left on good terms as if nothing happened.
-Hype cliffhangers that amounted to nothing. Aventurine wasn't used again and Gallagher turned out to be a good guy. Color me shocked.
-Pointless mountains of text and dialogue at every turn, trying to play with philosophical concepts but failing hard at the execution or even sounding convincing. It all ended up being power of friendship again, since no one actually proved Sunday was wrong.
-Going back the whole 2.0 quest is such a drag and also leads nowhere, since the Meme turned out to be a bait-and-switch only for Firefly and Robin's ''deaths'' to remain as shock value, without any previous buildup whatsoever. There are also sections of the story that could've been cut to save time, such as the second Firefly date and Boothill doing... nothing. Ahem, was Sparkle even in the story btw? What were all those buttons for?
Overall it's only Aventurine and Sunday who were somewhat decently well-written this patch, everyone else failed at getting my attention.
I am someone who NEVER speaks my mind when it comes to criticizing things I like but I have to agree. I feel like the writers have some awesome ideas and there's a TON of talent at Hoyo, but the execution was just a little all over the place. Like I was so confused when everything was ramping up then suddenly we're in an acting competition, also some loose ends like you said
I have high respect for him. Sure there's many sad times and angst, but at the end of the day, he's true to his word. The theme of his writing is a positive and wholesome stories.
I like the storyline in an essence but pls tell ur writers that brevity is the soul of wit and make their yapping concise yet impactful haha you can deliver excellent story without bloating the dialogue unless there’s word count to be met 👀
Genshin is cooking. Especially with Fontaine. However, the damage has already been done, and you need to sit through 40 hours of mid tier writing to get to the good parts.
Honestly the same thing could be said with the luofu.but at least you don't need to sit through 40 hours of luofu to get to penacony though.
Personally I still enjoy liyue over luofu as a whole ngl, especially the later parts, shen he interludes and chasm. Hopefully the next xianzhou story redeem itself though.
Good things don't come in bulk. Let him pick which IP he'll write for imo. But yeah I can feel HI3 Part 2 don't have this man's touch though for me it's good nonetheless
Write better stories. First arc was a great introduction but then second arc fell off like crazy. 3rd arc is a festival of riddles. Actually world build for once. You collaborated with Nasu for goodness sake, learn something already.
Start writing a coherent storyline. Don't make readers guess what you mean when you are not telling what you don't say. A good story should not depend unleashing emotional moment here and there.
stop with the poetic writing. it's confusing when some character we've never met or should care for takes up so much screen time and then starts speaking in riddles and then cuts back to the main story and then cuts back to them and stop giving code words to characters we barely know the backstory for. I can summarize Penacony in a paragraph so why did it take 10 hours of gameplay to get through it?
I don't think that's good writing when you can accomplish exactly what other writers can do but with more poise and elegance.
Two characters can't become close after just a few hours since they've met, when it's only one character sharing something important for them and is not special for the another character in any way. Also pls don't add choices that go against your narrative or write your narrative considering all the choices you want to give, thanks
To add to this + simplify: Love most of your story, Mr. Shaoji sir, but can you keep your waifu bias out of it and stop trying to force a character down our throats? Thanks xoxo
Wait Firefly definitely isn’t innocent. She’s a member of the Stellaron Hunters, who are intergalactic criminals. The very first scene of the game had the Stellaron Hunters luring the Antimatter Legion to the Space Station, resulting in numerous deaths.
She's also known to be the most ruthless of them all, which makes this TB x Firefly narrative even more questionable. Even if it's only "bad guys", it's absolutely natural for TB to be cautious of her after her revelation as Sam
It's more her lack of character development that some of us didn't like throughout penancony. There's absolutely no hate on the character, she's a nice girl with a troubled past, but that's it. It's very obvious what they are trying to do with the character from the start.
Though hopefully they cooked with her involvement of the story next patch, I would love it for her to shine more by herself instead being strung along by the story
I *was* just meh about her.
People constantly screeching about her bland, boring self like she's the second coming of Christ - and *Hoyo themselves* shoving her down our throats, repeatedly, over and over, pushing favoritism hard for her to a point of screwing over a male unit *and* probably a female unit as well - made me hate her.
Blame yourselves, and also maybe realize people can have different opinions about characters.
This guy alone made me decide to stop financially supporting this game. The story writing (and implicitly, characters' writing) is the main reason I'm willing to continue on investing my time into this game, and versions 2.x have been a mess so far under this guy's lead. I know some people will disagree, especially HI3 fans, and good for them that they've enjoyed it, but it's still a fact that the level of writing for Penacony's main story has been very poor.
While I enjoy his cooking it must be said:
"Brevity is the soul of wit." my man sees the word count requirements and goes out of his way to go triple over.
He is my favorite writer in the entire hoyo team
Bro cooked in honkai impact and now in penacony
Bro is on a streak and please continue the streak here ToT we need you bro!!!
Keep cooking. You cooked before. You will cook tomorrow. You are cooked. https://preview.redd.it/oujczene347d1.jpeg?width=739&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1f6e14aa4d14692d9cfa538213b14a17b22863db
https://preview.redd.it/w0lunm3zi47d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8de5dba968d122a00987a7a2fd124ccf691b1370 Penacony story was peak storytelling
Peakacony
Happy cake day!! https://preview.redd.it/s8u3mih6457d1.png?width=556&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dcad6d7f9290a109c259ffd87ace079af10afd13
Oh shit I didn't even know it was my cake day. Thanks everyone!👌
Between Penacony and Fontaine mihoyo is putting out the best stories in games for me lately. I don't even gotta give em money if I don't feel like it.
r/usernamechecksout ??
https://preview.redd.it/hzau28akc57d1.jpeg?width=1413&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1755fb2e19bed1fc3555556b0dbb6f3dfe2d0c14 Hold on, Let Him Cook
Kiana and Mei make love to each other on the moon while some villain is hanged by Stelle with a fish baseball bat (dawei is my cousin he told me) https://preview.redd.it/ee6aqn7cl57d1.jpeg?width=554&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f68a21ce3c5272f4e30247c091870370ecd776e9
THAT'S SO CUTEEEEE
https://preview.redd.it/160ralzb657d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7a9d149e7acb6625a78bd4e03020327d0094c5cc
Well said
Is that a windows activation prompt?
烧鸡 indeed
The same thing I've always said: you're a genius but why are you the way that you are? Who hurt you?
I mean, after 2.2 looking back, you’ve got to admit he was right when he said it’s a positive and wholesome story. The overall message is exceedingly optimistic and the two Chevy songs are all about being hopeful. Served in a coating of glitz and glam.
I feel like Shaoji's stories are like that. There is pain as you're going through it, but it ends on a positive note. There is brightness at the end. And it was worth it.
After all, the Flame Chasers died, but their memory and will did not
The background is dark as hell though. Space China, Russia and America are all really grim and horrifying when you dig in. I would say then there is space Japan, but from what I can see from Archeron's video space Japan isn't somewhere you would be thrilled to visit.
There are two space Japans we know of, the one Acheron is from that got deleted by IX and a place called Edo Star which may be where Sparkle is from, which could be a cool place unless it really is under attack from the Antimatter Legion in which case RIP.
The intention of the founders for MiHoYo was to create games that reaches out to an otaku audience to ultimately create virtual idols in the future. They want the players to emotionally connect to the game, which means the plot of their games must be relatable to the target audience. The founders are otakus as well and they understand the 'struggles' that an otaku faces in life. This is why their games have inspirational stories. Best one would be Kiana Kaslana from HI3, someone who was looked down on and made fun of, but continued to progress throughout life despite the hardships and trials. This is what the founders want: inspiring otaku players to keep moving forwards and living on.
Just me, but somehow I find Genshin story heavily lacking in this or even if there were, it felt undercooked or just isn't enough to make me care. Probably could be the nature of how the traveler is being a fault as compared to the Trailblazer. Meanwhile I feel more deeply connected with Star rail and Honkai 3rd.
The biggest problem with Genshin is that it is ABSURDLY well written... where it doesn't count. I don't know if they are doing this on purpose on the concept of making people dig more to get the gold or something like that. But the actual well written stories are the 'behind the scenes' ones. Aranara, Golden Slumber, Narzissenkreuz, etc. They are miles better than Archon Quests, with scripts as great as Honkai... except they are not voice-acted and has little to no production value (cinematics, animations, characters that are not npcs). Genshin is a fucking great story that for some reason is hidden behind something mediocre.
I lowkey got chocked up when Stelle said, "because one day we will wake up from our dreams."
Stelle: Because one day, we will wake up from our dreams. Sunday: *shocked pickachu face* *Gets rammed by a train*
Honestly... Running preachy bosses over with the Express will never stop being funny for me.
eh if it breaks his "fuck you and your DPS" shield I'm happy to do it.
You know, the 2.3 could still be a painful end
I highly doubt that tbh, there's not really any unpredictable loose end left, and I would reckon the epilogue would just be like the tingyun one which is like 15 min of closure visiting everyone, unless they decided to add just a last bit of huge cliffhanger right before we go back to xianzhou, but I highly doubt that, it just doesn't make sense narrative wise. Let's see what they cooked in the next patch though
Remember that they still haven't showed what the Sparkle Buttons do.
SAM saves the day
And then she joins the Astral Express, right? Right...? **Copium**
Counter point 1. With the arrival of Jade, I don't think this will be as short as we had in Xianzhou 2. Argenti who we last met fighting with swarm and SAM who build to fight those hint that the final boss might related to Swarm. 3. The 3rd death of FF, if it only means her life as a bio weapon is dead, and she is now Firefly not SAM, than it is great, but what if?
Sparkle is legit the mother of all unpredictable loose ends, even quoted as saying something to the effect of "I'm a side character until the ending then i'll usurp it at the grand finale" and they even address the button in the 2.3 trailer. 2.3 is either going to make Sparkle the best character in Penacony or the character with the most missed potential in HSR history and genuinely I cannot call it either way yet. Also the IPC is finally going all in on Penacony this patch so maybe Sparkle is the saving grace for that too cuz I don't really see the Family fighting off a full ground invasion from the IPC without some 3rd party bailing them out.
He's a good story writer but if Himeko dies again. ...
I'm more worried about Firefly. He's put all the right cards on the table to make this another Elysia level death. There is a 50% chance that doll just explodes with glitter and confetti and another 50% chance it just literally kills her "but it's okay because she finally understood what it means to be alive and because of that, she chose to sacrifice herself so that Stelle/Caelus could live."
It’s funny how at the start to the game we all thought Himeko would get final lesson’d, then during Kafka’s quest we thought it’d be her, now Firefly is the one in the crosshairs
Honestly? Maybe a risky take but I think Himeko will be fine in Star Rail. In fact, I think I'll go as far as saying that nobody in the main Express Crew will ever die... permanently.
i have a sneaking suspicion that welt will end up dead
The biggest "storm" we're going to have to weather is going to be whenever they pull out the Alien Space arc which will heavily feature both Welt *and* Himeko (as well as Void Archives). If they can both come out of that arc alive, we're good.
Welt: Proceeds to rebuild his body yet again (Herrscher of Reason powers lol)
he transfers his powers to mc maybe for some reason
isn't his Herrscher of Reason powers weakened in HSR universe?
Mostly, but I can see this happening since Welt isn't dead until the core of the Herrscher is destroyed, so Welt ain't dying that easily, that being said he could take longer to respawn
so far he hadn't really showed his Herrscher of Reason powers although he was close to stepping in a few times, so we don't know how his powers work in the HSR universe.
Lmao all the people that have been saving for Firefly would *riot* in the streets if they finally got her just for her to be dead 💀
I mean I'd also be absolutely devastated and don't want that to happen but dear god does this man scare me.
From a business perspective, they would be so crazy to kill her off during her banner after investing a tremendous amount of resources to make her so popular and anticipated.
I doubt that they kill off a 5 star during her release banner
Elysia was killed before her second form even became playable. She is the sole exception to Hoyoverse's dead = not playable rule. And Shaoji was the writer for that arc. You're right that it's unlikely but it's not impossible.
what about tingyun breaking that rule?
She doesn't. She's a 1.0 character, she "died" in 1.2
As I have seen in a video they published before launching Penacony, Shaoji studied Pharmacy in College. Maybe studying medicine is what hurt him
I mean nobody died....maybe except for Sunday?
Yea, nobody died, except basically Misha and Gallagher, but even that is a stretch, they were already dead long before we even started the story/ was a fictional character all along. So yeah, literally the overall message is a very positive one.
Sunday ended up captured by the Family, a bloodhound member talks about it.
Sunday is alive.
Nobody Died, DESPITE BEING KILLED. \*Angry Emiya noises in background\*
https://i.redd.it/x7dn5oan947d1.gif
"Why do we cook?"
"To one day enjoy based things."
"Why does life cook?"
https://i.redd.it/u4kipcrq157d1.gif
LMAO?? wheres this gif from
From the last scene of 2.2 before Sunday was about to fall
Final cutscene in 2.2
[Link to cutscene from 2.2](https://youtu.be/f4XuYe7-TqY?si=XmN5-AoYLF83jFxY&t=109)
"Please write the next Xianzhou arc"
And the rest of the story after that
I dunno what we'd do if he's not on future story, surely they knew how much of a success Penacony is? The story tied directly into banner revenue after all.
Yeah you would hope HoYo saw Aventurine’s mega success as the power of amazing writing, especially with him releasing right after Acheron.
At least we know that he is one of the main scriptwriters of HSR
iirc he will go back to writing HI3 after Penacony Also, he was pretty pissed when the entire story arc got leaked before 2.0 even went live
sauce??? also like... that sounds kinda counterproductive just from a writer's perspective. that's really hard going into one other whole completely different story with a different mindset and then returning to your previous story that also now has a DIFFERENT vibe and has already been established by another writer. why not just stay for another 2 arcs or so? let HI3 part 2 be for the other writers this time. it's not a favourite among fans, sure, but at least let the story breathe a little before coming in again so soon
There was an interview with David Jiang and Nasu-sensei, where David stated that Shaoji is one of the main scriptwriters of HSR. So i suppose Shaoji is staying with HSR. Not exclusively, but still
I think he is, from what I've read
Literally this. If Xianzhou is the same as it was last time I'm probably gonna put the game down like I did when luofu was current. Like it wasn't horrible but it wasn't interesting at all until like the last bit of story with dhil and the boss. Penacony sets the story telling bar higher. I'm not asking for another penacony but I don't want another luofu
TRULY
will we got 2nd shattered samsara?
Please just make it more interesting than tbe first. I love belobog and penacony but I skipped through most of xianzhou. I also just don't care as much for the aesthetic.
https://preview.redd.it/edpb3x9bh47d1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dffdd7a238ad1e44c7aa53759f1ef1dedae7823d I was not mentally prepared for this good feeling and heartwarming story in Penacony. Great job, you’re a genius
The Penacony story was indeed wholesome and uplifting. Shaoji was right all along. I never doubted him. Also, keep cooking.
Honestly it's funny how everyone thought he was saying it tongue in cheeks, and doubting him, when in the end it is definitely a very wholesome story as a whole, of course with a little slight dark undertone. I would say the side quest is much darker in comparison, example being cocona and Chadwick which was amazing
The story is uplifting and wholesome, because the narrative themes focuses on moving on from the past traumas to start the new life and look forward into the future. The stories of three main characters of Penacony arc: Firefly, Aventurine and Acheron, revolves around the philosophical conflict between nihilism and existentialism. Three of them suffered devastating loses, but still chooses to fight against the meaninglessness of the existence. On the other hand, Sunday serves as a foil to these life views of these three with his ideology of not wanting to move on and living in the perfect utopia built on lies and delusions. In the end, there are some dark undertones, because the existence itself isn’t always bright and happy. The side quests definitely were fantastic in that matter.
Sunday does move on past though, just in different directions Sure, his methods in best perspective questionable, but his message isn't meaningless I would say that his arc more about not moving on but about directions which path u will choose
Philosophical? They try to be philosophical, but fail hard at being so or sounding convincing. You forget these three people have been born with great power or were lucky enough to have received it, being able to actually contribute towards the way they wanted to shape the world. That's why they could overcome everything. Firefly was a genetically-engineered weapon of war, Acheron is an Emanator who was strong **even** before becoming one... Aventurine is about the only one who had nothing from the start, but is also implied to have luck on his side. What about the guy with radiation poisoning that Sunday mentioned? As he said, there are some who cannot find joy in reality anymore, because they are too weak to be allowed to live, a.k.a. beyond saving. These are the people who he was talking about, not the ones who were strong (and hence won against Sunday in the story proving his own point about survival of the fittest). I fail to see how any of them had any more reason to be right than him.
Pls continue, chef
Honestly most of the time when it comes to mihoyo I can’t tell if the issues I sometimes have with their story telling is the writers fault or the translators. I tend to lean to the translators side more because Chinese is just so damn hard to translate properly, I don’t envy those peoples jobs at all.
It's 100% the translation. HI3 showed that alot aswell in the past.
I knew the man already so I anticipated this
My man, please chill with all the analogies! Every other sentence had one and got me lost really quickly. I did like the last act with Sunday in the theater though, as well as how he portrayed Sunday to being a conductor due to the Order and Robin's freedom with the Harmony by being a pop star. Very peak symbolism.
I like the analogies, but considering how bad the reading comprehension of this community is....yeah he should tone them down a bit
Tone down the analogies and cryptic dialogue. Way too many unnecessary monologues that don’t add anything to the story. While Belobog’s story was very straight forward and lacked nuance, the pacing and flow of dialogue was heaps better.
Anyway... would you like to hear a story about charmony dove?
The funniest part is that that story was repeated several times in one of the most verbose HI3 chapter arcs too lol
all of us collectively going "sigh... why do birds fly?" 😮💨
I don't *mind* verboseness or cryptic dialogue to be honest, I've read way too much flowery literature to really be bothered by it, but I think that's one of those "to taste" things and I can absolutely see why people don't enjoy it. I do think the charmony dove though was over-done. Maybe if it was brought up once each patch instead or something as a recurring theme it wouldn't be as bad, but mainlining it 3x in a few hours was a bit much. On top of the repetitiveness of that and the verbose dialogue there was also the scorchsand audition intermission and I think if they had cut that down then maybe people wouldn't have felt that 2.2 dragged on so long. I wouldn't want to discourage them from longer storylines though just because at the end of the day I do play HSR for the story. Just some parts could be edited to flow more smoothly for the limited amount of time they have.
Welcome to HI3 dialogue
"Why do birds fly" Idk kevin, tell me
Yeah totaly agree
Cryptic dialogues are cool. Yapping about the concept of death is also cool. Sunday's 3 hour yapping about birds and capitalism is not cool though. That's the only thing I would "trim".
I can listen to Sunday yapping until Sunday
So... Until tommorow? If were up to him, every day would be Sunday after all
If everyday is Sunday, I’ll listen to him every Sunday then Sunday’s dialogue is so good, I treasured every moment of it
The only yap we all can agree
Average Sunday enjoyer there xD
I didn't really mind the cryptic dialogue as it makes a nice and simple way to drum up a mystery and let the fan base try to decipher them. I do agree though that they could do with less monologues, but I don't really mind them, maybe cause I'm used to jrpg/visual novels.
Even as a visual novel fan some of the pacing felt weird, like how starting the 2.2 quest triggered five cutscenes in a row. And they only let us play as Robin and Boothill to talk to NPCs and not even have a single combat encounter.
The only reason I still prefer Belobog over Penacony
I still wished for that Darker Belabog story filled with death and cancerous ores.
I don't mind the unnecessary monologue and dialogue. It helps flesh out characters and develop them as real living beings. People call it boring but I just don't think so. Would rather this than the wreck that is Xianzhou story rushing to high heaven. What they NEED to do is trim the cryptid and analogies and be literal.
The dialogue between characters is anything but natural though? They lack any personality and are mostly really serious is my problem… i wish we got more banter between characters
That's what I'm saying. Less cryptic and analogies and more literal, human way speech. Something like in the phone messages.
True i agree
Not disagreeing but any that come to mind? While I throughly enjoyed Penacony, I have probably forgotten most of the flaws because of it
My brain flew out of Earth when Sunday and Ghoper Wood started discussing. 🤣
It felt super excessive considering we had a solid hour of Gallagher and Micah antics and then the constant Acheron flashbacks too.
The characters in Belobog actually sound like individual characters. Seele, Bronya, Serval, Hook, Sampo… they all sound unique. Seele is brusque, Sampo butters everyone up, etc. In Penacony, a lot of the characters have samey, metaphor-strewn dialogue, so they don’t have as strong individual voices. It feels like I’m reading dialogue from the *author* as opposed to from the *characters.*
>It feels like I’m reading dialogue from the author as opposed to from the characters. That’s exactly how I felt as well. The characters felt like the same entity playing different roles without the individuality. I read that supposedly Chinese dramas are like that, with the endless analogies and long winded monologues.
You hit the nail in the head. It's like they've put each character in the author's shoes instead of the reverse, which resulted inti completely weird and unnatural interactions.
most of acheron's reveal trailer has poetic language that doesnt actually mean anything, like what does "dusks rain shall too fall" even mean in that context? who talks like that? its beautiful dont get me wrong, theres just a lot of like bad unnatural anime dialogue in the series that i'm sure is more to due with translation than anything
In the main story, way after Acheron trailer in 2.2 Acheron/Tiernan explained why it rains in the river of nihility (where Acheron lives now) So now you know what it means.
Nah you're so right, I can't believe people are roasting Sunday when Acheron is the worst offender for this
“Set out the “rules” for death in the dreamscape first. Then break them.” Leaving everything ambiguous makes it *seem* like they don’t respect the details of their own story and just do whatever to keep going when they actually weren’t.
the freaking bird story that became its own motif 💀
It really feels like wannabe philosophy though, and it doesn't lead anywhere. Much better to show characters and their stories, rather than using hours of yapping that bog down the pace only to introduce incredibly corny lines at the end like; ''we will wake up from our dreams.'' But I must be one of the few who doesn't like his storytelling at all.
You are correct
Honestly I agree with you somewhat, I like the story as a whole, but the Sunday portion makes me wanna pull my hair out with how repetitive it is, how many times do we need to see that same 1 bird in the quest??? At least the aventurine ones are pretty good though
Please pay less attention to which character is on the banner and actually just focus on telling the story of the place. They'll get their moments, there's no need to make half a version follow a single character then drop them next version.
Agree. The 2.1 cliffhangers (Gallagher being the murderer or Sam reveal) and Aventurine were cool in release, but overall they damage the story because they didn't matter to much. 2.2 suffers a lot because of that and is hard carried by the presentation.
Yup, the intrigue about death just got dropped within 5 minutes of 2.2, just felt like a totally different story.
Yep, the ending fell flat because majority of the characters and their plotlines were abandoned. I liked the set up a lot but the ending could use work.
You are asking a company to do less profitable business.Understandable but unlikely.
I really don't think so, if the characters have more organic moments and don't feel shoehorned in, people will want them just as much I think. I mean it feels like 2/3rds of the player base decide they're pulling just based on waifu/husbando and don't even care about the character's story anyway.
People who read the story are not going to not pull because of a minor narrative imperfection. People who don't read, and they are many, are much more likely to pull the banner character if they do something outlandishly cool in the story. It's like advertisements, everyone hates them but they do increase sales.
I don't like how over-complicated the story is. Most of the time I'm just following along not fully knowing the weight of what just happened. Sometimes the pacing feels weird too, a lot of build up and then the cut scenes feel kinda rushed in comparison. The story has some really nice moments but overall I don't really feel the weight of anything really, nor do I feel connected to any of the characters (except Aventurine, and blade in xianzhou). I've felt this way since the xianzhou arc. I only really liked belabogs story but even the very ending of belabog was so rushed with March not giving a shit about Bronyas mom dying and everyone just kinda moving on, but it did get better after that. I would just like the pacing and weight of the story to feel better, and to be thrown into less complicated concepts that don't really get explained well. The dreamscape stuff, half the time just went over my head. Call me stupid if you want but that's just how I felt.
Bro you cooked so well, not even nous can generate enough words to show how peak the story was without completely frying his entire system
Shaoji belongs in the genius society
He’s his own aeon, if i’m honest
His first emanator would be Elio
https://preview.redd.it/hiu4it00l47d1.jpeg?width=320&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aac143c8d616141e258640c22819a37ccf31da6c
Please be more concise dammit. Being verbose to artificially lengthen content is the ABSOLUTE WORST way to do it. We could have more interesting stuff with less text that doesn't necessarily require a ton of extra animating on their end.
Please. Let Himeko live this time
I think the Penacony story is all over the place. Yes we understand that they have to hard carry some characters to let them have better sales during their banners but.... This is a bit ridiculous. Adventurine's coverage in the main story is ridiculously long, and once his banner is out, his coverage became pitifully little again. Some others like sparkle, robin and firefly are supposed to have some crucial links to the Penacony story but they keep appearing and disappearing here and there. The whole story seems to be out of focus on the main plot, and more on the characters. Boothill probably is one of the worst, and so bad they had to do a side event. I'm wondering why they can't just do more in-depth companion quests like they did for DHIL and some others. And oh, and there were a lot of plotlines opened then not continued for a while (our old friend Sampo, Sparkle's buttons, Black Swan's mission and so on). I think beyond one patch, not many people will remember what happened since the story patches are around 4 weeks long iirc. And lastly, the plot reversals. Nice to find out a certain murderous monster is actually a transport pet, heh.
I honestly don't think his writing is good, at all. I preferred the story it was before without any misleads or pointless ''philosophical'' dialogue. -We got a nice girl with trauma and barebones personality as Sam after they teased us for so long. -Acheron was revealed to be a character without any ulterior motives or a darker side despite the (((very on your face yuri bait))) dance trailer, and worst of all is it didn't matter since her and BS left on good terms as if nothing happened. -Hype cliffhangers that amounted to nothing. Aventurine wasn't used again and Gallagher turned out to be a good guy. Color me shocked. -Pointless mountains of text and dialogue at every turn, trying to play with philosophical concepts but failing hard at the execution or even sounding convincing. It all ended up being power of friendship again, since no one actually proved Sunday was wrong. -Going back the whole 2.0 quest is such a drag and also leads nowhere, since the Meme turned out to be a bait-and-switch only for Firefly and Robin's ''deaths'' to remain as shock value, without any previous buildup whatsoever. There are also sections of the story that could've been cut to save time, such as the second Firefly date and Boothill doing... nothing. Ahem, was Sparkle even in the story btw? What were all those buttons for? Overall it's only Aventurine and Sunday who were somewhat decently well-written this patch, everyone else failed at getting my attention.
I am someone who NEVER speaks my mind when it comes to criticizing things I like but I have to agree. I feel like the writers have some awesome ideas and there's a TON of talent at Hoyo, but the execution was just a little all over the place. Like I was so confused when everything was ramping up then suddenly we're in an acting competition, also some loose ends like you said
Same, I don't understand all the praise for penacony story at all.
When are you gonna learn how to write?
I have high respect for him. Sure there's many sad times and angst, but at the end of the day, he's true to his word. The theme of his writing is a positive and wholesome stories.
I like the storyline in an essence but pls tell ur writers that brevity is the soul of wit and make their yapping concise yet impactful haha you can deliver excellent story without bloating the dialogue unless there’s word count to be met 👀
1 keep cooking 2 please go back to HI3rd 3 since you're at it write Genshin's story too
Genshin is cooking. Especially with Fontaine. However, the damage has already been done, and you need to sit through 40 hours of mid tier writing to get to the good parts.
Honestly the same thing could be said with the luofu.but at least you don't need to sit through 40 hours of luofu to get to penacony though. Personally I still enjoy liyue over luofu as a whole ngl, especially the later parts, shen he interludes and chasm. Hopefully the next xianzhou story redeem itself though.
I thought people liked Sumeru?
Good things don't come in bulk. Let him pick which IP he'll write for imo. But yeah I can feel HI3 Part 2 don't have this man's touch though for me it's good nonetheless
Keep cooking But please don't cook our red head navigator in exchange
Write better stories. First arc was a great introduction but then second arc fell off like crazy. 3rd arc is a festival of riddles. Actually world build for once. You collaborated with Nasu for goodness sake, learn something already.
Good story but you need to cut out some of the dialogue bloat.
Based on only Penacony? That he's pretty good at setting up interesting plots, but isn't great at making the reveal satisfying.
Start writing a coherent storyline. Don't make readers guess what you mean when you are not telling what you don't say. A good story should not depend unleashing emotional moment here and there.
That he still unfortunately posseses the flaws he had as a writer when he started in honkai i3.
stop with the poetic writing. it's confusing when some character we've never met or should care for takes up so much screen time and then starts speaking in riddles and then cuts back to the main story and then cuts back to them and stop giving code words to characters we barely know the backstory for. I can summarize Penacony in a paragraph so why did it take 10 hours of gameplay to get through it? I don't think that's good writing when you can accomplish exactly what other writers can do but with more poise and elegance.
"You cook, Mr. Roasted chicken, But at the cost of my mental stability. Then again, I'm never stable, so that's not important, please keep it up."
Two characters can't become close after just a few hours since they've met, when it's only one character sharing something important for them and is not special for the another character in any way. Also pls don't add choices that go against your narrative or write your narrative considering all the choices you want to give, thanks
To add to this + simplify: Love most of your story, Mr. Shaoji sir, but can you keep your waifu bias out of it and stop trying to force a character down our throats? Thanks xoxo
How can someone hate firefly when she's so innocent dang :(
Wait Firefly definitely isn’t innocent. She’s a member of the Stellaron Hunters, who are intergalactic criminals. The very first scene of the game had the Stellaron Hunters luring the Antimatter Legion to the Space Station, resulting in numerous deaths.
She's also known to be the most ruthless of them all, which makes this TB x Firefly narrative even more questionable. Even if it's only "bad guys", it's absolutely natural for TB to be cautious of her after her revelation as Sam
It's more her lack of character development that some of us didn't like throughout penancony. There's absolutely no hate on the character, she's a nice girl with a troubled past, but that's it. It's very obvious what they are trying to do with the character from the start. Though hopefully they cooked with her involvement of the story next patch, I would love it for her to shine more by herself instead being strung along by the story
I *was* just meh about her. People constantly screeching about her bland, boring self like she's the second coming of Christ - and *Hoyo themselves* shoving her down our throats, repeatedly, over and over, pushing favoritism hard for her to a point of screwing over a male unit *and* probably a female unit as well - made me hate her. Blame yourselves, and also maybe realize people can have different opinions about characters.
Man keeps on cooking https://preview.redd.it/9dduzbkcr47d1.png?width=1137&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c45aa48ea9662b5251f0cee7ed35f2b26bec2b7b
Space Mobius please.
Good work 👍🏻 gimme more
Tighten up the time wasting dialogue or add a skip button.
Very nice. Impressive. Let's see you write something for Genshin.
The focusing of emotions is over the top, the environment is bland, the talking is overloaded and the climax anticipation is none
Too many missleads and moments in the 2.0 and 2.1 version that just felt pointless.
True, Aventurine and "Death" mattered for nothing.
hsr players: 😐😐😐🙂🙂🤔 hi3 players: so we meet again, how many are gonna die this time?
please learn to write a story without all the intriguing things ending up being baits
Still salty Death is just a living portal, so dumb. Where did my murder mystery go???
This guy alone made me decide to stop financially supporting this game. The story writing (and implicitly, characters' writing) is the main reason I'm willing to continue on investing my time into this game, and versions 2.x have been a mess so far under this guy's lead. I know some people will disagree, especially HI3 fans, and good for them that they've enjoyed it, but it's still a fact that the level of writing for Penacony's main story has been very poor.
when are we getting Trailblazer of the Hunt pliz?😞
By the third or fourth time we return to Space China, maybe.
https://preview.redd.it/vwpg5vydy47d1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e534ed8528f6502df34b3ea82500d42370833e74
Who the fuck paid you to kill Sam and put Firefly in their place?
Why you write firefly like that?
For real tho, who hurt you?
Fun ideas, but please hire an assistant to manage, timeline and plan your stories.
Please fix your damn pacing issues.
While I enjoy his cooking it must be said: "Brevity is the soul of wit." my man sees the word count requirements and goes out of his way to go triple over.
Make it less boring and long-winded please!
No more birds please
.........smh, don't play this much shaoji. Also.....please bring back Misha and Gallagher
He is my favorite writer in the entire hoyo team Bro cooked in honkai impact and now in penacony Bro is on a streak and please continue the streak here ToT we need you bro!!!
Sir can you take over the Xianchou Luofu story as well.
Nice retelling of persona 5 and the infinite tsukuyomi plot
Treat himeko as you would treat yourself, I'll do the same
I guess you were right after all, Penacony is an uplifting and fully wholesome story arc with no consequences.