Catching up : Genshin Impact

 

I spent this weekend catching up on different content both on my main account and my alt account. Mostly quests and exploration~

Caught up with the main Enkanomiya quest on my EU account. I really liked the detail about the serpent being punished for gaining forbidden language, seems like a spin on the biblical serpent. One would say "oh, but Inazuma is based on Japan!" but Enkanomiya has a lot of characters with non-Japanese names and the gods (Morax, Barbatos, Baal etc) are named after demons so I wouldn't be surprised if the religious reference is deliberate, especially when we are talking about events happening before the founding of the current seven nations. Not to mention that the devs add a lot of meticulous detail to the lore of the world.

Also nice "foreshadowing" with Paimon. I have my own theories about Paimon and the Traveler but I will talk about them at the end of the post.

Overall Enkanomiya is fun! I am not super into the Abyss and such but I really want to figure out what we, the player character, really are.

On my main account I also caught up with some long-neglected character quests, starting with Eula.

Short review - I really liked it! The snooty noble uncle was really obnoxious at first but fit well as the "aristocrat stuck in the past" character. I like that Eula is personable but a bit odd. She simply has her own way of showing that she cares. Since I played the events in which she later appeared I know that deep down she has a soft heart and wants to befriend the people of Mondstadt.

I can't wait for her rerun so I can pull for her!

Another quest I did is Ganyu's, granted I did some bits and pieces here and there so I forgot the overarching plot. I know it was about her struggling to find her "identity" and whether she is more adeptus or human and of course her being the eternally overworked secretary... it's a bit drab but I liked this sequence from the latter part of the quest:

The idea of a long-living mythical entity being the mentor of a human family... it's very heartwarming. I wouldn't mind if Ganyu was given more of a mentor or motherly role, especially if it's towards humans. She is not quite adeptus adeptus but I think the new Liyue which is ruled by humans could become her home and she could become "one of the people" easily, not just as the top secretary but also as a good friend and mentor.

After the old character quests, I dived into a new one - Yae Miko's story quest.

It left me feeling confused. After talking with a friend we both agreed the ending was not very satisfying.

Initially I thought the strange new hit novel was actually written by Miko herself and she wanted to create a situation for other authors to up their game but then the culprit turned out to be a random other kitsune and then the plot changes to a cleansing ritual.

The ending cutscene is nice but if the quest tried to do the "farewell to old friends" like with Raiden Ei... it really didn't work. 

I would have preferred if the quest was more about the novel writing process and Miko challenging her writers - it would be a fun plot and work well with her mischievous nature.

Perhaps the youkai could be introduced in a different way. A gathering of a 100 demons sounds way too badass to be written off in one small cutscene with no casualties! Inazuma is the land of tragedy after all...

That's about it for EU account catch up, now for my Asia account catchup!

On my Asia account I caught up with the teapot quest and the main quest up until the first chapter of the Inazuma Archon quest. Now I only have all of Inazuma to explore. 😅

What caught my attention was this bit during the Dainslief questline:

Since completing Ei's quest I was thinking about the possibilities of different timelines: something that we think happened in the past actually happening in the future and so on. Good thing I'm re-treading old stories since I had forgotten that our main character is a literal world-hopping dimensional traveler.

Me and my friend once again talked about the possibilities of timelines and how it would be cool, that similarly to the planting of the Sakura tree, our fight with the mysterious god was something that was only going to happen.

Another idea we came up with was that our twin is hopping timelines and trying to stop us from doing something evil, say, destroying Khaenri'ah. Which makes the line in the screenshot more ominous - once you understand the truth, will you still be fighting for the people of this world?

Then again this josses the theory of "we are the bad guys" to "maybe everyone else is evil".

Phew, the more I think about it the messier it gets. Hoyoverse is not particularly subtle with foreshadowing so I think a reveal of "who's the real baddie" is bound to happen sooner or later. Then again, there are still 4 nations that need to be released before "our adventure comes to an end". Only time will tell what the devs have in store for us, I just hope they keep delivering great stories.