It Will Be Alright, Huntress

ok fine, let's start this shit

I hate dramatic irony actually, I hate knowing something is going to fail catastrophically and still having to watch the fucking thing

To Be Hero X is like a solid 4/10 but it's still fun

Dude, fuck you

Dude....fuck yes

Well, that's 1.6 done

mixed feelings, if I'm being honest.

I do understand that since I haven't done Anby's story yet I'm missing a chunk of the story, but honestly idk how much it'll retroactively improve this story. As it stands now, Anby and Trigger's involvement in 1.6 feels hollow and inconsequential. They're just there. I have heard really good things about Anby's side tho, and about Trigger's character quest, so I'm still looking forward to those.

I do overall like Vivian and Hugo. I think Vivian's freak out over Phaethon is cute, and Hugo is obnoxious but interesting to watch. I'm at least glad that Vivian, despite having a crush on Phaethon, seems to have escaped the Firefly curse of being dubbed waifu bait by the fandom. And anyways I like ViviBelle, I'm the fan being serviced idc.

I dunno, it's weird. Awkward transitions, abrupt tonal shifts all the time, it never lets a scene linger longer than it has to, and unclear standard for what gets a CG cutscene, a 2D comic, or a static talking scene. It just feels wrong to me. Maybe I really have gotten waaaayyyy to used to how HSR does it, warts and all. Maybe I'm being overly sensitive, but it's missing the sauce of 1.4 and that disappoints me. (If you wanted to make a retroactive criticism, you could say that they blew their "bring all the characters together for a big finale" load a little too soon for that patch. But I won't really feel that definitively until 1.7 is finished and we see what this is all leading towards).

But uh. 1.5: 5/10 1.6: 6/10 I think. Thanks for watching IGN.

Hugo: Mockingbird exists to bring justice to the world! The rich sit in their lofty penthouses while the poor struggle to survive, but we can make it right!

Hugo: And to start I'm going to kill my uncle so I can inherit my rightful place as the heir to this rich family that's a part of the most elite and powerful group of businesses in the entirety of New Eridu! And once I've killed and lied and stolen to get my way to the very top, then I'll be able to exert change!

i love ignoring new character combat mechanics bc story-level difficulty means I can just spam buttons

Award for ZZZ's ugliest character model goes to:

Oh! I was meant to do Anby's character quest before starting 1.6

hm. Oh well.

I said a while ago that Belle makes the most sense as the player-controlled protagonist and every minute I'm in this game I'm proven right

But anyways, onto 1.6

fun fact: I haven't done Lycaon's character quest, bc you couldn't pay me to care about that fucking dog.

ZZZ 1.5 story quest complete! It was fun, but way too rushed I think.

Maybe I've just developed Stockholm syndrome from HSR's 8 hour quests but I really didn't enjoy the pace of this one. Scenes lasting maybe a minute before completely changing gears, characters being introduced out of nowhere (Lady de Winter just showing up and being Obviously The Bad Guy for 2 seconds and then her next appearance is the reveal that she's Obviously The Bad Guy), it just felt off to me.

I liked Astra and Evelyn well enough, but I'm afraid my opinion on them hasn't really changed from what it was before this story quest. And I kind of blame that on the shallow character writing and rushed storytelling. Everything I knew about them from being on the fringes of the fandom was everything that they ended up being, and that's a little disappointing.

Still likable characters, but not very compelling to me personally. I think it would have been better if Wise and Belle weren't involved at all, a lot like how Undercover R&B did it's story. The time allocated to them fanboying out and having a weird, forced conversation about Astra's online hate could have been used to develop Evelyn and Astra's relationship beyond the fanfiction trope that it is. Not to devalue the trope tho. "Undercover spy who falls in love with her target" is always good and a true yuri classic.

On a positive note, I'm genuinely stunned by the amount of 3D and 2D cutscenes that were incorporated into this quest that's like, barely an hour or two long. This also may come from being forever trapped in HSR, that gets a handful of CGs and 3 second long cutscenes per 8 hour quest, but it was so nice to see. And, of course, the humor in this game is still really fun. I love Fairy and the siblings, their banter is always the best part of any quest.