So I’ve returned to playing Genshin Impact after I quit around 4 years ago. To put it simply, I was super burnt out by the grind and the Inazuma Act III story quest made me lose faith in the game’s story. I’m not going to get into that right now (that can be a whole separate post), but the point is I have returned after, let’s say, my friends’ war of attrition telling me the story massively improved after I left. And well, from what I’ve experienced so far, I can definitely see that, and I’m not even at Sumeru yet where Mihoyo supposedly got a bigger budget.

One of the story quests I’ve heard a lot of hype for was Raiden’s story quest (the second one, the first one is certainly a quest/date of all time). It’s some of my friends’ favorite quests and I was excited to experience it as I wasn’t really a fan of Raiden, especially after Inazuma Act III and the date quest right after leaving a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. I heard that this quest really helped develop her character, so I was looking forward to experiencing it myself.

So what did I think? I liked it quite a bit. I liked how it delved into the lore of Inazuma and the cataclysm that happened 500 years ago, both in Inazuma and Khaenri’ah, and how that informed and developed Raiden’s character. At the same time, some of the familiar pitfalls of Genshin’s storytelling that I’ve experienced up until now show up again, with the story heavily relying on exposition and info dumps while the cool action is happening out of view. Overall though, I did like it quite a bit and it did make me like Raiden more. And I can definitely see the improvement in writing quality that brought back some of the magic Genshin Impact had for me when I first started out.

The First Half: Following the Trail

To start, let’s talk about the first half of the story quest. In this first half, we follow a trail of Rifthounds. In the process, we meet the “ghost memories” of the people and soldiers of Inazuma during the cataclysm 500 years ago. We get more information about the darkness that consumed Inazuma and how Raiden, her sister, and her friends fought against it. It was really nice getting to hear from the three different groups about how they experienced the cataclysm and how they reacted to it. Some were afraid, some were calm, some were defiant and fighting. And through the showcasing of this lore, we see Raiden realize how her being chained to the tragedies of the past, unable to move forward and fixated on eternity, was holding the people of Inazuma back and was overlooking the valiance of the people of Inazuma. She realized that Makoto’s (her sister) view of change was ultimately right and resolved to sever the past and take the first steps towards the future. I really liked how in this segment, we see how seeing these “ghost memories” affected Raiden and how it impacted her views, and I like how it progresses Raiden step by step to grow and move forward. I liked how it presented the themes of impermanence and change, and how that related to Raiden. Those themes reminded me of Buddhist philosophy on the nature of things being impermeant, which I thought was nice. It was really nice development.

Now unfortunately, this is the segment that I think is most impacted by what I believe is a lack of budget pre-Sumeru. All of the above is all well and good, but unfortunately it is executed in probably the most bare-bones and dull way. This segment of the quest is literally just us following a road and talking to ghost people, relying on those ghost people to tell us what happened instead of just showing us or allowing us to experience it ourselves. And because of this, it makes the emotional impact of Raiden’s struggles of losing her sister and friends feel very abstracted and second-hand. It makes it a lot less compelling than say if we actually saw Raiden grieving over her sister’s body. I know that Mihoyo wanted to keep us from seeing too much of Khaenri’ah early on, but they could have just had a CG image of Raiden and her sister with the background being in black. And don’t tell me Mihoyo doesn’t have the budget for that when they constantly make animated character trailers. They totally could have spared some money for a single image. Raiden just telling us of her sister’s death makes it lose a lot of the emotional resonance it could have had.

(EDIT: So apparently there was a story teaser released 5 months before this quest got released that did show a scene of Raiden grieving over her sister’s body, which honestly makes me even more confused on why they didn’t include it in the game itself. It wouldn’t have cost anything extra at that point to include like still frames or something. Not everyone playing Genshin would have seen the teaser or have it fresh in their mind 5 months later and some sort of visual/animation being in the actual in-game story as it was progressing would have made the emotional beats land better.)

Similarly, there had to have been a better way to convey the information of the cataclysm 500 years ago and for us to see how the different groups of people experienced it. Again, them just telling us what is happening and how they feel makes us seem more of like an observer and makes the suffering and experiences of these people feel second-hand and less “present”. Like instead of that, imagine we actually were able to see Inazuma 500 years ago in darkness, being ravaged by monsters and seeing the suffering of the people. Imagine we actually see people rising up to fight back, summoning their courage and faith in context. I feel like that would have been so much more compelling in delving into the lore than them simply just telling us that and them miming those actions in the current environment. I feel like this issue is a huge problem in Genshin when I played. Genshin from when I played back then has the habit of conveying genuinely interesting lore in the most boring and dull way, often through exposition and info dumps and not showing the actual action. It does a lot of “telling” when it would be a lot more compelling if Genshin did more “showing”. And this has real consequences too for Raiden’s development. It would be a lot more natural and compelling for Raiden’s development if she actually saw and experienced the people either calmly making tea in the middle of the darkness or rallying against a certain doom instead of just being told that, which then furthers her change in views. Raiden actually seeing the strength and valor of the people in action and context would make her development a lot more impactful I feel.

So overall, when it comes to the first half of this story quest, while I did like the text of the lore and Raiden’s development, unfortunately Genshin’s bad habits when it comes to storytelling rear its head again. So overall, this first half was just okay for me. I did really like the text of Raiden learning and growing and also the backstory of Inazuma and her friends and sister, but the lack of budget and reliance on exposition definitely held it back and made the emotional moments feel a lot more disconnected from us and more second-hand than it could be. It’s interesting because a friend of mine sent me a really amazing fan-animation showing Raiden’s past and her losing her friends and sister, showing through the direction and cinematography the loss and pain she feels. It was extremely compelling and a lot more effective in conveying this sense of loss and making us feel for Raiden than what we actually got in the game. It’s kind of crazy that a fan was able to execute this better than Mihoyo.

The Second Half: Severing the Past

Now for this second half, I feel like Genshin got the profits it made from making bank just in time for the production of this second half. The rise in quality from a technical standpoint was crazy. In this segment, Raiden resolves to take the first step to move into the future and as such confronts the puppet she made to fulfill her directive of eternity. I really liked how this is set up and how it perfectly mirrors the thematic conflict and Raiden’s own development in physical form. We have the puppet that was made by the old Raiden who was chained by the past and pursued stasis. The puppet is the physical manifestation of those themes and what Raiden used to be. And of course, we have our Raiden, who has gone through her development and is the physical representation of the themes of change and progress now, or at least moving towards that. Raiden defeating the puppet is an amazing way to show this severing of the past and stepping into the future. It is the perfect culmination of Raiden’s arc in this quest. It’s super cool and compelling, and of course makes for an absolutely amazing fight full of this symbolism. Everything about the fight was amazing. The environment, the boss’s final forms, and the cutscenes definitely enhanced the atmosphere and impact of the conflict. As I said, it feels like the budget had a huge increase and it definitely paid off here. Like we have the luxury of having actual cutscenes and scene changes. I know right?

So yeah, I was getting really into it, having taken down the boss after she healed quite a bit of times. It is here that the story makes a quite honestly baffling decision. Raiden sends us out of the “domain expansion”, resolving to continue the fight for eternity, striving to fight for her new ideals no matter how long it takes. And I thought that would be the end of the quest. We had the climatic fight, Raiden shows her resolve for her new ideals by making the choice to fight her past self for as long as it takes, it just felt like that was the end. And then, we go talk to Yae Miko, who apparently is able to send us back to that domain expansion, and we then fight the puppet one more time. This felt extremely jarring and discombobulated, ruining the amazing momentum and flow that was building up during this second half to instead do a sidequest. It didn’t help that, at least for me, the second fight felt a lot quicker and seemed to have less “forms” or her healing herself than the first fight, which made it feel a lot more anticlimactic. Despite the puppet doing this fight with a mecha, the shortness and easier difficulty was honestly a letdown. I understand that the point of this was to show how time passes differently in the domain expansion versus the outside, but this was not the way to do it. I refuse to believe that there wasn’t a better way to handle this or that it needed to be shown right that instant.

Overall, the second half I felt was a huge step in quality for the execution of the story. It was a really good culmination of Raiden’s arc up until that point and the setup of the fight between Raiden and her puppet was the perfect capstone to that. There were actually cutscenes that showed the progression of the story beats, and we are witnessing firsthand Raiden’s new resolve for her new self. Unfortunately, it did take a stumble with separating the puppet fight into two, for like no reason I feel, making that climatic fight kind of anticlimactic and ruining the momentum and flow. Regardless of that though, I thoroughly enjoyed this second half and I think this really did bring back the magic that I felt when first starting Genshin.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I liked this story quest quite a bit. We got to learn a lot of interesting lore and see great development from Raiden. The confrontation between her and her puppet was extremely well executed and a very compelling culmination of the themes and of Raiden’s arc this quest. That said, the story quest was definitely hampered by Genshin’s common pitfalls of overrelying on exposition and info dumping, especially in the first half where there was barely any budget. Things definitely improved on that front in the second half but was hampered by a bizarre decision to chop up the climax into two. I can definitely see how the story quality has improved since I quit around 4 years ago but also see why Sumeru is generally considered the point where the story jumped in quality. I think the joke that Sumeru is where Mihoyo was finally able to reinvest in the profits it made were not totally off the mark, and we definitely see glimpses of that in the second half of this quest.

Regardless of my criticisms though, I still really enjoyed the story quest and it did make me like Raiden more. She’s still not a favorite of mine, but I can appreciate her more. Experiencing this story quest makes me very excited to continue experiencing Genshin’s story, which is really nice to feel as I definitely lost faith in it 4 years ago. Overall, I think I would give the story quest a 7/10. Definitely an improvement while still being hampered by some of Genshin’s bad habits which hopefully will be resolved in Sumeru. But yeah, hopefully you all enjoyed hearing my thoughts on this story quest. I’m definitely back and am excited to continue!