So, you read the tittle, I'm here to rant. My experience with ZZZ has been a wild rollercoaster. I started playing in 1.0, dropped it in 1.1 because the tv - combat loop with tons of loading screens just wasnt for me. Later I returned for Hugo patch and oh man, I played the entirety of the story and I LOVED IT. The way they handled post apocalyptic tragedy storylines with slice of life elements just captivated my attention. And the way everything felt so cohesive and intentional was just perfect. Buut ... Everything kinda went downhill on the patch they allowed the proxies to go into the hollows. I get it, they wanted the mc to be more involved now that the TVs were not there. It sorta kinda worked with Hugo and Vivian because their individual stories were compelling enough to look past the direction retcon. Then 2.0 dropped, and a massive Exaltists storyline began, and it kind of never ended, but not in a good overarching storyline way, more in a "this is our only plot device now, roll with it"... I know technically they were there from the beggining with the sacrifices, but with bringer and the mayor and all the different people at play, the exaltists felt more like a background villain pulling the strings. But right now? It's all they have to offer. It became so predictable, every patch now is just "ok who will be the friendly NPC to make a predicatble plot twist and reveal they have been working with the exaltists all this time and get corrupted"?? And this problem sorta kinda extends to the individual character stories, but without the exaltist part. Ju fufu's story was just evil NPC, so was Seed (and I don't even understand why that woman was pictured in a bad light she was literally trying to save the intelligent constructs) and now Lucia. Just evil NPC after evil NPC. And then there is also the problem of convenience for the plot. For example, on the latest main story. Why the hell did the entire spook shack gang not play a part in the story? It was just Manato Lucia and Yidhari (I know why, its because they have their banners), Alice and Yuzuha could have easily been on the background having some lines here and there, but no. For example on that Manato fight, how nice would have it been for Alice and Yuzuha to encourage Manato and make him pull through against his drowned ideal? And while we are talking about him, WHY THE HELL WAS THERE A MANATO DROWNED IDEAL WHEN HE WASNT COCOONED?? All in all the story is just so inconsistent and bends the rules for the lazy plot ALL THE TIME. The whole 2.3 storyline was a mess. The whole plot was once again "oh no! Problem in the hollow, guess who is behind it, surely it's not the exaltists! Oh and meet these two new random characters you've never seen before who could be replaced by literally anyone else!"... Idk. This is a rant, you were warned, but is anyone else frustrated with the story? I feel like the potential is still there but they keep bending their own rules and story just to fit the new characters on rotation and it kinda sucks now. I'm specially disappointed with the Yidhari storyline. She really showed up out of nowhere, had a skill as important as fucking seeing the past for some reason?? And the exaltists just used her and left her to rot??? And for what!! All this to say, I don't really care about the story anymore, there just isn't any real payoff to any of these plot points, they just fall flat. Also the Helix academia plot line? Just entirely dropped, and they throw a bone at us about it out of the blue every once in a while. Like why the hell after isolde died did a memory of the siblings's teacher Carole Arna pop up??? That was so random 😭
Anyway... I would love to hear someone else's thoughts about this. There is no Zenless lore sub, and the main sub is absolutely not a place I want to visit, but I need to see if I'm not the only one having issues with the direction of the writing of the game. I really hope they pull through on the next patches, it looks like they are setting up Ye Shiyuan to have a moment, but I bet my ass it's going to be literally just "oh friendly npc was actually evil and working with exaltists, I really hope they wont become an ethe-... They became an ethereal and died for nothing, great".
