Was Inazuma Really That Bad? In short… yes. 

I have a discord now!! Join so we can discuss the story in detail! Link: discord.gg/yuuKmTXJ

Act 2's ending had so much potential and then Act 3 killed the entire Arc.

My big thing is that Raiden made her people suffer for so long, then after changing her mind and abolishing the vision hunt decree, ending the war and opening the country back... the people are just happy. They don't have any resentment toward her for all the misery they went through. In her story quest you walk through the city with her and and everyone is so happy to see her like she's a celebrity even though she locked the country down, started a war and stole visions. I just can't buy that no one is still mad at her.

I know Sara isn't a character that is not liked a lot but she's probably the charater in Inazuma that at least is behaving normally😭

You forgot the completely unexplained bit where the traveler was absolutely tweaking as they left from meeting the shogun

For me, what really irked me about Inazuma was how fleeting Scaramouche's role was. He should have played a bigger role in this arc, especially as someone who is directly connected to Ei and suffered because of her negligence, and yet he is reduced to basically a cameo and his nature as the Shogun's prototype was only told through a missable conversation with Yae Miko. It honestly should have been Scaramouche who confronted Ei in Tenshukaku, I personally like the idea of him triggering a flashback of Makoto within Ei as she looks upon a face that mirrors her own. Him mockingly calling her mother as he confronts her for not only abandoning him but all of Inazuma because she couldn't bring herself to face reality. And unlike Signora, he can survive her attack due to his true nature (something that could be showcased a lot more viscerally in that kind of situation as well). This could play a role in shaking her resolve in a meaningful way, as she is forced to face the direct consequence of her actions in the form of someone who suffered because of her.

I swear, the bit in Sumeru's quest where the traveler rushes back to Inazuma to see if everything is fine after Scara's change to Irminsul, had me feel more stuff about the region than the entirety of the Inazuma quest did

What bothered me the most is that Raiden was acting smart n unfazed but clearly didn't know what she was doing. And her character's quests depicting her as "a clueless shut in who is just mourning her twin" really made her the worst archon imo.

Honestly, Sunday from Honkai Star Rail is what Raiden could've been. They both wanted to exert control over their people for what they believed was the greater good, and both had their mind changed by us, the protagonist. Only we can tell and know that Sunday genuinely does want the best for penacony, and explicitly asked for us to show if our view of things is the better one right before battling him. Like you said at some point, Raiden's dialogue before her fight is a little contradicting since she claims to want the best for Inazuma yet fails to care about the internal strife going on. Sunday's change of mind was crystal clear, justified, and on-character, 0 disruption or lack of good pacing, and as he should, he feels no lack of remorse and is atoning for his actions as of now. Raiden's change of ideals happens just because it needs to and she feels little to no regret, doesn't really do anything to gain back the trust of her people and just goes back to "normal". It's once again a case of tell don't show for Inazuma. I just realized this while watching your video btw, very good commentary bro 👍👍

what pisses me off more is the fact that the traveler and paimon were huge dicks to furina (despite knowing the torture she went through) but went on a date with a god who literally killed so many people and was a shit ruler overall

The way i was hoping the raiden took responsibility for all that mess she caused , yet the quest wanted us to think ooouh look shes cute she dont know what camera is ! Look she has. Sad past !

One thing I definitely wished happen is that Kokomi got a one on one showdown with Raiden herself, she was built and hyped up to be such a huge figure, her entrance alone nowadays would’ve gotten her at least an act’s worth of storytime, instead all they did was make her incompetent and barely present 😭

Inazuma's lore and worldbuilding was truly what carried it throughout my entire experience doing the Archon Quest, but Hoyo really cut themselves short here by rushing Teppei and especially the ending. The only character that was even REMOTELY entertaining was Yae, since she was the only character to have something up her sleeve and this is putting the bar very low. Kokomi is also one of the biggest offender of this Archon Quest, like what do you mean the extremely smart strategist didn't know about delusions 😭😭 like bro COME ON

There’s also the fact that visions getting stolen was supposedly a huge deal, made people lose their will or whatever, but the statue they were placed on seems to be kind of unguarded?? Like Itto and his gang were just able to take his vision back no problem?

Everyone says the problem was pacing issues while those issues were merely surface level.

Interestingly, in the most recent Inazuma-based event (Arataki Itto's Rock-'n-Roll Festival) there is an interesting reveal that ties a lot of problems of Inazuma's Archon Quest together in an attempt to fix what otherwise doesn't make much sense. (There's a CatWithABlueHat video that perfectly explains it, but I'll try to summarize it as good as possible) Basically, the event phrased it so, that a 'dog' saved countless other 'animals' during the time when the Shogunate's army and Resistance were at war. So, the Kamisato Clan and Resistance were working together during the war, but behind closed doors. As we see with Kamisato Ayato's most significant characteristic, he is the type of person who lays low and doesn't inherently act out in the open, and is able to utilize the Shuumatsuban as well. After all, the Kamisato Clan is part of the Yashiro Commission, which means that they can't simply help the Resistance as they can't outright oppose the Tri-Commission and the Shogun too. Thus they had to keep things under wraps as much as possible. Soon after, the International Trade Association (which I'll shorten as ITA) - which we deal with at the start of the Inazuma Archon Quest - works together with Komore Teahouse, and created the "Puppy Union", an operation to help rescue "pets" during the war. The ITA had bonds with Sangonomiya, whilst Komore Teahouse had its ties with the Yashiro Commission, and both parties were 'led' by a 'puppy'. Taroumarou for Kommore Teahouse, and Gorou from the Resistance. This also makes it likely as to why the Kanjou Commission was so hostile towards the ITA. But the Commission couldn't outright expose the ITA, as it could expose their collaborations with the Fatui in return. This also greatly clarifies Thoma's personal involvement, and as to why he is regarded as Inazuma's "fixer". He is the first person we meet in the nation thanks to Beidou, the first person he introduces us to is the head of the ITA (Kurisu) and with the Traveler's help, indirectly he made it so the Traveler aided the Puppy Union in turn. Ayaka's story quest also involves her directly assisting Kurisu, but speaks in a manner as to not raise suspicion. She knew exactly how to help him out without him exposing the truth about them being in cahoots as well. Yes the quest isn't good and a total drag, but the way she actually helped him out, clarifies an extra thing regarding the secret bond between the ITA and the Yashiro Commission. Strange that all of this crucial information was hidden in a temporary event that is no longer available though.

Okay, I remember it being bad, but I never thought it was THIS BAD. We were forced and manipulated to fight against the Shogun, meet the Resistance who are just chilling, then the most random, easily forgotten NPC dies, then the gremlin yaps, then Hot Fox Lady tells us to fight the Shogun again, and finally we win through the power of friendship. The worst part is that Raiden was quickly forgive even though she didn't care about her people on the first place, and now in her place is a waifu that Hoyo really forced her VA to make an extremely kawaii voice in order to sell... The best part about Inazuma is truly when it finishes lmao. Although the Narukami World Quest was nice, probably better than the main story.

Inazuma is by far the most beautiful out of all the regions but has the shittiest archon quest 😅

I always found it a little annoying at how easy it was for Raiden to be swayed into giving up the vision hunt decree and just giving up on her precious eternity. When we first meet Raiden she’s so ruthless and she doesn’t strike me as the kind of person to just give up so easily.

As someone who started playing Genshin early December in 4.2 and ending the whole Archon Quest in mid March, this is very noticably the worst written Archon Quest in many ways. Mondstadt, Liyue and Sumeru aren't written perfectly either. Even in Fontaine you can find flaws for example Act 3. But the weird pacing, concentration on NPCs and less usage of actual playable Characters compared to the other regions make it feel worse than the other ones. Everytime I hear someone say "Inazuma was the Best" "Inazuma was peak Genshin" "Genshin falls off since Sumeru" I know that these people did not revisit or played the Archon Quest after Sumeru and Fontaine came out and look at Inazuma with their pink-hearted nostalgia

i remember hearing someone say that if fontaine’s quest happened during the same time as inazuma’s we would have to do errands to get ready for the magic show; that’s really what made me realize how bad inazuma’s pacing was lmao

feels so weird how at first raiden is such a strict ruler who knows and controls everything and then she's like um im shy and i miss my friend um yeah sure u can call the decree off okay :( i go try boba now cya

The Vision Hunt Decree and an antagonistic archon was such an interesting concept and could have been an amazing storyline. What I wish the writers did was to add a realistic narrative where Ei would face the consequences of her actions, see the suffering of her people, and rectify her mistakes IN THE SAME ARCHON QUEST. All we got was that the traveler beat her and she was forced to comply with their request to end the Vision Hunt. We got a lot of build up on the devastation caused by the civil war, yet the ending didn’t even acknowledge it. Like what the hell was that? Her 1st story quest made it seem like “Oh, we beat the Raiden Shogun and now we’re cool” and everything is copacetic. Oh, and she was easily forgiven by everyone??? Too many loose ends.

The main issue I had back then and even now is what was the point of the statue. They put so much emphasis on the vision hunt but what was it for? From what I remember the whole idea was given to Ei by the fatui and she just went "yeah, sure". I really thought the reason for the vision collecting was that Ei could use it as some sort of power up or something to fight Celestia or at least do something but no. Maybe I remember wrong but even if I do the storytelling was so bad I can't help it lol

I went through the entire Inazuma arc super fast so I didn't catch a lot of this, but there was a constant presence of "Oh, so we're doing this now? That's how we're supposed to feel? Okay." It just felt like the quest was dragging the player through it instead of actually getting them invested.

Tbh the whole ending of Inazuma story looked like Rabtoon joke they made in ffiv paradody. Ei: - OH! I AM EVIL! Yae: - Stop being evil! [poof] Ei: - I am NO LONGER evil! Like wtf? I also had many many arguments with people who said "Raiden apologized in her second story quest!", yeah, she kinda did, to the Traveler and not her people. That's not what we wanted. "She's a god! She doesn't need to apologize!", yeah, but she's also a ruler, who is responsible for her people, if she was just a god, she could stop being a ruler and give responsibility to some one else, but no. "People forgave her, because she's a god and they admire her!", wow, that's a cult my friend, so you're saying that she can kill your family in front of you and you'll forgive her because boobs- i mean you admire her? That's messed up in so many ways, lmao. "She helped all the victims! Just read messages on the boards in city!", and why i should read some outsource material, that is not present in the main story quest, again? This is so bad. But i guess nothing will work on people who are sold for pretty face, booba-sword and short bathroom robe. At least i respect people who are honest that they like Raiden for her meta gameplay, booba-sword and other minor reasons because waifu gaming and all. That's admirable. I also noticed another plot hole after replaying story quest three times: Yae had an entry pass and she didn't give it to us because... reasons, the whole section with Sayu and following Sara wouldn't happen i guess. Not many people remember this shit, so i'll elaborate a bit on this matter. At the beginning of the first Raiden story quest Yae gives us the entry pass to Teshoukaku. Apparently she always had it, but used it just now. Meaning she always had a free entry to the place and decided not to use it herself, not to give it to resistance, not to give it to Ayaka, and not to give it to us, when the Traveler visited her first time. But after the whole thing she just "take it and go visit Ei", wtf? Lady, if you had that thing on you all the time why didn't you share it? Also if Ayaka and Yae and Kokomi were technically on the same side all the time, why they didn't communicate in any way? And the icing on the cake, why Yae never talked to Ei? She could freely enter the Teshoukaku anyway, so what's the problem? Some people said that "it's because she knew that Ei was stubborn, she tells about it in the second Raiden story quest", yeah, but assuming smth (no matter how good you know someone) and trying to speak with the person (no matter how pointless it would be) ARE DIFFERENT THINGS! "I tried to reason with her but she wouldn't listen" and "i decided not to try speaking with her because i knew she won't listen" hits different. When i went through all those quests again and again i just couldn't find Yea likable in any way. Lazy, irresponsible beatch, that's who she is. But yet again, people only see short dress, sussiness, mommy vibes and nothing more. Who cares about character if it sells well for all the wrong reasons, right? Well, whatever. If you feel offended by the opinion of a random person on internet my condolences. If you like those characters i have nothing against you personally, but objectively speaking the story was bad, the presentation of these characters was bad, and trying to defend that is like lying to yourself. It's ok to like unlikable characters, but don't try to justify their actions pls. Thank you. Term "guilty pleasure" exist, use it.

The thing I liked best about the entire Inazuma plot line was everything involving Kazuha, from his dead friend, his personal lore, to him parrying the shogun while using two visions. He is great. Frankly, giving MC vibes and I loved him. I hated everything about Ritou, the Kamisato clan, and Watatsumi Island. Kokomi didn’t even do anything, she just showed up. It felt like she had SO much potential Ritou dragged on. It went on for SO long, and running around for all those NPCs (that Hoyo seems to care deeply about since one of them hijacked Ayato’s story quest) was exhausting. I didn’t care for the dates with Yoimiya and Ayaka. Like… maybe if they had come at a later point, I might have liked them. But I REALLY did not care. They slowed down the story for me. Yoimiya’s second story however is amazing and I legit got teary eyed. You nailed everything about Ayaka. Like… I understand that her character on a deeper level is about misogyny and expectations for a Japanese princess… but at the same time it felt like she existed to be another waifu in love with the traveler. I think Ayaka fell victim to the bad writing big time. Someone else pointed out Scara as well, and I’d like to second that. He was a cameo that should have been more. The most vital information about him was given to us through a missable conversation with Miko at the very end. Honestly, I feel like in the story of Inazuma, they should have gone all the way with Scara, or not have given us that bit of his lore at all. It felt like a half assed way to introduce him and foreshadow his importance, especially when his connection to Ei was basically a throw away line

About the fatui, even the common fatui people are dying (see gray hair) due to their delusions, but other than that i completely agree with you

i hate raidens redemption, I wanted her to stay a strong leader for her nation and not fantasising over dango milk.

my biggest complain is Ei's pov. her sister died (as many others??) so she locked herself in her head not caring that her people are dying. literally what the. and then the community will try to analyse the hell out of her actions to justify her. no, she's just extremely bad written. hence, my least favorite archon. am i supposed to sympathise with her bc of her sister? xiao and zhongli lost all their friends in the archon war and the khaenrian war and they still haven't given up on liyue. even venti still watches over mondstad in the shadows.

The resistance came out of nowhere after the signora fight and they tried to patch up that plot hole through trailers for Ayato (who came out AFTER the archon quest was complete) where he said “i have to do a favor for my little sister”

Raiden’s search for eternity was all just yap. She just missed her gay fox

Not to mention the absolute horrible addition of Signora. She’s mentioned once before, and she doesn’t even fit timeline wise. She’s not mentioned at all, shows up at the end, and she’s forced into a duel just to die. Even in the rules traveler goes “I challenge you to a duel” before Signora can say anything raiden goes “proceed” and Signora reiterates the rules of said duel. Not to mention the dialogue line “for the people of liyue you imperiled” when it was literally completely Zhongli. So not only did the traveler take his anger out on Signora, but then on top of that, Scaramouche should’ve been the boss instead of Signora. Scaramouche is the one with ties to raiden and the amount of potential via swapping scara and Signora’s storylines, without any death is just too good to miss out on. How do you make a change with both a mom and troubled son and NOT have any fighting between them. + Signora’s reveal as the crimson witch wasn’t hyped up at all, or even hinted about aside from the artifact set. They basically just threw her in there for no reason

inazuma as a whole was built on shock value, from the archon quest where whole army went against traveler, story quests that were only about npcs, world quests with easy sobstory, and hidden quests that were all about children getting constantly murdered.

After the archon quest I was atleast expecting Ei to get consequences. But nooooo she just walks around and ppl r just afraid of her bcuz she’s powerful n stuff. Like, I get it, you’re an archon, but brave people exist and I feel like nothing happening afterwards to Ei kinda made the quest seem a bit pointless.

Personally I loved the Traveler here the most, ppl might say they were "out of character" when they didn't want to help the ppl of Inazuma but the problem is they immediately heard about us and WANTED us to play hero, of course we'll say no. And personally Traveler was still upset about the Venti thing when it came to Signora, I hated her for that too. We wanted to fight her AT Liyue but Paimon said not too but we wanted to fight her, so them challenging her just seems like we finally got what we wanted since Mondstadt. I remember the writer for Inazuma left mid of the story so they had to rush or whatever which is the main reason it was a disaster. But I'll still say I enjoyed it and certain moments still makes me hyped about it even tho it wasn't that great.

I never turned back to realize how rough it was because I havnt checked it out since it's release @.@ this is a bit of a wake up call to realize how strong my nostalgia had been

i really, REALLY despise the way they got rid of rosalyne/la signora. sorry for swearing but it does not make any fucking sense at all. it just makes me so mad, the traveler asking for a duel is so out of character, ESPECIALLY because they knew what a duel meant thanks to kazuha's story. the whole thing is illogical, they just killed her off to show how strong the raiden shogun is. and people are supposed to care? when the little information we know about rosalyne is in artifacts? its just very stupid, and as a rosalyne lover, this ruined the archon quest for me. im not even sure if reviving her is a good choice at this point

about the beginning when Traveller says no, I always felt like it didn't make sense tbh, He wants to meet the Shogun and the Shogun is very deeply intertwined in this Vision hunt Decree. And they're just like "Nah, I'll just walk up to this Tyranical Ruler who's stealing visions because they can use elemental powers and these visions are a hindrance to eternity" and not think to themselves, "oh shit, I'm an outsider who can use elemental powers without a vision, I don't think, 1. the guards are gonna let me get close to the Shogun during a fucking war, or 2, if she finds out that I the very famous traveller can use Elemental powers, she will try to eliminate me or banish me." I have no idea what their thought process was and them saying no pissed me off.

I feel like the vision hunt decree was SUCH a cool idea and then it got fumbled so bad. Like when we went to the statue of the omnipresent god I was so shook Thoma was just wandering around? With his vision on display? Like boy theyre gonna fucking GET YOU. Like i thought it would make sense for people in positions of power to keep theri visions but normal people? Like Thoma? They should have been the first targeted, and when there was noone left to defend them BOOM Ayato and Ayaka get smacked. Could have been a great criticism on how wealth and power protect people from consequences. Even Sara could have been cooler, imagine the god you love and idolise and FIGHT for suddenly turns and decides to take the one thing most important to you. Do you give it up to her in a display of complete servitude and obedience like that guy in the bible who (almost) sacraficed his own son. Or does the hooror of your soulless empty future without a vision scare you so much youre forced to rebel, to switch sides to the army youve spent years slaughtering for the god youve now abandoned. Also why was Raiden even taking visions? Like I feel it was probably addressed but I dont even remember. Then would have been the perfect time to introduce the fact that the heavenly priciples are asleep, making The hydro archons execution even more scary because we know the heavenly principles could be woekn up if something big enough happened. If Raiden took peoples visions to stop them ascendgin to lvl 100 and awakening the heavnely priciples it would have made her motivations somewhat sympathetic cause like, yeah, thats pretty scary ngl. Also we know now Kokomi and Ayato were working together to save people in areas of conflict but what about smuggling out vision holders? What if when Sara decides to rebel we have to smuggle her out? IDK man I just feel like so many cool ideas were set up in Inazuma but literally none of them panned out well.

Yea, my biggest issue was just the plot conveniences completely ruining the established characters, who they are, why they are that way, and what they're capable of. I liked the finale with kazuha parrying the shogun after the battle before the throne, but then suddenly the power of other visions and friendship somehow allow us to win. If it was better established how thay even came to happen, then yea maybe, but even in the case with Kazuha, he had an intimate connection with his friend's vision, and had an awakening of his own in the moment where he parried the shogun. The traveler just somehow harnessed the power of the visions on the statue to win against the shogun. I didnt like how unsubtle the pressuring to get the traveler to even start this whole rebellion with them was, like there were far better ways to show that the shogun was unreasonable and needed to be defeated in some way that WASNT giving us way too many details about 3 npc visions users who will never matter in the story again, just for all of that to tell us something we already knew. I honestly think it wouldve been cooler if we helped 3 actual inazuman playable characters who had their visions and ambitions taken, so we can see how much suffering has been caused to characters that we'll actually end up caring about in the end. A sad Kirara, Yoimiya, and/or maybe even Itto would've made for a really interesting story where we help get their visions back, build a relationship, AND get more people to help the rebellion. But that one's just me wanting less npc bull

I'll be honest i kinda liked the first half of the story especially the one with people's vision removed. Cause as much as we know how tense the situation are as outsiders actually seeing the people having their sense of selves ripped away from them was kinda chilling to me it is one of the view show AND tell that Inazuma given us. But sadly the second half blunders everything that was set up by the first half i genuinely have no good words for it.

You didn’t mention the worst part Back in 2.0 before we had Act 3, it was basically impossible to use one of the main teleport waypoints in Inazuma City because we were wanted and we had to wait 6 whole weeks just to freely walk around the city Minor nitpick yes but god it was so annoying

A Note: i've noted that in the escape from the shogun, she's actually so taken aback that they had the guts to fight her she stood there baffled but due to poor writing they didn't portray that well.

inazuma is my favorite nation but oh god does the quest suck ass to me it was the fact that the raiden just had a clarity moment and then all of the people were happy, also the fact that they justified the shogun who killed a lot of HER OWN NATION JUST BECAUSE OH IM MOURNING MY SISTER and that she talked to miko and suddenly she wasnt bad anymore???? plus her mission being straight up a date babyfying her oh my god

Honestly the entire Inazuma quest pissed me off. The way the game makes you fight Ei after fighting Signora, the pacing, and Ei. Don’t get me started on Ei. I guess she’ll never learn that HER ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES. BECAUSE SHE GETS *NONE.* Sumeru was a huge step up. Thank you

Another thing missing in the quest: Kamisato Ayato He is supposed to be the head of the Kamisato Clan, he is often mentioned and given importance, and we never even meet him! Later in a RU-vid video we are told he «actually» was helping from the shadows Ajá

7:55 to be fair to hoyo... This is probably that "puppy rescue" operation that was revealed in the latest music event. Kokomi and gorou never wanted the traveler to know this, so it makes sense he says he doesn't know. Still, it does suck that I literally had to see a vid on event lore just to know such a thing even exists

I love this comment section so much 😭 At the peak of the inazuma arc you could critique the story, but god forbid you can critique my hot mommy waifu raiden shogun!! It's not even that she did things wrong, her being wrong actually had potential for good storytelling but in the end she suffers no consequence from it, it actually feels like the story is trying to validate her actions and it leaves SUCH a bad taste in my mouth lol

I’m sorry but seeing Ei walk down after taking thoma’s visions is the most chills I’ve ever gotten from a video game ever. That alone makes it one of if not my favorite. All the hype leading up to the first archon being a villain was so cool, you just had to be there.

The idea, the concept is great but yeah the execution I can speak of how bad the inazuma quest for hours 😭💔 like 1. How ayaka and ayato just act behind the curtain but still no impact 2. How ayaka panic when thoma got capture (THEY SHOULD KNOW THAT WILL HAPPEN) 3. what happen with yoimiya and her fake vision (i thought see gonna save thoma) 😭😭 4. We don't need to talk about kokomi the war strategy 5. The build up of the quest are people got killed, economy crisis etc what happens to that??? The way all peope still adore the archon after all of it 😅 (only kazuha don't want go near ei now lolol) And the way people of Fontaine and paimon hate(?) Furina when she doing her best all this time But people of inazuma just make ei their idol No hate, the quest just have so many plot hole And there so many people denying this because it their fav character, the quest CAN NOT BE BAD

inazuma is a gorgeous region that is fun to explore.. but the story and what you needed to do was so bad that a friend of mine saw me struggling and offered to beat the quest for me. i let her (with many thanks) and was surprised that she also powered through the chasm so i could play the gem that is sumeru’s story.

Here’s my thoughts on a remake of the Inazuma archon quest. The prologue stays basically the same, except the thief comments on how did they managed to get a Vision from Inazuma, never getting an answer and cowardly going away. Act 1 should have a cutscene where the storm around Inazuma is brewing in which during this period there would be a massive wall of thunder and cloud that covered the borders of Inazuma. It’s during this time that the Traveller (due to the elemental compatibility) would have a small glimpse of the Shogun in the Plane of Euthemia . After crossing to Ritou things stay the same (though more realistic plot and methods) until they reach the Tea House. It’s here that Thoma invites the Traveller to walk around the city since he needs to buy some groceries, meanwhile telling everything about Inazuma. It’s when we follow Thoma that we notice some people that lost their visions and see their behaviour. Seeing the misery of the people, including the ones without a vision. The city seems to be stuck in a form of limbo. Which makes the traveller feel uneasy. Once they finish their shopping Thoma shows them the Statue of the Omnipresent God and suggests the Traveller to help them against the vision hunt decree. Traveller refuses and this leads to them meeting Ayaka, who makes a deal with the Traveller that if they help them abolish the decree, she can help him get to the shogun. Act 2 It’s here that Ayaka asks us to help on freeing the one that makes the fake visions which we meet Yoimiya and meet Sara. This leads to Ayaka thinking of a way to get Sara onto their side, this leads to traveller going to the narukami shrine in order to deliver a letter to Yae Miko. After that, Ayaka tells about the war and if they want Sara to help them convince the Shogun, they need to stop it. This war isn’t just about the Vision but also regarding Watatsumi vs Inazuma. We help Teppei and he explains the history of the island, we meet Sara again during combat and then we meet Kokomi, leading to us going to Watatsumi island and explain why we are here. We discover about the Delusions, prototypes of the ones used by the Fatui (courtesy of the Doctor). It’s then that the traveller sees the death of not just Teppei but also almost half of the army. We confront Scaramouche, who mocks on how humans are so amusing to be toyed with. The traveller (due to elemental compatibility) gets overwhelmed with the remnants of the dead gods (aka Orobashi). This leads to the Traveller falling unconscious and witnessing Raiden kill Orobashi in their dreams. We meet Yae who congratulates us on helping against the Fatui, since the truth about their actions and the deaths of both Inazuma and Watatsumi came to light. Ayaka appears too and explains they can use this as a way to convince Sara, meeting with her and arranging a time to show the proof. We meet Sayu and she does her job. In Act 3 we train with Yae Miko, who explains the situation with the Shogun and makes the Anti Shogun training. Once we are done we get the info from Sayu and meet back with Sara, showing the evidence… it’s then that Sara tells she will contact the resistance to meet in Tenshukakua in order to fix this ordeal… things stay the same until we get inside the plane of the real Ei. At first we ask about our sibling,getting to info. We then talk about the Vision and the Fatui finding she knows about them. We then resort into a due, risking our lifeboat order to make her abolish the vision hunt. We fight Ei and while we are winning, we can’t seem to defeat her. Yae appears and tells us how this plane only takes ambition into consideration, not physical capabilities. It’s then that with the help of everyone’s ambition that Ei loses, forced to abolish the decree. It’s then that after it’s all over that we meet with Miko and Ayaka. It’s then that we get the Ayaka and Yoimiya quest to give us a relax time and helping us think about the abyss twin.

I feel like of they add another act where we somewhat spend some time with raiden showing how bad the situation and seeing how brainwash people in narukami island is. Then, i feel like inazuma would somewhat be saved. like make her struggle or make her stop the war or even make her second story quest to be the part of the act. I would maybe like the quest a little more

Inazuma was my favorite personally but your points are valid. One thing I'd like to point out is Sayu. The point of her character is "slacking" but what is she slacking from? Why does she have the duties she have as a child? It makes no sense, she is basically Kamisato clan's child slave but it is not treated that way in the story at all.

I agree with many of your points (pacing, focred plot points) but I dont agree with how many things you called "out of nowhere", but there are implications that are left unsaid which I'm ok with as long as they are well executed. For example, we know Ei is a warrior as heart and she has much respect for thise who can best her in combat. Her first story quest hints at this when we learn the heads of the commissions all (or maybe it was just one of them I cant remember) all got their positions by winning a duel against her. The traveler changing his mind is also consistent with his kind and caring nature. Although he tried to say no at first, seeing the suffering of the people made him realize he couldn't ignore it and just continue his journey. I do agree the shift felt sudden and it would have been nice to see his unwillingness to help gradually soften rsther than "ok yeah nvm sign me the fk up for the rebellion". My biggest criticism of the quest was the rather sudden resolution of the main plot (literally was just like 5 min and suddenly Inazuma all better) and the final fight with Ei was 100% a power of friendship moment. There was no indication the traveler could take on other people's wills or gain strength from that. At least the Sumeru akasha system was well established throughout the plot and felt more organic when Nahida used it at the end.

one of my main problems with inazuma as a whole is the reaction of the people AFTER Ei changed her mind. They were all suddenly just celebrating her after possibly hundreds of their people died because of the vision hunt decree. They weren't AT LEAST being critical of her and skeptical of her regime after it. The point of NPCs is to make the world of a game feel more alive but hyv didn't even try on that aspect.

i feel like the story would’ve been really interesting if ei had already changed her mind by the time we came but couldn’t leave the puppet as it had gone out of control or something

4:37 this also why i don't like ayaka&his brother, The Kamisato's positioned themselves as the one that not losing anything. IF traveler succeed in the rebellion then it's good but IF it's failed and traveler will mostly died, then The kamisato's can just wash their hand of everything.

I get that Ei and Raiden are not the same, but I absolutely hate how they used it as a get-out-of-jail-free-card. I hate it for many reasons. One, Raiden was a more interesting character. Her evil actions being motivated by her ambition of eternity is original. It makes for an interesting villain. Two, nothing about how this works is clear. Was the puppet a perfect replica of Ei? If so, why did Ei change her mind so quickly at the end, with no real reason? If not, then why would Ei leave the puppet in charge, never checking in to see what she was doing? Or maybe she DID check (that one contradictory line again) and she just didn’t care. Which brings us back to: why would she then change her mind? Three, I deeply hate how suddenly, at the end of the quest, and in the subsequent story quests, absolutely everyone is fine with Ei. « Oh but she isn’t Raiden, she didn’t do the evil stuff » She was still a negligent leader. When Zhongli retired, he made sure humans would be fine without him. When Ei fucked off to her realm, she left a psycho puppet in her place. « Oh but the war didn’t affect them, only few people are vision holders anyways » Yeah, bullshit. First, vision holders have friends and families, so you’re already expanding the amount of people affected, and also, some people just have empathy for others. Some people have principles. Plus, ain’t no way a civil war isn’t fucking up everybody’s lives, including the ones that aren’t directly involved. You’d get supply issues, civilian casualties caught in the crossfire, a hostile environment where people all suspect each other of being rebels/revolutionaries/spies. And did everyone forget inazuman borders were closed? People were essentially trapped. All that to say I don’t believe for a single second there would be no resentment. If you’d told me there were two sides, people who were still loyal to her and people who hated her, I would be fine with that. If you’d told me people were pretending to like her because they were scared of her, fine. But genuine awe? Hell nah.

Also? I totally get the Teppei complaint. I actually made up my own backstory for him when creating someone to intertwine with things that don't make sense or feel kinda dumb. Me? I had him as a young man from Ritou who dreamed of being a hero on the battlefield and seeking glory. One who went into hiding due to speaking out against the Shogun and that he came across the Resistance when led to them by an outsider. And the outsider found out after the war was over what happened to him and essentially mourned his death and blamed themselves for what happened. ...It may not be a perfect idea but it was something.

You are right about almost all of the points you are making. Factually, the writing is flawed and there are a lot of plot holes. Most of the decisions made by the writers are questionable. For a game like this, which values its lore and world building as much as its characters and gameplay, creating a story like this does feel bad indeed. I enjoyed my time when Inazuma first came out. Playing since the first few patches of the game, this storyline wasn't that good compared to what we had before, so I wasn't really bothered by this back then, and because of that, certain action scenes and all the other stuff was actually very enjoyable for me. I liked how threatening it felt when we first landed there with all those puppet-Raiden cutscenes, even though the story was lacking, it was really good. It might be because we didn't have those patches all at once back then, which (for me at least) created a sense of mystery around the whole situation, and not to mention the amazing side quests and difficult puzzles which are a whole another topic. I loved the idea of that lame, invisible, "terrible" war between watatsumi and shogunate that forced the soldiers to become deserters, I loved how threatening and despotic the shogun/puppet was. Again, the story might have lot of issues, but I was hyped with all that stuff back in the day; 1v1 in the plane of euthymia with the Shogun, she stealing our kill and blowing up the Signora, Kazuha somehow blocking the Shogun, it was peak genshin in my opinion. I think the story of Fontaine would make a fair comparison to Inazuma's, since both are filled with plot holes, but the people enjoyed the former a lot more I think. For insantce, the actions of the hydro archon and her reasons for all the stuff she had, are kinda lame and pointless I'd say, which made me think so lowly of Furina after all the revelations, but the majority of the player base loved Furina. At the end of the day, it's all a matter of opinion. When it comes to any kind of content in genshin, I personally can't seperate the story from the gameplay, because when someone says Inazuma's story is bad, I too remember the mentally challenged Ayaka arc and the supposedly competent watatsumi soldiers arc, but as dumb as they might be, I truly enjoyed playing every moment of it. And yes I liked the anti Raiden Shogun training too, I'm all in for that kinda unreasonable challenges. Some of us just play games for the sake of playing, with our smooth brain mode on. (Also, I don't think Scara. is implying that they're making "Direct" money from the delusions given to the watatsumi soldiers; It's more likely that they are using this as an advert for their other fronts of delusion businesses. However, I don't really remember who's funding the production of those things, it might also be that they're manufacturing delusions for free and then selling them to other factions, thus creating a market of sorts with little to no cost.)

I'm a newbie who started playing in February 2023 and i finished Inazuma at the beginning of july 2024 I'll admit that i didn't about Ayaka and Yoimiya's quests slowing down the plot, probably because i was fascinated by the 2 girls... Maybe that's exactly what mihoyo wanted, lmao. Other than that, yeah, these points are all valid. I'd like to add, though, that when we meet Signora we see Sara right there, but they never explain what exactly happened to her. Did Signora fight her? Is she wounded? Or maybe even Shogun herself fought her? Even worse is that they never show or mention her again. Shogun's 1st legendary quest revolves around the Kujou clan struggling to keep their power as head of the Tenryou commission, AND THEY STILL DIDN'T MENTION HER AT ALL! Wth?? Same happened to Teppei. He died, and then they never mention him again (with the exception of Scaramouche maybe). It made his death less impactful than it could've been It's crazy that Seirai and Tsurumi, two regions that are explored through a world quest, have better writing than the archon quest

I did the anti shogun machine over 30 times

3:25 It’s not a huge deal but it always bugged me that the statue doesn’t actually display the majority of the stolen visions. I chalked it up to having false expectations based on cool fan-created concept arts (since we knew before Inazuma’s release there’d be an imposing “statue with 100 eyes” made up of visions), but in scale and presentation the statue doesn’t feel like it matches at all with what it’s meant to be (a symbol of power) or how every character describes it.

I would say "blatant xenophobia" rather than "blatant racism" as it more accurately describes the situation. Because it's not race that's the driving force but rather them being foreigners, outlanders.

This video makes me feel so validated because i remember getting harrased in community servers for these exact same thouvhts and words, im so happy others are looking back and realizing how bad teppei and the inazuma arc truly was

I have trauma from the sidequests.

Random thing I found about this quest I found strange was the fact that Kazuha, with 2 visions, was only barely able to push back Raiden. Despite this Gorou and the army still decided to rush in

The way you mentioned the longer time span of the vision holders stories and the way they introduced Teppei in a short time made me think... why didnt they combined both stories? For example, (when ayaka asks us to check the consequences of not having a vision) we meet Teppei and he can be one of these victims, now with him having been stripped from his ambition and seeing how everyone on the nation is suffering; he joins the cause (the traveler could also join around this point, going hand to hand with teppei's encounter). Sure leave the delusions but now it's justified that Teppei wanted to feel/have his ambition back as his condition was getting worse, only for him to die without it due to the delusions. This could help some of those problems a. Settle the "why taking the visions is bad" b. Establishing Teppei as an NPC whose story is now linked / witnessed by us. c. Taking the over time from one part of the quest and distribute it on the other part. It could solve a lot of those issues if executed carefully, as well as giving the traveler a real reason to engage against the shogun.

I personally love inazuma's vibe and I like Raiden. It's sad to see that people don't like inazuma mostly because the archon quest just ruined it for them.

inazuma will forever be my favortie region, y'all just don't get it like i do

I feel like Raiden's attitude after the discovery of what was going on outside the plane of Euthymia came out of nowhere. She was originally portrayed as a serious, threatening god who ended up giving up everything she'd fought for CENTURIES and reduced to a cute girl we were supposed to be swooned by. She had great potential but I think Act 3 was so rushed that we didn't even have time to digest all the changes going on with her. Btw great video. I like how eloquently you speak and then randomly become unhinged in some parts; it's unexpected and entertaining to watch.

Honestly I went in expecting this to be a mini version of hoyo bouncing off of Star Wars. Oh boy was I disapointed. Genuinly the worst quest.

my biggest problem with inazuma AQ was that they decided to killed major character that could possibly become playable BEFORE even letting traveler speak to her personally. we didnt see any cutscene relevant to her backstory and most of the playerbase doesnt really care about artifacts descriptions. the other harbingers were given way more screentime and wanderer could even be met during MONDSTADT event which is her home nation

Wait people sufered with the anti shogun training i don't remeber being that hard

Ei's entire character arc is just so terribly executed. I went from liking her because she was the first archon to not be immediately buddy-buddy with the traveler to absolutely despising her from how they redeemed her. Her lore seems interesting but they barely touch on it. We don't learn much about her sister and Inazuma when she was younger. What irks me the most is her first story quest, which you unlock right after you finish the archon quest iirc. It's literally a damn date simulator and the people are just... okay with her? How do none of the Inazuman people resent her? She literally locked up the country and made them miserable by taking away visions! But it's okay because she likes dango milk I guess 💀

Inazuma gor me represent the peak hype I reached for this game. The new amazing map, along with the interesting looking characters made me so excited that for a while, I tried to overlook the fact that the archon quest made absolutely no sense and was a complete trainwreck by every metric!

Analysis and thoughtful reflection like this is so refreshing and needed, really enjoyable to see the literary critique presented in such a way - hope you'll do it for all the archon quests and other major topics, fantastic so far and please keep going, you are doing so well and its genuinely a wonder there are not more channels exploring intriguing topics or discussions like this rather than simply META/stats, so I'm interested and excited to find you!

I'm playing Inazuma now, and that fight with Raiden during the 100th vision ceremony really came out of nowhere. For Liyue, the fight with Childe had a lot of build up and foreshadowing. His influence on the narrative was established repeatedly, including the fact that he had an ulterior motive. Tensions had also been consistently building throughout the story, instead of just stopping for random relaxed moments the way Inazuma does. This means that when he breaks into the golden palace and there's a big fight, it doesn't feel out of place. Going into the 100th vision ceremony right after the super calm side quests was just emotional whiplash and made the fight feel unearned. Whatever the opposite of anticlimactic is. Overclimactic? (Also, does 100 feel like a low number to anyone else? I think 1,000 or something higher like that would establish the stakes a lot better.)

I feel like Ayaka spending time with us at the festival + the dance she did could have been hangout event or something. I enjoyed it but it didn’t need to be in the archon quest. I enjoyed Teppei. I know we didn’t know much about him, but I enjoyed his presence and wished we got to see more of him before he died. The archon quest was imo pretty short, I thought more would happen since Ei is powerful and blah blah blah. Getting more time with resistance + more action would have been nice.

A little dumb thing i like to headcanon for Inazuma's early plot, is that it was Ayaka that tipped off the shogunate soldiers about Thoma being a vision holder. Just trying to be cunning like her brother in a plot of politics and scheming, and hoping that this last ditch effort of essentially throwing one of your most trusted servant under the bus, would push the Traveller into finally supporting their cause. Also cos I genuinely dislike Ayaka lmfao Cos honestly, the soldiers had no fucking business scooping Thoma out, an outsider, yes, but also with very close and dare I say almost personal ties to Kamisato, while there was much more "public" character of Yoimiya, whose Pyro Vision wasn't exactly a secret ffs.

They bit off more they can chew. Inazuma started off as a country in civil war time, but since they have to sell characters in gasha afterward, everyone became buddy buddy real fast. What weirded me out was Sara, in patch 4.0-4.1 we were enemies, but in 4.2 when we asked her to help Xinyan, she was so friendly like Jean or Keqing. Gorou also weirded me out, you fought against Narukami but worked at a publishing there??? Kokomi declared war against Narukami but learned military strategies from books from Yae publishing????? You get me. Another thing I found weird is the lore about vision. During the first 2 regions, we learned that vision gave user elemental power. Vision is something that enhanced you, but can also parted with you (ex. Diluc) But when we arrived in Inazuma, the vision is like Sould Gem in Madoka. You lost it, you die (in this case, loosing ambition) Like that. Then this part of vision has never been mentioned again.

What do you mean? It's awesome how they literally teleported Signora in at the last 30 seconds even though she had no reason to be there, just to horribly mishandle her character by killing her off stupidly. Perfect writing! /s

Okay, let me specifically defend the NPC quests Thoma and Ayaka send traveler on. You're right in that it would require them to act against someone whose help they were seeking, but at the same time, Traveler has both an in-story tendency and a reputation for altruistically aiding nations with their problems. It's pretty clear that they're showing traveler all these sob stories to invoke an emotional response the rest is fair though, the Inazuma archon quest was extremely rough, and despite presenting its ideas, certainly didn't do them any justice

This is my favorite region, with my favorite characters, with my favorite music, my favorite story and my favorite exploration (yes I’m being serious)

You know what? For what its worth, I might reconsider how much I really enjoyed the Inazuma archon quest if I replay it, but the Sumeru archon quest to me felt like all dialogue. Inazuma felt too short and crammed together with a ton of unnecessary details, plots and characters, but Sumeru was the complete other extreme. It felt long, it felt sluggish, it felt like every scene and plot dragged on for hours at a time and part of me feels like the repetition played a big part in ruining it for me.

I think the tell not show problem is something all of genshin quests suffer from. It also makes lore hard ti follow since names of people and places get so complicated and we have imagine what they look like

The signora boss fight was the reason i couldnt progress further since 2022. Returned to this game in 2024 and finally beat her once and for all and it felt so good seeing her get rekt. Although i used to hate inazuma before I am starting to like it a bit now.

they really wasted kokomi's and yae's potential

The pay off was just not there. Like the ending where Ei just kinda gives up? Honestly we should have left inazuma and come back when we were stronger. Or what happened in Eis 2nd story quest should have been part of the archon story

when you said the story was too short i gasped because it felt like the longest story quest i have ever done

i remember reading something about how inazuma and the rest of teyvat was almost completely reworked after genshin blew up in late 2020, and since inazuma was the next chapter in genshin, it got screwed over by time restraints

Okay the only bad thing abt inazuma is it's story quest, the rest of it is freaking phenomenal. Its the best in the game.

"Tell, not showing" This is Genshin in a Nutshell. The most important info on Genshin you obtain in Voiceless sidequests like Enkonomya About the resolution I think Fontaine is the most flawed in my opinion. SPOILER Fontaine Archon Quest The prison Arc... oh the prison arc running around. .. The resolution makes non sense at all. The whole point of Focalor's plan was to deceive the Heavenly Principles. How? Sending a flying dragon into the air.... after that we figure out that the Abyss know about Focalors death and they state that the Primordial One is sleeping, in other words: if he was awake, you all were doomed... Back to Inazuma People forget that Raiden knows about the Primordial One and the fact that she seems "evil" is because the Primordial one did not do anything. Imagine after people rebels against her the primordial one decides to delete the rebels... this is the problem about Genshin: no playable character can die, at least we did not face a situation like that until now.

Inazuma as explorable content was amazing. Full of intricate puzzles, even hostile enviroment. Then sumeru came with baby puzzles like hit 1 mushroom at best 💀 and dont get me started with fontaine

If I remember correctly, around or before inazumas release, it was going around that the reason why inazumas story was trash was because they had fired their main storyboard writer. Apparently he had it done but he took his writings with him when he was fired, only leaving a bit behind. So the rest of the storyboard team came together to scrap a story as quickly as possible.

Maybe the real Inazuma were the friends we made along the way aka the huge hype everyone was after Liyue 😂 like, execution was bad but man, that period between Liyue and Inazuma was very exciting

Inazuma had so many similarities to the Wano Arc from One Piece with a resistance trying to fight against the establishment to free a nation from isolation, and while it didnt need nearly as much set up on the scale of a One Piece, like you said rushed simplicity completely fumbled everything >.>

I wish they just kept raiden as a villain, that would make her a lot more interesting.