It's been a few days since I completed 5.1, and as I've had time to reflect, I realized why Natlan didn't impact me the way previous regions did. My friends and I also discussed what it could be that simply doesn't convey the feeling or make us feel the weight of the story.
Someone mentioned before that Natlan feels too modern. This ties into what we figured out: Natlan falls short in terms of visual representation.
When they tried to revive Kachina,
when Chasca broke down because of her sister,
and when the Traveller said, "This is war,"
those scenes should have been cutscenes.
It would have delivered the depth of the scene much more strongly and effectively, because let's be honest, with the game's graphics, the basic expressionless faces 😐, and the choppy motion animations, these scenes don't hit as hard as they would in a cutscene. I wouldn't mind if they were short, but what bothers me is that we jump into battle from one moment to the next, with the sun shining brightly 🌞, cheerful music playing in the background 🐤🚵, and I'm sitting on a balloon that's floating at a snail's pace 🐌. If it had been a slowly flying dragon, it would have been far more impactful—after all, in the Mondstadt Archon quest, we were riding on Dvalin’s back. 🐉
Another point where the whole thing fell apart for me is that I feel there’s no logical connection between the country’s situation and the environment.
Theoretically, in a nation where constant battles are raging against the Abyss, shouldn’t there be a specific area with a security wall that offers everyone shelter from the monsters?
Shouldn't there be military bases or patrols on the roads?
Shouldn't dragons be armed against the monsters? Shouldn't there be border guards?
And in the gameplay, shouldn't there have been gameplay elements (since we're soldiers) where we have to sneak, defend an area, or—given there was an event where we could control monsters and assemble our own "army" 💪—shouldn’t that have been incorporated into the fight against the Abyss somehow?
Because, for example, the death-count board didn’t make much sense, as you couldn’t really make any significant changes to it. 🤔
For now, this is all I can say. This is entirely my opinion, and I love the game, but I just had to get this off my chest. 😭♥️
yousharknotpass
vaporwave
romaincrisis
gummygunk
kianamaiart
