I can't get over how good the character writing is in the Belobog story. Like obviously, Bronya's character development is just phenomenal and well-executed and she's my current favourite character. I love how she comes face to face with the truth of the situation with her citizens and chooses to try and fix things between the Overworld and Underworld.
Then there's Natasha and her complicated history with Vaush. While she hated what he did, she also grieved his death as his sibling, and couldn't fully hate him. And I was in pain when she came to the realization that her father was dead, something she didn't hear off earlier due to the two sections of Belobog society being sealed off from each other for so long. Her story shows the harmful impact of Cocolia's actions on the Underworlders.
Then Serval? I don't even know where to start. She's got such a badass backstory about being close friends with Cocolia till she was kicked out of a research team and felt betrayed.
And as a hopeless Servalia shipper I was here for the angst. And when she faced her fears and complicated feelings of grief and anger with Cocolia by fighting her shadow, it was awesome seeing her finally put things behind her and getting the weight off her chest.
I wasn't expecting her to smash the guitar and say the official fuck you to Cocolia, but it's absolutely what she needed, to let her rage out and then move on with the weight of everything finally lifted.
And on that note, the Cocolia in HSR is more human than the one in HI3, and it works. She's a tragic character, corrupted by her own desire to help her citizens and carving her own ill fate. Her relationship with Bronya was very close but it didn't stop mother and daughter from being divided over this. And when she finally died, the fucking SMILE she has from being released from the stellaton's burden on her is absolutely painful to watch. In another life her story could have probably avoided this tragic end.
The character writing is so good in HSR and I still need to explore the Xianzhou Luofu story more before writing up how I feel about that, but so far I'm already amazed at the amount of good writing in the game.
