as the anon who guessed #73 correctly i would like to, first of all, congratulate the submitter on an excellent recommendation. even as i got increasingly certain that it WAS, in fact, Genshin Impact, i was still wavering. i had to break it down line by line to make sure nothing contradicted and even THEN i was a little unsure.
as such, now that it has been revealed, i would like to follow up my guess with the line-by-line breakdown of my reasoning behind that guess, because it's honestly such clever trick-reasoning (and i know i would LOVE to see that kind of reasoning for a submission of mine). the following is from a message i sent my friends on May 31, during Round 1, to convince them that #73 was Genshin Impact so they would help me vote for it because it would be so funny and awesome if it got to progress further through the tournament. RIP #73, at least it lost to a REALLY cool rec. thank you #73 submitter.
"the leisurely, location-based narrative"
[Open world exploration game]
"themes of great fallen empires in The Lord of the Rings,"
"but find yourself yearning for something a little more modern and diverse,"
[Many modern features such as foods, clothes, and language quirks/pop culture references]
"Featuring a majority female cast of three-dimensional characters"
[I actually googled this one and apparently Genshin pretty reliably averages two female playable characters per one male playable character, according to someone on Reddit. And they are LITERALLY three-dimensionally rendered]
" ... from a variety of nationalities and cultures,"
[Gestures at the seven nations]
"this story of adventure and religious discovery"
[Adventure ✅ talking to gods ✅]
"will immerse you in its vibrant fantasy setting."
[Fantasy setting self explanatory]
"With several queer-coded characters,"
[self explanatory. also you could say this about anything]
"sympathetic antagonists,"
[Wanderer, Ei, Dvalin, Furina, etc. come to mind]
[Gestures at all the world quests. And khaenri'ah. And Celestia. And the number of analysis and theory posts I've seen on Tumblr alone]
"a masterfully composed soundtrack,"
[Everyone say thank you yu peng chen 👏]
"touching themes of found family and cultural diversity,"
[yeah this just is true i think]
"Laugh, cry, cringe, rage, and more"
[3 out of 4 of these are negative and the only one that isn't is kind of. ambiguous. which is so fucking funny to me.]
"at a story that will always keep you coming back for more."
[Planned twice-monthly updates for like minimum 7 years, standard predatory gacha tactics]
Wow, you really thought this through - impressive! And considering this is very similar to what the submitter said in the submitter notes, it's even more so.
