#but the music in sumeru- the desert in specific

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

I was playing genshin, and listening to fontaine's battle music, which I really enjoy, and thought of this one.

Do you have a favorite track from the genshin soundtrack? Or favorite region for music?

flows of jade-like water

i hate how instantaneous that answer was in my brain. i adore all music in the game, so aside from that one, it'd be hard to pick a favorite musc. mondstadt would lag behind the others a bit, but the rest are all on roughly the same level. inazuma's music is really good, liyue's music is fantastic, sumeru's music is also very good AND has hustle and bustle of ormos in it as well as that one desert battle theme i forget the name of. dimming asterisms or something. and fontaine's music is just so grand, and i'm in love with the underwater tracks. so aside from like- flows of jade-like water, the dawn winery theme (carries mondstadt on its back tbh), hustle and bustle of ormos, the one dimming asterisms battle track, and like... this little light of mine? i think is the name? aside from those that stand out in my brain atm, all other tracks are too good to really compare,,

[samadhi-fire-forged]

i talked about this on another account (a non-genshin related account) but the way that culture in genshin is handled is absolutely awful in my opinion.

clearly, the devs for genshin/hoyo do not respect black, indigenous, and west asian cultures. we get this clearly demonstrated with both natlan and sumeru.

natlan has three different ethnic groups (broadly). african (specifically more northern, it seems), polynesian, and latin american. that means it's two completely different countries, as well as one region. technically, it could make sense with polynesia and latin america, but... for the most part... probably not africa included? unless you were interested in exploring like, the complex dynamic of afro-latino culture. which. likely not. (if you want more research on WHY it could make sense to have latin american - polynesian cross, check these sources: x x x x - all of these are relatively about the same content. dna crossing. if you want to ask me about how i, personally, would've wanted to execute natlan in this regard you can shoot me an ask).

sumeru is... well. we do see aspects of zoroastrianism iirc - west asia has a hodgepodge of religions, honestly, with having an incorporation of our very well-known abrahamic religions (judaism, islam, and christianity). but as i said, there's zoroastrianism. yet, most of sumeru's religious references tend towards vedicism, buddhism, so on so forth. which... is interesting. if it had clear influences from a lot of west asian culture (and north african, specifically egyptian), then why didn't it have much focus on zoroastrianism? why would we incorporate south asia for seemingly no reason outside of grouping so so many ethnic groupds together.

this might surprise you all, but inazuma is.. pretty interesting. i've had a few opinions on this, given the fact that i am japanese. inazuma is depicted as a pretty dictator-esque nation, as well as being isolationist. its ruler is horrible and the such - i genuinely believe that this might have been some bias on the devs' parts. given the fact that, well... china has historically had multiple dictatorships and was also isolationist, much like japan. i understand depictions of china given laws in china, so yeah, sure, but... throwing the japanese-based nation under the bus was pretty interesting. they didn't need to do that at all, and there could've been an interesting storyline without this at all.

mondstadt. god, no one thinks about mondstadt in this regard, but mondstadt is the only nation that pretty much has zero places named with the language its culture is based on, other than its own city name. even sumeru has this - albeit some names do come from sanskrit words (kinda... complicated? most of it derives from sanskrit, though, or egyptian in the desert). whispering woods, starfell lake, brightcrown mountains. all of that. even its characters - many of them don't have german names! (jean gunnhildr, diluc ragvindr) i understand that scandinavian and german do have incredibly similar roots, but... still.

like, no matter what hoyo does, it seems that the only culture that they really "respect" is their own. no matter how much research they do - and believe me, there is a lot they've done! listen to a lot of the music, you'll notice they incorporate a lot of traditional musical instruments.

and yet... when executing it? it comes out quite terribly?

and then, even with their liyue characters - there's plenty of characters where it'd make so much more sense if they were dark skin (ex: yaoyao). and yet.... they aren't? some of them are paper pale

i'm just saying. genshin is riddled with flaws.

and don't even get me started on just... their general character design.

[eerna]

THIRD SUMERU ACT?? WOAH what did you think of inazuma questline. sumeru questline. nahida as a character. I'm SO curious of your opinions on those -

Also, why did you hate them? Especially sumeru cause, it's not particularly a favorite of mine but it's hailed as an example of genshin's best writing before the fontaine region came along and blew it out of the water. so--

Inazuma questline had fantastic music, I lost my shit when the hype overworld theme started playing in the boss battle! It also had a cool animatic intro into one of the Archon battles, but I forgot which one, just that I was like AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HYPEEEEEEEEE. Sumeru questline was where I gave up because it was simply boring, the timebending element should have been so cool but really wasn't. I never met Nahida (outside the mental convos; I stopped playing the moment I got to the desert) so the only thing I can properly say about her is WHY DID THEY MAKE HER A CHILD THEY KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOING WHY WHY WHY.

Now to answer the hate. FIRST OFF I AM ABOUT TO BE REALLY MEAN TO THE GAME so anyone who isn't here for that look away if you don't wanna see it

I feel like it would take me hours to properly rant about why I dislike the game, but this video comes pretty close to my opinions? In short, I think it is badly written and forces you to witness that bad writing through the absence of a skip conversation button, its main goal is to sell things and make people addicted to its toxic mechanics, and the fanservice makes me wanna stab my eyes out. I was playing it at the lowest points in my life because the game is specifically designed for short term dopamine hits. I'm fantastic at shutting out my emotions and not even knowing I am in a bad place, but if I got a Genshin craving it was a safe hint I'll be descending into sadness soon, and the craving left the moment I felt better. People laugh at my personal beef with the most famous gacha in the world but that's the truth lololol

[emee-ems]

Fontaine has to be my new favorite place. The scenery, the music, the clothing style. Love it all.

Seriously was tired of the desert (I like Sumeru and the forests...just hate specifically the desert).