I saw the other review rating it a 1/10 and felt it was extremely unfair and wanted to offer another opinion, especially one based off of the current state of the game months after its launch.
To start with, I feel like anyone complaining about "it's just a x/y/z clone/rip-off" can't really be taken seriously; it's such a narrow-minded take, and suggests the person hasn't really played that many different games in the first place. When Genshin Impact came out people said the same thing about it: horrible game, clone of Breath of the Wild -- just because of how it looks. There will always be a new something taking inspiration from different medias for their own. There's hardly anything that's going to be completely new the longer we go on creating. It happens in music and stories: there are so many different takes on vampires, werewolves, zombies, certain mythologies from around the world, etc.
TL;DR above for any readers, I encourage you not to be so simple as to criticize something new just because "it looks similar" to something else you've seen. That will ALWAYS be the case.
ANYWAY, ACTUAL REVIEW:
Even if I considered the launch a *little* rough, there were many theories as to potentially why, and all of that was good enough reason for me to cut it some slack and hope it'll get better -- and boy, did it get better.
Even from launch I felt much of the voice acting was actually *fine*, if not great; I've played and watched many dubbed media with SO MUCH worse, so these opinions just baffled me and just felt like, I hate to say it, Hoyo fans trying to exacerbate any issues a new "competitor" might have just because. That's not to say it DIDN'T and doesn't have issues -- just that it's not nearly as deserving as the harsh criticism as it got, and a lot of it was probably not even genuine criticism.
There was really only one instance I remember of voice line delivery where I cringed hard, and that has actually been fixed. Aside from that, some commentary during an instance felt excessive and I'm not sure if that was addressed too, but I do know they definitely revisited some of the most glaring issues players criticized, and that alone is something I really appreciate.
In regards to the other review:
No one sounds like a random person off the street?? Many people don't like Yangyang's voice because it is soft and has less inflection than others, but I find that to be a personality trait -- people DO talk like this, especially women raised to be soft-spoken, reserved, and seen not heard. It's just a reminder to me that these people exist. A lot of other voices, even from NPCs, actually have done so well and I was immediately impressed. It has only continued to be phenomenal, and you can hear that if you watch the various trailers. From Zhezhi's to Carlotta's Resonator showcases, you can hear genuine emotion (particularly the fear at the end of Carlotta's showcase) and that's just been such a joy to watch and listen to. Did I mention people speculated in the beginning that the voice actors were asked to sound American? I think the loudest of the VA criticism was a result of that, and Kuro has since been encouraged to allow the VAs to embrace their native accent, and now everyone sounds phenomenal in my opinion.
For the optimization issues, those have also been addressed and were done so as quickly as they could have. There shouldn't be any issues anymore as long as your hardware is capable.
AND!
In tandem with the voice acting, the animations are SO fluid and animated. The trailers are absolutely beautiful, and the in-game cinematics are as well. There's really nothing I have to complain about in those regards, but I just wanted to mention it because every time I watch or see any either of these I'm excited for what comes next. ALSO: unique character designs extend beyond just the playable characters, and that's AMAZING. There are so many cool NPCs! I'd LOVE to see this much love (btwn VActing, animation, and character design) in Genshin because I do play that too, and I know Hoyo is capable of it by looking at ZZZ, but I have no interest in ZZZ or Star Rail, so I'm here waiting for Genshin to get half the love Kuro gives to Wuthering Waves. You can see and hear it!
Lastly, the story has been fun. Everyone WILL have their opinions, but as a person who likes to consume media for the enjoyment of it rather than nitpick every little thing: if playing a game is to be compared to eating a meal, I feel sufficiently fed. I value the narrative in a game more than I do he gameplay or combat (both of which have been quite fun regardless, even if I'm not that great at the challenging content); I've giggled as well as cried. I definitely encourage playing the characters' stories. The music, which I haven't mentioned yet because I'm not even going to pretend to be a music critic, has been great as well and there's a particular few cinematics I remember where the soundtrack specifically enhanced the emotions that were evoked.
Anyway. I've been enjoying it. It's still a gacha, which is predatory by nature, but it's been much less painfully prevalent than other gacha-style games and the love for their own game is evident enough to me that I don't mind it and do want to support them when I'm able.
Idk what else to say because i was trying to give a serious review and I'M EXHAUSTED TRYING TO TYPE PROPERLY but if there's one more thing i forgot to mention is the fact that they actually seem to listen to and value our feedback because there have been some *amazing* QoL updates compared to the treatment i'm used to in other games. For example, there's a gadget now that acts as a little gun you can use to shoot targets in a mini-game that spawns floating targets so you don't have to change your party composition anymore to make sure there's a gun-wielding character in your party. Also, the exploration feels amazing? Yeah. PRETTY GREAT
ok bye idk what else to say but i think while combat-focused gameplay isn't really my thing that much (ironic bc i think that's prob one of the strong points of this game) it's still enjoyable for the things i do like and i've genuinely been impressed by the cinematics, voice acting, animations, music, character designs... funtimes yep thanks for coming to my tedtalk byex2.
