[Klashikari]

Originally Posted by Sheba

You can tell all the love Mihoyo, a Chinese company, have poured into building up Liyue. As if they wanted to show the world how to make a distinctly Chinese fantasy with their own flair. Far from the cliche of jRPGs or the theme parks Chinas in Western RPGs.

I'd argue that's only good when it comes to the landscape and the side quests. The caveat is that the main narrative and the characters took a major hit compared to Mondstad.

Spoiler:

Liyue arc is a mess doubled by a snail pace defined an absurdely long series of fetch quests that looked like they came from old fashioned MMO, then rushed to hell with its conclusion in 1.1. And let's not forget some asinine elements such as the protagonist suddenly feeling threatened after the earth god got "slain" and "had" to run away just "because".

Mondstad arc wasn't particularly unique or incredible, but it was serviceable with appropriate stakes and proper character introduction and interactions. At least, it gave me reason to somewhat care about them whereas I couldn't give a rat ass about 99% of the named characters in Liyue arc because they were mostly irrelevant.

As for Zhongli, I'm starting to believe Miyoho realized they went a bit too crazy with Venti and Klee and tried to not go overboard, even tho Tartaglia and Zhongli weren't particularly impressive during their respective beta. While Tartaglia wasn't nerfed that badly, Zhongli went from subpar to barely 5* tier, which is kind of funny with all things considered.