#aemeath

no seriously wtf. like even just the back half of that quest is loaded with so much emotional damage. Lowkey feels like it's competing with Hi3's legendary moments in that regard. Note that at this point the only gacha I am fully up to date with is HSR, which does sometimes struggle with too much plot and not enough emotion. Sorry Firefly I love you but Aemeath does the emotionally destroying death thing way better... mostly because the reveal that you have a shared past with her comes BEFORE her "death."

Speaking of which, it really does feel like she is an ultra refined version of what made Firefly and Cyrene great characters, without some of their flaws. Aemeath's got the cool mech(s) and intertwined past with the MC that Firefly has, with the right order of revealing the shared past before "dying." Aemeath's got Cyrene's ethereal pink aesthetics and timeline shenanigans without needing 7+ patches of lore to vaguely understand what the heck is going on temporally.

(on that note Aemeath would be an amazing Finality pathstrider)

oh and on top of that Kuro added the bombshell lore of being the MC's adopted daughter. I can barely even conceptualize what a character closer to the main character than Aemeath would look like. MAYBE a twin sibling (like a playable Abyss Twin) or a hyper shipped love interest in the main party (like Mei to Kiana) could do it, maybe. But even then you'd need a lot more than a single patch of content to get the same level of protectiveness that an adopted kid would inspire.

honestly Aemeath might be TOO good, how the fuck do you top a character like that? might be downhill from here idk

on the whole (including the few other wuwa 3.x quests I watched), it kinda feels like Wuwa's plot is molded and built around the characters, unlike HSR which feels more like characters being molded and built by the plot. That's mostly due to there being a lot more one on one time with every new character in Wuwa, compared to the Astral Express companions adventuring together in HSR. Both are valid, it's just that I prefer the group adventuring in HSR. I also don't really like the overemphasis on shipping Rover with everyone. Yes, Rover is hot I get it (no but actually Fem Rover's looks and lore are activating some of the same neurons as Stelle and that is HIGH praise from me) but not every single character needs to have a Moment with them. Same way I feel about overshipping Trailblazer.