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Welp.
Finished Yukong's quest in Honkai: Star Rail over lunch.
And now I'm emotionally ruined for the rest of the day.
@garius let's be honest, few of the quests in miHoYo's games are feel good escapism 
@flameeyes yeah.
But hadn't quite fortified myself for an anime fox-girl experiencing post-combat trauma and the regrets of a soldier, with some parental heartbreak thrown in.
Probably should have expected it, but still.
@garius it's painfully well written. It's not the last of those though.
(The current-version Genshin quests are about as heartbreaking for different reasons, not spoiling them if anyone is reading it, but beyond the façade of a fun French-inspired sunny steampunk city, there's a lot of both implied and explicit traumas and human experiments, brrr.)
@flameeyes yeah, i should probably play Genshin at some point. Star Rail is my first dabbling in the universe.
@garius they're very very different beasts, in terms of play style.
But while it "looks" happier, there's a lot of underlying darkness throughout.
But hey, they've been a great doorway to many artists via Hyper Japan and MCM, so I'm never going to complain about that 
@garius Welcome to the club.
If you're looking to explore the Hoyoverse more, Genshin is obviously very popular, but I'd recommend Honkai Impact 3rd if you want to see Hoyo's writing at its strongest. It starts extremely light and fluffy, but... play through the end of Chapter 9 (Journey for Tomorrow) before you decide anything. If that doesn't sell you, nothing will.
I could write a whole other post about the game's flaws, but they're really just the standard issues for a 5-year-old live service: powercreep, abandoned features, and stuff you weren't around for. (Plus the occasional effort to simplify.) The story is the main draw here, and it's *good*. If you ever feel like giving it a go, HMU for a referral code.
@xelle one of the things that drew me to Star Rail was that I LOVE turn based JRPGs. And there just aren't enough of them any more.
I'm an old gamer. They were my first love and will be my last.
@garius I treasure the copy of SMT 3: Nocturne for Switch my cousin gave me a couple years ago. I've barely started it (finally got through Matador, stuck on phase two of the Raidou boss fight from the DLC) but it's glorious. Turn based combat is just really fun to me, and Nocturne's system is easy to intuit even if it sounds complicated on paper. Great stuff.