HaloBlues
Written by the same author behind The Hero Project/Heroes Rise, so if you weren't into the more railroad-y aspects of that one, you probably won't be converted by this series.
Having said that, Versus had so much potential. It's really hard for me to recommend the series wholeheartedly anymore because of the absolute garbage fire the third game was, which has retroactively left such a sour taste in my mouth over the first two as well, but I'm trying to evaluate this one in itself right now.
It still has that annoying Sergei trait of him randomly throwing in the worst sci-fi words you've ever heard (why are the villains called "Blots"? Why is "blarg" a swear word? Why do you think I'll be able to take your game seriously if I'm in some sort of emotional final stand battle and a character's yelling, "Oh blarg, the Blot Emperor is coming to suck our souls out, we have to run for the Bliffenship and escape to Planet Bonk"), but if you try real hard to ignore that it's a pretty alright experience. I prefer the sequel to this one, but this has some interesting set-up and introduces a lot of pretty unique and cool concepts and ideas.
The setting is interesting - sort of sci-fi/extraterrestrial meets Hunger Games. I've always wanted more Hunger Games-esque plots in my interactive fiction, so it's pretty up my alley in that sense.
Having said that, Versus had so much potential. It's really hard for me to recommend the series wholeheartedly anymore because of the absolute garbage fire the third game was, which has retroactively left such a sour taste in my mouth over the first two as well, but I'm trying to evaluate this one in itself right now.
It still has that annoying Sergei trait of him randomly throwing in the worst sci-fi words you've ever heard (why are the villains called "Blots"? Why is "blarg" a swear word? Why do you think I'll be able to take your game seriously if I'm in some sort of emotional final stand battle and a character's yelling, "Oh blarg, the Blot Emperor is coming to suck our souls out, we have to run for the Bliffenship and escape to Planet Bonk"), but if you try real hard to ignore that it's a pretty alright experience. I prefer the sequel to this one, but this has some interesting set-up and introduces a lot of pretty unique and cool concepts and ideas.
The setting is interesting - sort of sci-fi/extraterrestrial meets Hunger Games. I've always wanted more Hunger Games-esque plots in my interactive fiction, so it's pretty up my alley in that sense.
The high point of the Versus series before the next game brought it all crashing down.
The sci-fi/extraterrestrial meets Hunger Games premise continues to be interesting and full of potential, and in the hands of a better author it might have capitalised on it. I enjoyed the new range of romance options introduced in this one; none of the choices in this series really reached out and grabbed me above all others, but they were all decent enough and pretty varied in personality/outlook.
Genuinely, wholeheartedly, I recommend you play the first book and this one and then just stop. Make up your own ending. I guarantee it will be better than the official one.
The sci-fi/extraterrestrial meets Hunger Games premise continues to be interesting and full of potential, and in the hands of a better author it might have capitalised on it. I enjoyed the new range of romance options introduced in this one; none of the choices in this series really reached out and grabbed me above all others, but they were all decent enough and pretty varied in personality/outlook.
Genuinely, wholeheartedly, I recommend you play the first book and this one and then just stop. Make up your own ending. I guarantee it will be better than the official one.
I'll just copy and paste my initial post on the forums after I first finished it:
I’m late to the party, but I just finished this for the first time and… I’m honestly incredibly let down. I’m a long-time fan of the author - Heroes Rise has always held a special place in my heart as the first CoG series I got emotionally invested in, and I really enjoyed the first two Versus books, enough to keep up with their development via his other platforms. I’ve defended his writing for years. I also have pretty chill standards for games - I enjoy a lot of things other people dislike because as long as I have fun playing it I don’t really care about technical flaws - but…
Firstly, I agree with the person earlier in this thread who said the Heroes Rise tie-in was essentially false advertising. We were promised a continuation, closure, and answers - instead, we got an unnamed brief cameo in a single optional paragraph right at the end that answered nothing and had them not contributing at all to the main story.
The sheer laziness and rushed feeling of some parts of the book were impossible to ignore. On multiple occasions, entire event-filled days during the lead-up to the climax were skipped over in veins such as “a lot of dangerous and important trials were faced yesterday but honestly it’s just too overwhelming to think about in-depth so let’s move on to the next day” - what? The hyped-up Deathscapes journey is integral to the atmosphere and story. If you’re not going to bother to tell us what we did during it, don’t insert an itemised list of Awesome Things that supposedly occurred but that we’re missing out on. Just say nothing important took place until now. And the sheer arrogance of little asides such as “well, if you really want to know what you all did, maybe you should write the story for yourself” - we’re paying for the story here!
The romances were so empty and thrown-away, and it’s bizarre that Heroes Rise, a years old trilogy, had more in-depth and well-written relationships than this did. I tend to do one playthrough of a game for each romance option because I love experiencing them all and focusing on every character one by one, but after finishing this one, for the first time I honestly feel so unmotivated to do that here. My first playthrough was with Lady Venuma and Breeze, and the ending had my character Reborn to Prisca, Lady Venuma promising to find me and stick with Breeze but then being Reborn to her own area and remaining there without contact, and Breeze remaining stuck on Versus alone for the foreseeable future. I honestly tried to ignore that and told myself after the “we’ll meet again someday” conversation that it was still fulfilling, but it wasn’t.
Even the friendships were hollow - at the end of the game, I was told I was best friends with Pinkuju and that she’d been there every step of the way, but we’d barely interacted all series! It suddenly decided we were close because I happened to pick her for one single “who do you want to talk to?” option right at the end. The choice to brush off all of the major characters from the first two books in one fell swoop and make us play the entire last book with side characters was incomprehensible. It only resulted in the characters we’d bonded with and were interested in (and potentially had romanced) being pushed to the side, while after so long of waiting for this finale we had to experience it with new characters we’d barely spoken to and had far less personality.
I don’t know if it’s because I’ve frankly grown out of his writing, but I also tire of the clunky pages of unnatural exposition and childish, made-up names for things and fake swear words. Like someone said earlier, I can’t take things seriously and be emotionally devastated if you’re throwing words at me like “blerg”, “Blots” and “Cadet Gadget”.
The rail-roading, and the fact that many players experienced an ending that outright stated “this wasn’t canon, try again” and sent them all the way back to the beginning of the lengthy book, is awful. If you want to write a set story with set events and a set outcome, write a novel. I truly think it would be a great one. Perhaps that’s what his writing is suited for. But if you’re going to write an interactive, choice-based game, this is not how you do it. You don’t promise choices and consequences, freedom and independence of action, and then throw out retcons and “no that wasn’t the right route”s. His games ultimately don’t let you choose what you do - they tell you what you do, and if you’re really lucky, you can decide how you feel or think about the fact that you did it. Often, though, he’ll just tell you how you feel too.
Sergei’s world-building and lore continues to be amazing, and I’ve never minded the long detailed run-downs because I was truly interested. His concepts and ideas for stories are also amazing. But that’s just not enough to pull me through anymore. I’m a character- and relationship- oriented person, and it seems that with every instalment in his repertoire, those fall more and more by the wayside to service his decided-upon ‘true route’.
I see that he’s continuing the series with a comic book, but sadly I won’t be continuing with him. We’ve been promised closure and answers multiple times now, and honestly it really does feel like we’re borderline being scammed into buying more and more books looking for continuations we’ll never get.
I’m late to the party, but I just finished this for the first time and… I’m honestly incredibly let down. I’m a long-time fan of the author - Heroes Rise has always held a special place in my heart as the first CoG series I got emotionally invested in, and I really enjoyed the first two Versus books, enough to keep up with their development via his other platforms. I’ve defended his writing for years. I also have pretty chill standards for games - I enjoy a lot of things other people dislike because as long as I have fun playing it I don’t really care about technical flaws - but…
Firstly, I agree with the person earlier in this thread who said the Heroes Rise tie-in was essentially false advertising. We were promised a continuation, closure, and answers - instead, we got an unnamed brief cameo in a single optional paragraph right at the end that answered nothing and had them not contributing at all to the main story.
The sheer laziness and rushed feeling of some parts of the book were impossible to ignore. On multiple occasions, entire event-filled days during the lead-up to the climax were skipped over in veins such as “a lot of dangerous and important trials were faced yesterday but honestly it’s just too overwhelming to think about in-depth so let’s move on to the next day” - what? The hyped-up Deathscapes journey is integral to the atmosphere and story. If you’re not going to bother to tell us what we did during it, don’t insert an itemised list of Awesome Things that supposedly occurred but that we’re missing out on. Just say nothing important took place until now. And the sheer arrogance of little asides such as “well, if you really want to know what you all did, maybe you should write the story for yourself” - we’re paying for the story here!
The romances were so empty and thrown-away, and it’s bizarre that Heroes Rise, a years old trilogy, had more in-depth and well-written relationships than this did. I tend to do one playthrough of a game for each romance option because I love experiencing them all and focusing on every character one by one, but after finishing this one, for the first time I honestly feel so unmotivated to do that here. My first playthrough was with Lady Venuma and Breeze, and the ending had my character Reborn to Prisca, Lady Venuma promising to find me and stick with Breeze but then being Reborn to her own area and remaining there without contact, and Breeze remaining stuck on Versus alone for the foreseeable future. I honestly tried to ignore that and told myself after the “we’ll meet again someday” conversation that it was still fulfilling, but it wasn’t.
Even the friendships were hollow - at the end of the game, I was told I was best friends with Pinkuju and that she’d been there every step of the way, but we’d barely interacted all series! It suddenly decided we were close because I happened to pick her for one single “who do you want to talk to?” option right at the end. The choice to brush off all of the major characters from the first two books in one fell swoop and make us play the entire last book with side characters was incomprehensible. It only resulted in the characters we’d bonded with and were interested in (and potentially had romanced) being pushed to the side, while after so long of waiting for this finale we had to experience it with new characters we’d barely spoken to and had far less personality.
I don’t know if it’s because I’ve frankly grown out of his writing, but I also tire of the clunky pages of unnatural exposition and childish, made-up names for things and fake swear words. Like someone said earlier, I can’t take things seriously and be emotionally devastated if you’re throwing words at me like “blerg”, “Blots” and “Cadet Gadget”.
The rail-roading, and the fact that many players experienced an ending that outright stated “this wasn’t canon, try again” and sent them all the way back to the beginning of the lengthy book, is awful. If you want to write a set story with set events and a set outcome, write a novel. I truly think it would be a great one. Perhaps that’s what his writing is suited for. But if you’re going to write an interactive, choice-based game, this is not how you do it. You don’t promise choices and consequences, freedom and independence of action, and then throw out retcons and “no that wasn’t the right route”s. His games ultimately don’t let you choose what you do - they tell you what you do, and if you’re really lucky, you can decide how you feel or think about the fact that you did it. Often, though, he’ll just tell you how you feel too.
Sergei’s world-building and lore continues to be amazing, and I’ve never minded the long detailed run-downs because I was truly interested. His concepts and ideas for stories are also amazing. But that’s just not enough to pull me through anymore. I’m a character- and relationship- oriented person, and it seems that with every instalment in his repertoire, those fall more and more by the wayside to service his decided-upon ‘true route’.
I see that he’s continuing the series with a comic book, but sadly I won’t be continuing with him. We’ve been promised closure and answers multiple times now, and honestly it really does feel like we’re borderline being scammed into buying more and more books looking for continuations we’ll never get.
2023
is that ada fucking wong and ashley graham in the cover picture
Hard to review Jackbox game packs because I dip in and out and only play certain games with friends and never experience others, so my rating is never going to be accurate to the entire package. That said, Fibbage: Enough About You is exactly up my alley (I get to talk about myself and force everyone to get to know my life in order to win? Count me in), and general Fibbage is fun in itself as per usual.
The one I find myself playing with friends most often is Monster Seeking Monster, and it's not uncommon at all for us to boot up this game purely for that. I'm not sure how much I'd like it if it wasn't for the group I have, but they love it and actively ask for it, and it's always incredibly fun with them. The various monster types and secret abilities keep things interesting and change the vibe up per game, and the way the scoreboard can change so drastically and suddenly is always a trip. We like to use anonymous names so we can't cheat the system by going for people we know better than others, people we know our humour lands with, etc.
Personally not a fan of Civic Doodle, but not because it's a bad game - it takes a pretty damn good drawing-type game to engage me because I suck at drawing in a way that is less "funny bad" and more just "impossible to enjoy bad", but some of my friends do like it, mostly the artists.
Love Survive the Internet, especially in larger friend groups; I'm lucky enough to have some hilarious people around me, and we always end up cracking up with some of the shit that comes out during this one. Quality varies heavily depending on players and the categories you're sent to, but overall it's a fun game with a lot of potential for shocking humour.
May update this if we do end up dipping into Bracketeering, but until then this score is based solely on those four games.
The one I find myself playing with friends most often is Monster Seeking Monster, and it's not uncommon at all for us to boot up this game purely for that. I'm not sure how much I'd like it if it wasn't for the group I have, but they love it and actively ask for it, and it's always incredibly fun with them. The various monster types and secret abilities keep things interesting and change the vibe up per game, and the way the scoreboard can change so drastically and suddenly is always a trip. We like to use anonymous names so we can't cheat the system by going for people we know better than others, people we know our humour lands with, etc.
Personally not a fan of Civic Doodle, but not because it's a bad game - it takes a pretty damn good drawing-type game to engage me because I suck at drawing in a way that is less "funny bad" and more just "impossible to enjoy bad", but some of my friends do like it, mostly the artists.
Love Survive the Internet, especially in larger friend groups; I'm lucky enough to have some hilarious people around me, and we always end up cracking up with some of the shit that comes out during this one. Quality varies heavily depending on players and the categories you're sent to, but overall it's a fun game with a lot of potential for shocking humour.
May update this if we do end up dipping into Bracketeering, but until then this score is based solely on those four games.
2016
GRAPHICS: Good quality by visual novel standards. The CG quality can vary slightly but never dips into anything less than good, and there are some genuinely beautiful moments (revenants dissolving into petals comes to mind).
CHARACTERS: There's a good variety of options here, and almost every character has some sort of backstory reveal or twist that connects them to the broader plot, which I really enjoyed. I went into it assuming that Isora would be my favourite, but I was actually pleasantly surprised by how much I loved all of the major characters -- Toa isn't far behind Isora, I loved Yua, and even Hino's route, a pretty typical 'childhood best friends to lovers' dynamic that usually struggles to hook me as much, was super endearing.
DIALOGUE: Well-written and engaging - I didn't notice any typos or errors in the translation that I can recall.
PLOT: This was genuinely very good. It felt like every time I thought the twists were over with and I knew everything, some other big and well-done revelation occurred. I went into it vaguely suspecting certain things (namely who the harmless revenant was), and I figured others out immediately (A-TO's identity), but there was so much here that sincerely surprised me in the best way. It all came together pretty well, and most of it felt well-earned and cleverly hinted at rather than out of the blue.
GAMEPLAY: It's a visual novel, so not much here. Read the text, click along, make occasional decisions that alter the route you're on and the ending you get.
MULTIPLAYER: N/A.
Favourite Male Character: Isora
Favourite Female Character: Yua
First Character I Liked: Isora
Favourite Character Design: A-TO
Favourite Scene: [Redacted] dissolving after the A-TO concert in one ending
Least Favourite Character: Yasu
CHARACTERS: There's a good variety of options here, and almost every character has some sort of backstory reveal or twist that connects them to the broader plot, which I really enjoyed. I went into it assuming that Isora would be my favourite, but I was actually pleasantly surprised by how much I loved all of the major characters -- Toa isn't far behind Isora, I loved Yua, and even Hino's route, a pretty typical 'childhood best friends to lovers' dynamic that usually struggles to hook me as much, was super endearing.
DIALOGUE: Well-written and engaging - I didn't notice any typos or errors in the translation that I can recall.
PLOT: This was genuinely very good. It felt like every time I thought the twists were over with and I knew everything, some other big and well-done revelation occurred. I went into it vaguely suspecting certain things (namely who the harmless revenant was), and I figured others out immediately (A-TO's identity), but there was so much here that sincerely surprised me in the best way. It all came together pretty well, and most of it felt well-earned and cleverly hinted at rather than out of the blue.
GAMEPLAY: It's a visual novel, so not much here. Read the text, click along, make occasional decisions that alter the route you're on and the ending you get.
MULTIPLAYER: N/A.
Favourite Male Character: Isora
Favourite Female Character: Yua
First Character I Liked: Isora
Favourite Character Design: A-TO
Favourite Scene: [Redacted] dissolving after the A-TO concert in one ending
Least Favourite Character: Yasu
2019
I've discovered I just don't care about clicker games.
I have no idea why I didn't review this along with the other two books in this trilogy, but to throw out a brief bunch of thoughts - love the Jury romance, appreciated finally getting to solidy one with Jenny and Prodigal, Black Magic's character was redeemed for the most part, and Lucky was inoffensively cute as always. Decent conclusion to the first 'arc' of this series before Open/Redemption Season.
2016
Fascinating concept, gorgeous visuals and atmosphere, mind-blowing twists. The combat is a little clunky sometimes, but no more than a lot of other FPS games I've played, especially older ones. I do maintain that the game would have been much stronger had it ended with the Atlas twist and Ryan confrontation - it built up and up to this well sketched-out, shocking climax, and then it just... kept going afterwards when the moment was ripe for rolling credits and leaving you with those emotions. It just kind of makes things peter out and lose that high.
The game also loses a lot of its shine once you realise it was less intentionally intelligent and political and more an accidental stumble into profoundity by a guy who had no clue what he was implying.
That said, I thought the good ending was appropriately emotional and sweet. I feel no particular incentive to continue with the other Bioshock games, though I'm sure I'll get to them someday, but I enjoyed this and the lore surrounding it.
The game also loses a lot of its shine once you realise it was less intentionally intelligent and political and more an accidental stumble into profoundity by a guy who had no clue what he was implying.
That said, I thought the good ending was appropriately emotional and sweet. I feel no particular incentive to continue with the other Bioshock games, though I'm sure I'll get to them someday, but I enjoyed this and the lore surrounding it.
2020
This is a very unserious review and I understand this game is meant to be spooky and it was! But the baby teleporting around the room every time you turn your back had me crying with laughter
2000
I can't really give this a star rating, but it was kind of my entire childhood. Like, I had a genuine addiction to this game. Every second I was allowed on the computer I was on Habbo.
I can't pinpoint how old I was when I started playing - my older niece let me take over her account, so it says it was made in 2006, but I was probably around 8 or 9 when I started playing which would be 2008-2009ish. The way Habbo felt back then is indescribable. It was small, cozy, pre-UK/US hotel merge so everyone kind of knew everyone when it came to the active players. I'd go into a public room and have people saying hi to me because they recognised me from the forums. It was genuinely such a warm and friendly and welcoming atmosphere.
It kind of started going downhill after the merge, but it took a while. I remember people protesting the merge because we didn't want the stinky Americans in the same hotel as us, and that shit was absolutely reciprocated - I remember going into a room and having two Americans ask me which country I was from, and when I said the UK they banned me. Shit was real back then. With the additions of VIP club on top of Habbo Club, the change in the interface and font/text bubbles, the updates, it all grew more shallow and corporate over the years, and it lost that homely feeling it had.
I've tried to go back to it a few times, but it's a completely different website now. Impossible to navigate, completely dead and inactive, features closed off behind paywalls. It's a shame, because I'd love to re-experience classic Habbo again with an active userbase.
But still, I was there for "the pool is closed", I was there for "bacon hair", I was there for Cozzie Change and Falling Furni, I was there for the casinos filled with thrones and dragons, I was there for the structured careers, I was there for the introduction of pets(!), I was there for the forum games and "Rags to Riches" stories and parkour mazes.
It'll always be special to me, even if I can never recapture it.
Oh, and this game taught me what "cum" was, because I tried to say "cum here" as a kid and it censored me so I looked it up. Classic.
I can't pinpoint how old I was when I started playing - my older niece let me take over her account, so it says it was made in 2006, but I was probably around 8 or 9 when I started playing which would be 2008-2009ish. The way Habbo felt back then is indescribable. It was small, cozy, pre-UK/US hotel merge so everyone kind of knew everyone when it came to the active players. I'd go into a public room and have people saying hi to me because they recognised me from the forums. It was genuinely such a warm and friendly and welcoming atmosphere.
It kind of started going downhill after the merge, but it took a while. I remember people protesting the merge because we didn't want the stinky Americans in the same hotel as us, and that shit was absolutely reciprocated - I remember going into a room and having two Americans ask me which country I was from, and when I said the UK they banned me. Shit was real back then. With the additions of VIP club on top of Habbo Club, the change in the interface and font/text bubbles, the updates, it all grew more shallow and corporate over the years, and it lost that homely feeling it had.
I've tried to go back to it a few times, but it's a completely different website now. Impossible to navigate, completely dead and inactive, features closed off behind paywalls. It's a shame, because I'd love to re-experience classic Habbo again with an active userbase.
But still, I was there for "the pool is closed", I was there for "bacon hair", I was there for Cozzie Change and Falling Furni, I was there for the casinos filled with thrones and dragons, I was there for the structured careers, I was there for the introduction of pets(!), I was there for the forum games and "Rags to Riches" stories and parkour mazes.
It'll always be special to me, even if I can never recapture it.
Oh, and this game taught me what "cum" was, because I tried to say "cum here" as a kid and it censored me so I looked it up. Classic.
2020
I played this game a week ago and already forgot almost everything about it. This either says something about me or The Corridor.
2017
Definitely not a shining example of what Choice of Games fiction can be. I finished this in what must have been less than half an hour, which is incredibly underwhelming and ridiculous, and I see a lot of feedback on the forums from people also calling this one rushed, incomplete, short, etc. I'm inclined to agree with all of it. Characters are shallow, the 'dramatic climax' is a page long, the ending is abrupt, the relationships are unsatisfying, and all of its anti-racism allegory attempts are clumsy and amateurish.
2018
Love this game lots.
All the usual selling points of Choice of Games/Hosted Games titles are here - massive amounts of player choice, diversity, character customisation, fun stats.
This one does have a more set player archetype than most CoG games; you're playing a hero-turned-villain who's struggling with a very rough mental state, though how you develop your character within that (e.g. if you want to go full-out supervillain who relishes in violence and murder or you want to play a more regretful and open to redemption figure) gives you some variety.
The romance options that are here are fine, though the second book adds three more that I find vastly more interesting (with the exception of perhaps Ortega; their history with your character lends a lot to that dynamic). The puppet element is interesting, as is the fact that both you and your puppet can have certain relationships with characters, which is super complicated and probably a nightmare to code variations for but definitely a neat idea.
All the usual selling points of Choice of Games/Hosted Games titles are here - massive amounts of player choice, diversity, character customisation, fun stats.
This one does have a more set player archetype than most CoG games; you're playing a hero-turned-villain who's struggling with a very rough mental state, though how you develop your character within that (e.g. if you want to go full-out supervillain who relishes in violence and murder or you want to play a more regretful and open to redemption figure) gives you some variety.
The romance options that are here are fine, though the second book adds three more that I find vastly more interesting (with the exception of perhaps Ortega; their history with your character lends a lot to that dynamic). The puppet element is interesting, as is the fact that both you and your puppet can have certain relationships with characters, which is super complicated and probably a nightmare to code variations for but definitely a neat idea.
2020
GRAPHICS: Great, consistent style. Environments are gorgeous, especially the purples and cherry blossoms of Inazuma, and the lakes and architecture of Liyue -- the first sighting of Liyue after leaving Mondstadt for the first time was genuinely breath-taking. Some character designs are great, personal favourites being Kaeya, Candace, Dehya, and Alhaitham. However, character designs are beginning to seem stale, repetitive, and uncreative by this point, and it makes it hard to get excited for new ones.
CHARACTERS: A pretty good variety of personalities and outlooks. The protagonist is basically a void who doesn't speak. Paimon, your ever-present 'helper'/companion, is genuinely infuriating. I don't care for the copy-pasted "sleepy girl" (Sayu, Layla) and "overworked woobie" (Jean, Ganyu) archetypes.
VOICE ACTING/DIALOGUE: Varies, but it's generally pretty great. Paimon's voice is like nails on a chalkboard and I would actively love an option to mute her and her alone.
PLOT: I love the lore and storyline, and I'm genuinely invested in seeing where it goes.
GAMEPLAY: I like it fine. Now that I've had a taste of Honkai: Star Rail's combat I'm not super into going back to Genshin's, but that's just me.
MULTIPLAYER: The four-player co-op is useful and fun for domains and bosses, but there's a ton you can't do in multiplayer that just seems silly. Why can't you do any quests while in multiplayer? Why can't you talk to NPCs?
Overall, I like it. It's gacha, so obviously don't play it if you're prone to gambling, FOMO, or have an addictive personality - if you're able to resist temptation, you should be able to grind for all the currency you need without spending anything. It definitely gets review-bombed and unfairly maligned because of sections of the community and immediate opposition to just the gacha aspect (understandably). If you don't participate in the gacha side of the game, then the amount of free content you get is INSANE and completely worth it.
That said, unless you're really interested in the story, open world, and characters, I'd still recommend Star Rail over Genshin, and that's coming from someone who usually greatly prefers fantasy and real-time combat to sci-fi and turn-based. It's far, far more generous with its currencies, daily tasks are much quicker to get through, and it's much easier to get through without excessive grinding.
Favourite Male Character: Childe, Kaeya, Alhaitham
Favourite Female Character: Sara
First Character I Liked: Kaeya
Favourite Character Design: Kaeya, Candace
Favourite OST: TBA
Favourite Scene: Everyone in Liyue fighting back against Osial
Least Favourite Character: Fanon Lumine irritates me, but none in particular in canon
CHARACTERS: A pretty good variety of personalities and outlooks. The protagonist is basically a void who doesn't speak. Paimon, your ever-present 'helper'/companion, is genuinely infuriating. I don't care for the copy-pasted "sleepy girl" (Sayu, Layla) and "overworked woobie" (Jean, Ganyu) archetypes.
VOICE ACTING/DIALOGUE: Varies, but it's generally pretty great. Paimon's voice is like nails on a chalkboard and I would actively love an option to mute her and her alone.
PLOT: I love the lore and storyline, and I'm genuinely invested in seeing where it goes.
GAMEPLAY: I like it fine. Now that I've had a taste of Honkai: Star Rail's combat I'm not super into going back to Genshin's, but that's just me.
MULTIPLAYER: The four-player co-op is useful and fun for domains and bosses, but there's a ton you can't do in multiplayer that just seems silly. Why can't you do any quests while in multiplayer? Why can't you talk to NPCs?
Overall, I like it. It's gacha, so obviously don't play it if you're prone to gambling, FOMO, or have an addictive personality - if you're able to resist temptation, you should be able to grind for all the currency you need without spending anything. It definitely gets review-bombed and unfairly maligned because of sections of the community and immediate opposition to just the gacha aspect (understandably). If you don't participate in the gacha side of the game, then the amount of free content you get is INSANE and completely worth it.
That said, unless you're really interested in the story, open world, and characters, I'd still recommend Star Rail over Genshin, and that's coming from someone who usually greatly prefers fantasy and real-time combat to sci-fi and turn-based. It's far, far more generous with its currencies, daily tasks are much quicker to get through, and it's much easier to get through without excessive grinding.
Favourite Male Character: Childe, Kaeya, Alhaitham
Favourite Female Character: Sara
First Character I Liked: Kaeya
Favourite Character Design: Kaeya, Candace
Favourite OST: TBA
Favourite Scene: Everyone in Liyue fighting back against Osial
Least Favourite Character: Fanon Lumine irritates me, but none in particular in canon