Hot take: Durin's story quest is heads above NK AQ

After finishing Durin's SQ yesterday I now think that it was a much better quality and better paced story than the whole current 6.0-6.2 AQ, adjusting for the length of course, since SQ is much shorter. Even impossible magic was more believable in the Durin's story, better explained and better acted by the characters. Not the usual "let's scream together with friends and that will give us over 9000 power", but more subdued and thoughtful.

The only issue I have with it, is that 5 real day wait was completely unnecessary, only as a gacha dark pattern. Now if I will respond positively in the poll, MHY will think I'm approving the timegating too. But anyway, it was a breath of fresh air, after the stale power of friendshiping flying cosmic horrors. Hopefully the trend will continue.

PS: it was especially amusing since right before it, I've played Klee and Jean SQs, finally getting to completing the backlog. The contrast was stark :)

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Commentaires

Weaponmaster4702026-01-09 11:16

You say that because Fischl was in it (understandable) ;)

Tooluka2026-01-09 12:05

You know, you are on to something :)

Clades_Candor2026-01-09 11:18

I liked seeing albedo again but overall I don't really care about durin, especially since durin equals more wanderer screen time, which is a very unfortunate fate for him lol, reminds me of kinich being ruined by ajaw. And i got more annoyed than immersed from the 5 day timegate, so not even close to nk for me.

I liked every char in nk so far, even the ones i skipped were at the very least pleasant. *Especially* after natlan, nod krai has been like a medicine, feels like actual genshin again.

HIkaUri2026-01-09 11:24

This quest actually killed all my hype around Durin. It's essentially just a retelling of what I already knew from the Simulanka and Paralogism quests, but it's locked due to a five-day time gate.

Tooluka2026-01-09 12:04

I've started in 5.0, so I couldn't play Simulanka or any Windblume events. As a consequence Paralogism from my point of view was a completely disjointed and incoherent mess. This SQ at least bothered with an explanation of what's going on.

HIkaUri2026-01-09 12:25

Yes, but it's even worse, instead of letting all players see his story, they made a quick retelling that leaves new players confused and doesn't bring anything new to the old players.

Archangel-Des-9992026-01-09 11:28

I think both Nod-Krai AQs and Durin SQ to be separate and unique which shouldn't be compared.. Him not getting his SQ integrated with AQ was actually good due to the high stake we were facing against Rerir.

KyrrithK2026-01-09 11:34

Yeah, the timegate is universally agreed to just be the worst part. The only way I could have maybe forgiven it is if we got the 'hints' at the end of each day, and the characters as well as we the players got to think about them for a day to try and solve them, like an in-game ARG. But for that to work, the hints need to actually be solveable, interesting and not braindead easy. Bonus points if travelling to the place early added some dialogue, like "Hey, you figured out the answer! Let's go tell Durin and come back once the ink is dry tomorrow!", but I guess the internet and gamer desire to min-max kinda ruins the magic of that sort of mechanic.

Otherwise, the story was alright. It was nice to see characters again, re-experience a section of Simulanka, and the VN mechanics were fun to play around with. I feel like the start and end had most of the best story beats though, I would've liked to see a little more of all the NPC characters in Durin's story, or had more little references to find in those story sections. Most of it was just carried hard by nostalgia. And ultimately there were no 'real' choices to make, which is always a bit disappointing as a VN 100%er. But it does play into the theme and message of the story, so I can accept that.

HuTaosTwinTails2026-01-09 11:37

That's wild.

Most of it was just restating what we already knew and was so boring.

La-Roca992026-01-09 11:58

Hot take:Wrong opinion, gassing one thing above the other as if two cannot coexist, an SQ which is just 1 full quest having "better lenght" than 6 full standalone quests is definitely an opinion of all time

Flaky-Significance692026-01-09 11:59

I absolutely loved Durin's quest too and for me, it's the best one since Furina. Maybe because I'm a very casual player so I don't remember all the details for Simulanka (I did all of it), so I didn't feel like this quest was a repeat. I loved the themes they touched on regarding "growing up" and Durin's relationship with his mom (also Albedo and Wanderer), and also how Durin became more confident and happy at the end, after finding the courage to finally become the author of his own story <3

The timegate actually worked for me because if I do long quests all in one go (which I tend to do), it's too much to digest and I forget the beginning lol. But I can see how it might not work for other people.

Tamamo_was_here2026-01-09 12:17

That was certainly a hot take, but that time gate really just killed it for me.

thisiskyle772026-01-09 12:28

I felt the opposite tbh. So boring and end up pressing skip.

zriL-2026-01-09 12:44

I thought Durin's SQ was one the most boring SQ of the entire game, and I actually like the timegating when it's used the right way (I think this is the case here). My issue is it's mostly a needed recap of some of missing information from events, and some lore foreshadowing about how fate works, which is fine but I don't think it was done particularly well, it's just ok. But the main problem is that there is no interesting intrigue in the quest, world quests are actually more engaging most of the time, and they are also about world building.

KRen_7252026-01-09 15:42

Not really.....it's good don't get me wrong but the AQ has just been on a crazy roll banger after banger. And Durin's quest taking 5 days actually makes sense when you consider it's a bedtime story he's reading to himself. Bedtime story when reading to kids is never read in one go but in parts.