Wuthering Waves 3.5 - Main quest was kind of boring, but the Yangyang segue...

Wuthering Waves 3.5 was released today. I went through it in one sitting a bit worried about what I was going to experience and, honestly, it was a disappointing experience despite the overall high quality of the work. I have no problems with the animations, the quality of the various new zones, or similar elements.

The main problem was the storyline, which was just a rehash of what we experienced in the 1.x chain of events, only with a higher budget. It was the typical "glorious and heroic defenders of Huanglong" fighting against evil, sacrificing their lives without fear for their glorious homeland, and so on.

It's the typical theme and narration we get every time any zone inspired by China appears, and I dozed off multiple times during the various story events. The only parts that interested me were the side event involving Suisui bartering with the Sentinel Hsin and the Yangyang segue at the very end.

Time to summon 9000 pigeons to defeat the enemy in one swoop. That's Yangyang calling apparently! Still love the new design.

That character literally screamed about being an NPC right from the very first moment we meet her. I'd be happy to be surprised.

The first part set up the story for coming patches by exploring why Hsin is unable to move and what needs to be done to restore her as the protector of Mengzhou. Considering she is going to be the first playable Sentinel, I'm really curious about how it will play out.

The Yangyang segue, meanwhile, finally made it "canon" that Yangyang is tightly linked with the mysterious woman we saw in the prologue and have not seen since. It also shows that there were three people present when Rover was rescued, but since we only know of two, the math does not add up.

Yangyang was about to ask Rover something about it, but she was stopped by the usual NPC butting in, so we don't really know what she meant; however, it will surely be an important part of the coming chapters. This is especially true considering Yangyang literally declared to Rover that she would be by her side at all times moving forward, rather than just standing on the sidelines.

Could this be the first character to become a recurring presence in the storyline, rather than us jumping between countries with Rover as the only constant? It would be a nice change, to be honest, as I'm starting to feel a bit of fatigue from not having a consistent cast to rely on alongside the protagonist.

Skinship between siblings is important and Suisui is not one to hide that. Just look at how closely they're hugging!

A bit plain, but still a step up compared to many other NPCs we got in the past. Curious to see who else we get with this treatment later on.

Suisui was also a nice character introduced in this area; I really like how she changes her personality depending on who she is talking to: the ultra-adorable one when speaking with Yangyang, the emotional actress when she wants to manipulate someone, and the serious persona otherwise.

Now we wait until Suisui is released, and hopefully, we get another segue. I'm curious to see what the focus will be. Perhaps more on the "partnership" between Hsin and Suisui? It could be a good way to set up the next steps for Rover and Yangyang in this new zone.