Originally uploaded to Bilibili.tv
For the last two years Lantern Rite was pretty much just a filler event. Two years ago we got some information and finally a visual on Guizhong but that was really it. The rest of the story was about a concert and then Hu Tao tried figuring out Zhongli. Last year was even more filler since it was really just about the new character Gaming.
This year reminded me of Lantern Rite 2 in 2022. That year we got Shenhe so the story was about her but she had this huge backstory where we found out that the "Seelies" were gods which meant they were the same as the Archons. There were theories about it before that that confirmed them. Now of course they're also being called angels so my guess is these are all titles based around their power levels and what they really are at the end of the day is elemental beings. On top of that we got our first hit of the "Human Age" where humanity grew strong enough to take care of themselves instead of needing to rely on gods. (this sadly was not reflected in most other regions so they have plenty of catching up to do)
So this year we got a new character and her abilities and history did get brought up but the story instead focused on an old character, Hu Tao. We got essentially a continuation of her Character Quest saw more of her abilities. And they even tied the story to the new Archon Quest that concluded earlier this patch which opens up even more lore. Also, while they still needed a minor assist from the supernatural protectorate the majority of the work was still done by humans so the Human Age still stands. It was really impactful.
The extra stuff was also fun though they were missing cameos by the Natlan characters who are supposed to be free to explore now. Kachina had already said she wanted to head over to Liyue and Mualani was supposed to follow her before going off to Fontaine who we do have cameos for.
A funny thing though. Back in year 1, Lantern Rite was split into 3 different banner periods because Hu Tao debuted then and she couldn't be associated with Lantern Rite because of some kind of bad luck taboo in Chinese culture. It's curious then why she's not the main character of this Lantern Rite. I wonder what was really going on back then because we ended up with 3 2-week long banners that people complained about since it gave them less time to get the character. (I got really lucky and nabbed my Hu Tao on the very last day with the very last gacha pull I was able to earn!)
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