https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1idiJKLl_o0
I'll never forget what it was like to journey here for the first time. I was honestly on the verge of quitting the game entirely due to my dissatisfaction with the more recent locales like Chasm or Inazuma. Not to mention the new waves of censorship that retroactively affected characters from my favorite region (at the time) Mondstadt.
3.0 blew me the fuck away with literally every facet of its composition. From the exploration, to the story, to the character designs, to the fucking incredible musical backdrops, I'd never before witnessed something so utterly perfect in videogame form. It sounds like hyperbole, but I unironically enjoyed my time exploring the 3.0 map of Sumeru more than probably any other game world in my entire life. Xenoblade Chronicles X was my previous favorite in that regard, particularly the Noctilum area. I just love massive fantasy forests that you can get lost in for hours on end. Sumeru's rainforest region felt like Noctilum on steroids. To this day it's the largest area that was ever released in a single patch in Genshin Impact or any other Genshin clone, both in terms of size and density. I've been consistently disappointed by both Fontaine and Natlan since they felt so much smaller and less content-rich (even in their entirety) when compared just to this one location in Sumeru. If Azur Promilia or Wuthering Waves wants to win me over all I can say is PLEASE try to emulate the things that made Version 3.0's Rainforest so fucking awesome.
