The thing holding Star Rail's story back.

I'll get to it-- the POV switching is shit.

My friend and I were talking today, we have vastly different opinions, and we stumbled on Sunday. I think Sunday's one of the more better written of the Penacony cast and he thinks he's the worst. A point that he brought up was the trailblazer had no reason to fight Sunday at all except to contradict his ideals while not forming their own.

Thats when it clicked, Trailblazer doesn't get to form opinions and ideas on their own because we're never with them, or at least we're not with them when we see big plotpoints like Dr. Ratio meddling with Sunday, nor are we with them to witness Sunday's end with Welt. We, the player, are privy to this knowledge but our player character is not. It makes it feel like Trailblazer a hollower character that's just there to deliver funny one liners.

Like, put it this way, knowing Aventurine's backstory is an important part of understanding his motivations and why he is who he is--but Caelus isn't actually privy to that knowledge because they weren't there, so by all means, Caelus can not understand him the same way the player does. My big thing here is we're privy to knowledge but the trailblazer is not, so it's hard for it to feel like Caelus or Stelle have actual ideals for themselves when they're not experiencing the entirety of the story and it makes it look like they're just fighting for the sake of contradicting.

Right now, POV switches feel like they're just a way to sell the character on banner(which they are) and feels wholly unnatural from a storytelling perspective because we have a main character. If the Trailblazer didn't exist as the self-insert/main player character, this wouldn't feel as bad as it does, but they do exist as the main character of the story and while it's not fair to expect everything to go their direction/for them to experience everything, it's also not fair that the literal MC doesn't know shit of what's happening except "fight bad guy".

Thats not to say that POV switches can't be utilized effectively, my main gripe is that we're in this visual novel limbo where we(the player) know things that the main character does not know/will never know (think 999 or Paranormasight). While telling the story of another character from their perspective is good, it narratively sets up the overarching plot while neglecting the main character and not giving them characterization.

I guess it comes down to the fact we're playing as the Trailblazer, what trail can they blaze when they never see it for themselves? Or at least it doesn't make sense for the MC not to have any reason to their actions nor do they give them enough motive to understand the characters around them because right now, they are really passive.

This was especially prevalent when it came to the Mydei stuff. The player knows Mydei's motivations and story while to Trailblazer it's that angry guy that sometimes shows up to save the day.

I hope this makes sense, really.

Edit: A better way I saw someone frame this is that Trailblazer is the main character. No matter what happens that's what they are. The fact remains that they are the driving force in the plot, and no one can deny that. Who fights Sunday and talks him down? Who fights Nicador? Who lets Sunday join us(not Welt lmao)? Who's supposedly the biggest factor that could change Amphoreus? Who fights Aventurine despite not knowing anything?

Having POV switches is fine when used correctly, but when the game insists that the Trailblazer is the driving force of the story then they should back that shit up and explain their ideals and motives and their connection to the people in the story.

This is the stupidest case of "Telling and not showing" when it comes to character writing. They tell us that Trailblazer somehow develops and grows reasons to disagree with the people they fight, but think about him talking down Sunday and see that that literally made no narrative sense since we don't play as them for most of it.

Right now, POV switches are just lazy way for Hoyo to get away with bad writing (literally introduced in Penacony so).

If the player is supposed to know something that Trailblazer does not then make that an apparent point of the game, because right now, it's treated like they know what we know which is an insane leap of logic for the writers.

Idk, to me POV switches are cheap and lazy at this point, especially with Hoyo's storytelling style.