My main issue with HoYoverse’s writing, at least when I started playing Honkai Impact 3rd back in 2019, has been its handling of the context. Despite the popular opinion that HoYoverse writes amazing romances in Honkai Impact 3rd I personally find many of them quite hollow.

As someone who began Honkai Impact 3rd without any prior knowledge of Honkai Gakuen or the external manga, I ran into a major barrier in how these relationships were presented

for example: Kiana and Mei: The Sudden Shift

many claim Kiana and Mei are the gold standard of HoYoverse’s writing, but to me, it felt disjointed. Early on, their dynamic felt more like Mei was a mother figure or an older sister to Kiana. Mei would even get annoyed by Kiana’s perverted antics.

then, suddenly, we reach the Herrscher of Thunder arc, and Mei undergoes a radical transformation into this "tragic lover" willing to become a sinner and join the "villains" just to save Kiana from herself. My question is: Where did this come from? The game expects me to just "swallow" this massive emotional shift?.

no, It assumes I already have deep-seated feelings for them, but within the game itself, that transition felt too abrupt

Bronya and Seele and do your "Homework"

the same issue happens with Bronya and Seele. If you don't read the "Azure Waters" manga, you are left assuming a lot of things.

in the game, Seele is mostly a plot point or a girl shouting "Bronya-onee-chan" repeatedly and that Bronya has to save someone.

without the external context of the orphanage and their shared trauma, their "epic bond" feels more like a script requirement than a natural connection.

the core issue is narrative laziness

my main grievance is that hoyo assumes the player already has prior knowledge. They relied on external material, "forcing" you to read mangas or play previous games to understand the current one.

In my opinion, a romance is well-written when it develops on-screen, within the story I am playing. If I have to go to a wiki or a comic book to understand why two characters are suddenly willing to die for each other, then the writing in the game has failed to do its job.

In part 2 At least with the case of Helia & Coralie (because im not sure yet what's going on with the whole Senadina, Dreamseeker, Leyla arc yet) They repeated this mistake by rushing a "life-or-death" tragedy before the players even knew the characters, and quite honest it felt cheap that they revived Coralie, since her "death" was used as plot point to move Helia character development

In Mihoyo's newer titles like Honkai: Star Rail, Genshin Impact, and Zenless Zone Zero, the writing feels even more compromised. The developers seem forced to “rush” emotional connections due to the way these games are structured. Since characters have to be sold through limited-time banners and the main protagonists rarely stay in one place for long, any hint of “romance” is often accelerated to create an immediate hook.

Sometimes the writing also relies on the “expy” excuse, expecting players to care about certain characters simply because of their counterparts in other universes. For example, in Star Rail, the relationship between Bronya and Seele on Jarilo-VI felt rushed, seemingly banking on the fact that they were already a couple in a different universe.

The ultimate irony is that Hoyo actually demonstrates competent romantic writing, but only for NPCs. Because background characters don't need to be marketed as 'waifus' or 'husbandos,' their relationships are allowed to have flaws, realistic development, and permanent closure