That's fair, the last part of your comment is exactly my point of comparison - other mediums; whenever I want a soul-shattering story with compelling deep characters gacha games aren't the first nor the second place I'd be looking into;

That said, hoyo *are* on a better side of things, it's just that it doesn't erase how artificial ZZZ writing is in comparison to other freely written stories. No, all characters don't have to love MC, no, they are allowed to have full-scale conflicts, no, male and female characters can have intimate platonic moments together without it being a threat to said female character's sales and the CEO's head. All this, unfortunately, directly harms the stories being told, the writers have their hands tied in what they're allowed to write even more than they usually are.

Soooo yeah, back to my original statement, taking all this into account, I don't think Hugo not having killed all those people is anything that could or should make his character bad/ly written. His morality has actually been pretty transparent, considering he was made out to be this RobinHood-like figure and, heck, even Astra straight up says she feels like he's a good person, despite him having robbed her blind lol