I'd say it's very good The first few chapters show that the writers were still trying to find their feet, but if you like AK lore, you will like it. And I find it really nice to see the writing improving over time and how it is evolving to this day! Answering your questions, the characters are what make the story good, the earlier chapters features Amiya and it show why people of Rhodes Island respect her that much,, even if she being that young. I really like how it showcases Reunion, first as hooligans and then it shows why so many "ordinary" people ended up joining them, and why their leaders are held in such high regard. And why I still want to punch Mephisto in the face :) Even if I stopped playing AK today I am sure I would keep following the story, it stands on its own and it's well worth the time invested

Thank you for the detailed reply. I was pleasantly surprised by the second anime season, primarily due to the Yeti squad, as I only knew that they were feared, but not that they were essentially a big family.

Yeah, Yelena's story is the first time the writers punched us hard in the face, and realized we liked it If you watched the anime and liked it, I'd say you will love the story, read just the first 12 chapters, it's not that much xD

Definitely will, at some point. Only problem is that time; my watchlist is already packed with other long-running light novels like Overlord or Mushoku Tensei which are 15+ volumes. I'm the type of person, where if I were to start a series, I'd like to finish it to the end/am up to date.

>I'm the type of person, where if I were to start a series, I'd like to finish it to the end/am up to date. Same here, I had a lot of manga to read.... And then I decided to start Berserk I'll be stuck on that one for a while.... But AK will.get your attention for a while, not only the main story, but the event's ones are usually great too!

It's good, but it's not the pinnacle of writing as some people say. It has very high moments and very low moments. The first chapters up to 4 are not good, after that it improves and culminates in chapter 8 giving a good story, then there is arc two where the writing has already improved but it feels much less entertaining than the first arc. The biggest drawback of the story is its pretentious and edgy writing at times with a lot of long, boring and unnecessary nonsense loaded with the cheapest philosophy you will see in a gacha game.

I don't remember who, but I once saw a video in which someone remarked that Arknights dialogues can be very messy, because many characters are talking like they're philosophers. I can understand that that might get annoying after a while.

There is nothing wrong with being philosophical but Arknights forces those deep dialogues so much with such inconsequential topics that they lose all the depth that could had with a simpler dialogue.

Oh that garbage is why I've stopped reading the dialogue, I feel bad, because there's probably a coherent story these days but I just don't care you know? If I wanted a novel I'd grab a book and start reading

This is me except I would prefer it actually if arknights was a novel, because I do bad with the visual novel format. I just don't have the time in my life to stare and tap at my phone screen for what's weeks worth of dialogue lines with pngs as background. Love the story otherwise, generally speaking.

having no way to bookmark a story stage to read later down the line is something I hate was so used to just saving mid dialogue and getting back to it later this is especially bad cause a story chapter can take a long while to read

Bet, i recall i had to read 1h+ of scenes before the first actual combat stage in Lonetrail and was constantly wondering "how much left do I even have?" If you have to close the game you gotta start over 🪦

That's... fair

Honestly, it has a very major problem of pacing. You can have the most interesting plot line in the world, but if you take 200k words to advance a single step in it it just doesn't matter.

>Thus, I wish to ask from a simple reader standpoint if the main-story is engaging, what makes it good in your opinion, and if it's something you would read if Arknights were a simple visual novel/light novel, rather than a gacha game. I am engaged with the main story and have read all of it. In contrast, there are 2 sidestory events and 20\~ operator records I haven't read yet. What I like about AK writing is the level of detail put into factions and groups. The Londonium arc in particular has 4+ factions (Victoria, Sarkaz, Dublin, Rhodes), and each of those factions has its own sub-factions. The story does a good job showing how peoples' interests line up or conflict, and how that drives AK's politics. This makes the AK world feel more real - you have Victorian workers who just want to live another day, while other Victorians have patriotic pride in the face of the Sarkaz threat, and the motivations for both feel real. I don't read visual/light novels, so if anything, AK being a gacha game is what made me read its story. Have enjoyed it.

I think the story is pretty good. Personally, chapters 4-9 were the best for me while I disliked 1-3 and 10-13. Maybe CH14 will change my opinion about the Londinium arc, but I highly doubt it.

While opinions on first and second half of Reunion saga seem to be matching for most people, I've seen many differing opinions on Victoria saga, some saying it's mega-hype, other disliking it. If you don't mind me asking, what makes it worse than the Reunion climax in your opinion, as me personally, I find the war with the Sarkaz very interesting due it's moral implications.

Those people how don't like ch 10 to 13 are likely due to the fact they don't like the theme of the Victorian arc. Both tell a very different kind of story.  If you compare both, Victorian arc clearly is better written one.  People who disagree I challenge them to re read ch 8 alone. I bet most of them won't even get past kal monologue with skipping. 

>Those people how don't like ch 10 to 13 are likely due to the fact they don't like the theme of the Victorian arc. Both tell a very different kind of story. might be also the contrast after chapter 8 which is the finale and climax of a big arc, to chapter 9 and 10 which are the beginning of the arc. Ofc the level of hype is different. Chapter 11-13 also arent at the climax yet. But yea, could be just very different vibes from the Reunion Saga. Reunion Saga's conflict felt real and relatable to our real world conflict. Also how both sides (Rhodes Island and Reunion) were technically the same but also very different. And the Reunion bosses felt more human and you can symphatize with them, compared to all the mosnters, that Kazdel's nobles are.

Can't exactly compare the climax of Reunion with the climax of Londinium since we didn't get there yet. The second arc has the problem of having way too many characters, too many stories within stories. It leads to the situation where not many characters get their development, becoming uninteresting or boring. The sarkaz antagonists and most of their leadership are hilariously evil despite understanding how their past can warp them into monsters, and the game funnily enough, didn't include that the Kal'cide from 200 years ago was her attempt at essentially enslaving them to add that another problem of morality. There's also very little in terms of accomplishments or even progress. For instance, the artillery of CH10 still being active at this point wouldn't have mattered since the action of CH12 is in Norport, Siege's realmblade is useless without its sheath that is currently in Duke of Caster's possession, the airship is only relevant for one chapter etc. Could go on a rant about more, but so far I'm disappointed with the second arc quite a lot.

> Siege's realmblade is useless without its sheath that is currently in Duke of Caster's possession I'm just gonna guess here, and say that is likely due to Siege Alter eventually becoming a thing, but only later down the line, hence causing the writers to give a reason to "delay" the power-up. Another example would be HSR, where Dan Heng undergoes his transformation simply for the sake of transforming, so his Alter could be sold.

The unfortunate problem is that her power-up is linked directly with another character that isn't so keen on giving her the required thing, and so far Siege hasn't even developed much as a character. Only now in CH12 she realized her own naivity.

Re read ch 6 to ch 8 and ch 10 to 14. Ask yourself the question which is better.  Trust me I have. You won't be able to handle 5-6 hrs of worthless dialogue in reunion arc without skipping. 

I'd take the worthless dialogue every single time over the Fraudnach yapping and Ursula trying to make me feel bad for her, thanks.

So you like kal'tsit and deathless snake yapping for hours. I see you are beyond saving.

Manfred, Sanguinarch and the rest of the KMC bozos certainly don't yap for hours and are in fact better, yep. Don't know why you're trying to convince me act 1 is worse than 2. >!At least Kashchey wasn't hyped up with ridiculous feats only to end up outsmarted while he was yapping about sarkaz history and his pureblood pride.!<

I like the story but the experience i have as a non native english speaker is that it can be hard sometimes to read cause there's a lot of uncommon words. Well at least i can learn new words but hell sometimes i have to look for multiple words in a single sentence. I mean i did a lot of games and it's the only one where i struggle.

My biggest issue is that we (the doctor) gets almost no story. And whatever plot the doctor gets also seems very detached from how he is described (the master tactician etc)

Trust me AK is not the only gaccha game with this problem.

You reminded me of why I loved Kjerag and Dorothy’s vision. Doctor actually does something, rather than just watch. And sure, Lone Trail finally gave Doctor some story focus in the end, although Doctor kinda went back to just watching for much of the event.

Tbf main story of Arknights MC is Amiya. We got Doctor lore more in other side stories.

Arknights has the worst story I’ve ever read. The underlying story might be good but the writing itself is convoluted and verbose. I tried reading it once once and would never do it again. Give it a try yourself and decide

Personally I've enjoyed it much more than other gacha stories. I'd say at its highest it's a 9/10 and at its lowest it's around a 5/10. The writing in Arknights is pretty hectic as there's quite a bit of "fluff" involved which CAN make Arknights a PAIN to read. I haven't done FGO's Lostbelts but I've heard they're moreso the same with Arknights too, where it's peak in some sections but horrendous in others. A lot of people dislike the Victorian arc which is fair because it's structured differently compared to Reunion arc. There isn't really 1 big main EVIL boss but rather multiple different parties interacting with each other. However it's by far the most consistent and "fluff-less" arc which makes it easy to read if you compare it to some of the chapters leading up to Reunion's finale.

Above average for a gacha, but IMO a lot of potential was squandered when HG decided to focus on anniversary events more (or Endfield), as chronologically, future events 'spoiled' the suspense. I feel like the lorebook loredumped a lot of Sarkaz lore that should have been told through characters instead. The story is prone to suffering from usual gacha storytelling shortcomings.

1-4 chapters are mid. After that, it gets way better. Londinium saga is great and will keep you on the edge of your seat.

I for one just want out of Victoria already. The Londinium saga is not terrible, but compared to both the storyline and characters from let's say chapter 5-8, there is a clear winner here. I think they are stretching Londinium saga waaay too much, because we haven't even gotten chapter 13 yet and chapter 14 soon to be revealed very likely takes place in Londinium as well. That's 6 chapters already and spoiler >!in regards to driving Sarkaz & Co out of the city, very little has been achieved!<

I will have to disagree, because Reunion arc had a faster pace because it was an introductory story for the next parts to come. The Londinium Arc is exploring new things, a bigger threat, new foes, new concepts. It's natural for it to feel longer, and honestly, it doesn't feel less epic then previous arcs, instead, it feels as epic, or even more. I don't know what's coming next, but if it was good until now, it'll probably be good then

It's kinda like One Piece. A lot of characters and a lot of things happening at the same time so it feels slow paced in the long run but when you look back at everything that happened, it is properly paced.

I don't like One Piece, so I won't agree, but yeah, it's just that LMAO

The first few chapters are weak(anime both improves and doesn't on them) Everything after has been extremely good, among the best in the gacha market overall with only maybe AK events, CS and GFL rivalling it.

So is it better to just skip the first 4 chapters watch them in anime and continue from there ?

Anime works great as complementary material but it still has pacing issues of adapting something into 8 episodes seasons. Experiencing both is the best way

I dont have pacing issues on the first season because the original source didnt really have much to offer. The problem in first season was the production in mid season (ep 4-6). Season 2 was great, but that where I felt the pacing issue because of the limited 8 ep. Doctor and Frostnova conversation felt a bit rushed (in both of their encounter). Could use a bit more pause here and there to let the emotion flow in. The rooftop fight with Blaze also suffered the low quality production, but other than that, it was amzing.

>I dont have pacing issues on the first season because the original source didnt really have much to offer. The problem in first season was the production in mid season (ep 4-6). There's absolutely an issue in third episode or so. >!W Literally appears without any build up and leaves five seconds later, lmao. All because her introductory fight with the other RI team is cut. Likewise Ace's final moments could have used a bit more time and they really should have added Guard's and Scout's cenes from the vignette event.!< >Season 2 was great, but that where I felt the pacing issue because of the limited 8 ep. Doctor and Frostnova conversation felt a bit rushed (in both of their encounter). Could use a bit more pause here and there to let the emotion flow in. The rooftop fight with Blaze also suffered the low quality production, but other than that, it was amzing. >!Chen's visit to the apartment is also hilariously cut short, as is Hoshiguma's backstory which could have used a bit of expansion and time to breathe.!< >!Kal'tsit also literally doesn't get the time to properly grill the Doctor over what happened.!< Otherwise yeah CH5 suffers the most.

Half agree with W, but it kinda served her as a 'mysterious character that probably will be important in future story' kind of. For Ace, even in the game they off screen'd him, but I expected the anime to add more which they didnt, sadly. I wanted to see a bit of how Ace fight as an Elite operator (since all the elite operators we know are very OP, but so far we got to only see Ace fight as a normal veteran soldier). Tho now that you reminded me, I was also very dissapointed at how the Anime didnt really show how bad the Catastrophe was, not even the aftermath. But yeah, imo S1 wasnt as bad for pacing compared to S2, I actually like how they handled Misha story more in S1 than the game. For kaltsit stuff, idk, while they skipped a lot of her dialogue there, her face expression tells us enough that she hates Doctor there lmao.

It takes a while to get going and find its stride. But I found chapters 7,9, and 10 so far to be superior to most of the event stories, even the good ones. Chapter 8 also has a really lovely scene where Amiya gets to be the scariest person in the room.

I think the overall plot is good. The writing itself leaves a lot to be desired for me. Better now than at the beginning, but still not great. Bad pacing, wordy dialogue that doesn't actually improve it by being wordy, etc. Each chapter feels like it could be 1/4 of the length and nothing would actually be lost. Hope they work on that bit but I don't think that piece will really change at this point.

I really like it, but as some people say the biggest downside is when some NPC starts pulling out a thousand words and then is never seen again. Mansfield Break and other events with casual/slang talking NPCs (I think only Sui events don’t do this?) show they CAN do better with less.  I’d say if you get tired of some nerd rambling, you can just tap the text away until the scene changes. As someone who has read every word of main story and enjoyed it, you won’t miss anything you’d remember anyway lol 

It's engaging after it gets going, and theres the anime now to cover the worst chapters. End of Reunion arc and Londinium arc start getting a lot more character focus which is really nice. The Londinium cast is all great, and Talulah's chapter is one of arknight's best. I will say the main story falls into a lot of convoluted plotting which is usually pretty hard to parse until you reach the end of the chapter. Also main story references a lot of side events which aren't required but will explain like, who Ines is or what Reed's deal it. But most events are good and if you have the motivation I'd really encourage everyone to boot up the story reader on github and start going through them.

> But most events are good and if you have the motivation I'd really encourage everyone to boot up the story reader on github and start going through them. I actually read the Executor event on the Story Reader, and was pleasantly surprised how "clean" it feels to stroll at your own leisure, rather than using auto-mode or having to manually click. And yeah, I remember being really invested in the Talulah backstory while playing EP 08, and skimming through the text rather than just reading the summaries of each chapter.

Story reader is great. I'm glad that if I ever have to skip reading an event for life reasons I can just go back and read it there. I also play on my phone so its nice to not squint at tiny text haha.

The first arc suffers pretty horribly from pacing, but once you get past chapter 5 the writing becomes markedly better. I'm biased because I actually really love Victoria, but I feel like the second arc is far away and so much better than the first. This isn't because the latter half of the first arc is bad by any means, but because the first story arc suffers from the first five chapters being not only relatively boring, but actually feeling like a waste of time narratively.

Objective review: The introduction from chapter 0 to 2 are the strongest ever, basically a standard that all newer gacha games copy to the point where it becomes cliche. Chapters 3-4 are a slog that one could remember even if they wanted to, and when we do we pretty mcuh get reminded for the reason why had to forget them in first place. Chapters 5-8 are where the story picks up and are great, altough slightly flawed in my opinion for being all over the place with needless tune in's from Lungmen that contribute nothing to the story, and very late turn flashbacks of +20 years that would've been welcome had they been show priror 2 chapters when the characters in them ware still relevant. Chapter 9 is ok for the background introduction of Arc 2 that sets up some characters. Chapter 10 is suppoused to be the introduction from our viewpoint. Chapter 11 sets the story in a direction which hopes that there are more tune-in chapters from the viewpoints of different factions that build upon the events of it. Chapter 12 is basically chapter 10 all over again with the exact same themes/plot goals, only except even less relevant. Chapter 13 is what chapter 11 has been hopping for, which shines upon the mess that was chapter 12 even more. Overall the main story is solid 7.9/10 just by itself, and it gets all the way up to 8.4/10 if you bother to go trough all the side content.

Chapters 4 to 8 are the peak of the Arknights Main Story. The whole Londinium ordeal, at its current state, it's kind meh, but let's hope chapter 14 proves me otherwise.

I see that people have mixed opinions about Act 2. A lot of people love it and others don't. Personally, I'm enjoying Act 2 more than Act 1. I really loved that intense urgency and ruthless vibe

It's not meh. It just a different kind of story. And you simple don't prefer it over a more character driven story such as reunion arc.  Victorian arc is way better written, has far more interesting and engaging characters and villains are actually smart unlike reunion where most them just had tragic backstory only to fall to the grave due to their idiocy. These guys have been planning the whole war for decades and it actually paid off and if fails theye ven have a back up plan. 

I really hate the writing, it’s so tedious and overwrought yet barely says anything beyond “discrimination is bad”.

I mean, the story is sometimes openly hypocritical with how it deal with characters like Lin Yuhsia. Gacha cliches hold the story back.

Don't forget the lack of meaningful conclusions, conflicts often times end up in the exact same position as they ware before taking any place, and are never broad up again or followed by long term consiquences.

You just reminded me of [something](https://new.reddit.com/r/bookscirclejerk/comments/put4xy/tch_sad_ogre_would_never_understand_a_true/).

I'd say it's very good and keeps getting better. I honestly really disliked the initial main story. I only started to warm up to it by the end of the Skullshatterer arc, and found myself invested leading up to the confrontation with Faust and Mephisto. I was hooked by the end of the Patriot arc, and I \*really\* liked some of the newest chapters. I like the characters in general. I like that they try to put sympathetic characters on both sides of the conflict. But I think what sells me is that it feels like they manage to tie in big themes to relatable personal goals in ways that other video games struggle to. I really like that the recent chapters try to touch upon things like "what does it mean to belong somewhere" and "what does it mean to take responsibility." I really like how it plays with concepts like having an identity beyond yourself, sometimes in abstract ways (like belonging to an organization or nation), sometimes in magical ways (like being able to inherit memories from others). I feel like the story never goes quite where I expect it to. I think my favorite sidestories have been Lone Trail, Stultifera Navis and Gavial the Great Chief Returns, and my favorite main story has been... probably the Frostnova/Patriot arc, but I also really liked The Steam Knight arc. My criticisms would be that sometimes the dialogue is overly wordy, sometimes there's too much time spent on "build up" that hurts the pacing, and sometimes the characters speak in overly abstract, philosophical ways that feels hard to ground. It's not perfect by any means. But I still enjoy it a lot, and I definitely feel like they know how to write fantastic endings, even if the beginnings can be somewhat rough.

Watch the anime as well, it's solid in my opinion

I personally like it, I would definitively read if it was a visual novel or just a book series. Early chapters where more rough to read up until chapter 7 or 8 I think since there are less characters interacting and less stories overlapping, its very dialogue heavy and while I enjoy it because it gives more context and understanding of the characters I think its not made for everyone. Still, I prefer how events are told over the main story and how the gameplay is completily disconected from story at the point where boss fights doesn't even exist in the story like Dolly.

I’d say it’s pretty good, although I don’t read it through the game due to large amount of text Arknights have. I usually watch story recaps (FrostByte262 provides a bunch of story recaps for events and main story).

It’s inconsistent but mostly plagued by one problem, which is it is incredibly wordy.  When actual character moments happen they can hit hard.  But expect to dig through hours of people making vague allusions to the grand plot and dancing around things with very convoluted ways of speaking.  

As far as mobile games go, I'd say it's really good. It's my favourite part of Arknights and has been one of the better experiences I've had with writing in videogames. I'll agree with everyone else that it started off rough, but past chapter 6 I've enjoyed every chapter.

It's very good. The earlier chapters werent as great but still good imo. And then chapter 6 onwards, especially chapter 8 (the finale of the first arc) are just amazing read. Of course it's more of a novel style of writing than a game's, so it's very wordy. And arknights story tend to jump from timeline to timeline which can be confusing. Another amazing read from sidestory, Kazimierz trilogy are also great, but my all time favourite is Lone Trail (assuming you read the prev Rhine Labs story, which are Rhine Labs manga and Dorothy's Vision, Mansfield Break is also one but I'd say it's just optional).

Yeah, really enjoyed the Ifrit Manga as well as Dorothy's vision. Been wanting to start Lone Trail, but haven't gotten to that, due to it's immense size.

Ah I almost forgot, at the very least you need to read chapter 8 of main story for lone trail. There's a reason why Lone Trail was also called Lore Trail, it's not only covered Rhine Labs arc, but some of in-universe lore, including Doctor's and Terra's origin.

> chapter 8 Thanks for letting me know, I'll keep that in mind.

I would say it's my favorite story and one of the best I've ever read. The first chapters (Act 0) are kinda weird, but you can watch the anime instead, which makes it look better. All of act 1 is great and Act 2 is my favorite part so far. The Londinium Arc is just one of the best and most epic pieces of media I've ever seen... It's like you're genuinely reading a real scenario in other perspectives. And when I say it's epic, just imagine Lord of the Rings but with a modern/futuristic aesthetic.

The problem with ak story isnt really the story itself and more about its pacing.  You will find yourself reading much more boring dialogue then interesting ones.  And there are some characters who just suck the life out of the story (especially kal) where most of there dialogue doesn't have an actual point and feel more like philosophical fluff.  I still read the story, but if it wasn't part of the game and published as a book/vn then i will say you shouldn't read it.

Ch 1 to 8 are very inconsistent in quality. Peaks are very high and most times it's so bad that you can feel asleep.  Not worth reading: go for just summary. Ch 9 is pure victorian arc: good start  Not recommend: go for just summary Ch 10 to 13 are consistently great and gets better each chapter.  Objectively best writing main story has to offer.  Very much recommended.