Sorry, This issue is only about Honkai Star Rail
Apologies if you have no interest in Honkai Star Rail, you might not be interested in this issue!!!!!!!!
This is just about Honkai Star Rail and extended universe!!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry if you’re like, actually interested in other things I’ve been up to, the answer is looking after the dog.
Look at her. She’s gonna be 1 soon.
So, about Planarcadia….
It's a very referential planet. I've had quite a few " holy shit, that's a thing I recognise!!!!” moments, which isn’t always a good thing, but they’re subtle enough references that I don’t think are too in your face or age too badly. I think Duomention city might make my top 10 video game places, because it’s just so fun and bombastic.
(For reference, Nyakuza Metro is probably my favourite place of all time, I really like things with heavy pop-art/punk/ highly graphical references)
It’s whole thing is that fiction is able to come to life, and they live among the human residents. I do think there was a lot of thought put into the practical logistics of anyone’s art and collective unconscious’s emotions coming to life pretty well! Capitalism is the solution to all problems. Also ghosts.
Surprisingly, I've come to quite like Yao Guang. I wasn’t super into her from her promo’s and moveset initially even while playing through the story, she was just kind of confusing but overall I think I’ve come to quite like her?
She just wants to surpass god and I love a lady with an ego AND she's friends with Tingyun!!!!
As a day-1 Tingyun main I was overjoyed to see her again.
We stan a girlie who surpassed the full wrath of a destroyer god.
Star Rail has been really good with bringing back characters from other past worlds, in story context and events, unlike Genshin (no inazuma content in like, a year is craaaaazy) but that might just be because there’s not as many characters currently? Just in general I prefer HSR’s cast for being more fleshed out, so I don’t really mind.
ALSO! Yao Guang has a condition that makes her time travel at random, and finding that out before it was said since I walked around was very cool as well as being super interesting!!! Just one of the perks of the interactive experience that is a video game! She can already see the future through divination so she always knows when she's coming and going, so it's a pretty interesting concept to see how she uses it to her advantage while still maintaining intrigue as a character and her motivations of making things as chaotic as possible so she doesn’t accidentally subject the planet to extermination through fate.
Surprisingly Sparxie isn’t tooo internet-pilled, which was my main concern of her streamer character Archetype. She’s more often pretty convincing of an actual streamer persona, evil or not. I feel like 90% of streamer characters in modern games are unlikable and lazily designed so streamers can be like "oh look that’s like me wow isnt that funny???” and detached people who don’t understand/care about the subculture can make uninformed commentary.
WE GET IT THEY’RE EITHER SECRETLY EVIL/HATE THEIR FANS OR NEVER LEAVE THE HOUSE
CAN WE DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT
PLEASE
Or even just, be a male streamer? That would be new, I genuinely can’t think of one in any recent games.
Don’t get me wrong, I fuck HEAVY with idol characters, I fuck even more with ones that are evil. Please watch One Piece Film Red, even if you know very little about One Piece.
But (I hope this isn't a hot take but) streamers aren't idols and they don’t need to be overly cutesy and constantly doing meet and greets or other idol-esque or influencer-y things. It’s just way too much. I don’t really count most streamers as idols from my perspective, outside of Hololive and the like, but they really shouldn’t be the benchmark or standard.
Anyways, just getting a bit tired of the same person barely wearing a different coat of paint “oh wow look I’m so shallow”, please someone explain why I should care. I’m sure I mentioned this in my Legends ZA reviews but Iono and Canari literally are the same person, even down to gym typing. Do better man.
Anyways, the Star Rail team are very in touch with internet meme culture so I’m not surprised they’ve handled not just Sparxie but Planarcadia so well so far.
Moving on.
(shes not getting an image, she has pink hair and rabbit ears, imagine it)
I don't really like Evanesca, or however you spell her name, I think there’s an “i” but I'm not looking it up, I don't care.
She’s a bit more of a Yae Rin than Yae Sakura than I initially thought (rin is very childish), but I still don’t really like her. Addressing the audience on her first monologue that takes away from the opening sequence on a planet that’s supposed to be focused on a more lighthearted experience with the whole Astral Express is a very quick way to turn me off a character, and honestly a whole game. Oh and she has a magic paintbrush. Feeling a bit like a Deus Ex right now.
It’s not going to work on me.
Her calling me out for answering her question with a question pushed me off the edge man. Oh no! How dare I be confused that a strange girl pulled me through a wall and started monologuing at me????????
You can’t be the silly girl archetype who gets stuck in walls and makes bad drawings and then also be an edgelord and act like you’re better than me because I’m reasonably confused?????????????
She’s just kind of annoying? I really don’t fuck with the overly obsessed with the main cast and actively thrusts themselves into the groups dynamic, it makes me hella uncomfortable. I don’t think it’s even just my social anxiety, it's the developers trying to really sell me on this female character.
Anyways, I’ve decided I don’t like her, skipped the rest of the scene. I’m ever thankful for the Starrail skip button, not because I don’t like reading, but because the Tribbe sequence in Amphorus almost triggered my epilepsy, and mine isn’t even that bad. Oh and monologues directed at the viewer about what just happened is not needed at all.
I realise I was saying I like Sparxie. Back to that. I think it might be because the context of the game allows her to fully take advantage of being a relatively bad person. Or more of an antagonistic figure. Interactions with Sparkle before are sparse (is Sparse another Sparkle alt???) until now and I guess finding out she's “shed skin” makes sense since she isn't nearly as dislikable and chaotic as she seemed to be on Penacony and I guess that makes sense. She's a lot more passive and open, which makes sense as her shed personas seem to have pretty high anxiety and deathly insecure about existing uh, unless that's not true, which would be in character for Sparkle. Both are Sparkle. Neither are Sparkle. Sparkle isn't even core Sparkle as an entity. Does it make sense why I initially found her such a frustrating character? I’ve just had to make my peace with not solving this mystery.
I’m just glad I can enjoy the game now that Amphoreus is over. Might rival my general dislike for Natlan, but at least the characters consistently remain within the preestablished visual narrative and aren’t decked out in a leather jumpsuit and motorcycle in the land of dinosaurs where the majority of civilian lives are spent fighting demons in the beating desert sun.
Also Phainon kins are the biggest red flags of all time. I’ll ‘tolerate’ ‘fans’ and I use tolerate begrudgingly but I have actually stopped speaking to someone over this.
(this is a lie, we stopped speaking before I found that out, my point still stands.)
Just in general it just doesn't really seem that interesting to me?
I think a series should be one of 2 things: A great story or great characters.
There’s plenty of shit games I’ve played that I love solely for its cast.
There’s stories I’ve followed to the end despite hating the people I was following.
Amphoreous only really had pretty landscapes going for it. I really wanted to enjoy it but it wasn’t giving me anything. The Herta is probably my favourite character in the series but I’ve already seen her in action. Nothing unique to the planet drew me to it enough to see it through.
From what I’ve gathered, every character just has a sad backstory and that's why you should like them. Oh noooooooooooo, Aglea’s BLIND because she cant BEAR to see all the suffering and strife in the world oh boo hoo. Castorice’s whole thing is dying. And is the strongest person ever! WOW! Tribos story of being split into 100 people and slowly hunted until there were 3 is kind of interesting, but it’s still following the same pattern of “person died pls feel bad 4 me.”
Please explain how active hostility and making the generally trusting and amicable express members become wary and distrustful of you helps your plan, Miss Agalea? YOU KNOW THEY’RE ESSENTIAL TO THE PROPHECY!
WHAT ARE YOU DOING????????
Even worse, leaving results in a bad ending, which, sure, you gotta progress the game or there is no game, but I’m really being given no other reason to stay outside of this fact.
I really don’t enjoy fated hero stories to begin with and it’s not done anything to make me feel otherwise.
Even as a pretty big fan of honkai impact 3rd which most of the characters are based on. Frankly, I find it offensive. From the parts I did play before the visual triggers, I didn’t care much but there's nothing really encouraging me to give it any more of my time. I think I was a little bit wary of so much nostalgia bait to begin with, but I LIKE Himeko and Welt. They’re actually people. Acheron makes a bunch of references to her source material and it’s not annoying.
I played through the events when the new planet started and, uh, it’s all very slice of life in an exceptionally cringe way, if that makes sense? Not that cringe = bad, but there was very little there in terms of developing their characters beyond their roles in the story? There was the fighting event with Yanqing and Luka, the museum exploring the cultural heritage of an almost fallen and forgotten faction and not forgetting their stories, Aurum Alley is about saving a small town economy from a large corporation, there's the Ghost Hunting adventures that are just genuinely a lot of fun as well as sincerely emotional moments.
Regardless of being NPC, playable characters or even just having a name mentioned in passing, there’s a lot to care about and none of the events in Amphoreus are really like that?
Every event is just talking with lobotimised versions of people I thought already were.
3/4 of them are animal raising events, and while we’re at it I don’t like the creature designs very much. The chimeras aren’t cute at all,
(except Bubbles, my love)
the dromas are big yassified lizards
I think the normal enemies blend in way too much with eachother. White/Blue/ Gold/ Ratio colours are fair enough but . Usually, I’m all for visually narrative cohesion in fractions (holy shit ZZZ has been falling off recently (AOD don’t count, they’re 1.0 characters)) but they’re just not super appealing to me?
I do quite like the bosses (other than evil reaper Phainon timetraveler whatever), they remind me of Metaphor:Re:Fantasio, but that’s also a decent game that I like, which isn’t Amphoreus at all.
Seeing as I’m going off on unrelated tangents, I might as well mention; retconning information from Penacony and making it a story patch where “It was the memory cult blocking your memories or you’ll die” is so hype. I worry for the fate of live service games, hopefully not any time soon since hoyoverse literally own a nuclear reactor, but it’s something only a live service game could pull off.
Back to what I was actually talking about, the only time I was kind of bored was when Sunday and Dan Heng came to explain stuff, they sound soooooooooo bored. Not exaggerating when I said I was struggling to keep my eyes open during it and closed the game after.
It’s not like I’m not used to dry english voice dubbing, I just came out of watching Frieren(not that i think its bad it makes sense and i like it!!!!!!!!!), but holy shit I was so bored.
Unrelated, i was watching through an old playthrough of detective pikachu, and Dan Heng's va also voices Tim Goodman, the main character and holy shit his voice sounds so different??? i know, crazy, peoples voices change but idk, it never stops throwing me off.
Conclusion to all this?
...uh. i cant beat sparxiecon official so I don’t actually know where things are going to go. its very embarrassing. i dont have anyone that can hit hard enough and survive attacks. I actually have to go grind out relics. I think Rappa might be a good choice (She’s currently outdamaging Jing Yuan. I knew he was easily outclassed but it still breaks my heart) but I don't have her skills leveled up and no stamina to do so, so I guess I should go do other things with my time. I'm finally mostly free from gacha!!!!!!!!!
I'm very excited for the next time to see WTH Ashveil’s deal is next patch.
Also I had a dream Reca became playable so im not pulling another character until it happens. The planet of Elation would suit him perfectly. He's insane. I love him.