#apho 2 honkai impact 3rd | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

coconox · 5 months ago

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the end of the gacha arc

ignore the fact that this is the first post in a while in which i actually ramble about something, but i thought it’d be fitting to go out with a bang to the end of playing a certain genre of gaming that altered my brain chemistry for better and for worse.

this post will contain a mass list of reviews/thoughts/reflections for every gacha game i’ve played, or at least, every gacha game that i remember playing. i will be going in chronological order from the first gacha that i played to the last, but the quit times for all of them will definitely be out of order, but i’ll list that ordering at the very end.

the formatting of these reviews will be as follows:

my ★ rating out of 5

status (e.g. f2p, casual, spender, competitive)

thoughts on the game and fandom experience overall*

why i left

* with story and fandom experience there was usually a 50/50 chance i would look into it, a lot of the times i was just there for the gameplay so i may not comment much on some stories/fandoms

there will be a lot of lightning rounds/chapters since my memory is either pretty foggy or pretty neutral lmao— should be expected but heed my warning as there will be spoilers, and now without further ado, here is my history on playing gacha games

chapter 1: honkai impact 3rd

★★★☆☆ status: f2p, casual

you’d think i’d have more memorable experiences with honkai considering it was my first gacha game, but honestly the only thing i vividly remember was wanting to collect every character in-game and failed miserably cause my luck was awful. needing to hit pity almost every time all while being f2p sucked, and since i rarely pulled for gear it just made my experience not that great since i would barely get the bare minimum rewards for memorial arena and abyss.

apho was a nice break from everything, i really liked the vibes of the first one which is definitely foreshadowing another game i’ll be talking about later.

i don’t really have much really any fandom experiences. most interaction i would have is with my armada which i left a long time ago. there were very nice people there so at least i left the ‘fandom’ experience on a high note :]

overall, my experience based on my memory was kinda meh. i got tired of trying to keep up with every patch and just left since there were just other games that i found more rewarding at the time.

chapter 1.5, honorable mention: guns girl z

★★★⯪☆ status: f2p, casual

while in my honkai phase, i also wanted to check out hoyo’s previous game, which honestly was very fun while it lasted. the semi-side scroller/pick-up-and-play was what i was (and probably still am) into at the time, and i really liked the art style. there were a few hiccups here and there with localization (especially when the text would go off screen 💀), but it didn’t really bother my experience all that much since i was more gameplay focused than story focused. honestly, only reason i left was cause glb servers shut down. if they didn’t shut down (or if i was persistent enough to continue with a cn acc) i would’ve definitely played it for a lot longer.

chapter 2: genshin impact

★★☆☆☆ status: spent on bp once or twice i forgor, casual

i was originally gonna skip this game entirely when i first heard of its announcement, but one of my irls kept bugging me to play only to quit as soon as i fully caught up 💀

while i did read the main story, like i said, i was originally gonna skip this game entirely since honestly, it just didn’t pass the vibe check for me, and that vibe check was correct LOL. story to me just didn’t feel that interesting. while there were some fun tidbits here and there, i kinda clocked out after inazuma’s story.

around the time i joined was when childe was first debuting, and i really wanted him as his playstyle was vastly different compared to the other characters at the time and i just like him as a character when i encountered him in story. aaaand then that’s when i discovered that genshin had a 50/50 pity system and got spooked by mona. honestly i could’ve just left right then and there considering the reason i got into the game in the first place pretty much left as soon as i joined, but i liked the world exploration enough to where i stuck around for way longer than i should have :p

if honkai didn’t already give the hint that i can’t get every character, genshin DEFINITELY sealed the deal for me. from the 4 years i’ve played this game i’ve won 50/50 maybe like 5 or 6 times? i never really kept a tracker but the main point is my luck was awful LOL. getting like 60 primos per day for pulls that are 160 each and have a hard pity of 90 just didn’t really sit right with me. i know there’s soft pity and all that but i hate that that even exists in the first place. idk i’ve grown to expect the worst case scenario and i hate trying to calculate how many primos i need to get a character that may or may not appear earlier than hard pity.

spiral abyss was meh for me, i didn’t really participate in it much unless i was either extremely bored or was desperate for primos.

fandom experience i avoided it as much as possible. i don’t even need to explain why given what has happened over the past years 💀

overall, i mainly just liked the exploration part of the game. it kinda became that one game i would play if i was extremely bored and had nothing else to do and just wanted to keep myself busy. max exploring sumeru was awful tho. i never want to experience something like that again.

chapter 3: punishing: gray raven

★★⯪☆☆ status: spender, semi-competitive

i assume this is the chapter most of my moots will scroll to to find my thoughts on this game LOL (luv u all 🫶).

i was originally interested in this game cause i saw lee in the promo art LOL, and also cause my honkai armada was gonna try it out and i wanted to join the hype. thankfully, because i had prior “experience” through honkai, pgr’s gameplay wasn’t that big of a learning curve as the main difference was the orb system.

story within the first 8 chapters is relatively slow, but it introduces you to the main squads you’ll be seeing throughout the story and it starts to pick up pretty quickly after that. the darker atmosphere definitely appealed to me more than i realized, and it kinda clicked that this is what i wanted honkai to be: lower pity, very f2p friendly, it’s not required to follow a meta to get max rewards, etc.

during my lee simping era my experiences with the fandom were a bit, mixed,,, on one hand i’d have a group who are fully supportive and even add fuel to the flame of simping over lee together, and the other i’d get slandered for liking him, even jumping to conclusions as to who i am as a person (e.g. my only personality was that i liked male characters).

as much as i wanted to avoid the latter, those groups of people were in the same guild server as those of the former, and for essentially 2 or so years i felt a strong sense of not belonging yet persisted in pushing that feeling aside in hopes that it would change. spoiler alert: it did not, in fact, it got even worse.

posting on pgrtwt or in the guild server felt like i was stepping on glass, and i hated that feeling. being an admin in the guild server never felt like i existed, despite putting in a fair amount of contribution to the server. it felt like i was working overtime for a project that very little to no one cared about. if you wanna try looking for me there, head’s up, you won’t lol, i left the guild server a long time ago and i’m in a better place than if i were to be stubborn and stay. i’ve become a folklore at this point with my sudden disappearance which i find really funny.

but in general, as a former artist of the fandom and a former casual player, the environment now just doesn’t feel safe, at least everywhere except tumblr lol

the game itself wasn’t as bad as it is now, i’m only saying it’s bad now cause of the recent synchronization plan of having 3 patches happen all within a month and that just feels very overwhelming considering it’s all happening so suddenly and we just have to deal with it. based on what was shown in cn, future patches also just don’t interest me anymore. i kinda lost motivation to log in after noctis patch, but stuck around till qu’s patch just cause i wanted the matching cerberus skins lol.

i’ve made quite a handful of friends whom i still talk to and appreciate to this day, but the nail in the coffin for me was the fandom experience, especially during pyroath's announcement. again, it doesn’t feel safe for artists or casual players. it feels like the meta is forced down your throat and if you don’t follow it you’re wrong. when alpha was first debuted after launch the amount of backlash i got for rather building a physical team with lee was absurd. i felt awful trying to make friends in the community, which bled into my feelings about the game. because i had majority negative experiences in the fandom, those feelings ended up transferring over to the game.

story kinda lost me after they started introducing the multiple timelines. it also lost me when there’s so much lore compared to gameplay in each chapter and to me that felt very heavy in a bad way. like i couldn’t really get a breather till i’m done with the chapter overall (i prefer to read story in one sitting since if i space it out i easily forget what happened prior and would need to start from the beginning). i also don't really like how skk is dragged everywhere. i'd prefer for skk to only appear when gray ravens as a whole appear, and have different squads shine with how they manage themselves without any of skk's involvement.

small side note the character designs confuse me from time to time. i kinda wish they looked more robotic to yk, emphasize that they're constructs, rather than appear more human-like just so their m.i.n.d stays stable or whatever.

overall it was fun while it lasted. i definitely have fun memorable moments like staying up all night in vc malding through phalanx just to get all the collectibles offered, or co-oping cause we needed to mald for a co-op gabriel collectible. the fun memories will always be cherished, but it doesn’t excuse the unhealthy environment provided by the loud incels of the community.

chapter 4: alchemy stars

★★★★☆ status: f2p, only bought skins, casual

love, love, LOVE the artstyle. the game also being strategy-focused was honestly so much fun, tho i’m a sucker for puzzle/strategy games. i pretty much only pulled for characters that i liked, so i rarely ran out of lumambers unless if i wanted to get characters that had back to back banners. story i didn’t really pay that much attention to, but from what i’ve heard it was also amazing. i rarely felt bored when logging on, and i just had a very fun time. i didn’t really expect leaving as soon as i did, but life got pretty busy and i just slowly decreased my playtime till i stopped altogether. if it wasn’t getting an eos, this game would definitely be up there for one of the games i would’ve played long-term if i didn’t have such a hectic schedule.

chapter 5: project neural cloud

★★★★☆ status: f2p, only bought skins, casual

joined cause of aki, stayed cause of story. each sector had a nice ratio of gameplay to story. it didn’t give you so much lore dump all in one go and battles are timed at the right locations to get sort of a breather from everything. it having auto-play and eventually auto-clear features made dailies SO much more easier to manage, it felt like one of those games where it was story first, gacha later. tho in my experience, really the only teams that i had to keep changing were my sniper teams, adding in clukay, clotho, and eos and managing how their synergy works. my warrior team was basically hatsuchiri, magnhilda, aki, and some other healer/support, and that team held up pretty well. to be fair i also played very casually, so the gacha part was the least of my worries since i was more interested in story. i think out of all the gacha games listed here neural cloud is gonna be the one i miss the most. i loved the story, the strategy gameplay, the characters, it just hit every check box for my kind of game i would play long term, except for the part where it’s a gacha game at the end of the day. i may just end up reading story elsewhere since there has to be some sort of archive of all the chapters so far.

chapter 6: tower of fantasy

★★⯪☆☆ status: f2p, casual

from the little i’ve played it seemed fun, my gacha experience wasn’t all that bad but i was mostly there for exploration and playing with friends. i left solely cause tof could barely run on my ipad, it crashed every like 5-10 mins and i got pretty tired of it :’]

chapter 7: obey me & obey me: nightbringer

★⯪☆☆☆ 0.75 of a star per game /hj status: f2p, casual

i’m merging the 2 into one chapter since my thoughts on them are very similar.

for the original obey me, i honestly still don’t get why the story continues past lesson 20. they could’ve fleshed out mc’s relationship between everyone while they were still there for the exchange program. a LOT can happen in one year, yet for example belphie hating humans kinda just goes away once he finds out mc is lilith’s descendant??? also beel, which was one of my favs, doesn’t really get much more out of his character aside from ‘he eats a lot’ which is so ????? like i get he’s supposed to be the sin of gluttony but surely you can characterize him more than just him wanting to eat a lot and feeling guilty about lilith. of course, i could be missing a few key details given i quit not too long after i started playing, but it just didn’t sit right with me and my brain just never came to terms with it, so i left LOL

nightbringer i honestly just got tired of playing the same songs over and over, i rarely stuck around for story and idk why they needed a separate game altogether.

the events and gacha in both games don’t feel that rewarding. as someone who has been f2p in both, trying to get characters that i want *cough, mammon* is like challenge impossible given how unforgiving the rewards are.

idk this game just wasn’t for me. given they’re supposed to represent the 7 deadly sins, you’d think there’d be more heavier themes brought up, but it just feels like i went to a school about how to be a wizard and the 7 people i met just so happen to have the names of the 7 sins.

chapter 8: what in hell is bad?

⯪☆☆☆☆ status: f2p minus juno, casual

oh boy, where do i begin,,,,

honestly mammon was a love at first sight moment for me so that’s really why i joined the game LOL

the concept seemed interesting enough, especially when each of the kings actually dive into the good and bad of their respective sin. what threw me off the most was how much i hated the mc more than any of the devils or angels HGJFDHGK. idk it’s like their only personality is being addicted to corn, which i personally hc it as a coping mechanism for a mental health issue that we’re unaware of just yet. however as much as i wanna talk about story, there really isn’t much story that’s given in the first place since main story updates are insanely slow and majority card stories are borderline or straight up paywalled given the in-game income received. f2ps have been struggling since launch, spenders are probably getting tired of spending nearly every patch, and we’re constantly given empty promises cause the company underestimates the production time to execute said promises. we essentially wait for like almost half a year for at most 5 mins of main story excluding the tedious gameplay in between each story segment.

if you want a gacha tower defense game, just play arknights. whb doesn’t even know how game balancing even works. i even made a whole spreadsheet to show how rough this game is in terms of building their characters. they build the character’s kits as if no one levels them up, skill levels are way too expensive given our daily/weekly/monthly income, and not everyone can afford getting a character’s sig.

this game is clearly meant to be more story focused, but again, there’s very little story and all past event stories are paywalled too, which limits f2p experiences.

there’s a clear meta of using only light characters, or more specifically, light L-rank characters, which sucks cause then that means all other elements are essentially deemed useless with how powerful light element is against all other elements except itself. there is also a noticeable pattern of there being very little to no supports, as if the devs intentionally planned on making the gameplay essentially ‘just krill everything before they krill you’ which is insanely dumb. mammon and lucifer being the only good tank and healer respectively (hell, even mammon can be a better healer than an actual healer) is just very disappointing. we have more than enough snipers and close-rangers— GIVE US MORE SUPPORTS.

for it to be more story focused, it is also very, VERY roughly translated. the constant misgendering just made me wish they kept mc as gender neutral so that the devil’s tango scenes can easily apply to everyone.

afaik they’re also currently in the works of creating a pg-13 version of this game, most likely so that they could release whb in their own country. which on one hand is understandable, but on the other, there’s already so many flaws and bugs with the *current* version of whb, and they’re just gonna amplify that with the other version. i just wish they could focus on debugging the game rather than borderline ignore it unless if it stops the user from logging on.

overall this game is very, VERY p2w. while the concept of the kings’ portrayals was interesting, the execution has been pretty lackluster. the gacha rates are awful and will worsen as more characters are added to the pool. no pity on either standard banners, pity on limited banners is way too high given the f2p income, currency income for limited and standard banners is very, very low. lots of bugs, mistranslations, even the bare minimum of game balancing isn’t even there. it feels like we’re the beta test players for a game that has yet to give its full release and not actual players playing a fully released game. quite honestly this is probably the worst gacha game i’ve played, you can probably even see my descent to heavily disliking this game through previous whb rants lol. only upside is that the fandom (on tumblr at least) is very chill, i love reading people’s interpretations about the blorbos.

chapter 9: wuthering waves

★★⯪☆☆ status: f2p, casual

i honestly just played for the exploration aspect LOL

given it was released during my summer break, wuwa just became that one game i’d play out of boredom. the playstyle’s fun since it gave pgr vibes, but the story was kinda meh for me. the lore dump at the very start followed by some of the dialogue not showing up kinda threw me off and i just stopped paying attention altogether. at least there’s a skip button so that’s a plus.

every time i lost 50/50 i kept getting lingyang which kinda sucked. don’t get me wrong i love the littol meow meow, i even picked him right after i got verina, but i did NOT need more copies of him LOL. aside from that my pulls were actually better than i expected. got early for yinlin and changli and early on their sigs respectively too.

fandom is just as rough as pgr’s but on a larger scale imho. tried to steer away from it as much as possible and that’s honestly for the better.

i really just stayed around for yinlin, mostly cause she’s wuwa’s vera and i love vera a “normal” amount. ended up leaving after max exploring everything cause i was just bored. school was starting back up again and wuwa just didn’t pass the vibe check.

conclusion

order of which i left these games from first to last:

guns girl z

honkai impact 3rd

tower of fantasy

obey me

obey me: nightbringer

alchemy stars

what in hell is bad

wuthering waves

genshin impact

project neural cloud

punishing gray raven

i think the biggest lesson i’ve learned in this era is that i’m very stubborn 💀

you may or may not be wondering why i’m quitting gachas altogether despite saying in a few reviews that i would continue playing some of them if they weren’t a gacha game, but the answer to that is just the gacha cycle needed to end and 2/3 of those games have been/are getting eos’ed 💀. there’s definitely better places where i could be spending my time and money, like investing in my oc universe and saving up for when robo ky is in strive.

will i ever go back to gachas in the distant future? i doubt it. i think i'm finally burnt out from it to where if i see it again in the future, i'd just have bad flashbacks appear and not want to play it.

i felt like a broken record throughout some of these reflections, but anyways, that’s all i wanted to ramble about honestly. i’ve been working on revamping my oc universe and my toyhouse by extension since i really wanna go back and actually finish what i started

that’s all folks! ty for reading 🤏🍪

#good grief that was a lot of writing hgjdfhgk

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herrscherofmagic · 1 year ago

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A look at the past & future of Honkai design: Simplicity vs. Complexity (Part 1)

Link to the YouTube channel of the person whose thumbnail I yoinked off of Google Images for this; it was the best image of the new Hyperion that I could easily find which is why I used it for this.

TL;DR:

Original Honkai Impact 3rd designs tended towards large, simply shapes that gave battlesuits (and other stuff) a strong "mecha" vibe. Many newer designs are trending towards more complex designs that do away with these simple and recognizable shapes, instead using more overlapping textures and ornamentation to create detail. Some designs balance the two, using large and relatively simple shapes that still carry enough detail to stand out as newer while still keeping the original vibes.

Because of this, I think there's gonna be a very clear visual split between Part 1 designs and the APHO+Part 2 designs because of this split between simplicity & complexity, and some Part 1 designs feel off because they stray too far from the original design motifs, making them feel out of place even if they're still good designs on their own.

I've been thinking a lot about the design philosophy of Honkai Impact 3rd for quite a while now. As someone interested in concept art and illustration and who's played video games for more than 3/4ths of their whole lifespan.

And obviously I'm not alone in this, given how often I've seen discussion of Honkai's character design. Whether it was the march of the pastel battlesuits or the techwear of the part 2 cast or the upcoming Garuda Fu Hua battlesuit, many people have had many opinions both positive and negative.

But I've wanted to do a sort of "deep-dive" for a while now, because I think HI3rd is a really interesting case where we can see the co-existence of (sometimes drastically) different designs made years apart from one another. It's normal for the style of a franchise to grow and change with time- my personal example is Halo, with obvious differences between Halo CE, Halo 3, and Halo 4 in mind. But typically that has been done over the release of different games over many years, not so much in consecutive releases within the same game. HI3rd's not alone in this regard, of course :)

I don't want to label anything as "bad" or "good". I can like or dislike something, and that's my personal opinion. Of course I COULD try to label designs as bad or good, but I'd want to back that up with serious analysis and get the opinions of other players, and that's way too much effort for a reddit post. Instead, I want to present some different designs in Honkai and share my thoughts, so others can feel free to agree, disagree, elaborate, etc. More of a matter of casual discussion rather than trying to present some solid theory, I guess you could say?

What I will say is I intend to label designs based on whether (or how) they fit into HI3rd's aesthetic(s), so that's the main point- not so much whether an individual design is good or not.

To start with, I'd like to talk about the simplicity vs. complexity of Honkai designs because I personally feel like this is the biggest problem I have with HI3rd, outside of story issues that is. Not because of designs being "good" or "bad", but because I feel like Mihoyo has been moving towards a new design philosophy that's different from what I loved most about HI3rd when I first started.

I opened with the comparison of Hyperion because I think it's a perfect example of this concept, and if we can understand what the difference is with Hyperion then I think it'd be more apparent with battlesuits as well. I also have another image that highlights some of the biggest differences between the two models:

I had mixed feelings about the reveal of the "new and upgraded" Hyperion during the moon arc. It's a neat design I'll admit, but I felt like it deviated a lot from the original Hyperion, not as a difference in fidelity and detail but rather as a difference in the fundamental design of the ship.

What I like so much about the original Hyperion is, as you might have guessed by now: its simplicity. Hyperion was comprised of much larger, blockier shapes with more clear silhouettes. It's actually the same reason I love the design of Halo's UNSC frigates, funnily enough. I'm a huge sci-fi fan and I absolutely adore spacecraft and vehicle design, so I really appreciated the design of Hyperion cause to me it felt very original.

The new Hyperion retains most of the same characteristics, and it's still recognizable as a version of Hyperion. But it bothers me just how much the design was changed. Many of the simple shapes of the design were broken up into smaller parts or almost totally changed, like the cannon going from a sleek polygonal barrel to a spikey... thing.

To me, it feels like Hyperion was redesigned with the idea of trying to make it more "futuristic" or "tech-y", or perhaps it was even designed with some retro anime motifs in mind like the Space Battleship Yamato. But it seems as though this was done by adding many objects that broke up the original silhouette, as well as inventing lots of new detail instead of adding details to complement what was already there. The shape of the winglets was greatly changed; the vent-like structures were totally changed; the barrel was completely changed; most noticeably, the bridge was drastically changed.

The new Hyperion model is technically "better" in terms of fidelity and the amount of detail it has, no doubt about it. But I think changing the fundamental shapes of Hyperion so much really hurts the charm of the original design, to the point that I was actually quite disappointed to see that Mihoyo used the new Hyperion design in the CG of the Captainverse Hyperion farm event. It seems as though Mihoyo wants to consider this as the new default impression of Hyperion, and not a special one-off thing from the moon arc.

I think this can be seen across other aspects of the game, too. In general Mihoyo has moved away from simple designs and towards complex designs, and I think there's been a lot of hits and a lot of misses with this.

For instance, I'd like to compare the three Herrscher Kiana battlesuits: HoV, HoFS, and HoFi.

There's a clear trend of an increase in complexity across the three battlesuits. HoV's design uses fewer and larger shapes, HoFS adds more and smaller shapes, and then HoFi is almost totally devoid of any large clear shapes.

To me, this is what distinguishes a battlesuit that "feels like Honkai" from one that doesn't.

Everyone starts the game in Chapter 1, and most long-time players have spent more time with older battlesuits than newer ones simply because they were playing the game before these newer battlesuits were even released. I think it's safe to say that even though HoFi is the grand "Kiana in her greatest form" battlesuit, most players will still have seen HoV's design more often because of the years that it's been around, and its prevalence in story content.

Most of those older designs were rooted more heavily in the mecha vibes early Honkai had. For instance, even though HoV is obviously not wearing a mecha battlesuit, the large blocky shapes are still reminiscent of armor, two examples being the large frames on her wings and the large white pad-things(?) on her sides. There's other obvious cases like White Comet being a skin-tight battlesuit which used glowy energy bits for its attacks, but I use the example of HoV because it shows that HI3rd was fully capable of creating battlesuits within the mecha theme without being limited to literal "mecha" designs. HoV's battlesuit is far from mecha in its nature, yet still fits perfectly with that aesthetic.

HoFi has pretty much none of that, though. It's a pretty design for sure, but it's also nearly completely divorced from that original aesthetic. There's few easily-recognizable shapes on her design, with the (very little) clothing she wears being almost entirely detail and ornamentation. It definitely fits the "Princess Kiana" or "Goddess Kiana" theme in isolation, but I don't think it delivers on that theme in the context of Honkai Impact 3rd.

Yet look at HoFS. HoFS definitely has more detail than HoV. Yet there are still lots of large blank areas that define clear forms; for instance, the armor on HoFS' waist. It's reminiscent of that of HoV while still adding more detail. This gives that same effect of a slight mecha vibe. It's still an appealing design and it still feels more modern than HoV, but it also manages to retain much of the same design language.

That being said, I have to admit I ADORE the Honkai wings that HoFi has, though I wish they were a little higher in the air. That's one thing that I think Mihoyo absolutely nailed with HoFi, and I wish more of that aesthetic was kept in the rest of her design.

What's also interesting is that (in my opinion) neither of the other two main Herrscher Trio designs suffer from this. For instance, consider Mei's battlesuits:

I've included Lighting Empress as a reminder that old =/= good. I'd like to make it clear that just because it's an "original" battlesuit doesn't mean it's a good one. I said before that I didn't want to label stuff as good or bad but this is a clear exception and I hope y'all can understand why, lol

We can certainly argue about whether HoO Mei's design really fits the image of Raiden Mei. It's a vast departure from her other battlesuits when it comes to her palette, for better or for worse. I didn't like it at first but it has grown on me, and I think part of that is because of that concept of simplicity vs. complexity.

HoO has way, way more detail than the other two Herrscher Mei battlesuits, no doubt about it. But it also retains many large and recognizable shapes. Nothing on this battlesuit is bulky like HoT or other older battlesuits, but it still gives off the feeling of being armor despite being so thin. Much of the detail is created not by overlapping layers of ornamentation and texture, but rather by using intricate shapes with clear silhouettes and light detail inside that outline.

And HoTr is obviously a mecha design, so I don't think we need to elaborate on that one :)

The point is that it's absolutely possible to make detailed and beautiful battlesuits without getting rid of the original shape language that HI3rd was built on. HoFS is a bit dated now but still much newer than HoV, yet it keeps the vibes. HoO is also far newer, yet it still fits the theme of battlesuit. HoFi, though... not so much.

Finally, I want to talk about the elephant in the room: the Part 2 character designs.

Once again, here's the link to the YouTube video by Matt Is Playing, where I pulled this image from!

Much like HoFi, there's very little trace of the OG Honkai mecha aesthetic in these battlesuits. It's not to say that they are inherently bad because of that* , but it doesn't quite feel like "Honkai Impact 3rd".

*except Dream Seeker, I'm sorry but what the heck is going on there???

But the thing is that this design philosophy isn't even new. In fact, it's years old by now... because we see this in APHO.

For a long time now, APHO has had battlesuits that tip-toe on the very edge of the original Honkai aesthetic. So the designs of Part 2 aren't actually some new and drastic shift in Mihoyo's design philosophy- rather, it's reinforcing a design philosophy that was introduced with APHO.

These new characters all feel out of place if we compare them to the original battlesuits. They don't use the same simple forms, instead using dense and overlapping details. But if we compare them to the APHO cast, they fit right in. We can argue about the merits of the new character designs in other terms, but I think these discussions have to keep in mind this context.

I'd say the APHO designs work well in the setting of APHO because they're following the same aesthetic. As we enter Part 2 and once we see more of the story and setting of Part 2, it's very possible that these new character designs will feel more natural and more like "Honkai Impact 3rd".

But it's a different Honkai Impact 3rd.

This is why I think the idea of "simplicity vs. complexity" is so important to understanding Honkai Impact 3rd's designs. I think Mihoyo might be trying to emphasize two different phases of Honkai through this design philosophy. These are going to be two very different halves to the same game, with the designs of Part 2 possibly becoming as distant from Part 1's designs as Part 1 is from HSR.

You have the OG mecha action vibes from the good ole St. Freya days, and we have the sleek tech-wear of the era of exploring Mars, world-hopping in the Sea of Quanta, and fighting literal aliens.

For better or for worse? Only time will tell.

As a bonus, I'd like to include some extra comparisons, though I won't be adding any more analysis. It's more about having extra examples to keep in mind. Also, I think these ideas can apply to enemies and weapons as well, but that's a larger discussion I'm not yet ready for so that will come in a follow-up later on!

#honkai impact 3rd #hi3rd #honkai 3rd #honkai #honkai discussion #as if that's even a tag people use lol #long post #Kiana Kaslana #Raiden Mei #Bronya Zaychik #i just realized after posting this that I used the wrong image for stygian nymph jgkldaflhflhadfhagh too late to change it now!

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narcissisticpdcultureis · 7 months ago

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Possible npd traits is literally Lyle collidi from honkai impact 3rd/apho 2 and you can fight me on that ( his chosen person is Adam / protag from apho 1+2 )- 🐑🍎

#npd culture is #questioning npd culture is #npd traits culture is #questioning npd traits culture is #actually narcissistic #actually npd #narcissistic personality disorder #npd #cluster b #npd traits #narcissistic traits #media #-🐑🍎

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voidwelt-rss · 11 months ago

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Audio Recording: 6

Audio Recording: 6 https://ift.tt/mcg8GHJ by Kohaku69 Chuckling the voice in the recording carried on, “That was a delight right?” Welt breathed out, mustering the fact that Void Archives was certainly trying to catch their own breath just as he was. “I hope you will visit me soon, my dear Joachim.” Came the divine keys voice came before the recording was cut off. Words: 2697, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: 崩坏3rd | Honkai Impact 3rd (Video Game), 崩坏：星穹铁道 | Honkai: Star Rail (Video Game) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Categories: M/M Characters: Void Archives (Honkai Impact 3rd), Welt Yang (Honkai) Relationships: Void Archives/Welt Yang (Honkai Impact 3rd) Additional Tags: Hand Jobs, Mutual Masturbation, Auditory Kink, whiny void archives, set before apho 2, hidden file that only voidwelt knew about, they took this info w them to hsr lmaoo, no beta we die like ryuusuke murata, this defo happened, being a virgin for 500k years go crazyyy, set before reasons and attractions, pre-established voidwelt but they have feelings for each other me thinks via AO3 works tagged 'Void Archives/Welt Yang (Honkai Impact 3rd)' https://ift.tt/Xv1Ly0E June 07, 2024 at 05:44PM

#RSSFeed

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inkymari · 2 years ago

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Made a redesign for APHO Bronya because I really dislike the original design

I tried putting elements of HoTr, HSR, and the outfit Bronya wore in chapter 36, into this design I kept the flowers because they're one of the only few parts of the original design that I actually liked

#drawing #honkai #honkai impact #honkai impact 3 #honkai impact 3rd #a post honkai odyssey #apho #apho 2 #bronya zaychik #my art

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heikokuru1224 · 2 years ago

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old art of MC and Lyle

#a post honkai odyssey #apho 2 #lyle collodi #apho adam #A Post Honkai Odyssey 2 #honkai impact 3rd #hi3

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evelynpr · 2 years ago

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I miss Adamlyle...so have some old art of them :'>

#also APHO3 WHENNNN #I miss their funny interactions hoyooooo #pspspsps #adamlyle #honkai #honkai impact #honkai impact 3rd #hi3rd #honkai adam #lyle collodi #carole peppers #timido cute #apho #apho 2 #EvelynPRart

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bonesofghostkat · 2 years ago

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When I saw the way Mei & Bronya talked about Kianna in APHO & APHO part 2 I thought that at the end of the main story Kianna was gonna die, after all they both talk about her in vague terms and describe her without saying her name, almost like it's painful for them to talk about her, but now that I've seen the end of the main story we now know that Kianna isn't dead she's on the moon with all the Honkai. I'm not sure if this is a controversial opinion on the ending of Honkai impact 3rd's main story but honestly I like the open ended nature of maybe one day Kianna could come back to Earth when it is ready for her return, either way what matters to me is that Kianna, Mei, and Bronya will always find a way to stay close whether it's ok playing video games in their dreams or when Kianna finally truly comes home.

#honkai impact #honkai 3rd #honkai impact 3 #honkai #honkai impact 3rd #honkaimpact3rd #honkaiposting #honkai kiana #honkai mei #honkai bronya #apho 2 #honkai apho #a post honkai odyssey

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gumi-megpoidd · 2 years ago

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lyle???

#hi3 #honkai impact 3rd #honkai impact #apho 2

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spirit--blade · 2 years ago

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I am not dead

#honkai #honkai 3rd #apho 2 #apho #lyle collodi #lyle honkai #honkai impact #mild bruising?#art

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cyto-kinin · 2 years ago

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My Roommate is a Househusband

As a daily adamlyle worshipper we r starving for more content so here have a domestic adamlyle fic i wrote awhile ago! Story follows Adam as he moves in to Lyle’s apartment (if he even has one but anyways) Hope u enjoy~

Out of all the places Adam could choose to live in, his best friend Lyle offered to stay in his apartment. What could possibly go wrong?

Adam set foot on the front door of his best friend’s apartment. He scanned the hallways, looked at the door up and down. It was a simple complex anyways, not too fancy, but not too bad either. Though the walls looked like they could use some polishing,

“Ahem.” Lyle attempted to break the silence, waiting for a response yet Adam looked back in his ‘default’ stoic expression.

Lyle smiled and shrugged it off anyways. He reached for the door and began opening it. The sound of clicking keys lasted for a while but soon they were greeted with a loud creek from the door,

“Tadaa! Welcome to collodeez apartment!”

“What’s collodeez?”

“Collodeez nu-“

“No-“

The both stood in awkward silence, exchanging looks. Lyle proceeded to pat Adam’s shoulder lightly and pulled him to the room. ‘Lyle as cheeky as always but I like him that way’ Adam thought as he dragged in his luggage.

��The room was quite big, right in front of the door was the living room and a bean bag near the TV, the kitchen and table were just next to it, there were two bedrooms and one bathroom. There was also this one room, only it was locked.

The only thing that bothered Adam was the amount of rubbish scattered across the entire room. Some leftover instant noodles on the table, snack crumbs on the sofas and floor, and stained shoe tracks. The peculiar smell was the cherry on top which made his nose scrunch instinctively.

‘What kind of person wouldn’t take their shoes off?’ The first thing that caught Adam’s attention was the soiled floor. Adam has always had cleanliness on top priority. Back during prep school, Adam would scold Lyle for wearing shoes in their dorm. He followed it thoroughly but look at him now.

“Okay allow me give a quick tour, dear frien-“

“No we have to clean.”

Lyle only expected Adam to clean certain areas of the apartment, though it was just too big for some man to clean it up, but he was wrong. He’s cleaning the whole apartment spotless.

Gloves, check. Mop, check. 2 Buckets of soap water, check. Everything except sterility, check. First, Adam took the trash bag near Lyle’s door and shoved all the snack crumbs, noodle leftovers, and rubbish in. He finished in less than 5 minutes which made Lyle question his new roommate’s hidden abilities.

In Lyle’s eye, Adam has always been a diligent student and a strong fighter but he doesn’t seem to have any other interesting talents. Adam was a shy boy with no specific hobbies anyways.

Adam dipped a handkerchief into the bucket, pulled it out, and gave it a squeeze, letting out a floral scent.

“Can you help wipe the countertop? I’ll do the rest.” Adam reached out his hand that was holding the handkerchief to Lyle,

“Okay, but wouldn’t it be too tiring for you?”

“I’ll be fine”, Adam reassured the other with a small smile which made Lyle grin as a response. It’s rare to see Adam smile, even if it was just a small smile it still counts!

Lyle snatched the handkerchief as Adam dipped another one and went to wipe the rest. Eventually, both finished at the same time. Next is to mop the floors.

Adam proceeded to dunk the mop into the other bucket and began mopping each

and every tile spotless. He tasked Lyle to wait on the entrance until the floor was dry. Adam walked back and forth with the bucket to every room.

The finishing touch was the perfume he sprayed on every corner of the apartment to make sure the smell disappeared.

Lyle noticed how the floor quickly dried with no stains. Right about the time he was about to step into the living room area, Adam held his wrist and the mop on the other. Lyle confusedly looked into the brunette’s strict eyes.

“Take off your shoes and don’t wear them here”, Adam ordered as a sigh of frustration trailed,

“You are a real husband material.”

The words unknowingly fell off Lyle’s lips. Hearing his friend's compliment (?) instantly reddened his ears and loosened his grip. His mouth was left agaped, he tried speaking but the right words won’t come out. Lyle had the same expression except he was more mesmerized.

“I mean it.” Lyle continued

“…” His ears visibly redder now

“Fine, I’ll take off my shoes only because I get to see your ears blush for once~”

“Do you know what it feels like to be hit with a sandal?” Adam spoke directly and had his stare petrify the other.

‘Curse Adam and his sandal technique! Though he won’t actually hit me with it’ (He would literally hit him with it) Lyle’s brain whispered as he began taking his shoes off out of fear. Adam left the moment Lyle bent to untie his shoes, and started washing the tools.

As a token of pity, Lyle will now sleep in the guest room and Adam gets the main bedroom where Lyle used to sleep in. Eventually, the two started chatting again up until night. The next morning a questioned popped into Lyle’s mind,

“So who’s cooking?”

———————————————-

That’s a wrap of part 1(?) if I ever continue it idk tho but I hope y’all like it! Also if there r any feedbacks pls don’t hesitate i don’t even know if I’m continuing this lol

#honkai impact #honkai impact 3rd #adamlyle #apho 3 when pls im hungry #lyle collodi #apho adam #apho 2

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