Honkai Star Rail

[Liddo-kun]

just a few more days before Robin banner.

good luck to everyone who will pull.

[Liddo-kun]

"If We Had Wings" trailer

[Diluc]

Originally Posted by Liddo-kun

"If We Had Wings" trailer

That really breaking our heart

[Liddo-kun]

at 1:43 of the video, she has Ayaka hairstyle.

________


now struggling to finish some more events to have more Special Pass for Robin.

[Liddo-kun]

finished Vignettes in a Cup

Spoiler:

honestly, I just followed a mixing guide most of the way. But this is the hsr event that I enjoyed the most. Felt emotional at times, it made me remember my good friend who is a barista in cosplay events. I miss those days.

my favorite character is Mr. Big Wig. Good dog. And the one I hate the most is the abusive trainer Vitali - wish I could fight this guy and slowly kill him with basic attacks! lol

[Liddo-kun]

Star Rail and Genshin revenue is good.

[Liddo-kun]

Robin trailer

[belatkuro]

My 2nd 50/50 loss with Welt, now at E1, in 80 pulls. But, I got Robin in the next 10 pull to my surprise. So a win nonetheless. Still have enough for Fu Xuan and Firefly. Gonna skip Jade as I won't have enough and I'm not into dommy mommies.
Definitely need a follow-up attacker in a team to use Robin as her Ultimate energy is huge. She gets energy from any attack action which includes follow-up attacks so just normal attacks from teammates aren't gonna cut it to fill it fast.

[haseo0408]

I got Robin in my first 10 pulls, I have 30 pulls left that I had saved, so with this version's events I should have enough to get Firefly with a little luck of course. I couldn't resist pulling for Robin, she's just adorable and kind of reminds me of Lacus Clyne a little, from Gundam Seed. And of Melia from the Xenoblade Chronicles franchise.

[Liddo-kun]

Asia - won the 50/50 and got Robin on the first 10 pull.

EU - not enough jades to trigger a 5 star. Need to gather a little more.

US - lost the 50/50 to Bronya in 80 pulls. Not bad at all. I wanted to get her anyway. Would have been a nightmare if Yanking is the one who showed up (lol). Now thinking of using the 50/50, or saving it for Firefly.

[relentlessflame]

Spoiler for Patch 2.2 Main Story (major spoilers):

The "it was all a dream" is real (sort of)! That everything was a dream from the very start (including "Reality") was one of the big inferences from the prologue, and kind of an obvious play in this "land of dreams." A lot of people picked up on the hints about Misha (like how he spoke/appeared to no one but Trailblazers). The "too good to be true" fake-out ending was pretty well played, even if it got a bit overly-obvious. ("Oh, everyone just agreed to be happy! Isn't that great?")

All in all, I liked the story.

I did feel that the first half was a bit too much just straight exposition, and they couldn't quite integrate it all "organically" into the game that well. It's just like "okay, now this person's here so let's answer these questions" and "okay, now this person showed up, so let's answer that." For all of Gallagher being a fictionologist until now, now he told everyone the unvarnished truth. I liked how, regarding the Death Meme, Misha's just like "he may look scary, but he's a good boy!" It was a bit funny with Firefly because they couldn't quite decide if she was "part of the group" or not (she'd leave in one scene, but then in another scene she'd be mysteriously back because she had lines to say). The "let's break this up with a contest" part was so obviously silly and tension-breaking that the game itself made fun of it relentlessly. (Since they clearly knew it was silly, why didn't they just move it to a side-story/event? It's like someone realized that "we've had way too many cutscenes in a row with no gameplay, so let's put in some gameplay!" but in the most forced way possible.)

But once we got to Sunday's main story, I think the story sort of found its stride. (Although the "tell" that he was going to "turn" was way too bloody obvious. And in case you missed the extremely obvious nod, Welt even called it out! ) Once we got to the Grand Theater, there was a better integration between gameplay and story and improved general flow.

The true final battle I didn't find difficult gameplay wise, but presentation wise was fun. The use of the special music and adding the vocal layer for the last phase is clearly evocative of Wildfire, and was well done. The cutscene after the fight was touching. I want to note that this time they did the thing they should have done last time where they carefully prepped the players for the mechanics before they arrived at the final battle. In that sense there were less "surprises" (although Sunday getting runover by the Express was fun) but they made up for it in the presentation.


I felt like Robin was a bit underdeveloped in the story. She's basically there to be the optimistic antithesis to Sunday, and they milked the "caged bird" analogy for everything it was worth and beyond. By the time we meet her, she has already basically undergone her whole transformation/realization off-screen. Rather than just having people explain everything to us outright, it might have been a bit more effective if they could have done a flashback to how Robin realized the truth, her original "death" and arrival in the Reef, and her coming to terms with how far the Oak Family and her brother have slipped away from true Harmony. That did all come out, but she basically just told us. That she puts herself in the way of danger to promote Harmony in places torn by war/conflict certainly makes her more of a saint, but I feel like there's a bit a bit more there they could develop (beyond just the impact this had on Sunday's fall from grace). Although she's a superstar in the lore, in the story she's a bit more of a background singer.

The other person who was a bit underdeveloped -- or that is to say, her development was purposefully unfinished -- is obviously Firefly. Them revealing the "three deaths" thing now is a bit of a cheap trick. Is anyone actually going to be gullible enough at this point to actually believe they're going to kill her off "for real this time"? Plus, Archeron makes sure to tell us how hard Firefly worked to basically save us, but it happens off-camera again. Clearly they're saving the last bit of development for next patch, along with the loose ends with the IPC. I guess my assumption (given the rest of the hints from Elio's script) is that the "third death" is the death of her identity as "Sam the Stellaron Hunter." Based on her articulating the ideals of the Trailblaze in the scene with Sunday (and her proclaimed goals of wanting to be remembered as herself, not Sam), it would not surprise me if she ends up travelling along with the crew. (If that happens, though, I think they're out of death flags for her!)

Speaking of the IPC, we see Aventurine again safe and sound at the end, but also would have liked to have seen a bit of how that played out after all the build-up. But I guess now that the "cat's out of the bag" in terms of the "big secret," they're acting like it no longer matters, although I would say that each person's perspective when finding out is pretty important to their character development. Either way, though, it seems that Aventurine's gamble played off and the IPC now feels able to play its hand.

In the end, the star of the whole arc is definitely Acheron (Raiden Mei). She had the most complete and well-rounded character development that spanned the whole story and closely tied together both the plot's themes and all the dangling plot threads. Her having come to Penacony in the first place to fulfill a promise to one of the past Trailblazers (as she guides lost souls down the river Acheron) is a good way of tying everything together. And of course, as fully expected, the story must end with a reprise of the prologue, now with eyes-unclouded and determination clear. (I heard some say that the decisions you state at the end are the same as you selected during the prologue.)

Despite it all, it was indeed a story with a hopeful message, essentially aligned to the story's main overall message about the "Spirit of the Trailblaze" -- finding meaning in the journey and in self-determination. As the one who rejected nihility said, "what matter isn't your answers, it's that you've found your determination." By them recharacterizing what was previously suggested as the "evils" of Harmony into its perversion as "Order," now they can redefine Harmony with a more "righteous" meaning, aligned to the Trailblaze.

So yeah, on the whole, I'd say quite good. And it still at least looks like there's some significant aspects for the Epilogue next time, so I guess we'll see how it all fully concludes then.

(Edit: Oh yeah, the other person the ended up with a smaller role than imagined is Sparkle. Was there even any point to her handing out the explosives in the end? (The "Don't Press the Red Button" Red Buttons... ) Who is the one she's working for anyway? I wonder if she'll have more of a role next patch as well, or if she and Sampo will just be this sort of "Team Rocket" style of quasi-villains/troublemakers that show up from now on to cause chaos.)

[belatkuro]

Spoiler for 2.2 story:

First off, the final battle. The first one felt like it took way too long to get to it. I disliked the gameplay segment going around on the stage while learning of the history of Penacony. Weren't we told already of how Penacony became? Did we need a visual of it along with some gameplay? I was itching so bad to fight Sunday that I glossed over most of the stuff I passed over. Sure it's to hammer more of Sunday's motivation but it felt like too much padding.
The second final fight felt too fast. The "it was all a dream" and "Sunday won" part was great but we hardly grasped the situation and then we're off to the fight again. Both parts also kinda undermine the part where Xipe gazed at the Trailblazer and gained the power of Harmony. I guess not winning immediately via the powerup is a good thing but that made Harmony not that big of a deal by losing to Order like that that we needed to get bailed by Black Swan and Acheron.
I'm glad Boothill kind of contributed to the final fight since I felt the Luofu and Jing Yuan arriving to help felt too out of the left field, which was probably a hint of how this whole thing was all a dream. And Firefly's contribution to this actual final fight was left offscreen which was sad.

On the subject of Firefly, she really kind of blended as a Nameless in most scenes. She really fits in and I'm excited to get her next patch. Though I was hoping for more interaction between her and the Trailblazer. Given how TB was shocked at her "death", their reunion was brushed aside for the plot. I was hoping that forced gameplay in the theme park would be a good time for them to have some more talk between each other and solidify the reunion, as well as some hints if they knew each other given the theories that the TB was probably a part of the Stellaron Hunters. Really hope 2.3 gives some more story for her given how she's the banner in there. And the JP dub for her sounded kinda different. Maybe because the situation was escalating so her voice reflected it but it sounded like her VA has some problems with the overall tone.

As the major star of the planet, Robin was a bit underdeveloped. I was hoping that she had some secret plan among all this but she didn't. I would have liked to have seen that part where she got a stray bullet in her because of her visit to a different planet. She and Sunday were at odds to each other in terms of their beliefs and dreams but I was hoping they'd have shown more of Robin's side. She was just in the background and a cliffhanger in 2.0 and nonexistent in 2.1 so I was hoping for more of her here given how they showed death was a nothingburger which meant she was still alive.

Acheron's story was excellent overall but I would have liked a bit more with her interaction with the TB. At first I was getting irritated that the start of 2.0 wasn't gonna get paid off and with the start of 2.2 having her get booted out of Penacony, I thought she was gonna get left out and not interact with TB. I heard that that part with the TB falling and Acheron catching them was like an homage to HI3 with Mei catching Kiana so I guess that's a good payoff to their interaction but I was hoping for something more given how they barely interacted in 2.1.

Misha/Mikhail's part was ok, though they could have laid out something back in 2.1 maybe. As the answer to the mystery of the Watchmaker's legacy, Misha really didn't have a presence in 2.1. They probably could have built the mystery better with him being involved in it. 2.1 was Aventurine's story mostly that most other stuff was shoved to the side so there was no time to put something about Misha in there. The reveal felt too expositiony and I didn't care much about him. Same with the other Trailblazers including the one Acheron met that she did the favor. Hard to care for faceless people even if their actions were great, though giving them art and models would just make people want them to be playable. Though there was a character with a face that hardly mattered.
Sparkle's involvement was a nothingburger as well. What was the point of the gifts she distributed? What did she get from being in here? Did she even enjoy it as a Masked Fool doing chaotic things for their enjoyment? She was shown to have been affected by Sunday as she was shown waking up so she really didn't see the spectacle. What is her role in all of this? Felt like a waste of a character. Maybe she was a red herring all along like in the story quest in 2.0?

I do like the final outcome that IPC's scheming may happen later on instead of when Jing Yuan mediates between Penacony and IPC. What are they gonna get out of all of this? Plus that part with Boothill as well.

Overall I like the whole thing. A bit too expositiony where we meet someone, get explanation, meet someone else, get their explanation, then action. Could have been better but couldn't have been worse than Luofu arc. Here's hoping 2.3 concludes things better than setting a funeral for a character we hardly knew about.

[relentlessflame]

Regarding Firefly:

Originally Posted by belatkuro

Spoiler for 2.2 story:

And the JP dub for her sounded kinda different. Maybe because the situation was escalating so her voice reflected it but it sounded like her VA has some problems with the overall tone.

Spoiler for 2.2 Trailblaze Mission, Firefly:

FWIW, I definitely thought this was on purpose (more the first reason).

When we met Firefly in 2.0, she was "acting." Not really in a malicious way to fool us or anything (although there was obviously a bit of that), but it was like "the Firefly she wished she could be." For a little bit of time she was setting aside her mission and all the rest to "live the dream" in Penacony. She could be just a two-bit actor and a tour guide for the Trailblazer. But the Firefly we meet in 2.2 is a slightly different Firefly -- she's the one bound by her mission, by the threat at hand, who is trying to come to terms with reality, with the knowledge that she has to die three times and doesn't know when/how that's going to happen, and with the fact that she deceived the TB and the Astral Express crew although that wasn't her intention. She's basically the "deflated Firefly"; she's trying not to act too overly chummy because she's focused on the mission and probably also thinks at that stage that she's lost the right. It's the same tone she takes in the car with Blade in those flashback scenes; she's certainly not happy. During the contest section, you hear her loosen up just a little bit with some of the banter (like the "bazooka" comment if you do the Hanu path), but her tone is still deflated.

I'm inclined to think that's probably going to be a plot point in the resolution to her character arc -- that they're going to call back to the "happy" Firefly of 2.0 and the TB is going to want to meet "that" Firefly again -- her idealized self (the story will say: her true self; she may not initially agree). (Perhaps they will go on "one last date" as a callback -- I assume we will go back to the view in 2.0.) That all ties to her own wish expressed in 2.2 to also break free of her identity as "Sam the Stellaron Hunter" and be recognized as just Firefly, and also to the themes of Robin's character expressed in 2.2 (and part of the larger themes of the arc).

So anyway, yeah, I realize this is a lot to say just based on the tone of voice, but I just think it aligns well with the overall plot and character development, so it makes sense -- at least to me.

[Liddo-kun]

won the 50/50 in EU. Got Robin.
she really played "hard to get", I did not count exactly but I'm sure it was close to 90 pulls.

also started to farm 2x Musketeer and 2x Prisoner for her. Looking for pieces with ATK% sub stats.
_____

now it's just US server where I don't have her.

[Marina2]

Spoiler for 2.2 story Boss battle + Music:

That was one of the best boss fight I have experienced in any game. The presentation is perfect. The new vocal song Hope Is The Thing With Feathers completely blew and extinguished Wildfire for me. The moment it came up is prefect and it surprisingly suits the fight. I even had a little teary eyes during a battle. And that train, HOLY.

YouTube

https://youtu.be/aPyt41nnM0k

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[dragon1412]

Spoiler for 2.2:

While I like the story in general, I think they really have to let go of their obsession with Honkai 3rd story telling style. I thought that Genshin and Xiazhou already taught them enough that HI3 verbose story telling style just don't work, I love Penacony story in previous patch but this info cramming and then adding small information at the conversation like Robin getting shot and Dream Master existence was making quite hard to follow.

This problem came into a lot more prominent when it come to Robin, who is supposed to be the antithesis to sunday, Every of her scene is so busy cramming with info about history, or the watchmaker, that she herself got the lesser role since all other char was always talking about other things. Her role got even more underwhelming because she don't have much role in 2.0 and 2.1 to begin with.

With that said though, HSR is still nowhere near as verbose as HI3 and they at least seem trying to avoid to cram a bunch of made up term this time, so overall I'm happy with the story, RObin also need more development since consider the current patch story it seem like the author just push her into the role so there could be a counterpart to Sunday ideals. I will hold back on my opinion on Firefly for now because there may be more to her segment in the interlude.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Marina2

Spoiler for 2.2 story Boss battle + Music:

That was one of the best boss fight I have experienced in any game. The presentation is perfect. The new vocal song Hope Is The Thing With Feathers completely blew and extinguished Wildfire for me. The moment it came up is prefect and it surprisingly suits the fight. I even had a little teary eyes during a battle. And that train, HOLY.

YouTube

https://youtu.be/aPyt41nnM0k

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

Spoiler for 2.2 Battle Boss Music:

I didn't have a chance to listen that closely during the fight itself, but listening to the lyrics again now, there's a lot of care from the writers here. It really does tie-in extremely well to what Robin said before the fight: that although she isn't on the Trailblaze Path, that she was going to channel the spirit of the Trailblaze through her song. It ties her Harmony ideals with the Trailblaze very closely, which of course ties to the Trailblazer's new Harmony path. And obviously, she uses the imagery of the train in the song (which is also the central element in the music itself -- the rhythm of the tracks, the "whoa" to represent the train whistle, etc.), which ties into the special attack in the battle. Them using the Trailblaze as the antithesis to the Oak Family vision of "Order" (and as the answer to Acheron's Nihility, and the answer to the Watchmaker's riddle) is, of course, the plot. And you could also say, at the end, the lyric about rising as one in the face of god is taking a stand against her brother, which is something personal for Robin. (That she used her feathers to catch her brother from falling in the closing cutscene not accidental...) They did a good job of writing this as a sort of "wake up call" that totally fits this arc completely.

So anyway, it's a good song in general (and definitely brings "hype" to the battle), but I appreciate how well they tied it to both the story and the gameplay. It's this kind of little touch that I appreciate in miHoYo games and their music.

[Klashikari]

2.2 had very awkward pacing in general but at the very least, unlike Luofu arc, the conclusion wasn't half baked, although few things are still left in the air, so we will most likely have a rather short epilogue in 2.3

Spoiler for 2.2:

From starter, I'd say 2.2 has the opposite flaws of 2.1: instead of hyperfocusing on a single character, 2.2 dumped so many actors I'm not exactly convinced it was a good approach.
Firefly wasn't completely neglected in this patch, but I really don't understand why MHY keep making her do things offscreen even though 2.1 and 2.2 keep pointing out she has been a lifesaver for discovering the truth of Penacony and warning Acheron who was exiled by Gopher. Mentioning Elio's script just doesn't really cut it anymore, moreso that they keep waltzing about her "death" which is really getting stale at this point. Not to mention that her presence in 2.2 was a bit weird since sometimes she was completely absent and other times, she was sticking with the group as if she was part of the Astral Express.
Robin and Boothill arguably feel like they are bunch of NPC given how little they did during the story even though, on paper, they have contributed a "lot". Same could be said for Aventurine and Argenti, the latter being there just as a out of jail card for the former, which was weird. I mean, if they could meet Robin in the reef, then it would have made sense for Aventurine to be there and regroup with AE.
Acheron's parts were fair enough, although I'd argue they should have been shown in 2.1, not only to coincide with her banner but also to give more insight about Nihility, IX, and foreshadowing Aventurine's gamble (which is still questionable since Aventurine kept antagonizing her, which could actually make AE not trying to cooperate with her to begin with). That said, I really wish MHY stopped their obsession with their pseudo philosophic talks left and right, which was pretty egregious with Acheron. At this point, her discussion with Tiernan was borderline obnoxious with both being extremely obscure with their choice of words.
As for Sparkle... well, she didn't do much and the "bomb" devices given to random people had no relevancy whatsoever. My only conclusion is that she probably knew about what was going to happen and guided people around so they could fix the "ceremony" while just mocking people around for her own amusement.
But the real kicker is probably Gopher, acting as a "big bad" in duo with Sunday, yet he didn't have anything to show except when he forced Acheron to leave Penacony. Honestly, I found his presence utterly pointless and I think they should simply have Sunday as the only villain in this arc. To be honest, I'm not even sure if his motivations are similar to Sunday considering how little substance he had.

As for the plot itself, as I stated before, the pacing was all over the place. TB and Firefly reunion wasn't really there, instead we got a very dry and short summary of what actually happened, despite how TB was shook after her presumed death. Then we got the revelations in the reef which were a bit lame for a lack of better words, especially when it comes to the watchmaker.
Not only the whole pageant event felt like side quest filler, but the whole objective was that they could approach the theater to deal with the Stellaron if push comes to shove... but to the Family, their identity was already pretty known at this point, moreso they sent Welt and Robin for negociations already. So the plan was really awkward since the Family could easily cancel or manipulate the contest to drive AE away from the theater. At least, that section had gameplay so it wasn't totally boring, but it really was out of place.

Going through Sunday's reasoning wasn't too bad, but it was kind of repetitive with the questions based on "minor" cases, except Robin's. Even then, it really looked like Sunday deliberately cherry picked cases that ended badly, without much drastic examples that would be felt as "an universal and cruel truth of the world at large". Similarly, the way how they handled Penacony's past with that pseudo dreamscape dungeon wasn't particularly great and I think it would have made more sense if it was covered back in the reef with Micah and Misha. At least, they did a good job at integrating gameplay element to illustrate the situations (notably the inability to change the dolls' emotions in certain cases).
The fakeout was a nice touch, but I wish it wasn't so obvious (Fight being overly short and easy with lack of buildup, OOC interactions left and right etc). As for the actual fight, it was fine although I'm exactly fan of the BGM. In fact, aside of "If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking", I don't really like Chevy's songs in general, and that one for the fight was just going with the flow and that's about it. In comparison, Wildfire still feel much more impactful given its buildup and change of rhythm.

The aftermath was more or less what to be expected, since the IPC agenda is still there to begin with, so I don't expect some fun games with Jade.

But frankly, I think they could have handle things much better than this. In my books, the following changes would have fixed the pacing and impact of Penacony arc:
-Acheron backstory part of 2.1 to make her role more impactful when it comes to Aventurine plan
-Keep Boothill for a different arc altogether. I think it would have been fine if Acheron was really a galaxy ranger despite her self annihilator position. They already had the perfect excuse of having Acheron leaving Penacony and joining the Express, so might as well compress Boothill and her role into 1.
-Involve Misha a little bit in 2.1, in order to make the reveal more impactful in 2.2. The fact he was neglected for so long with obvious hints of being not visible except for a select few were enough to imply he was going to be a "major player" in name only
-Firefly POV for her "second death" (I suspect she left AE crew in order to kill herself in some fashion so she could warn Acheron IRL in the express)
-Aventurine joining the crew in the reef to share information about the SUD monster and so on.

Frankly, everything before the showdown against Sunday felt a bit too much on the "tell" instead of "show", to the point it was really not organic.

[MeoTwister5]

As much as I liked the story of Penacony, especially in comparison to the Xianzhou, the storytelling is still clearly in it's infancy in a way that Genshin has already managed to somewhat evolve beyond.

That is, Star Rail still falters in the concept of "Show, don't tell".

Penacony story as a whole was really intriguing from start to finish, but too many story segments felt like they went on for too damn long and at times really overstayed their welcome. I suppose they were trying to avoid the Xianzhou problem of not having enough Tell and also not enough Show, but here there were times where they went a wee bit overboard with Tell.

But still from a writing perspective it's a big step up from previous attempts and you can see the effort put into it, but for a game of continous storytelling over multiple parts, it's still a long way to go in achieving things that other online games like FFXIV eventually managed to do.

[relentlessflame]

Yes, as I've been reading everyone's reactions here and everywhere about the story, I think I've come to a similar conclusion as I had in GI about the early arcs (and Inazuma arc in particular): the real problem isn't the underlying lore or story concepts, or even necessarily the plot points themselves, it's the "screenplay." It feels kind of like an attempt to adapt a novel to a game, but they don't quite have the time or budget to do all the scenes they really need, but also have to find a way to fit in the maps/characters/parts the teams worked to build before the screenplay was finalized. So maybe it's more like trying to adapt a novel to a game, but when they planned development they only had a rough/early draft. Then the story evolved/developed, but they didn't have the time/budget to incorporate the new/changed scenes properly, so it ends up with these sort of weird pacing issues, excessive monologues, and supposedly key scenes happening off-screen.

Spoiler for 2.2 Plot:

I definitely think the Dreamflux Reef is probably the most glaring of these for the reasons many mentioned: too much "tell", missed opportunities to show different perspectives, and it all making for an underwhelming "big reveal."

There's a sidestory in the Dreamflux Reef after the main story involving Dr. Blues that actually helps provide some good backstory to that map and even some of the further background of how Gopher Wood and the Order took control of Penacony. I don't know if that should have been in the main story proper, exactly, but it does help a fair bit to provide the wider context. It directly ties into how/why the Watchmaker went into hiding and became the enemy of the Family (of the Order, really).

I still feel in all this that the underlying story and lore they created for the place is quite well-developed, along with the themes, but yeah -- screenplay of the main quest seems to always be a struggle.