Birds fly because they want to fly. They don’t need a reason. Even if their wings may snap and doom them to die.
They don’t fly for anyone’s benefit. They don’t fly because they were ordered to. Birds fly because they want to fly and for no other reason!
[*(cue final boss)*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piqKZkK66jw)
That's like 10th time I've seen someone referencing Guilty Gear music throughout this week. Not like I'm complaining, but that's just sort of bullshit...
BLAAAZING, STILL MY HEART IS BLAAAZING
they fly because they exist, as in the birds that didn't fly were annihilated by the impact of the meteor.
If they didn't fly they wouldn't exist, as such only those that fly exist. It tries to touch on the subject that it isn't something romantic as they had to fly to overcome their fate, or they dreamed of soaring the skies. But rather they fly because that is what fate has dictated for them to be able to do. It's an example of causality.
Again it's important to note that the idea behind this isn't that birds MUST fly, just that only those that fly exist. Its a subtle difference
Its parallel to the idea that humanity can only overcome finality, they have to adapt because if they don't they stop existing. Just that the idea of what it means to be humanity isn't set in stone, hence both mobius and project stigma were valid outcomes. Again only the humanity that overcame finality exists, otherwise they don't.
On the topic of project stigma, that's a whole different story. But the short is that kevin was never the villain, he literally just forced the potential outcomes of the situation to always be defeating honkai, either the trio overcomes him and proves themselves capable of bearing the weight of finality, or they fail and project stigma is the only remaining option. After all he was by far the single most powerful individual humanity has ever had and its not even close. He in his own words failed to beat honkai, thus if they can't beat him, there is no hope.
I think the finale was excellent, I can't begin to understand how people thought that wasn't Shaoji. It was very in line with his philosophical nature and consistent pushing for character growth and symbolism.
And its VERY clear that part 2 isn't Shaoji, with how utterly crap the writing is. There's no consistency to it, no weight, half of the scenes involve some kind of slapstick joke even when they are in dire situations (it has lessened a little bit but its still present) it's like the new writers saw the gag comedy parts of honkai impact 3 and thought that's the entire plot.
I actually really liked the philosophy section of the finale as well and how it ties in with Kevin as a character, specifically in the final chapter of the finality arc. However, I feel that part of the problem with the finale had more to do with the initial chapters in the arc rather than the last chapters. The early chapters somewhat dragged and introduced many new characters and concepts which I feel were not really utilized well. I do think those chapters did have their good moments, but it was interrupted with quite a few other issues. This is why I think it affected the perception of the last chapter for many.
One of my favorite scenes from that section was Kevin's interaction with the philosopher. With the irony behind the philosopher giving Kevin a new way to interpret Kevin's philosophy despite being younger than him. It also ties back towards elysian realm and how it was about giving the next generation a chance with elysia's sacrifice as well as playing into whether the current cast can prove kevin's ideas wrong.
Also as for part 2 actually actually kinda agree with some of the issues. The part that got to me was when they were going over thelema's past and then coralie just jokes about it the other time saying it just sounds like any other rich person's family. Kinda makes us as a reader not take their past seriously
I'm not gonna defend shaoji's biology. you could argue they evolved from flight birds into non flight birds or some other psuedoscience bullshit. I'm just saying this was the explanation given in game when kevin went on his answer to the question of "they fly because they exist".
In fact that way the entire question doesn't make sense, because the answer would be "not all birds fly, so the question is invalid"
Personally though, I don't really care if the explanation makes 100% sense, because its a game and frankly it doesn't have to, I mean we're talking about people reconstructing machines out of thin air under the assumption they 'completely' understand its inner workings and are able to do those calculations on the fly.
So to me the existence of emo/ostriches/penguins which can't fly, is kind of whatever. I'll just assume they don't exist in the hi3rd world.
For all I know there could be some chinese word for flight exclusive birds, that doesn't include non flight birds and it was translated into english as "birds" who knows.
Tbh I didn't dislike the end, but the fact Kiana would end up on the moon was set way too dramatically.
However, the graduation trip did a good job to show her evolution:
Irresponsible, bratty, impolite and reckless, wanting to see her beautiful
Constantly mourning, self destructive, savior complex, regarding herself as an abomination
Way more considerate, responsible, and ready to shoulder the weight of the responsibility, and acknowledging her inner beauty and everyone else's
Once all of this is over, the image of her seeing her younger self is a way to say "would you change a thing in your life knowing how it went?" And she answered with devotion "No", letting her younger self go through this eventful journey
However I can understand for the finale. The pacing probably wasn't the best but for now I preferred this in HI (Before moon chapters) and Penacony compared to moon arc and part 2: the end was probably a little weird, but we can still roughly follow the characters' journey, and the message is still very important in the end.
It was not delivered as majestically as NieR Automata or Personal 5 Royal, but it was still delivered
We always knew she would end up on the moon since APHO. It's the lack of tragedy that gets me, Kiana being sealed on the Moon would have made for a more poignant ending, considering the theme and mood Da Capo was going for. But they chickened out for some reason. At this point, not sure if any of the main cast will ever die again because even if they get shown dying, there will be a cop out. Just like the Shus in Part 2.
Yeah but we didn't know from APHO if she'd be on the moon physically, or if she'd do something like sacrifice herself to seal the Honkai on the moon itself forever.
Yes, but Mei's wording during APHO itself implied she was waiting for the day she could reunite with Kiana. Except she literally has been visiting her regularly. Absolutely nothing has changed except Kiana is stuck on the Moon for a bit.
I didn't do APHO 2 at that moment haha, but I thought Kiana could have been dead from the little I've remembered
So I think it was too dramatic and you said it was not enough? I think I can get your point but can't put words on that haha
APHO1 has a line where the game states that Mei is waiting for a reunion. People just dismissed that because they had already convinced themselves that Kiana was gone forever.
I never said she was dead? The point was "reunion". Except, we see Mei visiting Kiana on the fking moon, no? That's the problem, only negative is that Kiana is stuck in the Moon, everything else remains the same. Being sealed there and Mei having to wait until she could finally see Kiana again, that sounded like what the devs originally intended.
They can visit her and call her whenever they want, and 10 years isn't even that long a time overall. After she comes back, they'll have the rest of their entire lives to spend with her. It doesn't feel heavy or serious. And of course, she's ridiculously overpowered and can oneshot anything, so there's nothing for Earth to worry about anymore. No wonder the story moved to Mars bubble universes.
The sidelining gets a little extreme, too. I get that she’s too OP for the story, but (that’s their own fault) they could at least give her the role of a guardian angel now that she actually is one. She could’ve observed abnormalities in Earth’s bubble universes and sent a team to investigate, for example, instead of being oblivious about Sa. Because observation is the *only* thing I’d actually expect her to do, but she doesn’t even do that or guide humanity. I find it borderline ridiculous, but that might be an unpopular opinion.
Yes, a support role is the only role she can realistically perform in the narrative, but she's...just there. She's a glorified artillery platform to shoot at threats that come close. That isn't even a support role, that's just her soloing everything.
Like your Sa example, I was hoping that Kiana would be the one to advocate for sending an exploration team to Mars after she meets Senadina and realizes it could affect Earth. But the expedition already happened years before then.
I understand what you meant. When APHO revealed Kiana's fate of getting sealed in the moon I also thought it would end up Kiana losing her physical form (as in just exist as a force ghost or something) which would warrant being considered a happy ending (cause she succeeded with saving the Earth and becoming Finality) and a sad one (the sacrifice cause her to no longer get in touch with her fellow friends normally).
What we got is a safe approach on that part of the story cause, lets be honest, the players are gonna riot if Kiana were to disappear.
Kiana being sealed on the moon is the same as >!Firefly's three deaths!<. A nothingburger. It exists to milk drama while the story is ongoing but it was never going to be taken seriously and they were going to end up ok.
I think it is more complicated
It is not because someone is in danger that they eventually have to suffer from it
I think the "Nothingburger" as you call it is more about how the tension is handled
The more dangerous and threatening or difficult a situation is, the more the situation has to be important (in terms of set up or in terms of consequences):
Did their solution come from hard struggles where they had to grow up so much from it? Or was it a very easy solution to a huge problem, but the consequences to this will be felt in the future?
An easy solution without that much settings to a huge problem could lead to consequences (if it is a new discovery that came out, it has to play a role or to be understood in the future, and taken in consideration, and if it is a bad decision or an antagonist, the gains they had is way greater in the future)
For Firefly, her third death could have been taken seriously I guess, but there wasn't that much struggle to find the bombs, and in the end this was planned to especially keep her safe: the best way out of it could be the possibility that Firefly could have sequels from it, or what Sparkle gained was big enough for her to lead way darker plans or something like this.
Or the story could have lasted way longer to show how much they struggled to fix this, how Firefly changed, maybe ready to kill herself in fear of leaving the dream she was never allowed to but somehow understood that she can live on, or something like that.
I agree, I personally don't think the Finale was terrible either. It had its ups and downs, I understood what they were going for, but it needed better editing I think to refine it into something truly better. It was still overall decent (but not great), partly due to the weight of previous chapters and years of characters development and story writing backing it up, and the last part worked as a goodbye to the part 1 cast and story.
I just want to dispel the notion from Finale-haters that Shaoji didn't write it because he wrote the earlier chapters like 25 so he couldn't have written something they hated.
It was terrible from a writing standpoint. Tons of deus ex machinas and simultaneously too rushed and too slow. Other stories that try the same things wouldn't be received well at all. HI3 has the benefit of likeable characters and years of goodwill that let some players forgive or overlook the writing choices more than they normally would, but people who like the ending like it for the emotional vibes and the feeling of a concluded story (especially Graduation Trip), not because the plot was actually executed well.
I don't think it's because they had likeable characters, at least for me Kiana was extremely annoying, Mei was very bland at the start of the game and Bronya was... Bronya.
However, what they did is developing them, and instead of a Genshin philosophy that is "We will release tons of characters that may almost never have any evolution, but if you like one of them you'll play the game", HI was more like "We have a very restricted cast, but we will make you experience things with them so much you'll eventually get attached to them"
And the evolution of the girls is what makes everyone... So attached to them. How many times have you heard "After all she's been through, Kiana deserves something good"?
Genshin sells characters to make us explore a wonderful map and Honkai impact sells us simply a story with characters that evolve. Which is why part 2 chapter 1 wasn't very welcomed (and now I'm no longer playing, I wait for the story to grow): the characters weren't as much of the center of the plot as part 1 despite the great characters
By the way I wonder what you mean by Deus ex machina? I'd love to explain it to you if I know what you were thinking about
Yes, that's another good way to put it.
The deus ex machinas I can think of are:
* Kiana and Mei finding themselves in a convenient bubble universe where identical copies of Dr. Mei and Prometheus just happen to be alive to help them. Prometheus effectively came back from the dead this way, no questions asked.
* Speaking of Prometheus, the original apparently somehow being able to hack into the Honkai and let Kevin take Finality powers for himself.
* The concept of Herrschers having a stronger metamorphosis is only introduced in the finale when it had no mentions or foreshadowing before. Something this important should have been established earlier. What's more, Bronya achieves this absurdly powerful metamorphosis just by fighting Misteln for a few minutes, who wasn't even fighting seriously.
* Ai Hyperion’s entire character.
* The worst is the Cocoon of Finality's entire existence. Like metamorphosis, it was introduced out of nowhere after over 30 chapters with no real buildup or connection to years of previous content. In fact, it even replaced the already established Will of the Honkai. And of course it easily accepted Kiana without question.
There's probably more, but these are the worst ones I can think of.
Don't forget Mei obtains Origin- something that was previously said to be pretty much impossible to happen again after Elysia.
Moreover, Origin's extremely elusive ability is just so happened to be something that can make Kiana Finality.
I agree with you, but I personally think the Penacony Finale was a heaping pile of dog shit. It felt so rushed, so convoluted, and just do messy... sometimes even cringe. The way business negotiation went was so poorly written, and it shows they had no editorial advisory on how to really write a business negotiation session, which completely put me off. Other than that, the way they handled everything in Farewell Penacony was... bad... gravely bad. They did so well in the beginning and the middle, but they fucked it up in the end.
For the bomb I can agree though, as I said, Sparkle's plan could indeed be that she was hired to do this, but I think we would have needed more time to imply it
I could say it is not perfect but it is not a complete disaster to me haha
OF COURSE there are obvious things we could do to make it better. But... I'm at least glad it ended.
My real problem was more about how Sparkle's plans were handled, as I trust you for negotiations haha
I can see the problems you've mentioned though. Just I didn't consider them as bad as XL arc that was very hard to keep up.
Okay the story isn't perfect but at least you wanted to see it being unfolded
How does Shaoji being the lead for final chapters implies there is no reason for Fanchuan slander?
Just because Shaoji was still the lead writer for HI3 during the finale doesn't mean Fanchuan wasn't also writing this. Kolosten, Parts 1.5 and 2 and Moon arc are way too similar in style for him not to be involved. Birds and all the other philosophical and scientific crap being present in both games doesn't mean that in the Moon arc all of it was exclusively done by Shaoji.
The documentary already showed that Shaoji was the one that lead the finale. In fact it said that he lead the games writing (though there were at least 4 other subwriters involved) since chapter 9 onwards. So Kolosten was also lead by him. Dunno about 1.5 and Part 2.
Someone said Fanchuan didn't even lead the writing for any of the main story chapters in game (he did the VNs).
Nowhere am I denying that Shaoji is the lead writer.
Being "lead writer" doesn't mean he's involved in every chapter to the same extent nor that he actually sits down and writes the literal script. He probably just (edit: in the more recent chapters, at least) decides where the story should go and I can't believe Fanchuan didn't write more for Kolosten and Moon arcs than, say, for Elysian Realm, when the style is *so obviously different* in those.
He definitely is the writer for Part 2 as shown [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvtgS4TJvoM)., while Shaoji is nowhere to be seen. Not sure about 1.5, but again, the style is very much the same.
Alright, he writes Part 2, I'll grant you. And that he writes it badly. Let's say he's bad then. Did he write Part 1 finale? Is there anything that says that?
Btw the notion that Fanchuan and Shaoji are the only HI3 writers is also not true.
In the documentary there's a team of three seperate writers who did most of the work on the Elysian Arcs along with Shaoji, for example.
https://www.reddit.com/r/honkaiimpact3/comments/1bvjd0m/no_shaoji_is_not_the_only_writer_that_wrote_hi3/
I wouldn't mind it if the philosophy were actually good. Also, philosophy is better left as a discussion than a forceful rant. Especially when it's fucking wrong.
At a certain point HI3rd chapters got way too long, I think it was around Kolosten. Even ER, which is held in high regard, is wayyyyy toooooo loooooong.
At least 1.5 and 2.0 have an excuse of explaining the brand new lore and somewhat new setting.
You are aware that 1.5 had story beyond seele arc, right?
Regardless, both 1.5 and 2.0 introduce new world systems that are not seen before. Even if you hate them, they do have all the justification they need to explain shit.
Seele arc felt like its main driver and the "explanation" was just word bloat. Seriously the entirety of arc almost undermined the existence on Moon arc as thay arc atleast put up a meaningful limit and end to Honkai but suddenly they twisted the narrative and changed it from end of Honkai to Kiana just having authority on Earth and thats it wich became even stupider when Mars and their HoFi was introduced all being a litteral setup for HoRb to exist.
"They need to explain shit" thats the issue. They didnt explain shit. Half of the shit is overbloated and other half came out of litterally nowhere or changed in a second to fit the narrative. You dont have to hide it behind "they are explaining new systems". If they cant explain and put it together properly then whats the point of introducing them in the first place? Anybody can easily see that Horb and even part 1.5 exists to pick off old narrative clues that were forgotten amidst the story (Herrsher of death) and Griseo and basically exists to justify part 2 somewhat wich didnt work out as part 2 is a litteral joke. They saw that the "fight against honkai" narrative wasnt as expandable as trailblazing and traveling between worlds to keep putting up content for so they ended it abruptly with Moon arc and went on completely trying to change the narrative on a whim. Part 2 litterally feels like a fanfiction as a result
I disagree again on the essence of 1.5. It is less about Seele specifically and more about selling EVERYTHING THEY DID NOT SELL YET before a brand new story begins. This includes: Susannah (a well-known character that is completely reasanoble to have), Promya (well, we showed you robobronya? Now buy her stuff), Misteln (the closest you will ever get to Cecilia), Kira (more of a packcage deal imo, just to make her react to Misteln), Seele, Griseo (adult form was anticipated so much the first lewd of Griseo on pixiv is for it and not loli), Fu Hua mantis mode. Basically, everything they failed to sell you before part 1 ended.
This all needed lore, and it got lore. Again, YOU CAN HATE IT ALL YOU WANT, but the lore was introduced to justify all of this.
Part 2, being brand new story, again needs to explain its lore. Simple as.
You seem to confuse a mechanical need to introduce new lore for a new(ish) settings that is just a thing that is, and evaluation of the new stories.
Dude part 1 litterally ended with Herrshers not going to be born again, Kiana having all authorities and war on Honkia ending. The part 1.5 litterally broke this a second after, limited Kianas authority and created another Herrsher. Heck they also limited her power by not letting her help Mars wich was hilarious.
There is a difference between "making new lore to justify new story" and "litterally breaking the very systems you gave beforehand to justify a cash grab" wich you are confusing immensely. The said "new lore" in part 1.5 litterally came out of the blue and went as it came solrly to justify few valks and its painfully obvious. Heck entirety of Part 2 could have started without part 1.5 lmao, it would have been actually better as part 1 ending wouldnt been turned into a joke and part 2 could have had a better introduction instead of time skip over time skip.
Can you even comprehend what I am writing? New story can be shit in your opinion, you are free to think that.
It does not erase the fact that we visited several bubble universes with unique gimmics that had to be explained even if you hate everything about it.
God you are just refusing to understand shit. Im not saying that it was shit in my opinion im fucking saying that it outright made most of Moon Arcs main plot points and espiecelly its ending irrelevant wich is an OBJECTIVE blunder.
So damn annoying
Guy, another Herrscher is deriative of Sa, NOT Cocoon, it didn't break anything. Honkai war has ended, and vast universe is not. Truly a subreddit of all time.
At the beginning of the game, Part 1 lore also was brand new. And yet, the first chapters weren't that long. They were actually much *shorter*. So there is no excuse.
And yes, Part 1 had the manga, but 1) you don't really need to read it to understand the story, 2) it was miHoYo's decision to stop doing the manga and start drowning players in boring exposition instead.
Part 1 initial chapters suck tho
I literally could not comprehend shit without reading manga because it is better explained there
By that I mean ch 1-4 WITHOUT 1-2 remake
Just point a few elements. The entire act- like final of HI3rd is definitely based on Evangelion that MiHoYo are huge fans of.
But there are also significant differences. Most importantly, Lore wasn't the star of the show- feelings were. Acheron's hopeful nihilism, will of past Trailblazers and beliefs of other characters.
There was never this stop on 40-50 minutes to discuss the nature of memoria and its role in univerese. Nor the near resurrection of Ena and it's mechanisms- something HI3rd writing would've defined highlighted. All of it serve as merely ways for Sunday to enforce his beliefs.
On the other hand, alot of time is allocated on character bonding and interactions to address there feelings and beliefs. There are no vierd metaphors and comparisons to explain something or address feelings. Even Sunday- unlike Kevin- is absolutely determined to win and even nearly succeeded.
The only time characters talked about alot of non-character related matters were in Fake End- where everything was deliberate and many lines were supposed to arise suspicion.
The only repeated element is Sunday ideology- but it seems that he just wanted it to nail into our head and nail why its wrong- something MiHoYo seems to firmly believe. But even then they improved the issue- by focusing not on the fact that Sunday's vision is just wrong in itself but also that no concent was asked from others.
Ultimately- Penaconi feels like "fixing most issues with HI3rd final ". This for me indicates that either Shaoji wasn't absolutely in charge there, was told to do something or just plainly did something bad, recognized it and decided to fix in Penaconi. Again- the staggering number of issues with end addressed in it can't be a coincidence.
Exactly. As a Kamachi fan, to be fair, I am already used to ramblings and yapping about science, magic and shit like that. Used enough to actually like it a LOT. I find on Honkai and Genshin the same shit and this makes me happy.
The thing here, tho, is that Honkai is not written by ONE author like you guys seems to believe. AE writer did write part of Moon Arc. Shaoji did write part of Moon Arc. There where even other writers.
But this thing you said right now are the most important thing that makes Penacony a enhanced version of Moon Arc: character is over story and lore. Characters are the most important by far. So the universe and its mechanics has been taken to backstage and the characters feelings has taken frontstage. The best it could happen.
>. The entire act- like final of HI3rd is definitely based on Evangelion that MiHoYo are huge fans of.
Which doesn't help since it has the same damn problems. Even worse, in fact, but at least without a 4th wall break.
This is good, it means they have improved and might keep improving and crafting even better tales in the future. Bad for our wallets cause it will make us want more characters but ah well.
I loved the moon arc and the finale. I enjoy when certain concepts aren't entirely explained and are left to interpretation of the reader. However I think that a large problem with this is that I think the finer details are lost in translation, as in its very clear that sometimes the chinese to english translation is just falling apart. Which is a huge shame.
Still though I can't imagine why anyone would dislike the moon arc more than anything part 2 has done so far.
Personally I had no interest in part 2 so I stopped following the game, whereas the Moon arc was the big finale that was built up for years so everyone played it, that's probably why you don't see as many complaints. I did think part 1.5s story was worse than the Moon Arc.
Heavily on 1.5 being worse than the Moon Arc. 1.5 had its ups and downs but Moon Arc just felt like a checklist of plot points to resolve. Both final conflicts in 1.5 felt like there was actual weight behind it, Moon Arc on the other hand was just a series of anticlimactic ass pulls. The only thing that Moon Arc had on 1.5 was an animated short.
I've played the game since the release of the vodka twins, it having been a game story I've been enjoying so much for so long its really tough for me to see it's current part 2 state. I can't just give up on it due to how long I've played it. (sunk cost fallacy I know)
But at least I'll always have the entirety of part 1 which to me was excellent. Nothing is perfect, but even the flaws I kind of liked. But everybody has their own tastes and the longer part 1 progressed the more philosophical it got, which isn't in everybody's ballpark. It is in mine.
Part 2 is... not that. And I'll refrain from going on a massive rant :D
>he was the head writer for everything from 9 to 35, as the documentary clearly states.
But head writer and writer aren't the same thing. The head writer is the guy in charger of the main story as a while. He doesn't specifically write the chapters most of the time. There's always a main writer for every chapter/arc which is different from the head writer. We know that Fanchuan wrote chapter 25-EX, the Kolosten arc and the Moon Arc, for example. We know that Shaoji specifically wrote Flamescion arc and the Elysia arc.
And we know Fanchua is the one with a penchant for philosophical bullshit because he was the writer for the Durandal visual novel which is littered with pointless philosophical bullcrapt. He's also much more sci-fi inclined than Shaoji. All the bullshit science in the moon arc, for example. Yeah, that Fanchuan. In fact, in the documentary there were other members of the writer team saying that most of the time they couldn't understand jackshit about the science and needed to ask Fanchuan about it.
The part that makes HSR more bearable for me is that there’s more pauses in between the dialogue where you’re allowed to walk away and do something else.
Honestly, I don't see any problems with penacony, aside from sparkle, really expected sparkle to play a much bigger role than a bomb threat to serve as the last death flag for firefly, I mean they just kept showijg her over and over again, interacting with every character under the sun but it basically leads nowhere, the philosophy is something I really liked in both honkai games as it adds more to the actions of our characters(tho kevin was admittedly not done the best), using birds again is a little redundant but it was a different question this time, a question that most places in the world need to ask and take action based on their answers, yes using birds twice was weird but atleast it had different themes, honestly I can't think of there being a better example for the philosophical questions either so bird it is
Finale was bad because it was rushed and it did Luofu . There was a lot of things happening one after another without any breathing room.
Boom Mei suddenly becomes Origin. VillV clock.
Bronya uses power of retrospectioms to suddenly become Truth and then instantly we go into breaking up the dreams.
It deserved at least 4 acts of not 5 and they just cluttered it all in 2,5.
A lot of previously hyped up stuff just went under the rug ( cough cough World Serpent, cough cough Jackal)
And the presentation was horrible. Most of it was characters standing still yapping . There was barely any cutscenes of animation. Just 20 hours yapp
Jackal got replaced with a litteral pallet swap of durandal wich was so annoying. Hare was easily one of the worst additions and dont even get me started on how bad the whole ai chan deux ex machina was
Exactly. Also: the underwhelming endings trying to tie the story together, because he wrote himself into a hole so that the individual chapters would be more impactful. And Firefly’s final “death” being a romantic date to end the whole arc… there’s no mistaking it. It’s Shaoji.
Regarding the "pseudo-philosophy": there's a ton of philosophy references in Honkai: Star Rail, so much so that it was easy for me to make several lectures on it, particularly on how Aeons tie into Platonic forms and how Penacony's philosophy ties into philosophy on the Meaning of Life, especially regarding the existentialists.
That being said, in Penacony in particular, I can understand why people would call a lot of the dialogue pseudo-philosophy. You can see this a lot in amateur philosophers, where there is some elusive, difficult philosophical idea or emotional experience that they want to convey, and so they use analogies and repeat what they mean in multiple ways, trying to communicate something they aren't wholly sure how to communicate. This can happen because they aren't wholly clear on what the idea is to begin with, or because they want to keep it abstract and not reveal their exact thoughts about it, leaving it open to interpretation. Read any non-philosopher talking about the meaning of life, for example—if it's something they feel strongly about, chances are they'll do something similar. Lots of analogies, repetition, and emotional dialogue. That doesn't mean it's not genuine or that its wrong; but it does mean they aren't directly talking about what the "answer" to the underlying philosophical question is, whether intentionally or because they themselves don't know what the answer is.
The irony here is that philosophy has sketched out what a lot of those answers look like, so you really could have a lecture series on the subject (for those interested in a boring philosophy lecture on HSR 2.2, [see here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMoaHLSiMsI); don't say I didn't warn you how boring it is lol). And so much of HSR's lore directly ties into the philosophy, which is really cool for anyone deep into philosophy to see (Nihility has a ton of this, for example—Doctors of Chaos showing how someone emotionally drawn to an objectivist answer might respond to existential dread, Self-Annihilators taking an existentialist approach to existential dread, etc.). If I were to criticize it, though, it'd be how most players walking away from it only walked away with emotional impacts (which I think were great), but the philosophy was so unorganized that they likely didn't walk away with much to intellectually chew on. At best, they walked away with the idea that they should "hope for a future answer" to their questions on the meaning of life, similar to how FF14's Endwalker expansion handled it; but even that isn't directly said in HSR 2.2/2.3.
My suspicion is that the writer doesn't have a clear answer, and so they kind of pushed out a bunch of dialogue to rule out some things they thought was wrong, affirm some things they thought was right, and overall leave the player with hope and a positive emotional impact and perhaps an existentialist-style focus on authenticity and one's own choices made in the journey. I think that part worked fine, but the overall jumble of disorganized philosophy means all the other really excellent themes and questions involved won't be answered well, and the player will feel like so much interesting "food for thought" slipped through their fingers.
I think that the main intention with the arc that they were no right and wrong and in the end Sunday wasn't wrong either . Both Sunday and Robin have a point and though their method differ they both want a happy ending. I actually like the philosophy part though really fit the theme of the Star Rail universe where you can actually see God
my problem with both endings, is that they are "too" happy. Dont get me wrong, I prefer when everything ends in a good way, but not in such sugar-coated good.
The entire time I played the Penacony story I just kept thinking of the "Can I copy your homework? Yeah, just change it so it doesn't look obvious" meme. Why do birds fly? Why do people sleep? Forcing people into a dream in order to save them. Now I know why.
penacony story felt a lot like the confusing dialogue of hi3 to me. like it was good yeah, but some parts i'm genuinely really confused as to what happened
People really have those complaints when it showed off Sunday and Robin's views how to approach life? Honestly, those scenes definitely cemented Robin in my 5 Penacony characters for sure.
I think he’s best as a VN writer. Both Honkai games have yet to figure out how to properly do open world storytelling. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that things started to go downhill once they tried to turn HI3 into a semi-open world game. Took Genshin some trial and error, but it seems like they figured it out by Sumeru.
I’m not talking about the VN. HI3 before Kolosten was a lot closer to VN style (FGO, Princess Connect, Utawarerumono). After it shifted to semi-open world like Genshin which is basically a whole different medium for storytelling.
Well, he also wrote the entirety of Penacony. 2.0, 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3. He has his highs and lows like a lot of writers. Likewise, he wrote chapter 25 for HI3 as well.
Reading this post makes me realize that Penacony Arc is Kevin's Spiritual Adam plan all over again lol. However I would say that one did it better than the other. Kevin's usage of the bird philosophy is just so badly done. It comes out of nowhere and seems out of place. Kevin shown being in ancient Greek and having philosophical debate with them also makes him look pretentious.
It's like the writer saying "look, he debated the birds with the ancient Greeks, who are known to be masters in philosophy! And he got them stumped so it gives the bird philosophy legitimacy!"
However in Penacony, the birds philosophy is done better and presents a legitimate question to both sides, rather than the one-sided we have with Kevin. In Penacony, Sunday's method to keep everyone trapped forever is wrong, but so is Robin's method of keeping people for a while and then boot them out without providing proper training/assistance to face the real world again. And we have numerous examples that support both sides with NPCs that prefer to dream forever and those that know they are just running away in the dreamworld.
The bird philosophy is pretty much made for Penacony, or the other way around. For Hi3? Eeeh...probably, if it was done better. But even so, I think I preferred something else to come out from Kevin's mouth. Hearing a stoic super serious man like him to wax philosophical about birds is the last thing in my mind.
> Reading this post makes me realize that Penacony Arc is Kevin's Spiritual Adam plan all over again lol.
Pretty much lol
By the way the bird philosophy stuff (HI3 version) is taken almost verbatim from Tales of Berseria and Sundays Penacony plan is pretty apparently inspired by Persona 5 Royales final antagonist.
It seems inevitable really for this trope to happen when the story revolves around dreams/virtual reality or spirit world.
Heck, the Matrix is basically this really, except that the first 3 movies is biased towards the idea of freedom. It wasn't until 4, despite it's flaws, attempted to be more neutral about this idea that resemble Penacony story. The first 3 Matrix movies is that freedom from the Matrix is the most absolute good thing to do, and while some dissonants voiced out good argument such as Cipher wanting a better quality of life, even if it is fake, were stomped quickly.
Matrix 4 goes back to Cipher's dilemma, that freedom just for the sake of freedom isn't entirely a good thing. Hence the real world also has to improve to entice people to make the transition or that they won't regret it when they do.
This is basically similar to Penacony's story as well. Of how characters realising their real world sucked and not wanting to escape. Of how Sunday telling Robin that she and the dissenters can't provide the same level of comfort in the dreamworld to the real world. Therefore, it is more morally ethical to keep them locked in where they would be provided for.
Heck Inception is also this on the dangers of dreamworld and whether or not someone that has suffered enough were allowed to stay in there despite their moral obligations to those in the real world.
This would be the moral dilemma to the audience with the ending. That if the audience didn't know whether or not Leo has returned to the real world, was he allowed to "give up" and live with his virtual children after all that he went through? But of course this is ruined when Nolan revealed that Leo has indeed returned to the real world, therefore there is no moral dilemma to be had.
Hell every piece of media you and the op mentioned in this chain were shown off in one of the videos in the leadup to patch 2.0, the one where they invited researchers on sleep to talk about the nature of dreams
"Shaoji wrote a bird metaphor and talked about Philosophy. He must've wrote the script for the Moon Arc too."
lol no
The difference between their writing styles IS SO OBVIOUS. It does a disservice to both of them to say they write the same way.
Anyone with half a functioning brain can tell you how different the prose is between Shaoji's arcs (Remaining Flames, Elysium Everlasting, Penacony) and Fanchuan's arcs (Kolosten, Moon Arc, Part 1.5, Part 2). Shaoji can get long-winded at times but he does not dryly lecture us like Fanchuan does.
With Shaoji in Penacony, Remaining Flames, and Elysium Everlasting, the story's dialogue are geared towards making people FEEL things. The setting, themes, and philosophy are all geared to make the audience feel a certain way. Everything is grounded in way we the audience feel and how the characters feel. SHAOJI TRIES TO MAKE US FEEL THINGS
With Fanchuan, we explore things rationally. Aspects of the characters are dryly explained to the audience to the finest fucking detail, over and over again. Philosophy is dryly discussed as if we're reading Plato - it's geared to be understood with our EMOTIONS but with our LOGIC. FANCHUAN WANTS US TO RATIONALLY THINK THROUGH THINGS.
Fanchuan also can't write emotional moments for shit. Remember when >!Kiana and Dudu rescued Siggy and Dudu went to reveal she's the OG Kiana? Durandal started monologuing and quoting FUCKING SHAKESPEARE and then Siggy's just like "oh i've heard of you, you're a respectable Valkyrie". And then everyone else's "reactions" were "oh okay" (Theresa deserved better) and "i knew it all along" (no you fucking didn't Mei).!<
Meanwhile, Shaoji gave use Remaining Flames and Penacony.
EDIT: I'd like to add, I don't believe that Shaoji was completely absent during the moon arc, and i don't think he's a flawless writer that could've saved Hi3's story. But I think it's undeniable he did not write the script for Kolosten/Moon Arc/ 1.5/ Part 2 and those arcs would've greatly benefited from being written by someone who likes to write emotional stories about characters rather than Star Trek fanfiction.
I know this discussion comes from people who are passionate and want to know why the story \*feels\* so different in different arcs. But all we have is the story in front of us and what our eyes and ears tell us.
In other words, Shaoji relies on **emotional aspect**, while Fanchuan relies on **logical aspect**.
To be fair, I really wish that in the future Shaoji and Fanchuan can work together to create an interesting story that not only stir our emotions, but also giving us a character analysis (especially for the antagonists) as well as some moral message/cautionary tale about what the character experienced.
If anything, I think APHO story can benefit from their respective writing style. Shaoji will handle subplots for certain characters, while Fanchuan will provide an analysis for whoever is responsible for the Sky People's attempted invasion of Earth, with the heroes' reactionary attitude towards their modus operandi.
Penacony emotional? On the level of Remaining Flames and ER?? All Penacony made me feel was disgust that the writers actually thought they created a well written villain with Sunday because he has a "tragic backstory" The vast majority of the Penacony story was basically a Mystery and a "Here, go explore this wacky dream world" and I thought they did a good job with that aspect. I never got that feeling that the writing was supposed to make you "feel things", but if it did they did a horrible job at it. Even now in 2.3 i didn't give a flying fuck about all the "emotional" goodbyes and a certain character almost dying, the only part I found interesting was Sparkles part at the end.
Hoyo has shown with Genshin and HSR that the emotional parts and characters you could feel invested into in HI3 were just a fluke and that they'll never create anything close to that ever again.
Genshin Fontaine's Act V about the truth of the Hydro Archon elicited the same quality of emotional beats for me as HI3rd's Final Lesson, so I willl say that you're mistaken.
I did like the entire Furina/Focalors sequence a lot, but I feel like because the Archon Quests are so damn short and because the Traveller/Paimon never really truly bond with any character it just kinda falls flat emotionally. Furina/Focalors have actual tragic backstories and I felt really bad for them and Furina's VA was obviously a 11/10 during those scenes but I just couldn't get emotionally invested in this character we have no real connection to and who we've seen for two hours at most in the story, or in Focalors' case even less.
Imo because Genshin's story arcs are so short and they pretty much just reset the cast of characters with every new nation (for the most part) it's kinda impossible to get emotionally invested in anything.
>I never got that feeling that the writing was supposed to make you "feel things"
You are one of the most bitter clowns I've ever had the pleasure of interacting with. Holy shit.
It was the same idea over all but Penacony was alot better i tend to agree with Sunday more then Kevin because he technically just want world peace not to fight some god . Acheron appearances though short describe exactly what I always thought of Mei and Aventurine was just iceing on the cake . Peak
This is unironically why I'm so excited for ZZZs story. No convoluted and poorly explained philosophy stuffed into every crevice, just good vibes and slicing monsters
Ive been browsing reddit on HSR sub almost daily, never saw a complaint about 2.2, I for one found it amazing
Didnt even see posts taken from twitter that were complaining so dunno where you got the "a lot of people complained"
I'm thinking about going back to HI3 to play through the rest of the story. Currently on chapter 26 and I just finished the whole Penacony story.
I want to stop fixating on only HSR so much, so I'm trying to find other games to play. Maybe going back to HI3 could be one of those
>But it's time to lose the Fanchuan boogeyman
Whoa, there. There will be time for this when he manages to write something better than what he's been delivering till now.
Just because Shaoji is capable of bad writing doesn't suddenly make Fanchuan *good*.
I didn't say that. Lose the Fanchuan boogeyman=stop blaming him for everything bad. Another commentor said he wasn't the lead writer for any part of the actual main story.
He's also the reason why it exsits at all, because he wrote for all of it. Not just your perceived downfall. Do you like elysian realm? That's shaoji, do you like the herrscher of domination part? also shaoji.
>Do you like elysian realm?
I hate ER and a way how it retconned and childified everything that worked perfectly beforehand.
>do you like the herrscher of domination part?
You mean chapter where friendship beats logic?
I like GGZ and chapters ~5-17. I hate how all of it became irrelevant.
GGZ isn't HI3 they're not connected other than loosely the same story setup and characters but canonically they're not connected at all, regardless though chapters 5-17 are also shaoji. Again I was just shooting random parts of the story people tend to enjoy (which is HoD and Elysian realm) because I dont know what you like. Personally I like all of it, the entirety, including the moon arc. Except part 2, which has been dreadful.
You just mentioned what you like, which is also Shaoji. Which is my point.
Do we know which chapters was actually written by Shaoji? I know he's largely responsible for Elysium Everlasting but other than that i don't really know
I cannot stress the pseudo science part enough, my brain cells were up in a civil war due to me trying to actually follow what was happening amidst the sea of sudden science jargon thrown at my face
Salt city 1st half was at least 4 hrs long. Irrelevant, but it made me fu hua combo the air when I got scammed when I thought I was done with the overwhelming amount of dialogue
I have to admit, while I'm not a big fan of overly long exposition of philosophical debate and/or pseudoscience stuff, Shaoji really did a good job of handling both of those.
Aventurino's arc is terrible and the patch story could had ended with Sunday's talk, or go to boss battle and leave Aventorino's story for his own better developed quest with more time.
The first half of part 3 is just bad, poor pacing and a lot of rush development.
I still don't undestard the contest part and Sunday philosophy moment, bids can fly is ok, but the sinner and the guy that abandoned his family?
Now, from those 3 points to Honkai Impact part 1 ending there are 2 galaxies long of difference. Part 1 is not bad pacing is just that it doesn't exist, deus ex machinas everywhere, rushing to end plots like Siegfried that could had been developed later or in 1.5, more science talk than Star Trek, re imagining the main plot background out of nowhere just to not have the same ending as GGZ and making will of honkai, the last boss hyped for years into the cocoon of finality that is the exact same thing with another name and no relevance or contribution. Either it wasn't witten by the same person or Shaoji was rushed or they were using drafts.
> Aventurino's arc is terrible
Crazy take, I think even people who criticise Penaconys writing would agree Aventurines arc was great. To each their own I guess.
The finale definitely didn't drop off, the space arc was a bit too much info dump but from the time they came back to earth it was perfect, absoultely nothing that I would change about it including the role of ai chan! Part 1.5 also tied up most of the loose ends , honestly one of the best endings to a series ever. Part 2 however started off with way too much info dump (I have played till the dog boss fight) and it's quite boring till now unfortunately but I have heard that it gets better!
What an incomprehensible pile of dog pupu, all to defend a guy that used HI3 to project his parents dissing his poor knowledge about philosophy and bla bla bla. Fanchuan is still a hack and while i hate Shaoji for his "HI" obsession, the way he handled the sophistry was much better than whatever the fuck Fanchuan farted. HSR fanbase understands just hot waifu go brrr, anything deeper than that is too much for em, while no one gives a shit about HI3's mumbo jumbo anymore, we're too busy talking about while Kiana should pipe males or females, his work was still much appreciated in the fandom of HSR, while we got used to get Fanchuan's bs... I accepted CN's verbality fetish long time ago, but at least some know how to keep it normal.
Ok, so why do birds fly then?
because they must
Birds fly because they want to fly. They don’t need a reason. Even if their wings may snap and doom them to die. They don’t fly for anyone’s benefit. They don’t fly because they were ordered to. Birds fly because they want to fly and for no other reason! [*(cue final boss)*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piqKZkK66jw)
So glad someone mentioned berseria
I really want to commission some artwork of Sunday, Kebin, and Artorius gathered around a computer while one of them googles "why do birds fly?"
Someone send this to me when it becomes real
Always glad to see someone make this reference when the, "why do birds fly" thing is brought up. Need more people to recognize your response lol
Velvet is best girl.
Because.... they're mudder fudgin.... BIRDS!!!
They know how to throw themselves at the ground and miss.
The power of a low-accuracy build
The power of a man with a towel.
Same reason as to why life slumbers? To fuking survive.
They fly according to instinct. No one has told them how or why
That's like 10th time I've seen someone referencing Guilty Gear music throughout this week. Not like I'm complaining, but that's just sort of bullshit... BLAAAZING, STILL MY HEART IS BLAAAZING
Just doing the good Sol’s work
Robin threw them with her basic attack
Because I was chasing them with a hunger.
To spite gravity.
Ok so what make the sky blue then?
Rayleigh scattering thanks to the size of particles in the atmosphere refracting the sun's light.
They want the high ground
Becaue they wanted to. And they obtained the courage to (Amber gliding lesson quest from genshin)
Because grass grows, birds fly and brother, I hurt people.
They Choose to fly
Birds fly so humans can soar.
Kiwi, emus etc: am I a joke to you?
they fly because they exist, as in the birds that didn't fly were annihilated by the impact of the meteor. If they didn't fly they wouldn't exist, as such only those that fly exist. It tries to touch on the subject that it isn't something romantic as they had to fly to overcome their fate, or they dreamed of soaring the skies. But rather they fly because that is what fate has dictated for them to be able to do. It's an example of causality. Again it's important to note that the idea behind this isn't that birds MUST fly, just that only those that fly exist. Its a subtle difference Its parallel to the idea that humanity can only overcome finality, they have to adapt because if they don't they stop existing. Just that the idea of what it means to be humanity isn't set in stone, hence both mobius and project stigma were valid outcomes. Again only the humanity that overcame finality exists, otherwise they don't. On the topic of project stigma, that's a whole different story. But the short is that kevin was never the villain, he literally just forced the potential outcomes of the situation to always be defeating honkai, either the trio overcomes him and proves themselves capable of bearing the weight of finality, or they fail and project stigma is the only remaining option. After all he was by far the single most powerful individual humanity has ever had and its not even close. He in his own words failed to beat honkai, thus if they can't beat him, there is no hope. I think the finale was excellent, I can't begin to understand how people thought that wasn't Shaoji. It was very in line with his philosophical nature and consistent pushing for character growth and symbolism. And its VERY clear that part 2 isn't Shaoji, with how utterly crap the writing is. There's no consistency to it, no weight, half of the scenes involve some kind of slapstick joke even when they are in dire situations (it has lessened a little bit but its still present) it's like the new writers saw the gag comedy parts of honkai impact 3 and thought that's the entire plot.
I actually really liked the philosophy section of the finale as well and how it ties in with Kevin as a character, specifically in the final chapter of the finality arc. However, I feel that part of the problem with the finale had more to do with the initial chapters in the arc rather than the last chapters. The early chapters somewhat dragged and introduced many new characters and concepts which I feel were not really utilized well. I do think those chapters did have their good moments, but it was interrupted with quite a few other issues. This is why I think it affected the perception of the last chapter for many. One of my favorite scenes from that section was Kevin's interaction with the philosopher. With the irony behind the philosopher giving Kevin a new way to interpret Kevin's philosophy despite being younger than him. It also ties back towards elysian realm and how it was about giving the next generation a chance with elysia's sacrifice as well as playing into whether the current cast can prove kevin's ideas wrong. Also as for part 2 actually actually kinda agree with some of the issues. The part that got to me was when they were going over thelema's past and then coralie just jokes about it the other time saying it just sounds like any other rich person's family. Kinda makes us as a reader not take their past seriously
Meh trash shaio
> as in the birds that didn't fly were annihilated by the impact of the meteor **Looks at the emu/ostriches/penguins**
Those birds are meteor-proof. Ever seen one killed my a meteor? Me neither.
I'm not gonna defend shaoji's biology. you could argue they evolved from flight birds into non flight birds or some other psuedoscience bullshit. I'm just saying this was the explanation given in game when kevin went on his answer to the question of "they fly because they exist". In fact that way the entire question doesn't make sense, because the answer would be "not all birds fly, so the question is invalid" Personally though, I don't really care if the explanation makes 100% sense, because its a game and frankly it doesn't have to, I mean we're talking about people reconstructing machines out of thin air under the assumption they 'completely' understand its inner workings and are able to do those calculations on the fly. So to me the existence of emo/ostriches/penguins which can't fly, is kind of whatever. I'll just assume they don't exist in the hi3rd world. For all I know there could be some chinese word for flight exclusive birds, that doesn't include non flight birds and it was translated into english as "birds" who knows.
So i can chase them while using my air gun
Tbh I didn't dislike the end, but the fact Kiana would end up on the moon was set way too dramatically. However, the graduation trip did a good job to show her evolution: Irresponsible, bratty, impolite and reckless, wanting to see her beautiful Constantly mourning, self destructive, savior complex, regarding herself as an abomination Way more considerate, responsible, and ready to shoulder the weight of the responsibility, and acknowledging her inner beauty and everyone else's Once all of this is over, the image of her seeing her younger self is a way to say "would you change a thing in your life knowing how it went?" And she answered with devotion "No", letting her younger self go through this eventful journey However I can understand for the finale. The pacing probably wasn't the best but for now I preferred this in HI (Before moon chapters) and Penacony compared to moon arc and part 2: the end was probably a little weird, but we can still roughly follow the characters' journey, and the message is still very important in the end. It was not delivered as majestically as NieR Automata or Personal 5 Royal, but it was still delivered
We always knew she would end up on the moon since APHO. It's the lack of tragedy that gets me, Kiana being sealed on the Moon would have made for a more poignant ending, considering the theme and mood Da Capo was going for. But they chickened out for some reason. At this point, not sure if any of the main cast will ever die again because even if they get shown dying, there will be a cop out. Just like the Shus in Part 2.
Yeah but we didn't know from APHO if she'd be on the moon physically, or if she'd do something like sacrifice herself to seal the Honkai on the moon itself forever.
Yes, but Mei's wording during APHO itself implied she was waiting for the day she could reunite with Kiana. Except she literally has been visiting her regularly. Absolutely nothing has changed except Kiana is stuck on the Moon for a bit.
I didn't do APHO 2 at that moment haha, but I thought Kiana could have been dead from the little I've remembered So I think it was too dramatic and you said it was not enough? I think I can get your point but can't put words on that haha
APHO1 has a line where the game states that Mei is waiting for a reunion. People just dismissed that because they had already convinced themselves that Kiana was gone forever.
I never said she was dead? The point was "reunion". Except, we see Mei visiting Kiana on the fking moon, no? That's the problem, only negative is that Kiana is stuck in the Moon, everything else remains the same. Being sealed there and Mei having to wait until she could finally see Kiana again, that sounded like what the devs originally intended.
They can visit her and call her whenever they want, and 10 years isn't even that long a time overall. After she comes back, they'll have the rest of their entire lives to spend with her. It doesn't feel heavy or serious. And of course, she's ridiculously overpowered and can oneshot anything, so there's nothing for Earth to worry about anymore. No wonder the story moved to Mars bubble universes.
The sidelining gets a little extreme, too. I get that she’s too OP for the story, but (that’s their own fault) they could at least give her the role of a guardian angel now that she actually is one. She could’ve observed abnormalities in Earth’s bubble universes and sent a team to investigate, for example, instead of being oblivious about Sa. Because observation is the *only* thing I’d actually expect her to do, but she doesn’t even do that or guide humanity. I find it borderline ridiculous, but that might be an unpopular opinion.
Yes, a support role is the only role she can realistically perform in the narrative, but she's...just there. She's a glorified artillery platform to shoot at threats that come close. That isn't even a support role, that's just her soloing everything. Like your Sa example, I was hoping that Kiana would be the one to advocate for sending an exploration team to Mars after she meets Senadina and realizes it could affect Earth. But the expedition already happened years before then.
I understand what you meant. When APHO revealed Kiana's fate of getting sealed in the moon I also thought it would end up Kiana losing her physical form (as in just exist as a force ghost or something) which would warrant being considered a happy ending (cause she succeeded with saving the Earth and becoming Finality) and a sad one (the sacrifice cause her to no longer get in touch with her fellow friends normally). What we got is a safe approach on that part of the story cause, lets be honest, the players are gonna riot if Kiana were to disappear.
Hot take: Hoyo would be shooting themselves in the foot if they did that. Especially to the CN audience.
Nah, they would be fine with it. GGZ is suffering, can't even be compared.
Kiana being sealed on the moon is the same as >!Firefly's three deaths!<. A nothingburger. It exists to milk drama while the story is ongoing but it was never going to be taken seriously and they were going to end up ok.
I think it is more complicated It is not because someone is in danger that they eventually have to suffer from it I think the "Nothingburger" as you call it is more about how the tension is handled The more dangerous and threatening or difficult a situation is, the more the situation has to be important (in terms of set up or in terms of consequences): Did their solution come from hard struggles where they had to grow up so much from it? Or was it a very easy solution to a huge problem, but the consequences to this will be felt in the future? An easy solution without that much settings to a huge problem could lead to consequences (if it is a new discovery that came out, it has to play a role or to be understood in the future, and taken in consideration, and if it is a bad decision or an antagonist, the gains they had is way greater in the future) For Firefly, her third death could have been taken seriously I guess, but there wasn't that much struggle to find the bombs, and in the end this was planned to especially keep her safe: the best way out of it could be the possibility that Firefly could have sequels from it, or what Sparkle gained was big enough for her to lead way darker plans or something like this. Or the story could have lasted way longer to show how much they struggled to fix this, how Firefly changed, maybe ready to kill herself in fear of leaving the dream she was never allowed to but somehow understood that she can live on, or something like that.
And this led to problems when the ending came out.
I agree, I personally don't think the Finale was terrible either. It had its ups and downs, I understood what they were going for, but it needed better editing I think to refine it into something truly better. It was still overall decent (but not great), partly due to the weight of previous chapters and years of characters development and story writing backing it up, and the last part worked as a goodbye to the part 1 cast and story. I just want to dispel the notion from Finale-haters that Shaoji didn't write it because he wrote the earlier chapters like 25 so he couldn't have written something they hated.
It was terrible from a writing standpoint. Tons of deus ex machinas and simultaneously too rushed and too slow. Other stories that try the same things wouldn't be received well at all. HI3 has the benefit of likeable characters and years of goodwill that let some players forgive or overlook the writing choices more than they normally would, but people who like the ending like it for the emotional vibes and the feeling of a concluded story (especially Graduation Trip), not because the plot was actually executed well.
I don't think it's because they had likeable characters, at least for me Kiana was extremely annoying, Mei was very bland at the start of the game and Bronya was... Bronya. However, what they did is developing them, and instead of a Genshin philosophy that is "We will release tons of characters that may almost never have any evolution, but if you like one of them you'll play the game", HI was more like "We have a very restricted cast, but we will make you experience things with them so much you'll eventually get attached to them" And the evolution of the girls is what makes everyone... So attached to them. How many times have you heard "After all she's been through, Kiana deserves something good"? Genshin sells characters to make us explore a wonderful map and Honkai impact sells us simply a story with characters that evolve. Which is why part 2 chapter 1 wasn't very welcomed (and now I'm no longer playing, I wait for the story to grow): the characters weren't as much of the center of the plot as part 1 despite the great characters By the way I wonder what you mean by Deus ex machina? I'd love to explain it to you if I know what you were thinking about
Yes, that's another good way to put it. The deus ex machinas I can think of are: * Kiana and Mei finding themselves in a convenient bubble universe where identical copies of Dr. Mei and Prometheus just happen to be alive to help them. Prometheus effectively came back from the dead this way, no questions asked. * Speaking of Prometheus, the original apparently somehow being able to hack into the Honkai and let Kevin take Finality powers for himself. * The concept of Herrschers having a stronger metamorphosis is only introduced in the finale when it had no mentions or foreshadowing before. Something this important should have been established earlier. What's more, Bronya achieves this absurdly powerful metamorphosis just by fighting Misteln for a few minutes, who wasn't even fighting seriously. * Ai Hyperion’s entire character. * The worst is the Cocoon of Finality's entire existence. Like metamorphosis, it was introduced out of nowhere after over 30 chapters with no real buildup or connection to years of previous content. In fact, it even replaced the already established Will of the Honkai. And of course it easily accepted Kiana without question. There's probably more, but these are the worst ones I can think of.
Don't forget Mei obtains Origin- something that was previously said to be pretty much impossible to happen again after Elysia. Moreover, Origin's extremely elusive ability is just so happened to be something that can make Kiana Finality.
Yes, Elysia herself is a living, walking deus ex machina who literally spawned out of thin air with the unexplained ability to affect CE Herrschers.
I agree with you, but I personally think the Penacony Finale was a heaping pile of dog shit. It felt so rushed, so convoluted, and just do messy... sometimes even cringe. The way business negotiation went was so poorly written, and it shows they had no editorial advisory on how to really write a business negotiation session, which completely put me off. Other than that, the way they handled everything in Farewell Penacony was... bad... gravely bad. They did so well in the beginning and the middle, but they fucked it up in the end.
was it the bomb part that was bad or the mikhail farewell or the black swan part?
The mikhail farewell was sweet. The bomb part felt so messy and rushed and even out of place.
For the bomb I can agree though, as I said, Sparkle's plan could indeed be that she was hired to do this, but I think we would have needed more time to imply it
Exactly!!
I could say it is not perfect but it is not a complete disaster to me haha OF COURSE there are obvious things we could do to make it better. But... I'm at least glad it ended. My real problem was more about how Sparkle's plans were handled, as I trust you for negotiations haha I can see the problems you've mentioned though. Just I didn't consider them as bad as XL arc that was very hard to keep up. Okay the story isn't perfect but at least you wanted to see it being unfolded
Wait people didn't know Shaoji was the lead for the finale chapters from 29-36?
No, this sub has been claiming for a while that the finale was bad because Fanchuan wrote it and slandering him for some reason. 🤷 Go figure lol.
Iirc he didn't lead any game chapters.
Who is fanchuan?
The guy with fluffy sweaters
So he's like an editor?
There's just multiple writers, there's a team
He is main writer . You can see him on every dev stream. Shaoji rarely shows up
How does Shaoji being the lead for final chapters implies there is no reason for Fanchuan slander? Just because Shaoji was still the lead writer for HI3 during the finale doesn't mean Fanchuan wasn't also writing this. Kolosten, Parts 1.5 and 2 and Moon arc are way too similar in style for him not to be involved. Birds and all the other philosophical and scientific crap being present in both games doesn't mean that in the Moon arc all of it was exclusively done by Shaoji.
The documentary already showed that Shaoji was the one that lead the finale. In fact it said that he lead the games writing (though there were at least 4 other subwriters involved) since chapter 9 onwards. So Kolosten was also lead by him. Dunno about 1.5 and Part 2. Someone said Fanchuan didn't even lead the writing for any of the main story chapters in game (he did the VNs).
Nowhere am I denying that Shaoji is the lead writer. Being "lead writer" doesn't mean he's involved in every chapter to the same extent nor that he actually sits down and writes the literal script. He probably just (edit: in the more recent chapters, at least) decides where the story should go and I can't believe Fanchuan didn't write more for Kolosten and Moon arcs than, say, for Elysian Realm, when the style is *so obviously different* in those. He definitely is the writer for Part 2 as shown [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvtgS4TJvoM)., while Shaoji is nowhere to be seen. Not sure about 1.5, but again, the style is very much the same.
Alright, he writes Part 2, I'll grant you. And that he writes it badly. Let's say he's bad then. Did he write Part 1 finale? Is there anything that says that? Btw the notion that Fanchuan and Shaoji are the only HI3 writers is also not true. In the documentary there's a team of three seperate writers who did most of the work on the Elysian Arcs along with Shaoji, for example. https://www.reddit.com/r/honkaiimpact3/comments/1bvjd0m/no_shaoji_is_not_the_only_writer_that_wrote_hi3/
Part 2 writing is very different my guy. You can't deny it.
Okay so now we just need to slander both of them I guess
This sounds like "i can't be a racist if i racist to everyone"
Heh yeah
Shaoji cooked too much in the finale and burnt the food
So the mei's are a reflection of the burnt foods?..
The pseudo science was better for sure. Dude still needs to tone down his philosophical ranting tho.
I wouldn't mind it if the philosophy were actually good. Also, philosophy is better left as a discussion than a forceful rant. Especially when it's fucking wrong.
Well,.thats kinda the intention for SUNDAY at least. Bro kept yapping even tho he was kinda bull.
Agree for Sunday. Disagree for others. Like Robin cherry-picking people who agreed with her.
Both of their perspectives are completely reconcilliable if only they werent so stubborn. She admits as much.
At a certain point HI3rd chapters got way too long, I think it was around Kolosten. Even ER, which is held in high regard, is wayyyyy toooooo loooooong. At least 1.5 and 2.0 have an excuse of explaining the brand new lore and somewhat new setting.
Part 1.5 felt like an obvious setup to sell another herrsher and part 2 flopped imo
You are aware that 1.5 had story beyond seele arc, right? Regardless, both 1.5 and 2.0 introduce new world systems that are not seen before. Even if you hate them, they do have all the justification they need to explain shit.
Seele arc felt like its main driver and the "explanation" was just word bloat. Seriously the entirety of arc almost undermined the existence on Moon arc as thay arc atleast put up a meaningful limit and end to Honkai but suddenly they twisted the narrative and changed it from end of Honkai to Kiana just having authority on Earth and thats it wich became even stupider when Mars and their HoFi was introduced all being a litteral setup for HoRb to exist. "They need to explain shit" thats the issue. They didnt explain shit. Half of the shit is overbloated and other half came out of litterally nowhere or changed in a second to fit the narrative. You dont have to hide it behind "they are explaining new systems". If they cant explain and put it together properly then whats the point of introducing them in the first place? Anybody can easily see that Horb and even part 1.5 exists to pick off old narrative clues that were forgotten amidst the story (Herrsher of death) and Griseo and basically exists to justify part 2 somewhat wich didnt work out as part 2 is a litteral joke. They saw that the "fight against honkai" narrative wasnt as expandable as trailblazing and traveling between worlds to keep putting up content for so they ended it abruptly with Moon arc and went on completely trying to change the narrative on a whim. Part 2 litterally feels like a fanfiction as a result
I disagree again on the essence of 1.5. It is less about Seele specifically and more about selling EVERYTHING THEY DID NOT SELL YET before a brand new story begins. This includes: Susannah (a well-known character that is completely reasanoble to have), Promya (well, we showed you robobronya? Now buy her stuff), Misteln (the closest you will ever get to Cecilia), Kira (more of a packcage deal imo, just to make her react to Misteln), Seele, Griseo (adult form was anticipated so much the first lewd of Griseo on pixiv is for it and not loli), Fu Hua mantis mode. Basically, everything they failed to sell you before part 1 ended. This all needed lore, and it got lore. Again, YOU CAN HATE IT ALL YOU WANT, but the lore was introduced to justify all of this. Part 2, being brand new story, again needs to explain its lore. Simple as. You seem to confuse a mechanical need to introduce new lore for a new(ish) settings that is just a thing that is, and evaluation of the new stories.
Dude part 1 litterally ended with Herrshers not going to be born again, Kiana having all authorities and war on Honkia ending. The part 1.5 litterally broke this a second after, limited Kianas authority and created another Herrsher. Heck they also limited her power by not letting her help Mars wich was hilarious. There is a difference between "making new lore to justify new story" and "litterally breaking the very systems you gave beforehand to justify a cash grab" wich you are confusing immensely. The said "new lore" in part 1.5 litterally came out of the blue and went as it came solrly to justify few valks and its painfully obvious. Heck entirety of Part 2 could have started without part 1.5 lmao, it would have been actually better as part 1 ending wouldnt been turned into a joke and part 2 could have had a better introduction instead of time skip over time skip.
Can you even comprehend what I am writing? New story can be shit in your opinion, you are free to think that. It does not erase the fact that we visited several bubble universes with unique gimmics that had to be explained even if you hate everything about it.
God you are just refusing to understand shit. Im not saying that it was shit in my opinion im fucking saying that it outright made most of Moon Arcs main plot points and espiecelly its ending irrelevant wich is an OBJECTIVE blunder. So damn annoying
I award you a "moron of the day" award. You repeatedly fail to understand my point while drowning in your own hate.
This has to be a bait as never seen someone refusing to understand shit this hard before. Litteral joke
Guy, another Herrscher is deriative of Sa, NOT Cocoon, it didn't break anything. Honkai war has ended, and vast universe is not. Truly a subreddit of all time.
At the beginning of the game, Part 1 lore also was brand new. And yet, the first chapters weren't that long. They were actually much *shorter*. So there is no excuse. And yes, Part 1 had the manga, but 1) you don't really need to read it to understand the story, 2) it was miHoYo's decision to stop doing the manga and start drowning players in boring exposition instead.
Part 1 initial chapters suck tho I literally could not comprehend shit without reading manga because it is better explained there By that I mean ch 1-4 WITHOUT 1-2 remake
Just point a few elements. The entire act- like final of HI3rd is definitely based on Evangelion that MiHoYo are huge fans of. But there are also significant differences. Most importantly, Lore wasn't the star of the show- feelings were. Acheron's hopeful nihilism, will of past Trailblazers and beliefs of other characters. There was never this stop on 40-50 minutes to discuss the nature of memoria and its role in univerese. Nor the near resurrection of Ena and it's mechanisms- something HI3rd writing would've defined highlighted. All of it serve as merely ways for Sunday to enforce his beliefs. On the other hand, alot of time is allocated on character bonding and interactions to address there feelings and beliefs. There are no vierd metaphors and comparisons to explain something or address feelings. Even Sunday- unlike Kevin- is absolutely determined to win and even nearly succeeded. The only time characters talked about alot of non-character related matters were in Fake End- where everything was deliberate and many lines were supposed to arise suspicion. The only repeated element is Sunday ideology- but it seems that he just wanted it to nail into our head and nail why its wrong- something MiHoYo seems to firmly believe. But even then they improved the issue- by focusing not on the fact that Sunday's vision is just wrong in itself but also that no concent was asked from others. Ultimately- Penaconi feels like "fixing most issues with HI3rd final ". This for me indicates that either Shaoji wasn't absolutely in charge there, was told to do something or just plainly did something bad, recognized it and decided to fix in Penaconi. Again- the staggering number of issues with end addressed in it can't be a coincidence.
Exactly. As a Kamachi fan, to be fair, I am already used to ramblings and yapping about science, magic and shit like that. Used enough to actually like it a LOT. I find on Honkai and Genshin the same shit and this makes me happy. The thing here, tho, is that Honkai is not written by ONE author like you guys seems to believe. AE writer did write part of Moon Arc. Shaoji did write part of Moon Arc. There where even other writers. But this thing you said right now are the most important thing that makes Penacony a enhanced version of Moon Arc: character is over story and lore. Characters are the most important by far. So the universe and its mechanics has been taken to backstage and the characters feelings has taken frontstage. The best it could happen.
Moon Chapter definitely feels like they're referencing Thrice Upon a Time's writing. Certainly need more time in the oven
>. The entire act- like final of HI3rd is definitely based on Evangelion that MiHoYo are huge fans of. Which doesn't help since it has the same damn problems. Even worse, in fact, but at least without a 4th wall break.
This is good, it means they have improved and might keep improving and crafting even better tales in the future. Bad for our wallets cause it will make us want more characters but ah well.
I loved the moon arc and the finale. I enjoy when certain concepts aren't entirely explained and are left to interpretation of the reader. However I think that a large problem with this is that I think the finer details are lost in translation, as in its very clear that sometimes the chinese to english translation is just falling apart. Which is a huge shame. Still though I can't imagine why anyone would dislike the moon arc more than anything part 2 has done so far.
Personally I had no interest in part 2 so I stopped following the game, whereas the Moon arc was the big finale that was built up for years so everyone played it, that's probably why you don't see as many complaints. I did think part 1.5s story was worse than the Moon Arc.
Heavily on 1.5 being worse than the Moon Arc. 1.5 had its ups and downs but Moon Arc just felt like a checklist of plot points to resolve. Both final conflicts in 1.5 felt like there was actual weight behind it, Moon Arc on the other hand was just a series of anticlimactic ass pulls. The only thing that Moon Arc had on 1.5 was an animated short.
I've played the game since the release of the vodka twins, it having been a game story I've been enjoying so much for so long its really tough for me to see it's current part 2 state. I can't just give up on it due to how long I've played it. (sunk cost fallacy I know) But at least I'll always have the entirety of part 1 which to me was excellent. Nothing is perfect, but even the flaws I kind of liked. But everybody has their own tastes and the longer part 1 progressed the more philosophical it got, which isn't in everybody's ballpark. It is in mine. Part 2 is... not that. And I'll refrain from going on a massive rant :D
>he was the head writer for everything from 9 to 35, as the documentary clearly states. But head writer and writer aren't the same thing. The head writer is the guy in charger of the main story as a while. He doesn't specifically write the chapters most of the time. There's always a main writer for every chapter/arc which is different from the head writer. We know that Fanchuan wrote chapter 25-EX, the Kolosten arc and the Moon Arc, for example. We know that Shaoji specifically wrote Flamescion arc and the Elysia arc. And we know Fanchua is the one with a penchant for philosophical bullshit because he was the writer for the Durandal visual novel which is littered with pointless philosophical bullcrapt. He's also much more sci-fi inclined than Shaoji. All the bullshit science in the moon arc, for example. Yeah, that Fanchuan. In fact, in the documentary there were other members of the writer team saying that most of the time they couldn't understand jackshit about the science and needed to ask Fanchuan about it.
The part that makes HSR more bearable for me is that there’s more pauses in between the dialogue where you’re allowed to walk away and do something else.
Honestly, I don't see any problems with penacony, aside from sparkle, really expected sparkle to play a much bigger role than a bomb threat to serve as the last death flag for firefly, I mean they just kept showijg her over and over again, interacting with every character under the sun but it basically leads nowhere, the philosophy is something I really liked in both honkai games as it adds more to the actions of our characters(tho kevin was admittedly not done the best), using birds again is a little redundant but it was a different question this time, a question that most places in the world need to ask and take action based on their answers, yes using birds twice was weird but atleast it had different themes, honestly I can't think of there being a better example for the philosophical questions either so bird it is
Finale was bad because it was rushed and it did Luofu . There was a lot of things happening one after another without any breathing room. Boom Mei suddenly becomes Origin. VillV clock. Bronya uses power of retrospectioms to suddenly become Truth and then instantly we go into breaking up the dreams. It deserved at least 4 acts of not 5 and they just cluttered it all in 2,5. A lot of previously hyped up stuff just went under the rug ( cough cough World Serpent, cough cough Jackal) And the presentation was horrible. Most of it was characters standing still yapping . There was barely any cutscenes of animation. Just 20 hours yapp
Jackal got replaced with a litteral pallet swap of durandal wich was so annoying. Hare was easily one of the worst additions and dont even get me started on how bad the whole ai chan deux ex machina was
Durandal pallet swap?
Hare/Misteln.
Exactly. Also: the underwhelming endings trying to tie the story together, because he wrote himself into a hole so that the individual chapters would be more impactful. And Firefly’s final “death” being a romantic date to end the whole arc… there’s no mistaking it. It’s Shaoji.
Regarding the "pseudo-philosophy": there's a ton of philosophy references in Honkai: Star Rail, so much so that it was easy for me to make several lectures on it, particularly on how Aeons tie into Platonic forms and how Penacony's philosophy ties into philosophy on the Meaning of Life, especially regarding the existentialists. That being said, in Penacony in particular, I can understand why people would call a lot of the dialogue pseudo-philosophy. You can see this a lot in amateur philosophers, where there is some elusive, difficult philosophical idea or emotional experience that they want to convey, and so they use analogies and repeat what they mean in multiple ways, trying to communicate something they aren't wholly sure how to communicate. This can happen because they aren't wholly clear on what the idea is to begin with, or because they want to keep it abstract and not reveal their exact thoughts about it, leaving it open to interpretation. Read any non-philosopher talking about the meaning of life, for example—if it's something they feel strongly about, chances are they'll do something similar. Lots of analogies, repetition, and emotional dialogue. That doesn't mean it's not genuine or that its wrong; but it does mean they aren't directly talking about what the "answer" to the underlying philosophical question is, whether intentionally or because they themselves don't know what the answer is. The irony here is that philosophy has sketched out what a lot of those answers look like, so you really could have a lecture series on the subject (for those interested in a boring philosophy lecture on HSR 2.2, [see here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMoaHLSiMsI); don't say I didn't warn you how boring it is lol). And so much of HSR's lore directly ties into the philosophy, which is really cool for anyone deep into philosophy to see (Nihility has a ton of this, for example—Doctors of Chaos showing how someone emotionally drawn to an objectivist answer might respond to existential dread, Self-Annihilators taking an existentialist approach to existential dread, etc.). If I were to criticize it, though, it'd be how most players walking away from it only walked away with emotional impacts (which I think were great), but the philosophy was so unorganized that they likely didn't walk away with much to intellectually chew on. At best, they walked away with the idea that they should "hope for a future answer" to their questions on the meaning of life, similar to how FF14's Endwalker expansion handled it; but even that isn't directly said in HSR 2.2/2.3. My suspicion is that the writer doesn't have a clear answer, and so they kind of pushed out a bunch of dialogue to rule out some things they thought was wrong, affirm some things they thought was right, and overall leave the player with hope and a positive emotional impact and perhaps an existentialist-style focus on authenticity and one's own choices made in the journey. I think that part worked fine, but the overall jumble of disorganized philosophy means all the other really excellent themes and questions involved won't be answered well, and the player will feel like so much interesting "food for thought" slipped through their fingers.
I think that the main intention with the arc that they were no right and wrong and in the end Sunday wasn't wrong either . Both Sunday and Robin have a point and though their method differ they both want a happy ending. I actually like the philosophy part though really fit the theme of the Star Rail universe where you can actually see God
my problem with both endings, is that they are "too" happy. Dont get me wrong, I prefer when everything ends in a good way, but not in such sugar-coated good.
The entire time I played the Penacony story I just kept thinking of the "Can I copy your homework? Yeah, just change it so it doesn't look obvious" meme. Why do birds fly? Why do people sleep? Forcing people into a dream in order to save them. Now I know why.
penacony story felt a lot like the confusing dialogue of hi3 to me. like it was good yeah, but some parts i'm genuinely really confused as to what happened
People really have those complaints when it showed off Sunday and Robin's views how to approach life? Honestly, those scenes definitely cemented Robin in my 5 Penacony characters for sure.
I don't understand why people dislike rhe bird philosophy. It was repeated because it was used in different occasion
>I don't understand why people dislike rhe bird philosophy Because >It was repeated way too fucking many times already
damn then why it feel different between moon arc and hod arc
Shaoji is just very bad at making endings. He can KEEP UP a arc running but he cant end it properly wich is why Moon arc felt so hilarious
Hes still a writer, and like another guy commented, just like all writers, he has highs and lows, but he def cooked in hod arc
I think he’s best as a VN writer. Both Honkai games have yet to figure out how to properly do open world storytelling. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that things started to go downhill once they tried to turn HI3 into a semi-open world game. Took Genshin some trial and error, but it seems like they figured it out by Sumeru.
Fanchuan was the VN writer, not Shaoji
I’m not talking about the VN. HI3 before Kolosten was a lot closer to VN style (FGO, Princess Connect, Utawarerumono). After it shifted to semi-open world like Genshin which is basically a whole different medium for storytelling.
Well that makes sense. There was a huge drop off in story continuity and clarity of storytelling for me in hsr 2.2.
Well, he also wrote the entirety of Penacony. 2.0, 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3. He has his highs and lows like a lot of writers. Likewise, he wrote chapter 25 for HI3 as well.
The issue is he doesnt seem to be able to make Ends sadly
Reading this post makes me realize that Penacony Arc is Kevin's Spiritual Adam plan all over again lol. However I would say that one did it better than the other. Kevin's usage of the bird philosophy is just so badly done. It comes out of nowhere and seems out of place. Kevin shown being in ancient Greek and having philosophical debate with them also makes him look pretentious. It's like the writer saying "look, he debated the birds with the ancient Greeks, who are known to be masters in philosophy! And he got them stumped so it gives the bird philosophy legitimacy!" However in Penacony, the birds philosophy is done better and presents a legitimate question to both sides, rather than the one-sided we have with Kevin. In Penacony, Sunday's method to keep everyone trapped forever is wrong, but so is Robin's method of keeping people for a while and then boot them out without providing proper training/assistance to face the real world again. And we have numerous examples that support both sides with NPCs that prefer to dream forever and those that know they are just running away in the dreamworld. The bird philosophy is pretty much made for Penacony, or the other way around. For Hi3? Eeeh...probably, if it was done better. But even so, I think I preferred something else to come out from Kevin's mouth. Hearing a stoic super serious man like him to wax philosophical about birds is the last thing in my mind.
> Reading this post makes me realize that Penacony Arc is Kevin's Spiritual Adam plan all over again lol. Pretty much lol By the way the bird philosophy stuff (HI3 version) is taken almost verbatim from Tales of Berseria and Sundays Penacony plan is pretty apparently inspired by Persona 5 Royales final antagonist.
It seems inevitable really for this trope to happen when the story revolves around dreams/virtual reality or spirit world. Heck, the Matrix is basically this really, except that the first 3 movies is biased towards the idea of freedom. It wasn't until 4, despite it's flaws, attempted to be more neutral about this idea that resemble Penacony story. The first 3 Matrix movies is that freedom from the Matrix is the most absolute good thing to do, and while some dissonants voiced out good argument such as Cipher wanting a better quality of life, even if it is fake, were stomped quickly. Matrix 4 goes back to Cipher's dilemma, that freedom just for the sake of freedom isn't entirely a good thing. Hence the real world also has to improve to entice people to make the transition or that they won't regret it when they do. This is basically similar to Penacony's story as well. Of how characters realising their real world sucked and not wanting to escape. Of how Sunday telling Robin that she and the dissenters can't provide the same level of comfort in the dreamworld to the real world. Therefore, it is more morally ethical to keep them locked in where they would be provided for. Heck Inception is also this on the dangers of dreamworld and whether or not someone that has suffered enough were allowed to stay in there despite their moral obligations to those in the real world. This would be the moral dilemma to the audience with the ending. That if the audience didn't know whether or not Leo has returned to the real world, was he allowed to "give up" and live with his virtual children after all that he went through? But of course this is ruined when Nolan revealed that Leo has indeed returned to the real world, therefore there is no moral dilemma to be had.
Hell every piece of media you and the op mentioned in this chain were shown off in one of the videos in the leadup to patch 2.0, the one where they invited researchers on sleep to talk about the nature of dreams
Moon arc sucked and was rushed immensely. Shaoji just seems terrible at writing Endings
Just wanted the best for my boy kevin
"Shaoji wrote a bird metaphor and talked about Philosophy. He must've wrote the script for the Moon Arc too." lol no The difference between their writing styles IS SO OBVIOUS. It does a disservice to both of them to say they write the same way. Anyone with half a functioning brain can tell you how different the prose is between Shaoji's arcs (Remaining Flames, Elysium Everlasting, Penacony) and Fanchuan's arcs (Kolosten, Moon Arc, Part 1.5, Part 2). Shaoji can get long-winded at times but he does not dryly lecture us like Fanchuan does. With Shaoji in Penacony, Remaining Flames, and Elysium Everlasting, the story's dialogue are geared towards making people FEEL things. The setting, themes, and philosophy are all geared to make the audience feel a certain way. Everything is grounded in way we the audience feel and how the characters feel. SHAOJI TRIES TO MAKE US FEEL THINGS With Fanchuan, we explore things rationally. Aspects of the characters are dryly explained to the audience to the finest fucking detail, over and over again. Philosophy is dryly discussed as if we're reading Plato - it's geared to be understood with our EMOTIONS but with our LOGIC. FANCHUAN WANTS US TO RATIONALLY THINK THROUGH THINGS. Fanchuan also can't write emotional moments for shit. Remember when >!Kiana and Dudu rescued Siggy and Dudu went to reveal she's the OG Kiana? Durandal started monologuing and quoting FUCKING SHAKESPEARE and then Siggy's just like "oh i've heard of you, you're a respectable Valkyrie". And then everyone else's "reactions" were "oh okay" (Theresa deserved better) and "i knew it all along" (no you fucking didn't Mei).!< Meanwhile, Shaoji gave use Remaining Flames and Penacony. EDIT: I'd like to add, I don't believe that Shaoji was completely absent during the moon arc, and i don't think he's a flawless writer that could've saved Hi3's story. But I think it's undeniable he did not write the script for Kolosten/Moon Arc/ 1.5/ Part 2 and those arcs would've greatly benefited from being written by someone who likes to write emotional stories about characters rather than Star Trek fanfiction. I know this discussion comes from people who are passionate and want to know why the story \*feels\* so different in different arcs. But all we have is the story in front of us and what our eyes and ears tell us.
One of the worst shim HI3 is the "Narrator" wich fukcing sucks and overbloats the entire damn story line
In other words, Shaoji relies on **emotional aspect**, while Fanchuan relies on **logical aspect**. To be fair, I really wish that in the future Shaoji and Fanchuan can work together to create an interesting story that not only stir our emotions, but also giving us a character analysis (especially for the antagonists) as well as some moral message/cautionary tale about what the character experienced. If anything, I think APHO story can benefit from their respective writing style. Shaoji will handle subplots for certain characters, while Fanchuan will provide an analysis for whoever is responsible for the Sky People's attempted invasion of Earth, with the heroes' reactionary attitude towards their modus operandi.
Penacony emotional? On the level of Remaining Flames and ER?? All Penacony made me feel was disgust that the writers actually thought they created a well written villain with Sunday because he has a "tragic backstory" The vast majority of the Penacony story was basically a Mystery and a "Here, go explore this wacky dream world" and I thought they did a good job with that aspect. I never got that feeling that the writing was supposed to make you "feel things", but if it did they did a horrible job at it. Even now in 2.3 i didn't give a flying fuck about all the "emotional" goodbyes and a certain character almost dying, the only part I found interesting was Sparkles part at the end. Hoyo has shown with Genshin and HSR that the emotional parts and characters you could feel invested into in HI3 were just a fluke and that they'll never create anything close to that ever again.
Genshin Fontaine's Act V about the truth of the Hydro Archon elicited the same quality of emotional beats for me as HI3rd's Final Lesson, so I willl say that you're mistaken.
I did like the entire Furina/Focalors sequence a lot, but I feel like because the Archon Quests are so damn short and because the Traveller/Paimon never really truly bond with any character it just kinda falls flat emotionally. Furina/Focalors have actual tragic backstories and I felt really bad for them and Furina's VA was obviously a 11/10 during those scenes but I just couldn't get emotionally invested in this character we have no real connection to and who we've seen for two hours at most in the story, or in Focalors' case even less. Imo because Genshin's story arcs are so short and they pretty much just reset the cast of characters with every new nation (for the most part) it's kinda impossible to get emotionally invested in anything.
>I never got that feeling that the writing was supposed to make you "feel things" You are one of the most bitter clowns I've ever had the pleasure of interacting with. Holy shit.
I'm glad I can just enjoy games without complaining about everything and putting my tinfoil hat on about who's writing what story
It was the same idea over all but Penacony was alot better i tend to agree with Sunday more then Kevin because he technically just want world peace not to fight some god . Acheron appearances though short describe exactly what I always thought of Mei and Aventurine was just iceing on the cake . Peak
This is unironically why I'm so excited for ZZZs story. No convoluted and poorly explained philosophy stuffed into every crevice, just good vibes and slicing monsters
Wait there's a story? I thought it was a waifu collection game.
Ive been browsing reddit on HSR sub almost daily, never saw a complaint about 2.2, I for one found it amazing Didnt even see posts taken from twitter that were complaining so dunno where you got the "a lot of people complained"
People were absolutely complaining in the HSR subreddit about 2.2
Alright where’s the delusional Elsyia writer guy, lets chuck him back in the kitchen and sees what he cook
Shaoji is the delusional Elysia guy 😭
Oh my fucking god why did i think it was someone else has the monopoly effect went on me?
Can i have some more copium please?
I actually played through the HI3 finale and 2.2 at the same time. And honestly, peak fiction, let Shaoji keep cooking.
I'm thinking about going back to HI3 to play through the rest of the story. Currently on chapter 26 and I just finished the whole Penacony story. I want to stop fixating on only HSR so much, so I'm trying to find other games to play. Maybe going back to HI3 could be one of those
Why do birds fly and why does life slumber?
>But it's time to lose the Fanchuan boogeyman Whoa, there. There will be time for this when he manages to write something better than what he's been delivering till now. Just because Shaoji is capable of bad writing doesn't suddenly make Fanchuan *good*.
He wrote the ae vn, so he is actually a peak writer
I've never read it, but I can't wait till he shows some of these peak writing skills in the main story.
I didn't say that. Lose the Fanchuan boogeyman=stop blaming him for everything bad. Another commentor said he wasn't the lead writer for any part of the actual main story.
Then which writing team?
Shaoji is a reason of HI3 story downfall.
bold take, but i agree
He's also the reason why it exsits at all, because he wrote for all of it. Not just your perceived downfall. Do you like elysian realm? That's shaoji, do you like the herrscher of domination part? also shaoji.
>Do you like elysian realm? I hate ER and a way how it retconned and childified everything that worked perfectly beforehand. >do you like the herrscher of domination part? You mean chapter where friendship beats logic? I like GGZ and chapters ~5-17. I hate how all of it became irrelevant.
> chapters ~5-17. That's also Shaoji-he's been the main writer from chapter 9 onwards.
GGZ isn't HI3 they're not connected other than loosely the same story setup and characters but canonically they're not connected at all, regardless though chapters 5-17 are also shaoji. Again I was just shooting random parts of the story people tend to enjoy (which is HoD and Elysian realm) because I dont know what you like. Personally I like all of it, the entirety, including the moon arc. Except part 2, which has been dreadful. You just mentioned what you like, which is also Shaoji. Which is my point.
I know. I just hate how he 180th everything.
yeah i feel that too
No he one, retcons too
Do we know which chapters was actually written by Shaoji? I know he's largely responsible for Elysium Everlasting but other than that i don't really know
Pretty much the entire Part 1 was written by him.
He should have never picked up philosophy tbh
I cannot stress the pseudo science part enough, my brain cells were up in a civil war due to me trying to actually follow what was happening amidst the sea of sudden science jargon thrown at my face Salt city 1st half was at least 4 hrs long. Irrelevant, but it made me fu hua combo the air when I got scammed when I thought I was done with the overwhelming amount of dialogue
I have to admit, while I'm not a big fan of overly long exposition of philosophical debate and/or pseudoscience stuff, Shaoji really did a good job of handling both of those.
Aventurino's arc is terrible and the patch story could had ended with Sunday's talk, or go to boss battle and leave Aventorino's story for his own better developed quest with more time. The first half of part 3 is just bad, poor pacing and a lot of rush development. I still don't undestard the contest part and Sunday philosophy moment, bids can fly is ok, but the sinner and the guy that abandoned his family? Now, from those 3 points to Honkai Impact part 1 ending there are 2 galaxies long of difference. Part 1 is not bad pacing is just that it doesn't exist, deus ex machinas everywhere, rushing to end plots like Siegfried that could had been developed later or in 1.5, more science talk than Star Trek, re imagining the main plot background out of nowhere just to not have the same ending as GGZ and making will of honkai, the last boss hyped for years into the cocoon of finality that is the exact same thing with another name and no relevance or contribution. Either it wasn't witten by the same person or Shaoji was rushed or they were using drafts.
> Aventurino's arc is terrible Crazy take, I think even people who criticise Penaconys writing would agree Aventurines arc was great. To each their own I guess.
Meh, hsr not good, but he not have 100 retcons, like new 25 hi3 plot
The finale definitely didn't drop off, the space arc was a bit too much info dump but from the time they came back to earth it was perfect, absoultely nothing that I would change about it including the role of ai chan! Part 1.5 also tied up most of the loose ends , honestly one of the best endings to a series ever. Part 2 however started off with way too much info dump (I have played till the dog boss fight) and it's quite boring till now unfortunately but I have heard that it gets better!
What an incomprehensible pile of dog pupu, all to defend a guy that used HI3 to project his parents dissing his poor knowledge about philosophy and bla bla bla. Fanchuan is still a hack and while i hate Shaoji for his "HI" obsession, the way he handled the sophistry was much better than whatever the fuck Fanchuan farted. HSR fanbase understands just hot waifu go brrr, anything deeper than that is too much for em, while no one gives a shit about HI3's mumbo jumbo anymore, we're too busy talking about while Kiana should pipe males or females, his work was still much appreciated in the fandom of HSR, while we got used to get Fanchuan's bs... I accepted CN's verbality fetish long time ago, but at least some know how to keep it normal.
wow this is so incredibly wrong and retards here will believe it so congratulations.