Honkai: Star Rail 3.3 review – This is what we call pay-off

HoYoverse and its cliffhangers — seldom have I been as angry at seeing “to be continued” on my screen as I was at the end of Honkai: Star Rail 3.3’s main story, but I suppose that’s one of the greatest compliments one could give any writer. And, looking on the bright side, this means that there’s lots more to come, of course.

HSR 3.3 was emotional, had great pacing, showed wonderful improvement when it comes to its presentation, and was full of exciting moments and thrilling twists. The only complaint I have is that it didn’t allow us to beat a certain antagonist into the dirt, like she would have deserved ten thousand times over.

With the dust having settled and the ink on this chapter drying, it’s time to look back at HSR 3.3, read too much into every little detail, and talk about the good and not-so-good parts of the patch — naturally, this will touch on spoilers, so please only read on if you’ve already played through the latest story drop or don’t care about knowing what happens.

A moment worthy of song: The Aquila fight

For many Honkai: Star Rail players, the moment they fell in love with this game can be named very easily: It was during the climactic battle against Cocolia on Belobog, back in HSR 1.0. The Trailblazer gets struck down, but miraculously survives thanks to the gaze of Qlipoth, the Aeon of Preservation, and returns to the battle wielding a brand-new weapon. Cocolia then uses the power of the Stellaron, throwing a whole damned meteorite on your party, and the song Wildfire kicks in to set the hype meters to maximum.

HSR 3.3 managed the feat of replicating that moment. After bringing down Aquila, the Sky Titan, the group of heroes tries to escape the crumbling sky fortress, only to be surprised by the dead Titan’s body — now commanded by the will of Seliose, a Chrysos Heir whose disappointment in humanity made her lose all faith and empathy.

First of all, this moment was a big surprise. We’ve seen Aquila’s body sink into a lake of molten gold, after all. And then the song kicks in, giving the battle this incredibly heroic undertone. One might think that the song should have been used during the first confrontation with Aquila, but in a way this second fight was more important than that — we’d already slain a god before, but this showdown was personal due to all the things we’d learnt while exploring the fortress, about the story of Seliose and the truth about Hyacine’s ancestors.

Then there’s also the way the fight was presented: The shots of Hyacine using her battle pose, but with different camera angles, Aquila’s magnificent attacks, and the use of cinematics that really felt straight out of an anime finale — dare we call it Hyacinema?

I do think that HoYoverse could have made this battle a bit tougher, because as it was the epic song about overcoming the odds didn’t quite match the (lack of) struggle on screen — perhaps giving it two phases once again would have been better, making the wonderful sequence last a bit longer.

Fighting those who cried yap: Pacing

If you follow HSR, you know the criticism uttered by a loud minority of fans: There is too much ‘yapping’ and the words are too big. If it was up to me, I wouldn’t listen to anyone using that word, but HoYoverse has been trying its best to accommodate everyone and the results were visible in this patch.

During the sequence that had Hyacine gather up her ancestor spirits and later while exploring her family’s history on the Eye of Twilight, players had the option of skipping the dialog diving into these areas of the story.

I think this was a very good way of handling the problem at hand, namely HSR having to cater towards totally different player types at the same time. Those who enjoy the lore and have no problem reading dialog can dive in deeper to immerse themselves in the world and those who don’t can progress at a faster rate. Everyone wins.

However, the patch also showed the slippery slope in that line of thinking. Following the story, you can visit Herta Space Station’s Seclusion Zone, where four memory bubbles will await you. They contain potentially crucial information about the nature of Amphoreus, courtesy of The Herta and Screwllum, and will likely become quite important as the story goes on. As it is now, they are quite easy to miss. 

One can’t help but think that the conversations in these memory bubbles were originally meant to be part of the main story, but the devs cut them out to react to the community feedback about the amount of dialog. And that’s the fear that a lot of fans had in the first place — that lore and world-building could be stripped away to avoid further ‘yapping’ accusations.

HSR 3.3 both handled the challenge well and served as a warning for the potential dangers.

Speaking of implementing feedback, though, you could tell that the camerawork is getting a bit more dynamic in HSR now, which is a net plus. We’re not at the Genshin Impact or Wuthering Waves level yet, but progress is progress and needs to be lauded.

Pay-off galore: Death

What really made HSR 3.3 stand out is how well the time we spent with Amphoreus’ characters since HSR 3.0 has paid off. Characters dying usually feels a bit cheap, because we know they come back somehow – and that won’t be different here, given Amphoreus’ cyclical nature – but HoYoverse made these deaths punchy in spite of that. They meant something.

Aglaea, the supposed ruthless tyrant, is killed by what little compassion and humanity she has left, only to find a way to still fulfill her duty towards the Flame-Chase Journey — and complete the prophecy of ending in molten gold. History lovers who bet on her getting Caesar’d still won, though, because her mortal body did get stabbed and the assassination, like that of Caesar, is what ultimately led to the downfall of the people who planned it.

Speaking of which, I really would have liked to stomp Caenis personally, but I get why Phainon didn’t let us.

Cipher is the big surprise of the patch for me. Her relationship with Aglaea was explored very well from both ends and the twist about her power was awesome. Cipher can make any lie a reality if enough people believe it and that ultimately bought Amphoreus 700 years of additional time. She convinced everyone that Kephale’s sun would shine forever, instead of the 300 years it really did. But the power even works on herself: The shoes Aglaea gifted her made her super fast, because she believed they did. And that Aglaea talking to her as she lay dying in Styxia, that was probably one of those white lies to herself as well.

Cipher’s little lie explained so much about her behavior and why she was absent for so much of the Flame-Chase Journey — by staying out of the way, trying to avoid her prophesied end, she literally saved the world, because she knew everything will fall apart the moment she dies. And so it did, once the Flame Reaver got her. Add Aglaea’s regrets about her into the mix, and you really have got the stuff for a classic Greek tragedy right there.

Oh, and we owe Bartholos – or Zagreus, as we now know – a big apology for calling him nothing more than an annoying nuisance all this time. Well played, Trickery Titan. Well played.

It’s also a great throwback to HSR 3.0 as a whole, which started off with Okhema under siege by Nikador and ended with it being restored to peace by the Chrysos Heirs. In HSR 3.3, it’s literally the end of the world. There are dead everywhere and the city is burning, but there are no more Chrysos Heirs to protect it.

Suffering builds character: Phainon

I generally don’t like savior characters like Phainon. You know, goody-two-shoes heroes that are super whiny all the time, but it’s alright because they’re overpowered. And he was like that right at the start, so I didn’t care much about him. Now that he’s been through some stuff, that we’ve seen some more of his complexity, he’s a lot more interesting — and given that he’s the one that’s left alive, that was necessary. But it shows how right the HSR team was about taking the time to explore these characters and let each of them have their part in this epic.

More HSR on DBLTAP:

The Simulated Universe sends its regards: Lore

Once again, the content of the Simulated Universe game mode is gaining utmost relevance in the main plot, this time in the form of Emperor Rubert’s Scepters. These ancient relics are an incredibly devastating force if used to their full potential and the one on Amphoreus has been out there ever since Machine Emperor’s fall — if Lygus is some sort of administrator or even product of the Scepter, it’s no wonder that even The Herta and Screwllum together are having a hard time piercing his defenses.

Speaking of Lygus: Have you seen the murals on the Eye of Twilight, which depict a different myth of genesis than the one we know involving the Titans? Doesn’t that alternative creator resemble Lygus? I think they do.

With Phainon being in the spotlight next time, Cyrene finally coming into the picture, and Lygus being there to watch it all, we should finally be getting some more answers and figure out how The Destruction is involved in all this as well. And there better be a crumb about what’s up with March 7th.

Anyway, HSR 3.3 was a strong showing and really underlined that the team is right about being ambitious with this storyline, even if the road to get here was a bumpy one. But paraphrasing our pal Gnaeus, no epic is worth writing that is without challenges, right?