An update for Honkai: Star Rail
Version 2.2 of Honkai: Star Rail, which includes: • New characters: Robin and Boothill • New quality of life updates • …and more!
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If you wanna swim, you first gotta learn how to sink...
This review contains spoilers
With Penacony's main story starting to come to a close, I figured I may as well write down my thoughts since it’s an arc that fumbled almost all its potential (Aventurine, you're too good for this world) in a deeply frustrating way. But before that, let me list some of the things I liked since there are some pretty good ideas and iterations!
First, the environments and music are still absolutely top-notch and really sell me on Penacony being this hyper-capitalist escapist dream with a perfectly manufactured atmosphere. Every battle theme is a hit, and the final boss of the patch is accompanied by another great vocal song to cap off the arc. The puzzles are still solid even if the pacing can be a little off (playing 15 stages of the new Hanu mini-game in a row turned my brain to mush (yes I know I didn't have to play every stage all at once, but as soon as I see a mini-game in front of me, I am compelled to play it all)). And lastly, the set-pieces. For all its faults, the final boss does a really great job of bringing the characters of this patch together, and moments like Firefly's motif playing during her scene are the exact type of thing I love. But that's where my praises end so time to get into my issues!
These two things were detrimental problems to the Xianzhou arc and unfortunately, Penacony hasn't improved much on either: characterization and exposition. Most of the cast is given little-to-no characterization or screentime, only serving as dialogue machines to move the plot along. Sparkle, Black Swan, Acheron, Gallagher, Robin, Boothill, and especially the entire Astral crew are just so empty that it's impossible for me to care about any of them. Contrast Robin to Sunday; you discover the impetus behind his drive and desire to unite everything under Order, and how the outcomes of the decisions to grant a few people freedom have changed him. Then we have Robin, who gets pretty much nothing; nothing that backs her opposition to Sunday and nothing to build up their relationship as anything more than generic orphan siblings who care about each other. There is one scene that gives her some character while delving into her backstory, showing her suffering an injury on a war-ridden planet yet continuing to push on. This could've been an opportunity to really explore what makes Robin walk a different path, but instead, it's second-hand characterization given through Sunday mostly expositing at the player.
And that's my biggest issue with the game: that any interesting idea is immediately cast aside in favor of flavorless exposition. That HSR is so unwilling to engage with its themes and just wants to provide another (admittedly very nice looking) spectacle while most of its cast vomits exposition or dances around irrelevant HI3 references. It's incredibly frustrating because there are so many interesting ideas that don't get the time they need to be fleshed out, which makes its failure to capitalize on them so much more annoying. In the Main Story Quests (thankfully the side quests are better), we only get mere glimpses into why people want to stay there forever. We meet some people who are trying to escape their past, and some who want to build their fortune, but there's one example that stands out to me. Eventually, we meet an old man: one who’s dying of a terminal illness and whose only source of reprieve is the Dreamscape. This idea isn't anything new (and executed far, far better in Caligula Effect 2), but there's at least something interesting to explore here! While Penacony serves as a prison to many, killing all ambition and letting them live their lives away in a city of hedonism, it offers a solution to this man's physical pain in the real world and an opportunity to live his final moments peacefully. But instead of engaging with this in any meaningful capacity, the game simply mentions that maybe there's another solution out there, and then moves on without a second thought. A similar idea is explored through Firefly and her poorly defined/explored Entropy Loss Syndrome, but, again, there's so little depth to any of it., that her defiance against Sunday doesn't have the weight it should.
There's one more issue I have, and it’s one that bothers me even more than the anemic character writing or constant exposition: the dialogue choices. I'd like to imagine that this isn't a problem (or at least not as big of one) in the other languages, but HSR's English dialogue choices during pivotal story moments are so strikingly terrible and show a lack of respect for the game's own story, that I have to wonder how they even made it in. Some times it's inserting cringe modern pop-culture references into every other choice and others it's undercutting the climax of a patch by having your awful half-silent protag say "Mommy look I'm on TV" (yeah this is from 2.1, but the point stands) seconds before fighting the main antagonist of a patch, but the result is a story that can't take itself seriously even in its best moments. I understand that Caelus/Stelle are supposed to be goofballs to an extent, but at least restrain yourself when it actually matters!
Maybe I'm being too hard on Star Rail, but when I think about how FGO managed to put out something like Camelot (which for all its problems is still a chapter that holds up today) almost a decade ago, it's disappointing to see that a gacha of this scale can't even come close. Hell, even Genshin managed to stick its landing with Chasm and (for the most part) Sumeru.
Also why were there like 5 fake out deaths in Penacony
First, the environments and music are still absolutely top-notch and really sell me on Penacony being this hyper-capitalist escapist dream with a perfectly manufactured atmosphere. Every battle theme is a hit, and the final boss of the patch is accompanied by another great vocal song to cap off the arc. The puzzles are still solid even if the pacing can be a little off (playing 15 stages of the new Hanu mini-game in a row turned my brain to mush (yes I know I didn't have to play every stage all at once, but as soon as I see a mini-game in front of me, I am compelled to play it all)). And lastly, the set-pieces. For all its faults, the final boss does a really great job of bringing the characters of this patch together, and moments like Firefly's motif playing during her scene are the exact type of thing I love. But that's where my praises end so time to get into my issues!
These two things were detrimental problems to the Xianzhou arc and unfortunately, Penacony hasn't improved much on either: characterization and exposition. Most of the cast is given little-to-no characterization or screentime, only serving as dialogue machines to move the plot along. Sparkle, Black Swan, Acheron, Gallagher, Robin, Boothill, and especially the entire Astral crew are just so empty that it's impossible for me to care about any of them. Contrast Robin to Sunday; you discover the impetus behind his drive and desire to unite everything under Order, and how the outcomes of the decisions to grant a few people freedom have changed him. Then we have Robin, who gets pretty much nothing; nothing that backs her opposition to Sunday and nothing to build up their relationship as anything more than generic orphan siblings who care about each other. There is one scene that gives her some character while delving into her backstory, showing her suffering an injury on a war-ridden planet yet continuing to push on. This could've been an opportunity to really explore what makes Robin walk a different path, but instead, it's second-hand characterization given through Sunday mostly expositing at the player.
And that's my biggest issue with the game: that any interesting idea is immediately cast aside in favor of flavorless exposition. That HSR is so unwilling to engage with its themes and just wants to provide another (admittedly very nice looking) spectacle while most of its cast vomits exposition or dances around irrelevant HI3 references. It's incredibly frustrating because there are so many interesting ideas that don't get the time they need to be fleshed out, which makes its failure to capitalize on them so much more annoying. In the Main Story Quests (thankfully the side quests are better), we only get mere glimpses into why people want to stay there forever. We meet some people who are trying to escape their past, and some who want to build their fortune, but there's one example that stands out to me. Eventually, we meet an old man: one who’s dying of a terminal illness and whose only source of reprieve is the Dreamscape. This idea isn't anything new (and executed far, far better in Caligula Effect 2), but there's at least something interesting to explore here! While Penacony serves as a prison to many, killing all ambition and letting them live their lives away in a city of hedonism, it offers a solution to this man's physical pain in the real world and an opportunity to live his final moments peacefully. But instead of engaging with this in any meaningful capacity, the game simply mentions that maybe there's another solution out there, and then moves on without a second thought. A similar idea is explored through Firefly and her poorly defined/explored Entropy Loss Syndrome, but, again, there's so little depth to any of it., that her defiance against Sunday doesn't have the weight it should.
There's one more issue I have, and it’s one that bothers me even more than the anemic character writing or constant exposition: the dialogue choices. I'd like to imagine that this isn't a problem (or at least not as big of one) in the other languages, but HSR's English dialogue choices during pivotal story moments are so strikingly terrible and show a lack of respect for the game's own story, that I have to wonder how they even made it in. Some times it's inserting cringe modern pop-culture references into every other choice and others it's undercutting the climax of a patch by having your awful half-silent protag say "Mommy look I'm on TV" (yeah this is from 2.1, but the point stands) seconds before fighting the main antagonist of a patch, but the result is a story that can't take itself seriously even in its best moments. I understand that Caelus/Stelle are supposed to be goofballs to an extent, but at least restrain yourself when it actually matters!
Maybe I'm being too hard on Star Rail, but when I think about how FGO managed to put out something like Camelot (which for all its problems is still a chapter that holds up today) almost a decade ago, it's disappointing to see that a gacha of this scale can't even come close. Hell, even Genshin managed to stick its landing with Chasm and (for the most part) Sumeru.
Also why were there like 5 fake out deaths in Penacony
If not a little long winded, a very awesome and ineteresting wrap up to the main story of penacony. Super stoked for more.
PENACONY MELHOR PLANETA²
Consumed too many truth vs fiction like themes nowadays it must be fated after all.
Interesting themes in terms of the world, my only qualms is that the villain has an important connection to a character who pretty much got focused on a bit too late into the story. (And even then they didnt get the focus THAT much)
Good story though!
Interesting themes in terms of the world, my only qualms is that the villain has an important connection to a character who pretty much got focused on a bit too late into the story. (And even then they didnt get the focus THAT much)
Good story though!
No voy a suspenderlo porque tampoco creo que lo merezca y está mejor que Xianzhou, pero que Penacony haya acabado siendo una historia apresurada y recortada a la vez hace que me frustre y me ponga triste porque muchas ideas están chulísimas pero en mi opinión no están muy bien ejecutadas o hay cosas que me faltan o fallan. Si no la hubieran hecho en tres parches nada más y hubieran metido misiones de personajes a algunos como Robin o Sparkle (la cual la tuvo pero estuvo fusionada con Black Swan y no aportó apenas nada), quizás me hubiera sentido más satisfecha.
No sé, está regular organizada. Por ejemplo, teniendo en cuenta que el parche anterior fue exclusivamente de un personaje, cuya parte de la historia podía haber estado en una tachán misión de personaje y luego aquí lo que este personaje hizo en el anterior parche ha pasado desapercibido o detrás de cámaras... pues... tío, para eso enfócate un poco más en el resto de los personajes en el anterior y no intentes que en el último parche entre todo lo demás que falta, porque se nota y mucho bajo mi punto de vista. Pienso que había mucho más textaco dentro de Penacony pero por fuerza han querido meterlo todo en tres parches, lo cual no se puede siendo una historia con tantos porros, o dicho de otra manera más educada, compleja y con mucho que contar. Dicho esto, tampoco han parado de repetir cosas que ya sabíamos, pero otras las han dejado sin explicar o no las han explicado del todo bien, lo cual hizo más que cuando acabase el parche, me sintiera muy confusa y con una cara de "¿Y ya estaría? ¿Y esto? ¿Y esto otro?"
No sé, está regular organizada. Por ejemplo, teniendo en cuenta que el parche anterior fue exclusivamente de un personaje, cuya parte de la historia podía haber estado en una tachán misión de personaje y luego aquí lo que este personaje hizo en el anterior parche ha pasado desapercibido o detrás de cámaras... pues... tío, para eso enfócate un poco más en el resto de los personajes en el anterior y no intentes que en el último parche entre todo lo demás que falta, porque se nota y mucho bajo mi punto de vista. Pienso que había mucho más textaco dentro de Penacony pero por fuerza han querido meterlo todo en tres parches, lo cual no se puede siendo una historia con tantos porros, o dicho de otra manera más educada, compleja y con mucho que contar. Dicho esto, tampoco han parado de repetir cosas que ya sabíamos, pero otras las han dejado sin explicar o no las han explicado del todo bien, lo cual hizo más que cuando acabase el parche, me sintiera muy confusa y con una cara de "¿Y ya estaría? ¿Y esto? ¿Y esto otro?"