Honkai Impact 3rd
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Honkai Impact 3rd (Chinese: 崩坏3; pinyin: Bēng Huài 3), also called Houkai 3rd (Japanese: 崩壊3rd, Hepburn: Hōkai 3rd), is an action role-playing game developed and published by miHoYo in mainland China and worldwide by Cognosphere, d/b/a HoYoverse for Android, iOS and Microsoft Windows. It is the spiritual successor to Guns GirlZ, featuring many characters from the previous title in a separate story. The game is notable for incorporating a variety of genres, from hack and slash and social simulation, to elements of bullet hell, platforming, shoot 'em up, and dungeon crawling across multiple single and co-op multiplayer modes.
Gameplay
In an alternate version of Earth, plagued by catastrophes resulting from "Honkai" (in Chinese translates as "Chaos", while in Japanese, it is said "Houkai"). Honkai is largely viewed as a malevolent force with a will of its own, able to corrupt humans into undead creatures, manifest itself in the form of various monsters, and select various individuals known as "Herrschers" to imbue with god-like powers able to trigger apocalyptic events. The Honkai is a cyclic phenomenon, returning to end civilization on Earth each time it gets too advanced - the Previous Era ended 50,000 years prior to the game's start, after the 14th Herrscher defeated humanity.
In the present day, various global factions exist to combat or take advantage of the power of Honkai. These include "Schicksal", a European-based peace keeping organization that deploys human warriors known as Valkyries to combat the Honkai; "Anti-Entropy", formerly the North American branch of Schicksal that objected to the use of human soldiers in favor of mechanized robots; and "World Serpent", a shadow organization manipulating events since the end of the Previous Era.
Prior to the story's start, three Herrscher awakenings (or "Impacts") have occurred in the Current Era: the Herrscher of Reason who became the leader of Anti-Entropy instead of fighting humanity, the Herrscher of the Void who was defeated by Schicksal and Anti-Entropy in 2000, and the Herrscher of Lightning who was prevented from fully awakening and sent to train her powers as a Valkyrie at Schicksal's St. Freya Academy.
Why It Rocks
- It has a very expansive and complex story that only continues to grow over time with many gripping twists and events being added into the storyline as the game continues.
- The gameplay is very well animated and the graphics are beautiful to look at, and can even make you feel as if you're in the actual game because they're just that good!
- The cutscenes are also very well animated and intriguing.
- Phenomenal Japanese voice acting. Especially considering how it has voice actors like Rie Kugimiya as Kiana (who also voices Taiga Aisaka from Toradora!, Happy from Fairy Tail, Kagura from Gintama, Juuzou Suzuya from Tokyo Ghoul, Karin Kurosaki from Bleach, Anne from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, Rise Kujikawa from Persona 4, Alphonse Elric/Catherine Elle Armstrong from Fullmetal Alchemist, and Kagura Sohma from Fruits Bsket), Miyuki Sawashiro as Mei (who also voices Izuna Hatsune from No Game No Life, Jolyne Kujo from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star/Eyes of Heaven, Toko Fukawa/Genocide Jack from Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Kurapika from Hunter X Hunter, and Aka no Saber from the Fate series), Kana Asumi as Bronya (who also voices Blanc/White Heart from the Hyperdimension Neptunia series, Sakura Kanō from Toradora!, Touko Hio from Witch Craft Works, Irie from Angel Beats!, and Marika Tachibana from Nisekoi), and Rie Tanaka as Himeko (who also voices Vivian Wong from Yu-Gi-Oh!, Mitsuru Kirijio from Persona 3, Darya Nikitina fro Dr. Stone, Chizuru Aizawa from Squid Girl, Neptune from the Hyperdimension Neptunia series, Yuri Koigakubo from Toradora!).
- Lovable and complex, deep characters.
- Kiana Kaslana, the main character, is introduced as a lazy, happy-go-lucky, carefree girl. But as the games goes on, and more about her past and the world around her is revealed to her, (including the fight against her Herrscher self, Himeko's death, and learning she's actually a clone of the real Kiana), she matures and becomes much more responsible and serious. She still smiles and shows a happy face every now and then, but they're now more subdued.
- Raiden Mei is a kind, friendly, humble, gentle and considerate girl who strive to always help her friends and loved ones to the best of her abilities. She's also fiercely protective of Kiana, and would do anything to save her, as shown when she re-awakens her Herrscher self and joins the World Serpent to save the former upon learning her condition would kill her in two months.
- Bronya Zaychik is a stoic and quiet girl who was raised as a solider as a child, but captured and brought to an orphanage where numerous experiments were put on the children. She got bullied by one of the orphans there and later got pushed down the stairs, resulting in her being crippled. The closest thing she had to a close friend there was Seele, who became a victim to one of the experiments; in the process of trying to get to her, Bronya went through with the same experiment, which caused her to suffer brain damage and lose her emotions. While she eventually got prosthetics from the Schicksal, she was still traumatized from her past and still occasionally has lingering feelings over her lost friend. Over the course of the story, she slowly but surely learns to trust and rely on those around her.
- Yae Sakura is a girl who was traumatized after her younger sister was sacrificed by the very village she protects to "appease the gods", and the villagers by and large showed no remorse whatsoever towards her despite that, and were generally very rude and ungrateful to her. Even when she managed to find the closest thing to love and happiness in Kallen, she still ended up being possessed by a Honkai Beast due to her lingering negative emotions, and ended up having to be defeated and sealed by Kallen. For 500 years after that, she existed in a "stigmata world" where, due to the Honkai Beast's influence, she was forced to relieve her dark past countless times so that the beast could fully take over her body and consciousness. Thankfully, she's able to escape this fate, as (with Kiana’s interference) the Honkai Beast is slain, making her free from her curse.
- Himeko Murata, the commander-in-chief of the Valkyrie Squad Fifth Platoon and is the superior officer of Kiana, Mei and Bronya, is a woman who Aenlisted in the Honkai Fighting Strategy Unit Training Program a year after the death of her father, in order to find out the truth. She later became a very distinguished combatant and commander with the rank of Major. Himeko takes her job very seriously. She considers herself a warrior who fights Honkai beasts and protects innocent lives. Himeko is very headstrong, to the point where some may consider her reckless. She will go out of her way to act strong in front of her comrades to inspire them to keep fighting.
- Fu Hua, class monitor of St. Freya High, is a strict and studious girl. Despite her serious and no-nonsense personality, it's clear that she cares about the people around her. Chapter 20 also reveals that long ago, she used to be rather ruthless when it comes to fighting Honkai threats, with her motto of "no mercy for the corrupted". Even in the present, she gets to beat up Kiana in the "Moon Shadow" manga and in ch. 6 of the game when the latter shows signs of Honkai corruption i.e she starts awakening as a Herrscher. In ch. 11-EX, even after realizing her mistake (being duped by Otto to bring Kiana to him, so he can awaken her fully as a Herrscher), she still advises Kiana on not confronting the Honkai at all as she doesn't want Herrscher of the Void to be awakened again. But when Kiana is pushed into attempting suicide in order to stop the Herrscher inside her, Fu Hua instead stops her, even though it'll be in line with her old "philosophy", as she cares enough for her and Himeko's wishes for her. So she chose to help Kiana in her whole "mission" as much as she can, primarily by assisting her in controlling the latter's Herrscher powers.
- The character designs are also incredibly creative and just pleasant to look at, especially for the Herrschers and Valkyries' Battlesuits. So much so that some of them are hard to actually describe some of them due to how detailed and complex they are.
- The soundtracks, such as Starfall, Dual Ego, Nightglow, Cyberangel, Lament of the Fallen, and Befall (just to name a few examples) are simply phenomenal.
- The Dorms have chibi versions of the characters doing cute things with an incredibly peaceful lullaby as a background music, which probably a good way to cure depression and fatigue. And watching the chibis get up to their antics is just adorable. It's also a nice break from all the dark and serious plotlines during the main gameplay.
- The spinoff comic and anime "Cooking with Valkyries" will help you ease your heart. With no shortage of endearingly heartwarming and funny scenes, on top of the mouthwateringly tasty cooking scenes.
- The game even pushed the boundaries of what mobile games can achieve when it comes to gameplay. In fact, this game is a good example of how hack'n slash games can be played on mobile.
Bad Qualities
- The story picked up slowly at first, with the first few chapters being rather boring. However, it picked up very quickly after this.
- Wendy, Ana Schariac, and Owl were all interesting characters who unfortunately, didn't get enough screen time to fully build their characters. making them feel like wasted potentials for characters.
- Otto Apocalypse is an unlikeable and the worst character due being creepy to love Kallen.
- The game being censored, namely the removal of the ability to touch the Valkyries on the main menu on the CN, KR and Global version has been a rather contentious issues within the game’s fanbase. Some people don't mind not having the feature, while others swear off playing the Global version because of its removal.
- Some of the game's combat features are too similar to Bayonetta and Devil May Cry, making it a bit of a clone of those games in spite of it's vastly different storyline.
- The game can be quite grinding sometimes.
Trivia
- This game takes place in a separate continuity of Guns GirlZ, Zombiegal Kawaii, and FlyMe2theMoon.
- An example is the objective of the main protagonist. In FlyMe2theMoon, Kiana was already willing to fix the sacred place of the moon, while in Honkai Impact 3rd, she was more carefree in the beginning. In fact, the latter continuity shows they are not the exact same character, as that continuity reveals that Kiana is a clone.