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herrscherofmagic · 2 months

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Not sure if this is a hot take, but...

I think Honkai Impact 3rd "Part 2" should have been its own game.

This has been on my mind for a while, and now that a lot of stuff has happened in the Hoyoverse (ending of HI3rd Part 2's first story arc, the end of the Fontaine arc, end of the Penacony arc, and the launch of ZZZ) I think now's a good time to share some of these thoughts.

(warning: MASSIVE wall of text bellow the cut)

I think there was a lot of uncertainty in the community when Part 2 was revealed; there were mixed feelings about the end of Part 1, and I know some folks were worried Part 2 would deviate too far from the core identity of "Honkai Impact 3rd".

However, as we're nearing the end of Part 2's first arc, I think Part 2 has actually done great on delivering a proper "Honkai Impact 3rd" experience. The writing still has much of the characteristic features of Honkai, and I think the character development has been great. It's got an interesting cast, cool setting, and it had a fairly straightforward opening story arc.

And yet, I can't help but feel like it could have been so, so much more if it weren't shackled by the older coding, gameplay, and story of HI3rd.

This isn't meant to trash on HI3rd Part 1, at least not too much. I loved Part 1 and Part 1.5, and I'd still play HI3rd regardless of whether it had Part 2 as we know it now.

But at the same time, every time I play Part 2 and I walk through Oxia, explore Langqiu, fight with the Astral Ring characters, hear the OST, read the in-game texts...

...it makes me think that Part 2 could have been an incredible game if it stood alone and was built from the ground up.

From a story perspective, I think the core themes of Part 2 would exist regardless of Part 1's presence. Since much of the important backstory of Part 2 happened literally millions of years before the events of Part 1, none of that would have to change.

Of course, as we go deeper into Part 2 (as it exists right now), there will be more and more connection with Part 1. But Oxia and Langqiu, the four continents of Luoxing, the story of the Seven Shus, the Astral Ring... these concepts all stand on their own with or without the events of Part 1.

If Part 2 were its own game, it could be set entirely in the past. There'd be no intervention from Earth because Earth would hardly even have multicellular life at this point. As for Venus (known in-game as Purusha by its prior civilization), it'd still have life at this point.

What's more, Helia and Coralie can easily be written as Luoxing natives! To keep the core theme of "two explorers are lost in the Sea of Data and get caught up in an adventure", they can come from a different bubble world instead- a bubble world that hasn't had any contact with Oxia yet.

So a lot of the things that Part 2 does well don't necessarily rely on the events on Earth. We don't need Schicksal or AE or the Herrscher of Finality, since Luoxing had its own civilization and its own organizations and its own... Herrscher? Whatever Sena's origin is, lol

For gameplay, the benefit is obvious: a brand new system.

The Astral Ring system would be its own brand-new thing, and it wouldn't be this meta-shifting chasm between the old and new in HI3rd. It'd be an equivalent to Genshin's elemental reactions, HSR's Break system, and ZZZ's anomalies (shock, corruption, etc.). So it could be more naturally implemented into the game mechanics.

Plus, no more "sorry guys, girls only!" for playable characters because it'd be its own game, so male characters like Baiji could have a chance at being playable. It wouldn't help the HI3rd male cast (Welt, Otto, Siegfried, etc.) become playable, but it at least unlocks the possibility of plenty of future male designs from Luoxing.

For the environment and general player experience, so many systems could be polished and developed far beyond what we have right now. Seeing what ZZZ's accomplished with its world and NPCs, if Part 2 (as a standalone) released after ZZZ, then that dev team could've built up even further on ZZZ's successes.

The UI is already pretty great, and it could just get even more features and fidelity. The navigation could be more interesting, for instance, with a better-developed map system and a similar concept to HSR's astral chart, where you could see locations like Oxia and Langqiu within the Sea of Data.

Oxia City itself could've launched with more locations, and more developed locations. The civic services, stores like Sweet Tooth and Antique Ink, the library, all these places could have more mechanics associated with them. The apartment system (the Part 2 "dorm") could be more flexible and have more variety to it. The Data Research Institute could be its own major location to visit with lots of characters to meet and interact with, too. Even Langqiu could have more locations!

We also could have more unique designs for a lot of the minor and major NPCs. There could be much more fidelity for NPC expressions and designs, and even playable characters would benefit from this too.

And don't even get me started on how great it'd be to explore more of Oxia City! Imagine if the city park we sometimes visit in the story could be its own big open location to visit. Or imagine we could use the light rail system to travel to other buildings and neighborhoods and explore more of the city that way.

Perhaps most importantly, it could develop its own unique style. Just as Genshin has its fairytail/fantasy vibe, HSR has the space opera theme going on, and ZZZ is urban life with a splash of eldritch horrors.

When I look at Oxia City, I kinda see it as the inverse of ZZZ's New Eridu.

New Eridu is similar to Oxia City in that they're both bastions of civilization in a post-apocalyptic scenario. But unlike New Eridu, Oxia City is much more tranquil (at least for now) and it's almost utopian in some ways.

It's got very developed infrastructure and research and it's not burdened by the need to invest heavily in fighting off a constant onslaught of monsters. This could change, but it at least gives a different starting point for the story's vibes.

In ZZZ, the Hollow Investigative Association and White Star Institute are the "establishment" while the Proxies and Hollow Raiders are the "underground" part of society. Since the MCs are Proxies, their behavior and lifestyle is greatly shaped by the clandestine nature of their work.

But in Oxia, it'd be different. Instead of laying low as a Proxy, the main character, Entropy is more like the researcher Ray of the White Star Institute. They wouldn't have to shy away from the authorities because they're fully part of the establishment. They get access to a lot of the resources and funding of the Data Research Institute, so this gives them a drastically different lifestyle than the Proxies of New Eridu.

This doesn't mean Oxia City has to be all prim and proper, though. It just means that we could see an MC with a different twist on the city life theme.

Plus it could have an even more cohesive OST. I already like the HI3rd Part 2 soundtracks, but there's not much of a common theme in them. It's something HI3rd's always suffered from, as it's always a collection of many disconnected pieces of music. It's pretty rare to see consistent use of musical motifs to denote locations, factions, or characters outside of literally a handful of the most important characters.

Furthermore, Part 2 has something unique about it that makes it stand out even more from all the rest of the Hoyoverse. Because most of it's backstory takes place long ago, we could have the same familiar setting of the solar system but drastically changed.

As I mentioned before, Earth would barely have developed life, and Venus/Purusha would have its own ecosystems and maybe even a civilization, a distant predecessor to the final civilization of Purusha. So even Earth itself would have a drastically different appearance due to plate tectonics and the climate. The game might start post-Great Eruption, when Oxia City is already in the Sea of Data, but as we learn about Luoxing's past we'd laso learn about its familiar-yet-unfamiliar neighbors.

This is such a unique concept, and it's a strong advantage. I think it'd be amazing if Part 2 could've been heavily marketed with this concept. There's countless examples of space exploration of the Sol system in sci-fi but very few explore the "what if?" of past life on Earth's neighbors. Part 2 filling that niche in the Hoyoverse would be simply incredible.

Not to mention how cool it is that we have so many allusions to the real life geography (or more specifically, areography). The four continents of Luoxing being based on four regions of Mars, the famous features like Olympus Mons and Valles Marineris being iconic locations in the Luoxing civilization, and so on.

That's already in Part 2 as it is right now but it could be expanded upon even more in a stand-alone game. Just imagine if the Part 2 main screen wasn't the elevator of HI3rd (though I love that elevator with a burning passion, don't get me wrong), but instead the main screen was a view of ancient Luoxing with it's blue oceans and green lands, the aurora, the clouds, the city lights in the night side of the world.

And so many of these locations would be the foundations for places to explore later in the Sea of Data. These Mars bubble worlds would be the Part 2 equivalent of Genshin's 7 nations, the countless worlds connecting by HSR's Star Rail, or the neighborhoods of New Eridu. So places like Langqiu could have more to see, more to do, and more to experience within them.

Despite all this rambling, I still genuinely have hope for the outlook of Part 2 as it exists right now. I think the developers still had a tremendous passion for this story and game, and I'm willing to let them cook as long as they need to.

Yet... Part 2 is burdened by so much of HI3rd's legacy content.

When I first got into ZZZ, I was blown away by how smooth and appealing so much of the player experience was. It all felt so cohesive and polished, and a lot of the activities feel so natural. Walking down Sixth Street, seeing the familiar faces of other store owners, running the video store, all of this just feels right.

I don't get quite the same feeling in Oxia. But I still love Oxia dearly, and I'd even go so far as to say that Oxia City feels more like home to me than St. Freya ever did. I can't say it has the same polish and detail of ZZZ's New Eridu, but when I explore Oxia I feel like the writers and artists and all the other developers are trying their damned hardest to make it work with what they've got.

I just wish Mihoyo could've handed the dev team a big stack of cash, a few years, and said "cook up the game of your dreams" and allowed them to come up with a brand-new experience just like ZZZ.

I don't know why Part 2 had to exist in this form. I doubt it couldn't exist without Part 1's story, but there could be other reasons. Maybe it's a cost issue, maybe they had no other ideas to continue HI3rd (APHO, though?), maybe they didn't have enough developers willing to start a new project, maybe maybe maybe...

I can't put any blame on the actual developers themselves. I don't even know if management is to blame, or if anyone is to blame. But whatever the complex web of causation truly is, the result is that Part 2 is exactly that: Part 2 of "Honkai Impact 3rd". It didn't get its own game with its own development process and its own standalone story.

That just feels like such a missed opportunity.

#it's a kinda-low effort post cause i'm a bit tired and i'll be too busy next week to make a proper post w/ effort x-x #but i've been wanting to talk about this for a while and i'll definitely elaborate more on it someday #this is a long and rambly post but I'm just spewing random thoughts off the top of my head #i really want to make a proper “Oxia appreciation post” with pictures and video #I want to show everyone what I say when I talk about how much I love this place #I truly enjoy Part 2 and hope the best for it... but it just feels like we could've had so much more T_T #honkai impact 3rd #honkai 3rd #hi3rd #honkai impact #Honkai part 2 #long post

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