Honkai Impact 3rd

Honkai Impact 3rd (CN: 崩坏3; pinyin: Bēng Huài 3), also called Houkai 3rd in Japan and Honkai Impact 3 in Southeast Asia, is a 2016 Chinese free-to-play 3D Action RPG by miHoYo Co., Ltd. for mobile and Windows. It is a Spiritual Successor to the same company's Houkai Gakuen 2, also known as Guns Girl Z, and reimagines several characters and concepts from the earlier title in a new setting.

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On an alternate Earth, humanity has been plagued since time immemorial by "Honkai", a phenomenon with a malevolent will that can zombify people, create monsters, and turn selected targets into godlike "Herrschers" to advance its apocalyptic goals, but can also be harnessed as energy. In the present day, a variety of organisations exist to either combat or exploit the Honkai; the most prominent of these are Schicksal, a Europe-founded group that uses superpowered warriors called "Valkyries" to combat the Honkai, Anti-Entropy, the former North American branch of Schicksal that relies on robots instead, and the mysterious Ancient Conspiracy World Serpent.

The game initially follows Valkyrie-in-training Kiana Kaslana (CN: Dian Tao; JP: Rie Kugimiya) as she battles alongside classmates Mei Raiden (CN: Jiang Jingju; JP: Miyuki Sawashiro) and Bronya Zaychik (CN: Hanser; JP: Kana Asumi) to stop the hostile flying battleship Selene attacking the city of Nagazora. They return to their education at the Extranormal Institute St. Freya Academy under Shicksal's Far East branch afterwards, but secrets about themselves, those around them and the world soon come to light, and they quickly find themselves very far from home.

The player takes the role of the Captain of the flying battleship Hyperion, managing a stable of Valkyries, whose ranks are grown by pulling on Gacha banners, equipping them with weapons and the Power Tattoos called "Stigmata", and deploying them. Gameplay primarily involves teams of up to three Valkyries engaging in Hack and Slash in short, linear missions, where one character is on the field usually but can be tagged out at will. A semi-Wide Open Sandbox mode called "Open World" and a variety of minigames in other genres also exist; the latter are used mainly for gathering resources.

In addition to the game proper, a number of supplementary animations and comics exist, expanding on the backstory and the setting.

Warning: Honkai Impact 3rd is full of Reveals, twists and Wham! Episodes, and the official website and social media are not shy at all about advertising Late Arrival Spoilers. Read on at your own risk.

Tropes used in Honkai Impact 3rd include:

Alternate Self: Some of the battlesuits actually are bubble universe versions of the characters rather than the main universe's version.
Alternate Universe: Apart from the Alternate History nature of the main story, there are also "bubble universes" in the Sea of Quanta. Some are mostly similar to the main universe except For Want of a Nail to varying degrees, while others diverge much more wildly, sometimes to the point of characters and concepts being In Name Only from the main one. For example, the Neon Genesis Evangelion collaboration event takes place in a bubble universe where Anti-Entropy takes NERV's place and various Honkai characters slot into the places of the Evangelion ones.
Anti-Frustration Features:
- Most missions that cost stamina to start will only deduct stamina once you reach the victory screen, so you won't be penalised for failure or quitting or restarting halfway.
- Similarly, missions that give limited times to play them only deduct the counter on victory or defeat, so you can try again without penalty if you restart before it's too late.
- Most gacha banners have a pity system where you will automatically pull the featured Valkyrie or equipment after a certain number of failed pulls.
- EXP chips can be used to quickly level Valkyries, so you don't need to drag around a low-level deadweight just to get her to the point where she won't crumble at the slightest touch from a high-leveled mook.
- After completing a mission, all drops will be automatically collected, so you don't need to worry about missing any that haven't been manually collected or needing to go back to pick them all up.
- It is possible to give up in the middle of an Elysian Realm stage and start from it again, allowing you to try another time if you fail a timer without needing to replay all the way back from the start.
- Kallen as a boss is normally completely immune to elemental damage. This would be a big problem the times she appears as a miniboss in Threshold Breach and Elysian Realm while you're using an elemental damage Valkyrie. In order to not be unwinnable, what instead spawns is a "Breach" version that, while no easier, at least doesn't have the immunity so she can be beaten by elemental damage Valkyries.
- In Open World mode, the game will seek confirmation if you try to refresh away task choices that offer Crystals, such that you won't accidentally lose a chance to gain that premium currency.
- In the A Post-Honkai Odyssey subset of Open World mode, there are a few places, like on bridges, where your character or enemies can fall to their deaths. Your character, though, will just be brought back up to the nearest safe spot with some HP loss instead of dying outright.
- Also in A Post-Honkai Odyssey, triggering a Treasure Chest Hunt quest will temporarily make all enemies disappear so that you don't need to waste time contending with them on this Timed Mission.
Authority Equals Asskicking: The leaders of the three main anti-Honkai organisations conform to this. Anti-Entropy's Sovereign Welt Yang is the Herrscher of Reason, able to conjure legions of war machines from thin air, create and survive near a black hole, and hold his own against the Herrscher of the Void. Schicksal Overseer Otto Apocalypse has replicas of some powerful Lost Technology weapons. World Serpent Sire Kevin Kaslana is the World's Strongest Man, a Super Prototype Super Soldier of the Previous Era with a Flaming Sword that creates blasts visible from orbit and whose ice powers by themselves can not only freeze said sword and let him kill the Previous Era's Herrscher of Flame who burned down Australia, but a clone with a mere 1% of his power stalemated the Current Era's strongest S-rank Valkyrie Durandal.
Beef Gate: As you slowly unlock the story content in Elysian Realm, everything starts pointing towards a character who is repeatedly raised but hasn't shown up in person yet: Mobius. Go far enough and you will be taken to meet her, but first you will need to fight Elysia. Until you beat this boss, the story won't progress. Progress further still and you will need to fight Mobius as well to keep the story moving.
Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: According to the Second Key comic, the future King Arthur was a boy who met Kevin and Su and mistook them for Merlin and the Lady of the Lake. He later developed natural stigmata because his village was used as a testing ground for Project Stigma. Su took him under his wing to teach him how to use his stigmata and any superhuman feats attributed to him are presumably from that.
Bittersweet Ending: "The Day You Vanished With The Stars" event has this. After time traveling hundreds of times in failed attempts to save Kongming, it eventually turns out that the only way for her to live is to leave the world entirely. She does so and thus survives. Unfortunately, there is no way to bring Rita along, leaving both of them alone, and to make matters worse Kongming Never Got to Say Goodbye.
Black and Gray Morality: The Honkai is undeniably malevolent and seeks to destroy humanity, but some of those it turns into Herrschers have legitimate grievances that one can understand why they want to get vengeance on their tormentors even if it doesn't excuse the collateral damage. Among the groups opposing it are those who carry out unethical human experimentation, though, and World Serpent's goal of forcing the development of stigmata through forced exposure to Honkai energy would cause much destruction and kill the majority of humanity that lacks sufficient Honkai resistance.
Boobs of Steel: Zig-zagged. Many of the strongest S-rank Valkyries like Durandal, Rita and the late Cecilia are well-endowed, while Long-Range Fighter Support Party Member Bronya is flat. However, Bare-Fisted Monk Carole is only of modest size while Fu Hua is flat, and what makes the inversion of the last one even more significant is that she was a peer to World's Strongest Man Kevin.
Bragging Rights Reward: Beating the Elysian Realm on Sequence: Real at difficulty 140, the second-highest, gets you the third and best of a set of Emblems that increase HP and damage while in the Realm. If you managed to get that far without it, though, all it'll do is make reruns slightly easier; while a higher difficulty does exist, completing that offers no reward but the acknowledgment of having done so, and thus is of no importance.
Bribing Your Way to Victory: While no gameplay content is outright locked out to truly free players, the best Valkyries and equipment are only available through gacha that use the "crystal" premium currency. Crystals can be gained in small quantities through gameplay, or their acquisition can be sped up with real cash. Better types of Battle Passes and other resource-granting bundles can also be acquired using a different kind of premium currency called "B-Chips".
Casting Gag: Nana Mizuki and Yukari Tamura previously acted together in Lyrical Nanoha, where Mizuki played a clone whose original the Big Bad seeks to revive. They acted together again here, where Mizuki plays the original whose revival the Big Bad seeks, while Tamura plays the clone thereof.
Clock Roaches: In "The Day You Vanished With The Stars" event, the mysterious black-clad Malevolent Masked Men seeking Kongming's death are creations of the wish-granting Golem programmed to eliminate the anomaly that she is.
Clothes Make the Superman: While Valkyries are already superhuman, the battlesuit used affects and enhances how that power is expressed and can change both the type and element. Taking Fu Hua as an example, Azure Empyrea and Phoenix are Psychic Fire, Night Squire and Herrscher of Sentience are Biologic Physical, Shadow Knight is Mecha Lightning, and Valkyrie Accipiter is Psychic Lightning.
Conspiracy Redemption: It is eventually revealed that Schicksal's Overseer Otto Apocalypse is the one responsible for the return of the Herrscher of the Void and all the harm resulting from that. This leads to St. Freya breaking off to join with Anti-Entropy in battling him.
Contractual Boss Immunity: In A Post-Honkai Odyssey mode, quest targets will not be insta-killed by Back Stabs. Doing one will still inflict more damage than any standard hit, though, so it's still a good idea to open with one.
Death or Glory Attack: The Elysian Realm mode has the Signets of Decimation, which grant bonuses based on HP loss. The less HP your Valkyrie has, the bigger the bonus. Thus, running around with low HP will get the most out of them. However, this also means that there is much less room for error.
Difficult but Awesome:
- The Elysian Realm mode has the Signets of Vicissitude, which build up to 40 stacks of buffs over time but lose 10 stacks every time you get hit. The buffs are big, though, like extra 1.0% total damage per stack for a whopping 40% when maxed out, and its Enhanced Signets can raise the buffs even further. Anything else that comes close has another Necessary Drawback like only lasting for a short period of time. Good players who can avoid getting hit ride on those big buffs to do well; poor players who get hit often suffer and would have done better choosing Signet sets that aren't so skill-demanding.
- The Elysian Realm also has the Signets of Infinity. In addition to Magikarp Power, getting them to the Purposefully Overpowered heights they can achieve that surpass even the Signets of Vicissitude requires the player to carefully manage the cooldowns of summoned units on top of everything else already demanded by normal gameplay.
Dramatic Irony: In the Elysian Realm, Mei asks the sim of Hua whether she'll be able to protect humanity for thousands of years until the new era can stand on its own feet. The sim Hua disagrees, saying that it would be a burden she would fail to bear, but that Kevin would be able to. Those who have played the story mode up to the latest chapter at the time of the Elysian Realm's release in version 5.0 will know that exactly the opposite happened; Kevin, embittered by failure and loss, now seeks to make a path to victory over the Honkai on a mountain of corpses, while the real Hua walked into legend a defender of the people.
The Ending Changes Everything: The "Estival Seaside Amusement Park" event starts out cutely as the Captain and Seele go around catching Honkai beasts Pokémon-style for a competition. Strange things start happening along the way, but it isn't until the end that the truth is revealed: The whole thing was Seele's dream that she pulled the Captain (and it is implied Delta as well) into, and the Captain has to be taken back to reality.
Everyone Has Standards: In the Elysian Realm, Klein is driven to intervene after realising that the sim Mobius's real goal is Grand Theft Me, a line that even the original Mobius would not have crossed.
Faustian Rebellion: A number of Herrschers chose to fight for humanity rather than fall in line with the Honkai.
Four Is Death: The Fourth Herrscher, Wendy, is the first character to die, and this happens in the fourth chapter.
Full Set Bonus:
- Most Stigmata come in three-piece sets. Putting two together grants a bonus and having all three on the same Valkyrie grants a second one. These bonuses are powerful enough that, outside of a few specific cases, equipping a Valkyrie with a complete set is recommended.
- In the Elysian Realm mode, getting three or more Signets from the same set will grant a powerful Core Signet that is almost always necessary for the set to come online, as well as unlocking for selection more powerful Enhanced Signets.
Grand Theft Me: The real purpose of the Elysian Realm is to find a suitable host for Mobius to transfer herself to so as to escape it and return to the real world.
The Guards Must Be Crazy: Mooks in Stealth-Based Missions have only a roughly 90-degree field of view, take a few seconds to investigate your presence and a few more to be properly alerted, and are deaf to their comrades dying to Back Stabs even if done right next to them. In all fairness, "don't be seen" is almost the only avenue for stealth.
He Who Fights Monsters: Whatever just cause Sirin might have had in seeking vengeance on those who experimented on her, she lost any claim to the moral high ground the moment she stopped restricting herself to her tormentors and started indiscriminately bombarding civilians.
Interface Spoiler:
- A player can see all the player characters even if they haven't been unlocked for use yet. This includes those who are Walking Spoilers.
- "The Day You Vanished With The Stars" event seems to end happily after the Captain and Kongming successfully negotiate peace between the kingdoms and the two of them can celebrate at a festival. Then the player notes that there are still more missions to complete...
Late Arrival Spoiler: The official website and social media has no qualms whatsoever with advertising new content that only exists because of spoilers.
Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
- In "The Day You Vanished With The Stars" event, the Captain wonders if there are observers watching him and commenting on his actions. Tesla - Zero has similar thoughts later on, and her telling the Captain that it's okay to cry could also be interpreted as directed at the player.
- In Chapter 26, when Nagamitsu explains Otto's plot to use the Imaginary Tree to erase 500 years of the main universe's history so that he can bring back Kallen, she draws an analogy between altering the world from said higher reality and a gamer loading different save data.
Loads and Loads of Characters: As of August 2021, there are 15 playable characters in the main mode, almost all of whom have multiple battlesuits to equip. Add in NPCs of varying importance and the count grows even larger.
Luck-Based Mission: Success in the Elysian Realm mode, especially on higher difficulties, largely comes down to random factors even when you have a maxed-out character with the best gear - which Signet set portals spawn (with only three resets per run), which Signets you actually get to choose from out of the selected set, which Signets can be purchased or upgraded each time the shop can be visited, which enemies spawn and where in the level with which buffs, whether they use That One Attack that grants time-wasting invincibility (and/or how often)...
Magikarp Power: In the Elysian Realm mode, the Signets of Infinity are potentially the most powerful type of Signet. However, many of said Signets are individually weak and most of the set must be collected before it develops synergy and becomes viable, whereas almost every other Signet sets only needs three to unlock the set's Core before it becomes viable.
Masquerade: Most of humanity is kept in the dark about the true extent of the war against the Honkai. This is made especially clear in Chapter 23 where Welt and Bronya investigate an exhibition of Honkai beast statues and none of the visiting civilians express the kind of alarm or disgust one might expect from encountering replications of the monsters terrorising them.
Mysterious Past: Durandal's past is a blank. Officially, she is an amnesiac orphaned by the Second Eruption. Unofficially, her sheer strength and a number of curious coincidences have invited much speculation both in-universe and out as to who or what she really is.
Necromantic: Otto Apocalypse's plots, which have caused much harm and killed or hurt many people, are driven by his desire to resurrect The Lost Lenore.
Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Despite the fancy name, the Flame-Chasers could only be called a team in the most charitable sense.
Regenerating Shield, Static Health: Unfortunately not for the player characters, but for Elite Mooks and certain bosses; they have shields that can be drained and will regenerate after some time, while the health underneath doesn't. Shields don't completely negate damage to health, though, which makes things less nightmarish than they could have been.
Scunthorpe Problem: The chat filter has caused problems with, for example, a boss called Jizo Mitama.
She's All Grown Up: Bronya's return in A Post-Honkai Odyssey 2, set 8 years after the main story mode, has her noticeably taller and bustier than her younger self.
Someone to Remember Him By: A gender-flipped take from the supplementary comics: Dr MEI dies from Honkai exposure before Kevin can return from the failed battle against the Herrscher of the End on the Moon, but not before creating a baby from their genes. This child, who Kevin names Adam, follows him and the other survivors into cryosleep and later becomes the progenitor of the Kaslana Heroic Lineage.
Sorting Algorithm of Evil: The Honkai may seek the destruction of humanity but it has a twisted sense of fair play. It clearly has room to escalate, as seen from how more strong Honkai beasts appeared after the Previous Era survivors tried introducing their technology to the Current Era, but reduced the potency of the attacks when the survivors stopped doing so instead of continuing to attack at full force.
Stealth-Based Mission: Some missions require you to avoid being detected. In addition, the Open World maps and some other missions have the option to sneak around mooks and Back Stab them.
Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors: There are five types that battlesuits and most enemies fall under. Mecha beats Biologic beats Psychic which beats Mecha. Quantum and Imaginary deal extra damage to themselves and less to each other, and have no bonus or malus against the main three.
Tom the Dark Lord: Two of the most dangerous and influential people are named Kevin and Otto.
Tomato in the Mirror: "Kiana Kaslana" is not the original Kiana, but a clone designated K-423 that was made by Otto as a host for the Herrscher of the Void as part of his Gambit Roulette to resurrect Kallen. She takes this discovery badly. As for the original Kiana, last seen years ago in Otto's custody? No one knows what's happened to her.
Virtual Ghost: The Elysian Realm stores sims of the Flame-Chasers, 13 legendary Super Soldiers from the Previous Era.
World of Action Girls: Almost all playable characters are female. The in-universe justification is that women are more likely to be resistant to Honkai than men and there are thus more female Valkyries.