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HSR Patch 3.3 Review [Spoilers]
May. 22nd, 2025 09:27 amI just finished the main storyline mission last night, and have been still excited about it since then!
Ok, the first half of the story was boring and tedious. I get they were necessary as setup for the later parts. But it felt like a bunch of monologues one after the other. But! The last...1/3-1/4 of the story, just, wow! The climax this time was excellent! I would even say it's the best one so far: 3.3 > 3.0 > 3.2 > 3.1.
I know some people complained about how Aglaea's death almost completely took place off screen. We don't even get a cinematic about her dead body or whatever. But eh, I feel like we already got a glimpse of that during previous cinematics about the prophesized end of all the heroes involved in the Flame Chase quest. What I did like was that the story used the short segment related to her death to further develop her character. At first the audience is led to believe it as caused by the remnants of her humanity, ie. her mortal weakness and soft heart (which we'd all thought had been worn away). But then we find out that nope, there was no soft heart involved, it was a PR plot she masterminded herself, using her predicted impending death as a tool to destroy her political enemies and a catalyst to spur the growth of her protege. So yeah, still the same old Aglaea.
As for the slow unravelling about the truth history of the Sky people and Hyacine's lineage was paced fairly well, in retrospect, even if the first half was slow. The "twist" in the story was of course not unexpected, because we all know there was gonna be a twist and most likely, the good/evil bits of the legend is not gonna be the truth. However the actual true history that did came out wasn't too cliched (I was honestly half expecting the hero of legend to be more of a villain, or maybe even completely unrelated to the plight of the Sky people), but it holds up to its internal logic and is quite understandable, and very thematically appropriate for a (Greek) tragedy.
The climax boss fight was very well animated. I brought what I thought was a pretty good team, but still got stomped in Phase 3. I am not even sure if I hit all the major animation/story dialogue triggers in that fight... might need to search up some videos of it online to make sure I didn't miss any cool sequences.
Then came the story-side climax of Cipher's death. OMG! Here all this time I thought she was just the catgirl fanservice and gag character. And looking at reddit, I was not the only one who thought this. But as it turns out, she is the actual MVP of Amphoreus. ForgetAtlasKephale. It was a f*cking thief who held together the world for the last 700+ years with her f*cking lies.
Looking back, the previous depictions of Cipher takes on a whole new meaning. She was chided by her fellow heroes for disregarding her duties as a demigod and fleeing all conflict... but now we know that's because she was already literally carrying the world on her shoulders, and her death would cause it all to fall apart, so of course she wouldn't risk conflict when she can run. Aglaea couldn't understand why Cipher suddenly turned her back on their friendship and couldn't stand to live in the same city anymore... but now we know it's precisely because of their friendship that Cipher couldn't run the risk of anyone getting to close to her to realize the Grand Con she was running, because the world must believe her Lie for it to remain Truth, and so she had to go into self-exile to minimize anyone getting close to her.
And now, at the end of the Grand Quest, when all the other coreflames of the old gods have been claimed and the heroes are so close to resetting things into a brand new world... Now, finally, Cipher choses to enter the conflict, set herself as bait for the Flame Reaver, and essentially sacrifice herself for one last gambit. She dies alone, with almost no one to know the truth that it was her who truly protected Ohkema up to this time. But she still bought enough time for Hyacine to take up the mantle of the sky and bring down the protection of her rainbow, and protected the last coreflame for our heroes to finish their task when we get back to the city.
Like, I was previously thinking of pulling for Cipher because I really like her art design. But now, I am totally all for Cipher as our catgirl woobie goddess!! *squee~~*
Ahem, other stuff I liked about the story... my boy Dan Heng finally remembered his dragon form!! LOL. It's like the first time since the original Xianzhou arc (the brief showing in Penacony climax turned out to be a dream, after all). We also get to see him sync with the waters of Amphoreus, study with the priests of the local sea god, and learn how to use the magic waters to open travel gates (like, whoa?). I wished we got to see more of his fight as DHIL against the Flame Reaver, but at least we know he's probably not gonna die like the other local heroes did, what with him rumored on getting a new 5 star banner up next patch. Looking forward for that as well.
Ok, the first half of the story was boring and tedious. I get they were necessary as setup for the later parts. But it felt like a bunch of monologues one after the other. But! The last...1/3-1/4 of the story, just, wow! The climax this time was excellent! I would even say it's the best one so far: 3.3 > 3.0 > 3.2 > 3.1.
I know some people complained about how Aglaea's death almost completely took place off screen. We don't even get a cinematic about her dead body or whatever. But eh, I feel like we already got a glimpse of that during previous cinematics about the prophesized end of all the heroes involved in the Flame Chase quest. What I did like was that the story used the short segment related to her death to further develop her character. At first the audience is led to believe it as caused by the remnants of her humanity, ie. her mortal weakness and soft heart (which we'd all thought had been worn away). But then we find out that nope, there was no soft heart involved, it was a PR plot she masterminded herself, using her predicted impending death as a tool to destroy her political enemies and a catalyst to spur the growth of her protege. So yeah, still the same old Aglaea.
As for the slow unravelling about the truth history of the Sky people and Hyacine's lineage was paced fairly well, in retrospect, even if the first half was slow. The "twist" in the story was of course not unexpected, because we all know there was gonna be a twist and most likely, the good/evil bits of the legend is not gonna be the truth. However the actual true history that did came out wasn't too cliched (I was honestly half expecting the hero of legend to be more of a villain, or maybe even completely unrelated to the plight of the Sky people), but it holds up to its internal logic and is quite understandable, and very thematically appropriate for a (Greek) tragedy.
The climax boss fight was very well animated. I brought what I thought was a pretty good team, but still got stomped in Phase 3. I am not even sure if I hit all the major animation/story dialogue triggers in that fight... might need to search up some videos of it online to make sure I didn't miss any cool sequences.
Then came the story-side climax of Cipher's death. OMG! Here all this time I thought she was just the catgirl fanservice and gag character. And looking at reddit, I was not the only one who thought this. But as it turns out, she is the actual MVP of Amphoreus. Forget
Looking back, the previous depictions of Cipher takes on a whole new meaning. She was chided by her fellow heroes for disregarding her duties as a demigod and fleeing all conflict... but now we know that's because she was already literally carrying the world on her shoulders, and her death would cause it all to fall apart, so of course she wouldn't risk conflict when she can run. Aglaea couldn't understand why Cipher suddenly turned her back on their friendship and couldn't stand to live in the same city anymore... but now we know it's precisely because of their friendship that Cipher couldn't run the risk of anyone getting to close to her to realize the Grand Con she was running, because the world must believe her Lie for it to remain Truth, and so she had to go into self-exile to minimize anyone getting close to her.
And now, at the end of the Grand Quest, when all the other coreflames of the old gods have been claimed and the heroes are so close to resetting things into a brand new world... Now, finally, Cipher choses to enter the conflict, set herself as bait for the Flame Reaver, and essentially sacrifice herself for one last gambit. She dies alone, with almost no one to know the truth that it was her who truly protected Ohkema up to this time. But she still bought enough time for Hyacine to take up the mantle of the sky and bring down the protection of her rainbow, and protected the last coreflame for our heroes to finish their task when we get back to the city.
Like, I was previously thinking of pulling for Cipher because I really like her art design. But now, I am totally all for Cipher as our catgirl woobie goddess!! *squee~~*
Ahem, other stuff I liked about the story... my boy Dan Heng finally remembered his dragon form!! LOL. It's like the first time since the original Xianzhou arc (the brief showing in Penacony climax turned out to be a dream, after all). We also get to see him sync with the waters of Amphoreus, study with the priests of the local sea god, and learn how to use the magic waters to open travel gates (like, whoa?). I wished we got to see more of his fight as DHIL against the Flame Reaver, but at least we know he's probably not gonna die like the other local heroes did, what with him rumored on getting a new 5 star banner up next patch. Looking forward for that as well.
