Honkai Impact3rd / Tropes A to F

Honkai Impact 3rd Tropes: A to F | Tropes G to L | Tropes M to R | Tropes S to Z

A

• Abnormal Ammo:
  • Some of Bronya's cannons shoot unusual things, such as Ai-chan's Cannon (shoots Rocket Punches) or Dumpling Wrapper (shoots sticky rice dumplings that slow down enemies).
  • While handguns shoot normal bullets when they're used to shoot, their weapon skills may have them shoot something else, such as Energy Leapers (shoots down a stunning bomb), Thunder Kikaku (shoots a Hitodama Light that encircles the target and deals constant damage), or Jingwei's Wings (shoots fireballs to the air that fall down one by one onto the target). Keys of the Void (Herrscher of the Void's "signature weapon") is said to shoot "commandments" instead of bullets that can tear through spacetime. Its weapon skill shoots 3 explosive waves that deal considerable damage.
• Aborted Arc: Chapter 1 of the game involves an unmanned flying Cool Airship that our Valkyries try to stop before it could endanger the city. Inside, they find out that someone sent that ship specifically "for Kiana" and that it talks about "4 gems" to power the ship up, which leads them to find Herrscher Cores, starting from Wendy. This only serves as Foreshadowing to Kiana being the vessel for the Herrscher of the Void (who used to have those 4 gems); the story after the Wendy plot goes to other directions and said mysterious ship is never addressed again. Gets picked up again in Chapter 33 where it turns out to be an Aborted Arc In-Universe as the ship is revealed to have been sent by Anti-Entropy to use Kiana's Herrscher powers to power up the Selene cannon but that plan had to be scrapped due to the things that happened afterwards.
• Absurdly Cool City:
  • The Arc City is a highly technological city in Shenzhou that remained untouched by the Honkai even after the Third Honkai War. Kiana flees there after her Herrscher powers are suppressed. In one of the Raid stages, it's shown that the city has a supervisory AI called "ARC".
  • The Coral Island is said to be a sprawling artificial island city meant to be a business central in Southeast Asia and Oceania. It is also home to a Space Elevator project. However, in ch. 18, a Honkai eruption struck this city.
• Absurdly Short Level:
  • The last level of Chapter 12 only has story cutscenes in it and has no gameplay at all.
  • The last area in the "Gemina Invasions: Deep Paradise Arc" event, unlike the others, only consists of you chasing Rozaliya and Liliya to the end of the stage while avoiding Durandal, without any facility building or encounters with enemies. After you get to them, there'll be an ending cutscene, and the story ends afterwards.
  • In story mission 19-9, all you need to you to complete it is just slamming Mei's weapon skill against the boss in a QTE and the level ends afterward.
  • One level in Chapter 21 only has Hua(?) (you) and Phoenix walking on the clouds as they talk to each other, with no fights.
  • One level in Chapter 24 only has Mei and Raven walking along the beach while talking to each other, again with no fights.
  • The last level in Chapter 25-EX is literally just titled "Speech" and has Otto giving a speech.
• Ace Custom: The "Knight" battlesuits (more apparent in the original Chinese)^note Knight Moonbeam, Shadow Knight, "Twilight Knight: Moonglow" (aka Twilight Paladin), Vermilion Knight: Eclipse, Argent Knight: Artemis, Bright Knight: Excelsis are all renowned as powerful suits in-universe. Vermilion Knight (Himeko) in particular is the Super Prototype to all of the other suits in this class, as it is used to be the "Key of Blankness" (or the "Numberless Divine Key") from the Previous Era and all the other suits are based on this one. In chapter 9, in the deeper parts of Helheim Labs, Himeko finds a chamber that contains the data of many of these battlesuits, as well as a capsule that contains the Vermilion Knight suit. They're all fairly strong in gameplay as well.
• Achievement System: There is a list of achievements that will give you some coins and crystals if you manage them, such as leveling up your captain's level, gaining a number of A, S, SS and SSS rank Valkyries, completing a number of missions, and much more.
• Action Bomb:
  • The Mecha Mook called Spider Mecha and its variants are robotic suicide bombers; they either do high damage when they go boom, or leave a patch of slow debuff on the ground on their wake. A stronger version of them can act as mines, too.
  • Whenever the HOMU variant HOLA appears as mooks, they also have "exploding near you" as a tactic.
• Advancing Wall of Doom:
  • In the higher difficulties of the Matrix Space co-op raid stages, the last stage has you and your team outrun a wall of "data deletion".
  • In the middle of ch. 19, Mei has to outrun a wave of ice spikes from the Herrscher of Ice while avoiding ones that suddenly grow on her way.
• Age-Stereotypical Food: During the International Children's Day (June 1st) and a few days after, Kiana, Bronya and the Olenyeva twins will ask for kids' meals when you put them on the bridge and tap the "!!" button. Herrscher of Reason, however, claims that she has grown up and refuses a kids' meal.
• Airborne Mook: In "A Post-Honkai Odyssey", with the ability to jump and do air attacks, there are naturally enemies in the air to take care of, such as "Mage" or "Lovers".
• A.K.A.-47:
  • Subverted since a few of Kiana’s early handguns are based off real world handguns and retain their real world names, such as the "USP45", "Desert Eagle", and "Colt Anaconda".
  • Inverted with the "Mosin Nagant"; in-game it's a futuristic dual handgun instead of the real life early twentieth century bolt action rifle.
• Alertness Blink: The game has multiple ways in which enemies' alertness of your presence influences gameplay:
  • In Open World, while you're in stealth mode, you can sneak up on enemies and perform a One-Hit Kill on them. However, this requires you to get into a round zone directly behind the enemy, and if you get too close from anywhere else, the enemy will react to your presence with a red exclamation point over its head. This cancels stealth mode and the enemy will attack you.
  • Certain stages are populated with enemies that you either have to evade entirely or sneak up on to kill, and cannot be completed unless they're all evaded or dispatched, respectively. These enemies have a red awareness zone in front of them representing their field of vision, and if you get into this zone, a red gauge will fill showing the enemy becoming more aware of you. If it fills all the way, you're considered to have been seen and will be reset to either the beginning of the stage or the last checkpoint.
  • "A Post-Honkai Odyssey" features a combination of these. Several enemies have an awareness zone and will attack you if you spend too long in this zone. Also, while there's no stealth mode, you can sneak up to some enemies and perform a One-Hit Kill on them, but it requires avoiding their awareness zone.
• Alien Invasion: The "Alien Space" supplementary comic, set some time after the events of "A Post-Honkai Odyssey", has "Otto" (Void Archives) explain to Welt that the "Sky People" are a civilization from a faraway planet, who have apparently conquered the Honkai of their own planet and used them as an energy source. They're also looking for Honkai energy in other planets to try to harvest them; they send interplanetary vessels shaped like natural space rocks to random planets filled with their "scouts" in order to analyze the Honkai energy levels and the stage of civilization in said planets. Those "scouts" are the monsters you find in the "A Post-Honkai Odyssey" mode. It's later revealed that they not only want planets but even other dimensions as well, which is strongly implied to be related to the events of Honkai: Star Rail.
• Alliterative Name: Three of the Kaslanas go with this trend, namely Kiana Kaslana, Kallen Kaslana, and Kevin Kaslana. Aside from them, there's also Rita Rossweisse and Raiden Ryoma.
• All Just a Dream:
  • Chapters 5 and 6 are revealed to be this, at least partly. While it's clear from the start that they take place in a "simulation of the past", a lot of what happens in said simulation doesn't seem to be possible given its simulation nature, such as Kiana's parents recognizing the grown-up Kiana and her helping her mother beat the 2nd Herrscher (while historically she could only hold the Herrscher back for long enough for Otto to bombard the facility, killing them both). It's because, as Fu Hua reveals to her in the end, the mind of the Herrscher inside Kiana's head is messing with her perception and is actively shaping what she sees.
  • The special story in the Dating Sim storyline that takes place in the past is revealed to be set in the "Captain's" dreams, but they're actually "scenarios" put inside their head by Rita and Otto. The Captain is only aware of this once they wake up for the third time; in the first two times they're still trying to figure out what happened, in the third one, they've put the infos they get in the previous scenarios together in order to resolve all of the problems between the people they meet. In the end, though, you (as the Captain) are given the Sadistic Choice of either shooting Kallen or Theresa (Luna Kindred), and no matter who you choose, they both lead to the Downer Ending where Kallen died. After this, you wake up again to see Otto monitoring you, saying that he has been facing failure in trying to find a way to resurrect Kallen countless times, but he won't stop until he succeeds and he will stop at nothing to see his goal become reality.
  • "St. Freya's Fiesta" ends with the Captain apparently about to dance with Rita, but just as they begin, the scene suddenly changes to Rita offering the Captain a cup of tea while Theresa and the twins are playing a board game in the background that looks exactly like the four areas in the Fiesta, implying that the entire event was solely in the Captain's mind.
  • Himeko's 2020 birthday event (only in China) has the Captain and Himeko talk in a pub about "growth", what growing up means and how one handles life, particularly when talking about her students. Then it ends with the Captain waking up alone to a glass of alcohol and a rose, implying that the talk occurred some time before Himeko's death.
• All There in the Manual: Much of the game’s lore isn’t explained in the actual game itself, instead being explored in more detail in the numerous manga, comics, and visual novels based on the game. The bios of some of the battlesuits also refer to stories outside of the game, or (in case of battlesuits that debuted in an event) to certain in-game events that newer players may have missed. The official YouTube channel eventually started posting a series of videos piecing the lore found in all media together, dubbed Honkai Chronicles, but only 3 episodes have been released thus far.
• Alternate Character Reading:
  • While the international versions keep the Chinese names of characters and items as such, the Japanese voice actors pronounce them with the characters' Japanese reading (which is common in Japanese media), hence why Fu Hua becomes "Fuka", "Xuanyuan" becomes "Ken'en" or "Jingwei" becomes "Seiei". In the same way, the Chinese voiceovers pronounce the Japanese names with their Chinese reading, with "Mei" becoming "Yáyī" (芽衣), "Sakura" becoming "Yīng" (桜/樱) or "Himeko" becoming "Jīzǐ" (姫子).
  • The city of Nagazora is pronounced in Japanese with its alternate reading, "Choukuu".
• Alternate Universe:
  • The game takes place in a parallel universe which retells mankind's struggle against nature, with nature being replaced by the Honkai. Geographical locations names remain the same as their real life counterpart, and historical events like the Black Plague and Apollo 11's Moon landing are still present, although they're revealed to be related to the conflict with the Honkai.
  • The "bubble universes" in the Sea of Quanta are essentially pocket universes simulating the effects of Point of Divergence situations. Chapter 25-EX elaborates further about the nature of bubble universes: they used to be proper realities that exist in the Imaginary Tree, but had their link to the Tree severed for one reason or another. Bubble universes can sustain themselves in 2 ways: by simply absorbing energies around them (including other bubble universes)^note this is called the "brute force" method and works better with bigger bubble universes, as their size means they can absorb energy more efficiently, or by creating a link to another reality within the Imaginary Tree, so that the bubble universe will get a share of the energy provided by the Tree^note this is called the "workaround" and works better with smaller bubble universes, as the Tree will deem the small bubble as a "newborn reality" that needs sustenance.
  • The "Sanka Saga" event is implied to take place in a different universe, or at least in an Alternate Timeline. The events that occurred as Sakura's backstory^note like Kallen coming to Yae Village and becoming close to Sakura, Sakura becoming corrupted by the "black box" and possessed by Hellmaru still happened here (they're said to happen 500 years ago, just like in the main story), but ended differently; Kallen still lives on to the present day thanks to the "Zakti Rune of Deva" and is the head of "Yae Machi" (or "Yae Town"), and a different version of Sakura (called "Kasumi") is officially part of Schicksal, who's on a mission to collect the Zakti Runes. Later on, during the trip to the "Saha World", the Ferryman says that their native world may just be one of the many worlds out there; Kasumi says that she finds it hard to stomach.
  • "Honkai Kingdoms" and subsequent related events happen in another world. "The Day You Vanished with the Stars" eventually makes it clear that the Captain ends up becoming a Dimensional Traveler in the Sea of Quanta.
  • In one of the supplementary comics, Schrodinger is exploring one of the bubble universes in the Sea of Quanta. She enters a world where humans are extinct, leaving only strange creatures called "ELFs" as the sole kind of sentient beings on this world. Schrodinger is only lucky that she meets Jingwei's Wings, the only ELF who cares about the world's history; the latter then guides her around, leading Schrodinger to deduce things that happened in this world. She then finds a recording which Jingwei's Wings claims holds the secret of the ELFs' creation; after she hacks its password system, it shows that world's version of Einstein, announcing that the Honkai was threatening the world and she had created the ELFs as her attempt to combat it. While at first the ELFs proved to be an effective solution, they were no match for the 9th Herrscher, who could control gravity; as a last resort, Einstein was forced to cut out the continent where she lived in from the rest of the world and move it into the Sea of Quanta. Humanity in that continent then slowly died out of the lack of supplies and resources, while the ELFs had no such problem and thus can live for much longer.
  • The 2nd Divine Key is a futuristic train that allows the user to travel and see through multiple worlds and possible futures. Its current user, Director Su, is looking for a world where humanity prevails against the Honkai, so that he can acquire an effective solution against the Honkai threats.
  • The "Gemina Invasions: Deep Paradise Arc" event takes place in the Sea of Quanta's worlds, where Rozaliya and Liliya opened the Eye of the Deep in one particular bubble universe and causes dimensional anomalies to occur in other worlds. It's up to Dr. Tesla to save the day after she was "trapped" into it by Einstein.
  • The "Rosemary's Floriograph" event is hinted to take place in a different universe. The story is told from the perspective of Arthur Conan Doyle, but he has Fu Hua (as Hawk of the Fog) as his partner, and Irene Adler (a fictional character in Doyle's Sherlock Holmes novels) is a real person in this world (portrayed by Rita as Fallen Rosemary). The story's beginnings have him and Fu Hua traveling by train to the city of St. Fountain, but it looks different from the same city in the Post-Honkai Odyssey open world. This world's version of Anti-Entropy is an anti-Honkai protection system built by one of Schicksal's labs, Lab 42, in St. Fountain (which was devastated by a Honkai event 5 years from the story's beginning) to protect it from Honkai beasts. Later on, however, after Welt Joyce discovered how Schicksal was behind the inhuman experiments on orphans in St. Fountain's church, Lab 42 breaks ties with Schicksal and allies with its North American branch, and together, they create a new organization named Anti-Entropy mirroring the creation of the organization in the main story. Also, "Irene Adler" is actually an alias; she is Rita Rossweisse from another world.
  • More generally, the so-called "SP" valkyries (A-rank valkyries that require special materials to upgrade) are all part of parallel storylines that are unrelated to the main universe − these include Darkbolt Jonin (Yae Kasumi), Starlit Astrologos (Zhuge Kongming), Asuka Shikinami Langley (from the Evangelion collab), Haxxor Bunny (Bronie), Princessin des Verurteilung (Fischl from the Genshin Impact collab) and Sweet 'n' Spicy (Carole from "A Post-Honkai Odyssey").
• Always Accurate Attack:
  • Gyakushin Miko (Sakura), Sixth Serenade (Kallen), Sakuno Rondo (Theresa), Argent Knight (Rita), Stygian Nymph (Seele) and Miss Pink Elf (Elysia) can "mark" enemies with their attacks. If they're marked enough, they can then use their branch/charged attack onto the enemy to trigger an effect that consumes the mark, usually dealing some damage; this "mark explosion" will hit the center of the enemy's body without fail, which is important for fighting certain bosses such as Assaka or MHT 3-PAX.
  • Herrscher of the Void's Charged Attack triggers a damaging spatial collapse directly at the center of the target, making it nigh-unavoidable as long as the enemy is in her range. The 5th part of her combo also has her creating a black hole right at the target's position, followed by a Reverse Shrapnel of spikes.
  • Hawk of the Fog (Valkyrie Accipiter's augmented form)'s Ultimate Skill will make her teleport close to her opponent to make sure the attack will hit. The only times it can miss are if the opponent is moving too quickly or if it's too high in the air (the attack doesn't have much vertical range).
• Amazing Freaking Grace: The CG animation of Chapter 11-EX plays John Newton's "Amazing Grace" in the background.
• Anachronic Order: For the events that feature the elements from "Honkai Kingdoms" ("Honkai Kingdoms" itself, "Odd Drifter", "Honkai Kingdoms: Zero", "The Day You Vanished with the Stars"), "Honkai Kingdoms: Zero" is meant to be a prequel that happens before all the others. The twist, however, is that the event's prologue happens in the present where the Captain goes back to the past to help the young Zhuge Kongming; this present presumably is placed after "The Day You Vanished with the Stars". Meanwhile, the aforementioned event's ending ties to "Honkai Kingdoms: Zero"'s prologue, i.e the Captain is shown to have come back from the past to help the young Zhuge Kongming.
• Ancestral Weapon: The Judgment of Shamash is a powerful weapon that belonged to the Kaslana family. Kallen's father once wielded it, and in the present, Kiana's father Siegfried wields it. It's a pair of fire-elemental guns that can hold massive amounts of Honkai energy and can turn into a BFS when "released", but using its maximum power is a Dangerous Forbidden Technique that can cause massive collateral damage and kill its user. In-game, the weapon is available both in dual guns form and the greatsword form, and their skills let the user deal immense fire damage but with some HP cost.
• Ancient Conspiracy: While Schicksal and Anti-Entropy operate in the open against the Honkai in their own ways, there is one more human organization that hides in the shadows through the events of the game, biding their time and making covert moves that carry a lot more influence than they suggest. The World Serpent are an order of cultists that believe in the existence of the Primordial Snake that was said to be the first being in the universe, and have been behind several myths that spawned from witnesses trying to comprehend their exploits. Not only that, they're also led by the unequivocally greatest hero of the Previous Era, Kevin Kaslana.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different:
  • After an update, one level in ch. 1 has Bronya hack into one of the Titan Mechas; Kiana then gets to pilot it to smash enemies.
  • One level in Chapter 5 allows you to ride (and play as) a Titan Mecha, and another in the same chapter has you play as the "missile robot mook".
  • A few Chapter 6 levels also let you play as different characters; see Unexpected Gameplay Change below for details.
  • One stage in ch. 9-EX and one in ch. 13 has you playing as Phantom Iron (Rita)'s Stalker Carbon robot.
• And the Adventure Continues: The ending of "Gemina Invasions: Deep Paradise Arc" has Roza and Lili jump into another spatial rift (or, more accurately, accidentally get knocked into it by Bronya and Tesla), looking for their next adventures. They end up in, of all places, the ending of "Honkai Kingdoms: Zero".
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: A few events give you costumes for your Valkyries. Some of them are available after you finish some event quests, while with some others you have to purchase them with in-game currency or with real money.
• And Your Reward Is Interior Decorating: In the Dormitory, increasing the "dorm acceptance" number of certain Valkyrie suits to a certain point will net you a reward of interior appliances or furniture for your dorm.
• Animal Motifs:
  • Kiana insists on a cat motif for herself, which shows in her Super Mode as White Comet and Divine Prayer where she summons giant mechanical cat paws out of nowhere (dubbed "Neko-Charm") and sometimes says "meow". Her Knight Moonbeam variant outfit Bastet's Secret is also heavily cat-themed, as it includes cat ear-shaped hair ornaments and a long tail. She's also jokingly associated with tuna as a result of Memetic Mutation. The cat theme also extends to Kallen and Theresa, as Kallen's Snow Fairy outfit has a headband with extensions that resemble cat ears and Theresa occasionally puts her hands up like cat paws when she's trying to look cute.
  • Bronya is heavily associated with rabbits. Her last name means "bunny" in Russian, she's a fan of the plush rabbit HOMU, and her support robot is called Project Bunny 19c.
  • Fu Hua is associated with various kinds of birds. One of her battlesuits, Valkyrie Accipiter, is named after a type of hawk, and another is called Phoenix. As a part of her powers, she leaves "feathers" in people's minds which connect her consciousness to theirs.
  • Kallen's Sixth Serenade battlesuit has a strong crow/raven motif, to go along with her Phantom Thief persona.
  • Yae Sakura is associated primarily with foxes, with her having long animal-like ears, wearing a fox mask on her waist and even being controlled by a fox-like Honkai Beast. This theme is shared by Yae Kasumi, who as Darkbolt Jonin has the same long ears and fox mask accessory.
  • Rita’s Dusky Murmurs alternate costume is associated with bats; its skirt has two large bat wings protruding from the back, and she leaves a trail of bats whenever she performs an evade.
• Animation Bump: Chapter 22 Act 2 features more dynamic in-game-model animations for its scenes, an improvement from Chapter 17 Act 3's scenes.
• An Interior Designer Is You: In the Dormitory, you're given three rooms (two bedrooms and a commons room) and, as an event reward, a house on the beach, with three bedrooms and an outside pool area, for your Super-Deformed version of the Valkyries (and, later, Stigmata) to live in. Furni-Bitz and Honkai Blocks are spent to obtain blueprints for furniture, appliances, and accessories, which earns "comfort points" which are used to determine your dorm's "comfort level", while building up Home Materials allows you to renovate your dorm's rooms, which will let you put in more furnishings. The comfort level determines the regeneration rate of Onigiri, which is spent to do Errands which earn "Work Points Cards" that can be used to buy goodies from the shop.^{Prior to Version 3.5...} The comfort level formerly determined how much the dorm's energy supply regenerated, which was used for essential appliances in the commons room: the stamina and technique training machines (increased your Valkyries' EXP and skill points respectively), the weapon and Stigmata enhancement pods (increased the EXP for weapon or Stigmata), and the vending machine (if your stamina is full, it would store a portion of the excess stamina from the natural stamina regen). Aside from that, sometimes the Valkyrie chibis will ask for certain appliance-related requests (such as wanting to eat, sleep or play games) which will earn you a few affection points for the specific Valkyrie and some goodies. This means you need to buy certain appliances and furnishings to fulfill the requests.
• Anti-Armor: Some of the Valkyries' attacks deal extra damage to the target's shield gauge. Stigmata Affixes can also roll into stats that passively increase the equipping Valkyrie's damage against shielded enemies, though the latter factor is affected by the appropriate affixes' numerical value.
• Anti-Debuff:
  • The Rowland M Stigma gives a 51% chance to remove debuffs if equipped.
  • In the Dirac Sea game mode, there's an item you can pick up, literally-named "Anti Debuff", that allows you to dispel any kind of trap debuffs that you took, as well as providing immunity to any other trap debuffs until you've cleared an "enemy cluster".
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • For most game modes that use stamina, the stamina point is only subtracted after you get into the victory screen. If you fail the stage, or quit midway, you won't lose the stamina.
  • EXP Chips allow you to quickly level up newly-acquired battlesuits rather than having to grind EXP by dragging them around high-level content while they're still weak. The game is also generous enough to provide you with a lot of them via the Shop, Daily Quests, and as game mode/event rewards.

• Pulls in the EXPA Select Supply generate Essentine, a material which is converted into a fragment of the Supply's focus Valkyrie when enough of them are banked. Thus, even if you don't pull the Valkyrie's card after several tries you can still get at least a fragment or two if enough Essentine is generated.
• A majority of the Valkyries can be obtained by grinding out their fragments, which means that players don't have to rely completely on the gacha to obtain new playable characters. Furthermore, once you rank one of your characters to SSS-rank (even the base-B-rank ones, which are easy to rank up), the "Witch Corridor" shop is opened for you, which sells most B- and A-rank Valkyrie fragments, as well as a selection of S-rank Valkyrie frags (those ones change every patch); you can get the special currency for them by converting the fragments of the SSS-rank Valkyrie(s) that you have.
• For that matter, unlike a vast number of hero collector-style games, HI3 features no inventory limits whatsoever — there's certainly no limit on the battlesuits you can have, since in-lore your fighters total around a dozen people or so who ride on a large battleship, so accommodating your Valkyries and storage for their suits is not exactly an issue. Similarly, there's no limit on the amount of gear you can hold, since presumably the Hyperion has all the armory space you could possibly need. The game, therefore, does not monetize things like "storage upgrades" at all, a welcome change for players of games like Azur Lane or Granblue Fantasy.
• When you complete a stage, all the other uncollected items on the floor will automatically be magnetized to your Valkyrie, so you won't have to waste time picking them up one by one in the middle of a fight.
• In the Schicksal HQ open world map, it's possible to skip the enemy encounters by moving to the border of the enclosed area for a few seconds. If successful, the player is allowed to to roam again freely while the previously-provoked enemies drop their aggro. This is helpful in the tight parts of the map where it's difficult to avoid being detected.
• In the "Path of Apotheosis" game mode, if you fail a stage for the first time, your next run on it will have its enemies weakened. The boss stages in said mode will not make the boss regenerate their HP if you fail to defeat them under the time limit.
• In the "A Post-Honkai Odyssey" open world map, the Pre-existing Encounters will be temporarily despawned if you trigger a Treasure Chest Quest or Chase Mode task. This allows you to focus on the specific quest, especially since these kinds of Adventure Tasks are short Timed Missions.
• After an update, you can earn comfort points for your Dorm simply by purchasing the dorm appliances, not necessarily by placing them in the rooms.
• A patch gives the option to turn off QTE for individual characters. Switching in through QTE gives a 10-second cooldown for the switched-out character, while normal switching only gives a 5-second cooldown. For high-level gameplay where quick switching is key for supporting the main offensive character and thus deal big damage, this feature is very helpful; not to mention that certain characters' QTE attacks either take too long, or just aren't strong or useful enough for the given player's strategy.
• As the usage and limit of Skill Points for upgrading Valkyries' skills were seen as superfluous^note They had a cap in how much skill points could be held at a time. To increase the cap, you had to allocate resources and "base power", and when you ran out of skill points and didn't want to wait for them to regenerate, you had to spend some Crystals to refill them, an update omitted said system. Now you only need coins (and, for Awakened characters, a certain upgrade item) to level up the Valkyries' skills, the base's section dedicated to increasing the skill points' cap was changed to increasing the limit of making friends, and the "skill point machine" in the Dorm now gave coins instead. Furthermore, Version 3.5 outright omitted the "base upgrades" and "skill point machine"; you no longer have to use upgrade materials or allocate Energy to get stat increases for your Valkyries - instead, all of them get 35% increase in stats by default, and can be further increased (which also applies to every Valkyrie you have) by collecting the "Dorm Emblems"^note acquired by raising the Valkyries' ranks, leveling them up, and finishing their Trial Stages to level up your Dorm. The "coin refinery" and "stamina reserve depot" are now tied to the Dorm Level, i.e. no longer requiring upgrade materials to level them up.
• Version 3.5 gives "upgrade levels" to Valkyries themselves, akin to the weapons and Stigmata. Between each rank up, there are "upgrade stars" that can be filled by collecting enough Valkyrie fragments; with each star filled, the Valkyrie will get increased stats (when previously, stat upgrades for the Valkyries could only be acquired when you ranked them up). The total number of fragments required to rank up Valkyries remains the same, and skills are still locked behind ranks.
• If you don't like certain gacha weapons or Stigmata that you acquire (or if you don't need duplicates of them), you can choose to "convert" them into a rare item currency called "Resonators", which come in two variants. Collect enough of them and you can buy a different gacha weapon/stigmata in the shop.
• In the Bounty Mark game mode, you can craft certain weapons and Stigmata that are normally gacha-only, and for most of them, you'll need to sacrifice one certain 3★ weapon/stigma and one certain 4★ weapon/stigma that you have (and they tend to be the ones you can get by grinding). If you've previously upgraded the equipments that are about to be used to craft the new equipment, the game will give the upgrade materials back to you after crafting. In addition, as you can only acquire "Resonators" (see above) from converting gacha equipment^note the only other ways are getting them from events (and they're still rare), or from weekly Open World rewards (which only give a few amounts of them), you can thus use Bounty Mark to farm Resonators more reliably.
• An update gives you "Booster" cards that you can acquire through playing in the events. They can be used to automatically finish Open World tasks and daily quests.
• In every Open World "Round", you can freely refresh the task list for up to 15 times if the current Adventure Tasks are not to your liking. Subsequent refreshes past that cost Crystals instead, though the 15 free refreshes are refilled during every Round Finalization.
• If the current choices of Adventure Tasks contain one that rewards Crystals, the game will display a prompt when you attempt to refresh the list. This ensures that you won't accidentally miss a rare opportunity to obtain some premium currency.
• Any unfinished Adventure Tasks will still be carried over even after the Weekly Finalization, though several tasks still require you to use an Access Card on the same Open World map where they are located.
• Version 3.6 introduced the option to buy items from the shop in multiple amounts at once, where previously, you had to tap multiple times to bulk-buy items.
• When Version 3.5 first introduced the Dorm system and Dorm Errands, you couldn't cancel an errand you'd already started (unlike the base missions in previous versions). Version 3.6 fixed this so you could cancel them^note but you couldn't cancel errands from the previous day that are still ongoing.
• The grindable Stigmata pieces Picasso B and Zhang Heng M used to be locked behind special boxes that randomly contain either the stigmata, or their "fragments". The Version 3.7 update makes them craftable with the same crafting material as other craftable Stigmata. Likewise, the Jingwei's Wings and Blood Embrace ELF fragments used to be locked behind similar "random boxes" (or in their case, "eggs") which may contain ELF-growing materials instead. After the update, the eggs are omitted and all quests/tasks that reward them and all shops that offer them will now reward/offer the fragments themselves.
• As of the Version 3.7 update, every time the Co-op Raid stages change into a new one (on Fridays), the stages' progression will be immediately reset without having to spend a certain material (Time Structure), so you get to replay the stages again for free once a week. Subsequent replays in the same week still require resetting the progress with said material.
• Version 3.9 allowed you to unlock the "Gene Limit" buffs on the Divine Keys for up to 3 days or even a week by spending more materials. You also no longer have to reset them if you want to change the buff you desire^note for each Divine Key, activating Gene Limit will activate one of the two available buffs. You can also access the Divine Key interface directly from the "briefing" screen in Memorial Arena and the "Abyss" game modes instead of having to go to the home screen first.
• Version 3.9 now saves the conversations you've had in "A Post-Honkai Odyssey", whether in the story missions or in the base, so you can review them again anytime.
• Version 3.9 gives you options for replenishing stamina with the stamina button at the top of the screen. Now you can directly access the stamina reserve in your base, or your stamina potions, from said button.
• Previously in Q-Singularis, you could only fill the "Evadion" gauge from Ultimate Evasion; Perfect Defense (for those with the Defend Command: Yamabuki Armor, Dimension Breaker and Bright Knight) won't fill the gauge. Version 4.0 allowed Perfect Defense to also fill the gauge.
• Version 4.0 enabled text logs for the story parts of the game, so you can check on what the characters or narration have said if you missed or forgot them, which was a problem from the previous versions of the game.
• Version 4.4 adds a slider for streamlining the use of multiple items at once (such as upgrading weapons or stigmata, leveling characters, converting items to Asterite, etc), making said procedures quicker.

• Anti-Grinding:
  • Daily quests are limited to one free run per day. While the player can simply use Planeroid Tokens to gain more tries, said tokens are capped to prevent grinding out the daily quests ad infinitum.
  • Hard and Supreme difficulty stages of the story mode (where you can grind materials and Valkyrie fragments) can only be played thrice and twice, respectively, for each individual stage. You can play beyond that limit by spending Crystals, though. A cap is retained when an update consolidated all these grindable story stages as "Expeditions", and the feature for automating them (Dorm Expeditions) similarly caps how much Stamina can be consumed on automated Expeditions per day.
  • The "Time Base" co-op stages can only be played 10 times per day.
  • Certain event stages can only be played a limited number of times per day, usually three. Events that are supposed to be played in weeks (usually 2 or more) also tend to be "time-gated", with their stages being locked until certain dates, so that you won't finish the event's story too abruptly.
  • Crossing with Anti-Hoarding, items in the shop can only be bought a set number of times per day, week or month depending on the item in question.
  • In a variant, if you want the specific material drop from the Co-op Raid stages, you have to pay a certain amount of Time Structures to "reset" the playthrough so that you can replay it from the start and re-obtain the item drops. The game gives you "Time Structure boxes" that you can buy with certain materials, and beyond that, the Time Structure itself can be bought with a certain rare material.
  • There are four open world modes ("Sakura Samsara", "Schicksal HQ", "A Post-Honkai Odyssey", and "A Post-Honkai Odyssey 2"), each giving a maximum of five "adventure tasks" on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, that reward you with various materials in exchange for stamina points; the harder the task, the more stamina you have to spend. However, you can only do tasks for one open world of your choice every week, while the others will be marked as "inactive". On top of preventing excessively easy grinding, it also works as an Anti Poop-Socking feature, as higher-level tasks can be quite time-consuming, let alone stamina-consuming.
• Anti Poop-Socking: Like many online game contemporaries, this one has a "stamina" system to prevent the players from doing too much in one sitting. Many gameplay modes cost a certain amount of stamina to play, and it regenerates at the rate of one unit every 6 minutes. The stamina limit is increased by upping the captain's level. You can buy more stamina by spending crystals, but the more you buy in a day, the more expensive it'll get. In a later update, the Valkyrie you set on your bridge may sometimes remind you not to play the game for too long.
• Apocalypse Maiden: The "Herrschers" (German for "Sovereigns" or "Rulers") are humans who are "chosen" by the Honkai (usually against their will) to become their "agent" of spreading Honkai's influence. They naturally use vast amounts of Honkai energy and each has an unique ability, such as the 3rd Herrscher who wields lightning or the 4th Herrscher who commands the winds. They can also command Honkai Beasts, and people who don't have Honkai resistance will turn into mindless zombies just by being near a Herrscher's presence.
• Arbitrary Augmentation Limit: In-game, Valkyries can only equip up to 3 Stigmata at a time.
• Arc Words:
  • Chapter 17 has three: "changes" (including "you haven't changed"), "looming storms" (and its variants, brought from ch. 16), and "walk into darkness" (and its variants). The teaser for the "Lament of the Fallen" video also gives the words "I'll enter the darkness and return you to bliss". They're all foreshadowing for Mei's re-awakening as Herrscher of Thunder, presented as her making a big change for herself and walking down to a dark path past a point of no return to save the "light" (Kiana), and the cause of a new storm. Later, the aforementioned quote is also said by Herrscher of Thunder, if you tap on her icon in character selection.
    Mei left by the kitchen. The corridor was dark except for the medical bay flickered in the distance^note Kiana is inside. She turned around and walked towards the darkness^note to go outside and meet Raven.
  • "Rosemary's Floriograph" has the poem left by Welt Joyce, but especially the last line: "We were deceived, and so are you." When Doyle enters a Forced Sleep state, he meets a ghost (Seele) in his dreams, who first asked for help, but then her Split Personality takes over and recites the poem. Later, Welt is revealed (through his writings) to have dreamed something similar about the girl; it's implied that he learned the poem from her.
  • The second chapter of A Post-Honkai Odyssey has "the Great Eruption", a major offscreen event that happened 8 years prior to the game mode. Although the event itself has yet to be shown in the main story, certain conversations foretell the real nature of that event and how it leaves a long lasting change to the world and affected its inhabitants (including the veterans/survivors of the event) for generations to come.
  • In certain game modes, some characters talking about someone who tends to "carry everything on their shoulders", either those who constantly put others ahead of themselves or have an overwhelming sense of responsibility, to the point they ignore their loved ones standing by their side and/or even lack a sense of empathy about how others are feeling. It's not a surprise that their loved ones reprimand them for doing such things because they still have people who care about their wellbeing.
• Area of Effect: Some Valkyries, enemies, weapons, and occasionally Stigmata effects have area-of-effect damaging skills or buffing/debuffing abilities.
• Armor Meter: Some stronger mooks, Elite Mooks, and bosses have shield gauges that will reduce the damage taken and make them resistant to flinching until the gauge is depleted; bosses will also become stunned/dazed when it happens. The shield will eventually regenerate, so you gotta give it your all while they're still vulnerable. Some of your Valkyries' attacks may deal extra damage to the shields, while elemental attacks won't damage the shields and instead deal direct damage to the enemy.
• Art Evolution: A subtle one since the 3D graphics allow for more assets to be reused but over the games lifetime the detail of assets and animations has grown a lot both due to the growing scope of the game as well as the processing power of phone hardware. It's most noticable when comparing older units of the main trio with more recent ones such as White Comet and Herrscher of Finality but it can also be seen during dialogue scenes where old and new models are used together such as chapter 34.
• The Artifact:
  • As part of the Dorm overhaul in Version 3.5, the "strengthening machines"^note Valkyrie level-up, Valkyrie skill up, Stigmata/weapon level up as well as the "link-to-the-base board" are no longer functional, but they still exist inside the "main room" of the dorm. The "vending machine" also still exists, but its function (storing excess stamina) is moved towards the new "main interface" of the base. Strangely enough, the tutorial still tells you how to use them even though you can't anymore.
  • Playable characters are still called "Valkyries" even though the term, lore-wise, only applies to the female warriors of Schicksal. Yae Sakura has no direct ties to the organization, and later, more playable characters are introduced that aren't part of Schicksal.
  • Each instance of a character you can select for your team is called "Battlesuits." Lore-wise, this was also meant to be different sets of equipment that each Valkyrie could equip for different purposes, i.e., a literal battle suit. Battlesuits includes alternate forms of characters, among other things you normally wouldn't consider a set of equipment to take to combat.
• Artifact Collection Agency: One of the things the Schicksal Organization does is searching for and collecting artifacts of the Previous Era, ranging from Unobtainiums, Lost Superweapons (such as the "Sacred Relics" and the "Divine Keys"), and Lost Technologies (such as A.I.s made in the past or the "silver orbs" that are quantum computers).
• Art Shift:
  • While story cutscenes and the natural gameplay display the Valkyries in their realistic proportions, the Dorm section and certain lighthearted events such as "Empyrean Legends" turn them into Super-Deformed chibis in-game.
  • Certain (web) events have the characters and the scenery being drawn with different art styles (from different artists of the game). The "Gemina Invasions: Deep Paradise Arc" event, however, makes it a minor plot point: in the beginning, the event is drawn in a cartoony style following the "Gemina Invasions" spinoff comic, but then the art shifts into the one commonly used by the game. Einstein even lampshades it.
• Ascended Meme: miHoYo has shrewdly incorporated several of the game's memes into actual content, such as an animation of Rita doing a JoJo pose, complete with Crescent Harvest as her Stand; acknowledging delays of Seele actually becoming a playable character; and multiple nods to the fandom treating Theresa's Oath of Judah weapon as an actual character. In the case of the "cabbage hair Ai-chan" jokes, not only has this meme been acknowledged, it was incorporated into the "Empyrean Legends" event by making Ai-chan a cabbage farmer, and then taken even further in the "Timeless Garden" event that lets you farm different varieties of cabbage, several of which are shaped like Ai-chan's head. In "Durandal's Pilgrimage", the "Durandal's a goose" meme is acknowledged when the sword Durandal, after having a few of the gems of power attached, gains white bird wings.
• Assassination Sidequest: In Sakura Samsara, one of the tasks you can take is to stealthily kill a number of roaming monsters. By activating "stealth mode", the monsters are less likely to be aware of your presence, and you also get the Back Stab mechanic which can kill said monsters in one hit. The Post-Honkai Odyssey maps also have Adventure tasks that require you to stealth-kill enemies.
• A Taste of Power: Some of the time-limited events allow you to use higher level and rank versions of a certain character along with their optimal equipment for a test run. One of the rewards for the "cadets" for the "Shishou/Sensei System" is also a special trial character card which lets the cadet use a fixed-level, -rank and -equipment Valkyrie for a few days in normal levels.
• Awesomeness Meter: Some of the gameplay modes have a "rank counter" that goes from D to SSS as you attack enemies and perform certain techniques. While this normally has little effect in gameplay beyond increasing your coin prize after the stage ends, in "A Post-Honkai Odyssey", some of the characters' skills are tied to getting S-rank or above in battle, so that the better you perform, the stronger your characters become.

B

• Back for the Finale: In the final chapter of the "Empyrean Legends" event, the stages' stories have characters from the previous chapters coming back, corresponding with the stage (i.e the 1st stage has the return of the 1st chapter's characters, and so on). Each time, they appear to defend the Celestial and Book of Fuxi from incoming monsters.
• Back Stab:
  • In the Sakura Samsara game mode, with Stealth Mode activated, you can sneak behind the roaming enemies (including Rare Monsters) and do a powerful attack (with good timing) that deals massive damage to them. Most enemies die in one hit with it, while that may not always happen with the Rare Monsters as they have high HP (although the attack can deal a Critical Hit that increases the damage immensely). The "A Post-Honkai Odyssey" maps use a similar system of backstabbing, but without the need for a dedicated Stealth mode.
  • In Schicksal HQ, Ai-chan can do a similar thing, but it'll cost some of her energy whenever she does so. She also can't assassinate Rare Monsters directly.
  • Certain missions in story chapters 13 and 14 allow players to perform stealth kills on enemies from behind, complete with unique kill animations for them.
• Bad Luck Mitigation Mechanic: Gacha Banners have a guaranteed pull of a featured Valkyrie or equipment after a certain number of pulls. On average, the ones featuring Valkyries is 100 pulls. As a bonus, the safety net/pity numbers for the Valkyries carry over to the next banner without resetting.
• Bag of Spilling: Chapters 13 and 14 are part of the same story arc in the same setting, have the same Required Party Members (Kiana and Rita, plus Mei in Chapter 14) and the same internal mechanics for character upgrades; yet even when you have fully upgraded your characters and equipment in Chapter 13, you need to do it all over again in Chapter 14. This is most likely so that the latter's gameplay isn't too easy.
• Bait-and-Switch Boss: In the "Empyrean Legends" event's third chapter, the story seems to lead to an eventual battle with a monster inside of the cave Rita and Mei are in. However, Rozaliya and Liliya (who are resentful of Book of Fuxi for not letting them having one of her cool weapons) steal a few of the ELF's weapons and unwittingly reduce the monster to ashes with them. The two then get into a power trip and become the bosses.
• Balance, Speed, Strength Trio: The three playable characters in the "A Post-Honkai Odyssey" Open World mode. Mei is the speed who is more effective on mid-air combat and against force field-bearing enemies, Carole is the strength who is more effective in ground fights and against heavy armored enemies, and "X-Member" is the balanced guy.
• Bathos:
  • In the Dorm, if you put Mei and Kiana together on the same bed, they will have a talk where Kiana is having difficulty sleeping and wants Mei to talk with her. But when Mei asks her what they're going to talk about, Kiana ends up sleeping. Mei then says "now I can't sleep."
  • In the Dorm, if you put Mei as Herrscher of Thunder with Herrscher of the Void together, the two will have a dramatic talk where the latter points out how Mei has taken on "that power" and tempts her to "join us". Mei swears that she's going to take Kiana back from her "evil claws". Then HoV says that Mei is getting closer to her, as the latter goads her into a fight... But then she hears the doorbell, thinking that it might be her food delivery. The "dramatic engagement" is averted as Mei thinks to herself "this Herrscher is weird."
• Battle in the Rain:
  • Some of the later stages in Theresa's side story "Everlasting Memories" are set during rain.
  • The middle part of ch. 11-EX has Kiana fight around while there's rain in Arc City.
  • Fitting the "stormy" theme of the chapters, ch. 16 and 17 have a few stages where rain falls down, but most notably in the latter chapter's final stage where strong wind blows and lightning cracks the sky, as well as Mei using her powers as Herrscher of Thunder.
• Beach Episode:
  • The "Summer Wars" event where you can acquire swimsuits for your Valkyries, and there are event stages set at the beach.
  • A special Imaginary Maze mode (which replaces Matrix Explore for the duration) is also set in a beach, where the playable characters look for hidden treasures.
  • Played with in the dorms, as one is set on a beach and one of its "rooms" is a large seaside deck with a pool and volleyball court; subverted, though, in that the Valkyries' chibis don't include options for their swimsuits.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Within the main Power Trio, Mei is the beauty (the oldest and most feminine out of the three), Bronya is the brains (the more knowledgeable and rational person), and Kiana is the brawn (the physically strongest out of the three).
• Beef Gate: In the "explore" mode of "A Post-Honkai Odyssey", some paths will be blocked by special monsters with an "intel level number" on them, and you can only go through after beating those monsters. If your "intel level" (an exclusive Experience Meter increased by playing APHO's story mode, or completing the tasks) matches or surpasses them, you'll have an easier time beating those monsters; you can try attacking them when your intel level is lower, but the challenge would be much harder. In a variant, there are also virtual walls that block your way until you can reach high enough intel levels (depending on the specific wall) to pass through them.
• Begin with a Finisher:
  • Downplayed in Dirac Sea or Q-Singularis (or the later-introduced Superstring Dimension). You begin each fight in those modes with 90 SP in each character; many characters' Ultimate Skills cost 100 or more SP. Depending on the character you use and your strategy, you may have to attack the enemies with normal attacks first before you can do an Ultimate Skill. However, the 90 SP allows you to do it quickly, unlike in most other gameplay modes. Note that Lightning Empress or Shadow Knight's leader skills that give starting SP for the team do not work here.
  • This can be played straight in the open world stages, where you're free to fill the SP of your characters before any major battle, such as the periodic tasks or the world boss fights. In A Post-Honkai Odyssey's "Ruins Mode", it's also possible to conserve SP in the lower floors so that you can use them immediately on the boss on the final floor.
• Behemoth Battle: Some scripted stages require you to pilot a giant mecha to take on other giant mechas.
• Benevolent Precursors: The people of the Previous Era (primarily Dr. MEI) were shown to be genuine in their efforts to pass their knowledge to the future generations when they saw that their extinction was inevitable. The few survivors from the era would then go on to guide the new humanity in general knowledge and science, and help them in surviving against the Honkai.
• Betting Mini-Game:
  • Played with in both halves of the "Odd Drifter" event, which incorporated Sir Gacha, a piece of Anti-Entropy tech in the form of a "one-armed bandit"-style casino machine. Completing tasks in the event earned you Tesla Chips as rewards, which were then given to Sir Gacha one at a time; it would then randomly give you up to three selections for chibis to add to your roster. Selecting a duplicate chibi increased that chibi's stars by 1, to a max of 5, which increased her stats.
  • The Himeko birthday event in 2020 also involves a "one-armed bandit"-style casino machine. You have to acquire special cards from the event missions to use this machine, and it gives materials as rewards. Since then, it's been used in a couple of other events where meeting in-game achievements such as spending a certain amount of stamina and playing certain parts of the game a set number of times earns you spins on the machine, giving materials, coins, and a special prize such as a unique Stigmata as rewards.
• BFS: Himeko and the Olenyeva twins use huge swords as their weapons of choice, with Himeko swinging them two-handed while the twins wield them with their cybernetic tails.
• Big Bad: Otto Apocalypse, the supreme leader of Schicksal, is the one behind many of the tragedies happening in the present, and he's got his own Evil Plan for the whole war against the Honkai.
• Big Bad Ensemble: As the game's story goes on and more print media are released, the power struggle between the antagonists becomes clearer. On one side, you have the Honkai, led by a gestalt will bent on exterminating humans as it has always been doing across several eras. Then you have Otto Apocalypse, who first appears as the big good, but is then revealed to subtly sabotage humanity's efforts against the Honkai for his own personal agenda. Then, the World Serpent organization slowly emerges from their millennia-old secrecy, intent on leading humanity against the Honkai, but also employing dubious methods in the process.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: One variety of the zombie mooks has a mechanical harness covering its arms which sports a pair of large blades that the zombie uses to make stabbing attacks.
• Blessed with Suck: In many cases, Herrschers are otherwise innocent people who wouldn't wish to harm others, but they usually can't stop their Superpowered Evil Sides from wreaking havoc without some help. Average people who know of them may shun them at best, or try to kill them at worst. As for the first Herrscher, however, instead of a Superpowered Evil Side, he takes a heavy toll on his body each time he uses his power.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: The French translation (in the Global server) suffered heavily from this, especially early on, with a lot of lines that were visibly translated literally from English and have never seen a proofreader, and others who were only half-translated or barely match what the voices say, not to mention the general disregard for grammatical genders and speech registers − such as female characters being referred to with male pronouns or close friends talking like complete strangers. This could make the story nigh-incomprehensible in some parts, although gameplay instructions are generally better handled, thankfully. The translation has also noticeably improved in later chapters.
• Bloodier and Gorier: While it's to be expected since it's a murder mystery at heart, the "Rosemary's Floriograph" event is extremely bloody in comparison to the main game and other events, with several characters stabbed to death and left lying in pools of their blood and messages written by the killer in the victims' blood.
• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: In events, Einstein and Tesla sometimes take this role. The former, while not an idiot, is rather eccentric and occasionally likes teasing Tesla, who gets easily agitated with her words.
• Bonus Dungeon:
  • Chapter 14 has "SP stages" that contain tougher enemies; not only that, all of them have the "Soul Link" buff. They cost no stamina, but they'll only give a reward when you beat the stages the first time.
  • The "Empyrean Legends" event has two: one in Chapter 2 and the other in Chapter 4. The former is the harder version of the chapter's last level, where you have to escape from a collapsing bridge while avoiding obstacles. The latter is a Boss Rush where you have to fight the four main bosses of the event, one after another; if your team dies, you have to start from the first boss again. Their attack power is also buffed. You'll get some prizes if you can manage to beat the stages for the first time.
  • Chapter 16 has "EX-stages" that consists of harder versions of the normal stages. It also has a series of stages in a separate menu that are challenging and have their own gimmicks; they'll give you some rewards when you first clear them.
• Boom, Headshot!: In Sakura Samsara, when in stealth mode, Valkyries who use guns will assassinate zombies with a point blank shot to the back of the head.
• Borrowing from the Sister Series: The bow weapon class is essentially a direct copy from how they're used in MiHoYo's more popular Genshin Impact. It was even introduced alongside a guest character from the latter.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: Occasionally, you may find enemy versions of Kiana, Mei or Bronya as a mook in the levels. Their attacks are slower than the playable version's (but still faster than the average mooks), but with their ability to use combos, Ultimate Evasions and Ultimate Skills, they're as much of a pain as "Dark Bronya" (an actual boss, of Chapter 2).
• Boss-Only Level:
  • In the main story, major bosses tend to have levels dedicated to fighting them (Ganesha, Dark Bronya, Wendy, Wotan, etc.).
  • In both Infinite Abyss (and its successors) and Matrix Explore, there are designated "boss floors" where you fight only a boss (or 2-3 Elite Mooks).
  • Some levels in the Co-op Raid stages are about fighting bosses without any mooks around/preceding them.
  • In "A Post-Honkai Odyssey", the final story level, "Verdict", only has your characters running straight to the villain's lair and then fighting the Final Boss. The Big Bad lampshades it, saying that the path is free of obstacles and he's going to have them be "delivered directly".
  • The 2nd half of Chapter 22 consists of 3 back-to-back boss fight against Herrscher of Sentience as Void Drifter Kiana.
• Boss Warning Siren: Whenever you're about to face off against a boss enemy (usually before the last wave in a stage), a siren will play on the background, accompanied by a warning text surrounding your character.
• Bottomless Magazines: Kiana, Kallen and Bronya can fire their weapons without ever worrying about ammo.
• Bottomless Pits: Some parts of the "A Post-Honkai Odyssey" maps have pits that you or the enemies can fall/be thrown into. While falling into the pits mean instant death for the enemies, your characters will just take a little damage and respawn back onto the platform if they fall into them.
• Bowdlerize: The KR and Global versions of the game lack the "touch the Valkyrie on the home screen" feature, which, among other things, makes the achievement of raising their affection level take longer. At least, there's another feature where shaking the screen will cause the Valkyries to react in a similar way. The original CN server also lost it after a patch. While the SEA and JP servers still have it, a patch makes touching their chest or groin area not increase the affection level, even if they still react. Also, starting with the release of Herrscher of the Void, any newly released Valkyries will not come with the ability to touch their body.
• Braids of Action: Another running theme of the Kaslanas, as both Kiana and Kallen wear their hair in waist-length braids; Kiana has two while Kallen has one. Kiana's hair comes unbraided when she's taken over by Sirin. Once Sirin is defeated, Kiana rebraids her hair, but when she becomes Void Drifter, her hair is worn loose again.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: In The Bridge home screen interactions, your Valkyrie can be aware that you're playing the game for too long in one session. Bronya can even tell how many hours have you been playing non-stop.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: Honkai Impact 3rd runs on a gacha lottery system, so this trope naturally applies, as players who top-up with premium currency obviously have more chances of obtaining Valkyries, weapons, Stigmata and other resources on the Supply gachas than those who grind them instead. The rarest and most powerful Valkyries can only be obtained in the gacha, unlike most of the farmable Valkyries. In addition, the game also sells "bundles" of materials with special currency, which itself can only be bought with real money.
• The Bridge: The home screen is set on Hyperion's bridge, with the Bridge Bunnies in the background and a Valkyrie of your choice standing in front of you.
• Bullet Time: The "Time Fracture" effect can slow down time around the user for a few seconds, which helps with navigating around enemies; this can also slow down the timer for a Timed Mission. Some Valkyrie suits can activate Time Fracture with an Ultimate Evasion, while others trigger it with their QTE skills (which have shorter durations), and Divine Prayer Kiana has it as part of her Ultimate Skill.
• Bury Your Gays: Inverted. The characters who express romantic inclinations towards the opposite sex are more likely to die than those who are romantically interested in the same gender. Examples include:
  • Kiana's mother Cecilia, who sacrificed herself during the 2nd Eruption after bidding a tearful farewell to her husband and Kiana's father Sigfried.
  • In Chapter 9, Himeko, who had been looking for a man to settle down with, dies after suppressing the Herrscher of the Void.
  • Owl's motivations for saving the Herrscher of Ice, Ana, was because she had previously rescued him, and their past interactions are heavily framed as romantic. After fusing together to become the Herrscher of Rimestar, they are killed and buried together in the same grave with their heart-shaped Friendship Trinkets placed on the gravestone.
  • In Chapter 28, Otto dies after finally fulfilling his wish to create an alternate timeline where Kallen survives the Honkai beast rampage that he released to enable her to escape from her execution.
  • In Chapter 35, Kevin is finally able to reunite with his beloved Dr. MEI after Kiana gains the authority of Finality.

C

• Call-Back:
  • In the supplementary comic about the ELFs' world, Schrodinger examines the magazine she finds and she notices something peculiar: the "Mu continent", which she thinks was a lost world in the middle of the sea. Jingwei's Wings says that that was the name of this world back when humanity was still around. It's an oblique reference to another comic set in the Previous Era, where it's mentioned that there existed a continent called Mu that was lost due to the activity of the 9th Herrscher, who can control gravity. In the next chapter of the ELF comic, the previous era's Einstein (the ELFs' creator) warped the whole continent into the Sea of Quanta so the people there could survive the Herrscher's attack, but sadly, their grounds have been contaminated heavily with the Honkai and can no longer sustain organic life. Humanity slowly died over the years, leaving only the EL Fs and their new civilization in its wake.
  • In the special video at the end of Chapter 14, there's one of the brief shots of the citizens, including a mother and her baby looking up to the night sky as Kiana runs above the rooftops. It's a reference to one chapter of the 2nd Eruption comic where a similar scene happens with another mother and child (implied to be Mei) looking up to the sky as Sirin dropped space debris onto the earth. Kiana's action itself—using her power to neutralize the Honkai energy bomb by flying up to the atmosphere and then destroying it there—is one to the Anti-Entropy Visual Novel, where Edison did the same thing to save Manhattan (at the cost of her life).
  • In Chapter 16, when Mei asks Tesla on what they could do to help the children in the Roost, she says that AE's Salt Lake base is taking in some orphans and that they may be running low on supplies. It refers to the end of Chapter 12 where the Hyperion crew is planning to take the kids in Cocolia's orphanage to the Salt Lake base.
  • The "Shattered Samsara" short animation gives a call-back to multiple scenes in the past:
    • When Kiana sees Herrscher of Sentience's incoming "giant phoenix" attack, she reacts with an Oh, Crap! face as she says "This is Fu Hua's..."; a call-back to Sirin in 2nd Eruption when she saw Fu Hua about to use Edge of Taixuan against her.
    • When Fu Hua is about to seal Herrscher of Sentience together with her, she tells Kiana that this is her final goodbye; after all, "it's my mission". It's the same thing that Kiana says to Mei in the "Lament of the Fallen" video, which left the latter enraged as she can't accept that her "most important person" had to sacrifice herself, even "for the greater good"; now Kiana gets to feel how Mei felt.
    • After Fu Hua did the aforementioned sealing, leaving a Fenghuang Down feather behind, Kiana uses her void powers to "enter" the feather to save her friend, like what Sirin did in 2nd Eruption (although for different reasons).
    • The scene afterwards where Kiana "punches" a floor to rescue Fu Hua is one to the "Seele" video where Seele did the same thing to get to the trapped Bronya.
    • Near the end, Fu Hua warns Kiana about the Herrscher of Sentience possibly breaking free if Kiana tries to pull Fu Hua out; the Kaslana girl then claims that "I can just beat her again", the same reassurance that she gave Mei years ago (shown in a flashback in Chapter 16).
    • The act of Kiana trying to save Fu Hua despite the possibility of Herrscher of Sentience being free as a consequence, in itself, is one to a flashback scene in Chapter 20, where Book of Fuxi tells Fu Hua that someday, there'll be someone who treasures her more than the world.
  • The lyrics of "Moon Halo" reference every Valkyrie theme before it, namely "Befall", "Nightglow", "Cyberangel", "Starfall", "Honkai World Diva (movie ver.)" and "Rubia", and contrasts their tone with a far more hopeful outlook.
    Let out the cries imprisoned for so long ^* Referencing "Hear, oh hear all the voices trapped in thee" from Befall
    A pair of wings for me at this moment to soar above this world ^* Referencing "Though my wings've been bloodstained and could never rid" from "Cyberangel"
    Turned into a moon that always tells warmth ^* Referencing "Crimson moon shines upon a town that is smeared in blood" from "Honkai World Diva (movie ver.)"
    I will never go ^* Referencing "Never let you go" from "Nightglow"
    There's a way back home ^* Referencing "To find the way back home" from "Rubia"
    Brighter than tomorrow and yesterday ^* Referencing "I want no tomorrow or yesterday" from "Starfall"
• Call-Forward:
  • The end of Bright Knight's event in Version 3.9 (set some time before the game's main story) has a scene where the data of the Bright Knight suit in one of the capsules in a certain chamber in Chapter 9 is deleted, leaving the message "project transferred to other labs" behind.
  • There are few nods to A Post-Honkai Odyssey here and there that are more in line with what happened in the main story and certain game modes:
    • In Chapter 16, Mei and Tesla set up a few Honkai energy detectors to try to detect Kiana in the ruins of Nagazora City; they specifically talk about finding "somewhere wide and flat" to place them, and Tesla claims that it's still a new tech. However, they could only find Mei's trace of Herrscher energy instead. This is a reference to the early part of the first chapter of the game mode, where the older Mei and the Protagonist set up multiple detectors in different places in the St. Fountain (specifically, wide and flat places) to find the missing Welt, and they expect to find two results: Welt, and Mei herself.
    • In Chapter 18, one of the files titled "Project Galactic Stairway" mentions that its primary goal is to construct a space elevator as a direct transport link for building a massive space station in low Earth orbit, which also serves as a bridgehead for human space exploration efforts. The aforementioned project is set to be completed by 2025. This is a subtle reference to the game mode's setting, which takes place 8 years after the banishment of the Honkai to the outer space at some point in 2017.
    • In one of the side missions during the events of "Thus Spoke Apocalypse" arc^note Chapters 26 - 28, Durandal and Tesla are visiting Reanna's old residence in Kolosten. There, they discovered a safe box containing a letter and a comb. Durandal then reads the letter, and when this happens, the scene changes to Reanna's old photo with a building that appears to be the Sa'ad Station. In A Post-Honkai Odyssey, Sa'ad Station is one of the points of interest in St. Fountain where Theresa dispatches the 3rd Squad to investigate the anomalies in that city while searching for the missing Welt Yang. The photo also suggests that at some point Reanna was on vacation in St. Fountain, years before the strange phenomenon happened in that city.
    • Another side mission, also from "Thus Spoke Apocalypse" arc, has Bronya having a conversation with Rita where the latter advises her to add some flashiness and elegance to her combat style to help her reputation and have more people buy her services. One of Bronya's battlesuits, Silverwing N-EX, shows that her fighting style becomes more elegant and refined. Sure enough, she has two rookies working with her, despite her status as a Substitute Captain for the 2nd Squad. The developers confirm that this is a result of Bronya's "acquired taste in elegance and composure", meaning that Bronya took her advice to heart.
    • Still in "Thus Spoke Apocalypse" arc, in one of the secret conversations, Otto tells Void Archives that if he hadn't been depleting all the Honkai energy he gathered as a part of creating an alternate timeline where Kallen never died, the "invasion" would have happened. Void Archives then berates Otto, telling him that he should've resigned as the Schicksal Overseer 60 years ago, only for Otto to tell the Divine Key to take care of Theresa after he's gone. Following Theresa's inauguration as the new Schicksal Overseer, Void Archives is making his own way to become one of the antagonists of A Post-Honkai Odyssey by taking one of the now-dead Otto Apocalypse's empty clones, and, eight years later, secretly instigating the invasion of the Sky People under the pretext of stopping the Honkai for good. This conversation also implies that Otto knew of the existence of living things beyond the scope of the Honkai, particularly the aforementioned Sky People.
    • In one of the side missions during the events of the finale arc, Sora asks Seele to help her find a boy who sneaks out to gather some supplies on his own. When Seele arrives at the mining area, a boy warns Seele that the area is off limits. Suddenly, a group of monsters arrives, and Seele fends them off. After that, Seele advises the boy to never take on everything alone and trust in his friends' strength. Seele introduces herself to the boy, and in return, the boy introduces himself as Lyle Collodi. For those who played APHO Chapter 2, Lyle Collodi is a member of the 2nd Squad, known for his confident and friendly personality, although sometimes his antics annoy other people. In certain conversations, Lyle almost constantly mentions a girl who was his childhood sweetheart. He never gets her name right, but he is still looking for her. Given the context of APHO Chapter 2, it's implied that Seele is Lyle's childhood sweetheart, although time will tell if Lyle ends up secretly referring to her as such.
    • In the early part of Chapter 32 Act 2, when the main trio reunites, Bronya calls Mei "big sister" for the first time since the "Elegy of Yesterday" arc. If the Japanese voiceover is turned on, when Bronya refers to Mei, she is no longer using the honorific "neesama", but "neesan" instead. During the events of "Before Starfall", an interquel set after APHO Chapter 1 and before APHO Chapter 2, Bronya worries about Mei and mutters "Mei-neesan". What happened to the former's event can be considered as the first sign of her mental growth, leading to her no longer referring to herself in the third person.
    • During the pep talk between Kiana and Mei in the third act of Chapter 32, they reminisce about the good and bad things that happened to them, including the infamous Chapter 17. Before they move on to the third mental scenery that is the moment when Benares sacrificed itself, Kiana tells Mei these peculiar words: "Fight for all that is beautiful in the world - this is my mission, and my promise to Himeko-sensei. And in my heart, Mei-senpai is the most special part of all the beautiful things in the world. That's why I hope Mei-senpai can care about yourself more than me or the world." In the penultimate main mission of APHO Chapter 1, Mei tells Theresa these words: "Even if it's just what she said - "fight for all that is beautiful in the world" - I will carry on. If there's anything I can do, I will do it. As long as there are people for me to protect, this sword will not rest." The line, which is also the game's tagline, becomes a Meaningful Echo, and perhaps becomes Mei's way of life. Even if she is still traumatized by Kiana's disappearance and yearns for her return, Mei remembers what Kiana taught her: to never stop fighting for she believes in.
    • In one of the conversations between Mei and Elysia in the "Elysian Realm" game mode, Elysia tells Mei that she is still a young and tender girl, and a few years later, she will become a graceful and dignified woman. Mei's older self in A Post-Honkai Odyssey clearly shows that she indeed becomes the woman that Elysia predicted years earlier during Mei's stay in the realm.
    • In one of the conversations between Mei and Vill-V, also from the "Elysian Realm", Mei learns that she is the creator of the Divine Keys. One of them is Void Archives, the first Divine Key with tons of potential, including its will to defy its creator. Vill-V offers to teach Mei the countermeasures, only for Mei to reject her offer, hoping that she wouldn't be fighting it again. Guess what kind of enemy Mei fights against eight years later?
• Camera Lock-On: By default, your character will lock on to the closest enemy they're facing when they attack. You can change the settings to either disable this or give you manual lock-on (by tapping the enemy's body), although it's usually better to keep it automatic.
• Cap:
  • Your Valkyries' max level is capped at whatever your current level is as Captain, and can't go higher than 80 although your Captain level is capped at 88.
  • The max upgrade levels for weapons and Stigmata are denoted by stars. 4-star equipments' upgrade level cap is 35, while 5-star ones is 50. PRI-ARM versions of weapons are capped at 65.
  • In "A Post-Honkai Odyssey", the amount of Krystallums and Regulators you can get from the Explore mode per "cycle" are capped; the cap will increase as you raise your "intel level". Note that the total amount of those items in your inventory isn't capped, while the number of those items you get outside of Explore mode won't count towards that cap.
• Cast Full of Gay: Out of all playable characters, only Himeko and later Carole (in A Post-Honkai Odyssey) are confirmed to be straight. The rest...
  • Kiana adores Mei and is not shy at all about expressing it. This somehow extends to Sirin's dormant Herrscher core within Kiana, which is attracted to Mei's Herrscher self and feels entitled to take it—because back in the 2nd Honkai War, Sirin used to possess the core of the 3rd Herrscher (among other cores) to empower herself. She also jokes that Fu Hua might be a contender, if not for the fact that Kiana's soul and body already belongs to Mei. A few other quick jokes in the game (such as her being not angry but jealous upon hearing the rumor that her dad touched the butts of a lot of Valkyries) clearly indicate which way she swings. Mei is much more subtle about her feelings^note the most she showed are her Nightmare Sequence from one of the supplementary comics (which has been kicked out of canon) where she appears to be marrying Kiana, but then the latter dies; and Herrscher Mei's inner thoughts in another comic, where she thinks of how much Kiana has dug into her despite her irritation, though later story chapters slowly uncover her feelings of gratitude for her first meeting with Kiana. Then Chapter 17 comes around and she reveals in the tie-in animated short that Kiana means the world to her (and she makes it clear in front of Kiana), so Mei is willing to antagonize her to save her from her fate as a Herrscher and from her self-destructive tendencies.
  • Bronya and Seele are so close that they end up kissing each other before the latter disappears from reality, with Seele promising that this wouldn't be their last kiss and Bronya will find a way to restore Seele, becoming one of her main motivations throughout the story. In the "Stygian Blooms" event, in the "Album/Seele's Notebook" section, there are writings of negative emotions and other things ("Solitude", "Anger", "Fear", etc), and among them is "Seele loves Bronya".
  • Kallen bonds with Yae Sakura due to their similar circumstances, and they spend most of their screentime together like a couple. It's saying something when most official works have them kissing each other at least once.
  • Theresa was very close to Cecilia back in the past, as the one person who befriended her when most other people (other than Otto) only treated her professionally at most, due to her being a clone partially made of Honkai genes. She was just as devastated as Siegfried when she learned about Cecilia's demise in the 2nd Honkai War, and she secretly holds some jealousy towards him for "stealing Cecilia away from her". Her theme song (back from the Guns GirlZ days) tells about how important Kiana's mother was to her life, and how much losing her felt like.
  • Downplayed with Fu Hua. She doesn't exactly show attraction towards anyone, but she's often close to Himeko (who simply sees her as one of her students). In the previous civilization 50000+ years ago, she used to be a newbie soldier under the command of a Himeko lookalike, who turned out to be the Herrscher of Flame and had to be slain. Her commander taught her a lot of things and was protective of her, which causes Fu Hua to look up to her, even after her death. Though more recent events seem to have shifted to pairing her up with Kiana more often than not, with one event having the Captain note how he senses a "special chemistry" between the two.
• Cast Herd:
  • Most characters are affiliated with one of the three major organizations; Schicksal, Anti-Entropy, and World Serpent, though as the story progresses, some of them may choose to switch sides or defect from the organization entirely. There are story arcs, chapters, and events that primarily focus on what's happening within a certain group, such as the Elysian Realm arc and the "Summer Survival: Rhapsody" events focusing mostly on the thirteen Flame-Chasers.
  • The "Captainverse" characters are from the parallel event storyline involving the "Captain" and alternate versions of the main storyline's characters.
• Cataclysm Backstory: The supplementary comic centered around the Divine Keys shows that there used to be a much more advanced human civilization 50000+ years ago that had dealt with numerous Honkai threats, including Herrschers. Back then, humans, thanks to the previous world version of Mei, who's a renowned scientist, had many technological breakthroughs such as the creation of the special alloy "Soul Steel" and the weapons derived from it, the study of the Herrscher Cores and their use in creating the Divine Keys, as well as the "M.A.N.T.I.S" project, which created powerful Super Soldiers. Despite their best efforts, however, they eventually faced extinction at the hand of the final Herrscher ("God Kiana" of the previous game, Guns GirlZ), but not before Mei flung a light into the future in the form of Stigmata^note which contained the fruits of her researches and projects and were implanted into select humans, who were then put into cryostasis and her "child"^note She mixed her DNA with that of her trusted friend Kevin Kaslana and then raised the embryo in vitro; Kevin then put both himself and the child into cryostasis.
• The Cavalry Arrives Late: In Chapter 18, when Durandal and Rita arrive at where the Snow Lotus valkyrie squad lost contact, the two see the squad members dead beneath the ice. The two have a moment of silence, then Durandal tells Rita that they have to bring the dead Valkyries home. When Durandal finds one of their comm devices and replays the recording in it, a voice says that they've tried contacting the Oceania Branch and they were waiting for reinforcements, when suddenly, another voice identified as "squad leader" started acting bizarrely as she desperately yelled at the other to get away from her... before the voice went static.
• Challenge Run:
  • The first time you play most stages (story mode, Chronicles stages, daily missions, certain events, etc), there'll be "medals" that you can obtain by doing challenging tasks, such as doing a number of combo hits, finishing the stage under a number of seconds, not taking more than X amount of hits, etc. Successfully getting the medals would give you a few Crystals each, and in story mode and Chronicles mode, getting enough medals from a cluster of stages will give you some more rewards.
  • In the "Empyrean Legends" event, many stages have signboards which will clue you on what you have to do to get extra rewards.
• Changing Gameplay Priorities: You'll spend your lower captain levels learning about your Valkyries' skills and how they work in battle, and you'll gain crystals and coins rather quickly. The game unlocks more and more things as you level up, from the Dormitory and Base to the Armada (basically player guilds) and their related features, and various gameplay modes such as Memorial Arena and Infinite Abyss. Once you're at level 40+, leveling your Valkyries (including their skills) requires more resources, and you also have to start planning about getting better gear for them (at worst, the 3-stars-base ones).
• Character Alignment: The chibis of the Stigmata characters are each assigned one of the classic D&D-style alignments. For instance, Sirin and Elizabeth Bathory are Chaotic Evil since Sirin is the Herrscher of the Void and Elizabeth Bathory is based on the historical murderer Elizabeth Báthory.
• Character Level: Each of the Valkyrie suits have their "levels", which can be increased by playing as them or by consuming special EXP chips, the latter method being faster. Leveling up means increasing their stats and available skill levels, as well as increasing their "load point" so that they can equip more powerful weapons and Stigmata. ELFs also have their levels, which are increased by feeding them special food. Their level is capped by their "star grade" (which are increased by collecting their fragments), akin to weapons/stigmata.
• Character Select Forcing: For the more competitive side of the game (the "Abyss" modes and Memorial Arena) specifically, quite a number of bosses are practically designed to be beaten by specific characters, especially the one they're trying to "sell" in the Expansion Supply. The gimmicks for each "Abyss" modes (Weather of War in Dirac Sea, the "Evadion buff skill" in Q-Singularis) also tend to steer players into fighting the boss with characters of specific attributes as they'll get buffed and thus can potentially beat the boss quicker to score more points. If you don't own said specific characters, prepare to improvise.
• Charged Attack: Some characters have this, done by holding the main attack button. Some character skills, weapon skills and Stigmata effects specifically enhance charged attacks.
• Chekhov's Gag: The "HOMU Rush!" event mentions "Sekigo: Sakura Dies Twice" as one of the games that Bronya plays in a lifestream, and as part of the "Beach Empress" (aka the "desert genie")'s video game collection. The "Sanka Saga" event's final act is called "Sekigo", and its only normal stage is named "Sakura Dies Twice".
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • In "Winter's Rhapsody" and "Odd Drifter", if the particular item you get from the adventure isn't immediately useful, it will become useful later on.
  • The "St. Freya Fiesta" event features a board game-like gameplay, with you following a linear path (with occasional branching that leads back to one path), deciding how long you can go with randomized means (from 1 to 4 squares), and various things that could happen when you stop on a particular square. The significance of this is in how it's revealed in the end that the Captain is just daydreaming while Theresa and the Olenyeva twins are playing a board game.
  • In the early part of A Post-Honkai Odyssey's first chapter, Mei mentions that Welt was last seen by the Schicksal's satellites taking off in the Sa'ad Station in St. Fountain before they lost contact with him. The team finds out that there's some kind of barrier surrounding the city that blocks off normal means of long distance communications. The "gun" comes off later on, where Carole's recon job results in her finding a "hole" in this barrier: the Sa'ad Station's subway, which they use to evacuate Welt and his son Joey out of the city.
  • The "gacha" currency for A Post-Honkai Odyssey is golden keys. You may think they "open boxes", but those who have seen Void Archives (which takes the shape of a golden key) in the manga will be alerted by them. Void Archives is revealed to be behind the whole St. Fountain incident.
  • In Chapter 16, Mei finds an Anti-Entropy assistant drone lying around in the ruins of Nagazora; when Tesla checks it, she says that it still looks quite new. The drone is later revealed to be the Robot Buddy of Sora, one of the refugees in the city, who asks Mei to retrieve it for her.
  • In the trailer for Version 4.1, there's an image of a pair of pendants shaped like halves of a heart. In Chapter 18, Durandal finds one of them lying around on Coral Island's ruins, cluing her to what happened: its owner, Ana Schariac, has become the 5th Herrscher. Near the end of the chapter, the other half of the pendant is revealed to be held by Owl.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Some of the weapons' Flavor Text mentions the designer as neither Schicksal nor Anti-Entropy, but "Mikoyan Design Bureau", who's affiliated with the organization called "World Serpent". Chapter 9-EX is where the story directly tackles said organization for the first time, by first showing one of their agents/informants called "Gray Serpent" and his subordinate called "Ningyo". Version 2.9's introduction video also puts emphasis on them and the serpent theme. Version 3.5 also puts them in a bigger spotlight, coming complete with a new side comic that focuses on them.
• Cherry Tapping: Using the base B-suits like White Comet or Crimson Impulse (who have a very limited moveset and subpar damage) in high difficulties is a popular way to impress the viewers.
• Choose a Handicap: In the Elysian Realm, the difficulty level is increased by choosing a number of special handicaps, which also increases the enemies’ resistance as the level goes up. On the flipside, though, you also pick up special buffs on each floor, which compensate for those handicaps if you combine them cleverly. Of course, the higher the difficulty, the more you are rewarded for clearing it.
• Chromatic Rock Paper Scissors: The playable characters initially fell into three types, with Biological (yellow-orange) beating Psychic (light purple) beating Mecha (light blue) beating Biological. Two further types were later added, Quantum (dark purple) and Imaginary (gold-tinged silver) which beat their own, were weak against each other, and had no advantage over the other types.
• Chunky Updraft: In one cutscene in Chapter 17, the activation of the 2nd Divine Key causes the ruined buildings in Nagazora to get uprooted and float up.
• Church Militant: The Schicksal Organization, at least at its core/in its earlier days, has some Christian (particularly Catholic) themes, and is led by an Archbishop. They're also the foremost group on fighting the Honkai phenomenon.
• Civil War vs. Armageddon: The two major organizations, Schicksal and Anti-Entropy, are both fighting against the "Honkai" phenomenon, a force that tries to eliminate humanity. The two are also constantly scheming against each other because of the friction that occurred between the two years before the game's present; both of them have done questionable deeds in the past, supposedly for stopping the Honkai threats, and both have good and bad members of their own.
• Civvie Spandex: Some of the Valkyries' costumes seem to be fitting more for vacations rather than combat. This is given a nod in the Durandal-themed side event "Schicksal Mystery"; in a conversation between Rita and Durandal, all of the Valkyries' outfits are created by Schicksal, coming from a variety of collections similar to clothing lines, and are designed to be combat capable, so the Valkyries can fight the Honkai should the need arise no matter where they are or what they're doing.
• *Click* Hello: This is played with in Chapter 14, when Mei makes her presence known to Rita by putting her sword to Rita's neck. While Rita has sent her a message about Kiana's whereabouts, she's still wary about having had the maid as an enemy (who was hunting Kiana) back in Chapter 9-EX.
  Rita: Miss Raiden, it's been a long time.
• Cliffhanger:
  • The Sakura Samsara's extra story ends like this: Sakura manages to defeat the sword-turned-demon Jizo Mitama and free Higokumaru from "her" influence, but then a masked thief (Kallen as Sixth Serenade) steals the cursed sword away. The Raid stages "Soul Throne" continues from this, as Sakura goes to chase the thief.
  • The "HOMU Rush!" event ends in one, as the ship the Captain and the girls are on is swept away by a huge wave. The next event, "Odd Drifter", picks up in the aftermath, as Yae Sakura finds the Captain washed up on a beach which becomes the first area in the event.
  • The end of Chapter 9 has Himeko preparing herself to fight Herrscher of the Void. The cutscene only shows glimpses of the fight; the full video is in the official Youtube channel, called "Final Lesson". Likewise, the end of Chapter 14 has Kiana preparing to use Herrscher of the Void's full power with Fu Hua's aid; it then cuts with an announcement for the associated animated short, "Meteoric Salvation". There's also an in-game CG of the aftermath of "Meteoric Salvation", with Mei rushing to where Kiana fell, only to find that Durandal beat her to the punch, setting up a confrontation between the two as Chapter 14 truly ends.
  • Post-Honkai Odyssey's "Part 1" ends this way. Both Mei and the Protagonist are heavily injured after fighting the Final Boss, and Carole can only hope that they can stay alive.
  • Chapter 18 ends with the Herrscher of Ice blasting Mei and Durandal with a massive frigid blast. The next thing shown was her and Owl walking away. Chapter 19 shows that Mei and Durandal get out fine, however.
  • In the end of Chapter 20, Kiana and Bronya walk into a door in a building in Mount Taixuan, only to find "dark Fu Hua" inside, setting up for their meeting and confrontation. Chapter 21 ends the same way from Hua(?)'s side, showing how she got there before Kiana and Bronya did.
  • The second part of Chapter 29 ends with several Flame-Chaser sims on high-alert. Mei was supposed to meet Elysia but couldn't find her anywhere, so she inquires them, and Mobius responds by saying the missing Elysia is "dead". The chapter's Flame-Chaser gallery then has Elysia's portrait shattering like glass. The third part ends in an almost similar manner; the "broken" typewriter apparently managed to print more facts, and when Mei picked up one paper, it mentions Kevin "died", complete with his portrait shattering just like what happened to Elysia's.
• Clothes Make the Superman: Aside from their weapons and stigmata, the big source of power for the Valkyries lie in their battlesuits. Different suits give them different abilities.
• Color Wash: Certain attacks/effects by the Valkyries or the ELFs will tint the surroundings with certain color. Time Fracture effect will dim the lights and give a subtle purple tint, the ELF Blood Embrace's Ultimate Skill will tint the screen red until it finishes, Arctic Kriegsmesser's special mode (after using her Charged Attack) will tint the screen blue until the mode stops, and so on.
• Combat Resuscitation: In the Coop Multiplayer stages, when one of the player characters is downed, they can be brought back up by one of their co-op friends by walking towards them and waiting for a few seconds until they get back up. There's a 20-second time limit to this state, however; once those seconds pass, they can't be revived unless their player pays a certain amount of Crystals that increases with each subsequent death. Some of the "Co-op Skills" affect this mechanic in many ways, like increasing the speed of resuscitation, or providing some temporary buffs after successful resuscitation, etc.
• Combo: These can be executed by repeatedly tapping on the attack button. Variations require some sort of unique input like delayed taps or tap-and-holds. There is also a combo counter in-game, which is tracked by certain stage objectives. Certain Valkyrie skills and weapon and Stigmata effects are tied to how many combo hits you make; most of them are about giving you buffs after reaching a number of combo hits. Some of the "medal missions" are also about doing enough hits in a combo.
• Company Cameo: In the first Summer event, the miHoYo building exists in Soukai City. In the story, you can sometimes see miHoYo advertisements and logos in Arc City.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: In the Dirac Sea mode, the clusters that contain only 1 enemy and the clusters that contain "duo elites" are harder than the normal ones, which house more enemies. The "solo warrior" cluster's enemy will have a lot of HP, and two special buffs: one that burns your characters' SP and temporarily weakens them if said enemy damages you, and another that gives them resistance towards most Status Effects whenever said enemy gets debuffed. The "duo elites" cluster's enemies have the Soul Link buff and there might be multiple pairs of them, though you fight them one pair at a time.
• Content Warnings: The PC version briefly opens with a lengthy disclaimer stating the game has scenes and Epileptic Flashing Lights that may trigger those with photosensitive epilepsy.
• Continuity Nod: The event stories tend to reference previous ones, but "Odd Drifter" makes it a plot point because the Captain is dealing with some amnesia, with him getting flashbacks to the previous events' stories every now and then. In particular, seeing the "vampire Theresa" reminds him of the events of Soukai City where he couldn't save Luna Kindred no matter what he does and thus he strives to help her in however way he can, including giving her his own blood.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: Most bosses are immune to many status effects, making QTEs harder to use (as they're triggered by status effects). The few ones that they aren't immune to are "bleeding", "ignite", "time-slow" (and a few bosses are immune to even that), "impaired" and "weakened" (lowered attack power). They also can only be launched up if their Armor Meter is broken, and even then (most of the time) they aren't "launched" per se, merely enough that it'll trigger launch-based QTE. In a lesser variant, some of them are also attribute-less, so that none of your Valkyries have advantage against them (but neither would they).
• Conveniently Timed Distraction: In the middle of Chapter 15, after Kiana (who's been abducted to Schicksal's Vimur Base) and Durandal have a talk about Schicksal, there's a sudden incoming attack from World Serpent's mechs. As the mechs break in and cause rubble to fall down, Durandal calls Kiana, only to find out that Kiana has taken the opportunity to escape the base.
• Cool Airship: Hyperion, which doubles as your Home Base.
• Cooldown Manipulation: Some Stigmata effects reduce the cooldown of Ult. Evasion/Perfect Defense, such as Zhuge Kongming T or the 2-Set Bonus of Shakespeare. Some others reduce the cooldown of weapon skills, such as Theresa: Origins M or Siegfried M.
• Co-Op Multiplayer: Players can join lobbies of 3 and battle enemies in real-time.
• Cosmic Horror Story: It's revealed that the Honkai is a natural part of how the Imaginary Tree (the setting's equivalent to the multiverse) works. Specifically, whenever a universe develops a civilization, the Honkai will manifest in it to see if it's fit to survive. If not, then the universe falls into the Sea of Quanta. Basically, humanity will never escape the Honkai.
• The Corruption: This is one of the main ways the Honkai manifests and tries to eradicate humanity. Exposure to Honkai energy will make common people (without any Honkai protection) succumb to the Honkai's will, becoming like a mindless zombie that can spread the corruption to others. In certain cases, however, the Honkai may have a more sophisticated approach that turns humans into Herrschers, "agents" of the Honkai's will who are controlled to cause mass destruction and havoc. In particular, the Herrscher of Corruption (in the Previous Era) worked by implanting her mind into anything, even machinery and electronics, to "corrupt" and control them to do her bidding.
• Cover Version:
  • Seele's theme "Dual Ego" has a cover version sang by Hanser, Bronya's voice actress.
  • miHoYo also sponsored a cover of "Honkai World Diva" by Rainych. Sponsored covers with the purpose of advertising the game, or are sung by another artist became prevalent since then, such as AmaLee's version of "Oaths" and "Oracle".
• Counter-Attack: In a variant. For certain characters, if they've successfully evaded an attack by pressing the attack button right after, they can perform a special attack to hit whoever tried attacking them previously; e.g. Phoenix (Fu Hua) has a Deadly Lunge attack (based on one of her special combos) that she can do twice in a row, while Sündenjäger (Kallen) instantly segues into the 4th part of her basic combo after evading an attack. In another variant, for certain characters, the Ultimate Evasion effect itself is an attack of its own, e.g Twilight Paladin (Theresa) summons a spinning blade where the attacker stands to hit them multiple times, while Shadow Dash (Mei) creates a shadow clone to attack her attacker.
• Crapsaccharine World: This setting may be placed in a generally thriving Post-Cyberpunk alternate present society (it is set in 2016), but no one is safe here, as there's Honkai all over the place, and the organizations opposing them are not much better. Also, the Valkyries are extremely expendable, and generally, their lifespans get cut off for good measure by artificial Stigmata augmentation^note although among playable characters, only Himeko (presumably) has this problem.
• Crapsack World: In comparison to the current era, the Previous Era is this, as the Honkai threats occur much more frequently, forcing humanity to advance just as quickly. Even with their best efforts, there was always the feeling of looming Honkai threats, they're forced to adopt desperate and extreme measures, and humanity dwindled - and eventually went extinct - in the span of little more than a decade (compare Kevin and MEI at the time of the 3rd Honkai outbreak, to the end of the era).
• Critical Hit:
  • In the traditional sense, physical attacks have a chance of dealing critical hits, shown by the damage number glowing gold. The CRT stat determines the chance and damage a critical hit does. Some Valkyries' skills, some weapons and Stigmata can increase the critical hit chance and damage directly, or increase the CRT stat; some others have effects that trigger upon dealing critical hits^note for example, the Rinaldo and Kepler stigmata sets can trigger extra damage and paralysis on a small area, as well as small self heal, by dealing critical hits; Imayoh Ritual (Kallen) has a passive where her special gauge (for her branch attack, a Wave-Motion Gun) will fill up if her normal attacks deal critical hits.
  • In a variant, when you're leveling your weapons and Stigmata up using level-up materials, there'll be a chance that you'll fill it by 1.5 times the amount, and a much more rare chance to fill it by 2 times. If you're lucky enough, this would mean that you can level up your equipments using lower amounts of money and materials.
• Crossover:
  • Version 4.5 features a crossover event with Neon Genesis Evangelion, titled "New Century"^note Named after the original Japanese title, Shinseiki Evangelion, lit. "New Century Gospel". Angels suddenly appeared in the Honkai world and the Anti-Entropy, representing NERV, has to fight them off to protect humanity; fortunately, they have help in form of Asuka, who also stumbled into this world and knows a thing or two about the Angels. The event's story parodies that of Evangelion's, with Honkai characters and concepts in place of Eva's: Mei as Shinji, Bronya as Rei, Himeko as Misato, Kiana as Asuka, Ryoma (Mei's father) as Gendo, and so on.
  • Version 4.9 features a crossover event with another popular miHoYo game, Genshin Impact. Fischl is the first playable archer character in this game and is permanently available onwards. Keqing is also a Guest Fighter, but she's only playable during the collab's "Outworld Quest" event.
• Crystal Landscape: In "A Post-Honkai Odyssey", the city of St. Fountain is littered with strange crystal growths. They apparently contain small amounts of Honkai energy, and they're said to be an unnatural phenomenon.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • At the end of Chapter 8, Sirin fully takes control of Kiana's body and awakens as the Herrscher of the Void. Mei tries to fight her while being assisted by her Herrscher self, but gets utterly trounced no matter how well the player performs in the boss battle. In the following cutscene, Anti-Entropy's army of mechs also gets wrecked when the Herrscher of the Void sends all of their firepower back at them.
  • Similar to the above, at the beginning of Chapter 15, Mei tries to intercept Durandal as the latter is about to retrieve an unconscious Kiana, but she's no match for Schicksal's strongest Valkyrie, and can only cry while clinging to Kiana's jacket as Durandal departs with Kiana. You can whittle down a lot of health bars during the short fight sequence, but it's made moot by Durandal interrupting all controls and activating her Ultimate.
  • In the London Holiday comic, Stan the bio-engineered cat is infuriated that his fight against Rita always gets interrupted by some inconvenience, so when he runs into Durandal on his way out, he decides to pounce on her... only to get swatted off with a nonchalant hit from Durandal's wrist, who's still in her civvies. This sends Stan flying into the ceiling so hard, the collar that allows him to transform into a Honkai Beast shatters and he's left powerless before Durandal, who fortunately treats him like any other cat.

D

• Damage Discrimination: Most of the time, enemies' attacks wouldn't harm each other, with few exceptions: the "scythe zombie's" swings, "chariot Honkai Beast's" roar attack, "catapult Honkai Beast's" ball explosion (only if you attack it enough), and "spider mecha's" self-destruct move.
• Damage-Increasing Debuff: The "Impaired" debuff, indicated by downward yellow arrows near the body (whether the playable characters' or the enemies'). This debuff increases physical damage done onto the one with the status effect. Some Valkyries have ways to inflict this debuff (with Theresa's Celestial Hymn suit specializing in it), while some weapons and Stigmata have effects/skills that can also do so.
  • Kiana:
    • Valkyrie Ranger's QTE has her shooting at her enemies rapidly, with a final shot that inflicts the common "impared" debuff.
    • Divine Prayer has a passive skill where, whenever she's inactive, a lightning bolt will periodically strike the closest enemy, dealing lightning damage and the "impaired" debuff.
    • Herrscher of the Void's Charged Attack will leave a special debuff on all enemies hit that makes them take more damage from her attacks for 10 seconds.
    • Void Drifter (Augmented Valkyrie Ranger) can inflict a special debuff through her normal attack, Ultimate Evasion, QTE, or Ultimate Skill. Aside from increasing the damage the enemies take from attacks, it also empowers her branch attack and allows it to inflict the Time Slow debuff on them.
  • Mei:
    • Her Lightning Empress suit is the only character that can naturally inflict the "conductive" debuff on enemies, which makes the afflicted enemies take more lightning damage. Her "signature" weapon, Mag-Typhoon, can also do this.^note The only other sources of this debuff are one of Himeko's greatswords and one of Kiana/Kallen's guns.
    • Herrscher of Thunder can inflict "Narukami's Mark" onto enemies with many of her moves. The mark will let her deal more lightning damage onto them and fill her special gauge with her attacks.
    • Danzai Spectramancer (Augmented Shadow Dash) can inflict a special debuff onto enemies with her branch attack or QTE, that makes them take increased physical damage. After she does her Ultimate Skill, her "special clones" (summoned whenever she or her teammates use a branch or Charged Attack) can also inflict said debuff.
  • Bronya:
    • In a variant, enemies that are trapped in Valkyrie Chariot's black hole will take increased damage from ranged attacks.
    • Yamabuki Armor's uncharged shot gives enemies the "impaired" state that lowers their defense. After her Augment Core upgrade, however, it gives an enemy an Area of Effect that weakens their damage output, makes enemy in the AOE less resistant to flinching and increases damage taken to their Armor Meter (and slowly heals the whole team whenever the Deflector Shield "beats" and hits the affected enemies). Her Team Skill also puts the "impair" state on nearby enemies.
    • Snowy Sniper's Ultimate Skill, if she's ranked SS, will also inflict a debuff on all enemies in the radius that increases physical damage done to them.
    • Herrscher of Reason can inflict a unique "analyse" debuff on enemies (through various means) that increases ice damage against them.
  • Theresa's Celestial Hymn suit specializes in dealing the "impaired" debuff on enemies through various means. Her signature Oath of Judah cross can also give a debuff that increases lightning damage taken by enemies.
  • As Azure Empyrea, Fu Hua can inflict a debuff that increases elemental damage taken with one of her branch attacks. Her Ultimate Skill gives the whole party a buff for their attacks that applies the "elemental breach" debuff onto enemies. The Fu Hua Margrave B stigma also applies a total damage-increasing debuff onto nearby enemies in a radius if its 2-piece Set Bonus effect is triggered.
  • Darkbolt Jonin (Sakura) can inflict a special debuff onto enemies with either her kunai-throwing attack, her QTE or Ultimate Skill, that increases the damage taken from her attacks.
  • Sündenjäger (Kallen)'s normal combo attack ends with her doing a Multi-Directional Barrage that gives the enemies hit around her the "impaired" debuff. Her branch attack and Ultimate Evasion also gives a special debuff that increases her damage output against them and makes her Ultimate Skill do additional laser attacks from the sky.
  • Seele's Swallow Phantasm suit's Charged Attack effects give her enemies a special debuff that slows their movement and makes them take more damage from her attacks.
  • The Blood Dance greatsword's active skill makes affected enemies take extra elemental damage of any kind.
• Damage Typing: Two types, physical and elemental damage.
  • Physical damage is affected by the attacker's ATK stat, the defender's DEF, and whether or not they have an Elite Shield or some other protection. Physical damage can be affected by Critical Hit and will also damage and break Elite Shields.
  • Elemental damage sources are rare, with only certain Valkyries specializing in dealing them. They may or may not depend on the ATK stat (depending on the applicable formula), but they will ignore DEF, physical shields, or Elite Shields. However, they cannot break Elite Shields nor deal Critical Hits, and they can be resisted by certain equipments or buffs that give elemental resistance. A few bosses are also highly resistant or immune to elemental damage.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
  • When using Bronya's Yamabuki Armor and Dimension Breaker battlesuits, the Defend Command makes her Project Bunny raise up a deflector shield to block attacks instead of the usual dash/evade.
  • "A Post-Honkai Odyssey" has modified gameplay elements and controls which are different from the rest of the game.
    • Here, the playable characters can jump (there's a new HUD icon/button for this), double jump, or air-dash. This opens a lot of aerial attacks, juggling, or combos similar to Stylish Action games like the Devil May Cry series. Holding down the attack button manually launches enemies in the air or sends them crashing back to the ground. There's also a new Counter-Attack mechanic known as "Ultimate Jump" that requires jumping to avoid the attack (instead of evading), followed by a brief Quick Time Event scene where a unique button is tapped.
    • Carole has a bunch of grapple moves, and some of them can be executed with a tap of her basic attack after weakening the target (e.g when a Chariot's horns are broken). Compare that to Valkyrie Gloria, whose grapple mechanic is tied to a skill button.
  • The open-world chapters of the Main Story (e.g. Chapters 26-29) also incorporate a jumping mechanic during exploration. Once you enter a battle however, the usual gameplay mechanics and controls are used.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: The Divine Keys each have a Limit Break on their own, collectively called "Zeroth level release". Triggering it will release the full extent of the power of the Herrscher themselves, which tends to have devastating effects on everything within vicinity, including the users themselves.
  • Oath of Judah's zeroth release is to shut down every sort of energy, Honkai power and all. Sirin temporarily loses her Herrscher powers, becoming completely powerless upon the activation, while Theresa can barely stand, and would've died if she activated it any longer.
  • Judgement of Shamash's zeroth release is to release a large blast of fire that destroys everything in its path, including its user.
  • Star of Eden's zeroth release is nothing short of a miniature black hole. Bronya used it in "World 3" in Chapter 11 to end the bubble universe she's in, stopping the Alternate Universe Welt in the process.
  • This also occurs in Chapter 11-EX: Fenghuang Down's zeroth release is to merge the entirety of one's consciousness onto someone else's, bonding their souls until their death.
• Darker and Edgier: World 3 in Chapter 11 is significantly bleaker than the other two. The initial premise is the Second Honkai Eruption occurring in the present-day, meaning Bronya is fighting alongside Kiana and Mei, with Anti-Entropy allying with Schicksal to put down the Second Herrscher. And then Welt gets to Sirin, steals her core, kills her, and then turns on the Valkyries, with the intent of destroying Schicksal out of revenge. You know shit has hit the fan hard when Mei is just straight up obliterated, and Kiana apparently dies offscreen. Bronya barely avoids being corrupted by this world's Welt, who has apparently succeeded in destroying Schicksal. The one saving grace is that Bronya stops his mad rampage and ends the bubble universe in the end.
• Dating Sim: The Anniversary event gives a new game mode that's basically a dating sim lite. Set in Soukai City near the beach, complete with maps like in dating sims, you can date your Valkyries, experience various (humorous) event stories and give them gifts (gained from event stages in the city) to increase your bond levels with them, which will give you some event prizes. A patch, however, adds a new Visual Novel layer to it with deeper storylines.
• Death Is Cheap: If you die in "A Post-Honkai Odyssey", the game would usually recommend you to level-up the playable characters then retry later on. But since the revival items here (1 Suscitarin or 1000 Krystallum per character) are exclusive to the mode and doesn't involve gacha currency, it is possible to stockpile enough of them to keep on reviving your dead teammates until you complete the stage (although in the gauntlet mode "Ruins" you can't use revive more than 3 times in the same run).
• Defector from Decadence: Anti-Entropy, which used to be Schicksal's American branch, which split off when their leaders were convinced that Overseer Otto was not dedicated to the fight against the Honkai.
• Depower: During the climactic battle between Kiana and the Herrscher of the Void in Chapter 25, the Herrscher tries to tip the fight in her favor by stripping Kiana of her Herrscher power and absorbing it herself. The battle quickly and decisively turns in HoV's favor, but Kiana valiantly resists her, and the Gem of Haste restores Kiana's power and allows her to summon Himeko's greatsword and strike the winning blow.
• Diabolus ex Machina: In Chapter 3, our heroes corner Herrscher Wendy and convince her to turn normal so that she can be brought to Hyperion, have her legs healed, and have a better life. Due to Bronya's words, Wendy is convinced and willing to go with them... just in time for Cocolia to command Bronya to beat Wendy, causing Bronya to attack the latter. An angered Wendy turns Herrscher again and you have to fight her for real. Worse, after the battle, a squadron of Anti-Entropy robots come in and strike your Valkyries and Wendy down after they're exhausted, and they and brainwashed Bronya then go away with Wendy and Mei in their clutches.
• Dialog During Gameplay: From Chapter 5 onwards, many stages (including event ones) may have the characters (both playable and non-playable ones) talk to each other (or occasionally themselves) during a battle. There are also Boss Banters for certain stages where you fight certain bosses (usually humans).
• Die, Chair, Die!: The "A Post-Honkai Odyssey" maps feature destructible environment objects.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Players at high levels are often found using tricky but powerful strategies to get better scores at the competitive modes.
  • The Schrodinger T stigma gives either 52% or 205% total damage multiplier for the character's basic attacks (including branch and charged attacks) for 1-2 seconds with 6 seconds cooldown. Good timing is key to using this move, particularly if a character has a powerful branch/charged attack that isn't readily available. Such is the case of Twilight Paladin (Violet Executer's augmented form), who has a very powerful charged attack that is only available after "building up"^note she has to be in her Super Mode and has done 100+ hit combo and, once she uses it, she has to build it up again afterward. You have to time her charged attack so that it comes right when the stigma's buff is available again, but if you can do so, the damage can be phenomenal, especially with the right supports.
  • The "Triple Newton B" strategy: all of your characters use a Newton B stigma, which, upon any attack, places a debuff onto a single enemy that makes them take 41% more total damage from any attack, including the attack of another character that doesn't trigger it. The debuff lasts only 5 seconds with 10 seconds cooldown. This debuff can be stacked so that the enemy can take 123% extra damage from any attack, but the difficult part is that your characters would have less than 5 seconds to take advantage of this. In a team composition with this strategy, the main offensive character tends to be one with high burst damage potential (such as Void Drifter, Hawk of the Fog, Stygian Nymph, etc) while at least one of the supports have to be able to trigger the stigma's effect while off-field so that the debuff can be stacked more easily.
  • For that matter, the "off-field supporting" tactic itself can be tricky to use, but can be rewarding when done right. The idea is to equip a character with "effect-on-attack" stigmata and then have her use a certain attack that does a lasting effect on the battlefield (usually for more than a few seconds), so that said attack can re-trigger the effect even after she switches out. Only certain characters and weapons can do it (usually Celestial Hymn, but certain weapon skills such as Jingwei's Wings or Star Shatterer: Vikrant can also do so), and the tricky part is to time the "lasting-effect" attack so that the equipped stigmata's effects can be triggered (after a cooldown) when the offensive character is switched in and has their strong attack ready to use. This tactic would depend on the duration of the lasting attack, and the duration and cooldown of the stigmata in question. Starlit Astrologos (Theresa), introduced in 4.0, is intended to be the go-to character for off-field supporting, with her special QTE making her act like an Assist Character in tag-based fighting games (i.e you can still control your current character as SA enters and attacks the enemy).
  • Certain stigmata give a high damage boost with a strict condition. E.g Zhang Heng B gives the user 120% increased lightning damage, but only for 2 seconds after Ultimate Evasion and when the combo count is < 20. Lier B gives the user 46% increase in physical damage as long as their HP is full.
• Difficulty Levels:
  • Usually comes in Normal, Hard and Supreme, which each being increasingly harder while giving better rewards for completing stages.
  • Some story chapters and sequences (such as Durandal's fight against False God Otto in Chapter 28, or the scripted story scenes in Chapter 29) provide you a choice between three modes that temporarily adjust the difficulty of the preceeding battle(s), though these mostly serve as an anti-frustration feature rather than being tied to in-game rewards.
• Discard and Draw: The "Augment Core" upgrades for the Valkyrie battlesuits tend to replace a good number of their skills with other, usually better, ones. They can be switched on and off, too.
• Disc-One Nuke: Quite a few A-rank Valkyries you can get early on are powerful enough to wipe out early game contents in a breeze, such as Gyakushin Miko or Night Squire. However, the "Valkyrie Muster" event (for newcomers) gives you a chance to get some Valkyries early and build them up to S-rank (if not more), with the biggest case being Swallowtail Phantasm (Seele), who is otherwise costly to farm normally.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Sun Ye/孙晔, the Chinese voice actor of the Main Character in "A Post-Honkai Odyssey", is also the male singer in that mode's main theme/insert song, "Oaths".
• Domed Hometown: In "A Post-Honkai Odyssey", the city of St. Fountain is surrounded by a strange dome that allows outsiders to enter but prevents exit. However, Carole manages to find a "hole" on the dome: in the underground maglev train tracks, which the team uses to evacuate Welt and Joey out of the city.
• Doomed Hometown: Or more like "Doomed Home Base", but this is implied to be what happened to St. Freya Academy after Chapter 9: in between the Time Skip, Schicksal bombarded and destroyed the school, as seen through Bronya's memories.
• Driving Question: Downplayed as this runs more on the background of the lore, but a big question is given in Chapter 17: "What is the Honkai?" Otto has been searching the answer to this his entire life, for 5 centuries. Much of the narration is dedicated to how unfathomable the "force of Honkai" is, how Otto understood little about it despite his knowledge, and there are so many unanswered questions about its nature. However, in his search of its nature, he came across a clue - the "Imaginary Tree". It leads him to discover what it is - a "selective and corrective system" inside the Tree, which counters the growth of civilization. He then says that humanity will never escape the Honkai, and they have to keep pressing forward as those who "fail" will become part of the Sea of Quanta.
• Dual Wielding:
  • The "Ninja" variant of the zombie mooks dual wield katanas. Certain Schicksal mechas are also armed with blades on each arms.
  • In the "A Post Honkai Odyssey" maps, the Strength-type enemies are four-armed, yet dual-wield only one pair of swords. The characters' reports on the Enemy Files even lampshade this.
• Dual-World Gameplay: The special "Helheim Labs" game mode has this as its main gimmick. It has "Real Space" (the real world) and "Imaginary Space" (an alternate dimension to the real world) that you can switch between by pressing a button. There are some things in the Real Space that you can access/affect by going to the Imaginary Space and then interacting with the "imaginary" version of the things. Imaginary Space also lets you avoid the Real Space's enemies and dangerous obstacles, but beware: the Imaginary Space has their own Patrolling Mooks that, if they spot you, you'll get paralyzed and forced back into the Real Space.
• Dub Name Change:
  • Downplayed with 天命 and 律者 which are translated to "Schicksal" and "Herrscher" and mean "destiny" and "ruler" in Chinese/Japanese and German, respectively.
  • Played straight with Negentropy, which becomes "Anti-Entropy".
  • A lot of the Valkyrie battlesuits' names aren't direct translations from the original Chinese. This also applies to some of the weapons' names, particularly the Divine Keys.
  • The ELFs are simply called as "armed dolls" in Chinese and Japanese.
  • The Arc City is called "天穹市" in Chinese and Japanese, meaning "Tianqiong/Tenkuu/Heaven City".
  • Some of the special animated shorts' titles aren't the same in different languages. I.e Lament of the Fallen is originally "Sinner's Elegy", Shattered Samsara was simply "渡世 (Tosei)"^note referring to the Fenghuang Down's original name, 渡世の羽 (Plume of Subsistence), etc.
• Dungeon Shop:
  • In the Matrix Explore game mode, you may come across the HOMU Shop (indicated by a glowing golden portal, while others are blue) where you can buy things from HOMU with the Honkai Energy cubes you collect throughout the play. HOMU will sell 3 items at random, from a selection of: health pickups, SP pickups, special "buffs" that strengthen your characters, or "cards" that can be activated to generate different effects.
  • Felis' Shop in the Elysian Realm is a literal shop in-between dungeon floors.
• Dynamic Entry: Certain characters have "switch attacks", attacks that they'll perform as they're tagged in. The QTE system allows the characters to do a more powerful attack as they're tagged in, but they need a "trigger condition" (different for each battlesuit; a few have two of such conditions). This is also applied in Post-Honkai Odyssey Open World, where the switched-in character will automatically dash towards the target and attack it, even if the target is in midair. One of the tutorials of this game mode even shows that you can exploit it to dash towards distant targets and use it as an extra "jump" in midair.

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• Easy Level Trick: Urgent Missions in Sakura Samsara will pit you against a "boss monster" that has really high defenses. The fight is also a semi-Timed Mission where, after 90 seconds have passed, they'll have increased stats, be Immune to Flinching and deal continuous fire elemental damage just by being in your vicinity. There are tricks to defeating them quickly, however:
  • The boss may appear next to a Rare Monster (keyword being "may"). The trick is to perform a Stealth Kill to the Rare Monster while the boss is in the vicinity so that they'll get hit by the high (collateral) damage. Higher adventure level bosses may teleport somewhere else after their health is depleted by a certain percentage; if the new place has another Rare Monster in it, you can use the Stealth Kill method again. Note that the level 27-29 bosses highly resist it.
  • You can try acquiring "soul cannon" from one of the available tasks, which lets you launch highly damaging exploding fireballs. After you get the item, you can teleport out of the area where you get it and into where the boss is located; you can then use the soul cannon to hit the boss safely from afar, for huge damage. (The boss may teleport to another place, like the above.) Note that the stuff does elemental damage, and the level 27 boss is immune to them.
• Easy-Mode Mockery: Version 5.1 introduces SSS level bosses in Memorial Arena (only one per week), which, as their level implies, are extremely tough and have different attack patterns and properties than in lower levels. They’re so difficult, in fact, that the game allows you to activate a "buff mode" that lets you deal much more damage… at the cost of getting a much lower score than you’d have if you beat the boss without it.
• Elaborate Underground Base: In ch. 15, there's Schicksal's Vimur Base, located in northern Africa. It's used to be a sleepless sprawling metropolitan, but after the Honkai eruptions it has turned into a Ghost Town, which Schicksal took advantage of to build a base in it. The bulk of the base lies 1 km underground, to protect it from external threats. It has been used for Otto's experiments with the 2nd Divine Key, which they use to open a hole to the Sea of Quanta and look for some specific data among countless others.
• Eldritch Ocean Abyss: "The Deep" (as shown in ch. 10) may not exactly be a deep dark abyss (it's a bright Underwater City of the previous civilization), but it's sprawling with aquatic Honkai Beasts. The "Eye of the Deep", however, looks the part more, with a darker, more eerie look and even more Honkai Beasts, including a gigantic one, Tlaloc.
• Elemental Weapon: Many of the equippable weapons (especially high level ones) have elemental properties, usually suited to one of the elemental Valkyrie suits. E.g Ruinous Sakura, Godslayer: Surtr, Tranquil Arias (ice dual guns), Skadi of Trymheim (ice scythe), Oath of Judah (lightning cross), Nuada's Revenge (lightning gauntlets), and Book of Fuxi (cannon that can utilize all 3 elements).
• Elite Mook: The "elite monsters", who have 2-3 bars of health instead of just one and have "elite shields", a gauge that will reduce damage taken until the gauge is depleted from taking hits; the gauge will regenerate after some time, as well. They also have more powerful attacks than regular mooks.
• Emotions vs. Stoicism: This theme is brought up in ch. 22. It's pointed out that the current era has better aprpeciation towards what it means to be human - emotions, desires, and instincts - contrasting the "cold rationality" of the Previous Era. This is partly how some of the Herrschers of this era ended up going against the Honkai, from the 1st, to the 2nd, to the 3rd.
• The Ending Changes Everything: The "Rosemary's Floriograph" event seems like a standard detective mystery fare, even with the truly supernatural elements behind the crime case. The final scene, however... Irene Adler makes a note about how some of the key people in the case aren't who they seem, and then goes to say "what if Irene Adler is not Irene Adler, and Conan Doyle isn't Conan Doyle?" She then proceeds to ask Doyle who he is, and when he's about to say anything, he suddenly falls silent - as he has a warped view of the Irene in front of him briefly "flashing" into Rita (with the same shot as in the "Sanguine Nights" event) - before he lost consciousness. It then cuts into a text-only scene where "Irene" reveals her real name is Rita Rossweisse - but not the same Rita that we know (i.e the "Schiksal's Maid" and Durandal's second-in-command). She's talking to Kongming, who had a deal with her to bring "Doyle" back - as he's actually the Captain who used his consciousness mapping to enter the event's world and "become" Doyle. Kongming then says that Rita is different from most people in Hyperion, but she's closer to the Captain himself. Kongming then warns her about doing or plotting something shady in the ship, but also thanks her (in Kongming's own way) for bringing Captain back.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Chapter 7 shows that Theresa is willing to cooperate with Anti-Entropy in order to go against Otto. They fully became allies in the storyline of Schicksal HQ Open World.
  • In Chapter 8, the 3rd Herrscher lends her power to Mei against Herrscher Kiana. It doesn't help her at all.
  • In the supplementary comic set in the 2nd Honkai War in Schicksal's facility Babylon Tower, Anti-Entropy's leader came to the Schicksal members already there (mainly Siegfried) and struck a deal with them to fight the 2nd Herrscher together. Otto, while he has his own plans in this battle, approved it.
  • In ch. 16, Otto and the leader of World Serpent make a deal to ally their groups together to fulfill their own ends. Ch. 17 shows their conversation in detail: the World Serpent's Sire (Kevin) wants Schicksal to aid them in their "Project Stigma", in exchange, Otto asks for the "beacon" for the 2nd Divine Key so he can use its Zeroth Power to "go up the Imaginary Tree".
  • In ch. 18, in the Honkai eruption event in Coral Island, Schicksal's Valkyries - under Otto's orders - are going to ally with the World Serpent's agents in order to combat the Honkai, where the Serpents are going after the Herrscher while the Valkyries are doing standard anti-Honkai operations (fighting Honkai Beasts and evacuating survivors). This leads to Mei and Raven allying with Durandal and Rita, whom the former two have faced as opponents in the past; while Mei can behave just fine in front of Durandal and propose the alliance peacefully, Rita and Raven have a Passive-Aggressive Kombat that Durandal has to break them out from. This is referenced in the Dorm: if you put Mei as Herrscher of Thunder with Durandal as Bright Knight, they will have a little talk; Mei says that she isn't in the mood for a "friendly chat" and it's implied that their partnership only goes as far as respecting each other's ways.
    Mei: You have your belief, and I have my duty. I won't stop you, but if you stand in my way...
    Durandal: Right back at you.
    Mei: Ha, I'll remember that. Enough said. I'm leaving now.
• Equipment Upgrade:
  • Your weapons and stigmata have "enhance levels" and "upgrade stars". They all start out as 1-star grade lower than their maxed state and in enhance level 1; leveling them up means increasing their stats, and if you've leveled it to the max, you can "upgrade" it with certain materials, giving them 1 "sub-star". Repeat the process until all the sub-stars are lit, and doing it once again will raise their grade by 1 star. Each sub-star upgrade, until the max upgrade, will also enhance the weapon's skill effects. Higher rarity equipments have better stats, but they also have higher max levels and thus require filling more sub-stars before they can be fully upgraded.
  • Version 3.4 introduces "PRI-ARM" weapons, upgraded versions of existing weaponry that have 6-star rarity. They have a max level of 65, higher attack power and upgraded skills, but to make them available for crafting, it requires you to have the corresponding existing weaponry in question^note E.g Magstorm for MAG-Typhoon, Ice Epiphyllum for Frozen Naraka and they consume new upgrade materials that take quite some time to farm. Every PRI-ARM seen so far is a significantly improved version of the "signature weapon" of older S-Rank Valkyries and clearly intended to be used by them, having abilities that are tailor-made to address their weak points and make them much more viable in the endgame.^{For Example...}  Some of Lightning Empress's biggest failings are her short range, complete lack of stopping power and needing to use her full combo to apply a powerful debuff. The improved Magstorm PRI-ARM (dubbed "MAG-Typhoon") can apply this debuff by itself, temporarily grants Lightning Empress a considerable amount of Ignore Interruption, paralyzes enemies, moves her closer to the target and deals significant damage all with the press of its completely-free-of-SP-cost active skill, which even leads straight into LE's powerful combo move and can be used up to three times in quick succession, single-handedly turning what was primarily a support character into a top tier elemental damage dealer. However, the ability to upgrade these weapons into the PRI-ARM stage is locked until the player reaches Level 80, so these are exclusive to very long-time players deep into their endgame experience.
  • In a variant, you can upgrade your ELFs the same way (use specific leveling and upgrading materials), with a twist: they also have "ELF Fragments" like Valkyrie battlesuits, and in order to increase their star rank (and thus max level and stats), you have to acquire enough of their fragments. Unique to them is the "ELF Talents", skills that can be equipped to your ELFs and leveled up by their own, with specific materials. To equip the talents, you have to unlock their talent slots, which also costs materials. Version 3.7 gives a big overhaul to the ELF mechanics following Book of Fuxi's release: their max level is no longer dependent on the star rank (which is upgraded by collecting their fragments), and each ELF now has a predetermined skillset instead of having to take skills from the "talent bank" and slot them in. Each of the ELFs' skills (basic attack, Ultimate, passive, team) have sub-skills that can be unlocked and upgraded with materials, and with leveling the ELF up to certain levels, upgrading their star rank, and leveling up the previous sub-skill as a prerequisite.
• Escort Mission:
  • One side mission in Theresa's side story (Everlasting Memory) requires you to protect Theresa from several waves of zombies and Honkai beasts as she slowly walks across the courtyard of St. Freya's toward the main building.
  • One possible Sakura Samsara mission is to find a "Red Fox Soul" wandering around the Sparrow Hill area and escort it into the nearby town, requiring the player to avoid entering battle until the soul enters the town's boundary.
• Evil Is Angular: Robots built by the antagonistic Anti-Entropy look very blocky, while those made by Schicksal (where our heroes belong to) are sleeker, with the humanoid ones being close to human in proportions and outline. Played with in that our heroes end up going against Schicksal while allying with Anti-Entropy.
• Experience Booster: For players of Lv. 50 or below, the game will give you "EXP boosting chips" that can help newer players quickly level up. A few events may also give more general EXP booster chips that can be used for anyone.
• Expressive Health Bar: For the enemies, whenever they get hit by a "heavy attack", their life bar will flash white and shake.
• Extradimensional Power Source: One supplementary comic mentions that the Herrschers draw their powers from the Imaginary Space through their Herrscher Cores.
• Extra Normal Institute: St. Freya Academy is meant for teaching and training young girls to become strong Valkyries to combat the Honkai threats. Theresa built it as a shelter for victims of Honkai testing, and to teach them how to control the Honkai energy inside them.

F

• Faceless Goons: A later update introduces the "Immortal Blades" mooks, the Valkyrie squad led by Durandal and Rita. They all wear masks similar to that of Fu Hua's Shadow Knight outfit, although their hairstyles are different. As they're trained human soldiers as opposed to the zombies or robots, they have various attacks and tactics, and can be surprisingly fast as well.
• Facial Composite Failure: In the "Honkai Kingdoms Zero" event, all three factions present an illustration of Zhuge Kongming to you (the Captain), telling you to find and capture her. Durandal's side gives a normal image of her, Rita's side gives an image of her doing a double V-Sign pose, and Kiana's side gives the memetic "derpy chibi" image of her.
• Fanservice: A document with the volume of a PhD-level thesis paper could be written trying to exhaustively note all the fanservice elements in the Valkyries' battlesuits and alternate outfits, the Stigmata, and even Ai-chan. Bared midriffs, Cleavage Windows, Vapor Wear, and outfits that are straight-up Stripperiffic abound. Some specific instances include:
  • You can pick up swimsuits and beach attire for the Valkyries as alternate outfits, as well as Stigmata of Valkyries and NPC characters such as Cecilia in these clothes and swimsuits. While some can be purchased, these are mostly given out as event prizes, or bought with event currency. That said, the original swimsuits^note for Kiana, Mei, Bronya, Himeko, Theresa, and Sakura in early versions of the game were discontinued, although they're all preserved in different event stigmata.
  • Tesla, Einstein, and Schrodinger's normal outfits are fairly conservative, but their Band Stigmata sets each have one or two pieces that feature them wearing midriff-baring outfits, although Tesla's is downplayed since her tummy is mostly covered by her bass guitar and one of Einstein's is similarly obscured by both her shirt and pose.
  • Himeko is the subject of an incredibly blatant instance in the battle against her Brainwashed and Crazy self in Chapter Xuanyuan (which gets homaged in the "Imaginary Rumble" event's stage "The Unexpected"), in which you fight her first as Scarlet Fusion and then as Blood Rose. When she bursts out of the crystal she's sealed in and becomes Blood Rose, for a few seconds the view is just a close-up of her torso, with her barely-covered bosom front and center in the view.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
  • The tourist brochure you find, with its references to temperate penguins, "Lion's Head Bay" and Swahili (and just outright referencing Table Mountain), make it fairly obvious that St. Fountain in "A Post-Honkai Oddysey" is a stand-in for Cape Town, South Africa.
  • The country of Shenzhou, which Fu Hua originates from, is a very thinly-veiled equivalent of China, with the same festivities, dress codes, martial arts and cuisine.
• Feeling Your Heartbeat: In the "Aponia Counseling Room" event, one of the stories Aponia tells about her past is an encounter between her and Kalpas in which she tries to talk him out of a temper fit. He tries to egg her into a confrontation, but she blows off his fury and puts one of his hands on her chest, apologizing for not seeing how wound up he was inside and asking to be allowed to soothe him. He gets very put off by his inability to rile her and quickly apologizes just to get away from her.
• Fighting the Lancer: There are a few instances where Kiana and Mei get to fight each other, but two are most notable: ch. 8's final stage where Mei tries to free Kiana from the Herrscher of the Void, and ch. 17's final stage where Kiana tries to stop Herrscher Mei from joining the World Serpent.
• Fighting Your Friend: There are many instances throughout the story where your player character(s) would have to fight their friend as a boss, starting from "Dark Bronya" in chapter 1, Kiana vs her closest people in her nightmare in ch. 2, and so on.
• Final Boss, New Dimension: Downplayed in that it's only the Climax Boss of the chapter, but the boss "Husk - Nihilism" in ch. 17 creates an "imaginary singularity" around as it goes active and attacks Mei (the player character).
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: The three main elements that your Valkyries can use (those who don't use any are classified as "physical"); some of the weapons are imbued with one of the three elements and a number of Stigmata either focus on one element or all of them in general. Himeko is notable in that she can wield all three in her different battlesuits, and as her boss self, she can summon 3 clones of herself, each of them wielding one of those elements. As of Darkbolt Jonin's introduction, Sakura can also wield all three. Some enemies may also come in elemental variants. The Herrschers' command of natural elements aren't limited to those three, however.
  • An Ice Person: Goshinsou Memento (Yae Sakura), Argent Knight (Rita), Arctic Kriegsmesser (Himeko), Sixth Serenade (Kallen), Blueberry Blitz (Liliya), Snowy Sniper and Herrscher of Reason (Bronya).^note Note that BB and SS only deal small ice damage and are primarily physical-type
  • Playing with Fire: Sakuno Rondo (Theresa), Flame Sakitama (Sakura), Blood Rose and Vermilion Knight (Himeko), Phoenix and Azure Empyrea (Fu Hua)^note Both of her Stigmata sets also enhance fire damage, Valkyrie Gloria and Dea Anchora (Durandal)
  • Shock and Awe: Lightning Empress and Herrscher of Thunder (Mei)^note she also shows minor lightning abilities in other battlesuits, Valkyrie Pledge (Theresa), Scarlet Fusion (Himeko), Phantom Iron and Fallen Rosemary (Rita), Shadow Knight and Hawk of the Fog^note Valkyrie Accipiter's augmented version (Fu Hua), Darkbolt Jonin (Sakura)
• Fisher King: The "Sakura Samsara" is a "stigmata realm" that is primarily formed by Sakura's memories, with the people inside them being the living memories of the people she knew in life (primarily Kallen), but is also influenced by the "Honkai will from the box" that was sealed with her and was referred to as "Hellmaru". The latter warped things inside the realm and looped the time passage multiple times in order to break Sakura's mind so that one day it can take over her body and break free. During the events of the story, Kiana (who jumps into the realm with Bronya's help) finds the space around her warping multiple times, confusing her. After Hellmaru's defeat, the realm starts becoming unstable, which (among other things) causes Kallen to disappear, and Sakura tries to find her. Among other things, she discovers the "Celestial Castle" which she never visited before in life; the castle, its environment, and its "tower guardians", are the creation of the "will in the box".
• Flavor Text: The game gives some lore for the equippable weapons, as well as each of the Valkyrie suits you can obtain, although the latter has to be unlocked by increasing their affection levels.
• Floating Continent: Schicksal's main HQ is located in the skies above Europe, consisting of a set of floating artificial islands.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In Chapter 6, which takes place in a "simulation" of the past, Kiana sees a robot that's similar to Anti-Entropy's Titan Mechas inside Schicksal's Babylon Lab. She questions how an Anti-Entropy robot could be there. Then Chapter 8 and the "Schicksal Invasion" event reveals that Anti-Entropy used to be Schicksal's North American branch before they separated due to inner conflicts and became their own organization.
  • In Chapter 9, in one of the capsules that Himeko found, there's a data about a battlesuit named "Argent Knight: Artemis", whose user is listed as "classified". Chapter 9-EX shows said battlesuit for the first time—it's Rita's.
  • For the "Odd Drifter" event:
    • One of the early scenes in the event has someone offscreen talking about "formation" and "eight trigrams", with two other characters saying that they don't understand any of them. Then, throughout the event, you encounter Roza and Lili multiple times, who's working for a "master". Near the end of the event, the "master" is revealed: it's Zhuge Kongming (also known as Zhuge Liang), who's known for the "Stone Sentinel Formation". She apparently has appeared before, in the Honkai Kingdoms event (in the Emberya side).
    • When the Captain's group approaches the strange tower in Part 1, they noticed a piece of ripped clothing near the trap door, suggesting that someone else was there before them. In Part 2, during the story on the tundra, the Captain says that he's seeing someone similar to himself near the beach, but Tesla thinks he's hallucinating. At the final chapter of the event, the two different groups meet each other and deduce that there are two of the same Captain (one of them was captured by the Olenyeva twins). Later, they discovered the "other" Captain being Bound and Gagged. The two "captains" then stare at each other, causing his memories to be restored; by the time he opens his eyes again, the bound Captain is gone.
  • In Ch. 13, in the first act, Rita's subordinate Alvitr contacts her, saying that among the zombies she found in Arc City, some of them have Stigmata, but Rita dismissed it, thinking that she might've been seeing it wrong^note because the technology behind Stigmata should've been a tightly guarded secret of Schicksal. Then when she encounters Kiana, the latter gives Rita a glass tube containing a kind of serum and an access card, while saying that something else has been causing the Honkai outbreak^note Rita previously accuses Kiana of being behind it. In the second act, Alvitr confirms that what she saw on the zombies she found are indeed stigmata, and thus Rita decides to follow Kiana's intel. The end of the second act confirms her suspicions. Upon discovering the deepest chamber of Heliopolis building, she acquires some valuable data about the company, which reveals that the company belongs to the World Serpent, and they've been secretly performing Stigmata-related experiments on people of Arc City.
  • In the prologue of the "Sanka Saga" event, the Hanafuda Oyabun (Rita) claims that Kasumi is the second person who has managed to sneak that far into her mansion. The epilogue has Kasumi recounting this, and the Ferryman (Kasumi's assistant) admits that he was the "first infiltrator".
  • In the "Empyrean Legends" event, the Celestial and Book of Fuxi check upon the monsters they fought; they have strange blue liquid pouring from their blood and mouth. Kallen and Bronya explain that it's because of the "crystalium" poisoning after they ate some of Ai-chan's crystalium-fertilized cabbages. In a later chapter, in another place, they find other monsters with the same dripping blue liquid; they then recall that Ai-chan used to acquire the crystalium from a certain someone, who wished to "make the Celestial disappear" and paid Ai-chan with the crystals so she can work for said goal. That someone is the "Nian" beast that the Celestial had defeated some time ago, who's now trying to pay it back, and is disguised as Seele.
  • In the trailer for Version 3.9, a shadow of a flying dragon can be seen crossing the landscapes of Nagazora City. In chapter 16, one of the refugees in the city tells Mei that she saw a "giant purple Honkai Beast". They foreshadow the appearance of Benares in the middle of the chapter.
  • In "The Day You Vanished With The Stars", in the third scenario, both Roza and Lili say that they come across a similar looking villager in black with an umbrella in separate times. The Captain at first feels suspicious, but then dismisses it due to the twins' ditzy nature. Later on, however, in the fourth scenario, said villager shows up again as the "craftsman" who makes special lanterns...the lanterns that, in the third scenario's end, were revealed to be the cause of the fire that engulfed the Qixi Festival and killed Kongming and many others. That "villager" was Gray Serpent, who hints that there's something bigger happening behind the scenes.
  • In ch. 17, as part of his deal with Kevin, Otto wants the 2nd Divine Key to be moved to the ruined city of Nagazora, as the high Honkai energy levels there are perfect to be used to fuel the key's power. It later becomes instrumental in re-awakening Mei as a proper Herrscher.
  • In the beginning of ch. 18, Alvitr informs Durandal and the Immortal Blades squad that they have lost contact with Snow Lotus squad garrisoned on Coral Island. Moments after they arrived, she detected a Herrscher's energy signature inside the city and sends the coordinates to Durandal; Rita points out that the place is where they lost contact with the Snow Lotus. When the two arrive there, they find the dead bodies of the Snow Lotus members beneath ice. Durandal then looks around for clues; she finds one of their comm devices, which shows a recording of what happened. A voice says that they're waiting for reinforcements to arrive, but another voice identified as their "squad leader" is acting oddly and telling them to leave her. The first voice - the squad member - identified a rising Honkai energy level in their squad leader's body. The squad leader then screamed "GET OUT OF HERE!!" and let out more painful shrieks before the comm goes static. After that, Durandal finds a particular necklace, which, as she says, belonged to Ana Schariac, the aforementioned squad leader. This leads Durandal to conclude that Ana might have become the Herrscher in Coral Island.
• Foregone Conclusion: The sidestory of A Post-Honkai Odyssey shows that humanity finally prevails against the Honkai, which is confirmed by the writers in their third behind-the-scenes video about the game's story. But how they are able to achieve this in the main story requires very painful steps and stops, as Kiana and her friends have to face their own trials and tribulations, along with certain Driving Questions that are yet to be resolved.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • When you boot up the game, the loading screen depicts you riding the elevator to Hyperion's bridge in first-person view. You can briefly spot several crew members of the ship at the screen's corners◊ if they're not being obscured by the large foreground objects.
  • Around 0:38 in Reburn, images of Mei and Himeko are on two of the soda cans.
  • In one of the brief shots in the "Meteoric Salvation" video, a random person wears 3 badges of Kiana, Bronya and Mei.
  • In one cutscene in ch. 17, in the reflection of separate pieces of cracked glass, there's a silhouette of an unknown woman, and then - of all things - the dragon Stormterror from Genshin Impact. Meanwhile, there are shadows of a giant serpent in the flood waters. The unknown woman is later revealed to be a version of Rita, presumably from an Alternate Universe.
  • At several points in the early minutes of the "Because of You" short, the Herrscher of Domination can be seen executing C++ code on-screen to affect Elysia in different ways. Later on, she turns the tables on the HoC, and C++ code can be seen executing as her functions are restored.
• Freudian Trio: Within the main three girls, Kiana is the Id (being more emotionally-driven), Bronya is the Superego (being more rational) and Mei is the Ego (trying to mediate between the two).
• Full Health Bonus: Note that trying to use these bonuses will be hard to nigh-impossible (depending on the case) in the Q-Singularis mode because of the "health drain" mechanic.
  • Shadow Dash (Mei) and Goshinshou Memento (Sakura) have a leader skill that grants the team increased critical rate if your party's average health is over 80%. Valkyrie Triumph (Himeko)'s leader skill grants the team increased physical damage if your party's average health is over 80%.
  • The individual pieces of the Elizabeth Bathory Stigmata have different effects that only occur when the user's health is over 80%. The Lier stigmata pieces also have different effects that occur when the user's health is at or over 60%, 80% or 100%, depending on the piece.
• Fun with Acronyms:
  • ICHOR - "Intra-Chromosomal Honkai Repeats"
  • MOTH - "Myrmidons of Taskforce Honkai"
  • MANTIS - "Massively Augmented Neo-Tech Integrated Soldiers"
  • ELF - "Equipment: Living Form"
  • HDA-007 SPECTER - "Self-powered Suit for Emergency Confrontations, Tactical Engagements and Raids"
• Funny Background Event: In the "Stan Wars Overtime" event, as Dark Seele is being interviewed, there's something covered by a blanket in the chair in the background. The blanket then slips down, revealing a Seele body pillow.
• Future Spandex: This is the general look for the early versions' MECH-type battlesuits^note exceptions being Shadow Dash (Mei) who wears samurai armor and Valkyrie Ranger (Kiana) who wears a modified St. Freya Academy uniform, as well as Mei's BIO-type Crimson Impulse suit and Bronya's PSY-type Yamabuki Armor suit. Most of these suits also have a Colorful Theme Naming in one way or another (e.g "Yamabuki" is a yellowish color).

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