Honkai Impact3rd / Tropes G to L

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

G

• Gainax Ending: The "Odd Drifter" event ends with one. From the tower, Zhuge Kongming supposedly warps the Captain to his world, but he instead finds himself inside a computer system(?) where he encounters a Bad Boss version of Ai-chan, called "Bug Fixer" who overworks the "debugger" workers under her. You (as the Captain) eventually "fight" her and bring an end to the "tyranny" (by deleting the app "Bug Fixer" in your phone), with the workers thanking you. Then you walk out of the place... and the story ends. The months-earlier event "Winter Rhapsody" had a similar sequence, but there, it wasn't the ending—there's still more stories after that that led to a proper ending. The much later event "The Day You Vanished With The Stars" is implied to be the real continuation of Odd Drifter, as the Captain of that event remembers things up to Odd Drifter's ending.
• Gaia's Vengeance: The Honkai grows with civilization and seeks to destroy it. As shown in the previous civilization, the Honkai forces were way stronger than the present era because humanity progressed more rapidly, and when the survivors of said era tried to teach the new humanity their knowledge and technology, it resulted in resurgence of powerful Honkai outbreaks and beasts that they chose to put it to a halt.
• Game-Breaking Bug:
  • There's a bug in the open-world maps where, if you lag while transitioning between planes/platforms, your player character may "sink" beneath the map, making you unable to move or do anything else. Your only option is to exit the stage.
  • In the Schicksal HQ open world, you sometimes have to fight bosses in a closed, elevated octagonal platform that serves as an arena − problem is, sometimes a glitch causes you to be locked outside of the arena, walking on air but unable to hit the boss unless it's close to the edge. Again, your only options are exiting the stage or letting yourself be killed.
  • In co-op stages, Darkbolt Jonin's QTE may cause her to teleport far away from the intended enemy instead of close to them. This is not normally game-breaking, but in the Soul Throne stages, using said QTE may cause her to teleport outside the bounds of the stage (as they're considered part of the whole stage as well), and she wouldn't be able to attack the enemies unless both she and the enemies can get close to the "walls".
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Due to the gacha nature of the game, you can obtain and use gacha characters (some of them highly spoileriffic) before they are properly introduced in the main story.
  • The "Valkyrie Muster" event introduced in 2020, and especially the version alongside the second global anniversary and onward, can get especially awkward/hilarious about this. Once a new player hits level 15, they have to do a single instance of the newbie-exclusive co-op Muster quest, and as a reward, they get Seele Vollerei. Who, er, in-lore isn't exactly recruitable (and specifically is still trapped in the Sea of Quanta) until well into the double-digit chapters. New players in 2020 will usually hit 15 and gain the potential to get her around about halfway through chapter two.
  • In the early chapters, what happens in the story is more or less completely disconnected from what you do in the game; you can play with a Valkyrie who's supposed to be not present, out of commission or already there as an NPC, and you can form your team regardless of which characters the story is currently focused on. This is averted in the main story stages after chapter 6 though, which force you to use the Required Party Members (see below for details). The revised chapters 1 and 2 are a bit better about this, if only because the way the tutorial progression locks parts of the interface means that you're highly unlikely to have anyone except Kiana, Mei and Bronya for most of both chapters (and story mode characters are enforced in a few instances), though, as noted above, the particularly industrious and/or lucky can have Seele, Sakura or even Herrscher of the Void running around for some of the final fights of chapter 2 still.
  • Most of the Co-op Raid stages don't explain how you can get a Divine Key as the reward for finishing them. Except for one: The "Soul Throne" story ends with the sword Jizo Mitama flying out from the stigmata world to the real world. Incidentally, it is the first Co-op Raid that gives out a free Divine Key; other pre-existing Co-op Raids are modified so that you get different Divine Keys for playing them again (only once for each), and newer Co-op Raids (Squad Snowwolf and Operation: Striker) also have Divine Keys attached as a one-time reward.
  • In Post-Honkai Odyssey, Carole has a sidequest where she invites the Protagonist to collect resources while Mei supposedly stays in the base. However, it is still possible to bring Mei as a party member during this sidequest, yet the dialogue lines afterwards imply that she only became aware that the two left somewhere after they returned.
  • In a sort of reverse way on how one expects this trope to go about, the mecha enemy Jotnar's gimmick once it reaches lower health levels is to hunker down and deploy a shield. This shield grants them absolute invincibility against anything if you're attacking a Jotnar from the front. This includes any sort of AOE attack. Even the Herrscher of Void's attacks are no match for a Jotnar's shield. The obvious solution is to go around them and attack them, since they'll be like this for a good while. If Anti-Entropy really had this sort of technology, then the world wouldn't be in much trouble.
• Gameplay Automation: In the Schicksal HQ Open World, once a week, there's the "Mecha Defense" battle, where you can put the mechs you've built in the Hangar into an automated battle. The Weather of War system in this mode might give bonuses to certain robots you may bring, i.e either it buffs ranged-types or melee-types, or Anti-Entropy mechs or Schicksal ones, etc. Once you bring them into battle, the robots will move by their own, trying to demolish the waves of enemies that appear. You can support them in 3 ways (depending on how far you've progressed Ai-chan's tech level): either support bombardment, paralyzing all the enemies present, or temporarily strengthening all of your robots, each with their own cooldowns. Once you're done, you'll get prizes depending on how long you took to finish it. 3.8 has it closed, however.
• Gatling Good: One of the enemy mechs has a huge rotary cannon attached to its left arm and can fire extended bursts, tracking your character as it's shooting.
• Ghost Town: The setting of Post-Honkai Odyssey is the South African city of St. Fountain, a city said to be sprawling with people of different cultures. Except that, when our characters enter it, it has become a dead and lonely city where monsters roam around and a giant crystalline structure floats in the center of it. Joyce's experiences in the city implied that he met people there, meaning that the satellite images of it (that shows the city as normal) may be right, and that all of this disaster happened in a short time, with him and Welt as the only survivors.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Ch. 4 has among the bosses "Dark" Evil Knockoffs of Kiana and Mei that are wholly unforeshadowed, not given any subsequent explanation as to why they exist, and not commented on by anyone.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot: In a supplementary comic, the holographic projection of Siegfried Kaslana in a fight simulator mistakes Mei and Kiana as a lesbian couple, and makes a side comment of it being hot.
  Kiana: Just end the training! I gotta go and save Mei! She's in danger!
  "Siegfried": Is Mei your boyfriend? Wait, that's a girl's name! You gotta be kidding me! Did you go lesbo? Ooh, that's hot!
  Kiana: Going lesbo has nothing to do with this! I have to go and save my friend! Get out of my way if you're not helping, you dirty, pervy old man!
• Good-Times Montage:
  • In a variant, one stage of ch. 11-EX takes place inside Kiana's mind. In the background, there are many flying photos of her together with her friends, representing her memories of them.
  • In the "Cyberangel" video, when Bronya is walking towards the Herrscher Core of Reason, there are many pictures in the background; pictures of a possible alternate timeline where Bronya has a happier life as a normal girl.
  • In the final stage of ch. 17, in the middle of Kiana's fight against Boss Mei as a Herrscher, when Kiana breaks the boss' shield with Void Drifter's lance, it cuts to a few images of the two girls' scenes together (from the previous stages) before the fight resumes. When Kiana does it a second time later on, it cuts to another set of images of their past times in Nagazora, including their "fateful moment" where Kiana saves Mei from falling from a tall building by taking her hand; Mei then "cuts" this image in half, symbolizing her "letting go of Kiana's hand" and "falling into the darkness". Also, in the "Lament of the Fallen" video (at the end of the chapter), when Mei slowly breaks out of the spikes that Kiana used to pin her down, it cuts to a series of 4 images of her and Kiana together in the past, as she declares that "Kiana is more important to her than the whole world". The "credits" part of said video (only in Youtube) also ends with the images of moments between the two girls on "glass fragments", including their "fateful moment".
  • In the trailer video for the "Lost Gems of Memory" fanart contest, there's Mei standing in front of a glass window while pictures of her times together with her friends (i.e the past official arts) float in the background, and the text over them reads "They're the memories of a girl named [Raiden Mei]". Then it turns into a Sad-Times Montage when the pictures turn into those of Mei's sad moments in the story, while the text now reads "They're the memories of a girl named [Herrscher of Thunder]."
• Great Offscreen War: The second chapter of A Post-Honkai Odyssey has the offscreen conflict called the Great Eruption. First mentioned in the release news video about the game mode, the event is referenced in several conversations by certain characters. However, no details are given as of right now, aside from the foreshadowings in some dialogues, along with Mei and Bronya being confirmed as the participants in that event.
• Gotta Catch 'Em All:
  • The "Sanka Saga" event focuses on Kasumi's mission from Schicksal to retrieve all 6 of the "Zakti Runes", collectively called the "Raksha's Rage". The main bosses of the event are said to have one of those runes. Later in the epilogue, after she gets them all, she discusses them with the Ferryman, where he implies that all but one of them are (their world's equivalent of) Divine Keys^note "Consciousness, binding, domination, destruction and creation", while the last one is a Herrscher Core (that can suck anything into the Sea of Quanta).
  • In ch. 18, Jackal explains to Mei that the World Serpent's "Project Stigma" requires them to subdue and capture all Herrschers. This explains Raven's account in the "Thunderous Sanction" mini event where she says that everyone in the group is serious about Herrschers.
• Gratuitous English: A handful of Valkyries have English phrases mixed into their in-game dialogue. For instance, Kiana says "Aye aye, sir!" and "Locked and loaded!", Bronya says "Yes, master", or "Yes, Captain." as Herrscher of Reason, and Theresa shouts "Hide and seek!". Kallen, as Sixth Serenade, shouts "Showtime!" and "It's my time!", and as Imayoh Ritual she says "Nice timing!" when you pick up HP drops. Roza also occasionally says "Yes, Captain" in gameplay. In the dorms, Kallen's chibis will sometimes say "Victory!" when you successfully perform an action with them.
• Gratuitous German:
  • As part of a Dub Name Change on the English SEA server, certain in-game terms are in German like Schicksal, Herrscher and Kriegsmesser.
  • Reburn ends with the phrase "Ich liebe dich.", which translates to "I love you." in German. It's also the Arc Words of Chapter 6.
• Gratuitous Russian:
  • Since Bronya, Seele, and the Olenyeva twins were raised in the same orphanage in Siberia, they all pepper their dialogue with Russian words; for instance, Bronya almost always uses "Da", "nyet", and "spasiba" instead of "yes", "no", and "thank you". The others are less obvious about it but still use "nyet" regularly.
  • Bronya's battlesuit Haxxor Bunny features a logo of a rabbit with a fox in its mouth with the words "Я голоден, найду добычу" underneath, which roughly translated means "I'm hungry, time to find prey"
• Gravity Master: The power of the 9th Divine Key, Star of Eden, is to control gravity. It normally takes form of an orb, but Einstein built a special harness around it that allows it to be used like a "cannon" of sorts. You can acquire said cannon in-game for Bronya, which shoots powerful gravity orbs instead of rockets. Later, it also comes in a dual guns version.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: The two rival organizations, Schicksal and Anti-Entropy, both have a fair share of good and bad seeds in them, and both have done ethically questionable things in order to fight the Honkai phenomenon and protect humanity. The later introduced organization, World Serpent, also goes similarly. The Honkai forces, meanwhile, like the Gohma from Asura's Wrath, believe that humans are a plague that has harmed the planet and they aim to exterminate them.
• Grimy Water:
  • In Post-Honkai Odyssey, you may find puddles of blood-red water on the ground in different places. If you step onto it, your character will slowly take Damage Over Time and build up "core radiation". If the "radiation gauge" is full, your character will have both their HP and MP drained until the state stops. The puddles are apparently "maintained" by red orbs that float just above them; they can be attacked, and if they're destroyed, the puddle disappears.
  • In ch. 16, some parts of the stages have Honkai-contaminated water puddles that slowly drains your characters' health when they stand on them.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: In ch. 11, Seele reveals that the "bubble universe" she's in apparently loops multiple times; specifically, it'll loop when she and the other Valkyries choose to take the kidnapped boy Joachim to Schicksal HQ. It takes Bronya (who comes from the real world) to notice it and convince the others to not give the boy to Schicksal, because he's apparently a runaway Schicksal experiment who had faced a lot of torturous experiments. The St. Freya Academy higher-ups agree with her and choose to take the boy to the academy instead, and the bubble universe "pops", leaving Bronya back in the Sea of Quanta.
• Grouped for Your Convenience: The "Honkai Kingdoms" event and later "Honkai Kingdoms: Zero" event had the players being put into one of the 3 factions. All sides have to try to capture places (by playing the stages within them enough times); the factions will get different amount of flags per day depending on how many places they could capture, and at the end of the event, the faction with the most flags will win more rewards than the others.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Keqing is only available to play in the Outworld Quest event and can't be obtained as a permanent character.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • The Witch's Corridor Shop^note where you can buy fragments of most A-rank Valkyries, as well as select few S-rank ones that change each patch only appears once the player possesses an SSS-Rank Valkyrie^note The extra fragments of said SSS-rank Valkyrie can be converted into a special currency for Witch's Corridor. Even if the Valkyrie is promoted to that rank, there are no immediate tutorials to remind the player of that shop's presence.
  • Some of the controls and tooltips for battlesuits can also be a bit bad about this. One of the most obvious examples is Swallowtail Phantasm Seele, because while the tooltips tell you her Veil resource exists, and explain that her form change will consume it per-second, nowhere do they tell you that she needs to consume a full bar of 250 (out of 500 total) in order to use her mid-combo charge special attack. This can leave new players flailing and trying to figure out why they can't seem to consistently use her charge move.
• Guns Akimbo:
  • Yet another theme with the Kaslanas. Kiana and Kallen both use paired pistols, and Siegfried used the Judgment of Shamash. Herrscher of the Void also carries dual pistols, but uses her spears as her projectile weapons; her idle animation has her summon the pistols out of Hammerspace as if to briefly examine them, then send them away. She only uses the pistols in her weapon skill's animation.
  • Bronya's Haxxor Bunny battlesuit uses two FN P90s that similarly materialize from Hammerspace.

H

• Halfway Plot Switch: Chapter 20 begins with Kiana and Bronya traveling to Mount Taixuan to hopefully find some of Fu Hua's old teachings that could help them control their Herscherr powers. Instead, they find "feathers" containing some of Fu Hua's memories, which they spend a lot of time going around and collecting, learning details about Fu Hua's past. Later on, they discover that the feathers had been planted by "Hua(?)" as a lure to bring them to her, and their motivation to "find Fu Hua's teachings" disappears.
• Happy Holidays Dress: Some costume dresses available in the game are holiday-themed. Mei has a Christmas-themed one for her Shadow Dash suit, while Bronya has a Halloween-themed one for her Snowy Sniper suit, and Himeko as Vermilion Knight has a China dress for the Chinese New Year.
• Hard Mode Perks: The Hard and Supreme difficulties for the story mode chapters add Valkyrie fragments and other rare materials in the drop tables that you can't otherwise obtain from playing the Normal Story difficulty. Also, the higher difficulties of the Co-op Raid stages reward better materials.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose:
  • Even though you have to beat Fu Hua's Shadow Knight form with Honkai-possessed Knight Moonbeam Kiana at the last stage of Chapter 6, the chapter ends with Fu Hua defeating Kiana and taking her to Otto.
  • A similar thing happens in Chapter 8. You control Scarlet Fusion to fight Shadow Knight and you have to win the boss fight, but the cutscene afterwards still shows that Himeko loses and is apprehended by Fu Hua.
  • Played with in the final battle of Chapter 8, Mei (you) vs Herrscher of the Void. The battle stops before you can deplete the boss' health, after which it's shown that the latter is trouncing Mei.
  • This happens again in Ch. 11, where the first battle with Seele would end with Bronya below her heel even if you win.
  • The battle between Mei (you) and Durandal in ch. 15 plays with this. When Durandal's HP reaches around half, the fight stops, then there's a scene where she uses her ultimate attack to strike Mei down.
  • Also played with in ch. 16 in Mei's battle vs. Raven, both times. The battles end before you can deplete Raven's health.
• Health/Damage Asymmetry: Your playable Valkyries may only have an average of 4-digit maximum health, but the enemies can have health in the tens or hundreds of thousands. The asymmetry goes to the point where a few thousand damage per attack is common for end-game players.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: In the "Sakura Season" event, when Higokumaru asks for Darkbolt Jonin's name, there'll be a prompt where you have to type a name for her. After that, the UI and story texts will display the name that you put for her, but Higokumaru notes that it's just an alias, befitting a ninja.
• Heroic Fatigue: Downplayed in the dorms. If a Valkyrie is sitting on the floor and has a blue speech bubble with a white chair over her head, she's extremely tired and wanting to rest. Dragging her to a bed or something she can sit on will fulfill the request, and she will either sit happily or stretch out and go to sleep. Some of the Valkyries say something relating to this before the trigger bubble appears, such as Kiana and Bronya talking about how much they've been deployed and Mei bemoaning having to cook for everyone while being tired.
• Heroic Lineage:
  • The Kaslana family is stated to have been dealing with the Honkai threats for centuries; it helps that they have natural resistance against Honkai energy. It's implied that the other core family of Schicksal, the Schariac family, also goes similarly. In particular, the Kaslana family seemingly has a kind of trait where they're always ready to become "the shield for the people", even if they have to sacrifice their lives in the process. Otto, who witnessed Kallen's father dying in battle by using the Judgment of Shamash to kill a giant Honkai Beast, realized that a similar fate will befall Kallen as well and thus he became protective of her.
    Kiana: My old man once told me that "the Kaslana blood boils when they see people in trouble".
  • Kallen's father once told her how the Kaslana family goes in a Posthumous Narration:
    We hail from an ancient line far older than you can think of. Our Great Sires fell in battle against the Honkai, but never for tyranny. Will you let the strong feast on the weak? Watch closely, progeny. This is our path. The path is bitter and cold. It was never easy. They say that the heavens wept when our first great sire took the Oath. Though conceived in pure love, he knew he was bound to the Kaslana path. "I do not fear death. We Kaslanas die and never yield." But I fear the day when you, my sweet girl, choose to take the Oath and wield the Judgment as a Kaslana.
    I'm proud of you, Kallen. I can sleep in peace knowing that you will defend the weak in my place. Take the Oath, my sweet daughter. It is yours now.
    Kallen: Our sires sleep in the fields as humanity's brave shields. By the Judgment of Shamash, Kaslanas die and never yield.
  • Kevin, the "Sire of the Kaslana family", gets to talk about it with Mei in ch. 17. He explains that as long as the Honkai and Herrschers exist, Kiana will keep fighting and risking her life no matter what help she might get, and he had witnessed his "progenies" dying to protect the masses and fight the Honkai. Mei says that she doesn't want that to happen to Kiana, which is why he asks her to join the World Serpent, to help him purge the Honkai and "starve the Void Queen". Kevin promises that once his Project Stigma is complete, both her and Kiana can be normal girls again, and they don't have to fight anymore.
• High-Altitude Battle: The first chapter of the game takes place on top of a battleship. Chapter 7 has you fight on top of a Helios fighter aircraft, while Chapters 8 and 9 take place in Schicksal HQ, which is located in the skies above Europe.
• Historical Gender Flip: Most Stigmata are female versions of male Historical Domain Characters and legendary figures like Galileo, Attila the Hun, Charlemagne, Sakamoto Ryouma, Zhuge Liang, etc. Others that are around in the present time like Einstein are ambiguous if they are the real deal or simply descendants of those scientists. Meanwhile, Tesla and Edison are both descendants (their first names are Frederika and Nancy respectively).
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The Herrscher of Domination brings forth the Gem of Haste, confirming Himeko's death in order to break Kiana's spirit. Not only does this fail, but Kiana takes it back rather easily and ends up inheriting its powers, becoming the Herrscher of Flamescion.
• Holodeck Malfunction: In the penultimate stage of ch. 2, for the Valkyrie exams, each student fights a kind of enemy with a simulator device. When it comes to Kiana, however, the synchronization value of her device reaches 120% and causes a malfunction where it creates a simulation of the Emperor-class Honkai Beast Ganesha, for her to fight. Himeko and Theresa think that it shouldn't happen, as such a Honkai Beast could be too strong for the students (especially Kiana) to beat. Since forcefully turning it off could be risky, Kiana decides to fight it anyway; Mei and later Bronya later comes in mid-battle to assist her. After they successfully beat the monster and get out of the simulation, Kiana is suddenly "brought" into her dream world (again) where the "mysterious voice" inside her makes a comment about how Ganesha used to appear in India in 2012 - hinting that said voice was the one behind the malfunction in the first place.
• Homoerotic Subtext: While the game has plenty of Ho Yay between several different characters, on occasion it becomes too blatant to just be Ho Yay, such as in "Empyrean Legends" when Rita's character gets rather touchy-feely with Fu Hua (as the Celestial) in their first scene together◊.
  Narration: As a stream of sweet breath warms her neck, the Celestial can feel soft fingers gliding through [sic] her back invitingly.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: In the 3rd stage of the Neon Genesis Evangelion event, you can't really win the one-on-one fight since the Wotan's sluggish movement can't catch up with the 4th Angel's attacks. It's meant to lead to the 4th stage, where, after being seemingly defeated, Wotan's synchronization level goes to 200% and reveals its "stronger" form, which proceeds to beat up the 4th Angel until it dies; a good part of the battle becomes scripted, as well.
• Horizontal Scrolling Shooter: The weekday bonus mission "Aerial Battle" is one, as you control the RPC-6626 hovercraft and shoot down satellites.
• Hostile Weather: In the middle of ch. 16, there's a harmful rain that causes Damage Over Time to your playable character that lasts throughout the stages.
• Hulk's Cooldown Hug Corollary: In Chapter 3, the girls manage to talk Wendy down from the Herrscher state, only for Bronya to suffer a Villain Override and attack her. Angered, Wendy goes Herrscher again, leading to a boss fight.
• Human Sacrifice: In Sakura's backstory, the people of her village performed this ritual, according to a legend where, whenever a child is sacrificed, the "fox god" will descend and call forth the rain. When Sakura was young, her sister Rin was one of the sacrifices, causing her to become bitter and resent the village. Some years later, when Kallen heard of an upcoming ritual, she tried to stop this, but she was too late as a fox beast had eaten the sacrificed girl.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Early on in the story, the Honkai is presented as the greatest threat. However, as the story progresses, by far the most common villain type is non-Honkai-possessed humans, as opposed to Honkai beasts or possessed humans. Case in point for this matter is Otto Apocalypse, as he's one of the most detestable human characters in the game: willing to sacrifice everything with no care for how much havoc he wreaks, and willing to backstab everyone around him for his own benefit, even his own associates in Schicksal, so long as he can enact his plan to revive and reunite with his one and only friend, Kallen.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: After completing a certain questline in the Schicksal HQ Open World map, Mei can take over a food van that helps refill your Valkyrie's HP.

I - J

• Icarus Allusion: In Post-Honkai Odyssey, the characters' skill names are themed after various figures in Greek Mythology, and some skill names for all characters are named after Icarus. As part of the allusion, the skills either grant bonuses the longer the character stays in the air (and are lost if they fall down), or when they can reach S or above in their Awesomeness Meter.
• Idle Animation: The playable characters, if left idle while in gameplay, will have a special animation (different for each character).
• Immune to Flinching:
  • Downplayed for the most part. Monsters with shield gauges are highly resistant to flinching, but certain attacks and/or buffs of the Valkyries may still be able to flinch them. When the gauge is depleted, any attack will flinch them. Most Valkyries that have a Super Mode as their ultimate skill will also have resistance (i.e not immunity) to flinching when it's active, and Himeko's Charged Attacks and some of her weapon skills also make her resistant to flinching.
  • Played straight with bosses, who won't flinch until their shield gauge is depleted; for bonus points, they tend to be stunned/dazed when their shield gauge is broken. The rare "Iron Body" buff also gives total immunity to flinching; a few monsters may briefly gain this buff during their attacks, while the "Titan Mecha" mook will gain the buff when it Turns Red (after you deplete its health enough).
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: In the "Bronya" video^note only shown in-game in the background "screen" in one of ch. 11's stages, she goes through a number of armed troops; none of their shots ever hit her despite them wielding assault rifles.
• Inexplicable Treasure Chests:
  • In Sakura Samsara, there are "hidden chests" that can only be seen by activating the stealth mode. They contain a few Mithril, Asterite, and certain crafting materials.
  • In Schicksal HQ Open World, there are different kind of hidden chests that you can only detect and pick up if Ai-chan's tech is high enough. They contain similar things to Sakura Samsara's chests.
  • In Post-Honkai Odyssey, there are special chests covered in crystal spikes littered about on the stage. In the Story mode missions, you may occasionally find them if you take a few detours. In the Explore mode, many of them are locked behind the "intel levels" that you have to reach first. They contain "Krystallum" (mineral resources that are normally dropped from enemies), a few crafting materials, and occasionally collectible informations that you can view in the "base".
• The Infiltration:
  • Ch. 4 has your group (Kiana, Himeko and Theresa) trying to infiltrate ME Corp building in order to rescue the kidnapped Mei and Wendy. Thanks to Bronya, they manage to get in, but later on Cocolia tried to control Bronya from afar to attack them; Bronya fries the control chip inside her brain in response, while telling Kiana to take Mei away. They didn't manage to rescue Wendy, however, whose Herrscher Core has been pulled out to be used to power up Wotan.
  • Half of ch. 9 is focused on Himeko and Tesla trying to infiltrate Schicksal's Helheim Labs, guided by Fu Hua. There, Himeko finds the special battlesuit Vermilion Knight, while Tesla manages to replicate an anti-Honkai serum that she finds in their database. They need both to fight Herrscher of the Void.
  • In ch. 12, in the Sea of Quanta's bubble universe that is set in the Previous Era, Seele (who entered the universe) accompanies the era's version of Sakura in infiltrating the Fire Moth building to find the latter's quarantined sister. By the time Sakura arrives in her sister's cell, however, the latter's already dead.
  • In ch. 13, following the intel that Kiana gives her, Rita decides to infiltrate the Heliopolis Life Sciences building to find hidden infos about them. Some of the stages become a Stealth-Based Mission. Her mission there is to find hidden infos related to the company's contribution to the Honkai problems; she ended up finding a secret basement and traces of zombies inside them, confirming her suspicions about the company. The twist is that the company's high ranking members had already known from the start (shown in the earlier stages, even) that Rita is infiltrating the building; they simply plan to "let her in" and then give her a "gift". That "gift" being the anti-Honkai serum that Schicksal developed, in form of gas bombs, in order to weaken Rita and her Valkyrie squad.
  • In ch. 14, in separate stages, Kiana and Rita infiltrate the Heliopolis building again. Kiana is looking for one of its members, Raven, while Rita is looking for the antidote for the anti-Honkai gas that she got affected with.
• In Medias Res:
  • The game begins in this way, especially in the revised intro cutscene introduced in the 3.x patch line — when you start the game, you're thrown into Schicksal's desperate attempt to keep a rogue battleship that has evidently been commandeered by Honkai Beasts from crashing into and obliterating Soukai City in the Far East. Before we learn what Honkai, Herrschers or Valkyries are, we join our heroine, hopping a ride on a drone aircraft on the way to the ship. You are more properly introduced to the particulars of the world as you proceed through the Selene adventure in chapter 1, and chapter 2, especially the revised one, is all about getting the player on-board with the world and its lore.
  • Ch. 9's first stage starts with Himeko in her Vermilion Knight suit tearing large swathes of Honkai Beasts. A few stages later, we see how she ended up getting the suit: by sneaking into the Helheim Labs, helped by Dr. Tesla.
  • Ch. 12's first stage starts with Bronya as Herrscher of Reason running through the Sea of Quanta to look for the missing Seele. The next stages focus on Seele's whereabouts, i.e in one of the "bubble universes". Near the climax, after Seele goes out of the bubble universe and encounters Kevin, Bronya finally meets her.
  • The prologue of "Sanka Saga" event starts with Kasumi infiltrating a large mansion/castle in order to retrieve an important item, only to get trapped by the "Hanafuda Oyabun". The next few stages are about the beginnings of her mission; later in the middle, the scene in the prologue occurs again (though with a few differences) as Kasumi starts infiltrating the same mansion.
• Interface Screw:
  • "Confused" is an uncommon status effect which will make your character's controls reversed momentarily.
  • During some of the fights in chapter 18, the edges of the screen will be covered in frost, blurring your view, due to the proximity of the Herrscher of Ice.
• Interface Spoiler: We do consistently tag the spoilers here on TVT, because the story treats them as major reveals, but just browsing through the available battlesuits as of the late 3.x patch series in 2020 and beyond is going to throw a spoiler right in your face that Kiana is linked somehow to the Herrscher of the Void, and Bronya outright becomes the Herrscher of Reason... and they both end up playable in this state.
• In Your Nature to Destroy Yourselves: One supplementary comic focusing on Schicksal in the middle ages opens with young Otto saying that he doesn't believe that the Honkai, despite its potential to destroy humanity, is their greatest enemy.
  ...That accolade goes to humanity itself. We have waged war against each other since the beginning of history.
• Insult of Endearment: In the "Honkai Kingdoms Zero" event, Zhuge Kongming initially calls the Captain "Mr. Assassin" because of a misunderstanding… but keeps calling him that even after the misunderstanding has been lifted. By the end, she clearly uses the name very affectionately.
• Item Crafting: By collecting certain rare materials of specified amounts, you can forge weapons and Stigmata of your own choice in the Foundry.
• Item Farming: Typical for an ARPG gacha title, a lot of good stuff can, and in many cases, has to, be farmed. Although in this game, you can also farm Fragments to obtain new playable Valkyries.
• It's Quiet… Too Quiet: in the "Honkai Quest" event, Delta notices this when she, Seele and the Water Djinn enter the ruins.
• Jiggle Physics: On the screen where a Valkyrie's costume can be swapped, you can rotate the Valkyrie to get a full look at the costume. Do it fast enough, and it becomes very evident that several of them have noticeable sway, although not to the extreme of actual bouncing. It's also quite noticeable in several cinematics, especially ones starring Kiana.
• Justified Extra Lives: In Post-Honkai Odyssey, there are items called "Suscitarin" that you can use to revive a fallen teammate should they die. They're shaped like injectors, presumably containing healing liquid.
• Juxtaposed Reflection Poster: The full official wallpaper◊ for the "Thus Spoke Apocalypse" animation depicts two pairs of Otto Apocalypse and Kallen Kaslana standing in a horizon. On the surface, their adult selves turn their backs on each other, while the reflection below shows their younger selves facing each other and happily holding hands.

K - L

• Kansas City Shuffle: In the fourth scenario in "The Day You Vanished With The Stars", the Captain suspects that the Star Pavilion might've been littered with explosives, and tells Rita about it; the two then look for them and then neutralize them. However, the two then realize that, due to how the explosives seem to be put in plain sight, they might've been distractions for the real ones. He then remembers about the lanterns^note supposedly the cause of the fire that engulfed the kingdom in the third scenario and tells Rita to check them, and they find out that they're filled with highly flammable oil under the wax, basically making them time bombs. Rita notes that there's one particular lantern maker who made them all, so she suspects that that person might be the culprit.
• Kicking Ass in All Her Finery:
  • An event-only costume for Valkyrie Bladestrike is her in a beautiful white dress.
  • Kiana's Winter Princess costume (for Divine Prayer) decks her in a white dress adorned with icy-looking crystals. Herrscher of the Void also has a costume (as part of the "Winter's Rhapsody" event) that makes her look like a Winter Royal Lady, as well as giving icy effects to her attacks (although without them dealing ice damage).
  • Bronya's Nightfall Witch costume (for Snowy Sniper) is a Halloween-themed dress. Black Nucleus has the Fleurs du Mal costume, an Elegant Gothic Lolita-styled black dress. Herrscher of Reason's default outfit is also adorned with big frills.
  • Himeko's Blood Rose suit is a tattered, red-and-black version of this, but still looks rather elegant in its own way. Vermilion Knight also has a red China dress costume adorned with a feather boa (and her hair is also put in a Prim and Proper Bun). In late 2019, an event prize was a wedding dress as an alternate outfit for Blood Rose.
  • Theresa has multiple outfits that fit this. As Twilight Paladin, she wears an elegant black and blue dress with a long gown. Combined with the multiple floating blades she uses, her fluid movements in this battlesuit are reminiscent of a dance. Celestial Hymn also wears a regal-looking white dress, while Luna Kindred's attire makes her look like an Elegant Gothic Lolita, fitting for a "vampire". A good number of her costumes are also rather fancy dresses.
  • Umbral Rose (Rita)'s Dame de Coeur outfit is a regal-looking red dress with a red coat and a small crown. Her Maid of Celestia (for Argent Knight) outfit is a heavily modified white China dress with a Cleavage Window, detached sleeves, and Navel Window. She also gets a wedding dress-like outfit for Argent Knight after an update.
  • Yae Sakura's Sublime Lotus outfit (for Gyakushin Miko) is a fancy white kimono, while her Dream Raiment outfit (for Flame Sakitama) looks like a wedding dress.
  • One of Sündenjäger (Kallen)'s outfits is a Halloween-themed dress.
  • Seele's Papilio Lily outfit (for Swallowtail Phantasm) is a beautiful white summer dress, complete with a hat. As Stygian Nymph, she gets a white dress adorned with many flowers and chains, which turns black and red as "Dark Seele".
• Kill Enemies to Open: Moving through the story chapters and most Co-op segments will have you locked in a border until you defeat all enemies within. Subverted in the Open-world maps, as you are free to roam but only get trapped in a border once you attack the roaming enemies or get into their lines of sight, to which this trope is played straight afterwards.
• Kill the Parent, Raise the Child: In the past, some of Fu Hua's disciples were orphans she took in after she killed their parents because they were corrupted by the Honkai. One of said disciples, Su Mei, refused to call Fu Hua her new "mother", but she acknowledged her as her master.
• Kungfu Proof Mook:
  • Most Anti-Entropy robots are immune to stunning. Titan Mecha and its variants, after Turning Red, are immune to most status effects like bosses would.
  • The Quantum-type enemies are immune to most status effects, up until you induce a "Quantum Collapse" on them^note done by evading their "special attack" (different for each kind of enemy) which gives you a temporary buff that is used on the first attack that hits an enemy; if the attack hits any Quantum-type enemies, they'll "turn white" and lose their immunity to status effects, and their defense gets reduced. Seele as Swallow Phantasm or Stygian Nymph can also do it with her Ultimate Skill, as does Durandal as Valkyrie Gloria.
• Lag Cancel: Most characters' normal attacks can be canceled into the dodge move in case there's an attack coming their way. It can also be used to cancel parts of a combo into the starting part of the combo so that you can keep comboing an enemy (usually a juggled one) without knocking them down. Many basic attacks (including branch/charged attacks) can also be canceled into the weapon's active skills.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler:
  • Due to the large amount of updates, new battlesuits are introduced with a video explaining their abilities and narrating their context, which inevitably give out massive story spoilers. Fu Hua's Phoenix and Azure Empyrea battlesuits, for example, are blatantly presented as the manifestation of her true power and nature as an immortal defender, while Kiana's Herrscher of the Void is the product of a Wham Episode, as is Bronya's Herrscher of Reason and Seele's Stygian Nymph.
  • Post-Honkai Odyssey, near the beginning, gives away infos that are spoilers in the main story, such as Welt Yang's real identity, the real 1st Herrscher, and clones of the latter, including Welt's adopted son, Joffrey.
  • It's hard to talk about Chapters 20 and 21 without talking about Fu Hua's major secret: she's one of the few survivors of the Previous Era and she has lived different lives for millennia.
• Launcher Move: Several Valkyries can launch enemies into the air with their attacks, which lets your team juggle said opponent and/or activate certain other Valkyries' QTE. Some weapons also have skills that do the same. All 3 characters in Post-Honkai Odyssey can do the same, and then combo the enemy in midair.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: As Kiana, Mei and Bronya head for the final battle against Kevin, Kiana points out that the Hyperion is large enough to house everyone and asks Ai why she didn't bring everyone onboard. Ai's answer is essentially because the game only allows 3 people to fight at a time. So those three are the only one that can fight Kevin.
• Legendary Weapon: The "Divine Keys" are weapons of lost civilizations from the past that hold incredible power. In-game, they can be obtained easily through certain events, and they have good stats and weapon skills. The use-able versions of the weapons are mentioned to be "dormant" and no one is able to bring out the weapons' full potential; they're unique, however, in that you can power the weapons up by not just leveling and upgrading them like other weapons, but also by going to the "shrine" (next to the Base in the menu) and using certain materials to unlock useful passive skills for the weapons. The Kaslana family's Judgment of Shamash is mentioned to be one such Divine Key; others include the Jizo Mitama sword and the Xuanyuan Sword. One of the supplementary comics serves as the Origins Episode for the weapons, detailing what they are and how each of them are made.
• Leg Focus:
  • Darkbolt Jonin (Sakura)'s regular outfit bares her legs.
  • Many China dress alternate costumes in the game bare the wearers' legs, to name a few: Himeko's Vernal Brocade (for Vermilion Knight) and Seele's Mirrored Flourishes (for Stygian Nymph).
• Leitmotif: Post-Honkai Odyssey's Main Menu theme is a short instrumental sample taken from "Oaths", an insert song that plays during the Final Boss fight.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: After Chapter 9-EX, our hero group (consisting of our Valkyries and some Anti-Entropy members) are still planning to find more information about the missing Kiana, but Cocolia sends them a distress call, asking them for help in defending the Gem of Desire from Schicksal's forces. They decide to split their forces for this: Mei and Dr. Tesla go to find more information about the missing Kiana (and Mei gets her upgrade to her Valkyrie Bladestrike suit in-story), while Bronya, Theresa and Dr. Einstein go with Hyperion to Cocolia's location.
• Letting the Air out of the Band: The ninth episode of Cooking with Valkyries is a Beach Episode, starting with Kiana and Bronya duking it out on the beach with water guns. Kiana inadvertently splashes Mei, and when the former goes to check up on her, the sequences plays out like a dream for Kiana — at least until Mei turns around and checks up on Fu Hua instead, who also got soaked by Kiana's antics. By this point, the dreamy music dies out and Fu Hua calmly prepares to hand out punishment to Kiana.
• Lighter and Softer: Honkai Impact 3rd qualifies as this, especially in comparison to its predecessor Guns Girls Z/Houkai Gakuen 2. While the former has no shortage of dark and serious moments, at the very least there is a light at the end of the tunnel where even a Bittersweet Ending is more sweet than bitter. Meanwhile, the latter has more levels of seriousness that matches even that of Warhammer 40,000, with cosmic horror elements being more overt, stronger enemies and the stakes being much, much higher.
• A Lighter Shade of Grey: All three of the anti-Honkai factions—Schicksal, Anti-Entropy, and World Serpent—have good and evil elements to them, but overall, Anti-Entropy is the lighter shade of grey to Schicksal (Anti-Entropy has well-intentioned and positively portrayed higher-ups, while Schicksal is ran by Otto), and both are a lighter shade of grey to the Well-Intentioned Extremist Nebulous Evil Organization that is World Serpent.
• Light Feminine Dark Feminine:
  • Kiana and Mei play it clearly straight, combining it with Hair-Contrast Duo: the former is white-haired and has a bright, excitable, earnest, childish, straightforward, stubborn and chivalrous personality. The latter is dark-haired; she was previously depressed, moody and emotionally withdrawn due to her Dark and Troubled Past, but after Kiana befriended her, she became more gentle, caring, reserved and well-mannered.
  • Played with in regards to Bronya and Seele. The former is an Emotionless Girl who had faced hardships ever since she was young; she used to be a cold and aloof Child Soldier, but her interactions with Seele brought out some emotions in her, before her brain got damaged in the X-10 experiment, which made it hard for her to express emotions in the first place. The latter is best described as "very emotional", whether the "bright" kind (happy, curious and cheerful) or the "dark" kind (meek, demure, easily startled/saddened). Meanwhile, Seele's Split Personality is also "dark feminine": ruthless, sadistic and likes teasing her host, but also very protective and wants the best for her host.
• Light Liege, Dark Defender:
  • Seele and Bronya respectively - the former is an innocent, demure and timid young girl while the latter is a cold hardened former Child Soldier. The twist is that Seele has a Superpowered Evil Side who also acts as her own Dark Defender.
  • Inverted with Mei and Kiana: the former is associated with "darkness" and used to be gloomy and depressed due to her Dark and Troubled Past before the latter girl - who's associated with "light" and has a bright, cheerful and chivalrous personality - saved her and became her "protector". After that, Mei is still the "dark" one, but in a more gentle and nurturing way, akin to the night sky. However, Mei later tries playing it straight as a way to repay Kiana's kindness: as she becomes the Herrscher of Thunder to save Kiana (both from her condition and from her "fate"), she has now become colder, more aloof and seemingly uncaring, even towards Kiana herself, as well as going to work for one of the villains' group.
• Limit Break: The Valkyries each have their own Ultimate Skills, powerful skills that require large amounts of SP (with a few exceptions) to perform. They either do a lot of damage, act as a Super Mode, control enemies in a large area, or (occasionally) a combination of them. The ELFs introduced in 3.0 also have their own Ultimate Skills that can be used when their SP reach the appropriate amount (after attacking).
• Literally Shattered Lives: Enemies affected with the Freeze status debuff will shatter when their HP is depleted.
• Living Legend: By the events of A Post-Honkai Odyssey, it's revealed that most of the named characters, especially Mei and Bronya, are heralded by the public as the heroes who ended the Honkai threat. When Mei and Bronya team up during the joint investigation between the 2nd and 3rd Squads, new generation characters like Carole, Timido, and Lyle cannot help but be amazed to see their captains working together just like old times.
• Loads and Loads of Sidequests: There's a lot to do outside of the Story mode that encourages the player to farm numerous items and upgrade their Valkyries, along with various events.
• Loading Screen: The loading screen is set from the First-Person Perspective of the player, who is in an elevator car that's rising through the decks of Hyperion. Once you tap the screen to actually enter the game, there's a final shot of the elevator passing a bulkhead and stopping; the doors open, a "Captain on the bridge!" announcement is made, the player steps onto the bridge, and the Valkyrie who's assigned to the bridge turns around to face the player as the controls appear on screen.
• Loot Boxes: The "Supply" is the game's gacha system. It comes in a variety of forms, each with some cost:
  • The Standard, Expansion, and Focused Supply types cost Crystals to use, with each Supply giving two prizes. You can purchase individual Supplies, or 10 at once; you can also pick up Supply Cards for each which give you one for free. They differ based on the prizes given:
    • Standard Supply contains a wide variety of items, including Valkyrie character cards (especially the S-rank ones), Epic-grade weapons and Stigmata. This Supply will guarantee an A-rank Valkyrie card or higher (i.e S-rank) if if you haven't successfully pulled any for the past 9 rolls ("pity 10th roll"), which will become fragments for that Valkyrie if she's already unlocked. After an update, there's also Equipment Supply, which contains only equipments and guarantees an Epic-grade equipment as the pity 10th roll.
    • Expansion Supply appears less often and has only certain Valkyrie cards as its grand prize. In particular, certain Valkyries (especially Awakened versions) appear only in Expansion Supply. This supply guarantees an A-rank Valkyrie or higher as the pity 10th roll, and the current supply's promoted S-rank as the pity 100th roll^note this "pity count" will carry over to the next Expansion Supply.
    • Focused Supply contains specific weapons and Stigmata as the grand prize, noted by the daily announcements. A later update introduced "Expansion Focused Supply", which features the weapon and Stigmata specific to the current Expansion Supply's rate-up Valkyrie. Both versions will guarantee an Epic-grade equipment as the pity 10th roll.
  • Prior to version 3.5, there was also a Friendship Supply which cost Friendship Points (acquired by choosing one of your friend's characters to accompany you in gameplay, as well as playing Co-Op Multiplayer) to spin. It only provided 1-2 starred materials, and occasionally a few Valkyrie fragments, and only gave one prize per Supply. Since it was discontinued, "Friendship Supply boxes" are now purchasable in the shop with Friendship Points, which work similarly.
  • Event Supply requires event-related items to use. What they may contain also tends to be less random.
  • In some updates, there's a "special costume supply" that has a beautiful costume for one of the Valkyries as the grand prize. It costs special tickets that can only be acquired by participating in events (and there are only a limited number of them), or by purchasing them with increasing amount of crystals; the first attempt is free. Unlike the other supplies, there are only 10 prizes, which are arranged by pyramid hierarchy; you're more likely to get the bottom prizes first before the ones at the top. You can only roll this supply 10 times, and you're guaranteed to get the grand prize with your last roll (if only because you've gotten the other 9 beforehand).
  • Version 3.5 introduces "Dorm Supply", which costs less than Standard Supply. Its gimmick (other than "guaranteed A-rank Valkyrie as the pity 10th roll") is that, like Expansion Supply, it'll guarantee an S-rank Valkyrie as the pity 100th roll (25th roll for the first and second time). If you happen to roll S-rank Valkyries that you already have twice, the 3rd S-rank you get will be a brand new one you haven't had yet. The catch is that it only contains Valkyries that were added before the Herrscher of the Void update, so there are only 31 of them; this includes "Awakened" valkyries that normally aren't available in Standard Supply. Version 3.6 deletes the Standard Supply in favor of Dorm Supply, while Version 3.7 added a few more Valkyries into the supply (and the new Dorm system). Version 3.7 also replaces the Equipment Supply with "Dorm Equipment Supply", which only contains useful equipments (particularly to the Valkyries available in the Dorm Supply). Version 4.1 also adds more Valkyries into the supply.
  • An update introduced "FOCA Select" and "EXPA Select", variants of Focused and Expansion Supply respectively. Most of the rules regarding the latter two also apply to the former two, but the gimmick is that there's a selection of "rate-up lineup" in each one, and you can choose between 3-5 lineups with different grand prizes; this is basically covering multiple Focused and Expansion supplies in one (each). Another difference is that while in Focused Supply you aren't guaranteed to get the supply's grand prize, the FOCA Select has a "pity 50th roll" that covers it.
  • A more "traditional" example of loot boxes exist with some boxes you can buy with materials in the in-game shop, as well as the boxes dropped by playing Dirac Sea or Q-Singularis, such as the Time Structure Box (contains either Time Structures^note A material used to "reset" plays of Co-op Raid stages to make them drop Raid-specific materials again, high-grade EXP chips, or some money).
• Loot-Making Attack: Some Stigmata in the game will make the enemy drop something (depending on the Stigmata) by the user's attacks, usually with a cooldown. One example is the Theresa: Gluttony Stigma, which makes your successful attacks drop candy every 5 seconds that can be picked up to increase your damage output.
• Lost in Translation:
  • Perhaps intentionally in this case. "Honkai" means "wish/desire" in Japanese, but the literal reading of the kanji in Japanese is "Houkai"("Benghuai" in Chinese), i.e "collapse".
  • "Herrscher of the Void" is a common and valid translation of "空 之/の 律者" ("Kōng Zhī Lǜzhě/Sora no Ritsusha" in Chinese and Japanese respectively) in most languages, and refers to her powers of manipulating space. However, 空 can also mean "sky". This second meaning simply doesn't translate outside of those two languages, so the symbolism regarding all the sky-related imagery around Kiana is likely to be lost to players of most language versions.
  • When the Herrscher of Sentience brings out a spear during her battle with Kiana who uses guns as her weapons, she says "If you use a gun, I'll use a spear!" This is a pun in the original Chinese that was lost in translation because "枪", the word that originally meant "spear", later took on the meaning of "gun"; both meanings are pronounced the same way.

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