Honkai Impact3rd / Tropes M to R

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

M

• Macross Missile Massacre: The "missile robot" mooks' main purpose is simply to shoot lots and lots of missiles toward you. They do, however, have other attacks as well, such as dropping floating mines that can paralyze you, and a Shockwave Stomp to protect themselves at close range. Exaggerated with the strongest of the missile robot you can acquire in Schicksal HQ Open World, whose Ultimate Skill is a nonstop missile barrage that only ends when its SP is depleted.
• Mana Burn:
  • Some enemies have the "SP Drain" buff which drains your character's SP when you're close to them.
  • One type of the Immortal Blades mooks can throw a special grenade at your position. It creates a blue field on its wake that not only burns through your SP, but also make you unable to switch out unless you move out of the circle.
• Manual Leader, A.I. Party: In a few stages, all three Valkyries in your squad will be out at the same time as opposed to just one at a time; you still control one while the other two are played by the AI. In general, the AI members are good enough at attacking, evading, and using Ultimate Skills, but they may get overwhelmed at times, they may attack a target that has an attribute advantage against them, and they will only use weapon skills at random. There are two ways in how this goes, depending on the stage and game mode:
  • In one, you start playing as the designated "leader" of the squad, but you can tap the other Valkyries' icons in order to switch the controls over to that Valkyrie. This can be useful to make a Valkyrie attack a better target, or to use their weapon/Ultimate skills with better timing, or to move them out of trouble. In this type, the QTE system is disabled, however.
  • In another, you can only play as the designated "leader" of the squad, but the gameplay is akin to the Coop Multiplayer mode in that you're given access to powerful Team Skills in order to support your whole team, and the QTE system also works like in that mode^note i.e when the AI Valkyrie's attacks trigger your QTE condition, there'll be a flashing button that you can press to activate your QTE; when your attacks trigger the AI Valkyrie(s)' QTE, they will automatically activate it when it's not on cooldown. You're also given a special button that lets you activate your AI Valkyries' team skills and Ultimate Skills whenever available.
• Marked Change: The first signs of Honkai corruption is a spread of pinkish lines over one's body.
• Market-Based Title: Benghuai 3rd (abbreviated as BH3) in its origin country China, and Honkai Impact 3rd (HI3) globally for the English-language versions. Although it's just a minor difference, there's also Honkai Impact 3 which is mostly associated with the Southeast Asian server (despite that server also supporting the same English localization as the Global one). This was also reflected in the game's official social media platforms, resulting in two English-language YouTube channels, for example. Emphasis on was, because as of 2020, miHoYo had been taking steps to merge the SEA-related marketing into the Global Honkai Impact 3rd title. That being said, Honkai Impact 3 still remains as the game's Southeast Asian title in the mobile app stores, and in the application name for the PC version.
• Martyrdom Culture: The Kaslana bloodline seems to have this, as they have sworn to be "humanity's brave shields" and that they "die and never yield". They will try and help/save other people, oftentimes without paying heed to their own lives. As shown with Kallen and (indirectly) Theresa, however, the growth of the individual members of the bloodline is about finding the right cause for their martyrdom, to understand exactly what they're helping/protecting and why. Otto, Kallen's friend, found this to be a big problem as it meant Kallen would die following her father's way - and sure enough, she did, by protecting citizens from Honkai Beasts at the cost of her life.
• Mascot:
  • Kiana Kaslana is one for miHoYo as a whole, being featured from their very first game (in 2011) and used here as the game's icon.
  • Ai-chan, the AI of the battleship Hyperion. She acts as the "system voice" and also helps with the tutorials with her rather casual style of speaking. She also has her own Twitter account.
  • The plush bunny named HOMU is an in-universe example, with Bronya being a huge fan. He has multiple variants, such as HOLA (red colored, likes playing with explosives) and HOMEI (pink colored female). HOMU and his variants may appear in certain stages as mooks, be playable in certain other stages, and used as a thematic decoration in the Dormitory. They also play a major part in the co-op Raid stage "HOMU Fantasy" and the Extra Stage "Dilemma Dreamland". You can also acquire HOMU treasures which give you varying amounts of coins when used. HOMU and his variants also have various comic books, cartoons and games based on them.
• Mass Monster-Slaughter Sidequest: Some stage objectives require you to kill certain amount of enemies.
• The Maze: The "Imaginary Maze" gameplay mode, which only appears in certain patches of the game, tied to events, takes place in a grid-style maze where your Valkyries walk around on the squares, encounter monsters, find Inexplicable Treasure Chests and advance through floors. Certain events put their twists to the maze: the summer event has a beach-themed one, the Halloween event has a gothic, spooky-themed one, the winter event has a winter-themed one that is also a parody of Alice in Wonderland, the 2019 summer event (HOMU Rush!) is another beach-themed maze, and the "Odd Drifter" event has multiple ones that introduces the "block-pushing" puzzle.
• Meaningful Echo:
  • In chapter 16, Sora is surprised and delighted that Mei's curry that she eats isn't spicy. Tesla points out that it's only bell pepper curry. In chapter 17, Mei makes another curry for Kiana and the latter tells her that it tastes spicy and good like always. Then, when Mei goes out, she tells herself that it's only bell pepper curry, hinting at Kiana's loss of taste - and especially Kiana's attempt to act like what Mei knows her better as, in spite of her condition, to not make her friend feel bad. Mei had already suspected it when she eavesdropped Kiana's conversation with the Anti-Entropy's scientists, and the curry is a test in disguise. This is the last straw for Mei, that convinces her to take Raven's offer to help her save Kiana from her condition.
    Mei: You lie like an idiot... sweet pepper curry isn't spicy at all.
  • In the middle of ch. 17, when Nagazora City is engulfed in a "giant light" as the 2nd Divine Key is activated, the narration reflects back to MEI's speech in the flashback about the Insignificant Little Blue Planet and how meaningless humanity is in the face of the universe.
    Life perishes and is created in each and every beam of each and every instant. Every single individual, the people they meet, the people they love... memories, sacrifices, promises made and broken, victories, defeats, every existence and death... the entire history of the human race... the summation of human legacy... every piece of evidence that points to the very essence of humanity... is naught by a lonely leaf caught within this light.
• Meaningful Name: The school that teaches and trains potential Valkyries is named St. Freya. Freya is a goddess in Norse myth who is connected to the valkyries; she gathers all of the slain warriors' souls that the valkyries retrieved into her realm.
• Mecha-Mooks:
  • Robots appear as mooks starting from Chapter 2. Anti-Entropy apparently prefers building robots to do their dirty work, as they deem the whole Valkyrie business (i.e turning humans into disposable soldiers against the Honkai) as unethical; their robots, however, cannot handle as much Honkai Energy as a human body would, making them weaker potentially. They're weak against Psychic-type Valkyries, and usually explode when defeated.
  • In Chapter 8 and the Schicksal HQ Open World, we see Schicksal's own robot mooks that guard the Schicksal HQ. They're much less "blocky" and stiff than Anti-Entropy's robots, although they're lighter in frame.
• Mechanical Abomination: In "Post-Honkai Odyssey" Open World, the enemies are strange amalgams of creatures and machines that are "put together the wrong way". They're described as akin to a child's nightmare.
• Mercy Kill Arrangement: In one of the supplementary comics, it's explained that Valkyries who fight in the frontline against the forces of Honkai will always be under the threat of succumbing to Honkai corruption and turning into mindless, murderous zombies. It's a common arrangement that, if a Valkyrie ends up getting corrupted by the Honkai, their comrades will immediately execute them. In Ch. 11-EX, in a flashback, Himeko drilled this knowledge to the students.
  Kiana:: ...But what if you're the one experiencing the cascade thing, Miss Himeko?
  Himeko: Then you MUST do the same thing and end my life right there!
  Kiana:: But if I... you know... get that cascade thing... I wish you're the one to do it, Aunt Himeko.
  Himeko: It'll never happen, sugarplum. As your instructor and squad leader, I won't let any of you get in trouble.
• Mind Manipulation: This is the ability of the 8th Divine Key, Fenghuang Down. With it, the user can manipulate people's mind in all sorts of ways, including entering someone's mind, causing them to stop perceiving time for a moment, putting them in deep sleep, creating dreamscapes (up to whole Lotus-Eater Machine levels), and so on. The primary user of this Divine Key is Fu Hua, but others have used this weapon as well, such as Sirin (after Fu Hua used it on her; Sirin could only use it at limited amount) and Otto (through imitating it with his 1st Divine Key).
• Mission Briefing:
  • 2 kinds of this occur in ch. 18: once in the beginning where Alvitr holds one with the rest of the Immortal Blades squad regarding their mission in the Coral Island, and once in the middle where the World Serpent members (Mei, Raven, Owl) set up a plan to capture the Herrscher of Ice in said island.
  • Story missions in the Post-Honkai Odyssey will begin with your characters having a briefing first before they go out.
• Mission Control: In Chapters 1 to 3 in the Story Mode, Himeko and Theresa take turns to talk to Kiana, Mei and Bronya in the missions, even if you use any of the two. In the Chapter Xuanyuan side story, Himeko joins Kiana, Mei and Bronya in the field, while Fu Hua becomes part of the mission control.
• Moe Anthropomorphism: An in-game example. Version 3.0 introduced the ELFs (short for "Equipment: Living Form"), anthromorphized versions of existing weapons in Fun Size. They function similarly to Open World's Higokumaru and Ai-chan, as they can join battles and fight alongside the Valkyries. The lore mentions that they acquire said forms after a strange interaction with the Sea of Quanta and their behavior and mannerisms seem to be (as Einstein thinks) based on what "image" their creators think of the weapons; e.g Jingwei's Wings acts like a wise old lady (emulating the legendary Jingwei) with slips here and there; while Blood Embrace is literally bloodthirsty (she tries to make up for that image by drinking tomato juice, though).
• The Mole: The Heliopolis Life Sciences is a humanitarian organization/company that dedicates themselves in treatment of people's injuries and diseases. In particular, they have been researching ways to treat and prevent Honkai-related illnesses; the anti-Honkai organization Schicksal has affiliated themselves with said group since early 2000s, providing them with funds and materials for research and development. Unbeknownst to Schicksal, however, said group actually belonged to a secret organization, "World Serpent", which secretly uses the company to conduct Honkai-related experiments on the people.
• Mon: The "Estival Seaside Amusement Park" event plays with this concept, called "Pals". In this event, instead of the usual 3-person Tag Team structure, the stages will have you put one player character and up to two Pals. The Pals will act as Support Party Member to your player character; by pressing one of the two Pal buttons, the Pal will come out, perform a certain attack and then disappear, and you can use the Pal support again after some seconds. Most low-rarity pals can be obtained by going into the "habitat" stages and beating them, with the pals as the stage prizes. Higher-rarity pals can be "synthetized" after you obtained the "formulas" for them, by combining 2 certain low-rarity pals. There are also special Pals that can only be obtained once each from the storyline - and they're "Pal" versions of some playable characters, with powerful attacks and effects. Pals have an attack skill and up to 3 support skills that are activated with the pal button; the former is predetermined while the latter are randomly assigned (both the exact skills and their grades, from 1 to 5) to the obtained pals. Pals can be leveled up by "feeding" them variants of HOMU-kind, strengthening their attack and giving them extra effects after reaching certain level. You can also modify their existing support skills by "feeding" them with another pal that has the skill you wish to have on the first pal. One of the achievements of the event is to Gotta Catch Them All.
• Money Sink:
  • Higher levels of skill upgrades cost thousands of coins. If you're planning to max out a Valkyrie's skill tree upgrades, prepare to have a hefty sum of currency.
  • Unlocking and leveling up the ELFs' skills are also going to be a strain on your money and resources, particularly for the S-rank ones.
  • In Post-Honkai Odyssey, as you will eventually unlock and upgrade all of your characters' skills given enough time, you'll end up hoarding Krystallums and Regulators. Version 3.9 introduces the "tuning factors" that will cost you hefty amounts of those two items the more you upgrade them.
• Mono no Aware: For all of its saying of "fighting for all that is beautiful in the world", one subtle theme of the story seems to be that "every beautiful thing will eventually come to an end".
  • One episode of "Cooking with Valkyries" in season 2 has this theme. While seeing the withered becoming "alive" again^note Sakura preserving cherry blossom flowers in brine so that they can bloom again when she gives them water, which she does to make her sister Rin happy is good and all, seeing them "becoming" something else^note Sakura using the salted cherry blossoms as an ingredient for sakura wine or other food is just as good, as Kallen points out.
  • Chapters 8 and 9 is where the story's tone changes drastically as the Battle of Schicksal rages and Kiana becomes the Herrscher of the Void, and in the aftermath, the world becoming ruined due to a "Great Honkai Eruption". Himeko puts it in her own words in the "Final Lesson" video:
    "Kiana, everything would've changed once you wake up. The world will no longer be a pretty place. Life as you know it will be replaced by something else. But don't ever, ever give up."
  • Chapter 17 of the game covers the topic of "change", primarily about how Mei is going to make a big change. She treasured her past with Kiana greatly, and she was alienated by Kiana's own change (prior to this chapter) that the latter goes to try to act like the "Kiana" that Mei used to know in order to ease her feelings and not make her worry, despite Kiana's deteriorating condition. Mei gets to know this, however, and feels bad about herself for "not changing at all", which - she believes - contributed to their whole current situation. In order to save Kiana's life, Mei ends up making tough decisions - cutting away her past life and attachments, including towards Kiana herself - and changing drastically into the Herrscher of Thunder. It's also symbolized with 1) her defeating the Husk - Nihilism boss, a mechanical construct that can reverse time; and 2) her "cutting" the image of her and Kiana's fateful moment, of the latter taking the former's hand, signifying her "falling into the darkness".
  • As shown in a flashback, Kevin used to be a "man of the present" (typical for a guy at high school age like him) who didn't want to think too much about the future, because he fears that he could lost sight of the things around him. However, he ended up fighting to protect the world from the Honkai, and he ultimately failed; he would then put himself in cryosleep and wake up eons later to try to guide the new humanity and protect them from the Honkai. As he finds little personal attachment to the current era, he's now seemingly more obsessed in defeating the Honkai than protecting the people, to the point that after all the other Previous Era projects have either failed or not bear any good result, he resorted to the one that would "doom" the current humanity in order for them to survive the Honkai. In short, he's now the man who has lost everything close to him and has faced the thing that he once feared: losing the sight of things around him as he focuses more on the "bigger picture".
  • Even the "Post-Honkai Odyssey" side-story cannot escape from this issue. In Mei's S-rating dialogue, she reminisces of the time where Squad 3 hangs around the Schicksal HQ and, in particular, the food truck that she used to use (in Schicksal HQ Open World); in said flashback, Mei was reminiscing her youth days while talking to the Protagonist. Near the end, she gives a bit of friendly advice to him:
    Mei: Cherish what you have, [Protagonist's name]. No one knows what might happen next. What we take for granted may be gone in the future. Enjoy every moment, don't leave any regrets. Just be like her^note Kiana.
  • The climax of the "New Century" event has Asuka, about to sacrifice herself by driving the Angel-infected Wotan into the rift to the Sea of Quanta, saying that this is "ichi-go ichi-e", an idiom that translates to "once-in-a-lifetime chance/encounter", referring to her falling into the Honkai world in the first place and being about to leave it forever. It also applies in the meta level, as this event and the limited Evangelion contents (the gacha of playable Asuka, Lance of Longinus, etc) won't come back ever due to the agreements between Mihoyo and Khara.
• Monster Compendium:
  • The "Post-Honkai Odyssey" Open World has a section where you can view the monsters you can find and the infos on them. They also have Flavor Texts given by the in-universe characters.
  • An update gives a catalog of enemies you've faced before, in the "Collection" part of your account menu. It shows their attributes, traits and attacks.
  • The "Estival Seaside Amusement Park" contains a list of "Pals" that you can obtain. The list mentions the pals' skills and where to find them.
• Mood Dissonance: The fifth scenario of "The Day You Vanished With The Stars" ends like this: The Captain finds Kongming's dead body near a river after her carriage went out of control. This is while there are fireworks in the background as the festival is still ongoing on the city.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • The third scenario of "The Day You Vanished With The Stars" ends this way. Captain and Zhuge Kongming are outside of the village; she runs back to the village to pick up some ink and brush while the Captain waits. The narration then notes about the beautiful floating lanterns lighting up the night sky fro far away... before suddenly the kingdom bursts into flames, presumably due to the lanterns and other flammable materials. Kongming is implied to be Killed Offscreen, along with many other people there; he could only think of running back to the palace to find Tesla-Zero again.
  • In the "Alien Space" comic, when Ryusuke (Himeko's father) and his alien partner sensed that Welt is about to enter his place (Himeko's dorm), he prepared for the worst as he slowly fuses with the alien while Welt slowly emits Honkai energy... before Himeko patted Welt from behind and invited him into her dorm, leading him to meet Ryusuke again. When the two men sit face to face, they can only awkwardly exchange their greetings.
• More than Mind Control: Several cases of Herrscher mind-takeovers involve the person's original self being in a state of anguish or rage (usually both), so that they're in their Moment of Weakness which either makes them give in to their anger and willing to use the Herrscher's power to "get back" at who/whatever upsets them, or makes them weak-willed enough that they can't resist the Herrscher self taking over. It didn't help that they tend to be wronged in one way or another, turning them into Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds. This makes Fighting from the Inside potentially harder to do, as the Honkai knows to "tempt" potential Herrschers when they're at their "lowest". Herrscher of the Void in Kiana's body, specifically, repeatedly tries to break the latter's mind so that "SHE" can freely take over her body. Meanwhile, Herrscher of Corruption (from the Previous Era) was driven by Rin's lingering grudge right before she succumbed to her wounds. In the 2nd Honkai War, Sirin entered a strange sphere where she saw an image of her mother dying on a sickbed, and then...
  Sirin: I don't want to feel weak again...
  Inner voice: Very good, Sirin. Tear apart your human heart and become a true Herrscher...
• Morph Weapon: The Divine Keys. Because they're made of Soulium, they can easily change form according to their users' needs. The Judgement of Shamash, for example, has no less than three different forms.
• Motive Decay: As mentioned in one supplementary comic, the Schicksal organization used to be genuinely helpful, offering protection against the Honkai to various kingdoms in Europe. However, it eventually became engrossed in so many aspects of life and culture that the Overseer and other aspects of its leadership became Drunk with Power, its once noble motives becoming tainted with ambition and greed.
• Move in the Frozen Time: The rare "Shuttle" enemy buff makes them immune to the Time Slow and Time Fracture effects. You can try activating Time Fracture, but they'll still move in a normal speed. The boss Benares also heavily resists such effects, and after it Turns Red, it's effectively immune. A good number of other bosses (especially ones introduced later) also has increased resistance to Time Slow effects.
• Multi-Mook Melee:
  • The Infinity Abyss gameplay mode, where you descend down "floors" as you fight increasingly stronger mooks and Elite Mooks and, every certain floor (differing with your character level group), encounter boss enemies as well. There'll also be the "end" floor (higher level groups mean more floors to descend) where you fight a boss that's tougher than the previous ones. It's also possible to "skip" floors by finishing the current floor under a time limit. In this gameplay mode, the active Valkyrie's HP will also drain at an increasingly rapid rate^note Every 1 minute or so, the health drain rate per half a second will increase, up to the maximum of level 8, which forces you to either kill the enemies quickly (so that they'll drop HP pickups) or use Valkyries that can heal others. You're going to compete against other players to see how many floors they've completed; you'll be given consumable items that will either help you advance faster, or hinder other players' progress. You'll get rewards when the game's time limit ends (the "challenge" occurs twice a week) and, if you manage to place yourself in the top 5 or 3, the right to descend to a lower, tougher "level" of the abyss to get even better rewards. There are 4 levels of this abyss (plus one exclusive to Captains of level 70-80); the deeper it gets, the hotter it gets, which means the enemies are tougher and your HP depletes quicker.
  • The second-to-last stage of Chapter 10 involves Theresa fighting off repeatedly-spawning Honkai Beasts, up to 100.
  • An update introduces the "Dirac Sea" mode, which combines this with the open world system. There are only 4 floors, but each floor is wide and has a number of "enemy clusters" that you have to beat in order to score points. Once you engage in combat in one enemy cluster, you won't be able to get out until you beat all enemies in said cluster or you exit the stage^note and if you exit, the cluster you fought in will be reset to how they once were, with you starting outside of the cluster's boundary. Some clusters are true to the trope—multiple respawning enemies up until a specified number of them—while some others are either a fight against a single, strong Elite Mook or against 2 mooks (at a time) with the Soul Link buff. Once you beat all enemy clusters on a floor, you can enter the boss room, then beat the boss to advance to the next floor. ^note You can also choose to go straight to the boss floor, beat the boss, and gain all the points from the floor's enemy clusters as a bonus, but the boss will be buffed significantly; beating all enemy clusters before going to the boss will dispel these buffs. In the final floor, the fight against its boss will also give you extra points depending on how fast you defeated it. It has the same "HP drain" mechanic as the Infinity Abyss, but played differently: your health won't deplete until about 2 minutes have passed, after which there'll be a "heat level" where your health depletion rate increases every 30 seconds or so; the longer you take to beat an enemy cluster or a boss, the more dangerous to your character's health it'll be. Like Infinity Abyss, the game mode opens twice a week, each being active for 3 days; there'll be a degree of "disturbance" based on the how quickly the players were progressing in the previous cycle (which would affect the enemies' strength and HP drain's intensity) and the "depth" you're in, and you'll compete against other players to see who can get the highest score; the reward and "level" system in this mode is also similar to that of Infinity Abyss (see above).
  • A few events have a variant where you and another player fight off multiple enemies in a Co-Op Multiplayer while ascending floors. You can "skip floors" if you can beat the current floor's enemies in a time limit, although "boss floors" cannot be skipped. There are 100 floors to ascend, and you'll stop if you take too long to clear a floor. The last 10 floors are also filled entirely with bosses.
  • Version 3.2 introduces Q-Singularis, which replaces Infinity Abyss. It plays similarly to the latter (multiple floors, the ability to "skip" floors, boss floors, degree of "disturbance" and the same grading/depths & reward system and opening schedule), but with some elements of Dirac Sea mixed in (some floors would have waves of "Soul Connection" mooks or "single Elite Mook" instead of plain multiple mooks, and you'll earn points depending on how much you've progressed), as well as a few new ones: 1) there'll sometimes be Quantum-type enemies (which most valkyries deal neutral damage to, save for Quantum-type characters), and 2) you can have access to a "special skill"; this skill comes with a gauge that is filled by performing Ultimate Evasions, and once it's full, you can activate it to support your gameplay in some way^note The skill's details would differ in certain stretches of floors; each "cycle" of Q-Singularis would also have different skills. Every time the heat level increases, there'll also be "quantum vibrations" where there are two "Area of Effect attack" circles (coming one after another) that are harmless, but can be "evaded" to fill the skill's gauge.
  • In the "Empyrean Legends" event, there are "EX Stages" in each chapter where you ascend up to 20 floors and fight multiple enemies in each. It has a Checkpoint in floors 5, 10, 15 and 19 (exiting the stage will make you start at the checkpoint when you enter again), and the last floor will contain a boss.
  • Like many things it takes from Devil May Cry, Post-Honkai Odyssey's "Ruins Mode" is similar to that game's Bloody Palace. There are multiple floors to ascend, each with its own sets of enemies. Like Dirac Sea, it has a Weather of War system that will affect some of your abilities, as well as a varying additional buff (such as damage increase buff after certain hits in a combo, or after Ultimate Evasion, etc), and each floor may have their "lose condition" such as a timer, or getting knocked down. Every few floors is a Checkpoint wherein you can restart if you quit midway and you can get rewards, and if you have finished the last floor, you can "reset" your playthrough up to the last checkpoint so you can get better points. The points are then put in a leaderboard that resets each week; the higher you place, the better the weekly rewards you'll get.
  • Version 4.2 gives a significant modification for the "Abyss" modes' ranking system for players of lv. 81 and up, called "Exalted" tier: each Abyss "grades" (Forbidden, Sinful, Agony, etc) now have "sub-grades" (Agony I, II, III, etc)^note the exact number of sub-grades depend on the number of players, which differ per server. You'll also get a different, better-looking emblems for the grade you're currently in. In each "bracket" (consisting of 20 players at a time), players are given an incentive of actually getting higher ranks instead of just getting a high enough rank to retent the position: the "Trophies" system, where getting higher ranks will award you with more trophies, and being placed at lower ranks can make you lose trophies. You'll need enough number of trophies in order to advance to a higher, more rewarding (sub-)grade of the Abyss.
  • Version 4.2 also gives another "Abyss" mode for players of lv. 81 and above, called "Superstring Dimension", a more developed version of the "Honkai Lab" events in previous versions. In it, there are 4 stages, three with a similar Weather of War "theme" and one with a different theme from the other 3. In each stage except the last one, there are 5 floors to ascend, each with either a number of mooks or a single Elite Mook, and the last floors in each will have certain bosses. In the last stage, there are only 2 floors, one "multi-mook" floor and one "big boss" floor; in this stage, the faster the clear time, the higher points you'll get, and the higher rank you can potentially gain. Unlike other Abyss modes, however, this one lacks a "health drain" mechanic, but in its place it has a timer of 5 minutes.
• Mundane Utility: In "Valkyries' Spring Feast", Bronya has Project Bunny help with the cooking, including using a molecular arranger to speed things up.
• Musical Nod:
  • In "The Day You Vanished With The Stars" event, which stars Zhuge Kongming, the main background theme is the instrumental version of "Hoshi to Kimi ga Kieta Hi" (literally meaning "The Day You Vanished With The Stars"), Theresa's theme song from Guns GirlZ. Later, in the final stage of the event, the full music (with lyrics) is played as its background theme.
  • The themes played in "Cyberangel" and "Lament of the Fallen" videos are remixes of Bronya and Mei's themes from GGZ, "Angel of Sin" and "Honkai World Diva".
• Mutually Exclusive Power-Ups: In Post-Honkai Odyssey, some of the skills you can get for each character need to be "activated" first, and there are 3 kinds for each character: one for 2 selectable Ultimate Skills, one for 3 selectable passive skills, and one for 3 other selectable passive skills (which are stronger than the previous set).
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Enemy Valkyries usually have the same movesets of their playable versions, except that they are usually in Iron Body status. Certain Valkyries, however, have their boss version fight with very diverse movesets like Gyakushinn Miko, Black Nucleus, Shadow Knight, Blood Rose, Umbral Rose, Argent Knight, and Herrscher of the Void, where they have moves that the playable versions can't perform.
• Mystical White Hair:
  • The Kaslana family is noted as being very resistant to Honkai corruption, and Siegfried, Kallen, and Kiana all have white hair. This also applies to Theresa since Kallen's genes were used in her creation (although her hair turns pink as Sakuno Rondo due to Higokumaru's influence).
  • As Phoenix, Fu Hua's hair is white with red streaks.
• Mythology Gag: In ch. 17, during their walk on the Nagazora City ruins, Mei talks about facing zombies together with Kiana in the shrine and the bridge of the city. They are gameplay stages in the previous game, Guns GirlZ. Later, one of the stages are done in sidescrolling style, akin to Guns GirlZ, and part of the final battle with Herrscher Mei has the stage's camera briefly changing into the sidescrolling style, hearkening back to the boss battle with GGZ's version of Herrscher Mei; during that segment, the Mei of this game even does a similar attack to that of her GGZ version.

N

• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: It should not be surprising that a man named Otto Apocalypse is a major antagonist.
• Naked People Are Funny: The miHoYo staff publishes a series of online parody 4koma comics based on the game which feature the characters wearing skin-colored bodysuits over their actual clothes. The gag is pointed out a number of times in-series.
• Nanomachines: According to Einstein, Soulium, an extremely rare and strong metal, is in reality a "semi-intelligent nano-robot composite." As a result, the Divine Keys, which are made fom the material, generally have multiple forms.
• Negatives as a Positive: Bronya often calls Kiana an idiot. However, it's phrased in a way to highlight how much Kiana never quits on things until she succeeds.
• Nerf Arm: Mei and Sakura have a number of blades from events that appear like Joke Items, like a candy cane or even a really stiff fish, yet they are 5-star weapons, thus powerful blades (although less powerful than "regular" 5-star blades). There are also other goofy-looking event weapons as well, such as one of Bronya's cannons that shoot sticky rice dumplings (that slows down enemies), or one of Kiana's guns that are shaped like megaphones.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In Post-Honkai Odyssey, our heroes escort Welt and Joey to the Sa'ad Station so that they can get out of the city. However, the main villain Void Archives, who had spent his time trying to find Welt, has been secretly waiting inside the train, and he gets to have a deal with Welt for his grand plan. Some time later, our heroes meet the main villain in the "Arcane Castle" (in the giant crystalline structure floating above the city), with him saying that thanks to them, he could find the Herrscher of Reason.
• Night of the Living Mooks: Zombies appear as enemies in the levels. They aren't your regular zombies, either: They move as normally as humans would (except for two of the kinds, which float in the air instead), they merely have pale and sometimes cracked skins, and they use their weapons well (again, except for two of the kinds, who use some magical powers). They all seem to be female, too. They are normally BIO-type enemies, making them weak against MECH-type Valkyries.
• Non-Combat EXP:
  • EXP Chips allow you to directly fill the EXP bars of your chosen Valkyries.
  • You can get EXP by finishing daily tasks and Open World tasks, some of which don't involve combat.
• Non-Entity General: The player assumes the role of Captain of Hyperion, which is mostly unseen. The Captain is also uninvolved in main and side stories, only showing up in events.
• Nonstandard Game Over:
  • Two stages in Ch. 11-EX have a variant of this: there's a special gauge that fills whenever Kiana attacks. If it's filled to full, the stage ends in failure—her Herrscher self re-awakens and the narration says that the world's end is nigh. It slowly empties itself when she's not attacking, which Fu Hua tries to remind you.
  • In Post-Honkai Odyssey, in the fight against the Final Boss, you get to enter a Quick Time Event scene after you deplete the boss' health, where the "protagonist" struggles to break the boss' barrier. If you take too long in the scenes where you have to press the appearing buttons, the protagonist will collapse and then it cuts to one of the two screens of "defeat narration".
• No Peripheral Vision: The enemies in the Open World stages have a limited line of sight, and they can simply ignore you if you don't step into the red arcs or rectangles in front of them. This limitation plays a big part in the stealth mechanics of Sakura Samsara and Post-Honkai Odyssey.
• Not-Actually-Cosmetic Award: You can acquire "emblems" by doing certain tasks, which you can display in your "account screen" so people can see your achievements. They can also be "equipped" and give a little stat boost depending on the emblem.
• "Not So Different" Remark: When Owl betrays the World Serpent to save Ana, Mei hesitates in cutting him down, realizing he has the exact same motivation as her: protecting a loved one who's eaten inside by her Herrscher power, in the hope that she can be cured.
• Notice This:
  • Items that you can pick up or interact with in Sakura Samsara or Schicksal HQ will have an icon floating over them which varies depending on how you interact with them. When you get close enough to them, a button will appear that allows the action to be taken.
  • When exploring the moon from Chapter 32 onwards, the Mark 2 drone will shine a light on any nearby treasure chest that you come across, including the hidden ones. Seele will also point out or lampshade the drone detecting something.
• Nostalgia Level: Chapter 22 has 2 levels that relive certain levels of the past courtesy of Hua(?)'s power over the mind: one of them recreates Chapter 9's events^note Fu Hua's battle against Rita and then Herrscher of the Void, but with Hua(?) in place of Fu Hua, while the other recreates chapter 13's^Spoilers Fu Hua is given some power from Hua(?) to recreate the scene where Kiana tries to infiltrate Heliopolis while Fu Hua guides her from inside her mind. The twist is that Hua(?) fails to help Kiana infiltrate and decides to just beat up the guards.
• Now It's My Turn: Used by Himeko against the Herrscher of the Void, and later by Kiana against the Legion Herrscher, calling back to the previous time.
  Himeko: "I guess you're done attacking. It's my turn now... I hope you don't mind, girl."
  Kiana: "Are you done? My turn now. I hope you're fine with that!"

O

• Oddly Shaped Sword:
  • Some katanas in the game may have weird shapes, such as Galactic Nova (a stand mike with a blade attached under it), Vorpal Sword Type-11 (a sword with trapezoid shape and straight edge), or Mag-Typhoon (straight sword with a few mechanical bits). That's not counting the Nerf Arms.
  • A few greatswords also go similarly, such as Judgment by Dawn (a huge chainsaw with a sword hilt), Ranger's Sawtooth (a greatsword lined with big blue spikes), or Betrayer (more of a missile launcher on a hilt).
• Ominous Cube:
  • The item "Honkai Piece" is an aggregate of Honkai energy in an uneven cuboid shape, consisting of smaller cubes and blocks of varying sizes. Another item, "Honkai Cube", is a rarer variant that is larger and holds more power; it is used to upgrade high level weapons.
  • In a supplementary comic set in the Middle Ages, there was the "Honkai box" that Schicksal had discovered; they were trying to find out how to use the power of the box to empower themselves. One of the Valkyries, Eleanor Schariac, managed to harness its power in form of a Power Crystal that came out of the box; she turned into a powerful Honkai Beast with it. When the crystal got broken in battle, it releases dark fumes, which is revealed to be the true essence inside the box. Said "true essence" was the power and will of the 12th Herrscher of the Previous Era, which took form of a viral corrupting agent that can take control of humans, animals and machines alike, until it was trapped inside a special box by the previous incarnation of Mei (Dr. Mei). After Kallen defeated the will inside said box, she decided to bring it far away from Europe and ended up in Japan, where she met Sakura; the box later corrupted Sakura, turning her into a pseudo-Herrscher whom Kallen had to put down. After the events of Sakura Samsara, it's shown that the true purpose of the box - aside from being the can to seal the 12th Herrscher - is to turn it into a Divine Key, which is only possible after the 12th Herrscher's will is pacified; it and the box become the sword, Jizo Mitama.
  • Also in the past, Schicksal had a "golden cube" that the Overseer at the time kept in the chapel of Schicksal. His son, Otto, stumbled into it; the cube then spoke to him, claiming that it can help him with anything he needs if he offers his soul. Otto accepted it, and then its contents flowed into his body. It was the 1st Divine Key, "Void Archives", that holds a lot of knowledge from the Previous Era.
• Ominous Floating Castle: In Post-Honkai Odyssey, there's a strange crystalline Big Dumb Object that floats in the middle of the city of St. Fountain, inside which lies a cathedral-like castle and a few buildings surrounding it (according to Carole's observations). This castle is seemingly the (literal) center of the weirdness happening in the city: it's the center of the "dome" that surrounds the city, the crystal growths found on the city is seemingly related to this castle, and it may have been the thing that disrupts normal means of long distance communication (our characters can only use Honkai-powered comm devices while in the city) and fools the satellite imaging. Carole calls this castle "Arcane Castle", after the Supervillain Lair of the same name in the Show Within the Show, the anime "Arahato".
• Ominous Visual Glitch: When Elysia and Kevin's sims disappear in "Elysium Everlasting", the entry menu interface for the story arc gains persistent visual glitches like disjointed flickering shapes or slightly-tilted icons. If a Flame-Chaser sim disappears, their portrait and description on the sub-menu are also replaced by shattered glass and garbled characters, respectively. On-screen "deaths" also depict the Flame-Chaser sim having blocky, pixelated distortions on their body before they disappear. After Chapter 30 reveals the Herrscher of Corruption as the mastermind of the disappearances, the menu interface becomes purple and displays worse visual glitches.
• The One Guy: Among the Herrschers, only one of them is male: the first one, Walter "Welt" Joyce, who apparently fought Otto in the past. He's unique in that his human consciousness overcame his Herrscher side, allowing him to preserve his mind while still commanding the vast power from his Herrscher Core at the cost of him being unable to control Honkai Beasts. He was then succeeded by a Finnish boy named Joachim, who received Welt's Herrscher Core, giving him Welt's powers, albeit without the Honkai influencing him due to him not actually merging with the core unlike other Herrschers. He later went by the name "Walter Young" and became Anti-Entropy's leader.
  • Later on the character Owl turns into the (short lived) Herrscher of Earth. They remain the only two male Herrschers though.
• One-Handed Zweihänder: Played with by Himeko and the Olenyeva twins, who all wield huge swords in their combat styles. Himeko, during battle, will swing her sword by both hands, but in her victory pose for most of her battlesuits, she's balancing the sword on her shoulder with one hand and with no apparent effort. The Olenyeva twins, on the other hand, each have a tail with a cybernetic claw that they use to wield their swords for attacks, but in their victory poses, while Roza is holding her sword over her head with one hand (by the body and not the handle), Liliya is doing a Sword Drag with both hands and struggling to heft it without her tail.
• Orwellian Retcon:
  • After Chapter 8 was incorporated into the game, Chapters 1 and 2 were rewritten (complete with modifying the stages within, at least for the normal mode). Chapter 1 now includes Chapter 2's scenario where Bronya gets Brainwashed and Crazy, while the new Chapter 2 focuses entirely on the "mysterious voice" inside Kiana. Newer characters Fu Hua and Rita were also inserted in the storyline, complete with new cutscenes.
  • Some minor terms or dialogue lines are rewritten in later updates as well. For example, Bronya has a habit of calling Kiana as "Kiana Idiotka", but instances of it were later changed into "Idiot Kiana".
• Ouroboros: The World Serpent's logo consists of a snake eating its tail. The organization's name also refers to Jormungand (aka Midgardsormr), the gigantic serpent of Norse Mythology that encircles the world. The supplementary comic that focuses on them starts with the legend of the "serpent" in various mythologies, as well as the description of the Ouroboros by Plato.
• Overhead Interaction Indicator:
  • Your Valkyrie that is on the homescreen will have a thought bubble floating by her head that does different things when tapped/clicked. Normally it's blue, and the Valkyrie will say one of an assortment of canned statements with a speech bubble providing the translation. If it's a purplish tone, she will do the same, but it's to scold you for playing too long and/or tell you to shut down and get some sleep. If it's white, she will say something but instead of dialogue, an interface appears where you can see her current Affection Point level and also perform some other actions such as swapping Valkyries or entering Portrait Mode. If the bubble is spiky and yellow with exclamation points, the Valkyrie will say something unique to her, such as something about her birthday or, in Bronya's case, asking the Captain to get her a HOMU Happy Meal.
  • In the dorms, a Valkyrie will occasionally have a blue speech bubble appear over her head with a chair, book, a scared or sad face, and other things. These indicate actions that the player can do with her to potentially increase her happiness meter and/or receive a reward. To trigger the action, the player has to either tap or click on the Valkyrie (once or a few times depending on the indicator), or drag her to a specific part of the room like near a bookcase or onto something she can sit on.
  • Some of the quests in the Sakura Samsara version of Open World are activated by tapping/clicking on a female villager with a yellow exclamation point over her head. In other quests in different parts of the game, the same yellow exclamation point will appear over the heads of NPCs you need to talk to.

P

• Painting the Medium: In the Elysian Realm, after the Herscherr of Corruption's influence leads to the deaths of several of the sims, the game reflects the incursion by the Elysium Everlasting icon and the elements of the entry screen having visual glitches, and the graphics for the various options becoming off-kilter.
• Patchwork Map: The map of the island in the "Odd Drifter" event consists of a beach area, a village in a forest, a desert, a frozen tundra and a volcanic area. In-universe, Einstein theorizes that this involves a space-time/dimensional anomaly and that the tower at the center of the island is the cause of this, as well as the urban legend of "people who got randomly teleported from one side of the world onto another". The strange tower is revealed to be a space-time warping device from the "previous era", and the reason for the strange map is that the Captain (back in the "Honkai Kingdoms" event) inadvertently warped space and time when he subconsciously wished for happy endings for his "girls" while Zhuge Kongming is activating the warp device, causing the different environments to be warped into the island as well, and the Captain to be "split" into two separate versions, forcing Kongming to orchestrate the whole event to try to fix it.
• Peninsula of Power Leveling: Some daily stages reward you with EXP Chips to help you level-up Valkyries. In a variant, some other daily stages reward you with upgrading materials for weapons and Stigmata. Playing in Coop Multiplayer also gives your character more EXP per run.
• Pensieve Flashback: These are peppered throughout chapter 20. Kiana and Bronya travel to Mt. Taixuan to find clues about Fu Hua, and encounter feathers which, when touched, allow them to experience memories that Fu Hua has excised from her mind for one reason or another, ranging from her teenage years in the Previous Era (Valkyrie Accipiter) to her time as a MANTIS soldier (Shadow Knight) to when she was the "Celestial" and training students on Mt. Taixuan (Azure Empyrea). When they get to a particular feather at the end, however, they suspect that something is wrong with this feather as its nature is "different" from the others.
• People Jars:
  • The end of ch. 2 has Kiana being trapped in a nightmare; there, she's inside the corridors of an unknown building, where she sees people inside glass jars. Some of them come out from their jars, and they somehow resemble Kiana, which then proceed to attack her.
  • In ch. 6, inside the "simulation" of the 2nd Honkai War, she enters the Babylon Tower; in one stage, she comes across jars lined together with dead bodies inside them. Some of them are zombies that proceed to attack Kiana.
  • At the start of the side story "Everlasting Memory", Theresa was first seen inside such a jar, depicting the moment of her "birth".
  • At the end of the comic focusing on the 2nd Honkai War, Otto is monitoring a glass jar that he's experimenting on. Inside it is K-423, who gets implanted with the 2nd Herrscher's core, giving her sentience. This gets referenced at the start of ch. 7 of the game, where Otto monitors the captured Kiana inside a jar, aiming to awaken Herrscher of the Void.
  • The trailer for Version 3.5 shows the inside of a building's room with multiple glass jars, with a prominent one where a person in a suit of armor is suspended inside it. In ch. 13, Rita infiltrates the Heliopolis building and finds a secret room, inside which lie lots of people in jars; some of them have a bit of Honkai flesh grafted to them, a few of them have Stigmata, and yet others have their limbs replaced with robotic ones. Rita is horrified when she sees this. Then in one of the stages, Rita's enemy releases one of the special cyborg zombies from such a jar to attack her.
• Percent-Based Values: With certain exceptions, many attacks - whether normal ones, weapon skills or Ultimate Skills - go by a percentage of the user's Attack stat.
• Pervert Revenge Mode: On The Bridge, if you touch an affection lv. 1 Valkyrie's chest or groin area three times in a row, she will send you back to the loading screen. (At higher affection levels, they'll act embarrassed and blush.) The method of doing so depends on who you've put on the bridge:
  • Kiana simply kicks you out.
  • Special mention goes to Mei, where it's implied that her Herrscher side proceeds to electrocute you.
  • Sakura slices you in seconds.
  • Theresa clutches her fist and punches you out.
  • Himeko gives you a slap.
  • Bronya summons her Project Bunny and then shoots you with its cannon.
• Physical, Mystical, Technological: The game plays with the 3 attributes: BIO (Biologic), PSY (Psychic) and MECH (Mecha) respectively, for both the Valkyries and the enemies. They also form Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors, with BIO beating PSY beating MECH beating BIO.
• Play Every Day: There are daily and weekly challenges that players can complete to gain EXP for their Captains and small amounts of Crystals. There are also events where players can gain leveling materials for their characters, Stigmata and weapons that change everyday.
• Player Nudge: Many of the stages tell you what you need to do to complete them, and/or the particular gimmick of the stage. This also includes when you're fighting bosses.
• Playing with Syringes:
  • Back in the 15h century, Schicksal (including Otto) tried to devise a cure for the Black Death plague by experimenting on the sick. Many of the patients went berserk (likely due to the Honkai) and had to be Mercy Killed. Later, they also secretly experimented on multiple people to find a way to use the mysterious "Honkai box" and its hidden powers. When Kallen questioned a Schicksal priest about this, he bluntly told her that Schicksal is going to use the power of the box to avenge their defeat in the East and unite the world under their name, and then purge the Honkai from the world.
  • Ch. 13 shows that the World Serpent (through Heliopolis) has been experimenting on people of Arc City for some time, particularly Stigmata-related ones. It's later called "Project Stigma".
  • In the middle of the "Rosemary's Floriograph" event, Doyle finds some of Welt Joyce's research notes, which reveals that the church orphanage of St. Fountain (which is now rebuilt as Welt's manor) once performed various inhuman experiments on the orphaned children, on behalf of the institute that owned the church—Schicksal. Einstein tells him that it's supposed to be top secret.
• Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: This happens at the climax of chapter 17, between Kiana and Mei. The former, who's already in a bad condition and only has a few months left to live, tries to stop an impending disaster with her "hidden powers", even if it might be her last moments. The latter, who wishes to repay Kiana's kindness to her and save her friend's life, ends up having to deal with a villainous organization, World Serpent, to find a way to treat Kiana's condition. Mei succeeds with their help and Kiana is now better off, but as part of their deal, Mei would have to join their group. Kiana is disheartened when she finds out about this; Mei, who wishes for Kiana to not push herself to death to help her friend anymore, decides to Break Her Heart to Save Her. They end up having a bitter fight, as Kiana tries to stop Mei from joining the Serpents while Mei tries to beat some sense into her friend — particularly about how Kiana means the world to her. In the end, Mei wins and leaves Kiana behind. In the aftermath, after Kiana is found by the Hyperion crew, she's said to be still grieving over what Mei did.
• Power Creep: Like any gacha RPG title, many later-introduced Valkyrie suits are superior to the ones that came before. Along with new gameplay mechanics introduced like "augment cores", all those additions have profoundly transformed the way players approached the game, making a lot of the early battlesuits obsolete in the process (such as "Dimension Breaker" Bronya, who lost the status of powerful support she had in the early days) or changing their role significantly (like "Lightning Empress" Mei going from dedicated damage dealer to a lightining damage buffer for other characters). A good number of newer weapons and Stigmata also have many assorted effects while earlier ones tend to be simpler, although some of them still see use because they're Simple, yet Awesome and straightforwardly powerful.
• Power Equals Rarity: Higher-rarity units have higher base stats and have more available skill tree nodes from the start than the low-rarity units. Higher-rarity weapons and Stigmata will also have higher base stats than lower ones when they're upgraded to the max.
• Power Levels: They're presented in form of CP (Character Points), which are increased by leveling your Valkyrie up, leveling their skills up, increasing their rank and equipping them with powerful weapons and Stigmata. A few game modes recommend you to have Valkyries with big enough CP in order to fight more comfortably.
• Power Tattoo:
  • The "Stigmata" are memories and powers of certain people that manifest in form of a set of tattoos on the Valkyries' backs. When equipped, they give the selected Valkyrie additional stats and effects, and they have Set Bonuses if you can make a set of 2-3 Stigmata of the same type.
  • One supplementary comic reveals more about the Stigmata's nature: they can be either natural^note only a very few percentage of the world's population were born with it; they also tend to be passed down through families or artificial^note from Schicksal's research on the Kaslana and Shariac family's Stigmata, they create artificially-made ones. They're the outward sign of the "Honkai antibody" inside them that lets them resist corruption from Honkai energy and use said energy as a power source. The artificial ones are flawed—they aren't as powerful as the natural ones and don't offer as much resistance to Honkai corruption, and for this reason (and the fact that they're fighting Honkai phenomenon on the front lines), Valkyries tend to have short lifespans.
  • The comic that focuses on the Advanced Ancient Humans of the past shows that Stigmata were the information of most of scientific progress and advancement by the previous incarnation of Mei, coded into genetic data, put inside select humans, who are then put into cryostasis in order to spread the knowledge of their civilization and technology to the future. They're what the current people would call "natural Stigmata".
  • Ch. 13 further expands on this: As the Stigmata is planted into genetic data, the "anti-Honkai genome" would be diluted by process of breeding from generation to generation, and thus become weaker the further down the generation it goes. Nowadays, most common people are said to only have parts of the genomes inside them, mixed from various different stigmata; they aren't enough to give them protection from the Honkai and powers to oppose them. This is why people who have "natural stigmata" are rare nowadays. The World Serpent has a plan of rearranging the stigmata genome inside people in order to bring their potentials, but in their experiments, many of them ended in failure; either the experimented people die from the shock, or turn into zombies. They also have a plan of doing it in a city-wide scale: they distribute special vaccines that they ordered from Schicksal and modified, then they would detonate a big Honkai-powered bomb (with the Honkai engine they took from Rita's airship) to spread Honkai energy on a large scale to trigger the "stigma rearrangement" onto people who had the vaccines.
• Premium Currency: The game uses various items to make in-game purchases, but its two premium currencies are Crystals and B-Chips.
  • Crystals are slowly earned through various in-game achievements, but can be purchased in bulk using real money. They can be spent on certain items and currencies for other purchase types, but their main use is for the game's gacha mechanic.
  • B-Chips can only be acquired by buying in bulk using real money. They're used for a variety of premium purchases, such as bulk item packages in the game's store, coupons that are spent to get rare outfits for Valkyries, premium outfits that become available in events, and game supplements like new music or themes for the main screen interface.
• Prequel: The "Honkai Kingdoms: Zero" event (in version 3.9) is one to the "Honkai Kingdoms" event (in version 3.0). It shows how the kingdom of "Emberya" came to be, as well as introducing the mystery behind "Zhuge Kongming", the "Grand Seeress". The epilogue gives a brief history on how the three sides of Honkai Kingdoms (Emberya, Schicksal and Jormungond) came to be. Its ending is also tied to the original Honkai Kingdoms, where Kongming tried to reactivate the ELF Tesla-Zero with her ritual, only for the Olenyeva Twins - Captain's companion in HK - to appear somehow.
• Product Placement:
  • The special Chinese New Year episode of Cooking with Valkyries has Himeko eating in a Lawson convenience store, and later, the girls drink Pepsi when they're having their feast.
  • An in-universe example happens in the "Arc: Light Bound" event when a conversation between Bronie and Theresa is interrupted by a loudspeaker broadcasting an ad for a glider branded for Theresa's Idol Singer persona, which embarrasses her.
    Magic Girl TeRiRi's special edition camouflage wind glider on sale! Become invisible and take off with TeRiRi now!
• Promoted to Playable: Each version brings in a new playable character or battlesuit that was either present in the background beforehand (such as Fu Hua or Durandal) or made her debut in that version's new story chapter or event (such as Herrscher of Reason). From a measly 3 characters and 9 battlesuits in the first version of the game^note Kiana with White Comet, Valkyrie Ranger and Divine Prayer; Mei with Crimson Impulse, Shadow Dash, and Valkyrie Bladestrike; Bronya with Valkyrie Chariot, Yamabuki Armor and Snowy Sniper, the roster had inflated to 15 characters and 57 battlesuits (not counting Post-Honkai Odyssey and "augment core" upgrades) by version 5.0.
• Protection Mission: Several missions, both in Story mode and side quests, have a stationary object with a certain number of hit points that the player must defend from multiple waves of zombies and Honkai beasts that are closing in to destroy it.
• Protection Racket: Around 500 years before the present, the Schicksal organization lost a lot of their members and resources after their "crusade" (read: invasion) to China failed. They had to resort to extorting money from the closest people (in Europe) at the time to cover their losses, under the pretense of "buying 'indulgences' as a means to pay for their 'original sins' for those who didn't go to the war". This caused the populace to start resenting Schicksal.
• Pseudo-Romantic Friendship: Bronya and Seele have deeply bonded with each other, and although it has been chaste aside from a mutual First Kiss, there is a strong sense of "more than friends but less than lovers" to their interactions. Seele specifically thinks of herself and Bronya as "sisters".
• Putting the Band Back Together: In Chapter XXXII, the main trio of Kiana, Mei, and Bronya are finally reunited after 15 chapters of them being separated due to Mei's defection to World Serpent.
• Pyrrhic Victory: A running theme throughout the series is that every victory against the Honkai comes with some sort of sacrifice. This is what doomed the humanity of the Previous Era − even if they fended off the Herrschers, it was always as such a heavy cost that by the twelfth one, there was pretty much nothing left to save. The narration sums it up as "humanity winning every single battle, but losing the war".

Q - R

• Quick Time Event:
  • The "QTE" system allows your playable characters to tag in (or teleport close to your friend in co-op) with a powerful attack after you inflict the enemy(ies) with a certain condition, such as getting launched to the air or paralyzed.
  • Post-Honkai Odyssey has 3 examples of this: one is similar to the above, the other is the "joint attacks" where, after you hit enemies with the last strike of the current character's ground combo (or with the attack after an Ultimate Evasion), the other characters' icon will flash; pressing the icon of a character will cause that character and your current one do a special attack on the target before the current character switches out. The last one is the "ultimate jump": certain enemies have certain attacks that will cause your jump button to flash. Hitting it at the right time allows you to avoid the attack in time, and then you enter a scene where, after you press the attack button, your character dives down with a Counter-Attack of their own. An upgrade allows you to time the attack button press just right to deal extra damage.
  • Post-Honkai Odyssey's part 1 finale also has a "playable cutscene" version of this trope: whenever the Protagonist (i.e you) try to hit the barrier surrounding the Final Boss a few times, he'll be knocked back and there'll be a prompt to make him wake up, with more intense button taps each time it happens again. Then he resorts to overclock the power of his special sword to give him enough strength; this also comes with multiple button taps, and after this, he finally manages to break through the boss' barrier and he becomes empowered afterward for the refight.
• Random Number God: Apart from the gacha and item drop mechanics, Stigmatas involve RNG when it comes to their Wafer Affixes. Normal Crystal Cores are used to reshuffle Affixes, but the results will always have randomized stat names and values. It's also possible to unlock a second Affix slot when reshuffling with Normal Crystal Cores, but it occurs at a small chance. There exist items that can let you defy the randomness to an extent, such as an item that guarantees ATK bonus for the affix, or an item that locks one of the affixes so you can reroll for the other affix.
• Rank Inflation: The story has at least acknowledged B-, A-, and S-rank Valkyries. You'll start your game with B-ranked ones (Kiana at the start is also a B-rank), then as you collect "fragments", you can either upgrade your existing Valkyrie suits' rank or get new A-rank or even S-rank suits. The inflation comes in the SS and SSS-rank Valkyries, which require you to collect a boatload of Valkyrie fragments. The ranks here are used to upgrade the Valkyries' Leader Skills and unlock new sub-skills for them, making them more powerful and useful.
• Rare Random Drop: Stages such as Befall, Time Swirl, Post-Honkai Odyssey, and a few others have rarer items that may drop by chance.
• Real Event, Fictional Cause: The "Black Death" plague in 14th century Europe is revealed to be part of the Honkai phenomenon.
• Recycled Soundtrack: The song "Lyin" that was previously used in Gun GirlZ during the cutscene where God Kiana kills everyone is used in 9-17 when Himeko must conquer her inner demons to wear the Vermillion Knight - Eclipse Battlesuit without allowing it to corrupt her.
• Reduce Aggro: All cases overlap with Draw Aggro.
  • Shadow Dash (Mei) can use her shadow clones to attack and distract opponents, making them attack the clone instead of her.
  • In co-op play, Yamabuki Armor (Bronya) has a team skill that draws the enemies' aggro towards her while lowering their defenses, making them open to her teammates.
  • Wolf's Dawn (Bronya) has her Project Bunny 19c detached from her, which will make the enemies attack it instead of her. In co-op plays, her team skill is to make the enemies attracted to Project Bunny.
  • Battle Storm (Himeko)'s team skill in co-op play is an attack that draws the attention of the enemies hit towards her, while also buffing her defense.
• Red Herring: Ch. 2 has the official reports claim that the Honkai energy in the Selene battleship (back in ch. 1) caused Bronya to turn berserk and attack her teammates, and later in the chapter, Rita claims that the same thing may have happened to Kiana as well, which caused her to faint after the exams. However, they're all (in universe) deliberate misdirections: the first case was because Bronya had a case of Villain Override by Cocolia to fulfill Anti-Entropy's mission; Kiana hides this from Himeko and Theresa, who only know this later in ch. 4. The second case was due to the activity of the "mysterious voice" inside Kiana.
• Red Spider Lilies of Mourning: One of Seele's battlesuits, Stygian Nymph, has the original name of "Twin Red Spider Lilies" in Chinese and Japanese. This is due to Seele embracing her "other self" for the first time, who has "death" imagery and is more sadistic, shown in her Ultimate where she transforms into her other self for stronger attacks. Her costume for this battlesuit, "Mirrored Flourishes", has red spider lily ornaments for her "Dark Seele" side, bringing the motif clearer.
• Reference Overdosed: The game has a healthy number of references to various anime and games. From the achievements alone you may find more than a dozen, such as Consecutive Normal Punches or Gate of Babylon. Kiana's White Comet and Divine Prayer variants have a few of Bayonetta's attacks and techniques, including the Wicked Weaves and Witch Time. A good number of events liberally throw around more references.
• Refugee from TV Land: Goushinsou Memento and the playable Imayoh Ritual are both from an in-universe video game called "Kallen Fantasy VII" made by Otto himself. Goushinsou Memento is described as a runaway failed experiment who goes on a rampage until she meets Kallen.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Aside from real-life Historical Domain Characters, the game uses religious and mythological words such as Stigmata and Valkyrie. Many Honkai Beasts are given codenames from different myths, and Schicksal's Mecha-Mooks have a Norse Mythology naming scheme. There also exists "Pantheon-series" weapons themed after various deities, and most of the Divine Keys are also named after myth figures.
• Resource-Gathering Mission:
  • There are daily missions that change everyday, which (depending on the day) will give you various resources when completed, such as character EXP chips, upgrading materials and ores that level up your weapons and Stigmata.
  • An update introduces "Expeditions", that serves to help you farm Valkyrie fragments and materials in story stages. You can assign some Valkyries that meet the "Character Points" requirements (see Power Level above) into a stage in the story mode, then wait for a time (usually an hour), and then you can pick up the stage drops. This is useful for when you're busy and can't take time to play but still want to farm materials. All the rules regarding stage play and item drops are the same (i.e the stamina cost, the drop rate, the stage's cap on how much you can play in it, etc), with the added caveat that 1) you (logically) cannot assign a Valkyrie that is still in an expedition, 2) there's a limit to the usage of "expedition stamina" that increases with Captain's level.
  • In the "base", you can assign some Valkyries into missions that take hours to complete (you can simply wait) and then give you some resources when they finish. Version 3.5 gives it an overhaul: when previously you can only take up to 4 missions at a time (i.e you can only take another base mission after any of the 4 has been finished), now there are no hard limits; instead, it's only limited by a separate stamina meter (called "onigiri") that regenerates per hour^note the regeneration rate depends of your dorm comfort and dorm level akin to the "normal" stamina. The base missions, now called "errands", will cost some amount of onigiri to perform.
  • Prior to 3.8, the "Open World" stages have pickable items that are required for "completion rewards" of each "cycle" of the open world. After 3.8^note which introduces a new open world map, "Post-Honkai Odyssey", which doesn't feature pickable items, the pickable items still exist, but now they aren't necessary for the completion rewards; instead, some of the "tasks" you can get are about gathering those items. Similarly, in Post-Honkai Odyssey, one of the available tasks is gathering Krystallum, commonly dropped from enemies.
• Required Party Member:
  • The story mode's normal difficulty from Chapter 6 onward will make the player use either a lone playable character or 2-3 of them, preset to the levels; the character here would also have preset levels, star rank, skills and equipment.
  • The Time Swirl game mode forces you to use only a selection of 3 characters (with any of their battlesuits) that you have, depending on the specific stage.
  • The "Stalker Files" stages will require your own Rita (any of her battlesuits) in the team, while the "Striker Files" stages will require your own Valkyrie Bladestrike (Mei), although some of them will also give you a high-powered Celestial Hymn (Theresa) and either Yamabuki Armor, Dimension Breaker or Snowy Sniper (Bronya) to accompany her.
  • A few event stages will also ask you to play with a certain character/battlesuit, either the one you own or a high-powered preset one the stage gives you.
• Rescue Arc:
  • Chapter 4 focuses on you trying to rescue the kidnapped Mei and Wendy. Mei gets saved in the end, while Wendy unfortunately doesn't.
  • Chapters 7-9 and the Schicksal Assault Battle event focuses on the rescue of Kiana, after she gets kidnapped by Fu Hua in Chapter 6.
• Rewarding Vandalism: In Post-Honkai Odyssey, unlike in the main game, you can destroy various props in the environment like benches, cars or the strange crystals that pop up around the city. Most of them don't give you any items (except some special "chests") but destroying them fills up your SP gauge as if you were hitting enemies, which can turn out useful.
• Rewards Pass: Starting from version 3.3, a Battle Pass system is implemented. By completing some daily tasks (and some event missions), you'll get "BP Points". Every 1000 points earned gets you some rewards. The twist is that, unlike most Battle Passes in other games, it's free; however, there are two levels of upgrades that you can buy to get bigger rewards.
• Right Hand Versus Left Hand: Schicksal and Anti-Entropy both have the same goal: defending against Honkai forces that threaten to eradicate humanity. However, they also oppose each other due to them having different agendas. This apparently stems from how Anti-Entropy used to be Schicksal's North American branch who came to clash with the rest of the organization due to suspicions about Otto's motives and then broke off, turning themselves into an independent organization.
• Ripped from the Headlines: An in-universe example in ch. 18. One of the "files" you can collect is an information of a novel called "Dark Tides in the East". Its story is based on the events related to "underground society", i.e criminal gangs. One particular part of its story covers the chronicles of an organization called "Thousand Fists" that were based on events in Singapore, 2016, in which the organization was said to have been annihilated overnight by a mysterious assassin who only left black feathers in the scene. Urban legends and media outlets arose from these events, including Dark Tides in the East. Ch. 18's story later shows that the mysterious assassin was none other than Raven of the World Serpent.
• Rivals Team Up: In the "Summer Wars" event, Kiana and Bronya agree to team up to get the mysterious island treasure for Mei. The narration mentions that there's no knowing what would happen if the two actually get the treasure.
• Roguelike:
  • Prior to version 3.6, players who joined an Armada had access to the Matrix Explore gameplay mode, consisting of floors of Randomly Generated Levels; whenever you completed a floor, you'd receive a few rewards. The more floors you completed, the more points you got, and the tougher the enemies became. Every 5th floor was a fight against elite mooks, while every 10th floor had a proper boss fight; beating them gave you big rewards. The points were for gaining extra rewards for the Armada; accumulate enough of the points with your Armada mates and you could get even better rewards. The catch was that your healing abilities were disabled; you either had to wait for health pickups to drop or purchase them from the HOMU shop (which was rare), or gain the buffs exclusive to this mode which let you heal by doing certain actions (which had a slow rate, and came with a price). You were allowed to bring up to 9 Valkyries if your Captain level was high enough (you played the normal 3, the rest were reserves), but once you started playing the mode, you were locked to those Valkyries unless you "reset" the playthrough. The reserves were there in case your main Valkyries died (and they couldn't be revived/wouldn't respawn if they died), and once all of them died you'd have to reset.
  • The "Elysian Realm" mode, introduced in version 5.0, which is the more developed version of the "Threshold Breach" event in previous versions, complete with a lore-heavy storyline dedicated to the "13 Flame-Chasers", enormously powerful warriors from the setting's distant past. In it, your character ascends multiple floors as they fight randomly generated enemies, although certain floors are designated as "boss floors". You can only deploy one character at a time^note the character in question here is only from those that are listed inside the game mode; each game version will add extra characters to the list and up to two chosen Support Party Members, and if your character dies in the stage, it's game over, somewhat akin to old arcade games. Whenever you clear a floor (except for the one right before the Final Boss floor), you'll be given a choice of two special buffs, called "signets", taken randomly from a pool of possible buffs. By building your character with the signets, you'll be able to clear the increasingly difficult floors up to the end. There are four Difficulty Levels for each character (Safe, Normal, Dangerous, Real), with each difficulty giving you different amount of floors to fight and difficulty effects; clearing the easier difficulty will unlock the next one, and clearing the first three difficulties with each character will award you with some crystals as a one-time reward. Like the Matrix Explore mode, characters' self-healing effects are disabled^note with the exception of characters who have to manage their health resource, i.e Herrscher of Flamescion and Luna Kindred; healing that comes from other sources (such as weapon effects, Stigmata effects, and EL Fs) can still work as well, and there is a Dungeon Shop called "Phyllis' Shop" in which you can either buy or upgrade signets^note up to 7 will be shown in the menu for each, taken randomly from a pool of signets using the "silver coins" you get from clearing floors, or change your equipped special item or support Valkyries, and/or replenish some health. The "Real" difficulty is an Arrange Mode where you can select difficulty effects that either buff your enemies or give negative effects to your character; there are weekly challenges where you have to clear the last floor of this difficulty level (not counting Elysia) with enough difficulty effects selected (i.e up to a certain value). In each run, you can choose to exit and save your current progress; when you enter again, you'll be given the option of either continuing your current run or to "finalize" it and get the rewards early (although they'll be fewer compared to the rewards you get if you beat the final floor). The higher the difficulty level, the more rewards you'll get when you "finalize" your run: special currency for purchasing some rare items in the shop, upgrade materials to permanently enhance your characters' stats and their Elysia signets' buff effects for this mode, "stone of choices" that unlock permanent perks for your characters in this mode and unlock more Support Party Member options for your use, and "remembrance stones" that are used to unlock stories about the Flame-Chasers.
• Running Gag:
  • "AMAGAD!" is uttered by several characters, but especially the Captain, during dialogue in the various events.
  • Every instance of slapstick comedy in the ELF Academy anime will be accompanied by the warning "Dangerous maneuver, do not attempt" on top of the screen, in case it wasn’t obvious enough.

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