When someone asks me about my favorite pieces of art or media, there’s always a distinguishable trait that separates them from all the others. For Evangelion and Omori, it’s the psychological horror aspect and their portrayal of depression and mental illness. For Nier Automata, it’s the humanist storytelling and the atmospheric beauty of a world devoid of people. And for Attack On Titan, it’s the way how music and soundtrack contribute to exploring the philosophical questions of our existence.
So as we look down the list of my favorite media, there’s an item that you may find completely out of the blue. An item on the list that has none of the atmosphere, or the horror, or the same portrayals of mental illness. And, taking a wild guess here, that item is the Chinese-developed-horny-bait-anime-waifu-rolling-simulator known as Honkai Impact 3rd.
Gacha is a concept that, especially today, is highly frowned upon. While a Triple A or indie developer might measure success off of how many copies sold, Gacha gets money off of how much you spend trying to get your favorite anime character. On a single banner, Genshin Impact, likeliest the world’s biggest gacha game, can make at least 3 million USD in sales. And especially with a near one percent chance of getting your desired characters, you’re gambling for pictures that aren’t even worth anything.
It’s a system that’s never going to change. Truthfully, as long as people exist, gacha games that start to get stale during its endgame content will continue to exist and thrive as long as there are people on this planet. And it doesn’t take much to make a gacha; most of them are poor excuses of a game featuring gameplay that aren’t fun per se, but rather, addicting. As a soulless cash grab, effort and passion are usually thrown out the window for profit from the least amount of effort.
This may be the reason why at first glance Honkai Impact does not have a “
distinguishable trait”. As much as I love its storytelling, there are times where I feel that the story writers touched on several hard hitting questions, but never truly addressed them. Depression and guilt are plot points in Honkai Impact, but sometimes don’t get resolved. This is most likely due to the desire of their player base to move onto new characters and content, and while understandable, can be frustrating especially seeing a character arc frozen in favor of exploring a new character. HI3 is still a money making scheme, and the story, while amazing, has traces of the influence of a corporation.
Seeing me criticize so many different aspects of Honkai, it might be hard for you to believe that this is one of my favorite games. And while it’s true that my favorite mediums are focused ones that max out one element in order to create the largest emotional impact, the reason why Honkai Impact sticks out to me is because of how balanced it is. It’s a story that features many moving parts and characters, and isn’t afraid to tackle different subjects, while updating itself regularly. Instead of using atmosphere and environment for storytelling, it takes a much more old-school, traditional approach, using a level based system and sometimes activating open world and different gameplay mechanics/minigames in order to heighten the experience.
And I think it’s that commitment to the retro style gameplay that helps it fashion the distinctive effect of hope. The story is shaped like a visual novel with cutscenes. The engine the game is built on is pretty outdated and very gacha-gamey, but at the same time has a charm to it, and when they creatively utilize the limited engine to make different mechanics, its impact is felt heavily.
Last but not least, the story is just really well written. In a post pandemic era, depression and mental illnesses numbers are rising by the day. Sure, Evangelion has a terrifyingly accurate representation of mental illness, but with the people who want to feel represented, just as many people want someone to tell themselves to believe in them, even when all seems lost. Gurren Lagann first accomplished this, and now HI3 accomplishes it too. Yes, there are flaws in the writing, and yes, I still want Hoyoverse to explore depression and guilt in a more in-depth way before moving on to the next arc, but regardless, it gets you attached to characters and is able to convey the importance of life. Through struggles and pain, Honkai Impact 3rd shows that, even when the world feels meaningless and empty, even though it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, it’s still a world worth fighting for.
Honkai Impact’s distinguishable trait is hope. Hope for the future. Hope that things can get better, and to fight for hope and the possibility that the future generations can feel the same hope that you do. And I think Honkai has surpassed that goal of theirs and created something that can be attributed as more than just a game.
To close off, I would like to quote Hoyoverse’s motto for the future. “To fight for all that’s beautiful in the world.”
What a beautiful statement for a beautiful game.
