r/honkaiimpact3

Hi, long-time Honkai Impact 3rd, Honkai: Star Rail, and Zenless Zone Zero player here! I still play all three regularly.

I originally wrote this as a reply to a other post, but it got too long, so I decided to make it its own post. With ZZZ and Genshin possibly hinting at their own “Elysia-like” characters, I wanted to look at the real issue directly: why Elysia is so loved, why Cyrene struggled, and why replicating this kind of character is much harder than it looks.

I really enjoy all three games and can see their inspirations and flaws, so I feel I can give a better overall view of the situation on a personal level, though of course, it is still biased toward my own preferences.

First, a bit of context: Zenless Zone Zero, Genshin Impact, and especially Honkai: Star Rail players want their characters to be fully realized in their own game. They want them to be unique entities, not just carbon copies of someone else from another title. Because of that, they can understandably get annoyed when Honkai Impact 3rd players bring up a huge amount of extra information and emotional baggage that may or may not actually be relevant to that version of the character.

This is especially true in Honkai: Star Rail. Since it is a Honkai game, and arguably something closer to a spin-off/sequel than a completely unrelated title, it is naturally going to make its expys more direct or more 1:1 compared to something like Genshin or Zenless. But that also creates a problem: HSR-only players can end up feeling alienated from their own game whenever the Honkai Impact 3rd community brings up all this past lore about the “original” version of a character. This is made worse in Genshin Impact and Zenless Zone Zero, where as more standalone titles, they really should not require the player to care about all that outside information.

Now focusing on the Elysia case.

Elysian Realm / Elysium Everlasting story spoilers ahead.

In my opinion, the Elysian Realm and Elysium Everlasting arc is the best self-contained story in Honkai Impact 3rd. The Elysian Realm story is basically a prequel to the main Honkai Impact 3rd story, but it is told masterfully by also giving Raiden Mei, who at that point had relevance but still needed more personal development, the full main character treatment. Through that arc, Mei is developed into a much more complete character along the way.

It tells a story of the past, in the present, with a strong message about the future.

Elysia is the epicenter of that story. She is the past savior. She created the future that allows the events of Honkai Impact 3rd to take place in the first place: Herrschers being able to fight on humanity’s side against the Honkai. She is also the present guide who walks us through the Elysian Realm system. Through this story, and by the end of it, she once again makes the ultimate sacrifice, destroying the Elysian Realm system to preserve the future.

Elysia is, in a way, almost a “Mary Sue” type of character, a character with seemingly “no flaws.” But instead of being purely saintly or holy, she is quirky, mischievous, very smart while often playing silly on purpose, flirty, mysterious, playfully narcissistic, and yet deeply caring toward others. All those personality traits are carefully balanced and highlighted through meaningful actions and conversations.

Even though she is the epicenter of the story, she does not play the lead role all the time. She is there at the very start of the Elysian Realm story, but for most of it she functions more as a mentor, guide, and support character. There are constant mixed interactions: some serious, some very story-focused, some slice-of-life, and some silly but memorable. As a player, you end up spending a considerable amount of time with her. All of these aspects make her feel like one of the most complete and real characters in the game.

At the very end of her story, she reveals that she was the first Herrscher, someone who by destiny should have destroyed humanity. But instead, she went against that destiny, chose to embrace and love humanity, and sacrificed herself to give future Herrschers the possibility of making that same choice.

Her story ends with a beautiful animation that, in my opinion, masterfully seals the arc with one of the best anime-style endings out there. The closure and full-circle feeling are just perfect. Her turning around with a warm smile in a flower field is the very last scene in the Elysian Realm story, and the last time you see her for a long while.

Elysia is an amazingly well-developed, well-written, and well-rounded character, deeply loved by the community, with only Kiana, the actual main character of Honkai Impact 3rd, really being able to stand against her in popularity. And in my opinion, that love is absolutely justified.

Now, moving on to the Cyrene issue.

Amphoreus tried to closely replicate the Elysian Realm formula. Of course, the stakes and plot points were adjusted to fit the HSR narrative, but the core structure is clearly similar. However, in my opinion, Hoyo made a major mistake in how they handled Cyrene.

They kept her hidden for too long.

With Elysia, you had tons of interactions and experiences with her. She was already a trusted and cared-for friend by the time she took the lead role in the story. The emotional weight placed on her character had already been earned.

Cyrene, on the other hand, was kept mostly as a cameo and shrouded in mystery for too long. Worse, they had her repeat the same line from her very first teaser trailer over and over again, which after several patches started to feel less mysterious and more annoying or empty. After so much “build-up,” we finally got to meet “small Cyrene” in the story, but by that point, it felt rushed. The story suddenly tried to shift a lot of emotional focus onto her being there.

Hoyo clearly attempted to replicate the Elysia slice-of-life feeling by adding small special events and conversations with Cyrene, but once again, this happened very late in the story. On top of that, some of those interactions were easy to ignore or miss unless you went out of your way to do them. That matters, because those moments are exactly the kind of material a character needs in order to feel emotionally grounded.

The issue is not simply that Cyrene lacked personality or that she was “boring.” The bigger problem is that she was underdeveloped for the amount of emotional and narrative weight HSR was trying to place on her shoulders. The story wanted her to feel central, precious, tragic, mysterious, romantic, symbolic, and deeply meaningful all at once. But the game did not give HSR-only players enough time, interaction, or emotional history with her to support that level of importance.

Then Hoyo rushed her again.

When her “patch” arrived, suddenly we were given this “adult Cyrene” with a bride theme that felt completely out of place for the story. Small Cyrene, the version of the character we had actually begun to get some attachment and exposition toward, was pushed to the side in favor of this “Elysia final form look-alike” that we knew very little about. On top of that, even she herself did not seem to know much about who she was.

Because of that, her personality felt less like a fully realized person and more like a bundle of themes the story wanted us to care about. Her character was reduced too much to “I do not know anything, but everything is precious to me.” The dialogue about love, romance, self-discovery, and “my past is my future” may have had interesting ideas behind it, but in execution it felt like the story was asking for a level of emotional investment that it had not properly built.

With Elysia, the love for humanity had a greater purpose. It was tied to the tragedy of the Previous Era, the Herrscher cycle, Mei’s development, and the future of humanity itself. With Cyrene, the writing leaned much harder into self-discovery and personal symbolism, but without giving her enough foundation beforehand. So instead of feeling like a grand reveal that completes the character, it came across to many players as forced emotional grandeur centered around someone they barely knew.

This, in my opinion, was the breaking point for the fandom.

On one hand, you had many Honkai Impact 3rd players feeling extremely happy and emotional that Elysia was “back,” remembering their long-time precious partner from HI3rd and enjoying all the references. For them, Cyrene carried the emotional echo of a character they already loved.

On the other hand, HSR-only players felt alienated and annoyed by all this grandeur that, within an HSR-only vacuum, had not really been earned. For them, Cyrene did not come with years of attachment, Elysian Realm memories, or the emotional closure of Elysia’s story. She came with mystery, repeated lines, late-stage exposition, and a sudden expectation that the player should care deeply.

That is why the reaction is so divided.

HI3rd players are responding to Elysia’s history. HSR-only players are responding to what HSR actually gave them. Those are not the same experience.

For HSR-only players, Cyrene can feel like a fraud, and by extension, Elysia gets unfairly dragged into that same perception. For an entire year of Amphoreus, it was almost impossible to avoid people talking fondly about Elysia, hyping up her importance, and treating her return like something monumental. But when the time finally arrived for HSR players to meet their “Elysia,” Cyrene did not have the same foundation. She was asked to carry Elysia-level emotional weight without receiving an Elysia-level journey inside HSR itself.

So many secrets were held until the very end that her story became, for many people, more of a chore than an enjoyable emotional payoff. Mystery can be powerful, but if a character remains too distant for too long, the audience may not have enough reason to care when the answers finally arrive.

The HSR player base is absolutely massive compared to the HI3rd player base. Because of that, the number of people having their first major experience with an Elysia-like character through Cyrene vastly outnumbers the people who experienced the real Elysia in her original context.

And that is the unfortunate part.

Because of Cyrene’s execution, many players now see this type of character as a shallow, easy cash grab built around repetitive one-liners about love, romance, and precious memories, rather than as a character with substance, personality, and earned emotional depth. In their eyes, Cyrene becomes their impression of Elysia, even though Elysia herself was handled very differently in HI3rd.

And because of that, other fandoms do not want her in their game.

TL;DR: Elysia worked in HI3rd because the story spent a long time building her personality, relationships, mystery, and emotional importance before asking players to care deeply about her. Cyrene, in my opinion, was asked to carry similar emotional weight in HSR without enough development inside HSR itself. As a result, HI3rd players saw Cyrene through their love for Elysia, while many HSR-only players saw an underdeveloped character being treated like a masterpiece the story had not earned.