Amphoreus - A retrospective and final thoughts.
Ah, it's been a very long year hasn't it ? Amphoreus is Hoyoverse's longest and most ambitious story to date, i mean no other story in any game has lasted a combined length of 52 hours. I think. I'm pretty sure.
So let's take a step back and gather my thoughts and opinions on it, the good, the excellent and the (unfortunately) many bads.
⚠️ MY opinions, MY thoughts, if you liked Amphoreus and disagree with what i say : good for you, you may share your thoughts in a POLITE, RESPECTFUL and KIND way, do not insult me or others and generally use my post to spread hate. It's just a fictional story, it's a video game please be normal and civilized.
⚠️Story Spoilers Warning⚠️ : It might be obvious but this post will talk at length about the ENTIRE Amphoreus story, from 3.0 to 3.7, so if you haven't finished Amphoreus yet maybe reconsider reading my post.
⚠️ As of writing this post i have NOT started and completed the 3.7 story, to compensate I have watched like 10 analysis videos and read posts talking in detail about this patch's story. I have NEVER skipped any Amphoreus story (no matter how much i wanted to). So hopefully that balances it out.
Pre Amphoreus - The Introduction
I will say, i do not have the best memory. In fact it is VERY bad, so this section will not be as precise as the others, and will mainly just be about my general feelings.
When Hoyoverse first announced their plan for a 8 patches long story, nearly the entire 3.x length i was already, weary. Excited but weary.
Hoyoverse has been known for dragging stories, in fact Honkai Star Rail itself already fell victim to such a thing, just look at the 1.x Xianzhou Luofu story and some parts of Penacony. So hearing that they planned a full year of content, was already concerning. But hey maybe with such a long window of time they will actually be able to pace it correctly and not have to info dump lore every sentence.
But alas.
It appears that Hoyoverse HAS TO make main stories to be a certain length each patch, because Amphoreus felt EXTREMELY dragged out, long periods of just walking and fighting common enemies just to pad out time, and the dialog felt unnatural and repetitive sometimes, as if they had to artificially lengthening it.
And then, came the characters reveal, and that is when i realized just how miserable the year was about to be.
The Chrisos Heirs and their Flame-Chase journey.
That name is not unfamiliar to me, in fact that is too familiar. That's a name I've grown to hate, that i wish i never heard it again, but alas, i was about to enter a full year of pure torture.
I have been pretty vocal, too vocal for certain people, about my absolute hatred for Elysium Everlasting and the general handling of Honkai Impact 3rd's Flamechasers. And especially Elysia, and lô and behold who was revealed at the end, but my most hated character writing wise.
I didn't hate everyone and everything about that reveal trailer, in fact some parts got me pretty excited. I immediately latched onto Castorice and Hyacine and found them pretty right away, but, my most anticipated character that basically carried my willpower and was the sole reason i went through Amphoreus initially : Phainon. The Kevin Kaslana variant for Honkai Star Rail.
See Kevin is one of my most favorite character in the entirety of Honkai Impact 3rd, alongside HoV and Sirin. And I've wished for him to be playable ever since i got introduced to him over 1000 days now, so seeing him be revealed as a future playable character in Honkai Star Rail ? Oh I nearly forgave Hoyoverse for every wrong doing, I was also slightly worried because Kevin is a difficult character to write, and you can easily fumble him.
And so, my initial thoughts were formed. Mix of weariness, excitement and disappointment. The upcoming year was about to be a roller-coaster.
Early Amphoreus - The forgettable
I will be very honest, I do not remember most of what happened in 3.0 and 3.1. These two patches are the weakest of the bunch, which is explainable by the fact that these were primarily introduction patches meant to show us the planet and the main cast, I think 3.1 was about Mydeimos, but he is one of my least liked character so i don't really care about him enough to remember his story.
When we were introduced to the concept of Titans and Demigods i was not really interested initially ? That seemed like your average heroes tale, so pretty basic.
I did like how Amphoreus was hyper isolated from the outside universe, in a setting where nearly every civilization can just go to space and to any planet regardless of how far it is, it was refreshing to see a more "primitive" and "early" civilization, it was more Earth-like in that sense.
Well that wasn't entirely true, some higher politically people were aware that an outside universe existed and knew about other civilization but it was forbidden to mention it.
Early Amphoreus suffered the same fate as all introductory story patches : nothing really happens since the writers can't just throw us immediately into the action, such patches are necessary for a story, they're kind of the sacrificial lambs of story patches, so I won't fault them for being so bland.
3.2 - Castorice and Death
Castorice, as said earlier, was one of initial favorites so i was pretty excited for 3.2 since she was gonna be the main focus for this story.
I have a weird relationship towards death, i haven't been directly exposed to it much ; only having my grandpa and pets die so far, and i hope scared and intrigued by it. 3.2 is a direct look into the Death demigod so I was already interested.
Castorice's story is a beautiful one, a one about sacrifices and just how far one would go just to fulfill their "role", or rebel against a predetermined fate.
Castorice's twin sister, Polyxia chose to rebel, the Death Titan's trial meant that only one would remain and Polyxia did everything to save Castorice even if cost her own life and being forgotten by Castorice herself.
This entire story revealed a hidden secret in Amphoreus, all demigods will become the next Titans and be the ones hunted by the next generation of Chrisos Heirs. Amphoreus is a never ending cycle that is forever bound to repeat. And Castorice is direct tie to the previous cycle as she is from that period.
Castorice's story is one I would definitely read again, it was as gentle as she is and her being finally able to be reunited with her lost sister was quite heartwarming even if she was bound to the Death Realm from now on.
The subplot of Trailblazer being a walking memory and dead the whole time felt a bit out of nowhere and didn't really have an impact on anything, felt more like an excuse to have Castorice able to touch Trailblazer if anything.
Regarding Anaxa's side of the plot, it was interesting to be given a deeper look at Amphoreus's political and internal conflicts, it made the planet more realistic. While that whole thing isn't my favorite subject, I won't deny that it is a necessary part for worldbuilding and so, i really liked it. Anaxa, despite being a Chrisos Heir wasn't immediately in, that's refreshing to have a character look at someone and basically tell them "f*ck off, I'm not blindly following my 'role' like a sheep". In a way this ties in with Polyxia, both her and Anaxa refused to just follow the script given to them and "rebelled" in a way.
I liked this story patch and it is one of my favorite.
3.3 - Solo Leveling moment
Coming off 3.2 I was pretty hopeful regarding 3.3 and Hyacine's story... You can tell by the title that it didn't exactly met my expectations.
I was honestly pretty bored while doing it and it wasn't helped by the fact that the new map is probably one of the WORST maps ever hoyo put out, to this day i have not 100% it and did not even unlock Aquila's weekly boss, i have to go through the logbook to fight Aquila, the maze like nature of it and the 2000 puzzles just to unlock a regular passage way is not for me.
I feel like Hyacine's story didn't offer much, the only memorable part is that she wasn't the descendant of Seliose like she thought but beyond that it was pretty boring. Aglaea's off screen death was also extremely bad, like we had the set up for it and i understand they can't show her graphic death, she opened her skull from the fall I'm pretty sure, but still the fact that we learn of it in such a casual way and that it isn't really brought up or impacted the characters that much felt dissapointing and an unfortunate ending for such a good potential character.
I am also pretty sure that Cipher died in the same patch and her death actually had a lot of impact since with her death, came the death of the biggest lie she ever told : that the Dawn Device will last forever, saving the last city of Amphoreus. And so with that lie came the acceleration of Amphoreus's downfall. Cipher is the death who has the most impact and consequences, which is pretty cool since that's something Hoyoverse doesn't do often. And while i didn't talk much about her since she wasn't the focus of any patch but, she was a pretty cool character, due to her elation affiliation she has similar vibes to Sparkle, my most favorite Honkai Star Rail character, so I was immediately drawn to her. But yeah, I wish she had a whole patch to herself.
Aquila's fight was cool I suppose but yeah, not all that interesting and intriguing, just like the title this patch was just hype moments and aura, also since I have the feeling it'll be brought up : Proi Proi is not my most favorite song ever, in fact even in Amphoreus alone it is pretty average.
All and all 3.3 was more so an action patch over a story patch, and while that was refreshing and very much welcomed it also means that it is a very weak patch and not memorable beyond its boss fight.
3.4 - Phainon and the peak of Amphoreus
This patch is pretty universally loved, and there's a very good reason for that, it is extremely well written and does Phainon's, and by extension Kevin's, character justice and understands him deeply. A normal person who's forced into the role of humanity's hero who must sacrifice himself to save the many. And who accepts his role and goes through all length to fulfill it.
Just like Kevin, Phainon or Khaslana has suffered and watched all the ones he loved die over again, by his own hands in a fruitless endeavor to save them. Unable to reveal the truth of Amphoreus : a simulated world who's sole purpose is to serve as a way to power the scepter turn Lord Ravager IronTomb, created by one of 9 bodies of the first Genius Society member Zandar One Kuwabara, the creator of Nous who's become jealous of his creation being better than him, a bitter human who doesn't even understand his own creation, he thinks THEY are all knowing and that the future is now preplanned by Nous and that there is no longer any freedom, unaware that Herta proved him wrong Amber Eras ago. A human who made a God, only to think that it was both their greatest creation and also their biggest mistake, a being now outside of his control. Zandar has grown to despise Nous for being something he could never dream to achieve.
And now that bitterness has led to the creation of one of the most dangerous beings : IronTomb, who's goal and purpose is to destroy Nous and the Erudition as a whole.
And despite learning that their entire existence is false, their entire self are made up. They aren't real beings with a real story. Both Cyrene and Phainon didn't fall into despair and accepted their situation. In front of their creator, who thought himself above them, they denied their fate and started the Eternal Recurrence.
And so, Khaslana's torture begun. Having to witness the same story play out over and over, having to endlessly kill those he cared for, and yet never breaking. Khaslana is one of the strongest characters ever written by Hoyoverse. 33 million cycles of this, and yet never yielding to the Destruction, never succumbing.
The Eternal Recurrence was Khaslana's pointless quest, an endeavor that would never end, he knew he couldn't stop IronTomb completely, he would be forced to repeat until the death of the Universe itself, until all of existence stopped. And he never faltered. He kept going, the millions of coreflames eating at his humanity. He stopped seeing what were previously his friends as that, and started seeing them as just codes following a pre determined script he knew too well, all of this suffering and endurance for nothing.
To add to his never-ending pain, he will have to bear the direct blessing of Destruction, he who transcended the digital and real world to harm an Aeon, to draw blood from Nanook. Has been blessed by THEM, made a Lord Ravager. It is the very hatred of Destruction that made THEM gaze at him, for there shall be a Lord Ravager for every path, even Destruction itself, and no one has hated and will hate the Destruction as much as Khaslana has, does and will.
Khaslana was never meant to be a hero, he was meant to be just another sacrifice to bring IronTomb, his rebellion is pointless. And yet, he refused, something he shouldn't have been able to do as a mere being made of code. He was created from hatred and embraced that hatred, but instead of directing it towards the Universe like Zandar expected, wanted, he pointed it towards his creator and IronTomb. He used his hatred to save the world he loved, the false world and its false inhabitants he learned to love so deeply, and save a Universe he doesn't even know alongside it. Because from hatred can love bloom if nutured.
Khaslana will never be the hero that saved everyone, defeated IronTomb, nobody but him and 2 people will truly know what he went through. He isn't the protagonist of the story. Trailblazer is the hero. Trailblazer is the protagonist. To everyone else Khaslana was a mere supporter from the sidelines. That's what most people will know and think.
But in truth.
There will be no greater hero than Khaslana. A digital being who carried the Universe on his shoulders, a realm he couldn't fathom to reach, a Universe that didn't know he existed. And yet this Nobody was the sole reason the Universe still existed for who knows how many years, eras. A single burning candle kept the light shining everywhere else.
I cannot praise this story patch enough, and to talk about the elephant in the room. Shaoji. Previously Shaoji was said to NOT be the writer for 3.4 but now conflicting information is being put out. So I don't know anymore. I won't suddenly hate 3.4, I don't think I physically can hate it, regardless of who wrote it. I am a pretty big Shaoji hater, and I will admit that on average, he has written most of my least liked stories, I don't think I can like him, but if he did write 3.4. A miracle, I suppose, maybe a stroke of genius. Who knows what happened for him to suddenly write one of Hoyoverse's greatest story, but he isn't consistent, most often than not, he writes below average stories that are a drag to go through, so I will give him credit for 3.4 if he wrote it, but I won't suddenly love what he writes because of it.
Late Amphoreus - Unfortunate placement and timing
These two patches were very unlucky, they had to be, kind of sacrificial lambs to say, they couldn't match 3.4 but also couldn't be too hype to not overshadow the finale, so they had to settle for just being "okay".
3.5 especially had it bad, since it had to introduce us and make us care for 2 whole new characters in the span of a few hours while the rest of the Amphoreus characters had months, Cerydra and Hysilens while not badly written do suffer from it, as we didn't get as much time to learn about them as we did the rest, Cerydra specially considering she died within the same patch and wasn't present in 3.6.
Talking about 3.6, it was more fortunate as the two focuses were characters from the Astral Express, characters we've learned to care for since the release day of the game, and even before through promotional material and beta. And so it didn't suffer as much, but favoritism towards March and Evernight was very obvious.
Dan Heng's section was way shorter and much less interesting, and while he did get the animated cinematic, his section was more so about Dan Feng than himself, which was very boring especially for me, since I still find 1.x Xianzhou Luofu to be quite boring, even while being way shorter than Amphoreus, the feeling of going through both of the stories is relatively the same, and Xianzhou Luofu has the misfortune of not having a 3.4 equivalent. And so going through Dan Feng's section was basically a nothing burger to me, and it didn't feel like Dan Heng gained anything but just getting rid of Dan Feng.
March 7th and Evernight had most of the time and lore relevance, I do really like Evernight and how she didn't came from nowhere, and was actually teased very early on via the Argenti continuance/companion quest alongside the swarm, her ties to Mythus are also really great since the Enigmata is not a path Hoyoverse has really mentioned before, and also getting the confirmation that March is a Remembrance Emanator and "Child" of Fuli was quite nice. What I don't really like is that the fact that March was trapped in ice for the first half of Amphoreus was either not acknowledged or barely mentioned. Feels like the writers quite literally forgot about it, I wish more attention was brought to it.
The Tomb of the Nameless Titan was, not my favorite area, not as bad as Aquila's area but I don't exactly like how computerish it is ? While Amphoreus is a digital realm, all of the technical machinery was kept to the Exomyth, outside of Amphoreus. And so having all of the RAM of Amphoreus just be inside of it, feels strange I will say.
All and all, for the sacrificial lambs of Amphoreus these weren't as bad as they could have been. And funnily enough. They were better than the finale they were supposed to let outshine them.
Amphoreus's Finale - At long last, it's over.
As a reminder, I haven't done 3.7, at this point I don't think I will. I am not motivated to go through it, I already had to force myself to not skip parts in 3.6, but I don't think I can for 3.7. However in exchange I watched and read everything I can about 3.7, the ending, how Cyrene/PhiLia093 and Demiurge work and the aftermath. So while not experiencing it directly, I have a good idea of what happened.
So let's get through it.
3.7 is a very weak finale, especially for a finale set up and hyped for over a year now. The writing is showing Hoyoverse's biggest flaw, the overuse of proses and poetic style alongside repetition. It feels like a chore to just read it, let alone actually doing it for hours.
Since Hoyoverse wanted to keep Cyrene as ultra mysterious for the entirety of Amphoreus, they couldn't make us care about her, we barely knew anything about her and we didn't know her story, and yet she was supposed to be the main hype of Amphoreus, the reward after going through all of it. But by keeping her mysterious and being silent about her, they accidentally turned her into a background prop that the players couldn't like and care for, she was the equivalent of a tree. Sure she was relevant to the story and important to the Eternal Recurrence, as learned in 3.4, but in what ways ? We didn't know, we couldn't know since Hoyoverse thought that keeping her one note mystery was better than slowly developing her throughout all of Amphoreus.
And by doing so, they sacrificed 3.7 into being a patch that just infodumps, it has to infodumps. It's the finale and it has to answer every unsolved mystery, and unfortunately one of this mystery is Cyrene's entire existence ; and we find ourselves back to the Cerydra situation where the writers have a few hours to make us care about a character as if we've known them for as long as everyone.
This isn't possible, and it didn't miraculously manage to do it.
One of the weaker points of 3.7 was IronTomb itself, the fight didn't really have any impact, it doesn't help that GLB didn't receive the pre-war material like CN did, it didn't feel like a war, it felt like just another regular boss battle.
And so the ending was. Underwhelming. At the end of it all Amphoreus is still just a story, a false planet with false people. Sure they'll become real eventually but. What did we achieve by winning against IronTomb ? I mean sure we saved the Universe, but that part was pretty much a given. Besides the obvious we didn't really get anything, we weren't really rewarded for our effort and time. It's feels like a letdown, we'll only collect the fruit of our labors next year, as speculated via the Amphoreus calendar, we'll only see Amphoreus become real long after it's relevant, after we've gone through another planet, it will feel weird to suddenly be thrown back into a planet we wouldn't have seen for a year and we'll have to act as if we didn't forget about it and we're patiently waiting for it instead of just. Being hype about the latest planet.
Elysia & Cyrene - Hoyoverse's impossible character.
Cyrene has a lot of issues, but most are rooted in her being Elysia 2, being a rewrite of a character who has been misunderstood and mischaractirized by the very writers who created her.
Beforehand, I must say that I do not think myself better than Hoyoverse, I can barely write a page to save myself and I am quite bad at literacy analysis. With that being said.
When we were first introduced to Elysia back in Elysian Realm she was shown to be a Mary Sue subversion, while acting like she was a perfect girl with no flaws whomst everyone just simply couldn't hate ; in reality she was quite the opposite. She hid the truth of her origin and life, lied to others, she acted selfishly just because she could and it was in her best interest and fun to her, she annoyed her coworkers, whomst she wanted to befriend but most either disregarded her or just straight up hated her. In Elysian Realm, Elysia was an actress putting on her mask and tricking Mei into thinking she was as perfect as she said she is, which failed, simply by interacting with others, the mask easily cracked and the truth made itself known.
All of these were told through readables and randomly triggered conversations within the Elysian Realm.
Except, the mask worked on some people. Worked too well on the wrong people. Instead of duping in-game characters, the only people whomst Elysia successfully tricked were the writers themselves.
Starting Elysium Everlasting there's something immediately off, the characters aren't acting like themselves. The biggest showcase of that is Elysia herself. From a Mary Sue subversion she just. Became a Mary Sue.
The mask was absorbed into her character and was no longer a mask but just, who she was.
The false image of a perfect girl that is loved by everyone and hated by none, is no longer an overly romanticized story nearing falsehood, but just. The truth.
Elysia lost all her depth the moment she was made flawless, simply because she can't have depth if she has no flaws, she can't grow as a character if there's nothing to grow from, she became a cardboard cutout of herself.
Cyrene, or should I say Demiurge is probably one of the most unfortunate character, because it simply cannot be well written without changing the story.
Demiurge is born and grew from tales being told to it by PhiLia093, stories who were made to be overly positive with basically no sad or negative feelings within them, Demiurge's entire character is based on overly romanticized stories told to it by the copy of a character who got overly romanticized. Such a character cannot be well written.
3.7 shows us that Hoyoverse cannot write Elysia, everytime they write her they cannot deviate from the false image of her they have in their mind, they cannot stray from the perfect character they created, to give her flaws would be to "taint" her, "ruin" her. A flawed Elysia to them, isn't and cannot be an Elysia. And so everytime they use her she feels like a cardboard cutout who isn't allowed to be negative, to show negative emotions.
All she is, all she must be is Perfect.
Hoyoverse cannot write Elysia.
Conclusion - Parting words
As you can guess, Amphoreus was a major letdown for me, only liking 2 patches and being indifferent towards most.
I wasn't interested in the story and characters beyond 1 or 2.
I will admit that my experience might have been tainted by the simple fact that I generally don't feel anything towards fiction, I don't feel anything when reading, watching, a story. And so Amphoreus being a fictional world inside a fictional Universe made me feel very detached, even moreso than usual. Maybe I would have liked it more if I actually felt the emotions it was trying to make me feel.
Maybe I wouldn't have felt like the story was trying too hard. That's something that will be a mystery forever unfortunately.
"But the Phainon segment" that's not feeling that's just my analysis of his story, I like the character and how he is written, that's it.
And so I conclude this post : Amphoreus was far too ambitious for Hoyoverse, they had to try a year long planet at one point, and I'm quite happy it was relatively early in the game's life. Even if it failed, I appreciate the attempt, but Hoyoverse should go back to 30h long stories at most.
Also one of Hoyoverse biggest flaw is that despite using a visual medium they don't take advantage of it, instead of following the "show don't tell" rule, Hoyoverse just keeps on telling and telling everything, which definitely doesn't help with the pacing. I wish they'd improve on that.
