The Atrocious Gacha Review | Honkai Impact 3rd

Just in time for the release of ZZZ, Honkai Impact 3rd was the first golden goose that this small indie studio miHoYo needed to become one of the biggest players in the gacha industry. From humble beginnings, I will go over their path to success, as well as review this game after playing it for a month to answer the question: Is Honkai Impact 3rd any good?

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Timestamps:
0:00 – Intro
1:06 – Introducing the Honkai-verse
10:13 - Overview
15:54 – Gameplay
19:18 - Progression
31:31 – Gacha & Monetization
39:10 – Presentation
41:32 – Late Game Content
43:40 – F.O.M.O
45:13 – Variety & Content Frequency
46:32 – Final thoughts

Music used:

Outro music:

References:

Honkai Lore History by Mihoyo:

The Immoral Design of Diablo Immortal by Josh Strife Hayes:

FlyMe2theMoon App Store Archive:

Dawei and company interview on Houkai Gakuen by Mihoyo:

Liu Wei's interview on personal development:

Flyme2themoon gameplay footage:

GGZ original trailer:

GGZ animated cutscene:

GGZ Gameplay footage:

HI3 initial gameplay trailer:

Dvalin Genshin connection video by Mihoyo:

Welt's Lore Video by Mihoyo:

#gacha #gachagame #honkaiimpact

v1.0

[jackbright]

27:39
man, it actually WAS worse. back it times you had to farm different materials for different types of weapons, and must combine three honkai cube parts to full cube

[Siros]

Seeing the growth of Kiana over nearly a decade was absolutely incredible, and got a lot of people invested and attached to her.

It's a shame that many games are using a mostly silent/self insert main character nowadays

[makairidah]

Honkai impact is one of the games that has a special place is my heart.
I still remember the time when I encountered the reburn animation by chance and thought it was a new anime only to then say "wait this is a mobile game?!" And by that point I was hooked into the hoyo hole.
I unfortunately had to retire because holy shit this game's inner space has more compressed mass than a black hole!. But it is safe to say that kiana walked so the travelers and trailblazers could run. And man...did she walked good.

[WadeWontson]

I like how the "progression" section of the video is the longest, my eyes actually glazed over while you were explaining the various currencies lmao. I tried HI3 for a bit and while it was somewhat fun, the painful resource management, confusing progression, powercreep, and reliance on the gacha for much stronger equipment resulted in me quickly dropping it. It's clearly less streamlined than its competitors like PGR and Aether Gazer, but credit where credit is due, we owe it to HI3 for starting the ARPG gacha genre. Speaking of, I hope you'll consider reviewing Aether Gazer.

[LucyKosaki]

You werent able to get into raids because 3 patches ago those were removed. That mode was multiplayer-only and aside from that it sometimes was kinda jank with desyncs and disconnects and players were split on multiplayer in general, they didn't feel like it was worth to develop multiplayer on the new part 2 engine for an old outdated system. Raids were a big part of the sensei-student system too because you were expected to play together with your sensei/student for bonus rewards and it was also needed for the student to graduate. But now that it's gone, some of the materials or item descriptions, that havent been updated yet, are the few remnants of it.

[jakeail]

- Hi3 is actually 8 year old due to chinese version/server was 1 year ahead of other server. At some point, they speed up and now other server is 1-2 patch(depending on the time) behind chinese server
- Flyme2moon was actually a big success, not smash hit like today game but it was a big success compare to the team scale
- Honkai Gakuen 1 or Zombiegal was actually a massive flop so mhy gamble everything they have into honkai 2 aka GGZ which thankfully was a smash hit in china saving the company from the brink or bankrupt
- Learning from their previous mistake, they quickly develop Hi3 while still early on in GGZ life span. Hi3 was then again a massive hit, it is the game that elevate mhy greatly and it lay all the foundation of success for mhy future in many way, the true MVP to mhy success
- HI3 was plan to be GGZ direct sequel, 3rd in the name refer to the 3rd eruption/impact in the story but also the universe 3rd reset (1st and 2nd happen in GGZ) but very early on mhy realize it not a good idea so they turn hi3 into it own game and self contain story, setting itself apart from GGZ
- The first herrscher didn't manifest inside a human being, in reality the first herrscher power become a human, he was later name Welt Joyce refer to as Joyce
- Joyce later pass on the herrscher power to Joachim who rename himself into Welt Yang, who we call today as Welt
- Otto didn't technically form anti Entropy, he was the head of Schicksal, Anti Entropy was formally a branch of Schicksal that was task to research Joyce but after what happen to Joyce and the conflict with Otto, Welt and his friend within that branch separate from Schicksal and form it own organization, becoming Anti Entropy
- The battle with Sirin didn't cost the life of both Kiana parent, at the time only Cecilia died while Siegfried gone missing but not dead
- You r mixing up Sea of Quanta and Imaginary Tree, each branch of the tree is a different timeline and each leaf is it own universe, the tree it self are hoyoverse while all honkai game r universes within a big branch know as honkaiverse then genshin and other non honkai game of hoyo is somewhere on the tree. Sea of Quanta is what beneath the tree, this is where leaf fall down and everything else from junk to broken fragment of old universe, that why it super chaotic and weird
- every 1-2 year the dev will try to streamline the game and early part of it, which result into the current honkai is much more organize than before
- The male mc you play in APHO is actually name Adam, this name appear on a file of the game referring to this mc
- On Stigmata part, ALL stigmata release since part 2 will be craftable, which is a big deal for hi3 player as it will lower the cost of gacha if they happen to get weapon early or unlucky and missing a piece. it also lower the cost of gacha a char and full gear down to a half compare to before part 2, if previously you need up to 300 pulls for everything then now thanks to change to part 2, you only need 150 pulls total in the worst scenario possible. The banner that you see pity of 50 with 4 item under it is the banner of part 1 stuff
- for SP valk, it not an event exclusive valk, you can buy their frag in the asterite shop that reset weekly so it a completely welfare upgradable valk mhy give u and SP valk tend to be a support valk, many of them were meta support of their time
- for daily stage, you will only need to clear the stage once and you can quick farm it right outside, when you just enter the menu of daily, there is no need for ticket for this daily quick farm. The reason it costing ticket is becoz you r farming it over the daily limit
- i have nothing to defend the amount of material management in hi3 beside the fact that they have streamline it a few time and remove or merging many material lol
- the worst value thing you can buy in hi3 imo is the monthly pass or we can call it Welkin, it was so bad that it unironically made buying bp look cheap
- Lucky that you try hi3 after part 2 coz the gacha of part 1 will scare the heck out of you hahahaha
- Q Manifold is actually not highly compete, most of the time you only need to be able to complete 10 stage and you will atleast not be demoted and stay up so leaderboard is not heavily affected at there. The true endgame mode abyss is superstring dimension that unlock at captain lv80 along with higher difficulty Memorial Arena, this new abyss is one where you will have to compete with other player to stay or promote to next bracket, clearing all stage is not enough you need to be faster than other people atleast fast enough so you don't get demote.
- Senti Summer outfit did get rerun like last year or something coz i also gacha for it, a lot of S rank skin in hi3 have already rerun atleast 1, some older one might even be given for free and some A rank will be free or buyable in another way like HoT A rank rgb skin
- Hi3 most S rank skin can be gacha with the max of 9k6 xtal, no B chip needed and the quality beat genshin skin by a long shot, even hi3 A rank skin beat all of genshin skin as well
- Event in honkai usually contain non canon story or captainverse story which is not tie to main story so technically there is no fomo of missing out any big story in event compare to genshin or hsr. And there r even non story event so they can rerun event very easily in honkai
- Many big event in hi3 do have build up and time gate that need you to do it daily so be aware of that and don't wait until the last day to play or you will regret it

[melfice]

On the grinding limit. its a thing that was mandatory on most chinese games for a time. and with H3I being so old, its a remnant from old law that was in place.

[wktryj]

john honkai is the one of the best protagonist names of all time, just behind john elden ring tbh

[reevvie]

Bro I've played this game for almost 4 years now and I just learned TMB in stigmatas meant top middle and bottom😭

[BladedAngel]

Honkai Impact 3rd Walked so the rest of Hoyoverse could run....
I'm so glad I got to experience it Beginning to End! (Or at least to Kiana's Storyline conclusion)

Also the Story Line theories made by the fandom before we knew as much lore as we do now, WAS INSANE. Dudu's reveal alone had years worth of speculation and I'm still shocked to this day we got a payoff...it was so fun to be part of the community!

21:50 Also I know you just play these for a month, so I'll forgive your mistake here, but they actually do go to 6-star (Pri Arms) once you achieve a high enough captain level.

[zackzaghria]

man honkai impact was my first gacha game back in 2018, those were the days

[francesco]

It's worth mentioning that the upgrade\progression has completely changed a bunch of times during the game's history.
To mention some examples:
1)materials for weapons upgrade used to came only from recicling other gacha weapon (now materials are farmable)
2)there used to be no way to farm any S rank valkyrie
3)at a certain point they stopped releasing story levels that require stamina and instead they make smaller "open world" where the story take place and they require no stamina (meaning that stamina is mostly used now for afk farming)
4)stigmata and weapong have become farmable including the sets for new character since part 2 has started.

Ancient Honkai was a weird creature.

[catgirlkiana]

10:34 without going into too many details, the welt in hsr is the same welt as hi3, despite it being a different universe or whatever it's considered

[tkftw]

"Captain on bridge" man that brings back so many memories playing it

[colorlessguard]

lmaoo as a veteran hi3 player, listening to that whole materials/resources section really made me realize how fucking insane and confusing this must all be to newbie players im so sorry yall 💀😭

[otakuop]

when being a mihoyo fan wasn't weird

[didmobd]

Your Mandarin pronunciation is uncannily good.

[hyperactivy]

A few things I would like to point out that havent been properly adressed and or incorrect.
Story:
-The universe for Honkai Impact 3 doesn't exist inside the Sea of Quanta, it exists within the Imaginary Tree, they are essentially two mediums for worlds to exist in in this hoyoverse.
-Part 1 characters haven't been dropped. minor spoilers, they DO appear in part 2 and will appear more frequently in the future as its focusing on the new cast.
Gacha:
-Originally units cost 300 pulls to guarantee them being fully built (100 for character, 200 for weapon and stigmata), when part 2 dropped it cost that in half (90 for character, 60 for weapon as stigmata are craftable).
Outfits:
-There are mainly three kinds of outfits. Freebie outfits, Paid outfits and Gacha outfits. Besides summer outfits, free outfits return periodically via a shop called Homu's Treasury for Asterite, a common material. Paid outfits often return via the same shop as well for B-Chips (paid currency) or after a certain amount of reruns for Special Outfit Coupons (gained through rare events or B-Chips) and they also become permanent after said point usually. Gacha outfits (5* outfits) always appear only via gacha supplies that happen very rarely, the outfit for Fu Hua in the FOMO section is such an outfit, it DID rerun I believe twice, during summer and will rerun next patch as well (this information is known through the CN schedule)
There are a few more things that I missed, people make mistakes so its perfectly fine to make them, no hate all love I enjoyed the video

[toniov]

i've been playing for over 5 years. a lot of these systems are already condensed down a good bit. it used to be way worse. TwT I love this game, it's story, characters and gameplay so much I still play every day. part 2 definitely still needs time to really get good in my personal opinion

[byeguyssry]

Just a list of the stuff that are wrong in the video (fortunately they are just easy-to-make misunderstandings):

Regarding Stamina: you can use Planeroids in order to farm more. However, the main way to get Planeroids is by failing to log in. Planeroids is a system that allows the player to lose out on less when they miss a few days.
Additionally, you can farm Asterite 20 times per week, and you get three quick farms per day. Past that, to quick farm, you do need booster tickers - but note how you don't need to spend any if you just log in every day.
Typically, the daily loop is to press the single button to quick farm all the material stages, then go to your dorm and send out valks on expeditions, and then spend any excess Stamina on the open world. You might get excess Stamina on Wednesday, because the open world resets on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday.
Additionally, on the gacha:
For the gear banners, Part 2 weapon banners have no 50/50, Part 1 weapon banners do. Part 2 stigmata are craftable, Part 1 stigmata often aren't. This, alongside powercreep, is why new players are highly advised to pull on Part 2 banners
This includes the starter banner.
Also fun fact, HI3 has almost exactly as many pulls per update as Genshin, so yeah, not the best
42:08 I'm not sure about Q-manifold, which is the "beginner" version of Abyss, but in Superstring Dimension, the one for players above Lv80 (btw it's optional to go above lv80, you can choose not to), you gain points when you are the top few, and lose points when you're the bottom few - a ranking system. It's easier to climb out of the lower ranks as you can get more points than usual.
I'll also note that Memorial Arena has an easy mode, so you can use outdated characters to farm it to get most, but not all, of the currency it offers
44:19 It did get one rerun. The outfits that don't get rerun are, to my knowledge, some of the early swimsuit skins, which were speculated to no longer rerun as psuedo-censorship.
While events do rerun... well...
The Captainverse is a series of event stories that are continuations of each other. It has concluded just before Part 2, and it is not known if they will ever be rerun. More annoyingly, if they ever do rerun, Sanguine Nights, the first and most important event in this series, never will. Because it's a permanent story in CN and only in CN