Penacony Awaits You in Honkai: Star Rail! hoyo.link/cK4iFBAL

"Robin stance as the main positive character whose have major impact" I hate to say this but "SERAPHINE COULD NEVER!"

Sparkle quest actually spoiled the entirety of Penacony story if you really think about it

Sparkle is low key probably one of the first ones to realize the truth of Penacony, she's just not really interested in the outcome hence why she went about helping all sides with her sending us the child's dream, giving Aventurine pointers, the whole Sparkle quest, and helping Sunday by masquerading as Robin. Her actions were all about moving the plot forwards as if she was reminding everyone what role they had to play and where they had to be in the story.

I think the introduced switching POV mechanic in penacony trailblaze mission should be given more praise. It allows the story buildup, char background and interaction between chars more immersive while controlling and maintaining the pace which luofu story lack off.

The Mask Fools are summarized as the "Side Character helping the Main character quest but on how they do it well it depends on the Mask Fool in Question" but in the end is still helps the Main character achieve the goal so those buttons will do something at what well who knows at this point.

Penacony story unironically clears the vast majority of AAA titles' story and it's not even close.

12:05 Duke Inferno was actually set up just for that, with the stelleron hunters destroying Jepela, making an opening for the everflame mansion to take place so that they would eventually get invited to penacony, just so that Acheron would have a way to get into penacony by stealing the invitation from the bad guys. There's also the fact that Duke Inferno died as a martyr for his children who still have their missions to destroy each other faction that was assigned to them by their father. So while his death felt a little cheap, there's actually a lot of ramifications that lead to that point and a lot of consequences that came and are still coming after the fact.

SHAOJI BE COOKING 🗣️🔥 Anyone who know Elysian Realm know that this isn't even his full power

The devs said on the livestream that they had been working on Penacony story since 2022

Fun fact the writer of Penacony introduced 13 characters in Impact 3rd and made everyone care about them in a few patches

Penacony definitely had the soul of the story from Honkai Impact 3rd. You cant find your way out of the maze without hitting a few dead ends, but the beauty and marvel of it is how well everything came together in the end. I believe what really made Penacony was its complexity. If it were spoon-fed to us, I don't think it would have been as rewarding to PLAY alongside the story with all of the twists and revelations. About Sparkle- I am certain we have not seen the last of her. I remember telling my friend (way before Penacony was even announced) that I'm certain we will eventually head back to Belobog, and he didn't believe me. Sparkle and Sampo's interactions really laid some breadcrumbs to what is to come.

coming from hi3 i can say the writer for penacony (shaoji) is insanely talented as a writer

shaoji and his writing team really cooked so good and it turns out into a buffet FUN FACT Shaoji, The story writer of Honkai: Star Rail Penacony is also the writer of Honkai Impact 3rd (Hi3 veterans know this) The Arcs he wrote in Honkai Impact 3rd are: Final Lesson🔥 (St. Freya) Seele🦋 (Sea of Quanta) Lament of The Fallen🌃 (Nagazora) Everlasting Flames🔥 (HoD Domain) Because of You🌸 (Elysian Realm)

There are a possibility that Sparkle part was there just to distract us the player from the real plot. In her story quest, she led us around to solve a bunch of mystery just like the Penacony story arc and throughout the story quest there are some red herring along the way that has nothing to do with each mystery. This might be a hint that her purpose of being in Penacony is just to be a red herring to distract the player because only the player knew what she does. It really fit her character too if that were the case.

When I saw the Firefly gameplay leaks I was like: "Man, Necrit is gonna love this!"

12:35 see the issue here is that in a piece of throwaway dialogue, Acheron (or Black Swan, can't remember well enough) mentions that Sunday didn't trap us in a dream. Rather, he used the power of the Stellaron to blend reality with the dream world, which in my opinion is even more confusing lol

Necrit can you do a video just explaining all the story with spoilers kind of like what you did for League? I think some of us just turned off our brains at some point and forgot. Or maybe one where you talk about cool side quests

My only big gripe with the story was the inclusion of the bartending scene with Gallagher and Siobhan (2.1) and the part where we need to go through some gameshow to reach Sunday (2.2). Those parts didnt really add much to the story and only felt like were added to promote the new 2.1 event and a 2.2 map. It just really came off as the company telling the writer(s) to include it for the sake of including it.

Honestly I love that Sparkle could just truly be here to fuck around and troll everyone -including the players.

I mean, Sparkle’s skill is literally called Red Herring so I’m not surprised if nothing happens

Duke inferno and his children are probably gonna be antagonist in a future arc or maybe a continuation of Penacony's story

Sunday is THE BEST name they could have chosen, it's PERFECT!!!

"They offered me a window to show you something other games could learn from" Throwing shade at Rito again, I see :D LOVE IT! :D

my favorite part of the story was the part Acheron grabbed TB's hand mid-air, awesome reference from HI3

2:08 Hoyo USED to have a really good solution for this - and they have used this solution scarcely lately - its really simple. You release new version of old characters to designate character growth. They did this a lot in HI3 up to chapter 28. The cast was really small but we went through several character arcs at the same time and their growth was reflected in the gameplay in terms of new battlesuits for them to use.

I basically played the whole story in 1 setting (as in, over a few days) and also as a lover of Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere books I just loved the whole story It just felt like this damn story was Cosmere if you played as the interstellar character in that book

Necrit: I want to branch out and talk about other games Also Necrit: Well this is a League Channel I could never talk about it unless its under the guise of a sponsorship! (Love you necrit tho, just do what you think is best!)

I really like the direction star rail is going. 1. was kind of tame (and lame) but 2. Seems to be going the right direction. Still not at the level of HI3rd's otto and elysian realm arcs but getting pretty close

For now, I can only imagine the plot points of Sparkle, at least when referring to the button detonator, was a red herring to keep us distracted from other key moments even if just momentarily as if to keep us expecting something else.

NO SPOILERS HERE, tbh my biggest gripes with this story were just that: - you can't replay cutscenes, and - the lead-up to the final boss where you have CRUCIAL character backstory being delivered while you walk around looking for treasures and dealing with enemies has no way to scroll back if you're a slightly slow reader or not paying attention. This isn't a complex story issue, this is a "the auto-scrolling text scrolled too fast with no way to replay or stop it issue"

glad to see u covering this, i love ur lore coverage for league and i love the lore for star rail.

11:40 some say that in the story when Acheron talks and we see the subs in red colour, it means that it is Duke Inferno's influence

For all we know, Sparkle could just have been a Red Herring this entire time. Something to drive the theorists mad; Even moreso considering the various references to the concept in both her quest and her abilities. I can just imagine Aha the Elation laughing at us as we all go through our "Pepe Silvia" moments trying to piece together what shes up to. "What was she hinting at in her quest and dream? Why are there explosions in one of her trailers? Why did she send us into the childs dream? Why did she tell acheron to find robin? Why is she playing multiple sides with the factions? What are all the damn buttons for!? Who hired her in the end? Was it Gallagher or somebody else? Etc...

Honestly couldn't agree more with the "princess and another Castle" analogy. Firefly and Robin are dead, drip marketing. Glaze of Xipe, happened in a dream. Fight against Ena, you need Nihility instead of Harmony on the planet of Harmony.

I started playing Star Rail because of Necrit and have been hooked in most of the story arcs since. Man, he needs to upload more edited reactions to Star Rail content into his 2nd channel, as watching full on 3 hour stream VODs can be difficult.

Yeah I saw the cinematic when my sister was playing it it looked amazing, I played star rail for a bit when it first came out, defo gonna play it when my exams are over

My biggest problem with the 2.2 story is that there is "too much" of it. Until the middle of it, there was only one fight, which also was very short. There is more action in the latter half, thankfully. Maybe that was a bit exaggerated by me playing through 2.2 in one sitting, but still, it felt like there was almost no downtime for the majority of the story. Especially because it was the end of the main story of Penacony, so there were many important revelations basically coming one after another

one of the great things about HSR is that the story don't even feel close to being done. This just feels like a great arc and i hope this quality of writing persists in future arcs.

I would love to see more HSR videos specifically about character lore and other background lore pleaseeee Necrit

This story became amazing only after I finished it and started thinking about it.

To answer your question about whether or not everything before 2.2 actually happened, I think it’s yes. During your convo with Black Swan at the very end of the fakeout ending, she mentions you’re the only one who has actually personally experienced the whole course of the dream of penacony, aka you’re the protagonist so your dream is the version of events that actually took place. (Firefly flying out of the dream by supposedly dying to inform the people on the express of what’s happening is an example, since that happens during 2.2 before you go confront Sunday when you’re still in Ena’s dream) I’m not 100% sure if they’ll add more onto that in 2.3, but that’s the info we’re given currently

The Elysian Realm arc from HI3 also introduces a large cast of characters that you grow to love

imma be back once i finish 2.0 and 2.2 story , 1 min in and im already excited as a pleyr who left for idk how long now

2:40 but they also do that with Genshin right? At least for the past two patches. In the Fontaine teaser 10 new characters were announced all at once. And beside them Tartaglia and Skirk technically also played a part in the story.

Did 2.1 and 2.2 back to back this week. What a ride.

are you going to do more videos on the lore of star rail? I personally dont like gatcha games but the art is beautiful and would love to know the story since a lot of my friends love it ♥

Bro, you had a bug at 00:46. The second mark went up on your screen on the top left, which freaked me out, and I thought the bug went in my phone case

I have a very big problem with Penacony story... While yes, all the characters played major roles, and every character had very cool moments on their own... when you combine all the pieces, the overall story isn´t really that cool or impactful. All the characters are doing stuff, but since they all are moving their own direction, the story itself feels like it doesn´t move at all. I believe that´s why the "Your princess is in another Castle" syndrome is SO strong here. It might be a personal thing too, but all those plot twists were exhausting and lead nowhere. And I didn´t like at all how everything was just a "dream".

First of all I'm in love with the fact they used absolutely everything what I mean by everything They even used the card that we were the part of almost everything happened and played with it Second of all Genshin realized that doesn't work in inazuma(even tho they also kinda used it because yae miko come out like 6 versions later after we see her in story) since everyone hated it and story gets better in sumeru and Fontaine which they did the same thing Third of all yes hoyo works on things a lot earlier than release for example they started working on shneznaya when inazuma released when release dates gets closer theyll do things faster etc And on their characters probably like more than a year From leaks we understand their rough kits their role etc is decided EXTREMELY early on like we got sparkles aventurines kit etc in 1.1 or maybe even earlier and every character has a ton of concept arts like nahidas concept arts leaked last year along with every Fontaine character and one special character I won't even name and you guys get the point I guess

Just found out about this game about 1 month ago and I am so hooked. I knew about genshin and tried it but for some reason i couldn't get into it even though I love adventure games and fantasy in general. However, Honkai star rail was love at first sight. I put around 150 hours into persona 5 royal and i consider it one of my favorite games ever, Honkai really reminded me of persona. Love the characters, mechanics, visuals and sound. Really a complete game Glad you are enjoying it as well

i would love to see a several hour long rundown of penacony's entire story after 2.3 drops, theres so much i feel like im missing

They explained about Ena's dream, when we learned that we were in it. They explicitly say that, up until the fight with Sunday, pretty much everything went the way that we saw. It's just, after the fight began, our memory of the events was altered slightly. Meaning, at most, if something was different, it would generally be something relatively inconsequential. Which would make sense, since having our memories effected to too high of a degree would obviously just lead to us waking up. That's literally why Robin woke up, after all. Something was different enough, that she pretty much immediately started to think something was off.

12:00 I liked that to be honest XD, I thought we were getting the cliche enemy team, he got setup with a full quest and they disappeared since Nihility Emanator is a beast!!

Congrats on gaining a sponsorship, Necrit !!!! You need back pay, for your reaction to seeing the train and hearing the music.

I disagree on the princess is in another castle argument, because that would be moving the goal post, the only time that actually happens is in the first fight against sunday, but that was for a cool plot twist and an even more satisfying ending. Our goal from the beginning was the watchmakers legacy and to know about the other nameless, other than that we got a lot of questions being asked and then being answered, usually before moving on to a next one, sometimes multiple questions were up in the air. The actual objective of getting the watchmakers legacy and knowing about the nameless is only completed near the end before facing the final boss.

Hey Necrit, Any chance you can dive into Wuthering Waves?

One thing that has not been mentioned is the music that accompanies while the story develops and its amaizing. It happened to us the first time we fought Cocolia with "Wildfire" and we just got served again with the boss fight of the version with "Hope is the thing with feathers". It acompanies whats happening on the screen at every moment and its not something every game succeeds in.

Never thought of it like that it did make it interesting and we knew what we was getting with new ones popping in

Please make more Star Rail lore videos; it's sometimes hard to grasp for me so a summary by you would be so good tbh!

We know that 2.3 is gonna focus on the IPC and will involve those without much spotlight until now: Sparkle, Boothill, Ratio, Aventurine, Topaz and Jade. Sparkle was hired by someone, so she has some sort of mission in Penacony. The buttons could really be explosives, but my guess is that it will be used as a misdirection! So Sparkle can rob one of the cornerstones, an item that was heavily showed during this arc! Maybe the contractor even being part of Oswaldo's faction to disrupt Diamond´s in a internal conflict.

You want more insane writing? Try Nasu Kinoko's storytelling in Fate Grand Order or other fate franchise involving Nasu Kinoko as the writer

Also if you played HI3rd, you get some additional kicks out of the story. Acheron's alternative was a main actor in that story too, and you got a small flashback (picture with horns) which here is merely a backstory piece. Yet if you know her.. other version I guess, then it hurt you so bad, because you knew the full story that happened there. And how that could have turned out in this universe. BTW remember when there was this "the legendary writer of honkai impact wrote penacony story" thing.. This is why he is legendary.

About the new characters overshadowing old characters, hoyoverse took care of that problem in HI3. They keep releasing the same characters in different forms and battlesuits. I do think they are also gonna do that in star rail, look at inhibitor lunae. Maybe not as much as HI3, but it is great to see already known characters stronger and in different forms

I know it doesn't mean much coming from a completely random person you don't know and who doesn't know you, but I am immensely proud of you Necrit for how successful you are and how far you have come from your days as just another KZfaq channel.

I feel Sparkle is literally Red Herring, that we need to focus on her expecting something, but actually she does nothing much?

Yeah I have high hopes for 2.3, I hope I don't get disappointed too much. I was really wowed, but Sparkle and IPC (my money is on Jade) need a grand finish to make it a grand success!

14 minutes of straight facts. Unlike all these impulsive complainers, Necrit really knows how to understand and point out bad parts of a story and give it advice for improvement, as well as point out and expand the reasoning behind the amazing/good parts Love people like this Even more amazing when someone influential mentions things you've thought about yourself for a long time

11:27 well they'll be delirious anyways from the all-nighter :D

I‘m sad that about duke Inferno, too, but it was a great pre story twist setup. I really thought Everflame mansion would be the antagonist, but then none of them even showed up. The dukes children are at least set up as potential antagonists in the future.

Waiting now for lore videos from Necrit

lots of people that actually calling penacony a PEAKACONY, cuz the story is really at peak rn

when will we finish tatalogs story?

I agree. I'm still waiting for Sparkle to ... 'go with a bang' for the next patch. Not to mention, there are still mysteries that need to be solved. Like Gopher Wood still has something big, right? And also the sub plot with the Boothill and Aventurine.

my fav part was pom pom say's "muddle fudger?"

2.3 is the epilogue. Sparkle closure is definitely coming… and I’m scared

Necrit with the most logical and constructive criticism as always. Penacony is indeed PEAK writing.

Now the question is, are there gonna be more videos about hsr?

I DID NOT KNOW you talk about HSR, I enjoyed your League / Runeterra lore talks but didn't expect you to talk about HSR.

I believed the story of penacony will be concluded (or not) at "pier point" , the place was already hinted from topaz's character quest when she got demoted and was asked by aventurine to "help" him at penacony, solidifying aventurine's cunning mind and intuition, predicting possible outcomes that can help him get what he want. At this point i even think they're using Jade as a cover-up for Diamond in the future as a possible character in the future chapters. After this I feel like were going back to belobog (at one point), because of sampo's twisted dream of what's happening to belobog. The HSR Team is still cooking penacony and i'm here for it!

Just to share, I saw a video in shorts while scrolling (ctto). As said in one of the comments, the Masked Fool are summarized as the side characters helping the main mc but varies on how they do it. The buttons Sparkle was distributing were actually a way to wake up everyone from Ena's dream if the charmony festival continued incase the Trailblazer failed to stop Sunday. Idk how much of this is true but it could be a possibilty that she was just enjoying the fun of everything going into chaos before doing something. Aha move I say

Necrit if you want another game with a fantastic story I would recommend checking out Nikke, sure the ads make it look like trash but the story is fantastic and worth checking out just for that.

Still think penacony was great until the second half of the finale. Everything that was great suddenly went downhill real quick when a lot of built up materials got written off for the convenience of the trailblazer "hero of the day" moment which also made so many great details became redundant. The introduction of the final antagonist and his power also feels lacking and forced. Ena who logically shouldn't exist still exist and somehow Sunday and the master knew about her; Sunday ideology and setting basically is dr.maruki from p5 but worse in explaining, executing his character, mindset and the moment of realization. Then the most disappointed thing is boothill role to the story, he's great, I like him, but he is in the same state as indiana jones in the lost ark movie (wont say in detail to not spoil the movie)

I loove, LOOVE overcomplex stories, Penacony was really right up my alley. I loved the multiple layers of realities and the beautiful exploring experience in the 3D rooms too.

I love star rail and this channel. hope this video does well and you cover it more :3

You have no clue how much I want to see you cover the lore:))))

Great summary of the new story :)

7:56 - 8:00 Truer words have never been spoken

Kinda wished a lot more folks from belobog would have appeared in the Penacony arc. It just feels like the whole arc never happened when you get into. Would love to see Serval doing a concert with Robin for one thing. I think those buttons Sparkle gave was set up to wake everyone up in case they got to a point of no return in the dream but never really went into play. As I said any good written story EVERYTHING has a purpose even if it seems pointless at the start. genshin does this well too like how why your main character is always collecting books

Its heavily theorized or might actually be a fact that the nuke buttons Sparkle handed out was a backup plan should everyone fail on stopping Sunday, after all she advises that the buttons are pressed at the start of the charmony festival, when Sunday's plan reaches its peak Which also implies that she was most likely found out about Ena's dream the earliest, guiding people around to find out themselves

13:37 - 13:53 most likely the HOTTEST take from the Star Rail community ever, but this is also how I feel towards Robin. Yeah she mostly tried to discover what’s up with the deaths as confirmed in 2.1 with her note to Sunday, but she just kinda was….there….and was still given this gigantic spotlight. We meet her at the hotel, learn she has a sore throat, helps us get used to the dream world, and then the next time we see her, she’s a “corpse”. She isn’t in 2.1, granted she was meant to be “dead” but in 2.2, we see she’s helping kids brighten up by singing to them, and tried to help Sunday see how horrible a dreamlike reality is, only to fail when out of nowhere, Sunday is revealed to be an agent of Order (yes I know it was a destiny thing but we don’t get any kind of closure or reason as to WHY Sunday chose to walk this path as far as I’m aware). And then she gets captured, AGAIN, and then reappears in the TRUE final boss during the second phase to help the heroes wake everyone up. Again, I could be missing on some things but I genuinely think Robin had a gigantic spotlight on her despite the fact she didn’t earn it compared to people like Acheron or Black Swan or Gallagher. Compare that to Misha, a character who was more or less just in the background throughout the story, only to be revealed that Misha is the Watchmaker himself, Mikhail Char Legwork as a memory zone meme. It was so well because of the subtle hints from the Child’s Dream section along with the multiple mentions of this Mikhail person who we know only by name. I feel like Misha knocked it out of the park as a background character compared to Robin. And this is all my opinion along with my memory of what happened so I could be wrong about some things. Feel free to roast me about how your Waifu did in fact do something during Penacony. Looking at you Tectone.

Sparkle's placement was mostly to exposition the idea of a "Retired Masked Fool who's preparing for something big", and if ya guys missed it...ooh boy... Shaoji is a god at writing stories, its no understatement that the whole hype for the Honkai-verse is singlehandedly carried by him. The day Necrit dives deep enough might never come, but I can assure you that if you are loving Penacony, everywhere miHoYo has made waves, Shaoji is involved: Because Of You and Final Lesson to name a few.

When i think about Star Rail story i always remember One Piece story telling structure. Myhoyo really inspired by Eichiro Oda's Magnum Opus when they create Star Rail. Interstellar trailblazer journey to different world's? Checked. Main cast of crew members characters? Checked. Big cast of characters, fractions with they're own agenda's and motives? Checked. Story plot's set up for futures ark's? Checked. So.... Star Rail just space opera One Piece.

I think Sparkle has been introduced here for future stories and was never going to play a huge part in Penacony. More than the buttons, it's her shapeshifting abilities that have been unexploited and have HUGE potential for the future. Introducing her early in a story where she doesn't actually have any active role to play will pay off down the line, when there's an arc with the spotlight on the Masked Fools. That, or she's just trolling. At this point, we can expect anything, but I think she's never gonna give us up.

1.0 was amazing, Wilfire will always be unique because that's the first time every new player experience how cool HSR can be but Penacony managed to make the best story of all the game

Tbh I really do agree with the point brought up about sparkle but at the same time I wouldn’t be surprised if her button was just a red herring since she is a masked fool. It would be disappointing but that’s just what people who follow the path of elation do

The new story was great in star rail

I really enjoyed the whole story but it did get a bit confusing a few times

With all of these plot devices, and most of them being stuck in that dream, I feel like they can still miss the mark entirely for tying up these loose ends in 2.3. I don’t know (and doubt) if it will leave us as unsatisfied as the Luofu, but hopefully they got big plans to sum everything up

only problem that 2.2 story turned me down was game show part. I was drained so much by that and cannot as much hype on plot twist+final battle. my body and brain was like "whatever just end it please" at that point. It was my bad idea to do this story in one-go/not taking a break in between as well.. but I had only one day off so it is what it is.. I know game show part was relaxing/cooling-off part between story-heavy part, but man those are super long especially when you're not choosing the battle arena (but by choosing them you'll also unable to hear voiced dialogue from performance arena. so it's time vs immersion.. pick your poison). A "proper" date with Firefly was great but imo they can just do that later in companion quest or whatever. its not suppose to be at that moment where our team has to confront Sunday ASAP. I guess I had to blame March7th for it was her idea in the first place to do this in order to get to final zone :/