Awesome / Honkai: Star Rail

Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

We've made a choice, go fight against your fate!

Just like its predecessors as well as other games made by Hoyoverse, Honkai: Star Rail has a lot of awesome moments.

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Trailblaze Mission (Main Story)

• Prologue:
  • Just when March 7th is about to be disintegrated by the Doomsday Beast's beam at the end of the boss fight, the Trailblazer jumps right in front of her to protect her despite the fact that they had just met and takes the blast themself. But rather than being killed by the attack, thanks to the Stellaron in their body not only do they No-Sell the attack but they also neutralize the Doomsday Beast in the process. Throughout the Prologue, the Doomsday Beast along with Lord Ravager are treated as The Dreaded and despite not having existed for very long, the Trailblazer manages to take out the former. Despite losing control of the Stellaron right after and prompting Welt to knock them out, it is impressive that they managed to take out the Doomsday Beast.
• Jarilo-VI:
  • Just as the Trailblazer, Dan Heng, and March 7th are about to be arrested by the Silvermane Guard due to a Frame-Up, the three of them manage to turn things on their soon-to-be captors. The Trailblazer whips out their baseball bat weapon and uses it to knock the Guards feet right out from underneath them while Dan Heng takes out the rest with his spear. Right when the Guards are prepared to shoot them, March 7th freezes their guns while she and her companions escape into the Fragmentum. For a trio recently formed, their coordination is on point!
  • Despite the fact that the Astral Express Crew has a head start on the soldiers, the Silvermane Guard is still able to beat them to the exit and surround them. As Bronya tells the trio when she confronts them, the Guard knows the streets like the back of their hands from having lived most of their lives there. And even though the three of them had escaped into a dangerous zone in which the public aren't allowed to enter because of the dangerous monsters roaming around, she won't allow them to escape that easily and will pursue them no matter the danger.
  • Clara, a girl who can't have been much older than Hook and has to rely on her robot friends a lot, keeps braving every danger for the sake of others. With only a robot for company, she ventures into a town full of monsters for painkillers to heal the vagrants with after the conflict over the new mine, convincing the Trailblazer, Bronya, and Seele to share since she wishes for the likewise injured miners to be helped too. She comes back again later for parts to repair a generator with and not wanting Svarog to know since it'd get two vagrants who accidentally damaged it in trouble too (though the heroes had to rescue her from a monster). And finally when Svarog is about to be finished off by Natasha, she gets in the way, putting herself at risk to convince them to stand down and stop hurting her precious friend.
  • The cutscene leading up to Cocolia's boss fight deserves a mention, with the Trailblazer running up the robot's arm as Bronya provides cover fire; when said robot raises its arm, causing the Trailblazer to fall, Seele rushes to catch and throws them up, but when the Trailblazer made the jump and fall just short of reaching Cocolia, Dan Heng's spear appeared just in time for the Trailblazer to use it as a vault, landing in front of Cocolia and immediately triggering the boss battle. Bad. Ass.
  • The Trailblazer's Heroic Second Wind. During the first fight with Cocolia, the Trailblazer barely puts a dent into her health bar and during a cutscene they are impaled by a frozen lance that she launches at them and knocked off the platform, plunging to their death. In the short period of time that they are falling, they enter a space where they witness Cocolia's memories before confronting the Guardians Will who mourns the current state of the world and how things are just going to get worse. When the Trailblazer states they will continue to fight for the sake of the preservation of the world, the Guardian's Will, touched by their willingness to get involved despite the fact that they were Outworlders tells them to pick up the lance that had impaled them, telling them that they might attract the attention of the Aeon Qlipoth. As the song Wildfire starts, they pick up the lance, drawing the gaze of the Aeon of Preservation who then proceeds to grant them his power to help them in their desire to preserve the current Jarilo-VI. They go from falling to their deaths to ready to take down Cocolia with new abilities and a new weapon. In the ensuing battle, the Preservation Trailblazer's voicelines^note "Defend the weak!" "Indestructible." and splash art^note Depicting Bronya, Seele, Serval, and Gepard alongside the Trailblazer really sell the idea that you're carrying the wishes of an entire world to fight against its seemingly inevitable destruction.
    • You have to give seventeen generations of Supreme Guardians their due. Just like Cocolia, it's hinted that each and every one of them have had the Stellaron speaking to them and trying to sway them from the Path of Preservation. Each and every single one of them witnessed things getting worse and worse and on top of that had to deal with the voice of a Sealed Evil in a Can constantly haunting them and trying to cause them to stray from their jobs of leading Belobog. It isn't until the Stellaron talks to a teenage Cocolia that they finally succeed, but it's impressive that her predecessors were able to resist the seed of destruction's call.
  • When the IPC shows up to collect on Jarilo-VI's 700-year-old debt, Gepard tries to lead the Silvermane Guards to confront Topaz when she and Svarog head to an old weapons factory. With casual ease, Topaz hacks Belobog's robots and turns the tables on Gepard. Later on, the Astral Express crew shows up to confront Topaz, who receives authorization from the IPC to get the Trailblazers out of the way with force. Cue Topaz and Numby calling in a large IPC squad that puts our heroes on the backfoot.
    • Not to be outdone, Bronya then shows Topaz the Engine of Creation, a massive war machine that the people of Belobog are restoring which was built centuries ago without the IPC's help. Seeing this masterpiece convinces Topaz to call off the debt, which results in her being demoted.
• Xianzhou Luofu:
  • In spite of his exile from the Luofu, Dan Heng, realizing that his friends are in danger due to Blade's presence, decides to effectively say "to hell with it" and travels to the Luofu to reunite with them and help them. His decision later pays off as he finally crosses paths with Blade, who impales him with his sword and reveals Dan Heng to be none other than the former High Elder of the Vidyadhara, Imbibitor Lunae. This act also grants the Astral Express crew a key to reach the roots of the Ambrosial Arbor, and the scene of Dan Heng splitting the sea apart to reveal the hallowed grounds of the Vidyadhara is nothing short of breathtaking.
  • The showdown with Phantylia, one of the Lord Ravagers and boss of 1.2. For story purposes, the battle requires the player to include Jing Yuan in the party, even providing a Trial version if the player doesn't already have him. This isn't the awesome part, though: the awesome part is that, for this fight, Jing Yuan gets a plethora of new voice lines to show that he is not playing around anymore, and that come hell or high water, he will defend the Luofu. Moreover, much like the battle with Cocolia, the battle includes a special action to greatly damage Phantylia: Dan Heng, unleashing his powers as the High Elder to strike her with dragons made of water.
    • While not unique to the battle, it also takes full advantage of Jing Yuan's Lightning Lord and it's animations to make the fight feel like a full-on Behemoth Battle between the Phantylia, the thunder spirit, and Dan Heng's water dragons.
    • The aftermath of the battle deserves special mention. Once down to the last sliver of her health, Phantylia will capture Jing Yuan, attempting to transform him into a member of the Antimatter Legion. Jing Yuan, however, is having none of it, and calls on the Lightning-Lord to strike her from behind, while calling on Dan Heng to attack as well. Even without words, they coordinate the attack—by having Dan Heng run Jing Yuan through with his spear, cutting off the connection between him and Phantylia just as the Lightning-Lord runs her through with its spear. Jing Yuan proceeds to make a cold, but furious declaration that Nanook is now officially on Lan's shitlist and will hunt them down as vengeance for Phantylia's actions.
  • When Cirrus finally gets Jing Yuan to agree to fight them, Cirrus uses its power to make its host grow to gigantic size. Jing Yuan's response is to summon the Lightning Lord, which makes Cirrus's host look like a fly by comparison. Though the Lightning Lord doesn't actually strike Cirrus, it's enough to make the heliobus immediately surrender.
• Crown of the Mundane and Divine:
  • Despite the horrific connotations of what she did, the fact that Ruan Mei was able to create a clone of an Emanator of Propagation, albeit a flawed one that only lasted less than a minute, is impressive.
  • Dr. Ratio completely derails Ifrit's plans for Herta's Space Station by screwing with the demon's teleportation powers, preventing him from killing any of those he abducted, including Asta. It's a good thing he did, too, because Ifrit would've tossed those poor people into deep space if he could.
• Penacony:
  • When the Trailblazer and Firefly are attacked by Something Unto Death, Black Swan makes her debut by sending dozens of glass hands at the monster, pinning it down and helping the others escape from it.
  • Sam makes one hell of an introduction by taking on the Trailblazer, Acheron, and Black Swan all at once. The outcome of the fight isn't known, though, since Black Swan warps the Trailblazer away while Sam is dueling Acheron. Keep in mind that while Acheron is an Emanator and was very likely holding back, Sam still puts up an impressive fight against her.
  • In an Offscreen Moment of Awesome, we learn that Acheron killed Duke Inferno before making her way to Penacony. Remember that Ifrit was an energy being akin to Cirrus (who is allegedly impossible to kill), and yet Acheron slew the fire demon in a Curb-Stomp Battle.
    • It’s revealed afterwards via a Flashback that Duke Inferno knew that he had no chance of defeating Acheron because he knew that she was an Emanator. Nonetheless, he refused to back down and faced his end with dignity, causing Acheron to show respect for Duke Inferno when she spoke with Welt, despite Ifrit's long history of atrocities.
    • Welt, despite having a feeling of just how strong Acheron is, shows no hesitation to confront her if she harbors any hostile feelings towards the crew of the Astral Express. He threatens to show her the power of a black hole if she tries to hurt one of his friends.
  • When Aventurine is finally on the ropes against the Astral Express crew, he summons a massive rain of gold coins big enough to flatten a city. Acheron then steps forward, unsheathes her blade, and wipes out both the attack AND Aventurine himself with one slash. After the battle, the aftermath of Acheron's strike is still present in the area, leaving a huge red scar across the sky of Penacony's dream world. Holy crap. And given how Acheron was strong enough to outright kill Ifrit, and how Aventurine ends up being transported into her domain rather than being totally killed, it's implied that she was still holding back when she utterly wrecked him.
    • Before this happens, Aventurine catches the Trailblazer's fire lance with his hand and tosses them aside with little effort, showing he wasn't boasting when he said the weapon would be useless against him. This is followed up, however, by Himeko blasting him with her Kill Sat- which Aventurine recovers from in seconds.
  • Aventurine's multi-layered Batman Gambit, a series of high-stakes gambles with his own life on the line—and he wins. His plan hinged on his death, which would give the IPC the opening to reclaim Penacony, and he was able to slip through Sunday's powers of the Harmony by having Acheron kill him and send him beyond the barrier. Even Dr. Ratio's betrayal was part of his plan, instructing Dr. Ratio to feed intel to Sunday about the two Cornerstones in hopes that Sunday would mistake Jade's Cornerstone for Aventurine's own, and they both put up an act to make Sunday believe he had won. The sheer dumb luck behind his entire plan ended up fooling everyone, and it's implied his gamble isn't over yet.
    • This thread analyzes the gambit and just how deep it ran, with the implication that Aventurine and Ratio were both playing Sunday as a fool from the moment they set foot in the hotel.
  • The Trailblazer getting Xipe to glance their way, granting the Trailblazer their Harmony powers. What makes this awesome is it happens in front of Sunday, who claimed to be a follower of Xipe when it was really Ena he followed. He is shocked to see Xipe actually glance at the Trailblazer since it undermines his ideology to see the Aeon of Harmony side with the Trailblazer over him.
  • Past Echoes of War bosses have let you call upon a powerful attack to help you even the odds, with the Engine of Creation against Cocolia and Dan Heng Imbibitor Lunae against Phantylia. What do you get against Sunday? You get to slam a dream version of the Astral Express into him. That's right — you're literally smashing the avatar of Order with the power of Trailblaze.
    • Making this attack more awesome is that it’s accompanied by one of your companions refuting Sunday’s ideology, each one refusing his attempts to protect the weak by forcing them into a cage of dreams.

Companion Mission (Character-specific)

• Screwllum and Herta's plan to outmaneuver Silver Wolf in her Companion Mission "Punklorde Mentality" is nothing short of impressive in how they exploit Silver Wolf's personality to win rather than taking her hacking skills head-on. They realize that Silver Wolf is actively looking to pick fights with them because she thinks it's fun, so they refuse to engage with her and let her go with a copy of the Aether Cartridge she wanted (since it's a copy, Screwllum figures there's nothing particularly wrong with her copying the data), disappointing her. Additionally, they realize that prison would be unable to hold her, so they decide to punish Silver Wolf where it really hurts: by shutting down all 76 of her gaming accounts on the Interastral Network.
• Yanqing surviving an attack from Jingliu, who had effortlessly slaughtered countless Mara-struck in her "contest" with him. Not only did he survive the attack, but he later managed to incorporate it into his own skill set, which he puts to use against Dan Heng and Blade!
• The end of Bailu's quest has Liangmu reveal that he never actually loved Banxia despite her pleas to have Bailu heal him, and even succumbing to the mara in the process. A furious Trailblazer can choose to beat the shit out of Liangmu, to which an equally furious Bailu completely agrees and joins in the well-deserved beatdown before begrudgingly healing him afterwards.
• In Dan Heng's quest, he, the Trailblazer, and Bailu are ambushed by assassins at Scalegorge Waterscape. While they do an admirable job of fending them off, they're suddenly joined by Jing Yuan deploying Lightning Lord. They manage to defeat the assassins, all while Jing Yuan is still healing from his injuries from the battle with Phantylia.
  Jing Yuan: Ah! Am I too late?
  Bailu: General! Did you bring reinforcements?
  Jing Yuan: Reinforcements? I am the reinforcements!
• Near the end of Jingliu's quest, she agrees to one last clash with Blade. The swordsmanship of the two is superb, but Jingliu clearly outclasses Blade, who only manages to slice off Jingliu's blindfold before she sends him crashing to the ground. Of course, Blade's immortality keeps him from dying, but the scene proves Jingliu's prowess as Luofu's greatest swordswoman.

Open World

• After having created a hideously dangerous, multi-world threatening weapon, Chadwick of the Genius Society spent the rest of his life atoning, on the run from the IPC who hired him to create it to begin with. Only being captured after he deliberately sealed away his memories with a form of medicine, he forced his captors to wait for his death to extract the information from his memoria, his lingering consciousness post-mortem... And even then, he thwarted them for a further several hundred years, no longer keeping his knowledge from them through medicine, but instead through sheer determination. His final conscious act before fading into nothing, after the protagonist finally freed him, was to pass on his memories to Herta, to ensure that she could lay the groundwork for deterrence systems, should another ever repeat his mistake. His last words were that he would forever be a blade poised against tyranny.

Other

• Seeing Jing Yuan's Ultimate in the animated short is nothing short of breathtaking, even in spite of the tragic circumstances in which it happens.
• Dan Heng redirecting Dan Feng's water dragon attack at him in his own animated short is incredible in more than one way. The view alone is incredible, with Dan Heng transforming into his Imbibitor Lunae form and twirling his spear about to "catch" the dragon and send it right back against Dan Feng. However, rather than directly striking Dan Feng as Dan Feng had done to him, he allows the water dragon to pass harmlessly, accepting that Dan Feng is a part of him but also affirming that he is his own person.
  Dan Heng: I will blaze...a path of my own!!
• The "White Night" music video opens with Caelus and Aventurine performing a slick Michael Jackson-esque dance routine to the song.
• As part of Hoyofair's 2024 Lunar New Year Festival, "Sword Tutelage" is a live-action fan-made short featuring Jing Yuan and Yanqing. Yanqing sneaks into the weapons arsenal in the middle of the night only to be caught by Jing Yuan and given a lesson on swordsmanship. The short displays some slick fight choreography and really depicts the master and apprentice relationship between the two.
• The story told during the "Harmony Greets the New Year" animation features stunning imagery in the style of traditional ink painting, showcasing a lion and a dragon dancing in perfect harmony as Master Gongshu provides a dramatic retelling of the entire Luofu arc.
• Acheron's trailer, "Your Color", has Sparkle create illusions of the Stellaron Hunters to attack Acheron. What follows is a fantastically choreographed fight and an utter Curb-Stomp Battle in Acheron's favor, with Kafka, Silver Wolf and Blade failing to land a single hit on her before she draws her blade and takes out all three of them simultaneously. And even if the three Stellaron Hunters weren't the genuine articles, they fought just as well as the real thing, yet Acheron beat them pretty much without effort. Badass.
• Aventurine's trailer, ''The Golden Touch'', plays wholly on his motif as a gambler and is full of Mundane Made Awesome shots of him gambling against the Dreamjolt Troupe, starting with a dramatic pull of the slots and culminating in him casually shaking a dice cup with the same finesse as a bartender while dodging a trio of Shells of Faded Rage, ultimately using his luck to win his life-or-death gamble with his dice stacked flawlessly. While not to the same level of badass as Acheron's trailer or the animated shorts, the animation itself is a show that perfectly fits the flashy gambler he is.