For our fifth “Unforgettable Gaming Levels” article, we’ll be heading back to Honkai Star Rail to cover the climactic voyage through the temple in the sky, the Eye of Twilight.
Honkai Star Rail‘s latest update released a few weeks ago, and it brought about a massive climax that’s been building over the past few months of story progress. But, in my opinion, more exciting than the narrative payoffs was just how jam-packed this update was with gameplay-related content. And nowhere did the gameplay shine brighter than with the Eye of Twilight, the central dungeon that the majority of this update took place within.
And it’s really, really good! But let’s set the stage for a bit.
In the current plot of Honkai Star Rail, your character (the Trailblazer) is on the planet of Amphoreus, which is basically Greece but in space. The planet is undergoing a calamity of epic proportions, and only the might of the super-powered Chrysos Heirs can save the day. Trouble is, the calamity is beginning to effect the pantheon of gods/goddesses that control the various aspects of Amphoreus society and nature, and so you and the Chrysos Heris have to run from nation to nation to confront those deities and either ask them to yield their power into your hands willingly…or, you know, after a fight.
At long last, only a single deity remains. Aquila, the Sky Titan. A divine being depicted in ancient drawings as an eyeball in the sky, looking down upon the planet. Aquila is known to be fiercely vengeful, striking down any humans who dare to encroach upon its heavenly domain. Basically, it’s Zeus, befitting this Greece-in-space analogy. Worse, the cataclysm (and unstoppable horde of demonic creatures referred to as The Black Tide, is almost at the doorstep of humanity’s last remaining city on Amphoreus. The clock is ticking.
With the help of a plucky and unlikely young Chrysos Heir named Hyacine, you and your crew are able to make it to the Eye of Twilight, a gargantuan fortress in the sky. Hyacine is descended from the lineage of a woman named Seliose, who it turns out is actually half-fused with Aquila after she raised a banner against it millennia ago, determined to wrest humanity’s fate back from it’s callous clutches. Seliose was a grand warrior, however, and Hyacine isn’t sure she can live up to her lineage…nor is she sure how much (if any) of Seliose still persists inside of the seemingly-mad Aquila.
And so, your group arrives at the Eye of Twilight, and begins battling their way to the pinnacle of the dungeon.
Honkai Star Rail has always had really solid map design. It’s one of the most underappreciated aspects of the entire game. The story is amazing, the combat is super good, but the map design is pretty fantastic too. Tons of hidden goodies if you poke around into corners, optional secrets galore, really solid environmental storytelling and soundtracks, and creatively-designed puzzles. All of the aspects are on full-display within the Eye of Twilight, and then some.
As you work your way up this massive labyrinth, there’s just so much going on. At one point you have to use your ability to rewind the time/space of an object to move floating rocks around in order to create pathways you can use to traverse the area (then you can un-rewind the object to go flying through the air). At other points you have to use mechanisms to take control of a floating hand to grab distant items and attack out-of-reach enemies. There’s even secret hidden coins to collect while piloting these mechanisms.
At a few other points in the dungeon you’ve got to play this elaborate puzzle game involving spinning dials and arrow-marked spaces in order to guide a little orb through a maze safely. Doing so generates rainbow bridges that allow you to access higher floors of the dungeon. And while you’re doing all of this, you’re also engaging in the same puzzles and side activities that you’ve been having fun with in every Amphoreous map (including the shadow-clone-manipulating goat tile puzzle, and one of those tangram-esque puzzles that put me right back into middle-school whenever I do one).
It’s the most Zelda-like that a non-Zelda game has ever been, ever, and I love it so much.
But it’s not just puzzles and exploring and fighting enemies. There’s tons of story content as you traverse the Eye of Twilight, both in terms of mandatory cutscenes and extra lore you can pick up from scattered documents and investigating murals.
The story content is particularly enthralling, as it tells the backstory of the human warrior Seliose who challenged and defeated Aquila by merging with it. It turns out that Aquila was never an evil god, or even a god to begin with. It was simply a creature that controlled the weather, and humanity bequeathed upon it the status of deity to justify worshipping it, and in turn, turning on their fellow humans in its name. A perversion of religion, twisting love and faith into something dark, greedy, and selfish. Seliose challenged the sky creature to free humanity from its thrall…only for the opposite to happen.
Instead of moving on, the sycophantic followers of the Eye of Twilight were quick to label Seliose as the new goddess of the sky, and began slaughtering those that had previously shunned her and praised Aquila. Seliose could only watch as the humans she’d lived amongst and tried to fight for did the exact opposite of what she wanted, violently slaying and killing indiscriminately. In a fit of rage and desperation, Aquila struck all of them down, and this hardened her heart. She became bitter, cynical, and convinced that humans were incapable of ever making the right decision in any circumstance. Hence why Aquila, or rather Seliose, so often smites the humans of Amphoreus when they dare to reach to high to the heavens. It’s her refusal to see that humans can be capable of good intentions and bringing peace onto one another.
All of this comes to a head when you reach the top of the Eye of Twilight, and come face-to-face with Seliose.
At first, she’s little more than a rabid animal, roaring and attacking wildly. But as the fight progresses across its four phases, more and more of Seliose’s sanity returns to her. Of course, that only makes her first all the more fiercely in the face of a group of humans daring to challenge her…or more accurately, daring to challenge her long-held belief that humans cannot ever be good and selfless. It isn’t until you land the finishing blow and she takes her dying breath that she finally realizes how much she’d hardened her heart and turned her back on humanity, refusing to see the glimmers of light amidst so much darkness.
Much of this realization comes about because of young-but-determined Hyacine. A flashback reveals that Hyacine is not descended from Seliose at all, but rather a simple human woman who was one of the few survivors of Seliose’s original purge of the majority of humans on Amphoreus all those millennia ago. That human woman begged Seliose to spare the remnants of humanity, and promised that one day in the future, Seliose would see humans truly working side-by-side for the greater selfless good. Seliose found the idea ridiculous, but accepted the woman’s bargain, and now thousands of years later, Hyacine and the rest of your crew have fulfilled that dream, and Seliose is able to die knowing Amphoreus’ fate is in the right hands.
It’s a great moment.
You know what else is great? The boss fight! It’s phenomenal, and might be the new best boss battle in a game filled with them. I love how lengthy it is, and how epic it feels (at one point you battle Seliose while falling down the inside of a huge tower). The final phase in particular is a real treat, and the soundtrack throughout is gorgeous. What’s even more gorgeous are the animated cutscenes. Jaw-droppingly fantastic stuff that’ll send shivers down your spin.
Here’s a link to the full fight if you want to check it out: BOSS FIGHT
With Seliose defeated, the Eye of Twilight begins to crumble and fall apart, necessitating a tense and high-stakes escape sequence as you dash through the lower levels of the dungeon to avoid falling into the lake of golden-molten death down below. There’s some pretty dramatic character moments in this conclusion to the dungeon too, so there’s really not a wasted moment from the second you set foot within this area!
And somehow, it still isn’t over even after all of that! Because, a few hours later after you’ve finished up the rest of the story, you can return to the decaying and broken-apart Eye of Twilight and re-explore it as an entirely new dungeon map! Brand new puzzles, a shifted layout due to how destroyed it all is, and tons of bonus chests and surprises. It’s like a whole new two hours of stuff to do, because the Eye of Twilight simply refuses to stop giving and giving!
It’s a stunningly fantastic area in every way, and definitely worthy of the moniker of “Unforgettable Gaming Level“!
The Contrarian Corner 