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r/HonkaiStarRail • … • u/Helioseckta

Hot Take: I'm disappointed by Cyrene's true appearance

Now note that everything that I'm saying here is only just with what little we got to see of Cyrene in the new trailer. There's a good chance that everything I'm about to say here is completely void once we see the full design. I'm just stating my opinion of what I've seen so far.

The main topic: The new version trailer released a couple of hours ago gave us a glimpse of Cyrene's true appearance (or adult appearance I guess?). With what we've seen, I'm actually pretty disappointed. it just looks like Herrscher Elysia and I can hardly tell the difference so far. I'm not saying I think the design is bad. I adore Herrscher Elysia's design (really I just adore Elysia in general), and since this design is very close to Herrscher Elysia, it is also a pretty design in my eyes.

And that's my problem: It's so close to Herrscher Elysia that it doesn't feel like they even tried to make Cyrene's design any different. It just feels like they're playing it safe and making Cyrene look egregiously similar to Elysia because "Hey, Elysia was super popular, let's make Cyrene look exactly like her. It will make her sell well!"

Look, I get that Cyrene is HSR's variant of Elysia, but they still could have made her different. Phainon is HSR's variant of Kevin, down to even following very alike plot points too. Despite that, Phainon's design manages to still be unique while harking back to Kevin; you can still tell that Phainon is distinct from Kevin design-wise while still being a homage.

Originally I was going to critique Cyrene's character for being exactly like Elysia's too, but I'm withholding on that because it's unfair to make that claim. Cyrene has only appeared in 3.4 where she isn't the main focus. It's disingenuous to claim that Cyrene is a carbon copy of Elysia when we've barely got anything for Cyrene. Plus, I still am holding out a lot of hope that Cyrene will be able to carve out her own identity, and I'm very confident she will.

Tl; dr - Cyrene's adult appearance disappoints me because it feels like they didn't try to make her distinct from Herrscher Elysia.

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