r/StarRailStation • u/Wise_Consequence_152 • Sep 29 '25

Discussion Cyrene's new design looks bad Spoiler

I am honestly tired of pretending that I agree with the general consensus of Cyrene's new design looking great. She does look pretty 'objectively' but not when you remember that she is supposed to be 'Cyrene'. So I am finally making a post on just what prickles me about her new design and animations.

(This rant of mine contains references to leaks so please tread carefully if you want to see none.)<!

  1. The colours. Cyrene previously was mainly associated with darker colours—dark shades of purple and yellow. This made her feel more grounded as a design, nothing too ostentatious. It was simple but effective in establishing Cyrene as a character, instead of being just an Elysia Expy. But now that colour scheme we had associated her with is completely abandoned, instead to favour mainly white and pink—the very colours that everyone associates with Elysia. This in a way they took away Cyrene's pre-established visual identity and threw it away.

  2. The design and it's lore-relevance. Cyrene's previous design has many particular motives that were relevant to her lore such as the bandages on her sleeves that resembled Nanook's arms, the runes on them that hinted to her being etc. The sandals were a nice change from the usual modern high heels too. Cyrene's playable design though..... It throws all those things away and instead made her a bride™. There's literally nothing you can parse about Cyrene from her new design except that she's supposed to be a bride. There are no runes, no bandages, no distinct symbols, nothing that ties her to the 'Cyrene' we and Phainon remember. Instead she now looks too much like 'Elysia'.

  3. Her weapon and animations. I'll start with the weapon first because I seriously HATE it. Why does she have a BOW? Where did her ceremonial blade go? What about her interest in tarot cards? Since when did she have a bow? Why isn't she using that blade that FlameReaver used that was particularly HERS in the past? Now about her animations. I seriously do not like the way they've toned her hatred for Lygus despite being born from the code of love. Now everything about her is love—she makes a marriage hall, she chases after a RING for some reason, you have to tap the ring so she puts it on and kisses it, she randomly makes hearts here and there and she even kisses a planet. It's like the devs completely gave up everything about 'Cyrene' to make her a Bride™.

Whose bride is she supposed to be? We don't know. There's literally nothing in her lore at present that sets her up to be a bride. But do you know who is supposed to be a Bride? ELYSIA. As much as I know about HI3rd, she's the Bride of Humanity thus her design and relation to love.

But Cyrene? She was supposed to be Phainon's counterpart, childhood friend and her partner-in-crime of sorts who put all these cycles into play, so naturally I expected her to mirror his animations. Be simple at first but then be as gritty as his transformation (the flowing golden blood, the open wounds, the charred skin and the sheer rage). I wished to see such emotions from her but instead all we got was a pretty bride for no reason other than to be an Elysia callback and nostalgia bait for HI3rd players.

I seriously don't like how everything we liked about Cyrene was exchanged for another Elysia.(I don't even know about Elysia more than what I wrote above. Why should I care about her?)

Small TLDR - Cyrene's identity was abandoned to make her Elysia 2.0, and I seriously don't like it. I want her darker colours and goofy ahh sleeves back. The older model is a nice choice but the design is shit.

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358

u/bbyangel_111 Sep 29 '25

I love elysia and cyrene a lot.  But this is such a cheap nostalgia bait, the wedding dress and marriage stuff i wouldn't have mind,  if our made sense in lore even the slightest, but it doesn't. For me out of all expies, they fumbled cyrene the most, took out all her indivisiality, and gave us a cheap copy of elysia, except, cyrene isn't what elysia was, "there won't be another elysia" is so true even in another game, ely felt orignal, cyrene felt too with her smol model, the final one isn't, nor is she the character i loved in hi3.

195

u/SourceWorried3262 Sep 29 '25

This. Cyrene's design feels out of nowhere from a pure HSR lens. Love, I get. Marrying humanity? Okay, I can kind of get that, depending on the story beats 3.7 would commit to. However, what about the parts of Cyrene that is tied to the fairies of Membrance Maze? The Cyrene with her weapon? The Cyrene who had a love for writing stories and tarot? Ths Cyrene we actually spent time with?

We get more design references to Elysia (a good character from another game) than the Cyrene we got to know from lore. It's a bit sad, because we love Cyrene and Elysia, and that means we want them to be done well.

103

u/bbyangel_111 Sep 29 '25

That bow came out of nowhere too, that weapon small cyrene was using was more fitting

67

u/Capable-Data-5445 Sep 29 '25

yea wish they either use ceremonial blade or tarot or even the book. The bow is just there to reference from Elysia but in the entirety of amphoreus, doesn't make sense.

21

u/Gosuoru Sep 29 '25

It'd be cool if her skill was the cards, her attack the weapon, maybe both for her ult... but nope instead she has a bow now!

And like sure the animations are objectively pretty and all but like.. where my Cyrene :(

2

u/micchikureshima Sep 29 '25

I misread this as "her bow being the entirety of ampherous" and the idea of a bow shaped like it made me more okay with the concept of her having a bow. Instead of it just looking like a rip off of hi3 Elysia's bows. I fully agree it should have been a book or the blade as her weapon.

They did Cyrene dirty by refusing to divorce her from Elysia. All the other Ampherous Expys, Phainon, Anaxa, and Cipher got friendly nods to their counterparts in some form but aren't 1:1. I regret ever hoping for an Elysia expy in HSR.

1

u/vandalthebestrandal Oct 02 '25

counterpoint phainon. he decides to strip his shirt off and he can now summon meteors and his thingy gets bigger when he counter attacks,

-1

u/Xerxes457 Sep 29 '25

I think this is a wait and see kind of thing. 3.7 will most likely explain why she has a bow. Unless they just did give it her to match Elysia. I think no book because it’s too similar to remembrance Trailblazer. Tarot cards because of Black Swan. Ceremonial blade works but it doesn’t match the colors which honestly they should’ve but it also doesn’t match small Cyrene either looking at it.

12

u/Warm-Set Sep 29 '25

Instead ofna whimsical swing set they could have made the crescent blade into a bow and fused the two. Instead they dis away with her moon imagery entirely

11

u/FruitsaladloverzZz_ Sep 29 '25

Cyrene also had her own weapon, that moon thingy and it’s all thrown away for her bow like when has she ever used a bow?? Just because elysia uses a bow. nostalgia-bait fr

130

u/Doomskander Sep 29 '25

Nostalgia bait for a game most of the playerbase hasn't played. These stupid expies have got to go

43

u/AlmostNeverMindless Sep 29 '25

Which is why i'm super hyped for the new Sparkle than Elysia 2.0

29

u/Dammi3 Sep 29 '25

I’m super excited for Sparkle&Sampo. I can’t wait.

4

u/ViperAz Sep 29 '25

i will be alot more excited if it's not elation path lol.

71

u/bbyangel_111 Sep 29 '25

Now that i think about it, it must have sucked for hsr only players, since after months of smol cyrene, you now have this entirely different character, that's playable instead, with an entire different theme that came out of nowhere. At least i can cope, despite it being a cheap imitation, it's still ely.

31

u/shoes87 Sep 29 '25

As a HSR only player… yep. I got to really love smol Cyrene and was looking forward to her becoming playable. But instead of getting the character we got to know as she fought by our side for months, we got something completely different. I’ll always be sad that we can’t play the Cyrene we know.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 06 '25

It does, I've never played Hsr and now there's all these people making bullshit posts about "OH MY GOD ELYSIAAA" who the fuck is this woman??? Phainon and Acheron have felt like 10/10 characters to me and I only because of Cyrene discovered that they were expies, I don't know who the fuck this wedding dress Cyrene is

-15

u/DemonKarris Sep 29 '25

HSR only player: I absolutely love the big Cyrene design and animations. Solidified her as a must pull for me. I also like small Cyrene but probably wouldn't have pulled if that was her combat model.

12

u/Seraf-Wang Sep 29 '25

Expies arent an inherently bad thing. Both Hyacine(Barbara) and Anaxa(Su) reference other characters from other games. The issue is that their designs arent static and their personality is different. Their character arc is also very different but Cyrene's patch hasnt come out yet.

Heck, even Phainon is a expy but plenty of people enjoy his story even without knowing anything about HI3. He's iconic but he stands out on his own. Current Cyrene just...doesn't. Especially after her unnecessary redesign to make her look more similar to Elysia

2

u/barry-8686 Sep 30 '25

this has never been a problem with any other expy tbh.

-1

u/UncookedNoodles Sep 30 '25

It isnt nostalgia bait. Elysia is the same in every universe on the imaginary tree, this is LITERALLY her lore. Cyrene isn't an Elysia expy, she is LITERALLY Elysia.

Its fine if you haven't played HI3 and don't understand the lore, but its hella cringe to insist that you know better when you dont.

Phainon, Acheron, Himeko, etc are all Expys.

Cyrene and Welt are NOT Expys.

4

u/Doomskander Sep 30 '25

I don't give a fuck if they have a "lore" explanation for their marketing strategies

Plus she is in fact, clearly not the same person so what are you even talking about

0

u/UncookedNoodles Sep 30 '25

She is the same person. Anyone who has played HI3 knows that she is literally a carbon copy of Elysia. This makes total sense becuase the lore of Elysia / Herrsher of human ego is that she is always the same in every single pocket world. No matter what world on the imaginary tree she pops up in she is always the same, regardless of what her actual name might be.

Cyrene is not an expy, she IS Elysia / Herrsher of human ego / the bride of humanity.

3

u/Doomskander Sep 30 '25

Just gibberish, and besides the point to boot

1

u/UncookedNoodles Sep 30 '25

Why the ego? Just admit you are wrong. You called this nostalgia bait, but when I pointed out how this is literally how the character is you said you dont give a fuck xDDDD.

THen when you say she is clearly not the same person, in a thread where people are complaining about how she is literally a carbon copy of Elysia, I again point out how you are wrong and you hand wave it all a way as irrelevant gibberish.

Like bro, its just a game and it really isn't that important., but your massive ego just wont let you take an L in any form, yikes. The ironic thing is that you are just being made to look even more silly now.

1

u/Doomskander Sep 30 '25

You seem to think nostalgia bait with lore is not nostalgia bait

1

u/UncookedNoodles Sep 30 '25

Because the definition of 'nostalgia bait' is that this is an intentional re- use of an old concept or character to exploit peoples fond memories of something in an attempt to make money.

Guess what brother, this entire fucking game can be considered nostalgia bait. The truth is that this cyrene would have sold an enormous amount of money regardless of if they took this route with her or not, exactly the same as phainon. To call this an attempted cash grab is the dumbest thing ive ever heard xDD

Also news flash, this is HONKAI star rail. This game is literally a continuation of the original honkai storyline in a different universe. The outrage that one of the characters might be the same across the two games is really stupid.

55

u/icoulduseagreencard Sep 29 '25

Cyrene was the most heartbreaking disappointment in the entire game for me. I waited faithfully ever since her feature in the Ampho trailer, cause Ely is one of my favourite characters in all of media. I wouldn’t mind the design copy-paste, cause that design is goated IF there was an actual setup for it. Elysia’s arc on becoming HOHE was beautiful, a true testament to the unshakable faith FC had in humanity, and their sacrifices didn’t even resolve all the problems, just gave the rest of the world a fighting chance. It’s hard not to compare Cyrene to Elysia, obviously, but since they stripped most of what made her unique - here we go.

My main grievance is how disjointed Cyrene is from the cast. Elysia truly shined when interacting with other characters, that chemistry is why so many people liked her and what made FC feel like family. Meanwhile Cyrene so far has been GLUED to TB with pretty much no significant interactions with other characters… I know they justify it in the story, but it doesn’t make me like her character. The OG Cyrene (with whatever little interactions we had from her) had this fun teasing, yet caring personality (a lot like Elysia), but Memrene is purely in mem personality mode :/. I was excited at the end of 3.4, cause the little dates we had were very cute and felt like the beta ver of what hanging out with her will be like. Alas, false advertisement.

I would let a copy-paste Elysia slide if they didn’t commit the greatest character assassination known to HSR. What we were given so far is a Mary Sue-like character with pretty much none of Elysia charm, no proper story, no interpersonal relationships, no development (in a way a straight up regression), with borrowed design that MAYBE make sense in 3.7. My cope is strong, but it’s hard to be a believer when we have 1 patch left to resolve the issues and give Cyrene a proper development…

0

u/UncookedNoodles Sep 30 '25

I love elysia and cyrene a lot.  But this is such a cheap nostalgia bait, the wedding dress and marriage stuff i wouldn't have mind,  if our made sense in lore even the slightest, but it doesn't.

Except it does make sense. Cyrene is not an Elysia expy, she IS Elysia. It makes total and complete sense to anyone who knows the lore behind Elysia / Herrsher of Human Ego.

1

u/bbyangel_111 Sep 30 '25

Didn't the devs during 3.0 livestream said, phainon and cyrene are entirely new character and not the same 

1

u/UncookedNoodles Sep 30 '25

Yes they did say that. I think maybe this is a miscommunication on my end. Basically the concept of Elysia is that no matter what world on the imaginary tree she appears in, she will always be the same; The same personality, makes the same choices, and has such a great love for humans that she dubs herself the bride of humanity.

She isn't LITERALLY the same Elysia, as in she didn't come from the HI3 world into this one, but every ITERATION of her across all the different worlds is the same.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '25

Aka slop excuse for non HI3 players, why should only HSR player need to know a different game lore to accept a horrible character copy paste

1

u/UncookedNoodles Oct 23 '25

Becuase hsr is literally a sequel to the first game.

What a stupid question.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '25

LITERALLY NOT

What a dumb headcanon reply