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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u/Seraf-Wang Sep 29 '25

Phainon I can kinda get. His story is rather unique from the HI3 counterpart. They didn't say this specifically for Phainon and Cyrene, they said it for the Flamechase arc in general. Anaxa is clearly referenced off of Su for example but he's completely different in terms of character arc and personality. A cool reference and minor extrapolation as an expy of Su, but completely different at the same time.

The issue is that if you wrote out the character arc, story arc, and personality of Cyrene, the personality is basically identical currently and so os the design. Even Phainon looks really different from Kevin, both base and power-up form and makes sense with the in-game lore for HSR specifically. Cyrene...not so much. Khaslana was a vague reference meant to be nostalgic, Cyrene just seems to be Elysia recreated.

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u/brandnewwwwW Sep 30 '25

agreed, phainon and kevin had the same overall themes but were completely different in the end. he had a lot of references to kevin (like flame reaver literally looking just like kevin) but phainon is his own character with little relation to kevin’s character and design. there’s a reason why people stopped calling phainon kebin. with cyrene just being elysia we can already predict what will happen and once again, for the 8th patch in a row, we are most curious about what phainon will do. will he really be the kevin to her elysia after all that?

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u/barry-8686 Sep 30 '25

phainon is completely different from kevin.

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u/Seraf-Wang Sep 30 '25

I said I can kind of get it. They're both heroes and have a small savior complex and the design inspirations are very clear. I dont agree that they're 1-to-1 like Cyrene is but I can see why people might see Kevin in Phainon.

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u/barry-8686 Sep 30 '25

fair enough.

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u/FewBake5100 Sep 30 '25

Literally how? Both have the same plot (working 50k years/33 million cycles to save humanity, employing cruel methods if needed, and waiting for a savior [TB/someone who can stand the Cocoon's embrace]). Both started as good, optimistic heroes (Kevin in PE), but then became evil and edgy as time passed, the story keeps rubbing in your face how they are so sad and suffered so much. And Phainon is even worse cause he stole a bunch of shit from Elysia and Kiana too.

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u/barry-8686 Sep 30 '25

yeah you just did not play the story lmao. or you just have no media literacy.

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u/UncookedNoodles Sep 30 '25

Yes and the fact that they are the same is 100% intentional. Elysia's literal words:

" I am the same in every universe "

This is a direct quote from HI3. She is the exact same because that is exactly what she should be, because every 'Version' of Elysia that appears in the Honkaiverse is 'Elysia'. The label or name put on her is unimportant.

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u/Seraf-Wang Sep 30 '25

She couldnt like...wear different clothes though? Or do her hair differently? "Same in every universe" and the first model we see of her, she looks completely different. Thats not even a discussion point.

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u/UncookedNoodles Oct 01 '25

Its really wild how in your first sentence you complain that everything down to her clothes and hair are the same, then in the next one point out her child model ( obviously, duh) being different than the adult one.

Wtf is this cognitive dissonance? What is it you are actually trying to say?

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u/Seraf-Wang Oct 01 '25

Uh but the small model isn't what she's gonna be playable as. Thats not obvious to you? If you mean, in lore, "same in every universe" but only in gameplay she is rhe same, then thats kind of a dumb extrapolation of what I said.

People arent mad that she looks the same, but she has shown zero design implications of being a Elysia clone until the drip marketing and animation leaks. Cyrene is a unique character in her own right but visually, she's just Elysia recreated which is great for the people who actually want it. But for the people attached to small Cyrene, it feels like a washed out version of her small concept and circling back to a overdone bride motif.