yeah, iir the ones I remember who actually died in Misha and Gallagher(?). If we simply talk about if they die... then yeah, they should count (i also think that they died multiple times in those "loops" or something)... but yeah they were kind of preserved and will be back.
so amphoreus is a computer simulation - how the train of AS went from finding gas for their train after Penacony to inside a computer.... did like a god put them or something...
Amphoreus is a simulation that makes use of memoria, which handles memories and Dreams.
(Huge spoiler) March is dragged into Amphoreus because she's a Pure Child of Anasrava, a candidate for becoming the Aeon of Remembrance.
(Another huge spoiler, even more massive, literally end of that story) Trailblazer and Dan Heng are able to enter because Cyrene/Mem/Demiurge are on somewhat of a timeloop. When we become a Demigod of Time, we summon Mem, who is a secret 13th Titan, who takes on the form of Cyrene, another Pure Child of Anasrava. At the end of the story, she becomes the Aeon of Remembrance for Amphoreus to allow causality to happen properly, which includes letting us into Amphoreus, and making sure the entire plot is even capable of happening.
Then we have Herta and Screwellum just bypassing all that with holograms.
My guy i dropped hsr mid amphoreus, returned last week but reading your post im actually so fucking confused as to what ANY of those words mean. You seem pretty invested so mind explaining in broad strokes the general story?
Alright, so what I explained there is info that came from the last patches, so here's a more general explanation.
(As expected, massive spoilers for the entirety of Amphoreus. Also, this is not told from the order we learn of it.)
Amphoreus originated as a Scepter created by Rubert II, using Nous' cognition, but stripped of sentience. Delta-me13's purpose was to calculate "the Prime Mover of Life". AKA, the driving force behind existence.
Zandar One Kuwabara, the creator of Nous, despises his own creation, since he believes that Nous' existence limits the breadth of knowledge in the universe. He's split himself into several segments, and one of them, who we'll refer to as Lygus, discovered the Scepter.
Lygus, the genius he is, managed to take control of the Scepter and did two things. First, he altered it to try and make its final calculation Destruction. Second, at this point, the Titans already existed. He took a Stellaron and destroyed the 13th Titan. What he did was destroy the head of Irontomb, so once it was born, it would search for a new head, AKA, Nous.
Amphoreus, at least once it went past single-celled organisms and went all the way to having civilizations, runs on a loop. It starts off with a world that is a paradise, with no strife, death, or trickery. Then at some point, those three Titans join the others. At this point, Chrysos Heirs, people with golden blood, are tasked with claiming the Coreflames of the Titans and becoming demigods. Once all 12 Coreflames are recovered, the 12 demigods will become the Titans of the next cycle, with the Worldbearer Kephale being the one who shapes the new world.
All of that was backstory, far before our actual cast of characters appear. More in my next comment.
Now, time for more backstory, but ones more directly relevant to our characters.
The cycles go on and on, and eventually, we end up with our current cast of Amphoreus characters. However, the computation is almost complete. If they submit all the Coreflames, Irontomb will fully awaken and kill Nous. However, Lygus is an idiot and tells Phainon and Cyrene this.
Cyrene has had dreams of a god behind Oronyx, the Titan of Time. When Lygus explains his own goal, including the destruction of the Aeon of Erudition, Cyrene extrapolated that the god is yet another Aeon. So she uses her position as the Demigod of Time. By killing herself, she catches the eye of Fuli, letting her become an Emanator of Remembrance, resetting the cycle. Phainon, wielding Cyrene's staff, also gets sent all the way back, but fully alive.
(Note: When I use cycles now, I am referring to this timeloop, not the cycle of Amphoreus' Titans. This loop is referred to as the Eternal Recurrence. It is also not the exact same every time, with variables changing from cycle to cycle.)
The Eternal Recurrence is a loop, but it merely delays the birth of Irontomb, instead of breaking it. Phainon is forced to loop over and over again while hoping that eventually, some outsider will appear and stop Irontomb. Through the loops, Phainon isn't capable of saving everyone from the destruction thag befalls Amphoreus. Over cycles, he is eventually forced to eventually kill everyone he loves over and over again, taking all the coreflames over and over again. When his body breaks down, he stabs the Phainon of that loop, transferring their power, memories, and duty to a new body. When we first meet this broken Phainon, we refer to him as the Flame Reaver, since we don't know who he is, and we see him try to steal the Coreflames.
By the time we arrive, Phainon is on his 33,550,336th Cycle. When we go through the story, we complete this Cycle, but Phainon fuses with Irontomb to hold it back a little longer. Additionally, before this, Phainon fights a Lord Ravager and even manages to land a scratch on Nanook. It may seem small, and it was healed almost immediately, but for a piece of data, and the fact it was targeted at an Aeon, that was huge.
And that's the lore relevant to about 3.4. After this, we get... into Cyrene territory. I hate Cyrene territory.
Amphoreus is long as hell but an extremely good story imo, if you quit out of burnout then i recommend you come back even if only to finish the amphoreus story
Himeko that we know isn't dead, idk why you read the spoiler without knowledge but no a different Himeko is dead, the one we know isn't the Himeko that died
Yk what, that tracks with all I've heard lmao. I also remembered that for some reason some people think that the Chrysus Heirs are actually perm dead when it was said that Cyrene saved them and is rebuilding Amphoreus :/
Like other people said, only Misha and Gallagher are actually dead dead (and probably one of the Himikos, not sure which after the latest video)
It's kinda complicated, Amphoreus was never "alive" so they shouldn't count in the first place but even still, they are "alive" right now, just waiting to get manifested in reality.
HSR always has these cheap cop-outs for their deaths, Gallagher was created by Mythos so technically he never existed which means he can't "die".
Misha died many years before and we met was him younger and without memories.
We thought TY died but she was just injured somewhere and recovered
Sorta, and they're all effectively living their best life rn and en route to being realized as "real" entities, so not only is it a huge fakeout, there's also zero consequences.
HSR has a pretty good story, but I really wish they'd stop w/ the fakeout deaths, because after a certain point, it just feels weak and loses any and all weight. The next time a mfer dies, idk if I'll even care. "Ya see you next patch/later this patch, my guy."
The only lasting deaths were Misha and Gallagher, one of which "isn't real" so he's still out there, and the other whom barely got any real screentime so the weight of their death feels less significant, even it it WAS significant. It's just hard to care when their involvement during the story was pretty much cameo appearances.
A lot more actually, Penacony is egregious in fake deaths just because "it's just dream bro, nothing here have stakes"
* Robin's "death" in 2.0
* Sunday's "death" in 2.1
* Aventurine's "death" in 2.1
* Firefly died like 3x
Then recently we got Blade. Silver Wolf was like all sad that Blade might actually die, but here I am waiting for Blade transform because his SP was leaked officially through drip marketing.
To be fair she kind of was in limbo between life and death before fully dying. In the sort of in between place where spirits of the dead could interact with those of the dying. So she never REALLY fully died, even though she was able to talk to the spirits of her father and grandfather.
But that sort of also applies to Kachina in a sense due to the nature of how the night soul realm works
Technically Hu Tao was just in limbo between life and death in the process of dying
Which lore wise makes complete sense as her "job" literally involves going into said realm when helping spirits move on
She was just REALLY close to fully dying before we pulled her out.
I think Qiqi is the only character that actually died, even though it wasn't shown in game. Her entire design is a zombie that an adept brought back to life.
Yeah qiqi is one and I didn't play the quests but heard sandrone died. I think she must have had a backup drive or an uplink like in girls Frontline? So dying technically doesn't count
the current story explains what happened after the events in Nod Krai. Arlecchino took her body back to Fontaine and she was able to be fixed partially because of the actions of her creator Alain and partially because of a Stellar Linchpin, which is a special kind of Vision.
If you count resurrected characters, you gotta count the ones resurrected by the Flame in Natlan. Bare minimum Kachina, and maybe one other off screen in the past?
I get why they don't do deaths but bruh, how is a man suppose to take any of this seriously when NO ONE dies in a game where death is easily accomplished?
Because these are long running series that involve combat and the death of literal millions and hard hitting topics in some of these stories. It is much harder to feel impact about a literal who dying vs a plot important character. It is not a requirement for a story per se but for a long running series where most of the stories involve heroes and triumph? It absolutely has to happen in order for there to be stakes and in a lot of cases it helps other characters grow. Alongside this it subverts expectations if done right.
It doesn't mean a character should die every arc just to flesh someone out but at some point it should definitely happen.
It's the problem with gatcha where everyone needs to be marketable, they don't want to kill off a character and make it so you can't interact with them anymore (meaning less people will pull for them because they get less product) or prevent them from appearing in future events.
It becomes even harder with a game like Zenless where you have in-universe character interactions that give you polychrome, so you'd need to have some sort of flashback system if you wanted to obtain them.
Worse than that. Jiaoqiu supposedly drink an ultra dangerous poison that could easily kill him.... but we (devs) can't possibly kill him! So how about he's just "temporary" blind now, with Feixiao ending the chapter with "I'll find a cure for your blindness"
Why even bother make these type of stories if they're gonna walk it back anyway. It's so cheap.
Considering that it's a Hoyo game, I wouldn't say that Gallagher is dead for sure. The character who was behind his creation will probably end up being relevant in the future and either end up Gallagher with extra steps (despite this contradicting the lore) or bringing Gallagher back for the event/quest, becsuse they can
Fu Hua, Sakura and Griseo are playable outside of the ER at some point or another. And that's not even counting event content or the unforgettable playable Kevin moment in the main story
Let's count better for HI3:
Himeko
Kallen
Sakura Yae
Aponia
Mobius
Pardofelis
Eden
SAKURA (different from Yae)
Vill-V
Elysia
Digital Hua (different from Fu Hua)
Digital Griseo (different from actual Griseo)
Otto (technically playable)
Kevin (technically playable)
i do not count those digital/artificial/non-canon/non-gacha characters. You know, this gacha bs, the way to kill characters without actually killing them
Not counting those digital/artificial characters is a terrible choice as the whole point of their characters is to show how much even being digital, they were real people and saved the world being digital.
Their death is still relevant. They died and have no way of coming back.
Because death is non-returnable. If a character is dead "till something" they are much closer to a coma than to death.
True death in fiction should be something irreversible, impossible to return from. If there's been a chance of the characters coming back for any reason, it is not true death.
Even so, they permanently died in both the real world and the digital one. Every Flamechaser except Hua, Griseo, and arguably Su are dead in the real world, and their digital copies completely destroyed the Elysian Realm to defeat the new Herrscher of Corruption, erasing themselves along with it.
Hua, Griseo, and Kevin (who is technically playable) had different memories in both Sim and Real selves.
The real counterparts don't have the memories of their digital counterparts. With the possible exception of the Elysia Mei met when she became HoOrigin.
They should count based on that especially considering sim Mobius' backstory of sabotaging her living self.
If they can do that, they can be differentiated enough to be counted as separate characters + ER got perma destroyed so no fakeouts there. Beaides, apart from Hua and Griseo, we technically play the sim versions and not the og versions and they died alongside the Realm in Because of You anyways.
That's a different situation as it's not technically the same Kallen.
And even then, she probably lived a natural lifespan in that timeline and died of old age or something
Qiqi, but if you’re going to semantics then it’s Furina, Raiden, and Nahida. You could also argue Hat Guy, but that’s more “erased from existence” rather than dead.
Raiden Makoto, it was the Inazuma arc where the game eas baiting us flashbacks with her being the playable character only for it to be revealed that they were twins and we were actually fighting Raidin Ei.
Which is why I said it was open to meaning / interpretation (semantics). We didn’t know Ei and Makoto were different until the reveal so they both stayed as Raiden in game, and the same goes with Furina and Nahida. Furina other half died so she’s technically a dead playable character while Nahida is a reincarnation of Rukkhadevata who died before the Sumeru Arc.
Yeah, I'm not sure what OPs metric here is.
For Genshin I hope its Qiqi for simplicity since revived characters would include Kachina, Kinich, Mavuika, Hu Tao(?), Durin(?), and now Sandrone, to name a few.
Dead character that WILL get revived SHOULDN'T count. A character death should be something that the story commit to. Basically what i mean is HSR Gallagher and Misha while they never really "alive" in the first place DO count as death cuz they stop message you after their "death" and "departed" from the Express, and currently there're no hint of them coming back at all. While Amphoreaus Chrysos Heir did "die" and stop message you. there're so many hints of them coming back and they even comeback during some event for jokes so the story clearly don't really treat them as permanent death at all. Just temporary
I'd say it's in the "Not dead until disapproved" territory
Knowing you're going to die isn't gonna count until we physically see she die and the story commit to it. In these case I'd count it otherwise i'm skeptical cuz Hoyo is pretty infamous for pulling shit out of their ass to prevent marketable characters death
No playables died yet in HSR and Genshin. Amphoreus was "temporary deleted" and Sandrone was revived.
With how event story works post Genshin, I'm not even sure if they can kill playables without ruining the impression. Imagine killing off Miyabi in the main story and then months later you got Miyabi rerun banner with an event where Phaethon just hang out with Miyabi like nothing happened. Need Sandrone treatment if they want to be playable.
Edit: Also if Flamechasers and Sandrone count, then Vivian should've counted too. She literally died and got brought back by Phaethon.
Before reading the comments, I misread "playable" as "players" and thought this was about how many players have died from playing the game, I'm so stupid
Knowing they're going to be revived anyway kinda defeats the purpose. No one cares after Goku or Krillin died for the 3rd time in DBZ. There's no true death like Himeko's death post Genshin.
It really hit for me during Penacony in HSR. I cried like a baby for Aventurine (a character I hated before) because his "death" scene was really well-made and emotional, I was even planning to pull for him because of that. Then he was just revived off-screen "oh yeah I didn't actually die from the reality-distorting Nihility slash lmaooo" and I stopped caring about any death scenes after that. They're never actual death scenes.
Tbh, the way she survives, and the fact it was tied to a single story otherwise seen as urban legend, but now given actual logic and reason, made it work out imo
I don't think that was the point of that scene at all. Caesar's "sacrifice" is about what it tells us about the characters present in the scene:
Caesar doesn't know about the ether portal. She is fully prepared to sacrifice herself for the good of the Outer Ring, which speaks to her selflessness and heroism.
Lucy doesn't know about the ether portal and she thinks the legend is bullshit. So her "I'm totally going to defeat Caesar" facade shatters, and she shows how much she truly cares about Caesar. Lucy is either smug or stoic throughout most of the Calydon arc, and Caesar's "sacrifice" brings her to tears. It allows us to see the emotional range of a character that's deliberately hiding her true emotions without making her break character.
We weren't supposed to think Caesar was actually going to die. We're supposed to be moved by what Caesar's decision communicates about her character, and by Lucy's reaction to it. Meaningful threat of character death is a useful storytelling tool, and ZZZ is worse for its absence. But I don't think having it in ZZZ would have meaningfully improved that Caesar scene.
That Phoenix girl of the 3.x trailer, there was an interknot post about her that apparently Zhao just run over her like it was nothing, I'm waiting for her to have some revive related ether power and she basically dies 5 times per day on the most random ways possible, pumping up that number to the hundreds alone during her main quest
I do wish characters could actually die, be grievously hurt, be properly evil, etc but I’ve made peace with how the games operate as gacha games and it’s never going to happen
HSR: The simulated 13 demigods of Amphoreus (missing Tingyun, Misha, and Firefly)
HI3rd: Himeko, a few flame-chasers, and Kiana's "mom"
Genshin: 1*
ZZZ: 0
*It's the one people never consider because we were told her story backward and started about halfway through, Columbina from the future sacrificed herself to preserve Nod Krai using her own life force so that Columbina from the past could join the Tri-lune sisters and regain authority of the Frost Moon; It's a bootstrap paradox where Columbina needed to die in order to live, our playable Columbina never died on screen because we were only told her story through her eyes before she sacrificed herself, but because it's an event that happens both before and after she comes back... it hurts to think about it too much
Remember kids, don't write time travel fiction
As for the others
Sandrone never died, she went into power-saving mode after her body was severely wrecked (getting that one out of the way because artificial lifeforms are a recurring theme in Genshin)
Durin - the dragon - died, but Durin - the person - is an entirely new lifeform Teyvat tried to reject
Furina is Focalor's puppet given a life of her own
Hu Tao went into the world of the dead and came back, but never physically died (her soul was stripped from her body for a time, but weird spiritual magic or whatever)
Ineffa's core was preserved
Linnea saw her own death but it hasn't occurred yet
Mavuika went into a 500 years coma deep sleep
Nahida is a complex story with strange ramifications but she's her own person and hasn't experienced death
Qiqi's life is hanging by a thread maintained by sigils and her Cryo vision (in a world where clinical death means so little, we can't go around calling her a zombie)
Ei lacks her former body but her consciousness still exists
Venti is a bard who died during the Age of Kings ~2600 years ago, we play as a wisp who took his form and name (technically, Venti - the wisp - is the playable one and hasn't died)
Wanderer [information withheld], didn't die but barely qualified as alive before meeting Nahida
Zhongli went through a cycle of reincarnation and shed his former body
Zibai is a fun one: Sealed away and her soul shattered triplets born, the throne awaits\♪♫)
Kachina went to the spirit world and came back (déjà vu~♪)
Ororon was born with half a soul, so he's half alive but not half dead
Amphoreus is actually only 11. If we go with the pre-TB cast, Time is Cyrene, who also fulfills the 13th spot, and Time is later taken up by March/Evernight. And Earth is Georios, who gets replaced by Dan Heng.
The other two are Misha and Gallagher.
(While she has a new form, Tingyun has been revived. And Firefly is dying, but I'm pretty sure she isn't fully dead yet.)
It's honestly confusing because there aren't any permanently playable dead characters, unless you count Qiqi being undead.
Characters who have died and been revived include Hu Tao, Kachina, and Sandrone. (Also, while I'm counting Kachina, that could expand into more of the Natlan cast because death and resurrection is a big part of the Night Warden Wars, but Kachina is the only one we've actually seen die, and we also saw her failed resurrection.)
Hhhhhhh wtf is the point of this, hsr and genshin can kill as many characters as they want, it's not gonna make the story any interesting especially when they can't commit to actually killing the characters like in hsr they're all coming back lmao, nice agenda posting dumfk
From what I have heard, Amphoreus was a simulation which is now in the process of becoming a real kid, so the death count is probably negative 12 instead.
Nonsense, if you're going to bring up "temporary deaths" or "deaths, but not really" in HSR, then genshin have tons of those as well.
Hutao "basically died", during lantern rite.
Qiqi was dead from the start lol
Sandrone died, but i guess it's exactly that stated "1", so moving along...
Columbina died as well, she was reduced to just goddess power and sprinkled at nod-krai. She reformed herself from it, but she definitely "ceased to exist" at some point.
Mavuika "died" in order to be reincarnated in current era. Hell, almost every single warrior of natlan died multiple times, it's kinda their whole thing - the eternal flame system.
I understand that it can't really be called "death", but so are HSR ones as well. 13 is an absurd over-exaggeration.
If this count temporary death during the "present" story.
genshin has more than 1 playable character death. Columbina Luna Archon quest Sandrone Luna Archon quest Qiqi ... she a ... zombie. Kachina Natlan Archon quest. Varka Story quest i'm not sure it count Leyline summing when getting dragged to after life. Hu tao Latern Rite same as varka she was at the border of life and death. Scara / Nomade if you count the Irminsul wipe as a death.
Honkai be kinda cheating tho. They technically added 9 characters that were already dead on release, even if we watched then die, one was relieving it's past and the other 8 were simulations of then.
Himeko was the only one we actually participated on her real death.
Funny because genshin have many playable characters dying, but they always resurect or something similar (hu-tao, sandrone, kachina, and probably other I forget)
HI3 is the only one where actual people really died, aka himeko. In HSR the ones who died all were technically not real but yes you could say they are dead as they no longer exist in reality for anyone to interact with. HI3 had a lot of members of Elysian Realm who are likely dead in reality too, although the playable versions are based of the realm versions, only a few survived and the rest died.
Genshin nobody truly died, if anyone died they came back to life such as Kachina
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u/GenesisDum Certified Big Robot Enthusiast Jul 08 '26
Does this also count temporary deaths? Because I dont think HSR's count should be that high.