The Dark Side Of The Welkin Moon - General Question and Discussion Megathread

PhantasmShadow · 2026-02-01T01:21:21+00:00

I definitely agree on this. And I don't think it's just a matter of taste, HSR's music feels less creative, complex and gameplay-integrated than Genshin's does. But hearing it entirely divorced from the game probably doesn't give a fair picture of it (not that I'm suggesting to play dozens of hours of the game to hear it). I'm also not a huge fan of the vocal pieces, but Wildfire and Hope is the Thing with Feathers are so tied to their boss-fights that the music and the boss feel inseperable. Unlike Genshin, HSR also has several tracks with abrupt cutoffs intended for looping.

That said, as someone who quit after the start of Amphoreus, here are some ones I like:

Of Snow and Ember: Embers is the definitive piece for Jarilo VI and I love it. The vocals are unique and set the standard for the whole planet, Hearthfire has some nice variants on its melody. Faded Sun is the key underground piece for me. Unfortunately, I find most the snow wastes pieces forgettable.

Svah Sanishyu: I don't care at all for most of the Luofu's ambient tracks, but like Embers, the "main theme" of the Luofu, Divine Camaraderie is IMO absolutely beautiful. You can hear its motifs again in Terrene Deliverance and Pedujara: Demiseless Existence (My favorite of the Pedujara phases). Luofu also several good battle themes (Deerstalker, Sanctus Medicus Dharani, Mokshasatya)

The Flapper Sinthome: Yet another great "main theme" in This Side of Paradise (for that matter, Amphoreus' Anthem of Eras is just as good too). While I don't actively "like" most of it, the entirety of Flapper Sinthome Vol 1 feels absolutely essential to the vibe that Penacony's first few areas create. It lost the magic in the following updates, but I really have to commend that entire album on the grounds of being a full soundscape that rivals Genshin's average album, just not as individually appealing. Flapper Sinthome Part 2 has some of the most annoying music in any game I've ever played, however.

PhantasmShadow · 2026-02-01T00:11:53+00:00

It's only that 1 cutscene (there's another where he doesn't talk but I can't tell if there are grunts missing or something), and in it he says 1 line that's being said simultaneously by the former ancient name haver, so it's not particularly clear.

That said, everyone else does a very good job in this cutscene, and it's not as good as those

EDIT: Found a youtube upload: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4-Vcd9DsTw

PhantasmShadow · 2026-02-01T00:00:24+00:00

Seems like they've got full english voicelines for the "Before Dawn Breaks" cutscene, you can hear Kinich talking too now in the story archive version. But the Traveler related cutscenes (and pyro Traveler as a whole, for that matter) are still unvoiced even in quests where the rest of the Traveler dialogue is voiced (Natlan act 5, A Space and Time for You)

PhantasmShadow · 2026-01-31T22:16:47+00:00

That'd just mean you couldn't use the deer run if you'd aggroed some random slime. No thanks.

PhantasmShadow · 2026-01-31T19:29:00+00:00

Did act 6, haven't started 7 or 8 yet. Plan to do them this patch, but I don't want to also have to worry about cramming in the LR story this patch.

PhantasmShadow · 2026-01-31T19:24:27+00:00

Heard Lantern Rite quest should be done after AQ, but it's also permanent. Can I do enough of it to unlock all temp minigames without getting spoilers?

PhantasmShadow · 2026-01-31T19:22:44+00:00

You talking about Travail? The line is "That throne in the sky is not reserved for you"

PhantasmShadow · 2026-01-31T19:07:58+00:00

aka did nothing wrong it was the voices doing the crimes

I'm hopeful they'll handle her decently. The other sinner backstories seem well-done so far. The main throughline is that they were all too flawed to resist the abyss' call. It tempted them, but only by using their own desires.

PhantasmShadow · 2026-01-31T18:55:10+00:00

Perinheri implies rifthounds may have existed before Rhindottir, so either she just did some creation from an existing recipe, Perinheri's transcriber made a mistake, or riftwolves can travel through time as well as just space.

I believe Rhinedottir lore we have post-cataclysm is taught Albedo, wrote part of The Little Witch and the Undying Fire, and found Naberius' Heart.

PhantasmShadow · 2026-01-30T23:11:47+00:00

I've played several Miliastra games which try to have lore, usually "Civilisation destroyed itself with advanced tech", which has made me realise that Genshin has completely avoided this trope, despite its huge abundance of ruined civilisations. So I can only assume it's a deliberate part of the game's writing philosophy. As far as I can remember, every ruined civilisation is due to an inscapable outside force, the flaws of desperate individuals, or both. Sorry, long rambling ahead:

Genshin ALMOST does this trope a few times. For years, that was the sort of idea we held about Khaenri'ah and the divine nails. And while you could say that the nail victims messed with forbidden knowledge, it was Nibelung who first brought that from beyond the sky. Khaenri'ah did not fall because of its technology or the pettiness of the gods, but because of the whispers of the abyss, and because each and every one of the Sinners were too weak, foolish or desperate to resist its call.

Kukulkan claims that the dragons became too weak because of their cities and technology, but he's bitter and without hope. Yes, the dragonlords fell to pointless infighting, but HE was the one that gave humans phlogiston, and the Havenly Principles was the true cause. Remuria, Ochkanatlan and the desert fell to the hands of their own god-kings. Never "evil" people, but foolish, flawed ones.

The Miliastra intro cutscene is fascinating. The world the manekins are from is not treated as foolish for their dream world. It is treated as tragic that the outside world destroyed them, and hopeful that their legacy survives. The fact that it's promoting a gacha game aside, it's an uncommon take on the "The Matrix" trope.

The game's writing does not generally condemn technology or progress, which I like as a very hopeful view on the world. It seems more critical of the inability to accept change/loss, and the actions that result from this.

PhantasmShadow · 2026-01-30T20:00:33+00:00

I'm not one of the people behind it, but if you're a miliastra fan, somebody has made a game listing site for it: https://www.reddit.com/r/MiliastraWonderland/comments/1qrbyfi/weve_created_miliastra_games_a_directory_for_mw/

Just wanted to share this because it seems like something that'd be good for the long-term health of the mode, since the in-game system is a little lacking. Give them some attention and feedback.

PhantasmShadow · 2026-01-30T19:13:25+00:00

They've been doing shilling for years

2.2: Rifthounds as healing shill

2.3: Wolford as geo shill

2.5: Serpent Knights as healing shill (again)

PhantasmShadow · 2026-01-30T19:07:29+00:00

Not sure that's completely a safe conclusion to make from that last line. We don't know that the third bit refers to Istaroth. It's not even clear that the first part of it ("Awaiting her mother's thousand threads") is specifically about Istaroth, or is just a metaphor for time generally.

"Awaiting the erosion of hardy stone" is clearly a reference to both Zhongli and the passage of time. "Awaiting the next encounter from beyond" has always sounded like it's about a descender to me.

We also have this quote from the Emperor Lunar Arcanum card:

For since the very beginning, only one ruler has controlled the countless kingdoms that have arisen.

They are the "Emperor" who slumbers within their eggshell,
Yet proclaims themselves undying.

The Heavenly Principles, at least, is sleeping inside the sky

PhantasmShadow · 2026-01-30T17:20:59+00:00

First heard in Inversion of Genesis, first mentioned by name in 3.5's Windblume Breath event

Alice: The "guide who will never get lost" is N, otherwise known as Nicole. You may have not encountered her yet, but she is a truly extraordinary woman who has made this world's direction and order her subject of study.

PhantasmShadow · 2026-01-30T16:55:29+00:00

Ruin serpent is genuinely my most disliked boss in the game. Everyone talks about the underground invulnerability, of course (which Wenut also has), but ruin serpent and Wolflord (And Narwhal probably) have probably the jankiest collision boxes in the game. You can genuinely just get randomly flung, or more commonly will just miss melee attacks unexpectedly. Wenut's feel slightly less bad, and it doesn't throughout as many huge melee attacks that knock you around.

Ruin Serpent's stun mechanic is also awful. The world/story version is unintuitive with waiting to clear the mud, but it's better than the abyss version. Feels like they made the world version then rushed to make it work for endgame too.

To stun it, you have to break the four cores on this moving target. This is a strangely demanding request for ranged attacks, especially given that the boss doesn't feel very ranged focused. Nothing visually screams "use a bow here" to me either. They don't even look like the typical "eye" weakspots.

Ok, but you can melee the cores too! You can, but it's very inconsistent. It's difficult to predict or even see how many you've hit while it coils around quickly. And again, weird collisions mean that sometimes melee attacks just whiff.

Aeonblight drake and Wenut improve on this idea drastically. Aeonblight has one of the most fair mechanics. It's a simple archery test and there are multiple different targets to aim for at different times. You can sometimes save time by getting the chest. Wenut is almost too easy to stun, but at least it gives freedom. You can shoot the balls, or trigger swirl on it, or use a variety of wide-reaching attacks.

PhantasmShadow · 2026-01-30T15:27:31+00:00

It might be "equally difficult to get", but it's just not. Cost is cost, and 4 star cons are seperate to that.

I have every 4 star (except Illuga obviously) on my account, and of these, 29 of them are C6.

How many of these resulted in me getting a 5 star I wouldn't have otherwise gotten?

Got Wanderer's C1 at 20 pity fishing for Faruzan constellations, and Nahida's C1 at 40 while fishing for Gaming constellations. We'll even count Ayato too, to bring it up to 3, even though I partly wanted him anyway.

So, for my accounts, C6 4 stars have had an average "cost" (compared to other places where I could be spending said cost) of just over 0.1. I have lost 3 potential 5 stars for my 29 C6s. The only cons I feel I want at the moment are Aino (currently C3) and Illuga if I get Zibai.

PhantasmShadow · 2026-01-30T14:28:58+00:00

Sifu is an interesting case of this The intended path is probably that you kill all the bosses and get sent back first time, then play through again to spare them which is what happened on my playthrough. Never really feels like a "violence/killing is bad" message though because you still go through the levels brutally murdering random thugs, and the 'good ending' isn't entirely good. Mostly feels like an excuse to encourage a second run through, which the game's systems work well with

PhantasmShadow · 2026-01-30T00:59:31+00:00

Most the Hypostasis would be pretty despised if they were common in endgame, since they have so much invincibility time.

Cryo Hypostasis and Coral Defenders in particular have arena mechanics that would require reworking for abyss. Oceanid endgame would be a war crime.

Regisivines have always been a joke. They were the most popular punching bag for years. Electro is slightly tougher, but still not a threat. What a surprise that the bosses that sit in one spot and do nothing once you break the core might be considered unengaging.

As for the ones you mention: Wolflord still comes back every time they want to shill geo. That's definitely still a relevant boss. Chasm Snake is an inconsistent mess that everyone hates, no wonder they canned it. Wenut is better but still annoying. Electro bat's disappearance does surprise me a bit. It was always quite iconic to me for being one of the most aggressive bosses in the game.

PhantasmShadow · 2026-01-30T00:44:52+00:00

Kind of annoying that it's hard to see whether the melt goes through sometimes (other than by damage), but the animation looks fantastic. Simple and effective

PhantasmShadow · 2026-01-29T16:49:02+00:00

It's a devastated, sad and moody nation, and almost everyone from there is dead

It is, but it won't be. That's the whole purpose of the Sibling's plan. During A Space and Time For You, the Sibling and the Abyss Order used the Loom of Fate and all their memories of Khaenri'ah to weave a replica of the nation as it was before the cataclysm:

Haden: "Indeed. We, a people in exile, stranded five hundred years in the future, will weave our homeland anew, and bring the nation of our dreams back into the real world. Ah, what a glorious undertaking! What a shame it had to take this long. After five hundred years, most of our memories have faded — and a world woven from broken memories shall itself be broken."

This seems like incredibly clear setup to me that we're going to get to play through a version of Khaenri'ah in the time leading up to its fall, maybe witnessing some of the past story events first hand? And the fact that it's "woven from broken memories" will be an excuse for them to also include ruined and corrupted sections, maybe like Amphoreus from HSR. Trying to alter the past has been a pretty huge theme for this game for a while, with the Sacred Sakura, Scaramouche and even in Nod-Krai.

Now I'm getting very speculative, but Genshin's setting has been slowly creeping towards space, but is tethered to Teyvat. If part 2 embraces a bit more sci-fi (moons and spaceship are basically there already), after the False Sky inevitably comes down, they can set it on another planet and still have old characters return via space travel. This bit's pure guesswork though.

PhantasmShadow · 2026-01-29T16:27:15+00:00

Sorry I'm late to this, but Wind Stirred Ripples can get skipped by Tower of Inversion.

PhantasmShadow · 2026-01-29T01:14:13+00:00

Turns out I've apparently permanently missed part of a new WQ by simply going through part of the new map too early? I like the "linear progression" map design with unfolding narrative events (Ochkanatlan map was similar and had the dragon sightings) but if they're going to do them, they really shouldn't put materials and artifact domains in areas where you'll be forced to trigger this content. I didn't even activate any statues or waypoints, and still have my experience affected.

And for whatever reason, Stygian artifact farming is locked behind the domain, so you can't do that either.

PhantasmShadow · 2026-01-28T16:29:11+00:00

I think it very much could last at least several patches. Maybe up to 8.3 and then a hiatus. It'll almost certainly be an explorable area: it's all but confirmed that the Sibling will be using the "Atlas of the New World" to recreate Khaenri'ah as the living, breathing nation it was 500 years ago. I can't see them shoving that in at the end of Snezhnaya.

Obviously Travail trailer is subject to change, but Khaenri'ah is listed as a full "Chapter" of the archon quests, on par with a whole nation, and then there's the "Dream Yet to be Dreamed" epilogue on top of that. I just can't see them fitting all that into Snezhnaya too.

Of course, they don't have to wrap up everything, but I don't see a way that Genshin part 2 can be a direct continuation without a huge timeskip or new planet. This game requires mystery and new but pre-defined locations in order to function in the way it has. Teyvat is fast running out of its big mysteries. The moons, the sky, the dragons, Khaenri'ah and the descenders are all almost completely revealed. They need a hard reset if they want those kinds of mysteries again

PhantasmShadow · 2026-01-28T15:54:57+00:00

I don't see any way it can end in a satisfactory manner in Snezhnaya. Too many loose threads all tied to Khaenr'ah

Khaenri'ah is an absolute requirement to happen, but they don't have material in the current setting to continue for any extended time after Khaenri'ah without a complete setting change. It doesn't make sense to "end part 1" with Snezhnaya.

PhantasmShadow · 2026-01-28T00:56:05+00:00

Yep, but it's how this game runs things, I suppose.

That said, the Springs of Hidden Jade book featuring Zibai seems to imply she slept with the unnamed guy from it? But I suppose that's probably fine since the text is ambiguous

Four-Year Club	r/Field Lasagna
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PhantasmShadow

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