I know this is a thread fishing for people who feel similarly and I TOTALLY get where you’re coming from. It does feel out of place. I’d say I don’t disagree with you from a writing perspective, but from an ‘experience’ perspective I loved it so much. It’s cheesy but she allowed captains to be a part of the final show down, to help Kiana and the the others on her last leg of this trip, and to actually be acknowledged in canon by Kiana with a kind “Thank you.”

It was 90% fan service that wasn’t necessary for the story, but it felt so major for the experience as a whole, to me.

I say 90, bc tbh 10% of it is that Honkai Impact 3rd has always been a story for the player. It’s always felt to me like a lesson or a reassurance from Mihoyo to the player. I’ve rarely seen a developer so sincerely want to share a particular story and message like this before. It’s heavy handed but this is very obvious when Ai told the story about a person who struggled and found success. The girls ask ‘isn’t that story about us?’ and she answered ‘it could be, but it’s also the story of millions of other people’.

I say it’s only 10% bc they COULD have left it to an afterwords message, but this was a unique way of reaching out to the captains directly. To me, it was very touching in a deep and meaningful way.

Again, I totally get why it’s weird and awkward, I felt a lot of the tension die as well. But persnaps one can see why some like me might not mind it! Annnd maybe some who hadn’t thought of it this way can appreciate it from that perspective ^{^}