Honkai: Star Rail’s Aetherium Wars is unapologetically copying Pokémon—and it’s hilarious

As you begin your journey through Honkai: Star Rail’s Aetherium Wars event, you’ll probably feel like something is slightly familiar, and this feeling will only grow as you progress further into the event.

Aetherium Wars starts off as a tournament that feels slightly reminiscent of Pokémon, but it eventually becomes a full-blown copy of the iconic franchise. And it is absolutely intentional because the references are so obvious and hilarious that even someone with only a general knowledge of Pokémon like me can recognize what’s happening.

This Honkai: Star Rail event shamelessly parodies Pokémon, and it comes across as one big love letter to it.

There are the more obvious nods like the Aether Spirits system where you need to fight each creature before you can obtain it or the battle system that places you against progressively tougher opponents as you work your way to becoming the champion. But there are also some more subtle references like the two IPC guards that mimic the behavior of Team Rocket as they follow you everywhere attempting to steal your Warp Trotter, just like the Pokémon duo do with Pikachu, only to lose to you every single time.

The IPC duo actually sounds so identical to the real Team Rocket that players are convinced it’s the actual voice actors, but the devs haven’t revealed who is behind the voice of these villains just yet. Regardless of whether or not this is the case, these voice actors certainly did their best impersonation of the iconic duo.

You have to work your way through Victory Zones, and any time another player sees you, a comical exclamation point appears above their head, they say some kind of strange one-liner, and combat commences. The dialogue you hear from other competitors is almost always extremely goofy and over the top, and it’s also very clearly Honkai: Star Rail exaggerating the Pokémon process.

The Trailblazer tells their Warp Trotter to use Tackle at one point, which is a very common Pokémon move. A mysterious character named Giovanni also acts as your guide for the entire event, which seems to be yet another pretty obvious reference to the Pokémon character of the same name.

Every Aether Spirit you come across is caught in an Aether Coin, which acts exactly the same as a Poké Ball. And once you’ve caught all of the available Aether Spirits by tackling all of the Victory Zones, you’re rewarded with perhaps the most obvious nod of all, which is the “Gotta Catch ‘Em All” achievement.

There’s even a mostly useless Aether Spirit called the Entranced Ingenium: Illumination Dragonfish with an Ultimate move that does absolutely nothing as the creature charges up to set off a useless firework. Every time you use this move, you literally get a pop-up saying that it did “absolutely nothing,” so this creature seems to be a pretty spot-on reference to Magikarp.

Aetherium Wars is a hilarious love letter to Pokémon, and players are already praising it as Honkai: Star Rail’s best event yet. It’s clear a lot of thought and attention to detail went into this tournament, so regardless of whether or not you’re a Pokémon fan, this is one event you don’t want to miss.