Khora’s Weird New Deluxe Skin

What is it with me and my favourite frames getting… weird skins? My favourite frame, Volt, never got a deluxe skin, and instead got a weird “Proto-but-not-proto” skin. And now, my second favourite frame, Khora, has got a weird skin of her own. The Khora Urushu skin is… kinda weird. It’s definitely a Khora skin, the problem here isn’t like Ember and her weird, bird-like deluxe skin. But something feels off about it.

It’s cool but… not cool?

I mean, at first glance, the Urushu skin looks amazing. Khora gains this cool, geisha-like look, complete with thorny flowers and an elegant hairdo. I would definitely say that the skin is definitely Khora. You look at Urushu and you can IMMEDIATELY tell that the skin is for Khora. Even without her companion Venari.

But the more you look at the Urushu skin, the more it seems to… fall apart? While the overall look is badass, the details seem to make the skin fall apart. Her legs seem oddly shaped, her head seems too busy, the tails kinda dangle all over the place, her feet seem small. And, weirdest of all, Khora seems to have a cage over both her butt cheeks. Sure, it’s a nice butt, but why the cage? And why does it have a weird sheen to it?

The animation set is what throws me off most.

When it comes to animation sets, I’m kinda fussy, and both Urushu animation sets just don’t do it for me. They have what I like to call “the Inaros agile effect”. There’s a little too much swaying and moving around.

But Khora’s Urushu set also stands weirdly cock-legged. As if she’s trying far too hard to look posh and elegant. The agile set looks drunk and trying too hard, while the noble skin looks twisted and trying too hard.

Okay, sure, it’s nice to have a cool idle animation where Khora draws her whip. That’s nice, that looks badass and very Khora-y. The whip also works on non-Khora frames, unlike the Titania and Harrow animation sets. But most of the time, you don’t see the fancy whip animation, you see Khora holding her weapons in a vaguely posh, drunken way and trying too hard.

It does come with a lot of nice stuff though.

Well, the Urushu collection comes with a Kavat skin that also works on Venari, and a Blade and Whip skin. But unlike Khora herself, these items seem to fit in way, way better. The whip skin totally looks like it could be part of Kohra, and the Kavat and Venari skins are pretty damn nice. Okay, sure, you can’t wear armour with them or anything, but they do definitely look like forest life you’d actually see in the forests of Earth.

At least we’re not Zephyr players.

I suppose at least Khora HAS a deluxe skin with some nice deluxe features. Zephyr really doesn’t. She has a nice prime and an immortal skin, but no deluxe and somewhat limited Tennogen options. Really, it’s getting beyond a joke now, how long Zephyr players have been waiting for a deluxe skin. The ones that were teased in the past just never came to fruition.

Oh well. At least the Khora Urushu skin isn’t awful. It’s definitely passable, but it still looks a bit weird and off in some ways…