Games worth discovering

A Fantastic "Gaccha" Game

3K View2024-03-27

Honkai: Star Rail

9.1

Action RPGActionTurn-basedRPGAdventureOpen WorldAnimeEditors' Choice

Get

Honkai Star Rail is a turn based gaccha game developed by Hoyoverse who I am sure your aware of as the developers of Genshin Impact and Honkai Impact. Much like it's predecessor, Honkai Star Rail also released to critical acclaim and was near impossible to avoid from advertisements to friends talking about it all the time. Naturally I also tried the game when it launched but I didn't stick around with it for long.

However, I recently decided to revisit the game when patch 2.0 dropped. I made a detailed post delving into my returning player's experience which you can check out if your interested.

Either way here's what I liked and have bit of a nitpick with.

What I liked:

+ Story & Lore

+ Turn based combat

+ Semi-Open World exploration

+ Character Designs

+ Voice Acting

+ Presentation

+ Music and sound design

The story of Honkai Star Rail really starts off strong unlike the majority of gaccha games that likes to take it slow. Your thrown into the heat of it from the very start and introduced to the core group that you will be traveling with called the "Nameless". The "Nameless" are "TrailBlazers" traveling and exploring the universe on (what appears to be) a magic space train while following the path of an Aeon called "Akivili". If you haven't guessed it already, this game is more Sci-Fi than Fantasy but beings and concepts like the "Paths of Aeons" does add an interesting element of Fantasy into the mix. If you find these concepts to be confusing at first, I recommend cruising along the main story as they actually do a really good job of steadily establishing the underlining lore and world building (in this case I guess universe building) as you progress the main story and explore new planets.

Character designs in Honkai Star Rail is just 10/10. One thing I want to point out is that the designs don't stick out too much when next to an random NPC in the area. The designs feel fitting for what's based on their culture or profession and they have really managed to strike a nice balance between (gaccha) appeal and a sort of grounded realism within the world of Honkai Star Rail.

Honestly, I like that Honkai Star Rail is Semi-Open world instead of fully Open World. While it does make for a more on-rail exploration experience, I find it to be more enjoyable as a "gaccha game". I had fun cruising through these meticulously hand-crafted semi-open world sections while engaging with the optional exploration puzzles and collectables in each level.

The turn based combat system in comparison to others in it's genre is actually pretty basic. Each character falls under a specific class, damage element and has a basic attack, 1 skill and 1 ultimate. While there are certain characters with talents that enhances their basic attack, skill or ultimate, it doesn't get that much deeper honestly. But this is not really a con as I see it. As a "gaccha" game the turn based combat is enjoyable and it really helps that the animations for literally everything is just gorgeous and top quality. Enemies do have elemental weaknesses which you can make use of through the "break effect". When you do damage to an enemy in accordance to their elemental weakness they take break damage in addition to losing HP. When the break bar is broken, they will received huge damage and also receive a certain crowd control based on the element that broke their defense. Ultimately it is serviceable and extremely appealing.

Presentation of it's story (particularly the main story) is phenomenal. Voice acting is perfect especially the EN VAs. This is one of the few gaccha game that I play with the EN VA instead of JP VA cux there isn't any discrepancy when it comes to the quality of it. The game also has alot more cinematics than I ever thought it would and they all look amazing!

On a quick note, I want to mention I love that the main character already has 100x more voiced dialogue than literally any other main protagonist in other gaccha games. Sound designs for the skills and different environmental effects are top tier and the music is another 10/10. No doubt you have heard of the song "Wildfire". Absolute BANGERS!

Also previous events with story that you might have missed are all available to play whenever you want!

Few Nitpicks

The gaccha in this game is literally the same as Genshin Impact. There is a 0.6% chance to get a 5 star character or Light Cone (weapon) with 90 hard pity in addition to a 50/50. If you lose the 50/50 the next 5 star is guaranteed to be the featured character or Light Cone but this mean if you go all the way to 90 pulls and lose the 50/50, you might potentially need to do yet another 90 pulls to get the character or Light Cone you want. That's in total 180 pulls to guarantee something you want. I would talk more about how many free gaccha currency you get on a monthly basis but as a returning player I need to keep playing to get a better idea of it. Ultimately, as a F2P you will have to skip and decisively decide on what your pulling. Oh and yes, there is a character banner and a weapon banner, both with the same pity system.... (thankfully there are some very good F2P options when it comes to the Light Cones)

The grind can also be pretty brutal. After you get a character you need to level them, ascend, level up traces (skills) and slap relics on them (the gear system). All of this requires numerous amounts of resources and materials of different rarity. I go more in-depth about this in my returning player's experience post so I won't bore you with the full details. Just know that it is a heavy grind especially when dealing with all the RNG stats involved in the relics.

(On a side note, taking advantage of elemental weakness is pretty important to the point if your lacking characters that deal that elemental damage, it might feel like your locked out of content. This is just another inherent problem of it being a gaccha game but the game does provide lots of free 4 star characters throughout it's playthrough)

Despite those few nitpicks, I highly recommend Honkai Star Rail. If you can get behind the grind, this is a very comfy Turn Based gaccha game with phenomenal AAA production quality.