Games worth discovering

Honkai: Star Rail - A non-destructive-quick-straight to-the-point-unbiased Review.

1K View2024-07-28

After witnessing the atrocity that most reviews for these kind of games are, I've decided to put-out an unbiased review so that the folk out there that can't stand this toxic community can read a paragraph without having a seizure thanks to the nonsense most of these have.

Skip to the end for the summary if you don't wanna read, I don't wanna waste your time.

🔋Performance: I know what most of you wanna know, so let's get to it. My phone is pretty trash, I got this from a Chinese bargain sale and it's like a mid range phone, bad processor, 8 GB expandable RAM (which we all now it's the equal of like 4 of RAM). Somehow it runs the game at 25/30 fps with really low graphics, the game still looks great at low graphics so I have no problem with that. The battery consumption is actually kinda minimal. If your phone's as thrashy as mine, it will probably run the game, just don't expect 60 fps at max setting, stop having delusional expectations when our phones can barely run Shadow Fight 3.

📖 Storyline (Without spoilers): I'm getting this one out of the way in seconds since it usually depends on what the player considers a good story. Now, *in my opinion,* the story's pretty decent, it's interesting and even though I wasn't sold at first, the world-building (this referring to the construction of this imaginary world, its universe, its culture, and what makes sense inside of it) sold me, I'm a sucker for games that give you a deep dive inside what has happened, what has been happening, the why and the how, I like that, reminds me of The Elder Scrolls. And just like those games you can find out more by reading some books or word of mouth.

The dialogue is quite clever, doesn't feel forced and some dialogue options are pretty funny, ngl. You can literally act like a goofball for entire conversations.

Now, this sounds good to me, I like me an extensive story that's easy to digest, but not everyone might, a bit more on that later.

🎮 Gameplay: Cutting right to the chase, the gameplay is solid enough to not get boring after the third battle, just like your average turn-based JRPG but with some notable differences, and the best way to point these out is with a small comparation with another game; in this case the Persona series.

In the Persona series we have a great set of skills that usually add up to 6 - 7, we can attack, we can guard ourselves, use items mid-battle that can help us with healing, dealing damage, deflecting, defending, reviving and even trying to flee.

Meanwhile in Star Rail we have only 1 attack, 2 skills, 1 ultimate, we can't guard ourselves or use any items in the middle of combat.

This is due to the game's target demographic being a casual audience. To achieve this goal, the gameplay was simplified, which is why there's an "Auto" button. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of this simplification as it takes away depth from the game.

It takes away that moment where you have to stop and really think about your next move from the get-go, a dilemma that goes something like: “Should I guard or tank through the damage so I can buff my teammate and try to heal myself in the next turn? Can I survive that hit? Should I sacrifice my teammate to revive the other? Should I take this enemy out since it's the one dealing the most damage or should I take out the one that keeps healing itself?”, and not only that but your average turn-based JRPG isn't that hard to understand either, you can get the gist of it pretty quickly, some even say that Persona 5 is pretty good for casual gamers so I don't get the simplification.

Then again, the gameplay isn't ruined by this and is kept entertaining by the quickly increasing difficulty and smoothness: You see an enemy, you're told what the enemy's weakness is, you exploit the weakness but it doesn't guarantee an instant win, which is good, this keeps you engaged, the dilemma now reduced to: "Should I defend myself or my teammate? Should I attack that enemy or the other?” simple, but still a crucial decision making the difference between being defeated and being victorious.

Now that you know the difference, now you understand why there's a lot of people criticizing the gameplay and the fact that it might be seen as too easy for an JRPG. But hey, this is mobile gaming, if you're surprised a mobile game it's simplified then please don't take a look at how these games are monetized, you might have an aneurysm.

But this also makes me question, why would you aim for a casual audience with a story that isn't that casual at all? Oh, well.

🕹️ Controls: Pretty simple. In combat you have like two buttons and in free-roam you have three but with a joystick.

🎨 Graphics: Look, this game is truly gorgeous, even with graphical settings at a minimum I can appreciate the work that has gone into its art style, the environments, characters, lighting and even something simple as the UI.

🎵 Sound: Good OST, good sound effects, sadly voice lines are repeated a bit too often in combat, voice acting is pretty good (at least in Japanese and English), there wasn't a time where a place felt devoid of sound.

💴 Gacha: I don't know, I don't like to engage in the Gacha of these games because I don't like to spend money. I break an arm and I'm more likely to break it back into place rather than going to a hospital. So that's for you to judge, maybe ask some of the gambling addicts that pray for their pulls.

SUMMARY: Performance's decent enough as long as you aren't trying to play this on your Blackberry. Interesting story. Solid gameplay that lacks depth since it's aimed towards a casual audience. Controls are simple. Graphics are fantastic. Music is good. Voice Acting is decent. Gacha? Dude, save your money or something.

I'd say 8.0/10 but you can take pictures of the cleavage of all female characters so that's a 10/10 Game of the year best seller platinum hits editor's choice

That's about it. じゃね。