Gameplay, Story, Characters, Music, this game has got it all. I understand that people don't like gacha but I've already sold my soul to Nanook at this point. I will always love this game.
Gacha games are always a hard sell because they are grindy, time gated, and really just want you for your money. Despite such gold digger status, I genuinely do think that Honkai Star Rail is a gacha game that has used the past games of the HoYoverse to give a compelling argument for such a live service game that keeps updating and growing. While there certainly is some problems with Star Rail's delivery, and potential down the road; ultimately Honkai: Star Rail provides a solid answer to a space adventure RPG.
Perhaps the biggest selling point of Honkai Star Rail is just how big it can get, and how much can easily be added without giving much disturbance to what most gacha games need for an overarching story. Not to say there isn't an overarching story, but the real point of interest is exploring new planets, cultures, and developing the world of Star Rail over any actual take down of a big bad. This is something that Star Rail even has over such mammoth games like Starfield, No Man Sky, and Fate Grand Order. There is legitimately a massive amount of text, voice overs, and side missions that would make even the Mass Effect series blush. To say that Star Rail is a massive game is honestly an understatement at this point, already rivaling the 1st two arcs of Fate Grand Order in terms of size, as of May 2024. The first two main areas, Herta Space Station & Belobog, are a great start to the game, and impressed me with how much lore and content there was initially to began with. Belobog even feeling more like it's very own game when compared to the Herta Space Station opening.
Sadly, due to how big Star Rail can be, and how it utilizes both it's time, upgrade, and promotion currencies this makes the game a massive time sink. There is just something blatantly scummy and cruel about how Star Rail's combat works, and how the progression of the Equilibrium (difficulty) gets in Star Rail that rubs me the wrong way. See combat in Star Rail is pretty lax for the most part as long as you have the correct affinities to take down enemy weaknesses. In a lot of ways, both Fate Grand Order and Star Rail have similar combat prep and style. Use the enemy weaknesses while having characters equipped with proper light cones (Craft Essences) and hopefully be at a good skill level to make the battle easy to win. Where FGO and Star Rail differ however is that Light Cones are a bigger part to the stat equation, there is a mildly higher character growth when summoned from the gacha (6 compared to FGO's 5), and leveling up costing far more at the higher levels compared to FGOs requirement to fully upgrade a servant. This makes leveling up all the way far more difficult, and nearly a week endeavor just to get a character to the final level. This isn't accounting for other parts in Star Rail's character system like the fully upgraded light cones, skills, or relics that you can use. Plus on top of all this the game's promotional currency gets equally pushed out because you keep using it upgrade characters abilities/skills/levels/light cones. It's kinda insane how much time and effort it takes to fully invest into one character in Star Rail, let alone 20 of them, which the game honestly intends for you to do with some of it's higher required side content. So if you mess up like I did, and upgrade too fast on your equilibrium (difficulty) you end up being locked out of both story and side content till you can grind the rest to enjoy the game again.
Really the only thing I can say about Honkai Star Rail is that you'll be investing a lot of time in it if you want to experience it. For some that can be a deterrent, but for others this may be a blessing. While a vast majority of your time will be spent grinding/ leveling up your characters and equipment; the game does have proper story, characterization, lore, world building, and some pretty cool animations to boot. It really is just a cool role playing space adventure that keeps making cooler and interesting characters so you can spend money on, and frankly I like that a lot more compared to something like skins. It's still a scummy practice, but at least there is some substance behind that. If you can tolerate that, and a bit of grinding, I absolutely recommend Honkai Star Rail.
Perhaps the biggest selling point of Honkai Star Rail is just how big it can get, and how much can easily be added without giving much disturbance to what most gacha games need for an overarching story. Not to say there isn't an overarching story, but the real point of interest is exploring new planets, cultures, and developing the world of Star Rail over any actual take down of a big bad. This is something that Star Rail even has over such mammoth games like Starfield, No Man Sky, and Fate Grand Order. There is legitimately a massive amount of text, voice overs, and side missions that would make even the Mass Effect series blush. To say that Star Rail is a massive game is honestly an understatement at this point, already rivaling the 1st two arcs of Fate Grand Order in terms of size, as of May 2024. The first two main areas, Herta Space Station & Belobog, are a great start to the game, and impressed me with how much lore and content there was initially to began with. Belobog even feeling more like it's very own game when compared to the Herta Space Station opening.
Sadly, due to how big Star Rail can be, and how it utilizes both it's time, upgrade, and promotion currencies this makes the game a massive time sink. There is just something blatantly scummy and cruel about how Star Rail's combat works, and how the progression of the Equilibrium (difficulty) gets in Star Rail that rubs me the wrong way. See combat in Star Rail is pretty lax for the most part as long as you have the correct affinities to take down enemy weaknesses. In a lot of ways, both Fate Grand Order and Star Rail have similar combat prep and style. Use the enemy weaknesses while having characters equipped with proper light cones (Craft Essences) and hopefully be at a good skill level to make the battle easy to win. Where FGO and Star Rail differ however is that Light Cones are a bigger part to the stat equation, there is a mildly higher character growth when summoned from the gacha (6 compared to FGO's 5), and leveling up costing far more at the higher levels compared to FGOs requirement to fully upgrade a servant. This makes leveling up all the way far more difficult, and nearly a week endeavor just to get a character to the final level. This isn't accounting for other parts in Star Rail's character system like the fully upgraded light cones, skills, or relics that you can use. Plus on top of all this the game's promotional currency gets equally pushed out because you keep using it upgrade characters abilities/skills/levels/light cones. It's kinda insane how much time and effort it takes to fully invest into one character in Star Rail, let alone 20 of them, which the game honestly intends for you to do with some of it's higher required side content. So if you mess up like I did, and upgrade too fast on your equilibrium (difficulty) you end up being locked out of both story and side content till you can grind the rest to enjoy the game again.
Really the only thing I can say about Honkai Star Rail is that you'll be investing a lot of time in it if you want to experience it. For some that can be a deterrent, but for others this may be a blessing. While a vast majority of your time will be spent grinding/ leveling up your characters and equipment; the game does have proper story, characterization, lore, world building, and some pretty cool animations to boot. It really is just a cool role playing space adventure that keeps making cooler and interesting characters so you can spend money on, and frankly I like that a lot more compared to something like skins. It's still a scummy practice, but at least there is some substance behind that. If you can tolerate that, and a bit of grinding, I absolutely recommend Honkai Star Rail.
It's a gacha, so be careful, but with that being said, this is honestly a pretty good game. The gameplay is simple but compelling, a turn based RPG that doesn't fall in the typical mobile grind thanks to a linear plot and some good designed bosses, while also being easy enough to play on the go. The story I played (Jarilo VI + a couple side quests) was surprisingly deep even if I don't like how it ends, the characters are easy to like thanks to a good writing/voice acting and a couple of them have optional content that you may like more than the main plot (Shout out to Pascal). Honestly the only problems are the ones tied to the genre, microtransactions, battle passes, resources, etc. As a result, the game demands a lot of your time and that's why I stop playing it, not because I get bored, but because I want to play other things. So again, great game, but be careful
Ai mano jogo animer véi
I remember giving this a chance and having fun. I lost my account hence the score. Game is fine but having to start from zero is a pain because of how long the early game is. Maybe another day.
DOCTOR YOU'RE HUGE
this game is great. story, characters, the gacha. i feel like im trapped and am forced to play it. someone send help
i only played this cause of my gf I don't like these types of games but guess the graphics are nice
kafka :heart_eyes:
I want to marry Topaz
This review contains spoilers
I’ll keep this one short as well since it’s a gacha. Basically, it’s good, but in the end, it’s a gacha. I can’t really recommend it unless you know how gachas work and what you’re getting into. It encourages gambling habits, and you should not play this if you do not have self control with your money. If you accept that though, there’s a lot to like here.
So, it’s turn-based. There’s four characters in a party, and each member can either use a basic attack to regen a skill point, use a skill point to, well, use a skill, or use an ultimate if they’ve accumulated enough energy. It doesn’t seem like a particularly deep or engaging system, but I’ve been impressed by the kits they’ve put out so far with said system, so I don’t hold that against them. It’s complex enough to not be mind-numbingly boring, but also simple enough to where you aren’t thinking super hard about what you’re going to do each turn. Generally, I’m fine with turn-based combat. I don’t love it, but unless the system really sucks, I accept it. In this case though, the turn-based system is amazing simply because I can play the game very easily on my phone. I never played Genshin because I didn’t like using a controller with it, and I didn’t want to play an action game on my phone. But with Star Rail, I can super easily log in every day to do my dailies and stuff, and the gameplay doesn’t suffer at all. If I only had this installed on my computer, I would have dropped it already. Hoyoverse made a really smart call here I think, to get people like me to play the game.
The story and characters are also an unexpected positive. I was not expecting to get invested in the story of a gacha game, but here we are. The main character also has a lot of personality, which I enjoy. Their dialogue options do not really affect anything at all, but the way they interact with the world (like trash cans and stuff) and some of the snark and naivete that is displayed in their dialogue choices are great, even if they do not have any effect on the story. I know that most of these voice lines are not translated one to one from the Chinese, but the localization team did an amazing job of giving the writing its own unique charm in English. Too often I see people hating localization teams for not doing literal translations of every single line, but translating to English, especially from Chinese or Japanese is not so simple. A lot of terms and ideas don’t translate so smoothly. So, major props to whoever did the English localization.
The story so far is also remarkably serviceable, and sometimes it’s even good. What an endorsement, right? Hoyoverse does a good job of getting multiple characters involved in the story, so that you have emotional incentive to try and roll for them. I’m actually writing this much later than the posted date (8/31, 1.3 just launched, currently waiting for Topaz), and so far I’ve gotten almost every character I’ve wanted and I haven’t lost any main banner 50/50s. I have Bronya, Gepard, Silver Wolf, Luocha E1, Kafka, and Blade. Five 50/50s in a row, plus the two best standard banner characters. I’m aware I’ve gotten insanely lucky, but I do think the game is definitely playable as an F2P. I’m not exactly F2P (I buy the daily express ticket and sometimes the battle pass), but I’m close to it, and my team is getting stronger and stronger to the point where I think I can do MoC 10 soon. So if you want to play as an F2P, jump right in - just be aware you’re gonna have to save with those diamond hands.
Getting longer than anticipated, so I’m just gonna say - if you were looking for a fun gacha with a decent story to play on your phone, you have my wholehearted recommendation for Honkai Star Rail.
So, it’s turn-based. There’s four characters in a party, and each member can either use a basic attack to regen a skill point, use a skill point to, well, use a skill, or use an ultimate if they’ve accumulated enough energy. It doesn’t seem like a particularly deep or engaging system, but I’ve been impressed by the kits they’ve put out so far with said system, so I don’t hold that against them. It’s complex enough to not be mind-numbingly boring, but also simple enough to where you aren’t thinking super hard about what you’re going to do each turn. Generally, I’m fine with turn-based combat. I don’t love it, but unless the system really sucks, I accept it. In this case though, the turn-based system is amazing simply because I can play the game very easily on my phone. I never played Genshin because I didn’t like using a controller with it, and I didn’t want to play an action game on my phone. But with Star Rail, I can super easily log in every day to do my dailies and stuff, and the gameplay doesn’t suffer at all. If I only had this installed on my computer, I would have dropped it already. Hoyoverse made a really smart call here I think, to get people like me to play the game.
The story and characters are also an unexpected positive. I was not expecting to get invested in the story of a gacha game, but here we are. The main character also has a lot of personality, which I enjoy. Their dialogue options do not really affect anything at all, but the way they interact with the world (like trash cans and stuff) and some of the snark and naivete that is displayed in their dialogue choices are great, even if they do not have any effect on the story. I know that most of these voice lines are not translated one to one from the Chinese, but the localization team did an amazing job of giving the writing its own unique charm in English. Too often I see people hating localization teams for not doing literal translations of every single line, but translating to English, especially from Chinese or Japanese is not so simple. A lot of terms and ideas don’t translate so smoothly. So, major props to whoever did the English localization.
The story so far is also remarkably serviceable, and sometimes it’s even good. What an endorsement, right? Hoyoverse does a good job of getting multiple characters involved in the story, so that you have emotional incentive to try and roll for them. I’m actually writing this much later than the posted date (8/31, 1.3 just launched, currently waiting for Topaz), and so far I’ve gotten almost every character I’ve wanted and I haven’t lost any main banner 50/50s. I have Bronya, Gepard, Silver Wolf, Luocha E1, Kafka, and Blade. Five 50/50s in a row, plus the two best standard banner characters. I’m aware I’ve gotten insanely lucky, but I do think the game is definitely playable as an F2P. I’m not exactly F2P (I buy the daily express ticket and sometimes the battle pass), but I’m close to it, and my team is getting stronger and stronger to the point where I think I can do MoC 10 soon. So if you want to play as an F2P, jump right in - just be aware you’re gonna have to save with those diamond hands.
Getting longer than anticipated, so I’m just gonna say - if you were looking for a fun gacha with a decent story to play on your phone, you have my wholehearted recommendation for Honkai Star Rail.
melhor gacha atualmente
história maneirinha, não sinto que o jogo quer que eu compre algo a cada 5 minutos
curto os eventos
história maneirinha, não sinto que o jogo quer que eu compre algo a cada 5 minutos
curto os eventos
Gachas suck.
Otherwise, this shit pretty fire.
Otherwise, this shit pretty fire.
Great "turn-based" combat, game modes that actually make use of them and characters fully, easy and not tiring reward/daily system. The storyline was severely lacking in quality and engagement UNTIL recent 2.X updates of Penacony, which was a tremendous move forward for the game. I'm looking forward to what it becomes from now on
Love it. But.
Have you ever seen something with so much work and love put into it and then wondered why it's presented in the form it is. Like, as if the form it's presented in is the result of necessity or the times rather than because of what the creators actually wanted?
I ask this because that's what this game is for me. Honkai Star Rail is very engaging, genuinely fun (which is rare for a gacha game), and well produced. At the time of writing, 2.2 came out just a few weeks ago and I really liked it. A lot. Lived in my head absolutely rent free ever since. Great story, great twists, and lots of content (in that patch). But.
It's honestly frustrating that it's a gacha game because this is genuinely a retail experience I would pay for. I say this because I think the game is genuinely worse for being a gacha. Each character is interesting and unique but god forbid you want to build them in some experimental way because if that doesn't work out and you have to rebuild them it could take days or weeks to actually do so. Characters being "in your party" in the narrative and either being nowhere to be found or becoming trial characters just for that bit feels so jarring because a lot of the time the game actually does feel like a full retail release so when someone goes with you you have that "oh right they aren't actually with me" moment which frankly just feels like a missed opportunity. Values and substats are conflated to force grinding which can be an RNG nightmare when the game could just be a much more fun experience if it wasn't constantly fighting for your money and retention.
I'm being so genuine when I say I love this game but every single problem I have with it ultimately goes back to it being a gacha and that is the most frustrating feeling in the world. It's good! I recommend it! But a lot of the times I honestly wish it were the same quality as a lot of those other gacha games out there where the only people that really get goaded into paying (decent amounts) in them are simps rather than people who want to build fun and interesting comps with the fun and interesting character that's available for 2-3 weeks.
It's frustrating.
Have you ever seen something with so much work and love put into it and then wondered why it's presented in the form it is. Like, as if the form it's presented in is the result of necessity or the times rather than because of what the creators actually wanted?
I ask this because that's what this game is for me. Honkai Star Rail is very engaging, genuinely fun (which is rare for a gacha game), and well produced. At the time of writing, 2.2 came out just a few weeks ago and I really liked it. A lot. Lived in my head absolutely rent free ever since. Great story, great twists, and lots of content (in that patch). But.
It's honestly frustrating that it's a gacha game because this is genuinely a retail experience I would pay for. I say this because I think the game is genuinely worse for being a gacha. Each character is interesting and unique but god forbid you want to build them in some experimental way because if that doesn't work out and you have to rebuild them it could take days or weeks to actually do so. Characters being "in your party" in the narrative and either being nowhere to be found or becoming trial characters just for that bit feels so jarring because a lot of the time the game actually does feel like a full retail release so when someone goes with you you have that "oh right they aren't actually with me" moment which frankly just feels like a missed opportunity. Values and substats are conflated to force grinding which can be an RNG nightmare when the game could just be a much more fun experience if it wasn't constantly fighting for your money and retention.
I'm being so genuine when I say I love this game but every single problem I have with it ultimately goes back to it being a gacha and that is the most frustrating feeling in the world. It's good! I recommend it! But a lot of the times I honestly wish it were the same quality as a lot of those other gacha games out there where the only people that really get goaded into paying (decent amounts) in them are simps rather than people who want to build fun and interesting comps with the fun and interesting character that's available for 2-3 weeks.
It's frustrating.
Honestly? A lot better than I expected. Still a gacha game but not overly predatory and has some beautiful music and some great characters many of which I fell quickly in love with. (Looking at you Kafka). The gameplay is simple and fun and there's plenty of content. Took me a month of moderate play to catch up to the main story while doing side stuff and seasonal events.
'Why does life slumber?'
'Because someday, we will wake up from our dreams'
'Because someday, we will wake up from our dreams'
It's a shame this game is a gacha, there's so much content for you to experience with a variety that other games of the same genre don't do, while maintaining a high quality throughout its patches.
It might have a lot of verbose and some dialogues do run their course but if we look past that, it's gameplay is simple and effective thus making it very satisfying, the characters are very interesting and so are their stories (Well for the most part...), the stories of all arcs are a great experience (Yes even Xianzhou) if you actually take time to immerse yourself in their worlds, even offering post epilogue quest chains for its worlds or characters.
I would give this game a higher rating if it weren't for the fact its a gacha, and truth be told, you don't need to interact with the gacha mechanics to enjoy it but some of the characters that you might want to play with are only available in the gacha, and that's a damn shame.
It might have a lot of verbose and some dialogues do run their course but if we look past that, it's gameplay is simple and effective thus making it very satisfying, the characters are very interesting and so are their stories (Well for the most part...), the stories of all arcs are a great experience (Yes even Xianzhou) if you actually take time to immerse yourself in their worlds, even offering post epilogue quest chains for its worlds or characters.
I would give this game a higher rating if it weren't for the fact its a gacha, and truth be told, you don't need to interact with the gacha mechanics to enjoy it but some of the characters that you might want to play with are only available in the gacha, and that's a damn shame.
A massive improvement to Genshin's design. Honkai Star Rail is much more digestible, gameplay-wise and time-wise. I know they aren't directly comparable, but Genshin Impact shares some of the core-design that is prevalent in Honkai Star Rail.
Something that I'll commend on Star Rail's part is its difficulty. Hitting the endgame and riding through its curve feels actually satisfying this time around.
Writing is also completely improved, albeit still suffers from time to time. Localization is often hilarious, but may not sit well with others.
Overall, I enjoyed my time with Star Rail. Fun, tight and ultimately an improvement in Mihoyo's game design department.
Something that I'll commend on Star Rail's part is its difficulty. Hitting the endgame and riding through its curve feels actually satisfying this time around.
Writing is also completely improved, albeit still suffers from time to time. Localization is often hilarious, but may not sit well with others.
Overall, I enjoyed my time with Star Rail. Fun, tight and ultimately an improvement in Mihoyo's game design department.
hoyo's favourite child
a massive upgrade compared to genshin. i know the two aren't fully comparable but most of the issues i have with genshin were solved in star rail. the turn based combat is so much easier for people who actually have a life and want the game to play itself sometimes, which makes grinding so much easier because you can set it to auto and just do your own thing. it's so much more generous with pulls and the story is actually engaging, albeit confusing and hard to digest at times. the story really just keeps getting better and the character designs are awesome
thank you for making sunday, kafka, and aventurine
Came back to this game because i've heard there will be a Kamen Rider character inspired in it lol
gameplay was fun, everything else sucked
Nowadays, I will play a gacha only if:
- Has autoplay
- Needs less than 1hour daily
- Can be played from PC and Android
Besides this, Star Rail takes what Genshin did right and makes it even better. Story wise is pretty good (except for Xianzhou, we do not talk about that), Team Building is interesting (I hope they'll stay creative as the last 6 months) and each character desing is amazing.
I really hope they stay on track ;) and I will continue to support them monthly.
They don't need my money, but I need SAM.
- Has autoplay
- Needs less than 1hour daily
- Can be played from PC and Android
Besides this, Star Rail takes what Genshin did right and makes it even better. Story wise is pretty good (except for Xianzhou, we do not talk about that), Team Building is interesting (I hope they'll stay creative as the last 6 months) and each character desing is amazing.
I really hope they stay on track ;) and I will continue to support them monthly.
They don't need my money, but I need SAM.
downloaded for kafka ngl
Sampo my beloved
Somehow the story of this game just keeps getting better and better.
Im loving this game rn