-spoiler free-
turn based rpgs are back in style baby!!!

with native controller support, mobile controls that feel nice to play with if your phone can run the game, the possibility of coming up with new strategies on the fly by using your allies' ultimates during anyone's turn, a rougelike game mode with lots of buffs and items to discover, an awesome soundtrack, and a super charming cast of characters, honkai star rail is all the young ones seem to be talking about nowadays, with all these pretty anime boys and girls leaving no twitter timeline uninvaded. so, what do you need to know?

if you like gacha games, this one looks like it has a lot of potential. with interesting worldbuilding and eye catching character designs, i think youll get a lot of mileage out of this one! right now it seems to have the right balance between enough things to do (main story, exploration, sidequests, game modes, and as of the time im writing this its very first event is out) but not so many things that its super overwhelming and that it makes you think "oh god oh fuck ill never be able to catch up". it also really rewards exploration and revisiting areas so even if youre done with a part of the main story you can still get lots of fun and goofy sidequests, achievements, and dialogue anywhere! the characters also seem to have a life outside of adventuring with you!! you can find them and even talk to them during your travels instead of just learning about them from quests and the character archive if you've unlocked them, its pretty nice ngl

you may know hoyoverse for genshin impact, but so far this game borrows more story elements from their other gacha: honkai impact 3rd. dont worry though, you dont need to know anything about hi3 to enjoy star rail and besides, most of the characters theyve borrowed from hi3 so far have been recontextualized for different situations you probably wouldn't have expected in their original game(s) (yes, the hoyoverse rabbit hole is actually really deep, if these characters manage to captivate you then chances are youll spend a lot of nights trying to piece together their lore from their other projects, and some of them dont even have official english translations so good luck! ;])

however, i cant stress enough that if you dont like gacha games then this game isnt for you. the progression, especially as you're playing through harder content, will naturally become stagnant- why? because, well, its a gacha game, and they want people to resort to "the easy way out" aka spending money. therefore, the balancing may also feel a bit unfair with the difficulty scaling and you may feel like youre "stuck" or that your characters are struggling until youve grinded enough or maxed everything out as much as you can. its par for the course, unfortunately. youll find that in every gacha and this one doesnt shy away from doing it. i should clarify though, this endgame content is optional and made with the big spenders in mind so you can play the game without worrying about needing to play it to progress through the story or get more gacha currency. youll be fine i promise

additionally, like any other gacha, this game also makes full use of other strategies to get people to spend money (such as disguising spending large quantities of real money by converting it to multiple in-game currencies, having the shop with the free pulls you can get monthly mixed with the real world shop, first purchase bonuses, etc). basically, while the game is fun i think weve got to acknowledge that it still doubles as an unregulated casino. im not your mom though you can gamble if you want, but gamble responsibly! taking breaks from the game is also highly encouraged! burnout is very real, and so are your real life responsibilties!!

anyways, i have no idea how to wrap this up and this was super all over the place soooo happy trailblazing and safe travels!