On April 26, HoYoverse, the co-founders of Genshin Impact, released a new game, Honkai: Star Rail. At first glance, this massive sci-fi adventure game seems like an attempt to create “another Genshin Impact,” only in a different setting. However, there are more differences between these two projects than it might seem. This is our Honkai: Star Rail PC review.
Honkai: Star Rail is a turn-based role-playing game reminiscent of classic jRPG wall-to-wall combat and small corridor-type locations, announced by the creators as an offshoot of the Honkai Impact 3rd universe. Despite the word “Honkai” in the title, it is already clear from the interface that Star Rail is much closer to Genshin Impact than to its “progenitor,” and as you study the game, the similarity with miHoYo/Hoyoverse only intensifies, at some points reaching copy-paste.
So what’s the point?
For MiHoYo, the developers of Star Rail, this is not the first game of its kind – even if we leave out the ubiquitous Genshin Impact. Before this, the authors supported Honkai Impact 3rd for many years, and before it, there were several more projects, and they were all united by one universe. They meet the same characters, and it will take a lot of time to figure out all the intricacies of the plot of the same HI3. But fortunately, the game does not require a thorough knowledge of the local lore and does not require – you can start playing even if you have never touched the studio’s games before.
But what will Star Rail offer veterans? Familiar with “Honkai” – several recognizable characters and terminology. And for those familiar with Genshin, there is a recognizable interface, several in-game activities, a local system for obtaining characters, banners with characters, and much more.
Also, despite the apparent similarity with Genshin Impact, Star Rail is still seriously different from the latter. These two games have a completely different approaches to world-building, to locations, to the combat system – in short, to almost all the key elements of the gameplay. Again, I repeat: there are familiar elements, including gameplay ones, but the main frame of the gameplay is completely different, more thoughtful, and unhurried.
About the world and its heroes
The world of Star Rail is an alternate reality of Honkai Impact 3rd. One of the game’s heroes, Welt Young, after the events of A Post Honkai Odyssey, goes to a world completely unfamiliar to him. This world is different from what we are used to: here, people have conquered space, lived on different planets and explored space. One of these explorers, Himeko, discovered the Astral Express, a real engine capable of traveling between planets, which had crashed on her home planet. Having fixed it, the girl journeys between the stars, meeting many unusual fellow travelers.
The plot originates on the space station “Gerta”, which is attacked by the Legion of Antimatter. In the ensuing turmoil, no one notices a couple of mysterious personalities, whose actions eventually lead to the appearance of an artificial person – Pathfinder, our main character. This character is unusual not only for its artificial origin, but also for the fact that Stellaron was used as the “core” to create it – a mysterious and, as it turns out later, extremely “harmful” matter that has its own will and unimaginable power. After all the events, the hero is effectively left to his own devices, only to be picked up by the Astral Express team.
After some time, the protagonist nevertheless agrees to accept an invitation from the Express team and goes with them to explore the stars. Its goal is to understand why it was created; from this, the whole plot is repelled. But to tell further is to spoil.
What I liked about the excellent work of the authors is that the plot, at least for now, manages to find a good balance between mundane realism and sci-fi circus. The secondary characters are a match for the game and all trends: one is almost always calm, focused, and serious, but the girl named March 7, on the contrary, lives to the fullest and gushes with emotions right and left. After getting to know the game, the protagonist can be described as a troll: the hero, of course, can be serious if necessary but makes fun of others much more convincingly and pretends to be a troll. Moreover, the developers understood that the players would want just such a role-playing game, so there are always enough suitable replica options in the dialogues.
And I also liked that we were already part of a certain team from the beginning and constantly interacted with our comrades, and not like it was in one game – go explore, and come what may. The dialogue between the characters is sometimes very hilarious. The guys use every opportunity to troll each other qualitatively. And as for the sidequests – so far, I have not seen the long and stuffy “world quests” from Genshin. Although banal in terms of mechanics, the sidequests in Star Rail are at least compact, and some of them also have a memorable storyline and even moral choices . And although the main plot is still more reminiscent of the older, more naive brother Genshin, in some places, traces of heavy influence are already visible – Honkai Impact 3rd.
Gameplay and its subtleties
This game is somewhere between a linear action adventure with an exploration of the world and a turn-based role-playing game that one would like to call a jRPG. And yes, it sounds like Genshin Impact, but with several big nuances.
Firstly, the local world is not a huge open Teyvat from Genshin. There is no seamless open world at all. Each major region is divided into several relatively small locations with branches proposed to be explored. Cards are combined with opponents; many treasures can be found there, portals that provide access to special tests and the like.
The zones are very compact, so even the mandatory return is not particularly annoying: almost any location from edge to edge can be run in literally 3 minutes without using teleports or otherwise “cutting off” your route while closing it 100%.
The key difference, however, is the combat system. Where Genshin Impact offers real-time action with the ability to switch between four heroes, Star Rail offers turn-based battles in the format of “four heroes against 1-5 opponents”, where it all depends not so much on your reaction speed but on understanding what is happening and the ability to compose yourself a team correctly. Well, and also from a certain luck.
The combat system may seem extremely simple, but this is only at first glance. There are many nuances, and the game is made so that the battles take place more or less smoothly for both lovers of brute force and those who like to build multi-stage plans.
Things are like this – you stumble upon an enemy unit on the global map and decide what to do with it. You can bypass it. You can start the battle. Or you can pause, look at the opponents’ weaknesses, choose a hero with the right element, and initiate an attack with his help – this will give a small but pleasant bonus at the beginning of the battle. Also, each character has unique skills that work exclusively on the global map: someone heals, someone imposes various debuffs on opponents, and some, for example, can make the group invisible to opponents, which allows you to avoid unnecessary fights.
In the battle itself, you need to take into account a bunch of parameters. For example, the elemental vulnerabilities of opponents: even if your squad does not have characters with a fire element, you will still damage enemies with the corresponding vulnerability. But to deplete the enemy by removing his stamina bar, only the “fiery” hero will succeed. The enemy who has lost stamina will not be able to act for some time, his actions will be delayed, and he himself will receive a little more damage. Moreover, by “breaking” the enemy’s endurance bar, you will impose certain effects on him depending on the element. A fiery character will set fire to the enemy, an ice one will freeze, but a strong hero will bleed. It is difficult to describe everything in the text, but to summarize, although the type of battle is completely different from Genshin, it is pleasant and understandable right away.
Each hero has three ways to act in combat: attack with normal strikes, use special skills, and unleash extremely powerful ultimate abilities. The ability to mindlessly “spam” skills or ultimates will not work – the group has five skill points divided by the whole team, so you will have to alternate special attacks with normal ones to replenish these very points.
Ultimate abilities stand slightly apart from others: with their help, you can not only inflict significant damage on the enemy or, on the contrary, strengthen your team, but you can also interfere with the opponent’s turn order. The fact is that these skills can be used literally at any time. Let’s say you see that the enemy is about to come, the heroes didn’t have time to “knock down” his endurance, and the enemy’s attack is guaranteed to kill one of your heroes. If you have someone’s ultimate ready, then you can throw it right before the enemy attack and hope that the damage from it is enough to get rid of the enemy.
Star Rail generally strongly encourages such “boorish” behavior on the player’s part. The game has a myriad of different debuffs that help slow down or weaken the enemy, which, with the right approach, can help win the battle even with an enemy that is superior in strength. You can also refresh yourself before the fight, increasing your chances of winning.
The pumping system almost verbatim repeats Genshin. Our “account level” is pumped completely separately, allowing you to move along the main plot and open additional tests. As for character development:
- there are account levels that give us access to the progression
- there are character levels to help you defeat enemies
- there is a level of a special upgrade card – here it is called “light cones” and is essentially not a weapon (the weapon itself, used by a character in battle, cannot be replaced, it is unique for each character), but a reinforcing card, but it is pumped in the same way as weapons in Genshin;
- there are “traces” – an analog of talents. The peculiarity is that the “traces” are presented here as branches for pumping. And although in the end, everything will be pumped, a rather pleasant and interesting touch is the ability to choose the path of pumping your skills yourself at the first stages;
- there are “relics” – this is the same as constellations, that is, gains for obtaining duplicate characters, up to 6 pieces;
- where without artifacts, which are called “relics” here. The pain and hatred of many Genshin Impact players. I hasten to upset. The system of artifacts here is very similar to that in Genshin – random, random, and again random.
At first glance, the combat system of Star Rail seems very simple, and at a second glance, too. Everything is exceptionally standard – take off shields with suitable elements, hit hard, and don’t die. The whole interest of the combat system now rests solely on the spectacular techniques and animations of different characters. Upgrade characters, upgrade cards, upgrade artifacts, spin the character roulette, and so on until the end.
A huge amount of resources are spent on improving characters and equipment. Some are obtained only by sweat and blood. Some are generally “closed” to activities with few weekly visits. Plus, of course, all “dungeons” – whether with artifacts, cards for experience, or resources – require energy as an entry fee, which is strictly limited and restored quite reluctantly.
Worlds and opportunities for development
In the style and visual design of Star Rail, one advantage over Genshin Impact is immediately traced – the authors are not limited in any way in the setting, and can fantasize as they please. Each new world can be as fantastic and different from the previous ones as they can imagine. And although miHoYo is also trying to diversify the regions in Genshin, they still obey the unified foundations of the Teyvat world.
Another important aspect is the study of locations and moving around them. Here lies one of the most important differences between the game and Genshin Impact, where almost the main emphasis is on free exploration and movement through a vast open world. The world in Star Rail is divided into small and mostly linear locations, grouped into major “zones.” As I mentioned above, movement through locations is strictly horizontal – no jumping, climbing, or flying, so your inner Link can sleep peacefully. Nevertheless, in these small locations there is a fairly decent amount of puzzles, chests, and notes with the disclosure of lore, and other goodies, thanks to which their exploration is a very entertaining, albeit very short process.
Summary
Honkai: I was generally encouraged and surprised by Star Rail because I didn’t like that type of combat. This is a nice project that does not yet require spending a thousand hours to study all the mechanics, but at the same time does not slide into a frank casual or a cheap clone. At the very least, the characters have a decent story, good music, and great potential for development.
The question is where the game will go next. MiHoYo has a lot of experience in game development, so the engine is not in danger of an inglorious death. However, what it will result in following is a good question. With the concept of “we have a ship plowing the expanses of space that can go anywhere”, a real carte blanche opens up before the developers for absolutely any action: the Astral Express can even look into Teyvat if the creators so desire.
However, it’s too early to talk about the game’s future: now Star Rail doesn’t even have all the characters already in previous versions. Assessing the prospects of Honkai: Star Rail is quite difficult because it will be possible to compare only with the studio’s previous games or the most popular Genshin. It will attract a sizable audience at launch due to miHoYo’s general popularity and balanced style. Given the superficial combat system, the question is whether there will be enough content in the game to keep that audience.
And in conclusion, for those who could finish reading all this, or for those who immediately skipped to the end of the post. Should I try Honkai: Star Rail after its release?
- If you like the visual-musical style that miHoYo use in their projects – definitely, yes.
- If you like the plot-narrative component of other games of the Chinese studio – definitely yes.
- If you are a fan of Honkai Impact 3rd, be careful because it’s a completely different style and gameplay.
- If you’re only going to play for the combat mechanics, it’s more of a no than a yes. Of course, you can try it. They won’t take money for it, you might like it, but there is no illusory chance that the game will quickly get boring because the combat is monotonous.
- If you hate Genshin Impact, this game is not bad, but it won’t change your vision.
