Review: Honkai: Star Rail is a goofy but well-oiled space adventure

Almost anything is possible in space or anime. A girl called March 7th will appear with a bow so tall that it fires snowballs in the shape of bunnies. Secret organizations steal strangers’ memories, and then wrap them into membranes that resemble bubbles. You will step into the shoes of the Trailblazer, who’s not a person so much as a bodily receptacle of mysterious cosmic power that can bring disaster to entire planets. In the confusion of those early days, Honkai: Star RailThe film presents a broken sci-fi universe that shines wherever it cracks.

Honkai: Star Rail Hoyoverse is back with another huge release, this time from the studio that brought you the smash hit Genshin Impact The following are some examples of how to get started: Honkai Impact 3rd. Honkai: Star Rail It is now available for mobile and Windows PC devices, where I played the game to write this review. Fans of Genshin ImpactMobile games similar to these will be familiar with several different systems. Star RailIts designers have taken this game into a completely new direction. They’ve combined turn-based combat and more linear dungeon exploratory, as opposed to giving players an unrestricted world.

The Trailblazer is the first character you play as. She’s a woman who, by some mysterious means named Kafka, has inserted a Stellaron into her body. After the insertion process, the Trailblazer forgets everything about their past, except for Kafka’s name. After waking up, they find themselves on a station in space, where Dan Heng (a character) and March 7th (a character), who are traveling from one world to another aboard an interstellar railway called Astral Express.

As the Trailblazer, you help the two clear out an enemy threat of robots on the space station, and the leader of the Astral Express — a Greek goddess of a woman named Himeko — invites you to join the team in the hopes that you can uncover more about your past. Your new co-workers welcome you on board a posh lounge car, which is led by Pom Pom. The train eventually hits a bump on a planet named Jarilo-6.

Hoyoverse

It’s a typical RPG storyline. A catastrophe has hit and turned the mild climate of Earth into an unlivable, wintery hellscape. Belobog, a steampunk city, is now the home of its residents. Some people are able to live a comfortable life in the midst of a barren world, thanks only to class differences. Physically, the city is divided into two discs. The upper disc contains the administrative offices of city leaders and the Architects. The lower disc houses the miner population who are responsible for extracting the ore which powers the entire city. (Any Final Fantasy 7,This is a general idea that any fan will recognize.

In the game, space exploration takes on a more linear form than adventure in Genshin Impact’s open world. Forget climbing, or even jumping in Star Rail. You’ll teleport from map to map, running to a set point on each one using the game’s ample waypoints. In some areas like the lower levels of the station’s spaceship, enemies will appear. Some areas are more similar to city centres where you can talk to people and get resources to complete quests. Every map offers a small adventure, with different environments. From an underground mine filled with orangish-yellow glowing ore to a vast building’s interior, with empty, towering ceilings worthy of Star Wars to a sun-filled but cold town center with Russian influences.

As you explore the space station, your characters — you’ll start with three that you can switch between — can attack monsters while walking around the overworld, or they can use a technique to give buffs and other support before the fight begins. Once you start a fight, you’ll engage in turn-based combat, during which all characters have three primary moves: a basic attack, a skill, and an Ultimate. In order to win, you’ll need a wide range of characters, each with a different role called a Path. There are also different Combat Types that work as an elemental, while certain Combat Types will counteract other types. The back and forth battles, which are turn-based but are so fast that you can speed through the matches. The game also has settings to increase the speed of gameplay, and even auto-battles in fights. This adds to how fast it feels.

Hoyoverse image via Polygon

It is much more difficult to create a powerful fighting team and understand what factors go into the stats than it is to use turn-based mechanics. Your characters’ strength and overall effectiveness in battle will be determined by a statistical soup of variables including the level of your character, their weapon (Star Rail The level of the weapon (also called Light Cones), sets of items that can be equipped, Relics. These Relics have random stats. Traces is a tree of skills that gives additional bonuses, as well as the number of Eidolons (which are power and boosts given when multiple copies of your character appear). Star Rail is also a gacha game, meaning that you’ll be able to earn an in-game currency called Stellar Jade in order to spend it on randomized chances to get better characters.

You might feel overwhelmed by the description. What the hell is the Relic System? And what if you can’t grind enough Stellar Jade to get the characters you want? In practice, it’s not that bad. Even within the limited review period, the process of character leveling felt reasonable, as the mechanics seem to encourage players to build multiple characters instead of investing too much in one team. You don’t even need to get into all of the mechanical details if you just want to focus on the story. The regular player will be able, over time to build a solid team and master all of these gameplay elements.

Star Rail pairs its battle system with a stunning animation style that, at points, looks like it’s almost straight out of an anime. Hoyoverse appears to be going all out with the animations for its characters’ Ultimate moves. They are beautiful: Trailblazer’s bat vibrates and has flashes of blue, yellow, black, neon, and other electrical pulses. Some are more whimsical. Natasha is a healer who shoots a toy bear with a launcher and then rains presents down on her allies. Others are simply over the top, like Himeko who summons an enemy-annihilating satellite death laser while sipping tea.

Hoyoverse

Each animation tells us a lot about the characters and their stories. As an example, the characters who first land on Jarilo-6 end up in the lower disk, where they find a young Clara. She’s small and meek, but determined to make a difference, repeatedly advocating on behalf of a band of misfits who live in the undercity. On the battlefield she is able to defeat enemies with her giant robot friend Svarog. Clara is shown huddled in terror under Svarog during her Ultimate Attack. He leans on her and protects her, with glowing red eyes aimed straight at her enemy. It’s striking to see how small Clara looks at this moment, and how menacing her protector comes across as he charges up for a laser attack. This shows how much Svarog cares for Clara.

I played the story of the game up through the end of the characters’ journey on Jarilo-6, and it’s a relatively interesting plot, but what’s more noteworthy is the general tone of the game. However, Genshin ImpactWhile it has a few goofy moments, the show is more concerned with serious topics and tells stories about gods, which have a mythical aspect. Star RailThe song has a lighter, more youthful feel.

Many characters comment on the strange way the Trailblazer talks, as they sound like a person who is internet-savvy and lives in Earth’s year 2023. They use modern-day vernacular and describe an arrogant researcher as being “cringey.” The Trailblazer eventually gets a phone, which they use to text “beg me~” to another character at one point. Objects in the game sometimes have funny descriptions; a mailbox isn’t just a mailbox, as investigating it might tell you that someone stuffed sausage in its narrow slip, perhaps mistaking it for a trash can.

It is impossible to overstate how much more superior the March 7th companions and Dan Heng in this game are compared with Paimon. Genshin. March 7th is the perfect girly pop who just wants to take cute selfies with you and isn’t afraid to call you out if she thinks the dialogue option you picked was dumb. Meanwhile, Dan Heng is a cold and calculating type, adding some welcome tension to the party even if I personally think he’s too tough on March 7th at points.

Hoyoverse image via Polygon

Before even joining those new friends on their journey to Jarilo-6 the game asks the Trailblazer whether they want to stay at the space station or board the Astral Express. You may think that the Trailblazer is hesitant about joining the adventure if you continue to talk to Himeko. She was hesitant to join the journey, so I pressed her. She tells me the journey isn’t even about going to new places. “Walking the same path over and over will never be the same, there will always be something new. That’s the meaning of trailblazing,” she tells us.

Her comment captures a feeling of embarking on a new journey while also being familiar. In it, the meaning of creating a path for oneself doesn’t come from treading new ground, but from walking a path again, and uncovering something new. Her comment — perhaps intentionally — neatly captures the present moment of the game as a product itself. Honkai: Star Rail is Hoyoverse’s third major release and marks another mobile game in the studio’s ever-growing catalog of games. Hoyoverse has walked the same road again.

Many ways Honkai: Star Rail shows a refinement of Hoyoverse’s work up to this point. This game avoids all the excesses that come with an expanding world. GenshinYou’ll fight to save the world with dazzling snow bunnies and text your new friends in between. You’ll fight to save the world with dazzling snow bunnies and text your new friends in the meantime. Rather restricting developers’ visions, Star Rail’s design leaves ample room for them to build out other aspects of the game. Combining a turn-based, refined system with comedic and lighthearted writing, Star Rail’s future route looks like it’ll be a smooth ride.

Honkai: Star RailThe game was released on April 26 for iOS, Android and Windows PC. Hoyoverse provided a code for a PC pre-release to review the game. Vox Media partners with affiliates. Vox Media can earn affiliate commissions, but this does not affect editorial content. Find out more about affiliate links. additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.