The Honkai: Star Rail The second closed beta is on and everyone has once again a chance to be a Pioneer and ride the Astral Express to different locations. I had a chance to go through a bit of the game. While I wasn’t lucky enough to get any of the five-star units, I’ve noticed it has in common with other HoYoVerse titles. Even in its early stages, Honkai: Star Rail feels like it relies heavily on its characters to engage the player and move the story along.
Honkai: Star Rail begins with the player following a mysterious woman named Kafka through the Herta Space Station. She and Silver Wolf are searching for an item Kafka calls the Cancer of All Worlds, a Stellaron. When they found it, Kafka proceeded to stuff it into the Trailblazer. Alike The Genshin effectof Traveler, this is the player avatar. After some ominous words and hints the player will need to make a “choice”, the two disappear. That’s when Dan Heng and March 7, Astral Express member, shows up to save the day. Trailblazer is a lunatic currently aboard a space station besieged by the Antimatter Legion.
Of course, once you fall in love with them, you don’t just end up evacuating the station. Instead, while escaping with two Astral Express members, Himiko, the Doomsday Beast attacked. After the battle, Trailblazer stepped in front of March 7 to protect her, using Stellaron to attack it. Welt Yang managed to stop the attack. And so the player joins Dan Heng, March 7, Welt and Himiko on a journey across the stars to deal with the Stellarons and the Antimatter Legion.
When someone goes through Honkai: Star RailTrailblazer’s initial introduction and first “mission” deals with a Stellaron on Jarilo-VI, where they constantly encounter playable characters. As with HoYoVerse’s other games, there seems to be an effort to make them as fun as possible in the shortest amount of time possible. (Perhaps because someone will need the gacha for some or get others through the various currencies in the store?) For example, after meeting Asta, we see her willing to sacrifice herself. themselves for the sake of others to oppose the forces of the Antimatter Legion. She immediately considers herself interesting, due to the heroic gesture. Herta and Welt have an element of mystery on their side. Before, because we always only saw her “puppets” on the station and she was revered as a genius. Second thing, because HoYoVerse establishes that he is someone like Honkai Impact 3 character. Sampo Koski is intriguing, as it’s uncertain whose side he’s actually on due to his actions. Likewise, it’s interesting to see people like Bronya and Himeko as alternate reality versions of the Murata Himeko and Bronya Zaychik we know.
All these characters also make Honkai: Star RailIts turn-based combat looks promising. It reminds me of both Honkai Impact 3 and The Genshin effect. It has a system involving normal attacks, a special skill, an Ultimate and a passive. Each character also has an element associated with them in Honkai: Star Rail, which can be used to break an enemy’s shield if they are weak and allow for more damage. You can ask a character to use a special skill, which can do something like defend, deal extra damage, or hit a group. Passive abilities also manifest in the form of talent and technique. The former can be like March 7’s Girl Power, she will attack any enemy that attacks an ally she is protecting with her Power of Cuteness skill. On the other hand, Her Technique will activate if you have her as the active character on the field and attack it to gain an advantage in the fight. When the battle starts, one will be frozen.
So the key in each fight is to use the character to break the opponent’s shield. When you do, you can deal more damage to them. So Trailblazer’s basic attacks and skills deal Physical damage. Let’s say you join the fight against Bronya. When she has members of the Silvermane Guard around, you can’t exploit her weakness. Once they are dispatched, the Trailblazers can use any of their attacks to break Bronya’s armor. Although once the armor is damaged, it is only briefly discarded. The player then needs to launch an all-out attack to take advantage of the opportunity before it is restored. Meaning that like in other games, having a character from each element felt necessary. (You get free people to help with that, such as March 7, Dan Heng, Herta, Natasha, and Trailblazer.) It also means pulling in people you like due to the way it travels or Their personalities will be entirely one thing. That’s to be expected from a gacha game.
From what I’ve seen, it feels like Honkai: Star Rail based on the same concepts that drive other HoYoVerse games. There is a story with an “important” player character. This avatar will be the driving force and the central character. Other characters are designed to be engaging and engaging for a variety of reasons. Some of them are tied to their usefulness in combat, determined by their element and move set. We’ll have to wait and see what happens with the final build. But for now, it seems to rely on a familiar formula.
Honkai: Star Rail under development for PCs and mobile devices.
