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Play nowHonkai: Star Rail is miHoYo’s turn-based gacha game set in the same multiverse as Honkai Impact 3rd. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
Honkai: Star Rail Review Video
Honkai: Star Rail Review: An Epic Trailblazing Journey
Honkai: Star Rail again follows in the footsteps of Genshin Impact, being a gacha RPG. The only difference is that instead of fighting enemies in real-time, you will fight them in turn-based combat with a party of characters. Each character has their own corresponding element and Path (or class), which dictates their skills. They also have their own weapons and equipment.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a miHoYo game without a gacha system. To get your hands on other playable characters and weapons, you’ll have to use Star Rail Passes to “Warp” them in. These passes can only be bought with the game’s in-game currency, which you can either accumulate as you play or buy outright with real-world money.
Honkai: Star Rail Story and Overview
Set in the multiverse of Honkai Impact 3rd, Honkai: Star Rail puts you in the shoes of the Trailblazer. An intergalactic criminal named Kafka woke you up from your slumber and tasked you with joining the crew of the Astral Express – a train that travels through the stars. With you are four of the train’s crew members, who all have their reasons for riding the star rail.
But you know nothing about your own purpose. Plus, you are potentially the vessel for a weapon that could cause devastation on a planetary scale…
Surprisingly Fast And Complex Turn-Based Battle
What got me a bit leery at Honkai: Star Rail at first was its turn-based battle system. When I finally played it though, battles were much faster than I first thought. You go around the map and encounter enemies, but approaching them will bring you to a separate battle screen where you fight in turn-based combat. Just like in JRPGs like the Persona games, if you want to have an advantage, you can attack the enemy first, which either inflicts a status ailment on them or damages them before the fight even begins.
During battle, each of your party members has three moves: A single attack, a skill, and an ultimate skill. Do enough single attacks, and you can use the character’s skill. Survive long enough, and you’ll be able to unleash their ultimate attacks. All of them have nice animations and look pretty powerful. What you need to keep in mind, though, are elemental weaknesses.
If you attack an enemy with a character whose element they’re weak against, you’ll not only damage them but also deplete their toughness bar. Think of it like a ‘poise’ bar’ that, once depleted, will ‘break’ that character. This makes them more vulnerable to attack and pushes their turn down the action order. Taking advantage of this could spell the difference between winning or losing a boss battle.
So far, HSR’s combat is a downscaled version of what you’d expect of certain JRPGs, so I find it pretty good. But considering the many interactions that each skill can have, the resulting gameplay is actually more complex than you may think. At the same time, it's easy enough to play on a phone. Also, did I mention that you can auto-battle most encounters? This function alone makes the grinding at least a little bearable, especially when you start farming Calyxes for leveling materials.
On the other hand, I’ve played gacha games where you’re able to at least play co-op with friends, just like Genshin Impact or Tower of Fantasy. So it kinda threw me off that Honkai: Star Rail doesn’t have that many social features except for a friend list and support (borrow high-level characters from your friends). It would’ve been great if we could also do some sort of co-op in HSR, though I think it’s hard to implement such a thing.
Good Plot, Excellent Worldbuilding
I’ll have to admit that the beginning kind of threw me off, with characters spouting off lore terms here and there like ‘Interastral Peace Corporation’, ‘Genius Society’, or ‘Trailblazers’. But as I progressed through the game, I got used to them. You see, Honkai Star Rail is chock full of lore that makes its worlds at least entertaining to be in.
Later on, these seemingly useless pieces of information thrown at you at the beginning start to make sense, unraveling an epic lore full of conflict, drama, and other kinds of stories that are engagingly thought-provoking.
The game is also chock full of miscellaneous lore delivered through books scattered all over the world. Plus the design of the worlds can clue you in on how they came to be.
Belobog, for example, is full of heaters, tram lines, and three-wheeled cars, showing that they’ve regressed to an early 20th-century level of development because of the Eternal Freeze, while everyone else in the galaxy is flying around in space. Underneath the city, however, lies the Underground, where people mine precious ores for the surface in exchange for supplies, even if they’ve not allowed to go back to the surface anymore.
A gacha game’s story can be a really big selling point for some players, and Honkai: Star Rail is quite dandy in that department. While the plots look average at first glance, every storyline culminates into an awesome conclusion that’s sure to leave you wanting for more.
Except for Xianzhou Luofu. That was soul-crushingly boring.
Unfortunately, though, the writing can come across as awkward at times. It may be due to the scripts for the English dialogue being translated directly from Chinese or Japanese. Early on, most of the gaffes come from Dan Heng, with gems such as ‘Arlan from the Security Department lost contact in the vicinity’. There are also mistakes in the dialogue here and there, which you will notice if you have subtitles on and see little letters above a word indicating a correction.
Then again, the script has no shortage of hilariously self-conscious lines. This is thanks in part to Honkai: Star Rail’s main protagonist being designed as an incredibly relatable character, especially for those who spend too much time on the internet like us.
Simple But Stylish Visual and Audio Direction
From the people who made Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail is no slouch in the visuals department. Of course, the graphics are simpler and more anime-esque compared to other games, but miHoYo somehow makes the most of this limitation.
The space station looks vast, floating in the middle of a vacuum, the Interstellar Express sparkles as it flies through the cosmos, and Jarillo VI looks like a real frozen wasteland. They all do the job very well. The character designs are also excellent. March 7th’s hair and eyes remind me of Paimon, while Dan Heng is a more reserved Zhongli. I don’t know if Pom-Pom will even compare to Paimon as a mascot, but he's cute in his own way. At least he’s much less annoying than the latter.
Meanwhile, the music suite is perhaps the best of its audiovisuals, with electro and synth music going off while you beat Antimatter Legion soldiers up in the Herta Space Station, and flutes and violins playing a jaunty and uplifting tune as you walk the streets of Belobog. While skulking around in the Underground, you can hear drums and violins, giving off a wilder, more dangerous feel.
The character songs, meanwhile, are nothing short of the best mobile gaming can offer. Depending on the scenario, it can drag you into the mires of your own thoughts, severely affecting your ability to see anything without being conscious of your emotions. Or, it could be the real climax of the penultimate fight, serving as your greatest support as you face your greatest foe with all odds against you.
In the character design department, I’ll have to say that the initial wave of characters we’ve been introduced to in HSR are all great, funny folk. The crew of the Astral Express, for example, is composed of a girl found in a block of ice, a dense tea drinker with a mysterious past, a navigator who’s as beautiful as her coffee is terrible, a former animator, and a walking stuffed toy with a hat. All of them have their own quirky personalities, and I won’t blame you if you start feeling that you’re the only sane person on the train. Or the galaxy, for that matter.
All of them are designed rather well. Like I said earlier, some of them can be a bit overdone, though that’s something to expect from gacha game character designs in general. March 7th looks cute with her camera and coat, Dan Heng looks good in that coat, Himeko looks very suave with the military coat over a white dress, and Mr. Welt is probably one of the classiest men in the galaxy with the cane and glasses. Honkai Star Rail may lack social features, but it definitely is not lacking in the fashion department.
Low Gacha Rates, Hard to Reroll
Call it terrible luck, but out of the 30 pulls I’ve done with the beginner banner so far, I only got one character, and it was a dupe. The rest were all Light Cones (the “equipment” you give to your characters, like in any other gacha). That’s because Honkai Star Rail’s rate for an SSR character is 0.6%, while its rate for SR’s is 5.1%.
There’s a beginner banner that gives you a guaranteed 5-star character after 50 pulls, but otherwise you’ll have to shell out money for Oneiric Shards (which you then exchange for Stellar Jade, the money used to buy Star Rail Passes and Special Star Rail passes or grind the game like many other F2P players. If you wanna reroll, forget about it because miHoYo has removed the option for guest accounts, and the tutorial itself takes 30-40 minutes to complete.
Add to that the low SSR rates, and you’ll definitely spend more than a day just trying to pull your favorite character. There’s a rumored soft pity pull somewhere between your 65th and 75th roll, but who knows? I will get Himeko someday, but today is not that day.
So, What’s The Verdict?
Worth it as Free-to-Play Player; If You’ll be a Dolphin, Might as Well Whale the Game
Honkai: Star Rail has just the right amount of content to keep Free-to-Play players sated, though not necessarily with the characters they want. If you're playing as an F2P, you’ll have to play the game daily to spend Trailblazer Energy and do the dailies, or risk getting left behind. So you’ll be trading time instead of money to play the game. Still, the story so far is worth the effort.
If you’re planning to be a Dolphin, though, with how low the game’s SSR drop rate is, you might as well be a whale to make sure you get the characters you want.
| Platform | Price |
|---|---|
 HoYoPlay |
Free |
 Google Play |
Free |
 App Store |
Free |
 PlayStation Store |
Free |
 Epic Games |
Free |
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Honkai: Star Rail Product Information
 |
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| Title | HONKAI: STAR RAIL |
|---|---|
| Release Date | April 26, 2023 |
| Developer | miHoYo |
| Publisher | Cognosphere Pte., Ltd. |
| Supported Platforms | PC, Mobile, PS5 |
| Genre | RPG, Adventure |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | Teen |
| Official Website | Honkai: Star Rail Website |
