Honkai: Star Rail - Review [Does it live up to the hype?] PS5

Over the years, I’ve heard some great things about Honkai Impact 3rd, Genshin Impact, and most recently Honkai Star Rail. These games were all made by Chinese development company Mihoyo, also known as Hoyoverse.
I recently had a few weeks without a new RPG to play, so thought it was time to bite the bullet, and give the latest title, Honkai: Star Rail a go.
Now, where Genshin Impact is a multiplayer, open world, action combat RPG, Honkai: Star Rail changes things up with single player, turn based combat, and smaller locations to explore.
While the game was only released last year, and has only had several major updates, there is still a LOT of content available, easily providing well over 30 hours of play time. And the best part is, the game is free to play. I didn’t spend and was still able to experience everything that I wanted and needed to.
I think that many of you out there will get a lot out of Honkai: Star Rail, and hopefully, this review will let you know if it’s worth your time.

💬 Also, I'd love to know what thought about the game, or if you plan on playing it in the future, so let me know in the comments below.

📕 Video Chapters
00:00 - Intro
01:36 - Story
03:14 - Presentation
05:38 - Combat
08:05 - Content / Things to do
09:17 - Gacha
10:22 - Conclusion

#jrpg #rpg #gaming

🎮 Game details 🎮
Release Date: April 26, 2023
Platforms: Windows PC, iOS, Android, Playstation 5
Reviewed on: PS5
Sub-genre: JRPG Gatcha
Developer: miHoYo
Publisher: HoYoverse

Other games and series covered on this channel:
#finalfantasy #shadowhearts #dragonquest #xenogears #xenosaga #xenoblade #suikoden #persona #chronotrigger #nier #kingdomhearts #megamitensei #wildarms #ys #talesof #trailsofcoldsteel #vagrantstory #chronocross #pokemon #lunar #skiesofarcadia #trialsofmana #grandia #earthbound #phantasystar #ninokuni #baldursgate3 #breathoffire #starocean #atelier #xeno #valkyriachronicles #arcthelad #fireemblem

[MrDrCaos]

Started Honkai Star Rail months ago, i have been enjoying my journey so far and looking forward to 2.0

[Tamiil]

I'm pretty sure that Oleg character is bugged in English because supposedly his mouth moves in other languages. He also suddenly starts moving his lips in the last act of the area, so you know he is capable of it. :P

Hoyoverse pumps out story content every 6 weeks for their games which is insane given the quality. So be ready for the long haul. And from what I understand they plan out their stories 6 years in advance. So every 6 years is a good jumping off point when one major arc ends and a new one begins potentially with brand new main characters, locations and systems. At least that's what they're doing with Honkai Impact 3rd. And Genshin Impact has a clear 6 year cycle with your character going through a different area each year out of the seven. Evidently they have a certain big picture formula across their games which I bet they'll follow with Honkai: Star Rail too.

[uppernimbus]

I loved this review, great work dude! That one character who doesn't move his mouth when he speaks 🤣 The game's visuals are very pretty, I'll always be a sucker for the anime aesthetics.

[zackshannon]

I've never been able to get into a gatcha game including genshin impact but I have fallen in love with star rail. The fantasy/sci-fi story has actually been pretty good. The Belabog storyline was actually really well done and I'm enjoying what I played. I don't love the drip feed but I still play it almost everyday.

[Letzer]

Hey! Glad you gave this a chance after all.
I agree with most of your criticism. I won't defend the story because yes, while there are some good moments, it is indeed full of padding---
But, I'd still like to give them a bit of credits for the extra nerdy and sometime funny lore. It's also not too try-hard and not too fan-service heavy.
Belive it or not... the padding in this game has been reduced by at least 50% compared to genshin.

They are also very generous with rewards and patches- taking the "keep the players happy and engaged" approach- with frequent QoL updates.
It is still a live service game, meaning it's built toward wanting to keep you coming back every day, which is sometime annoying...but I've quit the game for months at a time and didn't feel like I missed out on too much, so it's not "too" bad.
For me the worst part is probably one you skipped over so I'll add it here ; they use a random stat system for gears, coupled with an energy limit for the farming, meaning you won't be able to level and gear up your characters at the pace you want to.

Overall, I was very impressed by the effort put into this game.

Other things you might not like: Time limited events and gacha to get characters.
- To remediate some of the pain, they make some of the events with interesting story bits permanent.
-To help with the gacha aspect, there are a couple of "pity" systems to make sure you eventually get what you want, and this pity system carry over from banner to banner, meaning you can plan ahead and save up for a character you want.
- They cycle back to the old limited characters (re-runs) after 6 months (that's still very long)

Other things you may like : The characters are much more fleshed out than in other gacha games.
The 2 more recent rogue-lite mode in the game do not require any energy to run and they are fun even when you're done getting the rewards.
If like me, you're an achievement hunter, they put some very interesting achievement to get ; for example ; Last hitting a certain boss with different characters.
The game is also brimming with funny random stuff, like for example, you can game over if you refuse to board the train at the beginning of the game and toilets seats that teleport you.

[redstratus]

I was hoping you would play Relayer. Wondering what you thought about that JRPG.

[clumsy_zebra_]

I'm such a sucker for the story behind gacha games along with the character collecting, but I don't like how you're encouraged to spend money in most of them. You're more encouraged in some more than others, but most gachas practically require you to pay for their battle pass system to be getting enough currency to really have fun with what is a core aspect of gacha games: character synergy. All characters are vastly different mechanically, yet their mechanical differences make them synergize because they each have a unique purpose in combat, this goes for any characters in any gacha game really. This requires you to save up in game money and sometimes real money to get the characters you want and the characters that have good synergy. That's my main gripe with Gacha games.

That being said, Honkai Star Rail seems to minimize F2P frustration, and I fee like that's largely possible due to the wild success Genshin Impact has been. Genshin is Hoyoverse's cash cow, which allows them to not take money making so seriously with Star rail, which in turn allows them to reward players more and focus more on fun. This is a game I will probably definitely end up trying lol

[guillermolavin]

Im enjoying the game so far without spending a single dollar. So, in ny books, a AAA game, with this presentation, care and content, for free? It's a winner. Eveybody has the option to spend if they want to and thats fine too. You should do an update review every 6 months or something like that for the ones that are playing it like you. So far havent got to the 2.0 content but looks really good in ny opinion

[kevatchiralzin]

It's the Final Fantasy of Hoyoverse a major hit!!!

[---ndyx]

I just won’t touch Gacha games anymore. As time passes, power creep and P2W mechanics are an inevitability. They’ll add content that is extremely difficult/virtually impossible for free players to clear, attempting to frustrate you into spending money. Hitting a brick wall in games just sucks and in these kind of games it’ll be your credit card, not your willingness to grind as they will make the grind as long tedious and unreasonable as possible, that lets you escape.

[windwakerrules]

My biggest issue with gatchas is the story never ends, and with power creep via gatcha it becomes weird that the "biggest evil" of arc 1 cant beat some random boar in the third expansion breaks the world building.