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Honkai Star Rail Review - Come on, Ride the Train | MMORPG.com
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Honkai Star Rail Review - Come on, Ride the Train | MMORPG.com
In our Honkai Star Rail review find out if you should board the Astral Express and travel the universe, or if you should pass on getting a ticket to this particular train?
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I know Genshin Impact got a similar score, but this kind of solidifies that the future is here with triple A-type gatcha games. Not sure how I feel about it.
There is a reason Genshin Impact stole the spotlight back in 2020 the way it did, and i promise you it's not because of the "gacha".
Fishing on Gilgamesh since 2013
Fishing on Bronzebeard since 2005
Fishing in RL since 1992
Born with a fishing rod in my hand in 1979
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I think it's because it was decent and I guarantee that it was ALSO because of Gatcha mechanics. "This game is great! But it's mired in terrible monetization practices."
This will probably have more players than all of those combined.
Must be a trillion by now... let's give it a 9.5
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
This is not a "fast food" game. This is not Battlefield or Call of Duty.
If the issue is that it's a gacha game, lets be fair. HSR is a F2P game, and it needs to have a monetization model. The quality of gameplay and the amount of content that it provides at the exchange of the non-mandatory gacha is way better than what many paid games offer in both their base game and the DLC. I'll always prefer feature complete paid games, of course, but I'm not blind to not see that HSR is a good game, and that the gacha part only matters if one has an OCD and wants to obtain all the characters ASAP. Because I'm playing it perfectly fine using the base characters (due to RP reasons, despite having obtained two S characters from the gacha without paying a cent). You don't get locked away from any gameplay part of the game for not using money on the gacha. And, if you really need to overpower everything, some of the best characters and cones are easy to acquire, and you get plenty of chances to get them (some of them directly by completing quests and other side content).
It's a good RPG with an actual good story (way better than that on Genshin imho, and on par with many JRPGs), good gameplay mechanics, a great OST, good voice acting, and plenty of side content to do as well as other fun stuff to explore while adventuring. And all that without having to spend a dime. Plus, you can play it on several platforms while sharing your progress. This 1.0 version deserves the score given here for the reasons stated in the article. If you forget about the gacha and just play the game like you would normally play any other RPG, you won't notice any lack of quality when compared to a FF, DQ, or Tales game, for example.
You just don't dismiss a score comparison with notable quality games by saying "This will probably have more players than all of those combined."
That response brought mass consumption into the discussion, not me. I simply ridiculed it as it should be.
As to "If you forget about the gacha..." yeah, no. I ain't doing that. It's a gacha game that monetizes optimization and no amount of dissing optimization with dumb statements like "And, if you really need to overpower everything..." will ever change that it's a fucking gacha game.
Have fun with that but don't expect grown-ups to take your rationalizations seriously.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
If one is casual enough to not be dinged by the wallet, that also likely means they are casual enough that they are not investing much time in the game, or will even drop it not long after finishing whatever casual narrative content is available with perhaps a bit of grinding. For others the ultimate implication is there will be plenty to spend on, or else that wouldn't be the model they continue to rely on for titles.
Just not to my interest to support that sort of system design.
For those that are into it, guess a heads up that there are twitch drops active for the game's launch. So if you have a twitch, just make sure ya set a stream going in a muted window I guess?
You aren't wrong, i guess if i were to give a gacha game a pass, it would be these games; because the devs seem to actually give a shit.
There are 100's of other gacha games out there; so i may as well pick one's that actually do not suck. I know it's a flimsey way of looking at it, but i can't help but admire miHoYo as a game dev- they just seem to get it it terms of weaponizing nerd-culture into something exciting.
Fishing on Gilgamesh since 2013
Fishing on Bronzebeard since 2005
Fishing in RL since 1992
Born with a fishing rod in my hand in 1979
Did you forget that your first and "grown-up" contribution to the discussion of this long article was, and I quote, "cringe"? I'm not sure if the quality of your argument was better than his...
Aside from that, nice strawman. You ignored the point of what I said on purpose: the game is feature complete and equal to regular single player RPGs, and the gacha is something added on top of that. The score is based on the first part, and is not higher due to the second. I even specified the kind of games that I prefer, but you reduce explaining why this one is a good overall game that can be easily enjoyed (the point of gaming), even without using the gacha, to "rationalizing".
And talking about a post that included "notable quality games" to then follow with a complaint about "monetizes optimization" is funny, considering that most of those games actually monetize just that (inventory size, exp boosts, etc.). Heck, OW2, a competitive game, even straight sells you heroes.
I don't like gacha games either, as I already implied on the first post, but I'm not going to act as if this one can't be enjoyed as a fully fledged single player/co-op RPG without caring about it.
Yeah I can see that, good point.
The combat system is so broken and heavily skewed towards trying to force you to spend for characters, it is ridiculous. Good example, I made a comment about Simulation world 2. It has a recommended level of 37. I've yet to see anyone post a video of it being done at 37 without 5 star characters or a whale account.
Too many cons:
Break bars for enemies but not player, causing some enemies to have ridiculous TTK's
The skill point system only applies to players, you have to waste turns building skill points to do anything other then normal attacks, enemies don't, some bosses later on cheese so hard, as they can AOE every turn, and get a second action which usually is a single target attack, debuff, buff, or dot
The AOE healer of game, that would help a little, with AOE's from bosses and challenge enemies, is locked behind the gacha system. The F2P healer can only AOE heal using her ultimate, and it's not for much, her Skill is a single target heal, that after about level 20, won't even come close to covering the damage you have take in a boss fight, oh and it cost a skill point
The Combat Types and Paths system heavily favors enemies and pay to win, best quantum damage dealer in game locked behind gacha, and you will run into ALOT enemies at start of game that are vulnerable to Quantum combat type. But you get a F2P Quantum type that of course has a combat mechanic that sucks, and makes her pretty useless
Useless free to play characters like March 7th (yes that is her name). She can shield a character, cool right? Yeah until you realize every boss and challenging enemy you fight after a certain level AOE's, EVERY turn. So she gets a nice spot next to the useless healer. But hey you got them for free right?
Characters with AOE abilities that strike random enemies. No explanation just good luck getting them to land on the enemies you want (Welt one of the better debuffers in game has it, Asta one of your earliest fire characters has it)
Stamina system preventing you from farming the materials you need to Ascend/upgrade, a 180 cap on something that takes over 12 hours to regen from full, and depending on what you do can take 30 stamina to earn you 2 materials you need, out of 5, and factor in each of the combat/paths have different requirements, yeah...
Boss fights and Story fights that trigger with no idea what combat types the boss is weak to, meaning you have you to DIE or quit the fight, fix your group, then come back
Horrible balancing. My character are all 50 or higher right now, and there are level 46 things I can not beat. It's get worse as you go along. Bosses start to get multiple health bars, retain their 2 attack per turn minimum, some even go up to 3 attacks. Normal enemies get worse when you get to second world, as they die, but immediately resurrect with a full break bar and 50% health and you have to kill them again. Also you run into a lot more of those enemies from the first world, that always get the first attack, did I forget to mention that first attack is an AOE, and you might have two of those enemies in the group you fight.. yeah
And it just gets worse as you go further down the rabbit hole.
If this game is an 8, then the gaming industry is FUBAR.
In War - Victory.
In Peace - Vigilance.
In Death - Sacrifice.
I beat simulation world 2 using, on purpose, the MC (fire), March, Dan Heng, and Clara, all at level 40, and without maxed or optimized artifacts (saving that grind for later, on gold/5-star ones). You can certainly get and use even better characters from the free pulls (I had them, Seele included, but I wanted to use "my party" and ignore the meta for now), and even use better artifacts. So, I don't know where that long rant comes from. Maybe you forgot that you're supposed to lose the first time in order for Herta to unlock a certain very powerful feature (well, two of them, if you count the skill tree), or you forgot to properly activate and use it during your second run?
I'm level 50 now, like you, and doing my thing in the Luofu, where those self-reviving foes appear. I also beat simulation world 3 easily using the same party that I mentioned earlier, but at level 40-50 (March and Dan Heng were, and are, still 40), without anyone dying. Maybe the issue relies somewhere else and not in the game being too difficult, because if I can play it fine so far using 3 free characters (two of which are just 4 stars), then it's certainly doable. I'm not a super talented gamer by a long shot, as I'm pretty casual nowadays, and I haven't paid a cent.
Also, remember that every enemy is weak against three different damage types. So you can choose your favourite or more usable characters and still do fine, if you balance your party right. Just remember to commit to a limited number of them for now, or you won't be able to keep them all up to date due to a lack of resources. I play without a healer (I have Natasha at eidolon 4, but I just want to see how long I can keep up using shields only) relying just on characters' out of combat skills, and shields, and I have not needed to replay any part of the game due to a defeat so far. I'm not even using food yet, which would be an additional bonus.
I would recommend you to take a look at your build, both in character composition and their equipment, to see if there's something that can be improved. And just going by the free pulls you should have at least another 5 star character, other than the MC (with a very high probability of it being Seele, unless you used your pulls wrong or lost the 50/50), which should greatly help you. And about enemy weaknesses, usually a good idea is to have at least one or two elemental types that match those of the main cast, as story enemies almost always are vulnerable to one or more of those.
EDIT: I forgot about the newbie banner with a reduced cost where you're guaranteed another 5 star character. So, you being at around the same point as I am, you should actually have at the very least not one but TWO 5 star characters (that's counting that you only got the guaranteed ones due to very bad luck), aside from the MC, with one of them almost certainly being Seele.
Either my newbie banner was busted or something but I only got 1 5-star from it and that was 2 10 pulls in, didn't get one on the final 10 pull.
And before we stray into the whole ‘but the gameplay is heavily influenced by it’ argument, the good old games had massive amounts of grind and downtime to keep you subbed for as long as possible. Something people love to forget or mask with silly euphemisms like ‘depth.’
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
My team is Gerard/Natasha/Seele/Asta they synergy good! Must say I play it alot on my mobile instead of pc.
I dont think that's quite the same way to put it. Old games had you sub a long period of time for essentially a chance at gearing, which of course wasn't guaranteed. Its better to equate a gacha game to paying for a chance at rolling the class you want, with no real guarantee outside of paying for it (especially since there's real fomo involved with limited time banners). Its essentially say "Hey, for 2 weeks only (with a shot at it coming back 6 months later), you get a shot and getting the mage class." To make that even worse, many of these gacha, you can only make yourself 'stronger' if you're getting duplicates of that roll. Sure its a f2p game, but I dont think gacha is a consumer-friendly way to make money. If you're going to sell power (which is what gachas essentially do) then just sell it, not a chance at it. Keep in mind that this game only guarantees you a 50/50 chance at the specific 5 star unit, but if you roll enough, then you can get the 'extra pull currency' to finally buy what you want (which you'll need since duplicates are the only way to make that unit stronger).
The newbie banner only guarantees one 5 star. If you get it before the 50 pulls, that counts as the guarantee and you don't get another unless you're lucky. It's a pity lite banner, with a 20% reduced cost and reduced pity requirement.
The second 5 star that I mention is from the limited banner, as by the point where this guy and I are we had the resources to make enough additional pulls on it and get the 5 star fron the pity there, with a 50% chance of it being Seele.
I'm not counting lucky people getting additional 5 stars from those pulls, or from the standard tickets in the standard banner. Also, several other 4 stars would be obtained from all the pulls done too (from all the banners). And some of those 4 stars are considered S and SS characters in the current meta (Sushang, Tingyun, Natasha, plus the free Dan Heng and Asta), on par and better than some 5 stars.
Not that this all is needed to play the game, as I can attest with my party, but it gives you plenty of opportunities to build a very powerful setup if you so wish.