With 30 million-odd pre-registrations under its belt prior to coming out, Honkai: Star Rail was always going to be a pretty big deal when it eventually launched. The turn-based anime RPG did exactly that earlier this week, and it’s already been downloaded over 20 million times in just a single day, according to a tweet from analyst Daniel Ahmad. Perhaps not surprising for a free-to-play game, but still. That’s a lot of people. I must admit, I could never quite gel with Genshin Impact, another very anime RPG made by the same developers, but Honkai’s turn-based battles look a lot more up my street. So I downloaded yesterday, which I guess makes me part of that enormous 20 million number. Are you planning on giving it a go as well?
Yes, I know it’s a gacha game, and yes, I hate gacha stuff as much as the next person. I don’t intend to spend any money playing Honkai: Star Rail, and if I ever get the feeling that I should be paying money, I’ll be switching it off and uninstalling it. But I am intrigued to see exactly how well it plays with just the free characters you get at the start, and I’m heartened by what guides writer Rebecca has said about it this week, and how well it plays with those freebie party members. She’s spent more time playing it than I have, so why not have a listen to what she has to say about it in the video above?
Another thing I want to test my tolerance levels against is just how anime it is. Very, is probably the answer to that, which may prompt me to turn it off faster than its gacha stuff depending on how grating the English voiceover is. I like to think I’ve built up a reasonably good anime nonsense buffer over the years, as much of my early 20s was spent watching various series through gritted teeth where I knew 100% I wasn’t the welcome or target audience for it, and I enduringly put up with its terrible fan service and raging hormonal idiot men far longer than I probably should have. Here’s hoping there are lots of interesting language options to try to make it more digestible.
Really, though, I just want to see what its turn-based battles are like. Its mix of normal, special and ultimate attacks sound right up my street, and cor, I do love a disruptible turn queue, not gonna lie. This bit from our Honkai: Star Rail review sounds pretty great, too.
“On top of that, each ultimate can actually be activated at any time. This allows you to mess around with turn orders and sequences, lets you hit enemies while they’re vulnerable, or make sure you heal or shield before a big boss attacks. Each character is from one of seven different elements, and hitting an enemy with an elemental weakness allows you to break them, which will push them further back in the turn order and usually do a little bit more damage.”
Yes please. More of that, thanks.
Still, what I’m most interested in is whether you, dear readers, are also beaming its space train down your internet pipes right now, based on what you’ve seen and heard about it so far? Does it sound like your kind of RPG? Or has its gacha systems just simply put you right off? Tell us about it in the comments below.
Katharine Castle
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