Gacha games have long been a staple of the mobile gaming scene, enticing players to part with their paychecks little by little with slot-machine mechanics for acquiring new characters. In 2020, the genre broke through to the mainstream like never before with developer miHoYo’s Genshin Impact, which melded a gacha system with a big-budget open-world action RPG. Now, miHoYo may be on track for an even bigger hit with the turn-based Honkai Star Rail.

The popularity of Genshin Impact alone is likely to bring a lot of attention to Honkai Star Rail, and players will find a lot of commonality between the two games, despite their different genres. From its character designs to anime-inspired graphical style, Honkai Star Rail looks a lot like Genshin Impact (which itself inherited its style from the larger Honkai mobile series); even the game’s menus are nearly identical in both form and function. If you’ve spent any time running through Genshin Impact’s checklist of daily tasks or hoping desperately to pull the new featured character, you’ll feel right at home in Honkai Star Rail.

If you’ve spent any time running through Genshin Impact’s checklist of daily tasks or hoping desperately to pull the new featured character, you’ll feel right at home in Honkai Star Rail.

When it comes to gameplay, though, Honkai Star Rail blazes its own trail, and in many ways it’s already more exciting than its predecessor. Honkai Star Rail does away with the action combat of Genshin Impact and the earlier Honkai games in favor of a fast-paced turn-based system. Each member of your four-person party has a basic attack, a more powerful skill, and an Ultimate attack that charges slightly each turn. A system of elemental attributes adds depth to this simple foundation. Each playable character has an elemental type, like fire or lightning, and every enemy has a shield that can be broken by at least one elemental type. Breaking a shield will push back an enemy’s turn — visible on a turn order indicator that’s always available in combat — and inflict a status effect corresponding to the element.

Characters are also divided into classes that broadly define how they act in combat, though even characters of the same class can function entirely different from one another. For example, one member of the offense-focused Destruction class can deplete his own health to boost damage while another taunts enemies into attacking her to trigger powerful counter attacks. These interlocking mechanics combine to form a deeply strategic combat system where building unique teams can be just as much fun as the turn-based battles themselves.

Even outside of combat, Honkai Star Rail’s distinct characters are one of its biggest strengths.

Even outside of combat, Honkai Star Rail’s distinct characters are one of its biggest strengths. Every recruitable party member and most major NPCs feels lively and unique, and their varied personalities lends a lot of heart to the interstellar adventure. From the obscenely wealthy Asta to the cute-but-fierce March 7th, the members of the main cast are charming and funny both in narrative scenes and in the frequent text messages you’ll receive from them as you play. There are already a substantial number of side quests devoted to developing your relationships with these characters in Honkai Star Rail at launch, and more are almost certainly on the way with future updates.

Just as Honkai Star Rail’s writing brings its characters to life, it also adds color to the world. Honkai Star Rail is absolutely packed with quirky writing, from incidental dialogue to the descriptions it displays when you inspect mundane objects like trash cans. Not since Morrowind have I been so compelled to read every in-game book I came across, and almost every one made it worth my time. At the same time, many of its quests are surprisingly emotional, adding tons of depth to the world.

Honkai Star Rail is already one of the most exciting RPGs in years even before its first major content update.

Devouring every scrap of text you can find offers other rewards as well. Honkai Star Rail is bursting with side quests for those willing to explore its world. You’ll find them by exploring optional areas, speaking to nondescript NPCs, and even examining those aforementioned trash cans. Despite taking place on a series of discrete maps as opposed to Genshin Impact’s sprawling open world, Honkai Star Rail’s setting is even more vibrant and alive, and every corner of it feels crafted with care.

A live-service game, Honkai Star Rail is far from a complete experience. At launch, there are three major environments to explore: your home on Herta’s Space Station, the frigid Jarilo-VI, and a city built on a nomadic spaceship called Xianzhou Luofu. Each area is packed with campaign missions and optional content and playing through it all would easily take you dozens of hours. The three environments are brought to life with gorgeous art and music, which make the dark, oppressive Jarilo-VI convincingly feel a world away from the opulent Xianzhou Luofu.

When you’re not completing specific quests, you’ll likely spend most of your time grinding dungeons and the excellent Simulated Universe roguelike mode, where you can find unique gear to bring your characters to their full potential. The grind is endemic to all gacha games, and how much you enjoy Honkai Star Rail will largely come down to how much you can stomach it. At launch, you can beat all the story content available without needing to spend too much time grinding, but the longer the game goes on, the more time you’ll spend repeating the same handful of activities. Honkai Star Rail’s combat and writing were more than enough to keep me hooked and wanting more, some players will undoubtedly find themselves bored with the repetition before too long.

Honkai Star Rail is absolutely packed with quirky writing, from incidental dialogue to the descriptions it displays when you inspect mundane objects like trash cans.

The simple fact that Honkai Star Rail is a gacha game is also a potential pitfall. While it’s free to play, Honkai Star Rail intends to make its money by charging you to roll the dice on the chance to acquire new characters. For some people, it can be frustrating having no definite way to recruit their favorite characters. For others, it can be an outright predatory business model that exploits a propensity toward gambling addiction. If you think there’s any chance Honkai Star Rail’s gambling mechanics could be a problem for you, you should absolutely avoid playing it, period.

That major caveat aside, Honkai Star Rail is already one of the most exciting RPGs in years even before its first major content update. While the grind may eventually chase you away, its excellent writing and original combat system make Honkai Star Rail well worth diving into, especially with no upfront cost.

Pros:

• Turn-based combat rewards strategy and team synergy

• Expressive art style makes characters and locations unique

• Full of vivid, charming writing

Cons:

• Gacha mechanics can be predatory

• May be repetitive in the long-term

Score: 9/10

Honkai Star Rail is free to play on PC, Android, and iOS.