 |
| I love the PS5 splash art. |
Developer/publisher: Hoyoverse.
Platform: PS4,PC,mobile
Official Site: N/A.
Official Site: N/A.
Release date: 11-10-2023
I decided to give star rail a try, because I keep hearing its pretty much structured
like any RPG (but still gacha) and inspired by trails, so here goes nothing.
Pro's
- Solid prologue & story on Jarilo VI.
- Great main cast of characters and fun interactions between MC,March & Dang Heng.
- Being able to replay old events.
- Automode for battles with material rewards, which removes tedium.
Grey area
- Xianzhou's story was a little messy.
Con's
- Combat can feel basic and a bit repetitive.
- Certain substories can be accessed too early creating inconsistencies.
(Like it acts like we've been to Peanutbutter but I actually haven't YET.
Setting is a space fantasty/sci-fi, honestly it reminds me more of star ocean
rather than trails but in terms of combat its the latter that's similar.
I'll say it was off to a fantastic start and the story and characters easily hooked me.
There's an actual main party in star rail: March and Dang Heng whom I actually want
to have in my party but for Genshin impact which I also played I wanted to replace
the initials as fast as I could, Amber yea you're nice as a torch lighter.💀
but he was useful with his icebridges... untill Wriothesley put him out of a job.
The chemistry between MC,March and Dan Heng was just that great.
Other characters range from great to they're just kind of there doing their own thing like Asta.
Combat is like a turnbased RPG but its very basic and repetitive.
It bothered me you can't use items in battle unlike genshin?! and there's
no MP management, just normal attack, skill and a special move. It really seems
like a simplified version of trails. its servicable but I am not really here for it.
I only rank up my world level in star rail when I am really ready because
I am traumatized from genshin in which you could level up too fast and struggle.
Unfortunately there is a powercreep and newer characters will always be better
but that didn't really affect my early journey of progressing through the story.
The characters yo get from the game are perfectly viable.
There's an autobattle but that doesn't work on every fight, so for the story you still gotta work.
I think it is nice in that it can remove the tedium of having to grind for mats to level up
a character or light cone which is like their armor. There's traces too which is like a skill tree.
So when there's so many this or that it can get tiresome if you had to do it manually
so I can still appreciate the automode. However I do realize these type of games
make me miss regular rpg's since there's too much this or that here and in a regular rpg
there may just be skills gained by lvl up or something like a sphere grid like ffx/xiii
while you just buy gear in shops and in star rail there's no gear except lightcones
and without gacha they only come as rewards and they're quite rare.
I have rambled on too much about it but... its not the worst combat/gamplay system I have seen.
Its also not open world like genshin so I wasn't able to get lost, it was still nice
to find random chests here or there but its rare to find lightcones from chests.
Its basically just a bit of credit, exp materials and the currency to roll on banners.
Music was pretty good I have no complaints and I thought the graphics were better than genshin?
the character models also have more shine to them. Just feels like it had more polish.
Storywise it varies; The prologue and space station were great.
The first world Jarilo VI was good but with the Xianzhou Luofu... despite having great
characters it had too much lore dumps and I wasn't able to remember it all, only the
important bits which was a shame. It was also here that I felt the need to already take a break.
 |
| Going from Jarilo VI to Xianzhou Luofu do be like this... |
Overall its off to a great start but then sort of dips but never too low it loses momentum
and well if you think you need a break from the story then I suggest you do so.
Its also good to remember the story comes in parts so one will eventually catch up.
====================================================================
 |
| More like honorable fart... |
The dialogue was a lot of fun as well and its not as bloatey as genshin was
which is notorious for having a lot of fluff, even I who can ramble a lot thinks its a lot.
At times when explaining lore it does get long but what can you do about that?
sometimes it is necessary. I actually don't really go back to read quest descriptions
but this one time as seen below I actually chuckled. It seemed the translator was like
someone has to read this right? may as well make it funny!
or they just had their funny pants on that day. Or always...
Despite this being a gacha game, much like genshin it doesn't throw you the banners in your face
and
its easy to ignore any character you don't want to roll for and save up
for someone you do want. Personally I plan to only roll on banners if I
really like the character.
When I started playing I could choose 1 standard character for free
and also choose between Ruan Mei or Luocha, I chose the latter.
For standard I chose Gepard but I am still using March 7th...😅
though eventually I think I will replace her with him.
I don't really feel too hot or cold towards Luocha, he's nice to have on your team
and even after the second world has an air of mystery around him.
On the other side I feel conflicted about Ruan Mei after her story quest, like
she's not that bad but she sure is something alright.
TL;DR overall I can recommend this gacha game if you like RPG's in general
even if genshin didn't work out for you, it mostly fixed most of my gripes I had with that
though I can't gaurantee one will like it as well, it never hurts to try.
More rambles after the jump but i've mostly said what there's to say.
There's no real plot spoilers but I do talk about some companion quest so light spoilers maybe?
