Honkai: Star Rail is one of the most popular gacha games: toy-vending machines. Honkai: Star Rail released on Apr. 26 in 2023 by Mihoyo; a world renown company known for its release of Genshin Impact.

On Apr. 26 in 2023 one of the most well-known gacha games was released. Genshin Impact players soon rushed to try this game, Honkai: Star Rail, a new turn-based character combat system. It surged with players on release and now has an hourly playerbase of 130,000. Honkai: Star Rail is a semi-open world game with a gambling system known as “gacha”. Characters release every 2-3 weeks known as a patch. Every patch has a new character which is where the gambling system comes in. Primogems are known as the currency which is needed to wish for the character you want. The chance of it being 50%. Without wise spending, because of how the game is designed, people tend to spend money to bypass this system. 

Once you first make an account you have to choose a server between Europe, America and Asia. As you progress through the story with cutscenes and missions, your progression is known as Trailblazer levels’. Every 10 levels’ you can get more resources from a domain. This is a complicated process known for efficient spending on your restricted amounts of daily entry. As you progress through the story at your own pace and gather Primogems, this will allow you to get characters you want.

As I played throughout the story, I found myself paying attention to the cutscenes of characters I liked or found interesting. There were a couple exceptions where I would listen instead of just skipping the story which would help me learn Japanese or Chinese. I found each voice actor who voiced a character breathtaking as I indulged. Seconds become minutes and minutes become hours. I enjoyed the story at my own pace alone. 

All good things come to an end though, this is because since the game is not entirely finished, the released patches come with the story periodically. Honkai: Star Rail is a solo-player game although it does have a multiplayer aspect; letting players use other peoples’ characters for grinding.

While the game is fairly new, it is exceptional among gacha games. With many side-quests, challenges and secret achievements, a lot of content in Honkai: Star Rail will keep you occupied. There is also a so-called “end game” named Memory of Chaos. It is a 2-3 week reset dudgeon with different buffs and enemies; Enemies in the Chaos dudgeon sometimes are adjusted or changed to new worlds: Penacony.