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Did Mihoyo Learn From Its Mistakes?
My main hope for this game's release was that it would play to the strengths of Mihoyo's previous games - combat, animations, exploration - but without the fatal weaknesses - predatory monetization, annoying characters, and lack of character variety. Let's start with the good stuff first.
No Paimon-like character (thank god)
This game doesn't give you a companion character who constantly gives annoying lines in a high pitch, babyish voice. Our ears can rest easy.
Character Variation is much Better
Because this game doesn't have equippable weapons, characters aren't stuck with the same few weapon types, giving a lot more variety to the characters. Each characters skills feel impactful, and because the Star Rail travels between completely different worlds, designs are a lot more unique than the studios previous titles. Voice acting and character lines are top notch, and although a lot of them do fulfill generic personalities, it's not done in an over-the-top way.
Exploration is a Blast
The game stuck to having various secrets, side quests, and chests all around the world, so going out of your way to explore is worthwhile.
Alright, now for the not-so-good stuff.
Awful Gacha
The gacha in this game isn't much better than prior game's. Currency is rare, and pull rates are dismally low. Instead of pulling a bunch of garbage weapons like in genshin, you pull low-quality light cones in the same drawing as characters, which quickly become irrelevant and useless. I was hoping the game would learn from its competitors on how to do a healthy gacha system (see ToF and PGR and their studios) but as long as there are those willing to spend money on this system, I guess it was too much to hope for. The only improvement they made here is that gameplay does not drastically change as you evolve your characters- as long as you have a good strategy you can force your way through the game (mostly).
Overcumbersome Progression
C'mon star rail, do we really need all this crap on our characters? 6 relics, the character evolution, light cones, trace nodes, and separate leveling systems within each. You've got to go find all the materials for each one, for each individual class and each individual element, severely limiting your progression. This is particularly annoying because of the elements system; because there's so much to upgrade to make your character strong, it's cumbersome to have enough characters leveled up enough to adapt to the game's Challenge Stages or a new environment. Combined with weekly caps on some of the more high-level materials, it's frustratingly tedious just to get what you need to actually play the game.
Overall Review: 6/10
The studio didn't learn much from the failures in Genshin or Honkai, but it's got enough of its successes to be worth playing up to a point. If you're looking for a time waster until better games similar to this one come out (which should be only a few weeks) then it's worth playing, but not spending money on. Save your wallet for games without predatory monetization scam.
That's just my view though, let me know what you think below! I'd love to hear some other viewpoints.
Edit: Adjusted wording slightly in "Awful Gacha" category to focus more on the game itself.
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