Himeko is one of the first 5-star Honkai: Star Rail characters that players can test during their extended tutorial, and while her trial is but a chance for players to have a glimpse of her powers, actually pulling for her is a great plan. Unlike the Trailblazer themselves, hsrcreators which start off as a Destruction character, Himeko is The Erudition hero. This makes her great at dealing damage to multiple enemies at once. Additionally, she is a Fire character, which turns her into a valuable addition to early team comps that typically lack more Fire her
Herta, an Ice Erudition Honkai: Star Rail character that players can claim for free after completing the ” Simulated Universe: Second Closed Beta ” quest, becoming available shortly after the end of the game’s initial prologue. Unfortunately, however, she’s subject to a few problems that can make her underwhelming to use in battle. As an Erudition character, Herta focuses mostly on dealing multi-target damage, but can’t quite keep up with the output of other damaging characters, and offers no utility to make up for it (aside from Ice breaks freezing enemies). Compounding her problems, Herta’s Ice element overlaps with March 7th’s, making her unnecessary even for elemental cover
From the get-go, it’s obvious that some of Honkai: Star Rail ‘s design is informed by lessons that would have been learned from Genshin Impact ‘s vocal player base. There’s no Paimon-style character bumbling through scenes that would otherwise be emotional or intense – the closest thing is Pom-Pom, the Astral Express conductor, whose lack of presence in key plot moments makes them much more palatable when they do inject some humor into the narrat
The turn-based combat itself is also an immediate joy, with seamless animations making the initial battles feel flashy and impactful even while they’re largely getting players up to speed on Star Rail ‘s gameplay systems. There are seven elements that serve as means to break enemy weaknesses, and balancing a team that’s spread out with these elements while also functional represents a significant challenge. Traditional roles like tank and healer are somewhat subverted here – though there’s obvious representations of both – and flexibility seems to be the name of the game when it comes to Honkai: Star Rail. The ability to swap teammates after previewing an enemy’s weaknesses on the map helps ensure there are a minimum of ill-prepared fights that feel unwinna
Exploration in Honkai: Star Rail is linear, but maps are littered with things to do – collectibles, treasure chests, elite enemies, and puzzles populate most of them, which are closely equivalent to traditional JRPG dungeons. The cities that make up hubs for each world visited are interested and diverse, with plenty of lore scattered throughout for those who want to know more about what the universe the Trailblazer inhabits looks l
As a turn-based RPG, one of the most important aspects of the game for new players to grasp is how to build effective teams comps in Honkai: Star Rail , for which there are several factors to consider. Elemental coverage, for example, is vitally important, as exploiting the elemental weaknesses of enemies forms the crux of Star Rail ‘s combat. Equally important to consider are the character’s Paths – essentially, their character classes, which determine their roles in battle, from damage dealing, to buffing/debuffing, to shielding/healing. Luckily, Honkai: Star Rail ‘s free characters have enough variety in elements and Paths for players to build effective teams without pulling other characters – but some are certainly more effective than oth
Bailu, easily one of the best 5-star characters in Honkai: Star Rail , follows The Abundance Path and is one out of three heroes that follow this Path. Although there is an abundance of Lightning characters in the game, she might as well be the best. Most of her abilities focus on restoration techniques, so she is a viable substitute for a Preservation charac
A Fire Harmony character, Asta’s skills primarily center around buffing allies, granting a stacking attack boost whenever she hits an enemy, with extra stacks being granted against fire weaknesses. Although the stacks fall off quickly, the boost is still consistent and useful for increasing a team’s damage output, especially in combination with Asta’s speed-boosting ultimate. As a slight downside, however, Asta is one of the few free characters in the live service Honkai: Star Rail whose element overlaps with another, which has her competing somewhat for a team slot with Fire Trailblazer – although, on the other hand, one of her ascensions does increase the fire damage of other characters, further increasing her usefulness against fire-weak enem
If there are any issues in Honkai: Star Rail , they stem from its status as a gacha game. Drop rates are predictably pretty stingy for 5-star characters, which is further complicated by the presence of Star Rail Light Cones , the game’s version of weapons from Genshin Impact . These also need to be rolled on, which can make finding an optimal build quite expensive unless someone gets lucky. Energy requirements also make it feel like Honkai: Star Rail is unnecessarily gating players away from its content – limited runs of the Simulated Universe or for materials can feel like a negative element. This is compounded by the fact Star Rail isn’t open-world, which means players won’t have the same ability to wander around and simply find things that they have in games like Genshin Impact when their energy system is deple