Hell, you can even ambush enemies to get a free turn at the beginning of an encounter.Ĭombat abilities feel quite limited. The dungeon layouts would be identical if it weren’t for a lack of interesting design features even just moving through the labyrinthine corridors felt reminiscent of early Palaces like Kamoshida and Madarame. The turn-based combat follows the same cadence and adopts similar animations. In fact, aside from its art style (which is very similar to Genshin), Honkai: Star Rail is basically just an inferior version of Persona 5 across the board. This particular dungeon was markedly closer to Goldenthan Royal, which is to say that it didn’t feel especially recent, let alone new. Most of what I experienced was a very pared-back, less impressive variant of a Persona palace.

I didn’t get much additional context during my hands-on demo with Honkai: Star Rail at Gamescom 2022. While story details are still a little sparse, we know that your adventure has something to do with investigating a mysterious race of gods called Aeons, one of whom has apparently stitched you with a “Seed of Ruin.”

As the title implies, the premise is centered on an intergalactic train called the Astral Express. Honkai: Star Rail represents Hoyoverse’s first foray into turn-based combat as something of a haphazard and overly simple Persona 5 clone set in space.

Honkai star rail vs honkai impact 3