For better or worse, HoYoVerse has imported several familiar elements from Genshin Impact into its upcoming Honkai Impact 3rd spinoff, Honkai Star Rail. This is no surprise, considering Genshin Impact’s global influence on the gaming community. While some of the changes are welcome improvements over the older Honkai Impact 3rd, there are several major downsides. estrella rail grab signals Genshin. Perhaps the biggest drawback is the implementation of the voiceless Trailblazer as the player avatar.
What separates Honkai Impact 3rd from its more fantasy-inspired counterpart is its protagonist-driven narrative. When Honkai Impact 3rd starts, it puts the player in the shoes of Kiana Kaslana, a real character. We experience it through their dreams, their goals and their struggles. Kiana has a distinctive voice and personality that allows the player to connect not only with the characters, but also with the world and the story. She supports her own story in a way that can only be possible with a protagonist who is a real voice character.
In contrast, Genshin Impact’s Traveler is a voiceless player avatar. Paimon does most of the communication for them. This is a fairly common practice in gacha games and some RPGs. But as the plot of Genshin Impact became more complicated, the limits of the voiceless protagonist became clear. All of his most shocking stories revolve around characters with real personalities: Nahida, Wanderer, Kazuha… On the other hand, the Traveler’s plot to find his brother fails miserably. It’s a shame in way of the stars because the principle of traveling to different planets in a galactic train to solve problems is very exciting.
When Honkai Star Rail starts, you control the ridiculously cool and suave Kafka. The genius hacker Silver Wolf then accompanies him on the journey. You can see the two of them joking around as they deftly navigate their way through enemy troops and traps. Oh my God, I thought to myself. “It’s good!”
And then the Trailblazer wakes up. I won’t be greedy enough to say that I hope Kafka is the protagonist. But the voiceless protagonist feels so dated and stuffy from the big story that HoYoVerse obviously means he cut the wind from my sails a bit.
Another flaw in Honkai Star Rail’s storytelling is its ineffective storytelling in the beta. The protagonist of the speechless player insertion is the best to help establish lore. If the protagonist has no idea of the world like the player, then it’s easy to explain the “obvious” things. The Traveler has the talkative Paimon, and Kiana has her stupidity. But even if the Trailblazer is as clueless as the player should be, does anyone really explain anything? Maybe I’m the stupid one. But even after hours of play, I only have vague guesses as to which factions exist and what their relationship is to each other. March 7, amnesia, already on the Star Rail. Why not make March 7 the protagonist? Or even better, why not just give the Trailblazer some real personality and sound lines?
I followed the story using vibrations.
I saw this at 7am and felt my mind go blank.
But the impact of Genshin Impact…well, the impact on Honkai Star Rail isn’t entirely negative. One major aspect that made me lose interest in Honkai Impact 3rd was its main UI confusion. It always took me a long time to figure out how to switch between screens. However, Honkai Star Rail uses a user interface much closer to that of Genshin Impact. This makes the menu easier to navigate and looks much cleaner to boot. It’s clear that HoYoVerse has been taking notes on where it can improve its games from the success of Genshin Impact.
Obviously, at this point in development, there’s no way the HoYoVerse will simply rewrite history for Trailblazer to be an actual character. They don’t even have the most charming traveler facial expressions (which only started to appear more seriously than in later Genshin releases anyway) to provide some kind of personality. On top of that, the HoYoVerse’s penchant for telling more than showing, a major problem that plagues several main and side quests in Genshin Impact, is also prominent in Honkai Star Rail. So he oscillates between saying nothing and saying too much. It’s a shame from a narrative point of view. In terms of gameplay, Honkai Star Rail has a lot to offer, even in its beta phase. Hopefully, as the HoYoVerse adds more scenes to the final version, it will feel more like a true galactic adventure.
Honkai Star Rail will be available for Windows PCs and mobile devices in 2023.