Honkai Star Rail, the new game from HoYoverse has finally released the final beta. If you’ve played Genshin Impact, you’re probably wondering: Is Honkai Star Rail like Genshin Impact? Well, let’s find out!
Wondering which characters are the best? Check out our Honkai: Star Rail tier list guide.
Need free items? Check out our Honkai Star Rail Codes page.
Similar Elements, but with a big twist
In Genshin Impact we have pyro, hydro, cryo, electro, geo, anemo, and lastly dendro. In Honkai: Star Rail we have fire, ice, lightning, wind, physical, quantum, and imaginary.
So, there are no hydro or geo-related elements inside Honkai: Star Rail. And if you played Honkai Impact 3rd, that quantum and imaginary are the same elements as the one in Honkai: Star Rail (light and dark elements).
Honkai Star Rail Elements
BUT! Instead of fire beating ice, or quantum and imaginary being strong against each other, everything is very different in Honkai: Star Rail.
There is no element chart on which element is stronger or weaker against each other inside Honkai: Star Rail. Instead, every enemy has multiple elemental weaknesses and there is no bonus damage when you attack the enemies using their elemental weaknesses.
Read more about Honkai: Star Rail elemental weaknesses.
Same open world system, it’s just that…
Since Honkai: Star Rail is a turn-based game, you will not fight the enemies casually as you can do in Genshin Impact. You will still encounter enemies in the overworld just the same as Genshin. But you need to approach them to trigger the battle.
Still curious about how the turn-based system works in Honkai: Star Rail? you can read it on this page: Honkai: Star Rail combat system guide.
You can still travel around the world like how you usually travel in Genshin Impact. There are cities that you can wander through, you can even explore inside the spaceship, or if you fancy going inside the buildings, some buildings are accessible. But sadly we can not freely wander around like in Genshin Impact. You need to load the map from different portals or different teleportation stations. Thus, the open world system in Honkai: Star Rail feels more limiting and not really that “open world”.
The thing is, since it’s still in the 2nd beta, we still have limited access to the place that we can go. Thus, we can’t explore the other planets yet. But, just because it’s still in beta, doesn’t mean the map is small. You can travel to a lot of places, either “underground city”, city plaza, snowy outer world, and many more!
Domain, Resin, and Artifact
Yes, in Honkai: Star Rail there are domains too, but it’s called cocoon here. You need to grind for the money, the talent level up materials, and the artifact level up materials, similar to how Genshin Impact farming domain works.
Energy
There is also an energy system, like how you need resin in Genshin Impact. Thus, you need to think about which priority you should grind when playing Honkai: Star Rail.
Relics
The most grindy parts will come from the artifact. In this game, instead of artifact, the terms are called “Relics”. If Genshin Impact has 5 artifact slots from flower, feather, sand, goblet, and circlet, in Honkai: Star Rail we will have 6 artifact slots. Head, hand, body, feet, neck, and lastly article.
Here are the main stats that are available for each relics’ part
- Head: always be flat HP,
- Hand: always be flat ATK,
- Body: always be flat DEF,
- Feet: you can get either HP, ATK, DEF, or Speed main stats (both flat or percentage)
- Neck: Elemental Damage Boost, Energy Restoration, HP, ATK, or HP
- Article: HP, ATK, DEF, Crit Damage, Effect Hit Rate, Outgoing Healing Boost, Crit Rate.
Gacha, Character, Weapon, and Constellations
Yes, it’s totally the same as Genshin Impact. you need 160 gems to pull 1 wish in Genshin Impact, and you need the same 160 gems to pull 1 “warp” in Honkai: Star Rail. There are also limited tickets and standard tickets, literally the same as acquaint fate and intertwined fate in Genshin Impact.
As for the pity system, since it’s still in beta, HoYoverse might gonna do some modifications related to the chance of getting 5 stars characters. One thing that we can do is hope that it’s gonna be a F2P-friendly rate too. Because we will encounter the same 4 star and limited 5 star characters and weapons in Honkai: Star Rail banner too.
Character Levels and Ascensions
Very similar to Genshin Impact, we need to ascend our character too. We need the exp book that we can grind from the domain (cocoon), and we need to grind the ascension materials too from the boss domain. And it also scales with our Trailblazers Level. Trailblazers Level is similar to AR and WL systems in Genshin Impact, so we need to grind our account’s player level too from the main story quest or side quest.
Light Cones
In Honkai: Star Rail, the weapon’s term here is called “Light Cones”. You can also refine it multiple times like how you can get R5 in Genshin Impact. So if you want to whale, you might gonna whale for the Light Cones banner too.
In the beta access, we can get potentially good light cones from a weekly domain. Hopefully, on the official global release in the future, we can get good Light Cones for F2P players too.
Eidolons
If Genshin Impact used the terms Constellations, in Honkai: Star Rail we used the terms “Eidolons”. In the Beta gameplay, It’s literally the same as Genshin Impact, where E3 and E5 are the buffs for your character’s skill level, and the maximum Eidolons that we can get is E6.
With the same weapon and character duplicates like Genshin Impact’s gacha system, you might want to consider whether you are gonna whale in this game or will you save your money and become F2P instead. Or, you just become a dolphin and only whale by a little bit.
Skill, Talents, Passive
If Genshin Impact has elemental skill and elemental burst, Honkai: Star Rail also has Skill and Burst, but for the burst it’s called Ultimate instead. It’s the same principle for the burst too, you need to recharge the burst by attacking the enemies in your turn. For example here, Seele will deal a big Quantum elemental attack for her Ultimate.
The ultimate in Honkai: Star Rail is not like what you think it is. Because this is a turn-based game, and HoYoverse did an amazing job to make this feature different with other kinds of turn-based game like Pokemon, Final Fantasy, or even Persona Franchise.
Trace
The term talent in Genshin Impact is called “Trace” in Honkai: Star Rail. It has the same talent level-up material where you need to grind it from the domain and you need to ascend your character first to unlock the trace level-up limit. So if you already get the hang of Genshin Impact mechanics, you will get used to Honkai: Star Rail’s mechanics in no time. You only need to remember the different terms then.
Talent and Technique
The term “Talent” in Honkai: Star Rail is basically the character’s passive. When you are in the battle, this talent will automatically be triggered depending on what each character’s passive will do. Seele for example will get an additional turn if she’s able to kill the enemies in her turn.
As for technique, it’s basically a “headstart” that you can activate before you trigger the battle.. Some characters’ techniques are a buff for themselves, some are healing techniques, and some techniques for specific characters are used to decrease the opponent’s HP. Blade’s technique, for example, is used to deal damage to the enemies, so you can have an easier time beating them all when the battle starts.
Exploration / Assign
Lastly, we also have an exploration feature similar to Genshin Impact. But this time, the term is called “Assign”. Since it’s the beta gameplay, the final assign items would be different. But in here you can see that we can assign our characters to passively farm ascension materials, characters EXP, light cone EXP (to upgrade your weapon). credit (basically mora), and synthesis materials (same as crafting in Genshin Impact)
Not played either game yet? Genshin Impact is available to download on PC for free from the Epic Games Store and the official game Launcher.
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