She's tired, confused, and doing her best-a truly resonant character for anyone trying to survive what it's like to be alive and online in 2023. My Trailblazer sends emojis and spams question marks to her friends. NPCs periodically send text messages asking for help or just to check in, each an opportunity to personify the Trailblazer in a much more playful and compelling way than the Traveler in Genshin. Star Rail doesn't waste your time, and it plays like a modern RPG-with some free-to-play gacha game caveats.ĭitching the open-world structure established in Genshin lets Star Rail focus on building a meaningful cast of side characters through quests and stray conversations. Here, that stuff is tucked away in text logs and item descriptions. The steady pace of the plot and its surprisingly articulate writing help avoid the misery of having to sit through long stretches of worldbuilding like you're forced to in Genshin. Your main character, the Trailblazer, and her two crewmates travel to different planets and wade into the politics and problems of the locals. People clamor excitedly over displays of extreme cunning, forgetting to worry about the overall dangers of the situation.Star Rail's cast of anime protagonists fits its elastic tone, which fluctuates from the heroic optimism of a space opera, to the dark comedy of a Nier game, with a lot of Final Fantasy 14's soap opera storytelling mixed in.

Jing Yuan: 'A truly masterful chess player has no brilliant moves.

Asta: 'The Lead Researcher of the Space Station brims with enthusiastic curiosity and boasts unimaginable achievement in the field of astronomy'.Clara: 'A shy young girl with no home, Clara had no choice but to join the prospectors to survive'.Seele: 'A spirited and valiant member of Wildfire who grew up in the perilous Underworld of Belobog'.Gepard: 'An upright and noble captain of the Silvermane Guards who bears the name of the age-old Gepard family'.March 7th: 'A clever, quirky girl was found in a piece of drifting eternal ice she decided to name herself after the date of salvation'.

Danheng: 'A cold and reserved young man who wields a spear known as Cloud-Piercer.

Welt: 'The wise and sophisticated former Anti-Entropy Sovereign has saved Earth from annihilation time and time again'.Himeko: 'An adventurous scientist who encountered the Astral Express as a child when it got stranded in her home world'.Nine characters have been named and described on the Honkai Star Rail website:

Honkai star rail official website