u/benbiggerbelly

i doubt this will get approved (im not a bot please just a lurker until now 😭) but i saw there was pretty much nothing talking about the game so i thought id maybe share my experience, sorry if this is rough to read i dont speak english very well

Not going to give the game a number rating cause i feel like my opinions on it cant really be summed up by that plus i dont see the point in objectively rating a beta version of a game

So first of all, i would say that imo if you like genshin, wuwa etc, this game probably isnt for you at all. its pretty much the polar opposite of genshin in terms of being an open world game. exploration is very scarce and the main thing youll be doing in the open world is strictly mini games, side quests, and collecting anima however unlike those games you can ride/fly on the anima but imo the map really isnt big enough yet for it to be useful

On to what i think the game does very well: as someone who has never played an autochess the combat was honestly really fun? like i despised the autochess in hoyos other games but here its very engaging, theres so much depth in how certain anima mix and match with eachother and especially with how characters interact with them providing buffs and some damage abilities

The game is also, STUNNING. this might be the best looking gacha game flat out (on pc at least, ill get to that later) the game supports full ray tracing and dynamic lighting and really doesnt look like a mobile game at all, honestly i was really shocked at the fidelity because you would think this was a smaller scale game but imo with these visuals its by far hoyos best looking so far.

also the endgame is basically just currency wars from star rail so if you love that youll adore this

Now for what i think needs improvement : i dont think ive ever had a more unenjoyable experience playing a gacha games story before. there isnt really anything going on at all outside of the prologue which would be fine..if the story wasnt 10 hours long and this is just the cbt.

For example, there is an incredibly annoying narrator that drags out every single dialogue scene by explaining the exact events you just saw happen in EVERY conversation..no matter how irrelevant this grating british voice will make sure you understand whats going on and its fully integrated into the whole experience with no way to disable it

Tho beyond that the story is just really boring..without spoling anything theres this entire buildup to a certain event through the entire story and when it happens, nothing really happens? like, you go and talk to 3 npcs, fight 2 npcs then suddenly youre congratulated and this major event is over. no cutscenes, no anything really? and this sums up the experience throughout the entire 10 hour long story.

And the presentation..ill be honest its pretty much just hsr 1.0 all over again. 3 dialogue poses with the characters stiffly standing and talking to eachother, no real dynamicness or emotions at all. its a total regression.

The good thing about the story is that this game doesnt have a linear narrative. unlike hsr and genshin your choices can unlock different routes in the story and also THE STORY IS REPLAYABLE!! several playthroughs of each quest is required to see the full range of things that can occur. though there is only one true path in each quest so unfortuatley with this the story isnt quite able to fully utilise this mechanic to its potential. its also only implemented in 2 out of 6ish story acts so far

Additionally i played the beta on the ipad m5 also and the game looked...rough on mobile😭 this will be a more like wuwa on mobile vs pc experience..not a genshin or hsr difference. you arent going to be getting the same experience on a phone

Now onto what i think will make or break the game.

5 star anima are mostly locked behind gacha with the implication that limited 5 star anima will be solely gacha with no way to earn them in the overworld.

Imo i think this is a horrible decision since unlike genshin and hsr the anima arent just weapons, they are basically your companions with actual gameplay mechanics tied to them and not only that but, you are effectively locking yourself out of half a characters kit by not owning their respective anima, due to buffs being locked to both sides of the kit (chars provide buffs but only syergise with their anima and vice versa). i really hope this gets changed because if not, i really think this will be the most miserable pulling experience from hoyo yet.

This is all there really is to say about the games mechanics right now , i cant comment on the characters because despite being pullable..half of them were just pngs you couldnt use in the beta. confusing but..sure why not

For my final thoughts i think the game is certainly ok but right now thats kinda all it is. if you want autochess combat its fine but if you want a great story, look elsewhere as of now...i very much hope hoyo will overhaul the gacha but i doubt it. really interested to see how it shapes up in future betas because i think if executed right, this game can def be hoyos goldmine. as a pokemon fan there is a lot more depth with the anima interactions that what youd see in palworld or pokemon, this game could easily sweep up those audiences if they changed the gacha mechanic locking anima

In terms of how far long development i think the game is/how complete it is...im ngl this game probably isnt coming until 2028. i dont think hoyo is following the 3 beta format with this one due to the sheer number of unfinished content in the beta

Theres still a humongus open world city area left to add, most of the characters from cbt have been removed entirely from cbt2 (probably to be remodelled) most of the characters in the beta werent even usable (4 couldnt be used in the overworld, 2 had no combat animations, 1 of them wasnt usable in combat or in the overworld so was just a png😭) and the animations for exploration were bad enough that they had to vow to rework them in the post beta talk so yea... dont expect this game for a while, i think cbt1 gave a very wrong impression as to just how ambitious this game is actually trying to be.

If i had to describe it imagine pokemon mixed with gta (but you ride horses instead of cars) and can manage several buisnesses across the city, mixed with star rail with a tiny lil bit of persona and a visual novel in there.

Supprisingly id say the least of these games that it is is pokemon. shockingly the anima pretty much arent important to the story at all, theres one chapter about them and thats basically all of their involvement. the story is very much focused purely on the human characters and only them.

To be honest this game is basically just star rail 2 idk it feels exclusively targeted to star rail players