It has now been a little over two years since the official release of Honkai: Star Rail. There have been lots of changes to the main game, and we’ve had many expansions to the Trailblazer’s journey, with the Xianzhou Luofu, Penacony, and now, Amphoreus. Thanks to HoYoverse, Final Weapon got to try out an early access build of the Honkai: Star Rail Version 3.4 update. I have been very excited for it, as I believe this version might be one for the ages, especially with the Fate stay/night collaboration opening the doors to some brand-new possibilities.
Disclaimer: The following article contains pictures from an early access build of Version 3.4, and may not be indicative of the final version.
Honkai: Star Rail’s Most Ambitious Story
Since Version 3.0, Honkai: Star Rail’s story has been taking place in the Land of Eternity, Amphoreus. Despite the story still ongoing, I definitely had my fair share of opinions with the story so far. In a way, this is without a doubt the most ambitious story the writing team has ever done, perhaps towering even over Penacony.
However, I did feel that the story was very complicated to grasp at times. I definitely had to research some theories and also talk with other friends to help me understand some of the plot points, which definitely led to a slightly worse experience overall in my opinion. To be blunt, it’s not that the story itself is bad, I actually think it’s fantastic. But the storytelling could’ve been a bit better.
Without giving too many spoilers, it seems that the developers have been hard at work to rectify this, and recent patches have done a lot to improve the experience, such as changing some of the puzzles and enemy placements, and adding ways to progress through it faster. Version 3.4’s story even features a recap that you can watch a quick summary of the story so far, and I found the presentation of it to be so much better than previous patches thus far.
Furthermore, HoYoverse also implemented a Skip button that allows you to advance through certain parts of the story. This will pop up a small summary of the cutscene that’s currently playing, providing a general idea of the story without leaving you wondering what just happened. This is certainly a great feature for those who want to catch up with the story in a quicker manner. As of Version 3.4, only a few select quests will feature support for this, but by Version 3.6, all quests will have support for it.
In addition, the developers also announced that in Version 3.6, a Story Recap feature will be implemented. As you might’ve guessed by its name, this new feature allows players to replay through past story quests once again. To say I’m excited is an understatement, because I’ve always wanted a way to replay the story quests ever since the release of the game. Now, if only this feature also came to Genshin Impact…
The Issue of Power Creep in Honkai: Star Rail
From the release of Honkai: Star Rail up to Version 3.4, we’ve had 45 five-star characters so far, not counting the Trailblazer. Every single one of those characters have followed many different Paths, and they all contribute to combat in various ways. Now, I would be remiss to not bring up the delicate issue of power creep. It’s something that is sadly inevitable when it comes to gacha games, especially as more years pass since the game continues its service.
While I still cannot grasp what exactly is the best meta nowadays, a new feature called the Enhancement Mode has been added in Honkai: Star Rail’s Version 3.4. This feature affects a selection of characters that were released a long time ago, with both their abilities and Eidolon effects having slight adjustments to make them significantly stronger. For this version update, we have Blade, Silver Wolf, Kafka and Jingliu supporting this feature.
As an example, let’s take one of my favorite characters: Blade. With the adjustments, his first Eidolon will no longer cap out how much damage he will do, which makes him significantly stronger overall. Furthermore, many of his skills, such as base Attack and the Hellscape skill, now depend on his Maximum HP, thanks to tweaks in the update.
I’ve done some tests with this new version of him, and I can definitely see a substantial difference in damage, just from the total damage dealt. However, this does some of the compositions and setups you might’ve used in the past may not play nice with this change, and as such, you can always revert him to his pre-adjustment phase at any time.
Personally, as someone who enjoys playing with these characters and not having to worry about the ever-changing meta, this is something I find remarkable, and I can’t wait to see what other changes they have planned for future characters. Few games manage to handle power creep efficiently, and I feel HoYoverse chose the best possible way to address it.
The Express Choo-Choos Along
For those who are possibly taking a break from Honkai: Star Rail, Version 3.4 is amazing. The new features to address the power creep situation, as well as the new Skip feature all contribute to a better story experience, and it seems that HoYoverse will now take further care to ensure they can reign on the ideas a little bit to prevent the story from getting out of control.
The long-awaited Fate/stay night collab also brings in a fresh realm of possibilities that we might even see more collaborations like this in the future. I do recall one of the staff members saying he was a huge fan of Trails, so maybe we might see one like that in the future. I know I would love to see that.
Honkai: Star Rail is available now for Android via Google Play Store, iOS via App Store, PlayStation 5, and PC via Epic Games Store.
