* This IGN China original content, the original author of Water Ash, unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.
When it comes to the recently launched two-dimensional new tour, the popularity of "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" (hereinafter referred to as "Star Dome Railway") is undoubtedly among the best.
In view of Genshin's success in the global market, both industry insiders and players have paid close attention to this new work developed by Mihayou for a variety of reasons.
Before the official server was launched, the author conducted a trial in the test server for a period of time, and I had a more intuitive feeling of its performance at the experience level, and I hope to share it with readers who follow the work.
(Note: This article is based on the test version of "Honkai: Star Dome Railway", if the content is inconsistent with the official server version, the official server experience shall prevail)
Mihayou's accumulation on the two-dimensional game track is obvious to all, and the overall quality of "Star Dome Railway" is enough to satisfy fans of the category.
The game has maintained the manufacturer's consistent level from appearance to core, and the sound and sound effects are superior in similar products. The visual effects in high image quality are very good, the structure of scene elements is changeable, and the expressions and movements of the characters are also delicate and rich when they are talking.
In terms of the image design that the user group paid the most attention to, more than 20 characters appeared in the first version. In addition to the old members of the "Honkai" series, more are new partners who are starting for the first time. Beautiful women and handsome men, all kinds of characteristics, including the various preferences of users in the circle, you can easily find the role that makes you happy.
In the operation part, under the framework of maintaining the logic of multi-terminal operation, this work has a lot of praiseworthy detail improvements. For example, the keyboard and mouse control and controller control on the PC side no longer need to be manually converted to the settings menu, as long as the device is connected, the two can coexist at any time, which is much smoother. There are also one-click autofill functions added to the interface such as character upgrades, which is really convenient compared to a Bencypriot experience book.
"Star Dome Railway" is the latest installment in the "Honkai" series. For newcomers like this who have not been exposed to other games in the series, the plot begins with more or less confusion, proper nouns and worldview settings rushing to the brain, and it takes time to digest. However, after the prologue, the story officially transitions to the planetary adventure stage, and the narrative rhythm begins to smooth out, entering a road-movie-like unfolding mode, and the pressure to understand is suddenly reduced.
The PV for the game's third beta test is called Space Comedy. Leaving aside whether there will be "stuffing knives" into the script in the future, judging from the current version, the overall atmosphere of "Star Dome Railway" is still more joyful.
For example, the initial teammate March 7 is the number one active atmosphere, and often pops up some words that make people laugh. There are also protagonists played by players, and there are often spoofed "crumb talks" in the dialogue options, which make players know that they are out of place but can't help but click on them. Not to mention the daily spitter, gags, gibberish, and fun people in the SMS system, all of which make the tone of the whole game lighthearted and lively.
The casual play of this work in copywriting is almost to the extent of "letting go of yourself", and it has also triggered discussions among players in the first few closed tests.
As a two-dimensional game, Star Dome Railway is naturally a more acceptable RPG mode for audiences, but the makers seem reluctant to set their sights on this. In addition to the main line unfolding, he does not hesitate to use a huge amount of text to pile up, and conduct a deep and slightly overflowing hardness description of the environment, character feelings and inner activities, a bit like the path of European and American style CRPG.
The best example of "garbage can literature", which is widely circulated on the Internet, can pop up a large series of "intentional but strange" texts just by interacting with garbage cans in urban streets. And such content can be found in many seemingly inconspicuous places. The dialogue interface of the "simulated universe" gameplay is also very visual of CRPG's upstart "Disco Elysium".
There are even special interactions that have unexpected surprises after triggering. For example, in the first adventure planet, on the night the protagonist stayed in the hotel, in addition to choosing to go to bed directly, he could also go to the "Passenger Feedback Form" on the table, and after answering several questions, he could get special items in return.
Crazy playing terriers is also the "regular operation" of Mihayou copywriting. All kinds of movies and television, games, two-dimensional, and even real-world memes can be seen everywhere in the text, props, skills, and achievements of the game, and even their own products cannot escape.
The concept is not destined to be praised by everyone. Users who only care about gameplay such as combat and character improvement may feel that too many irrelevant texts are tedious and wasteful of time, and it is inexplicable to encounter unrecognized memes GET not to laugh. But for some players who like to look around for NPC dialogues and do not dislike text reading, it may become an advantage in their eyes.
It's not right or wrong, it's just that the points of interest are different.
Unlike the open map, the world of Star Dome Railway is more similar to the box court level. The overall scale is not large, the exploration path is relatively simple, and the connection between regions is formed by switching between connection points.
Since it is not an action class, the player's action in the scene is relatively limited, mainly walking or running to move, triggering scene interaction, character dialogue, etc. There are no jumping, climbing and other functions, even the official has made a self-complaining.
As a turn-based RPG, "Ming Thunder" is the main way to encounter enemies in Star Dome Railway. Miscellaneous enemies are visible in the map, and if you don't want to fight, you can bypass them by yourself. Players can actively attack enemies within range with attack moves, triggering battles in advantageous situations, but accidentally being hit by the opponent first, will make the battle situation passive.
In addition to enemies, there are various puzzle mechanics and chest rewards in the levels. Solving puzzles includes circuit connections, pushing boxes, etc., and the overall is not difficult. Many of the treasure chests are scattered in the corners of the non-main road, and there may be strong enemies to guard them.
Let's talk about the battle. Under the command turn-based structure, "Star Dome Railway" supports up to four of our characters to fight. In addition to the general attack, each character has one combat skill, one finishing skill, one talent and one secret skill (several additional passive abilities can also be acquired after higher levels).
Skill performance varies, and the resources consumed are called Skill Points, up to a limit of 5 points. Since it is a resource shared by the whole team, it must be planned when using it, and generally only 1 point can be restored during a general attack.
The finishing move can be understood as a big move, each person has a separate energy slot, which is replenished when attacking or taking damage, and can be activated when it is fully charged. The finishing moves are powerful, visually gorgeous, and even the four-star characters are unambiguously animated. As one of the important decision-making points in the battle link of "Star Dome Railway", it has quite anti-heavenly rules under turn-based gameplay: as long as the conditions are met, regardless of the order of action, players can choose to launch at any time and settle immediately after the end of the current round.
This gives players plenty of room to operate. The perception of ordinary levels may not be strong, and in difficult battles, the right timing of the big move release often becomes the key winner.
Secret skills are abilities that can only be used in the scene, have a limited number of times, mainly provide side benefits, or give a certain advantage in the next battle. It is a good design in nature, but it may be because I am not used to the operation logic, which leads the author to often forget the system in my exploration.
Attributes are another core of the Star Dome Railway's combat system, and they are arguably the factors that have the greatest impact on the outcome of the battle.
There are 7 attributes (physics, ice, wind, fire, thunder, quantum, imaginary numbers) in the game, one for each of our characters. Correspondingly, all enemies that appear have several weakness attributes attached to them. As long as the player deals damage to them with the correct attributes, they can also reduce the "toughness slot" that is independent of their stamina.
Whenever the toughness slot is emptied, the enemy immediately falls into a weak click breaking state, not only will the action be delayed, but the damage taken will also be greatly increased.
The place of fighting weaknesses at the strategic level is unquestionable. Whether it is a normal battle or a quest, players have the opportunity to know specific attribute weakness information in advance before starting the game, so that they can adjust the team members in a targeted manner. When facing strong enemies, if you can't cause attribute breakdown, the battle will become extremely difficult, and flexible teamwork is encouraged in disguise, avoiding the situation where one move is eaten all over the world.
Although it is an F2P pay-to-play game, Star Dome Railway does not set numerical card points in the main story. Even with the initial character, as long as the training level reaches the recommended level, the main line side line can be completed with the right strategy.
Of course, the practicality of most five-star characters is still a notch higher than that of four-star.
The main C Xi'er, which is scheduled for the first UP, has a high burst, fast speed, and the characteristics of continuous action behind breaking enemy lines. As the strongest auxiliary of the version, Bronia can directly pull the action order of her teammates, and with Xi'er, in the miscellaneous battle, it is basically "my turn, my turn, my round, or my turn". In addition to providing individual control of Jepard's ice combat skills, the entire shield defense brought by the big move effectively improves the survivability of the team, which is quite emperorly.
The above few, in the four stars can find the next substitution, the battle should be won or can be won, but the difference in experience objectively exists.
As we all know, traditional RPG series have enhanced the action elements to speed up the pace in order to adapt to the trend of the times. Under this inertia, Mihayou went the other way, positioning "Star Dome Railway" as turn-based, which must have an element of gambling.
In order to smooth out the relatively mild conflict between command-based turn-based gameplay and mobile games, the game has added two shortcut features: double speed and automatic combat.
The former does not need to be explained too much. Although the character's finishing moves are pleasing to the eye, all that remains after watching it more than ten times is torture. Double the speed increases the process to a level that is acceptable to the player. As for why the design of skipping the big move animation was not added, let's just think of the developer's inner insistence.
Automatic combat fundamentally solves the problem of repeated operation of users. Battles that are unchallenging and have to be fought, such as map miscellaneous soldiers and material copies, are handled by AI, which is really easy and fast, and hands are free.
The overall intelligence level of the automatic combat AI in this work is good, as long as the numerical gap is not too large or the attributes are not dealt with, you can win. However, there will also be flaws such as not hitting weaknesses, not using recovery skills in time, and wasting big moves. In addition, the automatic battle function cannot be enabled during key story battles and boss battles.
If you are a Mihayou player, there is almost no threshold for quickly familiarizing yourself with the entire set of cultivation logic of "Star Dome Railway".
The character itself contains six attributes, and the basic way to add attributes is, of course, to upgrade. The experience points gained through combat can be described as a drop in the bucket, and pulling the level depends on eating experience items in most cases.
However, every certain level will encounter a lock cap, which requires the protagonist's own "development level" to reach the specified level, trigger specific tasks, and then consume the corresponding materials and currency to unlock a new cap.
Each character can carry a light cone, which provides a numerical bonus and additional effects, but it can only be activated if the current character's type matches the light cone. The light cone itself can also be upgraded and refined.
The track upgrade system affects the strength of the character's general attack, battle skills, and finishing skills, and can directly increase attributes by a small amount.
Star Soul has the opportunity to be strengthened after obtaining duplicate characters, up to level six, bringing permanent enhancement.
As for the relics, they can be seen as equipment other than light cones. There are six relict parts of "Star Dome Railway", and there are bonuses in the same series, and the maximum "4 + 2" set effect can be made.
The above system is the main character strength improvement means in "Star Dome Railway", which basically corresponds to the big world level, weapons, talents, destiny seats and holy relics system in "Genshin". The required resources are varied, and they can be obtained through exclusive quests, which can be regarded as the place that takes the most time for players in the middle and late stages.
However, under various auxiliary designs, the liver degree of "Star Dome Railway" may not be high. Up to six consecutive battles can be set up before the asset book is opened, and with automatic battles, it can be quickly repeated by simply placing it. In the relic part, you can use specific props to obtain the desired parts and main attribute relics in a directional form, and brush the double storm until the nightmare of collapse gradually fades away.
Even day-to-day tasks are simpler. The number is condensed to one, and the completion rate has changed from four hard indicators to a system similar to activity, which can be completed quickly, which is a great blessing for heavy players who have to clean up a bunch of daily every day.
On the whole, the performance of "Star Dome Railway" in all aspects is eligible to be included in the first echelon of two-dimensional mobile game products, but the game still has several problems that affect user retention.
Not to mention that the turn-based gameplay itself will be directly rejected by some players, because the space for exploration of the box court level is limited, and after the main line and side stories are completed, players can spend time in addition to improving the strength of the character, and there are currently only two parts: "Garden of Forgetting" and "Simulation Universe".
"The Garden of Forgetting" is similar to the abyss of "Genshin", which is a difficult challenge that is refreshed regularly. Sim Universe is a resident rogue gameplay that allows players to challenge random level sequences with a variety of bonus blessings.
In addition, the start of double speed and automatic combat is not too early, and early manual combat has the potential to wear down the patience of some new users. There are also some problems that the author personally feels strong, such as the big move cannot be canceled at the launch stage, so that sometimes it is impossible to retreat after touching or rethinking by mistake; The shield does not see specific values, etc.
Finally, talking about the krypton gold element, which is also a link that many people care about.
Among the paid points of "Star Dome Railway", the draw of cards from the character pool and the light cone pool is the largest part.
Under normal circumstances, 160 Star Joan (Star Dome Railway Krypton Gold Coin) can be drawn once in the character pool or light cone pool. The character pool 90 draw has a five-star guarantee, and the UP limit pool size guarantee rule still exists. Although the light cone pool is still 80 guarantees, there is no design of two choices for the time being, and the probability of the first guarantee is 75%, and the next time will be out after being crooked.
For new users, the system provides a newbie pool, in addition to the discount on the draw price, there is a small benefit of 50 draws that must be five stars, but it will disappear when it runs out. In addition, there is also a reward for choosing one of the seven five-star resident characters after a total of 300 draws, which is also limited to one time.
Of course, for a wider range of low-investment players, the large and small monthly card mechanism will certainly not be absent. The small moon card gets a fixed amount of star qiong after logging in every day, and the cost performance is quite good if you take all of them; The Otsuki Card is equivalent to a Battle Pass, which is suitable for all kinds of people who lack resources to choose from. The rest is to buy physical brushes and clothing skins that may be launched in the future, which are not mandatory elements.
As mentioned earlier, under the premise of pushing the plot flow and not caring much about the challenging gameplay, the current version of the content does not have outrageous requirements for the character's own strength, there is no strict numerical pressure, and there is no PVP demand. Even if you completely ignore the content of krypton gold, it is difficult to find a situation where you can't beat it. However, as a two-dimensional product, based on the user's love for the game character itself, the so-called "XP card draw" is one of the important sources of flow, which is purely classified as personal preference.
The above is the author's relatively subjective experience in the "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" test, a family's words, for reference only. As of press time, the work has officially opened the public beta, and all players can already experience this new Mihayou product for themselves. As for whether it can become another high-recognition game after "Genshin", it remains to be tested by time.