Honkai Star Rail (HSR) is a spinoff of Honkai Impact 3rd, Developed by HoyoVerse, and it’s the greatest game they’ve ever made.
HSR is a turn-based gacha (bear with me) game where you assemble a team of 4 “Pathstriders” to fight enemies, grind for loot and play through one of the most intriguing stories I’ve ever read. HSR is a spinoff / alternate reality where you play as the Trailblazer, traveling the cosmos with the Astral Express, a crew of Nameless going around and sealing Stellarons, which are effectively manifestations of the will of gods. The Astral Express’ crew are as follows.
(Right to Left)
- Dan Heng, a reincarnated immortal
- March 7th, who is looking for her past after she lost her memories
- The Conductor, Pom-Pom
- The Trailblazer (male or female), who has an unnatural obsession with trash cans
- The Navigator Himeko, who fights with a chainsaw and an orbital laser
- Welt Yang, who can create black holes
THE REST OF THIS REVIEW HAS SPOILERS FOR PENACONY
While HSR has quite a good story before Penacony, I don’t think they compare to the pure unadulterated HYPE that the Penacony story brings. I feel like the previous 2 arc’s were purely to introduce us and get us ready.
The Planet of Festivities
Every single level designer at Hoyoverse deserves an award after the incredible work they have done for Penacony. It’s packed with people and vibrant in-world advertisements, there is barely any free space, and the advertisements quite literally run at you. It reminds me a TON of when I first went to the city, I felt incredibly overwhelmed by everything trying to grab my attention all at once. This is also reflected in the level design where the map is incredibly dense with tons of content to explore and to keep you satisfied.
The Frontier Prison
In Penacony’s long distant past it was once a prison for the Interastral Peace Company, but the story raises an interesting question, “Is Penacony still a prison?”. There is also one more philosophical question presented through the story of a dove who has to be nursed back to health. “Should you keep someone locked up for safety or should you let them go, even if they may get hurt?”, as anyone with overprotective parents knows, the answer is the latter and this is basically said outright by the story. The idea of keeping people caged comes up directly in the story as the antagonists plan is to trap the universe in a dream to keep everyone “safe”, Sunday uses the power of all the dreamers in Penacony to empower himself, this leads into an epic fight with the Astral Express, and Pom-Pom even SLAMS THE TRAIN INTO SUNDAY multiple times until he is eventually defeated, but not before he communes with Ena the Order and nearly kills all of the Astral Express, TWICE.
Land of The Dreams
Penacony is split into multiple different realities, Reality and the Dreamscape. The Dreamscape is further split into 12 Moments, 4 of which actually matter;
- Moment of Morning Dew, the home of the 5 Families of Penacony
- Moment of Scorchsand, which holds an audition center
- Moment of Blue Hour, the current location of the Radiant Feldspar
- Moment of Golden Hour, the most prosperous area, a bustling city with lots going on
There are two other special locations in the Dreamscape, Dreams Edge, which is still under construction but can still be explored and Dreamflux Reef, the dark underbelly of Penacony, where a Memoria Whirlpool (basically a black hole) threatens to destroy the Dreamscape.
The level design of the Dreamscape is amazing, and a step up from the Luofu’s bland environments, One example of this is the amount of collectibles and puzzles. The Luofu really only has 1 consistent puzzle, that of sliding platforms to move in a certain way to get a chest, comparatively Penacony has about 4 types of puzzles per level, not counting exploration, such as Origami birds.
The Watchmaker
Penacony’s beginnings were spurred on by the actions of four people, Hanunue, a werewolf who used the chaos of a Stellaron to begin a prison break. Razalina, the Express’s surveyor, who laid the scientific groundwork for the Dreamscape to function. Tiernan, an expert gunslinger from the Express who was a general during the War of Independence. Finally there is Mikhail Char Legwork, previously the Express’s mechanic, he soon became the Watchmaker, shaping Penacony into the Land of the Dreams that we know today, Before Mikhail died he instructed his close friend Gallagher to send out invitations to major factions in the galaxy to fight, and reclaim his “Legacy”. This is why you are in Penacony, to reclaim this “Legacy”, and to complete a request from the conductor to find out what happened to the 3 Nameless who departed the express a long time ago.
The Interastral Peace Corporation
The Interastral Peace Corporation (IPC) is the largest financial entity in the cosmos, following the will of the Qliphoth of Preservation, their Aeon. Due to their large presence they were also given an invite to find the Legacy, sending one of their Ten Stonehearts (effectively executives), Aventurine as their representative. The IPC have had a long history with the planet, as they were the owners of the prison that Penacony used to facilitate. To no one’s surprise, the Interastral PEACE Corporation aren’t peaceful and their representative tries to destroy the Trailblazers as they stand in his way to get IPC power returned to Penacony. In the end,after some significant IPC meddling they are unable to take back Penacony and leave it alone due to the Trailblazers incredible efforts to save the planet.
The Charmony Festival
The backdrop of the entire story is the Charmony Festival, a planet wide celebration, meant to spread the energy of Harmony across the galaxy. The festival doesn’t happen often, anywhere between 70 and 240 years can pass between them, meaning that TONS of people travel to experience it, making it the perfect time to use everyone on the planet’s belief in the Family to revive the Aeon of Order, Ena.
While I won’t spoil some of the twists and turns, Penacony’s story is downright incredible, and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone.