Honkai Star Rail: Should You Start With Version 2.3?

Honkai: Star Rail has been out for more than a year by this point and is slowly but surely marking its place as one of the best gacha games on the market.

Given that the game is about to receive its newest version update in just a few days, now is a good time to discuss whether you should take a look at the game and maybe add it to the list of games you are currently playing.

Is Star Rail Worth Playing?

With gacha games, one of the questions you’ll see circulating in the community most often is whether the game is worth playing. This, of course, is not limited to any game and is something that every game wants to know before deciding to sink a ton of hours into a new game.

When it comes to Honkai: Star Rail, the answer can either be hell yeah or maybe. The reason for that is that HSR, at its core, is a gacha game, and we know that not all gamers are fans of gacha games. However, if you do not mind gacha games and are in fact a fan of them, then Star Rail is without a doubt one of the best gacha games on the market right now.

Why is Star Rail a good Gacha?

I determine whether a gacha game is good based on a series of factors; if a game meets them, then it’s without a doubt worth spending my time on, and maybe even a couple of bucks to support the developers.

These factors are:

• Does the game have an acceptable story?
• Is the game fun to play?
• Is the game generous?
• Do I like the characters?
• Does the game play well?
• Can I play the game on PC?

I’ll go over each factor and give a short insight into each so that you have a better idea of how I rate Star Rail.

Story

For me, any gacha game should at least have a decent story to help you get invested in the characters and make you want to pull for them. Star Rail does this very well with a solid story that has some hype moments and amazing music to make them even more amazing.

Gameplay

When it comes to gameplay, Star Rail, for me, can get a bit stale after a bit. That is because I am not the biggest fan of turn-based combat, but for people who love that style of combat and enjoy spending hours finding the most optimal team, stats, and fine-tuning everything, HSR definitely has that.

Characters

As for characters, I believe that although some of HSR can be a bit boring sometimes, the overall character direction is right up my alley, and most of the characters make me want to reach for my wallet to try and get them. So if you’re a fan of anime-style characters, then Star Rail will surely have something for you.

Generosity

As far as generosity is concerned, I do believe that HSR is quite generous. I have hardly found myself needing to spend, and with the abundance of permanent modes that give a ton of Stellar Jade, I always find myself having enough gems for the characters I want.

If I didn’t pull for the Light Cones, then I would probably have all the characters that I want, but I find it hard to fight the urge to pull for the Light Cones at times. So yes, to summarize, Star Rail is generous.

Optimization

The final two factors are really more of a personal preference, as I always like playing games on my PC and having the ability to play Star Rail on it without needing to use Bluestacks or any other emulator certainly does make me more willing to play it.

Additionally, the fact that the game is nicely optimized for PC and is free-to-play makes it an easy pick-up for any gamer.

Why Start Star Rail in Version 2.3?

Version 2.3 is a good time to start your Star Rail journey, as you will have the chance to pull for Firefly, which is going to be a really easy F2P unit to build and will likely carry you through most of the game’s content. 

Additionally, you will be coming right in time for the new mode to the Simulated Universe, which is the game’s roguelike mode, and the addition of a new permanent game mode, which will all give you a ton of premium currency to pull for Firefly.

Overall, if you start now, you will have a ton of content to go through and will be just in time to witness the end of Penacony’s story, thus fully completing the main story for all currently available zones.

Now is a good time to begin your Star Rail journey before the game gets any bigger and you feel completely overwhelmed by the game’s story content.