I've been playing the third and final beta for Honkai: Star Rail, a free-to-play turn-based gacha JRPG and the next game from Genshin Impact developer Hoyoverse, and generally having a great time. A lot of systems and interfaces have been lifted wholesale from Genshin, but Star Rail's world, combat, and characters are totally different, and appealing in their own right. I love that combat is broken up by ultimate and follow-up abilities that can interrupt the action queue, adding dynamic and flashy moments to the traditional turn-based formula. It definitely feels like a Hoyoverse game, but it's scratching a separate itch for me as a big JRPG fan.
There's no doubt I'm going to play the full game when it launches – in April, according to an early store listing – so I've actually had to forcibly stop myself from playing too much right now, knowing that my progress will be wiped at the end of the beta. I don't want to get burned out repeating the same content on my actual account. But I've seen more than enough to become envious of some of the features in Star Rail. I've been playing Genshin virtually every day since it came out over two years ago, and I'd love to see Hoyoverse add these six Star Rail ideas to its breadwinning open-world RPG – the caveat being that Star Rail is still technically unfinished, but none of these features seem likely to drastically change, and nothing will change the fact that I want them in Genshin.
The beta season pass for Honkai: Star Rail includes a free "Self-Modeling Resin" available to all players at rank 40 out of 50. I haven't actually unlocked this item yet, so I'm just working off its description; this thing can apparently create a relic, Star Rail's equivalent to Genshin's
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