Reflecting on my addiction to Honkai Star Rail, I realize that it falls under a few types of fun, most notably: Narrative and Submission/Abnegation, with a bit of challenge and sensation.
Honkai Star Rail is a role-playing gatch video game developed by miHoYo in mainland China, and they have me completely hooked. I’ve been playing since day 2 of the game’s release, and thankfully I have not spent any money on the game (completely free to play!). I always wondered why I enjoyed this game so much because before playing, I never would have thought I would like the game. Turn-based combat games are something I have never found interest in, but Honkai Star Rail really kills in it this type of mechanic/dynamic. I believe the reason why this turn-based combat is due to two types of fun: Submission + Challenge. For most of the game, there isn’t much challenge. However, once you get to the end-game, and you are trying to fully clear all the floors of the weekly challenges, then you get the sense of challenge., where you are trying to completely perfect your builds, speed-tune your team, such that they are able to fully 0-cycle the hardest content in the game. All of this is also amplified by the fact that it’s a gatcha game, so everything is up to luck for your builds, and it is challenging (but not necessarily difficult) to get the perfect items to build your characters. It just takes a lot of time and dedication to do so.
As for the Submission, there is an auto-battle feature for 99% of the battles you will encounter. This is to promote gameplay where you don’t have to think when it’s not pivotal moments in the story. This allows me to just zone out and do other tasks (like this short response right now haha) while still playing the game and completing my daily progression tasks.
As for the last type of fun to be mentioned, Narrative, I personally really enjoy the narrative side of Honkai Star Rail. I believe the story is amazing, and I always look forward to the newest update that increases the main story’s progression. There are even many YouTube Channels that go over theories for certain characters or events based on what’s happening currently in the story. They try to predict what will happen in the future and many people view these videos because they are so engrossed in the story-telling and want to know as much as they can before it is revealed in the next patch. I believe that this narrative element of the name, combined with its submission and challenge aesthetics makes Honkai Star Rail a masterpiece. Even last year, Honkai Star Rail won Best Mobile Game of 2023, which shows that the game’s designers knew exactly how to invoke the aesthetics and fun of the player base with this phenomenal game.
