When it comes to live service gacha games, there’s no better than HoYoverse (miHoyo). The Chinese-based studio made a name for themselves a decade ago with Honkai: Impact 3rd, but it wasn’t until Genshin Impact that things truly took off. This eventually spawned off major titles such as Honkai: Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero shortly after. While they all share similar aspects to their free-to-play model, each game is drastically different from one another. Whether it’s the combat variance or visual aesthetics, there’s no denying the developer’s dedication to trying something new.
The next couple of projects fit into this mold entirely, with Nodusfall going beyond all expectations and Petit Planet falling under a cozy, Animal Crossing-esque adventure. There’s another project in Hoyoverse’s wheelhouse, but only from an aesthetic perspective: Honkai: Nexus Anima. The next spin-off for the beloved franchise, we are introduced to a creature collecting adventure with Auto Chess mechanics.
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Dungeons & Anima
Narratively, Honkai: Nexus Anima has a unique storytelling method. It almost feels like a session of D&D where every motion, emotion or action is expressed by a narrator. To a certain degree, it does feel like it’s meant to hide some of the rather simple animations during dialogue exchanges, but it does add a different and more appealing approach that we weren’t expecting.
To that, it almost feels like you need to sit down and listen to everything that’s being said, because every interaction is unique and, while not all are meaningful, they are portrayed in such a compelling way. It’s like we’re playing Baldur’s Gate 3 but in the anime-styled world of Honkai.
Creature Collection with a Twist
Honkai: Nexus Anima is drastically different from what we’ve come to expect from the Honkai brand. Honkai: 3rd Impact is more of an action game while Star Rail is a turn-based RPG. When looking at Nexus Anima, it looked like a standard creature collector with a twist, but the twist is that it’s more of an auto battler in the form of something like DOTA’s Auto Chess.
You essentially place down Anima that are obtained by finding them in the world and taming them. Once they are acquired, you are able to place them down in a battle and have them get to work. It almost feels like it’s an event pulled from Honkai: Star Rail, but this has been built to be a full-fledged experience.
More Than Meets the Eye
It’s not entirely an auto battler as there are special abilities that can be used on the field whenever their skill is off cooldown. There are essentially two elements of collection that will likely transition to the gacha system. Anima act as unique entities, and then there are characters themselves that act as weapons.
You can equip three different cards in a battle, and depending on who you have in your arsenal, they will do drastically different things. Most of we got to see were DPS oriented, such as dealing a large AOE explosion on a targeted enemy or simply doing a strong single targeted attack. There will likely be more supportive abilities that will heal or buff allies. These have a unique animation specific to that character, similar to an Ultimate in Honkai: Star Rail, and it’s a highlight of the combat.
Narratively, Honkai: Nexus Anima has a unique storytelling method. It almost feels like a D&D session where every motion, emotion or action is expressed by a narrator.
At the same time, you will be placing around eight different Anima creatures on the field, each of which trying to synergize with the others to take down their opponents. There’s not much you can do outside the character specials, as your Anima will go throughout the field and try to kill every opponent they can find.
It helps when there are different graded Anima, all with their own leveling system, along with their unique skills. You are rewarded with various materials from each battle, and you will need them to level, upgrade and eventually evolve your Anima into a more powerful creature. The game seems to guide you fairly well in how an Anima evolves, as there’s an entire menu dedicated to it, showing any pre-requisites, such as materials and quests that are required.
Gotta Catch’em All
One of the most satisfying components of Honkai: Nexus Anima is just perusing the open city. While we’re unsure how many open environments we’ll see in the official release, we were at least able to move around a populated city, riding on the backs of some of our larger mounts and interacting with the environment.
Almost every NPC in the world is a trainer of some sort, so you’re able to approach them and request a battle, most of which are more than willing, while some may require some convincing. On top of that, you’ll be able to run into various Anima in the environment. After the battle, you’ll be able to use an item (similar to a Poké Ball) in an attempt to catch them. You’ll only have three attempts, so use your items wisely.
Despite being a daily live service experience, the hour-long play session of Honkai: Nexus Anima didn’t feel like it was enough to quench our thirst for the creature-collector. There’s still so much more to the game that we haven’t explored, but what we got a taste of gave us a lot of hope. While the combat is probably the least appealing aspect, it still has some enjoyable quirks. It’s the creature collection and compelling narrative delivery that has us excited about what HoYoverse is able to do when Honkai: Anima Nexus drops for PC and mobile devices.
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