All these anime games are becoming kind of a blur for me because of how similar they look. Honkay Star Rail, Whutering Waves, Zenless Zone Zero... Is any of this stuff worth checking out? They do look pretty cool.
Alright, so I would say there are currently five "new-gen" anime gachas that blur the line between mobile/console and PC games (in release order): Genshin Impact: Honkai Star Rail, Wuthering Waves, Zenless Zone Zero and Infinity Nikki. I play or have played all of them, so here's my opinion on them :
Genshin Impact: The OG breakout game that was responsible for kickstarting this new wave of high-budget mobile games. It's an open-world Action RPG with a big focus on narrative and exploration. The beginning story sections are a bit rough at times, but it's been consistently good-to-great for years now. The environment design is consistently very strong and I probably consider it one of the prettiest games ever at this point. The exploration is also consistently very good. Combat is fairly simple in turms of what buttons to press, but team-building is very rich (however Gacha-reliant to a large degree).
5.3 releases in 2 weeks, which is the conclusion to the current story chapter.
Fantastic music.
Honkai Star Rail: Second game from the Genshin people. It's a turn-based zone-based sci-fi JRPG with a big focus on narrative and combat modes (various endgame modes, rogue-like modes, etc). The combat system is fairly simple, but the encounter design is very good and it also has rich team-building (also Gacha-reliant). The story starts strong, then craters for a while, but has since then been also consistently good-to-very-good. There are multiple main-story threads and recurring characters and all that.
3.0 launches in January and is looking to be pretty hype.
Also has fantastic music.
Wuthering Waves: The first "Genshin-clone" from a competitor. Tries to differentiate itself by having a (in theory) more sci-fi leaning world and a bigger focus on skill-based combat, with perfect dodges and parries and all that jazz. I bailed shortly during 1.0 becaue the story was one of the worst things I've experienced and the localisation was ass in addition. Combat is indeed very good though, so ymmv if that's enough. 2.0 is coming soon.
Zenless Zone Zero: The newest game from the Genshin/Star Rail people. It's a young new team, which does show in certain aspects. It's an urban-fantasy game with a mix of slice-of-life post-apocalyptic city-live where you hang out with characters, play minigames in the Arcade and stuff, and then go into "Hollows" to navigate grid-based "dungeons" to solve puzzles, triggers events and ultimately fight monsters. At least that's what it used to be, but they are redoing that for existing and future main story in favor of full 3D levels with puzzles and platforming and stuff - will be interesting to see how that ends up, looks promising though.
Combat also leans more towards the skill-based side, with perfect dodges, parries and all that - at least in end-game and optional side stuff, the game's fairly easy for large parts to ease people in, possibly too easy too long. The story is fairly light-hearted and episodic with loose connecting tissues, but 1.4 is coming this week and they've advertised it as the "season finale" where everything comes together and things have been getting really dark, lol.
This video is 9 minutes cause it's trialer + all the upcoming new stuff and imo should do a decent job of showing the game
Also has fantastic music.
Infinity Nikki: Basically just released. It's an open-world dress-up game with a focus on platforming, collecting and, well, dressing up. The story feels a bit like a simple fairytale but casually throws in heavy themes or straight up gets dark at times.
Apparently the previous games have a whole lore iceberg
This game is not connected, but you can definitely feel this stuff is coming. While you ride through the world on you fancy bike, collecting Mario Galaxy Stars and have fashion battles against "pokemon trainer and gym leader" equivalents, people talk about a neighbouring kingdom getting invaded which is causing a refugee crisis and stuff
Game is super cozy and chill, has great setpieces, lots of collectibles (stars and clothing pieces or their crafting recipes) and the worldbuilding seems pretty solid and the story already goes interesting places.
Also has fantastic music.
If you're interested, pick one that sounds the most interesting to you and give it a try.
For me they've kind of replaced the Trails games after the garbage that was Cold Steel 4.
(not my image)
