Preview: What You Should Know About HoYoverse’s Creature Collecting Game Honkai: Nexus Anima

Recently, HoYoverse kicked off a round of closed beta testing for the latest entry into the Honkai-verse, the open-world creature collecting game Honkai: Nexus Anima. As a player of several of HoYoverse’s games, and a fan of chill games, I’d been hoping to be able to try the Nexus Anima out out. And for once, I got lucky. Yes, I get to experience new and upcoming games fairly frequently, but that’s through direct press invites. This one I signed up for and miraculously got in. The good thing is that there are no restrictions on this particular test, so I can share my experience with you.

The first thing players need to know about this game, particularly if they’re new to HoYo’s games is that this is definitely a Honkai-verse game. It doesn’t just bear the Honkai title, it features characters from the other games in the verse. Like direct transfers and not just expys – although there are those as well. Honkai: Star Rail’s Blade is there in his original form, and Kiana Khaslana made her way over from Honkai Impact 3rd.

It’s made very clear that Kiana’s a traveler from other places, but Blade is what’s known as a Novarch and the master of one of the universe’s Planes. We don’t know why Blade is filling this role. Most Star Rail players are going to assume it’s a mission he’s been sent on. Kiana, it seems has just taken up traveling. Good for her.

As is the case with most HoYo games post Genshin, players start out by choosing between the male and female character. You will not be designing your own character – although you will be able to choose their stats, which can have an effect on how you interact with the world. As is the case with a lot of long-running fantasy RPG’s, your character will not have memories of their previous life. What little we do know about the MC comes from a group of people that do not like them very much. In fact, they’ve spent more than 200 years trying to track the MC down and apply titles like “World-ender” to them.

It seems that the MC may have done something very bad in the past. Or, it could be something intended to be good but it just went wrong? Either way, whatever they did resulted in at least one person’s death and the shattering of the old world into 81 different Planes that are weirdly connected but not whole. It also made the Anima (the creatures you’ll be collecting) far more important to the functioning of the world. They’re used by the people of the world in a variety of ways, including solving puzzles and helping to run businesses. And, as you’d expect from a creature-collection/battle game, all disputes are solved via Anima combat.

This, of course, means that players will need to obtain Anima. They’ll also need to make them more powerful. Obtaining Anima works two ways. There’s the typical way of going out into the world, fighting them, and when they’ve been beaten attempting to catch them using an apparatus – in this case Twine. (It fits the game lore.) The second way is through the game’s gacha system. (Yes, there is one. That’s typically how HoYo makes their money.)

Interestingly, it seems the primary focus of the gacha is not actually the Anima. Rather it’s the playable characters: Animasters, or as they’re called in the enhancement and battle systems, “Eidoses”. The only way to obtain Eidoses, aside from the few the game gives you to get you started, is through the gacha system. And, as with any other gacha game, you may want multiple copies of the same Eidos, known as “Eidothreads”. It really depends on whether you plan on doing things like endgame or not.

Anima have a similar system, known as Rapport. Like the Eidothreads, players can apply six Rapport to an Animo. However, players do not need to roll to obtain these for most Anima. Taming additional ones will work just fine. The catch is that each Rapport requires a certain amount of energy obtained either from taming the Anima or via rolls. Obtaining a full Anima will net players 10 energy. Players will need somewhere between 10 and 30 energy to unlock each Rapport.

As noted, energy can also be obtained via the gacha system, but in varying amounts. If a roll just gets you energy, you might get five. If the roll gets you a duplicate Anima, it will convert into 10 energy. By that logic, it seems the best way to go about leveling an Anima’s Rapport is to just catch them. It guarantees which Anima you’ll receive energy for and helps with leveling your character anyway. That said, you will have free rolls available to you, so that can be used to supplement and speed things along. Oh, and yes, there are shiny, or “Chromatic” Anima waiting to be caught.

Speaking of leveling your character, there are plenty of ways to do that. The game doesn’t take long to throw you into things and you’ll come across ongoing Anima battle events like the Apex Club and Thesophool’s Riddles. Think of those as something like the tower activities in other games. Of course there are plenty of quests scattered all over the place, and it’s also worth checking Utoplia (Zenless Zone Zero players would compare this to Interknot.) for the latest news and their associated tasks.

So, what is the combat like? The game is about collecting critters and battling with them, after all. It’s pretty easy to pick up. You’ll start by deploying a number of Anima to the field. The number of allowed Anima will go up as your level increases. At the same time, you’ll have Eidoses off field, each with a single ability that you can deploy when charged. Sometimes these are buffs, sometimes they’re attacks.

As you progress and collect more Anima and Eidoses you’ll be able to build teams with complementary attributes and aspects. There are 15 aspects to choose from, and having multiples of a certain type creates different effects. Players can also choose to combine specific traits and damage types. Damage types are physical and magic. Traits include things like Blaster, Protector, and Mascot.

Another thing to be aware of is where the Anima should be placed. And I’m not just talking frontline vs backline – although that is designated for each Anima. You’ll also need to try to place some Anima where they will be able to hit specific opponents. This requires clever use of any obstacles that may appear on the field. Of course, one the battle is underway, you won’t be moving the Anima or directing their actions. The only things you can control at that point are the Eidos abilities.

That’s all to say that while the battles may seem easy to begin with, you will find you need to put more thought into what you’re doing as you progress.

Of course, there are other things to do besides battle. Honkai: Nexus Anima has it’s fair share of mini-games, story-based sidequests and the like. There’s even a city management feature where you can build your own business empire – one of the benefits of this being an urban game.

As I mentioned earlier, when creating your character you can allocate points into attributes, specifically Strength, Charisma, and Intelligence. These traits will have an effect on how you go about obtaining information. But that’s not the only thing that impacts how you interact with the game’s world when doing story content.

Early on in the story, you’re reminded that you have a special item on you. This Relic allows you to tweak history. You do this by making choices that anchor events. If you’ve completed a storyline that doesn’t mean you can’t do even more tweaking. At any point, you can enter the Infinite Vortex via the game menu and attempt to complete objectives you may have missed before. This doesn’t appear to have any affect on the rewards received, but my suspicion is that it will have an impact on story events later on. That, and you’ll end up with more information, which will be great for the lore hounds.

For me, Honkai: Anima Nexus has been an enjoyable experience so far. Although, I sure part of that is the fact that it’s part of the greater Honkai-verse, which I’m pretty invested in. I want to know why Elio sent Blade on this sidequest and what I did to upset pretty much every diety-like being in the Nexus. That said, the gameplay itself is fun. I’m looking forward to finding my answers at launch. I'm already steeling myself for the trauma wrapped in a cute, cuddly critter coating.