Honkai: Nexus Anima Preview – More than just Pokémon with a HoYoverse makeover

It’s difficult to look at Honkai: Nexus Anima and not immediately think of Pokémon. There are creatures to collect, an encyclopaedia tracking your discoveries, battles against other players and a colourful world filled with new Anima waiting to be found. The comparisons are inevitable, and I suspect HoYoverse is very used to hearing them.

But after spending some time with Honkai: Nexus Anima, I came away thinking that calling it “Pokémon but HoYoverse” would be doing it a disservice.

There are certainly similarities, but the way Nexus Anima handles combat, progression and exploration makes it feel like something considerably different. In fact, it feels less like traditional Pokémon and more like what might happen if Pokémon became a live-service game and was mixed with an auto-battler. And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The world of Nexus Anima is built around creatures known as Anima, which you can discover, bond with and add to your team. The game takes place in Iia, a colourful and beautifully presented world that you can explore on foot while completing quests, talking to residents, discovering Charms and searching for new Anima.

It’s the sort of world that immediately feels packed with things to do. There are the obvious objectives, but then there are smaller quests, collectibles and creatures to hunt down, giving you plenty of reasons to wander away from whatever you’re supposed to be doing.

The Anima aren’t simply there to fight on your behalf, either. Some can assist with exploration and traversal, giving you another reason to seek out particular creatures beyond simply filling your Anidex. Anima can be used to help navigate the environment, including creatures that can assist with water traversal and others that can be ridden or used for flying.

The Anidex does exactly what you think it does. It keeps track of the Anima you’ve discovered, giving you another reason to keep exploring Iia and search for creatures you haven’t encountered yet. The creatures are divided into a frankly bizarre collection of categories known as Aspects. These include Reality, Change, Light, Dark, Oblivion, Memory, Strength, Beauty, Ugliness, Pride, Love, Hate, Competition, Joy, Satiation and Insatiability. It’s a suitably strange selection, and one that immediately hints at how much Nexus Anima is trying to establish its own identity rather than simply replicating another creature collector.

Where the biggest departure comes, however, is in combat. Nexus Battles are not traditional turn-based Pokémon-style encounters. Instead, they’re closer to an auto-battler, with you assembling your team and positioning your Anima strategically on the battlefield before letting them loose.

That means the thinking happens before the fight rather than during it. Choosing which Anima to bring, understanding how their abilities complement one another and positioning them correctly can be just as important as what happens once the battle begins.

You’re also supported by Eidos, characters who can provide their own special skills during battles. That adds another layer to the team-building system, giving you another decision to make before heading into a Nexus Battle.

It’s certainly a different approach, and one that might take some getting used to for anyone coming from Pokémon or another traditional creature collector. During my hands on session, I found myself enjoying the change of pace. Rather than constantly selecting individual attacks, you’re building a team and then watching your decisions play out.

The creature-collecting side is also more involved than simply finding something in the wild and adding it to your collection. You can bond with your Anima and, in some cases, evolve them by completing specific tasks. I worked towards evolving an Eggluvs by completing an objective that involved battling another character. My reward was Eggnok.

And yes, Eggnok is essentially a fried egg with boxing gloves. I absolutely need more of this.

The fact that certain evolutions are tied to objectives rather than simply reaching a particular level gives you another reason to interact with your Anima beyond simply making them stronger. It also makes discovering what a creature can eventually become another part of the game’s progression.

There are plenty of other objectives scattered around Iia, too. Some are traditional quests, while others simply encourage you to explore, find new creatures or uncover more of what the world has to offer.

It’s here that Nexus Anima started to surprise me. This isn’t my usual kind of game. I’m not someone who gravitates towards creature collectors, and I’m certainly not the sort of person who sees a new Anima and immediately starts planning where it sits in my team. Yet by the end of my session, I could already see how easy it would be to fall into the “just one more thing” trap.

I’ll quickly find this Anima. I’ll complete this little quest. I’ll see what happens if I evolve this creature. I’ll just explore that area before I stop, and suddenly, several hours have disappeared. That’s probably the biggest compliment I can give Nexus Anima. It’s very well presented, incredibly colourful and packed with things to do, but more importantly, it has that dangerous quality that makes a live-service game so easy to lose yourself in.

The obvious comparisons to Pokémon aren’t going anywhere, and they probably shouldn’t, but anyone interested in creature collecting is going to look at Nexus Anima and immediately understand the appeal. The auto-battler combat gives battles a different rhythm, the Eidos system adds another layer to team building, the Aspect system gives the Anima their own identity, and the creatures themselves can play a role in exploring Iia.

I went into my hands on session expecting to find a game that simply wasn’t aimed at me. Instead, I came away wondering which Anima I should collect next.

Tags: Honkai Nexus Anima