StarSavior is the latest RPG experience from the developer of CounterSide, Studio Bside, where you lead the Saviors through journeys of the cosmos to inherit the StarSavior’s power. Blending elements inspired by titles like Umamusume Pretty Derby, Eversoul, and Outerplanes, the game aims to create a unique mix of strategy, storytelling, and character-driven gameplay. But does it all come together well?
After spending over 26 hours in the game, I decided to dive deep and see what it truly offers. I played StarSavior on my Samsung M55, a fairly standard mid-range device, to get a realistic sense of its performance and accessibility.
In this review, I’ll be breaking down my experience across key areas like optimization, graphics, UI, music, story, and monetization. So, let’s get into it and find out whether StarSavior is worth your time.
Before you start your journey in the cosmos, you can also check the redeem codes guide for freebies, the Savior Tier List, and the reroll guide for a smoother experience.
Gameplay is a strong blend of turn-based combat, rogue-like, and idle elements
Let’s start with the gameplay. The game’s combat is turn-based, similar to Honkai Star Rail and Outerplanes, but leaning more into Outerplanes’ side with all the counter-attacking strategy and PvP-focused game modes. The speed of your unit matters for the first strike in the order. Breaking enemies causes their turn to get favored for a non-stunned unit. The game balances this pretty well so far.
Compared to Honkai Star Rail, where you can level up characters by farming nodes, this game has a heavy resource collection emphasis on Idle time, similar to AFK Journey and Eversoul, both of which have PvP game modes. Although there are nodes for getting resources via farming nodes, you will be limited by the amount of Willpower you have. The game’s stamina akin system has a daily limit of 240.
Then we have the Journey system. The Umamusume Career-like game mode, where you will select a Savior and go through a full career playthrough to get her stats up. The Journey fully functions as a Rogue-like mode, but is held down by being too short compared to the Career options present in Umamusume. The Journey has 3 difficulties, of which two are locked behind mid-late game stages.
You start at easy mode and can earn up to 4500 points here. You need a good set of arcanas, the game’s Support Card variant from Umamusume. I reached a maximum of 4300 with my tier-listed Arcanas. How well your savior will perform in PvP and PvE will depend on how well your journey goes. It is fun to go through every Savior journey, and they do have good, heartfelt moments.
The real headache starts when you hit the skill ceiling. Meaning, when you have maxed out all of your saviors and cleared all game modes. I will suggest avoiding fully leveling up non-max LLB units. They can break your resource bank easily while leaving your work short-handed. The S-tier units are a must-have to even reach anywhere good in the PvP side of things. I suggest following my tier list for the Global server.
The game modes and content variety are a healthy positive
The game features a variety of good amount of modes. We have the game’s career equivalent, Journey mode, A full story campaign with 5 Episodes so far, a endless tower mode with 4 different elements, where you keep clearing stages till you hit the end, a endless progression stage, 5 different types of resource hunting mode, a permanent boss raid mode with seasons, PvP mode with real time matchmaking or Fighting pre selected pvp team defense teams.
Clearing all of this can actually take a good amount of time, and people worrying about content can rest easy. Even after all this time I spent on the game, I only got normal mode for journey unlocked, so I have not even touched anything on the endgame content side yet. You can clear the dailies in a max of 5 minutes. So you can make this your side gacha easily. That’s what I did, unless I want to do Savior story.
The Visuals and the optimisation are not the best, but not the worst either
The game contains a surprising amount of polish and optimisation from a studio making its Studio Bside’s first 3d gacha game. I was surprised to see the quality of the model. They did not disappoint in that regard. But they did not reach any good heights either. Rocking in a smooth 60fps on the highest setting, mid-battles. It is a smooth ride on the mobile side so far.
If I were to compare, the visual quality here is similar to Honkai Star Rail. It’s not groundbreaking, but at least it’s not phone-breaking either. In contrast, I am happy with what I got here. I cannot say the same if people are coming in here with Endfield’s level of model quality or Zenless Zone Zero’s expectations. Although I do feel the character designs are a mix between Honkai Star Rail and Outerplane’s level.
The UI and the controls leave no room for complaints
Similar to Arknights Endfield’s UI, the UI in the game is great and very intuitive, very well made, and minimal in design. Is it cluttery, no? Does it make you confused about things? No. The game’s UI is one of the most unique ones out there; it’s interactive, clear, concise, and smooth. Scaling is a very important factor, and the texts on the UI are easy to read.
In the grand scheme of gacha games, where every game feels and seems so similar, the UI and all interactions in this game are top-notch, and nothing currently feels cheap or mimetic. The immediate feedback from attacking in turn-based battles with your PvP timer running out can give a bit of relief from the pressure of having a late touch response.
The Monetisation, Currency, and Battlepass leave a lot more wanting
The game has an average game currency-per-buck reward conversion. The game has one premium currency and one free-to-play currency. The cost of a single pull is 200 Stellagems. For a 10x Pull, you will need 2000 Stellagems. The game has a lot of pop-ups when you reach leveling-up milestones. It can be a lot of annoying, but they are absolutely avoidable. The gacha rate is good with 2% drop rate.
Now, the other mind-boggling thing is that the game has 7 different battle passes. 4 of them are permanent and offer only stellagem based on progression. Other 3 are character-leveling-focused battle passes. The good thing is, they all have free-to-play progression bar rewards. Keep in mind, you can get all those rewards in just a single week of constant idle collection. So nothing is lost without paying.
The game has a heavy PvP focus, so this locks into the Pay to Win system. No matter how good a free-to-play and lucky player you are. The whales with their maxed everything will melt your lineup in the PvP modes.
The game’s global server has cross-play with JP and KR servers, which has a solid progression of 4 to 6 months for players already. You will need to throw a lot of money to catch up to their level. Or you can enjoy your time with characters and their story, and idle through the stages slowly.
Story, Music, and all the content ain’t much, but it’s honest work
Here, we are again put into the shoes of an amnesiac Main Character, who at the start of the story at least showcases some depth of our past. Our character is the stepping stone for other saviors, and we help them guide the characters through their journey. A very similar concept and story to the Eversoul and Umamusume one. But there’s a good difference to make it stand out. Our player character gets isekaid into the StarSavior world.
Here, we can see who our character is once you progress through the main story. And our journeys are a quest to reach the old power we lost and were sealed away. The game centers around a time loop, so you can bet we will see a lot of past and future stories getting mixed up. Even the collaboration story hints that the StarSavior universe is a separate dimension from the CounterSide universe.
Without spoiling anything, I will let you know, in short, it’s not a big masterpiece story. It’s decent and has its moments. But it is not something I will keep my mind on. But the music and osts are stellar, and I was expecting it since StudioBside does not disappoint in that category. Like CounterSide’s ost, this game has banger ost tracks. But not only is the sound design good, but the attack SFX are well-made too.
Final Verdict
StarSavior is trying something new, but with the fierce market, it may not get the ball rolling properly fast. This is a game that I will put on my side gacha list. Not the main thanks to its quick pace on the daily grind clearing. Fans who are tired of Eversoul and OuterPlane will find this new replacement great.
StarSavior Review by GamingonPhone
Gameplay Mechanics - 7
Storyline and Content - 8
Graphics and Music - 8
Controls and UI - 8
Free-to-play elements - 6.5
7.5
Good
StarSavior delivers a unique blend of turn-based combat, roguelike progression, and idle mechanics, wrapped in a decently polished experience. While its visuals and monetization have room for improvement, the variety of modes and smooth gameplay loop keep things engaging.
That’s all from us for the StarSavior! Did you find my StarSavior review helpful? Do let us know in the comments!
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