(CCR Original Content) Genshin Impact Review [Spoiler Free Review] (8/10)
Genshin Impact is a 2020 action RPG game developed and published by miHoYo and produced by Hugh Tsai. It was released for Microsoft Windows, Playstation 4, Android and IOS on September 4th 2020 and backwards compatible for Playstation 5 in November 2020. Genshin Impact is a "gacha game" featuring an open-world environment, action based battle system utilizing elemental magic and character switching. There have been no updates as of late as to when or if the game might release for Nintendo Switch or Xbox. The game has been considered a commercial success due to it's large fan base and grossing over $1 billion dollars within 6 month of it's release.
Taking place in the fantasy world of Teyvat, Genshin Impact, is home to seven different nations, each of which is tied to an element and ruled by a god associated with it. Such as the city-state nation of Mondstadt, whose element is Anemo, the air element and worships Barbatos, the Anemo Archon and the nation of Liyue whose element is Geo, the rock/earth element and worships Rex Lapis (Morax), the Geo Archon. The main story follows a set of twins not from this world, which you can choose to be either the male or female version of. They become the one referred to as the Traveler, which is the main character of the game. They have traveled across many worlds with their twin but have become separated from them by an unknown god in Teyvat. The Traveler travels across Teyvat in search of their lost sibling with their companion, a child-like "fairy" named Paimon and becomes involved in the affairs of the other nations, gods, and the world.
This is a really great game with it's beautiful anime inspired graphics and a bunch of fun. I've been playing since around December and have probably logged in over 80 hours and I still find this game a lot of fun. . It's an open world RPG so you can pretty much go wherever you want although certain locations are going to have enemies you encounter that might be too difficult for you to fight depending on the level of your characters. Notice how I said characters, not character. You're able to have a party of four characters at one time and be able to actively switch between characters in the middle of battle to be able to utilize different attacks and combinations of skills and elements. There are 7 different elements such as Anemo (air), Geo (earth, Pyro (fire), Cryo (ice), Hydro (water), Electro (lightning/electricity), and Dendro which hasn't been revealed yet but is speculated to be nature related since the name has Greek origins and a loose meaning of "tree". The characters all use weapons in fighting and have a couple of different types like archers who use bows, mages or magic users who don't use weapons but only use magical/elemental attacks, spear users, and two different kinds of sword users, a regular size ones and a claymore or bigger sword users. You can press the attack button a couple of times for your character to do their attack action or combo or hold down the button to do a charge attack. Each character also has two unique combat skills based on their element, an elemental skill and a elemental burst. One of them, the elemental skill has a cool down period but can be used again right after and the other, the elemental burst needs to gather energy you get from defeating enemies to charge up before you can use it. Your character has a lot of freedom and can perform a lot of different actions such as running, jumping, climbing, swimming and gliding and these actions are all limited by your stamina. You can even use your elemental abilities to do things like freeze water and walk on top of it and other environment altering actions. The game is really easy to learn but has a lot of different aspects to it that can be a little complicated. For one, characters can have their strength increased with items such as artifacts that have different perks and additional ones for combining similar ones together, they can also get different weapons that also have different perks which can increase in effect by being "refined". You are able to level up your character by using items you get from completing missions and challenges as well as defeating enemies and bosses. Bosses and challenges that reward highly valuable resources are scattered throughout the world and while some bosses can be challenged weekly some challenges can only be completed once. There are also different types of dungeons that can be challenged but the bosses and dungeons take a currency called "Resin" to attempt and you only have so much of it a day until it regenerates. As your characters progress and you complete more of the story and game your Adventure Rank increases unlocking new quests, challenges, and raises the World Level, which is a measure of how strong the enemies in the world are and the rarity of rewards you get from defeating them. There are some good things that make the game a little easier or help you along the way alot too. Like the many teleportation nodes scattered throughout Teyvat that once you find and unlock you can use whenever you want to fast travel to places you have already been and also the Statues of the Seven where you can heal and revive characters. Your characters can die if their health becomes too low and they will still be in your party/group but you won't be able to use them until you revive them and you can also revive and heal your characters by giving them different food items. You can find food all over the place from hunting animals, gathering fruit and vegetables or purchasing them from a store and there is even a little mini-game type thing where you can make dishes yourself around campfires. Ingredients can even be cooked into meals that regenerate health or boost statistics like attack or defense. Items are also dropped from defeated enemies and found in treasure chests that can be used in increasing a character's strength and ore that can be used to refine and enhance weapon strength or create weapons is usually found scattered around too. There's a multiplayer mode that's pretty much a co-op mode and is useful in teaming up to defeat certain bosses and helping out your friends or maybe showing them the ropes but it's definitely lacking and needs some polish. By completing quests you can unlock five additional characters by completing the story but more characters can only be unlocked by the game's "gacha" mechanic and in-game events. This is another part that gets very complicated in my opinion. There are several premium in-game currencies obtainable by playing the game and also by in-app purchases (real money) that can be used to obtain characters and weapons through the "gacha" system. Something most people would say is very similar to the concept of loot boxes or others would say closer to gambling. There is a pity system that guarantees the player will receive rare items after a set number of draws but I hear it can be pretty ridiculous and there are plenty of people who have spent hundreds of dollars or more to get characters or weapons that they really wanted. I just stick with whatever is free and I've had no complaints but they know what they are doing because as I mentioned above this free to play game has made over $1 billion dollars in 6 months since it was released. There are characters and weapons that are only available for a limited time and if you miss out on getting them while they're available you might not get another chance to ever get them again. So like I said this game is super fun and a really great game, I definitely give it an 8/10 and it gets my "Must Play Seal of Approval especially if your a fan of Zelda Breath of the Wild or anime or "gacha" games in general.
Click on this picture to see our video review for Genshin Impact
