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Gamers first heard about Genshin Impact at E3 2019, but it wasn’t until August 2020 that it caused quite a stir. The game is an open-world RPG with lots of exploration and character building, driven by a colorful anime aesthetic and the handy ability to glide almost anywhere on the map. Think The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but for the otaku crowd.
(I can’t find who originally coined the term “Breath of Waifu” on Twitter, but that’s roughly the size.)
Now that Genshin Impact is available for PC, PS4, Android, and iOS, there are some cool things to keep in mind: it’s a free game, employs gacha mechanics for new characters and teams, and really draws heavily on Breath of the Wild for inspiration, right down to the soundtrack. Another thing: it’s a pretty decent game too, at least for the first few hours.
While Genshin Impact’s F2P mechanics have the potential to be as predatory and unsatisfying as any gacha game, the title’s central design is solid, its story is intriguing, its characters are endearing, and its world is worth exploring. Considering that Genshin Impact is a free game (and, like most free games, it gives you a generous amount of premium money up front), it’s worth at least a few hours of your time this weekend, especially if you’re chewing on the bite to Breath of the Wild 2.
What Genshin Impact does well
On a whim, I played Genshin Impact’s multi-hour prologue, and what made me want to immediately was how accessible the game is. There is no tedious story or complicated character creation. You start right in the middle of a short scene, you choose whether you want to play as a boy or a girl, your character’s name and that’s it. The time from game launch to actual play is a few minutes at most, and that’s more than even some modern big-budget titles can say.
From there, the core mechanics of the game are extremely easy to understand. With a few helpful nudges from your partner (a somewhat lovable and somewhat obnoxious fairy named Paimon), you’ll discover movement, platforming, combat, and unlocking more of the map in less time than it took me to write this paragraph.
Once you understand the main loop of the game, it is extremely engaging. You visit a city, discover some quests, and head out into the countryside to complete them. The big difference between Genshin Impact and, say, World of Warcraft is that there is a lot to do between mission destinations. You’ll come across hidden caves, enemy bases, environmental puzzles, and many crafting ingredients every time you leave the beaten path.
Most of these paths lead to treasure chests, which not only give you better gear, but also help you improve your “adventurer rank.” This is not a character level, but rather a general measure of how far you’ve come in the game. The higher your rank, the more features you can unlock, from quest lines to multiplayer.
Unlike Breath of the Wild, you can also switch between four characters on the fly. You get some of these characters by playing through the story, and others through the gacha mechanics of Genshin Impact. Gacha influence aside for a moment, the characters themselves are varied and fun. The first member of your party, Amber, can shoot arrows that set enemies on fire, while the witch Lisa can shoot enemies with close-up lighting – useful if they’re standing in shallow pools of water.
The combination of lightning with water is just the tip of the (sometimes literal) iceberg of elemental mechanics in Genshin Impact. Each character has a different elemental affinity: fire, ice, lighting, etc. Each element interacts with other elements in a unique way. You can shock enemies in standing water, freeze enemies on fire, or create a dangerous whirlpool in the air. There are so many elemental combinations that it can be difficult to understand, but it also gives the game a lot of strategic depth.
Finally, just like Breath of the Wild, you actually unlock a glider from scratch, allowing you to fly across the huge world and take in the sights, stopping wherever you want to battle enemies, gather crafting resources, and unlock new game points. fast travel. Genshin Impact offers a large and colorful world, full of likable characters and easy to understand basic gameplay.
What Genshin Impact fails
If you finally stick with Genshin Impact it will have a lot to do with your tolerance for gacha games. If you are not familiar with the term, “gacha” is a Japanese design strategy that comes from toys in vending machines. Instead of just buying the characters and equipment you want, gacha games charge a premium coin for random drops. You are not paying for the character you want, you are paying for the chance to get the character you want, like buying a pack of baseball cards.
There is an obvious tension between relying on gacha for new characters and trying to make those characters an integral part of the story. Naturally, some characters are also simply better than others (due to their level of rarity), which makes completing the game with free characters a bit more difficult. So far the difference isn’t all that surprising, but these disparities tend to raise its head around the midgame mark, so I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.
All the different premium currencies in the game can also get quite confusing. One type allows you to summon new characters; one type allows you to buy the first type; another type allows you to buy the first type, but only if you go through a specialty store interface. I appreciate that Genshin Impact wants to keep its focus on the game and the story, but just a screen or two explaining exactly what each coin is, and how to get it and how you spend it, would clear up a lot of confusion.
The game also employs some strange F2P mechanics even where they are not necessary. When the game starts, you can level up your characters to 20, and voila. Anything beyond that requires a character upgrade, which requires specialized crafting materials, which requires a certain adventurer rank, which requires you to complete certain quest lines, which requires you to level up other characters; you get the idea. Leveling up content makes sense in a gacha game for mobile devices, where the idea is to draw players into the routine every day. But in a single-player adventure title, it only gets in the way of character building and exploring.
Bottom line
Still, considering it’s a game that was barely on my radar before this week, Genshin Impact does pretty much everything right. I would imagine that Gacha’s mechanics could weaken over time, but on the other hand, you’re not removing any important content behind a paywall. All you have to risk is a few hours, and if the game is with you, you will get a reward that is worth it.
