Many players may assume that Genshin Impact needs no introduction, but if you did not know, it is a free-to-play open-world RPG adventure game from a Chinese studio miHoYo. When this company announced Genshin Impact, numerous experienced gamers were expecting to see another generic mobile game from Chinese developers. However, the visuals and mechanics that reminded them of Zelda Breath of the Wild intrigued these gamers enough to check out this project. As a result, they, along with millions of other players, came across a wonderful example of an open-world adventure game that actually knows how to engage RPG enthusiasts.
Activities in the Open World
Let us start with what you will be doing most of the time: your activities in the open world. There are several types of quests in the game: archon quests, legend quests, world quests, and daily quests.
Archon Quests
These are quests for the game’s main storyline. They will open sequentially as you will reach certain levels. They vary by their complexity, high-quality cut-scenes and a long storyline that runs throughout the game.
Legend Quests
These quests are specific to each character. They can allow you to get acquainted with each of the characters separately, especially from the gameplay perspective. As a rule, these missions are incredibly well staged and take no more than 2 hours to pass.
World Quests
In most cases, you will get these quests from the NPCs in the open world. The developers structured many of them according to all the known patterns; however, you can also find numerous original, exciting and captivating missions. At the same time, even the less original quests may please you with a fascinating story that will not let you get bored.
Daily Quests
These are normal daily missions. You will be getting 4 such tasks every day, and they will bring you a lot of experience and other resources. In general, their full completion takes about 15 minutes.
The Genshin Impact world is divided into many small regions. In order to see the full maps of the areas, you will need to find and open special towers, which are called statues of archons. There are also teleports scattered around the world, and you need to open them to have constant access to them from anywhere in the world.
All regions are extremely different. There are classic fantasy green plains, a huge snowy mountain with a secret at the very top, a region with huge rocks that reach the sky. Each area is amazing from the design, gameplay and story perspectives. Every region has several bosses, each of which can be fought once a day. As a rule, these bosses are different from each other, but many of them really have similar behavioural patterns.
For instance, there are fire, air, electric and ice cubes. You will discover numerous dungeons sprinkled around the Genshin Impact world; they will allow you to grind materials and artifacts. The dungeons are mostly the same, except for some individual ones that you will have to visit in the course of completing the legend and archon tasks.
In addition to the quests, during your wanderings through the endless world, you will also find various other activities. For example, collecting Anemoculus. It is an item that will help you increase your stamina and get additional materials. You will be able to obtain this resource by finding it only. Anemoculus is scattered around the world and can stand in different places. When you approach such an item, it begins to appear on the map. However, this does not mean that the work is done because finding these objects requires a lot of ingenuity from the player.
Besides that, there are numerous riddles scattered around the world – some of them are pretty similar but entertaining enough. When solving riddles, you will most likely be waiting for a pleasing reward or the discovery of something new. And of course, this mesmerizing open world would not be complete without the outposts which are spread throughout the game’s locations in abundance.
Teleports, archon statues, Anemoculus, outposts may not seem very fascinating to study. But it seems that the developers from miHoYo have understood the main secret of how to make the exploring of the world more captivating and intriguing. And the secret is that the process of the movement itself must be exciting. The game’s whole world is covered with various mountains, rocks, buildings and other obstacles, while you have the ability to plan in the air when jumping from hills (the mechanics taken from Zelda).
As a result, a simple movement from point A to point B turns into an enjoyable task with route planning that should consider the terrain, destination, enemies, obstacles and auxiliary elements of the world environment.
Combat System
The Genshin Impact’s combat system is based on characters and elemental attack interactions. There are only 7 elements in the game:
- Pyro (Fiery);
- Hydro (Water);
- Dendro (Poison);
- Electro (Electricity);
- Anemo (Air);
- Cryo (Cold/ice);
- Geo (Earth).
All of these except the Dendro element have their own characters. The most crucial thing is that all these elements may be useful in different situations. For example, Geo creates crystals that form a shield that blocks enemy damage, Anemo sprays other elements over a large area, Hydro + Cryo freezes your enemies, and so on.
One of the major benefits of the combat system is the creation of various combinations of character teams, where you must consider the elements, special abilities, attacks, weapon type and characteristics while creating the final build. So, the most effective destruction of monsters requires the use of various elemental interactions and different characters’ abilities.
Of course, you will encounter different types of enemies during your sessions. And although there are a few of them, they differ from each other drastically, and their mechanics can be transformed thanks to symbiosis with the elemental system. Moreover, the combat system proved to be the most exciting part of the game. It gives room for various combinations of characters, builds with weapons/artifacts and captivates millions of players for hundreds of hours.
Characters and Economics
As you complete the campaign, you will receive a starting set of characters. And after that, you will be able to get the following heroes by relying on the so-called “prayers” (or in other words, loot-boxes). Prayers have their own fixed item drop rates, which are shown in the description. For every 10 prayers, you are guaranteed to get a character or weapon with 4 stars at least. You can buy prayers for the source stones, which you will be able to collect for many activities.
Characters have one of 5 available types of weapons, these are spear, sword, claymore, bow and grimoire. The spear’s key benefit is its length, the sword will impress you with its speed, and the claymore relies on destructibility and strength. As for the bow and grimoire, you can count on distant attacks and elemental effects with these items respectively. Also, each character has 5 slots for artifacts, which increase your stats and give you additional bonus properties for the completed sets. By combining different artifacts and weapons, you can customize the heroes in a fascinating way. The characters are all extremely different, so getting each new one is a truly exciting event.
The game’s economy is set up smartly, and you will not find a single material or an object that does not have some kind of purpose. You even will need the weakest artifacts and weapons to upgrade other items. And the game is not overloaded with a lot of consumables. You can get everything you need without much effort, even the currency to open the characters. But bear in mind that the game will require you to grind a lot of consumables from time to time, especially when it comes to level 40+ adventures.
Gacha and Platforms
The game is available on IOS, Android, PC and PS4(5) platforms at the moment. When we talk about Genshin Impact, we must mention the monetization system or gacha mechanic. For those who do not know, gacha games are those titles that are based on collecting/getting certain items. In our case, these are characters.
Of course, you can play the game without any microtransactions, and it will still be extremely engaging. But at the same time, some people may fall victim to the gacha mechanic and start losing a lot of money because of it. The game skilfully manipulates players with psychological tricks and drop chances, so if you have any signs of gambling addiction, you better think twice before diving into this game.
Conclusion
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Stunning visuals | Gacha-mechanics |
| Mesmerizing open world | The game could offer more types of enemies |
| Free-to-play model | |
| Numerous quests | |
| Various artifacts and epic sets |
Overall, the game has a pleasing story, open world, characters and combat system. It provides you with a free AAA gaming experience on any device. Genshin Impact can be enjoyable for a long time and starts to feel like a chore only towards the end game. With this in mind, if you are a fan of single-player games and you still have not tried this project, it is undoubtedly worth your attention.
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