Genshin Impact

Genshin Impact

"Ehe te nandayo!?" (What do you mean, ehe!?) - Paimon

Protagonist:	Lumine/Aether (can be replaced by other characters)
Genre:	Action Role-Playing
Platforms:	Android iOS Microsoft Windows PlayStation 4 Nintendo Switch PlayStation 5
Release Date:	Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Android, iOS September 28, 2020 Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5 TBA
Game Engine:	Unity
Developer:	miHoYo
Publisher:	miHoYo
Made in:	China

Genshin Impact is a 2020 action role-playing video game developed and published by Chinese studio miHoYo for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Android, and iOS. The Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5 versions will be released, but the release date has not been confirmed.

Gameplay

The game features an open-world map, which the player explores by walking, climbing, swimming and gliding as necessary (most of it inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild). Many objects and places of significance are spread throughout the map.

Why It Rocks

The graphics, as inspired by Breath of the Wild, look great. However, it is worth mentioning that this is a free product and the graphics in free games tend to follow a simple visuals. The game uses cel-shading, like almost every anime game, which saves the quality of graphics more.
Beautifully designed characters. Their design, which quite refers to the fantasy anime titles, for example Sword Art Online, Fairy Tail, and many others. The most noticeable designs are from Mona, Fischl, Keqing, Venti, Zhongli, and Ganyu.
Incredibly precise controls. Character controls are easy to learn and react very well to the fact that you are moving.
Decent story that harks back to any amount of fantasy anime titles.
The game is completely free, even though the game doesn't even belong to the massively multiplayer online (MMO) genre. It is worth noting that there are microtransactions and loot boxes, but it does not matter, you will get everything you want (the characters, the weapons, and more) after a long gameplay, being the absolute opposite of Pay-to-Win.
The gameplay is extremely fun to play, at least for anime and role-playing game, although it becomes repetitive at times, the game offers an open world in which there is something to do.
The game offers an open world filled with mountains, buildings, all kinds of resources, and much more.
The voice acting is quite good whether you use the Japanese, Chinese, Korean, or English voiceovers.
- Many recognizable voice actors (Both Japanese and English) have made their way through Genshin Impact: Yuri Lowenthal (Teenage Ben Tennyson from Ben 10 franchise, Protagonist/Makoto Yūki/Ryoji from Persona 3, Peter Parker/Spider-Man from various Spider-Man media, and Sasuke Uchiha from the Naruto series) as Dainsleif (the narrator from the trailer), Aoi Yūki (Madoka Kaname from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Kurona Yasuhisa from Tokyo Ghoul, and Gwen Stacy/Spider-Gwen from the Japanese dub of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) as the female traveller/Lumine, Maaya Uchida (Rikka Takanashi from Love Chuunibiyou and Other Delusions!, and Katarina Class from My Next Life as a Villainess!) as Fischl, Chiwa Saito (Homura Akemi from Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Metis from Persona 3 FES) as Jean, both Todd Haberkorn (Ayato Kirishima from Tokyo Ghoul and Natsu Dragneel from Fairy Tail) and Kōki Uchiyama (V from Devil May Cry 5, Shigaraki Tomura from My Hero Acadamia, and Gin from Hotarubi no Mori e) as Razor, Rie Takahashi (Megumin from KonoSuba!, Takagi from Master Teaser Takagi-San, Peni Parker from the Japanese dub of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) as Hu Tao, Kayli Mills (Alice Zuberg from Sword Art Online: Alicization and Emilia from Re:Zero) as Keqing, Laura Faye Smith (Rosalina from the Super Mario franchise) as Noelle, Keith Silverstein (Robert E. O. Speedwagon from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and Masayoshi Shido from Persona 5) as Zhongli, or Ryohei Kimura (Judar from Magi and Bumblebee from the Japanese dub of Bumblebee) as Tartaglia/Childe.
  - Surprisingly, both Aoi Koga (Paimon's VA) and Konomi Kohara (Mona's VA) have played both Kaguya Shinomiya and Chika Fujiwara from Kaguya-sama: Love is War, while Kensho Ono (Diluc's VA), Kosuke Toriumi (Kaeya's VA), and Soma Saito (Chongyun's VA) have played Giorno Giovanna, Guido Mista, and Vinegar Doppio respectively in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, with Sean Chiplock (Mista's English VA) also voicing Diluc.
  - This could be said the same to both voices of Hu Tao, since she is voiced by two characters from Re: Zero: both Rem (Brianna Knickerbocker) and Emilia (Rie Takanashi).
The music is pleasing to the ear, lending the atmosphere of the event, be it while fighting or exploring the world. On the one hand, it can be reassuring, on the other, it stimulates the fight.
The sound effects are great when they appear in the menu or during gameplay.
The combat system is incredibly satisfying, at least with stronger characters like Venti, Qiqi, Diluc, and much more.
The characters are easy to like, even the weakest in terms of skills like Amber, who looks attractive but also stands out in terms of personality.
Unlike other RPGs, especially anime-like games, the game's HUD does not clutter most of the screen, but is nicely arranged for an adequate version of the game.
The moment you set your birthday, you get gifts in this case, which is a nice springboard and extremely rare in games.
Its later update had brought many features:
- Map expansion. Dragonspine, an arctic-like biome that can damage your chracters' health if you have low temperature.
- Its new challenges don't require resin.
- New ice enemies and weapons.

Bad Qualities

Sometimes happens that enemies often walk on the exact line you are on, which can block them, for example, in impassable objects.
The game can be illogical:
- On the one hand, you are extremely sensitive to swimming, at least for deep lake, which will cause you to drown immediately, instead of temporarily floating in the water, as it is in reality.
- On the other hand, you are powerful for climbing, where a normal person in the real world would not be able to do as much as the characters in the game.
- You can still freeze to death even when you're set on fire.
Due to the game being made in China, it has a strict chat filter and several words were blacklisted.
The PlayStation 4 version suffers from poor optimization.
Bad lip-syncing which not only doesn't match the voices but also the characters don't move their lips sometimes.
After update, the bow lock on is stuck for smartphone, making harder to defeat enemies.
The mission Secrets of the Tianqiu Valley is easily one of the worst ones in the game.

Reception

Genshin Impact received mostly positive reviews by both critics and gamers alike. Critics mainly praised the open world direction and the combat, criticizing the monetization system.

On Metacritic, the PC version received an 83/100 and the PlayStation 4 version an 80/100. Users, although still mostly favorable, the PC version received a 7.7/10, the PlayStation 4 version a 7.2/ 10, and iOS version a 6.5/10.^[1]^[2]^[3]

On OpenCritic, the game received a rating of "Strong", an average score of 81/100, and a 93% critics recommend, based on 14 reviews.^[4]

Daniel Tack from Game Informer gave for Genshin Impact a 9.3/10, describing that the game is "whimsical, wondrous land dripping with unbridled charm and appeal, combining a ridiculously compelling reward loop with unfettered, continuous discovery. In this world I felt like a child visiting theme park for the first time — dazzled, mesmerized, and completely swept away. I only wish the shimmering glow wasn’t marred by a ghoulish monetization model, but that’s something I’m willing to overlook for my ticket to this fascinating realm."^[5]

Shubhankar Parijat from GamingBolt praised the visuals, an open world, the mechanics from the game, the creators of which they were inspired, and that monetization does not force the player to pay. However, he criticized the characters, mostly Paimon, which he found her annoying, and some technical issues. Ultimately he gave an 8/10, shortly describing "Genshin Impact is a game I can easily recommend. It would have been worth your time anyway, but given that it's free, it's even harder to miss."^[6]

Chris Carter from Destructoid gave a 7.5/10, saying "Genshin Impact could be a little more lively than it is when leveling, but the beauty of its world helps suck you in. You really can't beat free, so long as you resist the rather tame temptations to spend money."^[7]

Trivia

Since the game got popular, it spawned many memes like "Ehe te nandayo!" (Japanese only), traiting Paimon as an emergency food, Lisa's climbing sound effects (Japanese only), Amber's doll dancing, and Ganyu's cocogoat milk.