Disclaimer: This entire review was written by a player who started when the game first released, dropped the game, and restarted during 1.5. Most of the perspective in the entire review will be coming from someone that has spent money on the game and put well over 1000 hours into the game. There will be heavy spoilers ahead, as Genshin is hard to fully cover while remaining spoiler free. This was written during the delay for 2.7 (during 2.6). This critique will not only cover the game itself, but the company in charge of the game, being Mihoyo or Hoyoverse, and the community itself, as it is important to understand these things when it comes to some details about the game itself. Popular Genshin Impact Content Creators such as Tectone, Dish, Tuonto, and more will be mentioned at some point, as well as voice actors for the game itself.
Genshin Impact is a massive game, and is a game that means a lot to people from all over. To begin to talk about what Genshin is like now, it is important to first look back at how it began. Genshin Impact was released on September 28, 2020 by a Chinese company called Mihoyo, and had a massive and aggressive marketing campaign to go with it. It was hard not to see ads of this game everywhere when it first came out. It featured a giant open world, action RPG combat, featured online co-op play, and a big cast of playable characters. The most appealing aspect of this game on first view was it’s price tag: Anyone could play the entire game for free.
It was released not only on mobile devices, but consoles and PC as well. The only catch to all of this was it featured a gacha mechanic where players would have to roll to unlock playable characters. To say it was massively successful is an understatement, as it recouped all of it’s development cost and more within the first month of release. Genshin Impact took around $100 million to make (making it one of the most expensive games to develop ever), and made over $245 million on mobile alone within one month.
This momentum would continue on throughout the year, ending on a rather high note of grossing over $2 billion from the mobile version alone. Adding in estimated console and PC profits, and the game might overtake Fortnite as the game to have made the highest profit within its first year of release. It is at least confirmed to be in the top two in this category though. After such an impressive launch, Genshin has become a cultural phenomenon. Despite its many issues, this is a game that will not be fading from the mainstream any time soon. The game has many factors contributing to its success aside from the gacha system, with one of them being the visuals of the game itself.
Graphics
The game itself looks amazing and it is hard to not want to take various pictures and make them your wallpaper for your phone or PC. The characters all have an anime like aesthetic that meshes very well with the environment around them. Their models are fluid both while traveling and in combat. It is in combat in particular where I feel the models truly shine as they all have such fluid animations that it feels amazing to play.
Whether this be a character closing one of their eyes as they aim their bow, or the simple attack string that every character has, it all looks like it belongs and enhances the feeling of combat. Out of combat, every character in the game also has a unique idle animation, and these can range from being really cool like an eagle or a hawk landing on Diluc’s arm, or just really pretty like Kokomi summoning a water fish that swims around her. These all add charm and personality to every character in the game, and are fun to watch even after the first time seeing them.
There are a total of three regions in the game at the time of writing, and regardless of which one you are in, it is hard to not want to take at least a few screenshots of the scenery around you and make them your wallpaper for your mobile device or PC. Whether it be the peaceful plains of Monstadt, the giant peaks of Liyue, or the vast islands of Inazuma, there is always a sight to see in Genshin Impact. There are many points that occur while exploring that made me stop in my tracks, and just admire the scenery around me. To say Genshin is a beautiful game is a rather big understatement, as some of the sights it can offer are nothing short of breathtaking.
What makes this all the more impressive is that each region feels distinct from one another. Monstadt features elegant windy plains with an overall green color palette for the trees and grass. This creates gorgeous scenery where you can see the horizon in the far off distance, or watch as the sunset fades into the distance. It’s architecture is based on Germany, which gives it a distinct feel from the other two nations. Liyue has a more slight yellow/orange color palette, and features a lot more mountainous areas that can be climbed and explored. The architecture and music is based on Ancient China, giving it a very dynamic feel from Monstadt.
The cherry blossom trees in Inazuma in particular contrast with the overall theme of lightning, and the blue/purple color palette the area tends to have. It is very clearly based on Japan with its architecture and music, and the entire region featuring numerous islands. All of the different atmospheres in Genshin lend to it not only being beautiful to look at, but provides a feeling of a world with different cultures and people living in it.
The only problem with the models is the over usage of NPC models that are obviously copy pasted from area to area. It can get a little distracting when NPCs with the exact same face and model appear in various areas with different clothes. For a company that makes as much money as Mihoyo does, it surely can not be too much to ask the developers to make some unique models for the more important NPC characters like the blue oni in Itto’s story quest, or Yoimiya’s father. Aside from this minor problem, the game has little to no issues graphically, and is one of its major selling points. Another of its rather unspoken selling points is its amazing soundtrack.
Music
The soundtrack for Genshin is composed by Yu Peng Chen. and is both vast, and filled with songs that can and will get very easily stuck in your head. This game fills on both the quantity and quality of music to an extreme degree. Whether relaxing in Liyue, or battling in Inazuma, the game is filled with themes that are both mesmerizing and fits the theme of whatever you are doing. Even the main theme has 4 different versions that play depending on when you boot the game up, with the night version being particularly haunting and nostalgic.
Just like the visual style of each region, all three areas use different instruments and songs, giving them all a further sense of identity. The music that plays while exploring any of these areas or relaxing and taking in the sights is calm in nature, and easy to hum along to. They serve to further amplify the natural beauty of these areas, and not impede the player’s sense of exploration and adventure by remaining slower and quieter than other songs. The energetic and fluid battle music serves as a perfect background to smaller scale battles where tensions do not run high. They are not only catchy, but perfectly shifts the tone from exploration to combat. A shining example of this is the new battle music in Enkanomiya, which is both energetic, catchy, yet fits the darker tone the area gives off.
The soundtrack truly begins to shine with songs that will end up on repeat in a YouTube playlist with its boss battles or trailers for characters. Zhongli’s trailer is a shining example of how to take a culture they based Liyue off of, and implement music from there in an exciting fashion. Azhdaha’s second theme combines traditional Chinese orchestra with heavy metal to make an intense boss fight that never gets old to listen to and can give chills when first heard. Tartaglia’s entire boss fight incorporates a fusion of European, Asian, and Russian music, and is one of the most memorable fights in the game due to both the music and Childe’s final form.
Dvalin’s theme sounds both epic and tragic, which is fitting after learning of the Dragon’s backstory. There are numerous others I can talk about here, but the picture here is clear: Yu Peng Chen has the players absolutely spoiled for song choice. There is not a single negative about the entire soundtrack here, and all of it only serves to amplify the hype around certain characters or match the tone of each section of the game. For a free to play game to have this much great music is unheard of before Genshin Impact, and all this music serves to do is make impactful story moments more memorable.
Story
The main story of Genshin actually starts with a rather cliche opening and a weak beginning in my opinion. It does a good job of introducing the world, the first region of Monstadt, as well as all the characters in Monstadt, but mostly felt too cliche and lacked any impact. This is all compounded by very slow pacing that never really goes away. This is a very opinionated segment, so other players may disagree with what I have said, and will continue to say about the story.
The opening begins with your main character and their sibling arriving in a new world before an unknown goddess separates the two of you, and you wake up in the world of Teyvat with the goal of finding your sibling. You quickly fish out your “guide” to this world, a small traveling companion named Paimon, and together you both head off to learn more about this strange world you have found yourself in and work to find your sibling. On the surface, this looks to be a very basic story with little stakes since you are not even from this world. But, everything changes as you leave Monstadt in the story and learn more about the world around you.
In Monstadt, you learn about the two evil forces of the game, being the Abyss Order, strange monsters that seek to demolish the current world order, as well as the Fatui, who serve one of the Archons (the gods of this world), to try and take all the Gnosis from the other gods. A Gnosis being what gives the gods their status. In Liyue, the Fatui take a much larger role as the player not only has a massive boss fight with one of them, but said boss also summons a massive god that was sealed away in a massive war known as the “Archon War.”
This is genuinely one of the coolest moments in the game as all the people of Liyue gather together to fight back against this demonic beast made of water from destroying the entire city, and was the moment where I realized Genshin’s story might hold more than I first thought, and what happened next only proved to solidify that thought and truly immerse me into the world of Teyvat.
The real twist comes when a character named Dainsleif appears, and after traveling with him for a while, you learn many… disturbing things. For example, the current 7 Archons of Teyvat had completely destroyed a civilization called Khaenri’ah 500 years ago and wiped all mention of it from all history books. The protagonist, AKA your character, apparently remembers seeing this civilization being wiped out, but had no idea what it all meant. You learn your sibling woke up many years before you did, and has gone through a journey of their own with Dainsleif.
Then the real twist appears when you see your sibling again in an Abyss Stronghold, where the Abyss Order is revealed to be the former remnants of the Khaenri’ahn civilization turned into monsters, and your sibling now leads them in a “war against destiny.” Your sibling tells you to finish your journey to learn what they have, before vanishing with Dainsleif. This entire segment changed everything I thought I knew about the game, and changed my outlook on the story as a whole. What could have been revealed to your sibling that would make them side with the Abyss?
This was a very very brief synopsis of the story, and in all honesty, is best experienced while playing. Genshin’s story starts off rather simple, but uses this simple beginning to twist all of the information presented to the player in a rather unique and compelling way. The lore is both vast and deep enough to write entire books on, as well as various theories. Past the initial arc in Monstadt, the story becomes a lot more thrilling as more information about Teyvat is ever so slowly revealed. The pacing speeds up a bit as well the further into the story the player goes. I would go as far as saying it has the potential to be one of the greatest stories ever experienced if the other regions past Inazuma continue with this trend. The story is one of Genshin’s biggest draws as anyone that likes to get immersed in large fictional worlds will find themselves right at home in Teyvat. Just as the main story is well thought out, so too are the characters of Genshin Impact.
Characters
The characters in Genshin Impact all have stellar character designs and as much personality as you would expect from a game this large. From the playful and energetic Yoimiya, to the dedicated and calm Jean, or the knowledgeable Zhongli, there are bound to be a few characters that shine despite the type of player you are due to the sheer size and quality of the cast. The designs of the characters not only reflect their personalities well, but are distinct and well defined.
Genshin makes all of its money by having people roll for characters, so it is only natural that the characters are all mostly given time to shine. There are various “hang out” quests, where the player just gets to spend time with certain characters to learn more about them. Characters will also have their own quests not related to the main story of the game which usually results in a dungeon where you can play as them for a little bit before they go back to being locked. These quests, all the hangouts, temporary events, and even moments in the main story gives enough time for most characters to really show off what is so special about them.
All this can easily make most players fall in love with the majority of the cast of Genshin Impact. It is worth noting that some characters have gotten far less screen time than others. Zhongli is important in the main quest of Liyue and has two character quests about him, while Xinyan has only appeared in limited time events. Despite this, every time a character appears on a banner, there are trial runs of that character where the player can test them before rolling for them, which helps players decide who they want to roll for. The various abilities of each character in the gameplay feels distinct and clever so that no one character feels the same, even after a year of content.
Gameplay
There are two main aspects to discuss when talking about the gameplay of Genshin Impact: The exploration, and the combat. Beginning with the more simple of the two, exploration feels very similar to Breath of The Wild on a surface level (hence all the comparisons when the game first released). Players are free to use any character they have unlocked to explore, and each character has some passive talent that helps in resource gathering or exploration itself. There is a stamina meter that is used to sprint, swim, or climb across the world of Teyvat. The stamina can be upgraded by collecting various “Oculus” that are meant to be given to a statue of an Archon. Aside from the Oculi, there are spirits to follow that give goodies, tons of wildlife and plants, and chests littered everywhere. These all feel more impactful than say Koroks in BoTW. The world is so full of goodies, that pairs with the amazing sights and calming music to make the player just want to explore at their own leisure. What sets it apart further from Breath of the Wild is some of the elemental puzzles that are scattered about. Characters in Genshin Impact are each assigned one of 6 elements, and these can be used to activate wind currents, light fires to keep yourself warm, or activate elemental statues that grant chests. This further incentivizes the player to have a mixed party of characters.
Combat is both simple, yet extremely engaging and exciting once the player has more characters they can use. The simplicity is basic in the sense that each character only has a series of normal attacks, a charge attack, a plunging attack, and one elemental skill and elemental burst. Most of the variety in the character’s gameplay comes from the skill and burst (with the burst acting as that character’s ultimate ability). The complexity and fun part comes in the sense that a player may have 4 characters in their team that they may swap to at any time. As stated before, each character has an element assigned to them out of a list of 6: Pyro, Hydro, Anemo, Geo, Cryo, and Electro.
These elements all interact with each other in different ways, and forms the basis of Genshin’s combat. For example, hitting an enemy with a Hydro and Cryo attack will result in them being frozen solid, or a Pyro and Electro attack will result in a small explosion of damage. Learning how the elements intersect is a major part of building a team in Genshin, as a player also has to consider what element type the enemies consist of, as well as settling on roles such as Healer, Damage Dealer, and Support. Once a player gets in depth with the combat, trying out new teams becomes a fun way to show expertise at the game. All of these factors contribute to a game that is absolutely addicting once you begin.
An Addictive Beginning
At this point, it should be fairly obvious that Genshin Impact is a great game at it’s core, which allows the player to get heavily sucked in when the game first boots up. Unlike most open world games where most of the map is marked with activities to do, Genshin lets players explore. This results in a sense of freedom where the player can go anywhere their curiosity takes them, and will 9 times out of 10 be rewarded for it. The world is so littered with goodies to collect, it can be a little overwhelming. Even in Monstadt alone, you can not go more than 2 minutes without finding a new type of enemy, a chest, an Anemoculus, or materials to collect. Adding on to this, the main story, while a bit cliche, offers gorgeous visuals and moments of utter awe as you watch Diluc sweep aside an Abyss Mage with absolute ease. The game does a great job of keeping players engaged with both its world and the story itself. Every little goodie you find gives a sense of accomplishment and a tiny rush of dopamine that keeps you wanting more. Both times I have started this game, it was hard to put down as there was just so much to do. Especially trying out new characters I had pulled and trying to make a team I enjoyed. The rewards all felt earned and the journey I took was personal to me, just as every other player had their own. It was magical, exciting, and engaging to do whatever I wanted when I wanted.
This feeling eases off a bit when the main story gets locked behind Adventure Rank, which can be increased by opening chests or fighting bosses to level up characters. But these gaps were few and far between early on, and I found myself exploring enough where this did not impact me as much when I first began. The gaps in AR experience get larger however towards Liyue and Inazuma and will take longer to reach, but can still be reached with some patience. Without knowing this, the game does an excellent job at drawing players in, and keeping them there, which aids the game’s gacha system.
The Gacha System
This system is designed to lock players in, and where problems begin to arise for the game. Locking the amazing characters in the game behind a system like this is why Genshin Impact makes so much money. The fear of missing out, or FOMO is what Genshin heavily relies on to draw in its income. What makes this system even more punishing is that the 5 star characters have a 0.6% of being summoned in any given pull. A rate so atrocious, it makes Fire Emblem Heroes look like a generous game. There is a way to confirm 5 stars if you keep summoning in a system called “Pity” that is featured in most gacha games, but Genshin’s pity seems abnormally high. You are confirmed a 5 star at 90 rolls, and soft pity (which increases the 5 star summon rate by 30 ish percent) begins at 75 rolls. This may not sound too bad, but when you consider each summon takes 160 Primogems, and each chest typically grants 2 or 5 Primogems, it is a lot of resources that the game typically does not provide.
This gets even worse when considering how much summoning resources cost if you want to spend money on the game. $100 dollars worth of material only grants 50 Fates, which is not even enough to guarantee a 5 star pull. Banner up characters have a 50% chance to appear once a 5 star is pulled, so $200 would not even be enough to confirm a limited time character like the popular Zhongli. It would take $400 to confirm a banner up character if you had no primogems. It is ridiculous that the prices in this game are so high, and honestly, makes the game worse if you are a player wanting to invest money to get characters. On the other end, you get so little resources if you do not, that it is hard to confirm a character the player wants. Which for some people, makes the game harder to play.
The system is rigged to try to squeeze as much money out from people as possible. There are cheaper solutions such as Welkin, which gives 3000 primos over the course of a month and costs $5 (by far the best deal in the game,) but this system is ultimately unfair and predatory. Overall, the game can be played to its entirety without engaging in this system, which does remain positive despite the fact that the system is predatory in nature. Sharing rolls online has become a phenomenon, with tons of videos out there on watching people roll.
A “Co-Op” Game
Players will unlock the ability to play with other players or friends at AR 16. While this starts off exciting and fresh, the game inherently punished those playing together in an almost unfair way. Some quests, including the main story, can not be tackled with a friend. Some resources can not be shared, as when one player collects it, it will vanish from the world. Features like the alchemy table used to be locked behind single player only. Certain NPCs can not be talked to in Co-Op to even advance side quests or sometimes even daily quests. Players with a low AR can not join players with a higher AR due to World Level. The farther one gets in AR, the more apparent it becomes that Co-Op can not sustain this game without a massive change. For players above AR 55, it is usually a bad idea to co-op as your own team is made to benefit each other and work together in harder dungeons. And the endgame dungeon that is Abyss is locked to single player only. While it may still be fun to play with others, the world around the player and the gameplay mechanics of building your own team heavily discourage people from working together.
Progression, Or A Lack Thereof
Genshin’s form of progression comes from the AR System and Artifacts. Upgrading characters past a certain level is locked by AR, and Artifacts are the most important factor in determining how a character functions. As you go higher in AR, your characters naturally become stronger as you get better and better artifacts and levels. It is generally recommended to start seriously grinding artifacts at AR 45 as that is when the rarest tier of artifacts are dropped from certain dungeons. It is very satisfying to bring your first team of characters to a suitable level and deal your first 50 thousand damage in a burst. But this is what the entire game becomes past this point. Characters can hit their max level of 90 at AR 45 or 50. Meaning the only way to get them stronger aside from talents, is Artifacts.
The Artifact system is so RNG dependent, that it is often just not fun to engage with. Not only does each piece have different main stats and substats, but leveling up the artifact can only upgrade a random substat. When each character only is looking for three to four stats to upgrade to get good builds, this quickly becomes a game of chance to see how long you have to repeat the same dungeons to finally get the stats you are looking for on your character. Sometimes, this process can take a week if you are lucky, and others, it can take entire months of getting nothing before your character is finally up to par with everyone else.
With the absolute worst part of this being: There is no actual content to use these built characters on. Due to Genshin updating it’s story and releasing new areas, there will be a point where a player eventually has no more story quests left to do, and has most of their world explored. At this point, the only form of progression is making their characters stronger. But… for what?
The only endgame content for players that hit this point is Abyss, and it only comes back every 2 weeks. Even without maxing out the Abyss, a team of built characters can easily clear out a camp of enemies in less than 30 seconds. With all the content in the game being time exclusive, there is no permanent way to test your characters or use them for something meaningful. There is no way to speed up the artifact system, as it is locked behind layers of RNG and a time-gated stamina system called Resin.
Once players pass AR 55, the game becomes a chore. It is not fun having your good piece you rolled turn to trash as all of its upgrades go into one bad substat. There is no meaning to actually engaging with the game’s systems aside from fear of missing out on new characters or events that will eventually go away anyway. The progression eventually ends up hitting a wall from a combat perspective, which is most of what the characters offer. It is still possible to enjoy the scenery and aesthetics, but the game physically changes, and it is hard to deny this point.
The Meaning Of Content
While it may be easy to say Genshin keeps its players occupied with new events constantly and updates to the story, it is actually a little more complicated than this. All events Genshin has ever produced are eventually going to go away. In 1.6, Genshin released a brand new area to explore called the Golden Apple Archipelago, and then proceeded to get rid of it after 1.6. Never to be accessed again by any player, new or old. While there are some permanent areas in the game, this does little to alleviate the problem for players that have been playing the game as long as I have. Even while exploring at a slower pace, a player at AR 55 with all of the story quests done will inevitably finish all of the new content in an update before the next one. Events that eventually disappear do nothing but put a band-aid on the real problem: The fact that there is almost nothing permanent to do in Genshin in your down time past a certain point. The business model of “Fear of Missing Out” is meant to drag in new players, but punish those loyal to the game.
In other gachas, there are things like PvP to motivate players to stand above the crowd. A motivation to grind because there is a reward for doing so. Or a permanent dungeon that players can truly test the limits of their characters in. Genshin lacks any of this, aside from Abyss which comes back too slowly for those invested in their game. Yes, it is undeniable Genshin pushes out a ton of content for their players every update, but with it all being limited time only, there is nothing permanent for players to sink their teeth into. But eventually, players will finish all of their quests, and explore the world so there are no more chests left. At that point, the majority of time is spent waiting for the next update. Content that is limited only serves to distract players from the real issue that there is nothing to do when it is all done and over with. Genshin needs a type of content that is both permanent and satisfying to engage with if they want to keep their long time players actually playing the game.
Lack of Communication
All of these gameplay issues compound even further with Hoyoverse’s lack of communication with the very community actually playing their game. Demand for an endgame for AR 45+ players have been talked about since 1.1, maybe even 1.0. But these have all but been ignored for over a year, and have yet to even be talked about by Hoyoverse. Resin has been and still remains an issue to this day that numerous players hate. Some players dislike the amount of RNG in the artifact system. Despite the fact that Mihoyo has players take an optional survey to convey their issue with the game, their lack of transparency with the community is shameful to say the least. Almost every archer and catalyst user in the game has annoying auto targeting issues that were just now addressed in 2.6. Characters like Amber, Traveller, and Lisa need desperate buffs that still have not been granted despite their lack of use. Kokomi got massive hate upon release due to her underwhelming kit, only for Hoyoverse to indirectly buff healing as a whole by adding a new artifact set instead of addressing the Kokomi issue. Electro as an element is underwhelming due to its mixed bag of reactions, and despite efforts to fix this, it is still not fully balanced.
Yae Miko released in Version 2.5, and had extreme targeting issues where her elemental skill would randomly target torches or plants instead of enemies. In 2.6, Hoyoverse attempted to fix this by making her skill target the closest enemy. This also led to problems as the skill would now target enemy shields instead of enemies and made one of her constellations redundant. So, Mihoyo reverted their change, and Yae Miko still remains broken to this day. It is unknown if Mihoyo is still working on this issue, or if like everything else, it has been swept under the rug. The worst example of this lack of communication between the company and its consumers is Genshin Impact’s Anniversary.
An Anniversary To Remember
Before the anniversary of Genshin Impact, players were very excited to see what Mihoyo had in store for such a large event. Especially with the fact that the community has not only given Mihoyo more money than they know what to do with, but also that some gachas do not even hit their one year anniversary. Other gachas would receive 100 pulls for their anniversary, or a free 5 star unit, but what actually resulted was a complete lack of care on Mihoyo’s part. The anniversary rewards were pitiful at best. Every player got a 10 summon, and for entering a fanart and cosplay competition, players had a chance at earning themselves some primos and various other rewards.
Despite the massive player-base of millions, less than 200 people would be selected to win anything from such rewards. The community went on a full on outrage. A 10 summon in Genshin is almost nothing. It is 1/9 of a five star character. Fanart can take hours to draw up, and Cosplay can cost upwards of $400 to make a great costume, so Mihoyo was asking for some serious investment from its players. With Genshin making over half a billion dollars on the Raiden Banner alone, fans knew Mihoyo had more than enough money to actually hand something of worth over.
Genshin Impact dropped below a 2.1 on the Playstore on the day of the anniversary. The official Genshin Impact Discord was full of discontent over the rewards.. Hoyoverse never addressed the issue, and still has not to this day. Hoyoverse handed out another 10 summon and a free pair of wings to attempt to rectify the situation, but the lack of communication nor an official statement addressing the issue has left a sour taste in many player’s mouths.
A Toxic Community
Despite many of these issues plaguing the game, there is still a massive fanbase for the game. But this fanbase is… divided at best, and toxic at its worst. Whether this is coming down to death threats to various content creators or voice actors, to shamelessly stealing fanart, or insulting someone over a particular ship, there are too many stories that make the community seem toxic, particularly on Twitter. Popular content creator Tuonto on YouTube made a video putting Genshin Characters into Tier Lists, and received various death threats over not putting certain characters higher on the tier list. Dish, another content creator on YouTube, also received death threats over expressing her opinion that a Kokomi rerun Banner was not needed at the time. This was not the first nor only time this has happened to Genshin Content Creators.
Tectone is the most hated Genshin creator for practically no reason, receiving various death threats and being called racist for expressing his opinion on the state of the game and on characters. The Voice Actor of Childe received wishes he would not recover from his trip to the hospital due to drama on Twitter. The Voice Actor of Diluc refuses to engage with the community. The Voice Actor of Aether had to go onto Twitter after the 2.1 livestream after the fanbase attacked the voice actors on stream for the “cringe” on the stream, where he had to point out that not every executive decision on that stream was in the Voice Actor’s hands. And while this is not every player, it is hard to ignore regardless. In a community where opinions can not be expressed about almost anything, how can the game grow? And most importantly, how can the community be seen as anything but toxic? In no circumstance is it alright to ever wish death upon someone for expressing their opinion about a game.
Conclusion
With COVID getting worse in Shanghai, and the first delay of a Genshin Update since the game’s release, all of the game’s issues are becoming more and more apparent. Genshin is a fantastic game that despite its gacha genre, has genuinely excellent content to experience.
The story and characters are phenomenal, and contain some of the most impressive and hype moments in gaming history. The gameplay is smooth, and flows extremely well once the player gets the hang of the combat. The graphics are unreal, and can captivate someone first entering. The music is some of the best in the industry. But beyond the surface lies issues that go unnoticed or ignored. The lack of any permanent content causes the endgame to feel like a drought. Everything in the game being time-gated or time-limited to promote the FOMO business model is harmful to the game in the long run, as there is a lack of content for those that have put time into the game. And with a complete lack of communication from the company running the game, and a toxic community that will defend the game and it’s characters to an unhealthy degree, it is unknown if this will ever change.
Whether entering as a F2P, or shelling out cash, players will inevitably hit a wall that prevents them from playing further. A game can only sustain itself on temporary content for so long before it implodes on itself. And for a game with as much potential as Genshin Impact, it is sad to see this once magical world filled with potential and novelty, slowly wear down and become a shell of what it could be.
An excellent review, thanks for taking the time to write it. I now know what to expect when installing the game.