Genshin Impact

Raiden Shoguns Second story quest was so emotional. There is lots to explore and plenty of events to play. Ayoto just dropped and he is pretty op compared to other hydro users in the game,his design is really cool and I can't forget about the boba tea that he always Carrie's around with him. Ayoto with his sister(Ayaka) make a good pair when fighting enemies)

I play for one character only: Albedo. His lore is locked behind limited event dialogue, and that's the main complaint I have.

The combat system is easy to learn, but I only got the proper gist of most efficient rotations/teams/elemental reactions a couple of years in, as I'm generally a casual player. You can't really beat endgame battle content with the free characters they give you, and younger people are likely to gain a gambling addiction, which is given as a free feature but it is gambling, so spending real money is more "effective". I should know, spending the same amount of money you'd spend on Persona 5 at discount trying to get a character... only to not get them.

The women are pretty. The men are pretty. I swing both ways, and the Natlan (disagree with me all you want...) and the Fontaine quests are extremely compelling. Everything beforehand is kind of forgettable.

It's a roll and grind game. You have to grind.

I've been playing since the first anniversary, and sure, I take breaks, but I always come back. I love this game, while it has its flaws, which other reviews phrase better.

I'll try to make this simple: 1. Its free fantasy anime styled game 2. It has a great main story 3. Visually is stunning 4. Open world is huge, and I mean huge (and diverse) 5. Combat is good enough, it requires some practice and knowledge of reactions 6. Number of playable characters is over the top, something for everyone 7. If you want a fast paced game, this is not for you, if you are in for characters and want them all; it will cost you real money, but it is really not necessary, game gives you for free everything you need to play it and experience everything that it has to offer, rest are cosmetics hidden behind gacha system, nothing more 8. Even that "evil" gacha in this game is kind a ok, by playing the game you will for sure earn and get few more characters and weapons without paying anything, or let me put it this way: F2P is really good in this game, F2P friendly 9. The game it self is in constant development, expanding world, new stories, new things are coming every month, so there is always something new to do, see, find, get,.. 10. There are some repetitive things in it, like grinding for experience and materials, but its rewarding, its like, they gave you this beautiful world for free and now you must earn your way to stay there, how is that a bad thing?

11. Did I mention its free?? For all that complains about gacha cosmetics and their rant how its not fair; why would anyone do anything this good for free??! Did devs hid anything from ones that are not paying? No, so let me repeat once more: its free and you actually dont need anything, but if you want something like a spoiled child and rant like: why they dont give it for free, its not their fault, its yours!

12. I played games since 80's, so many titles, so many types of games, thousands, thrust me, please, when I say: there are only few game titles that are memorable: Genshin Impact is one of them...

Genshin Impact is an action RPG game taking place in the land of Teyvat where the main character (You can choose a female or male protagonist) got unwillingly trapped in there while travelling with her sister by an unknown god. While in Teyvat, they meet Paimon, befriend her and they both go on a Journey on the 7 nations of Teyvat to find their sibling. The story hasn't disappointed me at all so far and the lore is very extensive and interesting to get into.

Gameplay wise, you start with 4 free characters (including the traveler), but you can unlock 4 more for free if you complete some tasks later in the game, which you can use level them up, level up their weapons, increase their talent/skill level and gather artifacts in order to make them stronger. Currently, there are 5 regions available to explore (plus some extra maps such as the Chasm and Enkanomiya) which are very immense and are always very fun to explore, open treasure chests for items, kill enemies for ascension materials, complete various time challenges and solve a lot of puzzles.

In this game a character can hold only one type of weapon. Sword, Claymore (large sword), Bow, Catalyst or Polearm. The types of characters can be separated to: Main DPS (the main character who is mostly on field and does the most damage), Sub-DPS (a character that has high energy recharge and you mostly use his burst for extra damage), Healer, Shielder and damage buffer. I like how the chaacters are seperated like that and it is always interesting when you figure out your own combinations for your team comps.

Even though the beginning might be a bit tedious for players, at high adventure rank, the game becomes way more fun! You get through those Adventure rank barriers and you unlock the true potential of the game! And there is a lot of stuff to do in the game! You can do side quests which give you certain rewards, Archon quests and Story quests which is basically the main story (and unlike wordl quests, those are fully voice acted in 4 languages with a lot of A-list voice actors such as Yukari Tamura in Japanese that did the voice of Furude Rika and Bernkastel from When They Cry.), you can cook food which can replenish health for your character, revive him if he fell and buff his stats. You can also chase Occuli which can increase your stamina bar permanently (you don't need all of them to maximize your stamina bar) and with this way, you can run fast for a longer duration, climb stuff for a longer time and also do more charged attacks without the bar depleting quickly.

The way you unlock characters is based on the gatcha gambling mechanic and a 50/50 pity wish system. If you want to get a 5* character/item, you have to spend 90 wishes on a limited character banner or standard permanent banner. On the limited character banner, if your first 5 star item is not the one featured, then the next 5 star item will be that character on the banner. Some people may become frustrated that you have to do microtransactions to get your desired 5* item or character faster but I believe Mihoyo is lenient enough to give lots of primogems (currency exhanged for wishes) at events that happen during each year, plus you get primogems from adventure rank rewards, Story Quests, Side Quests and Achievements. I personally don't mind that mechanic and it's rewarding when you finally get what you want!

For new players, I recommend them to finish the Archon Quests first and not level up the starting characters too much unless you like their gameplay for a better experience, exhaust the beginner's wish banner and I approve of spending 5 dollars per month to get the Welkin Moon which gives you 300 primogems plus 90 primogems every day you login (You lose your primogems if you have it active and don't login). Also be careful because this game is very addicting! Gambling wise and time-wasting wise.

I've progressed a decent bit into the game so I guess it's time for a review since it's not going to end anytime soon:

Combat: (8/10)

Combat system is very simple to learn but a bit difficult to master. There are normal and charged attacks. No dedicated button to dodge but you can jump or sprint from attacks. Parry and shield are only available for certain characters. There are elemental bursts (E and Q in pc) - powerups with cooldowns. And there are elemental reactions which you can use to your advantage (e.g use freeze/cryo near water to freeze enemies, affect them with fire and then use anemo/wind to produce the reaction 'swirl'). Upto midgame in both open world and quests, combat is nothing difficult and you can easily win most battles if you level up your characters and put some effort into building them with proper artifacts.

Open World Aspect: (8/10)

The world is huge, and it has small encounters, treasures, puzzles and challenges, but despite that it feels empty sometimes. The character moves very slowly, there's no mount so it gets a bit tedious. Gliding is only possible if you jump for a higher place.

The combat being fairly simple and there being too many encounters, the game gets a bit repetitive sometimes. But some of the puzzles are really good - for eg, the three mountain puzzles near Mt Aocang is really good.

Quests: (9/10)

The main quests are extremely good. Side quests have a lot of fetch quests and they might get boring. Commissions are okay, though they are mostly 'fight hillichurl' types. There are random events and world quests too if you start exploring the world which is fun.

Characters and Interactions: (5/10)

This is probably the worst part of the game for me. The dialogues are terrible and repetitive. Voice acting is okay for the chinese version. But I don't get why Paimon keeps repeating the same words? Is that supposed to be cute? It's annoying. And her English voice is downright garbage.

Most of the time I don't really care about what the characters are saying because of this repetition. I enjoy getting the characters and using them in combat though.

Music: (10/10)

The best part of the game. I love how the exploration theme and battle themes mix together. It's extremely good. Stormterror Lair is one of the most beautiful ost I've heard.

Graphics is okay as it is to be expected in this kind of game. Co-op is fun. Gacha aspect is annoying, but can't complain when it's a gacha game to begin with. Overall, it's a good game if you can tolerate annoying dialogues. Solid 8/10 game from me.