Genshin Impact Game Review: Let Genshin Impact Your Life
Spoiler Warning: The following information contains spoilers for the game Genshin Impact.
The 1.5 billion dollar company Hoyoverse was founded by three computer scientists from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and is now a thriving corporation best known for its games Genshin Impact and Honkai Impact. Although this company was founded and based in China, the majority of Genshin Impact players are based in the U.S. This game is an open-world RPG (role-playing game) with some incredible graphics. While this game may be time-consuming and take up storage space, it’s worth it if you’re willing to put in the time. This game features beautiful scenery, engaging lore, cool character designs (mainly their outfits), and backstories. Not to mention that the voice acting is pretty impressive. If you're looking for an enthralling endeavor, Genshin Impact may be the perfect fit.
The plot line of the game essentially follows a twin looking for their other half. Upon installing the game, you are prompted with the choice to pick a twin: Aether or Lumine. Although this is pretty binary and could be more inclusive, canonically Aether is male and Lumine is female. The choice of these characters doesn’t affect the storyline or the gameplay much. The only real difference is that Aether walks and runs quicker and Lumine has a faster attack speed. When you choose one of the twins, someone known as The Unknown God or The Heavenly Principles captures whichever twin you do not choose and you enter a world known as Teyvat in search of your lost twin.
As you venture through the incredible scenery, you visit different regions of Teyvat and end up helping each nation in some way. The current regions that have been released include Mondstadt, Liyue, Inazuma, and Sumeru. Each of these is based on a place in the real world. As an example, Mondstaldt is based in Germany, which happens to be the first place you visit. Each region is also ruled by a god known as an “Archon.” Lastly, each region has an assigned element that your player character can learn to harness.
The actual game mechanics are fairly simple. Once you get used to the controls (whether you play on PC, PlayStation, or mobile), defeating opponents is a lot easier compared to games like Elden Ring or even Breath of The Wild. There are regular enemies like hilichurls (small monsters), mini-bosses like the unusual hilichurl (cooler small monsters), and bosses like the Pyro Resignvine (giant flaming flower). All enemies and bosses will respawn after some time. On the game mechanics, there are also mini-puzzles you can solve and time challenges to complete.
Like most free-to-play games, Genshin Impact features in-game purchases in which you can buy character skins, in-game currency, and the Battle Pass, which grants you extra rewards for achieving certain game objectives. This game comes with purchases that can make you excited to play the game and perhaps get more characters, but paying to win just won’t cut it. Genshin Impact can be played for free or you can pay. Purchasing in-game rewards have other benefits that are probably too complicated to cover in a game review.
Now, this game (like all games) has various issues that are worth disclosing. The main problems that jump out are the lack of representation in terms of race, gender, appearance, etc. Genshin is pretty binary and there are only male characters and female characters who all have very beauty-standard-driven appearances. The actual models for both male and female characters are essentially the same and have yet to change for playable characters. The issue of appearance also shows up with the recent region that was released, Sumeru. Sumeru is based on areas in South Asia, and Hoyoverse white-washed most non-playing characters alongside playable characters in Sumeru. These are all things Hoyoverse needs to address and they have yet to do so. The game is an incredible adventure with breathtaking scenery, but also has underlying problems that shouldn’t go unnoticed.
If you ever have some free time on your hands and want something engaging and relaxing to do, maybe give Genshin Impact a go. The storyline, character outfits, scenery, and graphics are fantastic and definitely worth a look.