Genshin Impact first impressions - more than just a Breath of the Wild clone
Waiting for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 to finally come out has become an almost impossible task. With no release date in sight, the dramatic lead-up to the game's launch date could go on for who knows how many more months. But luckily, there's something out there to fill that cell-shaded open-world exploration shaped hole in our hearts: Genshin Impact.
But while labeling Genshin Impact as a Breath of the Wild clone wouldn't exactly be wrong, it'd be a disservice to the game that developer MiHoYo has created. Many of the game's elements, from its graphical style, to the concept of its open-world are very reminiscent of Nintendo's most recent Zelda game, but Genshin Impact makes unique additions to its core gameplay. In fact, it's is a weird mish-mash of all sorts of interesting ideas, many of which it mixes quite well. The game comes from a Chinese studio, but looks very much like a Japanese game, while incorporating MMO-esque elements into its gacha action-RPG gameplay.
The first thing you'll likely notice about Genshin Impact is the fact that the game is entirely free to play. Releasing on iOS, Android, PC, and PlayStation 4, each of those versions don't cost a single cent to play, from beginning to finish. That's because it uses a gacha-based system as a source of revenue. In your adventures throughout the world of Teyvat, you'll get the chance to play as many different characters, from great-sword wielding Diluc, to the wind archer Venti, there's a wide variety of options to choose from, but only if you're lucky enough. While you do get plenty of characters by playing normally, some of the best and most useful of the cast will only be playable if you manage to "pull" one from a banner--a lucky draw that has about a 0.6% chance of occurring. Those chances are especially harsh if you're coming from one of Nintendo's gacha games like Fire Emblem Heroes or Dragalia Lost, which have 5.0% and 4.0% odds respectively.
Despite that, Genshin is still quite friendly towards F2P players. There’s a wealth of interesting and strong 4* characters that you can obtain, and while the term free-to-play might make you skeptical of how far you can get before you’re inevitably smacked with a paywall, there’s never really a moment where the game does that--at least for the first 50 or so hours. Given how much playtime you can get out of Genshin before you even consider paying a meager $4.99/mo for the commissions pass or the $9.99/mo for the battle pass to get even more out of the game in the form of rare item drops, that’s surprisingly impressive.
Speaking of impressive, the sheer amount of things there are to do in Genshin Impact can almost be intimidating. Once you've set off on your journey, you'll have no shortage of quests to complete, adventures to be had, and items to collect. Much like other open-world games, a lot of the fun comes from wandering the world, finding new locations, and obtaining rare and powerful new items.
Elements play a big part in the role of this game's combat; you start off with a wind-based one-handed sword user, but you'll eventually recruit F2P party members such as a fire-based archer, or an electric mage, each of which play drastically differently, and have many uses in the overworld, as you'll need various elements to solve puzzles or have advantages against enemies. The combat system is varied and incredibly fun, especially when you learn that you can quickly switch between characters to create cool combo attacks, like wind and fire for burning tornadoes, or electricity and water to electrocute your foes. Each of the different styles and how types factor into battle help keep the game engaging to play, and it makes it all the more satisfying when you pull off cool-looking moves, even after hours upon hours of playtime.
