Yesterday a game launch happened that was not even on my radar. Genshin Impact is a new action MMORPG from Shanghai based developer miHoYo. The sub text of their studio logo says “Game Otakus Save the World”, so it is not shocking that Genshin Impact is super anime style. I had seen the game advertised to me on Google Play but honestly didn’t think much about it. What ultimately interested me is the fact that the game is available on a number of non-Mobile platforms and reported features cross play across them all. Since the Genshin Impact website is nonsense here are some direct links.
One word of warning is that this downloads and patches notoriously slowly. The above image appears to be about the worst case scenario that I have seen. The image is snagged from a friend of mine that posted it on twitter. For me I saw between 2 MB/s and 5 MB/s and the PC download completed in about an hour and a half. I just want you to go into this expecting that it is going to take a long time to complete the client. If you are playing on mobile, the game downloads quickly but you are slapped with an almost immediate 6 GB download, so make sure you are doing this on WiFi to keep from getting exorbitant mobile charges.
Genshin Impact is the sort of game where you collect a large number of characters who each perform slightly differently. Then you make a part of four out of that larger stable of characters. I’ve been lead to believe that playing through the main story campaign will ultimately unlock a total of six free characters, and then additionally characters are “summoned” via a “gacha” mechanic. For those not used to mobile games there is almost always some sort of a summon or “draw” mechanic that allows you to spend a currency that can be purchased or often times very slowly accumulated in game in order to get random chance at getting something good… aka like a gachapon/gashapon capsule machine. This is ultimately where these games make their money because a lot of players won’t want to wait for the currency to build up but instead spend money outright for a chance of getting new characters.
The game starts with a sequence that makes absolutely no sense, and the game does not attempt to explain it. You are fighting some sort of a god with your sibling and you the player are given the choose of which sibling to play as. I chose the male sibling which set my main character and also sets the key goal if the game… to save your sister. This is a well trodden trope for this sort of mobile game. In Dragalia Lost there is a very similar opening sequence where someone is captured and the goal is in theory to get strong enough to be able to find and get back this person. Shenanigans ensue while trying to make this happen, and I figure the same will be true with Genshin Impact. I am just wondering if they will set up my sibling to ultimately be the eventual end boss of the game as they become perverted by whatever force captured them.
Like so many of these games there is a rock paper scissors style elemental buff and resistance scheme going on. Each character you will have access to has some sort of an element associated with them. Your named character will end up being able to wield the power of wind, and the first character you encounter is an Archer that can use fire attacks. Each of these are weak or strong to various other elements. The above chart is the best I have seen as of yet, created by a beta tester. I am hoping as this game becomes more popular someone will create something that is a little more straight forward and easier to read. You can do interesting things like combo two elements together… like if there is something on fire and you cast Swirl a wind ability it will turn the Swirl into a sort of Fire Tornado.
So far the game feels very much like what would occur if you took Dragalia Lost and combined it with Breath of the Wild. In fact the game borrows an awful lot from the most recent Zelda game in the way you traverse the world and even in the way chests appear from solving simple puzzles or defeating a camp worth of enemies. Very early on you get a glider and it has a stamina bar just like in Breath of the Wild. Additionally you have surfaces that you can climb which also depletes your stamina meter, and other metal walls that you cannot traverse in such a manner. There is also a very similar cooking mechanic that takes place at campfires allowing you to convert everything that you collect into various stat buff foods.
Instead of Shrines there are various temples that you will need to delve in order to complete puzzles and get to the other side. These puzzles might involve lighting something on fire or freezing water to create a bridge. They are nowhere near as clever as Breath of the Wild but it gives you a very similar feel. Instead the temples are a number of hidden chests that you can unlock and these become more out of the way and often require you using your elemental abilities in interesting ways to get to them.
I’ve not played much of the game yet as it launched last night around 8 pm CST, but I did play enough to get a general feeling for the game. So far I am enjoying myself greatly, and the world is extremely fun to traverse. If I understand correctly the first world you visit is the world of wind, and then as new areas open up in the game they will each be themed off of an element. Much like Breath of the Wild there are a bunch of side objectives, like finding shrines of the seven gods which serve as Sheikah Towers and give you visualization into a region of the map. You have a level associated with each character and another level that seems to be associated with you the player called an adventurer rank. Doing random stuff in the world seems to make this one go up.
There are of course a ton of videos out there talking about the game and how to optimize this thing or that thing, but of the various ones I watched yesterday I found myself enjoying DemoneKim the best for delivery. I am sure I will be writing about this game some more as I figure things out, but right now it is extremely fun just to roam around and explore. If you have ever enjoyed mobile MMOs and wished you could play them on a PC… then this might be a game for you. If you find yourself easily frustrated by Gacha mechanics… then maybe give it a pass.
The game uses a friend code type system called your UID, which can be seen at the bottom of the screen in all of the screenshots I have taken. If you find yourself exploring this game over the coming weeks, feel free to throw me a friend request at 600023101. I have no clue HOW friends work as of yet, but usually there is some passive mechanic in this sort of game where it is beneficial to have active friends. Also if you are playing this game I would love to know your own thoughts. Drop me a line below in the comments to let me know what you think so far.
Tobold posted something about this a few days ago. He was talking about it being a Breath of the Wild clone but he didn’t say anything about it being an MMORPG. I thought it was a single player title from what he said.
I was going to install it after reading your post and give it a try but I read the EULA and I really didn’t like the look of what I would be signing up to, so I’m going to give it a miss for now.
For me it unlocked at 10 PM so didn’t get much time on the PC at all, but I did d/l it on the iPad and can confirm you can log into the same account and continue to play. Of course on the iPad I had only downloaded the “demo” (basically the starter area up to where you go meet the Knights) and then had a hefty additional d/l so that was it for me for the night.
I WAS impressed by how well movement worked on the iPad, tho to be honest I don’t do a lot of mobile gaming so maybe movement controls in general have improved on those platforms while I wasn’t paying attention.
I am mostly interested in the mobile client for times when I might want to play from bed. I like the concept of it being playable on all of these different platforms.
It certainly does look interesting! I may check it out later and shoot you a friend request. The way you describe the combo system seems quite interesting so I’ll have to see for myself. 😀
Thanks for the post!