Mihoyo’s latest game Genshin Impact is out now and over 10 million players have given the free-to-play open-world RPG a go. It’s an interesting one, this is the first title from a mobile game developer that’s also getting a simultaneous PS4 and PC release.
Though folks might remember this as that game that looks a lot like The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, but for PS4.
After spending about a good few hours on the PC version, I believe that this video game must be an amazing offering on mobile. But on PS4 and PC, it’s just an okay title.
Breath Of The Waifus And Husbandos
Let’s start with the obvious, the Breath Of The Wild inspirations. Genshin Impact presents you with an open world where you start at the center of the map and slowly uncover the map areas as you explore them.
There’s plenty of small encampment of enemies, hidden chests that require some climbing, jumping or puzzle-solving. Plenty of materials to gather, cook and craft. And the simple, yet beautifully rendered art style married with subtle, soothing soundtrack. And you can climb and glide, with a stamina meter that limits how long you can do those.
Yeah, it’s unashamedly inspired by Breath Of The Wild. However, it has limits. It’s not systemic as you would expect, as in there’s no physics-manipulating shenanigans that you can do here. But the chemistry system where different elements react to each other is present in some form, more of that later.
And also, no item degradation. Thank goodness.
Another great thing to see is how amazingly detailed the stylised character models are. There’s a good reason why the playable characters are as so (peek at the next header down there), but even the NPCs are looking great too. There’s a charm to its art, which is inspired by anime.
Still A Gacha Game
Now let’s stop a bit and think for a moment. Genshin Impact is also on mobile. You get to explore an open world like an RPG and require to do proper combat rather than just go through many auto-battles of resource grinding. In this regard, this game is leagues better than the bog-standard mobile RPGs flooding the market where it’s more about collecting desirable jpeg files. Gameplay-wise, Genshin Impact is a breath of fresh air.
And you probably need a newer phone to run the game- my three-year-old phone can’t even install it so I’m playing it on PC. That said, I’ve tried enough mobile RPGs to know Genshin Impact stands out apart from the rest.
However, it’s still a gacha game. To get new characters and better weapons, you have to make a “wish”, which is this game’s equivalent to a gacha pool. Granted the game tries in its earnest to not make gacha the focus- there’s at least 30 minutes of content to go through before the feature is even unlocked. And at least during the launch window right now, you’ll unlock a full party of four characters as a start, and a generous guarantee of two characters in your first two gacha rolls. Like many things in life, the first few are always free, that’s how you get stuck in this rabbit hole.
Simple (But Effective) Combat
Genshin Impact has real-time combat, and as an action-RPG it’s okay. You only have one attack button, and then one for an elemental attack, and another for an elemental burst that’s basically your ultimate ability that charges during combat. No blocks, but you can dodge attacks with a simple tap of the sprint button.
It is simplistic, but I get why. Again, there’s mobile constraints to think about, and when you consider that perspective, this is quite a lot of inputs to juggle through. But it’s no Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning.
What makes the combat stand out however is its elemental system. It’s not a matter of what element beats what. Rather, it has the Magicka-style system where elements can combine and create other status effects. A wet character when hit with a dose of Cryo will get frozen. A burning enemy getting electrocuted with Electro will cause them to overload and explode.
It sounds amazing on paper, but what I’ve gathered so far, it’s not that game-changing. Maybe the nuance of the system escapes me, but for now it just reminded me of Mass Effect’s setup-and-trigger abilities combos rather than interesting elemental combination powers that require mastery. Still, this is miles better than your old rock-paper-scissors system of one element being weak/strong to another in typical mobile RPGs.
You only control one character at a time, but you can hot-swap them with the tap of a button. And playing around with elemental combos, and using your environment to your advantage, is key here. And yes, the elements also affect the environment- grass burns when on fire and can spread, and you can freeze bodies of water to walk on ice.
A Generous Start, But For How Long?
The early 10 hours of Genshin Impact feels generous as you keep getting rewards that keep you playing. But for how long? Despite its efforts the game still has the same trappings of a free-to-play game, where you either sink in that time to grind, or just buy the resources to plough through the levels quick.
You do get XP rewards for defeating enemy encounter, but at a meagre 10XP per enemy when level-ups go in the thousands, you won’t get swollen by just exploring the open world.
You will need to use the items that grant XP rewards to level these characters up. Some content are fully gated by the level of your party members. And weapons need to be levelled up too, with their own XP items to craft. It’s the kind of busywork you’d expect from the typical RPG that serves to waste/reward your time rather than present you the freedom of customisation.
There’s also the Adventure Rank- an account-wide level that gates features of the game. The cross-play multiplayer won’t unlock until rank 16 and it’s not just a few hours of playtime to get there.
If you’re used to the trappings of mobile RPGs, then you’re good to go. But I worry how many of the PS4 and PC players who are going to be exposed to this system for the first time. Gacha is effectively loot boxes if you think about it, and even worse, it’s not only for cosmetics. In the early game, it feels rather generous with its reward drops and interesting content to discover. But when will the actual grind kicks in?
Closing Thoughts
Genshin Impact bridges the gap between mobile and console games with this well-crafted open-world RPG. On launch, it looks gorgeous, plays well and is amazingly polished.
Granted, when judging by the standards of a console or PC game, it feels like a simple RPG taking lots of cues from Breath Of The Wild. With more shortcomings. However, it feels like a major revolution in the mobile games space, at least in what my limited view of the market sees it.
At least the good thing about it is that the gacha elements, while there, is being downplayed so far. But hey, if you like to do your pulls, there plenty of well-designed husbandos and waifus, I’ll give them that. Maybe that’s enough to keep you going into Mihoyo’s fantastically crafted world.
For me, I already have my fill, didn’t have the drive to keep going, but deeply respect the work that has gone into making this game as good as it is on launch.
Impressions based on PC version