Game Review #1
Genshin Impact has become one of the most popular mobile games in the past two years, also with versions you can play on pc and PlayStation. It’s one of the many gacha games I’ve played over the years, but its open-world exploration and combat elements set it apart from the rest.
The story could be better, however, the way lore is sprinkled out through many in-game items and collectibles was really interesting to me. The domains where you collect artifacts that buff your characters have detailed descriptions that contribute to the overall lore of the game and are almost more interesting to read than the main story itself. There are also small books you can collect throughout the world with in-universe stories and legends the player can read, which further immerses the player into the game world by seeing their actual literature and folktales first hand.
Characters and combat are the highlights of my experience given the intricate and appealing designs of many of the gacha limited characters and their character stories in-game. Kamisato Ayaka and Sangonomiya Kokomi from Inazuma are among my favorites, with sleek designs that match their personalities and roles in the story well. The skill animations are bright and colorful, making the sometimes grindy combat in domains a bit less of a chore.
The gacha aspect of the game thankfully is not mandatory and you can play the game well enough without needing to summon extra characters aside from the main ones. You do regularly obtain Primogem currency, however, it is notorious for being stingy compared to other gacha games, giving out fractions of a full summon for quests and certain events. Especially since I’ve fallen victim to it myself many times, the gacha system of the game generally feels extremely predatory and feeds into gambling tendencies that negatively affect children as well. I’ve seen young kids online constantly asking parents each month for money to get new limited items and currency deals for primogems to get characters they aren’t entirely guaranteed to obtain. Genshin has a pity system where you are guaranteed to obtain a limited character if you haven’t already after spending a certain amount of currency, but the amount of money to get there is not worth the price. A single character could cost up to $1000 not counting the multiple times you would want to receive them in order to get constellations, upgrades to the character that require getting them multiple times. As fun as Genshin Impact can be, I wish it could have just been a regular $60 game without the gacha aspects included.
