GENSHIN IMPACT

 Genshin Impact is a 2020 action role-playing game developed by Chinese developer mihoyo. The game has an anime-style open-world environment as well as an action-based battle system that uses elemental magic and character switching. The game is free to play and is monetized through gacha game mechanics, which allow players to acquire new characters, weapons, and other resources.

The fantasy world of Teyvat is the setting for Genshin Impact, which is home to seven distinct nations, each of which is linked to a different element and ruled by a different god. The Traveler is the protagonist of the story, who has traveled across many worlds with their twin sibling before becoming separated in Teyvat. The Traveler, accompanied by their companion, sets out in search of the lost sibling.

GamePlay

Genshin Impact is an open-world action role-playing game in which the player controls one of four different characters in a party.  During combat, switching between characters can be done quickly, allowing the player to use a variety of skills and attacks.  Characters' strengths can be improved in a variety of ways, including by raising their level and improving their artifacts and weapons.  In addition to exploration, the player can participate in a variety of challenges in exchange for rewards. Bosses and challenges strewn about Teyvat reward highly valuable resources like Stormterror and the Electro Hypostasis, but claiming them depletes a currency called resin, which regenerates slowly over time.  Completing these challenges allows the player to move up the Adventure Rank ladder.
Stamina limits the player's ability to control their character and perform actions such as running, climbing, swimming, and gliding.  Some characters have the ability to change the environment, such as freezing water to create an ice path that can help the player traverse difficult terrain. There are numerous teleportation nodes around the world that players can use to travel quickly; among these are landmarks known as Statues of The Seven, which can heal and revive characters as well as provide benefits like increasing player stamina.  Food and ore can be obtained in the open world, while enemies and treasure chests drop other resources that can be used to improve a character's strength. Food is available to players.
An Elemental Skill and an Elemental Burst are two combat skills that each character has. Except for the cooldown period immediately after use, the Elemental Skill can be used at any time. The Elemental Burst, on the other hand, has an energy cost that requires the user to gather enough elemental energy by defeating enemies or inflicting elemental status effects. Cryo, Dendro,Pyro, Hydro, Anemo, Electro, and Geo are the seven natural elements that correspond to ice, grass, fire, water, wind, thunder, and rock, respectively. These elements can interact in a variety of ways; for example, if a Hydro attack hits a target, the enemy will receive the "Wet" status effect, while if a Cryo attack hits them, they will receive "Cryo." 
Co-op is a multiplayer mode that is available. In the overworld, up to four players can join Domains and play together.Requesting to connect with another player is one way to match players.If a player wants to clear a Domain with other players, they will be automatically paired with others who want to accomplish the same goal.Players on any platform can play with each other in this game because it is cross-platform.
The player can initially unlock four additional playable characters by completing quests to advance the story,and more characters can be obtained through a gacha mechanic and in-game events.The gacha system can be used to obtain characters and weapons using premium in-game currencies obtained through in-app purchases and playing the game.After a certain number of draws, a pity system ensures that the player will receive rare items.

Development

Genshin Impact began development in late January 2017, with a team of 120 people. By the end of the year, the team had grown to 400, and by February 2021, it had grown to 700.MiHoYo announced the game at E3 2019 in June 2019.The Unity Engine was used to create the game. The game cost around $100 million to develop and market, making it one of the most expensive video games ever made.Closed beta tests were held between the announcement and the release, allowing invited players to explore and interact with the open world.Voice-overs in four languages are included, as well as text in 13 different languages.

The development team holds The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in high regard, citing it as one of the main inspirations for Genshin Impact.The game's quest and combat systems, as well as its random events and exploration mode, were designed to set it apart from other MMORPGs and make it more enjoyable.The game was made to be cross-platform because developing it for PC and console allowed the developers to improve the game's graphical fidelity, such as rendering realistic shadows.The game's overall artistic vision aims to blend anime art style with more important elements from real-world cultures.Liyue, for example, was conceived as a reimagining of Chinese culture through music.

REVIEW

Genshin Impact's Teyvat takes inspiration from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. But this isn't just some copycat, as the game stands on its own two feet. Beautiful world, diverse characters, and deep RPG systems are all unique and awesome.Genshin Impact is a free-to-play action-adventure RPG where you play a vague and mysterious “traveler” from another world who arrives in the land of Teyvat before being attacked by a sorceress or God or...something, and your twin is captured. After waking up on a beach at level one and with zero loot, you set off on a quest to find your lost sibling that involves a whole lot of picking fruit, crafting items, and fighting deities, but surprisingly little in the way of actually searching for your twin. Because, just like during Link's rush to save Zelda, completing these quests where you *checks notes* feed ducks is way more important.Genshin Impact uses just about every anime character trope and story cliche in the book. Poor pacing isn't helped by XP-gating that happens between each act. Book's story meanders from one amusing misadventure to another with little cohesion.The cast of quirky characters are a lot of fun to interact with and play as, even if I occasionally rolled my eyes when they made repeated and very uncalled for horny comments.

Teyvat Traveler

Teyvat's world is absolutely bursting at the seams with possibilities. Every nook and cranny is loaded with collectibles to power your characters up with. A locked chest might lead to an impromptu quest or multi-step puzzle. It's a disgustingly addictive chain reaction of things to do in the best possible way.Genshin Impact looks and performs remarkably well. The world of Teyvat is absolutely gorgeous to look at and listen to throughout. It borrows more than it invents in terms of presentation, but the sights and sounds of this world are still a joy to behold.Once you start unlocking new characters, each with their own fighting style, abilities, and elemental affinities, the world takes on different shapes. What was once a lake too vast for you to swim across becomes easily traversable with the help of cryo-type characters like Kaeya.Combat revolves around instantly switching between a party of up to four characters to shoot, hack, and explode through an array of enemy types. Each character comes equipped with their own elemental type and a few abilities that utilize that element for maximum damage and variety of attacks.Filling out your roster of playable characters, weapons, and items becomes vital to your combat efficiency. This becomes particularly important as you approach the current endgame. Bosses become more dangerous and gain beefy health bars, especially bosses. Using every tool at your disposal becomes indispensable.Genshin Impact can also be played co-op after reaching Adventure Rank 16. You can host or join another player to tackle challenges and take down bosses together. But in the vast majority of cases the guest is unable to reap the rewards from any activities you complete.Genshin Impact's "gacha" model tempts you to spend in-game currency and real money on randomized characters, loot, consumables, and more. It manages to strike a decent balance so that those who don't want to spend a dime can still enjoy the whole game for free.The most powerful characters and weapons can be unlocked by playing the game for long enough. Powerful weapons and characters are by no means a requirement to advance. I found myself breezing through most challenges through skill and grinding alone until I finally got lucky with some unlocks.The good news is that I still enjoyed almost every part of Genshin Impact's grind, even after more than 100 hours. The gameplay loop of exploring the world, solving puzzles, beating up baddies, completing quests, and unlocking new characters and equipment is incredibly addictive. Even if the temptation to pull out your credit card is ever-present and sometimes in your face, the grind (so far) hasn't been unpleasant enough to make the experience painful for me as a free player.