Game Review, Genshin Impact

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One of the various promotional banners for Genshin Impact.

Story by Christian (CJ) Joseph Walden, Social Media & Web, News, and Opinion Editor

Genshin Impact is an open-world action role-playing gacha game. A gacha game is a genre of video game that induces players to spend money or in-game currency to receive a random virtual item. Genshin Impact, or Genshin, allows players to be able to control one of four interchangeable characters in a party. The characters all have different elemental powers between pyro (fire), geo (earth), dendro (nature), cryo (ice), electro (lightning), anemo (wind), and hydro (water). On top of that, each character has a different weapon between sword, polearm (spear), catalyst (magic), claymore, and bows. The game is in development, with only three out of the seven announced nations being released, as of October 2021. The game always has an in-game limited event going on to keep players who have finished all other content entertained. There is always something new to keep players entertained in Genshin Impact. The game is played world-wide in Asia, Europe, North-America, and South-America.

“The animation and graphic design within Genshin Impact is my favorite,” said senior Kayla Omer. “It is such a beautiful game.”

While the game is free-to-play, there are in game purchases. The game was released in September of 2020, and in the first year of release Genshin has brought in over 1 billion dollars of revenue. A majority of playable characters and usable weapons are locked behind Genshin’s gacha wishing system. This causes players to spend the in-game currency primogems for random characters and weapons.

A list of the currently available characters in Genshin Impact. As of October, 2021 there are 41 available characters with the dendro element still being in development.

SPOILER WARNING! (There will be spoilers to the beginning storyline of Genshin Impact within the rest of the story)

The game starts with the sibling travelers stopped by an unknown goddess in what is presumed to be Celestia, the realm of the divine in Genshin. As the player, you are to choose to play as one of the siblings, while the other is taken away. Your character blacks out and you awake on a beach, it has been months since the traveler has arrived in Teyvat, the continent where Genshin Impact takes place. You are joined by your somewhat-annoying traveling companion Paimon who joins the traveler on their journey to find their sibling.

The traveler, being not from Teyvat, is able to do what nobody else in Teyvat can do, manipulate elemental energy without the usage of a vision, a special device granted to the people of Teyvat as a manifestation of their will. The traveler simply must interact with statues of the seven gods of Teyvat and gain their respective powers with no real effort.

Currently, you can travel from the plains of Mondstadt, based off of Germany; to the mountains of Liyue, based off of China; and the oceanic islands of Inazuma, based off of isolationist Japan. There is certainly lots to explore and learn about within Genshin Impact. The other unreleased nations are speculated to be based off of Egypt, France, Indigenous America with an influence from Spanish and West African cultures, as well as Russia.

“I think cutscenes within Genshin are always different,” said Omer. “Whether that be within a fight or in gameplay it is always exciting as you never know what is going to happen. I definitely would recommend Genshin Impact due to the great storyline and beautiful aspects.”

Overall, Genshin Impact has many different playstyles available to suit anyone’s taste. The game is set to feature various cultures and already has a wide variety of characters and weapons to play from. Genshin Impact is very entertaining and diverse. It is definitely recommended to give Genshin Impact a try, so you too may journey throughout the lands of Teyvat.

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