Universal Genshin Impact (by miHoYo Limited) [TouchArcade Game of the Year 2020]

I’ve now put in about 15-20 hours into the game — it’s essentially the only game I’m playing on mobile — and I think I’m in a good place to drop some thoughts here. TL;DR — this is my handheld game of the year. And yes I’m including my Switch here.

• To deal with the elephant in the room first, I’ve put in exactly $4.99 into the game. There’s no question that anyone who loves gatcha games has the potential to spend tons of money here. But here’s the thing: the two characters I’ve gotten so far I’m using for auto missions to collect extra resources. I still have plenty of the “premium” currency left and I’m getting more everyday as part of the $4.99 single payment.
  
• The “premium” currency is technically only available for purchase, but all it does is allow you to buy another in-game currency that the game doles out at every opportunity.
• Now, please forget all that. This is really not a gatcha game. It’s an AAA, story-driven open world RPG — think Skyrim or Witcher 3, but anime. The gatcha stuff, for me anyway, it’s like that card game in The Witcher 3. You can safely ignore it and play the game you want to play.
  
• The world is vast and full of life. Somebody in an earlier comment said it seemed “empty” to him. Nonsense. Breath of the Wild is empty. Here you have hundreds of characters and stories just waiting to be discovered, not to mention dungeons, challenges, puzzles, interesting quests, amazing landscapes, fascinating structures, resource, etc. And like Breath of the Wild, if something looks interesting at a distance, chances are it’s worth going there.
• The progression in this game is brilliant. Full stop. Pretty much everything can be leveled up. But the best part is that the most important leveling system — your Adventurer Rank — is raised only by doing things in the game: exploring, opening chests, doing missions, and moving forward with the story. As far as I can tell there’s no real way to accelerate that with premium currency; you’ve got to put time into the game.
• For a game this size, the level of polish is outstanding. Puts Ubisoft and Bethesda to shame.
  
• The combat system balances accessibility and depth better than anything else I’ve ever seen. Most important, even the standard monsters reward going beyond spamming. This is not a very challenging game, but you can end up in precarious situations by accident (say, fighting a boss-like monster and aggroing a nearby monster nest).
• Just like BoW, traversal is awesome. But here you don’t have to deal with slippery surfaces when it rains, lighting on metal armor, non-magical cold damage, and all that stuff. Hey, but maybe you love that .
• 15-20 hours there is still plenty of my terrain I have yet to explore (I may be at 40%). And word is that forthcoming expansions are going to add even more territory.
• Even fetch quests are interesting — and often become more than a fetch quest. But sometimes you are simply solving a small problem for someone, and that’s cool too.
• The game does a great job parcelling out information, proving handy tutorial descriptions when you need them without pausing the action.
• Not saying this is a perfect game. Some of the systems seem unnecessarily complex, and the FTP stuff is always there (even if it’s fairly unobtrusive). For some, the challenge level will be a bit too low (more Assassins Creed than, say, Skyrim). And anyone who gets annoyed by anime will find plenty here to complain about (though the game avoids some of the obvious stuff, like offensive fan service).

So yeah — I am obviously loving this game. To anyone who has been avoiding it because it’s not premium, I say give it a few hours. It will cost you nothing, and you may find that the game clicks with you like it did for me. Ultimately, I am very glad that Genshin Impact is on mobile.

 

Polygon just published a Genshin Impact game guide — basically links to their ongoing coverage.

 

Both Google and Apple just selected Genshin Impact as their game of the year. More here: https://venturebeat.com/2020/12/01/apple-names-genshin-impact-as-its-ios-game-of-the-year/

All I can say is: of course. 2020 has been a fantastic year for mobile games. But Genshin Impact is unprecedented — as I said on a previous post, it’s the Citizen Kane of free-to-play games. I’ve put about 100 hours into it and still look forward to playing every day.

In any event, congrats to the team at MiHoYo. The awards are well deserved.

Edit: Just saw the front page story.

 

No disrespect, but you have no clue what you’re talking about. There’s an immense amount of soul in this game. There are also multiple great campaigns, and incredible attention to detail that comes out in everything — from the music and the storytelling to the world building and even the way the characters physically interact with the environment. The people who made this care deeply about the quality of their game.

I get it that this is a business model you don’t want to support. And I would add that folks who have trouble with gacha mechanics should probably stay away. But I can tell you that the reason I’ve spent as much time with GI is the gameplay (especially the exploration) and story, not the IAPs. Let me put it another way: I spent $60 on Breath of the Wild, and ended up giving after 15 hours. By comparison, I’ve spent a total of $25 on GI — that’s it. And I can assure you that I’ve gotten way more out of it than out of any Zelda game.

 

Take your condescending bullshit elsewhere please.

 

For me, putting GI over the best Zelda games is an easy call. I hate Breath of the Wild as much as the the game clearly hates me as a player (let me know if you want me to unpack that for you). I have no nostalgia for the original games (they came out when I was already an adult and playing PC games), and recent updates rang hollow (Ocarina of Time) or dated (Link’s Awakening). My favorite Zelda is Spirit Tracks, one that most fans dismiss as a mediocre entry.

Actually, that’s a lie — my favorite Zelda game is Beyond Good and Evil .

The point is, I don’t need to be manipulated to disagree with gamer group-think. And the parts that I enjoy about GI are in the same branch of the future of gaming as BoW — just much better designed and actually, you know, fun.

Again, my quarrel is not with wherever you enjoy GI or not. And hey, if you want to interpret what I see as an enjoyable gameplay loop as nefarious “hooks” then more power to you. But to call the game “soulless” is a condescending insult to the very talented and passionate team that created it and to folks like me who have gotten so much out of it during the gloomy close of this horrible year.

If you want to talk crass commercial manipulation, let’s discuss the most recent lazy “remasters” of 3D Mario games that are making Nintendo so much money right now. .

 

Once you go past the multi-hour intro, the game sets up systems that encourage you explore further and further. And exploration is richly rewarded in the game. There are a ton of mini-quests for players to discover, and the “see something interesting in the distance” approach of BoW is really well executed in GI.

 

Big update is out. The new snow capped mountain region looks fantastic. They seemed to have added the cold-damage mechanic from BoW, though with the addition of some thermal rest areas (which would be appreciated). Tons of new quests, items, and limited-time events associated with the new region have also popped up, as well as several new gacha characters to try out (if that’s your thing).

They’ve also added a bunch of little UI/quality of life improvements, especially on the character screen. Most intriguing, on my iPhone 12 Pro, highest quality/60 FPS seems to be working better, with little stuttering and no slowdowns so far, and the phone getting only a little warmer. I haven’t spent a ton of time on it, so we’ll see how it goes. I should note that highest quality/60FPS is still identified as “overclocked” in the setting screen — just like before.