Genshin Impact (2020)

I was on a bit of a break from Genshin for a month and a half, but now that the new region, Sumeru, has come out, I've come back to it. And it feels great to be back. It's just so nice to once again be able to see and hear and explore the world with the characters I've become so fond of. In spite of all of Genshin's issues, for whatever reason, Teyvat just feels like home.

I'm already so impressed with everything I've seen of Sumeru so far. It truly feels like they've gotten so much better at crafting content for this game. You can see the stark improvement between 1.0 and 3.0 in all aspects, big and small.

First off, there's the environments. The portion we have of Sumeru so far consists of lush rainforests, and they're just stunning to look at.

Not only that, but they're also far more interesting to explore and traverse than previous regions. Unlike in past areas, where you were either standing on a cliff or on flat ground, there are multiple levels of verticality now. Like a real forest, you've got the canopy, the understory, and the forest floor, and there's navigable terrain at all levels. Added in to ease navigation of the vertical terrain are Four-Leaf Sigils, which are basically just points you can grapple on to. It makes overworld travel so much more convenient and fun.

Then there's character design. Characters have gotten so much more intricate than they were in the past. Even a 4* character now has the kind of detail that we might've only seen on a 5* character previously.

And then on top of all that, there's the writing. It feels leaps and bounds ahead of the writing in past content. Characters are introduced in more organic ways than before. And although we only have the first part of the Sumeru Archon Quest so far, it already feels so much more engaging than any of the previous ones. For one thing, it's actually diverging from the usual sorta generic feeling anime JRPG-ish story of "We go and beat up a bunch of bad guys and then have a chat with the Archon." This quest is actually different, and unfolds as a really intriguing mystery, and once I got started on the latter portion, I just had to see it through to the end in a single sitting.

Paimon is no longer just reiterating everything we saw happen on the screen 5 seconds ago! Imagine that. Her bond with the traveler has deepened into something much more endearing, so that she now feels like a companion rather than a mascot.

There is plenty of real and legitimate criticisms to be made of Genshin, and of gacha games more generally, yet in the end, I love this game. It is and has been a source of comfort to me. When I play it and take in everything it has to offer, I can't help but be reminded that behind the lousy monetization systems and the soulless businessmen responsible for them, there is still a team of passionate artists who genuinely want nothing more than to create a truly beautiful game for players to experience.

I wanted to write this weeks and now I'm not sure if I did a good job with this. When miHoYo changed some outfits a few weeks ago, I got worried about chinese government pressure to remove the "sexyness" (lol) of the game... but I also didn't want anyone to think that criticism of sexualization is the same as censorship.

Anyway, my thoughts are complicated. Here's my article in spanish.

tl;dr: I don't want China to take away my waifus.

I got stuck on the recently released story mission so I think it's time to give this game a pause. It practically "consumed" my last semester. I really enjoyed it and love the characters. But this is too much, just too much.

I'll probably get back to it in a few weeks, maybe a month, but I need a rest from Teyvat.

Why it seems like I already said this some time ago? Oh well, this time is for real (I hope).

As you probably know by now, I've been playing Genshin Impact a lot lately. It not only was to get Aloy (spoiler: it kinda was), but because I wanted to write a guide about how to get characters in the game.

It was wild. Gacha systems are infamous for how convoluted they are and this is no exception. If you want to pay for 'coins' for the gachapon to get characters and weapons, you have to buy Genesis Crystal, which you exchange for Primogems, which you exchange for Acquaint Fate or Intertwined Fate which you exchange for wishes on the gacha.

Anyway, you can read my guide about how to get """"all"""" characters on Genshin Impact here. Its in spanish.

My main recomendation is you want to spend money on this is "don't". Best characters only have a 0.6% chances of appearing in a wish. If you're still determined, put yourself a limit and, if you don't get the character, just accept it and move on. You can have lots of fun here without spending a single peso.

I tried it out for a week, but it's just too boring for me. I'm not into this sort of MMO-style game in general I suppose. The art style for the world is very beautiful though, and I like a lot of the character designs. But I couldn't be bothered to keep doing such tedious missions, and the very basic story that was slowly doled out did nothing for me.

Oh well! Dodged an addiction to gacha bullet I guess. One day I hope to find a really great anime world of magic to have fun adventuring around in.