fluffycattens
This is a rad idea executed well, but unfortunately I'm too small-brained to play this in any way that makes strategic sense. I imagine if you practiced this a bunch you'd feel really smart.
2010
A sweet little platformer with minimalist controls for its fun gravity switching mechanic!
(Almost) all the levels are a blast to play, with each one introducing a different mechanic that all mesh well with the gravity switching. The difficulty is just right as well; I struggle with games with complex control schemes but I had a ton of fun with even the hardest screens here! The soundtrack stands among the best chiptune music out there, with catchy tunes and infectious energy - it's always the thing I look forward to when starting the game 🎵
Unfortunately my playthroughs are marred by the escort missions and the Gravitron, which although small parts of the game as a whole, still feel like a chore in comparison 🙁
(Almost) all the levels are a blast to play, with each one introducing a different mechanic that all mesh well with the gravity switching. The difficulty is just right as well; I struggle with games with complex control schemes but I had a ton of fun with even the hardest screens here! The soundtrack stands among the best chiptune music out there, with catchy tunes and infectious energy - it's always the thing I look forward to when starting the game 🎵
Unfortunately my playthroughs are marred by the escort missions and the Gravitron, which although small parts of the game as a whole, still feel like a chore in comparison 🙁
Best soundtrack of any Atelier game and one of my all time favourites ("Aquarius" is a jam), I love what they've done with the Mana Khemia battle system, and Shallistera is an absolute cutie
2020
Genshin Impact is certainly a mixed bag, but one that I weirdly like. Yes, there's predatory monetisation, questionable character design, and repetitive gameplay. But what is there is worth experiencing if you're able to push past the cruft.
Genshin Impact has four main draws, those being the quests, the exploration, the visuals, and the music. Although all of these started off fairly barebones at launch, as the game found its feet across the first two years, they all improved dramatically to the point where I'd call all of them excellent.
The first few chapters of the main story are a somewhat rote fantasy tale, but it later begins experimenting more with the format to great success. Stand-outs are the Groundhog Day style time loop mystery that introduces the Dendro Archon Nahida, and the Ace Attorney-inspired dramatic trial of the Hydro Archon Furina, both of which are a lot of fun with plenty of emotional oomph!
But the real high point in my opinion comes with the world quests, which explore the culture and lore of each region. The initial quests in Mondstadt and Liyue are basic and not worth talking about, but Inazuma gives you a quest chain for each of the half-dozen islands in the archipelago (my favourite being the moving "Through the Mists" series showing the bloody history of Tsurumi Island), and Sumeru and Fontaine both have sprawling quest series that immerse you in sides of each region that you'll never see in the main story. Sumeru's "Aranyaka" quest series is somewhat infamous for its scope, but I found the dozen or so hours I spent with the Aranara forest sprites, wandering their sacred sites hidden in the deepest reaches of the region and learning their magic and culture that are so different from the human story I'd seen so far, to be deeply emotional and rewarding. Fontaine's "Narzissenkreuz" quest series goes in the opposite direction, with a collection of seemingly unrelated stories featuring a cast of disparate characters; the story of "those who were once human" rediscovering their humanity through mutual connection.
Genshin Impact's exploration is perhaps the game's most touted feature as an open world RPG, and once again this is something that really shines in later areas, with Inazuma onwards providing more fun ways to get around, more sights to see, and more things to do! Inazuma is the first region to really attempt to deliver on classic environments like ancient ruins full of puzzles, with ruins in previous regions often feeling like set dressing; Enkanomiya, the Chasm, Sumeru, and Fontaine all expand on this with focuses on solving the regions' mysteries via delving into parts where no human has trodden for centuries. Fontaine's underwater exploration is also a blast; a rare instance of a game nailing swimming controls (though underwater combat leaves much to be desired!)
I adore the visuals in this game; they work fantastically as rewards for quests and exploration! Many areas look like concept art come to life, with great use of lighting effects in particular. Important quests have areas created specifically to be stunning visual set pieces - King Deshret's Tomb, the Eternal Oasis, the True Annapausis, the list goes on! And the rest of the world is also full of beauty to uncover, with views like Seirai Island's gigantic thunderstorm, the desolate landscape of Enkanomiya opening up before you as you emerge from its gates, or the otherworldly beauty at the very deepest point of the Chasm. The ability of Genshin Impact to turn concept art into stunning playable areas is unparalleled. It's doubly impressive given that the game targets phones yet the visuals scale so well to PC and consoles and look gorgeous no matter where you play it!
I'll also make a special mention of the story cutscenes, of which there are two main types - excellently choreographed pre-rendered scenes using the in-game models, generally sprinkled across the main story, and beautiful stylised 2D animated sequences that tend to appear in character and event quests. I wish every game could have cutscenes this gorgeous!
Finally, the soundtrack. The soundtrack. Genshin Impact must have one of the most impressive soundtracks in gaming history. We're probably at four-digit unique tracks by now and they're all very high quality. Seriously, Yu-Peng Chen and the team that took over his work are monsters. Each region has a distinct musical style and leitmotifs based on the real-life region that it draws inspiration from, with multiple background tracks for each settlement and subregion that shuffle and rotate depending on the time of day, several battle tracks (I like that the instrumentation of the Sumeru battle music changes depending on which part of the region you're in!), and unique music for each phase of each story boss! There's just so much that it's impossible to find nothing to like!
Naturally the game's biggest flaw is that it's a gacha live service game with all the issues that come from that. On the one hand, it's almost entirely single player with no PvP or online leaderboards, so there's actually no reason to spend money since there are enough free characters to try a few teams with (disclaimer: I pay for the $5 monthly sub and I haven't had any issues getting the characters I want), but on the other hand, there's a lot of grinding and time gating required for progression. There is a stamina system ("resin"), although it's only used for character progression - your characters will gain some experience in combat, but that amount is almost irrelevant compared to the experience you get by spending resin, and you'll similarly need to spend resin on equipment upgrades. You can do anything else (exploration, quests, events) without resin but the early game is frustrating waiting to get strong enough to unlock new areas.
On that note, yes, Mondstadt kinda sucks. It's a fine starting region for getting you used to the controls but there's very little there, Liyue is pretty but also fairly sparse, and you don't get access to areas that are actually fun to explore for some time, all of course time gated behind resin.
I'm not going to say much about the character designs because other people have talked about it in-depth; what's there is pretty but oof it could really use a bit more diversity and fewer teenagers!
All in all Genshin Impact is a game that has a rough start and lots of not great things, so I can't give it a super high score. However, if I could have a game with all the good parts and none of the bad there would be plenty enough to make it a 10/10, and anyone who can stomach those will also find lots to love about it!
(but let's be real I'm playing it for the cute autistic girls, Sucrose and Kokomi my beloved)
Genshin Impact has four main draws, those being the quests, the exploration, the visuals, and the music. Although all of these started off fairly barebones at launch, as the game found its feet across the first two years, they all improved dramatically to the point where I'd call all of them excellent.
The first few chapters of the main story are a somewhat rote fantasy tale, but it later begins experimenting more with the format to great success. Stand-outs are the Groundhog Day style time loop mystery that introduces the Dendro Archon Nahida, and the Ace Attorney-inspired dramatic trial of the Hydro Archon Furina, both of which are a lot of fun with plenty of emotional oomph!
But the real high point in my opinion comes with the world quests, which explore the culture and lore of each region. The initial quests in Mondstadt and Liyue are basic and not worth talking about, but Inazuma gives you a quest chain for each of the half-dozen islands in the archipelago (my favourite being the moving "Through the Mists" series showing the bloody history of Tsurumi Island), and Sumeru and Fontaine both have sprawling quest series that immerse you in sides of each region that you'll never see in the main story. Sumeru's "Aranyaka" quest series is somewhat infamous for its scope, but I found the dozen or so hours I spent with the Aranara forest sprites, wandering their sacred sites hidden in the deepest reaches of the region and learning their magic and culture that are so different from the human story I'd seen so far, to be deeply emotional and rewarding. Fontaine's "Narzissenkreuz" quest series goes in the opposite direction, with a collection of seemingly unrelated stories featuring a cast of disparate characters; the story of "those who were once human" rediscovering their humanity through mutual connection.
Genshin Impact's exploration is perhaps the game's most touted feature as an open world RPG, and once again this is something that really shines in later areas, with Inazuma onwards providing more fun ways to get around, more sights to see, and more things to do! Inazuma is the first region to really attempt to deliver on classic environments like ancient ruins full of puzzles, with ruins in previous regions often feeling like set dressing; Enkanomiya, the Chasm, Sumeru, and Fontaine all expand on this with focuses on solving the regions' mysteries via delving into parts where no human has trodden for centuries. Fontaine's underwater exploration is also a blast; a rare instance of a game nailing swimming controls (though underwater combat leaves much to be desired!)
I adore the visuals in this game; they work fantastically as rewards for quests and exploration! Many areas look like concept art come to life, with great use of lighting effects in particular. Important quests have areas created specifically to be stunning visual set pieces - King Deshret's Tomb, the Eternal Oasis, the True Annapausis, the list goes on! And the rest of the world is also full of beauty to uncover, with views like Seirai Island's gigantic thunderstorm, the desolate landscape of Enkanomiya opening up before you as you emerge from its gates, or the otherworldly beauty at the very deepest point of the Chasm. The ability of Genshin Impact to turn concept art into stunning playable areas is unparalleled. It's doubly impressive given that the game targets phones yet the visuals scale so well to PC and consoles and look gorgeous no matter where you play it!
I'll also make a special mention of the story cutscenes, of which there are two main types - excellently choreographed pre-rendered scenes using the in-game models, generally sprinkled across the main story, and beautiful stylised 2D animated sequences that tend to appear in character and event quests. I wish every game could have cutscenes this gorgeous!
Finally, the soundtrack. The soundtrack. Genshin Impact must have one of the most impressive soundtracks in gaming history. We're probably at four-digit unique tracks by now and they're all very high quality. Seriously, Yu-Peng Chen and the team that took over his work are monsters. Each region has a distinct musical style and leitmotifs based on the real-life region that it draws inspiration from, with multiple background tracks for each settlement and subregion that shuffle and rotate depending on the time of day, several battle tracks (I like that the instrumentation of the Sumeru battle music changes depending on which part of the region you're in!), and unique music for each phase of each story boss! There's just so much that it's impossible to find nothing to like!
Naturally the game's biggest flaw is that it's a gacha live service game with all the issues that come from that. On the one hand, it's almost entirely single player with no PvP or online leaderboards, so there's actually no reason to spend money since there are enough free characters to try a few teams with (disclaimer: I pay for the $5 monthly sub and I haven't had any issues getting the characters I want), but on the other hand, there's a lot of grinding and time gating required for progression. There is a stamina system ("resin"), although it's only used for character progression - your characters will gain some experience in combat, but that amount is almost irrelevant compared to the experience you get by spending resin, and you'll similarly need to spend resin on equipment upgrades. You can do anything else (exploration, quests, events) without resin but the early game is frustrating waiting to get strong enough to unlock new areas.
On that note, yes, Mondstadt kinda sucks. It's a fine starting region for getting you used to the controls but there's very little there, Liyue is pretty but also fairly sparse, and you don't get access to areas that are actually fun to explore for some time, all of course time gated behind resin.
I'm not going to say much about the character designs because other people have talked about it in-depth; what's there is pretty but oof it could really use a bit more diversity and fewer teenagers!
All in all Genshin Impact is a game that has a rough start and lots of not great things, so I can't give it a super high score. However, if I could have a game with all the good parts and none of the bad there would be plenty enough to make it a 10/10, and anyone who can stomach those will also find lots to love about it!
(but let's be real I'm playing it for the cute autistic girls, Sucrose and Kokomi my beloved)