The Little Critic – Genshin Impact

The trend of video games has clearly turned towards open-worlds in recent years. Some well-known licenses are turning more and more towards this style of play to leave the player with this impression of freedom, hiding the limits of their content in these large, sometimes very empty environments. If the overdose seems to be looming, some titles manage to refresh the genre, including this feeling of freedom in its gameplay to properly exploit it. And that's good, because today we're going to talk about a game that brilliantly manages to exploit its open-world side without abandoning it.

You are reading episode 18 of La P'tite Critique, and today we are going to talk about Genshin Impact.

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What is Genshin Impact?

Based on the original Weebtoon, Genshin Impact is a multiplayer free-to-play RPG went out on PS4, PC and Mobile phone, developed by the Chinese company MiHoYo. The game then plunges us into the world of Teyvat, an imaginary land where seven elements reign, Cryo, Pyro, Hydro, Anemo, Electro, Geo and Dendro. The lost traveler that you control will then land in the outskirts of Mondstadt, a city where the Anemo element predominates and will discover, at the same time as you, the new world that awaits him. Get ready to enter a vast world, populated by buried treasures, missing gods and hordes of monsters ready to do anything to disrupt the established order. Meet the forgotten heroes of Teyvat and ally with them to defend, at all costs, the kingdom of Mondstadt and its neighboring lands.

Just perfect graphics.

While one might think that Genshin Impact is a second-rate game like many Gasha designed for a purely monetary system, the RPG borders on the ambitions of an assumed triple A with just breathtaking graphics, which moreover, turns out to be almost the same on all game supports, giving a more than delightful rendering to the lands of Teyvat, with the game revolving quite heavily on exploration and the search for treasures as well as items allowing you to increase your level of adventure , you will cross these regions a lot of times. Thanks to this artistic work on the design of outdoor environments, stopping to contemplate a mountain caressed by the rays of the rising sun will be more than pleasant. So, of course, the game has been pointed out many times because of its more than blatant similarity with Zelda: Breath of the Wild. If the artistic direction seems to be indeed, relatively similar, Genshin Impact differs greatly on one point which will quickly put an end to the debate: its content.

More than rich content.

With a very large map filled with mobs to smoke, its chests full of items to recover and panoramas to complete to complete your successes, Genshin Impact offers itself the luxury of filling its content with “world-boss” that can be activated by you. even, also offering a lot of items and offering a fairly high difficulty, which will require you to have a fairly well optimized team and perhaps a little reinforcement thanks to the multiplayer, but nothing difficult to manage. In addition to the world-boss there are also a lot of dungeons, some only doable in solo, others being possible to do in multiplayer, but unfortunately, they will not offer a lot of resistance even with an ill-prepared team , the latter being only designed to be farmer at will and recover components in order to be able to level up your characters or your weapons. And if you think you can bash in the dungeon all night to collect components in order to be quiet the next day, you are seriously mistaken. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to introduce you to resin.

The troubled waters of the Gasha.

If you're a Gasha Games regular, you're probably familiar with the trusty and loathsome Energy Bar. Rechargeable via in-game currency or directly with your money, the energy bar allows you to limit your playing time with the slightest blow and make you come back the next day, the plain bar to keep moving forward and so on.
The resin is simply your energy bar, useful for a lot of activity in the game, it allows you to do dungeons, world-boss and energy lines, in short, we are talking about practically 50% of the game once you have completed your main and side quests. Under its false air of RPG, Genshin Impact is therefore not a game where you can spend 8 hours a day, because it is designed so that you connect for two short hours, that you empty your energy bar, carry out your quests daily and… that's it.
Genshin does not only borrow from the Gasha since the game also has its banners to summon new characters coming out punctually, asking you either to put money in them to summon, or to save in-game rewards to let go of your nest egg. and try to recover more or less rare characters and weapons, ranging from three to five stars.

Colorful characters.

Let's talk about the characters! Each of your characters has equipment, allowing them to boost their skills, as well as their weapons, fully customizable, leaving us the possibility of building and meeting the needs of your composition in combat, not to mention the improvements of skills and constellations . So, at first, you're going to feel as lost as I was, but we let ourselves be quite easily guided by the personalization of your characters as you progress and the items collected. With a fairly clear and well-distributed inventory, this feeling of loss will very quickly disappear.

So… Good or bad game?

Despite its Gasha side, which put me off quite a bit, Genshin Impact is a real rare pearl and the worst thing is that the game still has a lot of surprises in store for you! Between the recurring events, the story of the game quite simplistic, but still nice, the photo mode which allows you to take more advantage of the environments, the achievements and adventures to complete, the RPG Free-to-play is not spared by a few flaws, such as its fedex quests which sometimes literally ask you to go from point A to point B and a slightly anecdotal multiplayer mode. But fortunately, these minor points won't hamper your gaming experience that much, so take the plunge, download it, Genshin still promises a lot of content with regular updates since the game is expected to last more than 10 years. and Teyvat still hides many secrets that I am sure you will enjoy discovering.

Required configuration :

Minimum configuration:  

• Operating system: Windows 10, 8 or 7 (64 bit).
• Processor: Intel i5 or AMD equivalent.
• RAM: 8 GB.
• Hard disk: At least 30 GB available.
• Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030 or better.
• DirectX®: DirectX11.

Recommended configuration:  

• Operating system: Windows 10, 8 or 7 (64 bit).
• Processor: Intel i7 or AMD equivalent.
• RAM: 16 GB.
• Hard disk: At least 30 GB available.
• Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 or better.
• DirectX®: DirectX11.