Genshin Impact - Overall Review.

To begin the review, I could like to verify here that Genshin Impact is a Chinese game, NOT a Japanese RPG (JRPG). It was developed by miHoYo, a Chinese video game development studio, based in Shanghai, China and being shipped as JRPG in the stores.

I always attend to discourage myself from buying Chinese-based products so when this game was given freely (my nephew added into my Account because it was free), my first thought was that was JRPG game and played it. But soon, I started having my doubts and went online to check it out and surprise it was a Chinese game (should we call it CRPG now, to differentiate it from JRPG?). 

However, I decided to continue to play throughout October (2019) and check how far Chinese game developers have came in the game industry. My initial reaction to this game was it was good and likable but I find their choice of "color" for their World design to be "painful" to the eyes. It is simply too bright even with half the illumination set in the display choice (I cannot go too low or I will have hard time fighting during night time). Over all, the game seems to look good and has funny dialogs and story. Now we will dive deeper.

The first thing I like to state here is that Genshin Impact is marketed as "Gaccha" genre game. Gaccha games are games which implements "gacha" (capsule-toy vending machine) mechanics where the main feature of the game is to buy "loot boxes" using in-game currency which you can get from playing the game itself. It is a loop system. 

It encourages you to play more to earn in-game currency which then you can use to purchase loot boxes with random items (or sometimes items with certain percentage of dropping). Gamers can buy in-game currency using real World money and in many cases, the digital version of the game could spill onto real-World counterparts where gamers pay real money to collect and use real loot items, obtained from the stores.

Gaccha System itself is a conversational system as it is divided into various form such as Complete Gaccha, Box (or Virtual) Gaccha, Redraw Gaccha, Consecutive Gaccha, Set-up Gaccha, Open Versus Closed Gaccha and Discounted Gaccha. Complete Gaccha was popular in Japan until 2012 when the Japanese Consumer Affair Agency found it illegal. 

As you may able to read below, the Gaccha system is undergoing tremendous review in Japan as many believes that this system borders in gambling and micro-transaction that targets young people to spend real money.

Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gacha_game

In Genshin Impact, the loot box is called Wishes and buying a loot box is called "Making a Wish". They set it up in a way that it is quite a two-way buying system and not direct in-game currency-to-loot box purchase. 

First, you need to buy Genesis Crystals by topping it up at the built-in store. Then you use this to buy "Primogems" which acts as in-game currency to purchase Wishes or Fates. It takes 160 Primogems to buy a single (1) Wish. In another word, you use real money to buy Genesis Crystals and then use that to buy in-game currency before making Wishes. 

The game will state that there are other ways to obtain Primogems such as doing quests, increasing Adventure levels, collecting Primogems, opening up the Maps (via exploring) and completing achievements. 

When I played this game (which I got for free), I had every intention of exploring it for free without paying a dime for it. I did all the above and stock up quite a bit in primogems, unlocking characters like Novella and Amber (two of my frequency used characters). 

I had reach the Adventure level 25, finishing the quests in Mondstadt and making it all the way to Chapter 2 which oversees you reaching Liyue region (it is here I noticed that the game emphasis a lot on Chinese culture instead of Japanese like JRPG usually does which made me wonder if I was playing a Chinese RPG). 

By the time I reach this region, I have become quite powerful and had obtained Adventure Level 25. II have noticed that I had stopped level up my Adventure level further and the game requires me to do a special quest before proceeding past level 25.

I also noticed that the game started to glitch here, with menus breaking up, battles being delayed, attack animation missing the target, enemies seems to able to hit me across the map and in some situation, the right animation did not appear when pulling certain moves or skills. 

To level up my Adventure level from level 25 to 26 (and onwards), I had to defeat a Homeostatic enemy which is quite annoying because it can heal. However, to prevent it from healing, you supposed to collect certain orbs it was emitting before it reabsorbs (and heal) and to do that, you will need to fly using air pockets. In my game, those air pockets OR the orbs did not appear, allowing the Homeostatic enemies to heal without me doing anything to prevent it. At this point, I'm convinced that this game was rigged in a way that it could force the players to "buy" (or the proper term here - make a wish) before it could allow you to progress pass that point in game. It is very similar to a demo game in that respect. 

Later in the year, I have heard that the game was "incomplete" which means that - like another game I despised for similar reason (Final Fantasy 15), this game forces you to buy additional contents before you can proceed forward and finish the game. Which means that the "free" game you get is not free but somewhat a bait to get you hooked up and buy even more down the line.

So I could like to end this review by warning the gamer community to avoid buying and playing this game. You can download it for free (since it could be marketed for free in Playstation Store) but I like to warn you that this game is "rigged" to get the players to spend more money on in-game currencies.

 I advise gamers to go online and do their own research (especially on Youtube) where more and more people starting to come out and criticize Genshin Impact (even calling it as a poor rip-off to Breath of the Wild game - which I have to admit, I had heard of it but never played it). One Youtuber called YoungDefiant called Genshin Impact as "Breath of the Weeboo" 

(source : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mipzclo43cg ).

Speaking of which, this is a Youtube video from GameSpot who did play Zelda : Breath of the Wild. Since I did not play it (yet), I believe the best option is to add this Youtube video from someone who actually played the game and compared it to Genshin Impact. 

Please watch : https://youtu.be/KX72w4kisfQ