Preliminary

This is a rant/somewhat of a review about Genshin from the perspective of a old AR60 player. There will be some spoilers for the story of Genshin Impact up to the beginning of Sumeru, if you're worried about that. I wrote the first rant one night a while back and have spent a couple months revising my thoughts and horrible grammar. A reason this took so long to put out there is because I have been playing Wuthering Waves a lot and added some WuWa comparisons to this review to prove some of my points. Also because I suck at being productive.

June 24, 2024

Angry Genshin Impact Rant

So, like many others, I have been playing Wuthering Waves non-stop for the past month. If you've been online, you'll probably have seen many videos/posts talking about how horrible Genshin Impact is to play after playing Wuthering Waves. I, not to be that person or anything (but totally am), I been quit Genshin over a year ago for the exact reasons people are just now talking about. There are so many issues with Genshin Impact since launch that haven't changed in the past four years and it honestly baffles me that people are just now starting to realize why Genshin Impact sucks.

Character Design

I honestly do not know why people started comparing Genshin Impact and Wuthering Waves’ character designs. I saw people saying that Wuthering Waves’ characters had “same face syndrome”. When I tell you that's literally the opposite… Genshin literally has 5 body types total for both male and female characters. Females have 3 — tall female, average female, and child female. Males just have two — tall male or short male. Although there are larger, more muscular male models in the game in the form as NPC's like Cyrus and enemies like the treasure hoarders. When Aratakki Itto was first leaked, me and a friend were highly disappointed when we saw his model was just the tall, slender male model, even though he should be big and muscular. They still haven't added any new body types besides possibly Writhorsley, who is more muscularly built in the chest and arms (and dat ass), but still just shares the same height as the rest.

And don't get me started on “same face syndrome”. You know it and I know it — Genshin suffers from same face syndrome unlike any game. Every single head model is the exact same. Like a doll, they simply change the eye shape, color and eyebrows for each character. The chin, cheeks, noses, mouths, and forehead are the exact same on every character. There's only so many combinations of eye shapes, eyelashes, pupils, eye colors, and eye creases they can do until they run out of options.

Genshin already limits themselves crazily in design options, but then they also have their characters color-coded according to their elements. You might be thinking that this is an odd issue, but let's be honest here: The newest teased character, Emilie, got her design changed in part because she is Dendro and therefore has to have green incorporated into her design. Now, they totally could've made a good design of her with the green dress they have now, but there's only so many colors that fit with green and the purple in her concept design most likely didn't coincide with that. Obviously her design wasn't ruined just because of this, but it's one of the reasons, and a lot of characters suffer from uninspired color palettes because of this. Another reason why Genshin has to be vibrant and bright is because character palettes would stand out a lot less without it.

And on top of that, some characters have horrible personalities. Like Ayaka, whose personality turned mainly into just crushing on the Traveler. Sayu doesn't have a personality besides being constantly sleepy. Even Raiden Shogun has no personality, or perhaps her personality is simply just supposed to be bland and boring, and her companion quest was just a giant virtual date that made me deathly bored that I was spam clicking just for it to end quicker. I never did those companion quests because they were all just e-dates. I'd just do online dating if I wanted that experience. Companion quests should teach you more about the character's personality and day-to-day life, not just give you a mini-date with them.

Story, Character Personality & Cutscenes

I did the story of Genshin up until Sumeru’s release. And I even jumped back into Genshin and attempted to do the Sumeru storyline, until I quit shortly thereafter again. The original Mondstat story started off terribly, just like Wuthering Waves did. Slowly, the Mondstat story became interesting with Dvalin and Stormterror and Venti, but the villain being a Hydro Abyss Mage was really underwhelming thinking back on it. But as an early player, it's decent. The stuff with Stanley, however, was some of the best storytelling in the game in my opinion. Not to mention the stuff with Scaramouche, which was very enjoyable at the time.

Liyue's story started off well. I enjoyed the Adeptus and Xiao storylines. I loved Zhongli’s storylines and Xiangling, Xingqui, and Chongyun were enjoyable characters. However, the longer time passed, the more of a content drought came and there was no story besides useless events, new characters with their own little quests (which, admittedly, some were not bad). I especially enjoyed the Lantern Rite Festival, which had an amazing story, and one of my favorite events, Theatre Mechanicus. I was excited for the new characters. I wanted Ganyu and Hu Tao really badly. But time passes and after Liyue’s main story, before they added Dragonspine, there was a huge 6 month content drought. I took my first break around the time of Childe’s first rerun since there was nothing new added to the game besides uninteresting events.

When Dragonspine released, Genshin was so fun. Dragonspine was one of the best regions, with an amazing soundtrack, an amazing story with Albedo and Rosaria, a cool co-op boss event, cool new regional mechanics, and a few needed QOL features. Dragonspine brought me back into the game, only for it to end less than a week later because I 100%’ed everything it had to offer. I still kept on playing until it was too long again and I took another break a few months before Inazuma would release. (I missed Kazuha's first banner. I was actually really mad about that because I really wanted Kazuha.)

When Inazuma released, me and my friend logged back in to finally continue the main storyline. Now, firstly, Mondstat and Liyue had decent stories. There were highs and lows. But Inazuma… Inazuma was nearly all downs. The initial story of you going to Inazuma is not only boring, but they were lazy when writing it. They hyped up how treacherous and action-packed the trip to Inazuma on ship would be and how we should prepare ourselves… Just for a black screen with text saying “after a lengthy battle, you arrive on the shores of Inazuma” or something like that and boom… you're just there. Lazy dev’s who didn't want to add a cutscene or anything. It's abysmal. And this wasn't the only instance of this. Black screen with text plagues the storyline to this very day. As a Final Fantasy player, this made the game extremely disappointing and underwhelming.

I love Kokomi. I have her C6, for fuck’s sake. Her storyline was… well, it wasn't bad per say, but they could've done so much more. Teppei was good, but fuck, he looks like every other generic NPC so I didn't care about him in the first place. Itto was also good (even though he was comical relief more than anything). But despite these somewhat enjoyable characters, every single other part of Inazuma was just bad. The lore about the Kamisato's just seemed useless to know because they never really did anything meaningful, Raiden herself was just a throwaway villain that turned into: “okay, we're allies now,” and I just can't get behind this kind of writing. Maybe it just isn't my cup of tea.

Sumeru’s storyline showed promise and potential. The beginning was decent, with you just going to the area straight up, no chit chat quests, just straight to the point — something Genshin rarely ever does. I was bored at first with the NPC girl, but after meeting Collei and Tighnari, the story became pretty good. I enjoyed the first trip to Sumeru and the stuff with Alhaitham. But when it came to Nilou, there wasn't much there and I didnt feel like they wanted me to care about her character. She was just sort of… on the screen and that was it. I understood her goal and purpose for being there, but I didn't see any personality from her. Dehya, honestly, was interesting at first. But then she just became the bodyguard for the NPC girl who I really didn't care about to be honest. If they want us to care about these NPC's, then maybe they need to do something about the bland design of said important NPC's.

And that was where I quit playing Genshin in favor of playing Wuthering Waves’s release. While WuWa also suffers from a bad start to their story, I already enjoyed WuWa's much more than I ever did Genshin's. I find myself changing my opinion on a character completely just from seeing their personalities and designs in the storyline of the game—something that never happened in Genshin. In Genshin, it felt like the writers were just adding dialogue to either straight-forwardly continue the story or add random flavor text that told us nothing about a character's personality with the intent to waste your time. And it certainly doesn't help that every character has the same walking idle animations and gesture animations. Even Yandere Simulator has different types of NPCs walk animations guys. Come on. I'm tired of seeing Talking Animation #1 for every cutscene in the game.

World Exploration

The world exploration pales so badly in comparison to Wuthering Waves, it's not even funny. The puzzles were made for babies (most likely intentionally, in all honesty), the enemies to defeat for chests are still—and will always be apparently— just hilichurls four years later, and they took away the favorite world puzzle: floaty-bloaties. All they have is seeles, random enemies to defeat, mediocre puzzles, or unmarked chests hidden in bushes or other dumb spots that aren't even clever but just mildly annoying. Each region has the same world exploration as well. They don't differ much besides new enemies, a different selee variant (if that), and new puzzles made for babies. And don't get me started on the oculuses. If you're not using the interactive map, then you might as well never touch those oculuses. It was easy and manageable in Mondstat, but since they have added bigger regions, the numbers just multiply.

This is probably why my favorite regions in the game are Dragonspine, Enkanomiya, and Mondstat. Mondstat is just so nice and clean and was an amazing starter area. Also, Stormterror as an area is so nostalgic for me, especially when the music hits. Dragonspine was the most fun I ever had in Genshin. These zones were immensely fun and honestly are some of my favorite world exploration regions in all of the world exploration games that I've played. But other than that, the regions are… eugh. Like Liyue, for example, was simply alright. It wasn't bad but nothing too crazy either. Still, it's better than Inazuma, which had the worst jagged edges in the game that made climbing mountains literally impossible. It was actually a nightmare to traverse Inazuma. And don't even get me started on that area that was quest locked so you couldn't enter it at all. For what reason? Just to waste your time and time-gate you.

Just like Liyue, the Chasm was simply okay. I disliked it originally, but the lower levels were pretty cool. I'm just not that big a fan of vertical areas that have a lot of downward layers. From what I played of Sumeru, it just seemed like too much going on. There was a lot of clutter of puzzles and trees and leaves, a good forest vibe, but it still felt a bit overwhelming to be surrounded by so many things with no clearing. This was my initial impression at least, but take it with a grain of salt since I didn't really attempt to tackle the exploration there at all and merely judged it by its appearance.

In-Game Movement

If you played Wuthering Waves, you couldn't come back to Genshin because of just two things — infinite stamina and running up walls. That made WuWa significantly easier to traverse around. Meanwhile in Genshin, you have limited stamina, you have to slowly climb up any mountain and it'll take several minutes, and you can't pull yourself over ledges or even just jagged walls sometimes. It's honestly a joke to compare Genshin’s movement with WuWa’s. Not to mention WuWa has double jump, grappling tech, and some characters can even fly (at least for a set duration, i.e, the upcoming Jinhsi). Then there's also the fact that gliding in WuWa carries momentum, whereas in Genshin, if you unpress glide, you go just straight down. Not even at an inch of an angle. Straight to the ground.

Co-Op (Multiplayer)

The co-op is just… bad. But honestly, Wuthering Waves is the exact same. Actually, Genshin does have something over WuWa in terms of co-op. The weeklies in Genshin can be done in co-op, whereas WuWa’s cannot (the instanced ones, to clarify). Genshin does not have shared co-op, meaning that if you’re in a friend’s world and they open a chest, you do not get the rewards and still have to open it in your own world later. I don't know why more open-world games with co-op don't have shared co-op. It makes the game infinitely more disappointing for people who prefer to do exploration with their friends. WuWa and Genshin both suffer from this. You can do domains/dungeons, world bosses, and weeklies (in Genshin only) together, but when it comes to chests, oculuses, puzzles, and seele’s, you cannot do anything. And even some of the world puzzles don't show up in co-op, meaning you most likely missed it and your friend can't even help you if you are struggling on a puzzle because they simply cannot see it on their end.

I wish gacha games would just use shared co-op already. I can't imagine it would be hard to implement and it would make a lot more players happy. At the very least, add co-op events so you can do something with your friends besides just domains. The only reason I played Genshin for as long as I did was because my friend would join my world and explore with me, sacrificing his own time to locate chests and defeat enemies with me, just to have to do it all over again in his own world so he got the rewards too.

Combat

Genshin combat is for children. I am dead serious when I say this. You have two buttons. E = elemental skill. Q = elemental burst/ultimate. That's all. Some characters you normal attack with, but most, you just pop their E & Q and then switch off them. Rinse and repeat for all characters until the mob you are fighting is dead. There is no special mechanic, no interesting gameplay, or anything besides the elemental reaction mechanics that only really matter if you don't have built characters that nearly one-shot everything (and a lot of characters like Ganyu, Hu Tao, and a ton of newer characters I don't remember the name of, can do that crazy amount of damage at c0 that negates the elemental reactions).

Wuthering Waves has a dedicated dodge button (no, Genshin’s sprint is not a dedicated dodge…), a parry mechanic, and each character actually has unique kits and passives. Genshin characters are all so easy-to-use and frankly boring. Only recently have I seen them actually try and make new and interesting characters (just for Emilie to be the newest character and with the worst kit since Amber) but it's just too late to try and do new things now. I had anticipated that they would add Dendro less than a year after the game's release and hopefully even a new weapon type afterward. Well, it took Dendro around 3 years to release and there still is no new weapon type in the game, nor will there likely ever be because it's too late at this point.

The gameplay is repetitive and boring. And honestly, what the fuck do you use combat on besides dailies? Spiral Abyss? Who actually does that? The endgame blows. There's nothing to even fight besides hilichurls in the open world. Oh, and treasure hoarders, if you're into that.

Artifacts

They keep adding these new artifacts sets that do the same thing older ones did but more of a niche category. And some are made just for one character specifically, so you have to farm a potentially useless second set just to get the first set for a character you have and have no Artifacts for that work for them. Like Kokomi when she was released. I ran two piece Hydro set for the Hydro DMG Bonus and two piece Maiden Beloved/Noblesse Oblige. But they quickly realized (not quickly, like, four months later) that they didn't work for her so they just made her her own artifacts.

The amount of farming… RNG is not forgiving. I pulled Ganyu when she first released it and I still don't have any good artifacts for her to this day, like 3 years later. I literally farmed for like 5 months straight and have trash artifacts still. And it'll never change. And they just keep adding new artifacts that are niche or useless. Like who uses Thunder-soother or Lavawalker? Literally nobody uses those artifacts. Nobody. Who do they bother?

Gacha

The weapon banner is literally a joke. What do you mean you have to lose three 50/50’s before you can pull for the weapon you actually wanted? That could potentially take 320 pulls because the pity is 80. The weapon banner is literally bait. Unlike in WuWa, where there is only one weapon and that one weapon is 100% guaranteed at 80 or less pulls. No 50/50, no second weapon, none of that bullshit.

The limited character banner is 90 pity, 50/50 or guarantee depending on which you pulled last. This is pretty standard honestly. Just would be better if Genshin actually gave you enough primogems without having to save up for months. Also every 50/50 being lost to Qiqi. Literally why is it always her?

Why haven't they added certain old characters to the standard like Klee or Ganyu? Why did they add Dehya and not them? Are they ever going to add these characters to the standard banner? No, most likely not. Every other gacha game that I have played has added older limited characters to the standard pool. It's basically standard for a gacha game to eventually do this. But Genshin never has. Not once. The first ever character banner was Venti, who hasn't and will most likely never be added to the standard banner. I understand if it's because he is an Archon, at which, I still think they should add others like Klee, Eula, Albedo, and they might as well add Childe so that I don't have to see his face on yet another banner.

Honestly, it is very odd that they don't do this. The roster is already muddled with 34 limited characters. The only way to obtain them is via rerun banners. It will take them so long to run through this list and it's only getting bigger since every patch needs one new character alongside one rerun banner. It doesn't take a mathematician to figure out that this would take forever. They need to either add new special banner pulls. For example: a special banner consisting of the Archons that lasts for a smaller duration. They could add special banners that cycle through regional characters, such as having a banner for Mondstat, Liyue, Inazuma, etc, that would obviously exclude theaArchons, and you simply choose which 5-star you want. Of course, it would include a 50/50 and if you lost it you would get someone from the standard banner (so basically Qiqi).

There are just a lot of options they have that they simply will not do because they don't want to risk losing any money, even though it would be beneficial to them and everyone else in the long run, because it would make the game more enjoyable for newer players who missed characters that aren't due back for a rerun in a considerable amount of time. There are tons of business models out there that they could follow. Punishing Grey Raven, Tower of Fantasy, and probably more from the genre have added characters to the standard after some time or have special banners that contain a pool of limited 5 stars for you to choose from every so often. It obviously doesn't have to be a constant banner and could only come around every few months and still be better than their current system.

Quality of Life

Genshin never adds Quality of Life features. The dev's don't listen to the feedback and never will. Many people have already complained and left Genshin for this reason. In a list, here are some things they still have not implemented in Genshin.

Conclusion

I enjoyed Genshin a lot when it was first released. COVID really did help Genshin be as big as it is today, nobody can deny that. I was always online since I wasn't going to school and constantly looked for the next game to play. I saw Genshin before it was released and was there the moment that it launched globally. I enjoyed it so much when I first played it. But it just went downhill after 5 months of nothing new and it kept having highs and lows until I quit playing it.

I still commend Genshin for being my first gacha game, but there are simply just better gacha games out there that have better combat, better story, better characters, devs that listen, and actually respect my time as a player. But this doesn't mean that all Mihoyo/Hoyoverse games are like this. Honkai Impact 3rd has an amazing story and characters and Honkai: Star Rail is an enjoyable turn-based gacha that I still play to this day. And you will probably enjoy Genshin if you enjoy simplistic combat and simply just exploring or doing story. But if you prefer more interactive combat that requires more skill, then Genshin is not the game to play.

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