Humble.
That’s how I would describe the developer I chatted with during the first Western showing of Genshin Impact. During my surprisingly hands-off look at the upcoming open-world role-playing game, the developer who talked to me throughout seemed cautious, curious and receptive to what I had to say about the engaging, ambitious title.
Of course, it was hard to not read the subtext behind that. Genshin Impact was first introduced to the Western press by way of a minor controversy. As previously covered on TheGamer, the game was unveiled at an event in China, only to be met with immediate derision from a certain subset of gamers. Immediately pegging it as a knock-off of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, disgruntled congoers began to come down on the game as proof that Chinese devs weren’t willing to invest in truly original projects. Grabbing headlines, one of these people went so far as to smash a PS4 in front of the game’s booth in an act of apparent protest.
There were no smashed PS4s at PAX East 2020, thankfully, and once I got into the trenches of playing this thing, memories of that seemed to just fade away. What MiHoYo is cooking up here isn’t anything close to a knock-off of Nintendo’s modern classic. Instead, it’s a charming and clever open-world game teeming with life, anchored by novel mechanics and satisfying, weighty gameplay.
I was let loose in the open world and told to just find my way around things. As I climbed up a tower to get a good vantage point, one thing stood out: this game is slow. Characters move at a very deliberate pace, which makes each step really feel like it counts. This isn’t the kind of sluggish, clunky movement you’ll find in your average Ubisoft joint, though. Controlling your anime guy or gal is snappy and responsive – it just takes a little while to get from point A to point B. Personally, I’m a fan, as it makes running across a sweeping plain or climbing up a hill feel gratifying. You really feel like you’re exploring, as opposed to just zipping around a map with reckless abandon.
As I would soon discover, that applies to the combat. After spying a quaint village built into a tree in the distance, I jumped down from the tower and glided down to safety using magical wings that come standard with all thirty (!) playable characters. Almost as soon as I began my hike across a sweeping, hilly fjord, enemies began to accost me on all sides. I went to down on them with my party of four girls, able to freely switch between them at all times.
The pace of combat falls somewhere between the blistering speed of a Platinum title and the deliberate heft of a From Software release. You’ve got your basic light and heavies with a mix of magic thrown in, and those land with a satisfying rapidity. However, mashing your way through situations just isn’t viable, because a whiffed shot or missed swing makes you vulnerable to the various baddies that populate the game. There are also type match-ups to consider – elemental affinities and weaknesses play a massive part in the overall flow of both the combat and exploration in Genshin Impact. The dev who watched over my shoulder pulled out a huge flow-chart that broke down how the element system worked, which left me both intimidated and curious. I want to dig more into this game – to learn how the weather works, experiment with different type match-ups, etc. There seems to be a lot of depth here.
There also seems to be a lot to this world in terms of sheer beauty to be found. Genshin Impact has a beautiful aesthetic that’s wholly original in both its art style and color composition. There are bold reds and oranges on every horizon that act as organic landmarks, standing out amidst snowy and grassy regions. Those landmarks are filled with architecture that are interesting blends of both feudal Japan and ancient China, offering a synthesis of both countries’ distinct and rich history contained within the vibrant aesthetic. Considering the wildly disparate looks of both, having them unified in the same game is no small feat. Who would’ve guessed that a nice color palette and a bevy of cute anime girls could be such a nice glue to hold them together?
I left my demo of Genshin Impact excited and curious. This was a dark horse for me, you see. All I knew about this game was that people were mad about it, and that it had anime girls. But walking away, I had so many questions. How much could I explore this map? How deep did the elemental system go? How different were each of the playable characters? How would the planned multiplayer and loot systems pan out? So much curiosity, so much left to uncover. Every single game I played at PAX East 2020 left me knowing exactly what it was doing and what kind of game it was – Genshin Impact didn’t. It showed me a ton of things that impressed and occasionally enraptured me, but left me wanting more.
Luckily, I won’t have to wait too long. Genshin Impact will be entering its closed beta for PC and Android soon, with a full release for both platforms, plus PS4 and Switch, planned for sometime in 2020.
