That’s how I discovered my love for Genshin Impact

MeinMMO editor Marie Friske recently started playing the open world RPG Genshin Impact – within a very short time the game has become one of her absolute favourites. Above all, the interesting characters, the expansive game world and the flexible multiplayer system have convinced them.

One evening I decide to give the RPG and gacha game Genshin Impact a chance. I’ve heard a lot about the game and started the game with correspondingly high expectations – I won’t be disappointed.

This article originally appeared in December 2022.

In Genshin Impact you play as a traveler or travelers, depending on which main character you choose at the beginning. With her you explore the game world “Teyvat”. You get to know different cities like Mondstadt or Liyue and their associated deities, the so-called “Archon”. These each rule over one of 7 elements:

The deities have endowed selected people with “visions” and endowed them with powers of their element. In the gameplay, the characters have different abilities of an element. You create a squad of characters with which you can prove yourself in world exploration and combat.

Genshin Impact picked me up after just the first few hours of play and I’ve spent many evenings working my way through various quests and areas – sometimes late into the night.

I particularly like 3 aspects of the game and ultimately made it a favorite for me:

Here you can see a trailer for version 3.6 in Genshin Impact:

Interesting characters with their own stories

One of the main aspects that defines Genshin Impact is undoubtedly its numerous game characters. In addition to the interesting character design, I am particularly impressed by the complexity of the characters:

Different characteristics, strengths, weaknesses and entire stories are reflected in the backgrounds and voice lines. The player also gets to know the latter better over the course of the game and experiences it through interactions with the characters.

One character and his story I particularly like on my journey so far: Zhongli!

Here you can see the character demo of Zhongli:

You can read the reasons for this in the spoiler box, as I anticipate important information that constitutes major spoilers for the Liyue Archon quest:

Zhongli first encounters the player as an adviser to the Wangsheng funeral home, later he turns out to be the Geo-Archon “Morax” or “Rex Lapis” himself, who was actually believed to have died. However, he staged his death himself and is now staying as Zhongli in his human form in Liuye – nobody knows that at first.

As a player, I go shopping with him in Liyue. Zhongli generously orders the best goods, only to realize that he has no money on him. But he does it in such a sympathetic way that it amuses me rather than annoys me.

In one thing, however, Zhongli is in his element: He quickly turns out to be the source of numerous trivial facts about Liyue and diligently shares them with me during the shopping tour in his philosophical, calm way. I enjoy listening to him.

At the same time, however, the figure also radiates a certain sadness. Especially when I once saw Zhongli looking thoughtfully at a geo statue. Here you can see that the character is broken inside.

Later, Zhongli also gives the reason why he staged his death, which breaks my heart: He is tired of his existence as a geo god after all these millennia and has already wondered whether his end has now come. However, he was still committed to protecting his city of Liyue and the people, so he did not abandon them.

With his background story and the dialogues he embodies for me in a way the finiteness of life stages and life itself and shows that nothing lasts forever, except for the memory. A hard, but also beautiful realization.

This is made very clear in one of Zhongli’s voice lines, which is also my favorite quote from Genshin Impact:

“For those that live too long, the friends of days gone by and scenes from their adventures live on in their memories. As such I have no regrets in meeting you friend. Should the day ever come that we are not together, you will continue to shine like gold in my memories”.

Translated it means:

“For those who live too long, the friends of bygone days and the scenes of their adventures live on in their memories. So I don’t regret meeting you, my friend. Should the day come when we are no longer together, you will continue to shine like gold in my memories.”

As a gacha game, Genshin is designed so that you can acquire not only weapons but also characters at random. I can certainly understand why some players invest huge sums of money in buying prayers, which are needed to draw the characters.

Because I’m not spared the temptation either, and I have to admit that sometimes it’s tempting to buy additional prayers to increase the chance of one of my favorite characters, like Zhongli.

In version 3.3, a new playable character came into the game with the “Wanderer”:

However, if you don’t shy away from the grind, a good number of veterans can be earned completely free of charge. This is an in-game currency that is used to get prayers. Of course, the time and effort is much higher – but for me it’s just part of the game.

Also, playing the veterans is less of a “duty” for me and more fun gameplay. Personally, I particularly like the quests in which you get to know the characters and thus the world of Genshin Impact better, such as the Archon quests or the Legendary Orders. If I can then take one or the other treasure chest with me on the way to the destination, all the better.

In the case of the Legendary Quests, for example, I find the little excursion with the absolutely most unlucky person in the game particularly entertaining. We are talking about Bennett, a young adventurer who is followed at every turn by misfortune. At first I think the character is overdoing it when she says she’s pretty unlucky, but I was so wrong:

From a sudden change in the weather, miserable chest contents, to inedible food and a failed shopping trip, everything is there. We rarely complete a mission without incident. We’re also locked in a ruin once because I made the mistake of letting Bennett operate a single switch.

But since the adventurer always stays positive and is grateful for small good moments, the story is still nice to play and in the end I’m happy that even Bennett gets lucky sometimes.

Genshin Impact offers a lot of freedom to explore

Treasure chests, puzzles, and enemies abound in Genshin Impact. It feels like you can find a little something extra on every corner within a beautifully designed game world that you like to explore. The player has a lot of freedom in what he or she does in Teyvat.

If I want to do the next Archon quest straight away, play my way up in the “Twisting Abyss” or solve puzzles and explore ruins, that’s largely up to me.

As far as the multiplayer function is concerned, the player can decide for himself when and how he uses the co-op option.

It is up to you whether you prefer to play co-op or alone

Since I’m also a big fan of single games and sometimes just like to go out alone, I really like this freedom of choice in the multiplayer mode. If I want to gamble with other players, I can submit requests to join or accept them from other players in order to explore and fight together.

With up to four players we can run around together and communicate via chat. This is very helpful when you need a little assistance – however, multiplayer is disabled on the Archon quests and the Sinuous Abyss. As a player you have to go through it alone.

Here is a detailed explanation of how co-op works in Genshin Impact.

Conclusion

Genshin Impact is a great RPG for players who like to explore and don’t mind the grind. And yes, it’s also a gacha game. In my opinion, the game is totally worth it, even without paying a cent. Because in-game currency can be earned, I find the prayer system to be time-consuming without real money, but quite feasible.

I also find the game to be very beginner-friendly. A lot of support is offered, especially in the quests, and the difficulty level of the puzzles is easy to solve, so there is no frustration. Instead, it’s a nice feel-good game, which you can play very well after a stressful day to lose yourself in a beautiful world.

I will definitely continue to explore Teyvat and I am excited to see where the traveler’s journey will take us next.

Here you will find our Genshin Impact Guides: All tips and builds at a glance.