Students get addicted to new game: Genshin Impact

You enter a world with winding paths, snowy mountains, dragons, and a city found in freedom– this is Tyevat.  Tyevat is the resting place of Mihoyo’s new game taking the industry by storm, Genshin Impact.

Genshin impact is a Chinese Open World Roleplaying Game (RPG), which originally came out September 28, 2020, however it is constantly getting new characters and cities added to the map.  The game follows Lumine or Aether searching for their sibling in another dimension.  Players can have up to four characters at a time to help them complete tasks around Tyevat as an honorary knight of Favonius.  The game is currently number seven in app stores and is also available on PC.  

Currently there are three different “countries” implemented into the game.  Mondstat, Liuye, and most recently Dragonspine.  Along the map there are places known as domains in which you can get materials to level up swords and abilities of characters.  

Each domain requires a certain amount of resin, a kind of currency in game that fully reloads every day or so. “I really enjoy the story aspects of the game, but I probably end up doing domains and bosses for materials,” senior Andrea Ligocki said.  

The game is full of different ways to earn materials for your characters depending on the element they wield.  For Electro, Geo, and Anemo (air) characters players must fight a large cube of elemental energy known as a hypostasis.  For Pyro and Cryo characters players will fight a large flower aligned with the element. 

Currently there are 27 playable characters in Genshin Impact including limited edition characters like Klee, Albedo, Ganyu, and Zhongli.  Venti was the first limited edition character and the star of the next event will be Xiao, a highly anticipated character.

“[My favorite character is] Mona, I love how unique her playstyle and how her entire kit [abilities and design] is themed around astrology,” senior Angelina Skoropat explained.

Although Genshin Impact and Mihoyo have been praised for their work, they are not without criticism for their game and company decisions either.  Although the game can be played for free it is optimal to spend money on it to solve problems.    

Senior Arianna Martin stated she has not kept track of how much she has spent but it was a large amount.  It has been on record that one man spent over $3,000 on the game at one point.

“The resin system is pretty bad with how slow it replenishes,” Martin stated when asked further about the game’s money barrier for players.  Resin takes an average of 21 hours to fully replenish leaving players unable to play the game for any period of time unless they spend money on it.

Since the game is still quite new, once players finish the story given, they feel as if there is nothing to do.  That, mixed with the game being considered easy for many, leaves many players wishing for more. “If Mihoyo does make the game more difficult for any reason, I hope it is in a way that adds to the depth and enjoyment of the game and isn’t just so that there’s more time taken up when playing,” Ligocki said.  She is currently world level five out of the eight.  This means that monsters are harder to fight and a player must spend hours making sure their team is strong enough to survive.

With all that being said, overall players feel that Genshin Impact is a great game.  Many have spent hours playing the game and falling in love with characters like Xiao or Albedo.  No game is without flaws, and Genshin Impact is still going through their game testing on the daily.  If you are looking for a new game to play, give this one a try.