The Shoemaker Bugle

By Carter Balbuena

Amongst all the new games released during this pandemic, Genshin Impact rose above and caught the attention of many gamers. This new Chinese-based action RPG was released on September 28, 2020 and has since then released a couple of updates to make the game appealing to those looking for a new game to play. The game’s developer and publisher, miHoYo, is a small Chinese company based in Shanghai, China and known for its mobile gacha games. When it comes to gameplay, Genshin Impact does not disappoint with its high quality graphics and exquisite plot, including 4 different language options. It is currently available on PS4, Mac/Windows, Android, and IOS, but is soon to be released on Nintendo Switch.

As for content of the game, the characters each have their respective element which can be Anemo (wind), Cryo (frost), Electro (lightning), Geo (earth), Hydro (water), or Pyro (fire). The game starts off with you choosing a twin, either a boy or a girl. Whichever one you choose, you lose the other and end up on a beach where you meet a traveling guide who floats, Paimon. You travel through Mondstadt with your emergency food and meet the Knights of Favonius who are all characters you can obtain as you play or, if you’re lucky enough, roll in the gacha. In the most recent update, a highly anticipated Geo character by the name of Zhongli was released along with a new Pyro character, Xinyan. These two characters are obtainable through the gacha, but most of the time you will get 3 star weapons as a 5 star character/weapon has a 0.7% rate and a 4 star character/weapon has a 5.1% rate. May not be ideal, but you never know when you will get lucky.

As for my review on the game, Genshin Impact is definitely a game I have been playing a lot and I don’t see that changing any time soon. It’s fun to collect the characters, weapons and upgrade them to make them stronger to defeat bigger bosses. Genshin Impact comes with a tutorial in the beginning which makes the game easy to understand right away. If your friends give you their User ID (UID), you are able to add them in the game.

At adventure rank 16, the game gets more interesting as you can now play with friends who are also rank 16 or above. 16 does seem like a high number, but if you play more often than I did then you can easily level up within 3 days or so. As for obtaining characters, the party you’re given are fairly manageable, but I managed to roll a Geo character called Noelle who has improved my team immensely. The game does reward you with a currency called “Primogems” which can be used to roll in the gacha, so it is only a matter of how lucky you are. 

The characters themselves have distinct personalities which brings to me my favorite which is Diluc, a scarlet-haired winery owner whose element is Pyro. I have not been able to obtain him, but he’s known as an S tier character which is the highest, better set of characters. The types of characters deal a massive amount of damage or provide the best support. Next best are A tier then B tier, C tier, and then D tier; who belongs in each tier differs as there are no bad characters, it’s just a matter of if you know how to use that character.

Overall, Genshin Impact is definitely an interesting game you should check out if you have storage and a system that can actually run the game. I probably missed a few things but that’s what Google and YouTube is for.