Genshin Impact – First Impressions.. kinda

Like many, as soon as Genshin Impact launched as Free to Play, I had it downloaded and was going through the world of Tevyat amazed at the beauty. Like many as well, after a little bit I kinda fell off the hype train and began playing my normal set of games and kind of forgot about it!

After months of not playing, almost losing my account, getting everything back and the promise of being able to use a controller while playing on my iPad, I jumped back in! I thought it was only fair to re-do my initially written first impressions I never posted with the drop of 2.0 to go over what I think now that Genshin is more established and getting many of the bugs worked out!


The world is just as beautiful as I remembered it!

Graphically, nothing has been short changed with the world at all. It’s still gorgeous, it’s still a wonder to look out and see the water flowing. All the tiny little details between everything is fun and lighthearted and has that sense of pride that it seems can be lacking in many games.

The menu is just as confusing as what I remembered it..

The menu system is naturally big, as you would expect. However there are two or three different menu systems to all try to simplify on the first one and it’s always just a bit confusing. I get trying to streamline things and make it easier, but there are multiple panels in the main menu that could be consolidated into one if needed to and there’s your simplification!

The fighting is as intuitive and frantic as I remember it!

I have issues with a game where all you need to do is hit one or two buttons to be a master at the game. (yes I know my favorite series ever is that way, I never said I made sense) That being said, analysis paralysis is a thing and having every move under the sun also doesn’t tend to work very well! I think that Genshin favored a bit of the former than the later in a way that works out very well.

Fighting in Genshin is different than most any game that I’ve played, but also similar enough that I can easily pick it up. It’s intricate, but not confusing. You have to be aware of the types of enemies you’re going up against and what elements they’re weak to. If you can get your team filled with elements that make their own elemental status or lack their of explode, literally, than you’ll have the upper hand and it’ll lead you to victory fast!

That goes double for weapon type! It’s hard to beat a flying type, like Eye of the Storm, without having something that’s going to be able to attack in the sky! In contrast, if you have something with really thick armor, it’s going to be hard to plunk through that with arrows, a claymore is best!

Controller is the best way for me to play

The whole reason I had to wait to get the game going again was for so long controller support wasn’t allowed for anything mobile. Playing on my computer was possible but slow and laggy as heck due to having a partitioned Mac. This was also when Cross-Save from Playstation wasn’t a thing, so I wasn’t about to give up my lucky draws! Playing just on screen was possible and did have it’s advantages, but I found myself wanting when it came to that style. Also, with the 2.0 release, I plan to download the game on my PlayStation 5 in order to see all the pretty’s there too!