A look into Mainstream Gacha Games
Merchant’s Gacha Corner
This is where I try to convince people to join my hobbies despite knowing it’s not going to happen. I started playing gacha games a couple of years ago and something that every single game in this category shares is collecting stuff; either characters, weapons or items. I’ll be writing about the games I find easiest to get into first. So, let’s proceed.
Genshin Impact
I think by this point people should have heard about this game at least once or twice, since it’s won awards and received high praise, as well as its share of controversies.
When you start the game you get shown a little cinematic where the two main characters appear and you have to choose which one you will be playing as. There are small differences besides gender but are unnoticeable gameplay wise. Then, a small recount of events will greet you with your new best friend, Paimon, your very own fairy guide who will accompany you throughout your journey across Teyvat.
Exploration
The world of Teyvat comprises seven regions that take inspiration from real world counterparts and are vast with vibrant colors and a wide range of biomes, so that you never get bored of exploring it. There’s a teleport feature so you can move around most places quickly once you have unlocked waypoints scattered around the lands. There are always incentives to explore the world via chests which give you resources for you to level up your characters and items. Some of these chests might be locked behind puzzles which in turn might be locked behind a clever use of elements.
The world is not complete yet, with every major patch adding more regions and enemies. Overall the world is a big plus in this game and they are constantly improving on it with every region released.
Combat system
This is one of the main appeals of the game in my opinion. The system is complex but not hard to grasp. There are 7 elements in the game. Pyro (fire), Hydro (water), Electro (thunder), Cryo (Ice), Geo (earth), Anemo (wind), and the newly added Dendro (grass/life). Most of these elements react with each other.
For example, if you use a pyro ability on an enemy and then a hydro one, both will react and cause a Vaporize reaction, doing massive damage to the enemy. This is more effective than using a single element over and over.
Mastering these reactions is the key to being successful in defeating harder enemies in the game, as well as the world itself—as it also reacts to the elements. You can burn patches of grass to burn enemies, electrify pools of water to shock enemies inside, or freeze them to make combat easier.
Overall the combat is pretty similar to a Dark Souls kind of game, where you have to learn enemy attack patterns and dodge them while trying to do damage at their weakest moments. There’s a lot of enemy variety as you go from slimes to golems, dragons to gods.
Story (Spoilers ahead)
The story of the game is pretty simple. You are separated from your sibling at the start of the game and you are stuck in the world of Teyvat until you meet your guide Paimon who will give you knowledge on the world and help you find your lost sibling.
I won’t spoil much more than that.
One of the big points of the story for me is that NPCs have their own lives in the world, which most of the time, if you take your time to read their dialogue, is not all a bed of roses. Also, a lot of the world’s lore is hidden in books that you can collect and read at your own pace.
If I had to list negative aspects:
In terms of story, there’s no skip button for dialogue for those non interested in the story. There is at least an auto play button although it stops whenever you are given dialogue options, and no way to replay the story at all.
On the character side of things, your main character almost never speaks; most of the dialogue is handled by Paimon, which for some might seem a bit odd and impersonal.
Even with these negatives, the story does a good job of conveying messages to make the audience reflect on topics like depression, overcoming trauma, losing relatives, acceptance and moving forward.
Playable Characters
Each character has a fixed element and weapon type they can use while in the world and during combat except for the main character which gets to unlock elements as the story progresses. All of them have an elemental skill, usually a low cooldown ability and an elemental burst which works as a sort of ultimate ability. Characters can fill multiple common roles found in other RPG, like healers and damage dealers, or even both simultaneously which makes team building really fun and interesting to get into.
Genshin Impact does an amazing job in polishing each character from how they idle, to their lore and voice lines. One big example of this is Yun Jin who is from Liyue (their Chinese based region) and is an opera singer. She has two different voice actresses for in game voice lines and singing.
Here’s a video detailing all the process of character design for a character.
With an ever increasing roster of characters (57 at the moment) I'm sure anyone will find a favorite one and build a nice team around it. Teams are made up of four characters at a time that you switch to fight enemies or just explore around the world.
Character Progression and Resource Management
Every character starts at level one, and while you can beat enemies to get experience, the amount you get is minimal.
So, how do you get experience?
Well, there are globes around the world that spawn a little set of enemies and then you get exp books for your characters. The catch is you have to use Resin. Resin is the energy system for this game which limits almost all aspects of character and item progression. If you need experience or materials for character leveling, you need to spend resin and it recharges at a rate of one every eight minutes and you can store it up to 160. This puts a cap on progression to encourage you to keep playing.
Developers have steadily made improvements in the game, like a method to store your resin so you can use it later. But in my opinion, resin availability should be increased or resin should be removed as a resource. Beside resin based materials you can interact with much of the world in the sense of wildlife and flora, both of which are also used in your character progression. At the start, the amount of resources you need to level up your characters may seem overwhelming, but with proper management and patience, this is a non issue.
Genshin Impact character menu - Required materials and stat upgrades shown.
One minor problem with characters right now is that some materials for character level ups are locked behind story progression, so it might take a while to level up newer characters.
Monetization
As with most gacha games and loot boxes, this is gambling. The game’s free currency for summons are primogems and the premium currency are genesis crystals. Genesis crystals convert to primogems at a ratio of 1 to 1, but can also be used for in-game skins.
The primary way to get characters or weapons of high rarity is by wishing. Each wish costs 160 primogems and you can wish in three specific categories. Featured character, featured weapon and standard. Featured characters and weapons rotate every 21 days. Standard is there forever but might have some characters added to it depending on updates to the game. So far there’s been two characters added to it.
Basically, you have a limited time to try to get the character or weapons featured and if you don’t get it, it’s gone for some months until it comes back. Luckily, a pity system exists where if you roll 10 times you are guaranteed a 4* featured unit or weapon, and every 90 rolls you are guaranteed a 5* unit or weapon—but it’s a 50% chance to be the featured one.
If you lose this first chance, the next 90 pulls guarantee the featured unit. Weapons work under a similar pity system, although it is way worse in my opinion because you get a 5* star weapon every 80 pulls and you need to not get the featured one two times to guarantee it.
As a sort of progression system there’s a free battle pass which gives you resources for your account that you can upgrade for ten dollars (at minimum) to give you even more resources and a special weapon from a selection of five battle pass only weapons. The amount of resources you get from upgrading can speed up your progression of the game quite a bit.
And the best bang for buck is the blessing of the welkin moon which gives you more primogems for every day that you log in.
Overall I would not recommend spending money on Genshin Impact unless you have experienced a couple of months worth of gameplay and you really like the game.
Events
This is also one of the strong points of the game in my opinion. The developers use events as testing grounds for many different game modes. There are minor events which may involve simple gathering of resources in exchange of currency, or the major events which make use of in-game characters and have a big story behind it. These major events are really polished with in-game cinematics, are normally voice acted and bring different kinds of mini events.
One of the recent examples from the top of my head is one where you set up your shop and you have to tweak the quality, quantity and delivery times of your items for your customers to make profit and meet the goals.
These kinds of major events sometimes give you powerful weapons and free units to bolster your roster, which in turn comes with the unfortunate negative point that, so far, none of the big story events have been repeated. It’s normal to get characters back for summons but not events. So if you start playing Genshin Impact now, you will have missed a bunch of cool weapons and stories.
The Hidden Gem
This part of the game always surprises me because of the range of genres they cover. If you guessed music you would be correct. Every zone gets a distinct theme and even changing between day and night gives you a new tune.
Battle themes are amazing. I wish I could describe this part of the game better but I’m not a musician nor instructed in it and I would do it a disservice.
I’ll just leave some of my favorite tracks.
Customization
There is not much customization for the characters except for the rarely released skins. So far their release has been tied to a big event and they give out the skins for free. If you participate in the event, it eventually becomes a paid one after the event passes.
But fear not, there’s a lot of customization for your own place you can call home. When you progress enough in the game you get to unlock your Serenitea pot. Which is basically a small world inside a pot. Here you can make your own buildings and decorate to your heart’s desire with a wide range of collectibles and craftables and configurations of islands. It’s an entire game mode where you can use your imagination and decoration skills to impress your friends.
Co-op
You unlock co-op pretty early on in the game and it's limited up to 3 more players. You can join other players' worlds to take on harder bosses or simply have fun exploring the land. I myself don’t make use of this feature that much ,but it’s nice to have when you are trying to level up characters and the rare materials in your world run out, you can just join a friend and ask politely to take theirs. Events have some co-op game modes like hide and seek or defeating event bosses, these are quite rare but fun to do.
Conclusion
Taking everything into account, Genshin Impact is a well-crafted and complex game that offers a vast world to explore, an intricate combat system to master, and a diverse set of characters to build a team with. The game's story, while simple, conveys important messages and provides an immersive experience through its NPCs and world-building. While the monetization aspect of the game is typical of gacha games, the developers have made improvements and the multitude of events provide plenty of content to enjoy. Overall, Genshin Impact is a hidden gem that offers something for everyone, whether it's exploration, combat, customization, or multiplayer.
