Genshin Impact is either one of the best or one of the most controversial video games in the market (depending on who you ask). Either you love it, or you hate it. Me? Well, I was one of the people who hated it after the poor experience that 1.0 delivered me. See, when I worked at another outlet, I was one of the few who played this game thanks to MiHoYo offering me press access. After completing the Liyue chapter, I downright abandoned the game after a lot of poor impressions it left me.

　　Of course, hindsight is 20/20 vision. Admittedly, some of the bad impressions I had came from what some Genshin players would call "Rookie mistakes," such as increasing the world level ASAP and not properly understanding the artifact system. However, I had other complaints that involved the game's gacha mechanics and overall structure, and together with other bad experiences, I decided to ultimately drop the game.

　　It's been 3 years, and Genshin Impact has evolved quite a lot thanks to several improvements and radical changes, with another patch due to hit very soon. Quite a lot of people have insisted that the game has become much better since the days of 1.0 and that it has become one of the most friendly experiences, especially for free-to-play players. After the Windblume Festival piqued my interest (particularly because of the rhythm game attached to it), I decided to bite the bullet and try Genshin Impact once again. So, after reaching Adventure Rank 55 here, has my opinion changed?

　　My journey across the land of Teyvat began with me picking and starting to use the newly implemented Dendro Traveler as well as other characters that have been introduced to the game. Thanks to my luck, I was able to get a C6 Colleil and C3 Tighnari, allowing me to get off to a strong start on my journey through the lands. With knowledge from my prior experience, I knew how to avoid mistakes that I made in the past, letting me have a smoother experience leveling up.

　　However, thanks to the advice of some friends of mine who also joined me in my journey from time to time, I also figured out a bunch of new things have been introduced. Quickly, I became familiar with the new Elemental Reaction-based gameplay offered by Genshin Impact and more often than not, it ended up working to my advantage as I began to learn more about synergies and how to chain reactions to obtain better (and more damaging) results.

　　In my original playthrough, I was keeping up with the story up until Fischl's event in which we saw the introduction of Scaramouche. Having completed the Liyue Archon Quest, I was thrilled to see that the story beats and characterization that roped me into Genshin Impact have been kept intact. The characters still are very well-written, the gameplay gave me some great exploration challenges in which I felt like a genius for finding certain chests, and the sidequests still managed to surprise me in some areas.

　　My experience was off to a great start in terms of the story for Genshin Impact, but then I got to the next part of the Archon Quest (Inazuma), and things began to dive off a cliff. I'll give credit to the Genshin Impact fanbase; the common consensus is that Inazuma is one of the worst parts of the Archon Quest, if not the worst. So, imagine how bad my impressions got the moment I saw the trainwreck that is the main story in which the heroes decide to lose their brains (especially the Raiden Shogun) and waste time being petty and listening to the obvious bad guys.

　　At the very least, the other aspects of the game did keep me entertained. If you remember my complaints in Temtem, I mentioned that I hated that the game often strong-armed me into waiting for my friends to become strong enough to complete the game so they could join the group activities. Thankfully, while Genshin Impact has a myriad of activities that can be enjoyed with your friends, it also is a self-contained experience in which you can solo all the content if you so choose, letting you play the game at your own pace and not punishing you for being a lone traveler.

　　Of course, I still enjoyed playing activities like the Trounce Domains and showing off my Serenitea Pot (which is the game's house system in which you get a huge plot of land to build your own paradise in) and also engaged in other activities like exploring The Chasm and Enkanomiya while also engaging on the events like the aforementioned Windblume Festival and other entertaining past times that often kept my mind off the grind.

　　But I guess that's also where my negatives begin peeking in. While I love the new activities the game has introduced, Genshin Impact still has a massive problem with its stupid grind and annoying gacha system that, more often than not, leaves you screwed out of whatever you want to get. Before you gather your pitchforks, I get it, you don't have to engage with the gacha system, but it wouldn't be there if the developers at Hoyoverse wanted you to ignore it.

　　While yes, you can definitely stand on your own (and even beat the game) with your starting roster and even a Traveler with a Dull Blade (and there's proof), the reason why someone would pull is that they'd like to pull on the units that they feel a synergy with. Yeah, I like Kaeya and Lisa, but I also like adventuring with Captain Beidou and Bennett and characters like Kamisato Ayaka (who luckily joined my team not too long ago and has become a mainstay since).

　　And that's without mentioning the PAINFUL process of building the characters you've got. You have to gather the materials, you have to get the right artifacts, and you have to get the Mora AND the EXP guides to be able to level up and ascend your characters. Most of the materials are gated behind the Resin system, which limits the ability to grind them. Considering how much Resin it costs to get anything done, more often than not, you have to constantly log out and come back to the game just to be able to maybe get enough materials.

　　That also doesn't begin to describe the absolute hell that is the Artifact system, which is the way you get your character to do damage at later levels. Let me tell you that the reason why I haven't even gotten to Sumeru was that I reached AR50 through sheer power of will and a massive and constant grind for Artifacts. I think the majority of my journey so far has been around getting artifacts for my character roster.

　　Vars explains this in more detail, so I recommend you watch his video below.

　　Unfortunately, I also have an issue with how Genshin Impact handles Events. While the Windblume Festival brought me in with its rhythm game and other fun activities, it was a fleeting moment that vanished to the ether only to be replaced by another gimmick... Which will be replaced by another gimmick and so on. The game just keeps trying to make me learn more mechanics (and even has a "Quick Start" function that lets you get to the events without experiencing the story beforehand) and then forget them.

　　Hoyoverse could spend the resources that they are using to create these events that, more often than not, ALSO have very important lore and cutscenes that add more context to the game by fixing the core aspects that define Genshin Impact's gameplay and improving its artifact and Resin systems. At times, I feel the same way I felt in 1.0, that is to say, being forced to spend a day in a grinding session rather than discovering the world and improving my battle techniques like I was able to in Atelier Ryza 3.

　　I think I have made things abundantly clear by now. Genshin Impact has improved in many areas by bringing more gameplay variety, allowing more characters outside of the coveted 5* units to shine, and making elemental reactions matter more than before. Despite this, the process of growth remains its biggest (and, in my opinion, downright fatal) flaw, which makes it hard for me to recommend since, even when you do get the units you want, you have to sell your soul and free time to Hoyoverse just to be able to have fun with them.

　　The way I see it, Genshin Impact is basically a MORPG. Believe it or not, the gacha system is not that bad compared to the other issues the game has. Especially because you can ignore most of the banners when you have a team that already works for you, or you pulled and stayed with your favorite characters. As such, I see the gacha system (and, by extension, microtransactions) as the pseudo-subscription fee you'd use to get to play the game. Don't get me wrong. I love a lot of aspects that Genshin Impact has. The gameplay is tightly knit, the beautiful visuals keep impressing me and managing to just make me swoon with how gorgeous everything looks, and the production values behind the game's cutscenes and even some of the sidequests even outpace games that are currently available in the market.

　　But what does all of that mean when the gameplay loop, the main reason why you'd play the game, requires you to spend a lot of your time grinding or waiting for timers to allow you to grind the materials you need to get the characters to a level where they'd get to be competent? Oh well. I still am going to play the game for a while because my girlfriend really likes building houses and nice stuff, and she likes the stuff I built in the Serenitea Pot, and I am oddly proud of my skills in the Trading Card Game.

　　Do I recommend Genshin Impact? Well, if you want a MORPG that gives you agency and doesn't require you to build a party of 40 to take on a boss whose entire gimmick is to do math, I think this is a great game to sink a few hundred hours into, so long as you don't actually mind toning down your world level. If you want to see big numbers and challenge powerful bosses, however, expect a very painful road ahead of you.