For the past year, I have been playing a game that was released back in December of 2020, during the height of the pandemic. I kept seeing advertisements for it wherever I went, and each time, I was stunned by the beautiful graphics and scenery that was shown in these short little clips. Though, I never downloaded the game at the start, more focused on other things. It wasn’t until March 1, 2022 that I finally broke and downloaded the game, Genshin Impact.

I was a little worried at first that the amazing graphics and scenery that was depicted in each advertisement and video I had seen was a lie. So when I finally opened up the game for the first time, I was not only awed by the beginning cutscene, but was absolutely amazed to see that the graphics were exactly as I had seen in the every advertisement that popped up.

What first drew me into the game? I never really noticed until halfway through the first semester of the 2021-22 school year that I’ve always been rather drawn in by animation. The way people can make 2D images flow so smoothly always amazed me, and I had begun to be drawn in by the 3D animation world at that point. It was the beautiful animation that I saw in each advertisement that drew me in, and I absolutely had to see the game for myself.

No matter how many times I log into the game, I am floored by the detail put into the environment, the designs of the characters, and the size of the explorable world that is continuing to expand. The main quest of the game has so much going on, and it just keeps me engaged so easily.

As of right now, there are 60 playable characters that you can obtain via limited banners and events with 2 new characters coming in the next week. Out of the 7 nations that we will be able to explore, only 4 have been released so far with the most recent being Sumeru, which still has one more portion of its desert half coming alongside the upcoming characters. 

I’m not all that experienced with other games as I have a particular taste when it comes to them, but in all the games I’ve played, I have never seen so many playable characters that you can obtain. Each and every character is unique and has their own set of abilities and moves that are specific to them. The characters’ abilities all have to do with the elements and elemental reactions are a huge part of the battle system in the game.

The whole fact that you can have four of the characters you have obtained on your playable team at once also makes the game more interesting as you can cause all kinds of elemental reactions with the right setup. Different weapon types also make the battle system more fun with five different weapon types consisting of swords, claymores, bows, polearms and catalysts.

While it is fun to obtain and get to play with new characters and their different abilities, the monsters and bosses you can fight are extensive, and there are many different things you can do to make your characters stronger, and you’ll eventually find yourself settled into a preferred team setup. Artifacts are a big part of building a character as they help increase things such as attack damage, critical hit damage, critical hit rate, and so much more. Fighting bosses is a big part of leveling up characters, and weekly bosses are a must for leveling up skill levels for each character’s skill.

While I was a little unsure of the game mechanics when I first started, and I was really bad at building characters, over time, I got to understand things a lot better. Certain characters work best with certain team setups, particular elemental reactions are more powerful than others, and knowing how you want to build a character is a really good thing to keep in mind when farming artifacts. And yes, farming things such as talent, or skill level up materials, character level up materials, artifacts, and weapon level up materials can be a real pain sometimes, but it’s usually quite worth the pain in the end. 

I have been playing this game for almost a full year now, and I already know that I’m going to continue to play it. I am highly anticipating the add-ons of more nations, playable characters, and seeing how the story finally ends. 

Now, this game has made me realize something over the year I’ve been playing. I haven’t quite learned too much about animation other than a little bit of 2D that has allowed me to make one of my characters move a bit, but I am very interested in the field of game design and animation. 

The process of coming up with the world, the designs and abilities of the characters, the quests and quest rewards, I want to know what goes into all of that. I just know that there is so much that has to go into designing and putting together a video game, and especially one as beautiful and intriguing as Genshin Impact. I’m well aware of how tiring such a job can be, but it’s still what I want to pursue nonetheless.