Impressions from the first few hours of Genshin Impact (China Server).
Before the game was released, many folks were comparing this game to Zelda, BOTW (and gathering a lot of hate). Personally speaking, after playing just a little bit of both, the thing that is most similar would be the art style, but that’s about it. A lot of mechanics are much, much simpler in Genshin (cooking doesn’t require experimenting, your equipment doesn’t break, dungeons are straightfoward just to name a few). The most obvious difference would be the characters (since Genshin relies on gacha to survive), each character has their own specialty element and weapon; with a total of 7 unique elements.
When I first went into the game, my initially thought was that the UI is clearly oversized for a big screen, but all for good reason knowing that it easily ports to mobile devices. I tried it out by sending these screenshots to my phone and it looks perfectly normal on the screen of the phone.
Overall, the UI is leaning towards simple, but what makes it aesthetically pleasing would be the effects applied in the game. For example, screens like the Character Properties screen would look dull as a screenshot, but with the constantly shifting particles in game, make it look like a very nice starry background. The transitions in-between are quick yet detailed, adding even more polish to the game. The characters are also aptly animated with idle animations and random movements, never a static moment in the game.
Whatever I write is only applicable to how much I’ve experienced so far, probably might change as I play more :)
Developer: miHoYo | Publisher: miHoYo | Engine: Unity
