My first memory of miHoYo’s Genshin Impact (Free) is it being shown off at a gaming expo and, due to how much it resembled Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, seeing a crowd of people storm its booth holding their Nintendo Switches in the air decrying the similarities between the two games. Those people weren’t wrong. There is no way you can look at Genshin Impact, both its overall visual style and many of its specific mechanics, and not think of Breath of the Wild. However, if you’re able to put that aside, there’s also no denying that Genshin Impact offers the largest, deepest, most fully-featured open-world adventure that’s ever been available on mobile.
My “wow" moment with Genshin Impact came very early on as the game was playing its introductory cutscenes. It sets up the story, introduces some characters, and the whole thing is like watching a high-quality anime. After a few minutes though everything just sort of stops and, what I didn’t immediately realize is that the game had actually started. It was time to start controlling my character. I thought that I was still in these gorgeous hand-crafted cutscenes but in reality that’s just how the entire game looks! This really is in my opinion the most visually impressive game that’s ever graced a mobile touchscreen.
Genshin Impact isn’t all about the looks though. The list of activities you can do and mechanics that are built in...