CBT2 Genshin Impact Review - Needs Much Improvement


CBT2 Genshin Impact Review - Needs Much Improvement


When it was first announced, Genshin Impact immediately got a quite negative response from the fans. One of them is how the developer, miHoYo who is also the developer of Honkai Impact makes the game quite "similar" to Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild by Nintendo. Yet if you look closely, he only takes the cell shade and the open-world world. While gliding is a feature that has been around for a long time in some other games, so I don't consider this a new and original feature from Zelda.

CBT2 Genshin Impact Review - Needs Much Improvement

Color pallet and color choices are also very different. If Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is inclined to semi-pale colors. Then Genshin Impact is the opposite. miHoYo chooses striking colors that are identical to Japanese anime in general. Even better.

Indeed, some look like towers to teleport and increase tower levels to increase stamina and so on. But if you have played it, you will feel how this game is quite different from one of the Nintendo masterpieces.

At least, that was my first impression when I first played it. Then, what about the RPG elements that it bears? Here's my experience after trying the game up to level 40.

Save your sister

At the beginning of the game introduction, you will be presented with an interesting cutscene between the battle of two brothers against a female entity. From here you are given the choice to choose one of the two with one mission: save your brother/sister with your colleague named Paimon, a cute little girl who hovers around you and is always nagging.

I don't want to comment anything about the story, because the game itself is classified as incomplete and needs to be repaired here and there. But one thing that I need to comment on is how the English translation of the story is one that is quite complicated to understand.

I do not know whether I am familiar with American English, but I do not understand it because of my language skills, or indeed the translation is lacking. This problem was indeed corrected by voice acting in English, but not for text that somehow I think personally still needs to be fixed.

More than 30 characters can be played

Genshin Impact has approximately 30 characters that can be played. Some characters are absolute characters that you can get through story quests like Lisa the thunder wizard and Amber the fire archer. They all have various weapons and their respective elements, ranging from fire, water, ice, wind, earth, electricity, and one element that I have not found at all.

But the most interesting thing about characters with these elements is the ability to replace the characters. You will be able to form a party containing four characters that can be replaced in real-time.

This allows you to integrate and give certain combos to each of your attacks. For example, after you strike a sword, you can replace it with electric magic, and so on. Interestingly, all the elements that the characters have will be able to interact with each other including the fields. For example, a fire that can burn grass or wood shields and provide after-effects such as burn, wet, shock, or frozen.

These elements can also be combined to give greater damage. For example, when your enemy is experiencing the effects of wet from ice attacks or hit by rain, then you just electrocute him. Or electricity element enemies that you can burn to increase your attack power.

These characters also have elemental bursts or the simplified language is Ultimate Power which you can collect by hitting your enemies or using your elemental attacks. Simple and attractive.

Diverse Puzzles and Super Wide Open World

If the characters have made you interested, wait until you explore the world. The world of Genshin Impact is very well designed and very broad. I don't even believe that smartphones will be able to handle this world in such detail and detail.

CBT2 Genshin Impact Review - Super Wide Open World

There are a lot of puzzles ranging from dungeon puzzles that need to light four torches to open dungeons, lead spirits to certain places, destroy rocks on a cliff, to break seals in a lake dungeon.
While the world itself is full of Hilicurl or monsters that generally appear in the game. He also presents a kind of tower that can open your map and recover your cellphone.

Control that doesn't feel like a mobile game

Although made for multiplatform including mobile. I who tried it on a PC did not feel any difficulty at all for control. I can use the mouse and keyboard very well, the camera movements are smooth so that the main buttons are the same as most RPG action games. Starting from WASD to walk, left click to attack, to the skill and item buttons.

Typical Elements of Mobile Games Still Exist

Even though you have control that is okay, but those of you who are familiar with mobile games will immediately know that this game has monetization that is quite "normal" for a game class of mobile games. You will be able to do Gacha characters and weapons. Weapons can indeed be obtained through dungeons or quests, but characters, in general, can only be obtained through Gacha. Except for certain characters.

When I try this game, currency can be obtained through certain quests or challenges, but it does not rule out miHoYo implementing super crazy monetization which (hopefully not) can damage the balance of the game.

The way to level up is the same as a character collection game on mobile, even worse in my opinion if this is monetized with very expensive. You need items to increase EXP characters. He can be obtained through quests, challenges, until you guessed it bought it with premium currency.

Still Needs Much Repair

Because it's still in the CBT2 or Closed Beta 2 period, it's natural that this game still has a lot of things that need to be fixed. Good bugs to other trinkets.

One of them is the item shortcut button. In Genshin Impact, you can recover using towers or items. But you need to open your inventory and pause while implementing your heal items. A feature that is less seamless that PC gamers cannot feel.

CBT2 Genshin Impact Review - Still Needs Much Repair

Indeed, the game is made with the view as a mobile game but supports PC and console. Unfortunately miHoYo doesn't add a button/slot shortcut for item recovery or something else.

The HP automatic regeneration feature is one of the mandatory features in action games. This does not exist and needs to be fixed. This is because all your recovery items must be made by cooking them, and healing items in the shop are limited to 5 pieces per day. For those of you who have a low HP must go far enough just to recover HP. If auto-regeneration is implemented, then you don't have to bother looking for ingredients because the items and quota for food purchases in stores are up.

In addition to the shortcut and regeneration of the cellphone, the run or shift button if played on a PC feels less responsive. The system will indeed detect it as running continuously if you hold it for a split second. But when you release it, it will continue. This run button cannot immediately respond that if it is released the character stops running. Again, a typical mobile game that should be a little different when they release it on a PC.

The character level here is determined by XP items, but not for adventure levels. A little information, you will have two levels: Adventure Level (the level needed to play the quest) and character level (your character level). It only looks that you can open by pressing ESC. It would be neater if it were listed at the bottom center of the screen. So we don't need to open the menu to check it.

I was also a little disappointed with miHoYo when it said that the co-op cannot be tried in closed beta 2 when I asked and found that it can be tried after reaching adventure level 16. This co-op feature can be accessed via the menu that appears in the top left corner or by pressing F2 on the PC. 

Unfortunately, there is no matchmaking which makes us have to find random people ourselves to enjoy it. Co-op can be played by a maximum of 4 players in one party. Unfortunately, I have not had time to try it because I was busy exploring his world.

Even so, there are features that I think aren't okay in co-op. In co-op you can't progress together when you dive into the world of other players. You cannot open treasures until you continue your main mission. Melt the function of the co-op itself which should play and progress together to play individually. So what's the point of co-op if it's limited to playing? MiHoYo should be able to implement a shared world system, so for example other players get items from treasure chests, you can also get items, although not the same depending on their luck.

Some other systems like dodge should also be added here. It's only natural that the action game has a dodge function to make it easier for players to avoid enemy attacks. It will be even more effective if this is implemented rather than having to run here and there. Because with dodge, you can avoid enemy attacks to the right, left, back, or front. Either it's a dodge roll, or it is sideways.

The absence of a lock-on system also makes this game quite complicated. This is because we do not know which monster is being attacked. For now, the lock-on system is done automatically, so you will attack any monsters that are near you. With the lock-on feature, at least if you can lock on manually, you will be able to save more time to finish off one monster first rather than having to beat it randomly.

Besides beating up monsters, the lock-on feature can also be done to direct your power to several environments. For example, a torch that you can light or direct specific elemental attacks at enemies quickly without the need to hold a button. It gives the effectiveness of a mechanic rather than having to aim the camera and position your character towards the target, which does not guarantee your character can hit it.

The absence of a tutorial for the controller also becomes something quite troublesome. Because you don't know which button you should press. The developer needs to add it as soon as you change it from the keyboard to the controller. Not only expose it through options.

The balance of elite monsters is the next thing that still pisses me off. Where did I find that elite monsters were far stronger than bosses. The boss monster in Genshin Impact has thick blood and varied attacks. But because he is predictable, it is not so difficult to defeat him. While the elite monsters here are very unbalanced, especially mages. He has attacked with around 300-400 damage, not counting the ultimate that can penetrate up to almost 1000 damage. The attacks are quite consecutive, from energy attacks to those that can be logically avoided like ground attacks. but even if you jump even though he can still land a large enough damage to you. Moreover, if your level is not so far from the level mage.

Even more annoying, you have to destroy the super thick shield he has. No, your physical attack doesn't work against the shield, only Lisa's magic attack can destroy it and deal a fair amount of damage. Fighting even one mage is more annoying than a boss.

CBT2 Genshin Impact Review

In the future you will find challenges where you have to defeat the three. Imagine, three mages with thick shields that you must defeat in 1:30 minutes. Destroying the shield alone can take almost a minute one mage, and even then if you are not good at targeting the wrong mage because there is no lock-on feature that should be in a game like this. Bearing in mind as I explained earlier that the lock-on appeared but it was invisible.

Besides the mage, there is an elite named guard with a shape like a golem that doesn't make any sense of thickness. Okay, I have no problem with the thickness at all because it can still be overcome even though your level is close enough to it. What makes me a problem is the detection of a very wide player. I have been detected even though my character is at a logically impossible distance because it is quite far away. That's not all. His missiles are almost 80% inevitable unless you hide or run at the right time. Exposed to all the missiles? Congratulations, your blood will die and you will bounce far back.

There are also quite a lot of bugs in the closed beta 2 version. But the annoying thing is when the elite who have been struggling to attack you to spend 3 ultimate character, your HP is full again because it is stuck in the field. He will automatically return to its original position with full blood, while you have begun to die thanks to the attacks he landed on you.

The failure of miHoYo when designing one of Xiangling's side quests was also a problem that they had to fix. At the end of the quest when you have to help him cook for a limited time, you will be forced to cook soup that requires poultry meat to cook it. It doesn't matter if you have all the ingredients, but it will be a problem if you don't have one of the ingredients. Poultry meat for example.

This makes the side quest completely unworkable and forces you to repeat it, after you have the ingredients. You may not be looking for birds, storks, or chickens to kill in a large world and return to the place where the quest is run before time runs out.

This needs to be fixed because in general when running a quest with limited time like this, there are special exceptions and it should be different from when you do exploration. Making these material requirements disappear specifically for time-limited quests that involve creating items with competition.

HUD settings with the option to change it to big or small also I think it needs to be added. The option of removing HUD and so on for photo modes or other aesthetic features will stimulate the creativity of the players to take unique angles to simply be used as wallpaper or other things.

The addition of side quests is also quite important in my opinion. This is because side quests can be an option to increase adventure levels. Not only limited to exploration, daily quests, dungeons, main quests, or random events.