playing genshin again in 2025
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✦︎ genshin impact is an okay game
imagine this; it is 2020, your city is currently locked down for covid and you are surfing the internet for god knows what and all of a sudden, you get an ad for a new open world game with vibrant characters (and well known voice actors if you're anything like me) and beautiful art. you log onto discord where many of your friend's statuses list that they've started said new game and that's all that the general chat has been talking about lately. that's what genshin impact was like for me.
well, sort of - my friends and i mostly used instagram for messaging and i started playing the game a little earlier; in october of 2020. i even played the mobile version up until version 1.3; way back when the game was actually able to run on a mobile device without that much struggle (i'm sure some people have way better phones than my own/more modern phones can run the game much better than my 2018 samsung phone).
i remember spending days upon days clearing quests and exploring the vast teyvat lands, admiring the different characters that walked the digital plane. there were many aspects of the game that i enjoyed - its bright and colourful world full of characters of seemingly different walks of life (i'll get to that in a second) and the intricate story it weaves, telling a tale of twin travellers of a different time and space. i remember sinking in at least a whole 2 months of allowance on a character i really, really wanted in the game (and still use to this day, mind you).
rambling aside, it's been a while since i had opened up the game and seriously thought about playing through the plethora of quests i still had since the release of inazuma. actually, as i type, i've been trying to clear out my quests (see image below).
could you believe these are just world quests? can you imagine what the story quests might look like?
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✦︎ reigniting that spark
like every patch i had interest in, i recently started to pick up genshin again after the reveal of nod-krai and the new summer event prior to the region's official release; to see a character (columbina) who was revealed years ago at this point finally becoming story relevant (i'm talking about columbina) and possibly playable sparked a newfound love for the game (she's so pretty, i literally play games because the character design is just so good). i wanted to sort of reflect on what genshin is to me now that its main story is finally picking up again and look back on what i've achieved as of late in the game.
it shouldn't be a secret that i've been on the internet for a very long time - i will reveal something super embarrassing. way back when genshin just started, i used to manage an rp account for a certain genshin character and would often use that account to share my analysis of said character and the region. i used to build stories of that character based on canon lore and bits of the character's personality. it's my canon event, if you will.
however, running that now defunct account was most likely the cause of my burnout - because i had played the game pretty much daily, i would clear almost every available mission. much earlier with genshin's patch releases, regions were far & few in-between; events would not link to newer areas and many repeated, leading to a build-up of quests i thought i could manage at a much later time. (spoiler alert: that did not happen).
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✦︎ chores are quests if you think about it
quest-clearing is a chore. at least that's how i feel about it.
i have about 4 years of content to blow through - well, not calculated, but based on releases of certain patches between 2021 - 2025. quests often shift between 30 real life minutes to literal real life days and i honestly do not have the time to lock in for days-long quests. i don't know about anyone else, but seeing the little exclamation mark beside my quest tab sort of pissed me off - i'm usually the type to clear things as soon as possible so i wouldn't have to see an annoying little notification, yet here i am.
don't get me wrong, despite my sentiments towards time, i still blasted through said quests by playing it in the background. and by blasted, let's just say... heh. (i still have a significant amount of quests). anyways, i found myself actually being able to play a lot of the game in the background as i do other things in place of other livestreams or youtube videos and while i can't really lock into the story at all, i could at least clear it.
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✦︎ i actually do like some things
what do i even like about the game? i spent the last bit complaining about how long some of the quests are and how it feels like a chore to play the main game mechanic, however, there are aspects of the game that i do really like. i should, however, preface that i am no expert in cultural sensitivties nor should you ever take my opinions as fact in this section as i will probably touch upon the subject every now and then while mentioning what i like about the game.
for starters, i like how diverse the cast can be - and no, i'm not talking about the cultural aspects, i'm more so talking about the character designs. while yes, many arguments can be made regarding the questionable-at-best-and-inappropriate-at-worst cutural inspirations behind said characters and even regions, i do think there should be some credit for the different styles each character has - well, even if i didn't personally like it (i'm looking at ororon's jeans... i mean, it is unique in the way that no other character wears it like he does i guess?).
personally, i like the designs of the characters of mondstadt - it's very clear that the characters are either members of the church, adventurers and knights. i also like the vibe of mondstadt - while it is a generic european starting-town, it's a cozy and welcoming area fit for said starting region. the skies are wide and vast as you pass by tall grass which sway with the wind. i don't know if enough people talk about that at all.
look, doesn't this look welcoming? and even if you simplify the actions of a lot of mondstadt characters to 'i need the traveler to do this for me before i actually do help them', the characters were still very outwardly kind in my opinion in comparison than other regions (which some approach the traveler with animosity)
if we're talking characters specifically, i actually love paimon - i know, unpopular opinion. maybe it's because i never played on the english dub or maybe i just enjoy annoying characters, i'm unsure about that. but it's true, i'm quite fond of our loud (really loud) floating fairy partner, our emergency food (full of fondness) - despite her obnoxious dialogue, no other character has positively supported the traveler unlike paimon. i would like to add that i have no idea what goes on in the en side of the game because i normally don't interact with the fandom nor do i play the game with the english dubbing... just an fyi...
there's a few playable characters that i love. for example, i actually like the starting cast - lisa, amber & kaeya; in fact, i still play lisa and kaeya because they were like the first characters i purposefully built and that i like the superconduct status effect (aoe is so nice sometimes... especially since i do not use any crowd-control characters...) i have a feeling i need to rebuild amber though for the next region.
i also really like zhongli - i love him a normal account.
doesn't he look so cool? personally, i would also fake my death if i was an archon for eons and notice how the modern era people no longer need to rely on me for anything. just as a treat or whatever.
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✦︎ what's genshin about?
at this point, i do not know.
all i know is that i have a few gripes for a popular game that does eat my time (in a good way). despite everything, i do know that i will continue playing the game - i mean, even if it is a chore, you still have to do them right? i don't think i'll analyze characters as i did before and i think i should start to play the game at my own pace.
i'm excited to see where genshin will go from here and if the game will have a definitive ending.
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thank you very much for bearing this post, maybe i am a much more mouthy person than i thought considering how many words plague this blog (LOL)