A serious review and critique of Genshin Impact, the gacha genre, and maybe a few other things along the way.
0:00 – Introduction
03:16 – Part One: Pon
17:31 – Part Two: Another World
33:07 – Part Three: Escape
46:08 – Part Four: Of Waifus and Men
1:08:33 – Part Five: A Second Side
1:23:37 – Part Six: Conclusions on Genshin and Gacha
https://www.patreon.com/NeverKnowsBestYoutube
Disclaimer – I once bought a Genshin Impact monthly battle pass. That’s why I said “I have never spent money on characters”, rather than just “I have never spent money”. This wasn’t a big deal, hence why it never got mentioned in the video. It was just a one time purchase made after playing the game for a couple months, at a time when I had no idea I’d end up making a video about the game. I still feel its worth mentioning here though, for the few viewers who want to know exactly what I have or haven’t spent.
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Gacha is Asian version of Surprise Mechanic, change my mind
4:43 respect for putting astolfo
11:48 yes most valuable thing, right in front of me
Damn, why am I feeling white light vibe from you, this channel is underrated
I don't know if u will read this but I leave proof that this human has made a change for good on minds like mine.
I love games but I didn't know ppl behind 'em could be so fking scary.
He gave the reason why I play this game holy shit
Wait … If it's a Chinese game why did you play in Japanese
You should play battle brothers.
Now I want to play this, won't run on my 7 year old samsung tho :(.
So .. you KNEW the game came from a CHINESE dev team going in… and still couldn't play it in ANY language you DON'T even understand, except Japanese ? So .. how are you any different from al the other basement dwellers who play these games solely because "oooh anime" ? I'm very confused.
The one who said bennet is the worst character in the game truly didn't understand the game nor meta at all.
He is the most overpowered support in game right now is an understatement.
Little did I suspect that I had the patience to sit through a nearly 2 hour video game critique…subscribed.
This is probably the best Genshin Impact review I ever watch.
about end-game time investment especially due to resins, the reason I wanted to grind is I want to build other characters I got so I can add extra flavor into my party, I don’t want to stick with a few characters all the time, even if they’re already good I still possibly want to push further and try different things.
This reminds me to Warframe, the game that I hate to love.
I'll be honest. A lot of western gamers seem to be so critical over gacha games. I play gacha a lot and I barely spend a cent. Just once a year during the Guaranteed SSR banners on FGO as a way to thank the game for another year of content. The reason why I don't mind gacha is because of the first thing: It's FREE. Free to start. Free to play. Free to keep going. You don't HAVE to spend for it. Any spending is voluntary. I know you mentioned this but I have to stress it again because my next point: Lootboxes.
Lootboxes have been added into some current games that you already have to pay for. If you ask me, lootboxes have no place in a paid game. But if it's a game that constantly updates with new content and a good story and interesting characters that lets me experience all of that for free, I'm all for it. That's why I don't mind gacha but dislike lootboxes.
I enjoy the gameplay enoughf that i dont mind daily
Lyue is better than Monstadt, dude are we playing the same game? Ah I think I understand , I think I played this game for too long…
Also God King Bennet is one of the very best characters that you could receive.
How did you know I was a blue yeti microphone
It’s not a problem with you, the Japanese is way better the English is absolutely horrendous. This happened to me again recently with Monster Hunter Stories 2, English Navirou actually gave me headaches, I changed it to Japanese and it was instantly better.
Man I wish I got a skyward harp for my tartaglia . . .
Genshin was my first gacha game, I still believe all gacha is predatory and can actually harm people. But one cannot deny the level of quality is really high for a free to play game.
This is such a well made video. I really appreciate the time and research you've put in. Instead of just lambasting the game for being a botw clone like everybody else, you stopped and listened, Appreciated the breathtaking vistas, most of all looked at both the positives and negatives without bias. This may not amount as much but thank you for putting in the time.
1:21:48 Well … be to trustworthy you now have to share the sources of your research …. for science!
I appreciate the nuanced view here. Asian markets and their history of monetization in particular. While I will likely never play GS myself, for a plethora of reasons, I think this video helped give me perspective. Thanks again.
Great breakdown of the game and gacha overall. I've also spent most of my life refusing to play any gacha games until recently, so just wanted to add my experience as someone who went from no gacha games to playing Genshin daily.
A big part of the appeal for me ended up actually being the community. The gacha games I've stuck with were ones where I found a small community of other people who play and enjoy talking with. It's fun to share our gacha pulls, to envy the lucky pulls and sympathize with the bad rolls. You could say this can apply to any video game genre, but I think gacha adds additional layers to it. A gacha community brings together f2p, dolphins and whales and there's a sense of camaraderie in helping other players through guides on how best to optimize your resources to not fall into a gacha game's usual traps, or if a game has co-op then having the big whales use their stacked accounts to help carry f2p players or people with random units that they pulled coming together to form a complete party. It's interesting to interact with other players in a game system that enforces inequality between players due to the random nature of gacha.
Gacha also isn't a binary thing, there's like a sliding scale on how scummy the gacha mechanics are. The first gacha I really invested in was a tie-in to an Anime that I really really liked, and that was what helped me overlook how awful it was as a gacha game for a time. Eventually the magic wore off and I saw how as a game it was mediocre, and as a gacha it was particularly ruthless and greedy. Imagine the awful rates of Genshin, but with no pity system and new content being very pay-2-win with new stages having super tough enemies weak to a status ailment that is unique to the new unit that is currently on-banner. In contrast, Genshin's gacha system is actually pretty generous compared to the hell I've seen.
Ulimately, the reason I've stuck with Genshin Impact is that I honestly think it's a good game. As someone who loves open world games, I think it actually can be compared favorably to modern console open world games. It's at least better than the open world games Ubisoft have been putting out recently. I actually don't feel bad putting a bit of money into the game precisely because I don't feel like I NEED to, I prefer it being just an optional "want" rather than feeling like I'm running against a pay-2-win treadmill of PvP rankings or something like that.
It's not perfect and gacha is a bit of an innate evil, but the game is such a breath of fresh air compared to the most predatory examples of gacha out there that I think it deserves its success.
Genshin is just so … compelling? The gameplay just feels _good_. But the RPG progression systems are abusive and aggressively time-consuming AND the shop is coercive and predatory. This game is straight-up Vegas – have fun and set your limits or the house will take you.
BENNY BOUKENDAN SHUPPATSU!
Thanks for the vid
I got addicted to this game for about 12 hours before the novelty wore off
Did you ever try the multiplayer for this game? Playing with 1-3 friends seems like it could make the grind a bit less tedious, right?
Mate I say this as a man who spent a solid $1500+ on this game before I gave my account away so I'd never touch the game again; That clip of the Ayaka pull should be labelled as a fucking cognitohazard lmao. I was practically gripping my seat like a junkie.
Like you i had literally zero interesting in this game, and now i am going to go play it… damnit.
: )
bennet best boi
46:01 MAN YOU ARE SITTING THERE WITH AT LEAST 90 WISHES WORTH OF PRIMOS??? That's literally enough to guarantee a 5-star on any banner, the patience this man has to not spend those primogems is incredible. mad respect to you
I'm f2p and spent literary a 300+ hrs on it and had fun with the gameplay, lore, open world, events…all of that for free, I think u can still enjoy it without spending any money, in fact, I think the real fun is from getting that 5 character when ur f2p, I think it's such a stupid argument to say that just bc some ppl spend 600 per week this is a expensive game, ITS NOT AN EXPENSIVE GAME, ITS FREE, and I'm enjoying the hell out of it, FOR FREE, I don mind any MTAs in a free game honestly, what is bad is that u pay 60 dollars for a half BAKED game, and it still has MTAs on it, aside from that, I think most of ppl putting some money on this game are grown ass people, I think it's their choice to what they should do with their money, they may want to starve but spend money on a mobile game, why tf do you care!? It's like saying, some ppl don have enough money to put their son at school, but spend hundreds of dollars on a expensive restaurant, therefore those restaurants are bad and should be closed!
I think people have the choice to what they want to do with their money? as long as a game is free and u can do and play every bit of content for free, I don see why MTAs are bad in it
This is basically a giant self-justification for playing Gacha games.
It's not a game it's a fucking gacha dont get them confused