Genshin Impact Review (Xbox Series X/S)

Genshin Impact may have launched in 2020, during the COVID-era, no less. However, it still took a couple of precious years to finally make it to the Xbox Series X/S console. Unfortunately, Xbox One owners will still have to sit this one out, with less likelihood of the showstopper open world making it on there. In any case, the new port over to Xbox comes with a boatload of benefits. Besides finally playing the addictive fantasy MMO everyone’s been raving about all these years, you also enjoy some cool bonuses. Whether it’s signing in to play the game on your Xbox or the option to access it via your Xbox Game Pass subscription, you’ll find extra bonuses for each. Both options have their own extra perks, including a pretty slick-looking paraglider that can make a huge difference gliding over the breathtaking vistas of Teyvat. 

Furthermore, you can carry your progress over from whichever platform you started playing the game into Xbox and still reap the perks. Not to mention, the game supports crossplay. So, you can jump into co-op play with your friends. All of this is to say that there are a ton of reasons why you might want to play Genshin Impact, either for the first time ever or jump back in as a veteran. Oh, the developers have been generously adding consistent updates. And not just quick fixes, but whole new regions, characters, and more, enticing gamers to stick with it for months and years. 

So, there you go, plenty of reasons to play the game. However, let’s backtrack to the beginning and see what the game has to offer, specifically the new Xbox launch, in our Genshin Impact review.

Find Your Lost Twin

One of the pillars of Genshin Impact is its story. It kicks off with a familiar arc about getting separated from your twin. So, now, you have to journey through the expansive world of Teyvat looking for your sibling. And along the way, you run into lots of things to do. Teyvat is a fantasy world that looks as majestic as it sounds. It’s partially aided by the stunning environmental designs and sounds the developing team must have taken precious time to come up with. 

However, some of the areas you’ll visit will look a little too familiar to the likes of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and anime shows. In fact, much of the gameplay is quite similar to the former. But, Genshin Impact still manages to stand out. It takes a minute to put a finger on it, but Teyvat simply grows on you with its incredible possibilities. You could start exploring through flawlessly rendered graphics and visual style with an impressively stable 60fps/4k resolution. However, Teyvat soon opens up into more varied biomes and regions to explore, to the tune of seven nations. 

Teyvat at its Finest

Each region is more susceptible to a certain elemental ability, which is where your characters come in. Best believe Genshin Impact has over 90 playable characters, and no, they are not all copycats of one another. You do, indeed, play unique characters each time you switch them up, from their personality, abilities, and combat style. Each character has a unique backstory and motive. And the more you explore, the more the plot branches out into deeper, more thought-provoking tales, so much so that the original goal of finding your lost twin sibling becomes wrapped up in everything else Teyvat makes possible. 

With such wide-ranging characters and a vast, expansive world brimming with life and nature’s wonders, you almost always wear a smile across your face as you delve deeper into the lore. Teyvat becomes this place you’re heavily invested in, taking you from arid deserts to island archipelagos and underwater exploration. And with each new biome, you unlock new ways to traverse the lands. You could summon the wind to hoist you up mountains or turn water into ice to walk across it. 

So Many Choices

I mentioned the whopping ton of characters you can control. And while they may sound overwhelming, Genshin Impact makes it easier for you to manage with its party of up to four characters system. Among the game’s standout combat features is how each character has an affinity to one of seven elemental powers. They include hydro (water), cyro (ice), electro, pyro (fire), anemo (wind), dendro (life and plants), and geo (earth). On their own, the elements are powerful. However, they seamlessly integrate into each character’s abilities, powering typically standard arrows and sword slashes into much more flashy and potent attacks. 

Furthermore, combining the elements can result in an even more potent attack sequence. This is where switching characters in your party mid-combat comes in. To get the right synergy, it means you have to carefully consider each character’s elemental affinity and integration with others. It’s the kind of battle system that is easy to learn but hard to master, especially since a lot of strategy goes into choosing which characters to play and upgrade. 

Christmas Came Early

Each character’s incredible uniqueness comes into play. That’s because you’re not just dealing with characters with the ability to fly or shoot arrows but in the execution of their ability. Which elemental power do they use? How much damage do they inflict? Can they shoot arrows while flying? Can they use their broomstick as a shotgun? Trust me, the characters you’ll encounter in Genshin Impact are just that varied. It’s so impressive how the developers have managed to still introduce new ones with exciting abilities we haven’t seen before. 

Plus, the game’s structure does push you to experiment with the characters. For instance, you’ll find some of them are tied to exploration in certain regions. Some characters have abilities that can only be upgraded once you beat a specific biome. This pushes you to explore and keep exploring until you unearth every hidden ability. 

What’s Next?

Speaking of finding hidden gems, there are over 6,000 treasure chests waiting for you to bust open. They are scattered all over the open world, of course, but finding them isn’t also a jigsaw puzzle. Some are hidden in plain sight. Meanwhile, others may need you to solve a puzzle, which is also another activity in which you’ll be spending a lot of time. Anyway, the beauty is in how the things you can do in Teyvat are placed and function. 

You’ll look onward and spot like five things you can engage in. You could talk to an NPC who leads you down a side quest with an exciting story. You could pick up a new collectible that helps upgrade your team. Or you may choose to solve a puzzle that unlocks a treasure chest that gives you Primogems, which unlock achievements, and much more. If you complete in-game tasks, you’ll unlock more Primogems, which can also buy wishes. These get you new characters and weapons, upgrade your battle pass, replenish Rosin, which unlocks new paths, buy upgrades, and even world bosses.

Santa’s Here

Before long, you’ve put in hundreds of hours of content and have stacked more than enough resources and premium currency to buy a yacht. Okay, maybe not a yacht, but Genshin Impact’s currency system can actually be pretty addictive, often finding new ways to reward your hard work. And the rewards will come in handy when you near the endgame. The enemies and bosses begin to put up a stronger fight. Inch by inch, you start to veer a little too close to pay-to-win because, remember, Genshin Impact is a free-to-play game that makes its money from its gacha system. 

Now, it’s single-player rather than PvP. So, fair play is really a matter of how hard you are on yourself for progressing slower than others online. Not that people who choose to spend real money on the game will have too much of an easier time than if you were to put in honest work. The gacha system does manage to maintain some kind of sensible progress. Yes, even for gamers who choose to spend nothing but in-game currency. Still, the temptation to buy that one exciting 5-star character or battle pass is there; not gonna lie.

Verdict

Genshin Impact was already a hit game when it first launched in 2020. Since then, it has remained at the top of gamer’s best games. It’s thanks, largely, to the consistent content updates the developer often releases. The world of Teyvat has grown incredibly vast since launch, and the character roster features even more diverse and exciting characters. And, as a whole package, Genshin Impact on Xbox is simply the best way to spend time hunting down treasure chests and chopping down foes. 

As for the Xbox version just released for the Xbox Series X/S, the gameplay and worldbuilding remain largely the same, except for some graphical improvements. You also enjoy bonuses playing on Xbox or Xbox Game Pass, including a handy paraglider. So, if you’re considering giving in to the FOMO, now’s the best time by far. Sure, there may be overwhelming stuff to do. However, take it all at your own pace, all in bites you can digest.