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Zelda: BOTW-Inspired Game Genshin Impact Is Out Now

The Zelda-style RPG is free-to-play on multiple platforms.

21 Comments

Genshin Impact, an open world RPG by Chinese developer Mihoyo, made waves when it was announced last year, with many complaining that the game looked like it had plagiarized Zelda: Breath Of The Wild's most distinctive features. Now that the game is out for free on multiple platforms, you can decide for yourself how close it is to the Nintendo epic.

Available now on PC, PS4, and mobile, with a Switch release coming later, Genshin Impact's biggest point of difference is that it's free-to-play, with the game hoping to pull a profit through gacha mechanics. Due to being developed in China, which has strict loot box regulations, Genshin Impact's gacha pulls are at least transparent about their drop rates.

Like Breath of the Wild, Genshin Impact features an expansive open world, climbing and running governed by a stamina bar, and even a similar graphical style. It adds more playable characters to the mix, however, as well as co-op gameplay and a combo-based combat system.

Cross-saves are available between PC and mobile, while cross-play is supported for PC, PS4 and mobile. The Switch release is coming at a later date, so no details about cross-saves or cross-play for that platform are available yet.

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SteveHu

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I am actually one of the people who admire this game for being F2P. Everyone has an option to be casual or hardcore. Great graphics great gameplay really loving it!

Hope it would not become too hard for F2P players.

Anyway for anyone interested in guides and discussion please join our group.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/gibuyandsell/

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Mattock1987

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Disappointed to find this game is “free to play”. Those type of games are never that great.

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mcnichoj

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@mattock1987: some of the biggest games in the past 15 years have been free.

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Jd234

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Funny all the negative comments here probably from people who didn't even try the game. Game is fun good visuals and you do not need to spend money u can even grind out loot later in the game. Ya it clearly is inspired from botw but can u play botw with 3 friends don't think so. Games free should at least try it before writing a negative review, otherwise your input is invalid if all u did was watch a video and make judgement

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misterginger

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@Jd234: Why would you assume that people didn't play it? Don't just assume for the sake of making a condescending snarky comment.

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Xylymphydyte

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@Jd234: Played 4 or 5 hours of it and it's pretty boring. The combat is uninspired, the progression is not fun and it's clear that the grind is going to end up being playing for a couple hours a day for months to get anywhere if you don't want to whip out some cash.

We don't need this in gaming.

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phatsanta

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@Xylymphydyte: you can play the entire game without spending money man, you obviously just assumed the worst.

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Xylymphydyte

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@phatsanta: Well the boring game with it's mentioned uninspired combat sure didn't help me want to play it either. Nor did server lag in a single player game, that helped even less. But then reading forums where people are talking about late game in the earlier released platforms and how limited it can become and how they're blowing thousands of dollars on it through the last few G's of nails at the coffin. Gaming doesn't need this kind of bullshit in it.

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Goldenageplayer

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Looks like a LAME take on breath of the wild if you ask me. Just my opinion...

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b0nb0n

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@goldenageplayer: Because you are a Xelda fan, nothing can look like a Zelda game......

I have not played it yet, but it looks fun, and I have heard that it fun, and you can play a lot with out paying any money.

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Dragon_Nexus

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I was interested until I found out it's a F2P live service gamble box POS.

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ghost140

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If characters are locked behind a random chance real money pay wall i wont play it. Does not matter to me that i dont need the character to progress the game. I know im yelling into the void but Im doing my damnedest to not become a hypocrite on this.

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Goldenageplayer

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@ghost140: I feel ya. It's our job as gamers to not get totally wallet *****. Can I say that word here or will I get banned again?

In my opinion I'm kind of used to a lil bit of wallet *****... Like if the games extra content jumps it up from 60 bucks to 100... That does bug me a lil and I'll most likely wait for a price drop 6ish months down the line. Almost always feel 60 bucks is too much for like 99% of games.

But if the wallet ***** pressures you into wasting several hundred or maybe even thousands... Then we're effing DONE. Hard pass. Perhaps the wackoz would tell me I'm missing out or whatever but it's no big deal... There's only like a million video games out in the world lol. Can't play em all : )

Just stick to the best ones basically. And the ones that you personally like.

But yeah... If all of us gamers just layed down and took it... Could you imagine? You'd be paying for extra hearts in breath of the wild 2 lol.

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Xylymphydyte

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Game kinda sucks. It's got awkward movement and combat. It's only a superficial BotW clone in that it has similar color grading and you can climb things, otherwise its' a pretty generic open world game. The gacha mechanics suffuse pretty much every aspect of the game, as do the energy systems after you get past some certain point. Progression is limited by the gacha mechanics being that you need materials and money from them to level up gear/characters.

If you just bought the game and that wasn't a thing it'd be mediocre but playable enough, but being that the threat of "You may have to spend thousands of dollars on this to actually do anything even approaching lategame content" hovering over your head all the time, I just uninstalled it after a couple hours. That and because it was getting rapidly boring.

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Goldenageplayer

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@Xylymphydyte: Wow really? Lame... Because visually it's kind of beautiful. Still think breath has a better art style though. This just screams anime waifu pointy hair big eyes all characters look like children from goth school vibe...

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Xylymphydyte

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@goldenageplayer: Definitely. I was hoping it was a decent ARPG of some sort but didn't realize it was a F2P Gacha thing until it was out. But it is, and it's not a decent ARPG really from what I could tell.

I mean, it plays like a single player game but you have to deal with server lag, that's already a huge black mark before everything else.

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jenovaschilld

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Zelda clone, I am sure 'Tales of games' are kinda pissed also.

But really though, all games mimic each other, for every Mario you have a Spyro, for every Gran Tourismo you have a Forza, which is fine. As you cannot patent a smell, a taste, a jump or climbing mechanics. All these games have to stand on their own.

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KotomineKirei

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Edited By KotomineKirei

"Due to being developed in China, which has strict loot box regulations"

Those do not seem strict.

"The odds must be disclosed on the company website"

It should have also been in the game and on the download page.

"Loot boxes cannot be purchased with real money"

There is not much of a difference between purchasing loot boxes with real money and purchasing gems with real money to purchase loot boxes.

In fact, I would say that it is worse.

"Limits on the number of loot boxes per day"

That does not help much either.

"Each pull costs 160 gems."

"180 pulls guarantees the character on the banner."

180 * 160 = 28,800 gems.

As far as I know...

330 gems = $4.99, 1,190 gems = $14.99, 2,240 gems = $29.99, 3,880 gems = $49.99, and 8,080 gems = $99.99.

The monthly subscription (which gives you 2,700 gems after 30 days, and 300 crystals immediately) = $4.99.

So, if I am calculating this correctly...

If you want a banner character that is only available for a few months, and you do not have any gems, you would have to either spend more than $150 to take a chance with 90 pulls (14,400 gems) or spend more than $350 for 180 pulls.

If you wait to buy a character with the monthly subscription, it would take about 5 months and cost about $25 for 90 pulls, and it would take about 10 months and cost about $50 for 180 pulls.

All of that for one character.

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mcnichoj

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@KotomineKirei: I assume you can earn gems in game. You probably don't need the character that costs a million pulls. Sure some people will but that small amount of people will pay for the game everyone else gets to enjoy for free. Loot boxes were a big deal for Stars Wars Battlefront 2 because:

1. You paid money for the game (most people at launch paid minimum $60 for Battlefront, while Genshin is free)

2. Characters and abilities gave unfair advantages to players with random RNG (or sinking a lot of money) despite being similar ranks or having roughly the same time investment, Battlefront 2 is for the most part PVP so balance matters while I believe Genshin is mostly (if not entirely) PVE so balance doesn't really matter

3. It's a fucking Star Wars game and you should already have Darth Vader unlocked or have a reasonable finite way to unlock him, not crossing your fingers and just hoping you ever unlock this character you might have some fandom attachment to (Genshin is just generic anime characters and no one has any deep emotional connection to "Azula, the Butterfly Darkness Wizard" or whatever the Hell they call the characters in the game)

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d3ad4ng3l

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@mcnichoj: You can earn gems, but only at beginning. This is how the get new players. Plus the free characters are completely garbage. They are only good at early games. Once new contents are added then all become deprecate.

The reason Genshin is free because its a gacha system game. The worse type of lootbox games. Their target audience is completely different to Star Wars. People play this game wants the rare characters and items from lootbox only. Like "I want the best waifu with the shiny sword!"

People in China are very competitive and love to show off their rare stuffs. Investing into video games like we do in stock shares.

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mcnichoj

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@d3ad4ng3l: I know what gacha games are, I've played dozens of them. Some of them are very generous with the items you pull.

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