The Many Problems with Genshin Impact 

"It should be regulated like a gambling product!" Belgian here, and I can proudly say that in this country, lootboxes and gachas are restricted because of that.

“You know, so that the toddlers can gamble too.” That line cracked me up

the lore hidden in the game is SOOO interesting to me, but its literally hidden like the devs dont want their boss to see it

The dead look in his eyes as he puts several throwing axes through a cardboard cutout of a Genshin Impact character is to be cherished

ive never been this offended by something i completely agree with

Honestly even as a Genshin fan, there are plenty of good points here, and I’ve got mad respect that you’re able to voice them this sincerely despite the games popularity. Personally, Genshin is more of a hobby than something to invest time into, log on, enjoy some views, open some chests, spend resin, maybe do a quest and then chill. It’s also a game that develops plenty of community discussion, both good and bad, and honestly if I didn’t have siblings or friends to share the experience with, I would’ve ditched the game awhile ago. Good job as usual yakko

One complaint I have that no one seems to talk about is that they characters all have just one personality trait. Like Xiangling is a chef, that's it that's her entire character.

This game really makes you feel really happy while horrible at the same time. The story, cutscenes, gameplay elementals is super good then there is the real deal breaker the "GACHA" which completely absolutely destroys the feel of everything else in the game

Now imagine if Genshin was a normal game where you pay once (or even a sub) and then you unlock your characters as the game progress and you meet them, instead of, you know, getting characters into your party way before you even meet them because gacha. That's unironically the biggest problem for me in the game, since it fucks up immersion.

I love the second I download Genshin impact to see if it's good He instantly makes this video

Watching this video hits hard; I've dealt with gacha addiction myself. I dumped about 25% of my monthly income on a single mobile game for about three years. While I knew I was wasting money in the long-term, the dopamine hits from upgrades, RNG drops, and community interaction just kept me hooked short-term, and it took a loooooong time for self-awareness to assert itself. The main thing that finally got me off the game was storage space, ironically. Google has this (sort of dumb) thing where if you want to install an app but are over ~90% storage use, it'll pick the biggest app automatically when asking you to delete apps for more space. I accidentally hit OK and watched in frustration and shock as 6.5 GB of data (that one game's files) were snapped away for an 8.5 MB image editor. That incident caused me to take a break, and I informed my alliance members (who were like family to me by that point) I'd be off for a bit. That bit turned into a month, then two, then six months, then a year, and so on. Here we are, four (almost five) years later, and I haven't gone back since. My finances are in much better shape, and I'm more invested in actual full games rather than F2P energy sinks. Don't get sucked into the gacha machine, folks; it's a slippery slide in, and a hard climb back out. On a less depressing note: The community content (wink wink) is more appealing than Genshin itself, and I will hold this hill.

Long story short, Genshin Impact is a mobile game through and through. Don't let them fool you just because the game is on concole and PC. I remember when this game was announced. I was super excited until I heard the words "gacha" and "mobile". These are the two worst things to happen to gaming.

"I want to love it but I hate it" is a solid mood here. I still play Genshin every day but I agree with a lot of your very well-presented points and wish the game's amazing potential hadn't been squandered like it has been. Honestly tragic.

I've played this game since day 1, and I still love the game, but I also completely agree with your points here, you really presented the good and bad very well Genshin for me has one of the worst gacha and reward systems that I've ever played, but the best gameplay among other gacha games. Luckily, I have the self-control of not spending in the game, but I get that it still doesn't excuse Mihoyo of their predatory tactics. GJ as always Yakko

The worst part about this game is that when you finally do pull a new character the feeling of accomplishment is immediately dashed by the fact that they're level 1 so you can't even use them for a while because they'll probably be too weak to survive in combat. Once you max out your first 4 or so characters, investing in a new one just feels like a chore.

I hate how people deny criticism by saying that the game is free and that we should be grateful to mihoyo. The game isn’t free. It has a price, and a stranger is paying it for you (by spending $1000 on his c6 raiden). MIHOYO is definitely not paying that price though, they’re actually doing the opposite. By making it this “free” p2w model they are making even more money. The “they made it free, they’re so generous” argument is so dumb

Honestly I feed bad for the content creators that built their career on this game and may have enjoyed it at the beginning but slowly realized how badly designed and unfun the game actually becomes at AR55+ and are probably stuck playing this empty shell of a game if they want to keep their lights on. I've seen it happen.

As someone who still actively plays Genshin, this video rocked and brought up a lot of important issues that need to be talked about. That being said, seemingly opposite to a lot of people who play, the draw for me was never the characters, story, or especially the gacha, but the gameplay & grind. I find the most addictive aspect to be leveling and building teams for specific content and have always been one of those sickos who enjoys grindy games. I honestly hate the obnoxiously annoying, generic, and horny characters but found interactions in their kits to be a blast to find & exploit, which is what keeps me playing. Never once spent a dime on the game either, which lets me still pick up that Supergiant collection that I did not know about. Keep up the good work bro.

Yeah, I completely agree with this, even as someone deeply rooted in the addictive system at the moment. I have ADHD. For those who don't know, it's much more than a disorder that makes me go "oo! Squirrel!" at anything that catches my eye. My brain is starving for dopamine, constantly (and I mean CONSTANTLY) craves music, and latches onto repetitive routines and motions like I'll die if I let them go. Thus, Genshin hooked me like a fish on a tantalizing lure. I got into it a month after it came out and I was very easily pulled into the more forgiving and engaging early game. The amount of rolls I was given in the early game hooked me, and I fell in love with so many characters that it almost got overwhelming- almost. Due to my disorder, the addictive undertones of the game (dopamine hits from rolling, leveling characters, weapons, artifacts, pretty cutscenes, pretty music) caught me up instantly, as my dopamine-starved brain immediately sought out more and more rolls. I first got into Genshin when the money I was putting into the game wasn't an issue, as I was living at home without needing to pay rent, on a slightly higher than minimum wage full-time job. Costs didn't matter, I could spend as much as I liked because I was comfortable. However, last year, I moved out of my parent's house and into another state entirely. I could barely afford rent last month, and don't know if I'm going to make rent this month. It's bad. It's really bad. This game preys on people like me and I know it and yet I can't stop, because I'm addicted and I haven't reached the point yet where I can transition myself to some dopamine-dispenser that doesn't drain the soul from my body and the cash from my wallet. At this point I just keep myself to Welkin and the battle pass now, but that's still 15 dollars and I can't afford that. That's more than I earn in an hour. It scares the hell out of me. This game is one of my absolute favorite things right now and I'm losing the ability to keep myself afloat because of it. The scenery makes me happy, the music makes me want to close my eyes and sit still for once, but the stress this game is putting on my life is making me become a hermit- I haven't left my house to do anything other than work in weeks. That time isn't even spent playing the game, I just... At this point I avidly try to point people away from Genshin. I tell them that I'll recap the plot, link them to videos of the cutscenes and overall plot, but I avidly do not recommend this game. Especially for people like me, who's disorders make it so hard to even look away from the devastating car crash that this game is becoming. Apologies for the huge rant, I just.... I get it. And Yakkocmn, thank you for this video. You put things into words that I didn't have the ability to phrase yet, and watching you beat the absolute shit out of an Amber cardboard cutout was a delight. This game should absolutely be regulated like a gambling product, even if every insane fiber of my being wants to protest against it. This is an addiction, this is gambling, and it has to stop. It really, really has to stop.

someone you should check out is moosashi, he has committed himself to breaking the game and hasn't compleated a single story quest but managed to get to inazuma regardless

I've been playing Genshin for a while. Let's be honest, it is gambling, practically a second job if you decide to grind everyday. I grinded for a while and found myself getting tired out. So now I just hop back in occasionally and find it much more enjoyable. I like the world and the story so I mostly just do a few quests and sight see once in a while.

ive purposefully avoided learning anything about this game, and just learning that it’s already the most profitable game ever, im scared to watch the rest of the video to find out how that happened.

19:05 This right here betrays the game's actual intent. A game made by people wanting to make an actual fun experience would have let you do this. You found a new, fun way using the means provided to you to complete a task the game put before you, a good designer would look at that, make sure it cant actually break the game in any way, and try and encourage that kind of thinking and see if they cant use it elsewhere as well. Otherwise, why hand you the ability to build ice bridges or climb walls if youre going to block your players from doing it anywhere theyre not strictly expected to? As a counterexample, look at all the insane speedrun strategies a game like BotW allows for, barring actually leaving the boundaries of the map, it lets you combine all the different systems the game offers you to do just about anything. For example, you can climb trees, and you can apply increasingly large forces to objects after freezing them in time. Did Nintendo intend for you to combine those and start the Hyrule branch (edit: heh, pun unintended) of NASA? I highly doubt it, but you can still ride your tree rocketships across the map regardless.

What frustrates me about Genshin is as you've put, there's a shell of a good game there, but it's buried under a Gacha system and extremely grindy gameplay. I really wish It could be a game I enjoy but I just can't get behind it.

I played genshin impact till around adventure rank 15. I wanted something similar to botw so I gave it a shot, and it was actually pretty fun for a while untill the grind really started, and then I completely stopped playing

I remember logging in everyday to get more primogems so I could pull for Hu Tao when she reran, and explicitly thinking, “man I have so many other cool games I can play, but i have to make sure i stay on top of things here”. The game was getting super repetitive and boring, but I kept telling myself that I just had to keep playing to get more primogems so I could get Hu Tao, but then I realized, so what? When I get Hu Tao, what changes? I get a new character that I have to spend tons of hours to properly build, and when I finally get her on par with the rest of my characters, what then? Back to the same old grind. Thanks for making this video, hopefully it’ll keep someone else from wasting the time I did.

Games like Genshin Impact remind me of the fact that indie games *HAVE* to become bigger, cause at this point they (and a few, FEW AAA games) are the only really good games that don't view you as a money machine

5 month player here, started during 3.4 1st half, which was mid February. I absolutely agree with everything you've said, but what hits home for me is when you said "you shouldn't need self control to enjoy a game" and "you shouldn't blame the addictive tendencies and personal struggles of players to defend the shitty gacha system". I fucking hate the Genshin community for defending this system by saying "muhmuhmuh be grateful they even give you a pity system muhmuhmuh in FGO you need 300+ pulls to get what you want muhmuhmuh most generous gacha game". Genshin playerbase has to be the most white-knighting and apologetic fanbase I've EVER seen. Gacha hell? Mediocre to great story that's pronounced with recycled shitty animations that make characters look like lifeless puppets? Intentionally locked grind? They will go above and beyond to defend ALL of it. This community has absolutely 0 backbone to stand up against Mihoyo. I know this video was uploaded before these things happened, but recently, Mihoyo went 500+ days without rerunning Eula and made Dehya, a very anticipated character, THE worst character in the game. The community made a huge stink over Dehya for a single month, then after that, nothing. Mihoyo finally gave Eula a rerun this month, and now, it's as if nothing happened, nobody will ever mention it again. And now we're a few weeks away from the 5th region being released. And though you didn't mention it, I will. GENSHIN IS ONE OF THE WORST GAMES FOR NEW F2P PLAYERS AND IT GETS WORSE AS TIME GOES BY! People like me who recently started barely have any of the roster, and have to make peace with the fact that they never will have all the characters, meanwhile the day 1 veterans and/or Credit Card Charlies are doing whatever the hell they want, simply because they were there to collect the now long gone premium currency.

the community actually carries whatever staleness end game has, I would've dumped this game long ago if it wasn't for the fanartists and ff writers, mihoyo sees this too bc they have been doing a lot of creator incentives recently,, they deserve better

I think Genshin Impact is great when you don't treat it like a gacha game. The story is entertaining alongside the cast. The big issue is that eventually the game forces you to grind to progress. Like, I just want to enjoy the story. Why do I have to keep doing the unfun shit? Oh yeah, because it's a gacha game.

I am playing this game from day 1: AR58 currently, and eventhough I genuinely like the game, I absolutely agree with everything you said here. This game could be WAY better than it is, with more thoughtful features, rather than just financially profiting features. The only thing I was offended by was the abuse of Amber!!

as much as i love the game n the lore and especially the art and open world, i agree sm. Personally, i dont try to make my charachter "the most op" i just sit in the moment and enjoy the lore and the art. Playing like this makes the game much more enjoyable

I absolutely love Genshin, but any time a friend asks about it, I tell them right away that it's a live-service gacha game and that the game isn't for everyone. Honesty though, it's exactly what I want as a low spender. I'm a very routine oriented person and it gives me what I want, a game I can play every day that will continue to grow and improve as time goes on (what with its insane 6 week update cycle for a game like this). Since I got into gacha games, and Genshin in particular, I've spent far less on games and dlc I'll never finish and maybe even touch, because of most of what I want is already here. I think the mistake many people do though is get themselves burned out by treating this as a main game. Genshin is a side game to me, but an excellent one. I generally play for about 30-60 minutes a day, doing dailies and BP quests at minimum, and more stuff if I feel up to it. I also have a friend I play with every week which definitely helps though. But instead of grinding and grinding and burning myself out, I do my daily stuff then hop over to Demon's Souls, Hades, Borderlands, or whatever game I'm playing at the moment. I enjoy Genshin but also understand that much of the enjoyment is in the daily play and the long con stuff, and I'm cool with that. So idk, tldr; Genshin is a great game but only if it's got what you're looking for, like a gacha system or a long-term live-service story. If you don't like the game then save yourself the trouble and continued growing resentment and just quit. Also it's a game that is best paired with other games instead of sinking all your time into Genshin, because it honestly doesn't seem like it was designed for that.

I've been playing for a year now, haven't paid a coin, and yes I still enjoy it. The grind to improve characters, only to get more primos to get new characters to build again is kinda satisfying, but Genshin's always been a "Background game" for me. I always have something else with me, with genshin just, filling in some time. The only time I treat Genshin as a main game is when there's an archon quest or a nice story related event happening, or a new area is to be discovered. Nonetheless, no matter how much I enjoy it, I haven't recommended it to anyone because the game has lots of potential but gacha mindset of devs and grind kills it. It can be an annoyance, a pain to go through all that. I'll play it to the day it ends, but ha no I can't ask anyone irl to join me

Yes I love this game, but I also wholeheartedly agree with this video. Genshin could be SO much better. I do love the game but it’s not my favorite. It’s the games that I play less often and have an ending, which are my favorite. (Hollow Knight, Bloodborne, Celeste, etc.) I hate the grinding in this game so much, but luckily for me I don’t need to grind anymore because the game is so laughably easy. I have decently built characters that will probably last me until the very end of the game in 5 or so years.

It's sad when you find a game that has potential to be something excellent, but it turns out to be a gacha game that forces you to play the way THEY want. In a way, it's like "settling" just to feel like you have something rather than nothing. That's what I feel is the problem with Genshin.

Idk personally I like the grind and enjoy myself slowly building my characters up over the course of time. Also, I like the idea of knowing there is something to do the next day when I don't have too much time for video games or energy for it. The only time I complain are my days off from work where I dont have much to do and want to play a lot of genshin but have no resin. Anyways, love the video and its always interesting seeing the reasons you like something are the reasons someone dislikes it.

I played LoL in a bad time in my life, spent way too much money on it, and I've been avoiding Genshin for the same reason - it's *very* easy to get addicted to games like this, especially when you have Depression, ADHD, or even just a family history of addiction. Sometimes self-control is not an option when you're dealing with things like that.

Sometimes the game just feels bland and i can't expressed the reason through words, but you pefrectly adressed all of the problems i had with Genshin Impact, i just can't imagine how difficult the proccess of making this video was. As always, great job yakko

Thank you SO MUCH for this video. It's definitely a challenge to fight the evil demons in my brain telling me to give Genshin a try despite the knowledge of its manipulative systems and my on-principle refusal to acknowledge gacha, but this video allows me to quietly slay them, and tune out the discussions from my outer circle of friends who still insist on it. Now please go put 100 hours in Mihoyo's new character action game, because THOSE evil brain demons are looking a HELL of a lot stronger THEY HAVE A ROBOT CAT GIRL WITH TWIN DAGGERS SHES LITERALLY ME PLEASE STOP ME FROM DOING IT

"fans will say: mihoyo is so generous" no we do not say that nobody of this game says it we all know that mihoyo is a bad

Honestly I feel Genshin wanted to be something similar to Xenoblade 2. Xenoblade 2 does everything right that I feel Genshin wanted to do but Genshin wanted to do that with less effort while also being bigger in scope.

11:36 Legitimately, when I was playing the chasm quest a few months ago. I got so excited when Yelan, the newer investigation character, mentioned Khaenri'ah or something. With us as the player even having gotten an important quest with dainsleif prior to that one... But then they basically don't even mention that itself, mostly due to the protagonist just being silent as per usual.

I started playing around 2 and a half months ago, after having avoided it for a long time because I was sure I would hate it. Turns out I really like it. There are a lot of good points in this video. Mihoyo isn't generous, the rates are abysmal even compared to other gacha games and there is an insane amount of grind. I have grown quite fond of the game and I find it nice that you mentioned why someone would play. I really love just observing the sunsets with the beautiful soundtrack playing. I like slowly but surely building a team of characters I appreciate and most of all I love talking about it with my friends. I also personally enjoy the combat. Imo ( please don't kill me ) the combat is more fun than in BOTW. I have played 300 hours of it and it is my favourite game ever, but I find the combat to be pretty bad because there are very few weapon types, low enemy variety and no dedicated dodge button. What makes it somewhat fun is the sheikah slate, but even that is not enough (as I said this is only my opinion). I really wish genshin had great quests, less grind and wasn't predatory. I really wish it was perfect, but that most likely won't happen. I will however keep playing because I really like the world and it's characters. A video that shows a pretty opposite experience with the game is "A serious critique of Genshin Impact", by NeverKnowsBest, and I definitely recommend it just because it's very good content. If someone watching this is thinking about starting the game, then try it and make your own opinion of it, but remember to not spend money. Have a nice day everyone Also man you didn't have to do amber like that. She's kinda garbage but cmon

As a Granblue player, even I gave up on the Genshin grind. Perhaps the most crushing feeling in this game is pulling a character that you have wanted for months and months, just to realize that you need to spend literally over a month of playtime to get the character to a playable state for the endgame. Most games let you eventually trivialize the levelling process once you get further, but Genshin makes you go through the entire process every single time, and you don't passively gain most of the resources required like you can for most similar games.

Bro I got an add for genshin ad while watching 💀

Finally a solid level headed critique of gacha.

From what you've explained, the biggest problem I see with this game (Outside of the predatory shit) is the lack of creative solutions. The fact that you can go about BotW in any way you want, whether that be going straight for Ganon, doing everything, or anything in between, is what makes it *good.* Genshin masquerades as an open-world game while locking you off from the open-world and you have to follow the game's set path and set solutions without allowing any creative input from the player whatsoever. I wouldn't mind if it was just a BotW clone, but it doesn't even have what makes BotW good, so I hesitate to even call it one. This really just reminds me that I've only ever seen *one* non-predatory gacha game (Not gonna name it, but still). Even though that one does still have in-game purchases and daily events, it makes it very clear that those things aren't necessary to play the game. Probably helps that that game wasn't done by a big corporation and was done by an indie dev/team (Idk if it's one person or a small group, I need to check). (Also Xenoblade 2 doesn't count as a gacha game in my eyes, but if it did I'd say there are 2 good ones)

Honeslty, this game to me isnt just some game i installed and started playing just to finish it and move on to the next game. To me, its more like a game i could always come back to and a game that I can calm myself with and always have in the background. Like on days were I dont have anything to do, I could always do stuff in Genshin. The game is cool with the fights and animation, but the truth is; as you've said, the game is mostly story driven and has a lot of dialogue. So I play the game not to fight some hilichurls, but to interact with the story. What you say is completely valid and I nodded my head at every point you were making. But, maybe taking the game for what it is and not what you want it to be is a better way to experience it. Just some shit I've cooked up in my mind just now.

I'm so upset I spent time playing this. It also commits one of the biggest crimes it can to me: IRRELEVANT DIALOGUE CHOICES. AAARGH.

Why the FU C K doesn’t Genshin have a “skip dialogue” option. Like why don’t they just add that option. It would keep me so intrigued but noooo we gotta go through 2 paragraphs worth of texts before I can absolutely demolish a hydro slime

Now that you've mentioned all these flaws, I honestly have no idea how I managed to get through all the horseshit this game put me through. I even managed to somehow convince myself to through all the grinding and that's something I couldn't imagine doing at all at the beginning, and I STILL grind it to this day. I really do enjoy the combat, but maybe that's because I haven't played many open-world games where the combat is probably better so I haven't been spoiled by them. I'm not quitting Genshin until the devs retire it, which will happen eventually but I'm not putting any more than the $15 I spent on welkins.

Most of the stuff in this game requires HOURS of your time to even complete. For example; Artifact RNG. One of the worst things in this game is how long it takes to get a good artifact. I'm at AR55 and have *no* content to complete. A lot of players are looking for actual endgame for older players to complete. The closest we get to "endgame" is events.

Genshin is that one game I wish so hard wasn't a gacha mobile money black hole. The graphics, sound design and character designs are so good, but I value being able to pay rent more, luckily, so I only spent 30 minutes in the game before listening to my soul and pressing ALT+F4 and smiting my PC with the might of Zeus, burning away all those Zonghli serotonin-to-be.

As someone who played Genshin since launch everyday until the whole anniversary debacle, I completely agree with every single one of your points. Honestly open worlds and gacha games just don't work together. The everyday grindiness of gacha robs the sense of wonder and exploration of open worlds. The dailies and weeklies make everything feel like a chore. I used to love it so much but over time I just grew tired of it. At least with most other gacha games, they have autos for farming and grinding or the gameplay itself is so simple that you can just idle away at it. Genshin is the type of game where you need to dedicate time and energy to play. The biggest problem with Genshin for me is that they targeted a mainstream (and younger) audience. Gacha games are mostly niche so most of the people I know that play them know about how the system works and they are familiar enough with it to play (mostly) responsibly. The trouble with gacha going mainstream is that a bunch of people unfamiliar with the predatory practices of gacha games are gonna get introduced to it and won't know that they are being manipulated. I'm not blaming the players for getting sucked into it, but the mihoyo for knowingly targeting a bunch of young and naive players who get easily attached to characters. Other gacha games also have an older target audience too so at least most of them have their own income, mihoyo targets kids with access to their parents' credit cards. Kids are also much more easily influenced to get addicted to the game. Also, the whole anniversary thing just proved that mihoyo doesn't care about its audience but they have enough die hard fans that they can still do whatever they want and never listen to any criticism. Mihoyo has come under fire with fans about many things but still people defend them regardless. Genshin's overall quality has been going down since the release of Inazuma. That region had one of the worst writing I've seen, not to mention mihoyo being to scared to make an 'evil' playable character that hates the protagonist because they might upset the playerbase so they ruin Raiden's character. The character designs have been getting worse and more generic too. Also they can't decide if they want the protagonist to be a self-insert or their own character so they try to do both at the same time which ruins it. Mihoyo is just the absolute worst gacha company there is. Their massive success let them be as greedy as they want while disrespecting their audience and I'm sick of them raking in billions of dollars while doing the bare minimum as a company.

Hey Yakko! A long time fan here and a Genshin player. I must say I expected you to shit on Genshin way harder then you did, which surprised after all the escapades you had with gacha games. I played gacha games, namely Dragalia, Honkai and Arknights long before coming to Genshin and I think you make a good point about comradery. Honestly the game is flawed, really flawed, but that doesn"t stop me from playing it, as any other game for the fact. I just honestly like the game itself and it came in a perfect time when I wanted to distance myself from LOL so I just picked it up. Ima be honest - the things you point out, the grind the endgame content, how the game is really hollow are points of frustration for the majority of players speaking from experience. But the reason we come back to it is not of the grind, is because of the characters and lore the game subsequently builds. It"s not novel, hell as you said, a lot of the stuffed is ripped and mashed from other games. Hell, just because it"s a gacha, that"s one of the reasons why I don"t recommend it to anyone. I just find the game to be really cosy. Going from something mechanically intensive as League or fighting games to this to just chill out and entertain my three viewer stream is something I think all of us need, a comfort food. Not the highest in quality in any regard but something that evokes that warm feeling. My biggest hot take about genshin in the past was that "THE GAME AINT FOR EVERYONE", and I still think that stands true. The argument you can beat the game as a F2P kinda falters if that"s not your preffered way of playing or you find it less fun. I think Max0r put it the best "Minmax when you want and how much you want." The grind itself is horrendous and tedious, especially artifact farming, not even the world bosess since those are guaranteed. I just like having a game I can boot up after a long day, hop into a discord server, play it and chill out with people, without needing to focus on it too much. I think the best thing Genshin did for me was finding new friends and interesting peeps to talk to. I didn"t had that luck with other games when they came out, like the Persona series or most indie games which I enjoy, so being a new and hot thing, a bunch of people jumped on it. It"s terryfing how much it blew up, but to be honest I kinda expected it. Anime aesthethic, gacha, open-world RPG that"s free to play - it had a lot of things going for it that people craved for. Not saying I don"t find the game itself fun or the story to be a masterclass in storytelling, because truth be told, the story is really hit or miss. Anyways, I quit rambling here. A really well made video as expected from you. To the people saying a lot of people are licking Mihoyo"s shoes - yes that"s true, but you need to realize they also gave a skyrocket increase to many people"s carriers and even those people are turning on them slowly. I was advocating for streamers to take time off or do variety, because I don"t think Genshin is sustainable in the long run as a streaming game in comparison to games like LOL, Valorant or COD. It doesn"t have that and I would honestly love the people I got to know through Genshin to rather have fun with their time streaming and making content then watch them be miserable. Hell, that"s why I was so happy to see Yakko to move from League content in the first place, since apparently he did not enjoy it anymore. Do what you love, don"t look at the numbers peeps

me listening to this while grinding dailies in Genshin: "Yeah that seems about right".

the part about having fun in trying to go to inazuma by ice bridge really hit home.. been playing since day 1 and the most legit fun i've had with the game lately is boundary breaking the grind and gacha really wore away the initial luster of genshin so bad that doing things you're not supposed to ended up being the most exciting part of the game 😮‍💨 pitiful

I got two ads for genshin and one for the sequel Star Rail while watching this video. The irony is palpable.

As a dedicated genshin player i agree with everything in this video. (But why hate amber god damn why does everyone hate her pls!!)

after 600 hours i can say it's an okayish game, i just wish you could get some story-important characters after their quests, and the wishing were just to boost them through the constellation system.

What worries me is seeing people I know that play this game daily (I used to play it) be willing to spend thousand of dollars on character unlocks, but not just that, on characters they barely know. Each character get so little storytime in the end and it feels more like their hype towards getting a new character is more about Fo-mo (fear of missing out.) and the collector tendency kicking in. To use THAT much money on a character you most likely wont play all that much just to "collect them all." is really really concerning. Even with blindbags of Pokemon or magicards these hold a certain amount of value for re-sale and its physical. And spending money on physical merch of your favorite anime character with a deep story and lore you have dived into makes more sense than this. It is absolutely camoflashed gambling, and more about the seretonin shots your brain gives you watching that star swooshing across the sky in hope of "omg this could be it! this could be iiiit!" that makes people believe getting these and spending so much is a good thing. It's extremely concerning.

Goodness gracious, this was so cathartic to hear. You perfectly encapsulated how I feel about this game - from adoring the gorgeous music and visuals, to the frustration of the "gameplay" and offensive overall structure. I was worried that playing something so blatantly stealing from BotW would taint my experience with BotW, but it's only made me appreciate it more. Very well put together - you've earned a subscription, for sure.

The message at the end is important just as much as the critiques. I find it hard to get attached to things unless I can do it when I'm thinking of other things. I have pretty harsh ADHD, and I find it hard to even play games I fully enjoy because they occupy my entire brainlet. Gachas are great, but when I feel like I 'have' to login or I'll fall behind the power curve I lose interest hard. Don't make my casual funtime an obligation. Solution! MMOs can be a great alternative, namely the top tier ones like OSRS, FFXIV and Guild Wars 2 are two great alternatives. If you don't want to go to another semi-time waster, try simulation games. House Flipper is another brain off game I can enjoy. Power Wash Simulator is very relaxing. Slay The Spire is just plain fun and Minecraft always can be fun. Find solutions to fit your use case. Don't just give into a painful cycle and lock yourself away. And for those who want to get into FFXIV. Don't. It's terrible. Do not get into this and take my spot in queue. Thanks. ' u '

I have played Genshin since October 2020 and I will never defend this game, I'm well past my honeymoon phase, and this game works exactly like this: -Do your daily dose copium while waiting the update -Play a usually decent update for a couple of hours while you waited months for an update -Go back to step one

I started playing Genshin pretty much on launch and quit almost a year ago, logging in once or twice since out of curiosity. All I can say is that the late game felt like a 9 to 5 and logging in for daylies was literally part of my "daily chores"

Awesome video, spot on and also hilarious xD Genshin’s trap is it ‘only’ takes 30 minutes to do your daily grind so you reason with yourself that it’s worth it to earn that little bit of levelling materials and 1/3 of a gacha pull. Before you know it you are stuck in a repetitive and tedious gameplay loop that you’re afraid to stop in case you miss out - every gacha pull you earn might be the one that gets you that shiny new character (that you actually won’t enjoy much as there’s so little endgame content to use them in anyway). I only recently broke the habit and I feel like I got my life back. Playing through other actual quality games in my free time instead made me realise how shitty Genshin is in comparison.

I've played this game like clockwork every day since day 1 and I can wholeheartedly say that this video deserves to be #1 on Trending.

Genshin Impact is proof that the only thing I need in a game to enjoy it is good art direction

The devs controlling how much of the summoning currency and power up materials you can obtain, and therefore how fast you can progress, is ubiquitous among gachas unfortunately

This is real late but yeah you really hit the nail on the coffin for the issues with Genshin. It really had potential to be awesome. Some of the quest lines actually made me tear up (Shenhe’s specifically) and Sumeru’s storyline was much better than Inazuma’s. The premise and lore is interesting, music is gorgeous, graphics are beautiful and the world is also really interesting. In fact, Genshin was one of the games that inspired me to begin writing my own story. But going thru the stories themselves feels like playing English class homework. It’s just…so…much…reading. You have to actually do homework to understand lore. Theres so many interesting characters, but because the game is pumping in new content constantly their stories get locked behind time events (cough cough Albedo). The game can’t decide whether it wants you to grind up those numbers or take your time to soak in the story. Also personally the NPCs just break immersion for me because only the playable characters have unique faces which gives even more whiplash when they stand next to each other especially when the NPC character is important to the quest. But one thing Genshin did well for me was introduce me to BOTW. I picked up the game recently and many of the issues I had with Genshin became more glaringly obvious because BOTW just didn’t have them. It’s not a perfect game but it sure as heck feels close to one, especially coming out of Genshin. That said, I’m still excited for Fontaine. I just hope they up their game with the story execution, because they’re not going to fix the other issues just because the game was built to be a gacha with rng.

After 1,300 hours I'll say it's the best open world rpg ish cellphone game ever. Having the game on multiple platforms is cool but then people have skewed expectations.

For me, Xenoblade X scratched the same itch that genshin did and was a big part of why I was able to separate myself from the game. It had more interesting combat and incentivizes exploration a lot better

as someone who just recently got into the game, i agree with just about everything you said. my basic thought is "i still really enjoy the game, but GOD would i enjoy it more if everything you said was fixed"

I think this video hit a switch in my head I've stopped playing it for over a week Which is more then I've ever gone since I started I genuinely just don't feel like it at all anymore Been playing other stuff It's nice

I hope you can get your life back together after your gaccha expericence, Yakko 😞

Genshin is the most addictive game I have ever played, I played for one year and a half for several hours a day, and had so much anxiety. It was so difficult to pull the plug. I didn’t waste money, but I wasted thousands of hours. Now I started to play “real” games again and everything that happened in Genshin feels like a bad dream. The best thing I got from it it’s the promise I made to myself to never play a gacha game again.

It feels like Genshin Impact is a lovely world with some interesting characters that is never delved into past surface level in any aspect while it’s held hostage by boring gameplay

As a Genshin player from day one, these are pretty valid points. While I do have disagreements to the points put in the video. I do feel the lack of QoL improvements the game had seen the past first year sort of soured my opinion of the game, and was a disservice to its playerbase. From the whole Resin regen that plagued the forums since day one, to the apparent foolish decision that new characters' ascension materials had always be some new boss in some locked region far away, which will make the character irrelevant to the new players who got them cause they can't raise it beyond first ascension. And then the wonky targeting of ranged characters in general, and the fact they can't even fix a simple Alternative Sprint bug. Some of the domains debuffs are just straight stupid (Hello, Mondstadt Ascension Domain) and the fact that I'm not allowed to fish indefinitely still annoys me to this day. I still enjoy the game for what it is as it remained a fun for the most part of it. I find its idyllic world to be a relaxing space to just kill off 30 minutes to an hour of my time. I do think that a lot of my particular liking for the game came from the fact that I do not have any other alternatives that provided the sort of enjoyment Genshin had. It's a free game that my semi-potato laptop can run somewhat reliably, and that's already a high enough bar for me to get into it. Given the chance that I have better PC or a console to enjoy anything else. I probably wouldn't have stuck around with Genshin long enough. I'm not sure how much this particular situation is shared by other people, but I could positively say that in my case, circumstances play a huge part. It's probably a good thing that I haven't put any money to the game, since if they do go south, I had my fun with it and there won't be any issue in just bidding it farewell and thanks for the good times, then wander off into the sunset.

Imma need that ending of you destroying the cut out as a separate video! Lol too perfect!

Genshin Impact is definitely a mixed bag. While I love the graphics, the music, to an extent the lore and some of it's gameplay aspects. what ultimately pushed me away was the game started feeling like a chore after a while. Log in everyday so you can push your progression a little bit further, do your daily chores (daily quests) like a good boy or girl and maybe by the end of the next banner you'll have a chance at that one character you've been waiting to roll for. Then you roll Qiqi... I want to have the liberty to choose when I want to play a video game, not having it live rent free in my mind nagging at me to log in.

I am so mad that I used to play Genshin because I spent $100 on it. For Venti. What a waste of money. Good god, imagine if I didn't stop playing after that. Even more money would get flushed on Zhongli. Now I'm glad my attraction has long since shifted from some old man with a giant rock to the Medic from TF2. I'm even more glad that I stopped playing Genshin entirely!!

Hit the nail on the head in regards to monetization and mobile game elements But BOTW did not invent gliding or climbing lmao

After the last two years and realising that I’m kinda vulnerable to predatory gatcha stuff… I’m extremely grateful I never got into this game. There’s too many good games out there to get permanently stuck on a deliberately frustrating bottlenecked game.

I do agree the most with critism part. Try saying this about destiny 2 on steam community page and see what happens.

This video made me sad but also happy at the same time. As I played countless hours in Genshin just grinding away to level up and also spending money on it. It was fun but also painfull. I really was happy to see video too because I thought like someone finally said something bad about it. Great Job.

I legit play since the game came out, still logging in and doing the daily/weekly stuff, playing the events etc and i'm having tons of fun. That said this game is a literal flytrap incarnate, it's fun but seeing how popular it is with kids especially is concerning. I don't mind dropping some cash on a game that's free where i sink in tons of hours for a cosmetic or a dlc but it's so easy to overspend here and not even get the stuff you want it's insane. This definetly feels like something that should be regulated, if lootboxes and fifa packs are on the chopping block this should jump the queue and get regulated first. Most disappointing thing though for me as a long time player (adventure rank 58), is the literal lack of giving a shit from the devs and the amount of times they spat at the very people funding their hefty paychecks, it's just insulting. I wish there were better options for teambuilding games but i've sank hundreds of hours in stuff like darkest dungeon and simmilar games already

"I feel upset everytime I think about this game." Only a minute in and I'm with you there. My God, I'm with you there. Also 7:40 is a banger.

It's a chinese game that's monetized with gacha systems. How did it take 100 hours to deduce that it's trash?

This is really good editing!! I’m impressed. That soul leaving the body bit was *chefs kiss*

As a genshin fan I agree with quite a lot of your criticisms and think they're valid, but just to throw my few cents in. I think the story quests are enjoyable, even if it they're just fetch quests, just spending time with characters like Zhongli or Childe even if nothing exciting is going on in the story right now is pretty fun for me. I know that's a pretty subjective thing but I find the characters in the game to be pretty well written and fun to learn about

I've played the game since launch and I agree with pretty much everything in this video. But (lol) why is Mihoyo evil for "stealing" gliding and a stamina system? BOTW is the best open world game I've ever played. I want games to "steal"these ideas.

The most disappointing part for me is that I played Mihoyo’s other game, Honkai Impact 3rd, and I was expecting this one to be as good if not a little better, because I had fun with Honkai, and I played it free on and off for 2 years. 4 hours into Genshin and I was kind of like, “man this uh… not it chief.”

Really needed that ending clip after the Game Awards : _ )

It’s not for everyone I suppose. I personally love the game and don’t really spend money on it either. I love the combat, grinding, story, characters etc. Sure there are huge problems like some of the dialogue or the gacha system but I really do enjoy it despite those problems and I think it’s good to point them out. Nothing is perfect and I actively criticise the things I love because I want them to be better. I disagree with a lot of the points like the combat having no creativity for example but do agree on the malicious gacha system but that’s not an only Genshin Impact problem but a problem with gaming markets as a whole these days. I also don’t have a problem with daily or weekly activities as I have fun doing them and they give me a reason to login. I actively WANT to do them, not for the rewards but because I love to play the game. The game has countless F2P players who play almost every day because they enjoy the game. Not everyone does or will and that’s completely fine. Genshin is far from generous but they’re giving out an extremely sought after character with immense detail for free next patch and have overall been giving out more rewards in general after their recent controversies. Only time will tell if they keep that up though. Most F2P players can guarantee getting most of the characters they want by saving up their primogems and not rolling for every single one. I respect you for speaking up about your opinions even if a big chunk of them are something I personally would disagree on. Undoubtedly a lot of people will be pissed off by the video but I think it’s good that you point out certain flaws with the game and gacha as a whole. Mad respect for the amount of work you put into the video, great job.

You’re legitimately one of my favorite content creators Yakko, I respect you a lot. Great stuff on this video, see ya next year 🎉

You literally express my exact thoughts in genshin I agree with everything with what you said, visuals, characters and music are very pleasing and enjoyable to watch but just starts to boil down from its story execution, its grind and its horrible gacha system, but i would like to express another reason as to why I hate genshin as of now, is that it isnt new player friendly like at all, to explain what I mean is basically - Ascension Materials for certain characters locked in their respective regions and dungeons, meaning you literally have to travel all the way from mondstat to either liyue or GODDAMN SUMERU making it feel burnt out, or better yet there some parts that are literally locked behind story quest, especially inazuma, meaning not only you have to Travel but you also have to rush Story quest just to access either the boss fight for drops or to unlock inazuma which btw is story locked unless you finish liyue archon quest, this just makes the game much more grindy than it already is and it just makes the game feel like a chore - The Limited events, I would kinda be fine if I missed out some events IF it wasnt for the fact it has ALOT OF CONTENT, LET ALONE ALOT OF IMPORTANT LORE AND CHARACTER STORY, especialy with the fischl and mona quest and meeting scaramouche, the dragonspine quest, the scaramouche sumeru quest and so on, makes it even worse that these events are locked behind story quest which makes it even harder to catch up, if these events give out soo much important lore and character story, why not make them permanent?, I would be fine of missing out event exclusive rewards if it means allowing myself to experience the story as a new player, why??, Not only you'll be missing out lore but you will also be missing alot of character stories related to it, if you missed, you wont be able to learn more about the characters like albedo or scaramouche which just sucks... And thats the end of my rant, I wrote alot and I prolly have alot of misspelled words and horrible grammar as english isnt my first language, but I just want to let out my frustrations as a new player regarding on genshin atleast on its current state so if you made it this far then I guess thanks for hearing me out Peace

As a person who played pretty much a lot of gacha games and these days a lot of games these days, this video has been one of the most entertaining review on covering gacha games being a lot more mainstream. Currently playing FGO, GranBlue (new to it), and Genshin is definitely an understatement at how much time I wasted playing these games but one things for sure is that they managed to fit most of my schedule quite literally. I’m more of the type of guy to speedrun the whole game because I am literally addicted to it and want to see what games are to offer which is why playing something like Tales of Arise and BOTW starts to scare me. Tales of Arise hit me like a storm when I played it and for almost one month, I never stopped playing it and every of my schedule is gone out of wack, and I literally didn’t touch my gacha games for that amount of time either. This also scares me since I also bought Kingdom Hearts bundle recently. And not everyday we will get games that we could call it “masterpiece”. It is indeed a fact that BOTW is by far one of my favorite games of all time but one of the few things that remained a problem is if whether any games will give me that same sensation as I did whenever I discovered a gem without completely wacking out my schedule. And as you said, self-control advice is bullshit because I always wanted to experience a game without being interrupted for some work and assignments. Imagine something like watching a movie and stop halfway or even a series, I would usually forget about half the stuff at times until I need a fresh recap but I would lose the same excitement when I came in first hand. That is me with “proper” video games since once I even stop for a breath before the end of a game, I couldn’t be bothered to pick it up again. Gacha games however continuously updates and kept me going without reserving too much of my time in one sitting. I met people through gacha games because of it as well and talked with many friends who played gacha games because they simply don’t have the money to buy another console and games (3rd world country problems, mind you), thus, we don’t really have the luxury to get everything unless they get discounted to hell in steam or something, which we family share games now due to it. So in fact, this is one of the few aspects that led me to like a lot of gacha games despite its predatory schemes. It’s really just a social game that I could enjoy with my friends together, even when I’m currently a country apart with them.

I think I could self-identify as Genshin addict per your standard for that I have dumped ridiculously amount of money into it along with those hundreds of hours with it, I think many of your points are valid. Genshin is in a weird place where it is constantly praised or let pass for being what it is because it is 'a free game', which can't be further from the truth as you pointed, and instead used as excuse to shutdown constructive criticism. And I can't agree more that music is the one thing that Genshin really raises the bar, not among Gacha, but among games overall, it is just SO good.

I really value your opinion on these things! And even though I play genshin myself and do enjoy it (to a certain point) I have to agree with what you said. Sad thing is, I'll probably still continue playing because at this point I've put too much time and money into this game to stop