When Genshin Impact was first announced back in 2019, some controversy started to stir that the game was to become some kind of cheap rip-off of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Fans believed there were too many similarities in art style, music, characters, mechanics, and world design to ignore what they believed was a blatant copying of ideas, or “clone” in gaming industry terminology. Fans even protested at PlayStation’s booth over these similarities, but the truth is that there’s plenty of unique flair that distinguishes Genshin Impact from other games.
There are plenty of cursory inspirations from Breath of the Wild throughout the game, but Genshin Impact’s unique mechanics make the game all its own. Arguably, Genshin Impact doesn’t shy away from its clear inspirations from Nintendo’s open world epic, but with the wealth of RPG mechanics and characters along with its unique aesthetic details, the game definitely has its own distinctive flair. At a glance, it’s hard not to compare the game to Zelda, but when players actually get their hands on Genshin Impact, it looks and feels vastly different.
Genshin Impact’s Wealth of Characters
The biggest defining feature of Genshin Impact is the wealth of playable characters in the game. Clocking in with over 20 playable characters already and more coming, there’s several different styles of characters players can utilize in Genshin Impact. While each player starts with a standard “Traveler” starter character, players can acquire several additional characters to their roster throughout the game. In the different realms in Genshin Impact’s world, players can meet and recruit various hunters, knights, mages, archers, etc., each with their own unique characteristics. There’s also a Wish system used to “invoke” additional characters from various wishing items in the world.
During battle, players can quick-swap between four different equippable characters, each with their own respective elemental affinity and special abilities. Weapon types vary between each character, such as lance users or archers, each powered up by their unique elemental strengths like Fire or Lightning. Elemental affinities also factor into special cooldown abilities, ranging from power ups to strong area-of-effect attacks that are perfect for crowd control. Configuring abilities and utilizing different weapons unlocks completely different fighting styles with their own unique capabilities, unlike Link in Breath of the Wild’s linear knowledge of all weapons.
Complex ARPG Character Building and Abilities
Combat in Genshin Impact is also significantly different compared to Breath of the Wild, as the added mechanics build into a more complex action-RPG. During each battle, players can quick-swap between four different characters at any time for different strategies. Fights can start with standard melee combat, but if players need to keep their distance they can use mages and archers for ranged abilities and attacks. The elemental affinities are a big part of this quick-swapping mechanic as well. Many elements like Fire and Wind interact with one another to create different damage multipliers and status effects on monsters.
This plays out organically in battle, as elemental mixing leads to optimal damage on targets. For example, using Cryo spells/attacks on the target can cause enemies to be inflicted with a “Frozen” status. Then players could theoretically swap to a Pyro-based character like the aptly-named Amber, and then utilize a Pyro spell to inflict a “Melt” status effect that inflicts extra damage. Additionally, Swirl wind effects can latch onto a nearby element to spread elemental damage to a wider area. It’s a very fluid system that’s both visually flashy but also is the perfect optimization of damage for tougher enemies in Genshin Impact.
Unique Aesthetic Inspired by Traditional Chinese Design
While this aspect of Genshin Impact is arguably easy to compare, the aesthetics of the world aren’t inherently the same as Breath of the Wild. Far-reaching vistas, rolling hills, tall mountains, these are aspects of open world games that are inherent to the genre. The visual style of Genshin Impact implements a vibrant anime-inspired aesthetic influenced by traditional Chinese visual design and folklore. While the characters themselves are very anime-esque, the world design is just as stylized in its own way with Chinese architecture and imagery that’s unique to Genshin Impact.
There are some elements of environmental puzzling akin to that of Breath of the Wild, but this is something many different open world games have adopted both before and after the latest Zelda’s release. Ghost of Tsushima in particular utilizes similar design choices with its Shinto Shrine platforming puzzles. There is an obvious nod to Breath of the Wild with the climb anywhere, go anywhere design of Genshin Impact’s world. At the same time, even if Breath of the Wild has inspired a surge of meshing puzzles into the world design, Genshin Impact is not the only game to utilize this design mantra.
Frankly, Breath of the Wild fans who enjoy deeper/complicated action-RPG mechanics and character-building would enjoy Genshin Impact. The mechanical complexity in Genshin Impact is a level of intricacy that Breath of the Wild simply doesn’t have, along with its vast array of playable characters. While the world aesthetic has some overarching similarities, the game still leans into anime and Chinese-inspired environments that are unique to this game. Genshin Impact, as much as it may have been inspired by Breath of the Wild, is certainly still its own game worth exploring.
Genshin Impact launches this fall for Android, iOS, PC, and PS4.
