genshin, in a lot of the communities i'm in is not the most popular of games, people are quick to dismiss it for it's free-to-play nature, the gatcha aspects or even just because of plain old misinformation about it, thinking it's a PNG collecting autobattle sim instead of actually being a real game of value, i probably won't convince a lot of those people to play it, that's not something i think even i could do, but i hope to at least give some people some insight into why this game means to much to me and a lot of other people, it may not seem it but it's really something special.

genshin is, to me above all else, a game i go to hang out in, not necessarily with other people (sometimes though) but to just wander around, see the towns and the sights, do some daily quests and find some cool stuff, it's a nice world where there isn't really anything overly content warningy or bad, it's not a toothless game at all; it has it's emotional beats and some fairly dark turns and some of the questlines do get very emotional (one questline is mostly just about prepping a funeral for a dead god and it can get very sad at times, but it's always at least kind of light hearted and the place is never too dire or dour, it's just a nice space to exist in. it's beautiful too, very few games do towns as good as genshin and they actually have things to do in them, with NPCs to play cards with as well as minigames and questlines and they're all pretty in their own ways, the almost medivil beauty of mondstadt, the bustling ports in liyue or the amazingly lit cherry blossom filled streets of inazuma city, in more recent updates we even got some huge vertical forrest towns like the big tree town in sumeru as well as some cute cliffside villages there too, there's some cozy desert towns in the west of the area as well as a huge (maybe the biggest yet) water town in fontaine, complete with it's own tourist trains! i have my favourites of course, mondstadt is my goto for most things because i love the sega blue skies vibes and i love going to inazuma at night for the immaculate vibes and fontaine is starting to grow on me too, though i think it may be a little too big! they feel much closer to RPG towns than more modern AAA or even MMO towns, they have very specific vibes, i'd compare them the closest to a falcom town complete with NPC's that can get expanded roles in events and side-activities and small little activities like fishing and the aformentioned cards (it's a fun game too, super unique take on a TCG i think) you even have a cute little bar card shop in mondstadt to play in full of cats and playable NPC's that visit to challange you.

it isn't just the main towns too, there's lots of smaller villages dotted around, the windmill village in springvale, the vinyard village in dawn winery, treetop hotels and small farming villages are all visitable and lived in, the landscape almost feels like it's mostly made of towns in some areas but not all of them are lived in, you'll find lots of ghost towns too, some with enemies, some without, some tell stories of how they went into ruin and some are just ruins, it's kind of sad to see with how bustling the rest of the world is and it can make them kind of spooky even, it's not a scary game at all but some of the mountain towns in liuye and the mining down can for sure feel a little scary at night. stuff like this makes the games open world actually feel earned, something i find is kind of rare in a lot of modern open world games, there's always something cool closeby, and not cool in the ubisoft collectable landmark way, a quest, a town, maybe a cool landmark like the tree hotel or some cool dungeons with puzzles and loot, there's a lot here and very rarely was i ever in an area i thought was boring, special shoutouts to dragonspire, for being snowy and cool, inazumas islands for having a ton of diverse sights and cool mechanics (the jellyfish island is one of the most colourful areas ive seen in any modern game) and inazumas mountains for the sheer spectacle of how big they can be while still being fully explorable. there's super cool wether effects too, some of the best rain in any game, amazing looking snow in dragonspire and things like lightning storms and dust storms all make the place feel very dynamic and it makes exploration even cooler i think, there's even a time of day system that can change even the background music, some of the towns look amazing at dusk and night especially. it's all seriously impressive when you consider that it can run on mobile.

i find the exploration really fun, i have a lot of my most wanted characters thankfully and it gives the combat a lot of variety, i don't even mind the grind all that much for upgrading a lot of my side characters because that grind does take me to new areas and seeing new sights and bosses, the combat isn't the deepest, i'd like at least a few extra combos per character, but i like how the elemental stuff and the character switching works, there isn't much that plays like this and lining up the right reactions and taking out bosses in seconds is super fun and satisfying, it's even cool i think how some characters can use their combat abilities for exploration, like ventis flying or althenheims teleport. the characters are all really fun too, everyone that interacts always feels like just friends hanging out, even when they're new in events, there's no bitterness or cynicism, it's cozy like that, kind of like just hanging out with friends in events, i think there's a lot of value in that, it's like a massive JRPG party, sure some can be very one note but no one is ever really unlikable, also a lot of the guys are just attractive, sorry, had to say it, tartaglia and alhaitham a besto, i love lisa and rosaria a lot too, i keep a lil lisa pin on my handbag and i have plushies for a few of them too! the game just has so many cool designs and there's no sign of them slowing, some of my favourites are very recent and a lot of the upcoming characters like arlichho look so cool. the characters can also hang out in your own town, you can get a little hub town that you build yourself and there's a ton of options for it, it's almost like a mini-sims build mode all its own and characters can come and hang out there, it has really good vibes and there's a lot of variety to builds, you can base it on any of the existing areas or just do your own thing, it's a little too complicated for me to do much but i love how it feels just hanging there.

the music adds to the vibes too, genshin's composers are some of the best in the chinese industry and almost every track is really good, you can hear little influences on the composers as well, they clearly love game music especially and there's tracks that remind me a lot of stuff like sim city snes and FFX here and there, there's a lot of love on display with the music, even all the battle themes own, stormterrors and the new battle theme for fontaine are my favourites but others like the mondstadt battle theme and liuye's also sound amazing. all the city themes are my favourites though, mondstadt at dusk (which should be playing in the background) sounds right out of an otome game and makes me tear up a little, they change depending on the time of day and there's a ton of variety with styles and each gives the area a perfect hangoutable vibe, even if you don't play the game, check out the town themes at a minimum, you'll find something you like there.

it's not all perfect, granted, the events run a little too short, there is that gatcha system that will be too much for people and it can be a lot if you want to keep up with all the goings on ingame, but all of those arent as gamebreaking as you may think. the gatcha is annoying but you don't really need to partake to beat the game, you'll get enough free characters outside of it to easily beat the game, and they're all fun to play in their own right, they even upped the rates you get things in the gatcha recently, i think anyway, it used to be i'd get one character every 10, usually a 4* but recently it's been two at minimum, sometimes more and it's been rarer for me to get dupliicates or weapons in it, i even got my two most wanted 5*s in a single day last month (tartaglia and dahya) and the events are all not mandatory, you can just chill and enjoy the story if you really want to, it's not a game about rushing or forcing you to spend, it has those systems yes but they arent a focus even for the devs, it's clear when you play it that they want it to be a game first and foremost about it's world and exploring it, and that's what you'll come out of it remembering, not the bad gatcha luck or the annoying nitpicks.