Visually beautiful game, intriguing characters, but the story has gotten a tad too convoluted and the gacha mechanics are inherently predatory. I doubt I'm going to ever pick this game up again unless something really special comes along.

EDIT (5/23/2024):

I've picked this game up again, and here are my loose thoughts.

I started fresh from a new file on my phone. I'd heard about a 5-Star character (Neuvillette) who reminded me a lot of a villain I was writing, and I decided to try Genshin again, as it became clear to me I wasn't really giving it a "fair shake". A few of my friends, far more into Genshin than I was, spoke a great deal of what makes the game engaging, and it also did a bunch to get me to give this another go. I had started years ago around 1.0, and re-engaged with it on 4.5. Multiple years of development on Genshin had happened in-between my "unofficial break".

The Mondstaht tutorial is not as bad as I remember it being — it's still a little longer than it should be, but it's not "ARR in FFXIV" levels of tedium like my brain was making it out to be. The voice acting is better than I remember — I played as Lumine and Zach Aguilar's performance as Aether is fantastic. I still think Paimon is a narrative crutch that at times is leaned on a little too heavily and her voice acting is a bit grating.

There was a very, very clear shift in my experience of the game once I got Neuvillette. Suddenly, the game went from "eh this is decent" to a genuine fun experience. I felt like I had the tools to really engage with the gameplay loop on its own terms, and I can see how the gameplay loop hooks as many people as it does. Getting into the chase of optimization, of playing Genshin with goals and purposes ("I want to make my team a hypercarry for Neuvillette and I will do everything in my power to make it happen"), lets you get hyperfixated on the game and enjoy what's inside it. The landscapes are gorgeous and the exploration in this game is stellar, even if I found and still find some exploration goals to be tedious (the Anemoculus treasure hunts are tiring). And some of the sidequests, some of the stories, are intriguing, if you let yourself be intrigued by them. Journeying in Sumeru, I found a sidequest chain that got me invested in every sense due to the character-writing, and I was struck by some of the emotion in its plot beats in a way I never thought I'd be regarding Genshin.

However, as much praise as I give this game (because I do enjoy it!), it's held back by one major elephant in the room: I do not like how the gacha system can lead to such stark, disparate experiences with this game as a whole. Unskippable cutscenes suck, but I can deal with them. Time-sucking quests like the -culus hunts? Sure, they want you to spend as much time as possible playing this game.

But the fact that half of the game's enjoyment feels locked behind engaging with what is essentially gambling is messed-up on a lot of levels and is the main thing stopping me from saying that Genshin is a good game. It is a fun game. It does not have to be a good game to a fun game or a game worth playing. But in some moments, I find myself thinking about a version of this game where it /wasn't/ a gacha, and wondering — could we have had a world where Genshin was considered a "top-tier" game? Could this game even be the way it is without the gacha?

It's more lenient towards Free to Play players than I remember it being. It's a fun game, and if you're considering giving it a go, I would recommend it.

It's just that I feel like this game deserves better.