It isn’t often that a video game explodes on the scene and immediately draws comparisons with the best out there. But such is the case with Genshin Impact, the latest video game phenomenon developed and published by miHoYo, that draws massive inspiration from the Big Nintendo’s own The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild but also does its own thing at the same time.
Best of all is the fact that it is free to play. And, as far as action role-playing games go, let alone free-to-play action RPGs, Genshin Impact is everything its beautiful graphics and intuitive controls promise and more.
To start, this game is polished to a mirror shine with sparkling graphics and crisp sound, as well as voice acting and a cast of characters that might make you think you’re watching an anime epic instead of playing a video game.
Combining action RPG with gacha game elements, the free-to-play business model of Genshin Impact lends itself to accessibility, and this has already manifested itself in a huge community of gamers.
In fact, the game’s successful launch is one of the largest in history on mobile platforms, with over US$250 million grossed in the first month of availability alone. Offering an open-world full of things to do and explore, Genshin Impact is also huge on replayability and should give gamers plenty to do for months to come.
That said, it probably won’t hurt for you to know a little bit about what you are getting into before you start the game. In this guide, we’re going to give you some tips and tricks on starting up in Genshin Impact that should help your early game a ton.
Not only will things make more sense to you right away, but also you can focus on enjoying the game and its robust, rich world as well as all it has to offer. Here are some things to keep in mind while playing Genshin Impact.
Gacha and re-rolling your starting character
One mechanic that might not be familiar to gamers accustomed to traditional RPGs and the like is the gacha system, which shows up as soon as you start the game.
Gacha is a randomized way of awarding players with items or even characters in games and draws its name from the Japanese vending machines that go by the same moniker. Gacha machines in Japan can vend anything from small toys to collectibles and other items.
The randomized chance, coupled with the small fee that each “roll” costs, often drive gacha collectors to spend money to get the item they want. Due to the chance element, this could either be a very cheap process (you get the thing you want on your first try), or you have to spend money on multiple attempts to get it.
Genshin Impact’s character system works in much the same way as this, and, as you can imagine, upper-tier characters are harder to obtain statistically than more generic ones. The character you roll at the start can have a significant impact on the course of your game, and, as you can imagine, gamers are already wondering if there is a way around a “garbage” first roll other than spending money to get new characters.
There is, and, as long as you are cool with a potential account ban, here it is: To re-roll your starting character, you need to create a new account and play through the first two minutes of the game. Whether or not this is worth it will probably rest mainly on your initial character’s quality.
And, though creating new accounts is a pain, this is a pretty small hurdle for most gamers. Once you have started the game, you will have to pay for new chances at better characters.
As of right now, the top-tier characters are:
- Venti (S+)
- Keqing (S)
- Mona (S)
- Duluc (S)
- Qiqi (A+)
- Jean (A)
The Wish System and Banners: The difference between standard, limited, and event wishes
Moving beyond the initial roll, the “Wish” system is the gacha mechanic that will govern things for you moving forward. This is the chance system we described above, and it applies to everything in the game, including characters and weapons, and craftable items. The “Wish” system is broken down into categories known as “Banners” that can be themed. You can purchase a Standard Wish with Acquaint Fate that you acquire by completing in-game tasks or using 160 Primogems, the game’s premium currency. After that are “Limited Wishes” or “Event Wishes.”
Gamers can also earn Primogems through completing quests, the adventurer handbook, dropped from chests, and from leveling up the Statue of the Seven with Anemoculus, among others. Limited and Event Wishes will feature an increased chance of getting a four-star or five-star characters.
Banners for characters will possibly yield a five-star character, while those for items could potentially give you a five-star item. Often Genshin Impact will indicate the themed prize for each and the player’s odds of obtaining that through the gacha system. We advise against using any of it for Standard Wishes and instead reserving it for Limited and Event Wishes in terms of maximizing the utility of your accrued rewards and premium currency.
Processing ingredients and cooking recipes
A considerable attraction for Genshin Impact is its similarity to Nintendo’s Breath of the Wild and, like Link’s vaunted quest across Hyrule, Genshin Impact features a robust and deep recipe system for cooking up your stat-boosting fare.
Understanding how this system works and how to utilize it for your benefit could help you out big time throughout the game, and it is just one of the many systems that Genshin Impact uses to allow players to play the game in their own way. In other words, cooking might look like an optional thing, but it isn’t if you’re serious.
The game tests how much you are paying attention in this realm is the ingredients “processing” requirement. Some ingredients can be used for crafting or, in this case, cooking right away, but others need a “processing time” before they can be used.
To access the cooking sub-game, find a fire located in your hometown or pretty much anywhere in the world (they’re all over the place). When you use the fire, this will bring up the cooking menu along with what you can do with what you have. To process ingredients, you can start that up and queue up future orders after the initial one completes.
Here are some of the processed ingredients you can make in Genshin Impact:
Bacon: Processed Raw Meat + Salt.
2x Raw Meat & 2x Salt per Bacon
15 Minutes to Process
Recipe(s): Cold Cut Platter & Blessed Symphony
Butter: Processed Milk.
2x Milk per Butter
5 Minutes to Process
Recipe(s): Sauteed Matsutake
Cheese: Processed Milk.
3x Milk per Cheese
10 Minutes to Process
Recipe(s): Pile ‘Em Up, Once upon a Time in Mondstadt, Mushroom Pizza & Invigorating Pizza
Crab Roe: Processed Crab.
4x Crab per Crab Roe.
20 Minutes to Process
Cream: Processed Milk.
1x Milk per Cream.
3 Minutes to Process
Recipe(s): Cream Stew & Spicy Strew
Flour: Processed Wheat.
1x Wheat per Flour.
1 Minute to Process
Recipe(s): Many, many, many recipes use processed wheat – too many to list here.
Ham: Processed Raw Meat + Salt.
2x Raw Meat & 1x Salt per Ham.
5 Minutes to Process
Recipe(s): Adaptus’ Temptation, Cold Cut Platter, Blessed Symphony and Jade Parcel
Jam: Processed Sunsettia, Berry + Sugar.
3x Sunsettia, 2x Berry & 1x Sugar per Jam.
10 Minutes to Process
Recipe(s): Mondstadt Hash Brown, Puppy-Paw Hash Brown
Sausage: Processed Raw Meat.
3x Raw Meat per Sausage.
20 Minutes to Process
Recipe(s): Cold Cut Platter & Blessed Symphony
Smoked Fowl: Processed Fowl + Salt.
3x Fowl & 1 Salt per Smoked Fowl.
5 Minutes to Process
Recipe(s): Northern Smoked Chicken
Sugar: Processed Sweet Flower.
2x Sweet Flower per Sugar.
Recipe(s): Jam Processing process and in the Lotus Seed and Bird Egg Soup, Squirrel Fish and Stick Honey Roast
The best team build in Genshin Impact
One feature that separates Genshin Impact from Breath of the Wild that few people have addressed in the breathless press about the game is that it uses a party system, whereas the Nintendo title does not. Naturally, as an online game, there is an optimal party setup that you might want to consider.
Like other mobile RPGs, characters in Genshin Impact each fulfill specific tasks and roles in combat. These can be broken down into four major categories: Carry, Burst, Enabler, and Support. Carry is somewhat equivalent to tank role and is the most consistent damage dealer in your party.
The Burst is like a mage in MMORPGs in that they primarily focus on dealing damage, sometimes in large amounts called burst damage. Enablers help maximize DPS output through reactions while Support, as you can probably guess, is the equivalent of a healing class offering HP recovery and buffs.
- The Pyro Team: Diluc (Main DPS), Venti (Support for crowd control), Fischl (Projectile DPS), Xiangling (Pyro Support for Diluc)
- The Electro Team: Razor (Main DPS), Fischl (Projectile DPS), Kaeya (Used to Wet enemies for more damage), Qiqi (Healer)
- The Hydro Team: Mona (Main DPS), Venti (Support for crowd control), Fischl (Projectile DPS), Qiqi (Healer)
- The Cryo Team: Chongyun (Main DPS), Fischl (Secondary DPS), Venti (Support for crowd control),Qiqi (Healer)
- The Anemo Team: Diluc (Main DPS), Keqing (Secondary DPS), Sucrose (Support), Qiqi (Healer)
The game’s real challenge is being lucky enough to get characters like Diluc and Venti since they are both 5-Star characters. This strategy is how the game can make most of their money.
