Genshin Impact – Is it different enough to get rid of the “plagiarized game” label?

When Genshin Impact First announced at E3 2019, the game immediately received a lot of hate, thinking that this is like a cheap plagiarized version of the game. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The reason is that there are too many similarities in graphics, music, characters, gameplay, … between the two games. One male gamer even smashed the PS4 mine to protest Sony for Genshin Impact released on the PlayStation platform.

The fact that Genshin Impact was inspired by Breath of the Wild is undeniable, but is it fair to vehemently oppose and say the game is “blatantly stolen”, “cheap copy” when the game is still full of crap. Creative enough to make a difference? No matter what, we should not judge in a one-sided way, we have to experience it for ourselves to know where right and wrong are.
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Rich character system

The diverse character system is probably the biggest highlight of Genshin Impact with more than 20 playable characters at launch and certainly more in the future. Players start with a “Traveler” – the standard character, then can add other characters throughout the game. In different areas of the world of Genshin Impact, players can meet and recruit hunters, knights, magicians, archers, … each character class will have its own unique features. In addition, the game has a “Wish System” that is used to summon additional auxiliary characters.

During battle, Genshin Impact allows the player to quickly swap between 4 characters, each with their respective elemental attributes and different special abilities. In addition to affecting weapons, elemental attributes (such as Fire, Lightning, etc.) also affect cooldowns, ranging from power-ups to wide attacks to crowd control. Unique skill systems and weapons open up different fighting styles, unlike Link’s weapon experience in Breath of the Wild.
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Complex character building abilities and mechanics

Combat in Genshin Impact is also significantly different from Breath of the Wild because the game mechanics are built much deeper and more complex. As mentioned above, in each battle, players can quickly swap between 4 characters at any time to match the battle strategy. Battles can start with standard melee style but if the player needs to keep their distance, they can use mages and archers for ranged attacks. Elemental properties also play an important role in this fast swapping mechanism. Elements can combine to create a high damage multiplier such as Fire combined with Water. Basically, this is a very flexible system, both visually flashy and optimized in terms of damage, enough to destroy tough enemies in Genshin Impact.

Graphics inspired by traditional Chinese design
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This is perhaps the most noticeable difference of Genshin Impact compared to Breath of the Wild. Genshin Impact’s graphic style is clearly influenced by Chinese folklore and traditional designs. Although the characters themselves are shaped very much like the anime series, the scene is created in its own way with Chinese architectural and visual characteristics. Moreover, in fact, many other games are also inspired by the design of Breath of the Wild, so even if the graphic style is similar, it cannot be completely attributed to Genshin Impact stealing. .

Honestly, if you’ve loved Breath of the Wild, chances are you’ll love Genshin Impact, too. The depth of gameplay and the massive character system is something that Breath of the Wild cannot do. Of course, Genshin Impact has a lot in common with Breath of the Wild, but it’s definitely still a name worth trying.

Genshin Impact launches this fall for Android, iOS, PC and PS4.​