5/5 ★ – whatgoat's review of Genshin Impact.

While gacha games are always controversial with regards to whaling and near limitless spend, I feel that Genshin is not as firmly "pay to win" as most games of the genre, since there is zero competitive content in the game. All available 60+ hours of free to play content (to be clear there is no paid exclusive pvm content in genshin) can be cleared as a f2p player, by using proper resource management and planning when it comers to preparing for endgame difficulty scenarios. You just might not get the hot/shiny new units that come out monthly, and have to save up to target ones you want more. The open world is rich and full of things to explore, and Genshin does exploration better than almost every other AAA game i've played by incentivizing you to collect everything you can - as a generous amount of exploration content rewards you with the game's premium resource, unlike othergames that just give you meaningless doodads to collect for achievements. The combat system is simple to learn and seems shallow at first glance, expecially during low level content, but can become surprisingly deep both in strategic team building as well as mechanical execution via i-frame dodging, stamina management, animation cancelling, and micromanaging your team's cooldowns for optimal damage. The downside is that the game is fairly demanding of a player's time (daily and weekly login bonuses/missions, limited time events, battle pass, etc) so your mileage may vary.