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| Please keep in mind that the game talked about in today’s Journal Entry does contain Gacha elements, which is a method known to prey on those who suffer from gambling disorders. If you suffer from anything like this, please take care if you’re considering trying/playing this game. |
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Here we go again! Have you already noticed the new Autumn banner at the top of the site? I admit that halfway through October might be a bit late to change it but, until a few days ago, it was so unusually hot here in Italy that I almost thought it was still Summer XD; now it’s cold again, though.
First of all, have you had a look at the Marvelous Footnote in Tech History blog? It’s the one about a bizarrely powerful 80s workstation, the Mindset Computer, that has its own game, the flight simulator called Vyper; even if it’s not famous at all, it deserves a read, especially if you’re into obscure games and systems! Now that the ad is over, let’s get back to what you’re actually here for!
EmeraldDM8 and I have just finished watching Season 3 of Doctor Who (2005), and I’ll once again say that it’s an extraordinary show and that you should watch it too! I’ve also had a look at the series’ audio dramas; they’re basically new adventures for the show but they’re voiced and made in a way where, in the end, the only thing that is fundamentally missing is the video. If they suddenly filmed it and added it to the audio, you could easily mistake them for proper episodes! Apparently, some of these CDs are incredibly cheap on the Italian Amazon, so I got some of the most inexpensive ones (always striving to avoid spoilers, of course), and I shall listen to them soon enough. Once again, thanks to EmeraldDM8 for the suggestion, and also thanks to him for searching through the audiobooks for me so that I don’t risk seeing any spoilers!
Another thing he and I have done this week, in a surprise twist, is playing some Genshin Impact again! If you’ve read some of my previous pages (specifically the ones about Tower of Fantasy and Final Fantasy 14), you’ll know that both EmeraldDM8 and I have quite an unusual relationship with Genshin Impact, as we started playing it soon after it released, and while we had been immensely enjoying it, there were certain things that always did their best to ruin our experience; yet, now we are back, and strangely enough, we are enjoying it once more! Did we just need a break, or is there something more?
| A Recipe to Happiness – How the Little Things Got Us Back to Genshin Impact |
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Do you still play Genshin Impact? I admit that, even if I stopped playing for a long time, I’ve kept being quite fond of it, even with its many flaws; it’s one of those things that you always complain about, yet if someone catches you off guard and asks you about it, or if you see some merch of it, it will instantly put a smile on your face, and in my book, that means it’s something you actually enjoy.
As I mentioned before, we’ve been playing practically since the beginning, where it was just us, Monstadt, and Liyue; when the Archons were but only two, when you could reasonably use a character after just having obtained them, and when artifact farming wasn’t even remotely a necessity. My main was the adorable Sucrose, whereas he used to play as the intellectual Xingqiu; we were so astonished at the quality of the game and we ended up playing a lot of it, finding our truly favorite characters in the process, Xinyan for me and Zhongli for him, and we thought nothing could ruin our moments of fun. Though, sadly, not everything is forever, and Genshin Impact started piling up flaw after flaw, which ultimately killed our experience… at least, until now…
See, what we enjoyed about the game was being able to explore around (especially together, which made it both fun and useful because I’m terrible at environmental puzzles, whereas he, just as with basically every game he’s ever played, is good at them. No, I’m not bitter. Not in the slightest. Not one bit.), fight enemies, try and get the new characters that keep being released, and, most importantly, actually get a chance at using them to beat the game’s content. The problem with this is that Genshin Impact has a feature called World Level, that progressively (and mandatorily) increases the overall difficulty as you play, and there isn’t really a way to temporarily lower it more than one stage (which doesn’t do much); this means that after some time, the game will become so challenging that you’ll need to start to effectively build your characters so that you don’t get overwhelmed. Additionally, this also means that you won’t be able to just obtain a character (which is not an easy feat per se) and try them out, unless you, for some reason, already are in possession of the numerous materials needed to build them straight away.
This wouldn’t be too much of a problem, yet it becomes one because of Artifacts; these particular items, released as sets of 5, are essential for a character, determining their stats and giving them additional properties based on whether you use 2 or 4 of them together that belong to the same set. The main difficulty of this is that each artifact has a main stat and 4 substats which get randomly increased as you level up said Artifact, yet what stats you get is entirely random; plus, they are even quite difficult to obtain, as you can only get a very limited number of them per day (unless you’re willing to spend money to buy Primogems to refill your Resin, but even then, you’d have to have a lot of disposable income for that). Most of the time you’ll get nothing, wonder why you even bothered to play, and turn the game off in disbelief. Yet, they’ve made it slightly better now!
While it wasn’t our main reason for getting back to playing it (I’ll get to that later), EmeraldDM8 noticed that there was something new, and we absolutely had to have a look at this new extremely useful feature; now, by turning in three 5-star artifacts (the best and rarest, and the only ones that truly matter) you’ll be able to get a new random one from a set of your choice (not all of them are available yet, but even so). While it’s a risk, as you throw away three to get one that could remotely be useful, it means that now you have even more daily chances at getting something you need, and you can even make it so that you actually get the right set you want (usually it’s two sets per dungeon, and, just as it always is when things come down to sheer luck, you usually end up getting the ones you don’t need). This made us incredibly excited and gave me the chance to start to try and get a new and better set for my Xinyan, using all the failed artifacts that I had been collecting to build my Mona (who, after a few days’ worth of battles, is currently sitting at 1 out of 4 minimum required… oh, and… uh… maybe don’t ask EmeraldDM8 how it’s going for his Zhongli…), although admittedly there is something slightly concerning about the fact that we seem to be happier navigating menus for these Artifacts than we are actually fighting in the Domains, but oh well. 😅
Editor’s Note: Why…? Why does the game do this…? Finally, after all this time, it gave me the Staff of Homa, but then I can’t get a good Artifact drop to save my life… Zhongli is so close to being perfect, yet…
Um… EmeraldDM8…? Are you alright? 👀
Editor’s Note: It’s always the flat stats… Whenever I get one that looks like it’ll work, I end up with flat Def or HP…
Welp… There goes any hope of this being a joint blog. 👀
Editor’s Note: In all seriousness, whilst I may be playing this up for entertainment, it is honestly quite disheartening to go through those same Domains over and over, only to end up with nothing. I think it might actually be the worst part of the game in my opinion, because at least its other problems can be worked around with a bit of planning, but if you’re unlucky enough, then you might genuinely just never get the Artifacts that you are after.
Though now, let’s leave the Artifact farming aside, and let’s finally talk about the exciting reason we are back (for now)! You see, they’ve recently added two new regions, Sumeru (the land of Dendro) and Fontaine (the realm of Hydro), and the latter has a truly thrilling feature, which is the ability to dive and swim underwater! Now, when you are swimming in Fontaine, at the press of a button you’ll be able to proceed under the ocean surface, and freely explore the beauty that lies under it (and you even get infinite swimming time to do it, instead of having to use stamina!). I’m a huge fan of everything that involves beaches, oceans, and seas, so this was a marvelous addition for me, so of course I had to try it out. Plus, even the newly added city is incredibly aesthetic, being based on France, and has many decorative fountains and small rivers in it, which I particularly enjoyed seeing.
Thus, EmeraldDM8 and I embarked on a journey through the desert to reach Fontaine, aided by his near-endless patience and Mona’s sprinting skills, which bizarrely make her the fastest runner in the game (as far as I know); she can turn into water and run at a really high speed through everything, even water! You can imagine that I’ve had a lot of fun using her, especially in the newly added water regions, and while I admit this might sound strange and childish, there is something about zooming around on the water at a super high speed that makes me so happy, you have no idea! It makes everything in the game immensely faster, and now I can’t use anyone when exploring but Mona, and this is ultimately one of the reasons I’m building her.
But what can we take away from all of this? Maybe we needed a break, perhaps we just wanted new places to explore and new things to be thrilled about, or possibly I just needed EmeraldDM8 to tell me about Fontaine and drag me back into playing, who really knows? A thing I’m certain of is that we shouldn’t take Genshin Impact so seriously (which is tricky when you need to improve an already amazing character and get caught up in Artifact maths), and we should focus on having fun by enjoying the small things that make us happy, and ignore the rest. I don’t know for how long we’ll be playing this time, though I hope it will be worth it.
Therefore, if you too are finding it hard to log in again and have a look, don’t worry, it’s normal, and the only thing I can tell you is to take a deep breath, remind yourself of the fun moments you had with it, and try it out once more (and don’t forget to drag a friend into it too), you might end up enjoying your time!
Thank you for reading, please like and subscribe, and I hope I’ll be seeing you in next week’s Journal Page!
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