The game I’m choosing to analyze is Genshin Impact. Genshin Impact is a gotcha game made by the Chinese company Hoyoverse (previously Mihoyo) and it’s “a massive game that throws players into a world where archons rule over the land, and elemental visions are granted to worthy mortals. The game follows the Traveler as they go on a quest to find their missing sibling with the strange Paimon.” Currently, the game has only three out of the seven nations created, so there are more of the game to come. It’s primarily a single-player, fantasy adventure game with some multiplayer options. The player explores and learns about the world of Teyvat, overcoming obstacles, domains, monsters, and the evil forces. The fun Genshin evokes is fantasy, challenge, discovery, and submission. This game is available on mobile, PC, and the PS4, and has cross-play compatibility between systems.
For transitive relationships, Genshin has a wide range of characters the players can use. Bow users, magic wielders, polearms, and the sword, to make sure your characters get stronger is about collecting items from the world to level them up. In addition to leveling them up, you can also level up weapons, their attack skills (which are unique to each character), and items characters can hold to boost their stats.
For intransitive relationships, there are seven visions or elements in this game: pyro, cryo, anemo, electro, dendro, geo, and hydro. Each combination of elements can trigger some type of elemental reaction.
- Swirl – Anemo + Cryo, Hydro, Electro, or Pyro
- Crystallize – Geo + Cryo, Electro, Hydro, or Pyro
- Overload – Electro + Pyro
- Superconduct – Electro + Cryo
- Electro-Charge – Electro + Hydro
- Melt – Pyro + Cryo
- Vaporize – Pyro + Hydro
- Freeze – Cryo + Hydro
- Burning – Dendro + Pyro
Some reactions are better than others since they provide some different types of effects (attack boosts, etc) and different reactions are better for different team compositions too.
Some characters are big attack characters while some support (like giving the main attacking character some boost, shielding, or healer). This means that depending on what you’re trying to do (aka attack), the stronger attacking characters are better and vice versa.
In terms of the “Fruity” relationship, the characters are separated into two rarities. Four and five-star characters. Five-star characters generally have better stats and more unique attack skills that are associated with that character and therefore stronger than the four stars. And therefore, this differentiation of character rarity can also be in the intransitive section since some characters are indeed better than the others but that doesn’t mean you can’t still make the four stars strong too.
While there are some concerns about Genshin’s overall balance in characters and leveling system (since we are only 3/7 regions in and the max character level is already 90, there needs to be more balance there). In addition, the artifact (item) searching is beyond difficult to get the ones you actually need. There is also a “resin” system, which is an in-game currency that refills ~22 hours that allows you to collect awards from bosses, which for some players is not enough. The wishing system for new characters is bad and Hoyoverse doesn’t provide enough awards to players resulting in people spending thousands of dollars on pixels. There is so much to get into, but these are the general ones for now.
