Review: Genshin Impact

Americans celebrate Thanksgiving every November. It’s a time when families gather, friends reconnect and communities unite. On Thanksgiving you also announce what you’re thankful for in life, so several of our writers decided to let everyone know exactly which video games they’re thankful for. These thanks are comprised of releases from Thanksgiving 2019 to Thanksgiving 2020 and made up of a variety of reasons. Read on to see the titles everyone decided were personally meaningful enough from the past year to make the list!

Though the complexity of physical combat isn’t entirely deep, it’s the tactical side of things where most of the focus is placed. The continuous push for elemental buffs and certain status ailments on your enemies, made possible when you combine two or more elements in a given situation. Come across foes that are comprised of ice? Best to rid their armor with a character specializing in fire abilities, but not before having that interact with wind and topping it off with a clash of an electric super move that causes you to chain together damage to nearby enemies. While you can mostly get by simply throwing everything but the kitchen sink at things, later on the game does require players to think more strategically about the kind of elemental properties they want to wield. More importantly, when it might be best to use specific abilities — some running on a cool-down, others requiring a slightly lengthier charge up. But even at its most basic level, when taking out the elemental mechanics and the desire to multiply one’s damage output, there’s a simple pleasure in seeing your character hack-and-slash away. A more satisfying sight when such encounters have you surrounded on all fronts — some enemies even trying to stay back so as to unleash their own area-of-effect or elemental-based ailments.

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Gorou is a niche support character, and you will need to build your team specifically around his talents. With his Elemental Skill being most effective when there are three Geo characters, you will need a Geo DPS like Aratakki Itto in your pa

Diona’s Elemental Burst, Signature Mix , tosses a special mixture that deals AoE Cryo damage and creates Drunken Mist . The Drunken Mist deals continuous AoE Cryo damage and regenerates the HP of the characters inside its rad

There’s no greater a highlight than a moment around fifteen-ish hours into wandering the world. Having already established the omnipresent “the world is one big environmental puzzle” motif at the heart of Genshin Impact and successfully completing a near two kilometre trek to a new region, to activate another beacon filling in more of the map, only to spot one of thousands of optional collectibles atop an incline of rocks; a few seconds of climbing later and off in the distance, another beacon. A subtle indicator — of which the game does a great job at allowing players to organically discover parts for themselves — that hinted not only towards another environmental conundrum, but also of what may lie beyond. Even then: what other little moments will distract me. It’s a truly great, out-of-the-blue moment but another point in Genshin Impact’s favor. How, indeed like Breath of the Wild before it, the journey becomes as pivotal and as fulfilling as the destination. Ultimately, the marvel of seeing yet another perspective on the vast world before you. Before long, you’re ready to plot another course and begin that journey all over again.

Nintendo received a lot of flak after the announcement of the long-rumored remastered collection of Super Mario 3D platformers, with complaints citing the minimal improvements from the original releases, limited time availability for purchase and the disappointing absence of Super Mario Galaxy 2. Super Mario 3D All-Stars, however, still ultimately represents one of the few ways to play these acclaimed titles on a modern platform, providing an exciting opportunity for those that missed out over the past couple of decades. After falling in love with Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 back on the Wii, but having never owned an N64 and missing out on Sunshine during its heyday, I honestly thought I may never get a proper opportunity to check out Super Mario 64 and Sunshine on a Nintendo device, considering Nintendo’s recent reluctance to re-release games that came out after the SNES. And as Nintendo slowed down their release schedule for 2020 to adjust to everything going on, I naturally figured that any potential 3D remaster, if it even existed, would be pushed back beyond the mascot’s 35th anniversary. But now, thanks to Super Mario 3D All-Stars, I can officially say that I’ve gotten all 120 stars in Super Mario 64 and am currently aiming to do the same in Sunshine, and despite wonky camera controls and poor checkpoints, I’m still having a blast with the great level design and jolly vibes of these beloved Mario games.