It's a world so densely layered with treasure that at times I'll look out at a vista and feel a little overwhelmed by all the things I can see and want to investigate. Some of these puzzles only take seconds to solve while others are more involved-cryptic riddles or hidden switches that require clever use of your magical abilities.

Or you'll find a wayward spirit that guides you to some hidden treasure, or find special collectibles that can be offered to special statues to increase your overall stamina. Hidden chests full of loot are tucked into most nooks, but you might see a trio of torches and decide to use some fire magic to light them and get a reward. The two regions of Mondstadt and Liyue are not only enormous but absolutely packed with puzzles that encourage you to pay careful attention to your surroundings at all times. Sure, Genshin Impact might be a Chinese game, but it walks and talks like a JRPG. It's a journey that leads you from being inducted into an order of knights to proving your innocence after being accused of murdering a local demigod. Whichever twin you choose to play as is dropped into the medieval kingdom of Teyvat and embarks on a quest to find their sibling. You play as one of two interloping twins whose dimension-spanning vacation gets ruined by a mysterious god.

It's actually easier to understand Genshin Impact if you think of it less like a free-to-play mobile game (that's also on PC and PS4) and more like a proper singleplayer JRPG like Ni No Kuni 2 or Tales of Vesperia. It expands on and tweaks them to fit really nicely into a loot-obsessed RPG that is-despite what its roots in mobile games might imply-incredibly fun to play. It might offend hardcore Nintendo fans, but Genshin Impact doesn't just thoughtlessly copy and paste these ideas. I have to climb mountains, glide across canyons, and pay attention to my surroundings if I hope to discover it all. There are mercifully few icons on the map, so a lot of the exploration is self-guided. Just like Nintendo's seminal hit, there's an enormous world to explore that's teeming with secrets, puzzles, and cleverly hidden loot. If Genshin Impact has a secret weapon, it's that it isn't afraid to swipe features from other games, most notably The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

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