playing Genshin Impact accounts thus far and I continue to have a hard time believing this enormous, beautiful, charming open-world RPG is very free. But somehow it's, as well as a result an experience that raises the bar on an entire segment of the games industry that’s often bemoaned because of its controversial monetization model.

Indeed, the depth of content as well as the high standard by which Genshin Impact has been developed is shockingly impressive, and not merely by free-to-play gacha game standards. This is an RPG that boasts a good that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with many different premium games, there are areas of its design that are actually more engaging.

But it’s a lot more than a cookie-cutter game, even when the similarities to Nintendo’s masterpiece verge on parody sometimes, from your cel-shaded art style, plinky-plonky piano score, cooking, and climbing mechanics, plus an item pickup sound bite that I might have sworn would have been a copy-paste job.

Yet buy genshin impact accounts definitely has their own thing taking place thanks to some big differences in the overall game’s combat and progression systems; the previous being objectively great and hugely entertaining, even though the latter will divide opinion because of its overly complicated nature and somewhat predatory relationship featuring its gacha monetization model.

You might say, splash enemies with Barbara’s Hydro attacks before zapping all of them with Lisa’s Electro abilities. And that’s simply a very basic example; you'll find dozens of different combinations to know and research depending on your party composition, from overcharging to vaporizing to melting enemies.

As the overall game got harder and I became more knowledgeable about the best combos I found myself linking attacks not simply between two characters but my whole party of 4. And of Genshin Impact’s 24 playable characters, I’ve only played nine of those, so there’s plenty more yet to test out even after 40 hours of playtime.

Of course, whether I actually get any more characters depends upon a roll from the dice, which is where the experience’s gacha mechanics will probably have some players feeling weary. Rightly so, too, because gacha is actually a loot box, which can be basically glorified gambling.

In brief, Genshin Impact’s gacha system, called Wishes, offers players the possibility of winning new items (including characters and weapons) of 3, 4, and 5-Star rarity. For every Wish, you've got less than a 1% prospect of scoring a 5-Star pull, though a “pity system” guarantees that you 5-Star item if you’ve been unlucky enough not to score one after 89 Wishes.

Not great odds, then. But thankfully, and surprisingly, Genshin Impact never really produces a fuss over its gacha mechanics, nor is the action designed in a fashion that ever throttles your progress in a manner that makes it impossible to enjoy the action without spending money. It’s quite possible to finish the principal story and have its end-game content being a free-to-play player.