5 Minutes of Genshin Impact Details you Might Have Never Noticed

I pretty much constantly talk about how Genshin Impact has so much love and care put into it. It really feels like every single thing in the game was intentional and well thought out. And while I won’t try to argue that Genshin is an absolutely perfect game, I do think there are a lot of small details that could use some more appreciation. So here’s _ minutes of Genshin Impact details that you might have never noticed. 

When you switch to a character that has their elemental burst ready, their vision shines with the symbol of that element, and continues to pulse. The elemental burst indicator has a small animation around it that represents that element. When you switch to a character on the character screen or character archive, a subtle sound effect plays that represents that element. If you open up the character screen as the traveler before you gain the power of Anemo, everything is gray. Every character has a splash art that appears when you pull them, but only 8 out of the 29 hold usable weapons. 

Amber has the Hunter’s Bow. Xiangling has the White Tassel. Beidou has the Blackcliff Slasher. Xingqiu has the Silver Sword. Bennett has the Harbinger of Dawn. Noelle has the Favonius Greatsword. Jean has the Aquila Favonia. Keqing has the Lion’s Roar. And Xiao looks like he has his own spear that’s facing towards the ground, but it’s actually the same as the other ones he creates. NPCs clap for Barbara’s basic attacks. Your character turns towards NPCs that are walking by. You can swap characters within a party by holding click on them for long enough, and it plays this very unique sound effect. 

Characters have unique sounds for moving around, namely Xiangling, Diona, and Ganyu who have ringing bells. Other sounds are affected by characters too. For example, larger characters land with a greater force than smaller ones. While all sitting animations are the same for each body type, a character’s specific clothing has to be animated to look natural. This also includes Diona’s tail. Despite the medium sized males appearing to be slightly taller than the medium sized females, their feet appear to dangle a bit more. 

The “Dark Iron Sword” is given to you once by Chen the Sharp, and this is currently the only way to acquire it. This means if you trash it, you might never be able to get another. Also if you refine it it’ll look different forever, and personally I think it loses some of it’s charm. In Mondstadt, there are emblems to represent the four winds in the four directions of the city. The Wolf of the North by the Cathedral The Dragon of the East Dvalin at the East Gate The Lion of the South above the South Gate And the Falcon of the West at the Knights of Favonius Headquarters. Especially fitting since the Falcon, Vennessa, founded the Knights. The aerosiderite weapon ascension material is in a shape similar to that of a burr puzzle. And so is Zhongli’s meteor. Before 1.3 these items were called “prototypes” but they were changed to “billets.” 

This is much more fitting since prototype implies some form of limited functionality, whereas a billet is meant to be further processed. Other names have changed with updates too. Before 1.2: The Crown of Insight used to be Crown of Sagehood. The Prototype Archaic used to be Prototype Aminus. The Blackcliff Agate was the Blackcliff Amulet. The Prototype Starglitter was the Prototype Grudge. And the Prototype Amber was the Prototype Malice. Kaeya’s Passive Talent, Glacial Heart, used to be Heart of the Abyss Fischl’s Passive Talent, Undone Be Thy Sinful Hex, used to be Lightning Smite. 

The specific reason for these changes was never officially revealed, but we can assume that it’s to be closer to the meanings of the untranslated versions. In the archive for enemies and monsters, you can see how many you have killed, but unfortunately you cannot for wildlife. Loach pearls are obtained by catching loaches, but the loaches in game don’t really look like the ones in real life and instead look like axolotls. Also, loach pearls currently serve absolutely no purpose in the game. Horsetails are an interesting item. Their only current use in the game is for cooking Jueyun Guoba, but they are not listed as an ingredient. They are instead listed as a material, similar to items which are used specifically for crafting. 

In the character selection screen, new characters are denoted with the Chinese or Japanese character for new. This is interesting because even though you can probably figure it out, the game does not explicitly explain it, and the english word “new” is shown in other areas. In the settings menu, there is a tab for “messages,” but there is currently nothing there. And lastly, there is still no word about the merchandise button, despite it being shown again in the 1.4 reveal stream. So there you have it. I hope you found at least some of these interesting. There are definitely a lot more that I missed, like, I didn’t even get into character design details or item descriptions at all. 

A bit of a shorter video this time around since I’m preparing my exams. But good news, after this week I’ll be on break for a little bit so I can finally get to working on those videos that you guys have been patiently waiting for. I will probably be streaming on Thursday to play a bit of 1.4 as well so keep an eye out for that if you’re interested. Thank you for your recent support, and as always, thank you for watching.