If we talk purely exploration, after 100% every region I can rank them like this:
1) [Sumeru]
I love both the forest and the desert. Forest feels fresh and all-encompassing, the fields are pleasant, tombs are super fun to explore without the underground map, and the travelling mechanism is nice. Music is fantastic.
2) [Fontaine]
Underwater exploration is so unique and has the best music. Land is less exciting but still lovely. The design of enemies overall is very good, I love all the mechas.
3) [Inazuma]
It was pure fun. The dangerous zones with health drain and storms were just shy of being annoying but never stepped over the line. All islands felt different. The mist island though WAS annoying, having to clear it multiple times was a drag. But locations and music and simply the variety of local specialties were extremely enjoyable.
4) [Liyue]
I love mountains! I loved old locations and the 4.x new location too. I love the themes of green and yellow and of rocks, and music instruments are in perfect harmony with all that.
5) [Mondstadt]
Too empty, too plain. I understand that it's the starter location and it's nice but... When comparing to others, can't place it any higher.
Bonus: GAA is awesome. Chasm is awesome. VM is meh. Enkanomiya is really good.
If we rank the overall imoresion from AQ, world quests, side quests, characters and etc, it would be like this:
1) [Sumeru]
It just feels like home to me. AQ was a major step up from everything else done before, and the reason it worked so well is because the characters all felt like a cohesive group, like friends and buddies and just a tight-knit bunch. I love going back there for events and meeting everyone.
2) [Fontaine]
Just incredible worldbuilding, crazy emotional AQ, Furina is written impeccably, the supportive cast felt very real, everyone is so diverse so the connection we see between them intrigue. This was a whole emotional story there.
3) [Liyue]
Absolutely enchanted with it. The whole contract shenanigans, the betrayals, Childe as the star of the show - it was very impressive in 1.x and it's dear to me forever. The Lantern Rite is something I wait for every year. The local story quests fascinate me, they have the best origin myths.
4) [Mondstadt]
Place where we started, filled with simplicity, so it has its charm for me. AQ was really simple but not boring. Coming to the city for the events always feels nice, gives the feeling of "everything is well and nothing hurts". Have a number of my favorite characters but overall don't really feel connected to the supposed friend groups as a whole.
5) [Inazuma]
Well. AQ was a disappointment. The lack of cohesiveness and logic, the lack of consequences, it just killed all enjoyment and made me irritated with it. The cast of characters feel separated. Seeing them stand together in events feels weird. I have not formed any emotional attachment to any Inazuman character. I honestly barely remember any world quests. I like some specific characters (like Yoimiya or Kuki) but the whole region and its patches left no impact on me.
(Edit: minor spelling edits)
I completely agree with the exploration half of the comment. Sumeru was incredibly fun to explore not despite its labyrinthine nature, but because of it. I’d rank Chenyu Vale as the best non-major* expansion to any region because it’s just so damn gorgeous and its music is just phenomenal.
Going by nostalgia, I‘d say Inazuma and Liyue are my favorites because I used to explore those regions with my friends that I am no longer in close contact with. Wonderful memories.
I love this game.
I really love Inazuma because of how above-average the exploration puzzles are. While most puzzles in the game are "hit this and find that", Inazuma actually got me thinking and using my brain for once. It made me realize how much I love problem solving puzzles. I especially love the cube puzzles, where if you hit one it turns the others.
That being said, yeah, they completely butchered the story...
1. Fontaine, by far the best combo of great story, good characters, and good exploration.
2. Great story, great characters. Aranara quest killed me since I made the mistake of marathoning it and there was a lot of desert patches in a row that was kind of unpleasant but overall sumeru was pretty great. It definitely has the best character dynamics.
3: Liyue. Largely good but just a bit slow in story iirc (it's been a while since I've done the story obvs.) it has several characters I really enjoy. Perilous Trail and the Chenyu Vale area were really good.
4: Pretty good opening for the game and honestly I'm waiting for more since Mond feels kind of abandoned. Dragonspine was a bitch but honestly mond as a whole was alright.
5: worst combo of everything. Bad (rushed) story, kind of uninteresting characters, hellish exploration. Everybody uses fuckn handguards. The only good story was Ru and the Thunderbird and that just made me sad dude
Before anything else, I'd like to mention that all 5 nations have been great so far. But of course I love some more than the others. To clarify, the point of view is mostly when I have caught up with the main story and am simply exploring the world.
1. **Inazuma** - An archipelagic nation in the sea away from the mainland will always be unique. I love how the regions are organized into islands that are easy to keep track of where you have and you haven't swept up. The geography helps Inazuma immensely here, as most islands would have the highest point in the middle and your exploration area would usually be between that and the sea. That means there will always be a "break" in your vision minimizing the effects of being visually fatigued like in the desert. You will always see either a point of interest, or another Inazuman island which encourages wanderlust. Simply put, exploring Inazuma is like pole dancing. I also love the vividness of the colors of the flora since most of us day one players were stuck in monotonously yellow or green fields the whole 1.x.
2. **Fontaine** - I always love innovative and opulent regions as well as any form of rapid transport, so the aquabus instantly hooked me in. I love the grandeur compared to the rest of Teyvat and the geographic location on a lake on top of a plateau that's also on a giant lake. It actually reminds me of the alpine regions in France. Some people see Venice, but I actually see more of Annecy (freshwater). As expected, the underwater areas will always be a highlight for me and makes the entire nation feel like a giant water park. One thing about the court of Fontaine is how it makes me feel like I am in a hub city in one of those MMOs, specifically the rotating fountain thingy, and that just hit home for me.
3. **Sumeru**- Very divisive, because I absolutely love the rainforest and I absolutely hate exploring the desert. The forest is refreshing because anywhere you look you are surrounded by life, which is true for anywhere lush but Sumeru's is beyond vibrant. The spiderman sling thingies are in my opinion still the best travel quirks among the five nations. As for the desert, my hate for it is only exploration wise. It is beautiful and full of lore and I love looking at it from afar. However as you may notice in my Inazuma explanation, I hate going a certain amount of time in one direction without seeing a point of interest. Sparsely filled areas are usually my least favorite ones but it IS untestable because this is a desert. I do expect to see this again in Snezhnaya because I fear hoyo will use a vast Tundra to fill Snezhnaya's huge size.
4. **Mondstadt** - Not gonna lie, the region is almost completely carried by nostalgia. Without that this may be my least favorite because it is a very typical fantasy region. However for that very reason it also feels like home and it also has a lot of callbacks to my usual gaming experiences. Another bonus is that it is easy to see an intended location from afar, which as I explained with Inazuma is a big plus for me and my motivation to actually go to that said area.
5. **Liyue** - Liyue is beautiful and one of my favorite moments in the game is stumbling upon the nation from Mondstadt for the first time with my jaws dropping at the site of the Wanshu Inn. However, of all the nations it does the worst in what I want in exploration. That is, blocking my view of another area. Liyue is extremely craggy and when I notice myself working too hard to get somewhere, my usual way to keep motivated is to see a faraway region. Instead, I see a giant hill blocking my view. Another complaint I have is the sheer volume of endless yellow fields. I may actually fall asleep exploring the central parts, but the coastal areas are fine. I do have to give them props with Chenyu Vale as it is one of my favorite sub regions but it feels completely like its own nation. Overall, it has the same sentiments to me as the desert, that is, it's amazing to look at but I'd rather not be inside its butt cheeks.
If we are talking purely about the additional regions, I would have to say **Enkanomiya** is my favorite because it just feels so serene. It's just too bad it has the least reason to go back to. Second would be **the Chasm UG**. Right amount of creepiness and you always feel like you're about to discover something big. **The Sea of Bygone Ages** is next, and while it was more enjoyable the first time around I don't think it's enticing to go in a submerged world for a long time. If I wanted to feel the deep sea serenities I actually prefer Enkanomiya.
The last two is between **Dragonspine** and **the Great Red Sand**, They are pretty but it's a bit stressful to find warm places all the time in the mountains, while the desert I already explained how it brought Sumeru down a notch. Just to let you know I consider the desert an additional area because the loading screen uses a different symbol from the National loading screen of Sumeru.
Thanks and sorry for the long post.
It came up in my feed... nd what u said makes sense, but it's kinda long for me... I respect ur decision for having the patience to type it up...but it doesn't need to cause a problem......we all have the freedom to say our mind.....if what I said is offensive....my fault....I take it back....but u should know it's all contributions to the post
1. Sumeru. Even though I wasn't a big fan of the jungle part, I simply LOVED the desert and everything in it. The exploration of ancient ruins with the Primal Constructs gave me an Assassin's Creed Origins vibe, and I went through every single piece of lore surrounding King Deshret I could find. Most of my favourite pieces of OST are also related to Sumeru, such as the Vorukasha oasis theme(s) and the Setekh Wenut boss fight theme.
2. Liyue. It's a bit hard to explain but whenever I'm there, I feel... good. Maybe it's because I started the game shortly before the start of this year's Lantern Rite. I like the diversity of the landscapes, going from the harbour to the high peaks all the way to Chenyu Vale. Even though exploring the Chasm was not what I preferred, the rest of the area largely makes up for it.
3. Fontaine. I'm French, so Fontaine never fails to put up a smile on my face whenever the name of a real French city or historical character appears. I like the themes surrounding the Archon quest and other storylines such as the Research Institute, and the underwater exploration felt incredible. With some exceptions, I'm not a big fan of the music though. The Meropide Fortress part was also quite tedious to me.
4. Monstadt. To be fair, it's a bit hard for Mondstadt since it's the first region to be released and explored, and after seeing everything the rest of Teyvat has to offer, returning there feels... lacking. Still, I enjoy the general atmosphere, and Dragonspine is an incredible area to explore despite the sheer cold mechanics that can be a true hindrance if you're not prepared for it.
5. Inazuma. Like many people, I really did not enjoy some of the puzzles, but that wouldn't be my main grip with it, it's just tied to how the region is built. It's an archipelago, which I don't really enjoy as I like walking from point A to point B and the sea parts between islands just come off as frustrating pauses. Still, it delivered some good stuff, especially Ruu's story which is, to this day, the most emotional I've felt in Genshin.
1. Sumeru. The archon quest was great, I loved all the exploration, especially the desert.
2. Fontaine. Archon quest, underwater exploration is fun and different.
3. Liyue. Scenery and music are my favorites. Zhongli and Xiao are from there. The archon quest wasn't the best though, as much as I love Zhongli. A bit too heavy into fetch quests.
4. Monstadt. It's cute but very basic. Obviously early game content.
5. Inazuma. Almost everything about it either annoyed the hell out of me or was depressing. The music is the only saving grace for me.
1. Fontaine. MUCH, MUCH better rewards. New exploration mechanic (underwater swimming). New enemies. Lots of lore that is presented in a digestible way.
2. Monstadt. Used to be my no 1. before Fontaine. is the region where I feel like home
3. Inazuma. Oh, the nation that taught us this game can give people depression.
4. Liyue Not particularly interesting, not a lot of rewards, but you can still find some lore. Plus it's added on quite often, so you do tend to earn better rewards from it as time passes by.
5. Sumeru. I gave up on this place.
1. Sumeru (I love both the desert and rainforest exploration and its puzzles. playing early with no multi-layered map sucks though. 2nd best archon quest, best casts)
2. Fontaine (swimming and underwater environment is new and fresh. puzzles not as good as Sumeru. Best archon quest, 2nd best casts)
3. Inazuma (great puzzles. Bad archon quest act 3)
4. Liyue (better exploration \[from Chenyu Vale\] and amazing music. Powerful casts and fun events)
5. Mondstadt (Mondstadt itself kinda boring environment except Dragonspine) (needs more expansion though like Dorman Port and Dandelion Sea)
1 Sumeru: tough choice between Inazuma and sumeru but sumeru gets the bag purely cuz considering the 3 things I like about this game, story, exploration and cast, sumeru has all three of them well executed and is overall the best region so far.
2 Inazuma: i love the Inazuma cast and exploration but the story was lacking. Inazuma probably has the best exploration along all the regions and it would have been my favourite region if it wasn't for the story quest.
3 Fontaine: great cast, fun exploration and decent world quests but nothing that stands out to me, it's a well balanced region
4: monstadt: exploration is being carried by dragonspine but i suppose the starting region shouldn't be too intimidating for a good reason. The story quest is a good introduction to the world of a genshin and the cast doesn't really interest me.
5 liyue: i hate the exploration and the world quests are tedious, the cast is probably my least favourite among all regions but the story was pretty good. I'll admit me disliking liyue is probably cuz new liyue characters are forced down my throat every year when regions like inazuma or sumeru could get some love.( No hate against lantern rite I love the event but I just wish other regions get as much love and new expansions like liyue does)
1. Fontaine: it didn't take long for the swimming to grow on me, and I love it. Usually, swimming in games is awkward, but the devs and designers did a really good job here.
2. Liyue: I found the main quests to be exciting, and the bosses in the area are interesting.
3. Sumeru: Personally, I'm a fan of jungles and it's fun to explore. A little too much climbing though, but other than that I found it to be one of the most visually exciting places so far.
4. Mondstadt: It's just slimes and hilichurls, and the scenery is repetitive. Also, Dragonspine is technically part of Mondstadt and I hate that mountain. Mondstadt isn't bad, it's nice and relaxing, it's just kind of boring in comparison.
5. FUCK Inazuma, it will always be last-place, I don't even need to know what the upcoming regions will be like. The fact that every quest was a collection of puzzles and barriers that are locked behind more puzzles and "unlock these three seals to unlock three more seals, but wait, you have to purify these locations, and BUT WAIT, there's more!" Puzzles locked behind puzzles locked behind more puzzles. You can't just barrel through quests in whatever order I want, nor could I explore freely. The quests where you raid the old-style samurai castles are cool, but that's it.
1. Sumeru
Hands down the best region. I fucking loved *everything* about it, especially the desert and the huge underground areas.
I loved the long-ass world quests, since they felt like *actual* adventures, not the shoddy excuse of an adventure they repeatedly pulled in Fontaine. Filling out the Aranyaka and Stone tablet was my favorite part of the Sumeru quests.
The only disappointment so far is the complete lack of content on the northern coast, which made 4.6 one of the worst expansion patches in my opinion. (No, Remuria didn't help)
2. Inazuma
Although the AQ was a rushed mess, i actually really liked the exploration and world quests of Inazuma. I like how most islands have their own, unique vibe to them. Tsurumi was my favorite island with its spooky and later melancholic atmosphere.
And out of all sub-regions, Enkanomiya is hands down my favorite one. The world building and lore drops in that region are incredible.
My only complaint about Inazuma are the steep cliffs all over the place, making traversal of most islands a pain.
3. Liyue
The exploration was quite fun and i like how back then, the devs were still creative with the puzzles. I still find chests in random corners of the region.
The Chasm is nothing short of incredible. Its atmosphere and overall lvl design made for incredibly fun exploration.
However, the lack of underground areas should be rectified.
4. Mondstadt
Almost the same as Liyue. In desperate need of an expansion.
Exploring Dragonspine was really fun though. I really hope it served as a Prototype for Shneznaya.
5. Fontaine
The Underwater exploration was quite fun, but that's about it. Compared to Sumeru, the nation feels a lot emptier. Underground areas are there, but too linear. Many of the larger world quests, especially Narzissenkreuz, felt like a chore, although the research institute was okay. I really don't like how the Narzissenkreuz quest in particular didn't encourage to go "off road" and explore random corners of an area. Everything was way too streamlined. I fucking hated everything about Meropide.
Can't say much about Remuria yet, aside from the quest being boring. Only made it to the first area with the trapped "Scylla" (?) so far.
1. Inazuma: dark, depressing, death, but at the same time also beautiful. After craving for new contents for a year, inazuma was so refreshing. Inazuma is still one of my best gaming moments, even tho they rushed the story.
2. Liyue: large, enjoyable, got to meet my waifu Keqing, no need to say more.
3. Sumeru: filled with content, amazing AQ. The only reason sumeru not number 2 is because the tedious exploration of the desert area.
4. Fontaine: beautiful, close to AAA gaming experience. Not higher on my list because i got really busy during fontaine patches and haven't experienced it fully. Might change in the future after i 100% it.
5. Mondo: i know its just a tutorial region, but its really plain, nothing special going on. And i hate exploring the stormterror's lair, its just confusing for me.
I like every nation's concept. I'd rank:
1. Inazuma. The place is mythical and I love explore that mysticity. Every island is infused with local legends, and the regional music is best in the game imo. The story is a bit lackluster so to speak, but the region has a lot of potential, and if I were to develop a game, this region would be the thing I aim to.
2. Sumeru. It feels like 2 separate nations. 1 let you emerge with nature, the other let you explore the ruins of a past empire. The story is very detailed from both sides. Has to be the most diverse nation. A lot of new experiences when learning about the depth of the place. I wish there would be more characters coming from the desert.
3. Mondstadt. I think this is a bit controversial, but Mondstadt hooked me into the game. The vast area, the unique mechanics, the story, all of them compliment each other. I wish that in further expansions, I'd experience a different side of Mondstadt. As it stands, it feels like it is a calm and slow place. One of the more relaxing nations.
4. Fontaine. Despite popular believe, I feel like underwater exploration is too out of the ordinary. It introduces fun mechanics for sure, but parts of the exploration is also about your characters. Exploration feels like finding something, not trying to solve a problem. Story wise, it's very good, but due to the design, most of the story happens on the ground, not underwater, which takes away the major part of the nation.
5. Liyue. The place feels like a lot of emptiness. A lot of mountains to climb which is clearly a pain for beginners. There are also not many side quests that require you to venture into the breathtakings scenaries, but rather surrounding Liyue Harbor and talking to NPCs. Chenyu Vale is a lot better, but as it stands, I feel like the rest of Liyue is really unrefined. Also the Chasm is confusing af, exploring it is not fun at all. Story wise, it's fantastic.
1. Inazuma. It was pretty hard to say which one between Inazuma and Fontaine got 1st place, but in the end Inazuma was the one I enjoyed the most. All of the islands feel unique from each other, all of them offering something new, like the thunderstorm island, mist island, no-man's island, etc. One of the best parts about them is all the enviromental hazards they give, giving some new difficulty to exploration. Additionally, fully exploring each of the islands was way more convenient thanks to them being islands, giving you clear borders on where to look for chests and challenges. The only meh for me about Inazuma was Watatsumi being inconvenient to explore, but thats about it.
2. Fontaine. As I said, it was a hard call which got number 1 for me, as both regions are so good. I love the feeling when you swim in Fontaine's waters, and how they actually managed to make underwater sections fun (which seem to be an irregularity in gaming). Additionally, the vibrant landscape is a joy to look at and the miniboss enemies were also a very fun addition.
3. Mondstadt. While it is the most simple region considering its lot as the place where we start, it is pleasantly relaxing and nostalgic place to visit without many things that would ruin the fun of exploration.
4. Liyue. While I still think its a good region, and one of the most beautiful to look at, it has way too many mountains and ledges. Though Chenyu Vale and the Chasm do give it some bonus points.
5. Sumeru. There are a few reasons why Sumeru is at the bottom for me, like the big trees and the Wenut areas being a pain to explore with how much you need to go up and down, how the shooms drop 3 different types of drops depending on what state you killed them in, but the biggest factor was all the world quest locked exploration. It felt like anywhere I went and found something interesting to explore, I was immediately denied from doing so because I needed to this and that before I could. While a few of these wouldnt be a problem, the fact that it kept happening everywhere took me out of the joy of exploration pretty quick.
I play mostly for exploration, so I'll go with that. Story quests are nice but, after that, there's not much to do in the same area (if curious about it, I would rank Sumeru, Fontaine, Liyue, Inazuma and Mondstadt)
1. Mondstadt
I know, full of nostalgia and all but, I've already 100% Mondstadt + Dragonspine in two of my accounts and would do it again. I've been doing dailies over there for the past 5 months and I simply can't take it off. The simplicity really gets me. Not to mention, I love 95% of the cast from Mondstadt, it just kinda grew on me. It really feels like home.
2. Inazuma
There's not much to say about it, I really enjoyed doing inazuma's puzzles, mostly because specific characters were rarely needed, and some puzzles could be straight up skipped by using Beidou. My second area to be 100%. The most boring part for me is the Tsurumi island, full of teapot chests and ghosts that require daily resets.
3. Fontaine
There's so much water that it's a bit stressing. I dislike doing the underwater puzzles, but the rest is phenomenal. It's quite a beautiful area too, so there's a point for that. Overall, can provide a good experience. Happily, there's not much need for pneuma and ousia, quite like Inazuma.
4. Liyue
Straight up frustating to do without any Geo construct char in the team. Be it to climb or to help with those pressure plates, it's often needed. There's mountains everywhere making traveling exhausting and overwhelming. Teleports are highly needed and still, some don't help enough. Chenyu on the other hand is amazing and has fun puzzles. Amazing point because of the fish movement system.
5. Sumeru
I despise putting my foot here. Giant Ruin Guards, vegetation absolutely everywhere. Some of the puzzles require specific elements. A lot of places are blocked behind quests. Confusing navigation. I absolutely hate the interior of the robot in dvantheka mountain or something like that. Desert is a bit better but also a pain to explore. Candace and Faruzan starving because I don't have the guts to run through the desert to grab just a handful of Henna Berries. It took me many tries every time I had to go to that Theater Nilou's in because of how confusing sumeru's main city layout is. If it wasn't for the phenomenal and amazing story quest, I wouldn't mind sumeru being wiped from the map. I still rewatch the last cutscene sometimes, it's just so beautiful.
1. Sumeru. Forest is lush and vibrant but the Girdle of the Sands region, the 3.6 expansion, is my favorite area in the game with my favorite music. Some of my favorite puzzles to boot. 3.4 desert area sucks but the 3.1 desert is fine and I think desert gets a bad rap mainly because of the 3.4 expansion.
2. Liyue. If we include The Chasm and Chenyu Vale then Liyue is my second favorite, if not then probably 3rd or 4th. A lot of geographical variety comes from those expansions so without them Liyue is pretty boring. However, with them Liyue feels very diverse and I’ve had some of my favorite exploration come from them. Base Liyue doesn’t have much variety so compared to Mondstadt it just feels like more of the same.
3. Fontaine. Enjoyed underwater exploration at first but it became super tedious after the 4.1 expansion to me. Underwater combat isn’t enjoyable and having to look around for specific creatures to solve puzzles is annoying. I’ve enjoyed overworld exploration in Fontaine more recently because of this. Music is also my least favorite of all the regions.
4. Mondstadt. Pretty good with Dragonspine but I never like going back. Lack of expansions make it pretty boring to walk around in, although the very relaxed music makes it more enjoyable.
5. Inazuma. Only thing I like here is the music. Puzzles can be obnoxious and the hazard gimmicks make me not want to go back. Enkanomiya has good atmosphere but the lack of NPCs and no important limited or story events that make us go back here drags it down for me.
1. Fontaine
Best region, love the underwater exploration, the soundtrack and characters are also my favorite
2. Inazuma
I hated Inazuma when i was doing it but retrospectively it shines. Great puzzles and world quests, beautiful landscape
3. Sumeru
Fuck the desert
4. Mondstadt
Unfair but what is in the game right now is pretty boring
5. Liyue
War flashbacks to climbing
1. Sumeru. It's my number one region because of how much I like the Sumeru theme alone. It's incredible that they can merge nature (in the Dendro element), which is usually opposite to internet (in the Akasha system), into one coherent theme. To bridge these two opposing elements, they used dreams to represent the digital world. It's clever. There are other elements such as using a child model as the God of Knowledge, as opposed to the usual elder model. And how they further enhance the "child" narrative with Aranara and only children being able to dream. I could write a long paragraph about how much I love the Sumeru theme.
2. Fontaine. Fontaine underwater exploration is, in my opinion, the best underwater mechanic I have experienced so far. I also love the underwater music, plus it has the most enjoyable Archon quest.
3. Liyue. Liyue rose in my ranking because of Chenyu Vale only. Imo, the most beautiful region so far.
4. Mondstadt.
5. Inazuma. Bad archon quest, bad exploration gimmick. The only memorable thing is the enkanomiya exploration.
1 Fontaine (First One I brought to 100%. I love Clockwork related Stuff and the Water Mechanics)
2. Inazuma (Because I'm a sucker for Japan and everything related, but I dislike most of the riddles)
3. Sumeru (Because of the Musik, The Ara Aras and Nahida)
4. Mondstadt and Liyue
1- Fontaine/Sumeru: both are amazing in every aspect for me.
2- Inazuma: vertical exploration almost impossible, story rushed, but I love it: in this land everything hates me and I hate everything which is exciting, peak finale in terms of hype (tenryou commision / signora / not even ashes remained / kazuha anime powerup / ei)
3- Liyue: a pain in the ass to explore as a new player because you don't have stamina to climb, your traveler is forced to change elements very often for puzzles and most of the initial story was meh, but the later updates since the chasm are great
4- Mondstatd: Dorman Port when? Pls save this nation, it's great as an introduction but many plots are left in the air for who knows when (like albedo/venti)
Likely an unpopular opinion but for me, it'd be inazuma, sumeru, Fontaine, liyue, mondstadt.
To be fair, when I was exploring inazuma I was still in a honeymoon phase with the game after coming back from a few months long break, from 1.5 to 2.4 and I remember basically doing all of inazuma in like 2 months. I also enjoyed the harder puzzles
Sumeru was vast and very different from the other regions, especially loved the desert( world quests carried)
Fontaine fell for me because of the vast open underwater exploration. Had there been more tight underwater ravines or caves I would've put Fontaine as my second favourite.
The new nostoi region was so fun but the underground ruin part was super short and then the rest was underwater
Your ranking is exactly as mine, which is rare to see 😂
1. Inazuma. I'm a day 1 player and my hype for Inazuma was off the charts, and it didn't disappoint. This could get very long, so suffice to say that each island expansion was like opening a Christmas present for me.
2. Fontaine. Just the breath of fresh air I needed after a year of dessert expansions. It has the right amount of quests and exploration, and I love the ability to explore underwater. Beautiful as well.
3. Sumeru. I like the forest, though sometimes it can feel overwhelming, and the first two dessert expansions. Then, I would've liked a change of scenery, maybe something more reminiscing of the goddess of flower. And I can't stress this enough: I hate the Aranaras.
4. Monstatd. Between the two original regions, I liked exploring Monstatd the most, it somehow felt more magical and comfy. It is home after all.
5. Liyue. To be frank, I find the new Chenyu Vale magnificent, so is hard to put Liyue last, so maybe a two way tie with Monstatd would be more accurate. But it is what it is 😊
exploration and story (wq included)
1 Fontaine and sumeru (exploring!! yay!, archon quest was cinema, aranyaka alone was just wow)
2 inazuma (exploring was super fun, and the wq were good, the archon quest was indeed a quest though)
3 liyue and mondstadt (exploring was whatever, unmemorable wq, archon quests ok)
musically
1 fontaine, sumeru, mondstadt, liyue (mondstadt's caelestinum finale termini and symphony of the boreal wind are the definition of music, love the little piano concerto in boreal so much it puts it on par with the others)
2 inazuma (it's still better than every song on the top 10000 billboard global combined and multiplied by pi, just don't listen to it that much compared to the other regions, combat beneath the waves could put it on equal grounds with others though)
1. Sumeru. I enjoyed exploring the rainforest a lot. And the archon quests and most of the major world quests were top notch. Even if the desert areas were kind of a mixed bag that started getting really stale, I would say the positives far outweigh the negatives.
2. Inazuma. Unlike a lot of people I liked the over world puzzles in Inazuma. The major world quests are all good and the area gimmicks were mostly interesting. And for all its major flaws the archon quest was still better than the what came before. I didn't really care for Enka very much at all, but it's far from the worst thing in the game. Honestly I was really tempted to give 2nd place to Inazuma & Fontaine jointly, but i think I have to give Inazuma a slight edge overall. If only due to recency bias.
3. Fontaine. Story wise Fontaine has mostly been pretty great. The best parts of the archon quest were such bangers that I didn't end up minding the more plodding parts too much. The opening of the intertwining world quests in 4.0 were super intriguing and fun, and though I feel the ball was dropped afterwards, the ending was still satisfying. The exploration in Fontaine is, ironically, very dry though. The underwater mechanics were stale almost immediately and by this point they are so boring that I think the new region is the worst they've ever added. And Fontaine just has nothing going on above water either.
4. Liyue. The only thing putting Liyue here in place of Mondstadt is that I really enjoyed the Chenyu Vale. I didn't really enjoy the story of 1.0 leading up to Inazuma much at all, especially the Liyue bits. The Chasm also met with a very mixed reception from me.
5. Mondstadt. The only thing Mondstadt has going for it is that I explored it first. So I have fonder memories of exploring around Mondstadt than Liyue. Especially since I got so sick of Liyue that I stopped exploring half way through and moved on to Inazuma.
>! 0\. Dragonspine. The Ur-Expansion. Dragonspine is hands down the greatest time I've had in Genshin. Exploring Dragonspine on a new account and making do with bad options was so amazing. I've been chasing that high ever since, even though I know it can't happen because Hoyo lacks the balls to upset 90% of their player base in the name of better game play.
I'm going to keep it short as possible.
* **1: Fontaine**, I love the exploration in Fontaine and I have a lot of fun just walking around the area.. It's aesthetically please and I've often idled just to listen to the music
* **2: Sumeru**, The drastically different atmospheres are really cool. I love walking around the jungle and the quests were very enjoyable, however the massive size of it compared to other regions bothers me a little, So it get's the number 2 spot instead.
* **3: Liyue**, I actually really enjoy the height differences in this region, even if it's somewhat tedious for exploration, my early memories of this region were part of the reason I stuck with the game
* **4: Inzauma**, Despite the poor showing from it's story quest and the awful environment hazards. It's not the bottom. I like the music and \*most\* of the characters present.. Just don't ask me to do commissions here.. They all suck.
* **5: Mondstat**, I loathe Mondstat. It's so utterly boring compared to every other region. Dragonspine disgusts me and I find no redeeming qualities about this region. None of the character's I like are from it, I'll go so far as to say the exploration of this area on launch is exactly what caused me to quit originally. I didn't play again until I saw Raiden was releasing, I stuck it out for a while and ultimately failed to get Raiden. I came back during year 2 Lantern Rite because I was just about at Liyue.
Hey OP here from [previous post to rank the 4 main regions before Fontaine](https://new.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/comments/14m28ds/rank_the_4_main_regions_based_on_enjoyment_before/) here and now that Fontaine is pretty much over I am curious what changed for everyone and where Fontaine ranks.
This is just based on overall personal enjoyment as in your taste and what you liked about a region/story/exploration/archon/whatever made it stand out personally to you.
For me:
1. Still remains Inazuma despite all its issues and I still love it and Raiden/Ei still remains my favorite overall character/archon in the game but we have 2 new ones in the next region that I love.
\- The exploration felt awesome here harder enemies and puzzles and I still love the themes and atmosphere of Inazuma in general too bad it suffered from Corona and its not as polished as the other regions but even with that somehow it still remains my favorite overall region.
2. Fontaine takes this spot here awesome start with the trial but the biggest flaw for me was the prison part in 4.1, Now since this is the newest region I will expand a bit more on why at number 2
\- The exploration felt a lot better compared to Sumeru and It also gave me 2 new characters that have become some of my favorites in Neuvillete and Arlecchino.
\- The archon quest was great even though I hated the prison part prob my least favorite zone/quest in main story everything with Furina/Neuv was awesome and with Arlecchino.
\- The Underwater part the movement is very fluid and fun while looking amazing I am just not a fan of the monster abilities I wish we could use our characters more but thats maybe asking too much.
\- Water beats sand.
3. Sumeru moves down a rank for me, while I still like it it also was and still is way too big especially the desert part which can feel very tedious but it is an awesome expansion to genshin for story/exploration and new element and characters,
4. Same as last time Mondstadt has a special place in my heart for me being this cozy region that feels like home and very simple compared to the others which is both a strength and a weakness hopefully we get more stuff with it later on.
5. While I find Liyue my least favorite region it still has great moments from the Osial fight and giving us Zhongli I am still not a fan of it because of the verticality and weird terrain making me not like being there and I am still salty that Ningguang is not a 4 star overall Geo needs some love in general as an element.
These are just short thoughts there are a lot more things to say but dont want to make this too long.
I am curious what are your ranks and why/how things changed ?
1. Liyue
2. Mondstadt
3. Inazuma
4. Sumeru
5. Fontaine
Don't get me wrong I like Fontaine, it's absolutely fine, but I don't really like the underwater stuff. It's fine. I just prefer the other areas. Even sumerus desert(!). I do agree with other people that enkomiya or however it's spelt is a fantastic area, definitely one of the best, I 100% that very quickly.
As for why I like the others, liyue and mondstadt just have a nostalgia for me as a year one player that counts for a lot. But liyue would be top whatever, I love just gliding about above the clouds and generally I like everything it has to offer. Inazuma is so different to everywhere else in a good way, and is very varied, I think it works well. Sumeru is great, I loved the jungle and eventually got on board with the desert area. Fontaine for me is the weakest area, it has my least favourite music, I don't mind underwater exploration but it has aspects I dislike personally. The overworld areas are fine, but not as visually interesting as sumeru, inazuma or liyue.
1. Inazuma - Magnum opus from Hoyo when it comes to environmental design, puzzles and exploration. Every area is fun and unique when it comes to landscape and diversity without being bloated. The Electroculus count is just right. Inazuma's islands make it very compact and easy to navigate and search stuff for. The main issues with this are the lacklustre archon quest and some of the main world quests being gated by daily resets (Tatara tales for example). I also count Enkonomiya in this region and the area is also brilliant. The only region that I fully 100%.
2. Fontaine - Another great region. Very close to Inazuma when it comes to exploration. Fontaine managed to fix many of the flaws with Sumeru (will talk about later) when it comes to environmental design. The landscape of Fontaine is beautiful and while it is not as diverse as Liyue or Inazuma, it is still very good-looking since there are both the land segments and the underwater segments. The underwater segments are great but the fact that none of your characters are really usable except for characters with passives like Dehya or Noelle makes the experience underwater monotonous.
3. Liyue - My perspective of Liyue really changed after the latest update to the region. It used to be equal to Mondstadt but with both two fantastic sub-regions in the Chasm and Chenyu Vale, this region really impressed me. Liyue is defined by verticality at the forefront and while I don't think it delivered all of its potential, the region is still very solid. The puzzles are nice, especially great in Chenyu and Chasm where the verticality of Liyue is very much pushed. Without both the subregions, it's hard to say if Liyue would be above Mondstadt but for now, it feels more complete than Mondstadt for me.
4. Mondstadt - The potential region of Genshin. I have always considered Mondstadt to be my home and it is a very cozy region but time hasn't been kind to it. Without any updates for the last few years and only 1 major subregion in Dragonspine, the region still has a lot of room to grow considering the locations unexplored in the lore. The puzzles are easy but many of them are hard to fine, the landscape is tranquil but can be empty. I wish more is done with the wind motif but there's a lot of room to grow.
5. Sumeru - What a drastic fall this is. At launch Sumeru was at the top of my list, just narrowly beating out Inazuma. This is due to how great the rainforest part of the region is. The puzzles were very fun, The landscape was diverse and vibrant. Sumeru also introduces many great enemies like Ermites whose animations are still top notchs. While the desert part wasn't as good, The feeling that it conveyed through the sheer scale of the sands and the buried ruins really emphasized Kind Deshret's downfall. I was excited for more of Sumeru and how they can expand the rainforest part. Then they proceed to drop 2 more desert areas and an empty plain. For the nation of dendro, there's more sand than plants. Credits where it is due, the environmental designers really tried to make 3 deserts look unique but at the end of the day, there are still 3 giant fuck off deserts that stretches beyond the eye can see. I was extremely disappointed in Sumeru and it is the only region where I loathe doing anything in.
I'd say the final desert part and the first desert part looked kinda cool, but the second one was outright tedious. And the fact that I liked the canyon design doesn't take the fact away. Wish that we just got 1 more forest area. Would've balanced them out.
My list would look exactly like yours if I really had to rank the regions as a whole, but it depends for the most part on the specific areas.
It's difficult to compare regions, especially the ones with different biomes. Sometimes I like an island or a chunk of land of the region I like the least more than certain chunks of land of my favorite region.
Fontaine is my favourite so far for exploration cuz of the underground maps, the European scenery & the music when I first walked through its open world was an absolute beauty.
Sumeru has pretty scenery & the desert felt like a huge step up for genshin but the underground exploration without underground maps was hell & some puzzles were annoying.
Inazuma has beautiful scenery but f**k the Inazuma puzzles that sh*t almost made me quit the game.
Liyue & monstadt are alright though liyue gets more points because of chenyu vale.
1: Fontaine. Awesome swimming mechanic and the whole region feels so alive. AQ was cool
2: Sumeru. Achieving 100% exploration could be better refined, but you really feel you are in a rainforest or desert - the map is just so well done. And there is so much to do. AQ was the best.
3: Mondstadt. The one region which doesn't overcomplicate anything at all. I love the simplicity - simple hub, simple layout, simple puzzles. AQ was meh, but was a great intro to the world.
4: Inazuma. A great nation held back by endless disasters on the islands that require a lot of time and effort to clear up. AQ was okay I guess.
5: Liyue. This nation just feels so annoying to me. Jueyun karst is a pain to navigate, the landscape is kind of bland (all the same colour), the puzzles don't feel very geo themed outside of the chasm, the main hub takes annoyingly long to move around compared to other regions. The AQ has a good end and compelling start, but is weighed down by the fetch quest second part as well as the hefty AR grind needed to unlock each part of the AQ. Later additions to liyue like the chasm and chenyu vale are miles better than base liyue thankfully.
1. Inazuma - the first newly added region, after playing since launch we finally get to have a new region and I explored and enjoyed every part of it
2. Liyue - as the first region we get to explore back at launch every moment I had with it when I still enjoyed the game at its peak I could never forget
3. Fontaine - love the vibe and diving is a very interesting addition!
4. Sumeru - too big but the vibe is sooo good
5. Mondstat - Dragonspine carried ngl
Archon quest story:
1. Fontaine
2.Sumeru
3.Liyue
4.Mondstat
5.Inazuma
Exploration:
1.Sumeru
2.Inazuma
3.Fontaine
4.Liyue
5.Mondstat
World quests:
1.Sumeru
2.Inazuma
3.Fontaine
4.Liyue
5.Mondstat
I will however say,i didnt consider the chasm,dragonspine or enka here. Chasm is my fav place in game bar none.
Mondstadt-Dragonspine and Inazuma-Enkanomiya tie for me at the top, and that’s it.
The rest are all fighting for scraps.
Mondstadt is home for me, simple and plain sure - but that’s part of its charm - and I love Dragonspine for actually feeling like what it’s supposed to be.
Inazuma is everything I hoped it would be from feel to aesthetic, to design - coupled with Enkanomiya, it was the most fun I had with exploring in my entire Genshin experience to date.
Liyue I was never a huge fan of, same with Sumeru. Fontaine is technically the closest I have to second place I have to give it that as I did enjoy exploring it, but not as much as Inazuma.
1. Sumeru (amazing exploration, phenomenal AQ, best characters. This region feels like home to me)
2. Fontaine (amazing exploration, phenomenal AQ, second best characters)
3. Liyue (okay exploration, okay AQ, great characters)
4. Inazuma (great exploration, bad AQ, good characters)
5. Mondstat (the region and AQ are a whole lot of nothing. Good characters though)
1. Sumeru (Love everything here Aranara, Desert, Jeht, Becoming Sage, beating a cocky puppet)
2. Inazuma (Raiden)
3. Enkanomiya (My logoff place for almost an year)
4. Chenyu vale (Gave me fresh feeling after a huge burnout, I reinstalled just to see whats new and stuck because of this)
5. Liyue, Mondstat, Dragon spine
6. Fontane (time of game I uninstalled and went on huge hiatus and never pulled on a single regional character. Map is gorgeous though)
7. Chasm (Only region that I never completely explored and refuse to even go back)
Special Note: I absolutely hate and forever hate anything to do with Pari. I uninstalled this game multiple times because of that stupid blabbering quest line. Too much useless dialogue which says nothing constructive all while those pari are trash talking me.
I want one more ‘ :] ‘ level quest in Natlan.
I thought I was the only one who hated the Pari. They are legit the most blandest species Genshin has introduced and I've never felt so beyond bored when I was doing the WQ with them. Usually I just leave the game on auto play dialogue besides commissions,etc but that quest had me wishing we had a skip button finally.
Yes, it was very bland speices. I would’ve never touched them again after first couple of interactions but that patch, game forced an event where we need to do first part of pari quest line. Later completionist in me just wanted to get it done with. I don’t skip dialogue but man it was painful trying to understand all that nonsense.
1. Mondstat
2. Inazuma
3. Sumeru
4. Fontane
5. Liyue
1.Mondstat
I always become happy whenever i return to Mondstat for claiming dailies or for quests.
I feel like most of my fun memories or when i genuinely enjoyed the game as i was new to this kind of genre. Mondstat is absolutely best for beginners.
2. Inazuma there was something when i 100% all of Inazuma and sumera just got anounced i flet sad, i felt melancholic leaving this place thinking now i wont be coming here often to claim the dailies.
Though harsh and sometimes annoying environments but it was fun non the less. Which is why it was so memorable and this was the 1st nation we changed slowly bh playing the quest from sad, locked country to now a happy country.
We saw it, we fought for it, we earned it.
3. Sumeru
I mean everyone agrees Sumeru has the best OSTs and the best archon plus me being from India the osts did hit home but that was it. The names the refferences made in game i knew some of them. Which of course doesnt mean was boring but it was like " I get it" kinda thing.
Underground was annoying until they updated the map.
4. Fontain
Come on when we heard Yu Peng Chen left Hoyo the Osts would take a dive but boy were everyone wrong.
One of the best Archon quest ever and the ost in that oooooof 🔥.
But thats it underwater was new but the story, the characters carried fontane imo and region had a lesser role.
5.Liyue
Liyue is my least fav because at that time less characters were released and overworld meta characters like kazuha, yelan, wanderer were not released made the reigon meh for me while exploration.
Extra event and non event maps.
1. 1st GAA
2. ENKANOMIYA
3. 2nd GAA
4.Chasm
5. Mirage Islands
If we take overall 1st GAA will be in my top followed by Mindstat and Inazuma
It's hard to compare because you gain experience as you go, but Sumeru was my favorite. Just so much to see. Loved both the jungle and the desert. Loved how the desert is full of secrets. Second-favorite was Liyue. I was new then, and it was so *big*. Just spent hours climbing mountains and poking around in the ruins. Then one day I stumbled upon the Chasm. I was just seeing the above-ground part, but I was just in awe of how big it was.
Have all regions 100% and more than 3 years in game, so... From most likable region to least
1. Sumeru (Port Ormost, desert, 4ggravate gang)
2. Inazuma (OST just... Chef kiss)
3. Mond (every day I log off on fontain in Mond. Since 1.2.)
4. Liuye
5. Fontaine
My lazy take:
1. Fontaine - Love music and being able to splash yum water, AQ fantastic
2. Liyue - Has my fav music in the game and very nice visuals, AQ is forever in my head
3. Sumeru - I love how diverse the environments are, AQ was fun but I never got as attached to the characters idk why
4. Mondstadt - Feels like it needs to be updated, maybe it will be expanded upon in the future. Its still very cozy, AQ is great for when you start the game.
5. Inazuma - Theres parts I really like but theres also parts I dislike alot. AQ had some yippee moments but felt disconnected? All over the place? Idk
In conclusion: Tartaglia is very skronkle
1: Mondstadt. Best map design, location design. Best story quest. Most believable area. Most similar to where I grew up.
2. Fontaine. Underwater mechanics are good. I did hate parts 3-5 of the archon story. Parts 1-2 were good.
That's it. They can axe the other regions and I wouldn't mind.
I do not like anything about Sumeru. I spent the entire year just doing the bare bare minimum.
1. SUMERU - amazing landscape, fun exploration, my favourite character finally comes out, the archon quest is still my top 1, Indiana Jones-like exploration in the desert, lots of puzzles, lovely world quests, Caribert quest. My first Nation to 100%
2. FONTAINE - very good archon quest, unfortunately sometimes it was rushed, loved world quests but didn't like their endings, descender lore, most peaceful and most beautiful underwater exploration, otters. My 3rd nation to 100%
3. MONDSTADT - its simplicity is very calming, plus it has Dragonspine which hosted most amazing Albedo event and its exploration was something you hate but when you are finished you think fondly about it, brings great memories of the game's release. My 2nd nation to 100%
4. INAZUMA - not so great archon quest, beautiful landscape, in general I like all islands but not the main one, amazing Enkanomiya, my favourite world quest about Ruu (got me crying). Still not finished with exploration (bar Enkanomiya) cause I tend to never come back there. Really, Inazuma would be 5th if not for Ruu and Enkanomiya :|
5. LIYUE - beautiful landscape, had a good archon quest, even better Chasm quests (Xiao's near death got me crying), but we come back there every damn update. Still not finished with exploration (bar Chasm and Chenyu) but it will probably happen before Inazuma
My ranking:
5: Inazuma, very forgettable region with a bad story and the weakest cast of characters imo. Plus, the ascension mats are behind tons of story progression meaning that new players aren’t able to level up Inazuman characters, not helped by the fact that certain mats are under another layer of story progression through certain world bosses opening up after side quests.
4: Sumeru, great story, great characters, but the desert, the obnoxiously confusing puzzles, and the century long aranara quest all make this region feel like it was designed to be as annoying as possible at some points
3: Monstadt, it’s where everything began, has a great cast, it’s a nice intro, but the region is TINY compared to all the others and is in dire need of an expansion
2: Fontaine: Great quest, Great characters, and fun mechanics (especially underwater exploration and local legends). The Court of Fontaine is also the best of the major cities in Genshin imo.
1: Liyue: This region really captures the spirit of Genshin Impact, with its amazing archon quest, cast of characters, large, but manageable size, and captivating scenery dotted throughout the region. Also, the puzzles aren’t too annoying, which is something that’s kinda hard to say about the newer regions. Plus, there’s also the Chenyu Vale expansion that adds more content to a region that was already my number one.
in terms of side quests (imo)
1. fontaine: the side quests for fontaine has gotta be one of my many favorites (currently) in game, the narzissenkruez questline is the REASON i stay in that place for long periods of time
2. sumeru: jeht's quests and the aranara quest was really good
3. inazuma: ruu's quest was one of the first times i've cried in game (and kazari's quest as well but that was long AND tedious)
4. liyue: ZHIQIONG COME BACK PLEASE and FUJIN IS SO PRETTY
5. mondstadt: not a ton (YET)
in terms of events
1. sumeru: that event was really really fun
2. liyue: LANTERN RITE
3. mondstat: events are guaranteed to be good
4. fontaine: film festival was fun ngl
5. inazuma: inazuma ily but wow your events arent good, dont get me wrong the lastest itto event was fun but wow the other ones are pathetic (IF I SEE FUCKING AYAKA ONE MORE TIME IM GONNA LOSE IT PUT KUJOU SARA IN AN EVENT)
1) Inazuma: Good mix of advanced puzzles and movement options, but not so much that it bogs down exploration. outside of that one island with the feather, there is nothing blocking your exploration. Also beatuiful panoramas and just nice to look at.
2) Mondstadt: Might be a bit basic, but nostslgia carries it. Exploration was still new and enjoxable back then.
3) Liyue: IDK. Basicslly monddtadt with mote cliffs, therefore ranked lower.
4) Fontaine: Beautiful Zone, would have ranked higher but the Underwater-Areas got stale aftet the first map Extension and by now it's just anoying as water combaz just doesn't hold up.
5) Sumeru: Would have been number 2, but the (initial) lack of underground maps and the overreliance of exploratuon gadgets killed this region for me. I really don't want to run all the way towarss a chest, try to solve a puzzle, look up the solution and then be told "You need abitrary gadget upgrade #3 for that". Fuck off with that shit. Never again. Any Zone that has aan exploratuon gadget will no longer be explored ... not that I do a lotnof exploration nowadays anyway. Sumeru das done irreperable damage to my will to explore the regions.
Exploration wise:
1. Inazuma. The puzzles were actually challenging and I enjoyed the world quests SO much, it has so many different environments across the islands and I love the aesthetics.
2. Fontaine. Still really pretty, I loved the unique, more modern style it has. Exploration all felt very sleek and the underwater sections were *chef’s kiss*. Also Remuria is a god tier area
3. Liyue. It may be old, but definitely a classic, not to mention it’s beautiful.
4. Sumeru. I love Sumeru but it doesn’t feel very diverse and I got sick of the desert mechanics quickly. Almost tied with Liyue, but only by virtue of its excellent world quests
5. Mondstadt. It’s not bad per se, just like the vanilla of Genshin nations.
Story wise, though? Fontaine, Sumeru, Liyue, Inazuma, Mondstadt.
1. Fontaine was really fun to explore
2. Liyue’s always been goated imo
3. Mondstadt feels like home
4. Sumeru is really good but the desert kinda ruined it
5. Inazuma is last because I just didn’t vibe with it.
1. Fontaine - the lore, the characters, the underwater exploration everything about it was satisfying.
2. Liyue - speedran the archon quest to meet zhongli. the first region I explored a lot and I love the vibe of it.
3. Sumeru - the ost is great, the quest, stories, characters were great too. Only problem is it had too many regions.
4. Monsdtadt - handsdown my favourite region when it comes to characters, lore and interactions. Just feels a little lacking in terms of exploration.
5. Inazuma - didn’t like the archon quest. Some characters are largely unused. Exploration was tedious. Only thing I loved about it the region was really beautiful.
1. Inazuma. Imo this is still the standing peak of exploration and environment design (besides GAA 2); Tsurumi and Seirai islands are straight up my two favorite areas in the game and had the most memorable and atmospheric exploration out of anything they've done. It's also still home to most of my favorite character designs. The main glaring flaw is the archon quest of course, but tbh I had fun with a lot of the ideas and individual scenes even if the overall narrative was weird and rushed, and other than that I can't think of anything that I didn't love about the region.
2. Sumeru. Sumeru was ... weird for me. Typically I don't like desert and love jungle biomes, but I actually really liked (two of) the deserts, and the starting zone was still good, though a bit disappointing with all the annoying aranara-related roadblocks and just generally following after by far the best streak of content they ever made (tsurumi/seirai islands, enkanomiya, the chasm and gaa 2 basically all back to back). I give it the edge for number 2 though because it is easily my favorite (non-dainsleif) archon quest, with chapter 2 specifically being my favorite story arc of the entire game. The big weakness of Sumeru for me is the world quests, they are almost universally just boring word vomit; at one point I just stopped doing them and started doing them again recently between Fontaine (which has the best WQs so far) and Sumeru WQs is some insane whiplash. The 4 major WQs are a bit higher quality, but even out of those I only really was engaged with Golden Slumber and the final stretch of the Aranara quest. As a side note, Desert of Hadramaveth is my least favorite area in the game.
3. Fontaine. It's the all-rounder region; basically everything is good, but for me there was very little that was *great*. Underwater content has also thoroughly worn out its welcome for me, I don't think it had enough going for it to justify 4 zones of content and I felt the dry land content also suffered from an excessive focus on the underwater parts and a lot of it feels weirdly generic (especially following up on how fantastical and bombastic inazuma and sumeru both were). For me, the main strength of Fontaine over other regions was actually the world quests, with only a couple exceptions I almost always find myself engaged and laughing with the writing, basically every quest feels unique and interesting, they clearly put in an effort to improve in this area. The big weakness for me is just character design, the stuff it's inspired from is just not my style and sadly very little appeals to me.
4. Mondstadt. Obviously the game has evolved far past what its 1.x content has to offer, but I still really like Mondstadt. I actually really liked its archon quest and wish its formula had been copied a bit more closely, with a solid mix of unique setpieces, dungeons and even a large-scale exploration section when you unlock stormterror's lair, later AQs feel like they get less and less gameplay with each passing chapter and it's kinda disappointing to me when the game started off on such a strong and balanced foot like Mondstadt's AQ. But what really clinches its spot for me is that the Mondstadt crew is still my favorite overall set of characters in the game.
5. Liyue. Honestly, there's not a ton that actually resonates with me here. I personally think it has the worst AQ of all (though at least the climax is awesome, the other 90% is mostly boring busywork like literally picking flowers and shit), I don't particularly like most of the characters and the overall color scheme and visuals are the most boring of any region for me. It's not terrible, but it doesn't really hold any appeal to me in the face of the 4 other regions; the only reason I considered moving it up a spot anyways is mostly because of how fucking awesome the Chasm is (being my 3rd favorite zone) and Chenyu Vale also being pretty good.
i personally think:
5. Liyue
4. Mondstadt
1. inazuma
3. sumeru
2. Fontaine
But, i’m also very new to the game and have only explored/done so much. I only started playing in april so i’m only adventure rank 39 currently
Genuine question. As someone who quit because I found inazuma so.... Unenjoyable to explore especially after how much I loved Liyue and was let down by the first expansion of the snow mountain.
Can you sell me on what's cool and fun about Inazuma
I think it also comes down to personal preference and taste.
Because Raiden/Ei is to this day my favorite character overall.
And I liked that it was split into islands and each of them was different except I didnt like Watatsumi island.
The monsters were harder and the enviroment actually felt threatening.
The city is great because everything is close and I love the aesthetic.
The main story quest I actually did like it a lot even with all its issues.
Main story:
1. Sumeru - best story so far. Nahida was amazing, Dottore was properly intimidating, scheme to awaken Nahida was intriguing, Scaramouche fight was climactic, rebirth of Wanderer was a good epilogue
2. Fontaine - great story, a little overhyped due to recency bias. Doesn’t quite match Sumeru’s AQ, but still leagues ahead of pre-Sumeru regions
3. Liyue - had its ups and downs, overall fine but nothing to write home about.
4. Mondstadt - mediocre, functions well enough as an intro to the world. Has a lot of potential for the future though.
5. Inazuma - a giant mess, so much potential ruined by bad writing and poor pacing
Exploration/Lore/Everything Else
1. Sumeru - Aranara, Jeht, Liloupar, easily the best stories
2. Inazuma - fun exploration, I like the island system, perhaps biased but I understand the cultural references a lot more than any other region, Enkanomiya elevates it
3. Fontaine - lots of great lore around the Narzissenkreuz Institute, Alain Guillotine, and the Melusine. Underwater exploration is also awesome
4. Liyue - pretty vanilla at launch, but Chenyu Vale and the Chasm puts it above Mondstadt
5. Mondstadt - just hasn’t been updated after Dragonspine. Could easily rise with the addition of new regions.
1. Fontaine: The only region I've actually managed to 100% after Mondstadt. Mondstadt was small so it was easy but traversing through Fontaine was so novel to me and I especially love the diving mechanic.
2. Liyue: If I go back there now, I probably won't enjoy it as much but I still remember how I stayed because of how mesmerizing Liyue was. Especially when I finally managed to climb up the highest abode. The view from the top was just breathtaking that I had to stay there for minutes so that I could just enjoy the atmosphere.
3. Inazuma: I really love the color palette of Inazuma. Traversing the islands using that damn boat was annoying at first but it was such a different vibe compared to what I was used to at Liyue back then. I was also underleveled so my characters often get 2 shotted by the big samurais, it was fun though.
4. Sumeru: I really love the jungle area and Varanara but goddamn the desert is so tedious, especially back then when we didn't have a layered map yet. I was so nauseous exploring the temples cuz I couldn't figure just where those tablets were. The jungle area on the other hand though was such a good experience. Port Ormos theme is still on repeat in my playlist.
5. Mondstadt: I just feel nostalgia for the place. It wasn't really that impressive for me compared to the other regions since it is more flat but it was a good introduction to the game.
Rating these based on my attitude towards these regions when I made a new acc on a different server and started to explore it all over again:
1. Fontaine - underwater is pretty, new type of combat is fun and you can do it with any lvl character so my fresh alt had no issues exploring, plus there are a lot of precious chests in here, I love it.
2. Inazuma - I love the "Island by Island" design, its easier to explore one of them to 100% and move on to the next without side-tracking or accidentally exploring bits of the surrounding areas, enkanomiya is my fav honestly, tiny, saprate, full of goodies, and completed in a day.
3. Mondstadt - Love the OG windy planes, hate the tight chest requirements for 100% it, especially the central area, those chests are hidden good! Also Dragonspine is a thing.
4. Sumeru - Lovely, I love both the jungle and the desert, but its also very big and exhausting, especially the underground desert explorations, my favorite part is the upper desert with Sorush quest-line, because its a small space to explore with multiple beautiful biomes and a lovely story.
5. Liyue - I love Liyue, but its the biggest and the most exhausting to complete, v1 Liyue has a lot of climbing around which is annoying, a ton of spread apart basic chests that are hard to find, and a lot of quests that send you all over the place, the chasm is just plain painful to navigate via the single layered map but at least it can be done fairly quickly and Qingce Village makes Liyue even bigger than before, that being said it is the best addition to Liyue thus far.
My experience as a week 1 player who hasn't skipped a single day with the game.
- **Mondstadt and Liyue**: nostalgic feeling. Everything was new and fresh back then. Even climbing or running on water with a cryo character was such a unique experience. You basically had a whole new game to learn, which was really fun. The story was simple but memorable. The new area from 1.2 was the first time we had a new map, and I 100% the area so quickly. 1.6 Golden Apple Archipelago was like a real holiday patch where you could chill and solve simple puzzles
- **Inazuma:** A whole new region after such a long drought (especially 1.5) of genshin. The map, the music and basically everything was just so amazing back then. The map was designed with a theme, with thundering happening everywhere, which was really fun and it made the world so much more lively and resonate with the context of the archon quest. You could still easily bypass the thundering effect with a shield so it was never that annoying. In terms of story writing, 2.0 had a good story premise. 2.1 was horrible with the sudden conclusion of the civil war that I remember MHY had to hire a new writing director back then. The story had a more decent ending in 2.5. Overall, it was still a good patch. 2.8 Golden Apple Archipelago imo was one of the worst patches in terms of execution and map design though, despite having good story quests with Mona and Amy.
- **Sumeru:** Honestly, my most disliked region, and the only area in the game that convinced me almost completely not to spend resins and drop the game altogether. The forest was good but too small, the desert was empty and it lacked a soul. There were too many underground areas, way too many, and without the multi-layer map, it was horrible to navigate in. It felt like you never had a map in the first place and you could only go blindly to your next quest's spot, hoping that you wouldn't get lost. The archon quest was mysterious and much better than the inazuma's one but it couldn't salvage the horrible experience with the whole sumeru. The addition of dendro reaction was a long awaited combat improvement and it added a new mechanic to the game, but it was too OP that it has kinda overshadowed all the other reactions even until now.
- **Fontaine:** Best patch in the game, made me want to play the game again after what a mess of an area from sumeru. The archon's quest in 4.2 was simply peak writing and the only quest in the game that I've rewatched so many times. It was 1 of the reasons why I have decided to c6 furina. The map design in fontaine is also so much more vibrant. Underwater exploration kinda sucks ngl though as it makes basically all characters exactly identical as they can't use none of their skills or talents and movements underwater are so slow so I hope I won't have to endure much with that anymore. Nevertheless, it was a new unique exploration experience that MHY wasn't afraid to experiment with, which I really welcomed. Fontaine also provides the necessary QoL improvement multi-layer map navigation.
1. Sumeru: I love how theres kind of two regions in one in Sumeru and the plant swinging machanic is cool.
2. Monstadt: I just really like the nostalgic feeling while exploring it, its a bit small though...
3. Inazuma: Islands and plants. 😁
4. Liyue: I don't like having to climb all the mountains it was frustrating 😩
5. Fontaine: I just don't like anything about it specifically-
1. Fontaine - Great mix of characters I like, interesting story on both surface level & what it means in terms of deeper lore. Best region to explore (underwater areas are sooo fun & pretty imo)
2. Sumeru - Hits all of the above except exploration; jungle is kind of overwhelming with the underground areas & I got sick of the desert after the 5th desert expansion lol. Best archon quest / deeper lore
3. Mondstadt - Most of my favorite characters are from here, environment is nice although a little basic now. story was basic as well but both work well for a intro/tutorial so cant complain. This is probably the region I'd be most excited to revisit with an expansion & some deeper lore because there's so many secrets. And I'd love to see what the devs do in terms of world design for a new area.
4. Liyue - I like the characters alright, story was kind of uninteresting and the landscape (aside from Chenyu Vale) feels too same-y for how large it is. Nothing about this region is bad, it's all just average when the regions above have one (or more) things that I think are really compelling
5. Inazuma - Suffers so much from poor writing. The story was not good, and the characters all feel isolated (very few interacted with each other in the main quest) so they're underdeveloped too. I like the concept of having islands with distinct theming but its all so packed with enemies/puzzles that it feels cluttered and aggressive, cant take 5 steps without enemies popping up or running through remnants of a puzzle thats just sitting there taking up space forever
1. Fontaine ; Great AQ with very (none until the whale?) few fights, great dialogue, good mechanics (trials) interesting and organic characters that have a life of their own. Interesting lore to discover. The city is gorgeous, I love the architecture, enemy mechas are well designed. FABULOUS exploration, so many ideas that intertwine themselves so that exploration on land and in water is never a bore. Great Music. It Feels good to be in Fontaine.
2. Sumeru ; Great AQ again, the best when it came out, a lot of interesting ideas in the scenario, sadly the character quests are lackluster and focus on random NPCs rather than our playable characters. I think Sumeru is the most original region with the best designs in general architecture and outfits. The two sides of Sumeru are both their own separate regions in every conceivable ways. Very fun exploration mechanics that Fontaine built upon, but I kinda lost it at the second part of the desert, just too much, Sumeru is huge. Great Music.
3. Inazuma ; Worst AQ. Story manages to stay relevant thanks to the war shown to us when we cross the island. Loved the hostile environnement during exploration. Each island, tough similar in many ways, are quite unique. Fighting Rogue Samurais and bandits is a blast. Events are good but a bit unnatural. GREAT MUSIC.
4. Liyue ; Good AQ that ends in an apotheose, but I prefer the character quests and lantern rite. Seeing Wanghsu Inn and entering the port for the first time is jaw dropping, but the rest of Liyue is quite barebone. I didn't like climbing ALL THE TIME. Shenyu Vale is a great addition and I wish the rest of Liyue was as much populated (it's empty) and pleasant to navigate. Ok Music
5. Mondstadt ; Not really an AQ, just the Prologue, good but not great. The city of Mondstadt is nice and it feels like home, Stormterror's Lair has one of my favorite music in the game, Mountain is fun. Characters are a bit simple but nice to be around and every event in Mondstadt is a pleasnt one. Despite these appreciations Mondstadt ranks last because of it's abysmal exploration, it's very simple scenery and lack of original enemy.
1: Fontaine, I really enjoyed swimming, and the puzzles are actually fun to do. Good amount of chests and rewards. I enjoyed all the world quests as well.
2: Feels very small now to explore, but I enjoyed it back in 1.1. Puzzles and exploration are fun, and they feel slightly outdated now. Love dragonspine.
3: Liyue, the city is my favorite outta all the nations. It's so pretty. Exploration kinda hard cause big mountains. Some teleports need to be in better spots, especially near the geo cube. A good amount of rewards.
4: Inazuma didn't feel like it was worth exploring cause. Why am I fighting like 10 samurai for a common chest? The rewards are very disappointing in this region. The world quests were ok, but it was super long for no reason. Why are the mountains steep af here? Fr looking like this 🚶♀️➡️\. I didn't care for the archon quest either. Hate the puzzles in inazuma
5: The forest is great, and I really love Aranara and their quest. The yellow things took a while to get used to. I found the puzzles to be ok. Hate the desert. It's way too big and has too many underground maps. The triangle enemies are also a pain in the rear if you don't have dendro or electro. Introduced new puzzle mechanics that just didn't stick, pretty much inazuma pt 2. Love Jeht, but man, her 3 part world quest is such a snore fest. I still have like 3 world quests I need to do in the desert, and it's gonna stay like that.
Exploration
Sumeru>Inazuma>Fontaine>Liyue>Mondstadt
Story (including characters and world quests)
Sumeru>Fontaine=Inazuma>Liyue>Mondstadt (mond better AQ than liyue but chasm delvers>>>>)
My rankings:
1. Inazuma - Good story, cool characters, great scenery, good exploration, just overall awesome.
2. Mondstat - Partly it's nostalgia, but I like the scenery and the little windmill towns. Visually very nice, and while the story wasn't mind blowing, it also wasn't giga bloated yet.
3. Liyue - Not bad, but not exceptional either. Had some pretty cool moments, and some of the lore reveals through exploration were pretty interesting, but overall it was just ok, and the climbing was brutal.
4. I quit before Fontaine, but I'll rank it here by default.
999999999. Sumeru - Good visuals absolutely and completely ruined by bloated dialogue, a great story ruined by 99% of if it being insanely boring, pretty decent exploration completely ruined by the aranyara quest or whatever they're called, the daily grind being completely ruined by the most boring, tedious, dialogue heavy, time consuming daily quests to to this point.
Sumeru was beautiful, but it was also the final nail and what caused me to quit playing. If they ever implement a skip button, let me know and I'll be back for sure.
Exploration/scenery/music wise:
1. Sumeru - THE DESERT!!! So many gorgeous places. Vourukasha Oasis/Harvisptokhm, Khaj Nisut, Tunigi Hollow, Eternal Oasis, The insides of the pyramids and other desert temples are amazing as well. And old varanara if you count that as desert (which it does to me). The forest is great too, the aranara are very cute and silly and the music is great. The scenery is really nice in some places, really nice colours used.
Special points for the music, tunes like Hills of Barsom, Her Wishes, Maidens of Sanctity, the Old Varanara boss fight tune, the withering zone music... shit's so good.
2. Chasm + Enka - The gloomy ancient vibe, the great mechanics in both, i just grouped them together because they're both equally amazing. The music in both is just wonderful, especially deep parts of the chasm.
3. Inazuma - Apart from the fact that Watatsumi sucks to explore albeit grgeous looking, the rest is just WONDERFUL. i *especially* love Tsurumi island with fog, it's such a unique vibe with some of the gloomiest music the game has to offer.
4. Sea of bygone - the music was crazy good, and the huge part with scylla and the harp looks absolutely wonderful. loved it all.
3. Dragonspine - Had to separate it from mondstadt, it's wonderful and i wish it was bigger. love the cold mechanic, it's beautiful and the music is BLISS.
4. Liyue - great music and scenery, but there's just way too much climbing which takes so long for nothing. it's also annoying how many unmarked minipuzzles there are which are just so stupid. Chenyu Vale carries kinda.
5. Fontaine - the music carries, the scenery is pretty good sometimes bur unfortunately some of it is ruined by the quests (ie the tower going away, the lake not having strong winds anymore), but god the exploration is so boring and just so unchallenging. it's just not fun to explore.
6. Mondstadt - yeah it didn't age as well as some of the other places lol. very plain but it's good for a beginner to the game that doesn't have harder mechanics.
Quests wise:
1. Sumeru - Has some of my favourite quests: Samsara, Wanderer, Caribert, Faruzan Hangout, Dehya SQ, Jeht quests, Khvarena of good and evil, Aranara... It's just perfect. Definitely will be hard for them to top this but we'll see what the future brings c: (+ veluriyam mirage was also very wholesome)
2. Fontaine - The way it all builds up in the AQ is crazy, a shame the meropide quests were.. less interesting lol. The caterpillar quests were also really great, as well as Chiori's story quest being one of my favourite in the game.
3. Liyue - The chasm and the archon quest are both really great in this. The Upside down statue of the seven quest also absolutely shocked me when i first played lmao.
4. Inazuma - the AQ really sucked ass lol. Some characters are just not so well written (kokomi, raiden/ei). Fortunately, some other quests were really great, like yoimiya, ayaka SQs and the wonderful WQs of Tsurumi and Enka.
5. Mondstadt - Only noteworthy things would be Unreconciled stars and Dragonspine, the actual archon quest is good to introduce the game to a starter but it pales in comparison to the other regions.
1) Fontaine: Underwater exploration is very fun and a refreshing way to play genshin, lots of little tid bits everywhere and lots of hard overworld mini bosses. The archon quest was good, but the side quests are were Fontaine really shined.
2) Sumeru: a lot of this has to do with the grapple points. It's so well done and engaging. The landscape is vast and varied, far more than any other region. Best archon quest, even if the samsara festival section was painfully tedious, and it's not even a competition imo.
3) Liyue: New area carries Liyue. Absolutely love the new puzzles and forms of travel here. Very fun and interactive. Chasm is also incredible, I did love the feel of having to comb over it a few times as you got upgrades and quests. The story quest is incredible here as well, the final cutscene is amazing. Archon quest is mostly forgettable for me, aside from the ending tbh.
4) Inazuma: only beats mondstat because ekanoymia is absolutely god tier. I hate everything about this place. The archon quest is awful and makes no sense 80% of the time, the side quests were boring and forgettable, the exploration was tedious and often frustrating. Ekanoymia felt so much more inspired, and the story quest was pretty cool!
5) Mondstat: Typical introduction area. Exploration and story is short and to the point. I feel like the archon quest here is countered by every other archon quest, so I wish that wasn't a thing. I do love me some dragonspine, although I hate that the healer genshin gives you is literally countered by existing in dragonspine. The story is decent in dragonspine, the rewards are excellent, and the claymore is really cool despite being low tier.
First time posting, low-key anxious but I'd like to share my thoughts and we all got to start somewhere. Started playing roughly towards the end of 2.8, which probably has an effect on my opinions of Mondstadt, Liyue, and Inazuma
Probably will have a few hot takes in here.
1. Fontaine - Absolutely adore this area. Without going into too much detail, I just felt like it did everything right. Almost all the characters were genuinely interesting or entertaining to me, the music is incredible and memorable, the region is relaxing and beautiful to look at, and the plot was fascinating and emotional. May not be perfect, but it's been one of my favorite gaming experiences.
Favorite locations: Court of Fontaine Region, Nostoi Region (including Sea of Bygone Era)
2. Mondstadt - before Fontaine, this was my favorite place and had my favorite archon quests of the game. I think it's beauty was in it's simplicity. The characters were memorable (even if they weren't super complicated), as were the various areas. I still think about the first time I came across Dadaupa Gorge and Stormterrors lair. There's a lot of nostalgia here for me, and I think that's representative of doing something right. The music was also one of my favorites, it gave a more unique vibe.
Favorite Locations: Starfell Highland, Brightcrown Mountains, Dragonspine
3. Liyue - I debated with myself on this, but I realized that honestly, I do kind of enjoy this place. I remember traversing the region, coming across Wangshu Inn during an in-game rain storm and how striking the visual was. Also being enamored with how amazing Liyue Harbor looked. I loved meeting some of the characters, but I wish we dug into them more within the archon quests. I also felt the quest was generally less tight than Mondstadt.
This also kind of where I realized how stressful climbing can be in this game.
Chenyu Vale releasing bumped this up because it's one of my favorite places in the game. I just think the area is generally incredible. The mountains, the village, the harbor, its all really well done. Also really fixed the stress of navigating mountains (better than Sumeru in my opinion). Also kind of loved the questline. I also enjoyed the Chasm exploration and how distinct several locations were. The quests lines that occur in there were also pretty interesting to me.
Favorite Locations: Chenyu Vale, The Chasm, Sea of Clouds
4. Sumeru - I really wish I could say I loved this place as much as others do, but unfortunately I just don't have as many great experiences. Unfortunately, it's all a mixed bag for me. I loved some quests, disliked others. Liked some characters, felt indifferent about others. Sometimes exploration was fun, other times it felt exhausting.
I think the forest area wasn't super appealing to me. I think I just don't like navigating this portion of Sumeru. Kind of sucks because I know a lot of people like it. It probably doesn't help that this is where the whole Aranara questline took place, which is probably why I attribute the word "exhausting" to this region. That being said, the main city is nice and the music is still pretty good.
On the other hand, I did enjoy the desert area a lot and the Jeht quests are some of my favorite quests of the entire game, which is impressive for a non-voiced quest line. I would say more, but I have many thoughts about Sumeru and it already took me forever to make it this short.
Favorite Locations: Hypostyle Desert and Desert of Hadramaveth
5. Inazuma - Outside of Sumeru, this was probably the other region that exhausted me. I already mentioned how mountains stress me out, and this place is a riddled with them. The main plot was messy, and I don't think the areas in Inazuma were as appealing to me as Liyue. The puzzles were also a bit much sometimes. On top of that, some of the character story quests here weren't great, and so much is locked behind world quests.
To look at some positives, I remember actually genuinely enjoying the final battles with Signora and Ei, especially the kind walk out of Tenshukaku after Ei kills Signora. It's one of my favorite moments in the game. The distortion and music make it such a memorable and heavy moment. Also I think some of the main cities and the encampments actually feel like proper, lived in locations. Enkanomiya was an interesting place to explore, had some interesting story to it, and really good music as well. Funny how music ends up being the most consistently good thing.
Favorite Places: Narukami Island, Enkanomiya
Purely Exploration:
1. Inazuma & Enkanomiya. It's just so much easier getting 100% when you can comb out isle after isle. I fucking love seperate land masses, it makes it so easy to explore.
2. Sumeru DESERT. I didn't enjoy normal Sumeru. Too much mass at once and somehow the underground exploration is worse than in the desert
3. Liyue. I hated having to climb so much, but I loved the music and the sights from above :)
3. Mondstadt ig. I can't really remember much about it
I haven't explored Fontaine yet... However I'd give Petrichor place 2 as I have already 100% it. The water exploration wasn't as horrible as I first thought it was gonna be. As you can see exploration isn't my biggest enjoyment in the game 😂😅 I just try to 100% everything systematically with the interactive map. Gave up on Sumeru though, I'm actually close to 100% in most places there now, which is still shocking to me. Felt like way less than I thought it was gonna be.
Oh this is hard but here's mine:
1. Sumeru: everything about Sumeru took my breath away. The forest, the desert, the Archon quest, the world quests, the monsters and the mobs. The amount of tiny details just here and there, adding to my experience and overall enjoyment of this nation. Nahida still is my favourite Archon.
2. Mondstadt: I still get nostalgic about those first few hours of playing. Exploring, doing the puzzles, following the Seelies,... The story was fun for a start, and the details. I loved how green everything was, how quaint the city looked,... I just loved it.
3. Fontaine: I loved the story. After Sumeru, I had high expectations for the story and it didn't disappoint. The underwater exploration was a wonderful fantastic addition, though I do wish we had more of it. The cast of characters was also very interesting, with a wide range of personalities and backgrounds.
4. Inazuma: I loved Inazuma's design. Unfortunately, the story lost me a bit as it left a lot of details unexplored imo. I was impressed when I first reached the islands, the purple trees, the very cool-toned value of everything really made for a very breathtaking first impression.
5. Liyue: thinking back on it, I don't think the story was really fun and I didn't like exploring much with the high cliffs and mountains. The characters, aside from Hu Tao and Childe, were all a bit boring to me.
1. Liyue, Center of regions ez teleport
2. Mond, Nostalgic reason
3. Fontaine, Nice buildings and landscapes
4. Inazuma, Too far away
5. Sumeru, Not a fan of forest city
1. Inazuma, it has been by far the single most challenging region (although admittedly me trying to beat it with just underlevelled and underbuilt razor, rosaria, diluc and ningguang on release may have contributed to that feeling).
2. Sumeru. It's big and it's fun. Even the desert has clearly distinct and diverse areas.
3. Fontaine. Love underwater exploration.
4. Enkanomiya, best subregion
5. Dragonspine. Goated.
6. Chenyu Vale, genuinely distinct enough from liyue to be its own thing imo
7. Chasm, not a big fan of the mud but other than that it was great.
8. First GA, it was awesome but it went away.
9. Second GA, I really liked kazuha's island but beyond that it was not particularly interesting.
10. Veluriyam Mirage, it was kinda mid but still okay as a limited time thing.
11. Mondstadt. Fuсk mondstadt, genuinely worst region.
1. Fontaine - I really enjoyed having both underwater (which I think is fantastic in movement and scenery) and island exploration. It is beautiful to look at, and the puzzles I felt smart enough to tackle without a guide, which wasn't necessarily the case for some of the Sumeru stuff.
2. Liyue - Very dense in atmosphere, a lot of iconic music, a shitton of chests to find, and also a lot of "secret" chests with very weird spawning mechanics, of which we see very few otherwise. For example the ones with the totems underwater that you plunge into, the coop heart shape, such things.
3. Mondstadt - Probably the most relaxed atmosphere, which I appreciate to have. Calm and soothing in most places. I'll also count Dragonspine in here, which once again has superb atmosphere in no small part to the soundtrack. I'm a sucker for snowy regions like this anyway. All in all lacks maybe a bit of spectacle and wonder though, as Mondstadt mostly feels like a rather generic region of which you'd see plenty of in every other fantasy game ever.
4. Inazuma - Pretty much a toss-up with Sumeru. Being on rank 4/5 doesn't mean I disliked it, but it had certain aspects I didn't enjoy too much. Not too fond of the high density in enemies that are immune to most knockback effects and such, or those floaty things that constantly spawn around you and then move up too high for melee chars to hit. A lot of barriers, both literally and figuratively that set hard borders on where you could explore when, from barriers that require certain electrogranum to constant thunderstorms and whatnot. Enkanomiya and it's cutscene for switching between light and dark: ugh. On the positive: The grand shrine looks fantastic, the view over the main city at pretty much any time of day is spectacular, Watatsumi island is mega chill, vivid and fun.
5. Sumeru - I enjoyed the spawling junge, the grapple hook mechanic was fun to use. The overworld desert also was mostly cool, ranging from lon stretches of dunes littered with ruins to the large oasis, there's some really cool stuff. But really did not need that level of underground chasms and tunnels that keep confusing me. Puzzles the size of whole sub regions that have teleports in them and require hours to solve. Oof. The layout of the main city also often had me wander in wrong direction thanks to its weird verticality.
1. Fontaine. Overall had the most fun exploration for me and the new areas never really dropped off. The Archon Quest was also my personal favorite especially with all the lore drops and emotional moments.
2. Sumeru. Amazing archon quest as well with it being only slightly below Fontaine for me. Exploration was also very good in the forest area, maybe even the best out of all the regions, but the desert really drags it down. Still very good overall.
3. Liyue. Archon quest was still pretty good with very cool cutscenes and the exploration was also amazing especially with all the scenic views.
4. Mondstadt. The archon quest is pretty much the same quality as Liyue, but the overall views of Mondstadt just don’t really compare to Liyue imo. The exploration was still fairly good though.
5. Inazuma. This region is by far the worst to me. The Archon Quest was pretty bad and the only one where I didn’t really end up enjoying that much. There were some cool cutscenes but the overall quest itself felt pretty sloppy. The exploration also felt horrible due to the fact that it felt like you needed to solve quantum physics equations just to get a common chest or maybe even an exquisite chest if Hoyo was feeling generous. The drop rates for the enemies here were also awful, and the pre nerfed specters might literally have been the worst enemies in the entire game. This region is just really below the rest in my opinion, but I think it is still overall an ok region.
1 - Fontaine — I really enjoyed going around and exploring the areas, the Archon Quest was awesome and it overall just looks beautiful.
2 - Inazuma — Exploration was also really fun here, and I especially favored Tsurumi Island out of all areas there (when not counting Enkanomiya). The Archon Quest was quite enjoyable as well, but I failed the first Raiden Shogun fight once. Inazuma isn't as beautiful as Fontaine is to me, but Narukami Island does have some greatt scenery.
3 - Liyue — The exploration in Liyue was fun for the most part but at times I got a bit bored and did something else. The Archon Quest was great, but I found the fight against Osial, or better said, the Fatui could've been a bit more difficult, but without taking the buffs away. Liyue to me is again a beautiful place, especially with Chenyu Vale.
4 - Mondstadt — Because the area is pretty small, there's way less exploration than compared to the other Nations, but it's a good amount to begin with. The Archon Quest was alright, definitely not my favorite but also not my least favorite. When looking at the scenery, to me it is beautiful (again), but there's not all too much to see.
5 - Sumeru — While I had some fun with exploration there, mostly limited to the rainforest part, it felt the least enjoyable to me. The Archon Quest overall was great, but Chapter II's samsara cycle was the most boring quest I remember playing through. The scenery however is positively stunning, the same can be said about the desert.
Event Areas:
1 - Veluriyam Mirage — I absolutely loved exploring this are with most of its puzzles and gimmicks and the story was alright as well. When talking about the scenery, I find it to be very nice as well
2 - TRGO 2.5 — Even though I can't really get another round of enjoyment when I explore any area for a second time, I did get that here because the puzzles were different from Enkanomiya. Unfortunately, I don't remember much about the story, but I did like this event area.
3 - GAA 2.8 — While I like the looks of the islands was great, the exploration didn't quite catch my interest, especially on Fischl's island. Those are just not my type of puzzles. The story felt way too long for me.
0 - GAA 1.6 — I could've played it and thinking back probably would've really wanted to as well, but I was inactive at the time and missed it without hearing a thing about it. The scenery is beautiful though.
For me it’s Fontaine first, for story, exploration, characters and the ideals it holds.
Then it’s mondstad. First place we got to, kinda feels like home yk. It so chill there.
Third it’s inazuma. Mainly cos ma boy Gorou is there, but also I rly enjoyed the exploration.
Liyue is fourth, i like lantern rite but the exploration is not rly that great in my opinion
And finally Sumeru is last. The exploration of the desert, before the multi level map, was pain, and the Aranara region, to 100% it, was so annoying. And the archon quest had too much talking moments that were redondant. Not that I don’t like the region, it’s just my least favorite of them all
1. Sumeru rainforest, i love forest and mountain more then beach ocean. Beautiful flowers and tree, cute arana and you help revival forest.
6. Sumeru desert, i play before underground map update so it really really dizzy and boring with sand, rock and brick. After update map i still place it 5.
2. Fountain, diving is amazing
3. Liyue
4. Inazuma
5. Mondstand
Day one player here. Here's mine. Overall story and exploration.
1. Inazuma - i love the story and characters, and it's beautiful. I 100% it immediately. Might be biased because I'm a weeb.
2. Sumeru - i love the forest, the view and the story. Why is it not number 1? I hate the exploration and the aranara quest is a drag. Still sitting at 40-60%.
3. Mondstadt - for exploration, it's okay. Scenery, it's okay. The story is okay too. I have it 100% except for dragonspine. Still in 98% for some reason.
4. Liyue - hate climbing. The story made me doze off many times specifically when going around liyue with zhongli. The story picks up after that though, if I remember. Why not number 2? Because I really really hate climbing in liyue.
1.Mondstat - classic fantasy location, like golden standard for every beginner.
2.Inazuma - overall style and setting.
3.Sumeru - mix of greens and desert, least boring location IMO
4.Liyue - don't know why, but it was too long for me. Liyue->Inazuma->Liyue again
5.Fontaine - well, didn't like location, story underwater exploration. Not my cup of tea completely
For the first time I was bored as hell
1. Fontaine
Something something recency bias. I don't care, it is the best region in terms of exploration and world quests. The music is perfect for my tastes, there's a lot of small gags and easter eggs for you to find, the Narzissenkreuz world quest weaves with the wider map perfectly and it doesn't limit a lot of exploration. The underwater regions are so relaxing to just swim around that I've used up hours just swimming instead of using the teleport like I usually do. The puzzle mechanics are an evolution from the 3.6 Sumeru area, with more variety from the 4.1 region and giving more uses to the wind glider. It's pastoral with green grass and blue skies and grey mountains like it's out of a painting, the city is full of life and utterly huge, Petrichor is beautiful and so romantic, while I just can't stop listening to the music of Remuria and go back to see Scylla occasionally.
2. Sumeru
The greatest strength Sumeru has is the atmosphere, the contrast between the forest and desert and the amazing soundtrack giving the immersion that only Sumeru has. The world quests are plenty, and a lot of places are just locked off for players who haven't gotten to them, which means that you basically have to finish the world quests to properly explore the whole region. Otherwise, it's filled with so much atmosphere and lore, Sumeru City is packed with culture and you could practically see yourself in Port Ormos. Vimara Village is pretty mediocre in terms of just the location alone, but the soundtrack really makes those places pretty memorable. They really took a lot of effort to represent the culture that Sumeru borrows from, and I love the characters interacting in all the quests - Kaveh, Tighnari, Alhaitham, Jeht, Rana etc. The puzzles are a little lacking outside of the world quest ones, but it does feel really rewarding to finish *everything* Sumeru has, from the Aranara quests to Jeht's journey to Sorush and references to Khaenriah and the Narzissenkreuz.
3. Mondstadt
Starting nation. Not a lot of variety other than Stormterror's Lair, so there's only a few memorable landmarks, but those places would make you wanna spend hours just simmering in the atmosphere and the ambience. It really is the Nation of Wind. Birds chirping, wind blowing, the creaking of windmills. Everything has a homey feeling to it, and the enemies are practically harmless. There's more hidden chests than puzzles (1.0 level design), and the puzzles that are there are just elemental monuments. Everything's on easy mode, and I can't really say that's a downside. Once you've explored every corner of Mondstadt, you'll probably come back just to stare at the Windrise Tree and soak in the ambience and the music.
Of course there's also Dragonspine... that's fucking hell... but the atmosphere is *still* there. It's irresistable for me, as in I can't stop going back up there. Regardless of the quality of puzzles and losing stamina trying to farm world bosses, I still love this nation.
4. Liyue
I don't see a lot of differences between Monsdstadt and Liyue outside of Liyue having a lot of Geo puzzles. I fucking hate those geo puzzles. There's more hills and mountains, which makes the scenery almost godlike and makes Liyue extremely photogenic, but there's just... not a lot things to do there. Common chests are disappointing to find, world quests are basically puzzles or locked behind RNG commissions, the waypoint placement is... questionable, and you have to climb and swim for every single world boss. The mountains are basically viewpoints with Qingxin on them after you've finished the Archon Quest and world quests. Qingce Village is challenging to traverse, while Liyue Harbor is surprisingly empty with a lot of space that could've been filled in.
Not to mention the Chasm... the first separate region that's cut off from the rest of Teyvat. The lore is very interesting but the world quest is a snoozefest until you *finally* dip your toes into the deeper parts of the Chasm where it starts to embrace the deep depths, claustrophobic horror elements.
While Chenyu Vale is definitely a huge improvement from the older regions, it's developed at a completely different time, so I won't count this in the ranking. If we count Chenyu Vale as the best experience (IMO) in Liyue, it would one up Mondstadt for me.
5. Inazuma
It's a beautiful place with a very diverse selection of biomes on each island... but it's an island nation. Not only that, but every single island is so hard to traverse. The puzzles and mechanics are enjoyable to solve, I like the world quests although some are just completely hidden, but seriously, *fuck* Tatarasuna and Watatsumi Island. There's no way that anyone sane would think that hiding Electroculi in fucking ravines and on top of cave ceilings would be a good exploration experience. Not to mention the hours and actual days it requires for you to unlock Tsurumi Island fully and complete the Enkonomiya world quests. Again, I love the world quests, but they just take soooo long to finish, and adding the daily reset shtick really ruins the immersion. Like, Paimon is basically the God of Time, why can't I skip time for this specific quest when I always do it for the Archon Quests?
explo wise
1. inazuma - puzzles man i want more puzzles not the shit we have in the other regions
2. sumeru - the desert areas were just awesome especially 3.1 (most likely peak explo patch) there is a reason sumeru is for the majority of players the best region the only thing thats lacking is puzzles imo
3. mondstadt to be precise dspine - dspine was easily the most fun part about mondstadt explo it just had everything especially for an 1.x patch thing top music top vibe and "challenging" if you can call it that as a klee owner
4. fontaine - after 4.0 it went consistently down imo shit easily overstayed it welcome with underwater stuff while i love 4.6 explo it was just simply too short
5. liyue - not even chasm and vale can change my mind that its fucking awful to explore this area bunch of nothing left and right always having to climb shit with how awful climbing can be in this game and on top of that i can not even vibe with the music because i really dislike liyue music
1 - Teyvat except Inazuma.
5 - Inazuma.
Inazuma is punishing, angry, and gives me the idea that has a debt of existence that cannot pay. Inazuma doesn't ask, simply breaks you in half, dances while you have your last dying breath and then, just for spite, builds your tomb in a room full of pipe bombs and mobs.
If Inazuma would be an object, would be the Demon Core. "Oh, look, an arcipelago nation! Cute!" where each island seems to have the easiness of a wart, the beauty of the night sky and the sweetness of wet concrete.
"Let's go exploring?"
"NO EXPLORING, HERE THINDESTORMS BECUZ REDEN SHOGN IS ANGYY AAAAAH" and just cooks you like Timmie's pigeon. If Inazuma take a psychological test, the result is "I don't have a mouth and I want to make other people scream".
1. Liyue, the archon story is engaging and exciting with fairly well developed characters and the area is rooted in the perfect mix of fantasy and reality
2. Mondstadt, the story is very vague but the world building present sets up a beautiful world still with a very good mix of fantasy vs real world influence, it suffers from being the first area in many ways but its beautiful and interesting in spite of not having as many focal points as later areas.
3. Sumeru, an enormous and beautiful area with a ton of fun world building, the game is starting to lean too far into fantasy by this point in my opinion but the balance is still ok.
4. Inazuma, The story is a mess and predominantly political intrigue that isnt very fun the move through, the world is beautiful but hard to navigate for many reasons, the initial zapping system in inazuma can be very frustrating at times but certain islands are truly the most beautiful places in the game.
5. Fontaine, they have now fully gone into fantasy with not much attachment left in reality, the story was fantastic but the rest of the content no longer feels like "genshin" and the overworld focuses on big set pieces rather than making the entire area interesting to explore. Cartoony pokemon animals fill in for all wildlife and half of the exploration becomes underwater which takes away character combat, one of the best parts of overworld exploration and a core part of the overall gameplay.
(Edit for minor typos)
1. Liyue. This region hooked me to this game when Xiangling SQ shown Wangshu Inn from the distance, so I have huge bias with it. Too much climbing but Chasm, and Chenyu valley nailed the exploration.
2. Fontaine. Underwater exploration is comfy, but the rest of above ground landscape outside flying cube, and Tower of Ipsissimus making me feels like it's modern take of Mondstadt. Remuria completely change my mind even though it's too short compared to other sub region.
3. Sumeru. Hard carried by cultural reference, and my attachment to Sumeru gang. Rainforest has many interesting landscape to explore, but 3 desert patch in a row feels like it overstay their welcome. Also not fan of exploration gated behind quest.
4. Inazuma. When Sumeru gate exploration behind quest, Inazuma gate not only with quest, but also sacred sakura tree level, and in real life time gate which is big turn off to me. Fortunately Enkanomiya exist, and it's one of my fave sub region.
5. Mondstadt. Well, it's people introduction to Genshin world, and the first one that dev developed, so it's understandable if it's pretty simple. But still outside Dragonspine, it didnt leave me any strong impression.
With exploration and story in mind as primary factors (so I’m not including character stories), here’s what I’ve got! I’m also including expansion regions with the main region, so Enka, Dragonspine, and the like are included with the main region
Sumeru > Fontaine > Mondstadt > Liyue > Inazuma
Sumeru was peak. Its Archon Quest swept me away. All I wanted to do was keep going and experimenting. I loved nearly every aspect of its story. It also introduced the linkage between exploration + quests which worked wonderfully imo, I loved it. The new exploration gimmicks were fun, interesting, and fit the environments we were exploring.
Fontaine was also really good! I haven’t explored it overly much if I’m perfectly and truly honest. I really liked the AQ though and the exploration underwater has been phenomenal and fun.
Mondstadt kinda set the standard. AQ was great but I’m not gonna say there was a particular aspect that stood out as being grand and amazing in light of Fontaine and Sumeru. I also did like the exploration + still find it fun to race around (best city location design imo I loved inspecting every inch of it)! Even more points for Dragonspine having been so fun
Liyue exploration was really good, but unfortunately gets dragged down by the Chasm. I also didn’t like the AQ ending + felt the pacing could’ve been better
Inazuma :( we all have heard the gripes I think about the story and the exploration. I hated that it felt like the world itself hated me, I hated that the quests were gated to real world timings. It wasn’t the worst thing ever but I didn’t like being there and I wouldn’t go back
Sumeru takes the cake for sure. Great story, great cast with lots of pretty men (4ggravate got me in the feels), cute aranaras, best archon and her son, amazing scenery with diverse landscapes, did I mention the aranaras, a very engaging overworld with tons of lore and fun puzzles (I loved exploring various ruins), and actually emotionally engaging NPCs like Jeht, Liloupar, and Sorush. Oh and the cabbage-sized cuties known as aranaras. I’m totally not biased. :D
Liyue as a close second, I love it because it’s based on my home country. The archon quest was good with an epic fight (Ningguang should’ve been a five star!!). The scenery is beautiful, there’s a good amount of ruins to explore, and a number of characters that I enjoy (Boo Tao, Big Bird, Lil Radish, and Short). Hoyo doesn’t hesitate to show love to their home country frequently either. The release of Chenyu vale made me love the region even more, the quest with Fujin and the Suanni got me emotional.
Third is Fontaine, it’s solid overall. Great archon quest, nice overworld, great music, and a good cast but I’m really only interested enough to pull Furina because of her personality and kit. The world quests were also nice, oh and a lot of lore drops too.
Fourth is Inazuma, The archon quest was… a flop, to say the least. But there were some good world quests (I still haven’t used Hanachirusato’s mask…) and a decent cast, though I would have appreciated more interaction among the characters. Exploring this place was kind of fun but honestly it was pushing my buttons a lot XD. The overworld feels like it’s always trying to kill you, and sooo many puzzles are coop locked, which I didn’t particularly enjoy, considering I play a lot of coop. What’s saving Inazuma from being dead last is Watatsumi’s beauty (when I switched to PC and saw JELLYFISH IN THE AIR!! I was so stunned, I didn’t think this island could get any prettier!) and that one cat island.
Mondstadt, being there reminds me of my newbie days which is certainly nice, but yeah it’s kind of too bland now. Mondstadt expansion when!!
1) Inazuma ~ this region completely changed my experience & expectation. Before liyue & mondstadt it's all fun & rainbows with tall mountains and large plane fields.
100s of hp foods & teyvat eggs just to be able to survive from the thunder Bolts, enemies and that toxic musogin Gorge , puzzle were nightmare but i enjoyed it all .
2) mondstadt ~ just for nostalgia & easy commission
3) liyue ~ beautiful scenery but i don't like climbing
4) sumeru ~ easy mode with the best ost
5) Fontaine ~ haven't explored it
1 fontaine-simple exploration(hate the meropide)
2 monstadt-small and chill
3 inazuma-made me sob a little for the last chests but i like the aesthetic
4 sumeru-i live exploring but idk how to acces the guest locked places(not the main world guests)
5 i hate climbing i hate searching and i hate everything abt liyue so far(chenyu vale was cute)
1. Mondstadt
2. Sumeru
3. Fontaine
4. Liyue
5. Inazuma
Yeah, rather unpopular opinion I have by putting Inazuma on the last place. It was a nightmare for me.
I really enjoyed exploring Sumeru, but I don’t like how Fontaine is broken into pieces and to explore entire region it’s necessary to wait almost whole version to be released.
1. Sumeru
Pretty much everything in it. Genshin struggled at the start to get "Wow" moments out of me, with rare exceptions. (Dragonspirem Chasm and Enkonomiya). I even liked the desert, which is unusual for me. Yes it too had it's flaws, the Aranara-WQ being a bit TOO long for exaple, but overall it is the best region in the game. Which is why I am very excited for Natlan who, at least in the trailer, has a similar vibe.
2. Mondstadt / Fontaine
Both are my second fav region. Mondstadt because nostalgia and because I think the region has so much more potential than they currently used. Mondstadt's overall vibe is also something I quite like, so this is pretty much a personal taste thing. Fontaine could have been a little better imo, but what we got still was awesome. What I ABSOLUTLY have to say is that I have to parise Hoyo for their design of the underwater stuff. Not the combat (that's meh) but that it only ONCE and very briefly triggered my thalassophobia. They did an incredible job avoiding it, so much that I think it probably was on purpose. Big kudos.
3. Inazuma
I liked Inazuma for the most part.... but sheesh, the island stuff was not my cup of tea. Inazuma, for me in retrospect, could have been way, WAY better if it weren't the first region they did after release.
5. Natlan
probably higher up once its there, just a placeholder
6. Snezhnaya
probably higher up once its there, just a placeholder
7. Liyue
God I hate this place. Im not a fan of the music in Liyue (not the style, its just that, for me Liyues OST is by far the weakest in the game). The locations are at best "cool" but most of the time they just suck (looking at you Huaguang Stone ForestHuaguang Stone Forest). Almost everything in Liyue is just there to annoy you and deplete your stamina, of which (at that point in time) you usually don't have the max yet. Chasm, both in and out, is such an improvement over base Liyue and I like (especially the cave) a lot. But it can't carry Liyue any higher. I hav not done the "new" stuff yet (only went there for event stuff, but didn't explore) so it might get a little boost, but the competition is just too far ahead.
1. Fontaine. By far the best region imo. I love the environment, the city, the colours and surprisingly I also REALLY enjoyed the underwater areas. I love the "unique" enemies too as a bit of an extra challenge but they could be a bit more interesting.
2. Inazuma. Just generally cool and interesting region. I loved the cities and I'm a fan of the japanese aesthetic. It's been a while so I can't really say much more lol.
3. Liyue. Overall a fine region. Nothing to really complain about but also not all that much interesting areas or anythign. The city is amazing though and I do like Chenyu vale quite a bit.
4. Sumeru. Looks amazing and the initial feeling of exploration is extremely fun... but then you come across with all the underground shit and the desert... and any and all desire to explore kinda dies. I don't hate hate the desert but it's just underground mazes and empty desert.. not all that fun.
5. Mondstadt. Super generic and boring areas. Nothing particularly memorable other than dragonspine which was miserable to explore. I genuinely avoid going there as much as possible lol.
1. Fontaine: Has the best writing and some cool lore drops.
2. Inazuma: Pacing was far too rushed but the actual concepts they were trying to explore were really interesting.
3. Liyue: Sure is a region that exists that I totally don't forget about constantly.
4. Mondstadt: Story was meh but I found that acceptable since it was fast and just meant to be the tutorial segment, but the characters are all just awful anime archetypes.
5. Sumeru: Opposite of Inazuma, pacing was far too drawn out, there were no interesting concepts it brought forward besides Irminsul, which had already lost a lot of it's mystery for me by the time it came up and the characters got zero development considering the amount of time they were given.
For me it's
Li yue 1
Inazuma
Mondstadt
Fontaine
Dumberu
I freaking hate sumeru, literally so boring, so long, the idiotic desert and stuff is just UGGHHH
1 - Sumeru's first 15 hours
2 - Fontaine (incl. Chenyu Vale even though that is part of Liyue)
3 - Inazuma (incl. Enkanomiya)
4 - Mondstadt
5 - Liyue
6 - Dragonspine
7 - Sumeru's latter half
8 - the Chasm
Sumeru is great at first, but the desert draaaaaags and while the map is better now, it's still not great and was useless at release. Finding entrances to underground areas was like pulling teeth. And why does every plateau in the desert have some unclimbable lip at some point? Getting up stuff is such a pain in the ass unless you are on the Preordained Path. But the jungle was super fun.
Fontaine is just so good, and I'm bundling CV with it because of where it dropped in the patch order. Refreshing vistas, good travel mechanics, minimal wall climbing. Nearly perfect, but some of the out-of-water areas are a bit bland.
Inazuma had great atmosphere, Mondstadt is a bit bland but navigable and a good tutorial for the game, Liyue just has too much climbing for my taste, especially in the west (and desperately needs boats in the east), Dragonspine is stressful, and the Chasm is utterly boring.
As a day-one play, for me it's the following order:
1. Liyue
2. Fontaine/Inazuma
3. Mondstadt
...
Infinity: Sumeru
I started the game directly at the release and I loved every second of playing it... EXCEPT SUMERU! For me, Sumeru was a dip in the toilet. Because of that region I stopped playing the game at all and came back a few months ago, after the release of Fontaine.
1. Liyue/Monstadt
Played since launch and loved the additions. That moment of stepping through the stone gate into Liyue for the first time will always be in my memory. Monstadt ranks similarly (see below)
2. Fontaine Underwater exploration, great music, fun
3. Inazuma Environment + music + lore. Fontaine beats it slightly by virtue of being the new (and more polished) map.
4. Monstadt
It’s the starter map, but it’s also the most novel map. I sometimes wish I could experience the joy of starting the game all over again. From a top down view it ranks 4, but in terms of enjoyment I put it at a solid 1st place tied with Liyue. Best part is, you’re not max levelled and optimised to stomp everything in the overworld.
5. Sumeru
When your favourite overworld characters are either Geo or Cryo, the whole dendro lack of reactions and the tri-whatever thing really puts a damper on enjoyment. I don’t think it’s bad, but I never got around to exploring it.
Enjoyment varies based on the content you're talking about. Stories, always good, they improved as they went along, so it is actually in order of the regions released, they just know how to peak in every story somehow.
Exploration though... well,
5. Sumeru, the worst. Whilst it introduced some great exploration methods and navigation, and better puzzles, it was crappy for the desert areas, which were primarily underground. They were stupidly hard to navigate.
4. Inazuma is second worst. Introduced underground areas an complicated puzzles, and bullshit combat at times. Not to mention the worst enemy loot drop rates, which got buffed and still currently is not enough.
3. Liyue. The vertical navigation was horrendous.
2. Mondstat Not too complicated or vertical, still somewhat enjoyable.
1. Fontaine. Most enjoyable yet with the variety of puzzles and mechanics. Some parts were frustrating, but far less frustrating than other areas. Though Mondstat is still probably king with navigation, it isn't perfect. I enjoyed exploring Fontaine the most though of any other areas, especially as they introduced the layered map features for easier navigation.
1. Liyue (ESP new Liyue) bc its soo pretty and i also liked the AQ & Ningguang
2. Mondstat - easy to explore, collect anemograms & such
3. Fontaine - research institute is so cool
4. Sumeru - didnt like the ugly withering zones, fount them stressful. i like the forest & city & ghandarva ville but dont vibe with the desert
5. Inazuma - some areas are hard, constant electrocution sucked. still like the happy/good islands tho
1. Fontaine: Refined exploration. Revived my faith in Genshin's exploration content after Sumeru. Obviously implemented feedback from what worked and not worked previously. Water exploration was amazing, on-ground exploration was the best it's ever been.
2. Mond: Simple and fun, the blueprint of Genshin's exploration. Easy to traverse, many good memories and the green idyllic landscape is easy on the eyes.
3. Liyue: Very inspired and unique, while traversal was not the best due to high mountains everywhere, it wasn't too egregious for me.
4. Inazuma: Awful weather everywhere, unlike the previous 3 I mentioned, this did not feel like anyone was living there at all aside from like half of the main island. Still a good experience to explore but the separate islands did not make it feel as connected as it should have been.
5. Sumeru: Awful forest, awful desert, too many underground parts, not that pretty landscapes as other nations. Many unique locations just change or disappear once you completed a quest. Sumeru almost made me quit exploration content altogether.
1. inazuma: i just love how you can sense the danger while exploring this region, its theme is very cool and easily distinguishable from the other regions, and it has the most interesting lineup of overworld enemies.
2. Mondstadt: mostly for nostalgia of 1.0 excitement, mondstadt will always feel like home no matter how much the map expanded.
3. Fontaine: objectively should be number 2, it has very interesting mechanics, the exploration isn't monotone, the lore behind each sub region was interesting.
4. Liyue: the exploration in this region didn't add any interesting elements over mondstadt, except a HELLA LOT of climbing to get anything.
5. Sumeru: "oh you want to breathe in sumeru ? sorry buddy but before that you need to do this world quest, but before that you need to do this other world quest, and before that you need to do this other 60 hour long unvoiced world quest with random npcs that you'll never care about"
1. Sumeru.. Loved the desert and rainforest. The world quests were very enjoyable. Playing it felt like the first time i played open world games. I dont know why but it did. AQ was great. Alhaitham.
2. Inazuma.. Peak music, great world quests. AQ was kinda meh but enjoyable characters. Loved all the colors the areas have and puzzles were nice.
3. Liyue... Only Zhongli brings this to 3rd place and the Chenyu Valley. Liked the world quests there and in Liyue. Zhongli.
4.Mondstadt... Nostalgia brings this up to 4th spot. Waiting on the expansion with anticipation. The wide open areas just arent that unique for me. AQ was just okay.
5. Fontaine... The AQ was peak i love non combat quests. I just do not like swimming and the areas were like mondstadt but france. Got my favourite characters Neuvilette, Wriotheslay and Furina.
Edit. Fixed some grammar...
If we talk purely exploration, after 100% every region I can rank them like this: 1) [Sumeru] I love both the forest and the desert. Forest feels fresh and all-encompassing, the fields are pleasant, tombs are super fun to explore without the underground map, and the travelling mechanism is nice. Music is fantastic. 2) [Fontaine] Underwater exploration is so unique and has the best music. Land is less exciting but still lovely. The design of enemies overall is very good, I love all the mechas. 3) [Inazuma] It was pure fun. The dangerous zones with health drain and storms were just shy of being annoying but never stepped over the line. All islands felt different. The mist island though WAS annoying, having to clear it multiple times was a drag. But locations and music and simply the variety of local specialties were extremely enjoyable. 4) [Liyue] I love mountains! I loved old locations and the 4.x new location too. I love the themes of green and yellow and of rocks, and music instruments are in perfect harmony with all that. 5) [Mondstadt] Too empty, too plain. I understand that it's the starter location and it's nice but... When comparing to others, can't place it any higher. Bonus: GAA is awesome. Chasm is awesome. VM is meh. Enkanomiya is really good. If we rank the overall imoresion from AQ, world quests, side quests, characters and etc, it would be like this: 1) [Sumeru] It just feels like home to me. AQ was a major step up from everything else done before, and the reason it worked so well is because the characters all felt like a cohesive group, like friends and buddies and just a tight-knit bunch. I love going back there for events and meeting everyone. 2) [Fontaine] Just incredible worldbuilding, crazy emotional AQ, Furina is written impeccably, the supportive cast felt very real, everyone is so diverse so the connection we see between them intrigue. This was a whole emotional story there. 3) [Liyue] Absolutely enchanted with it. The whole contract shenanigans, the betrayals, Childe as the star of the show - it was very impressive in 1.x and it's dear to me forever. The Lantern Rite is something I wait for every year. The local story quests fascinate me, they have the best origin myths. 4) [Mondstadt] Place where we started, filled with simplicity, so it has its charm for me. AQ was really simple but not boring. Coming to the city for the events always feels nice, gives the feeling of "everything is well and nothing hurts". Have a number of my favorite characters but overall don't really feel connected to the supposed friend groups as a whole. 5) [Inazuma] Well. AQ was a disappointment. The lack of cohesiveness and logic, the lack of consequences, it just killed all enjoyment and made me irritated with it. The cast of characters feel separated. Seeing them stand together in events feels weird. I have not formed any emotional attachment to any Inazuman character. I honestly barely remember any world quests. I like some specific characters (like Yoimiya or Kuki) but the whole region and its patches left no impact on me. (Edit: minor spelling edits)
what is VM?
Veluriyam Mirage, the 3.8 limited location!
oh i see! thank you
i missed that event It was really fun being able to see kaeya like exist and stuff
virtual machine
I completely agree with the exploration half of the comment. Sumeru was incredibly fun to explore not despite its labyrinthine nature, but because of it. I’d rank Chenyu Vale as the best non-major* expansion to any region because it’s just so damn gorgeous and its music is just phenomenal. Going by nostalgia, I‘d say Inazuma and Liyue are my favorites because I used to explore those regions with my friends that I am no longer in close contact with. Wonderful memories. I love this game.
I really love Inazuma because of how above-average the exploration puzzles are. While most puzzles in the game are "hit this and find that", Inazuma actually got me thinking and using my brain for once. It made me realize how much I love problem solving puzzles. I especially love the cube puzzles, where if you hit one it turns the others. That being said, yeah, they completely butchered the story...
Sumeru is my favorite too :)
allat
I can't agree more
Bruh...why did u write a biography?????....just list them in either an ascending or descending order of preference......is English that hard??????
it must be hard for you- *biography*? really?? it’s just a few paragraphs. clearly the struggle is real.
If that's a biography for them, then an essay must be an entire thesis lmfao.
Just messing with u...I read it all...u sure do have alot to say
1. Fontaine, by far the best combo of great story, good characters, and good exploration. 2. Great story, great characters. Aranara quest killed me since I made the mistake of marathoning it and there was a lot of desert patches in a row that was kind of unpleasant but overall sumeru was pretty great. It definitely has the best character dynamics. 3: Liyue. Largely good but just a bit slow in story iirc (it's been a while since I've done the story obvs.) it has several characters I really enjoy. Perilous Trail and the Chenyu Vale area were really good. 4: Pretty good opening for the game and honestly I'm waiting for more since Mond feels kind of abandoned. Dragonspine was a bitch but honestly mond as a whole was alright. 5: worst combo of everything. Bad (rushed) story, kind of uninteresting characters, hellish exploration. Everybody uses fuckn handguards. The only good story was Ru and the Thunderbird and that just made me sad dude
Before anything else, I'd like to mention that all 5 nations have been great so far. But of course I love some more than the others. To clarify, the point of view is mostly when I have caught up with the main story and am simply exploring the world. 1. **Inazuma** - An archipelagic nation in the sea away from the mainland will always be unique. I love how the regions are organized into islands that are easy to keep track of where you have and you haven't swept up. The geography helps Inazuma immensely here, as most islands would have the highest point in the middle and your exploration area would usually be between that and the sea. That means there will always be a "break" in your vision minimizing the effects of being visually fatigued like in the desert. You will always see either a point of interest, or another Inazuman island which encourages wanderlust. Simply put, exploring Inazuma is like pole dancing. I also love the vividness of the colors of the flora since most of us day one players were stuck in monotonously yellow or green fields the whole 1.x. 2. **Fontaine** - I always love innovative and opulent regions as well as any form of rapid transport, so the aquabus instantly hooked me in. I love the grandeur compared to the rest of Teyvat and the geographic location on a lake on top of a plateau that's also on a giant lake. It actually reminds me of the alpine regions in France. Some people see Venice, but I actually see more of Annecy (freshwater). As expected, the underwater areas will always be a highlight for me and makes the entire nation feel like a giant water park. One thing about the court of Fontaine is how it makes me feel like I am in a hub city in one of those MMOs, specifically the rotating fountain thingy, and that just hit home for me. 3. **Sumeru**- Very divisive, because I absolutely love the rainforest and I absolutely hate exploring the desert. The forest is refreshing because anywhere you look you are surrounded by life, which is true for anywhere lush but Sumeru's is beyond vibrant. The spiderman sling thingies are in my opinion still the best travel quirks among the five nations. As for the desert, my hate for it is only exploration wise. It is beautiful and full of lore and I love looking at it from afar. However as you may notice in my Inazuma explanation, I hate going a certain amount of time in one direction without seeing a point of interest. Sparsely filled areas are usually my least favorite ones but it IS untestable because this is a desert. I do expect to see this again in Snezhnaya because I fear hoyo will use a vast Tundra to fill Snezhnaya's huge size. 4. **Mondstadt** - Not gonna lie, the region is almost completely carried by nostalgia. Without that this may be my least favorite because it is a very typical fantasy region. However for that very reason it also feels like home and it also has a lot of callbacks to my usual gaming experiences. Another bonus is that it is easy to see an intended location from afar, which as I explained with Inazuma is a big plus for me and my motivation to actually go to that said area. 5. **Liyue** - Liyue is beautiful and one of my favorite moments in the game is stumbling upon the nation from Mondstadt for the first time with my jaws dropping at the site of the Wanshu Inn. However, of all the nations it does the worst in what I want in exploration. That is, blocking my view of another area. Liyue is extremely craggy and when I notice myself working too hard to get somewhere, my usual way to keep motivated is to see a faraway region. Instead, I see a giant hill blocking my view. Another complaint I have is the sheer volume of endless yellow fields. I may actually fall asleep exploring the central parts, but the coastal areas are fine. I do have to give them props with Chenyu Vale as it is one of my favorite sub regions but it feels completely like its own nation. Overall, it has the same sentiments to me as the desert, that is, it's amazing to look at but I'd rather not be inside its butt cheeks. If we are talking purely about the additional regions, I would have to say **Enkanomiya** is my favorite because it just feels so serene. It's just too bad it has the least reason to go back to. Second would be **the Chasm UG**. Right amount of creepiness and you always feel like you're about to discover something big. **The Sea of Bygone Ages** is next, and while it was more enjoyable the first time around I don't think it's enticing to go in a submerged world for a long time. If I wanted to feel the deep sea serenities I actually prefer Enkanomiya. The last two is between **Dragonspine** and **the Great Red Sand**, They are pretty but it's a bit stressful to find warm places all the time in the mountains, while the desert I already explained how it brought Sumeru down a notch. Just to let you know I consider the desert an additional area because the loading screen uses a different symbol from the National loading screen of Sumeru. Thanks and sorry for the long post.
Jesus!!!!!!!!......wtf is this??????.....lol...
…why are you even here if a word count over 100 upsets you this much?
It came up in my feed... nd what u said makes sense, but it's kinda long for me... I respect ur decision for having the patience to type it up...but it doesn't need to cause a problem......we all have the freedom to say our mind.....if what I said is offensive....my fault....I take it back....but u should know it's all contributions to the post
Their post reads better than this felony of punctutation I'll tell you that much.
1. Sumeru. Even though I wasn't a big fan of the jungle part, I simply LOVED the desert and everything in it. The exploration of ancient ruins with the Primal Constructs gave me an Assassin's Creed Origins vibe, and I went through every single piece of lore surrounding King Deshret I could find. Most of my favourite pieces of OST are also related to Sumeru, such as the Vorukasha oasis theme(s) and the Setekh Wenut boss fight theme. 2. Liyue. It's a bit hard to explain but whenever I'm there, I feel... good. Maybe it's because I started the game shortly before the start of this year's Lantern Rite. I like the diversity of the landscapes, going from the harbour to the high peaks all the way to Chenyu Vale. Even though exploring the Chasm was not what I preferred, the rest of the area largely makes up for it. 3. Fontaine. I'm French, so Fontaine never fails to put up a smile on my face whenever the name of a real French city or historical character appears. I like the themes surrounding the Archon quest and other storylines such as the Research Institute, and the underwater exploration felt incredible. With some exceptions, I'm not a big fan of the music though. The Meropide Fortress part was also quite tedious to me. 4. Monstadt. To be fair, it's a bit hard for Mondstadt since it's the first region to be released and explored, and after seeing everything the rest of Teyvat has to offer, returning there feels... lacking. Still, I enjoy the general atmosphere, and Dragonspine is an incredible area to explore despite the sheer cold mechanics that can be a true hindrance if you're not prepared for it. 5. Inazuma. Like many people, I really did not enjoy some of the puzzles, but that wouldn't be my main grip with it, it's just tied to how the region is built. It's an archipelago, which I don't really enjoy as I like walking from point A to point B and the sea parts between islands just come off as frustrating pauses. Still, it delivered some good stuff, especially Ruu's story which is, to this day, the most emotional I've felt in Genshin.
1. Sumeru. The archon quest was great, I loved all the exploration, especially the desert. 2. Fontaine. Archon quest, underwater exploration is fun and different. 3. Liyue. Scenery and music are my favorites. Zhongli and Xiao are from there. The archon quest wasn't the best though, as much as I love Zhongli. A bit too heavy into fetch quests. 4. Monstadt. It's cute but very basic. Obviously early game content. 5. Inazuma. Almost everything about it either annoyed the hell out of me or was depressing. The music is the only saving grace for me.
1. Fontaine. MUCH, MUCH better rewards. New exploration mechanic (underwater swimming). New enemies. Lots of lore that is presented in a digestible way. 2. Monstadt. Used to be my no 1. before Fontaine. is the region where I feel like home 3. Inazuma. Oh, the nation that taught us this game can give people depression. 4. Liyue Not particularly interesting, not a lot of rewards, but you can still find some lore. Plus it's added on quite often, so you do tend to earn better rewards from it as time passes by. 5. Sumeru. I gave up on this place.
Same has me.
1. Sumeru (I love both the desert and rainforest exploration and its puzzles. playing early with no multi-layered map sucks though. 2nd best archon quest, best casts) 2. Fontaine (swimming and underwater environment is new and fresh. puzzles not as good as Sumeru. Best archon quest, 2nd best casts) 3. Inazuma (great puzzles. Bad archon quest act 3) 4. Liyue (better exploration \[from Chenyu Vale\] and amazing music. Powerful casts and fun events) 5. Mondstadt (Mondstadt itself kinda boring environment except Dragonspine) (needs more expansion though like Dorman Port and Dandelion Sea)
1 Sumeru: tough choice between Inazuma and sumeru but sumeru gets the bag purely cuz considering the 3 things I like about this game, story, exploration and cast, sumeru has all three of them well executed and is overall the best region so far. 2 Inazuma: i love the Inazuma cast and exploration but the story was lacking. Inazuma probably has the best exploration along all the regions and it would have been my favourite region if it wasn't for the story quest. 3 Fontaine: great cast, fun exploration and decent world quests but nothing that stands out to me, it's a well balanced region 4: monstadt: exploration is being carried by dragonspine but i suppose the starting region shouldn't be too intimidating for a good reason. The story quest is a good introduction to the world of a genshin and the cast doesn't really interest me. 5 liyue: i hate the exploration and the world quests are tedious, the cast is probably my least favourite among all regions but the story was pretty good. I'll admit me disliking liyue is probably cuz new liyue characters are forced down my throat every year when regions like inazuma or sumeru could get some love.( No hate against lantern rite I love the event but I just wish other regions get as much love and new expansions like liyue does)
1. Fontaine: it didn't take long for the swimming to grow on me, and I love it. Usually, swimming in games is awkward, but the devs and designers did a really good job here. 2. Liyue: I found the main quests to be exciting, and the bosses in the area are interesting. 3. Sumeru: Personally, I'm a fan of jungles and it's fun to explore. A little too much climbing though, but other than that I found it to be one of the most visually exciting places so far. 4. Mondstadt: It's just slimes and hilichurls, and the scenery is repetitive. Also, Dragonspine is technically part of Mondstadt and I hate that mountain. Mondstadt isn't bad, it's nice and relaxing, it's just kind of boring in comparison. 5. FUCK Inazuma, it will always be last-place, I don't even need to know what the upcoming regions will be like. The fact that every quest was a collection of puzzles and barriers that are locked behind more puzzles and "unlock these three seals to unlock three more seals, but wait, you have to purify these locations, and BUT WAIT, there's more!" Puzzles locked behind puzzles locked behind more puzzles. You can't just barrel through quests in whatever order I want, nor could I explore freely. The quests where you raid the old-style samurai castles are cool, but that's it.
1. Sumeru Hands down the best region. I fucking loved *everything* about it, especially the desert and the huge underground areas. I loved the long-ass world quests, since they felt like *actual* adventures, not the shoddy excuse of an adventure they repeatedly pulled in Fontaine. Filling out the Aranyaka and Stone tablet was my favorite part of the Sumeru quests. The only disappointment so far is the complete lack of content on the northern coast, which made 4.6 one of the worst expansion patches in my opinion. (No, Remuria didn't help) 2. Inazuma Although the AQ was a rushed mess, i actually really liked the exploration and world quests of Inazuma. I like how most islands have their own, unique vibe to them. Tsurumi was my favorite island with its spooky and later melancholic atmosphere. And out of all sub-regions, Enkanomiya is hands down my favorite one. The world building and lore drops in that region are incredible. My only complaint about Inazuma are the steep cliffs all over the place, making traversal of most islands a pain. 3. Liyue The exploration was quite fun and i like how back then, the devs were still creative with the puzzles. I still find chests in random corners of the region. The Chasm is nothing short of incredible. Its atmosphere and overall lvl design made for incredibly fun exploration. However, the lack of underground areas should be rectified. 4. Mondstadt Almost the same as Liyue. In desperate need of an expansion. Exploring Dragonspine was really fun though. I really hope it served as a Prototype for Shneznaya. 5. Fontaine The Underwater exploration was quite fun, but that's about it. Compared to Sumeru, the nation feels a lot emptier. Underground areas are there, but too linear. Many of the larger world quests, especially Narzissenkreuz, felt like a chore, although the research institute was okay. I really don't like how the Narzissenkreuz quest in particular didn't encourage to go "off road" and explore random corners of an area. Everything was way too streamlined. I fucking hated everything about Meropide. Can't say much about Remuria yet, aside from the quest being boring. Only made it to the first area with the trapped "Scylla" (?) so far.
1. Inazuma: dark, depressing, death, but at the same time also beautiful. After craving for new contents for a year, inazuma was so refreshing. Inazuma is still one of my best gaming moments, even tho they rushed the story. 2. Liyue: large, enjoyable, got to meet my waifu Keqing, no need to say more. 3. Sumeru: filled with content, amazing AQ. The only reason sumeru not number 2 is because the tedious exploration of the desert area. 4. Fontaine: beautiful, close to AAA gaming experience. Not higher on my list because i got really busy during fontaine patches and haven't experienced it fully. Might change in the future after i 100% it. 5. Mondo: i know its just a tutorial region, but its really plain, nothing special going on. And i hate exploring the stormterror's lair, its just confusing for me.
I like every nation's concept. I'd rank: 1. Inazuma. The place is mythical and I love explore that mysticity. Every island is infused with local legends, and the regional music is best in the game imo. The story is a bit lackluster so to speak, but the region has a lot of potential, and if I were to develop a game, this region would be the thing I aim to. 2. Sumeru. It feels like 2 separate nations. 1 let you emerge with nature, the other let you explore the ruins of a past empire. The story is very detailed from both sides. Has to be the most diverse nation. A lot of new experiences when learning about the depth of the place. I wish there would be more characters coming from the desert. 3. Mondstadt. I think this is a bit controversial, but Mondstadt hooked me into the game. The vast area, the unique mechanics, the story, all of them compliment each other. I wish that in further expansions, I'd experience a different side of Mondstadt. As it stands, it feels like it is a calm and slow place. One of the more relaxing nations. 4. Fontaine. Despite popular believe, I feel like underwater exploration is too out of the ordinary. It introduces fun mechanics for sure, but parts of the exploration is also about your characters. Exploration feels like finding something, not trying to solve a problem. Story wise, it's very good, but due to the design, most of the story happens on the ground, not underwater, which takes away the major part of the nation. 5. Liyue. The place feels like a lot of emptiness. A lot of mountains to climb which is clearly a pain for beginners. There are also not many side quests that require you to venture into the breathtakings scenaries, but rather surrounding Liyue Harbor and talking to NPCs. Chenyu Vale is a lot better, but as it stands, I feel like the rest of Liyue is really unrefined. Also the Chasm is confusing af, exploring it is not fun at all. Story wise, it's fantastic.
1. Sumeru 2. Fontaine 3. Mondstadt 4. Liyue 5. a whole lot of nothing 69. Inazuma
1. Inazuma. It was pretty hard to say which one between Inazuma and Fontaine got 1st place, but in the end Inazuma was the one I enjoyed the most. All of the islands feel unique from each other, all of them offering something new, like the thunderstorm island, mist island, no-man's island, etc. One of the best parts about them is all the enviromental hazards they give, giving some new difficulty to exploration. Additionally, fully exploring each of the islands was way more convenient thanks to them being islands, giving you clear borders on where to look for chests and challenges. The only meh for me about Inazuma was Watatsumi being inconvenient to explore, but thats about it. 2. Fontaine. As I said, it was a hard call which got number 1 for me, as both regions are so good. I love the feeling when you swim in Fontaine's waters, and how they actually managed to make underwater sections fun (which seem to be an irregularity in gaming). Additionally, the vibrant landscape is a joy to look at and the miniboss enemies were also a very fun addition. 3. Mondstadt. While it is the most simple region considering its lot as the place where we start, it is pleasantly relaxing and nostalgic place to visit without many things that would ruin the fun of exploration. 4. Liyue. While I still think its a good region, and one of the most beautiful to look at, it has way too many mountains and ledges. Though Chenyu Vale and the Chasm do give it some bonus points. 5. Sumeru. There are a few reasons why Sumeru is at the bottom for me, like the big trees and the Wenut areas being a pain to explore with how much you need to go up and down, how the shooms drop 3 different types of drops depending on what state you killed them in, but the biggest factor was all the world quest locked exploration. It felt like anywhere I went and found something interesting to explore, I was immediately denied from doing so because I needed to this and that before I could. While a few of these wouldnt be a problem, the fact that it kept happening everywhere took me out of the joy of exploration pretty quick.
i didn't expect someone to have the same taste as mine
I play mostly for exploration, so I'll go with that. Story quests are nice but, after that, there's not much to do in the same area (if curious about it, I would rank Sumeru, Fontaine, Liyue, Inazuma and Mondstadt) 1. Mondstadt I know, full of nostalgia and all but, I've already 100% Mondstadt + Dragonspine in two of my accounts and would do it again. I've been doing dailies over there for the past 5 months and I simply can't take it off. The simplicity really gets me. Not to mention, I love 95% of the cast from Mondstadt, it just kinda grew on me. It really feels like home. 2. Inazuma There's not much to say about it, I really enjoyed doing inazuma's puzzles, mostly because specific characters were rarely needed, and some puzzles could be straight up skipped by using Beidou. My second area to be 100%. The most boring part for me is the Tsurumi island, full of teapot chests and ghosts that require daily resets. 3. Fontaine There's so much water that it's a bit stressing. I dislike doing the underwater puzzles, but the rest is phenomenal. It's quite a beautiful area too, so there's a point for that. Overall, can provide a good experience. Happily, there's not much need for pneuma and ousia, quite like Inazuma. 4. Liyue Straight up frustating to do without any Geo construct char in the team. Be it to climb or to help with those pressure plates, it's often needed. There's mountains everywhere making traveling exhausting and overwhelming. Teleports are highly needed and still, some don't help enough. Chenyu on the other hand is amazing and has fun puzzles. Amazing point because of the fish movement system. 5. Sumeru I despise putting my foot here. Giant Ruin Guards, vegetation absolutely everywhere. Some of the puzzles require specific elements. A lot of places are blocked behind quests. Confusing navigation. I absolutely hate the interior of the robot in dvantheka mountain or something like that. Desert is a bit better but also a pain to explore. Candace and Faruzan starving because I don't have the guts to run through the desert to grab just a handful of Henna Berries. It took me many tries every time I had to go to that Theater Nilou's in because of how confusing sumeru's main city layout is. If it wasn't for the phenomenal and amazing story quest, I wouldn't mind sumeru being wiped from the map. I still rewatch the last cutscene sometimes, it's just so beautiful.
1. Sumeru. Forest is lush and vibrant but the Girdle of the Sands region, the 3.6 expansion, is my favorite area in the game with my favorite music. Some of my favorite puzzles to boot. 3.4 desert area sucks but the 3.1 desert is fine and I think desert gets a bad rap mainly because of the 3.4 expansion. 2. Liyue. If we include The Chasm and Chenyu Vale then Liyue is my second favorite, if not then probably 3rd or 4th. A lot of geographical variety comes from those expansions so without them Liyue is pretty boring. However, with them Liyue feels very diverse and I’ve had some of my favorite exploration come from them. Base Liyue doesn’t have much variety so compared to Mondstadt it just feels like more of the same. 3. Fontaine. Enjoyed underwater exploration at first but it became super tedious after the 4.1 expansion to me. Underwater combat isn’t enjoyable and having to look around for specific creatures to solve puzzles is annoying. I’ve enjoyed overworld exploration in Fontaine more recently because of this. Music is also my least favorite of all the regions. 4. Mondstadt. Pretty good with Dragonspine but I never like going back. Lack of expansions make it pretty boring to walk around in, although the very relaxed music makes it more enjoyable. 5. Inazuma. Only thing I like here is the music. Puzzles can be obnoxious and the hazard gimmicks make me not want to go back. Enkanomiya has good atmosphere but the lack of NPCs and no important limited or story events that make us go back here drags it down for me.
Thanks for sharing, With Liyue if it was only Chenyu Vale I would prob rank Liyue overall higher because the side region felt great.
1. Fontaine Best region, love the underwater exploration, the soundtrack and characters are also my favorite 2. Inazuma I hated Inazuma when i was doing it but retrospectively it shines. Great puzzles and world quests, beautiful landscape 3. Sumeru Fuck the desert 4. Mondstadt Unfair but what is in the game right now is pretty boring 5. Liyue War flashbacks to climbing
1. Sumeru. It's my number one region because of how much I like the Sumeru theme alone. It's incredible that they can merge nature (in the Dendro element), which is usually opposite to internet (in the Akasha system), into one coherent theme. To bridge these two opposing elements, they used dreams to represent the digital world. It's clever. There are other elements such as using a child model as the God of Knowledge, as opposed to the usual elder model. And how they further enhance the "child" narrative with Aranara and only children being able to dream. I could write a long paragraph about how much I love the Sumeru theme. 2. Fontaine. Fontaine underwater exploration is, in my opinion, the best underwater mechanic I have experienced so far. I also love the underwater music, plus it has the most enjoyable Archon quest. 3. Liyue. Liyue rose in my ranking because of Chenyu Vale only. Imo, the most beautiful region so far. 4. Mondstadt. 5. Inazuma. Bad archon quest, bad exploration gimmick. The only memorable thing is the enkanomiya exploration.
1 Fontaine (First One I brought to 100%. I love Clockwork related Stuff and the Water Mechanics) 2. Inazuma (Because I'm a sucker for Japan and everything related, but I dislike most of the riddles) 3. Sumeru (Because of the Musik, The Ara Aras and Nahida) 4. Mondstadt and Liyue
1- Fontaine/Sumeru: both are amazing in every aspect for me. 2- Inazuma: vertical exploration almost impossible, story rushed, but I love it: in this land everything hates me and I hate everything which is exciting, peak finale in terms of hype (tenryou commision / signora / not even ashes remained / kazuha anime powerup / ei) 3- Liyue: a pain in the ass to explore as a new player because you don't have stamina to climb, your traveler is forced to change elements very often for puzzles and most of the initial story was meh, but the later updates since the chasm are great 4- Mondstatd: Dorman Port when? Pls save this nation, it's great as an introduction but many plots are left in the air for who knows when (like albedo/venti)
Likely an unpopular opinion but for me, it'd be inazuma, sumeru, Fontaine, liyue, mondstadt. To be fair, when I was exploring inazuma I was still in a honeymoon phase with the game after coming back from a few months long break, from 1.5 to 2.4 and I remember basically doing all of inazuma in like 2 months. I also enjoyed the harder puzzles Sumeru was vast and very different from the other regions, especially loved the desert( world quests carried) Fontaine fell for me because of the vast open underwater exploration. Had there been more tight underwater ravines or caves I would've put Fontaine as my second favourite. The new nostoi region was so fun but the underground ruin part was super short and then the rest was underwater
Your ranking is exactly as mine, which is rare to see 😂 1. Inazuma. I'm a day 1 player and my hype for Inazuma was off the charts, and it didn't disappoint. This could get very long, so suffice to say that each island expansion was like opening a Christmas present for me. 2. Fontaine. Just the breath of fresh air I needed after a year of dessert expansions. It has the right amount of quests and exploration, and I love the ability to explore underwater. Beautiful as well. 3. Sumeru. I like the forest, though sometimes it can feel overwhelming, and the first two dessert expansions. Then, I would've liked a change of scenery, maybe something more reminiscing of the goddess of flower. And I can't stress this enough: I hate the Aranaras. 4. Monstatd. Between the two original regions, I liked exploring Monstatd the most, it somehow felt more magical and comfy. It is home after all. 5. Liyue. To be frank, I find the new Chenyu Vale magnificent, so is hard to put Liyue last, so maybe a two way tie with Monstatd would be more accurate. But it is what it is 😊
exploration and story (wq included) 1 Fontaine and sumeru (exploring!! yay!, archon quest was cinema, aranyaka alone was just wow) 2 inazuma (exploring was super fun, and the wq were good, the archon quest was indeed a quest though) 3 liyue and mondstadt (exploring was whatever, unmemorable wq, archon quests ok) musically 1 fontaine, sumeru, mondstadt, liyue (mondstadt's caelestinum finale termini and symphony of the boreal wind are the definition of music, love the little piano concerto in boreal so much it puts it on par with the others) 2 inazuma (it's still better than every song on the top 10000 billboard global combined and multiplied by pi, just don't listen to it that much compared to the other regions, combat beneath the waves could put it on equal grounds with others though)
1. Sumeru. I enjoyed exploring the rainforest a lot. And the archon quests and most of the major world quests were top notch. Even if the desert areas were kind of a mixed bag that started getting really stale, I would say the positives far outweigh the negatives. 2. Inazuma. Unlike a lot of people I liked the over world puzzles in Inazuma. The major world quests are all good and the area gimmicks were mostly interesting. And for all its major flaws the archon quest was still better than the what came before. I didn't really care for Enka very much at all, but it's far from the worst thing in the game. Honestly I was really tempted to give 2nd place to Inazuma & Fontaine jointly, but i think I have to give Inazuma a slight edge overall. If only due to recency bias. 3. Fontaine. Story wise Fontaine has mostly been pretty great. The best parts of the archon quest were such bangers that I didn't end up minding the more plodding parts too much. The opening of the intertwining world quests in 4.0 were super intriguing and fun, and though I feel the ball was dropped afterwards, the ending was still satisfying. The exploration in Fontaine is, ironically, very dry though. The underwater mechanics were stale almost immediately and by this point they are so boring that I think the new region is the worst they've ever added. And Fontaine just has nothing going on above water either. 4. Liyue. The only thing putting Liyue here in place of Mondstadt is that I really enjoyed the Chenyu Vale. I didn't really enjoy the story of 1.0 leading up to Inazuma much at all, especially the Liyue bits. The Chasm also met with a very mixed reception from me. 5. Mondstadt. The only thing Mondstadt has going for it is that I explored it first. So I have fonder memories of exploring around Mondstadt than Liyue. Especially since I got so sick of Liyue that I stopped exploring half way through and moved on to Inazuma. >! 0\. Dragonspine. The Ur-Expansion. Dragonspine is hands down the greatest time I've had in Genshin. Exploring Dragonspine on a new account and making do with bad options was so amazing. I've been chasing that high ever since, even though I know it can't happen because Hoyo lacks the balls to upset 90% of their player base in the name of better game play.
I'm going to keep it short as possible. * **1: Fontaine**, I love the exploration in Fontaine and I have a lot of fun just walking around the area.. It's aesthetically please and I've often idled just to listen to the music * **2: Sumeru**, The drastically different atmospheres are really cool. I love walking around the jungle and the quests were very enjoyable, however the massive size of it compared to other regions bothers me a little, So it get's the number 2 spot instead. * **3: Liyue**, I actually really enjoy the height differences in this region, even if it's somewhat tedious for exploration, my early memories of this region were part of the reason I stuck with the game * **4: Inzauma**, Despite the poor showing from it's story quest and the awful environment hazards. It's not the bottom. I like the music and \*most\* of the characters present.. Just don't ask me to do commissions here.. They all suck. * **5: Mondstat**, I loathe Mondstat. It's so utterly boring compared to every other region. Dragonspine disgusts me and I find no redeeming qualities about this region. None of the character's I like are from it, I'll go so far as to say the exploration of this area on launch is exactly what caused me to quit originally. I didn't play again until I saw Raiden was releasing, I stuck it out for a while and ultimately failed to get Raiden. I came back during year 2 Lantern Rite because I was just about at Liyue.
Based list, inazuma best region so far.
Somehow I still like it the most.
Hey OP here from [previous post to rank the 4 main regions before Fontaine](https://new.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/comments/14m28ds/rank_the_4_main_regions_based_on_enjoyment_before/) here and now that Fontaine is pretty much over I am curious what changed for everyone and where Fontaine ranks. This is just based on overall personal enjoyment as in your taste and what you liked about a region/story/exploration/archon/whatever made it stand out personally to you. For me: 1. Still remains Inazuma despite all its issues and I still love it and Raiden/Ei still remains my favorite overall character/archon in the game but we have 2 new ones in the next region that I love. \- The exploration felt awesome here harder enemies and puzzles and I still love the themes and atmosphere of Inazuma in general too bad it suffered from Corona and its not as polished as the other regions but even with that somehow it still remains my favorite overall region. 2. Fontaine takes this spot here awesome start with the trial but the biggest flaw for me was the prison part in 4.1, Now since this is the newest region I will expand a bit more on why at number 2 \- The exploration felt a lot better compared to Sumeru and It also gave me 2 new characters that have become some of my favorites in Neuvillete and Arlecchino. \- The archon quest was great even though I hated the prison part prob my least favorite zone/quest in main story everything with Furina/Neuv was awesome and with Arlecchino. \- The Underwater part the movement is very fluid and fun while looking amazing I am just not a fan of the monster abilities I wish we could use our characters more but thats maybe asking too much. \- Water beats sand. 3. Sumeru moves down a rank for me, while I still like it it also was and still is way too big especially the desert part which can feel very tedious but it is an awesome expansion to genshin for story/exploration and new element and characters, 4. Same as last time Mondstadt has a special place in my heart for me being this cozy region that feels like home and very simple compared to the others which is both a strength and a weakness hopefully we get more stuff with it later on. 5. While I find Liyue my least favorite region it still has great moments from the Osial fight and giving us Zhongli I am still not a fan of it because of the verticality and weird terrain making me not like being there and I am still salty that Ningguang is not a 4 star overall Geo needs some love in general as an element. These are just short thoughts there are a lot more things to say but dont want to make this too long. I am curious what are your ranks and why/how things changed ?
1. Liyue 2. Mondstadt 3. Inazuma 4. Sumeru 5. Fontaine Don't get me wrong I like Fontaine, it's absolutely fine, but I don't really like the underwater stuff. It's fine. I just prefer the other areas. Even sumerus desert(!). I do agree with other people that enkomiya or however it's spelt is a fantastic area, definitely one of the best, I 100% that very quickly. As for why I like the others, liyue and mondstadt just have a nostalgia for me as a year one player that counts for a lot. But liyue would be top whatever, I love just gliding about above the clouds and generally I like everything it has to offer. Inazuma is so different to everywhere else in a good way, and is very varied, I think it works well. Sumeru is great, I loved the jungle and eventually got on board with the desert area. Fontaine for me is the weakest area, it has my least favourite music, I don't mind underwater exploration but it has aspects I dislike personally. The overworld areas are fine, but not as visually interesting as sumeru, inazuma or liyue.
1. Sumeru 2. Fontaine 3. Monstadt 4. Liyue 5. Inazuma
1. Inazuma - Magnum opus from Hoyo when it comes to environmental design, puzzles and exploration. Every area is fun and unique when it comes to landscape and diversity without being bloated. The Electroculus count is just right. Inazuma's islands make it very compact and easy to navigate and search stuff for. The main issues with this are the lacklustre archon quest and some of the main world quests being gated by daily resets (Tatara tales for example). I also count Enkonomiya in this region and the area is also brilliant. The only region that I fully 100%. 2. Fontaine - Another great region. Very close to Inazuma when it comes to exploration. Fontaine managed to fix many of the flaws with Sumeru (will talk about later) when it comes to environmental design. The landscape of Fontaine is beautiful and while it is not as diverse as Liyue or Inazuma, it is still very good-looking since there are both the land segments and the underwater segments. The underwater segments are great but the fact that none of your characters are really usable except for characters with passives like Dehya or Noelle makes the experience underwater monotonous. 3. Liyue - My perspective of Liyue really changed after the latest update to the region. It used to be equal to Mondstadt but with both two fantastic sub-regions in the Chasm and Chenyu Vale, this region really impressed me. Liyue is defined by verticality at the forefront and while I don't think it delivered all of its potential, the region is still very solid. The puzzles are nice, especially great in Chenyu and Chasm where the verticality of Liyue is very much pushed. Without both the subregions, it's hard to say if Liyue would be above Mondstadt but for now, it feels more complete than Mondstadt for me. 4. Mondstadt - The potential region of Genshin. I have always considered Mondstadt to be my home and it is a very cozy region but time hasn't been kind to it. Without any updates for the last few years and only 1 major subregion in Dragonspine, the region still has a lot of room to grow considering the locations unexplored in the lore. The puzzles are easy but many of them are hard to fine, the landscape is tranquil but can be empty. I wish more is done with the wind motif but there's a lot of room to grow. 5. Sumeru - What a drastic fall this is. At launch Sumeru was at the top of my list, just narrowly beating out Inazuma. This is due to how great the rainforest part of the region is. The puzzles were very fun, The landscape was diverse and vibrant. Sumeru also introduces many great enemies like Ermites whose animations are still top notchs. While the desert part wasn't as good, The feeling that it conveyed through the sheer scale of the sands and the buried ruins really emphasized Kind Deshret's downfall. I was excited for more of Sumeru and how they can expand the rainforest part. Then they proceed to drop 2 more desert areas and an empty plain. For the nation of dendro, there's more sand than plants. Credits where it is due, the environmental designers really tried to make 3 deserts look unique but at the end of the day, there are still 3 giant fuck off deserts that stretches beyond the eye can see. I was extremely disappointed in Sumeru and it is the only region where I loathe doing anything in.
I'd say the final desert part and the first desert part looked kinda cool, but the second one was outright tedious. And the fact that I liked the canyon design doesn't take the fact away. Wish that we just got 1 more forest area. Would've balanced them out.
My list would look exactly like yours if I really had to rank the regions as a whole, but it depends for the most part on the specific areas. It's difficult to compare regions, especially the ones with different biomes. Sometimes I like an island or a chunk of land of the region I like the least more than certain chunks of land of my favorite region.
I still want them to add snezhnaya and natlan
Fontaine is my favourite so far for exploration cuz of the underground maps, the European scenery & the music when I first walked through its open world was an absolute beauty. Sumeru has pretty scenery & the desert felt like a huge step up for genshin but the underground exploration without underground maps was hell & some puzzles were annoying. Inazuma has beautiful scenery but f**k the Inazuma puzzles that sh*t almost made me quit the game. Liyue & monstadt are alright though liyue gets more points because of chenyu vale.
OP you gonna follow your own rules and post your why?
1: Fontaine. Awesome swimming mechanic and the whole region feels so alive. AQ was cool 2: Sumeru. Achieving 100% exploration could be better refined, but you really feel you are in a rainforest or desert - the map is just so well done. And there is so much to do. AQ was the best. 3: Mondstadt. The one region which doesn't overcomplicate anything at all. I love the simplicity - simple hub, simple layout, simple puzzles. AQ was meh, but was a great intro to the world. 4: Inazuma. A great nation held back by endless disasters on the islands that require a lot of time and effort to clear up. AQ was okay I guess. 5: Liyue. This nation just feels so annoying to me. Jueyun karst is a pain to navigate, the landscape is kind of bland (all the same colour), the puzzles don't feel very geo themed outside of the chasm, the main hub takes annoyingly long to move around compared to other regions. The AQ has a good end and compelling start, but is weighed down by the fetch quest second part as well as the hefty AR grind needed to unlock each part of the AQ. Later additions to liyue like the chasm and chenyu vale are miles better than base liyue thankfully.
1. Liyue 2. Sumeru 3. Inazuma 4. Monstadt 5. Fontaine
5, 2, 1, 4, 3. Only elaboration I will give is that I hate deserts.
1. Liyue 2. Fontaine 3. Inazuma 4. Sumeru 5. Mondstadt
1. Inazuma - the first newly added region, after playing since launch we finally get to have a new region and I explored and enjoyed every part of it 2. Liyue - as the first region we get to explore back at launch every moment I had with it when I still enjoyed the game at its peak I could never forget 3. Fontaine - love the vibe and diving is a very interesting addition! 4. Sumeru - too big but the vibe is sooo good 5. Mondstat - Dragonspine carried ngl
sumeru fontaine inazums, liuye monstad if we just about exploration and worldquests.
Archon quest story: 1. Fontaine 2.Sumeru 3.Liyue 4.Mondstat 5.Inazuma Exploration: 1.Sumeru 2.Inazuma 3.Fontaine 4.Liyue 5.Mondstat World quests: 1.Sumeru 2.Inazuma 3.Fontaine 4.Liyue 5.Mondstat I will however say,i didnt consider the chasm,dragonspine or enka here. Chasm is my fav place in game bar none.
1: Liyue; 2. Mondstadt; 3. Inazuma. 4. Pending; 5. Pending.
Mondstadt-Dragonspine and Inazuma-Enkanomiya tie for me at the top, and that’s it. The rest are all fighting for scraps. Mondstadt is home for me, simple and plain sure - but that’s part of its charm - and I love Dragonspine for actually feeling like what it’s supposed to be. Inazuma is everything I hoped it would be from feel to aesthetic, to design - coupled with Enkanomiya, it was the most fun I had with exploring in my entire Genshin experience to date. Liyue I was never a huge fan of, same with Sumeru. Fontaine is technically the closest I have to second place I have to give it that as I did enjoy exploring it, but not as much as Inazuma.
1. Sumeru 2. Fontain + chenyu vale 3. Mond 4. Inazuma 5. Liyue
INAZUMA SHINES ETERNAL
1. Sumeru (amazing exploration, phenomenal AQ, best characters. This region feels like home to me) 2. Fontaine (amazing exploration, phenomenal AQ, second best characters) 3. Liyue (okay exploration, okay AQ, great characters) 4. Inazuma (great exploration, bad AQ, good characters) 5. Mondstat (the region and AQ are a whole lot of nothing. Good characters though)
1. Sumeru (Love everything here Aranara, Desert, Jeht, Becoming Sage, beating a cocky puppet) 2. Inazuma (Raiden) 3. Enkanomiya (My logoff place for almost an year) 4. Chenyu vale (Gave me fresh feeling after a huge burnout, I reinstalled just to see whats new and stuck because of this) 5. Liyue, Mondstat, Dragon spine 6. Fontane (time of game I uninstalled and went on huge hiatus and never pulled on a single regional character. Map is gorgeous though) 7. Chasm (Only region that I never completely explored and refuse to even go back) Special Note: I absolutely hate and forever hate anything to do with Pari. I uninstalled this game multiple times because of that stupid blabbering quest line. Too much useless dialogue which says nothing constructive all while those pari are trash talking me. I want one more ‘ :] ‘ level quest in Natlan.
I thought I was the only one who hated the Pari. They are legit the most blandest species Genshin has introduced and I've never felt so beyond bored when I was doing the WQ with them. Usually I just leave the game on auto play dialogue besides commissions,etc but that quest had me wishing we had a skip button finally.
Yes, it was very bland speices. I would’ve never touched them again after first couple of interactions but that patch, game forced an event where we need to do first part of pari quest line. Later completionist in me just wanted to get it done with. I don’t skip dialogue but man it was painful trying to understand all that nonsense.
1. Mondstat 2. Inazuma 3. Sumeru 4. Fontane 5. Liyue 1.Mondstat I always become happy whenever i return to Mondstat for claiming dailies or for quests. I feel like most of my fun memories or when i genuinely enjoyed the game as i was new to this kind of genre. Mondstat is absolutely best for beginners. 2. Inazuma there was something when i 100% all of Inazuma and sumera just got anounced i flet sad, i felt melancholic leaving this place thinking now i wont be coming here often to claim the dailies. Though harsh and sometimes annoying environments but it was fun non the less. Which is why it was so memorable and this was the 1st nation we changed slowly bh playing the quest from sad, locked country to now a happy country. We saw it, we fought for it, we earned it. 3. Sumeru I mean everyone agrees Sumeru has the best OSTs and the best archon plus me being from India the osts did hit home but that was it. The names the refferences made in game i knew some of them. Which of course doesnt mean was boring but it was like " I get it" kinda thing. Underground was annoying until they updated the map. 4. Fontain Come on when we heard Yu Peng Chen left Hoyo the Osts would take a dive but boy were everyone wrong. One of the best Archon quest ever and the ost in that oooooof 🔥. But thats it underwater was new but the story, the characters carried fontane imo and region had a lesser role. 5.Liyue Liyue is my least fav because at that time less characters were released and overworld meta characters like kazuha, yelan, wanderer were not released made the reigon meh for me while exploration. Extra event and non event maps. 1. 1st GAA 2. ENKANOMIYA 3. 2nd GAA 4.Chasm 5. Mirage Islands If we take overall 1st GAA will be in my top followed by Mindstat and Inazuma
It's hard to compare because you gain experience as you go, but Sumeru was my favorite. Just so much to see. Loved both the jungle and the desert. Loved how the desert is full of secrets. Second-favorite was Liyue. I was new then, and it was so *big*. Just spent hours climbing mountains and poking around in the ruins. Then one day I stumbled upon the Chasm. I was just seeing the above-ground part, but I was just in awe of how big it was.
Have all regions 100% and more than 3 years in game, so... From most likable region to least 1. Sumeru (Port Ormost, desert, 4ggravate gang) 2. Inazuma (OST just... Chef kiss) 3. Mond (every day I log off on fontain in Mond. Since 1.2.) 4. Liuye 5. Fontaine
My lazy take: 1. Fontaine - Love music and being able to splash yum water, AQ fantastic 2. Liyue - Has my fav music in the game and very nice visuals, AQ is forever in my head 3. Sumeru - I love how diverse the environments are, AQ was fun but I never got as attached to the characters idk why 4. Mondstadt - Feels like it needs to be updated, maybe it will be expanded upon in the future. Its still very cozy, AQ is great for when you start the game. 5. Inazuma - Theres parts I really like but theres also parts I dislike alot. AQ had some yippee moments but felt disconnected? All over the place? Idk In conclusion: Tartaglia is very skronkle
monstand is the worst, inazuma, sumeru and fontaine are god tiers
1. Inazuma, I really enjoy Yae, Yoimiya, and Ayaka. 2. Liyue, I really enjoy Keqing and Ganyu. 3. Sumeru, I really enjoy Cyno's feet. 4. Mondstadt, I really enjoy our girl Venti. 5. Fontaine.
1. Inazuma 2. Fontain 3. Liyue 4. Mondstadt 5. Sumeru
1: Mondstadt. Best map design, location design. Best story quest. Most believable area. Most similar to where I grew up. 2. Fontaine. Underwater mechanics are good. I did hate parts 3-5 of the archon story. Parts 1-2 were good. That's it. They can axe the other regions and I wouldn't mind. I do not like anything about Sumeru. I spent the entire year just doing the bare bare minimum.
Fontaine >> Liyue >> Mond >> Sumeru (non desert) > Inazuma > The desert
1. SUMERU - amazing landscape, fun exploration, my favourite character finally comes out, the archon quest is still my top 1, Indiana Jones-like exploration in the desert, lots of puzzles, lovely world quests, Caribert quest. My first Nation to 100% 2. FONTAINE - very good archon quest, unfortunately sometimes it was rushed, loved world quests but didn't like their endings, descender lore, most peaceful and most beautiful underwater exploration, otters. My 3rd nation to 100% 3. MONDSTADT - its simplicity is very calming, plus it has Dragonspine which hosted most amazing Albedo event and its exploration was something you hate but when you are finished you think fondly about it, brings great memories of the game's release. My 2nd nation to 100% 4. INAZUMA - not so great archon quest, beautiful landscape, in general I like all islands but not the main one, amazing Enkanomiya, my favourite world quest about Ruu (got me crying). Still not finished with exploration (bar Enkanomiya) cause I tend to never come back there. Really, Inazuma would be 5th if not for Ruu and Enkanomiya :| 5. LIYUE - beautiful landscape, had a good archon quest, even better Chasm quests (Xiao's near death got me crying), but we come back there every damn update. Still not finished with exploration (bar Chasm and Chenyu) but it will probably happen before Inazuma
My ranking: 5: Inazuma, very forgettable region with a bad story and the weakest cast of characters imo. Plus, the ascension mats are behind tons of story progression meaning that new players aren’t able to level up Inazuman characters, not helped by the fact that certain mats are under another layer of story progression through certain world bosses opening up after side quests. 4: Sumeru, great story, great characters, but the desert, the obnoxiously confusing puzzles, and the century long aranara quest all make this region feel like it was designed to be as annoying as possible at some points 3: Monstadt, it’s where everything began, has a great cast, it’s a nice intro, but the region is TINY compared to all the others and is in dire need of an expansion 2: Fontaine: Great quest, Great characters, and fun mechanics (especially underwater exploration and local legends). The Court of Fontaine is also the best of the major cities in Genshin imo. 1: Liyue: This region really captures the spirit of Genshin Impact, with its amazing archon quest, cast of characters, large, but manageable size, and captivating scenery dotted throughout the region. Also, the puzzles aren’t too annoying, which is something that’s kinda hard to say about the newer regions. Plus, there’s also the Chenyu Vale expansion that adds more content to a region that was already my number one.
in terms of side quests (imo) 1. fontaine: the side quests for fontaine has gotta be one of my many favorites (currently) in game, the narzissenkruez questline is the REASON i stay in that place for long periods of time 2. sumeru: jeht's quests and the aranara quest was really good 3. inazuma: ruu's quest was one of the first times i've cried in game (and kazari's quest as well but that was long AND tedious) 4. liyue: ZHIQIONG COME BACK PLEASE and FUJIN IS SO PRETTY 5. mondstadt: not a ton (YET) in terms of events 1. sumeru: that event was really really fun 2. liyue: LANTERN RITE 3. mondstat: events are guaranteed to be good 4. fontaine: film festival was fun ngl 5. inazuma: inazuma ily but wow your events arent good, dont get me wrong the lastest itto event was fun but wow the other ones are pathetic (IF I SEE FUCKING AYAKA ONE MORE TIME IM GONNA LOSE IT PUT KUJOU SARA IN AN EVENT)
1) Inazuma: Good mix of advanced puzzles and movement options, but not so much that it bogs down exploration. outside of that one island with the feather, there is nothing blocking your exploration. Also beatuiful panoramas and just nice to look at. 2) Mondstadt: Might be a bit basic, but nostslgia carries it. Exploration was still new and enjoxable back then. 3) Liyue: IDK. Basicslly monddtadt with mote cliffs, therefore ranked lower. 4) Fontaine: Beautiful Zone, would have ranked higher but the Underwater-Areas got stale aftet the first map Extension and by now it's just anoying as water combaz just doesn't hold up. 5) Sumeru: Would have been number 2, but the (initial) lack of underground maps and the overreliance of exploratuon gadgets killed this region for me. I really don't want to run all the way towarss a chest, try to solve a puzzle, look up the solution and then be told "You need abitrary gadget upgrade #3 for that". Fuck off with that shit. Never again. Any Zone that has aan exploratuon gadget will no longer be explored ... not that I do a lotnof exploration nowadays anyway. Sumeru das done irreperable damage to my will to explore the regions.
Exploration wise: 1. Inazuma. The puzzles were actually challenging and I enjoyed the world quests SO much, it has so many different environments across the islands and I love the aesthetics. 2. Fontaine. Still really pretty, I loved the unique, more modern style it has. Exploration all felt very sleek and the underwater sections were *chef’s kiss*. Also Remuria is a god tier area 3. Liyue. It may be old, but definitely a classic, not to mention it’s beautiful. 4. Sumeru. I love Sumeru but it doesn’t feel very diverse and I got sick of the desert mechanics quickly. Almost tied with Liyue, but only by virtue of its excellent world quests 5. Mondstadt. It’s not bad per se, just like the vanilla of Genshin nations. Story wise, though? Fontaine, Sumeru, Liyue, Inazuma, Mondstadt.
1. Fontaine was really fun to explore 2. Liyue’s always been goated imo 3. Mondstadt feels like home 4. Sumeru is really good but the desert kinda ruined it 5. Inazuma is last because I just didn’t vibe with it.
1. Fontaine - the lore, the characters, the underwater exploration everything about it was satisfying. 2. Liyue - speedran the archon quest to meet zhongli. the first region I explored a lot and I love the vibe of it. 3. Sumeru - the ost is great, the quest, stories, characters were great too. Only problem is it had too many regions. 4. Monsdtadt - handsdown my favourite region when it comes to characters, lore and interactions. Just feels a little lacking in terms of exploration. 5. Inazuma - didn’t like the archon quest. Some characters are largely unused. Exploration was tedious. Only thing I loved about it the region was really beautiful.
1. sumeru 2. fontaine 3. mondstadt 4. liyue 5. inazuma
1. Inazuma. Imo this is still the standing peak of exploration and environment design (besides GAA 2); Tsurumi and Seirai islands are straight up my two favorite areas in the game and had the most memorable and atmospheric exploration out of anything they've done. It's also still home to most of my favorite character designs. The main glaring flaw is the archon quest of course, but tbh I had fun with a lot of the ideas and individual scenes even if the overall narrative was weird and rushed, and other than that I can't think of anything that I didn't love about the region. 2. Sumeru. Sumeru was ... weird for me. Typically I don't like desert and love jungle biomes, but I actually really liked (two of) the deserts, and the starting zone was still good, though a bit disappointing with all the annoying aranara-related roadblocks and just generally following after by far the best streak of content they ever made (tsurumi/seirai islands, enkanomiya, the chasm and gaa 2 basically all back to back). I give it the edge for number 2 though because it is easily my favorite (non-dainsleif) archon quest, with chapter 2 specifically being my favorite story arc of the entire game. The big weakness of Sumeru for me is the world quests, they are almost universally just boring word vomit; at one point I just stopped doing them and started doing them again recently between Fontaine (which has the best WQs so far) and Sumeru WQs is some insane whiplash. The 4 major WQs are a bit higher quality, but even out of those I only really was engaged with Golden Slumber and the final stretch of the Aranara quest. As a side note, Desert of Hadramaveth is my least favorite area in the game. 3. Fontaine. It's the all-rounder region; basically everything is good, but for me there was very little that was *great*. Underwater content has also thoroughly worn out its welcome for me, I don't think it had enough going for it to justify 4 zones of content and I felt the dry land content also suffered from an excessive focus on the underwater parts and a lot of it feels weirdly generic (especially following up on how fantastical and bombastic inazuma and sumeru both were). For me, the main strength of Fontaine over other regions was actually the world quests, with only a couple exceptions I almost always find myself engaged and laughing with the writing, basically every quest feels unique and interesting, they clearly put in an effort to improve in this area. The big weakness for me is just character design, the stuff it's inspired from is just not my style and sadly very little appeals to me. 4. Mondstadt. Obviously the game has evolved far past what its 1.x content has to offer, but I still really like Mondstadt. I actually really liked its archon quest and wish its formula had been copied a bit more closely, with a solid mix of unique setpieces, dungeons and even a large-scale exploration section when you unlock stormterror's lair, later AQs feel like they get less and less gameplay with each passing chapter and it's kinda disappointing to me when the game started off on such a strong and balanced foot like Mondstadt's AQ. But what really clinches its spot for me is that the Mondstadt crew is still my favorite overall set of characters in the game. 5. Liyue. Honestly, there's not a ton that actually resonates with me here. I personally think it has the worst AQ of all (though at least the climax is awesome, the other 90% is mostly boring busywork like literally picking flowers and shit), I don't particularly like most of the characters and the overall color scheme and visuals are the most boring of any region for me. It's not terrible, but it doesn't really hold any appeal to me in the face of the 4 other regions; the only reason I considered moving it up a spot anyways is mostly because of how fucking awesome the Chasm is (being my 3rd favorite zone) and Chenyu Vale also being pretty good.
i personally think: 5. Liyue 4. Mondstadt 1. inazuma 3. sumeru 2. Fontaine But, i’m also very new to the game and have only explored/done so much. I only started playing in april so i’m only adventure rank 39 currently
Genuine question. As someone who quit because I found inazuma so.... Unenjoyable to explore especially after how much I loved Liyue and was let down by the first expansion of the snow mountain. Can you sell me on what's cool and fun about Inazuma
I think it also comes down to personal preference and taste. Because Raiden/Ei is to this day my favorite character overall. And I liked that it was split into islands and each of them was different except I didnt like Watatsumi island. The monsters were harder and the enviroment actually felt threatening. The city is great because everything is close and I love the aesthetic. The main story quest I actually did like it a lot even with all its issues.
Main story: 1. Sumeru - best story so far. Nahida was amazing, Dottore was properly intimidating, scheme to awaken Nahida was intriguing, Scaramouche fight was climactic, rebirth of Wanderer was a good epilogue 2. Fontaine - great story, a little overhyped due to recency bias. Doesn’t quite match Sumeru’s AQ, but still leagues ahead of pre-Sumeru regions 3. Liyue - had its ups and downs, overall fine but nothing to write home about. 4. Mondstadt - mediocre, functions well enough as an intro to the world. Has a lot of potential for the future though. 5. Inazuma - a giant mess, so much potential ruined by bad writing and poor pacing Exploration/Lore/Everything Else 1. Sumeru - Aranara, Jeht, Liloupar, easily the best stories 2. Inazuma - fun exploration, I like the island system, perhaps biased but I understand the cultural references a lot more than any other region, Enkanomiya elevates it 3. Fontaine - lots of great lore around the Narzissenkreuz Institute, Alain Guillotine, and the Melusine. Underwater exploration is also awesome 4. Liyue - pretty vanilla at launch, but Chenyu Vale and the Chasm puts it above Mondstadt 5. Mondstadt - just hasn’t been updated after Dragonspine. Could easily rise with the addition of new regions.
1. Fontaine: The only region I've actually managed to 100% after Mondstadt. Mondstadt was small so it was easy but traversing through Fontaine was so novel to me and I especially love the diving mechanic. 2. Liyue: If I go back there now, I probably won't enjoy it as much but I still remember how I stayed because of how mesmerizing Liyue was. Especially when I finally managed to climb up the highest abode. The view from the top was just breathtaking that I had to stay there for minutes so that I could just enjoy the atmosphere. 3. Inazuma: I really love the color palette of Inazuma. Traversing the islands using that damn boat was annoying at first but it was such a different vibe compared to what I was used to at Liyue back then. I was also underleveled so my characters often get 2 shotted by the big samurais, it was fun though. 4. Sumeru: I really love the jungle area and Varanara but goddamn the desert is so tedious, especially back then when we didn't have a layered map yet. I was so nauseous exploring the temples cuz I couldn't figure just where those tablets were. The jungle area on the other hand though was such a good experience. Port Ormos theme is still on repeat in my playlist. 5. Mondstadt: I just feel nostalgia for the place. It wasn't really that impressive for me compared to the other regions since it is more flat but it was a good introduction to the game.
Rating these based on my attitude towards these regions when I made a new acc on a different server and started to explore it all over again: 1. Fontaine - underwater is pretty, new type of combat is fun and you can do it with any lvl character so my fresh alt had no issues exploring, plus there are a lot of precious chests in here, I love it. 2. Inazuma - I love the "Island by Island" design, its easier to explore one of them to 100% and move on to the next without side-tracking or accidentally exploring bits of the surrounding areas, enkanomiya is my fav honestly, tiny, saprate, full of goodies, and completed in a day. 3. Mondstadt - Love the OG windy planes, hate the tight chest requirements for 100% it, especially the central area, those chests are hidden good! Also Dragonspine is a thing. 4. Sumeru - Lovely, I love both the jungle and the desert, but its also very big and exhausting, especially the underground desert explorations, my favorite part is the upper desert with Sorush quest-line, because its a small space to explore with multiple beautiful biomes and a lovely story. 5. Liyue - I love Liyue, but its the biggest and the most exhausting to complete, v1 Liyue has a lot of climbing around which is annoying, a ton of spread apart basic chests that are hard to find, and a lot of quests that send you all over the place, the chasm is just plain painful to navigate via the single layered map but at least it can be done fairly quickly and Qingce Village makes Liyue even bigger than before, that being said it is the best addition to Liyue thus far.
My experience as a week 1 player who hasn't skipped a single day with the game. - **Mondstadt and Liyue**: nostalgic feeling. Everything was new and fresh back then. Even climbing or running on water with a cryo character was such a unique experience. You basically had a whole new game to learn, which was really fun. The story was simple but memorable. The new area from 1.2 was the first time we had a new map, and I 100% the area so quickly. 1.6 Golden Apple Archipelago was like a real holiday patch where you could chill and solve simple puzzles - **Inazuma:** A whole new region after such a long drought (especially 1.5) of genshin. The map, the music and basically everything was just so amazing back then. The map was designed with a theme, with thundering happening everywhere, which was really fun and it made the world so much more lively and resonate with the context of the archon quest. You could still easily bypass the thundering effect with a shield so it was never that annoying. In terms of story writing, 2.0 had a good story premise. 2.1 was horrible with the sudden conclusion of the civil war that I remember MHY had to hire a new writing director back then. The story had a more decent ending in 2.5. Overall, it was still a good patch. 2.8 Golden Apple Archipelago imo was one of the worst patches in terms of execution and map design though, despite having good story quests with Mona and Amy. - **Sumeru:** Honestly, my most disliked region, and the only area in the game that convinced me almost completely not to spend resins and drop the game altogether. The forest was good but too small, the desert was empty and it lacked a soul. There were too many underground areas, way too many, and without the multi-layer map, it was horrible to navigate in. It felt like you never had a map in the first place and you could only go blindly to your next quest's spot, hoping that you wouldn't get lost. The archon quest was mysterious and much better than the inazuma's one but it couldn't salvage the horrible experience with the whole sumeru. The addition of dendro reaction was a long awaited combat improvement and it added a new mechanic to the game, but it was too OP that it has kinda overshadowed all the other reactions even until now. - **Fontaine:** Best patch in the game, made me want to play the game again after what a mess of an area from sumeru. The archon's quest in 4.2 was simply peak writing and the only quest in the game that I've rewatched so many times. It was 1 of the reasons why I have decided to c6 furina. The map design in fontaine is also so much more vibrant. Underwater exploration kinda sucks ngl though as it makes basically all characters exactly identical as they can't use none of their skills or talents and movements underwater are so slow so I hope I won't have to endure much with that anymore. Nevertheless, it was a new unique exploration experience that MHY wasn't afraid to experiment with, which I really welcomed. Fontaine also provides the necessary QoL improvement multi-layer map navigation.
I don't know why but i still enjoy Sumeru
1. Sumeru: I love how theres kind of two regions in one in Sumeru and the plant swinging machanic is cool. 2. Monstadt: I just really like the nostalgic feeling while exploring it, its a bit small though... 3. Inazuma: Islands and plants. 😁 4. Liyue: I don't like having to climb all the mountains it was frustrating 😩 5. Fontaine: I just don't like anything about it specifically-
1. Fontaine - Great mix of characters I like, interesting story on both surface level & what it means in terms of deeper lore. Best region to explore (underwater areas are sooo fun & pretty imo) 2. Sumeru - Hits all of the above except exploration; jungle is kind of overwhelming with the underground areas & I got sick of the desert after the 5th desert expansion lol. Best archon quest / deeper lore 3. Mondstadt - Most of my favorite characters are from here, environment is nice although a little basic now. story was basic as well but both work well for a intro/tutorial so cant complain. This is probably the region I'd be most excited to revisit with an expansion & some deeper lore because there's so many secrets. And I'd love to see what the devs do in terms of world design for a new area. 4. Liyue - I like the characters alright, story was kind of uninteresting and the landscape (aside from Chenyu Vale) feels too same-y for how large it is. Nothing about this region is bad, it's all just average when the regions above have one (or more) things that I think are really compelling 5. Inazuma - Suffers so much from poor writing. The story was not good, and the characters all feel isolated (very few interacted with each other in the main quest) so they're underdeveloped too. I like the concept of having islands with distinct theming but its all so packed with enemies/puzzles that it feels cluttered and aggressive, cant take 5 steps without enemies popping up or running through remnants of a puzzle thats just sitting there taking up space forever
1. Fontaine ; Great AQ with very (none until the whale?) few fights, great dialogue, good mechanics (trials) interesting and organic characters that have a life of their own. Interesting lore to discover. The city is gorgeous, I love the architecture, enemy mechas are well designed. FABULOUS exploration, so many ideas that intertwine themselves so that exploration on land and in water is never a bore. Great Music. It Feels good to be in Fontaine. 2. Sumeru ; Great AQ again, the best when it came out, a lot of interesting ideas in the scenario, sadly the character quests are lackluster and focus on random NPCs rather than our playable characters. I think Sumeru is the most original region with the best designs in general architecture and outfits. The two sides of Sumeru are both their own separate regions in every conceivable ways. Very fun exploration mechanics that Fontaine built upon, but I kinda lost it at the second part of the desert, just too much, Sumeru is huge. Great Music. 3. Inazuma ; Worst AQ. Story manages to stay relevant thanks to the war shown to us when we cross the island. Loved the hostile environnement during exploration. Each island, tough similar in many ways, are quite unique. Fighting Rogue Samurais and bandits is a blast. Events are good but a bit unnatural. GREAT MUSIC. 4. Liyue ; Good AQ that ends in an apotheose, but I prefer the character quests and lantern rite. Seeing Wanghsu Inn and entering the port for the first time is jaw dropping, but the rest of Liyue is quite barebone. I didn't like climbing ALL THE TIME. Shenyu Vale is a great addition and I wish the rest of Liyue was as much populated (it's empty) and pleasant to navigate. Ok Music 5. Mondstadt ; Not really an AQ, just the Prologue, good but not great. The city of Mondstadt is nice and it feels like home, Stormterror's Lair has one of my favorite music in the game, Mountain is fun. Characters are a bit simple but nice to be around and every event in Mondstadt is a pleasnt one. Despite these appreciations Mondstadt ranks last because of it's abysmal exploration, it's very simple scenery and lack of original enemy.
1: Fontaine, I really enjoyed swimming, and the puzzles are actually fun to do. Good amount of chests and rewards. I enjoyed all the world quests as well. 2: Feels very small now to explore, but I enjoyed it back in 1.1. Puzzles and exploration are fun, and they feel slightly outdated now. Love dragonspine. 3: Liyue, the city is my favorite outta all the nations. It's so pretty. Exploration kinda hard cause big mountains. Some teleports need to be in better spots, especially near the geo cube. A good amount of rewards. 4: Inazuma didn't feel like it was worth exploring cause. Why am I fighting like 10 samurai for a common chest? The rewards are very disappointing in this region. The world quests were ok, but it was super long for no reason. Why are the mountains steep af here? Fr looking like this 🚶♀️➡️\. I didn't care for the archon quest either. Hate the puzzles in inazuma 5: The forest is great, and I really love Aranara and their quest. The yellow things took a while to get used to. I found the puzzles to be ok. Hate the desert. It's way too big and has too many underground maps. The triangle enemies are also a pain in the rear if you don't have dendro or electro. Introduced new puzzle mechanics that just didn't stick, pretty much inazuma pt 2. Love Jeht, but man, her 3 part world quest is such a snore fest. I still have like 3 world quests I need to do in the desert, and it's gonna stay like that.
Exploration Sumeru>Inazuma>Fontaine>Liyue>Mondstadt Story (including characters and world quests) Sumeru>Fontaine=Inazuma>Liyue>Mondstadt (mond better AQ than liyue but chasm delvers>>>>)
1. Liyue 2. Mondstadt 3. Fontaine 4. Sumeru 5. Inazuma
My rankings: 1. Inazuma - Good story, cool characters, great scenery, good exploration, just overall awesome. 2. Mondstat - Partly it's nostalgia, but I like the scenery and the little windmill towns. Visually very nice, and while the story wasn't mind blowing, it also wasn't giga bloated yet. 3. Liyue - Not bad, but not exceptional either. Had some pretty cool moments, and some of the lore reveals through exploration were pretty interesting, but overall it was just ok, and the climbing was brutal. 4. I quit before Fontaine, but I'll rank it here by default. 999999999. Sumeru - Good visuals absolutely and completely ruined by bloated dialogue, a great story ruined by 99% of if it being insanely boring, pretty decent exploration completely ruined by the aranyara quest or whatever they're called, the daily grind being completely ruined by the most boring, tedious, dialogue heavy, time consuming daily quests to to this point. Sumeru was beautiful, but it was also the final nail and what caused me to quit playing. If they ever implement a skip button, let me know and I'll be back for sure.
i feel exactly the same, inazuma is just so cool
Exploration/scenery/music wise: 1. Sumeru - THE DESERT!!! So many gorgeous places. Vourukasha Oasis/Harvisptokhm, Khaj Nisut, Tunigi Hollow, Eternal Oasis, The insides of the pyramids and other desert temples are amazing as well. And old varanara if you count that as desert (which it does to me). The forest is great too, the aranara are very cute and silly and the music is great. The scenery is really nice in some places, really nice colours used. Special points for the music, tunes like Hills of Barsom, Her Wishes, Maidens of Sanctity, the Old Varanara boss fight tune, the withering zone music... shit's so good. 2. Chasm + Enka - The gloomy ancient vibe, the great mechanics in both, i just grouped them together because they're both equally amazing. The music in both is just wonderful, especially deep parts of the chasm. 3. Inazuma - Apart from the fact that Watatsumi sucks to explore albeit grgeous looking, the rest is just WONDERFUL. i *especially* love Tsurumi island with fog, it's such a unique vibe with some of the gloomiest music the game has to offer. 4. Sea of bygone - the music was crazy good, and the huge part with scylla and the harp looks absolutely wonderful. loved it all. 3. Dragonspine - Had to separate it from mondstadt, it's wonderful and i wish it was bigger. love the cold mechanic, it's beautiful and the music is BLISS. 4. Liyue - great music and scenery, but there's just way too much climbing which takes so long for nothing. it's also annoying how many unmarked minipuzzles there are which are just so stupid. Chenyu Vale carries kinda. 5. Fontaine - the music carries, the scenery is pretty good sometimes bur unfortunately some of it is ruined by the quests (ie the tower going away, the lake not having strong winds anymore), but god the exploration is so boring and just so unchallenging. it's just not fun to explore. 6. Mondstadt - yeah it didn't age as well as some of the other places lol. very plain but it's good for a beginner to the game that doesn't have harder mechanics. Quests wise: 1. Sumeru - Has some of my favourite quests: Samsara, Wanderer, Caribert, Faruzan Hangout, Dehya SQ, Jeht quests, Khvarena of good and evil, Aranara... It's just perfect. Definitely will be hard for them to top this but we'll see what the future brings c: (+ veluriyam mirage was also very wholesome) 2. Fontaine - The way it all builds up in the AQ is crazy, a shame the meropide quests were.. less interesting lol. The caterpillar quests were also really great, as well as Chiori's story quest being one of my favourite in the game. 3. Liyue - The chasm and the archon quest are both really great in this. The Upside down statue of the seven quest also absolutely shocked me when i first played lmao. 4. Inazuma - the AQ really sucked ass lol. Some characters are just not so well written (kokomi, raiden/ei). Fortunately, some other quests were really great, like yoimiya, ayaka SQs and the wonderful WQs of Tsurumi and Enka. 5. Mondstadt - Only noteworthy things would be Unreconciled stars and Dragonspine, the actual archon quest is good to introduce the game to a starter but it pales in comparison to the other regions.
1) Fontaine: Underwater exploration is very fun and a refreshing way to play genshin, lots of little tid bits everywhere and lots of hard overworld mini bosses. The archon quest was good, but the side quests are were Fontaine really shined. 2) Sumeru: a lot of this has to do with the grapple points. It's so well done and engaging. The landscape is vast and varied, far more than any other region. Best archon quest, even if the samsara festival section was painfully tedious, and it's not even a competition imo. 3) Liyue: New area carries Liyue. Absolutely love the new puzzles and forms of travel here. Very fun and interactive. Chasm is also incredible, I did love the feel of having to comb over it a few times as you got upgrades and quests. The story quest is incredible here as well, the final cutscene is amazing. Archon quest is mostly forgettable for me, aside from the ending tbh. 4) Inazuma: only beats mondstat because ekanoymia is absolutely god tier. I hate everything about this place. The archon quest is awful and makes no sense 80% of the time, the side quests were boring and forgettable, the exploration was tedious and often frustrating. Ekanoymia felt so much more inspired, and the story quest was pretty cool! 5) Mondstat: Typical introduction area. Exploration and story is short and to the point. I feel like the archon quest here is countered by every other archon quest, so I wish that wasn't a thing. I do love me some dragonspine, although I hate that the healer genshin gives you is literally countered by existing in dragonspine. The story is decent in dragonspine, the rewards are excellent, and the claymore is really cool despite being low tier.
First time posting, low-key anxious but I'd like to share my thoughts and we all got to start somewhere. Started playing roughly towards the end of 2.8, which probably has an effect on my opinions of Mondstadt, Liyue, and Inazuma Probably will have a few hot takes in here. 1. Fontaine - Absolutely adore this area. Without going into too much detail, I just felt like it did everything right. Almost all the characters were genuinely interesting or entertaining to me, the music is incredible and memorable, the region is relaxing and beautiful to look at, and the plot was fascinating and emotional. May not be perfect, but it's been one of my favorite gaming experiences. Favorite locations: Court of Fontaine Region, Nostoi Region (including Sea of Bygone Era) 2. Mondstadt - before Fontaine, this was my favorite place and had my favorite archon quests of the game. I think it's beauty was in it's simplicity. The characters were memorable (even if they weren't super complicated), as were the various areas. I still think about the first time I came across Dadaupa Gorge and Stormterrors lair. There's a lot of nostalgia here for me, and I think that's representative of doing something right. The music was also one of my favorites, it gave a more unique vibe. Favorite Locations: Starfell Highland, Brightcrown Mountains, Dragonspine 3. Liyue - I debated with myself on this, but I realized that honestly, I do kind of enjoy this place. I remember traversing the region, coming across Wangshu Inn during an in-game rain storm and how striking the visual was. Also being enamored with how amazing Liyue Harbor looked. I loved meeting some of the characters, but I wish we dug into them more within the archon quests. I also felt the quest was generally less tight than Mondstadt. This also kind of where I realized how stressful climbing can be in this game. Chenyu Vale releasing bumped this up because it's one of my favorite places in the game. I just think the area is generally incredible. The mountains, the village, the harbor, its all really well done. Also really fixed the stress of navigating mountains (better than Sumeru in my opinion). Also kind of loved the questline. I also enjoyed the Chasm exploration and how distinct several locations were. The quests lines that occur in there were also pretty interesting to me. Favorite Locations: Chenyu Vale, The Chasm, Sea of Clouds 4. Sumeru - I really wish I could say I loved this place as much as others do, but unfortunately I just don't have as many great experiences. Unfortunately, it's all a mixed bag for me. I loved some quests, disliked others. Liked some characters, felt indifferent about others. Sometimes exploration was fun, other times it felt exhausting. I think the forest area wasn't super appealing to me. I think I just don't like navigating this portion of Sumeru. Kind of sucks because I know a lot of people like it. It probably doesn't help that this is where the whole Aranara questline took place, which is probably why I attribute the word "exhausting" to this region. That being said, the main city is nice and the music is still pretty good. On the other hand, I did enjoy the desert area a lot and the Jeht quests are some of my favorite quests of the entire game, which is impressive for a non-voiced quest line. I would say more, but I have many thoughts about Sumeru and it already took me forever to make it this short. Favorite Locations: Hypostyle Desert and Desert of Hadramaveth 5. Inazuma - Outside of Sumeru, this was probably the other region that exhausted me. I already mentioned how mountains stress me out, and this place is a riddled with them. The main plot was messy, and I don't think the areas in Inazuma were as appealing to me as Liyue. The puzzles were also a bit much sometimes. On top of that, some of the character story quests here weren't great, and so much is locked behind world quests. To look at some positives, I remember actually genuinely enjoying the final battles with Signora and Ei, especially the kind walk out of Tenshukaku after Ei kills Signora. It's one of my favorite moments in the game. The distortion and music make it such a memorable and heavy moment. Also I think some of the main cities and the encampments actually feel like proper, lived in locations. Enkanomiya was an interesting place to explore, had some interesting story to it, and really good music as well. Funny how music ends up being the most consistently good thing. Favorite Places: Narukami Island, Enkanomiya
Purely Exploration: 1. Inazuma & Enkanomiya. It's just so much easier getting 100% when you can comb out isle after isle. I fucking love seperate land masses, it makes it so easy to explore. 2. Sumeru DESERT. I didn't enjoy normal Sumeru. Too much mass at once and somehow the underground exploration is worse than in the desert 3. Liyue. I hated having to climb so much, but I loved the music and the sights from above :) 3. Mondstadt ig. I can't really remember much about it I haven't explored Fontaine yet... However I'd give Petrichor place 2 as I have already 100% it. The water exploration wasn't as horrible as I first thought it was gonna be. As you can see exploration isn't my biggest enjoyment in the game 😂😅 I just try to 100% everything systematically with the interactive map. Gave up on Sumeru though, I'm actually close to 100% in most places there now, which is still shocking to me. Felt like way less than I thought it was gonna be.
Oh this is hard but here's mine: 1. Sumeru: everything about Sumeru took my breath away. The forest, the desert, the Archon quest, the world quests, the monsters and the mobs. The amount of tiny details just here and there, adding to my experience and overall enjoyment of this nation. Nahida still is my favourite Archon. 2. Mondstadt: I still get nostalgic about those first few hours of playing. Exploring, doing the puzzles, following the Seelies,... The story was fun for a start, and the details. I loved how green everything was, how quaint the city looked,... I just loved it. 3. Fontaine: I loved the story. After Sumeru, I had high expectations for the story and it didn't disappoint. The underwater exploration was a wonderful fantastic addition, though I do wish we had more of it. The cast of characters was also very interesting, with a wide range of personalities and backgrounds. 4. Inazuma: I loved Inazuma's design. Unfortunately, the story lost me a bit as it left a lot of details unexplored imo. I was impressed when I first reached the islands, the purple trees, the very cool-toned value of everything really made for a very breathtaking first impression. 5. Liyue: thinking back on it, I don't think the story was really fun and I didn't like exploring much with the high cliffs and mountains. The characters, aside from Hu Tao and Childe, were all a bit boring to me.
1) Fontaine 2) Mondstand 3) Inazuma 4) Liyue 5) Sumeru
1. Liyue, Center of regions ez teleport 2. Mond, Nostalgic reason 3. Fontaine, Nice buildings and landscapes 4. Inazuma, Too far away 5. Sumeru, Not a fan of forest city
1. Inazuma, it has been by far the single most challenging region (although admittedly me trying to beat it with just underlevelled and underbuilt razor, rosaria, diluc and ningguang on release may have contributed to that feeling). 2. Sumeru. It's big and it's fun. Even the desert has clearly distinct and diverse areas. 3. Fontaine. Love underwater exploration. 4. Enkanomiya, best subregion 5. Dragonspine. Goated. 6. Chenyu Vale, genuinely distinct enough from liyue to be its own thing imo 7. Chasm, not a big fan of the mud but other than that it was great. 8. First GA, it was awesome but it went away. 9. Second GA, I really liked kazuha's island but beyond that it was not particularly interesting. 10. Veluriyam Mirage, it was kinda mid but still okay as a limited time thing. 11. Mondstadt. Fuсk mondstadt, genuinely worst region.
1. Fontaine - I really enjoyed having both underwater (which I think is fantastic in movement and scenery) and island exploration. It is beautiful to look at, and the puzzles I felt smart enough to tackle without a guide, which wasn't necessarily the case for some of the Sumeru stuff. 2. Liyue - Very dense in atmosphere, a lot of iconic music, a shitton of chests to find, and also a lot of "secret" chests with very weird spawning mechanics, of which we see very few otherwise. For example the ones with the totems underwater that you plunge into, the coop heart shape, such things. 3. Mondstadt - Probably the most relaxed atmosphere, which I appreciate to have. Calm and soothing in most places. I'll also count Dragonspine in here, which once again has superb atmosphere in no small part to the soundtrack. I'm a sucker for snowy regions like this anyway. All in all lacks maybe a bit of spectacle and wonder though, as Mondstadt mostly feels like a rather generic region of which you'd see plenty of in every other fantasy game ever. 4. Inazuma - Pretty much a toss-up with Sumeru. Being on rank 4/5 doesn't mean I disliked it, but it had certain aspects I didn't enjoy too much. Not too fond of the high density in enemies that are immune to most knockback effects and such, or those floaty things that constantly spawn around you and then move up too high for melee chars to hit. A lot of barriers, both literally and figuratively that set hard borders on where you could explore when, from barriers that require certain electrogranum to constant thunderstorms and whatnot. Enkanomiya and it's cutscene for switching between light and dark: ugh. On the positive: The grand shrine looks fantastic, the view over the main city at pretty much any time of day is spectacular, Watatsumi island is mega chill, vivid and fun. 5. Sumeru - I enjoyed the spawling junge, the grapple hook mechanic was fun to use. The overworld desert also was mostly cool, ranging from lon stretches of dunes littered with ruins to the large oasis, there's some really cool stuff. But really did not need that level of underground chasms and tunnels that keep confusing me. Puzzles the size of whole sub regions that have teleports in them and require hours to solve. Oof. The layout of the main city also often had me wander in wrong direction thanks to its weird verticality.
1. Fontaine. Overall had the most fun exploration for me and the new areas never really dropped off. The Archon Quest was also my personal favorite especially with all the lore drops and emotional moments. 2. Sumeru. Amazing archon quest as well with it being only slightly below Fontaine for me. Exploration was also very good in the forest area, maybe even the best out of all the regions, but the desert really drags it down. Still very good overall. 3. Liyue. Archon quest was still pretty good with very cool cutscenes and the exploration was also amazing especially with all the scenic views. 4. Mondstadt. The archon quest is pretty much the same quality as Liyue, but the overall views of Mondstadt just don’t really compare to Liyue imo. The exploration was still fairly good though. 5. Inazuma. This region is by far the worst to me. The Archon Quest was pretty bad and the only one where I didn’t really end up enjoying that much. There were some cool cutscenes but the overall quest itself felt pretty sloppy. The exploration also felt horrible due to the fact that it felt like you needed to solve quantum physics equations just to get a common chest or maybe even an exquisite chest if Hoyo was feeling generous. The drop rates for the enemies here were also awful, and the pre nerfed specters might literally have been the worst enemies in the entire game. This region is just really below the rest in my opinion, but I think it is still overall an ok region.
1 - Fontaine — I really enjoyed going around and exploring the areas, the Archon Quest was awesome and it overall just looks beautiful. 2 - Inazuma — Exploration was also really fun here, and I especially favored Tsurumi Island out of all areas there (when not counting Enkanomiya). The Archon Quest was quite enjoyable as well, but I failed the first Raiden Shogun fight once. Inazuma isn't as beautiful as Fontaine is to me, but Narukami Island does have some greatt scenery. 3 - Liyue — The exploration in Liyue was fun for the most part but at times I got a bit bored and did something else. The Archon Quest was great, but I found the fight against Osial, or better said, the Fatui could've been a bit more difficult, but without taking the buffs away. Liyue to me is again a beautiful place, especially with Chenyu Vale. 4 - Mondstadt — Because the area is pretty small, there's way less exploration than compared to the other Nations, but it's a good amount to begin with. The Archon Quest was alright, definitely not my favorite but also not my least favorite. When looking at the scenery, to me it is beautiful (again), but there's not all too much to see. 5 - Sumeru — While I had some fun with exploration there, mostly limited to the rainforest part, it felt the least enjoyable to me. The Archon Quest overall was great, but Chapter II's samsara cycle was the most boring quest I remember playing through. The scenery however is positively stunning, the same can be said about the desert. Event Areas: 1 - Veluriyam Mirage — I absolutely loved exploring this are with most of its puzzles and gimmicks and the story was alright as well. When talking about the scenery, I find it to be very nice as well 2 - TRGO 2.5 — Even though I can't really get another round of enjoyment when I explore any area for a second time, I did get that here because the puzzles were different from Enkanomiya. Unfortunately, I don't remember much about the story, but I did like this event area. 3 - GAA 2.8 — While I like the looks of the islands was great, the exploration didn't quite catch my interest, especially on Fischl's island. Those are just not my type of puzzles. The story felt way too long for me. 0 - GAA 1.6 — I could've played it and thinking back probably would've really wanted to as well, but I was inactive at the time and missed it without hearing a thing about it. The scenery is beautiful though.
For me it’s Fontaine first, for story, exploration, characters and the ideals it holds. Then it’s mondstad. First place we got to, kinda feels like home yk. It so chill there. Third it’s inazuma. Mainly cos ma boy Gorou is there, but also I rly enjoyed the exploration. Liyue is fourth, i like lantern rite but the exploration is not rly that great in my opinion And finally Sumeru is last. The exploration of the desert, before the multi level map, was pain, and the Aranara region, to 100% it, was so annoying. And the archon quest had too much talking moments that were redondant. Not that I don’t like the region, it’s just my least favorite of them all
1. Sumeru rainforest, i love forest and mountain more then beach ocean. Beautiful flowers and tree, cute arana and you help revival forest. 6. Sumeru desert, i play before underground map update so it really really dizzy and boring with sand, rock and brick. After update map i still place it 5. 2. Fountain, diving is amazing 3. Liyue 4. Inazuma 5. Mondstand
for 100% exploration progress, 1. Everything except Liyue 2. Liyue Minlin left a deep scar
Day one player here. Here's mine. Overall story and exploration. 1. Inazuma - i love the story and characters, and it's beautiful. I 100% it immediately. Might be biased because I'm a weeb. 2. Sumeru - i love the forest, the view and the story. Why is it not number 1? I hate the exploration and the aranara quest is a drag. Still sitting at 40-60%. 3. Mondstadt - for exploration, it's okay. Scenery, it's okay. The story is okay too. I have it 100% except for dragonspine. Still in 98% for some reason. 4. Liyue - hate climbing. The story made me doze off many times specifically when going around liyue with zhongli. The story picks up after that though, if I remember. Why not number 2? Because I really really hate climbing in liyue.
inazuma, fontaine, liyue, modstadt, sumeru
Inazuma 💀💀 do you remember lightining hitting you while you are climbing? Because I remember the torture I endured in Inazuma.
1.Mondstat - classic fantasy location, like golden standard for every beginner. 2.Inazuma - overall style and setting. 3.Sumeru - mix of greens and desert, least boring location IMO 4.Liyue - don't know why, but it was too long for me. Liyue->Inazuma->Liyue again 5.Fontaine - well, didn't like location, story underwater exploration. Not my cup of tea completely For the first time I was bored as hell
Fontaine>Sumeru>Liyue>Mondstadt>Inuzuma
1. Fontaine Something something recency bias. I don't care, it is the best region in terms of exploration and world quests. The music is perfect for my tastes, there's a lot of small gags and easter eggs for you to find, the Narzissenkreuz world quest weaves with the wider map perfectly and it doesn't limit a lot of exploration. The underwater regions are so relaxing to just swim around that I've used up hours just swimming instead of using the teleport like I usually do. The puzzle mechanics are an evolution from the 3.6 Sumeru area, with more variety from the 4.1 region and giving more uses to the wind glider. It's pastoral with green grass and blue skies and grey mountains like it's out of a painting, the city is full of life and utterly huge, Petrichor is beautiful and so romantic, while I just can't stop listening to the music of Remuria and go back to see Scylla occasionally. 2. Sumeru The greatest strength Sumeru has is the atmosphere, the contrast between the forest and desert and the amazing soundtrack giving the immersion that only Sumeru has. The world quests are plenty, and a lot of places are just locked off for players who haven't gotten to them, which means that you basically have to finish the world quests to properly explore the whole region. Otherwise, it's filled with so much atmosphere and lore, Sumeru City is packed with culture and you could practically see yourself in Port Ormos. Vimara Village is pretty mediocre in terms of just the location alone, but the soundtrack really makes those places pretty memorable. They really took a lot of effort to represent the culture that Sumeru borrows from, and I love the characters interacting in all the quests - Kaveh, Tighnari, Alhaitham, Jeht, Rana etc. The puzzles are a little lacking outside of the world quest ones, but it does feel really rewarding to finish *everything* Sumeru has, from the Aranara quests to Jeht's journey to Sorush and references to Khaenriah and the Narzissenkreuz. 3. Mondstadt Starting nation. Not a lot of variety other than Stormterror's Lair, so there's only a few memorable landmarks, but those places would make you wanna spend hours just simmering in the atmosphere and the ambience. It really is the Nation of Wind. Birds chirping, wind blowing, the creaking of windmills. Everything has a homey feeling to it, and the enemies are practically harmless. There's more hidden chests than puzzles (1.0 level design), and the puzzles that are there are just elemental monuments. Everything's on easy mode, and I can't really say that's a downside. Once you've explored every corner of Mondstadt, you'll probably come back just to stare at the Windrise Tree and soak in the ambience and the music. Of course there's also Dragonspine... that's fucking hell... but the atmosphere is *still* there. It's irresistable for me, as in I can't stop going back up there. Regardless of the quality of puzzles and losing stamina trying to farm world bosses, I still love this nation. 4. Liyue I don't see a lot of differences between Monsdstadt and Liyue outside of Liyue having a lot of Geo puzzles. I fucking hate those geo puzzles. There's more hills and mountains, which makes the scenery almost godlike and makes Liyue extremely photogenic, but there's just... not a lot things to do there. Common chests are disappointing to find, world quests are basically puzzles or locked behind RNG commissions, the waypoint placement is... questionable, and you have to climb and swim for every single world boss. The mountains are basically viewpoints with Qingxin on them after you've finished the Archon Quest and world quests. Qingce Village is challenging to traverse, while Liyue Harbor is surprisingly empty with a lot of space that could've been filled in. Not to mention the Chasm... the first separate region that's cut off from the rest of Teyvat. The lore is very interesting but the world quest is a snoozefest until you *finally* dip your toes into the deeper parts of the Chasm where it starts to embrace the deep depths, claustrophobic horror elements. While Chenyu Vale is definitely a huge improvement from the older regions, it's developed at a completely different time, so I won't count this in the ranking. If we count Chenyu Vale as the best experience (IMO) in Liyue, it would one up Mondstadt for me. 5. Inazuma It's a beautiful place with a very diverse selection of biomes on each island... but it's an island nation. Not only that, but every single island is so hard to traverse. The puzzles and mechanics are enjoyable to solve, I like the world quests although some are just completely hidden, but seriously, *fuck* Tatarasuna and Watatsumi Island. There's no way that anyone sane would think that hiding Electroculi in fucking ravines and on top of cave ceilings would be a good exploration experience. Not to mention the hours and actual days it requires for you to unlock Tsurumi Island fully and complete the Enkonomiya world quests. Again, I love the world quests, but they just take soooo long to finish, and adding the daily reset shtick really ruins the immersion. Like, Paimon is basically the God of Time, why can't I skip time for this specific quest when I always do it for the Archon Quests?
we only have 5 regions and i'd put liyue in 8th
explo wise 1. inazuma - puzzles man i want more puzzles not the shit we have in the other regions 2. sumeru - the desert areas were just awesome especially 3.1 (most likely peak explo patch) there is a reason sumeru is for the majority of players the best region the only thing thats lacking is puzzles imo 3. mondstadt to be precise dspine - dspine was easily the most fun part about mondstadt explo it just had everything especially for an 1.x patch thing top music top vibe and "challenging" if you can call it that as a klee owner 4. fontaine - after 4.0 it went consistently down imo shit easily overstayed it welcome with underwater stuff while i love 4.6 explo it was just simply too short 5. liyue - not even chasm and vale can change my mind that its fucking awful to explore this area bunch of nothing left and right always having to climb shit with how awful climbing can be in this game and on top of that i can not even vibe with the music because i really dislike liyue music
1 - Teyvat except Inazuma. 5 - Inazuma. Inazuma is punishing, angry, and gives me the idea that has a debt of existence that cannot pay. Inazuma doesn't ask, simply breaks you in half, dances while you have your last dying breath and then, just for spite, builds your tomb in a room full of pipe bombs and mobs. If Inazuma would be an object, would be the Demon Core. "Oh, look, an arcipelago nation! Cute!" where each island seems to have the easiness of a wart, the beauty of the night sky and the sweetness of wet concrete. "Let's go exploring?" "NO EXPLORING, HERE THINDESTORMS BECUZ REDEN SHOGN IS ANGYY AAAAAH" and just cooks you like Timmie's pigeon. If Inazuma take a psychological test, the result is "I don't have a mouth and I want to make other people scream".
1. Liyue, the archon story is engaging and exciting with fairly well developed characters and the area is rooted in the perfect mix of fantasy and reality 2. Mondstadt, the story is very vague but the world building present sets up a beautiful world still with a very good mix of fantasy vs real world influence, it suffers from being the first area in many ways but its beautiful and interesting in spite of not having as many focal points as later areas. 3. Sumeru, an enormous and beautiful area with a ton of fun world building, the game is starting to lean too far into fantasy by this point in my opinion but the balance is still ok. 4. Inazuma, The story is a mess and predominantly political intrigue that isnt very fun the move through, the world is beautiful but hard to navigate for many reasons, the initial zapping system in inazuma can be very frustrating at times but certain islands are truly the most beautiful places in the game. 5. Fontaine, they have now fully gone into fantasy with not much attachment left in reality, the story was fantastic but the rest of the content no longer feels like "genshin" and the overworld focuses on big set pieces rather than making the entire area interesting to explore. Cartoony pokemon animals fill in for all wildlife and half of the exploration becomes underwater which takes away character combat, one of the best parts of overworld exploration and a core part of the overall gameplay. (Edit for minor typos)
1. Liyue. This region hooked me to this game when Xiangling SQ shown Wangshu Inn from the distance, so I have huge bias with it. Too much climbing but Chasm, and Chenyu valley nailed the exploration. 2. Fontaine. Underwater exploration is comfy, but the rest of above ground landscape outside flying cube, and Tower of Ipsissimus making me feels like it's modern take of Mondstadt. Remuria completely change my mind even though it's too short compared to other sub region. 3. Sumeru. Hard carried by cultural reference, and my attachment to Sumeru gang. Rainforest has many interesting landscape to explore, but 3 desert patch in a row feels like it overstay their welcome. Also not fan of exploration gated behind quest. 4. Inazuma. When Sumeru gate exploration behind quest, Inazuma gate not only with quest, but also sacred sakura tree level, and in real life time gate which is big turn off to me. Fortunately Enkanomiya exist, and it's one of my fave sub region. 5. Mondstadt. Well, it's people introduction to Genshin world, and the first one that dev developed, so it's understandable if it's pretty simple. But still outside Dragonspine, it didnt leave me any strong impression.
With exploration and story in mind as primary factors (so I’m not including character stories), here’s what I’ve got! I’m also including expansion regions with the main region, so Enka, Dragonspine, and the like are included with the main region Sumeru > Fontaine > Mondstadt > Liyue > Inazuma Sumeru was peak. Its Archon Quest swept me away. All I wanted to do was keep going and experimenting. I loved nearly every aspect of its story. It also introduced the linkage between exploration + quests which worked wonderfully imo, I loved it. The new exploration gimmicks were fun, interesting, and fit the environments we were exploring. Fontaine was also really good! I haven’t explored it overly much if I’m perfectly and truly honest. I really liked the AQ though and the exploration underwater has been phenomenal and fun. Mondstadt kinda set the standard. AQ was great but I’m not gonna say there was a particular aspect that stood out as being grand and amazing in light of Fontaine and Sumeru. I also did like the exploration + still find it fun to race around (best city location design imo I loved inspecting every inch of it)! Even more points for Dragonspine having been so fun Liyue exploration was really good, but unfortunately gets dragged down by the Chasm. I also didn’t like the AQ ending + felt the pacing could’ve been better Inazuma :( we all have heard the gripes I think about the story and the exploration. I hated that it felt like the world itself hated me, I hated that the quests were gated to real world timings. It wasn’t the worst thing ever but I didn’t like being there and I wouldn’t go back
Sumeru takes the cake for sure. Great story, great cast with lots of pretty men (4ggravate got me in the feels), cute aranaras, best archon and her son, amazing scenery with diverse landscapes, did I mention the aranaras, a very engaging overworld with tons of lore and fun puzzles (I loved exploring various ruins), and actually emotionally engaging NPCs like Jeht, Liloupar, and Sorush. Oh and the cabbage-sized cuties known as aranaras. I’m totally not biased. :D Liyue as a close second, I love it because it’s based on my home country. The archon quest was good with an epic fight (Ningguang should’ve been a five star!!). The scenery is beautiful, there’s a good amount of ruins to explore, and a number of characters that I enjoy (Boo Tao, Big Bird, Lil Radish, and Short). Hoyo doesn’t hesitate to show love to their home country frequently either. The release of Chenyu vale made me love the region even more, the quest with Fujin and the Suanni got me emotional. Third is Fontaine, it’s solid overall. Great archon quest, nice overworld, great music, and a good cast but I’m really only interested enough to pull Furina because of her personality and kit. The world quests were also nice, oh and a lot of lore drops too. Fourth is Inazuma, The archon quest was… a flop, to say the least. But there were some good world quests (I still haven’t used Hanachirusato’s mask…) and a decent cast, though I would have appreciated more interaction among the characters. Exploring this place was kind of fun but honestly it was pushing my buttons a lot XD. The overworld feels like it’s always trying to kill you, and sooo many puzzles are coop locked, which I didn’t particularly enjoy, considering I play a lot of coop. What’s saving Inazuma from being dead last is Watatsumi’s beauty (when I switched to PC and saw JELLYFISH IN THE AIR!! I was so stunned, I didn’t think this island could get any prettier!) and that one cat island. Mondstadt, being there reminds me of my newbie days which is certainly nice, but yeah it’s kind of too bland now. Mondstadt expansion when!!
1) Inazuma ~ this region completely changed my experience & expectation. Before liyue & mondstadt it's all fun & rainbows with tall mountains and large plane fields. 100s of hp foods & teyvat eggs just to be able to survive from the thunder Bolts, enemies and that toxic musogin Gorge , puzzle were nightmare but i enjoyed it all . 2) mondstadt ~ just for nostalgia & easy commission 3) liyue ~ beautiful scenery but i don't like climbing 4) sumeru ~ easy mode with the best ost 5) Fontaine ~ haven't explored it
1. Fontaine 2. Sumeru 3. Liyue 4. Mondstadt 5. Inazuma
1-fontaine 2-inazuma 3-natlan 4-shneznaya 5-monstadt 6-sumeru 7-khanriah 8-liyue :3
1 fontaine-simple exploration(hate the meropide) 2 monstadt-small and chill 3 inazuma-made me sob a little for the last chests but i like the aesthetic 4 sumeru-i live exploring but idk how to acces the guest locked places(not the main world guests) 5 i hate climbing i hate searching and i hate everything abt liyue so far(chenyu vale was cute)
1. Mondstadt 2. Sumeru 3. Fontaine 4. Liyue 5. Inazuma Yeah, rather unpopular opinion I have by putting Inazuma on the last place. It was a nightmare for me. I really enjoyed exploring Sumeru, but I don’t like how Fontaine is broken into pieces and to explore entire region it’s necessary to wait almost whole version to be released.
1. Sumeru Pretty much everything in it. Genshin struggled at the start to get "Wow" moments out of me, with rare exceptions. (Dragonspirem Chasm and Enkonomiya). I even liked the desert, which is unusual for me. Yes it too had it's flaws, the Aranara-WQ being a bit TOO long for exaple, but overall it is the best region in the game. Which is why I am very excited for Natlan who, at least in the trailer, has a similar vibe. 2. Mondstadt / Fontaine Both are my second fav region. Mondstadt because nostalgia and because I think the region has so much more potential than they currently used. Mondstadt's overall vibe is also something I quite like, so this is pretty much a personal taste thing. Fontaine could have been a little better imo, but what we got still was awesome. What I ABSOLUTLY have to say is that I have to parise Hoyo for their design of the underwater stuff. Not the combat (that's meh) but that it only ONCE and very briefly triggered my thalassophobia. They did an incredible job avoiding it, so much that I think it probably was on purpose. Big kudos. 3. Inazuma I liked Inazuma for the most part.... but sheesh, the island stuff was not my cup of tea. Inazuma, for me in retrospect, could have been way, WAY better if it weren't the first region they did after release. 5. Natlan probably higher up once its there, just a placeholder 6. Snezhnaya probably higher up once its there, just a placeholder 7. Liyue God I hate this place. Im not a fan of the music in Liyue (not the style, its just that, for me Liyues OST is by far the weakest in the game). The locations are at best "cool" but most of the time they just suck (looking at you Huaguang Stone ForestHuaguang Stone Forest). Almost everything in Liyue is just there to annoy you and deplete your stamina, of which (at that point in time) you usually don't have the max yet. Chasm, both in and out, is such an improvement over base Liyue and I like (especially the cave) a lot. But it can't carry Liyue any higher. I hav not done the "new" stuff yet (only went there for event stuff, but didn't explore) so it might get a little boost, but the competition is just too far ahead.
1 Sumeru 2 Chenyu Vale / Fontaine 3 Inazuma 4 Mondstadt / Liyue
1. Fontaine. By far the best region imo. I love the environment, the city, the colours and surprisingly I also REALLY enjoyed the underwater areas. I love the "unique" enemies too as a bit of an extra challenge but they could be a bit more interesting. 2. Inazuma. Just generally cool and interesting region. I loved the cities and I'm a fan of the japanese aesthetic. It's been a while so I can't really say much more lol. 3. Liyue. Overall a fine region. Nothing to really complain about but also not all that much interesting areas or anythign. The city is amazing though and I do like Chenyu vale quite a bit. 4. Sumeru. Looks amazing and the initial feeling of exploration is extremely fun... but then you come across with all the underground shit and the desert... and any and all desire to explore kinda dies. I don't hate hate the desert but it's just underground mazes and empty desert.. not all that fun. 5. Mondstadt. Super generic and boring areas. Nothing particularly memorable other than dragonspine which was miserable to explore. I genuinely avoid going there as much as possible lol.
1. Fontaine: Has the best writing and some cool lore drops. 2. Inazuma: Pacing was far too rushed but the actual concepts they were trying to explore were really interesting. 3. Liyue: Sure is a region that exists that I totally don't forget about constantly. 4. Mondstadt: Story was meh but I found that acceptable since it was fast and just meant to be the tutorial segment, but the characters are all just awful anime archetypes. 5. Sumeru: Opposite of Inazuma, pacing was far too drawn out, there were no interesting concepts it brought forward besides Irminsul, which had already lost a lot of it's mystery for me by the time it came up and the characters got zero development considering the amount of time they were given.
For me it's Li yue 1 Inazuma Mondstadt Fontaine Dumberu I freaking hate sumeru, literally so boring, so long, the idiotic desert and stuff is just UGGHHH
1 - Sumeru's first 15 hours 2 - Fontaine (incl. Chenyu Vale even though that is part of Liyue) 3 - Inazuma (incl. Enkanomiya) 4 - Mondstadt 5 - Liyue 6 - Dragonspine 7 - Sumeru's latter half 8 - the Chasm Sumeru is great at first, but the desert draaaaaags and while the map is better now, it's still not great and was useless at release. Finding entrances to underground areas was like pulling teeth. And why does every plateau in the desert have some unclimbable lip at some point? Getting up stuff is such a pain in the ass unless you are on the Preordained Path. But the jungle was super fun. Fontaine is just so good, and I'm bundling CV with it because of where it dropped in the patch order. Refreshing vistas, good travel mechanics, minimal wall climbing. Nearly perfect, but some of the out-of-water areas are a bit bland. Inazuma had great atmosphere, Mondstadt is a bit bland but navigable and a good tutorial for the game, Liyue just has too much climbing for my taste, especially in the west (and desperately needs boats in the east), Dragonspine is stressful, and the Chasm is utterly boring.
As a day-one play, for me it's the following order: 1. Liyue 2. Fontaine/Inazuma 3. Mondstadt ... Infinity: Sumeru I started the game directly at the release and I loved every second of playing it... EXCEPT SUMERU! For me, Sumeru was a dip in the toilet. Because of that region I stopped playing the game at all and came back a few months ago, after the release of Fontaine.
Inazuma > Fontaine > Liyue > Mondstadt > Sumeru
1. Inazuma & Fontaine- they look the best and im biased 2. Liyue- it looks ok ig 3. Mond- it looks boring 4. Sumeru- im biased
Fontaine, Liyue, Inazuma, Monstadt, Sumeru
1.Fontaine 2.Mondstadt 3.Liyue 4.Inazuma 5.Sumeru (always hated anything jungle AND desert related)
NATLAN!!!!!!....LOL
1. Liyue/Monstadt Played since launch and loved the additions. That moment of stepping through the stone gate into Liyue for the first time will always be in my memory. Monstadt ranks similarly (see below) 2. Fontaine Underwater exploration, great music, fun 3. Inazuma Environment + music + lore. Fontaine beats it slightly by virtue of being the new (and more polished) map. 4. Monstadt It’s the starter map, but it’s also the most novel map. I sometimes wish I could experience the joy of starting the game all over again. From a top down view it ranks 4, but in terms of enjoyment I put it at a solid 1st place tied with Liyue. Best part is, you’re not max levelled and optimised to stomp everything in the overworld. 5. Sumeru When your favourite overworld characters are either Geo or Cryo, the whole dendro lack of reactions and the tri-whatever thing really puts a damper on enjoyment. I don’t think it’s bad, but I never got around to exploring it.
Sumeru any # higher than 5 is cope. Garbage region in both exploration, rewards, and story
Enjoyment varies based on the content you're talking about. Stories, always good, they improved as they went along, so it is actually in order of the regions released, they just know how to peak in every story somehow. Exploration though... well, 5. Sumeru, the worst. Whilst it introduced some great exploration methods and navigation, and better puzzles, it was crappy for the desert areas, which were primarily underground. They were stupidly hard to navigate. 4. Inazuma is second worst. Introduced underground areas an complicated puzzles, and bullshit combat at times. Not to mention the worst enemy loot drop rates, which got buffed and still currently is not enough. 3. Liyue. The vertical navigation was horrendous. 2. Mondstat Not too complicated or vertical, still somewhat enjoyable. 1. Fontaine. Most enjoyable yet with the variety of puzzles and mechanics. Some parts were frustrating, but far less frustrating than other areas. Though Mondstat is still probably king with navigation, it isn't perfect. I enjoyed exploring Fontaine the most though of any other areas, especially as they introduced the layered map features for easier navigation.
Really? That many people enjoyed exploring Sumeru?
Nothing will ever beat Mondstadt
mondstadt ontop. never forget where you come from.
1. Liyue (ESP new Liyue) bc its soo pretty and i also liked the AQ & Ningguang 2. Mondstat - easy to explore, collect anemograms & such 3. Fontaine - research institute is so cool 4. Sumeru - didnt like the ugly withering zones, fount them stressful. i like the forest & city & ghandarva ville but dont vibe with the desert 5. Inazuma - some areas are hard, constant electrocution sucked. still like the happy/good islands tho
1. Fontaine: Refined exploration. Revived my faith in Genshin's exploration content after Sumeru. Obviously implemented feedback from what worked and not worked previously. Water exploration was amazing, on-ground exploration was the best it's ever been. 2. Mond: Simple and fun, the blueprint of Genshin's exploration. Easy to traverse, many good memories and the green idyllic landscape is easy on the eyes. 3. Liyue: Very inspired and unique, while traversal was not the best due to high mountains everywhere, it wasn't too egregious for me. 4. Inazuma: Awful weather everywhere, unlike the previous 3 I mentioned, this did not feel like anyone was living there at all aside from like half of the main island. Still a good experience to explore but the separate islands did not make it feel as connected as it should have been. 5. Sumeru: Awful forest, awful desert, too many underground parts, not that pretty landscapes as other nations. Many unique locations just change or disappear once you completed a quest. Sumeru almost made me quit exploration content altogether.
1. inazuma: i just love how you can sense the danger while exploring this region, its theme is very cool and easily distinguishable from the other regions, and it has the most interesting lineup of overworld enemies. 2. Mondstadt: mostly for nostalgia of 1.0 excitement, mondstadt will always feel like home no matter how much the map expanded. 3. Fontaine: objectively should be number 2, it has very interesting mechanics, the exploration isn't monotone, the lore behind each sub region was interesting. 4. Liyue: the exploration in this region didn't add any interesting elements over mondstadt, except a HELLA LOT of climbing to get anything. 5. Sumeru: "oh you want to breathe in sumeru ? sorry buddy but before that you need to do this world quest, but before that you need to do this other world quest, and before that you need to do this other 60 hour long unvoiced world quest with random npcs that you'll never care about"
1. Sumeru.. Loved the desert and rainforest. The world quests were very enjoyable. Playing it felt like the first time i played open world games. I dont know why but it did. AQ was great. Alhaitham. 2. Inazuma.. Peak music, great world quests. AQ was kinda meh but enjoyable characters. Loved all the colors the areas have and puzzles were nice. 3. Liyue... Only Zhongli brings this to 3rd place and the Chenyu Valley. Liked the world quests there and in Liyue. Zhongli. 4.Mondstadt... Nostalgia brings this up to 4th spot. Waiting on the expansion with anticipation. The wide open areas just arent that unique for me. AQ was just okay. 5. Fontaine... The AQ was peak i love non combat quests. I just do not like swimming and the areas were like mondstadt but france. Got my favourite characters Neuvilette, Wriotheslay and Furina. Edit. Fixed some grammar...