The plot of the game is relatively pretty basic, as far as RPG's go. I'm sure it'll get a bit more interesting later on, but so far it relies mostly on charm to rope me in. The main character is one of a pair of twins who got magically cubed by some mysterious evil goddess, and my power was stripped from me. Your opposite-gender sibling got kidnapped with magical cubes! After waking up in a different world, you meet a weird floating pixie-girl Paimon, who then proceeds to give you a tutorial of the world of Teyvat. Teyvat itself has seven elements, each ruled by one of The Seven, and I guess eventually I'm going to have to recruit all seven of them to gain my lost power.
(Also, this is a gacha game, so to regain the most power I have to gamble and get the strong party members. I am told that the game is still perfectly playable -- at least the story and single-player segments -- without spending any money, though)
I'm a couple of days weeks into the game (in order to meet enough of a variety of monsters to actually make an article) and the story honestly isn't that deep so far, although to be fair I'm still in the 'Prologue' town, Mondstadt. The main story mostly deals with the backstory revolving a giant, mighty dragon that terrorizes the region, and we sort of alternate between having 'loyalty missions' with the other collectible characters and doing daily quests. So far it's honestly nothing new and Mondstadt itself is a pretty basic fantasy setting, but the charm, exploration and music are pretty great. And it's a Chinese-made game, and both the Chinese and Japanese voices are pretty great! I'm actually quite pumped to get into Liyue, the China-based segment of the game.
Unlike most of my 'monster review' segments, I'm not going to exhaustively go into every single variation and enemy sub-type if I don't have anything interesting to say. I am also most certainly not going to go through 'elite enemies' like what I did with Diablo 2 and some of my other reviews, otherwise this would be a huge, dry list instead of me talking about monsters. I'm also going to toss in a couple of fun little non-enemy creatures in here, too. At the time of writing, I'm basically more or less done with the 'prologue' story in the Mondstadt region, although I've snuck a bit into the neighbouring region of Liyue.
Anyway, without further ado...
Hydro Slime
There is a 'pokedex' of sorts in the game, so I can tell more or less how many enemies there are in the game. In addition to being a mobile game, it is still relatively new and growing, so I'm sure that more enemies will be added into the game eventually. And, well, having multiple elements does mean that it's an excuse for good ol' palette swaps! Which I don't blame the game for, honestly. And for at least the slimes, I'll go through all of the different elemental types.
And honestly, what's there to say about slimes? Pretty basic enemy concept, particularly in J-RPGs (though this isn't strictly one, Genshin is made by a Chinese company despite the anime aesthetic). Hydro Slimes are honestly the most basic type of slime, being made out of water. The Large Hydro Slime is the same thing, but with horns. The Archive feature in the game actually gives some lore entries, explaining that the slimes are created by the high concentration of elemental energy (Hydro = water, if it's not obvious) and despite the fact that these guys are made out of water, enterprising survivalists that attempted to stash them into bottles and drink them are harmed by the sheer concentration of Hydro energy. It doesn't really come up anywhere beyond the little bits of writing in the game, but I like these sort of world-building.
Pyro Slime
The fire (or, rather, Pyro) variant of Slimes are a straight-up palette swap of the Hydro Slimes, they just added fire patterns. Again, without going in-depth about how the elements react with each other (there's a list of different elemental combinations that I honestly haven't memorized at all) they're basically just rolling balls of... slimy fire? Magma? Liquid fire? Interestingly, though, the Pyro Slimes also see use by the Hilichurls (more on them later) who actually learn to weaponize them! Almost all the slimes basically have the same attack pattern of bouncing and hitting you. Basic RPG slime stuff! I think them adding Slimes is also so that they can be an 'universal' enemy that can show up basically almost anywhere in the overworld or any given dungeon without us really questioning it too much.
Cryo Slime
Not a complete palette swap! The Cryo Slime, representing the element of ice, are a bit more elaborate. The regular-sized Cryo Slimes have little 'hats' or 'hair' of snow and little ice ccrystals around their head, while the Large Cryo Slime has a straight-up spiky horned helmet made out of crystalized ice. Apparently, the Dawn Winery (ran by one of the main characters) uses Cryo Slimes as medieval refrigerators in the basement of their winery. That's fun! I also like the little detail in the bestiary that notes that the Large Cryo Slime's helmet is created by freezing water vapour, and the fact that it can simply freeze the surface of any body of water means that Cryo Slimes can just move around wherever they want to.
Electro Slime
The only Slime variant (so far) that has more than just a regular and Large variant, the Electro Slime has an additional third type, the Mutant Electro Slime! It's yellow! Visually, I think this is my favourite of the Slimes for how different it looks. Most of these electric elementals in RPG games just go for a chaotic balls of lightning, but I like that the Electro Slime's design is actually pretty muted. And the dark purple colours are great! I think my favourite parts are the the cable or lightbulb-like antennae and the unnatural Tron lines, which communicate that they're an electric monster without resorting to any over-the-top lightning effects.
Apparently, they specifically represent the difference in electric potentials in the ground, which is surprisingly more scientific-sounding than 'this is just a coalescence of elemental energy'. The technology of Teyvat is in a typical middle-age fantasy setting, but the lore archives note that people are looking into harnessing the Electro Slimes as an energy source. Fear the Electro Slime industrialization!
The Mutant Electro Slime can essentially create networks of electric currents between itself and the regular purple Electro Slimes, because they're of different charges. It's a fun little mechanic that kind of makes sense in-universe, and I love that they put in some thought into explaining the existence of a differently-coloured variant; I don't think anyone would complain too much if the game designers just tossed in some extra palette swaps, but the fact that they actually sat down and wrote a small paragraph about why the Mutant Electro Slime is different is much appreciated.
Anemo Slime
'Anemo' actually refers to the element of air, and I wonder why they didn't just go with 'aero' or 'wind'? The Chinese dialogue most certainly simply say the word for wind. I guess they just wanted to be fancy, although I was a bit bamboozled early in the game because I thought 'anemo' just referred to this universe's term for elements. Without spoiling too much about the setting or the story (which I only know what's told to me up to the prologue chapters) the first region you adventure in, Mondstadt, is the realm of Barbatos, the god of wind anemo. The first four Slimes I went through here are more common and show up a lot more in dungeons and the overworld, while the next three are more often associated with the overworld.
They've got cute colours and have cute little cloud tattoos and tiny little disconnected wings. Again, it all plays to the cute-and-harmless-looking charm of an RPG slime monster. These guys actually behave pretty differently, inflating themselves like balloons to float around, which at the same time also makes them extra-vulnerable. Basically, whenever they float into the sky, any attack will one-shot-kill them, regardless of the health they have. I do have some questions, thogh -- are they still comprised of some sort of liquid matter, since they are still 'slimes'? Or are they literal balloons? Also, though I didn't realize this until a couple of weeks after writing this article, some quests show that the people of Mondstadt use Anemo Slimes as essentially hot air balloons, which we have to escort on some quests.
Geo Slime
Our next Slime (and element) is the Geo Slime, which is a bit more common in the second region I can visit, Liyue. Liyue's element is Geo, and there's a high-level mountain that's Cryo, so the population of monsters and variations of other enemies also change to fit. The Geo element is basically earth and rock, and you'd think that would make the Geo (and Dendro) Slimes the most commonly found enemies, but I think the other five are far more common. Or maybe that's just my gaming experience. These guys actually remind me of a rockier version of Botamon from Digimon. Love the chunky rock horns, and I like that the Large Geo Slime sort of has a helmet vibe going on, but otherwise I think the Geo Slime is probably my least favourite if I had to rank the slimes.
Dendro Slime
At least I know what 'Dendro' means immediately! It's the 'plant' element! Dendro as a type is the least represented in the game, and at the time of writing there isn't even a playable Dendro-type character. The Dendro slimes are pretty cool, looking like cute plant-bulb monsters in the vein of Oddish or Tanemon. I do like that the colouration on their bodies make them look like giant tap-roots. The Large Dendro Slime, of course, has a huge flower on top of its body.
At least I know what 'Dendro' means immediately! It's the 'plant' element! Dendro as a type is the least represented in the game, and at the time of writing there isn't even a playable Dendro-type character. The Dendro slimes are pretty cool, looking like cute plant-bulb monsters in the vein of Oddish or Tanemon. I do like that the colouration on their bodies make them look like giant tap-roots. The Large Dendro Slime, of course, has a huge flower on top of its body.
The Dendro slimes also have a pretty unique behaviour in that they're almost always hidden underground, and panic when they see you come near them. From how they're animated, it looks like their attacking is less as a territorial response like the other enemies in the game, and more of a panicked bump as they relocate themselves. Without a dedicated fire pyro-element character to burn the ground, they are very, very hard to kill, which is a fun little mechanic. The archive lore hypothesizes that it might actually be parasitized by a special plant that forces it to do behaviour more elaborate than what you'd expect from a slime!
Hilichurl
Okay, that's all the Slimes! And now we go to the other big, common enemy type, and the Hilichurls aren't quite as interesting as the Slimes. Have I mentioned that Genshin Impact draws a lot from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild? Because it does. The Hilichurls essentially fill in the role of the tribal humanoid enemy that is filled by Bokoblins in Breath of the Wild and by goblins or orcs in other RPG's. The Hilichurls are all right? Anyone who's read my previous 'reviewing monsters' segments would know that I tend to not really be big on the enemy trope that's just 'humanoid enemy'. They're necessary in an RPG, for sure, and... as far as things go, they aren't terrible? They sure are humanoids with giant furs on their shoulders who live in tribal huts and have actually pretty cool-looking masks. Actually, those masks are easily the coolest part about their design -- it makes them look so much cooler compared to if they just had regular angry snarling goblin faces. And, I bet, a lot easier to render for the game engine too.
The lore archive note that they have lost their 'intellect and spirituality', come from 'another world' and that they have 'no history or civilization' so it's okay to kill them en masse! Which is completely bullshit, since we see many, many times that they have huts and some sort of civilization going on. Several NPC's and questlines even make it explicit that the Hilichurls have their own language and culture, and there are hints in some of the item descriptions and in-game books that the Hilichurls might be humans from another civilization transformed by a curse or something. The original Chinese name for the race translates to 'Mountain People', so I guess they're supposed to be some sort of mountain yao guai or something? It's interesting, and considering how the Hilichurls are easily the most common enemy you have to slaughter en masse in this game, I wonder if we'll get something more about them or if those bits are just background lore.
Also, there's so many variations of these guys! The selection I show here isn't even half of the Hilichurls currently in-game. In addition to the regular Hilichurls we've got those with clubs, those with clubs and shields, those with a 'berserker' behaviour, 'grenadiers' that lob pyro or cryo slimes at you, and 'shooters' that wield crossbows. I haven't seen every single variation, but suffice to say that there are obvious empty spaces for '[insert element] Hilichurl Shooter' in my monster-dex. For the shooters specifically, the game explicitly mentions that the Hilichurls are not smart enough to build crossbows, and the game all bout outright states that an organization (which we will talk about later) is supplying these aggressive goblin-men with crossbows. Not just crossbows, too, but also ones that can launch elemental bolts! Of course, the Hilichurls aren't smart enough to actually be archers, which explains why the AI for the Hilichurl Shooters are particularly dumb; they just stand in place and shoot and never reposition themselves.
I actually do like that they've got a neat little variation thing going on for the elemental variants. Not all Hilichurl subtypes have all elements, but the Shooter in particular comes in regular, Pyro, Cryo and Electro versions. I love that all the Pyro-themed Hilichurl have a different colour palette with red manes, a lava-like mask (face?) and fire-shaped tattoos, the ice ones have a pretty cool snowflake tattoo at the center of their face, and the Electro ones look like some sort of cool gold-and-purple thundercloud warrior.
Mitachurl
Zelda's Bokoblins have big buddy friends in the Moblins, so the Hilichurls have Mitachurls. Which I suppose are supposed to be read as might-a-churl? As in they're mighty? They sure are bigger and look more impressive. The masks actually have creepy humanoid eyes instead of just being featureless, and the demon horns do make them look extra-neat! The two variants I've encountered are the 'Wooden Shieldwall' and 'Blazing Axe', representing the Dendro and Pyro elements. Which means that there are definitely a bunch of other variants (which I haven't looked at) in the wiki. Apparently, if a Hilichurl eats enough meat or simply grow strong enough, they spontaneously evolve into a mighty Mitachurl? So is it meant to be 'meat-a-churl'? In practice they're honestly not that much more dangerous, just more annoying to take down.
Zelda's Bokoblins have big buddy friends in the Moblins, so the Hilichurls have Mitachurls. Which I suppose are supposed to be read as might-a-churl? As in they're mighty? They sure are bigger and look more impressive. The masks actually have creepy humanoid eyes instead of just being featureless, and the demon horns do make them look extra-neat! The two variants I've encountered are the 'Wooden Shieldwall' and 'Blazing Axe', representing the Dendro and Pyro elements. Which means that there are definitely a bunch of other variants (which I haven't looked at) in the wiki. Apparently, if a Hilichurl eats enough meat or simply grow strong enough, they spontaneously evolve into a mighty Mitachurl? So is it meant to be 'meat-a-churl'? In practice they're honestly not that much more dangerous, just more annoying to take down.
Samachurl
And then there are these guys, who I guess are the shamans of the group. They're my favourite 'churls! They're tiny guys with masks that have a singular angry eye... or is that a mouth? There are eye markings on the top of their mask-face. Whatever the case, they are tiny little spellcasters wielding oversized staves. I've actually met all the Samachurl variants! At the time of writing, the wiki lists five types -- representing Cryo, Hydro, Dendro, Anemo and Geo. They all have different oversized staves, each with a unique design! I love those oversized staves! These three are my favourites, with the Cryo one having the horned skull of some beast, the Hydro one having octopus tentacles, and the Dendro ones having wings made up of leaves. All of them are noted to be pretty old, and have been gifted with the ability to command elements. They most certainly add a lot of spice to the fights, since the Hilichurls and Mitachurls are honestly pretty straightforward. Easily my favourite -churl.
At the time of writing (the 1.5 version of the game), there are currently 24 entries in the 'Hilichurl' segment in the archive, counting Mitachurl and Samachurl variants, but as more and more areas are released I can totally see them releasing new models to fill up the missing slots for the elemental versions of the Hilichurl Shooter or Hilichurl Grenadier or the Samachurl or Mitachurls that don't have an element yet. As my friends tell me, we're about to come up on an Electro region, so maybe we'll slowly fill up the variant dex as we go through the seven regions of Teyvat... a nice little justification for intrducing new enemies without having too many models for a mobile game.
Unusual Hilichurl
A bit of an interesting one, 'Unusual Hilichurl' here is an 'easter egg' enemy found once a day in (currently) ten possible locations all over the map, and he drops some extra-rare loot. It's a Hilichurl with a bunch of bling, and a magical sub-space briefcase from where he pulls out cabbages or dolls to lob at your character if you decide to beat him up for his loot. I debated whether to put him here, but this guy is apparently an author avatar for one of the main creators of the game, and I find it kinda cute? The fact that he jumps back inside of his magical briefcase when you defeat him is kind of interesting. Not what I would think a game would incorporate a 'treasure goblin' for sure.
Abyss Mages
Part of a mysterious organization that menaces our heroes, the Abyss Order is noted to be the one responsible for arming the Hilichurls with crossbows. They're behind half of the mysterious evil things happening in Mondstadt, and they're capable of speech! I guess they're the 'Wizzrobe' of the game, if we're using Breath of the Wild terms, though I would say that the Abyss Mages are significantly different enough in terms of gameplay and how they interact with the world. There's a significant amount of lore about their origin story that are pretty spoiler-heavy for the main story, apparently, from what I've been told, but so far they're just evil floating demon-wizards with creepy modulated voices. I do really like the porcelain-esque bird masks, and I love that jackass reclining pose that they do inside their shield-bubbles.
I had thought that the Abyss Mages are just humans with owl masks and furry ponchos, but they're explicitly identified as 'Abyss creatures' coming from a region called the Abyss. These Mages are the lowest rung of these Abyss creatures, which are apparently scheming to bring about the end of days or something, but since I'm still pretty early on in the story they're mostly just acting as the villains-of-the-sidequest. They all use their respective elements to make shields and attack with their staves. They're significantly far more annoying than the Churls and Slimes for sure thanks to their elemental bubble-shields. Probably the most annoying enemy type I've met? Other than noting that the designs are all very solid, I really don't have much to say here.
Whopperflower
And now we're moving into a bit of the rarer enemies. The Whopperflower is more of a rare common enemy than actually being a boss, though! Looking more like a Pokemon than a flower, the Whopperflower is identified as a 'mimetic plant monster'. It hides under the ground with only its leaves poking out, and then it jumps out and attacks you. I love the little bug-eyes on its onion head, and I like that the petals under the bulb-head give the impression of mantis arms or some sort of harlequin collar. It's hard to notice it when you're fighting it, but the Whopperflower's body is a bit more intricate, and the full model shown in the archive gives an almost elaborate caterpillar-esque vibe to it?
I do like this guy a lot. Currently there are only two variants, the Cryo and Pyro, though I've only met the Pyro version once. They hide and masquerade as harvestable plants, and then jump out and shoot snowflakes at you. The lore hints that they actually are the 'adult' version of two elemental plants that you can harvest... either that, or they're just mutated by ley-line elemental energy or some such. Mechanically they are honestly kind of simple, but these sort of enemy variants really help to make the world feel like a larger place.
The Fatui Agents
The Fatui are a group of agents sent by the country of Snezhnaya, and alongside the Abyss Order, the Fatui is built up as basically one of the primary antagonists. They're first introduced as a group of delegates who essentially try to escalate the situation from a political standpoint, but eventually degrade into just being an ever-present enemy whose agent is behind every other side-quest. They dress in dark purple and wear Persona 5 masks, clearly they're going to be anime villains! There's a bunch of '???' in my archive right now so I'm going to assume that there's going to be a bunch more of them later on. So far I've met two -- the Fatui Pyro Agent is a very cool ninja-man with a cool mask that wouldn't look out of place in Star Wars. Judging by his name, I'm going to assume that at some point I'll fight other element-flavoured versions of him. The one agent I've fought could turn invisible and summon shadow clones. Typical ninja stuff! I think I won't meet them until later on, but the organization of the Fatui seem to have some Espada style heirarchy going on -- we meet #8 of their organization in a cutscene. Honestly, though, even the goons look badass enough that they could easily be among the roster of playable characters that you could get in the game, design-wise.
The purple hoodie girl is the Fatui Electro Cicin Mage, who has a pretty cool fashion sense. Purple and black just go well together -- it's cliched, sure, but it's always a cool colour set! Really like that hoodie with giant horns, the poofy sleeves and the Cyclops visor she has, the coolest thing about her is that she runs around carrying a purple lantern with which she commands her army of Electro Cicins. There's a bunch of these Cicin Mages wandering around the overworld, and they can teleport and shoot lightning and summon Cicins to fight for them. What's a Cicin, you say?
Electro Cicin
Literally meaning 'Firefly' in the original Chinese, the Cicin are categorized as part of the 'mystical beasts'. They look more like weird fantasy bats more than any sort of insect, though. I love the Final Fantasy black mage style eyes-in-the-black-void head they've got going on, and I love their colours. On their own they'd just be the obligatory annoying flying bat enemy, but I do really like how they're associated with a summoner enemy that endlessly summon them! Interestingly, while pretty rare, 'wild' Cicin most certainly do exist. Interestingly, those that are summoned by Cicin Mages will vanish when you slay their summoner.
Eye of the Storm
I guess these are minibosses! The Wiki identifies them as 'Elite Enemies'. The Eyes of the Storm show up a bunch of times in the overworld, and the archive classifies the Eyes as part of the 'elementals' alongside Slimes. I actually like the idea that this living elemental monster is just a swirling mass of wind. More often than not most RPG's fall into the D&D/WoW-inspired trope of making all elementals have a vaguely humanoid or genie-like shape, but I always like the trope of elements forming into a form that fits their element better. The 'Eye of the Storm' is also such a cool and thematic name, except instead of being the calm center of a cyclone, this Eye of the Storm is an eye-shaped mass of Anemo energy that swirls around when the ley-lines in the Mondstadt area are blocked. And, again, remember that Mondstadt is the area associated with the element of Anemo! In addition to general wind-blasting attacks, the Eye of the Storm can also use a vaccuum-style effect to draw your characters in. Though like any self-respecting RPG boss, the Eye of the Storm will periodically crash down to the ground right in the range of your weapons. Pretty cool!
Ruin Guard
It's a giant robot! Is there a word for these sort of architecture, of these golem-style fantasy robots? Something-punk, probably. A bunch of these show up in ruins and dungeons as bosses, and they're basically, well, golems or eidolons that stick around in ruins to protect them from pesky treasure hunters and adventurers. I love the default picture in the archive, where the Ruin Guard is dormant and inactive and a bunch of birds and plants have taken to grow on it. (Genshin has a bunch of birds, dogs, cats and assorted animals in a separate bestiary, but we won't talk about them here) Interestingly, the Archive says that the research done show that the Ruin Guards and the ruins that they stalk aren't even from the same time period, with several thousand years between the dating of the robots and the ruins. I'm not sure if it'll be relevant and be explored later on, or if it's just a neat background to make the robots creepier. Without spoiling too much for one of the story quests, turns out that the Ruin Guards' civilization predate a lot of the ruins, but the programming for these robotic guardians make them seek out other ruins and stick around to guard them. A pretty interesting backstory that I feel adds a fair bit to them to differentiate them from, say, Breath of the Wild's Guardians or Elder Scrolls' Dwemer automata.
I do like that the robot's 'head' is just another mass of symbols, sort of like the Hilichurls, but look a bit more closely and the 'chest' of the Ruin Guard has what looks like eyes and markings resembling fangs. There's a 'face' there, that's pretty cute. The Ruin Guards are pretty tough, and they mostly use a combination of their long arms that can spin around and whack your characters... and the fucking heat seeking missiles it will shoot from its back. There are six of them! It's pretty cool! Anyway, a pretty cool fantasy-pun golem-eidolon-guardian-robot thing. It's a trope that I don't think I've ever really loved as much as, say, elementals or giant insect monsters or carnivorous plants, but I've always appreciated ancient robotic golems in fantasy games.
Cryo Regisvine
I've only fought one of these guys, at the end of one of the quest chains given by the wandering cook Xiangling. it sure is a giant flower! And, hey, I did say that I like giant plant monsters! The existence of a 'Regisvine' is hinted in the Whopperflower's archive entry, because a sufficiently old Whopperflower will grow into one of these. I also do like that aspect, when one of the bosses is related to one of the common enemies. The Regisvine is a Whopperflower mutated by the sheer amount of Cryo energy flowing through ley-lines, and it basically has a huge ice-covered eye with four massive petals, and two vine-arms ending in stabby icicles. Oh, and it's pretty huge, towering over your human characters!
This one has the 'Cryo' prefix, so I'm going to assume that there are other elemental types. There's a bunch of mini-phases to the fight, but it's honestly not quite as complex as it seems. The Regisvine just thrashes around and periodically shoots out ice beams or icicle waves, and sometimes a weak point shows up around its main flower head. The Regisvine, as I would later discover, is one of the permanent farm-able bosses that respawn every day and I can find and kill to farm for materials.
Stormterror
The catalyst and focus of the main storyline of the Mondstadt Prologue chapter is the great dragon Stormterror, who shows up in the earliest questlines and ends up being the big bad dungeon boss. The actual fight is vaguely Zelda-esque and mostly involves you jumping around and avoiding his wind blasts while hitting him when he gets close. The story behind him and the human characters that revolve around him is pretty neat, though, and without summarizing the entire prologue segment of Genshin's story mode, it does add a bit of gravitas to the boss fight. There's nothing particularly new that I haven't seen in other fantasy works, but it is done and told well, and did make the Stormterror fight feel a lot cooler than if he was just some random dragon in a lair that we attack and kill. I do like that the design of the wind dragon is pretty non-standard! It's not a regular European dragon, and I love how its head is a fun, almost bird-like cranium. Its legs and tails are also very bird-like, and considering this is the wind dragon, I guess the bird theme is very much expected.
I will have to note just how beautiful those wings are, though, which look alien and yet fits with the whole vibe of a more bird or fuzzy-dinosaur look that Stormterror is going for... and the fact that I took a look at Stormterror from the top and instantly know that it's based on the Glaucus sea slugs. Or at least it really reminds me of one of those, with two sets of elaborate limbs that spread out, as well as the colours. I do like him. He's a pretty cool dragon!
Treasure Hoarders
Probably the most boring enemy type are the 'Treasure Hoarders', and I had excluded these guys in the first draft of this article. I've never been really impressed with 'human bandit' type enemies, and these guys are essentially that with a slight Indiana-Jones-temple-looter flavour tossed in. These guys mostly only show up as minor antagonists in some of the character or daily quests, and sort of hang around the ruins in the overworld... but they're pretty forgettable. They come in around a dozen variants, which mostly involves several flavours of potion-chucking potioneers, and generic enemies that swap out the weapon they use. Some just punch you in the face, and the Gravedigger (my favourite) uses a shovel. Otherwise, though, they're just generic human enemies. Neat that they exist, but when the other human enemies in this game dress up like the Fatui, these guys really got the short end of the stick.
Seelie
Not enemies this time! These little critters are called 'Xian Ling' (a concept involving the interaction of man and god in Chinese culture) in the original version and translated rather interestingly as 'Seelie' (a reference to the Seelie courts of the fey from Scottish folklore), these glowing blue fairies are one of the many things that make exploration of the cliffs and grasslands a bit more fun. There's a lot of stuff to do in the overworld and they all contribute to your eventual progression. Sometimes, you catch a glimpse of these ethereal, glowing ghostly wisps in the trees or above a ruin, and you need you reach them and follow them as they float around and lead you to a treasure chest or an altar or something. It's pretty cool! The Wiki identifies them as looking like Cliones ('sea angels', another type of sea slug). And, y'know what? I didn't even realize it since they're partially wreathed in a blue halo, but they're definitely based on upright cliones! There's no reason for these nature spirits to look like an aquatic nudibranch, but there's really honestly no reason for them not to look like sea slugs either.
There isn't much lore about the Seelie (or maybe I'll find out more, who knows, I'm like, barely into the game), but loading screens hint that the Seelie are remnants of a bygone race that once had beautiful forms and great wisdom, but are reduced to simply guiding individuals instead of mankind as a whole. Interesting! I'm honestly perfectly happy to never find any more information about these ephemeral spirits, and just treat them as just part of the odd, mystical side of Teyvat.
Crystalfly
Classified as 'wildlife' alongside a lot of other typical fantasy-game ambient animals like dogs, cats, fish, crabs, birds et cetera, the Crystalfly is, so far, the only fantasy wildlife that don't try to kill you. They look like more elaborate butterflies (and share a body model with them), but with a crystal instead of a regular buggy body. The Anemo variant of the Crystalfly are identified as 'pure elemental lifeforms', so I'm going to assume that there are other-elemental versions of the Crystalfly in the world. They're also pretty big, around the size of a bird, and can transform into wind to escape if you spook them. Pretty cool, I like these things that exist just to add a bit more lore into the world.
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...and that's about it! The article ran a bit longer than I expected, but here goes for my first batch of Genshin Impact monsters. Currently I'm mostly exploring the Mondstadt region and I have so much more to work through. It's a more charming world than I expected and... and honestly, I really do wish that they do a bit more enemy variation. But I'm still in the first big zone, and the game is growing. It's a game that I honestly didn't expect to enjoy at all, but the story and surprisingly very fun single-player experience certainly won me over. I'm not sure if I'll be quite as into it as my friends are, and I most likely wouldn't care for min-maxing it. But I am most certainly willing to stick around to see the story mode through!
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