We're back with more Genshin Impact! The Tevyatian region of Sumeru, inspired by a mixture of Middle-East, South-East Asia and the actual Sumerian civilization, continues to give even more monsters into the Genshin Impact franchise. After the headlining version 3.0 update gave us the rainforest-themed Eastern side of Sumeru, the 3.1 update gives us the Western side, which is filled with deserts, sun-bleached rockscapes and massive, enigmatic pyramids.
I'm not going to talk too much about the story, except to acknowledge that Sumeru's story is probably the best-executed main story quest I've seen out of the franchise by a huge mile. And with us rocketing towards the finale of the Sumeru main storyline in 3.2, there are a fair amount of new monsters! Unlike my normal Genshin coverage, though, we'll start off with some wildlife, before we lead to the cooler ones below!
Wildlife
Scorpion
We'll start off with more mundane enemies before we go into the actual beings that the game considers 'monsters'. I do think the real distinction is that enemies considered as 'wildlife' basically don't drop any materials that's going to be utilized for upgrading characters, and just drop generic meat. They still have attack animations, healthbars and the like, though! And... Sumeru's scorpions are much more monstrous than any real-life scorpion! They've got spikes jutting out of their arms and the ridges of their tail, and instead of a stinger, these guys have two mean-looking thorny tips at the end of their stinger tail. It's a bit hard to notice, but the Sumeru Scorpions also don't have immediately visible eyes and only a pair of mandibles, making them just a bit more creepier than they otherwise would be.
Most interesting are the shape of their claws, though, which look like the sand and wind-swept rock formations. And... the game doesn't really call out too much attention to it, but at night, these scorpions 'sleep' by curling up... not quite into a ball like a pillbug, but I think the idea is that they're camouflaging themselves as rocks. It's not that obvious, but just like the Spinocrocodiles in the previous region, they do put some thought into their ecology and behaviour!
Red Vulture
Again, the Red Vulture looks far more monstrous than any real-life vulture, particularly that almost dinosaurian tail and those three particularly large feathers and the anime black ridges on them. In fact, those little points on the 'elbows' of the vulture seem to imply that this thing might be closer to a bat or a dinosaur than being a proper 'vulture'. Don't really have a whole ton to say here, but vultures are a pretty fun and thematic addition to any desert area.
Interestingly, the Red Vultures are noted to not be native to the Sumeru desert, but first appear after the destruction of the ancient civilization of the Scarlet King -- the source of the many, many pyramids (with high-tech technology!) within them. There really isn't any obvious connection between the vultures and the civilization, I don't think, but I do like the little additional detail that these vultures are apparently an invasive species.
Desert Sumpter Beast
So that's why the forest version of the Sumpter Beast had the adjective of 'shaggy', becuase there are these more... dinosaurian-looking desert variants! These guys look like they would fit right at home in the artstyle of worlds like Star Wars or Avatar: The Last Airbender, looking just enough like a dinosaur but not really fitting into any immediately obvious dinosaurian category. The armour plating really make them look very cool. Like the Shaggy Sumpter Beasts, the Desert Sumpter Beasts either exist as wild animals or domesticated by multiple factions -- Eremites, Fatui, Hilichurls, and used as pack animals. There's just something so cool and reminiscent of Star Wars when I see a single Fatui goon lead like four Sumpter Beasts in a row!
The archive notes that the Desert Sumpter Beasts were the original breed of the Sumpter Beasts before the forest folk saw their usage and imported them into the jungle. Which means that at some point they lost the armour plating on their back and head, and those were evolutionarily replaced with yak-fur and horns. Interesting! The designs of the two really make them distinct enough visually, but there are a lot of cues that do make the two Sumpter Beast variants look obviously related.
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Regular Monsters:
Floating Anemo Fungus, Whirling Pyro Fungus, Stretchy Electro Fungus
Hmmm, in the previous monster review I praised the design team for giving each element a unique fungus design, but they're kinda breaking the uniqueness by now making some mixes of the designs and the elements. I do admit that having the Anemo Fungus be the 'floating' instead of the 'stretchy' body makes complete sense, but... I don't know. It really isn't like the fungi particularly feel that unique from each other in terms of fighting them. I guess we're not filling up every single body-type/element combination and that's nice, but otherwise this just feels like a bunch of variants that are kinda unmemorable.
Neat little note in the description about how the Floating Anemo Fungus's cap, despite being pretty thick, is hollow to facilitate the floating.
Grounded Geoshroom
Again, another variant of the elite mushrooms. This one I can get behind a bit more since we only got the Dendro, Hydro and Cryo versions of the elite enemies. The Geo Fungus' very memorable and tasty-looking fungal cap is also pretty distinctive from the Grounded Hydroshroom's witch hat, so I'm all for this variant!
I do like the speculation in the flavour text about how the Geoshroom's body is basically near-keratinized, and that given enough time, this might be the foundation of evolution into some kind of new lifeform.
Eremite Galethunder (and Spirit of Omen: Wind Glede)
It is surprising that it's the humans that I have a bit more to talk about! Normally I glaze over the humans. And sure, the Eremites have been the best-looking humanoid enemies that Genshin has had, but... the two added in this update are particularly interesting! The Galethunder here isn't too much different from the previous female Eremite enemies other than the big fuck-off anime bow she's wielding. Unlike the previous three Eremites, the bow also has a quasi-technological feel to it, too, which fits with how the civilization of the Scarlet King had access to greater technology than modern-day Teyvat. There's a cool sense of one of those anime over-the-top abilities that I love so much, with the Galethunders covering their eyes on purpose and aiming with their Daredevil-level hearing.
But that's not all! Where the previous Eremite elites just have fancy weapons, the Galethunder summons a fucking cyborg bird! In gameplay it's just a reskinned Vulture, but look at the design! It's so cool! It looks like some kind of techno-organic creature from like Final Fantasy XIII or something, with feathers and Tron lines running through it. The 'Spirit of Omen: Wind Glede' had even been foreshadowed in previous Eremite enemy descriptions, being the 'spirits that cannot be silenced'... except now we see what they look like!
Eremite Stone Enhancer (and Spirit of Omen: Stone Drake)
My favourite Eremite has to still be this guy, though. The Stone Enhancer is already cool because he's got that gigantic piledriver attached to his right arm. I'm a sucker for these sort of gigantic, oversized shield-sword gauntlets, but the fact that this one has some architecture and artstyle that corresponds to the techno-pyramids makes it a bit more cooler!
The Stone Enhanccer's Spirit of Omen is a "Stone Drake", which is a reskin of the Spinocrocodile... except, again, it makes thematic sense for these guys who draw from Egyptian mythology to summon birds and crocodiles, right? The Stone Drake also looks like a cyborg animal, even moreso than the Wind-Glede because of that very distinctive rock/metal slab that replaces the upper half of its head. Neither the Stone Drake or the Wind Glede really do anything over-the-top interesting compared to its animal counterparts, but their designs are cool enough and having these elite Eremites summon non-humanoid minions into their midst while also themselves still looking distinctive among the humanoid enemies is pretty cool!
Primal Constructs: Prospector, Repulsor, Reshaper
Hmmmmm.... I'm really not sure how to feel about this. I love the vibe of the Sumeru pyramids. I love the fact that all the pyramids have these bits of technology and forcefields and whatnot that still feel vaguely Egyptian-esque, but are also technologically advanced. And of course they have robots, right? Except... their robots all kind of look the same. I actually was a bit surprised to realize that the Archive lists three variants -- from left to right here, the Prospector, Repulsor and Reshaper. Their central bodies all look basically the same, and it's cool -- a floating mini-pyramid that's not physically connected to its 'harness'.
But the way they differ is by those little itty-bitty 'limbs', I guess? The Prospector has little triangle parabola-things, the Repulsor has forcefields, the Reshaper has giant needle-lances. Comparing it to the box-that-unfolds-out origami Ruin Sentinels, these feel rather lackluster. The flavour and the backstory of these things as being part of a society that's far more advanced than anything we have now is cool! I think the Sumeru desert actually contains some of the best overworld exploration that might rival the Chasm. But the enemies there are kind of... well, they could've done a lot more to make these Primal Constructs a bit more variable, I feel.
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Bosses:
Aeonblight Drake
We got a bunch of brand-new bosses, and... not all of them are super-memorable? The Aeonblight Drake takes residence in one of the caves in the forest side of Sumeru, but since it's introduced afterwards I'll lump it in here. Regardless, though, it's basically the Skywatch Ruin Drake combined with the white-ish armour and spiky wood-thorns of the Ruin Grader. Only that I really couldn't realize the differences until I actually held a picture side-by-side. There are some additional attack patterns, but I honestly probably think this might be the blandest leap from 'elite enemy' to 'boss' in a long while.
The descriptions of the enemy do note how the ancient civilization in Sumeru had created the forbidden technology of perpetual-motion machines... which, unlike most of the other bosses and aspects of Genshin's world-building, doesn't actually feel like it's reflected particularly well in the Aeonblight Drake boss fight.
Algorithm of Semi-Intransient Matrix of Overseer Network
This is the 'super' version of the Primal Constructs, and resides in one of the smaller pyramids. Another one ends up being the final boss of the world quest that transverses all the ruins in the desert. And... it sure has all the little weapons of the three Primal Constructs, although some of them are larger-sized. like its smaller minions, the Algorithm of Semi-Intransient Matrix of Overseer Network (what a mouthful!) it can go invisible, although you need to specifically use the Electro element to zap the Overseer Matrix robot guy and stun him back into materializing. With its lesser brethren, you can just wait out or just flail blindly and they tend to not be troublesome enough to die. The animations for this guy is also super-awesome, much much cooler and clearly where the enemy animation budget for version 3.1 went.
A very cool part of the subterranean chambers actually shows rows upon rows of inactive versions of the Matrixes, which I thought is very cool from a world-building standpoint even if we don't fight him. One last thing is that if you kinda squint, this guy's name can be shortened into A.S.I.M.O.N. and... if you squint a bit and remove the 'semi' and add a P, it becomes P.A.I.M.O.N., and there has been a lot of conspiracy theories about Paimon. She probably isn't a robotic, sentient Millennium Puzzle. Probably.
Dendro Hypostasis: Zayin
The final member of the Hypostasis family to be introduced, the Dendro Hypostasis dwells in a subterranean cave in the desert. She basically goes through the same, much-more-fluid animation that the other Hypostases introduced after the first batch had, with how the cubes around the core transforming into vines and thorns feeling much more organic -- in the vein of the Hydro and Pyro Hypostases form Inazuma.
There is an interesting wrinkle, though! Zayin here is noted to be using an 'inert shell to defend itself', and is 'displaying abnormalities due to being corrupted by an unknown influence'... probably the Withering. So instead of merely destroying the Hypostasis, when you deal enough damage and expose the core, we then have to use a Dendro-element character to charge a bunch of buds around it to purify the Dendro Hypostasis core from its corruption. While the enemy is 'defeated' as usual in-game, the animation actually shows the rather rotten colours of the Hypostasis revitalizing itself, before it reabsorbs all the cubes into itself and flies away. A neat little additional flavour that they didn't have to do, but I do appreciate it since this is already our sixth Hypostasis!
Shouki no Kami, the Prodigal -- Scaramouche
Otherwise known as Scaramouche, or the Balladeer, or Kunikuzushi, or the Sixth Harbinger, or that weird kid with a big-ass hat and shorts that had been in the background of the Inazuma main storyline before kinda disappearing... it has been a very fun exercise during the Inazuma storyline to discover more and more obscure hints about Scaramouche's backstory since his appearance and disappearance in certain limited-time event stories. Unlike our previous Harbinger boss, La Signora, Scaramouche actually has his backstory recapped before he becomes a proper antagonist in the Sumeru storyline. Explaining Scaramouche's full plan would also entail basically recapping the entirety of the Sumeru main story, so I'll not do that at all...
But let's just say that Scaramouche, through some machinations and team-ups with other villains in this leg of the main story, is trying to ascend to true godhood. And in his misguided understanding of both the true gods that created him and the mortals around him, ol' Fandago-man has basically became a tyrant.
The boss fight, meanwhile, is... a big-ass robot! Scaramouche and his creator Raiden Shogun both have a very strong puppet/robot theme to it. There's a lot of parallels that I think could be drawn with the boss-mode of the Raiden Shogun puppet, with the multiple hands and the giant electric ring hovering behind their back with the tomoe... I really also appreciate that the robot has a giant halo that's clearly meant to recall Scaramouche's iconic giant hat.
It actually is kind of a shame that unlike the previous arc-villain Harbingers Childe and Signora we don't fight Scaramouche in his human (or humanoid) form. We just fight the giant robot -- first from the waist up, and then floating around as a giant goddamn gundam. Not what I expected from a mainly-fantasy game, but a very cool boss nonetheless! The design has definitely grown on me a fair bit, and if it didn't sell me on this boss fight, the animations certainly did!
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