What I Want for miHoYo's Next Project

If miHoYo is planning their next project, I am thinking of a free-to-play open world action RPG that is a hybrid between Genshin Impact and Visions of Mana. And I believe a game like that could work. But can it actually work? Let's jump right in.

And man, I am obligated to make this post that will not ruffle people's feathers, but make them interested. If you're living under a rock like Patrick Star, you would know that miHoYo has great timeless games ported to consoles, starting with Genshin Impact, to Honkai Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero. And then, Genshin Impact clones came to be by other companies. These games became a huge hit right now, which is nice.

But specifically, I like to point out the direction of the topic on this post regarding what I want from miHoYo for their next project. If they have the next project in the works, this is gonna be what I want from them that I will be talking about. I have talked about this during my Wuthering Waves gameplay once, so it's time that I am going to tell you what I want for miHoYo's next project. And that is an action RPG that is a hybrid between miHoYo's popular open world action RPG Genshin Impact and Square Enix's critically acclaimed Visions of Mana. I am going to use this post to tell you how I feel about wanting it as miHoYo's next game.

When making a game that is a hybrid between two games in terms of gameplay, the first thing you must do is to find common denominators for both games you're taking their core DNA from and combining them to make a hybrid game. And what falls into common denominator should be a straightforward transition to a game drawing inspiration from other multiple games, so let's take a look.

Genshin Impact and Visions of Mana are both anime-style open world action RPGs. They involve two attack buttons. They have a marker to represent your next destination. The characters have Elemental powers to wield. There are dungeons and towns on the world map. There are side quests to partake and completing them gives you rewards. There are enemies located outside of every town.

And that's it. Those are the common denominators between Genshin Impact and Visions of Mana. They are both charming open world action RPGs, but they have different mindsets.

The Visions of Mana mindset is about the player character being followed by their two companion characters and a non-playable support character and having characters outside of battle. There are eight Elementals to wield and they cost MP. The Class Strikes are cinematic, but only the player character can use them. During combat, there is a border that appears when you confront monsters and can run against it to escape, but not in certain battles where the border is red. You can't earn EXP, Lucre and items until you defeated all enemies in the area. There are Elemental Vessels to use and they can change their playstyle. Each character has up to three classes depending on the Elemental Vessel they are equipped with. There's even collectibles scattered across the world and they are spent on items at the Dugbear's shop. There are even elemental Aeries to partake and Elementites to absorb energy from with Elemental Vessels.

Then you have the Genshin Impact mindset. While the game does has Elementals, they are also used as classes for each character. There is no companion characters. You can only see the player character the player can switch and they can defeat enemies alone outside of town. The Traveller is the main character. The world doesn't have any segmented areas when exiting or entering a part of town that there is no loading screen. It's just has great scaling and freedom with a day and night cycle. And there's no damage when you fall down on the ground from greater heights.

Making an action RPG hybrid between two games is easy, so here's what I think will work for a hybrid between Genshin Impact and Visions of Mana by miHoYo.

First off, in Genshin Impact, the main character is a Traveller while in Honkai Star Rail, the main character is a Trailblazer, so in a Genshin Impact meets Visions of Mana action RPG, the main character would be called the Guider. The Guider would be the main character for an action RPG I want for their next project. But like other games, they can be both a male and a female and you would give the Guider a name. It is easy to give them a name. That is the first thing to do when you're playing a gacha game for the first time.

There would be eight elemental classes of Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Moon, Wood, Light and Darkness. The male Guider would be a Light type character, like Val, who is both the Alm of Light and a Soul Guard and the female Guider would be an Earth type character, like Liza, who was both the Alm of Earth and a Soul Guard. Sure, the Mana franchise has these elementals, but they can be used as classes. Each character would have ultimate attacks that are cinematically faithful to both how Visions of Mana handled cinematic Class Strikes and Honkai Star Rail handled ultimate attacks.

When you enter a town, you would only see the player character and you can't attack until you leave town. You would earn EXP from using materials in the characters menu and earn money and get items after defeating all enemies in an area. Each character would have up to five tiers, so if they make it to level 20, they would be able to go up a tier to learn new moves and increase their max stats. Every 20 levels go up a tier. There would be three weapons depending on the class each character would have and they would switch between weapons on the fly and during their combos like in Tower of Fantasy.

Instead of me telling you, let's take a look at the elemental classes and their three weapons. I went to Google Spreadsheets to determine what elemental classes that have three weapons and they leave less room for error. Now, let's take a look at the three weapons on each class.

Among the Fire, Earth and Darkness classes, characters of these classes can have their own performance and they won't be non playable like Hinna, Liza or Aesh. What this means is that the Water, Wind, Moon, Wood and Light type characters are gonna be faithful to the performance of the playable characters in Visions of Mana's party among these classes, so you will expect every Water-type character to have an arsenal of a scythe, boots and flail to be faithful to Palamena's performance in this game. The funny thing about this is that if we get a waifu that resembles Palamena in this game, it may either alienate fans and ruffle people's feathers, which means spark backlash and/or controversy or attract fans into playing this game and spark excitement.

We know that we can switch characters in Genshin Impact by pressing the D-pad buttons and you can only see the player character. I believe that we can amp it up a bit for this Genshin Impact meets Visions of Mana action RPG, by having the player character being followed by their two teammate characters and a non-playable assist character in game outside of town, and they can be capable of switching weapons on the fly like the player character, but not using their ultimate attack. Only the player character can. And because there is an endless cast of playable characters, there would be multiple team slots that hold up to four characters. Wuthering Waves handled that, except that it has team slots that hold up to three characters.

What about Elemental Vessels? Are they gonna be acquired as we progress through the story? I don't think so because Elemental Vessels would vary by class. A Light-type character for example would automatically be given a Vessel of Light.

One more thing to make regarding the situation in Genshin Impact and it's a gambling issue. Since Genshin Impact came out, players were addicted to gambling on that game. They spent real money trying to get the character they desire and it failed because of their bad luck. It's technically gambling. Like for instance, in the Mightykeef video, Keef was trying to get Diluc, but his chance of getting the character remained slim and spent real money trying to get it. That's what happens if you play games with gambling mechanics. That's why you must gamble responsibly. This means that if you run out of in game currency trying to get the desired character, just move on and get some more by playing through the game. That's what a Gacha game is.

But we can alleviate the gambling issue and frustration for this hybrid of a Genshin Impact and Visions of Mana action RPG game so that players can get their desired characters without spending a dime. Free lootboxes. They are earned when you complete daily side quests and missions. They contain characters, weapons, items and gear. Every ten free lootboxes would guarantee you a five star character and every five loot boxes would guarantee you a four star character. However, the RNG system would still be present, but use it responsibly and wisely to avoid having a gambling issue.

Now, if miHoYo is planning their next project, this I what I want from them. If it comes into fruition, will people want this? I think they do because they like action RPGs as much as I do. Besides, there are action RPGs that are inspired by Genshin Impact, so I believe that a Genshin Impact and Visions of Mana inspired action RPG from them could work for their next project and it must be completely profanity free like others. In fact, miHoYo doesn't have to plan this if they want to because any other company can develop this game.

Now, I originally planned to tell you how would a Genshin Impact and Trials of Mana hybrid action RPG work, but since Genshin Impact has elemental classes and Visions of Mana has characters that were appointed as Alms, it's better off being a hybrid between these games.