Anytime humanity has reached a point in which they will have the capabilities to achieve powers similar to that of the Heavenly Principles. Ronova’s Curse of Death is placed upon them to halt human progress. This isn’t even scratching the surface as to what insane reveals happened during Snezhnaya’s Act 1 & Act 2. I am still getting chills every time I’m reminded of the Curse of Death.

Before I continue my thoughts, if you would like to see reactions to Act 1 & Act 2, I have a video here you can watch here!

Snezhnaya Act 1 gives us a glimpse into the life of every day Snezhnayan people. Act 2 immediately throws us into a wild murder mystery, we get Paimon lore, we finally learn what the Tsarita’s true goal is, and so many more reveals!

And yet somehow, after immediately finishing Act 2, I was a bit disappointed. It took me some time to shake that feeling of disappointment away. On one hand, I misunderstood what happened at the end of the murder mystery, I’ll explain more later; however, one the other hand, that disappointment came from the expectations I had coming into Snezhnaya.

Expectations can benefit my experience playing a region. When I got into Natlan after my Genshin hiatus, I would hear from the Genshin community that this wasn’t a “good” region, but on my playthrough, I freakin’ loved it. A similar feeling was felt with Nod-Krai, a random region that wasn’t ever hinted in the story until Natlan that people from the community said it was filler, but I loved my experience & how Nod-Krai connected so many incredible pieces of the world!

However, Snezhnaya has been hyped to the depths of the abyss & back. Seeing that Travail teaser knowing that this is the “end” of the current story arc of Genshin Impact. Expectations are extremely high.

(Okay, now to be honest, when I first watch the Travail trailer, I took Snezhnaya as the pin-ultimate chapter with the final chapter being Khaenriah or Celestia, but after hearing Aquaria talk about Snezhnaya, that “final” chapter feels more like a door to more adventures than a finale to the current arc.)

Going back to the Behind the Scenes video for Snezhnaya where Aquaria even talks about the team’s hesitation that this will be the end of the journey for some Genshin Impact players because this is where the story they set out to tell will end. They know they have to make a satisfying ending while still creating a good enough hook for players to continue into the new story arc. miHoYo most certainly learned lessons after Honkai Impact 3rd Part 1 so I’m interested in knowing how they will continue into Genshin Impact’s next story.

Even Paimon at the very beginning of this quest talks about us finally being here at the end of our journey. This is also my last Genshin Impact region. I’m someone who doesn’t enjoy playing the same game forever especially when that game releases new story content every single month. I enjoy experiencing new games, new anime, & new manga. So I’m excited to end my journey at the end of this current story arc. It is the perfect send off and Snezhnaya has an near impossible mountain to climb of surpassing my expectation.

So it was no wonder I left disappointed because Act 1 & Act 2 were never going to start at the highs of the end of Song of the Welkin Moon. This is a finale region, but it is only just getting started and after stepping back & taking some time playing the world quests. That disappointment faded away & I was able to write my clear thoughts on Snezhnaya so let’s talk first about the environments.

Environments

The Genshin Impact environment team is on a whole nother level. The incredible amount of variety has made this exploration experience so enjoyable! My first train ride to Central Station I was relatively level-headed. (Nah, I was freaking out). There is something so special about being on a train & seeing these beautifully crafted environments sweep by. I had to take so many mental notes of areas I wanted to visit. They even added the detail of condensation appearing on the edges of the train windows too!

Arriving at a new station by train seeing people waiting to board their own trains was such an immersive experience. Unlike the Aquabus, NPCs exist on these trains, it makes this entire world feel more lived in. It really made me wish Genshin had deeper NPC simulations where they would board & exit trains. Funny, that Snezhnaya feels like the most lived in region in Genshin Impact despite being one of the harshest environments to explore.

Arriving in Central Station, I was in awe at the widely diverse life that lives throughout Snezhnaya. It is hard to imagine that the Fae & Humans were once not at peace. I did have an issue where NPCs would be waiting for an elevator, but never board it. I don’t feel this way in other region, but because Central Station & Snezhnaya feel so immersive. These moments stick out to me a lot more as they end up pulling me out of the immersive experience.

Snezhnograd is a beacon of beauty. It is not only the biggest main city in Genshin, but for me, it is the easiest to navigate & understand the layout. Since the city doesn’t layer over itself like Fontaine, Natlan, or Sumeru. The flat wide layout with massive landmarks makes it really easy to know where I’m going.

One of the most beautiful sights, I’ve seen during my time in Snezhnaya was leaving a cave & entering this quiet meadow. The greenery was turning a beautiful autumn color and off in the distance I could see a silhouette of Snezhnograd, but want made this experience so much better was seeing the train pass by. It really made me reflect on how incredible these environments truly are. Also at night, the cold takes over all the trees & saps the scenery of all its color.

Another truly beautiful sight is the Pale Crown Palace, we were shown this very sight in the 7.0 Special Program. However, I will not show any further environments from the Pale Crown Palace because I do not want spoil what is probably my favorite Genshin environment. My jaw hit the floor & it was a reaction I really wish I could’ve caught on camera.

This isn’t even all the environments you can visit in Snezhnaya. Even just looking out at the frozen tundra is beautiful. The way the ice is textured looks so cool! I was happy to see a dog pulling a sled! Even Snezhnograd can be seen off in the distance! The Shadow Realm was really cool & created such a different environment to explore. I didn’t even mention Felfrost Peak or Flamefeather Valley both of which have their own completely unique environments from the ones I’ve shown you today. Even Snezhnograd is full of awesome locations. It is clear that so much love & effort went into creating these environments & although there were many locations I didn’t talk about. I wanted to share my appreciate of just some of the incredible environments I got to experience.

Third Person Shooting

Another experience Genshin wanted me to play was the third person shooting. After many years of playing Genshin, I’ve gotten bored of the combat. It is why I rarely switch my party members & why I have built a hypercarry Noelle team. I just want to be overpowered enough to make every combat encounter trivial. So this third person shooting was right up my alley & I loved it.

Funnily enough, anytime I saw the third-person shooter gameplay in trailers, I was always laughing because it is truly ridiculous that miHoYo thought this was what Genshin players wanted. I’m not sure where the crossover is to people who enjoy Genshin Impact & people who enjoy third person shooters. My grand theory is that they’re using this data to see if players would play a third-person shooter from a future miHoYo game because I can’t imagine any other reason why this would be implemented as a core Snezhnaya feature in Genshin Impact. Every world quest series has a forced third person shooter section including one of the best world quest in Snezhnaya being mostly third person shooting. Now for me, this is absolutely fantastic. I want this, but for the dedicated players of Genshin Impact, do they? I have mostly read comments like “I like this gameplay, but why is it forced into every world quest” or “I didn’t play Genshin to play another shooter”. I have not seen people love it like I do. So definitely let me know in the comments your thoughts as well on the third person shooting gameplay.

In the meantime, let me freak out about how much fun I had with all of these third person shooting sections! Movement felt so smooth! Being able to dash and slide in any direction felt incredible on top of being able to shoot while doing so. I did find the base stamina to be far to low & I was greatly annoyed by Lumine’s loudass heavy breathing anytime I was low on stamina. I wish we had infinite stamina. There are other areas like limited ammo, health, damage, shields, elements that create the necessary friction to provide difficulty & intensity to battles. Stamina just allows me to have fun running around.

I was also surprised by the variety of environments I got to explore during these Third Person Shooter sections. It wasn’t just shadow realm looking worlds. I had to shoot my way through Snezhnaya as well. Whether it was caves, Flamefeather Valley, and even the Pale Crown Palace. miHoYo put a lot of effort into making these areas work so well as a third-person shooter.

Some areas even had puzzles that I had to solve. Switching from pyro to cryo to melt or freeze the environment was so cool. It added so much variety into the third-person shooting that I appreciated!

Fighting bosses was also one of the coolest experiences with this new gameplay mode. I think apart of it was because of the mobility. Having to physically dodge & slide out of the way of enemy attacks made the fights more intense. Allowing me to shoot while sliding made me feel like such a badass. I always had a big grin on my face fighting any of these bosses.

The variety of weapons from assault rifles, launchers, grenades made really good strategic balance of making sure I’m getting enough damage on the boss while looking for the best opportunity to reload. The reloading is slow enough to make those decisions risky & fun.

The grenades are so cleverly implemented too. Not all are just single burst damage, the Pyro & Electro grenades create a static field of elemental damage. Since enemies are often moving, predicting how an enemy will react so that you can maximize the time they spend in the grenades radius adds a fun layer of complexity to the gameplay.

All of these awesome mechanics paired with the insanely quick building mechanic of creating blocks, heat sources, grapple points, and the little towers you can turn into a little ball & fly too! It is just so freaking clever & it really adds a refreshingly different gameplay style that I greatly wanted & I am happy that miHoYo took the risk to developed this. Now please let us use that outfit outside the third person shooting sections or let me take the gun anywhere!

World Quests (No Spoilers)

After all that Third-Person Shooter talk, I didn’t even bring up the Eye of Graeae or any of the insane lore reveals we get. However, I want to be considerate to people who have not had the time to complete the World Quests & most of my thoughts on the World Quests do not require me to spoil the story or even some of the later bosses & environments we get to explore.

These world quests help us learn everything about the Eye of Graeae. For me, most of the questions I had during the archon quest, I felt were answered. Even if you don’t care about the Eye of Graeae or the third-person shooter sections, the final world quest series called “Her Palace Collapses Into the Blizzard” is truly one of the greatest world quests in Genshin Impact. It doesn’t waste your time & is packed full of delicious Snezhnaya lore that personally I think will be spoiled in the archon quest given how important some of those lore reveals are.

I particularly love the “Hesperides of Love and Hate” & “Dwelling of Life” series were focused on the different fae that live in Snezhnaya. Hesperides of Love and Hate specially had us attend a Snegovik wedding. It is unlike anything I’ve seen in Genshin before. The quest itself has a lot of fun moments before. during, and after the wedding. There’s even a fun stealth section in the gardens!

There was also a random world quest where I freed a Giant & they just stomped away. I haven’t met them since then so maybe I’ll see them sometime in the future.

Archon Quest

The archon quest also featured a lot of things I really enjoyed! Is it not awesome to learn more about Paimon & the Jester.

Paimon & Jester
Act 1’s opening with Jester taking care of Paimon is kind of wild. It immediately shows us how caring of a person the Jester is. Even though we later learned he doesn’t actually care about Paimon herself. The fact that he is willing to go through the efforts to keep her safe & protect her against the anti-Celestia energy that is being generated from Project Mistiltein is quite admirable.

It also shows that this man is focused. He doesn’t hate the creations of Celestia, but hates the mastermind behind all of this, the Heavenly Principles. He is a good-aligned character much like ourselves.

He did pique my interest even more after hearing him being against Hroptatyr (her-rop-ta-tier), one of the five sinners. It had me thinking about the Traveler’s sibling. The Abyss Order has direct ties to Vedrfolnir. The abyss has been setup as the universe-ending threat. The story is constantly reminding us about how the Traveler will love their sibling regardless of the outcome. Once the Heavenly Principles is dealt with, will this lead to a true conflict against our brother as the next villain? I’m very curious!

Anyways, it was really cool to learn about the Jester & Paimon too! It is wonderful seeing Paimon become a true character. It also gives more depth to her conversation with the Wanderer during Act 10 of Song of the Welkin Moon. Both created by gods & both who felt useless. I’m excited to see where Paimon’s story is going to go, which I cannot believe those are words I am finally saying. Crazy that Ronova spoiled Paimon’s future power buff. By simple saying that Paimon is a creation of Celestia, but possesses none of Celestia’s power, let alone authority. Indicates that the norm of Celestia’s creations is to have these powers so I’m excited to see Paimon gain these powers at some point!!

I brought this up during my reaction, if Paimon was Asmoday, but after reading more about Asmoday. I no longer believe that is the case. I’ve heard of theories that Paimon might be the Heavenly Principles. This is something I hope is not the case. I would not want the Heavenly Principles to be a redeemable character.

Also y’all notice Mitya’s scarf has a very similar pattern to Paimon’s scarf?

Rokot
With all of that incredible lore, let’s slide in a bit of disappointment. The Rokot. Act 1 did such a great job at setting up the Rokot as a mysterious organization of people who are non-violently fighting against Project Stuzha (stew-zha). It served as such a good insight into the issues every day Sneznhayans are facing.

What I found disappointing & still do, is Lelek. Now if you watch my reaction, I certainly thought Lelek was Mitya because I thought it would have been unbelievable if Mihoyo chose to introduce Lelek as a character then 8 minutes later just tell us it was Odette.

What was so cool about Alyosha being Rokot is because we learned about Rokot & could easily connect the dots that he is probably Rokot based on our experience helping out Sretomorozsk (Streh-toe-mo-rosk). Lelek is built as a mysterious violent Rokot member; however, we get no time to actually figure who it might be. Nor does Mihoyo even play with the idea that Odette might be Lelek. They just say it.

Also Pulcinella is the leader behind the Rokot right? I do believe a Harbinger is in charge & Pulcinella is the most politically savvy character out of the Harbingers. He has also shown his care for the Snezhnayan people given how he conducts himself as the Speaker & since he is fae as well. There is more of a weight place upon his shoulders to not repeat the mistakes of the fae nobles by causing division among the Snezhnayan people.

Murder Mystery
My last & biggest disappointment, which is no longer a disappointment is the murder mystery.

I was so frustrated that it was “dream” leading me to mistakenly think that none of the incredible character building & relationships that formed during that sequence matter. However because I was so frustrated I didn’t bother to read the text that explained that everyone eventually remembered what happened. Now that I have a clearer mind & have since realized my mistake. Let’s talk about it!

As soon as we got that photo of everyone attending the performance. I immediately was excited that this will lead us to learning who Lelek is. I also enjoyed the increasing stakes of people dying, snowstorm is not letting down, fake Tonia is sick, one person is dead but doesn’t realize it, weird infinite tower dreams, and actually we’re all dead.

However, what really made me love this quest are the characters. I was already enjoying Mitya as a character before this sequence, but I absolutely fell in love with him during this quest. He is such a likeable goofy character who is just insanely brilliant & perceptive.

When Mitya is talking to Vodyanitsa at the hotel & Mitya although playing aloof immediately knows that the Traveler & Alyosha were watching. He is always perceptive & focused. It is why I originally was thinking he was Lelek.

Also the relationship he has with his scarf is just so goofy. Incredible comedic relief as well! I freakin’ love that he was able to inscribe Ronova’s mark into his soul so that he could never forget once he woke up. What an smart character! Really excited to be working alongside him for future archon quests!

Valeriy is a character I have seen being dunked on, but sometimes I just like a big dumb himbo. He serves no purpose besides Mitya putting him in uncomfortable positions. I wish I had footage of this, but during Odette’s story not-story quest, he gets her autograph because he was standing in line with Mitya. It is very cute!

I also found Valeriy ability to be pretty cool as well when he was playing the “Doorman” in the weird dream. His death was also incredibly shocking to me, but then reality kicked in because no way would Mihoyo actually commit to killing a character who is most certainly going to be playable.

Shram is a wonderful character because he gives us the perspective of something who was in a relationship with a fae during the height of war between humans & fae. It is funny how it was all revealed too. He was basically like, humans & fae will give my girl a hard time for dating me, you know because of the civil war. It is such a wild moment of everyone realizing that he is in fact dead.

I also enjoyed the clever way Ptashka was written to be Childe’s sister! It is such a perfect way to make me jump to conclusions & truly believe that she was his sister and it made the twist of her being dead very incredible.

Of course, it was great to also learn the truth about Chugnuov’s family & his eventually retirement from the industry. Hearing the importance of Vodyanitsa’s song was also very touching! All of this to say that this murder mystery really helped strengthen the relationship between all these characters & made me care for them a lot.

Now I’m unsure who the hell was speaking to us in the weird dream where we were climbing the stairs because at the end of the day no one actually died. So was it simply Ronova having fun, was it the angels Ronova mentioned who messed with the Ley Lines, or was it someone else?

Overall, the murder mystery held my interest the entire way. Sure, it has been done before. We had to solve a murder mystery in Fontaine. We have also being tricked into thinking we were in the “real world” in Sumeru & Nod-Krai. So I was not too thrilled when I realized that Mihoyo is doing it again.

However, the purpose of this quest was to illustrate Ronova’s Curse of Death & the limits her powers have. So let’s talk about Ronova!

Ruler of Death
Although, I was expecting Ronova to appear in this quest because of the special program, which I wish I didn’t watch the special program. She appeared a lot sooner than the trailer implied. There is something so terrifying about Ronova’s appearance.

A moment where she felt like she had to intervene. The curse of death triggers when humanity comes close to achieving the power of the Heavenly Principles. One of my favorite moments in this quest was Jester telling Ronova that by triggering the curse of death, it confirmed to them that they have successfully built their weapon.

Also it was so freakin’ cool to see us fight Ronova twice! These animated sequences looked so incredible! The first fight against Alyosha was awesome because Ronova was able to utilize Alyosha’s abilities. It was also nice to see what miHoYo has cooking for Mitya’s abilties as well!

The final fight was incredible because immediately it showed that Ronova will not be getting any form of redemption. The rage the Traveler felt in that moment & the fact that they managed to cut her shoulder is truly outstanding.

This entire moment also wonderfully resolves Project Stuzha & now allows the story to focus solely on stopping Ronova.

Expectations For the Future

I am so excited to see what Mihoyo is writing up for the next several Acts. The Tsarita is trying to re-create a world free of gods. It is a goal that funnily enough was the plot of another game I’ve been playing. So that is pretty incredible!

The Exaiphane Blade is also pretty wild name. I’ve been trying to do some research on the prefix “Exai”, but nothing that a man who knows nothing of Greek can really decipher. However, what I can say is that based on the currently available statues, this blade is from someone not from Teyvat, which could be the Third Descender which is my guess, our sibling, or a blade given by the Heavenly Principles.

Also with us being on the Jester’s good side & the Tsarita looking forward to meeting us. We’re going to get invited to be the 10th Harbinger, right? Maybe rank 10 is a bit too low for our power level, but it is bizarre we still do not know who holds the 10th spot.

Also we have been attuning to the Statue of the Seven to gain our powers, I want to believe that the Heavenly Principles will be able to take those powers away at some point, which means we need to rely on the Fatui to successfully create us an omni-Linchpin to bypass her authority.

Ending

I think that’s all I have to say for now. I’m sure I am forgetting something crazy as I’ve write way more than the topics I took notes on, but I appreciate you all taking the time to watch or read through my longest Genshin Impact review. Don’t forget to check out the nearly 2 hours of reactions I have of myself playing Act 1 & Act 2. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed hearing my thoughts on Act 1 & Act 2! I’ll see you all next time for some more Genshin Impact reviews!! Thank you!! Bye!