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As I have less and less time to sit down and play console games, I’d recently taken to trying out Genshin Impact on the new iPhone 13 ProMax. After all, while miHoYo may be known for the cross-platform success of Genshin, they’d had their roots with the gorgeous Honkai Impact 3rd, which featured bold visuals in an age where most games were chibi autobattlers.
I should point out, I’ve been playing the game on the PS5 (and PS4) since its launch. It wasn’t until recently that miHoYo installed the cross progression features that let you carry your save out of the console version and onto other devices that I should check out Genshin Impact on an iPhone. After all, just listen to the testimony given by Yu Ling, miHoYo’s Marketing and Business Development head:
“Our players love playing Genshin Impact on iPhone and iPad. Until now, the quality of graphics on Genshin Impact can only be achieved on the latest gaming consoles. By taking full advantage of the incredible CPU, graphics and unified memory architecture of Apple silicone chips, as well as metal graphics library for hardware-accelerated 3D graphics, the world of Teyvat looks unbelievably real”, she says.
Console-Quality Frame Rate And Visuals
Surprisingly, the experience I got was a lot better than what I’d pessimistically expected. The iPhone 13 ProMax has a lot of great features for the gamer on the go, such as its ProMotion screen matching the refresh rate of the display to the app’s framerate, which you can set to 30, 60 or even 120 in the case of Genshin Impact.
Admittedly, going all in on the 120 is a risky feature, since it increases the load on the iPhone’s chip, and can turn it into Apple’s latest in hand-warming technology. But the phone runs Genshin comfortably at 60fps, something even console games struggle to do at times. The result is that Genshin Impact still feels incredibly responsive to play, and the smaller display compared to a big tv doesn’t feel as uncomfortable to look at since you’re still playing it at a highly responsive framerate.
In fact, one thing it does do better than its console counterpart is maintaining that framerate, not just reaching it. I love Catalyst users like Yanfei and Lisa- but unfortunately Pyro in particular can be a rough element on consoles, since the burning effects can cause frame dips, especially when your character is just emitting visual effects constantly while speaking in a husky mature voice. Surprisingly the iPhone version managed to maintain even 120 fps with no frame dips, as I basically just filled the screen with particle effects that would make a lower-end device blush.
On top of that, there’s also the visuals. This was one of my biggest fears about trying the game on mobile- but on high graphics, Genshin Impact looks pretty solid for the smaller screen, with many important details still looking crisp on the phone’s Super Retina XDR display.
I’d always assumed jumping on mobile would mean lower-res models, where every character was just a figure with details painted on. While I can’t know the specifics (Normal mapping vs sculpting, etc) the game runs well enough on the iPhone 13 Pro Max while still having all your favorite characters look great, with objects like belts and straps still having physical volume to them.
Controls The Way You Want It
This is arguably the biggest jump point for someone coming from console. The default touch controls are designed to all be hit by the thumb, which might be alien for anyone used to killing Hillichurls with a controller. While the UI scales nicely between iPad and iPhone versions, there’s no accounting for preference- sometimes you just prefer having button-pressing duties distributed among your fingers instead of reaching your thumb all over the screen to swap characters, pick up items and even choose between your three attacks.
Thankfully there are plenty of options to try it out on controller, from the Razer Kishi to straight-up just using a PS4 controller paired via Bluetooth. It makes a lot of the controller issues into non-issues, so you’re free to play the game as you want.
Closing Thoughts
All in all, I really enjoyed trying out Genshin Impact on the iPhone for the first time. Considering how much of the game is meant to be played in bite-sized chunks rather than big overall sessions, it feels a lot lighter to play when it’s just a matter of opening the app on your phone instead of bunkering down at your gaming setup.
The idea that you’re getting an inferior experience really just doesn’t track, considering how close playing the game on your phone is to playing it on console.
Game reviewed on an iPhone 13 ProMax
