My thoughts on DragonSword: Awakening

When Genshin Impact came out I really enjoyed the gameplay and its charming character, but being an only-online game always made me worried it could just disappear someday. Well, DragonSword: Awakening looks to be the closest thing to an offline Genshin Impact to date. It released with full offline capability and with only Steam DRM; meaning so long as Steam is installed and in offline mode the game will work. Its already been pirated, which at least guarantees it won't one day become lost media. I've been playing it the last several days and really enjoying it.

The gameplay is very similar to Genshin, so if you like that, it's basically that. I do prefer the control of ranged characters in Genshin more, at least while using a controller. It runs well on Linux Mint so long as I force it to use vulkan and enable v-sync. The graphics are comparable, which is great IMO. I do wish the characters weren't as sexualized, or at least were given more modest clothing options, but maybe that will be added in the future. The game is 30$ and every character can be earned in-game. 

From what I've experienced the story takes a little while before taking off, and its still not as engaging as Genshin, but I've enjoyed it so far. I've heard it ends on a cliffhanger, but due to the success of the game it sounds like they'll be finishing it with an update. After that any future story arcs will be paid DLC.

Sadly there isn't any English voice acting, but hey, for a 20+ hour offline experience at 30$, its been worth it.