A new game released on 16 December has drawn strong comparisons to the popular gacha game Genshin Impact.

The game is called called “Tower of Fanstasy” and is considered to be a post-apocalyptic, action RPG, roguelike, sci-fi, fantasy game.

It was published by a studio called Hotta Studio.

The game was announced in 2020 and currently a China-only release but a worldwide release is scheduled for 2022.

From the moment the game was released, there was only one thing that was on everyone’s mind. And that is how similar this game is to Genshin Impact.

Some folks online have begun calling it a Genshin Impact “killer”, or “clone”, though perhaps it’s a bit too early to call it the former.

Everything we saw in this game from its gameplay, characters, and mechanics reminded us of miHoYo’s more established game.

So let’s take a look at these games and see what the fuss is all about.

We will begin by taking a look at the similarities between Tower of Fantasy and Genshin Impact.

Similarities:

The very first thing you will first notice is that the game pretty much starts almost the same way as Genshin Impact. You are given the option to select a male or female character too, though that’s not unique. Regardless of the decision, the story is unaffected.

In Genshin, after the prologue you end up meeting Paimon who ends up being your companion for the game and the same thing is seen in Tower of Fantasy as you get a companion named Mia. Both of them also share the “cute mascot character” design.

Another similarity comes in the character designs. There are some characters in Tower of Fantasy that strongly resemble characters in Genshin Impact.

One of them is Amber.

Amber is the first character you can get in Genshin and also happens to be 4 star. Amber also happens to be the first character you get in Tower of Fantasy is Amber and she is a SR (4 star character).

In Genshin, Amber’s Elemental Burst “Fiery Rain” she will fires a showers of arrows. The same move is also done by Amber in Tower of Fantasy.

The combat mechanics in Tower of Fantasy also seem to be quite similar to Genshin Impact. You are able to moves similar to Elemental Skill or Burst in Genshin. One of the moves strongly resembles Xiangling’s Elemental Burst “Pyronado”.

Tower of Fantasy is an open world game in which the fog in the map is cleared using a mechanic very similar to Genshin Impact as well. In both games you have to go to a specific location (“Statue of the Seven” in Genshin, a tower in Tower of Fantasy).

Like many other games, Tower of Fantasy has a “sixth sense” mechanic like Geralt’s Witcher senses or Batman’s investigative vision will allows you to see clues, footprints etc.

However, the similarities to a similar mechanic in Genishin Impact cannot be ignored.

Differences

As mentioned before there is a lot of similarities between the two but developers have added a few things things which are not seen in Genshin.

One of the biggest differences between the two games is that there is a character customization included in Tower of Fantasy, which is something Genshin lacks.

You are given the freedom to fully customize your character.

Made my character! Can’t wait to get in game and play! from TowerofFantasyMMO

Another big difference between the two games would be vehicles. Although there are boats in Genshin, the players only use it only the time when waypoint fast travel is not an option.

In Tower of Fantasy, you are able to use different kinds of vehicle to travel through the map (hoverboards, motorbikes, horses etc).

That being said, as of this writing, the driving mechanic is a bit robotic as it feels like you are able to move along the axis or diagonal.

Despite the combat system being really similar, in Tower of Fantasy, there is a “lock on” mechanic which allows you lock on to one enemy and focus on it. This is really helpful when you have to fight a lot of enemies at once. In addition, there is a aerial combat in this game, which is something Genshin lacks for now.

In Genshin, the characters you get are preassigned to which class that they will be (Sword, Claymore, Bow, Catalyst and Polearm), so you are pretty limited to what you can do. But in Tower of Fantasy, you are able to equip any weapon and fight.

This has great potential as it allows you to experiment different weapons on characters and make your own combinations.

Many of the recent games wants to immerse you into their world. To interact with the environment, people, and cultures.

One small mechanic that the developers of Tower of Fantasy have included is the ability to interact with animals. In Tower of Fantasy, you are able to pet the animals that you meet in the world but that sadly is not the case in Genshin.

Gadgets are a thing which you get in Genshin but it mostly used to solve puzzles but that is not the case in Tower of Fantasy. While you get gadgets here as well, you are able to use these different gadgets in battle.

In both games, you will end coming across chests throughout the world.

In Genshin, the loot you will get are mostly resources that you need to level up artefacts or characters.

But in Tower of Fantasy, you are able to get a currency similar to “Primogems” and “Intertiwined Fates”.

You are able to use these currencies to wish on the banners.

Verdict

The more I got to know about the similarities and differences between Tower of Fantasy and Genshin Impact, the more it felt like Tower of Fantasy was skirting dangerously close to copyright infringement but still had a few new ideas to iterate on what Genshin had brought to the table.

Almost everything you see in Tower of Fantasy can be seen in Genshin but there are mechanics which are unique to ToF that might make it a better game in the eyes of some.

One of the best examples of it is the gatcha system in ToF as it is more friendlier to Free-to-Play players than in Genshin.

In ToF, the 80th wish you do is guaranteed to be a 5 star while in Genshin it is 90th wish.

In Genshin, there is a mechanic called “Pity System” which is added to help characters to get characters and weapons as after a certain number of rolls. Players are guaranteed to get a high rarity item. Every 10th wish is a 4 star while every 90th wish is a 5 star.

There is a hidden RNG mechanic included as it is possible to get a 5 star in between the 90 wishes and the reset everytime when you get a 5 star.

In ToF, there is no similar system like this. Every 80th pull is a 5 star but you are able to get a 5 star in between the 80 pulls.

The good thing about is that you are still guaranteed a 5 star on the 80th pull despite getting one early. If your 79th wish is a 5 star, the 80th one is also a 5 star.

The rewards that you get from doing dailies in ToF, you are able to make one wish but in Genshin it will take at least 3 days to get enough Primogems for 1 wish.

All of these sounds really good but many players predict that when the game is globally released the developers will “nerf” or balance some of the mechanics as right now, those mechanics are just “too good to be true”.

Genshin Impact may finally have a strong competitor in the form of ToF. Perhaps this is going to be the push that forces miHoYo to start improving their game and how they treat their players.

After their one year anniversary debacle (read about it here), they need to rise to this challenge and prove why Genshin Impact is a game players should spend their time (and money) on.

Otherwise, they might lose their massive player-base to the new kid on the block.