So why does everyone else seem to hate it? Genshin Imaginarium Theatre review

Imo, the easiest change that would make Theater much less annoying is just allowing teams with less than four characters — just like it was in the event this mode was modeled after.

I loved Imaginarium's focus on chaotic/unorthodox teams and how it's quick and painless to get all the rewards, but everyone seems to hate it for the exact same reasons. The aesthetic polish and lore integration are also great, and Abyss completely lacks those things, but people have been too angry about the gameplay to even notice. The core problem is that they added this 4 years after launch, once vertical investment became locked in as the "right" way to play ("oh, you play Genshin? who's your main?"), and this sudden change in incentives has everyone confused and frustrated. I'm so far down the build-too-many-characters rabbit hole that I have a DPS Faruzan and a crit-Kokomi, so it works great for me; but if you've spent years farming perfect artifacts for your quad-geo Itto team, Imaginarium is gonna be a rude awakening. There's plenty of room for improvement, though I hope they don't change it so much that it lets people switch back to the same two teams they've always used, that would kinda defeat the purpose. Given some time, I think people will start to like it more. Maybe once Abyss resets and they remember how half-baked and repetitive it is.

I actually like it too. I wish it had more replayability though. Excited to see how it evolves going forward.

At the end of the day it bodes down to personal preference. Personally, I think Genshin has a wonderful combat system and the IT, as an endgame combat mode, doesn't showcase it properly - Forcing players to use less than functional teams adds variety yeah, but with the combat system being so focused on characters fitting together on a team properly (reactions, cooldowns, energy production), if you use a "random team" the combat loses the majority of its soul imo. There is also a middle ground between Meta team and unsynergetic teams, and that is teams that have synergy but aren't meta, example using Al Haitham with Collei instead of Nahida, so I'd argue you can add variety without disrupting the synergy aspect - Agree on the character quantity aspect - By itself the strategy aspect is a fair point and I agree, however I don't think the Theater is all that articulate in challenges structure or poses enough risks that it becomes a strong point of the mode. In this sense, if the mode had a grander scale and the boons were more impactful, unique and cohesive, it could sort of replace what it loses in terms of combat compared to more traditional content, but at the moment it's quite barebones and it would require a lot of work to become good in these aspects.

Once I accepted that I wasn’t going to clear the hardest mode in one day (or even at all, and i’m not able to 36 star abyss either so i dont know why this surprised me 😅) I’ve been really enjoying it! It’s fun to have some thing to work towards that is not just a dps check. I do find the managing of which characters you have available vs the rng frustrating, but if i don’t take it too seriously it’s also fun to see which teams i end up with and how they feel.

With a roster of 76 characters, 66 of them raised & built & 63 of those at level 90, I had no issues with the 'restrictions' but found the content on a par with abyss for enjoyment. I have no issue with either as a means to an end, i.e. gaining primos, but see both as a chore to be done with minimal effort & forgotten until the next season.

I do only agree with lightening specific restrictions such as letting you not use 4 characters and making the 'boon' be a little more broad or unique. Otherwise I like the elemental restrictions, I like the randomness of the characters you get, and I like getting limited. The event it was based on was one I desperately wished was made permanent and now it's like they answered my wishes. The best way I've seen it described as Abyss rewards quality, and Imaginarium rewards quantity. And I think that this is completely fine with how each aims in tragetory. Honestly it's so negative in discourse — I wish people would be more optimistic or at least forward-thinking in a optimistic format about it when we FINALLY getting what we've all wanted. It's like they wanted Abyss 2: Harder Now, and that's not what I think they needed [nor, in my bias, what I wanted].

The main problem I see with the current Theatre is that principal cast is three DPS and three supports. So your first fight in essence has to use one of the DPSs and all three supports, draining vigor from each of them. And the whole rest is a struggle to get enough support characters while the DPSs are having a tea break. Normal team composition is one main DPS and three supports/sub-DPS, the characters we get should respect that, even if what we get is to some level random. There are some strategies in selecting which characters to use - assuming you have them. Not using too many DPS is one of them, or you will end up with teams containing two or three DPS because you just don't have anyone else to deploy. It's not impossible to beat the challenge with such teams, but it's also not very fun experience and most importantly it's not how the game is designed to be played. Your suggestion of trading vigor could end up being a trap. 18 characters represent 36 vigor total, while the 8 fights consume 32 - there's not much wiggle room in it.

I love everything about this game mode, except that they bungled on the challenge criteria. I can accept the mode being easy, IF they use the challenges system better. I actually really like the idea of them requiring us to knock out the chicken boss only after it's tired, or triggering a certain number of elemental reactions to clear a floor. I think those should be the requirements to getting max flowers, and not the usual "clear in 90 sec". This way, the mode becomes about finishing random tasks with weird teams, and not just reaching a subpar DPS check with half baked characters.

2:26 I feel exactly the same and I wonder why no one has brought this up yet. So many guidemakers say that the meta teams are the only playable ones because they receive the highest results. And yes for the Abyss floor 12 that might be true, but that’s exactly why the new mode feels so refreshing in my opinion. Now both meta and non meta players have an endgame mode made for them.

I completely agree with your points. Personally, I also like the Theater, although I don't have enough characters built. I consider it a challenge and an opportunity to build more of my characters that I'd never use otherwise.

I also enjoyed it! I felt like it recognized all the work I've put into so many characters. And it did make me flex my team comp brain. You've got some good suggestions! It would be nice if they would just let us get more rewards and leave abyss as is.

I personally loved it too ! What's everyone's on about ? Maybe it's not revolutionary but it's far from being as bad as everyone's putting it. I have 50 fully built characters, I'm happy i finally have a reason to use them. And honestly if you're endgame and you have only 8 built characters, what on earth have you been doing with your resin?

Nice video! My biggest wish is that they make the battles take place in the open world map, eg a sectioned-off piece of mondstadt, ekanomiya, etc. TGS pointed that out and after I heard that I can’t get it out of my head how cool that would be. Genshin world map is gorgeous so let us spend more time there!

I LOVE unorthodox teams. I’ve been a Chongyun main since launch and very specifically pulled Shenhe to make a melt team just for him. That being said, there’s a difference between unorthodox teams and just straight unplayable teams. I was forced to solo Coppellius with just my Lyney due to the way the cards fell in IT and although I did manage to do it, I wouldn’t call it fun. This seemed to hold true for most of the chambers I played, where I just brute-forced it with whatever my best DPS was. I didn’t have to use supports or time ultimates or worry about rotations, just kept one character on field the whole time and hope their raw damage was enough to get through it. I hope that in the future IT can make it a little easier to make a functional team because being given three on field DPS characters just means somebody inevitably ends up being dead weight

The thing is, team building is the most fun aspect of Genshin Impact for most people including myself. Therefore, most players, don't like the idea of crippling themselves with scuffed teams which (most of the time) have almost no synergy whatsoever because of the elemental and character restrictions Hoyo put into the gamemode. I don't mind playing non-meta teams but being forced to play, for example, Arlechino and Faruzan in the same team just doesn't work. It is just not fun to being forced to play teams with no synergy.

good video! i think IT has been really fun for me on my main acc, but i played on my friend's account who has way fewer built characters which was a lot more frustrating, so i can see both sides of this about the elemental gem issue, idk if you know bc its fairly hidden, but if you go into the stardust exchange in the shop, you can buy a green rarity material called dust of azoth for a low price which allows you to trade in other elemental gems for the type you want. to trade them you go to the second tab in the crafting table. personally i've never had an issue w/ elemental gem shortages and i think thats the main reason why, so i thought it might help

It is quite embarrassing, but I can only clear stage 5. The vishaps won't die in the allotted time, but they come so frustratingly close. It makes me sad that I'll never get those keys for the character effects coming next patch. I don't hate the game mode, I hate myself for being old and slow.

I do have a lot of problems with the Imaginarium Theater, most of them related with the focus towards vertical investment. However, my actual main issue with this gamemode, is it's huge lack of replayability, which is the same issue as the abyss. Once you are done with the gamemode, you are done. Is just an hour or less of gameplay and nothing more. It never incentives you to come back for greater rewards, and the only benefit I see from this is just less FOMO (and there are better ways to do so) I think a good way to fix this issue is to add replayable rewards along the way. It doesn't need to be something crazy like primogems, but maybe a good amount of mora, books and artifacts could solve this issue. I really want to love this new gamemode, and I kinda do actually. But the problems overshadow the good aspects of it (which aren't that many to being with)

for me, it kind of boils down to lack of synergy and the vigor/4 character only team restrictions being as harsh as they are. i completely get the perspective of novelty and having to craft unusual teams, and i love doing that too! however, there's a difference between putting together unusual teams and being forced to create extremely bad ones that don't feel great to the spirit of the combat gameplay (mixing appropriate characters together for elemental reactions and fitting cooldowns). i love putting strange team compilations to the test, don't get me wrong, but it just... is not even remotely fun when you're stuck with a team with absolutely no synergy, characters you either haven't invested in or don't like the gameplay of, that all feel completely unsatisfying to put on a team together considering both of those factors. the combat just feels incredibly head-achingly taxing and boring to do anything with when there's not even a slightest bit of synergy to be had beyond the first maybe three or so rounds; if i run out of the characters i actually want to use, and the rng trips me up with giving me a character who's gameplay i hate instead of a character i could work with, i'm basically forced to either reset the whole thing, grit my teeth and have an absolutely miserable experience, or just quit so that i don't start hating the game. and, honestly, the third option fully just sounds like the best one to me, especially as a player who doesn't do spiral abyss precisely because of how utterly boring it is to keep resetting because oh no i lost 5 seconds. it's the mind killer.