Noah’s Heart is More Than a Genshin Clone
MiHoYo was already a game developer years before Genshin Impact was released, but thanks to the game, they got tons of exposure. To date, Genshin Impact is one of the most played games in the mobile scene, which is why many developers are trying to emulate its success by developing their “own spins” to the title. And it seems that Tencent has a game up its sleeve, ready to dethrone the giant: Noah’s Heart. Developed by Archosaur Games and published by Tencent, Noah’s Heart aims to earn the top spot as the number one game people play on their mobile devices. Promising an open world akin to miHoYo’s Genshin Impact, is Noah’s Heart a mere clone of the popular cross-play title or something more?
Table of Contents
Noah’s Heart’s Similarities to Genshin Impact
The Art Direction
These days, having a vast, open world isn’t a feature that’s enough for a game to sell. There are a lot of MMOs in the market, too—and they have these kinds of offerings as well. But when the seamless design is met with a visual style pops, let’s just say we have a winner. Noah’s Heart delivers upon this premise in droves thanks to its fantastic art style that make each zone breathtaking to look at. You can even say that the graphics are TOO similar to another hit title: Genshin Impact.
Whether it be each blade of glass, the trees, or the look of the sky, everything about Noah’s Heart looks nearly identical to Genshin Impact. Even the fonts used by the developers in the UI and the art direction of the interface elements used share the same qualities as you’d see in miHoYo’s game.
Prioritization of Single-Player Elements
Much like Genshin Impact, Noah’s Heart will give special attention to the single-player elements and plot. Since there’s a sense of freedom while traversing the open world, you’ll get to expect a day and night system in Noah’s Heart and even dynamic weather. Plus, thanks to the class/job system, you can evolve your character in any way you want.
Genshin Impact prides itself on letting players have a rich system for NPC interactions; Noah’s Heart gamers can expect the same. Archosaur Games’ title will tie certain events to NPCs. Moreover, these NPCs can also be tied to the in-game world’s conditions (examples include the dynamic weather, the time of the day, etc.).
Mobile Requirements
When an open test was made available for players during the early access, it became known that you’d have to have a powerful smartphone to play Noah’s Heart. The game isn’t exactly new since it was announced in 2020 and had its first beta in July 2021 (exclusive to China). However, you’ll still need to download 10 GB of data to play Noah’s Heart. We assume that the bulk of this storage is related to the usage of Unreal Engine 4.
Genshin Impact and Noah’s Heart both recommend having a Kirin 810 CPU, with Genshin Impact needing a better chip such as the Snapdragon 845 instead of Noah’s Heart’s Snapdragon 670 requirement. Noah’s Heart is more taxing in the storage department since the game recommends you free up at least 10 GB of memory to download it. Whereas Genshin Impact only needs 8 GB of storage space.
What Makes Noah’s Heart “Better” Than Genshin Impact?
The answer to this question is often subjective, but in my case, I find that the implementation of Noah’s Heart’s “automatic missions” is way better than Genshin Impact’s auto-play/auto-lock function. Sure, you can argue that the auto-play option offers a more seamless way to enjoy the dialogue, but it takes the fun out of playing the game. With Noah’s Heart’s auto-play, it only holds your hand, but it doesn’t necessarily do everything for you.
The battles in Noah’s Heart let you fully control the character you’re using, and with the big part of the gameplay consisting of building, fishing, mining, and more, you’ll get a more immersive experience than letting an AI do all the work. The intensity of balancing offense with defense, dodging attacks, and then counterattacking is a cathartic feeling should you pull it off successfully. And to be deprived of that is a shame.
Can Noah’s Heart Be Better Than Genshin Impact?
Since Noah’s Heart just gained a bit of buzz recently, it’s still hard to say if it stands a chance of rivaling Genshin Impact’s popularity. This largely depends on how Noah’s Heart will develop over time through updates—something that the miHoYo team invests heavily to offer new content to players.
But is Noah’s Heart a clone of Genshin Impact? I think not. It’s true that they both share the same quality of graphics and how they give such importance to the lore and NPCs, but other than that, they’re leagues different. We’ll have to see more from Archosaur Games to confirm if Noah’s Heart is merely trying to replicate Genshin’s success and revenue.
