It’s pretty unanimously agreed upon at this point that the Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, and its sequel Tears of the Kingdom are two of the bests games available on the Nintendo Switch. The simple joys of traversing the land of Hyrule, collecting resources, fighting monsters, befriending villages, all compounded with the intriguing lore come together to make this version of Hyrule among the most memorable ones across the entire series history
That being said, the rain sucks. I personally never enjoyed the rain mechanic, and always viewed it as a hindrance to my gameplay experience. The rain essentially makes climbing more frustrating as there’s a very high chance that Link will slip on the surface (and by “chance” I mean that he will slip, it’s inevitable). Along with that, there's also occasionally lightning, which will strike you provided you’re wearing anything metallic, essentially locking you out of using a large variety of your weapons, and armor. All of this together just made rain more of a hindrance that I’d want to avoid dealing with, rather than an obstacle that enhances my gameplay
In contrast, Genshin Impact is a game that is similar in many ways to Breath of the Wild. Similar to Zelda, Genshin also has a vast open world with complex lore. You can also travel the world, fight camps of monsters, and befriend new people in a variety of societies. Now the quality of both games in comparison to each other can, and has, been debated, but one thing that I do think that Genshin legitimately does better than Zelda, is how it handles rain, and to be fair to Zelda, the way Genshin handles rain is something that is inherent to Genshin’s systems, but I do think it’d be worth mentioning nonetheless
So for context, Genshin’s combat system is similar to a game like Pokemon, where there are multiple elements in the game, and the combat is based on how they interact with each other. Where Genshin differs is that unlike Pokemon where the interactions are weakness based, Genshin’s interactions are collaborative, in the sense that the player can mix certain elements together to create powerful effects. For example, fire and electricity can create an “overload” reaction, which is essentially a small explosion occurring where the elements meet, wind can create “swirl” reactions with many elements in the game, which causes extra damage and can even lower elemental resistances to the swirled elements, and finally there’s “freeze”, which is self explanatory, ice and water interacting with each other to temporarily disable an enemies movements
All that being said, how the elemental reaction system interacts with rain should be fairly clear. Essentially, rain would provide the player with a constant supply of the water element, making activating water related reactions far easier. But there’s a catch, in that enemies in the overworld also can use elements. So while the constant stream of water can be useful to the player, it can also be a hindrance, as they are now more vulnerable to enemies that can use ice or electrical attacks. Essentially, rain in Genshin is more “risk and reward” than Zelda, as it now lets players deal more damage to enemies at the risk of enemies doing more damage to them. Add the fact that rain doesn’t hinder climbing, or conduct electricity, and I do believe that rain in Genshin does enhance my experience playing the game, and is not a hindrance unlike Zelda
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