Genshin Impact is an action RPG Gacha Game where you can pick which character you wish to play as between two blonde twins. When you first start the game, after choosing your desired traveler, you save Paimon from drowning on an ocean beach. Once you’ve saved her life, learning you’re an outsider, she decides to help you traverse the world and meet your goals to find your lost sibling.
Getting to know her better as a character, she has a small range of personality traits: greedy, selfish, chatty, loud, cowardly, and occasionally compassionate, only worrying for and caring about us, the traveler. Her role to us is as a travel guide, but the more time we spend with her, the more she seems to be just about as clueless as us. She knows of the nations, gods, and names but somehow is surprised at every nation we see, not seeming to have an origin of where she lives.
I believe this could be a lore drop, trying to show us she is also not of this world, but to me, if it was done differently, it would be much more convincing. I believe it should be more subtle. Even so, why have her be our travel guide if she knows very little? The idea is only speculation and is not proven. She could just be truly lonely with no one who remembers her existence.
Although her guidance skills are lacking, some enjoy her personality as well. I believe her to be overly childish and whiny, greedy with money, and obsessed with food, which are very two-dimensional character traits. Outside of her funny moments, we don’t know her truly, making her seem dull when her personality isn’t very likable. She has a very shrill, high-pitched voice. The beginning of the game gave her a more calm, less sound barrier-breaking, and tolerable voice, but as the game progressed, it seemed to get higher along with her personality. Later in the game, she became more aggressive and less caring towards other characters.
The character we play as typically does not speak aside from in combat. Paimon is supposed to be our companion who speaks for us, but many players find this annoying, wishing that our main character was given lines. Paimon and our main character typically do not interact in a meaningful way, which does not give players a convincing impression of them being best friends.
Another common complaint people have regarding her character is her personality development. In the beginning, her obsession with food made her love every type of food. She never spoke badly of any new foods and would always be willing to try something new even when hesitant, but in new regions, she started insulting the food, saying it looked or smelled terrible. People find this distasteful because the foods she typically insults are cultural dishes from the real-world nations on which the game bases their nations.
All of these complaints and Paimon’s character’s declining quality led to a large portion of the fan base just wanting to get rid of her. I am on this side of the argument, and these are why I believe she should be improved or replaced by a different companion.
