Genshin Impact – Which twin is better to choose?
Genshin Impact starts with a bang, throwing you right into the thick of it with cut-scene depicting a battle between two blonde twins and a fearsome goddess. Suddenly the action halts and a key decision is sprung upon you, where you must choose which Genshin Impact twin to play.
As a hugely expansive game with new features and areas being continually added, the choice seems like one you’ll be stuck with for a long time. Therefore, you probably don’t want to get this one wrong.
Here’s everything you need to know about the Genshin Impact starting twins and all the differences that may impact your decision.
What are the story differences between the Genshin Impact starting twins?
The story itself will be the same regardless of which Genshin Impact twin choice you make. No quest or content is twin-specific, so the experience will essentially be the same and nothing will be locked out. Whoever you pick, the non-chosen twin will feature in the story in a limited capacity.
As for dialogue, your chosen twin is generally referred to verbally as “Traveler”, or “You” so there is no impact on this either.
What are the canon names for the twins?
Although you can choose whichever name you want for your selected twin, the characters do have official canon names.
The male twin’s canon name is Aether and the female twin’s canon name is Lumine.
However, your chosen name is not used during voiced lines even if you select the canon name for your chosen Genshin Impact twin. Furthermore, whichever twin you don’t pick will end up with their canon name, and you can’t change it.
What are the gameplay differences between the Genshin Impact starting twins?
There are minimal differences in a gameplay, but a few subtle distinctions exist nonetheless.
Both characters have the same default weapon type (sword) and the same starting element (Anemo) but the element can later be changed regardless of which twin you pick.
As for stats, Lumine (female twin) has slightly higher charged attack damage, which ranges from 55.9% to 72.2%, beating Aether’s range of 55.9% to 60.7%.
Aether, however, has the edge when it comes to movement speed. He can run, climb and swim a little faster than Lumine. Apparently this correlates to character height, and Aether is the slightly taller of the two. On the other hand, Lumine’s attack speed is faster than Aether’s, so deals higher damage per second.
This means from a gameplay perspective, Aether can get around the field faster, but Lumine is a touch stronger and holds the edge when it comes to attack speed.
The changes are still very small and don’t significantly affect gameplay, but it’s worth knowing in order to make the best choice.
Which is the best twin to choose in Genshin Impact?
All things considered, this is obviously a personal choice. In respect of story, the main differences are surface-level and cosmetic, so your first consideration simply comes down to design preference.
If you have no particular attachment to either design, then your gameplay choice will depend on whether you wish to opt for a slightly more powerful character with higher DPS (Lumine) or a character that can travel a bit faster (Aether). Generally, I would suggest battle aptitude is more important than exploration speed so Lumine the female twin is probably the slight favourite.
Who are the voice actors for the characters?
The final Genshin Impact twins difference comes in the form of the voice actors. In English, Lumine is voiced by Sarah Miller-Crews who you may recognise from the role of Angela in Trials of Mana, or a couple of characters in Pokemon Masters.
Aether is voiced by Zach Aguilar who has a number of notable JRPG roles, such as Byleth in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Luka in Scarlet Nexus, young Nier in Nier: Replicant ver 1.22 and Campanella in the Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel series.
Is the twin a good character to use in Genshin Impact?
Another consideration to bear in mind is that the starting twin, whilst no slouch in battle, is not actually considered a top-tier Genshin Impact character. Most people ultimately choose to use other acquired characters in their main party. One benefit is that the twin’s element can be changed, but this cannot be done on the fly and each element has other characters in the game who are stronger. Therefore, unless you are particularly attached to the character you may not even use them for very long.
You’ll get access to plenty of other characters via quest completion and Genshin Impact’s gacha system. Mercifully, Genshin Impact actually has lots of its content available without spending any money so you can easily get an excellent party without it hitting your real-life finances. Completing quests and finding items will be enough to get by provided you are willing to put in the time.
Finally, the chosen twin (the Traveler) does not accumulate Friendship EXP. This is experience that denotes how friendly characters are with the main character, and since they can’t be friends with themselves they will not gain any of this. As such, it’s arguably a bit of a waste to complete a quest that awards Friendship EXP with the Traveler in the team.
Can you get both twins in Genshin Impact?
Once you’ve picked one twin, the question remains of whether you can recruit the other twin into your party later on.
Without spoiling anything significant, you can later cross paths with the other twin (who will be named their canon name) but at this moment in time there is no way to recruit them as a playable character in your party.
You can play as the other twin in another server, but this just means starting a new adventure from scratch and picking the other one, where none of your data will transfer across. To be clear, you can still retain the progress from both twins simultaneously, but the files will not overlap in any way.
And that’s our explanation of the Genshin Impact starting twins and what differences and changes are affected by your choice. Hopefully with this information, you’ll be able to pick the best twin for you to journey through the sprawling land of Genshin Impact.
