Game is prob best looking game I’ve played this gen and combat feels a bit better. However, unsure what it is the dialogue and story isn’t capturing me much. I am a about 5 hours in, but I guess its the usually gripes of open world games starting off a bit slow.
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I’m about an hour into this and WOW, this so far is the first game on these consoles that I’m literally stunned with how good it looks overall.
I wasn’t a fan of the first game. I got it from GameFly and only played about 5 hours of it. Then I purchased the complete edition and put another 10 hours into it and never really got hooked.
I figured, I would give the sequel just because it’s the next big thing. So far I’m enjoying it more than I was the original. And my goodness it’s a beautiful game.
Forza Horizon 4 looked gorgeous on the Series X which of course makes Horizon 5 beautiful as well but it wasn’t breathe taking because the update for 4 was so good.
Horizon forbidden west is truly a visual leap from the last consoles, if this is what we’re in for going forward its going to be an excellent generation.
I.E. I’m secretly super excited for Fable, I think Playground is probably one of the most impressive technical studios around. I feel like if there’s anyone who can knock graphics out of the park, my money is on Playground.
2 Likes
I’m about 20 hours in, bit of a mixed bag overall. And by mixed bag I mean “still a really great game, but I have complaints”. Overall really enjoying the story - much like the first game it’s the sci-fi bullshit I’m enjoying most and the tribal politics is just sort of there I guess but the presentation of the story is stellar and there’s a more enjoyable central cast of characters. Plus the game looks amazing, obviously.
Gameplay though? Gotta say, I think it’s a step down. There’s too much stuff that’s been added or expanded on that doesn’t actually make the experience better, it just makes it more complicated or adds more work to it. Combat kinda feels like they’ve nerfed a bunch of stuff at the expense of fun. And the new traversal/tools stuff is kind of neat but the way it’s integrated just seems to discourage you from doing open world stuff till you’ve unlocked them all like half way through the game (it seems, I still ain’t got them all yet).
Still though, having a blast - just feels a little dissapointing that it isn’t an all around step up.
Game looks great but lots of bugs and texture loading issues and pop ins people found Craig long lost brother
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This is just gorgeous looking.
Horizon’s world already looked lovely but its just really special now. I’ve greatly enjoyed working my way through the starting area, I love a lush post apocolypse 
Oh and a proper photo mode with camera settings which make sense. I’m gonna waste too much time.
Did anyone watch Peacemaker? Looks like the dad from Peacemaker
2 Likes
the guy looks like a Sifu NPC from across the room lol.
That’s a stylistic choice, this one is just funny.
Really enjoying the game so far. Definitely has its share of problems. Nothing game breaking though.
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Random time of day/weather changes, just running and it will jump from mid-day to middle of the night or from bright and sunny to a snowstorm instantly
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Traversal mechanics are still janky, especially climbing.
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Aloy talks…WAY WAY WAY too much. Even giving away puzzles/traversal puzzles immediately walking into the room “I should look up” or “I should insert solution”. Or even small things like picking berries. Anything you pick up beyond your inventory capacity automatically goes back to a stash where you can resupply, which is good, but EVERY. TIME. you pick some after that she exclaims "no room, these will be in my stash…and that is just a few examples.
While I will be starting over on Thursday, I played through the prologue. Yes it’s a gorgeous looking game with better character models and facial expressions. I do think the environments were “over done” meaning it’s too much. Looks amazing but a few times once I made it to the main map and fighting a few machines, there’s so much foliage and trees that I couldn’t even see the machines because they were behind it all. If I didn’t focus scan and mark the machines, I wouldn’t have known where the machines were.
Aside from that, Aloy does feel clunky/stiff compared to what I remember in HZD. Also, I don’t like the climbing or grapple hook. First, you can only grapple certain spots. Second, the climbing will give you various paths to reach a vertical/horizontal point and im thinking, why didn’t Guerrilla just make the climbing free like AC Origins/Odyssey/Valhalla?
Will see what happens when I restart the game on Thursday but I do feel that the climbing is old, outdated and obsolete. After playing those three AC games, any game that is similar and has mountain climbing and whatnot should have free climbing like those three AC games.
Combat wise, it’s still good but you’re directed to shoot off the certain parts off the machines instead of going after the machine itself. Granted, it adds more strategy and difficulty but at the same time, requires more patience as opposed to being more aggressive and going right after the machines. Playing on hard, machines have killed me in 1 or 2 hits which is ridiculous. Also, from what I have read, a few traps have been nerfed in regards to power and damage output compared to the first game. Won’t mention the traps but one of them was my favorite in HZD.
After playing 130+ hours of Dying Light 2, it could be that I just need a week or so break from playing another open world game.
2 Likes
I had the same reaction to the prologue, it’s technically incredible but there’s just too much going on visually. I’m glad the rest of the game seems to avoid this problem, I’d guess the resources they were able to put into visuals were different between the linear prologue and the open world main game so there was a slight scale back.
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So, after about 20 hours, I’ve finished it. Here are my thoughts, organized into the good and the bad.
The Good:
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Holy shit this game is stunning to look at. I mean, seriously, this is pretty unparalleled stuff. Definitely in the upper echelon of games graphics with Ghost, TLOU2, the Forza Horizon games, MSFS and RDR2. It looks amazing.
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The voice acting, much like in the first, is quite good. Burch and Reddick are of course great, as are the rest of the returning Zero Dawn cast. Erica Luttrel does some amazing work here as well, and even the celebrity cast members do a damn fine job and do not distract.
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The bow combat still feels great.
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The glider is a ton of fun to use and explore with.
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The cinematics are intricate and well-executed from a filmmaking point of view.
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The enemy encounters are still very well designed and are among the finest in the biz.
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The world here is still quite breathtaking. It’s a great setting with diverse biomes and rich lore. I think it’d make a great movie, and I think if Sony wants a GAAS hit, getting these assets in the hands of a survival game dev for a multiplayer experience is a must.
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Swimming is a natural addition that feels great.
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The new heroic characters are all welcome additions.
The Bad:
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The plot here is not great. The twists and turns are odd, characters disappear from the main story for large swathes of time, several attempts at satire come across laughably in all the wrong ways, the villains barring one are as thin as a sheet of rice paper. It’s not really that great.
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The tone of the game, is similarly, all over the place. The sci-fi and tribal elements feel far more detached here.
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Aloy, as a character, is a lot less likeable here. It’s one thing to be stoic, it’s another to be a prick, and far too often she falls more into the latter. This is compounded by less choices for her in the main story.
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Everything here feels extremely on rails for the missions. There is one way to do things, Aloy frequently spouts it out on even the non-guided mode before you even have a second to think for yourself, the stealth mechanics are lacking, you can viably carry your starting bow through 95% of the game on Normal, parts of the game are gated off so you approach in one specific way, choice and consequence of matter for the story is minimal, it basically comes down to Cutscene A or B or reward A or B. Hell, even climbing is cumbersome and only allowed where and when the devs say it’s allowed. It’s all incredibly on rails and something I’d hazard to call an RPG in this regard.
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The controls here are really cumbersome as multiple buttons have several functions mapped to them and the game can sometimes fail to keep up. The number of times I pressed the prompt to alight a fungus on fire just to have Aloy go into a charge attack is staggering.
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Several other weapons such as the trip caster feel nerfed.
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The game is still in a weird limbo of where it wants to be. Roleplaying and Stealth elements are scaled back in favour of more combat flourishes and cinematic elements but it still feels non-committal to either. It can’t quite decide whether it’s willing to go full RPG or full Open World Action-Adventure and thus it fails to reach its true potential as either.
All in all, it’s a good game, but I can’t help but wish it would’ve been a bit more. I feel this could have been the Uncharted 2 to Zero Dawn’s Drake’s Fortune and a big leap forward in identity for the franchise. Instead, it’s just mostly more of the same, without the freshness factor or a great story to carry it forward. Still, the foundation of Zero Dawn was solid as is, so more but bigger and in some cases, a bit better is far from a bad thing at all.
10 Likes
Question: How do you like the story of HZD.?
He has answered it I guess?
The first game. I sense many that did not enjoyed the story also did not enjoyed the story of yhe second game. I for one love the story of the first game.
I thought it was pretty decent. I liked the politics, world and characters as well as Aloy’s relationships with Rost and Ehren. The rest of the stuff was just ok.
i spend 75h on the first one. I liked its story but believe it had completed its purpose. Nothing can come close to unraveling the mystery on what happened. It seems the story on the new one is worse as i suspected.
Ya… Story is good
I don’t have any problem there
I finished it last night. Id give it a 7.5/10
The visual fidelity is incredible but under that coat of paint is a pretty run of the mill open world game.
5 Likes
Thanks for sharing. I had just finished HZD recently and had a good time. But this helps to justify my wait to get on sale during a gaming lull later this year to play through. I am currently playing through Dying Light 2 in the new performance VRR mode on Series X, and it is so freaking fun for me! I am spoiled by the parkour traversal in Dying Light 2 and Halo Infinite with the grappling hook, so clunky traversal does not add to the appeal right now on this one.
1 Like