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Horizon Forbidden West: Review Thread |

Chukhopops

Member
It's started strong for me and I'm in the first big area (the one with the plant city in the satellite dishes) and I could be on to the next area, but I just don't feel like turning on the game right now. Turning on the game would mean that I would have to deal with what I have to do next in order to check boxes as efficiently as possible. One problem with such games is also quite clear on me : I don't want to leave anything out. As a result, I'm often already oversaturated during a game and it feels like work. But another problem I can't help : story and characters are unfortunately kind of uninteresting, cliched and cheesy - at least yet. HZD was one of the best sci-fi games of the generation for me, storywise, but my fears that this is just more of the same but without that certain gimmick have unfortunately come true. In addition, many inconsistencies in the game world like the game world is illogical even in its logic - why are some wooden huts and houses from the old days still standing in areas exposed to strong weather and humidity? Then there is this way too overloaded control system with which I have a hard time with, quickly traversing rough terrain does not feel fluid and is inconsistent, sometimes I can climb, sometimes not, sometimes I get stuck on small edges, sometimes I jump over them, there are invisible walls or an indicator that I may not go further here, which tear me out of the immersion while playing. The quest design and the artificially created borders at places I already came to before the dev wanted me to do and the amount of collectibles just annoyed me too much in the end. I kind of wanted and still want to like the game, but as I progressed I became less and less warm to it until now I've finally come to terms with the idea of probably never playing it again.
But hey, at least it looks nice on PS5. Still doesn't make a great game.​
I agree with all of that, it’s one of those games where you have to force yourself to progress the main story and ignore the side content or you will burn yourself out by the time you finish.

To be fair it’s a very common open world issue, I’m playing Dying Light 2 right now and it’s even worse, you get bombarded with side activities wherever you go even if you don’t want to, and a lot of it is a bit pointless. It’s a better game than HFW overall though, which is really surprising to me.

I liked HFW overall but I disliked the story and I felt there was a looooot of cut content.
 

Kupfer

Member
I agree with all of that, it’s one of those games where you have to force yourself to progress the main story and ignore the side content or you will burn yourself out by the time you finish.

To be fair it’s a very common open world issue, I’m playing Dying Light 2 right now and it’s even worse, you get bombarded with side activities wherever you go even if you don’t want to, and a lot of it is a bit pointless. It’s a better game than HFW overall though, which is really surprising to me.

I liked HFW overall but I disliked the story and I felt there was a looooot of cut content.
That's why I never even toyed with the idea of playing DL2.
Pretty much all open world games are too bloated nowadays. I can't imagine that developers really think: "Woah that's cool, then we'll put in another collection quest here, at the end of which you get some trivial shit, and here again exactly the same thing in green. Collection item here, collection item there, collection items everywhere! People want to be kept busy. With what? Doesn't matter, the main thing is to stretch the game time".

The problem is that without such quests and activities, the world is boring. HFW is no exception. The game worlds are not dynamic, nothing happens when you cross them. Only "interesting" situations happen when you trigger them or run to a symbol on the map.

RDR2, for example, does this more unobtrusively. The game world seems lively, discreet. NPCs roam the area, animals follow their daily rhythm, you discover beautiful and interesting spots on your own and experience carefully interspersed situations that initially have nothing to do with the mission you are on. You are only a small part of the world here and not the center around which everything revolves. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. with its' A-Life felt felt something like that.

EDIT: got a little bit more precise.
 
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Vick

Gold Member
The game world seems lively, animated. NPCs roam the area, animals follow their daily rhythm, you discover beautiful and interesting spots on your own and experience carefully interspersed situations that initially have nothing to do with the mission you are on.
That's exactly the experience I had with Forbidden West open world.
 

Kupfer

Member
That's exactly the experience I had with Forbidden West open world.
I envy your look and impression of the game, how I would love to have as much fun with it as you do. But unfortunately I can't overlook the flaws I described.
 
ents like the valor surges, shield glider, bigger weapon wheel, flying mount, underwater exploring, melee (still needs work but now there's a few combos) many more skill upgrades, way better graphics, just about everything is better
Yes it has a lot more stuff...but the game is so badly optimized that you can go through most of the game without using any of that. It's all really cosmetic.

The first game all weapons were there for a reason. Here i was using mostly the harpoons or whatever those weapons are, the new ones... and would basically kill everything with those, lmao.

Also...climbing was never this bad. It's truly horrible to clinb anything now. Did the updates make that crap better?
 

Vick

Gold Member
I envy your look and impression of the game, how I would love to have as much fun with it as you do. But unfortunately I can't overlook the flaws I described.
It's weird considering I'm usually the most picky mf on the planet.
But if like in my case you're good at the game and enjoy the gameplay loop, enjoy the controls, enjoy the story and setting, enjoy the characters and enjoy what the game world has to offer, it's pretty much impossible to not have fun with it.

I see you also disliked GOW so I'd say our tastes are simply different.
 

Hobbygaming

has been asked to post in 'Grounded' mode.
Yes it has a lot more stuff...but the game is so badly optimized that you can go through most of the game without using any of that. It's all really cosmetic.

The first game all weapons were there for a reason. Here i was using mostly the harpoons or whatever those weapons are, the new ones... and would basically kill everything with those, lmao.

Also...climbing was never this bad. It's truly horrible to clinb anything now. Did the updates make that crap better?
Shooting canisters and weak components are still way more effective to take machines down. In the 1st game I could hit most machines with several heavy melee attacks to kill them

Climbing has some jank for sure but even that is better than the 1st game, just hold ⬆️ and when Aloy is reaching, just hit the jump button
 

Skifi28

Member
Worst part about the game is the climbing and what absolutely kills it is the developers never realised it, so there's tons and tons of climbing you have to do like they were proud of it and showing it off. Everything else is a big improvement over the original game.
 

BlackTron

Member
Worst part about the game is the climbing and what absolutely kills it is the developers never realised it, so there's tons and tons of climbing you have to do like they were proud of it and showing it off. Everything else is a big improvement over the original game.

There are other better notes they could take from Zelda.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
How can you say this when you admit to not even having played it?
I platinumed the first game. I have seen enough footage and feedback from players to get a good idea of what the game is and how it plays, what is worse with it in the climbing etc.

It's nit some huge departure from the first game. I can see that I would find it completely mediocre at best. I don't think it's hard to know that when you've spent like 100 hours in a game in a franchise that doesn't rewrite the rule book of the games mechanics.

Have you never felt similar about a franchise you knew wasn't for you but still interested you? There's parts of horizon I loved. The story for one. But there was things I took issue with and it seems that's what they doubled down on....Bloat.
 
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Vick

Gold Member
I platinumed the first game. I have seen enough footage and feedback from players to get a good idea of what the game is and how it plays, what is worse with it in the climbing etc.

It's nit some huge departure from the first game. I can see that I would find it completely mediocre at best. I don't think it's hard to know that when you've spent like 100 hours in a game in a franchise that doesn't rewrite the rule book of the games mechanics.

Have you never felt similar about a franchise you knew wasn't for you but still interested you? There's parts of horizon I loved. The story for one. But there was things I took issue with and it seems that's what they doubled down on....Bloat.
Not meant to disrespect but I've read enough posts of yours to say that it wouldn't be the first time you play and enjoy "mediocre at best" stuff.

It's factually hard to find meaningful "mediocre" stuff in Forbidden West, combat is best or among the best in open worlds, controls are snappy and super precise (I play with no reticle), story is good to great, lore is great, characters range from good to great and look more real than pretty much any other game ever, sound is phenomenal, biomes are stunning, open world filled with robots and, well, the game looks like this.

f5rfIh2.png

horizonforbiddenwest_xfjhb.png

aTNIEMG.jpeg




I don't see how someone who enjoyed Zero Dawn would not like what's a colossal improvement in almost every way.. even if you say you're afraid of "bloat" and are possibly open worlds burnout, so I'd suggest to just wait for a sale as the game is absolutely full of content and side stuff, gameplay aside, is only really enjoyable as long as you're invested with the lore or story, and much of it straight from the usual CDPR/Ubisoft/Rockstar formula.. even if CD games wished they played like this, Ubisoft games obviously don't play as great nor look as good and are rarely if ever as competent and compelling when it comes to story and characters, R* games definitely don't play as snappy and precise and don't feature open worlds filled with giant deadly creatures and imaginative stuff found in every inch of the game world.

Climbing isn't "worse" than Zero Dawn at all by the way. Actually good luck going back to it after getting used to traversal in this game.

Sorry if I came off as somewhat defensive, but that "mediocre at best" really rubbed me the wrong way after the amount of times I've said to myself "This game is special" during the play through. You said you've read enough comments to make up your mind on it, but maybe the The Cockatrice The Cockatrice (the PC gamer who didn't even liked the first game) comments on the game left in multiple threads might be worth looking into..
 
Not meant to disrespect but I've read enough posts of yours to say that it wouldn't be the first time you play and enjoy "mediocre at best" stuff.

It's factually hard to find meaningful "mediocre" stuff in Forbidden West, combat is best or among the best in open worlds, controls are snappy and super precise (I play with no reticle), story is good to great, lore is great, characters range from good to great and look more real than pretty much any other game ever, sound is phenomenal, biomes are stunning, open world filled with robots and, well, the game looks like this.

f5rfIh2.png

horizonforbiddenwest_xfjhb.png

aTNIEMG.jpeg




I don't see how someone who enjoyed Zero Dawn would not like what's a colossal improvement in almost every way.. even if you say you're afraid of "bloat" and are possibly open worlds burnout, so I'd suggest to just wait for a sale as the game is absolutely full of content and side stuff, gameplay aside, is only really enjoyable as long as you're invested with the lore or story, and much of it straight from the usual CDPR/Ubisoft/Rockstar formula.. even if CD games wished they played like this, Ubisoft games obviously don't play as great nor look as good and are rarely if ever as competent and compelling when it comes to story and characters, R* games definitely don't play as snappy and precise and don't feature open worlds filled with giant deadly creatures and imaginative stuff found in every inch of the game world.

Climbing isn't "worse" than Zero Dawn at all by the way. Actually good luck going back to it after getting used to traversal in this game.

Sorry if I came off as somewhat defensive, but that "mediocre at best" really rubbed me the wrong way after the amount of times I've said to myself "This game is special" during the play through. You said you've read enough comments to make up your mind on it, but maybe the The Cockatrice The Cockatrice (the PC gamer who didn't even liked the first game) comments on the game left in multiple threads might be worth looking into..
I’m sorry man. I read this and I just can’t get behind it. Maybe that other poster was right that people who loved the first game are more disappointed in this one than people who didn’t - but I gotta say I can easily go back to HZD without the climbing mechanic they introduced. The climbing mechanic - it actually upsets me, this in between place it’s in where it’s clumsy and limited in a bunch of ways - I’d really rather it just not be there like HZD. I think the game would be far more enjoyable without it. Adding it into the gameplay loop was a huge misstep imo.

If you’re going to add climbing then make it like, at least assassins creed level. Or something similar - no climbing at all at least I’m very aware of my limitations in the game and I don’t have to interact with it.
 
I platinumed the first game. I have seen enough footage and feedback from players to get a good idea of what the game is and how it plays, what is worse with it in the climbing etc.

It's nit some huge departure from the first game. I can see that I would find it completely mediocre at best. I don't think it's hard to know that when you've spent like 100 hours in a game in a franchise that doesn't rewrite the rule book of the games mechanics.

Have you never felt similar about a franchise you knew wasn't for you but still interested you? There's parts of horizon I loved. The story for one. But there was things I took issue with and it seems that's what they doubled down on....Bloat.
Sorry if I came off as somewhat defensive, but that "mediocre at best" really rubbed me the wrong way after the amount of times I've said to myself "This game is special" during the play through. You said you've read enough comments to make up your mind on it, but maybe the The Cockatrice The Cockatrice The Cockatrice The Cockatrice (the PC gamer who didn't even liked the first game) comments on the game left in multiple threads might be worth looking into..

I indeed find it odd that someone who has plat the first game because I assume has enjoyed it, found the improved version of it "mediocre at best". Lets gets the best facts out of the way. Atmosphere, tech, graphics, and character development is superior to the first. No one who says otherwise is correct. The hub base alone is something that reminded me of Bioware games and I'm glad they took inspiration from them, having a place to take extra quests, and take your companions with you in their own unique and quite frankly very good side-quests was a HUGE improvement rather than just go here do that and come back with 0 attachments to the quest givers like in the first game. Gameplay also has seen a big improvement, with deadlier and more varied enemies as well as having a more RPG'ish nature with all those skills. More weapons? Check. Better and more armos? Check. Alright maybe u didnt like the fact that arrows now have to pierce not hit the metal else they dont do shit, that is fine, it's certainly a more realistic approach but not really an improvement. What the fuck is left? Ah the main story. Yes, that is indeed something of each and everyones personal preference. People "loved" the first story because of the twist. That is fucking it. After its revealed you get the generic, fight the evil bad man and the end. Sadly FW does not imrpove much either on that regard either, and the twist was a bit, obvious, compared to the first. So thats it, thats the only thing I can maybe agree on that FW suffers but FW isnt not a game about the main story, its a game about the people. Every single side-quest has a story to it, theyre not just stupid do this and that, all of them have some awesome characters that youll love like when you go to vegas and light up the sky. HFW is not about the main story, it's about the people you meet and help and maybe thats why it has so many haters because people cant fucking appreciate anything that is not shoved in their face.

HFW is atm my GOTY and I am still shocked that Im saying this, despite being a game with very...feminists views, a sequel to a game that I gave like a 7 or something. One day you'll replay it and youll notice the details you prolly skipped or rushed or didnt bother to check out.

EDIT: ah yes the climbing sucks. :) If theres one thing AC does good is that climbing up shit is satisfying. I'm assuming they did that due to the insane-level design of the machine factories, and their puzzle mechanics. They'd be far easier if you could climb everything. Maybe on the third game they can separate those areas in climbing mechanics to the outside and let us climb mountains and whatnot freely when not in those specific areas.
 
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Vick

Gold Member
I’m sorry man. I read this and I just can’t get behind it. Maybe that other poster was right that people who loved the first game are more disappointed in this one than people who didn’t - but I gotta say I can easily go back to HZD without the climbing mechanic they introduced. The climbing mechanic - it actually upsets me, this in between place it’s in where it’s clumsy and limited in a bunch of ways - I’d really rather it just not be there like HZD. I think the game would be far more enjoyable without it. Adding it into the gameplay loop was a huge misstep imo.

If you’re going to add climbing then make it like, at least assassins creed level. Or something similar - no climbing at all at least I’m very aware of my limitations in the game and I don’t have to interact with it.
It's not a matter of climbing alone, going back to HZD with no Shieldwing is a damn pain in the ass. I'd say almost impossible even. And no air mount, no grappling hook and much inferior jump physics.

As the user above me said, being able to climb every surface would simply kill any sense of progression and destroy lots of story points.
It isn't ideal or on par with Assassin's Creed games or Uncharted, that's true, but is it bad enough to ruin the experience or list it as a reason to not buy the game? Not even remotely close. There's tons of praised games with inferior climbing.
And it's not like you're forced to climb stuff all the time here anyway.
 
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Kupfer

Member
It's not a matter of climbing alone, going back to HZD with no windshield is a damn pain in the ass. I'd say almost impossible even. And no air mount, no grappling hook and much inferior jump physics.

As the user above me said, being able to climb every surface would simply kill any sense of progression and destroy lots of story points.
It isn't ideal or on par with Assassin's Creed games or Uncharted, that's true, but is it bad enough to ruin the experience or list it as a reason to not buy the game? Not even remotely close. There's tons of praised games with inferior climbing.
And it's not like you're forced to climb stuff all the time here anyway.
As I said before, I wish the game would excite me as much as it excites you. After all, I paid money for it and have already spent a few hours, about 20 hours, ingame. And even if you praise the game and can not or want not to understand that some can not get along with it as much as you do, although they liked the predecessor, you have to accept that for some players simply applies: less is sometimes more. I also have platinum in HZD and found it phenomenal just because of the origin story of the world, the story around the individual characters and the characters themselves were for me already weak in the first game, the second makes it no better. I also cancelled the HZD add-on after an hour, because I wasn't really interested in what was happening. Aloy was just a way for me to find out how this world came to be, she was my tool to get to the bottom of it. But I'm not interested in what my tool thinks and what other tools it likes to hang out with, I'm interested in the result of the work I do with the tool. And in HFW, I don't feel like I'm getting a satisfying result because my tools do everything but work with purpose and precision.
 
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Vick

Gold Member
As I said before, I wish the game would excite me as much as it excites you. After all, I paid money for it and have already spent a few hours, about 20 hours, ingame. And even if you praise the game and can not or want not to understand that some can not get along with it as much as you do, although they liked the predecessor, you have to accept that for some players simply applies: less is sometimes more. I also have platinum in HZD and found it phenomenal just because of the origin story of the world, the story around the individual characters and the characters themselves were for me already weak in the first game, the second makes it no better. I also cancelled the HZD add-on after an hour, because I wasn't really interested in what was happening. Aloy was just a way for me to find out how this world came to be, she was my tool to get to the bottom of it. But I'm not interested in what my tool thinks and what other tools it likes to hang out with, I'm interested in the result of the work I do with the tool. And in HFW, I don't feel like I'm getting a satisfying result because my tools do everything but work with purpose and precision.
20 hours? So you barely just left the prologue/tutorial, and if you're much further than that you simply missed lots of content that help contextualize lore and story.. which is what's apparently interesting to you. I don't know what to say after hundreds of hours.. keep playing I guess, you have literally no idea where the story is going, what the characters have to offer, what landscape transformative actions you're about to perform, what abilities you're about to unlock, etc. etc. etc.

You're free to shit on the game all you want for your own reasons, I couldn't care less. But being excited for the third part and loving this series, it's when I read "I hope Guerrilla listen to all this feedback" that I feel like I have to post, as said feedback is simply going against what I enjoyed for hundreds of hours by properly playing the game. Improve on the climbing? Fine, but it stops there.
 

Kupfer

Member
20 hours? So you barely just left the prologue/tutorial, and if you're much further than that you simply missed lots of content that help contextualize lore and story.. which is what's apparently interesting to you. I don't know what to say after hundreds of hours.. keep playing I guess, you have literally no idea where the story is going, what the characters have to offer, what landscape transformative actions you're about to perform, what abilities you're about to unlock, etc. etc. etc.

You're free to shit on the game all you want for your own reasons, I couldn't care less. But being excited for the third part and loving this series, it's when I read "I hope Guerrilla listen to all this feedback" that I feel like I have to post, as said feedback is simply going against what I enjoyed for hundreds of hours by properly playing the game. Improve on the climbing? Fine, but it stops there.
Like I said here : "It's started strong for me and I'm in the first big area (the one with the plant city in the satellite dishes) and I could be on to the next area"

The game already offered me lots of mainquets, sidequests and story.

I met Elizabeth's clone, the strange guys from the spaceship, supposedly know that the Odyssey didn't explode or that there was some other project to save the old humanity and that they now want to get at the "new world".
I have activated Gaia and am now supposed to find more fragments to complete the program.

But all that just doesn't interest me. On top of that, Aloy has such an annoying nature that it's just super hard for me to like her. All the time she has something to say about everything and everyone and can't just shut up and let me do my thing.

(Why the fuck should I care about some half-starved wayfarers or miners when the whole world is close to the abyss - is she the fucking reincarnation of mother Theresa or what).


As I said before, the game actually started out quite well and atmospheric for me, but when the world opened up and "all possibilities" opened up for me, it simply became too much work. In addition, I'm artificially held back by text boxes when I climb somewhere I'm not supposed to go yet. That's just not good design, and other games do it better. In Far Cry 2004, there's a helicopter that shoots me down if I go too far out. In HFW, I'm simply shown "You can't go here yet" and I'm standing in front of an invisible wall.

I also don't really want to badmouth the game as much as I'm doing here right now. I see that it does a lot of things really well and people like it. For me, it's just too much of stuff that doesn't interest me and too little of what I would like.

I'm probably just tired of the Sony formula by now though. I'm noticing how I'm avoiding these Sony open world games more and more and prefer to play smaller, more linear games that aren't so bloated and manage to keep a tension that keeps me involved.



There's no reason to answer my questions and concerns, we don't agree anyway. For me, this kind of game just doesn't seem to be what motivates me and keeps me in front of the screen (anymore).
 
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Vick

Gold Member
There's no reason to answer my questions and concerns, we don't agree anyway. For me, this kind of game just doesn't seem to be what motivates me and keeps me in front of the screen (anymore).
Fine, different strokes for different folks. On the other hand these kind of single player, well made games are literally what's left keeping me in this hobby.

But i'll leave with this suggestion, since you already bought the game and got to that point: at the very least activate Poseidon. What happens from there is one of the most beautiful and awe inspiring things I've seen in 20+ years of gaming.
 

Kupfer

Member
Fine, different strokes for different folks. On the other hand these kind of single player, well made games are literally what's left keeping me in this hobby.

But i'll leave with this suggestion, since you already bought the game and got to that point: at the very least activate Poseidon. What happens from there is one of the most beautiful and awe inspiring things I've seen in 20+ years of gaming.
I'll keep that in mind. Winter is coming and maybe I have nothing better to do on the one or other rainy day.
 

Beer Baelly

Al Pachinko, Konami President
It's not a matter of climbing alone, going back to HZD with no windshield is a damn pain in the ass. I'd say almost impossible even. And no air mount, no grappling hook and much inferior jump physics.

As the user above me said, being able to climb every surface would simply kill any sense of progression and destroy lots of story points.
It isn't ideal or on par with Assassin's Creed games or Uncharted, that's true, but is it bad enough to ruin the experience or list it as a reason to not buy the game? Not even remotely close. There's tons of praised games with inferior climbing.
And it's not like you're forced to climb stuff all the time here anyway.

Ive got a windshield on my car but never seen one in FW.
 

Ogbert

Member
Worst part about the game is the climbing and what absolutely kills it is the developers never realised it, so there's tons and tons of climbing you have to do like they were proud of it and showing it off. Everything else is a big improvement over the original game.
To be honest, the climbing feels like they said ‘shit, after BoTW we absolutely have to add it in’, but the engine just doesn’t allow them to do it smoothly.

It’s a real pity. There are moments when the game absolutely starts to come together and you think it’s amazing, and then a little bit of jank comes in and undermines the effect.
 

GymWolf

Member
Hfw was a very strange case for me, the previous one was my game of the gen so i was probably the biggest fan of the game in the entire forum, and even if fw is technically better in almost all things, i liked it way less.

Like with the first one i had to do everything in the map, but in the sequel? I have probably like 20 hours of side content left (and i played the damn thing for well over 50 hours), i'm already sure that i'm gonna like ragnarock way more even if the technical aspect is way better in fw.

I guess the story (or at least the third part of the game) being way worse and not having the mistery of the past played a big role in my judgement.

I could speak a lot about the game but i can't pin point why i was so disappointed even if like i said the majority of the game is superior to zero dawn.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Not meant to disrespect but I've read enough posts of yours to say that it wouldn't be the first time you play and enjoy "mediocre at best" stuff.

It's factually hard to find meaningful "mediocre" stuff in Forbidden West, combat is best or among the best in open worlds, controls are snappy and super precise (I play with no reticle), story is good to great, lore is great, characters range from good to great and look more real than pretty much any other game ever, sound is phenomenal, biomes are stunning, open world filled with robots and, well, the game looks like this.

f5rfIh2.png

horizonforbiddenwest_xfjhb.png

aTNIEMG.jpeg




I don't see how someone who enjoyed Zero Dawn would not like what's a colossal improvement in almost every way.. even if you say you're afraid of "bloat" and are possibly open worlds burnout, so I'd suggest to just wait for a sale as the game is absolutely full of content and side stuff, gameplay aside, is only really enjoyable as long as you're invested with the lore or story, and much of it straight from the usual CDPR/Ubisoft/Rockstar formula.. even if CD games wished they played like this, Ubisoft games obviously don't play as great nor look as good and are rarely if ever as competent and compelling when it comes to story and characters, R* games definitely don't play as snappy and precise and don't feature open worlds filled with giant deadly creatures and imaginative stuff found in every inch of the game world.

Climbing isn't "worse" than Zero Dawn at all by the way. Actually good luck going back to it after getting used to traversal in this game.

Sorry if I came off as somewhat defensive, but that "mediocre at best" really rubbed me the wrong way after the amount of times I've said to myself "This game is special" during the play through. You said you've read enough comments to make up your mind on it, but maybe the The Cockatrice The Cockatrice (the PC gamer who didn't even liked the first game) comments on the game left in multiple threads might be worth looking into..

No need to apologize, the game is gorgeous. Beautiful images and gifs. Let me apologize for the "mediocre at best" comment. Let's change it to, not for me right now.

I will deffo pick it up for cheap and I will happily come here and admit if i end up enjoying it. I also promise that I will not do some..."Well I bought it, its SHITE like I knew it would be" post as it is not my style. I don't play like that.
 
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It's not a matter of climbing alone, going back to HZD with no Shieldwing is a damn pain in the ass. I'd say almost impossible even. And no air mount, no grappling hook and much inferior jump physics.

As the user above me said, being able to climb every surface would simply kill any sense of progression and destroy lots of story points.
It isn't ideal or on par with Assassin's Creed games or Uncharted, that's true, but is it bad enough to ruin the experience or list it as a reason to not buy the game? Not even remotely close. There's tons of praised games with inferior climbing.
And it's not like you're forced to climb stuff all the time here anyway.
I get why the climbing is limited due to design of some stuff - but that’s a problem of the game imo. For me it absolutely is experience ruining, the pacing gets all fucked up by it - it’s a total slog to use that makes me actively not want to play it . Maybe the next one they’ll fix it, like if you make it assassins creed style or design the game around you being able to climb anything - that would be a huge improvement.

Otherwise my tastes are different, I’m not super intrigued by sinking time into side quests - they, I’m sure, are better than horizon zero dawn. But I don’t play games for the side quest narratives and it takes a lot to entice me into caring - they haven’t. The story I don’t necessarily think is that bad, I don’t hate it - but fighting the high tech humans wasnt fun for me.

Generally I think they built off the framework of the first, and the basics are improved, but they also added a bunch of stuff that makes it feel convoluted, and for me doesn’t add much of anything meaningful but complications. I vastly prefer the simplicity of the first game.
 

scydrex

Member
it´s $31.59 on Cdkeys right now. Not sure if buy it now digital or wait for BF to buy it physical.

Edit: I brought it for $31 can't say no... let see tonight how it's. I eally liked the first one. Almost got the plantinum. From what i read this one is better in everything but too long? Well let's play in the balanced 40fps mode.
 
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GymWolf

Member
Sylens working on more HFW content (expansion/DLC).
Imagine if they put the re-capture of hephestus in the dlc.

The problem is, how do you justify aggressive dinobot around the world after that? i guess they could say that the dinobot that are already out are not hackable from distance and they remain with their old aggressive program.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Hfw was a very strange case for me, the previous one was my game of the gen so i was probably the biggest fan of the game in the entire forum, and even if fw is technically better in almost all things, i liked it way less.

Like with the first one i had to do everything in the map, but in the sequel? I have probably like 20 hours of side content left (and i played the damn thing for well over 50 hours), i'm already sure that i'm gonna like ragnarock way more even if the technical aspect is way better in fw.

I guess the story (or at least the third part of the game) being way worse and not having the mistery of the past played a big role in my judgement.

I could speak a lot about the game but i can't pin point why i was so disappointed even if like i said the majority of the game is superior to zero dawn.
I can pinpoint it just fine. The game feels too samey. I called it last year when I pointed out that these games are already 50 hours long and we have our fill with the game design, combat design, and gameplay loop in those 50 hours. Unlike say Uncharted and GoW which were 8-10 hours long and only started to feel samey in the 3rd or 4th entries.

This is a classic case of sequel fatigue that plagued games like GoW Ascension and Gears of War Judgement. Devs have absolutely no new ideas so they start needlessly tinkering with perfect systems and end up fucking it all up. I couldnt believe how underwhelming the combat was this time around. Your bow shots should never hit for 1 damage. Enemies shouldnt immobilize you for 3-5 seconds. Enemies shouldnt be jumping around constantly. The 1st game was perfect. Challenging but not annoying. Having enemies constantly sway and constantly charge is so fucking annoying. Something so simple completely destroyed the combat loop.

All those new weapons and new ammo types? Useless. More isnt always better. Bigger isnt always better. Whoever thought focusing so much on swimming is an idiot. Swimming is never fun in video games. You cant even have combat while swimming so why add it? Why put so much emphasis on climbing and then completely screw it up. How can any gameplay feature in a game that took 5 years to make be as clunky as climbing was in HFW.

I still liked my time with the game. I dont think its a bad game, but its not a great game let alone a GOTY like HZD for me. I even liked the story, but playing the game simply wasnt as fun as it shouldve been. Id give it a 7/10. Good, but not great. The first was a 9/10 for me.
 

GymWolf

Member
I can pinpoint it just fine. The game feels too samey. I called it last year when I pointed out that these games are already 50 hours long and we have our fill with the game design, combat design, and gameplay loop in those 50 hours. Unlike say Uncharted and GoW which were 8-10 hours long and only started to feel samey in the 3rd or 4th entries.

This is a classic case of sequel fatigue that plagued games like GoW Ascension and Gears of War Judgement. Devs have absolutely no new ideas so they start needlessly tinkering with perfect systems and end up fucking it all up. I couldnt believe how underwhelming the combat was this time around. Your bow shots should never hit for 1 damage. Enemies shouldnt immobilize you for 3-5 seconds. Enemies shouldnt be jumping around constantly. The 1st game was perfect. Challenging but not annoying. Having enemies constantly sway and constantly charge is so fucking annoying. Something so simple completely destroyed the combat loop.

All those new weapons and new ammo types? Useless. More isnt always better. Bigger isnt always better. Whoever thought focusing so much on swimming is an idiot. Swimming is never fun in video games. You cant even have combat while swimming so why add it? Why put so much emphasis on climbing and then completely screw it up. How can any gameplay feature in a game that took 5 years to make be as clunky as climbing was in HFW.

I still liked my time with the game. I dont think its a bad game, but its not a great game let alone a GOTY like HZD for me. I even liked the story, but playing the game simply wasnt as fun as it shouldve been. Id give it a 7/10. Good, but not great. The first was a 9/10 for me.
I think i had more problem plot wise or with the new tribes than the combat itself, but i'm with you for the swimming and climbing.

I think the novelty of the brand just wore off too fast in my case and i can't explain why since we are just at the second game in the saga and many sequels have less changes than going between zero down and FW.

Also i can't explain myself why i had little to no problems with movements and combat on the first one but i kinda didn't enjoyed this one as much even if FW combat system is basically superior in every aspect.

Like i said, this game is an extremely weird case to me.

I would score objectively both games a 7,5-8 but i liked ZD like a 10 and FW like a 7 if that make sense.
 
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Vick

Gold Member
I can pinpoint it just fine. The game feels too samey. I called it last year when I pointed out that these games are already 50 hours long and we have our fill with the game design, combat design, and gameplay loop in those 50 hours. Unlike say Uncharted and GoW which were 8-10 hours long and only started to feel samey in the 3rd or 4th entries.
This is an interesting point. The issue lies in how much do you find mechanics good or addicting, if they are there's no fatigue. Finding Horizon bow combat extremely addicting, that was never going to be the case for me.

This is a classic case of sequel fatigue that plagued games like GoW Ascension and Gears of War Judgement. Devs have absolutely no new ideas so they start needlessly tinkering with perfect systems and end up fucking it all up. I couldnt believe how underwhelming the combat was this time around. Your bow shots should never hit for 1 damage. Enemies shouldnt immobilize you for 3-5 seconds. Enemies shouldnt be jumping around constantly. The 1st game was perfect. Challenging but not annoying. Having enemies constantly sway and constantly charge is so fucking annoying. Something so simple completely destroyed the combat loop.
Disagree of course, combat was more challenging than before yes, but not too much to be frustrating. And again, I played at max difficulty with no reticle..

All those new weapons and new ammo types? Useless. More isnt always better. Bigger isnt always better. Whoever thought focusing so much on swimming is an idiot. Swimming is never fun in video games.
Oh come on, swimming in this game was a fucking treat and an absolute highlight for me. Fuck off man, that's what I meant with misplaced feedback.

I would agree on too many weapons and ammo being a sort of waste given I basically only use the Hunter Bow.. but many players used them so why took options away from them?
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
This is an interesting point. The issue lies in how much do you find mechanics good or addicting, if they are there's no fatigue. Finding Horizon bow combat extremely addicting, that was never going to be the case for me.


Disagree of course, combat was more challenging than before yes, but not too much to be frustrating. And again, I played at max difficulty with no reticle..


Oh come on, swimming in this game was a fucking treat and an absolute highlight for me. Fuck off man, that's what I meant with misplaced feedback.

I would agree on too many weapons and ammo being a sort of waste given I basically only use the Hunter Bow.. but many players used them so why took options away from them?
Swimming to me is basically like walking in games. There is no real interaction other than pressing up. No challenge. No puzzle. It's the worst form of video game interactions. It was poor when Raiden had to carry Emma in MGS2. It's poor today even when you're not running out of breath. Adds nothing to the core combat and is just there to say hey we have something new.

I dont mind options, but like GOW Ascension, when you introduce a lot of new needless things, it ends up taking the attention away from the core systems which simply werent that engaging this time around. To me, HZD's combat was perfect. How do you improve upon perfection? You cant so you go and start introducing new things and tweaking existing features that take away from what made combat so great. Adding Acid didnt make combat better, did it? Nah, they just made armor impossible to break without acid and you ended up getting 1 damage markers which completely ruined the satisfaction of the hunter bow combat. They nerfed Freeze arrows? Why? Added new adhesive arrows and just messed up the whole flow of the combat.

All because they tied themselves to last gen and couldnt add any meaningful upgrades like destruction, physics, flying combat, better AI, better NPC AI, better ways to take down dinobots like we saw in the original concept art. It was just more of the same.

They said they were able to do everything they set out to do. And yet in the final mission, they had an amazing battle with hundreds of dinobots and alien robots and they literally skip all of it and just made it a cutscene. That is what the sequel needed. Big massive battles. Not needless tweaks to acid arrows, climbing and freaking swimming.
 

Vick

Gold Member
Swimming to me is basically like walking in games. There is no real interaction other than pressing up. No challenge. No puzzle. It's the worst form of video game interactions. It was poor when Raiden had to carry Emma in MGS2. It's poor today even when you're not running out of breath. Adds nothing to the core combat and is just there to say hey we have something new.
Nah man, couldn't disagree any more. Like wtf, the worst form of videogame interaction being able to fully explore locations at 360°? Dude..
The amount of time i've spent exploring underwater location is unhealthy. Felt and looked so fucking good.

BlindConventionalBarebirdbat-size_restricted.gif


Only GIF I could find.. lol. But yeah, underwater combat would be great. And you know it's coming.

All because they tied themselves to last gen and couldnt add any meaningful upgrades like destruction, physics, flying combat, better AI, better NPC AI, better ways to take down dinobots like we saw in the original concept art. It was just more of the same.

They said they were able to do everything they set out to do. And yet in the final mission, they had an amazing battle with hundreds of dinobots and alien robots and they literally skip all of it and just made it a cutscene. That is what the sequel needed. Big massive battles. Not needless tweaks to acid arrows, climbing and freaking swimming.
Yeah, that's the old cross-gen rant i've always completely agreed with.
 
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GymWolf

Member
How do you konw and where are you basing your comment from? Have you seen something we havent?
Wishful thinking maybe, hopefully he is wrong.

I REALLY would like if they fix the combat against humans and how shitty the melee still feels instead of thinking about tertiary things like underwater combat.

Priorities priorities folks.
 

Vick

Gold Member
How do you konw and where are you basing your comment from? Have you seen something we havent?
No, but I think it's obvious they're going to do so in the third chapter, or maybe even in the DLC, given how much people were clamoring for it.
 

GymWolf

Member
No, but I think it's obvious they're going to do so in the third chapter, or maybe even in the DLC, given how much people were clamoring for it.
How can you adapt a fast paced combat like horizon during underwater sections? it would be clunky and unfun as hell or just dumbed down in challenge to not be frustrating.

I fail to remember any game in history with great and fun underwater combat in third person...

Why not optimize the other 349385908083045 systems they have already instead of adding something really unneccessary?
 

Vick

Gold Member
How can you adapt a fast paced combat like horizon during underwater sections? it would be clunky and unfun as hell or just dumbed down in challenge to not be frustrating.

I fail to remember any game in history with great and fun underwater combat in third person...

Why not optimize the other 349385908083045 systems they have already instead of adding something really unneccessary?
Yeah I mean, I wouldn't expect it be something prominent, just a little more to do underwater against those few swimming enemies.
 

GymWolf

Member
Yeah I mean, I wouldn't expect it be something prominent, just a little more to do underwater against those few swimming enemies.
Since they have limited development time, i would just prefer if they focus on improving existent mechanics instead of introducing something that is really not needed, everything they work on steal time to other things.

The core of the game is always gonna be on foot exploration and combat.

But if you liked swimming that much, maybe they are gonna make you happy and add something, who knows.
 
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