Horizon Zero Dawn (2017)

the good:

• the main story is well made. quite interesting and engaging, but kinda gets lost in the big open world, which is unfortunate. beside that it's well staged all around and the theme was great. i've had quite some fun exploring those ancient dungeons, learning about the past and what happened to humanity.
• liked the world building and how the game is giving you insights about what happened to this world step by step, although the quality of some of those datapoints is kinda lucklustre. overall it was still great, very atmospheric and reproducible.
• the graphics are amazing and the world design is excellent. walking through these beautiful environments is an appealing and enjoyable experience, since all of the areas are well crafted and the atmosphere just hits. certain places like mother's cradle, meridian, and lot more throughout the main story will make you speechless for a moment.
• deph and usefulness of weapons and traps. there are many tools and weapons. almost all of em are quite necessary for fighting those enormous machines since they have different weaknesses and weakspots.
• overall combat and controls. plays well and everything feels polished. with a minor exception for dodge - dodging through those massive attacks can get narrow.
• fierce and relentless combat (at least on higher difficulties). the devs got the feeling of fighting those dangerous dinosaur machines done right.
• the sound design is quite good. soundtrack was decent as well, but nothing outstanding.
• the cauldron dungeons were straight awesome. loved the dungeon crawling - decent mix of stealth, combat and a huge boss fight at the end.
• almost no bugs and glitches at this point compared to the disastrous start of this pc release.

the debatable:

~ not enough side quests for a game this size and the diversity of those available is lackluster. most of 'em are "track target human or machine x, follow some trails and kill the target", rinse and repeat. some might argue that the game's theme is about hunting, but there is just not enough variance for my taste. the quality of the sidequest was improved in the frozen wilds expansion tho so it's not a full negative.

~ the open world is looking very good and there is some appeal in exploring, but on the other hand it still feels empty and the map is simply too big for the lack of content. there is basically no reward for free exploring outside of those odd texts. there are almost no special places to find, no treasures to hunt, no fancy loot or anything.

~ crafting system and farming feels more like a chore to get everything you need and nothing you could possibly craft really stands out. i'm not a big fan of those trivial survival game kind of crafting systems.

~ herb healing system. gathering those plants for small batches of hp is tedious and gets annoying really quick. especially on harder difficulties where single hits eat up your health fast. the potions are fine tho. this is getting buffed (but not completely fixed) in the frozen wilds expansions.

~ english dub isn't too great for an aaa production.

the bad:

• lootboxes everywhere. it's a shame and in my opinion the worst part of horizon: zero dawn. almost all of them contain some random stuff that is easily farmed in a couple of minutes or others with even worse stuff like green mods. almost no chest or any container feels rewarding in this game which is a huge drawback in games like this.
• bad enemy ki and stealth breaking it even further. it's so odd when you shoot a machine and the whole world is hunting you forever. on the other hand, if you're using the stealth armor + mods no machine ever will find you, if you don't want it. then there are human enemies and especially those fights are kinda awkward and hilariously bad in general.
• the final rewards for putting dozens of hours into gathering all of the collectibles are atrocious. like 500 scrap and a couple of mod lootboxes, mostly containing green mods. not even a single line of text from the npc for bringing everything they've asked for. it was quite disappointing all around.
• random friendly npc's stealing your kills and the exp. the loot is yours, but the exp is gone. not an elegant solution and quite frustrating when hunting some of the bigger machines.
• odd facial expressions in dialogues.
• so many odd reactions and behaviour from aloy and other npcs all along. aloy acting totally out of character many times, constantly nagging and complaining about random stuff. the same goes for some utter cringe moment like avad flirting with aloy out of nowhere in the worst situation.
• alt + tab bug completely breaking the game with massive graphics glitches. game has to be restarted at this point since it's unplayable
• stormbirds tied down with a ropecaster potentially glitch through the floor and sometimes fall completely through the map, bugging animations for some time.

7/10

When the game was released for PS4 I heard a lot of good things about it from some friends and online opinions.

But I guess I am quite different from the rest of the people because I didn't feel same way about the game.

I must say that game is really beautiful and attractive to the eyes, the world is really nice and there is variety of zones. The first hours of gaming it is really enjoyable but some hours laters you enjoy less and less. You realize that you are doing same things the last 20 hours. Anything new. No new habilities, no new enemies, argument is not catchy at all.... and then I realized that I was just playing because I started it and keep the routine.

As I said, I got bored and didn't finished, maybe in some time I play it again to the end but, at this moment I have no interest on it.

So I went into this with mitigated expectations. On one hand I'm really not a big fan of the open world formula, I've been avoiding most of those (BOTW is my nemesis) but once in a while there will be one with a good enough setting/story/characters/gameplay that will convince me to try it. That was the setting that did it for HZD and it didn't disappoint on this particular element, the world is beautiful and the concept is pretty cool, the monster design is impressive.

But everything else is just meh ...

The story is just bland Sci-fi ecological plot that we've seen a hundred times, I'm usually a sucker for those (FFVII <3) but this time it felt particularly uninspired.

The quests are mostly fetch or hunts so nothing really new.

And I REAAAALLY didn't like the gameplay. For me action RPG and bow is a formula that doesn't work. Having to constantly run from ennemies to reposition in order to aim at weak points is something I'm willing to do in a MMO or when there's aggro strategy/tank etc ... but here it just sucks of the dynamic of most fights and forces you to cheese through most of the boss battles. When I saw big monsters I was hoping for something closer to Monster Hunter but it was clearly the opposite, enemies that come right at you with limited patterns while you repeat the same move over and over until those arrow sponges stop walking.

I would have really liked more options for the spear but it quickly becomes completely useless since even in stealth you won't be able to one shot most enemies and the damage output is ridiculous compared to the risk you take when moving Aloy so close to the baddies.

I didn't have a bad time playing the game, but it is pretty forgettable in my opinion.

While writing this, I have noticed that my comments may make it look like I didn't like this game. However, I did quite enjoy it and would highly recommend it for people who like open world rpgs.

I was not sure if I was actually having fun for a large (mid) segment of this game. I went into HZD hoping for something akin to The Witcher 3. While the two games share many similarities, I have to say I much prefer The Witcher to HZD.

While the setting, the environment seemed interesting and unique at first, as the game progresses everything starts feeling kind of generic and plain. Side quests started to feel more like a chore and the rewards from them didn't seem worth it (both in story and material terms). I cant put my finger on exactly why. Perhaps it had to do with the characters. I found most characters in HZD to be mostly uninteresting. I had trouble telling them apart or remembering who they were or why I should care. Far too many of them are introduced and then never seen again until (maybe) the end of the game. Only a few stick around long enough to leave an impression and even those I ended up not really liking. Aloy herself is more interesting but I feel also suffers from being a bit of a blank slate through a lot of the game. I think The Witcher 3 handles these points (setting/story/characters) much better.

While the combat has its good moments, in general I found to be thoroughly unpleasant. Nothing is more irritating that trying to align a good shot on a component only to be tossed around repeatedly by an enemy from outside your view. There are stealth mechanics, but only the weaker enemies can be dispached effectively without revealing oneself. To fight larger enemies, you eventually have to engage en full combat and the toss around begins.

I am not going to go into much detail on the loot and progression. Suffice it to say (surprise surprise) I didn't really care for it much, although the reward box mechanic is nice for inventory management. The outfits are also nicely detailed.

There is not much for me to add in terms of graphics. The game is beautiful and has some really nice environments and detail. I particularily liked some of Aloy's animations and movement. Nothing to fault it in this category.

While I still hold that the mid game became something of a slog in terms of story, the final acts I really helped repair a lot of that damage. The final sequence of story missions and ending I found very interesting (even if some of parts were somewhat cliched). The Frozen Wilds DLC section also had some nice story elements and characters.

So... even with all these complaints and irritations, I still think HZD is a very good game and worth playing. It has sort of stuck with me for a lot longer than I expected. I am even half looking forward to the sequel (if it ever gets to pc...)

I played around 15 hours of this game, and the universe didn't caught me. Although the game is, indeed, beautiful.

PROS

• Animations are OK
• Art is amazing and the game is absolutely stunning visually
• Narrative is mildly interesting
• I love the bestiary, and if I ever finish it it will only be because I want to see and fight all of the machines / bosses available.

CONS

• I find the gameplay mechanics rough, not as fluid as I would want to.
• Mouth animation and face expressions aren't great, I don't get to connect with the main character and conversations in-game became uninteresting and boring.
• The whole "post-apocalyptic" world filled with machines while I am equipped with bow and arrow and a set of technological weird tools is just not my thing.
• Quests are repetitive and it feels like I always have to go from point A to point B to please somebody else who I don't care about.

The game is OK, and I can understand the love some people may feel for the universe and the character. It just isn't the kind of game I love. For the time being, I don't really want to finish this game. Maybe I'll finish it someday, for now, it's on hold.

LIKE

• Awesome premise/world building
• Complicated and varied combat
• Aloy's character growth
• Original/unique story kept me invested throughout
• Excellent visuals in landscapes and lighting
• Machines have great sense of scale and cool designs

DON'T LIKE

• Fierce difficulty spike was frustrating
• Poor models for side characters
• Bit too long for me
• Open world felt dated in some areas
• Deliver of exposition sometimes awkward

This is another game where I got a PS4 just to play it. I have zero regrets - this easily may be one of the best games I have ever played. First off, lets talk about Aloy. She is the heroine I've been seeking my whole life. Where was she when I was twelve? I needed this incredible woman who didn't take crap from anyone and was just as brave as she was vulnerable. For me, she has set the bar for female video game characters. The story line I found unpredictable and unique as well. The challenges she faces are difficult and she receives zero help from the people around her. This is a story that Legend of Zelda has been trying to achieve but never has: you are the hero, you just have to become one. She starts as an enemy to her tribe and the world around her, and she proves to the entire world just the hero she is. (Makes a pretty nice metaphor for women trying to fight their way in the work force...) The game design... it's a masterpiece. Put it in a museum. I want to look at it forever. (I'm speaking more for the way that it looks in game design, not game play (yet)). The landscape is breath taking. There are many moments where I paused just to take in my surroundings. The robots are unlike any character I've ever seen and the way they operate and are defeated are unique. I never felt bored during combat or during the game at all.

So let's talk combat. As a fan of Assassin's Creed, mainly for the sneaky assassin part of the game, I appreciated that they included a stealth option in combat. Some of the robots were surrounded by multiple other difficult robots and taking them out sneakily took a lot of stress out of high enemy zones. It's not the most complex combat system, but I didn't feel like it needed to be.

I want to play this game again. And again. And again. More DLC please.

Im going to to do a short review for this because I forgot to write this after I finished playing almost a month ago. So this is the cliff notes version, kinda. Haha.

It was pretty good. The gameplay was solid enough if a little bit janky sometimes. The world was beautiful with awesome locations and the lighting really stuck out to me with sunsets being especially jaw dropping. The story felt pretty meandering and boring though. The world that is set up is more interesting than any pay off that the game makes and you see most of it coming a mile away. Also there were not really any memorable side characters besides Eredan. The robots had pretty kewl designs though and were pretty original I would say.

I dont know, I was just hoping for something that would grab me more, I mean by the end I wanted to see what would happen but for a long majority of the game there it felt like a lot of filler stuff. I did grow to really like Aloy the main character though and her journey was nice to see conclude even if it didn't hit me as hard as I hoped it would. And the world is interesting by itself so I would definitely play the sequel, but other than those two aspects I think a lot of improvement needs to made to the story, side quests and side characters.

Maybe it was just because I had been really hyped for this game but I'm not sure. It was good enough I guess. Thats about the best I can say for it.

Note: I am still currently playing through this game, as I have been for the past 3 months, although I have not completed the game story wise I have a thorough understanding of the game and all of its mechanics

I bought this game expecting something different and interesting, something immersive. I was not dissapointed on these fronts. The game takes a short while to get into the swing of things but if you're interested in the lore and narrative then you will appreciate these steppings stones and the time the developers have taken to immerse you in their world.

At first things seem a bit boring and underwhelming, you encounter a few small basic machines, some wildlife, and generally just explore the area with no pressure to go in a specific direction. The level of freedom is nice and balanced, you could spend your entire playthrough hunting machines, going to couldrans (strongholds) and leveling up your character if you wanted to. The whole game progresses very naturally, the main quests sort of merge into the side quests and you feel like you're just a hunter going about your business.

If there is one thing I am not a fan of, and perhaps the only thing, is the enemy human AI. They behave like braindead zombies most of the time, and generally don't feel like a threat or as much a part of the world as the machines do. I think an improvement would be if their reaction to being hit was more pronounced - I would feel like they were actually alive. However, they do charge at you which can be adrenaline pumping, and they will try and hide/take cover. I understand that the machines are the main focus of the game but this is worth noting. Saying that, the level of detail and design in everything else is what makes this game shine. It looks beautiful, and the cut scenes look gorgeous. If you're like me and appreciate small details in video games then you will discover things that will make you go "yeah, that's neat". As to not spoil these discoveries too much I sharen't go into too much detail as I believe part of the fun is finding these things out for yourself.

• The AI and world in general feels alive, creatures move and behave in ways that are believable. The weather is dynamic and the main protagonist will even comment on her surroundings.

• Visually, the world is amazing both at night and day; the moon shines bright and is bold in the sky, illuminating the ground and water. The sun is harsh and sharp, casting shadows on rocks and scorching the sandy plains.

• Creatures will behave differently depending on if you've wounded them or not, as will they react to other creatures if they pose a threat. The machines themselves can be extremely big. and using your roll-dodge tactic to roll right underneath their legs never gets old (It's just nice to see a game where you can move around the enemy without bumping into an invisible wall like when you try and roll past them).

• Crafting and scavenging feels tedious at first but as time passes you feel more a part of the world, with the benefit of keeping you conscious of the rescourses you use (if you like rescourse management games this will give you a slight kick).

• The lore is actually engaging without being in your face. The blend of pre-historic and post-human environments make for a surprisingly non-cliche feel, interacting with modern technology and using it to your advantage, whilst discovering these human relics made for a really interesting journey. If you wanted to learn more about the lore you could scan documents and read them - if you didn't want to learn the lore you could skip right past it.

To cut this already long review short, I am very impressed with the game and I would recommend it to people who don't mind testing the waters in terms of the games they play and are seeking something a bit different. I wasn't sure how I would feel about using mainly a bow and arrow in a caveman type setting but I have been pleasantly surprised. This game is definitely something I can jump into easily, it can be treated as a hardcore experience in which you play it for weeks on end, or as I play it, a light hearted game in which I can enjoy hours at a time for a few days a week. I usually judge an open world game like this on whether or not I can sit back with my character and just watch things go by, be it humans, characters, creatures, or the wheather. Everyhing in this game seems to carry on whether you get involved or not and that is what makes it feel engaging and alive. The skies will open and thunder will crack whilst crab machines roam the grassy plains harvesting metal, you can hunt them down, or you can just hang back and watch them live out their day. The choice is always yours.

Gameplay: 5 /5 Story: 4.5 /5 Presentation: 4 /5

An amazing game with a much higher level of storytelling than Guerilla Games' previous titles (Killzone). The game was very beautiful. I give it a 4 on presentation instead of a 5 primarily because the facial animation most of the time just felt uncomfortable to me. There was one conversation I had where one of the characters spoke for almost a minute and didn't blink once. It is a little abnormal. The facial animation may have suffered a bit from the fact that they made the characters more realistic looking thus requiring the animation to be more spot on. I give the story a 4 because it had some predictability. To me, the "plot twist" was refreshingly new, but possibly a bit too overcomplicated. I think the game shines most in its gameplay. Fighting those machines could be pretty thrilling at times. Actually beating the harder enemies at a lower level felt really satisfying. I also like that the game kept a level of difficulty even after out leveling some enemies by 10 levels.

Basis:

Story= plot progression, intrigue, characters, world Gameplay= Mechanics, gameplay options (freedom), repetition, goals, difficulty Presentation= graphics, animation, environment/character design, Art direction, Script, music

What happens when you mate Geralt with Lara Croft while Nate Drake watches. you get an awkward situation, but if you mix all three of their games together you get Horizon Zero Dawn. Okay, bad joke aside, Guerrila Games is doing their best to imitate the bests of open-world games, and Horizon Zero Dawn benefits from that. The quest layouts feel very Witchery, and Aloy handles like a less skilled Lara Croft. There are also hints of that Nathan Drake style wit in our protagonist. Also this game gave me access to a photo mod, and I took way too many photos!

One of the original aspects of this game is the world. My favorite description of it is "a post-post-apocalyptic world". The tribes are all very neat and distinct with noticeable influences from Aztec, Eskimo, Indian, Celtic, Byzantine, and other ancient cultures. And to bring the Witcher back up, this futuristic world has a very high fantasy feeling. The Osmer are basically Dwarves. If it weren't for the robot animals and the occasional derelict skyscraper you'd be forgiven for thinking this was a fantasy world.

Now to transition to the missions & story in this game. (Insert all spoiler warnings here) I found the strongest parts of the story to be when Aloy was in her Nora homeland. The beginning of this game was very strong; growing up with Aloy, being trained by Rost for the Proving. It was a great coming of age story to start off with. While I knew Rost wouldn't be long for this game cause he's your caring mentor/father, I did love his character. It's a favorite archetype of mine. Aloy is a bit of a wild child & he did his best to instill a respect for the traditions. One of the final scenes with him right before you enter the Proving brought some emotions to me. It was very powerful to see him know that he trained Aloy well enough that she would win & that he would never be able to see her again. I thought it was a really interesting turn on the cliche to have him leave the story not by death, but by avoiding Aloy because of tradition, even though neither wants it. They then go and ruin that by having him show up to help her at the ambush and get killed in the process.

The weaker part of the game story for me was Aloy's search to find out what happened to cause the apocalypse. I like the Fallout series cause of the quests that detail how people live in the wasteland now, not the ones about old world problems. HZD's story wasn't bad, just not my cup of tea. Uncovering all this info did involve a lot walking around dilapidated military bunkers listening to holograms for long stretches.

There are a lot of great characters in this game, including Rost. Another one of my favorites was Ereden. He was a sorta cheesy pick-up artist when you first meet him, but as you go along you learn he uses it to hide some low self-esteem issues. Talwana, the Hunter Lodge Chick, was a fun character, as was Matriarch Teresa. The issues is all these characters are only in a few missions and then Aloy is on to somewhere else, one of the only constant companions was Sylence, who was 'meh' for me.

The dialouge in this game felt off to me at some points, mostly Aloy's. She has this sort of uniquely 21st Century type of snarkiness to her character, a little of the Uncharted influence. It feels out of place in the otherwise fantasy future world. Along with some of her dialogue edging ever so slightly towards feeling a bit politically left.

The machine monsters in this game were very fun to fight and they had a decent mix of them. My favorite method was to hack one or two of them and let them do most the fighting. Again, the Witcher 3 rears it's head here again with a lot of Aloy's side missions mimicking the "track a beast, then fight it" structure of Geralt's game, but HZD's version is lighter and all of them start to feel samey.

The gameplay is all very smooth throughout the title, this is where Tomb Raider comes in. You've got your bow that handles the same as Lara's and Aloy does have some climbing puzzles, but they aren't as intense or complex as Lara's. One thing that did aggravate me, was the D-pad hotkeys. All of the traps, potions, and actions were on one wheel and you'd have to cycle through all of them just to find the right item, which was a bit of a hassle in the middle of a fight with a massive machine.

On a more nitpicky note, I thought the weapon choices were dull. You had your different type of bows; hunter, sniper, elemental. You can upgrade throughout the game to better versions, but all that gives you is an extra arrow type, which is fine, but I'm an asethics guy. The basic Nora sniper bow looks the same as the Carja sniper bow and the Shadow sniper bow. Why not make their models look a little different, maybe the Nora bow looks more like an Indian bow, while the Carja bow has a metal look with sharp edges, and there could be an Osmer bow that looks like an ancient compound bow since they're crazy inventors.

All in all, this game imitates it's forefathers & has enough of it's own originality to be an excellent game. I like the world and characters and had fun playing this game till the end. I await the inevitable sequel, but can we pick a better title? Horizon Zero Dawn is just the blandest, buzzwordy title. Sure it was about Project Zero Dawn, but this title doesn't tell you anything about what's in the game.