Horizon Forbidden West (2022)

I transfered my save from PS4 to PS5 so I was able to play the DLC. When I opened the game for the first time in the newest console it was in quality mode by default and I was left speechless. It was the most beautiful videogame I've seen. I couldn't believe my eyes.

I already thought it looked incredible on PS4, but this was another level. Not even the newer (and also great-looking) God of War Ragnarok looks this good in my opinion.

I still changed it to performance mode because of course, but even then It is the prettiest game ever (in AAA "realistic" graphics terms).

This game is proving to be quite the chore to play. Everything is very much the same as the last game but I find the open world design is really hampered by "you don't have the tool to do this" situations.

I understand that the devs want me to get involved with the story but what's the point of an open world game if exploration isn't rewarded? Why am I being railroaded just to go re-explore areas that I'm over leveled for to get rewards that aren't particularly useful for my current needs?

It just feels like it was poorly thought out and constructed...

A small collection of my favourite shots I took with the awesome photomode in Horizon Forbidden West.

I absolutely loved the Game, it's just as beautiful as the first part and I'm excited for more.

~Michael

[Photography: Photomode]

"It's Not About The Distant Hope Of Creating A New World... It's About Preserving The One We Have." -Aloy

Because now I have to make everything I do into content, I wrote a guide to get all the legendary weapons and armors on the game.

I need to monetize that Platinum Trophy.

Anyway, here's my guide in spanish and this is my favorite weapon.

This is probably my last Forbidden West thing in a while. I'm ready to let Aloy rest. Bye.

IT

IS

DONE!!

I got the Platinum, completed all side quest, got all collectables and did all activities with the exception of completing the arena quests (too hard for me).

I'm really happy. This is definitely not Aloy's best adventure, but I'm still glad I experienced it.

¡VUELA SOBRE LAS ALAS DE LOS DIEZ, ALOY! ¡NOS VOLVEREMOS A VER!

I'm literally just missing one trophy to get the platinum, but I still have a few quests and collectables to get for the 100% so I'm letting that trophy (finishing Alva's quest) for last. It would be anticlimatic any other way.

Anyway... why is that? Why give the Platinum when you haven't really completed all the activities of the game? I usually understand "getting the platinum" as doing everything the game is offering. It doesn't make sense to me that you can getting before that. At least on most single player games.

Just random thoughts. I don't really care that much.

Ok, I’m baffled by the reviews on Horizon, this game needed a couple of years in the oven to fix the numerous issues plaguing this game. The climbing is atrocious at worst and tedious at best, the combat is all over the place, with some monsters being a complete mess of a fight on hard, with no damage output by Alloy and a barrage of damage and one shot bullshit, whereas the lower difficulties are too easy and not challenging enough, and for some monsters hard is too easy as well.

There are FAR TOO MANY systems and stuff to keep track off and it’s a complete mess to manage. Far too many weapons to upgrade and you keep getting new ones like it’s some sort of MMO or something. I wasn’t a big fan of the first game, but at least all of those things were polished and straightforward.

The jank and bloat are out of hand here.

After finally clearing a lot of games I had to review, I'm finally back on this to get the platinum. But I'm no longer enjoying it as much. I still love Aloy, her world and want to discover more plotlines and characters in side missions... but the combat finally lost its polish.

I'm probably still gonna do it, but I no longer want it as much.

I’m really having two very different experiences with Horizon Forbidden Dawn. Whenever I’m hunting some big game to get a piece for my new weapon, clearing a rebel hideout, or doing some sidequest involving destroying a bunch of machines, I’m having a blast.

However, when I do the main quest or some sidequest that involves lots of jumping and climbing, I am baffled at how bad it feels to play. The jumping/climbing is either some Uncharted automated snooze fest or it’s suddenly a precision game akin to Tomb Raider 1 where you are supposed to do some crazy jump or you will literally have to redo about 3-4 minutes of tedious gameplay.

It’s also really chatty, and most of it is boring crap. I will say in their favor that the NPCs and the dialogue are an upgrade from 1, probably cause they knew they didn’t have this really good story to tell this time around.

This article articulates one of my biggest issues with Horizon Forbidden West:

'Horizon Forbidden West's’ post-racial world turns culture into costumes

Horizon’s use of Indigenous culture as an “early civilization” aesthetic shorthand — along with terminology that uses “primitive” and “tribal” as descriptors for its characters — was criticized when Zero Dawn released in 2017, notably by critic Dia Lacina in an article for Mic. Then, as now, the implication that the aesthetic shorthand of culturally indistinct Indigenous clothing signifies a lack of progress signals the same kind of insidious worldview as that which motivated the “progress” of Manifest Destiny — that of ethnic cleansing and racism in the name of European-defined civilization building.

Five years later, Forbidden West harbors the same problems by continuing its flattened, nation-agnostic use of clothing and architectural design while strengthening its intent to make its post-apocalyptic setting more explicitly American (undermining denials that its inspiration ranges further, to include Vikings, at the same time).

The plot setup described earlier sees Aloy heading west to assert herself into the affairs of factions who have long resisted incursions and slave-capturing raids by an eastern empire called the Carja. She goes there to save the world from a mysterious blight. Determined to solve this problem, Aloy journeys into a region that’s presented explicitly as a frontier, which is in one character’s words, home to people for whom “violence is the native tongue.” Though Forbidden West is able to justify her role as white savior through science fiction doomsday rationale, her story carries echoes of a very real history.