Horizon: Forbidden West Review Thread

[CriticalGaming]

ya'll crazy, the bow was amazing in HZD. Tear arrows were the best for knocking off a big cannon on the robot to then grab the cannon and fuck it up. Explosive arrows where also amazing, especially for those flying dickbags.

 

[meiam]

ya'll crazy, the bow was amazing in HZD. Tear arrows were the best for knocking off a big cannon on the robot to then grab the cannon and fuck it up. Explosive arrows where also amazing, especially for those flying dickbags.

Meh, tearing off piece just wasted time, big cannon are useless on higher difficulty setting since the dino are super agressive and you can't afford to be standing in place to use them. The tyrano robot are constantly bombarding the area around them so there's no time to line up shoot for crit hit. I did use the bow on flying enemy, but that's just cause there was no other choice. Although I was playing without aim assist (forced off on highest dif setting) but with a controller so maybe that changed my perception.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Meh, tearing off piece just wasted time, big cannon are useless on higher difficulty setting since the dino are super agressive and you can't afford to be standing in place to use them. The tyrano robot are constantly bombarding the area around them so there's no time to line up shoot for crit hit. I did use the bow on flying enemy, but that's just cause there was no other choice. Although I was playing without aim assist (forced off on highest dif setting) but with a controller so maybe that changed my perception.

I owe at least a few of my tougher trial completions to well-placed shots with the cannon. It’s situational like a lot of stuff in the game but does have its uses imo.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Play for a good cause.

 

[Catfood220]

Wait so it's popular opinion that the bow is useless? Thought I wasn't doing it right

It wasn't that the bow was useless, I loved using it. But you were using flying bits of wood against heavily armoured machines. How much effect do you want them to have? I mean, they worked fine for head shotting humans. The trick to using the bow was to find the machine weakness and exploiting it. Like on the Thunder Jaw there was a bit of armour on the side you could remove with a few well placed shots which exposed the insides which you could hit for big damage. The Stalker could be shot through its eye for an instant kill and the Grazer could be killed by shooting the canisters off of its back. Things got easier when you got the hardwood arrow which didn't cost too much in resources to craft and did more damage.

Anyway, I'm glad this game has turned out at least as good as the first one. Not that I had any doubts. Damn my self imposed game buying ban, this is a real test. I might just play through the first game again to tide me over

 

[Catfood220]

You know, watching this at 720 on my phone there really isn’t that much of a difference. Certainly not enough to be bothered by without a side by side comparison. As long as performance holds up I might just get this for my lowly PS4 Slim (it’s the fancy looking gold one though at least), and then play the upgraded “complete” edition years later when PS5 isn’t MIA.

I understand maybe 3% of what that guy is talking about But it doesn't look like it suffers from being on a standard PS4.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Wait, why is everyone poo-pooing on the bow? Did ya'll just totally ignore the sharpshot bow? That thing torn shit apart, especially once you got the three arrow set-up skill and the Banuk Powershot bow. Barely even used tear arrows once I got that sucker.

 

[meiam]

Wait, why is everyone poo-pooing on the bow? Did ya'll just totally ignore the sharpshot bow? That thing torn shit apart, especially once you got the three arrow set-up skill and the Banuk Powershot bow. Barely even used tear arrows once I got that sucker.

Good on lower difficulty setting, useless at higher where a perfect shoot with 3 arrows barely scratch a big dino health and then everything around swarm you so you don't have time to line up shoot. Better to setup a ton of explosive trip wire all over the battlefield so that everything blow up when they charge you.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Good on lower difficulty setting, useless at higher where a perfect shoot with 3 arrows barely scratch a big dino health and then everything around swarm you so you don't have time to line up shoot. Better to setup a ton of explosive trip wire all over the battlefield so that everything blow up when they charge you.

It rarely is an issue when targeting weak points, which is also vital for getting materials for better gear. It’s a pretty rewarding feedback loop.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Good on lower difficulty setting, useless at higher where a perfect shoot with 3 arrows barely scratch a big dino health and then everything around swarm you so you don't have time to line up shoot. Better to setup a ton of explosive trip wire all over the battlefield so that everything blow up when they charge you.

Only if you don't aim at the giant exploding weak spots most of the giant enemies have. A bunch of them even suffer a continous status effect, like burning, once you hit all their weak spots, so that all you have to do is just wait for it to die. The only enemies that can be serious bullshit are the Scorcher and the Rockbreaker. Even the Stormbird is really not that hard once you get the Sparkworker outfit and load it up with lightning protection.

Yeah, obviously if you're facing off against two Thunderjaws you can't rely on just your bow, but that's why there's the override ability.

 

[meiam]

Only if you don't aim at the giant exploding weak spots most of the giant enemies have. A bunch of them even suffer a continous status effect, like burning, once you hit all their weak spots, so that all you have to do is just wait for it to die. The only enemies that can be serious bullshit are the Scorcher and the Rockbreaker. Even the Stormbird is really not that hard once you get the Sparkworker outfit and load it up with lightning protection.

Yeah, obviously if you're facing off against two Thunderjaws you can't rely on just your bow, but that's why there's the override ability.

Triple arrow on the explosive weakpoint + all the damage tick usually do maybe 1/4-1/3 of the enemy health (much less on thunderjaw or other bigger stuff since the explosion and tick are fixed damage), you also have to be far enough away so that the explosion doesn't kill you which is sometime quite tricky when the weakspot is under them. Setup 10-20 trip wire explosion and they'll die the moment they cross them, no risk to you and doesn't immediately alert every enemy to your location so you can repeat the process. If you do have to fight while all the robot are swarming you, you won't have the time to line up shoot and will almost certainly be too close to avoid explosion damage, trip wire are very quick to setup, don't require much aiming, don't need to to have the enemy armor pealed off and do far more damage than shoot that don't hit a weakspot.

You can't control thunderjaw until pretty far in the game and once you do you can just sit back and let the thunderjaw do the work, no need for arrow which would just give up your location and risk the laser weapon targeting you which can kill you in 2-3 hit or worse the thunderjaw itself which will kill you in 2 shoot.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Triple arrow on the explosive weakpoint + all the damage tick usually do maybe 1/4-1/3 of the enemy health (much less on thunderjaw or other bigger stuff since the explosion and tick are fixed damage), you also have to be far enough away so that the explosion doesn't kill you which is sometime quite tricky when the weakspot is under them. Setup 10-20 trip wire explosion and they'll die the moment they cross them, no risk to you and doesn't immediately alert every enemy to your location so you can repeat the process. If you do have to fight while all the robot are swarming you, you won't have the time to line up shoot and will almost certainly be too close to avoid explosion damage, trip wire are very quick to setup, don't require much aiming, don't need to to have the enemy armor pealed off and do far more damage than shoot that don't hit a weakspot.

You can't control thunderjaw until pretty far in the game and once you do you can just sit back and let the thunderjaw do the work, no need for arrow which would just give up your location and risk the laser weapon targeting you which can kill you in 2-3 hit or worse the thunderjaw itself which will kill you in 2 shoot.

I feel like measuring the quality of a weapon based off the hardest difficulty isn't really fair to the weapon. Because it just means that the higher difficulty requires different/more tactics to get through, but it doesn't invalidate the weapon in other difficulties.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Triple arrow on the explosive weakpoint + all the damage tick usually do maybe 1/4-1/3 of the enemy health (much less on thunderjaw or other bigger stuff since the explosion and tick are fixed damage), you also have to be far enough away so that the explosion doesn't kill you which is sometime quite tricky when the weakspot is under them. Setup 10-20 trip wire explosion and they'll die the moment they cross them, no risk to you and doesn't immediately alert every enemy to your location so you can repeat the process. If you do have to fight while all the robot are swarming you, you won't have the time to line up shoot and will almost certainly be too close to avoid explosion damage, trip wire are very quick to setup, don't require much aiming, don't need to to have the enemy armor pealed off and do far more damage than shoot that don't hit a weakspot.

You can't control thunderjaw until pretty far in the game and once you do you can just sit back and let the thunderjaw do the work, no need for arrow which would just give up your location and risk the laser weapon targeting you which can kill you in 2-3 hit or worse the thunderjaw itself which will kill you in 2 shoot.

How much time/effort does it take to acquire 10-20 tripwire explosives though vs a handful of Tear arrows to break off the cannon? I’d hate to have to do that every time. Not saying the arrow is the be-all, end-all but just that there’s a variety of weapons in the game that each excel at different things.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Triple arrow on the explosive weakpoint + all the damage tick usually do maybe 1/4-1/3 of the enemy health (much less on thunderjaw or other bigger stuff since the explosion and tick are fixed damage), you also have to be far enough away so that the explosion doesn't kill you which is sometime quite tricky when the weakspot is under them. Setup 10-20 trip wire explosion and they'll die the moment they cross them, no risk to you and doesn't immediately alert every enemy to your location so you can repeat the process. If you do have to fight while all the robot are swarming you, you won't have the time to line up shoot and will almost certainly be too close to avoid explosion damage, trip wire are very quick to setup, don't require much aiming, don't need to to have the enemy armor pealed off and do far more damage than shoot that don't hit a weakspot.

You can't control thunderjaw until pretty far in the game and once you do you can just sit back and let the thunderjaw do the work, no need for arrow which would just give up your location and risk the laser weapon targeting you which can kill you in 2-3 hit or worse the thunderjaw itself which will kill you in 2 shoot.

Those explosions will knock you away and take some health off, but I don't think I've ever been killed by them even on Ultra Hard.

And here's the thing, I actually like bowing it up in the heat of battle. The risk is the fun. Quickly setting up three arrows while bunny hopping to avoid getting trampled, and then getting the right distance to knock the bow back far enough and then either jumping or zooming (or both) to activate slo-mo and get the shot right. Focussing the bow solely on the larger enemies, and finding those slight elevations to jump and R1 insta-kill the smaller enemies. And using the tripcaster as a back-up to punish anything charging at me.

I've played through this game 3 times on Ultra Hard and the Sharpshot bow is still my go-to 70% of the time.

 

[Trunkage]

I just played HZ D after Xmas for the first time. I didn't bother with a review because it was riddled with bugs, had a really good story that you saw snippets of every 20 hours and was repetitive

The tied down bow breaks all kinds of physics. I'm only getting this when it $20-30

As to bows. Never bothered with anything other than Sharpshooter. Tearblast was only used for knocking big cannons off and wasted the health damage knocking a cannon off brings. Tripwire was pretty useless. On the hardest difficulty, Rattler did a great job after some precison shots from the sharpshooter. It would BURN through stalkers and you jab them to finish off. Bombs was cool too, as the main ones I used didn't have fire. Potions werr the worst. Just give me health potions pls

 

[CriticalGaming]

. I didn't bother with a review because it was riddled with bugs,

Did you play it on PC? Because the PC version was not great. But I didn't encounter anything super noticable bug wise on the ps4 at launch or last year when I replayed it for shits and giggles.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Did you play it on PC? Because the PC version was not great. But I didn't encounter anything super noticable bug wise on the ps4 at launch or last year when I replayed it for shits and giggles.

Had to have been as I’ve never heard of the console versions being buggy to any significant extent. Very odd considering the Death Stranding port came first (also on Decima Engine) and was apparently fantastic, especially with DLSS 2.0 enabled. I think the H:ZD port was eventually patched into better shape than at launch overall though.


Anyways, back to reviews -


I get the constant Zelda references but I don’t like it at all when people do that. It reminds me of when people said bs like “TLoU is gaming’s Citizen Kane!”. FFS it sounds childish as hell.

Horizon Forbidden West Reviews

Join Aloy as she braves the Forbidden West – a majestic but dangerous frontier that conceals mysterious new threats. Explore distant lands, fight bigger and more awe-inspiring machines, and encounter astonishing new tribes as you return to the far-future, post-apocalyptic world of Horizon. The...

www.metacritic.com

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Some sites have been saying to avoid preordering the PS5 version -

Reminder: Don't Buy Horizon Forbidden West on PS5, Get It on PS4 Instead - IGN

Here's your final reminder, don't buy Horizon Forbidden West on PS5, get it on PS4 instead - here's why.

www.ign.com

Horizon Forbidden West is out today - here's how to get the cheapest PS5 version

If you're after Horizon Forbidden West on PS5 at the lowest possible price then going via the PS4 version is the way forward

www.gamesradar.com

Apparently Horizon: Forbidden West is the last game to sneak into the “free” upgrade window, so getting the PS4 version will still grant the full PS5 version upgrade option. The only caveat being going this route means the actual PS5 version can’t be preloaded before launch, because it requires the “upgrade” from PS4.

No matter to me though. I got the digital deluxe version and only have a PS4 now anyways. Not long to go…

Your Countdown To | Count down the days to everything

Counting down the days, hours, minutes and seconds to everything from TV series releases to Christmas & Halloween

yourcountdown.to

Is everyone preloaded?!

 

[SilentPony]

Still baffled they brought the bland, story-less character Aloy back after the narrative malpractice that was Horizon Zero Dawn. I've lost faith Guerilla can be trusted with its own stories. I mean you have a 3rd person action game about robot dinosaurs vs humans, and you made it boring with no emotional involvement or stakes?!

 

[CriticalGaming]

Some sites have been saying to avoid preordering the PS5 version -

Reminder: Don't Buy Horizon Forbidden West on PS5, Get It on PS4 Instead - IGN

Here's your final reminder, don't buy Horizon Forbidden West on PS5, get it on PS4 instead - here's why.

www.ign.com

Horizon Forbidden West is out today - here's how to get the cheapest PS5 version

If you're after Horizon Forbidden West on PS5 at the lowest possible price then going via the PS4 version is the way forward

www.gamesradar.com

Apparently Horizon: Forbidden West is the last game to sneak into the “free” upgrade window, so getting the PS4 version will still grant the full PS5 version upgrade option. The only caveat being going this route means the actual PS5 version can’t be preloaded before launch, because it requires the “upgrade” from PS4.

No matter to me though. I got the digital deluxe version and only have a PS4 now anyways. Not long to go…

Your Countdown To | Count down the days to everything

Counting down the days, hours, minutes and seconds to everything from TV series releases to Christmas & Halloween

yourcountdown.to

Is everyone preloaded?!

I ordered the physical game from Amazon hoping they break streetdate for me again. I don't buy digital games because I am building a physical disc collection.