@Phoenixmgs it plays and looks as good if not better than Zero Dawn even on PS4 too.
Horizon: Forbidden West Review Thread
- Thread starter hanselthecaretaker
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Thanks, I might checkout a DF video if they have a comparison between both versions. I tend to prefer playing the new gen version of AAA games once we are a year+ into the new gen. I wasn't expecting PS5s to be so hard to come by at this point. I still haven't played through the DLC for the 1st game so I should do that first anyway.
They have been appearing at my local gamestop and best buys lately. Not many but they are hitting stores here and there. A lot of people arent even looking for them so if you chat up an employee you might even get a restock date you can plan on.
I read that you need their memberships (along with Amazon) to get a PS5 and Best Buy's is like $200/year. Gemestop I kinda swore off way back when I went up there on release day for TLOU1 for PS4 and they said they couldn't sell me one unless I had it preordered and so I went a couple blocks down to Target and they had tons. If you're just a gaming store and I can't get a game on release day (a major release) without a preorder, then you failed at being a gaming store. I did sign up with Sony to get a PS5 a couple months back and so far they had one event and the website wouldn't even load up until the event was over. I do have a friend that's a manager at Target, I could probably hit him up if I was like dying to get a PS5.
Horizon Forbidden West and the Four Horsemen of Bad Characterization
Extra Punctuation: Yahtzee Croshaw discusses four reasons why Aloy ends up having bad characterization in Horizon Forbidden West.
www.escapistmagazine.com
imo Aloy was the worst part of the first game, would have been fun to actually play someone else for the sequel. Would anyone have been bothered by changing protagonist?Horizon Forbidden West and the Four Horsemen of Bad Characterization
Extra Punctuation: Yahtzee Croshaw discusses four reasons why Aloy ends up having bad characterization in Horizon Forbidden West.
I also don't think " Nngh actually the reason why Aloy is introverted and bad at communicating and keeps her motives to herself is because she was raised as an outcast and isn’t used to dealing with people.” works as a defense since Aloy will routinely comment on how people in position of power (tribe leader or some such) should behave when she should have no fucking clue about this. If anything Aloy is shockingly good at communication, she's just very uninteresting in every interaction she has.
Aloy didn't bother me in the first game at all. But in the sequel she really starts to be an annoyance. And I think Ashley Birch's performance outright fucking sucks in the second game. I guess the biggest sin is that all the character growth from Zero Dawn is wiped away and she's just a breathy annoying brat who for some reason is just better than everyone else and i think she knows it, which is even more of an issue.
Holy fuck....did i actually hate this game? No....no that can't be right...the gameplay was good and....oh....I haven't even played it since Elden ring came out? Where the fuck am i. 8 hours in!? That's it? Oh fuck dude.....
Most of the hardcore Aloy fans, given the high amount of fan art. Considering how much both games' story hinges on her, probably not. I certainly said there should have been a completely new cast for LOUS II, but "nobody" wanted a "risky" decisions.
You did not like it as much as you thought you would or did. Big whoop. I've been there plenty of times, and still happens, but rare now compared to my teenage years and early 20s.
All of Yahtzee's criticisms can be applied to like almost every freaking video game. Weird that Aloy is the target for this.
This isn't even the first time Yahztee has done this. The only reason he is picking on Aloy, is because hers is so noticeable. Before that, it was Lara Croft Reboot, Sebastian (mainly in Evil Within 1, but he complaints about him in 2 as well) and when Issac Clarke started talking. And many more that I am forgetting about, but too lazy to look back. Funny enough, Yahtzee complained Clarke "talked too much" afterward and then preferred if the engineer was silent again. At least Issac developed as a character even though became sort of a Leon clone with PTSD. You got what you wanted, Yahtzee, so you have no right to complain that case.
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Same, and I was actually enjoying it enough but knew the attempts at characterization and all those dialog wheels would start to bog things down. I fucking fell asleep during one FFS. If it wasn’t for Aloy’s smooth as hell mechanics and the awesome looking machines I probably would’ve skipped this one. Also kinda glad I stuck to Normal diff for this based on what others have said about the later enemies. Not really looking forward to this game’s cauldron sections if they’re done like the original’s either.
Honestly I think it's just a case of stolen thunder by Elden Ring. Elden Ring by it's nature is more compelling in a way than Horizon which is the same fate it suffered from the first game when it launched next to Breath of the Wild. The difference is I actually "like" Elden Ring, and I hated Breath of the Wild so Horizon was the obvious win the first time. This time....not as lucky.
Once i get elden ring out of my system (I'm only a couple trophies from platinum), I'm going to restart Horizon 2 and actually play it for real.....or maybe after Stranger in Paradise.
I feel like the odd man out here got here I am out here. Lets see how many hours have I put into Horizon.....60 plus and barely advanced the game yeah I need a intervention and not even sniffed a stray fart from Elden Ring.
So I am liking Aloy personality early game she is pissed and stressed about the sole chosen one hero thing hoisted one her not helped by Sylens being Sylens. But as the game goes on it is kind of not hammering but mild drilling into Aloy and the player that hey you going to need some help and assistance from others and this chosen one just me hero thing is for the birds. Avoiding spoilers it becomes double so. I had some troubles early on but once starting to understand these new machines and using the environment to block their projectile and melee tracking nonsense.
In fact depending on how far I go to Horizon FW my next stop is Kirby and then Strangers of Paradise. Speaking of Strangers of Paradise I keep wanting to say "Strangers in Paradise". Its Balan Wonderland vs Wonderworld all over again.
So I am liking Aloy personality early game she is pissed and stressed about the sole chosen one hero thing hoisted one her not helped by Sylens being Sylens. But as the game goes on it is kind of not hammering but mild drilling into Aloy and the player that hey you going to need some help and assistance from others and this chosen one just me hero thing is for the birds. Avoiding spoilers it becomes double so. I had some troubles early on but once starting to understand these new machines and using the environment to block their projectile and melee tracking nonsense.
Fun fact I did not have to worry about the whole BotW vs Horizon thing cause well I didn't own a Switch or Wii U so that made the choice pretty easy. I did get Horizon and Neir Automata around the same time and while liking both I leaned towards Horizon in terms of hours spent and played.
In fact depending on how far I go to Horizon FW my next stop is Kirby and then Strangers of Paradise. Speaking of Strangers of Paradise I keep wanting to say "Strangers in Paradise". Its Balan Wonderland vs Wonderworld all over again.
I've played both, and while Forbidden West is certainly just more Horizon/open-world, Elden Ring is equally just more Souls. This whole 'Elden Ring shows open-world games how its done' talk is honestly a little embarressing. No, it's really just the same old Souls but in a wider gameworld with little in it besides Souls combat. I actually jumped back into Forbidden West after about a week of playing Elden Ring and it really was a nice change of pace. As many Issues as I have with the game just by the sheer presence of a narrative and characters it'll stick with me a lot longer than Elden Ring probably will.
Elden Ring's world suffers two problems for me in this regard. It's a very large map that's true, but it's too large imo and as a result a lot of the areas bleed together. There are few locations in Elden Ring that i can picture in my head instantly. Limgrave and Caelid. But outside of that many of the areas are all the same basically.
Adding to that first problem is also the fact that despite the world being open, there is only one thing to do in the world. Fight shit. Everywhere you go, it's fighting shit. No puzzles, no narative objectives (in any real sense at least), nothing but fight the things. Go to whatever place, fight whatever is there and move on. That's the full scope of it all.
And i think that's why long term for a lot of people, a game like Horizon will stick with them better because the characters and the narrative makes everything fit in the mind better. Additionally there is more variety in the world activities. Solving puzzles, hunting vistas, climbing tallnecks, collectibles, and of course....fighting things. Ironically with the glider, swimming, and mounts in Horizon, Horizon's open world is freer than ER's. You don't have nearly the limitations on your exploration in Horizon as you do in ER.
But admittedly the powerful challenges of ER will have lasting power with people as well, which will likely make better memories for some than a game like Horizon cnan.
This has pretty much been my issue with the game. The gameworld itself looks fine, and sometimes it can look quite nice, but there's nothing that breaks it up other than underground caverns. Sure, there are parts that are more grassy, parts that are more wooded, and parts that are more swampy, yet it never really feels visually distinct from one another. This makes me wonder if the typical Souls bleakness was a good fit for an open-world, because it kinda makes the whole setting feel a bit samey, yet it also spreads the atmosphere quite thin. In Dark Souls and especially Bloodborne you could feel the miserable history dripping off of nearly every wall and tree. In Elden Ring you can see the same giant chunk of curved tower wall go by every 10 minutes.
For further irony, games like No More Heroes 3 and the Yakuza series offer more than do in the small world than most big worlds combine. Even NMH3 allows you to do more than just fight. It has all these cool side jobs, and side quests you can check out. There are even some hidden side quests that are 8-bit visual novels.
The funny thing to me is that Aloy's personality in the second game seems to be what I kind of thought it should be in the first game, although I haven't played Forbidden West yet so I'm not 100% sure. Its just that... when Aloy first meets the village and starts doing stuff there are a bunch of people being tools to her for essentially no reason. But Aloy is like, extremely better than everyone else in the village. Definitely people show up who can smack her down, but for a decent chunk of the early game Aloy is no contest better at damn near everything than all these other people who keep treating her like crap, so much so that they try to cheat her of the whole joining the tribe ritual and she still beats their asses. The personality as described in the second game sounds right to me for how she should have been in the first game. Stressed out that she's having to deal with all these people, frustrated that they can't perform like she can (because they haven't been living as solo survivalists since birth), angry that the answer to what should have been a simple question turned into a save everybody plot when everybody is made up of douchebags who wouldn't help her.
And yet for some reason she keeps being this humble helpful goodhearted person. That just doesn't make any sense to me. Sure she had a really good father figure who wanted her to join the tribe so a portion of this might be familial obligation, but I honestly feel by all rights Aloy should be really bad at communicating, and naturally very frustrated to deal with people who aren't as good at surviving as her. As an individual who lived almost entirely alone for something like 20 years if wikipedia is to be believed (I thought he was a teenager but I guess not?) she should by all rights have a really low tolerance for people who don't meet the standard she and her father created. You should get the med student/post doc effect.
The problem you would end up with an unlikeable protagonist. And for a brand new game series you need people to connect with your main character and latch onto them as much as possible. While Aloy being a **** to everyone she meets for the most part would likely be more realistic to what would happen in that situation, it wouldn't mkae people like the character. Though I think it would have made Aloy 100% more interesting as a character, and it would be a cool arc to have her gradually become a softer and more understand person with the people she meets over time.