Horizon Forbidden West

-Impressive span to Zero Dawn, with massive world content. Makes it nearly an ultimate RPG game. (+)

-Storyline and characters on the other hand are of average quality and lacking. Most of the work efforts were invested in technical fields and side activities. (-) (+)

-Game direction and characters design (not texures quality) have lots of downsides. (-)

-Gameplay is diverse and smooth, you choose your own way of playing and is not linear. It has excelled RPG elements. (+)


•Amongst other Sony exclusive releases for next-Gen, Horizon Forbidden West has to be on top of them with Huge content and top tier technical showcase.
•9/10

Played on: Playstation 5
Version: Playstation 5
Edition: Standard physical

Right off the bat, I think the first game is better. Period. The narrative flows better & the character moments feel more natural & less forced. That being said, the gameplay in THIS is superior. Very smoothe, incredible visuals, & the open world is breathtaking. The additions with gliding & weaponry were a great addition as well. I liked this one a lot but just not at the "love it" stage yet. I beat the main story but I will go back & do all of the side missions, etc. in the future to hopefully get a platinum.

Final verdict: Buy it

Really enjoyable main story and the game looks gorgeous. The combat doesn't really vibe with me but it's good enough overall. Edit: combat kinda sucks, faced a Tremortusk further in the game and it was painfully unbalanced. Hate how enemies slide along the ground in a glitchy way to hit you when it seemed like you were safe.

The real issue with this game is that Aloy will not shut up. Aloy will talk to herself out loud approx every 30 seconds for the entire playthrough. This includes telling you how to solve any type of puzzle either before you've had a chance to look or when you've figured it out and are in the process of completing it already. It's extremely annoying to be backseated and it gets worse and worse.

This point alone means I can't give the game above a 7 simply because it won't let me play it. It also felt like there's not anything fun to do in the open world, usually you just get some mundane rewards from a chest that have no real value.

I'M SO IN LOVE WITH HORIZON
The game is visually astonishing and I cannot get enough of it.
Zero Dawn was great but this went beyond my expectations! Story got better, the way they depicted every different environment amazed me.
Probably my favourite game ever.

Horizon Forbidden West
✪ {ᏚᏟᏫᏒᎬ : 5.8}
…   …………….
🝰 | 𝚁𝙰𝚃𝙸𝙽𝙶𝚂

• Story : 3.8
~ the story feels like an over-stretched DLC for ZD. a very unnecessary and unambitious sequel. it continues on something that was already pretty much concluded, and while the whole mystery element of it is now gone, it comes and adds nothing of value.
i tried but i just couldn't be more uninterested in what was happening.
as someone else said, it's an mcu type of story. scared of taking any risks, bland and boring.
𐄁 Characters : 4.2
~ the main-story characters are all bland and generic except for a few. even aloy has lost her charm and feels uninteresting.
𐄁 Acting : 4.6

• Atmosphere : 5.8
𐄁 Immersion : 3.0
𐄁 Intensity : 6.4

• Gameplay : 3.9
~ the gameplay has barely evolved a single bit since ZD. it still has all the issues that ZD had. and i mean ALL. like the clunky movement, very repetitive, shallow, and frustrating combat, super-clusterd inventory/crafting, ect. it's just SO not fun to play. i didn't like it in ZD, and i specially don't like in this one, since you've basically already played through it once before.
it also has alot of poor design choices, the skill tree for ex.
𐄁 Combat : 3.8
𐄁 Bow : 5.1
𐄁 Stealth : 2.2
𐄁 AI : 3.5
𐄁 Movement : 3.0
𐄁 Traversal : 3.9
~ the open world is too big and not fun to travel around. I'm getting so tired of open world games honestly.
• Level Design : 6.4
𐄁 Pacing : 3.0
~ it's hard to tell how bad the pacing really is when the game is repetitive and unfun from start to finish. that said, it's definitely poorly paced with too many filler shit.
𐄁 Puzzles : 3.7
• Side Content : 𝜘￬
~ the few side-missions i did were alright. they had decent writing like in ZD, but they just took too long and weren't very fun. idk tho, i didn't play enough of 'em to really form an opinion.

⋆ Visuals : 8.6
~ it looks fucking amazing during cutscenes. during gameplay, some areas like chainscrape look magnificent, specially under the sunlight, while some areas look just, good. and with some i struggled to spot many differences between it and ZD. there's a general lack of things working together in union. it's inconsistent at best, but quite pretty nonetheless.
𐄁 Textures : 8.8
𐄁 Lighting : 8.8
𐄁 Small Details : 4.6
~ sometimes it has some crazy small details, and well, most times it forgets the biggest most important ones.
• Environment Design : 8.5
𐄁 Cinematography : 7.5
~ the fake RPG cutscenes have improved alot since ZD. they're alot more alive and animated now. tho they're still very very overwritten and boring.

• Animations : 7.9
𐄁 Movement Animations : 7.7
𐄁 Combat Animations : 7.3
𐄁 Facial Animations : 6.7

• SoundTrack : 8.7
• Sound Design : 6.5

• Performance : ￪￪￪￬￬￬
~ it has loading issues out the wazoo. textures almost always loaded in very late.
and sometimes just mid-gameplay it'd just say fuck it and go to a loading screen for a few seconds, happened too many times, never stopped being funny.

⎆ 𝙾𝚃𝙷𝙴𝚁𝚂⬎
𐄁 Customization : 7.5
𐄁 Replayability : 𝜘￬
𐄁 Innovation : -
𐄁 Accessibility : ⍟⍟
𐄁 Setting Options : ⍟⍟⍟⍟
𐄁 UI/HUD : 3.0
𐄁 Extras : 〆
𐄁 Collectibles : 𝜘
𐄁 Trophies : 𝜘

…   ……………….
？| 𝚀𝚄𝙴𝚂𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽𝚂

𐄁 Do i recommend this game? no.
𐄁 Did it make me take my time with it? no.
𐄁 Did it meet my expectations? i had low expectations but i was still mostly disappointed.

…    ……………………
〄 | 𝙸𝙽𝙵𝙾𝚁𝙼𝙰𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽

- Platforms : PS4 Pro
- First Playthrough : 25.11.23
𐄁 Finished at : 28.11.23
𐄁 Playtime : 25h 37′
𐄁 Difficulty : Normal
- Beaten : 1 time
- Trophy Progress : 36℅³⁸'°
⟆⟅ | Won't Platinum :<

Probably the best this style of open-world game could ever hope to achieve. A sprawling world, beautifully designed, with plenty to sink your teeth into for hours on end. Not to mention a thrilling main story that had me excited to do the next quest.

The gameplay itself from climbing to machine combat is as crispy as ever. You're presented with so many, and I mean many, ways to go about every kind of situation. It's incredible how they've been able to really level up every battle from new weapon styles, elements, terrains, to enemies.

Like with any open-world game such as Horizon, it does suffer from bloat. But overall it is optional and the game doesn't force you to go down those paths.

I personally think the biggest weakness of this game is the melee combat. It's so DEEP with some interesting combos. Yet, when forced upon me, melee was way too easy and was boiled down to the same basic combo you learned AT THE BEGINNING of the game.

OVERALL though, this game was such a banger. Every single negative, while definitely a factor, never impacted my overall enjoyment of the game as a whole. I can't wait for the next one!