My review for Horizon Zero Dawn and its trophies + NG+ Ultra Hard Trophies - An easy Plat but a kinda lacklustre game overall - Optimistic for the Sequel

[coolwali]

Hello Everyone, today I want to talk about Horizon Zero Dawn and my 14th platinum trophy, but sadly there isn't much to talk about. For the most part you will get all the trophies just by playing the game and doing all the side quests. By the end of the game, the only 2 trophies I missed during my entire 43 hour playthrough was "Kill all combat enemies at least once" because I skipped killing a single Stormhawk and "Knock down 23 dummies" which required a quick Powerpyx guide. But yeah, if you ever wanted to introduce someone to the world of trophy hunting and not pick a Telltale game for it, HZD is a good game for that as the game and its trophies are not difficult to get and encourage you to see more of the game.

For the NG+ Ultra Hard run, I feel the trophies should have been silver and gold respectively. It was quite challenging at points. Making it Bronze and Silver makes it feel less valuable. The run itself had me running past every enemy and only killing or subduing all who were neccessary. I'm pretty sure my kill count before the final mission was below 20 human and robots and was under 10 hours with me skipping every cutscene. I put on a Youtube video to keep me entertained (shout out to UpUpDownDown and their Battle of the Brands). The real hard parts were any time I had to fight a giant machine one on one or with limited space to move because they took an absurd number of hits to take down and a single hit tore through my Shield Weaver's Shield. Fortunately I did have a near infinite amount of crafting materials so I was able to constantly make hundreds of bombs per fight and wear any enemy down though that got boring after a while. I feel the game is more fun on normal and hard.

 

As for the game itself, while not bad it is a little lacklustre. The world and core combat against select machines is pretty good. The world is beautiful and full of cool lore. Combat against machines is varied given their behaviours, responses and your weapons but only for some of the larger ones like Thunderjaws and Bellowbacks since they have a lot more to work with. Smaller to medium machines are much more simplistic. And human enemies are more basic than in the early Assassin's Creed games where you can whistle enemies to their death (The sequence that symbolizes this is early on when Child Aloy has to guide a guy through a field of Watchers by moving through bushes and use her focus to see their paths, but you don't really need to do that given the overly simplistic routes and close grass.... all while the dude is astonished how Aloy can predict such a simplistic machine's paths). So the enjoyment in combat is very sporadic and pretty boring in between.

Most of the side activities are pretty generic "fetch quest" type quests with few interesting stories or gameplay beyond what you were already doing. Even some of the best stuff like the Cauldrons are just the "dungeons" you were already doing in the main story. The only truly standout quests are the hunting grounds since they offer twists to the regular gameplay and more specific challenges.

Some of the choices for the open world are questionable. You need a resource to Fast Travel so the game has save points/fast travel points everywhere to compensate, but when you get unlimited fast travel it guts needing to travel anywhere at all.

 

The game also has Uncharted style climbing, complete with Slow-mo whenever Aloy makes it a huge jump, but it feels hollow because it's pretty automated and lacks any danger or tension. But at least it's more brief than God of War 2018 which had so much more of this boring climbing with even less to be impressed with.

 

The story and characters have their issues as well. Most of the cast don't have much dimension to them. Aloy herself seems a bit too perfect. Despite being isolated from the rest of society with her only contact being her stoic father figure and what few other people that broke rules to speak to her, she's remarkably well adjusted, confident and social, capable of doing well in social situations and even picking up on things like sarcasm. She doesn't really have any flaws or internal challenges to struggle against. I think it would have been far more interesting if Aloy had confidence issues or a bit of anixiety in social situations and her arc is her learning to overcome it through Sylens as she discovers what happens to the past. This is something Guerilla should probably consider improving on since while this game doesn't really need it as the story is finding out what happened to the world, now that we know what happened, the sequel is gonna have to focus on characters and their struggles since that hook is gone now. It's like making a sequel to a Spider-Man Origin story, the Origin Story is enough material for a first outing but now for the sequel you gotta do more legwork.

 

The storytelling itself has its issues, it forgets about Show Don't Tell, or it does both Show and Tell. For example, there's a section where Aloy visits a bunker and the AI goes something like "welcome Dr. Sobeck, you are [something like] 3251 months and 10 days overdue for a meeting". I went "damn, that's so long ago, what happened?" and immediately Aloy goes "that's hundreds of years ago, what happened?" You see my point, the game cleverly sets up that a long time has passed and something's wrong but then spells out that a long time has passed and something's wrong. And later on when we see the meeting between Sobeck and Faro, Faro says "the cure is worse than the disease" which tells us that Sobeck's plan had some serious consequences but obviously must have worked given life is still present.....only for Aloy to repeat said thought out loud when during the next break in the recording. In fact, Aloy talks a lot so much that it never gives the player a chance to think or figure out stuff or even a chance to breathe. Walk into a dungeon and see a door? Before you can even touch the door Aloy will say that the door is locked and the key is in the nearby storage room. See a pile of Blood during an investigation and Aloy will say that she should scan the blood and follow the trail etc. It's weird that the guy who wrote Fallout New Vegas wrote this. But granted most gamers aren't exactly known for subtly or putting pieces together (just ask any DM) so I probably shouldn't criticize this. But it does feel like hiring Chirstopher Nolan to direct an Episode of the Telletubbies...... he can do it well but it seems he's overqualified for what the script and directing require.

 

I hope the sequel can improve because there's potential here. Improving the stealth and combat systems, giving the characters more of a personal arc and story since the mystery of the world is known now. One idea I'd love to see is a boss fight between a Faro kept alive as an AI or through machines against Aloy. It would bring the conflict full circle as you have Faro through raw and destructive technology fight Sobeck through a more "natural" and helpful approach. Could be cool. One idea I think would give Aloy a decent internal struggle in the next game is something like because she's a clone, she's degrading or something, so you could have her grapple with how she likes Sobeck but was cursed by her genetics or something.

 

If you had asked me earlier, I would have said that Guerilla should have dropped Horizon and gone back to Killzone seeing as they handled it better. But looking at them now, I doubt it. Killzone's stories now require a more deft touch to manage them. Shadow Fall demonstrates that with a premise that while cool, makes no sense and how the initially grey depictions of both sides is way more black and white. Horizon suits Guerilla way more now as an outlet for cool sci-fi superhero-like action in a more colourful and simplistic world. It's a little sad as I would have loved a Killzone Mercenary 2 from them but Horizon still has potential to be a great franchise if they make some serious improvements. I'm more excited for Forbidden West than I am most of other Sony's exclusives from a gameplay perspective. Miles Morales is likely to be the same game as its predecessor. And GOW Ragnarok is likely to be even more of the bad decisions Santa Monica already made because they were praised to high heavens. Horizon seems the most fluid now.

[Chepps_]

I find this game a chore to get through. The story and characters are boring in my opinion. I can’t get behind Alloy. She just comes across as a Mary-Sue. 
 

The combat is fun though.

[darius_darelis]

a game of extraordinary beauty...

Have platinum a long time ago, when I'm not lazy, playing NG+ on UH

 

 

 

 

 

[mysticmosh]

I just found this game repetitive garbage. Nice to look at, but just hide from mech, attack mech, kill mech...rinse, repeat. Even the story missions were awful. Gave up after about 5 hours or so, so maybe my point isn't accurate, but to me the game is bad and if I could wipe it from my psn account I would.

[JaneAusten69]

On 1/14/2021 at 1:23 AM, mysticmosh said:

I just found this game repetitive garbage. Nice to look at, but just hide from mech, attack mech, kill mech...rinse, repeat. Even the story missions were awful. Gave up after about 5 hours or so, so maybe my point isn't accurate, but to me the game is bad and if I could wipe it from my psn account I would.

I wouldn't go so far as to call this game garbage, but I have been extremely disappointed after finally getting around to playing it.  Picked it up while it was free on PSN and have heard great things about it.  I'm hoping it's just because I'm still early on in the game, but I am not finding it very engaging.  I was planning to play this as my last PS4 game before switching over to PS5, but now I'm kind of wishing I hadn't even started.  Not sure if I'll actually get around to finishing this one.

[lostforever77]

On 14.1.2021 at 10:23 AM, mysticmosh said:

I just found this game repetitive garbage. Nice to look at, but just hide from mech, attack mech, kill mech...rinse, repeat. Even the story missions were awful. Gave up after about 5 hours or so, so maybe my point isn't accurate, but to me the game is bad and if I could wipe it from my psn account I would.

Your point isn't accurate.

[AJ_Radio]

I wasn't a fan of Aloy. The best thing I enjoyed about this game was some of machines you went up against. It was mostly your typical open world experience of finding collectibles, upgrading gear, advancing the story so more areas would be unlocked, and doing some of the side content.

[PatinumNumemon]

Favorite PS4 game period. I can see why people say Aloy is a "Mary Sue," but I personally disagree (personally the biggest Mary Sue in the game is Dr. Soebeck, as it seems she just literally makes everything perfect). She did not start out loved by everyone who knew her; she had to earn it. Even when she did earn it there were still people who did not want to acknowledge her. Granted, it happens within the first few hours of the game, but the game shows AND tells us that she trained her whole life to just be acknowledged by her people. In fact, when the Nora start trying to worship her after she comes back from behind the door, she flat out rejects them and tells them to piss off! She also is not perfect, as she ends up getting caught and placed in a situation she really could not have escaped by herself. She most likely would have died if she did not have external help. It definitely would have been super plot armor if she made it out of there by herself, no matter how they would have done it. By the end of the story she basically sets out to explore and learn more of the world, which is what the game truly does best. Each of the 4 main locations are all different from each other, and definitely encourage you to go exploring to see what it all looks like. There's a desert, a snow forest, and even a rain forest! The forests look untouched by whatever happened here! Everybody has seen a post-apocalyptic game or movie where everything has gone to hell, but here the hell already passed. Grass has grown back, trees are fully grown, and there even is normal wildlife living alongside the robotic wildlife. The big question is "what happened leading to this?" which does get answered and is revealed as the bits and pieces finally come together all the way until the last piece of information is given which is a very shocking reveal. The gameplay is also really diverse. Sure, you're always shooting arrows at the machines, but that is oversimplifying it. What arrow type are you using? Trying to freeze the robot to where it makes the entire body vulnerable? Use the ice arrows. Wanna simply brute force your way through the machine and tear it to shreds? Use the hardpoint arrows. Does that robot have a big gun on its back? Shoot the sucker off, pick it up and spam it, it will save you resources too! You could stick with one way to play or just use the best strategies to kill each enemy the entire game, but that is on you; the game is not forcing you to play that way. 

 

The game is not prefect though. The facial animations still kinda creep me out for some reason ? maybe they are too realistic? A few of the side quests are pretty unremarkable, as I can barely remember some. Aloy LOVES to talk about everything she does, which gets annoying SUPER fast. While the limited fast travel is a good idea as it incentivizes actually traveling to the areas and possibly exploring areas you would not have seen had you fast traveled, you hold too few fast travel bags, which made me feel like staying maxed out of them in my inventory and I only used them when I REALLY did not feel like manually traveling to my destination. Furthermore, when you unlock unlimited fast travel, you now only want to use it. While that means less time is wasted running around mountains, that means more time looking at the same loading screen with the same hints you've read a hundred times. Yay.

 

Certainly not a perfect game, but it is an amazing one nevertheless. Before playing it, I had never heard anything about it, and if I had I honestly would not have been interested at the time. I was completely blind going into this game, and I am glad I was, as I enjoyed Horizon Zero Dawn so much. If you do not feel the same way, that is perfectly fine. I'm not going to bash you if you think it does not live up to the hype, is simply mediocre or absolutely hate it (though I may seriously have to question you on that lol) as we all have different opinions and we are entitled to them. Regardless of how you feel, I am glad you at least played through the game to the end ?

[mysticmosh]

On 16/05/2021 at 3:08 AM, lostforever77 said:

Your point isn't accurate.

Thanks for pointing that out

[Rejim]

This is the second game of this genre to try out (first was Days gone) and was also impressed by it, I mean they are making them so beautiful! My experience was mostly positive so I agree with most points mentioned here.

 

I do believe Aloy was a bit too much, everyone just is in awe with anything she does ? I mean her basic trait is that she is an outcast, but outside Mother's region it's a bit of a moo point, since it doesn't matter. Also, almost all Nora are a bunch of fakes in the end, since they all end up talking to her and asking her help haha. Story was mostly fine, had it's bad moments as well, like all of them I guess, some of the side missions added a nice depth to it, like the King's family, or Olin's one etc. But damn, half of them were just 'follow that trail - scan - repeat' (neat to have the tracks revealed outside of scan though). Sylens was an interesting character, and dunno why, but just by the sound of his voice, was expecting him to turn bad at some point (which he didn't do, yet...)

 

World is a wonder, a nice combination of different feels to it, with the desert, the forest, the mountains. Combat was cool, most of the time, am amazed with the variety of weapons and ammunition, and how each one may be suitable for different situations. One thing that confused me was the monster level, I mean I never noticed a difference when battling a lvl 20 scorcher vs a lvl 38 one, me being level 50 for example, seemed they'd give me the same trouble, or that a lvl 15 charger would give me more trouble than a lvl 38 watcher (dunno if there was actually, just an example), wasn't helping me understand if I was ever under-geared or not.

 

Dunno if mounting was possible in the main game or was a DLC addition, but it's completely horrendous! I was more often frustrated than not. I didn't mind that it was 'magically' coming from somewhere, makes it more 'realistic', but damn, make it stop where I am, not 5/10/20 meters away. If I have to wait for it, and then go to it, what's the point...and the controls, ohh so bad. Firstly, why have different 'gears', just give it an accelerate button and a stop one. And secondly, the times it just stops because there is a small inclination and the poor thing can't cross it...ffs realy, ended up preferring walking than dealing with that.

 

I liked what they did with the jumping, being automatic, although it does look super weird; let's make a 2 meter jump, I'll jump high but then suddenly stop because I need to grab that haha. Still prefer that to the usual 'wanna go left? ok I'll jump straight ahead instead' die and restart checkpoint till it eventually makes the jump you want. And since it's more of an exploration game, it was just perfect to have it this way.

 

Also, that; exploration games, love that these kind of games have those trophy lists, yes it's 'easy' but it lets you focus solely on enjoying the game, taking it to your own pace, do whatever you want without the stress of missing something. Though being those kind of games, I don't get why they join in to this trend of having NG+ trophies. The entire point is to explore, discover etc blablabla. Once done, it's not the same. I mean my second run did actually seem like a chore more than anything.

 

P.s. For Rost!

[MarcusPunisher]

It's one of the most beautiful looking open world, but it doesn't do much different. I found the whole reception to Horizon to be very overrated in general.

[Guest]

I don't understand people. "Oh, this game uses the same formula as several others although it's technically good" so when something like Death Stranding tries to dare and innovate, I see people massively attacking?‍♂️

[flugurnarrr]

I'll be honest, I have been trying to plat this game for years and every time I play it I get so BORED. I'm not even past the first 5 or 6 missions because it's just not intriguing to me. 

[zizimonster]

2 hours ago, flugurnarrr said:

I'll be honest, I have been trying to plat this game for years and every time I play it I get so BORED. I'm not even past the first 5 or 6 missions because it's just not intriguing to me. 

I wouldn't say the story is boring, but it's definitely not engaging. The gameplay, however, is top notch. I adore the flexibility of the character's movement. It is smooth.

[JoesusHCrust]

Good to read someone who has the same opinions about this game as I do! It looks great, but really it's just a standard issue sandbox. Assassin's Creed with robots! I played through it and will probably go back to get the 100% but I've never understood why this game is so highly rated. It consistently comes out as one of the best games on the PS4 but I just found it to be highly derivative. 

[SilkyJay86]

On 6/27/2021 at 5:11 PM, zizimonster said:

I wouldn't say the story is boring, but it's definitely not engaging. The gameplay, however, is top notch. I adore the flexibility of the character's movement. It is smooth.

Her movement is silky smooooth. Fun game to go in blind, for free. 

[willmill97]

I cant believe this dude stole my avatar