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Horizon Zero Dawn Spoiler-free Impressions (for real this time)

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
I'm a bit worried about enemy variety as it seems like only a handful of machines are actually in the game just going by what has been shown/talked about so far. I'm hoping they are keeping a lot of enemy types secret because if not I could see it getting fairly tedious.
Based on the preview footage there are 26 separate machine types and some of those have variants.
 
This is kind of how it works (at least early game. I'm not sure if this counts as anything spoilers, but I am trying to avoid giving spoilers but rather just explaining basic controls and mechanics):

You can choose to stealth or brashly approach enemies. They have health bars and weakpoints. If you let them survive, they might alert a horde of more enemies (especially if they're watchers).

If you get caught in close combat, you can aim your bow to take out weakpoints for more damage, or at their general body for less damage. Or you can use R1 for spear attacks or R2 for stronger spear slashes (think the difference between Link's sword slash and his aerial jump). You can dash with circle, but there's no block or guard. You crouch with square to increase your stealth.

You can also strategize by using special weapons other than your bow and spear. These are bought by collecting valuable items.

If you get hit, your red HP bar goes down. You restore it with medicine (the green bar) which you gather from your surroundings. The red bar will restore equal to the depletion of the green bar, which is controlled by tapping up on the d-pad to heal.

It was quick to learn and so far it's satisfying. It's not very deep hand-to-hand combat (obviously, it's not Nioh or anything lol), but the depth of the gameplay itself comes from the options you have in taking out enemies.

This is just first few hours though. I have no idea how the combat might open up even more.

I imagine combat diversity improves through the skills you choose to unlock in the skill tree, in some on the lets plays they've shown there's a nice amount to unlock throughout the game while you play.
 
Since we're talking about RDR, I must say, I only played RDR to lasso people and put them in front of trains. Is there an equivalent to that in this game? This is important information I must know before I rent and/or purchase this title.
 

DrD

Member
Based on these impressions I have a feeling the story will be better than people were expecting. They didn't hire John Gonzalez for nothing.
 
Based on the preview footage there are 26 separate machine types and some of those have variants.
Plus their corrupted variants... unless that's what you meant.

Since we're talking about RDR, I must say, I only played RDR to lasso people and put them in front of trains. Is there an equivalent to that in this game? This is important information I must know before I rent and/or purchase this title.

I don't think this game has trains, no...

Does Alloy have a pet horse or mini robo horse to travel faster?
she can
hack certain machines to ride as mounts, yes.
 

RexNovis

Banned
Based on the preview footage there are 26 separate machine types and some of those have variants.

Really?!? Thats news to me. I was going off of their promotional videos and trailers. I havent been watching the gameplay demos so as to avoid unnecessary spoilers. When you say 26 types do you mean totally distinct machine types or iterations of various archetypes?
 
oh god

209.gif
 

Loudninja

Member
Really?!? Thats news to me. I was going off of their promotional videos and trailers. I havent been watching the gameplay demos so as to avoid unnecessary spoilers. When you say 26 types do you mean totally distinct machine types or iterations of various archetypes?
Every single one completely different.
 

jmaine_ph

Member
Really?!? Thats news to me. I was going off of their promotional videos and trailers. I havent been watching the gameplay demos so as to avoid unnecessary spoilers. When you say 26 types do you mean totally distinct machine types or iterations of various archetypes?

26 unique types.
 

WadeitOut

Member
As much as I want this game to be good, I can't take previews seriously when they reference not only Uncharted and TLoU, but freaking Red Dead Redemption? Might as well throw "Citizen Kane of video games" in there.
 

Yurikerr

This post isn't by me, it's by a guy with the same username as me.
Really?!? Thats news to me. I was going off of their promotional videos and trailers. I havent been watching the gameplay demos so as to avoid unnecessary spoilers. When you say 26 types do you mean totally distinct machine types or iterations of various archetypes?

Distinctive machines (as let s say, different animals).

They can be classified in big groups but are unique.


As much as I want this game to be good, I can't take previews seriously when they reference not only Uncharted and TLoU, but freaking Red Dead Redemption? Might as well throw "Citizen Kane of video games" in there.

Why? Is RDR a sacred incomparable game?
 
Really?!? Thats news to me. I was going off of their promotional videos and trailers. I havent been watching the gameplay demos so as to avoid unnecessary spoilers. When you say 26 types do you mean totally distinct machine types or iterations of various archetypes?

Completely different with different defences and attack states... And a lot of them have corrupt equivalents too which will have behaviour differences and act far more aggressive towards you as an example.
 
As much as I want this game to be good, I can't take previews seriously when they reference not only Uncharted and TLoU, but freaking Red Dead Redemption? Might as well throw "Citizen Kane of video games" in there.

I mean when you want to associate with a game of high quality, those are some of the games you would mention, no?
 

RexNovis

Banned
Every single one completely different.

26 unique types.

Distinctive machines (as let s say, different animals).

They can be classified in big groups but are unique.

Completely different with different defences and attack states... And a lot of them have corrupt equivalents too which will have behaviour differences and act far more aggressive towards you as an example.

Wow. Well thats fantastic news. Way more than I had ever thought would be in the game. I wonder why they have shown so few in trailers and promotional videos so far then. If there are 26 types theyve only shown a very very small minority of their enemy design. Guess they are really taking the less is more road on prerelease marketing.
 

The Lamp

Member
I imagine combat diversity improves through the skills you choose to unlock in the skill tree, in some on the lets plays they've shown there's a nice amount to unlock throughout the game while you play.

You're right. I just checked the skill tree and there are good new skills Aloy can learn that are useful. They range from damage multipliers to actual new actions she can perform. The stuff you would usually expect from an open world skill tree. Reminds me a little bit of getting new useful abilities inFamous or Kingdom Hearts (although these are not flashy, explosive new abilities like those games). But they are helpful.
 
Really?!? Thats news to me. I was going off of their promotional videos and trailers. I havent been watching the gameplay demos so as to avoid unnecessary spoilers. When you say 26 types do you mean totally distinct machine types or iterations of various archetypes?

26 completely different enemies.

Then you have slight variations to account for the environment they are in.

Then the corrupted variations.
 

Glassboy

Member
I got my copy today and have sunk a couple hours into the game. Here are some early impressions. Also, I'm playing on hard mode and on a PS4 pro.

-The intro is well done and has me curious about why Aloy is an outcast and why the world came to the state that it's currently in.
-Her model is insanely beautiful, but you can definitely tell that more effort goes into to certain characters. It's completely understandable because of how many characters are probably in the game
-The facial animations are not naughty dog level, but I don't believe any other game really comes close. It's looks good enough and the voice acting is better than expected.
-The graphic are incredible. It's like uncharted 4 level graphics but on a bigger scale. The lighting is beautiful and natural feeling and the pop in is almost completely unnoticeable even with the amount of insane looking foliage.
-Combat is really fun. Enemies hit really hard and can take out half your life in one hit. The first trap gun you get is really satisfying and fun to use. So far combat is my favorite part of the game.
-the music is subtle but very beautiful. Overall very impressed with audio/visual elements.

I will update more later tomorrow when I get a chance rot okay more. I can also answer any question people might have.
 

Loudninja

Member
I got my copy today and have sunk a couple hours into the game. Here are some early impressions. Also, I'm playing on hard mode and on a PS4 pro.

-The intro is well done and has me curious about why Aloy is an outcast and why the world came to the state that it's currently in.
-Her model is insanely beautiful, but you can definitely tell that more effort goes into to certain characters. It's completely understandable because of how many characters are probably in the game
-The facial animations are not naughty dog level, but I don't believe any other game really comes close. It's looks good enough and the voice acting is better than expected.
-The graphic are incredible. It's like uncharted 4 level graphics but on a bigger scale. The lighting is beautiful and natural feeling and the pop in is almost completely unnoticeable even with the amount of insane looking foliage.
-Combat is really fun. Enemies hit really hard and can take out half your life in one hit. The first trap gun you get is really satisfying and fun to use. So far combat is my favorite part of the game.
-the music is subtle but very beautiful. Overall very impressed with audio/visual elements.

I will update more later tomorrow when I get a chance rot okay more. I can also answer any question people might have.
Very nice, thanks for the impressions :)

Wow. Well thats fantastic news. Way more than I had ever thought would be in the game. I wonder why they have shown so few in trailers and promotional videos so far then. If there are 26 types theyve only shown a very very small minority of their enemy design. Guess they are really taking the less is more road on prerelease marketing.
They showed quote a few from the preview event, and they had 4 videos detailing 4 of them.
 
the only offensively bad thing i've seen so far is human a.i.

like that shit is just bad

it stands out more since the robots are more reactive and threatening

the humans are like slow moving neanderthals
 
I got my copy today and have sunk a couple hours into the game. Here are some early impressions. Also, I'm playing on hard mode and on a PS4 pro.

-The intro is well done and has me curious about why Aloy is an outcast and why the world came to the state that it's currently in.
-Her model is insanely beautiful, but you can definitely tell that more effort goes into to certain characters. It's completely understandable because of how many characters are probably in the game
-The facial animations are not naughty dog level, but I don't believe any other game really comes close. It's looks good enough and the voice acting is better than expected.
-The graphic are incredible. It's like uncharted 4 level graphics but on a bigger scale. The lighting is beautiful and natural feeling and the pop in is almost completely unnoticeable even with the amount of insane looking foliage.
-Combat is really fun. Enemies hit really hard and can take out half your life in one hit. The first trap gun you get is really satisfying and fun to use. So far combat is my favorite part of the game.
-the music is subtle but very beautiful. Overall very impressed with audio/visual elements.

I will update more later tomorrow when I get a chance rot okay more. I can also answer any question people might have.

This game is going to do very well. Sony has a big new franchise on their hands.
 

Smellycat

Member
I got my copy today and have sunk a couple hours into the game. Here are some early impressions. Also, I'm playing on hard mode and on a PS4 pro.

-The intro is well done and has me curious about why Aloy is an outcast and why the world came to the state that it's currently in.
-Her model is insanely beautiful, but you can definitely tell that more effort goes into to certain characters. It's completely understandable because of how many characters are probably in the game
-The facial animations are not naughty dog level, but I don't believe any other game really comes close. It's looks good enough and the voice acting is better than expected.
-The graphic are incredible. It's like uncharted 4 level graphics but on a bigger scale. The lighting is beautiful and natural feeling and the pop in is almost completely unnoticeable even with the amount of insane looking foliage.
-Combat is really fun. Enemies hit really hard and can take out half your life in one hit. The first trap gun you get is really satisfying and fun to use. So far combat is my favorite part of the game.
-the music is subtle but very beautiful. Overall very impressed with audio/visual elements.

I will update more later tomorrow when I get a chance rot okay more. I can also answer any question people might have.

Sweet. Seems like a very polished AAA game. I am expecting it do very well, and also score well too. MC in the 90s most likely
 

Raylan

Banned
Really?!? Thats news to me. I was going off of their promotional videos and trailers. I havent been watching the gameplay demos so as to avoid unnecessary spoilers. When you say 26 types do you mean totally distinct machine types or iterations of various archetypes?
Totally different types. We can post a pic for you here, where you can see most of them.
 
I'm a bit worried about enemy variety as it seems like only a handful of machines are actually in the game just going by what has been shown/talked about so far. I'm hoping they are keeping a lot of enemy types secret because if not I could see it getting fairly tedious.
One machine can have up to nine distinct attacks, for close, medium, and far ranges. It's not like the sniper type, the charging type, etc. I haven't played, but from what I've seen and read, the combat diversity seems akin to that of a dual stick shooter, where different combinations of enemies can drastically change an encounter
 

jmaine_ph

Member
I got my copy today and have sunk a couple hours into the game. Here are some early impressions. Also, I'm playing on hard mode and on a PS4 pro.

-The intro is well done and has me curious about why Aloy is an outcast and why the world came to the state that it's currently in.
-Her model is insanely beautiful, but you can definitely tell that more effort goes into to certain characters. It's completely understandable because of how many characters are probably in the game
-The facial animations are not naughty dog level, but I don't believe any other game really comes close. It's looks good enough and the voice acting is better than expected.
-The graphic are incredible. It's like uncharted 4 level graphics but on a bigger scale. The lighting is beautiful and natural feeling and the pop in is almost completely unnoticeable even with the amount of insane looking foliage.
-Combat is really fun. Enemies hit really hard and can take out half your life in one hit. The first trap gun you get is really satisfying and fun to use. So far combat is my favorite part of the game.
-the music is subtle but very beautiful. Overall very impressed with audio/visual elements.

I will update more later tomorrow when I get a chance rot okay more. I can also answer any question people might have.

Nice! Thanks for the impressions.
 

X-Frame

Member
I got my copy today and have sunk a couple hours into the game. Here are some early impressions. Also, I'm playing on hard mode and on a PS4 pro.

-The intro is well done and has me curious about why Aloy is an outcast and why the world came to the state that it's currently in.
-Her model is insanely beautiful, but you can definitely tell that more effort goes into to certain characters. It's completely understandable because of how many characters are probably in the game
-The facial animations are not naughty dog level, but I don't believe any other game really comes close. It's looks good enough and the voice acting is better than expected.
-The graphic are incredible. It's like uncharted 4 level graphics but on a bigger scale. The lighting is beautiful and natural feeling and the pop in is almost completely unnoticeable even with the amount of insane looking foliage.
-Combat is really fun. Enemies hit really hard and can take out half your life in one hit. The first trap gun you get is really satisfying and fun to use. So far combat is my favorite part of the game.
-the music is subtle but very beautiful. Overall very impressed with audio/visual elements.

I will update more later tomorrow when I get a chance rot okay more. I can also answer any question people might have.

Great to hear!

So regarding the music -- you mean there is ambient music playing in the background when Aloy is just moving around and exploring?
 
Wow. Well thats fantastic news. Way more than I had ever thought would be in the game. I wonder why they have shown so few in trailers and promotional videos so far then. If there are 26 types theyve only shown a very very small minority of their enemy design. Guess they are really taking the less is more road on prerelease marketing.

Well one of the youtubers who went to one of the Horizon event put up a long vid which shows quite a few of them as a guide, but not near the total or corrupt versions. Primarily due to limited time with the game but it does show great variety in the machines design, attack and defence capabilities of the ones which he did find and could give an opinion about. I'm looking forward to it I think they'll be some challenges and thinking involved in quite a few battles.
 

BashNasty

Member
I'm kinda wary of gaffer impressions after that one time a gaffer got The Order 1886 early, but a lot of this sounds pretty cool

I find early GAF impressions to generally be quite unreliable as people who get a game early tend to be the most excited for it, and thus far more forgiving of flaws.
 
How's the dialogue & dialogue writing, in general?

Aside from human AI, I would say the way dialogue is written and spoken is probably the only other part of HZD that makes me go (-_-) in terms of how it's portrayed.
 
I find early GAF impressions to generally be quite unreliable as people who get a game early tend to be the most excited for it, and thus far more forgiving of flaws.
So what if ppl that got ot late really don't care about the game at all and just wanna troll. By all logic who do we trust than? What is this thread for. Who are we!!
 
Hopefully like other games the new game plus comes out in a patch after a month or so. Looks like I'm going to play this a lot, especially looks like I won't get to play zelda at launch.
 
Totally different types. We can post a pic for you here, where you can see most of them.

Dude that pic has some which we haven't even seen from the horizon playtest event if its the one I think it is
press kit poster

EDIT: Man I'm late on replies lol.
 
I find early GAF impressions to generally be quite unreliable as people who get a game early tend to be the most excited for it, and thus far more forgiving of flaws.

It kind of goes both ways. Impressions from some Gaffers who played Wolfenstein: The New Order and Uncharted 4 early were overly negative.
 
I got my copy today and have sunk a couple hours into the game. Here are some early impressions. Also, I'm playing on hard mode and on a PS4 pro.

-The intro is well done and has me curious about why Aloy is an outcast and why the world came to the state that it's currently in.
-Her model is insanely beautiful, but you can definitely tell that more effort goes into to certain characters. It's completely understandable because of how many characters are probably in the game
-The facial animations are not naughty dog level, but I don't believe any other game really comes close. It's looks good enough and the voice acting is better than expected.
-The graphic are incredible. It's like uncharted 4 level graphics but on a bigger scale. The lighting is beautiful and natural feeling and the pop in is almost completely unnoticeable even with the amount of insane looking foliage.
-Combat is really fun. Enemies hit really hard and can take out half your life in one hit. The first trap gun you get is really satisfying and fun to use. So far combat is my favorite part of the game.
-the music is subtle but very beautiful. Overall very impressed with audio/visual elements.

I will update more later tomorrow when I get a chance rot okay more. I can also answer any question people might have.
Sounds great! Added to the first post

I have a few questions:
- Do machines interact with each other, like an ecosystem?
- Does the world feel large and nicely spaced out? Given that you're mainly traveling by foot and sometimes by mount, I'm hoping the world feels large enough that it feels like a journey to traverse, while dense enough that there aren't too many areas of dead space
- Is the world exciting to explore? Personally exploring is one of my favorite things to do in open world games: I'm the guy who's currently walking around most of Watch Dogs so I can people-watch. So interesting things to find, nice vistas, etc,?
 

RexNovis

Banned
Well one of the youtubers who went to one of the Horizon event put up a long vid which shows quite a few of them as a guide, but not near the total or corrupt versions. Primarily due to limited time with the game but it does show great variety in the machines design, attack and defence capabilities of the ones which he did find and could give an opinion about. I'm looking forward to it I think they'll be some challenges and thinking involved in quite a few battles.

One machine can have up to nine distinct attacks, for close, medium, and far ranges. It's not like the sniper type, the charging type, etc. I haven't played, but from what I've seen and read, the combat diversity seems akin to that of a dual stick shooter, where different combinations of enemies can drastically change an encounter

Sounds great! I'm still a bit apprehensive about the open world design and just how much standard Ubi style open world fluff is in it but its good to know the enemy variety is not an issue at all. Looking forward to reading some reviews come Monday.
 
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