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

kraspkibble

Permabanned.
Bloodborne's my number 1 by far. I guess 3 would be Until dawn or the Last of Us remaster.

Damn if Horizon beats out TLOU and is second only to Bloodborne it must be damn good. Witcher 3, Bloodborne, and TLOU(remastered) are my favourite games on PS4. I enjoyed Until Dawn but wouldn't put it up near them.
 

Carcetti

Member
Wow.

It'll be almost unprecedented if Horizon straddles great character-action gameplay as well as good "action adventure" story and narrative.

The story is one of the best AAA big budget plots in years. It's detailed, consistent, emotional and very satisfying until the very end. That's important to me because most big budget scifi games have laughable stories when you compare them to good stuff like SOMA. Plus the collectible side materials like diaries and voice logs are also great.

Damn if Horizon beats out TLOU and is second only to Bloodborne it must be damn good. Witcher 3, Bloodborne, and TLOU(remastered) are my favourite games on PS4. I enjoyed Until Dawn but wouldn't put it up near them.

I played the Witcher 3 on pc so wasn't thinking of it here, and I sorta still feel TLOU is a PS3 game for me. Horizon just hit the mark for me in almost every aspect from technical quality to the 'emotional tone' in writing and the world. Just clicked in every way.

EDIT: in case of 'receipts!'
XlD4Bq0.jpg
 

SomTervo

Member
The story is one of the best AAA big budget plots in years. It's detailed, consistent, emotional and very satisfying until the very end. That's important to me because most big budget scifi games have laughable stories when you compare them to good stuff like SOMA. Plus the collectible side materials like diaries and voice logs are also great.

Awesome, thanks. Excited to see how it pans out. This is my career now so it's sort of a weird mix of terrifying and revitalising to see high-tier work!
 
No there is no game plus mode , although you can continue the game after the ending.

Exactly, after playing the last mission the world gets 're-set' to before the last mission but you keep your experience points etcetera. So then you can go on with 100% the game.
 

vivekTO

Member
New Game + can still be added via patch like Witcher 3 did.

Do it GG!

That will be a little bit tough or what should i say weird as the game opening for about 3-4 hours is quiet Narrative heavy/Linear and could feel drag to replay it again . this is no Soulsbourne type of game.
 

Radec

Member
That will be a little bit tough or what should i say weird as the game opening for about 3-4 hours is quiet Narrative heavy/Linear and could feel drag to replay it again . this is no Soulsbourne type of game.

Witcher 3 is like that in the beginning. And I replayed it 3 times now.
 

Allonym

There should be more tampons in gaming
Not sure if anyone has asked this but if not, shame on you guys for the oversight lol but we know that there are supposedly 26 variety of machines in the game. Are variations of a machine used to bolster that number or are the 26 all completely unique machines? Secondly does that 26 include "boss robots"? Thanks to anyone who takes the time out to briefly answer my question.
 
Not sure if anyone has asked this but if not, shame on you guys for the oversight lol but we know that there are supposedly 26 variety of machines in the game. Are variations of a machine used to bolster that number or are the 26 all completely unique machines? Secondly does that 26 include "boss robots"? Thanks to anyone who takes the time out to briefly answer my question.

It's 26 unique machines and then variations on top of that. Not sure about boss robots.
 

SomTervo

Member
That will be a little bit tough or what should i say weird as the game opening for about 3-4 hours is quiet Narrative heavy/Linear and could feel drag to replay it again . this is no Soulsbourne type of game.

It's closer to Soulsborne than The Witcher 3 and The Witcher 3 suffered from the same slow-opening phase.
 
Short impressions because I don't want to spoil anything for anyone even one bit: Horizon is simply my 2nd most favorite game on PS4.

For reference, I found all Ubi open world games since Black Flag boring as hell and always hated Killzone.

Bloodborne's my number 1 by far. I guess 3 would be Until dawn or the Last of Us remaster.

Interesting..

So you love Bloodborne. Where's Nioh in your list?
 
The story is one of the best AAA big budget plots in years. It's detailed, consistent, emotional and very satisfying until the very end. That's important to me because most big budget scifi games have laughable stories when you compare them to good stuff like SOMA. Plus the collectible side materials like diaries and voice logs are also great.

Dang, this post alone makes me want the game. I know I won't have time to play it and Zelda though... Well, this will still be good in a few months.
 

Carcetti

Member
Interesting..

So you love Bloodborne. Where's Nioh in your list?

Not far behind, been playing the Way of the Strong mode now farming green gear and it feels more fresh to me than DS3's relentless recycling. Not to mention the combat + action mode framerate so... Top 10, maybe even Top 5.

If you're trying to chart my tastes, I generally love RPGs, adventure, and horror games, plus have a huge love for the Souls genre. In Horizon I love the believable world, the chaos and physicality of combat, the emotion they bring to Aloy's story, and the apocalyptic stuff has a nicely bleak tone mixed with beautiful optimism.
 

Cartho

Member
How are the difficulties? Is normal too easy?

Do you guys recommend starting on hard?


From what I've heard it's tricky. Unsurprising really, GG's games often are quite challenging. The Killzone series has had some ferociously difficult moments in it and on harder difficulties was pretty tough.

I think people recommend starting on normal as it's apparently got quite a different feel to many other games - charging in with a spear will get you killed very, very fast.
 

yurinka

Member
I have an important question about the HUD:

Can you move it in order to have it closer to the screen edges and/or make it smaller? Because it seems to be too big and intrusive.
 

Carcetti

Member
I have an important question about the HUD:

Can you move it in order to have it closer to the screen edges and/or make it smaller? Because it seems to be too big and intrusive.

Not movable, but you can make them dynamic (appear only when needed) or turn every element off completely.
 
You can change the difficulty whenever. I've been playing on normal and I love it. Perfect for me.


I TOLD Y'ALL THIS GAME IS DOPE

Fuck work I need to stay home and finish thisssssss

Btw Lamp in the impressions thread I remember you saying that you really liked the side-quests.Maybe they weren't of W3 quality but they flesh out the world really well.
Most of the reviewers though didn't like them as much.
What's your take on this?
 

The Lamp

Member
Btw Lamp in the impressions thread I remember you saying that you really liked the side-quests.Maybe they weren't of W3 quality but they flesh out the world really well.
Most of the reviewers though didn't like them as much.
What's your take on this?
¯_(ツ)_/¯

They're really restricted in gameplay style and get somewhat repetitive in that fashion (I haven't completed the game yet), but the reward for doing them is a lot of experience, great loot, and interesting characters and lore. They range from short to longer than an hour. They help me understand the lore and politics so I enjoy doing them.

They're not outrageously funny or creative, they're not going to greatly change the game for you or the gameplay.

Depends on where expectations lie I guess. My expectations were rock bottom for side quests designed by Guerilla. You're not going to turn into a robot in a side quest and attend a robot carnival. You're going to interact in a believably normal way with NPCs that could use your badass skills. And I was pleased the side quests weren't convoluted missable fetch quests strung amongst obscure items and NPCs that give you a super weapon.

I can describe several examples of side quests that fit this description. Other than that I can just say that I liked them and hope others do on launch, but they don't have to.

It's also possible that due to time, reviewers only did 1 or 2 side quests at the beginning of the game and judged the whole feature off that. Idk.
 
¯_(ツ)_/¯

They're really restricted in gameplay style and get somewhat repetitive in that fashion (I haven't completed the game yet), but the reward for doing them is a lot of experience, great loot, and interesting characters and lore. They range from short to longer than an hour. They help me understand the lore and politics so I enjoy doing them.

They're not outrageously funny or creative, they're not going to greatly change the game for you or the gameplay.

Depends on where expectations lie I guess. My expectations were rock bottom for side quests designed by Guerilla. You're not going to turn into a robot in a side quest and attend a robot carnival. You're going to interact in a believably normal way with NPCs that could use your badass skills. And I was pleased the side quests weren't convoluted missable fetch quests strung amongst obscure items and NPCs that give you a super weapon.

I can describe several examples of side quests that fit this description. Other than that I can just say that I liked them and hope others do on launch, but they don't have to.

It's also possible that due to time, reviewers only did 1 or 2 side quests at the beginning of the game and judged the whole feature off that. Idk.

I just received like 5 side quests at once and I have done all that came before. Lamp says it well, there are no gameplay surprises in this game in terms of variety. The game is what it is from start to finish, like he said you aren't going to be doing some mini game or unique moment. You are going to fight robots and they put you into some good situations.

Like a did one quest where I had to basically accomplish three goals by honing to specific spots to fight and I really enjoyed it cause those spots. Some introduce new enemies. Some have human enemies. There are a few "collect me this item" quests but even those have a neat story tied to it.

The side stories are well done. Again it's mostly taken from the witcher style of something bad happened to someone please help and then you learn maybe what you thought isn't so, then it's resolved. Some side quests have taken me to many locations spread across the world. Some teach you about different tribes and people. To me it's all worth doing, it's not like there are a shit ton of them.
 
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