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Zelda/Horizon: Zero Dawn Comparison Question

S

SolidSnakex

Member
KLoWn said:
Well, I can't tell people to like it if they don't, but stating it as a fact kinda irks me (not that you did that, the other guy did).

The themes each of the champion's have alone have already made their way into my list of the best Zelda music.

And in case anyone who haven't played the game is curious:
Urbosa's Theme
Daruk's Theme
Revali's Theme
Mipha's Theme
Click to expand...

I think those songs just highlight my issues with the soundtrack. Because none of them are even remotely bad, but they're also not tracks i'd really care to listen to again. They're kinda just...there and do their job. And that's more or less how i'd describe the soundtrack as a whole. I can certainly understand why people enjoy it, but I guess it's not for me. Which is disappointing as the game does so much well and one of the things I expected it to do really well turned out to be one of the few things that it's lacking in.

Wamb0wneD said:
This so much. Just because the music isn't blasting through the speakers all the time doesn't mean the music is bad or nonexistent.
Click to expand...

I'm a huge fan of Silent Hill OST's, which are largely made up of ambient tracks. So, having something blasting through speakers at all times isn't really needed. I just don't think a lot in the BotW OST really stands out. Especially in a year where we've seen soundtracks that i'd argue are not only soundtrack of the year contenders, but also soundtrack of the generation contenders like Gravity Rush 2, Automata, and Persona 5. And I fully expect Mario Odyssey to join that list.
 
P

pixelbox

Member
Regginator said:
I was gonna link this very same video.

And as others have said, OP, both games share very little besides being open world. Horizon (obviously) looks better from a photorealistic visual perspective, and the combat is pretty cool, but everything else it gets beat on by Zelda. Especially when it comes to the interactivity of said open world. With all due respect to Horizon, but it only looks good, whereas the physics from Zelda is so ridiculously well done. From a gameplay perspective and "breathing" world there's so much more variety and player freedom in BOTW.

Look the above video if you want know what I mean.
Click to expand...
I wish people would make a real comparison version this shit. It's so cherry picked.
 
C

Crimsonsky

Member
I've played both. I was a big fan of Horizon. It's a great game. I played Zelda on my WiiU and Cemu. I'm not a huge fan of it. It's fine, it just isn't anything special.
 
R

Remeard

Member
Honestly, not worth getting the Switch just for Zelda. I got caught in the hype and was honestly disappointed in the long run. It's a good game, but there's just so much in it that seems tedious and empty. After beating the game I ended up selling both.

As said before, they're different games. I found Horizon to be a more fulfilling experience. It's a far, far better story by miles, not to mention the voice acting and characters are fantastic. That might seem to be something to split hairs about, but there are some really, really terrible voice actors in BotW.

When the Switch lowers it price and they have a decent library of games, go for it.
 
C

Cuningas de Häme

Member
I love the story in BOTW. It is hidden in the world, whispers in the wind, mighty buildings of lost civilizations. The whole game has this melancholic feeling. They don't push the story, and I love Nintendo for that. I love that kind of approach.

And the music... I love it to bits. It sets the tone, it is like the sound of blood going through your veins. You hear it only if you stop to listen, unless your heart pumps and adrenaline rises. Again, love the approach.

Some people need the flashy lights and loud noises, BOTW is not for them I think. And that's ok, there is other games for them to enjoy.

Horizon for me seems like a game I wouldn't enjoy, and that's fine. Good if someone likes it.
 
Regginator

Regginator

Member
pixelbox said:
I wish people would make a real comparison version this shit. It's so cherry picked.
Click to expand...

Bullshit, then what's your definition of a "real non-cherry picked" comparison then? The point of these two videos, a total of 15 minutes, is to compare details. Engine based, physics, and how the world react to you as a player. By all means, be the change you want to see in the world. Let see other comparisons you have in mind.

Are you saying the videos are false? Because as it stands now, it's a fact that physics/details in Horizon leaves a lot to be desired. Vegetation doesn't react to physical action, whether walking on it or other external stimuli, it doesn't burn using fire arrows, no footsteps in the snow, fire burns on top (and even below) of water, no water splashes when jumping on shallow waters, and you can go all day.

Whether or not you care about such a thing is completely personal (I do, maybe you don't, maybe OP doesn't as well), but waving that off as "cherry picked" is ridiculous. It's a fact.
 
K

Klotera

Member
I put 120 hours into BotW (on Wii U) and am currently playing Horizon and very much enjoying it. Both great games. Some similarities in the open world, side quests, etc. However, Horizon is definitely more narrative focused, while BotW is more exploration and puzzle focused. If you liked Portal, you will love the shrines in Zelda.

All that being said. I would pay almost any amount of money to play BotW, knowing what I know now. Like Peter Griffin in Family Guy: "I am going to sign a check. Put any amount of money on there and I will pay it". It is that good. Horizon is a great game if you have PS4, but I wouldn't buy a PS4 just for it.
 
P

pixelbox

Member
Regginator said:
Bullshit, then what's your definition of a "real non-cherry picked" comparison then? The point of these two videos, a total of 15 minutes, is to compare details. Engine based, physics, and how the world react to you as a player. By all means, be the change you want to see in the world. Let see other comparisons you have in mind.

Are you saying the videos are false? Because as it stands now, it's a fact that physics/details in Horizon leaves a lot to be desired. Vegetation doesn't react to physical action, whether walking on it or other external stimuli, it doesn't burn using fire arrows, no footsteps in the snow, fire burns on top (and even below) of water, no water splashes when jumping on shallow waters, and you can go all day.

Whether or not you care about such a thing is completely personal (I do, maybe you don't, maybe OP doesn't as well), but waving that off as "cherry picked" is ridiculous. It's a fact.
Click to expand...


First there is grass that she interacts with. Second all grass is effected by explosions.
 
F

forknknife

Banned
xxracerxx said:
I know all I did in Horizon was try to chop down trees...fix that shit Guerrilla!!
Click to expand...
To me good graphics doesn't only mean nice textures, resolution, geometry etc. What's the use of such realistic setting if the AI and physics are so videogamey and artificial?

I haven't played Horizon yet but that video really shows some stuff that I am sure will bother me a lot and take me out of the experience. Not unlike thousands of videogames before it, of course, but still something that always bothered me about open world games in general and that Zelda does a good job at fixing for the most part.
 
L

Lingitiz

Member
WaterAstro said:
One has good story.
Click to expand...
Outside of surface level comparisons of being third person open world games, they're so different in terms of objectives and goals. If you come to Horizon looking for systems driven exploration and open world puzzle solving, it won't be there. Likewise if you're going into Zelda for varied monster hunting, a thought provoking Sci fi story with a lot of meat to it, there's nothing for you there.
 
Allonym

Allonym

There should be more tampons in gaming
Regginator said:
Bullshit, then what's your definition of a "real non-cherry picked" comparison then? The point of these two videos, a total of 15 minutes, is to compare details. Engine based, physics, and how the world react to you as a player. By all means, be the change you want to see in the world. Let see other comparisons you have in mind.

Are you saying the videos are false? Because as it stands now, it's a fact that physics/details in Horizon leaves a lot to be desired. Vegetation doesn't react to physical action, whether walking on it or other external stimuli, it doesn't burn using fire arrows, no footsteps in the snow, fire burns on top (and even below) of water, no water splashes when jumping on shallow waters, and you can go all day.

Whether or not you care about such a thing is completely personal (I do, maybe you don't, maybe OP doesn't as well), but waving that off as "cherry picked" is ridiculous. It's a fact.
Click to expand...
The poster is just saying that the videos are intentionally supporting Zelda and demonstrating the impact that physics have on gameplay in that game and it is an unfair comparison to Horizon. Horizon is certainly doing a lot more graphically intensive things so hoping that you can cut down foliage in it or grass would heavily impact its performance. It is an unfair comparison. While the player themselves can't destroy brush, large machines can. Long story, the video plays to the strengths of BotW while positioning Horizon as the same type of game when they're not created the same design philosophies in mind. Even if you are biased, this should be clear to see.
 
P

pixelbox

Member
Regginator said:
Bullshit, then what's your definition of a "real non-cherry picked" comparison then? The point of these two videos, a total of 15 minutes, is to compare details. Engine based, physics, and how the world react to you as a player. By all means, be the change you want to see in the world. Let see other comparisons you have in mind.

Are you saying the videos are false? Because as it stands now, it's a fact that physics/details in Horizon leaves a lot to be desired. Vegetation doesn't react to physical action, whether walking on it or other external stimuli, it doesn't burn using fire arrows, no footsteps in the snow, fire burns on top (and even below) of water, no water splashes when jumping on shallow waters, and you can go all day.

Whether or not you care about such a thing is completely personal (I do, maybe you don't, maybe OP doesn't as well), but waving that off as "cherry picked" is ridiculous. It's a fact.
Click to expand...

And get that shit out of here: https://youtu.be/I08VJj6sHtc
 
G

GravityInsanity

Member
Regginator said:
Bullshit, then what's your definition of a "real non-cherry picked" comparison then? The point of these two videos, a total of 15 minutes, is to compare details. Engine based, physics, and how the world react to you as a player. By all means, be the change you want to see in the world. Let see other comparisons you have in mind.

Are you saying the videos are false? Because as it stands now, it's a fact that physics/details in Horizon leaves a lot to be desired. Vegetation doesn't react to physical action, whether walking on it or other external stimuli, it doesn't burn using fire arrows, no footsteps in the snow, fire burns on top (and even below) of water, no water splashes when jumping on shallow waters, and you can go all day.

Whether or not you care about such a thing is completely personal (I do, maybe you don't, maybe OP doesn't as well), but waving that off as "cherry picked" is ridiculous. It's a fact.
Click to expand...

The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild is my GOTY, but this comparison is completely stupid.

Comparing an established franchise (Zelda) to a "brand new" IP Horizon Zero Dawn from a studio who is only known for making FPS Killzone games is ridiculous. Both games have different goals in their open worlds so the comparison is stupid. This is Guerrilla Games first crack at an open world action RPG which is also much smaller compared to Zelda. Zelda can cut down trees, but Aloy can't, oh let me make a video comparison anyway. Because these games have different goals videos like that makes absolutely no sense. It only brings in fanboys and it's doing its job. These games are nothing alike. Horizon is not designed to do what Breath of the Wild does in its open world.
 
L

Lingitiz

Member
GravityInsanity said:
The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild is my GOTY, but this comparison is completely stupid.

Comparing an established franchise (Zelda) to a "brand new" IP Horizon Zero Dawn from a studio who is only known for making FPS Killzone games is ridiculous. Both games have different goals in their open worlds so the comparison is stupid. This is Guerrilla Games first crack at an open world action RPG which is also much smaller compared to Zelda. Zelda can cut down trees, but Aloy can't, oh let me make a video comparison anyway. Because these games have different goals videos like that makes absolutely no sense. It only brings in fanboys and it's doing its job. These games are nothing alike. Horizon is not designed to do what Breath of the Wild does in its open world.
Click to expand...
It'd be like if someone laid out a comparison of all the cutscenes, voiced dialogue sequences, script lengths, etc. It's a dumb comparison when both games don't do the same things.
 
X

xxracerxx

Don't worry, I'll vouch for them.
Lingitiz said:
Outside of surface level comparisons of being third person open world games, they're so different in terms of objectives and goals. If you come to Horizon looking for systems driven exploration and open world puzzle solving, it won't be there. Likewise if you're going into Zelda for varied monster hunting, a thought provoking Sci fi story with a lot of meat to it, there's nothing for you there.
Click to expand...
Yup.
 
S

spekkeh

Banned
They're different enough to not get burned out per se, though they're also similar enough that you do make comparisons in your head. HZD is very iterative and Zelda is revolutionary. So make sure you finish HZD first. I loved HZD when I first started playing it, but I'm having a terribly hard time getting back into HZD after Zelda for how restrictive and railroaded everything feels.
 
W

WatTsu

Member
I finished BotW and just started Horizon. I liked BotW quite a bit and I am digging Horizon so far. They're both quite good, worthwhile games.

My read is that the story is better/present in Horizon, while traversal is easier and arguably more fun in Zelda. I like the multiple ways to solve puzzles in BotW (one of the reasons I like it so much more than other Zelda games) but the combat in Horizon is better.

Basically - they're both quite good and each one does something better than the other. But I'm glad I have the chance to play both.
 
T

The Maverick

Member
I have never seen the "revolutionary" that people see in BotW. The lack of narrative, awful voice acting, and overall aimlessness of the game makes it feel unfocused. My opinion of course, but I'd rather play Horizon for the first time than the other way around.
 
P

pixelbox

Member
key said:
I'm a bit confused watching the two videos. In the first video, the foliage doesn't react to Alloy, there are no footprints in the snow, NPCs don't react to her, etc. However, those things appear in the video you posted. So do they only appear at certain times in the game?
Click to expand...
Cherry picked. The thing is, all vegetation move with the weapon's explosion. And all trees can be destroyed with enough force.
 
S

spekkeh

Banned
The Maverick said:
I have never seen the "revolutionary" that people see in BotW. The lack of narrative, awful voice acting, and overall aimlessness of the game makes it feel unfocused. My opinion of course, but I'd rather play Horizon for the first time than the other way around.
Click to expand...
Can you give me another sandbox open world rpg?
 
X

xxracerxx

Don't worry, I'll vouch for them.
The most revolutionary thing in BotW to me is the climb anywhere mechanic (fuck you rain). The rest of the game is just taking awesome things we have seen before, melding them together into a great gameplay experience.
 
X

xxracerxx

Don't worry, I'll vouch for them.
bytesized said:
To me good graphics doesn't only mean nice textures, resolution, geometry etc. What's the use of such realistic setting if the AI and physics are so videogamey and artificial?

I haven't played Horizon yet but that video really shows some stuff that I am sure will bother me a lot and take me out of the experience. Not unlike thousands of videogames before it, of course, but still something that always bothered me about open world games in general and that Zelda does a good job at fixing for the most part.
Click to expand...

I mean, it is fine to feel that way, you are just not going to be playing many videogames at all with that mindset.
 
P

pa22word

Member
I dunno, I thought horizon was pretty trashy in comparison to Zelda. It felt like a last gen effort in comparison. I feel like games like Zelda and mgsv that emphasize spatial awareness in their open world design over everything else are the future of this type of game vs the overly scripted approach games like horizon favor. Horizon quickly fell out of favor for me once I realized that the entire game was just this overly repetitive stretch of scripted platforming and combat repeated over and over again, much like an Ubisoft game just with better gameplay. There's very little emergent play to be found in horizon everything just feels playtested to an almost paranoid degree, like the developers were so afraid that you'd not like something about it that they stripped the game of anything overly interesting in its mechanical presentation in favor for a super safe and controlled experience. Nothing screams this more than the game's love for throwing spatially relevant information on questing during dialog then to completely ignore those cardinal directions and pathing information once you actually get control of the game again by just giving you a waypoint to follow and not saving any of those directions in the quest log despite them being the most important information in the entire conversation, mechanically speaking.

It's a safe and boring game in a sea of safe and boring open world games. It achieves it's major publishing objectives in being a pretty tentpole game to move more ps4s, but other than that I feel there's little reason to play it over other more accomplished and interesting games in the genre other than sheer boredom on the part of the player in lack of anything more interesting to play.
 
S

spekkeh

Banned
Miniature Kaiju said:
Terraria. Minecraft. If you want to go really old, Mercenary.
Click to expand...
Okay come on that doesn't make any sense. BotW is not revolutionary because it's just like Minecraft or Terraria. Only you know that's bonkers insane. If Zelda is not an RPG then Minecraft is definitely not an action adventure.
 
S

SomTervo

Member
c1d said:
I found Horizon to be more combat-focused whereas Zelda was definitely more exploration-focused. I bought the Switch for Zelda and didn't regret it at all.
Click to expand...

This is the answer.

Zelda is less about the combat and much more about the adventure, puzzling, survival mechanics. Those are present in Horizon but Horizons CORE mechanics are the combat and stealth/hunting. Zelda is has more gameplay systems that are more cohesive.
 
H

Huge Succeeded

Banned
Regginator said:
Bullshit, then what's your definition of a "real non-cherry picked" comparison then? The point of these two videos, a total of 15 minutes, is to compare details. Engine based, physics, and how the world react to you as a player. By all means, be the change you want to see in the world. Let see other comparisons you have in mind.

Are you saying the videos are false? Because as it stands now, it's a fact that physics/details in Horizon leaves a lot to be desired. Vegetation doesn't react to physical action, whether walking on it or other external stimuli, it doesn't burn using fire arrows, no footsteps in the snow, fire burns on top (and even below) of water, no water splashes when jumping on shallow waters, and you can go all day.

Whether or not you care about such a thing is completely personal (I do, maybe you don't, maybe OP doesn't as well), but waving that off as "cherry picked" is ridiculous. It's a fact.
Click to expand...

???

Uhh, come the fuck on. Be less transparent. Don't pretend like you don't understand exactly how the elements compared in that video were selected specifically because they paint a certain picture.
 
H

Huge Succeeded

Banned
John Dunbar said:
what should be in the video to be more balanced?
Click to expand...

look you know it aint right to present that video as some rote, unbiased 'details comparison' when it observes only elements that are vital to BoTW's design that aren't at all vital to Horizon. I miss none of that shit playing Horizon because Horizon isn't out to facilitate the same kind of gameplay experience that Zelda is.

somehow I don't think that video would get so many posts if it had shit like a 'worldbuilding' segment where Aloy observes the world around her using Focus while Link reads some road signs and someone's diary
 
P

pixelbox

Member
Huge Succeeded said:
look you know it aint right to present that video as some rote, unbiased 'details comparison' when it observes only elements that are vital to BoTW's design that aren't at all vital to Horizon. I miss none of that shit playing Horizon because Horizon isn't out to facilitate the same kind of gameplay experience that Zelda is.

somehow I don't think that video would get so many posts if there were a 'worldbuilding' segment where Aloy observes the world around her using Focus while Link reads some road signs
Click to expand...
Simple as that.
 
N

NervousXtian

Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
Playing both, the exploration is SO much better in Zelda. It rewards you for exploring, Horizon didn't.. at all.

The combat in Horizon is better, but it's really a different type of action game than Zelda.

Horizon has this huge world, with no reason to really explore it.. Zelda has this huge world that begs to be explored.

The story is tighter in Horizon, but Zelda has much more clever gameplay.
 
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