• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

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

M

MyNameIsRye

Member
How is the loot in this game, are the items randomized, or is everything pre determined? How much variety is there in armor and weapons?
 
M

MegaSackman

Member
Am I the only one that spent 200+ hours to finish The Witcher III (including most of side quest)? I'm not even the biggest fan of that game but reading that everyone finished the game between 50 and 150hs makes me think what I was doing with it.

Anyway, I expect a Mass Effect amount of time as minimum and Dragon Age as max.

vivekTO said:
I will kill the goddess before i kill myself a Tallneck :)
Click to expand...

As I would. You have to be a really mean person to kill a brachiosaurus.
 
Z

ZettaiSeigi

Member
MegaSackman said:
Am I the only one that spent 200+ hours to finish The Witcher III (including most of side quest)? I'm not even the biggest fan of that game but reading that everyone finished the game between 50 and 150hs makes me think what I was doing with it.

Anyway, I expect a Mass Effect amount of time as minimum and Dragon Age as max.
Click to expand...

Nope, I spent way more time than that to finish Witcher 3 and Hearts of Stone. I'm yet to get started with Blood and Wine. Insane! I love the game but I don't think I have the time now to play it (though I know I must!)
 
T

Tyaren

Member
Is there really no way to tell if the percentage is related to the main quest or the overall game content?
Can one of the GAfers, who has the game already, maybe do two or three side quests only and tell us if the percentage went up?
 
M

MegaSackman

Member
vivekTO said:
I will kill the goddess before i kill myself a Tallneck :)
Click to expand...

Question for Lamb/Miami/Musician and whoever else is playing:

Do you feel the need to fast travel and do you do it? I've just remembered that I pretty much avoid fast travel all the time so that might be a reason why it takes me more time than others to finish these games.
 
V

vivekTO

Member
MegaSackman said:
Question for Lamb/Miami/Musician and whoever else is playing:

Do you feel the need to fast travel and do you do it? I've just remembered that I pretty much avoid fast travel all the time so that might be a reason why it takes me more time than others to finish these games.
Click to expand...

I don't have the game but i just add one thing to it.
you have to "create an item" to be able to Fast travel, so you can't spam it . i think this is a nice feature as musician also said at one point he can't fast travel as he don't have the items.
 
M

MiamiWesker

Member
MegaSackman said:
Question for Lamb/Miami/Musician and whoever else is playing:

Do you feel the need to fast travel and do you do it? I've just remembered that I pretty much avoid fast travel all the time so that might be a reason why it takes me more time than others to finish these games.
Click to expand...

Fast travel is tied to an item you have to create. It's easy to make but it's not free. So I haven't used it much, the area I am in is not that big.
 
T

The Lamp

Member
MegaSackman said:
Question for Lamb/Miami/Musician and whoever else is playing:

Do you feel the need to fast travel and do you do it? I've just remembered that I pretty much avoid fast travel all the time so that might be a reason why it takes me more time than others to finish these games.
Click to expand...

The map is very big so if they ever ask me to majorly backtrack (they haven't) or if I need to go to a previous area to catch up on sidequests, yeah I will fast travel. But so far I've been okay on foot or on a ride.

I will try to do a side quest or two and see how it changes percentage.
 
C

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Which one of these threads can I get actual video footage like the intro from the other day?
 
M

MegaSackman

Member
vivekTO said:
I don't have the game but i just add one thing to it.
you have to "create an item" to be able to Fast travel, so you can't spam it . i think this is a nice feature as musician also said at one point he can't fast travel as he don't have the items.
Click to expand...

MiamiWesker said:
Fast travel is tied to an item you have to create. It's easy to make but it's not free. So I haven't used it much, the area I am in is not that big.
Click to expand...

The Lamp said:
The map is very big so if they ever ask me to majorly backtrack (they haven't) or if I need to go to a previous area to catch up on sidequests, yeah I will fast travel. But so far I've been okay on foot or on a ride.

I will try to do a side quest or two and see how it changes percentage.
Click to expand...

Great, I thought you'd have a ton of materials to craft fast travel in a way that it'd be pretty much unlimited. Maybe that'll be the case once you're way into the game but it's cool to know that it works as intended.

Enjoy the game!
 
J

JakR

Member
MegaSackman said:
Am I the only one that spent 200+ hours to finish The Witcher III (including most of side quest)? I'm not even the biggest fan of that game but reading that everyone finished the game between 50 and 150hs makes me think what I was doing with it.

Anyway, I expect a Mass Effect amount of time as minimum and Dragon Age as max.



As I would. You have to be a really mean person to kill a brachiosaurus.
Click to expand...

I put 200+ hours into Witcher 3/HoS/BaW, but I do not expect or want even 100 hours of Horizon. I want a nice tight package with 20-40 hours that will hopefully entertain me excellent.

From the impressions of this thread it seems there it is nothing to worry about.

Just to have to waiting 2 weeks gonna be some kind of torture.
 
D

Deleted member 752119

Unconfirmed Member
heringer said:
Eww, I hope it's not that long.

20~30 hours is the sweet spot for a normal playthrough to me.
Click to expand...

Same. I'd be turned off it it was any longer than that. It doesn't seem like the type of games/story that I'd enjoy for much longer tbh.
 
M

MegaSackman

Member
JakR said:
I put 200+ hours into Witcher 3/HoS/BaW, but I do not expect or want even 100 hours of Horizon. I want a nice tight package with 20-40 hours that will hopefully entertain me excellent.

From the impressions of this thread it seems there it is nothing to worry about.

Just to have to waiting 2 weeks gonna be some kind of torture.
Click to expand...

No I mean, I put close to 225hs on base Witcher III, release date. :p
I did most of side quest and hunts but avoided question marks, races, boxing, and Gwent.
I galloped all the time though, maybe that's why it took me so long.

Anyway yeah, imagine that I didn't love the whole 225hs, more like a third of that time. So I'm ok with 40 to 100hs, 40 with main story and some side activities, and 100hs with everything completed plus exploration for the sake of it.

Edit: It depends of design though, sometimes it doesn't make sense for games to be more longer thant they are.
 
N

NathanDiego

Member
MegaSackman said:
Am I the only one that spent 200+ hours to finish The Witcher III (including most of side quest)? I'm not even the biggest fan of that game but reading that everyone finished the game between 50 and 150hs makes me think what I was doing with it.

Anyway, I expect a Mass Effect amount of time as minimum and Dragon Age as max.



As I would. You have to be a really mean person to kill a brachiosaurus.
Click to expand...

I took ~80 hours
 
T

Turkoop

Banned
Some (old?) gifs I created -

wjAlr8.gif


JZ2RNg.gif
 
R

reKon

Banned
The Lamp said:
I just woke up. Time to play more.

This game so far is really a mix of borrowed "feel" and mechanics from other games, but polished them pretty well I'd say. At 20% or 6 hours in, to kind of summarize my feelings, I would best describe it like this (I'm making mechanics comparisons, take it with a grain of salt as I'm just one person but I think I'm being pretty fair here):

The hunting and foraging feels like a mix between the elements in TLOU and the Tomb Raider Reboots. The natural open world populated with wildlife, NPCs with problems, and towns naturally integrated into the map feel kind of like RDR. Also, whoever asked earlier, you can ride a "horse"
(you can take control of beasts on the map and ride them)

The platforming/exploration mechanics (how the character feels as they clamber around the rocky environment) feels like a mix between The Witcher 3 and Shadow of Mordor with a touch of Uncharted (there's some ledge plarforming that surprised me that is obviously ND-inspired).

The bow combat kinda feels like a polished mix between Tomb Raider reboots and TLOU. The hand to hand combat is not too deep but it's satisfying and polished, with the spear that feels kind of like using the tuning fork from inFamous 2, but you have "heavy" and "light" attacks with R1 and R2.

The crafting systems remind me of the Tomb Raider reboots. The ability upgrades remind me of many games that have those features, like Tomb Raider reboots, inFamous, Kingdom Hearts, etc (but it's not as flashy or varied as the last two).

The fights against tougher machines are thrilling and feel a lot like when you battle tough enemies in inFamous 2. Lots of dodging and sliding out of enemy fire, then zooming in to fire shots at weak spots. You feel like two powerful entities battling. This is my favorite part of the game.

There's merchant-style trading like any open world RPG that lets you get new items and weapons and upgrades.

The story could shit the bed later but right now it is opening up to be way more interesting and "oh shit" than I personally expected. I haven't seen an open world action RPG story and lore engross me in unexpected ways at a magnitude like this since Assassin's Creed 1.

The open world RPG style feels condensed and tightly driven around the narrative. Kinda like The Witcher 3 but with even more "fat" trimmed to keep the game's narrative in the spotlight. There's other stuff to do. I had fun just toying around in the open world last night. But the urgency is there to play the main story.

I'll try to refrain from more impressions until I'm much further into the game, like later this afternoon. I'll be able to say if the game maintains its consistency
Click to expand...

Thank you for helping maintain the focus of this thread. This is the kind of info I was looking for.
 
Freeman76

Freeman76

Member
I will be happy with 15-20 hours main story but meaningful and worthwhile content that can add another 40+ to that. Videogame stories are generally wank and overstay their welcome in my experience, its the gameplay hooks that keep me interested.
 
T

The Lamp

Member
I did one side quest and it bumped my progress up 0.47%. I doubt that increment is consistent with every quest though. But not sure yet.
 
M

More_Badass

Member
The Lamp said:
I did one side quest and it bumped my progress up 0.47%. I doubt that increment is consistent with every quest though. But not sure yet.
Click to expand...
How are the side quests? Engaging? Is the Witcher/New Vegas experience rearing its head in that aspect?

Also is there a lot of lore and info on the world/cultured to discover?
 
T

The Lamp

Member
Kenzodielocke said:
What does side quest mean exactly ?
Click to expand...

There are main quests, side quests, and errands. I did a side quest. It's not essential to the main story.

I really like the side quests. They give more understanding into the politics and lore going on. It adds characters that I like, like TW3. So far they've been pretty interesting. Reminds me of TW3 but I never got very far in that game because I got busy with other stuff.
 
K

kurahador

Member
The Lamp said:
There are main quests, side quests, and errands. I did a side quest. It's not essential to the main story.
Click to expand...

I think what he meant was how the side-quests are structured. Like does it involve hunting and getting stuff, investigate stuff, create stuff, etc.
 
T

TheRealTalker

Banned
The Lamp said:
I just woke up. Time to play more.

This game so far is really a mix of borrowed "feel" and mechanics from other games, but polished them pretty well I'd say. At 20% or 6 hours in, to kind of summarize my feelings, I would best describe it like this (I'm making mechanics comparisons, take it with a grain of salt as I'm just one person but I think I'm being pretty fair here):

The hunting and foraging feels like a mix between the elements in TLOU and the Tomb Raider Reboots. The natural open world populated with wildlife, NPCs with problems, and towns naturally integrated into the map feel kind of like RDR. Also, whoever asked earlier, you can ride a "horse"
(you can take control of beasts on the map and ride them)

The platforming/exploration mechanics (how the character feels as they clamber around the rocky environment) feels like a mix between The Witcher 3 and Shadow of Mordor with a touch of Uncharted (there's some ledge plarforming that surprised me that is obviously ND-inspired).

The bow combat kinda feels like a polished mix between Tomb Raider reboots and TLOU. The hand to hand combat is not too deep but it's satisfying and polished, with the spear that feels kind of like using the tuning fork from inFamous 2, but you have "heavy" and "light" attacks with R1 and R2.

The crafting systems remind me of the Tomb Raider reboots. The ability upgrades remind me of many games that have those features, like Tomb Raider reboots, inFamous, Kingdom Hearts, etc (but it's not as flashy or varied as the last two).

The fights against tougher machines are thrilling and feel a lot like when you battle tough enemies in inFamous 2. Lots of dodging and sliding out of enemy fire, then zooming in to fire shots at weak spots. You feel like two powerful entities battling. This is my favorite part of the game.

There's merchant-style trading like any open world RPG that lets you get new items and weapons and upgrades.

The story could shit the bed later but right now it is opening up to be way more interesting and "oh shit" than I personally expected. I haven't seen an open world action RPG story and lore engross me in unexpected ways at a magnitude like this since Assassin's Creed 1.

The open world RPG style feels condensed and tightly driven around the narrative. Kinda like The Witcher 3 but with even more "fat" trimmed to keep the game's narrative in the spotlight. There's other stuff to do. I had fun just toying around in the open world last night. But the urgency is there to play the main story.

I'll try to refrain from more impressions until I'm much further into the game, like later this afternoon. I'll be able to say if the game maintains its consistency
Click to expand...

TLOU, TW3, Tomb Raider and Infamous 2


oh man I really like what I am hearing
 
N

nitrowolf2

Neo Member
Been doing a lot of sidequests.

They don't feel samey like a lot of open world games do, all the ones I've done so far have been different and very fun.

It was mentioned in one of the impressions that that particular user doesn't care whats going on. Let me explain this a bit more from my point of view. So far, the story seems Meh. It's there, but I don't feel like I've been given a huge reason to care unless it leads to some silly twist which from the time i've played I might be able to guess what it is. It may open up more, but its a bit hard for me as a tech guy to get into because I'm sitting saying "wow really that's not how that works"

The dialogue option is really nice, and feels Mass Effect, minus the reactions as in so far if you choose this over that it won't play a major role later. The facial animation looks super odd, as characters tend to jerk a bit around and like one of the other user said they look "dopey"

I'll say this about the intro, it was hard for me to get attached to it because of the animation during chat, and i didn't feel there was much syncing between characters going around like there is after the intro.

Game is massive, and possible the best Graphics i've seen to date. Didn't think something could top Uncharted 4, and this might have, thats taking into account that it's also an open world game. IDK what kind of Wizards Sony keeps hiring but my god.

The crafting System - I Love it. You can do it on the fly, and craft things in the middle of combat. Its quick and easy.

Like others have said, the game drastically needs a lock-on feature, and I feel the running speed should be increased along with dodging because that can become annoying during combat.


It feels like a good Mix of Witcher, Far Cry, Uncharted, and Tomb Raider if I'm honest.
 
D

DriftingSpirit

Member
nitrowolf2 said:
Been doing a lot of sidequests.

They don't feel samey like a lot of open world games do, all the ones I've done so far have been different and very fun.

It was mentioned in one of the impressions that that particular user doesn't care whats going on. Let me explain this a bit more from my point of view. So far, the story seems Meh. It's there, but I don't feel like I've been given a huge reason to care unless it leads to some silly twist which from the time i've played I might be able to guess what it is.

The dialogue option is really nice, and feels Mass Effect, minus the reactions as in so far if you choose this over that it won't play a major role later. The facial animation looks super odd, as characters tend to jerk a bit around and like one of the other user said they look "dopey"

I'll say this about the intro, it was hard for me to get attached to it because of the animation during chat, and i didn't feel there was much syncing between characters going around like there is after the intro.

Game is massive, and possible the best Graphics i've seen to date. Didn't think something could top Uncharted 4, and this might have, thats taking into account that it's also an open world game. IDK what kind of Wizards Sony keeps hiring but my god.

The crafting System - I Love it. You can do it on the fly, and craft things in the middle of combat. Its quick and easy.

Like others have said, the game drastically needs a lock-on feature, and I feel the running speed should be increased along with dodging because that can become annoying during combat.


It feels like a good Mix of Witcher, Far Cry, Uncharted, and Tomb Raider if I'm honest.
Click to expand...
Thanks!

Add it to the list!
 
O

onemanasylum

Banned
nitrowolf2 said:
Been doing a lot of sidequests.

They don't feel samey like a lot of open world games do, all the ones I've done so far have been different and very fun.

It was mentioned in one of the impressions that that particular user doesn't care whats going on. Let me explain this a bit more from my point of view. So far, the story seems Meh. It's there, but I don't feel like I've been given a huge reason to care unless it leads to some silly twist which from the time i've played I might be able to guess what it is. It may open up more, but its a bit hard for me as a tech guy to get into because I'm sitting saying "wow really that's not how that works"

The dialogue option is really nice, and feels Mass Effect, minus the reactions as in so far if you choose this over that it won't play a major role later. The facial animation looks super odd, as characters tend to jerk a bit around and like one of the other user said they look "dopey"

I'll say this about the intro, it was hard for me to get attached to it because of the animation during chat, and i didn't feel there was much syncing between characters going around like there is after the intro.

Game is massive, and possible the best Graphics i've seen to date. Didn't think something could top Uncharted 4, and this might have, thats taking into account that it's also an open world game. IDK what kind of Wizards Sony keeps hiring but my god.

The crafting System - I Love it. You can do it on the fly, and craft things in the middle of combat. Its quick and easy.

Like others have said, the game drastically needs a lock-on feature, and I feel the running speed should be increased along with dodging because that can become annoying during combat.


It feels like a good Mix of Witcher, Far Cry, Uncharted, and Tomb Raider if I'm honest.
Click to expand...

This sounds awesome.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Anyone else find most Ubisoft games to feel really bland, repetitive, and boring after a while?
2
78
3K
DanielG165 replied
Can Breath of the Wild work with a linear story?
23
806
ByWatterson replied
Beautiful games at the cost of being static.
2
71
3K
R6Rider replied
Unintentionally Funny/ Weird Game Design Choices
Opinion Cringe Analysis
4
703
Angry_Megalodon replied
What are your thoughts on the Destiny series?
2
68
2K
ShadyAcshuns replied
Top Bottom