I was just trying to understand your statement. I've gone back to review the conversation but I think my question is still valid. What would the game be if not more of what we got from the previous? What would elevate it from what it is, to what it should be from your perspective?
From what I saw, it looks like a solid improvement of the first game with refinements to its gameplay.
It's not a series that I got fully engaged with at launch and I am trying to play through it right now (although I got it at launch lol) and I am just starting to get why so many people thought it was really good. The traps you can set and the agility of Aloy really brings it together. To each his own but it just kinda seemed like you were downplaying it because it's what it is suppose to be, a sequel to the first with refined controls and a continuing narrative.
I never argued it's not been improved, my issue is with people saying it's "way better" or "significantly improved" - where? In what way? I just don't consider what I've seen in the trailer either of those things. Yes, the melee combat
has improved, because before it was awful and now it's slightly less awful. The human enemies still stand still while
And that's fine, I've no problem with a game that does more of the same thing it did well the first time around (minus melee), I just don't agree with the "much better" statements whatsoever. Looks fine.
It does look way better in gameplay. They have improved the melee. They have improved the traversal. They have added the grappling hook everywhere so you can use it during combat as well as during traversal making it much faster and less tedious. The glider should also let you glide down bigger mountains much faster, and if you cant see how that enhances the combat when paired with the grapple then i cant help you.
There are several minor improvements to the combat too. You no longer have to use dozen or so freeze arrows to slow down enemies. This grenade would do that for you in 1-2 hits. You get a secondary range attack by throwing spears which adds another weapon to your arsenal. She also pulled a quick smoke bomb trick which is a big improvement over the consumables in the first game which had to be deployed then triggered by enemies like mines. here it's almost like a secondary ability she can use right away and escape.
Lastly, and this is probably the most important improvement, they have made human enemy encounters much more fun. Who knew giving humans robot dinosaurs of their own would make them so much more formidable and fun to fight. they even added a melee only guy impervious to your arrows.
That's more of a real answer to my question, thanks. I still don't consider the additional of a grappling hook and glider being a "big improvement" to the gameplay, I think that's gonna be down to personal taste. I really don't think the human stuff looked much better either, she still hid in the waist-high red grass, into an instant stealth kill, got a huge run-up on the other guy who proceeded to stare at her while she charged an arrow for 3 seconds. Big guy didn't look impervious to arrows, she just weakened him with what basically seemed like the new R2 button and then finished him off with an arrow. But, if they're slightly better than before, okay.
But some of the smaller stuff you pointed out I didn't really notice and/or remember from the first game. If there's now a quick-use on some stuff that wasn't there before, that's good. Maybe I need to revisit what was actually possible in the first game, because honestly nothing that I saw here stood out that much, but maybe I'm giving the first game more credit than it deserves if some of this stuff was missing.
