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[rofif]

oh yeah I feel reviewers are WAY too easy on this game.
Melee sucks
Whole combat is about targeting small parts on fast annoying robots with tons of health.
Story is okish but many new characters suck ass... Just some punchable faces and voices.
The gameplay loop and loot just didn't grab me too much.

 

[ItsTheNew]

I wish the weapons were cooler, it makes the beginning areas very boring after 80 hrs of HZD.

 

[Topher]

When there's a cut-scene every 5min. and you can't have an uninterrupted half an hour of gameplay

And what game is that again?

 

[Boss Mog]

I looooove RDR2.

I can forgive weak combat if I can make a lot of other choices. RDR2 lacks agency in the main missions and combat, but the world asks you to engage with it in a thousand different ways. Love it.

And the story is much, much better than HFW.

Story is completely nonsensical in HFW but overall I still like it a lot better than RDR2 which I find just so repetitive and boring gameplay-wise. Great story and presentation is a nice thing to have in a game but ultimately gameplay is the only thing that really matters to me. If I cared only about the other stuff, I'd just watch movies instead.

 

[Kokoloko85]

Yes?

But Last of Us Part II and Ghost of Tsushima had incredible combat. Returnal is an all-time action game. Rift Apart was an absolute blast moment to moment. Miles Morales was - you get the point.

HFW is unique among Sony's recent output. It truly does put gameplay a tier or ten below the story (which isn't great, anyway).

Its combat isn’t as good as Ghost, God of War, Tlou2 etc, but I still enjoy it.
Compare it Assassins Creed, Farcry, Witcher 3. Its different and deeper than most open world combat systems. It has more varied enemies than most games too, well you cant just brute shoot them.

I can name a few better 3rd party combat systems like MGSV or Batman but I think Horizon is better than most open worlds out there as far as combat.

 

[jonnyp]

it's like the worst parts of Ubisoft games paired with the worst parts of RPGs had a baby and the result is an open world game with super linear missions, awful controls and the worst Parcour system ever (for real, the platforming, which is clearly Assassin's Creed inspired, feels worse than AC1 from 2007)

I also haven't finished it yet, it's really hard to keep going with all the shitty game design choices they made.
apparently they have patched Aloy to at least shut her stupid mouth now instead of commenting on literally everything you have to do next... but I haven't played since the patch, so I can't really comment on that,
but that was another reason I stopped playing, I had to literally turn off voice audio or I would have gone mad playing this game

games like these are clearly designed for casual players not veteran gamers, hence the lack of agency, since more agency = more things the player can fail at, and you can't have that in a mainstream singleplayer game designed for midwives and 50yo dads that play 2h a week

This is you, isn't it?

All you do is troll Sony related threads, and especially anything related to Guerilla Games. I have no idea why you bought HFW since you hated the first one and basically anything GG has ever made. Did you just buy it to try and justify your shitposting on Neogaf?

 

[MasterCornholio]

let me guess, you think Kirby deserves a 10/10

Hey don’t mess with Kirby.

 

[MasterCornholio]

And jokes on him it is highly rated

Both of them are to be honest.

 

[rofif]

OP did you play HZD? Because that's exactly how I felt about that game and wasn't expecting the sequel to change my mind.

Exactly my experience but I DID expected sequel to address my concerns but it doubled down

 

[Bragr]

What sort of player agency are you looking for that would do anything meaningful to the game?

 

[Ian Henry]

Damn I guess it came and went smh

 

[GymWolf]

That's not what I mean, all I'm saying is, a good combat system should work on all difficulty levels and how good or not you are at it shouldn't mean anything.

I'm not saying I find it hard. I am replying to the part where you mentioned you need to be good enough to dodge machines up close.

Whats important is that players enjoy the process and finds it fair, not if they die or not, and with Horizon, it does become more RNG-ish with more machines on the field, and it varies greatly from machine to machine how good that combat system works.

Dude...if it work on very hard it surely work even better on normal because you do way more damage, not sure what is your point...

On normal i can probably take out a thunderjaw or a shellsnapper with melee, a thing that is almost impossible on very hard.

The bolded part is bullshit, if you want a game that doesn't request some skills during combat or that has to be so dumbed down to make feel every person special, go play some animal crossing.

Every good combat system in history rewards skills from players and work better with some skill behind.

Again, not sure what your point is.

 

[Bragr]

Dude...if it work on very hard it surely work even better on normal because you do way more damage, not sure what is your point...

On normal i can probably take out a thunderjaw or a shellsnapper with melee, a thing that is almost impossible on very hard.

The bolded part is bullshit, if you want a game that doesn't request some skills during combat or that has to be so dumbed down to make feel every person special, go play some animal crossing.

Every good combat system in history rewards skills from players and work better with some skill behind.

Again, not sure what your point is.

I'm not necessarily talking about Horizon here.

My point is that a good combat system doesn't need highly skilled players at high difficulty. For example, I suck at Cuphead, but I still enjoy it, because it plays well.

Difficulty shouldn't mean anything if the game plays well. If it plays well, it doesn't matter how hard it is.

If I find you some ridiculously hard game right now, and you hate it, I can't just go "lol go and play Animal Crossing", that's a bullshit response. It's not about liking or disliking how hard it is, it's about how good a game is and how the gameplay scales with the difficulty.

The reason why I say this is because you said something like "you need to be good to use the spear". But you shouldn't need that, it should be interesting to use the spear no matter how hard you find it or how good you are.

 

[SpokkX]

Yeah game looks great but us usually kind of boring

Really hate that there is even more focus on dialogue and uncharted climbing

There is good still stuff but it is spoiled a bit with Aloys talking about whatever happens to death

 

[Teh Chosen Juan]

Straight up, I've been avoiding finishing this game. One mission to go for over a week. It's just such....a......slog.

Don't get me wrong - it's gorgeous and striking and the story occasionally lands. But it's a gameplay loop of go here, talk to guy, kill machine or enemy, talk to guy again. Very little interactivity in the environment, very few choices to make about what to do, where to go. Fighting machines is similarly without agency, as it's basically a leveling game, with weapons that you just match up with weakness. The human combat is atrocious, with one or two useful combos, no shield, no parry, very little stealth.

There are just no meaningfully different ways to play these encounters. And there are SO MANY.

Some exceptions come to mind, like the stuff in Vegas, but overall, I find the whole experience alternately breathtaking.....and utterly boring.

Thoughts?

agree. i finished the game. the grinding to level up weapons just got too old for me. skipped the shit out of all the later cutscenes because it was such a slog for sure. the combat got boring too. it's like, shoot arrows, dodge roll, craft more arrows, repeat. pattern quickly formed and just drained me. not to mention the SHITTY AS SHIT GRAINY PERFORMANCE MODE.

 

[Mossybrew]

OP's main complaint, lack of "agency" well you just described 99% of modern videogames so, congrats?

 

[Dick Jones]

I like the first game better.

The game plays like Japanese developers made the game. What they would think a western market would enjoy.

There is a thread on Sony not including and appreciating Japanese type games. Could you post these with there? Little victories and all.

 

[The artful mincer]

That's not exactly addressing the combat.

It's probably an objective fact that GOT combat has more depth, options, approaches, and variety. You can stealth it, duel to start, use different stances, etc, and essentially none of it is useless.

Even playing on hard, the vast majority of your capabilities in HFW are not needed, or worse, get in the way.

I literally feel the exact opposite at both games lol.

In Ghost your so overpowered by the end you have to start restricting mechanics I.e. having weaker armour, not using ghost weapons or stance etc to have any kind of challenge. In some instances you barely have to fight the soldiers just run away

Where as is horizon zero dawn (yet to play FW) you need evey tool at your disposal to take down the bigger machines on higher difficulty levels.

Ultra difficulty on zero dawn is harder than any souls game ever.

 

[Krappadizzle]

The first games story and design was awful too. I'm not surprised the second one shares those elements. It's an amazing piece of eye-candy...But that's about it. It's just not for me.

 

[rickybooby87]

I guess it landed a little different for me, I played HZD in 2020-2021, so, definitely dated, and I did have to push through on some parts of that game. But, HFW improved upon nearly every aspect of the original, it's my first platinum game of 22'. Working on Elden Ring now, for me, my score personally? I give it a 9/10 for the genre that it occupies, Elden Ring gets a 10/10 (So far) from me for the genre that it occupies.

 

[The artful mincer]

I'm absolutely convinced that people who call sony games movies never played the games or they played on easy\normal, they are not all good or on the same level, but most of them has solid gameplay\combat.

I share many of your criticism about the game, it is a better game than zero dawn but i think i loved the first one way more.

Final act is super rushed and the story payoff is a bit meh, same for the final boss fight.

But combat against machine on max difficulty for me was as good as fighting any good boss in elden ring.

Yeah it's always an eye rolling weak ass criticism.

They have a similar amount of cut-scenes,story moments as the likes of Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, metal gear and the Witcher games.

For some reason the above games don't get tarnished with the same movie game brush.

Probably because Sony games have far better voice acting and production values

 

[MDSLKTR]

It solidified Tsushima's position as the superior game that's for damn sure.

 

[Swift_Star]

It’s why I’m not a fan.

HZW is absolutely breathtaking, in terms of visuals, but feels like a PS3 game in terms of gameplay. It’s already dated.

Some people really have bad takes. ER is dated too since it’s the same combat from demon’s souls I guess?

 

[Swift_Star]

Here’s my issues with the game as someone who adored the first game.

• The OBSESSION with the pullcaster and having to pull shit.
• The "Uncharted 4" crate moving.
• Having to go to a workbench to do upgrades instead of just doing it from the menus
• THE CAULDRONS ALREADY SUCKED AND NOW THEY’RE EVEN MORE TEDIOUS
• The game having a stamina meter for certain abilities now
• Extra animations mess with fluidity (climbing is animation heavy and slows things down)
• Certain skills missing from the first game (mount call+, dodge prowess)
• New and sometimes rare resources are needed to craft ammo (precision arrows need uncommon and rare things instead of just common items like the first game)
• They got rid of hardpoint arrows which did good damage without being as slow to shoot as precision arrows

Now I could just be nitpicking because of how much I loved the first game, but this stuff still bothered me.

The cauldrons are easily the worst part of the game, for sure. And sometimes I feel the enemies are way too aggressive and it’s hard to hit the weakpoints, but that’s on me.

 

[retsof624]

The cauldrons are easily the worst part of the game, for sure. And sometimes I feel the enemies are way too aggressive and it’s hard to hit the weakpoints, but that’s on me.

Cauldron Chi was the absolute worst. Just a damn slog full of pulling shit with that dumbass pullcaster

 

[dorkimoe]

The lack of blocking really annoyed me too, you literally get to dive out of the way and nothing else

 

[kyliethicc]

I enjoyed the game a lot. And I found plenty of options for combat, but I can get why someone wouldn't like it. Its got plenty of room to improve. A melee parry/block would be a great start.

Fun game, beautiful, just not the best.

 

[Ezquimacore]

One thing is for sure, the hype for this game died as fast as The Ouya.

 

[Topher]

One thing is for sure, the hype for this game died as fast as The Ouya.

I'll let you respond to you......

Man stfu

 

[Ezquimacore]

I'll let you respond to you......

I'm not even saying anything bad, this game was released last month and after a week is like it disappeared from the internet.

 

[ByWatterson]

I'm not even saying anything bad, this game was released last month and after a week is like it disappeared from the internet.

I mean, whatever else the game has going for it (and it is exceptionally well-produced), it faded from the conversation almost instantly.

 

[Mossybrew]

The lack of blocking really annoyed me too, you literally get to dive out of the way and nothing else

I actually like this, I always favor a more aggressive playstyle, don't like blocking/parrying, so the one dodge evasive maneuver fits right with what I like. Dodge out of the way then keep on the pressure.

 

[Mossybrew]

I mean, whatever else the game has going for it (and it is exceptionally well-produced), it faded from the conversation almost instantly.

This may have some truth to it, but really how much does that matter. There are millions of gamers out there every day enjoying games that are not the hot thing to discuss on the internet that week. There's no doubt the game will do well enough to ensure the third act of this apparent trilogy, for fans that's really all that matters.

 

[Danjin44]

This game was easy skip for me after my experience with original game. No amount of high tech graphics ever was going to make this appealing to me.

 

[Balducci30]

Honestly I don’t agree that it’s a slog per say - and if it came out back when zero dawn did maybe I’d love it. But it hasnt been nearly as engaging as the first one was for me and I don’t know why

 

[Balducci30]

I got the glider and picked up Elden Ring and haven't gone back yet. So far it seems to be pretty similar to the first game. Really fun when fighting big dinosaurs, less fun when fighting smaller dinosaurs but still a good time, barely enjoyable versus humans. The characters are so bland and not engaging. Even aloy. While the first games premise was pretty interesting, the story felt kind of dull. I can't say much about this game so far but nothing in the storyline so far has captured me. Still beautiful and pretty fun, but I do agree that it's a tier below spiderman/returnal/ratchet and two tiers below GOW.

And whoever decided on that climbing system needs to be fired...

Yes the climbing fucking suuuuuucks s major complaint of mine - it almost feels worse than the first because it’s in this halfway point of you can KINDA climb around but not really compared to most games with that - and then the platforming sections built off of these mechanics… I just don’t know why they did it that way

 

[tmlDan]

I'm not even saying anything bad, this game was released last month and after a week is like it disappeared from the internet.

no it hasn't.

I dunno how you're coming to that conclusion.

 

[amscanner]

I've always found the game uninspired. It's a risk-adverse product playing too safe imo.

 

[ByWatterson]

This may have some truth to it, but really how much does that matter. There are millions of gamers out there every day enjoying games that are not the hot thing to discuss on the internet that week. There's no doubt the game will do well enough to ensure the third act of this apparent trilogy, for fans that's really all that matters.

For sure. It apparently had the biggest PS5 launch so far in dollar sales (and I think that includes COD Vanguard?), so it's a hit.

But it feels so inconsequential, which is unfortunate. I think it's because it attempted so little that was new, and paid nearly no attention to the issues in the first game.

 

[Mossybrew]

I've always found the game uninspired. It's a risk-adverse product playing too safe imo.

While there are aspects of the game I can agree seem par-for-the-course open world stuff, really the combat and enemies have always stood out. Sure there may be similar open world template games out there but the combat, the granularity of it, the detail of all these parts, the aggressiveness, the sheer ingenuity of the enemies themselves, the variety of weapons and ammo types and status effects, that the player has to deal with these enemies, it is really something unique. Calling the combat of Horizon uninspired is an ill informed opinion.

 

[Chukhopops]

Yeah it's always an eye rolling weak ass criticism.

They have a similar amount of cut-scenes,story moments as the likes of Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, metal gear and the Witcher games.

For some reason the above games don't get tarnished with the same movie game brush.

Probably because Sony games have far better voice acting and production values

You’re saying nobody criticized Metal Gear for having too many cutscenes? Nobody said anything about the Witcher’s combat? Stop the paranoia, all those games have been criticized, they’re just more inspired from a story point of view.

 

[Topher]

You’re saying nobody criticized Metal Gear for having too many cutscenes? Nobody said anything about the Witcher’s combat? Stop the paranoia, all those games have been criticized, they’re just more inspired from a story point of view.

No, simply receiving criticism isn't what he is saying at all. Sony's games are specifically targeted by some for being cinematic while other non-Sony games that are just as cinematic are ignored . You've even had one here in this thread to go so far as to say "there's a cut-scene every 5min. and you can't have an uninterrupted half an hour of gameplay". That is absurd, but that's the type of nonsense that comes up when Sony releases a new game. It isn't paranoia. It is just the reality.

I will say that the Metal Gear series is an exception in that it has been heavily criticized for its cutscenes, but it is an outlier as Metal Gear games, particularly Metal Gear Solid 4, were known to have abnormally long cutscenes by anyone's standards. There are other recent games such as Resident Evil, Guardians of the Galaxy, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, hell even Psychonauts 2 had around 5 hours in cutscenes, but where was the criticism?

I'm not even saying anything bad, this game was released last month and after a week is like it disappeared from the internet.

So.....this thread doesn't exist on the internet?

Either way, that isn't what is even being talked about.

 

[The artful mincer]

No, simply receiving criticism isn't what he is saying at all. Sony's games are specifically targeted by some for being cinematic while other non-Sony games that are just as cinematic are ignored . You've even had one here in this thread to go so far as to say "there's a cut-scene every 5min. and you can't have an uninterrupted half an hour of gameplay". That is absurd, but that's the type of nonsense that comes up when Sony releases a new game. It isn't paranoia. It just the reality.

I will say that the Metal Gear series is an exception in that it has been heavily criticized for its cutscenes, but it is an outlier as Metal Gear games, particularly Metal Gear Solid 4, were known to have abnormally long cutscenes by anyone's standards. There are other recent games such as Resident Evil, Guardians of the Galaxy, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, hell even Psychonauts 2 had around 5 hours in cutscenes, but where was the criticism?



So.....this thread doesn't exist on the internet?

Either way, that isn't what is even being talked about.

Yes MGS was definitely criticized for too many cutscenes especially 4. Although I think it was accepted that it had deep gameplay systems as well.(Then 5 was criticized for not having enough cutscenes).

Where as there is a big group of people who will unironically call sony games walking simulators or near enough.

Like hate on the games as much as you like but do it accurately or make interesting points.

The thread title is as good example saying horizon lacks agency is just absurd.

 

[Goalus]

* S: agency (the state of being in action or exerting power) "the agency of providence"; "she has free agency"

I want to thank the OP for making this thread because I learned a new word today.

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

Disappointing that the combat hasn’t changed at all. I agree that the combat is very limited. In the first game the only time you faced any challenge or had creativity as an option were the combat trials. Outside of that combat was basically on rails.

Play Elden Ring.

 

[The artful mincer]

Disappointing that the combat hasn’t changed at all. I agree that the combat is very limited. In the first game the only time you faced any challenge or had creativity as an option were the combat trials. Outside of that combat was basically on rails.

Play Elden Ring.

You can't be serious lol. Horizon has a ton of combat options and is very challenging on higher difficulty setting. Ultra difficulty is harder than any souls game.

Souls game can be completed with minimal options as well. Every game can be beaten by holding up a shield and spamming r1 or in bloodbornes case dodge rolling and spamming r1

 

[Ogbert]

Some people really have bad takes. ER is dated too since it’s the same combat from demon’s souls I guess?

Yeah.

A bit.

 

[Topher]

Disappointing that the combat hasn’t changed at all. I agree that the combat is very limited. In the first game the only time you faced any challenge or had creativity as an option were the combat trials. Outside of that combat was basically on rails.

In neither game is the combat "on rails" at any point. Not even remotely.

 

[Swift_Star]

Yeah.

A bit.

What isn’t dated according to you?

 

[Astral Dog]

Yep, that sounds exactly like Horizon. you bought the correct game