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Horizon Forbidden West suffers by looking to the future (full game spoilers)

Bragr

Banned
BEWARE. Everything will be spoiled.

Ancient robot dinosaurs interwoven among tribal societies is a cool idea, whether you like how they portray it or not. But Forbidden West took a strange turn.

As the Zeniths enter the game, they come off as mysterious and somewhat interesting, but when their cartoonish personalities come to bear they come off as husks. All of them are bad and evil super-rich people and all they do is oppress everyone. They come from a faraway planet that went to hell, and they got the idea to travel to earth Earth (which they originated on) to remake it as their own. They find anything but other Zeniths uninteresting, and after being revealed, they don't seem to serve many purposes but to defeat in the end and fly around with shields that Sylens destroys with an EMP backpack bomb. 90% of them also die off-screen as told to you by a 4-second voice mail.

They hate you, except for Tilda, who wants to help you and your clone sister called beta (jesus christ). But it doesn't take more than 8 seconds before you see through her, she's gonna betray you of course.

And betray you she does, as she reveals that the Zeniths didn't plan to remake Earth, but instead just wanted to hijack Gaia, so they could use her to build stuff on other planets.

Tilda sort of loves you because she loved Elizabeth Sobek, which you are a clone of. She also reveals she doesn't like beta (jesus christ) who she thinks is a weak cunt and not a warrior like Aloy. She then summons some super machine to kill/kidnap you called prime something that is not so super after all and easier to vanquish than a Thunderjaw.

Aloy kills Tilda and her weak super-prime machine.

The Zeniths were running from a super powerful A.I. called Nemesis that was created from the emo feelings of all the rich evil Zeniths, it represents everything bad with rich people, but since the A.I. was trapped for a long time, it is angry and wants to kill them. It was the thing that destroyed their world, and it's angry, and it's traveling to Earth to kill everything.

Sylens (best character) finds Aloy and her dumbass friends full of shit and wants to leave the entire planet, but as he sees Aloy hugging her beta clone sister, he feels pity for the morons and decides to help them in the oncoming fight with Nemesis. The game ends, credits.

I was not impressed with the Zenith story in this game. This all reminds me of Assassins Creed and the alien story they try to build that nobody likes. At least they could hire a sci-fi writer to make some sense of this, someone who understands how to build these types of stories.

This is probably just gonna mean that the third game has red robots this time around, and they are all controlled by Nemesis.
 
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Boss Mog

Member
Couldn't you just post this in the OT? Anyway the story is complete nonsense so you have to disregard it to enjoy the game.

In Tilda I trust.

Sylens is utterly annoying. Reminds me of half the people here.
Sylens is BY FAR the best character in Horizon, He basically carries the whole franchise on his back while barely being in it. He's the only character who is even mildly intriguing. Lance Reddick is a great actor.
 
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rofif

Banned
The story had good bits but it’s terrible overall.
I was excited about future people but they turned out to be just one sided idiots.
Sylens was annoying.
Aloy friends were mixed. Kutalo was fine but some new women characters…. Oh man.
And the big space ball of negative emotions. I couldn’t come up with worse shit if I wanted
 

Represent.

Represent(ative) of bad opinions
Still the best open world sci fi story in gaming. By far. And for sure the best production values that helped to level everything up.

Game stories are usually trash.
 
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MidGenRefresh

*Refreshes biennially
I liked the game but story was simply terrible. It's the kind of stuff you would expect from some F tier YouTuber specializing in fan fiction.
 

kingfey

Banned
The game shouldn't went there. Whoever made this plot, fucked up the game.

These kind of stuff, needs time to flesh out. Keep them mysterious, instead of outright making them the super duper bad guys.

Its feels like the masked demon in spiderman game. Both got wasted too fast.
 
Sylens is BY FAR the best character in Horizon, He basically carries the whole franchise on his back while barely being in it. He's the only character who is even mildly intriguing. Lance Reddick is a great actor.
They are all horrible. But I find his character the most utterly annoying. I think he might be the worst character of any Sony Exclusive. His death is pretty much certain in the next game. I will buy it simply for that reason. He knows everything, and at the same so damn useless. All he does is blabber, how much he gets in the way.



Might as well have japanese creatives take over the characters.
 
I thought Lex Luthor was portrayed just as good as in the cartoons. He comes flying onto the battlefield, basically invincible in a shield and able to fly, then you throw a wicker basket full of laptop batteries at them and it totally wrecks the shields. Then even though they can still fly they just sit there while Grimlock and the other dinobots wreck them as their advanced weapons are useless against machines unlike the bow and arrows Aloy and her crew use.
 

pqueue

Member
He knows everything, and at the same so damn useless. All he does is blabber, how much he gets in the way.
exactly.

he is so shiftily written he thinks he is the smartest person in the room and has to keep telling everyone he is the smartest person in the room.

his logic/reasoning debrief around the Hades storyline was 17-year old fan fic bad writing.
 

Hugare

Member
Horizon has the worst storyline in all of Sony's first party titles.

How some people praise it, I cant freaking know, it boggles my mind

Guerilla was never able to tell a decent story. They seriously need some new writers there.

And its not even about the story, dialogue is also terrible. It's always sounds so artificial.

Forbiden West manages to be worse the New Dawn on this aspect, surprisingly
 

kyliethicc

Member
BEWARE. Everything will be spoiled.

Ancient robot dinosaurs interwoven among tribal societies is a cool idea, whether you like how they portray it or not. But Forbidden West took a strange turn.

As the Zeniths enter the game, they come off as mysterious and somewhat interesting, but when their cartoonish personalities come to bear they come off as husks. All of them are bad and evil super-rich people and all they do is oppress everyone. They come from a faraway planet that went to hell, and they got the idea to travel to earth Earth (which they originated on) to remake it as their own. They find anything but other Zeniths uninteresting, and after being revealed, they don't seem to serve many purposes but to defeat in the end and fly around with shields that Sylens destroys with an EMP backpack bomb. 90% of them also die off-screen as told to you by a 4-second voice mail.

They hate you, except for Tilda, who wants to help you and your clone sister called beta (jesus christ). But it doesn't take more than 8 seconds before you see through her, she's gonna betray you of course.

And betray you she does, as she reveals that the Zeniths didn't plan to remake Earth, but instead just wanted to hijack Gaia, so they could use her to build stuff on other planets.

Tilda sort of loves you because she loved Elizabeth Sobek, which you are a clone of. She also reveals she doesn't like beta (jesus christ) who she thinks is a weak cunt and not a warrior like Aloy. She then summons some super machine to kill/kidnap you called prime something that is not so super after all and easier to vanquish than a Thunderjaw.

Aloy kills Tilda and her weak super-prime machine.

The Zeniths were running from a super powerful A.I. called Nemesis that was created from the emo feelings of all the rich evil Zeniths, it represents everything bad with rich people, but since the A.I. was trapped for a long time, it is angry and wants to kill them. It was the thing that destroyed their world, and it's so angry, and it's traveling to Earth to kill everything.

Sylens (best character) finds Aloy and her dumbass friends full of shit and wants to leave the entire planet, but as he sees Aloy hugging her beta clone sister, he feels pity for the morons and decides to help them in the oncoming fight with Nemesis. The game ends, credits.

I was not impressed with the Zenith story in this game. This all reminds me of Assassins Creed and the alien story they try to build that nobody likes. At least they could hire a sci-fi writer to make some sense of this, someone who understands how to build these types of stories.

This is probably just gonna mean that the third game has red robots this time around, and they are all controlled by Nemesis.
Yeah the Nemesis thing was a lame twist the way they handled it.

Coulda just used Regalla and Hephaestus as the antagonists for Horizon 2.

I would have saved the Zeniths for Horizon 3. Tease em in 2, sure, but they came and went too quick.
 

Bragr

Banned
exactly.

he is so shiftily written he thinks he is the smartest person in the room and has to keep telling everyone he is the smartest person in the room.

his logic/reasoning debrief around the Hades storyline was 17-year old fan fic bad writing.
To get Hades to talk, he tortured him (it?) with pictures of flowers, because Hades is so evil that he takes damage from pictures of flowers.

No kidding. That's the official story in the game. That's how Sylens found out about Nemesis.

It's like Hades the super A.I. is some hobo on Miami Vice that they need to squeeze for information.
 

Bragr

Banned
Yeah the Nemesis thing was a lame twist the way they handled it.

Coulda just used Regalla and Hephaestus as the antagonists for Horizon 2.

I would have saved the Zeniths for Horizon 3. Tease em in 2, sure, but they came and went too quick.
Regalla was done pretty good, I hated that bitch after the initial ambush, which is what they want. She could have been a decent villain and a trigger for some interesting tribal politics.

But she becomes a footnote and is barely shown again until you kill her. I hoped the civil war within the Tenakth was gonna be a bigger thing.
 

kyliethicc

Member
Regalla was done pretty good, I hated that bitch after the initial ambush, which is what they want. She could have been a decent villain and a trigger for some interesting tribal politics.

But she becomes a footnote and is barely shown again until you kill her. I hoped the civil war within the Tenakth was gonna be a bigger thing.
Yeah the A story is Aloy saves the world and the B story is stopping Regalla.

Could've just tied them into 1 story. Give Regalla some powerful tech/AI that she only sorta understands, and is using to fight Hekarro, that's also causing the blight. Stop her to save the world basically. Then have Sylens be preparing for the Zeniths in secret as the B story, and boom there's the epilogue teaser for Horizon 3. Like he finds something and roll credits.

I also wish more of the Tenakth lands out west began more hostile. The writers idea was "Aloy fought Regalla's champion" and so everyone was friendly. But it didn't make the west feel as dangerous.
 
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Shifty

Member
They hate you, except for Tilda, who wants to help you and your clone sister called beta (jesus christ).
Sounds like someone on the writing staff was reading Dan Abnett during production :pie_thinking:

It's just a game you know.
You're right - we should unilaterally lower our standards to account for this newfound information.
 
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Sylens is great, and seems to be the only character that isn't a clueless idiot. Aloy is ok, but she gets so pissy when talking to people. I think it's kind of hilarious, so I'll allow it.

The characters and writing are not great in Horizon. Without the mystery, the story wasn't as interesting as the first game. I also have a hard time understanding how the supremely powerful gods can't one shot these primitive people. They should be like Homelander or something.
 

pqueue

Member
Sylens is great, and seems to be the only character that isn't a clueless idiot. Aloy is ok, but she gets so pissy when talking to people. I think it's kind of hilarious, so I'll allow it.

The characters and writing are not great in Horizon. Without the mystery, the story wasn't as interesting as the first game. I also have a hard time understanding how the supremely powerful gods can't one shot these primitive people. They should be like Homelander or something.
just attack from space. level the entire "cities".
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
I wouldn't call it a "turn."

The Far Zenith story was told in the first game, but their fate was met with skepticism.

Part of the lore of Horizon is about corrupt rich people and scientists, and many of them sought immortality.
 

Boss Mog

Member
Yeah the Nemesis thing was a lame twist the way they handled it.

Coulda just used Regalla and Hephaestus as the antagonists for Horizon 2.

I would have saved the Zeniths for Horizon 3. Tease em in 2, sure, but they came and went too quick.
This is exactly what I was thinking. I actually predicted after Zero Dawn came out that the Far Zeniths were the people who sent the signal to Hades as they were mentioned in a few datapoints. But I thought it would be the descendants of the Far Zenith original "refugees" coming back to reclaim Earth, not the very same people who somehow live forever which is pretty stupid. When I started Forbidden West I was sure that Regalla and Asera's group would be the main threats and the Zeniths would be hinted at or show up at the very end like Thor in God Of War 2018. I was very surprised to see them show up early in the game and even more surprised that their machines with 1000 years of extra tech were a lot weaker than Hephaestus' machines.
 

Chukhopops

Member
I actually liked the Zeniths as an idea but:
- they barely exist in the story, you see them what, three times in total in the main story if I remember correctly?
- they make the “main” world (with the tribes and machines and stuff) feel even more useless because all that seems to matter is the old world;
- they are not charismatic at all, and what are all the other ones you see in the cutscene doing during the game?

Also the way you defeat Charles Xavier and his buddies is ridiculous as mentioned earlier.
 

sankt-Antonio

:^)--?-<
The Zeniths are great as a concept but so fucking poorly used in this game - its a shame really.
Could have been the main antagonists for HIII, the AI could come afterwards or as a finale for the next game.

The series needs to have Aloy evolve from sticks and stones wielding Stone Age woman to a tech-mage with rapid fire long range weapons, shields and move forward in sense of gameplay.

But no, they want us to go and fight an all controlling AI again with stick and stones. Meh.
 

tassletine

Member
Conservatives trying to be progressive always looks foolish. Doubling down on everything to make a point they don't inherently understand.

How can you make a game espousing those values when you've literally done nothing to progress gameplay in the genre?

(actually they did try something new, the climbing graphics, but that's so laughable it appears completely inept).

Part of me wishes I could be so deluded, that I would like something just because it was fashionable -- But I strongly suspect people who are like that are screaming inside as their defense is always so rabid.
 
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