Absolute nonsense. The only trend thats forming is that PS exclusives arent the default GOTY winners they were from 2016-2020. This bizarre conspiracy theory where people who gave Horizon their GOTY over Zelda in 2017 would all of a sudden turn on the sequel just to trash Playstation is hilariously poorly thought out. The OP wrote a detailed post with all of his issues with no anti-PS bias whatsoever. So did several other people. Anything you read into is YOUR bias.
No, now THIS is a BS take considering we have actual evidence to prove that some reviews are...well, rather sus. Stevivor is a prime example; there's a reason they got blacklisted. All of their scores for EVERY SINGLE OTHER SOULS GAME besides the PlayStation-exclusive ones were right in line with the Metacritic average. Yet for both Demon's Souls Remake AND Bloodborne, Stevivor's scores were markedly below the Metacritic average? How, considering Remake was basically the original but even more polished & better-looking, and Bloodborne is considered by the community as one of the best entries in the franchise?
Also let's not play dumb, there were several HFW reviews calling out some of the launch-day technical bugs, and rightly so. But virtually
NONE of the Elden Ring reviews called out its rather poor technical performance across the gamut of consoles (and PC) it released on? While still giving it perfect 10s? I saw streamers playing the PC version suffering multiple crashes in a single session, losing progress along the way...but somehow that still deserved a 10?
Don't try making this about me reading into things with a bias; it's not a bias if you can see a clear pattern and narrative form about with evidence to support it.
The issues being brought up today in new threads were all brought up in the OT. From day one. I was called names for simply pointing out issues with the graphics, and yet almost two months later, GG is still trying to actively fix them. Same thing with the gameplay. People disagreed with me then and then ended up agreeing with me by the end of the game. Others didn't. I dont expect everyone to agree with me, but I also dont go out there and dismiss well thought out opinions as ignorant or illegitimate.
Like I said, there were technical issues at launch, and those were rightfully addressed. But I still see pockets of people online who pretend the game is still in the same state it was Day 1 in terms of lack of patches and fixes, and that notion is nothing but BS formed from willing ignorance and not looking at the changes brought about with each patch. And again, while games like HFW have been getting timely patches to fix the technical issues, there have been several other high-profile games being patched at a glacial pace, with arguably much worst performance-impacting issues at hand.
But I never saw games journalists and media using that as times to take a dunk on those games in a mocking fashion. Outside of that, you're making this like I personally called your opinion ignorant; I don't remember saying that. What I said (or figured I said) was that from my POV, from my experience in the game so far, I don't agree with your criticisms because they sound more like a playstyle issue than something inherently wrong with the game. Said the same about OP's opinion, too.
Considering there was another thread with someone else complaining about the game but come to find out, they somehow managed to waste 6-8 hours in the tutorial section of all things and derived all their complaints there, then yeah it's fair to be a bit critical of some opinions that pop up in light of that. But I'll still judge them on their own merits; I even said that yours seemed informed from being further in the game than me, and I'd have to "wait and see" if the game experience for me by that point ends up feeling similar.
But based on my feelings of the subject right now, and considering the playstyle I tend to utilize with combat in the game, I don't envision that happening. Could be wrong, but I think by now I'd feel certain enough one way or the other.
Reddit, era, even youtube comments are filled with the same complaints. I never get any views on my videos I post for my friends, but I got several hundred views on a clip of Horizon FW and 99% of the comments said the same thing.
Okay but you also need to be realistic here and realize that not every comment is going to come from people in good faith. I.e at least some portion are going to be people masquerading as sincere but really just want to put out a negative take, not be challenged on it, not be open to possibly seeing things from another POV that could engender them to a more positive viewpoint on the topic.
You
KNOW there have been bad faith actors WRT discussion of this game on all of those places you mention, even here, so it's not possible to hold up examples of what basically could amount to confirmation bias, as if they are a fair representation of the larger player base. Also with the way algorithms work on sites like Youtube, your content can easily simply attract people who were already inclined to agree with what that content has to say, and reinforce their opinions on it, so you're already drawing in people who'd either agree with you if your take was negative, or argue in the comments if it was a positive take (call it "clickbait" title or something like that).
Here are some of them. Notice how they all talk about the same issues OP mentioned.
Okay so there are already faults in some of those comments. Not gonna spend too much time on them but I'll just pluck one thing from each:
1: It's not hard to scan for weakpoints mid-combat unless, again, you're rushing or charging in blindly, going gung-ho and not being strategic beforehand etc. Weakpoints are almost always the first icon for an enemy once you do a scan; it'll be something like a powercell, or charger ram horns, etc. Lootable assets and valuables are always further to the right. You can tag weak points of multiple enemies to keep track of them. You can generally lob off weak points with a couple shots to disable their means of attack.
If you're in cover when doing this you have more than enough time to scan and take apart attack points before combat even initiates!
2: Maybe they just realize they don't like challenging/hard games or combat?
3: Sounds like they're complaining about bow & arrow weapons being weaker, and resource crafting costs being too high? Right now I'm in a spot where I'm low on Acid arrows and have to go farm for more resources, but I also know I could've been saving on using so many Acid arrows if I used the Frostling a bit more to make enemies brittle. That probably would make the Acid arrows do much more damage per arrow, saving me resources.
Ultimately, I myself realized I need to be more open to mixing up my weapon options to stack damage as best as possible. Since I'm feeling more comfortable with combat, I'll try doing that going forward.
4: Can't recall what the Burrower's weak point is off the top of my head but they could've tried disabling one or the other's weak spots/attack pieces/power cells to make them less of a threat before going in. Also if he was fighting the Ravager on its own and a Burrower joined in, he should've been able to see the Burrower in the nearby area and known of it before getting in the fight, also knowing that by fighting the Ravager the Burrower would notice and join in.
So while I don't wanna say it like this, sounds like he kind of made that fight harder for himself than he needed to
These are just some of the 40 odd comments complaining about the same thing on a random youtube video showing a frustrating combat encounter.
I am so fed up with this nonsense accusing me of being a sony fanboy just because I picked Horizon GOTY over Zelda BOTW or because I said Days Gone wasnt as bad as the critics made it out to be. That Death Standing deserved GOTY because it was a great fucking game and not because it was a Sony exclusive. And now, im being trashed because I dared to say that Ratchet isnt GOTY caliber and that Horizon's combat has issues? I literally fucking said that this game would be my GOTY if it launched last year, but I said one bad thing about the combat and everyone just assumes there is an agenda.
Well now you feel my pain, because I've been called a fanboy of both consoles too. But, that doesn't really matter right now. I'm not trying to "trash" you or anything because you have a difference in how HFW handles its combat. I've even acknowledged that you, being further in the game, MIGHT have some perspective outside of my scope currently and there is the possibility I could share similar sentiment depending on what encounters later in the game present to me (though, again, I'm not really expecting this to happen because the flow of combat seems pretty much set in stone and I'd be surprised if any game mechanics did a 180 negating all the learned experience up to that point).
But I'm not gonna not question takes on its combat, either, when some of the things I see, to me, feel like it just comes down to playstyle differences or maybe doing certain things in a suboptimal way in a certain part. That's totally fine; I'm no expert at the combat and cant' do half the cool-looking evades and close-up bow shots I've seen more skilled players doing (at least, not yet). But I'm willing to acknowledge that, admit it's down to
me, and I can tune my approach to be more optimal.
I
DO think there is some shadiness in other takes of the game but, I've made sure to limit that in reference to certain gaming channels (mainly Xbox-related ones, but not exclusively those), and games journalists/reviewers. And of course, the obvious console warriors who say the most ridiculous things showing they haven't even touched the game. You
don't fall into that camp at all; the OP doesn't, either. But that said, I do disagree with some of the opinions expressed and gave my reasons why. We'll see if some of those opinions on my end change throughout the course of me playing the rest of the game.
. I did think about getting HZD before HFW but figured I was better off with the more recent installment. Though the way you and some others speak of it make it sound like the differences between this and HZD is like going from SFIV to SFV.
