I love this game simply because of how good it feels to play. Movement is fluid. All the different weapon types and ways to approach fights just feel fun. Taking down the various massive machines. It’s frustratingly the funnest game for me to play. It’s not perfect. It’s not entirely original. But it manages to synthesize a lot of popular AAA trends in a friendly, fun package.
I swear Guerilla Games is built on a cursed burial site or something... Every time they release their game, something industry-defining comes out right after Horizon 1 => Breath of the Wild a week later Horizon 2 => Elden Ring a week later The Burning Shores DLC dodge Tears of the Kingdom, but it was very close to being the same
In fairness, Forbidden West's release was already set in stone. It was Elden Ring that had the date push back. Lot of people seem to either forget that, ignore that part or didn't even know
@@roonkolos horizon couldve delayed as a reaction to the elden ring delay. yeah it wouldve sucked and some investors would get prissy but anyone with even a surface level knowledge of the industry couldve told you what the outcome of not delaying was gonna be
So did the whole gaming media. I still can't put my finger on what they did wrong with such a good premise. Guerilla made one of the most forgettable gaming franchises in the modern days. I played through Zero Dawn and had a blast back then because it was something new, but I felt Forbidden West was a slog with same combat mechanics, more bloated menus (weapon wheel, inventory, skill tree), and mechanics that other games pulled off better like gliders and climbing. Swimming was the only cool mechanic added and they missed the opportunity of giving nice underwater combat sections. Horizon is threading the same path as Killzone did. A banger IP with lots of potential which never gets to realize it. If Horizon 3 is more of the same, it'll be forgotten even faster.
@@Nero_PRI never even played the sequel. The first Horizon wasn’t bad, but it was so bland and forgettable imo. It looked good but it wasn’t super fun to play and I didn’t really get attached to any of the characters, so I just set it down and never finished.
@@Nero_PRyou can’t put your finger on it cause they literally did nothing wrong. This game made more money than the first and cost the double. $230 million that’s more than gow rag for all those fanboys. If numbers don’t say something then play it again
@@mgk-metalgearkelly5054completely disagree, this is one of Sonys most unique first party games, much better than the Ubisoft slog that is ghost of tushima…
@@enoo9003Hey you take that back mister!! I platimuned Ghost, even the multiplayer content and the Iki Island expansion and shall fight you to the death for your blasphemy! Jokes aside I platimuned Zero Dawn but haven't gotten around to finishing the sequel, I gotta get on that tbh as I loved both games!
I didn’t forget. It was just a letdown, not enough of an upgrade from the first one to really stand out. And honestly I’d give it a lower rating than the first game. Elden Ring def overshadowed it, I put down horizon after that first week, and didn’t pick it up again til mid summer. And at that point, I never felt like I was ever able to immerse myself in the game and could only compare it to a much superior game.
I honestly prefer Horizon over Elden Ring. I got bored with ER at halfway point (too much repetition and cumbersome controls) but completed Horizon twice with NG+
I played this for the first time a couple weeks back and i just can't get behind it. It feels like Aloy regressed and a lot of the mechanics didn't work as fluidly as they did in the first one. I did like the new environments, characters, and story over all, and I don't think it deserves to be forgotten.. the first certainly will deserves more love. But this one... Ehh
I think your response so far has been one of the only that doesn't come down to hating for the sake of hating Glad to see someone can actually give good criticism
I have been the opposite. Hated the first game, mainly for the lack of responsiveness the combat had. Started the new one recently and have been loving it so far and the feel of the bow is spot on now
My only real issue was that Aloy's central personal conflict doesn't make sense. She spends most of the game moping around being scared that her friends might get hurt and playing the "I need to do this alone" BS despite having no issue with her friends fighting to the death with Hades at the end of the first game. If one of her friends died in the fight against Hades then it would make sense but everyone survives so she just feels scared for no reason. Also Aloy's romance in Burning Shore felt real rushed. If that arc took place over the length of the base game it would feel more organic but as DLC length story it felt like Aloy was being uncharacteristically thirsty.
Haven't watched the video yet and don't have time for a full comment, but I just needed to say that while I know these games have some flaws, I absolutely love them and do not understand many of the criticisms they get above other games. The sheer imagination at display in the world design and the way all the elements interact with each other, combined with the incredibly involved open world combat and beautiful setting, have made both games some of my favorite of all time.
@@Justjoshingyou13 It's good that you at least acknowledge your flaws in your taste, cause the criticisms against the game are much stronger than your poor argument.
I feel very differently about Horizon's storytelling, and story, than you seem to...I can't get enough of it, it's the primary reason I play the games and, initially, struggle through the combat
I like the world and story too, but I think his main pet peeves isn't with their content but with their delivery, which as he said, is mostly through talking head infodumps that are fairly sterile and dull
I like the twist of the first game and how it contextualizes why Aloy interfaces with technology and machines in such a natural way, and the idea of the world being reset because of a plague and how the current population was meant to be caught up but the archive of knowledge was deliberately destroyed is kind of a neat touch; it says that Aloy and the other tribes aren't meant to live like this.
What gets me every time is how goofy everyone is dressed, but the performances seem to have been steered away from camp. You'd think they'd go big but... they just sternly talk to each other.
I feel like 90% of the comments are either those that didnt play, played with the expectation of wanting to hate it or listened to reviewers hating it and thus made that their same thoughts I know taste and interests vary by player and thats totally fine but people insulting the man for having some enjoyment out of this game isnt upsetting. Its kinda pathetic
@@lolailo2199if you didn't like it that's fine. I'm clearly talk about those that make hating it part of their personality Which I'm going to assume you aren't
Coming from someone who loves the Horizon series, give Zero Dawn another chance. The storytelling in that game is incredibly moving, and the datapoint collectibles add so much context to the world. Every playthrough brings me to tears tbh. HFW is a thrilling adventure too, but the storytelling and side quests left me feeling pretty disappointed. It just doesn’t stir my emotions the way that HZD did.
I own this game, as it came with my PS5, and I have absolutely zero interest in playing it. It looks like Modern Generic Sony-exclusive #63. And I got all the trophies in the first one have have almost no memory of what the game actually entailed because it was so *painfully* generic and by-the-numbers. The interesting commentary on "chosen one" narratives is honestly the only interesting thing this series had going for it. I struggle to even play the new God of War, despite being a big series fan historically who played, and often beat on the hardest difficulty, every game in the series. These games all look so similar that it's hard to be intrigued anymore. I know that's unfair, but that's years and years of the same flavor grinding down appreciation over time, I suppose. Diminishing returns.
I have platinum'd both games and 100% their DLCs as well. I believe the first one is excellent on all aspects, but I found the second one bloated. The open world is TOO big, and I never complain about it, in fact I usually enjoy the busywork in open-world games even if it gets repetitive, but I really pushed myself to keep exploring and doing everything, and by the end, I didn't want to touch the game again. For reference, one other recent game that I loathed exploring and doing everything was AC:Valhalla, which is kinda strange, because in contrast to most people, I LOVED Odyssey.
The gameplay and combat in the Horizon franchise remains some of the best I've ever played from the Playstation exclusives. It's always basically flawless but just has a story that not many get attached to and their poor release timing of always being smack next to some other crazy releases 😂 coz Zero Dawn and Forbidden West could actually have won GOTY if they released in other years. The gameplay is so addictive once you get into the groove of it.
I quite enjoyed Forbidden West and Burning Shores but I'm genuinely surprised you're gushing about its world and the freedom you have in it, like it's Zelda or Elden Ring. It's an absolutely enormous open world, yes, but I never felt overwhelmed or in awe of it. I never felt like I was conquering it and discovering things, just uncovering what I'm supposed to and barely anything more, and (as you say in the video) finding areas which have scripted moments in it before I'm supposed to be there.
right on the mark. zelda and elden ring have absolutely set a new standard and comparing either of the horizon games to them is not doing aloy any favours. no matter how much you like a game you just cant pretend its something it simply isnt
@@_holy__ghost a new standartd of copypasted content with no story perharps. I don't even know which of those two has less content tbh, they both a huge failure in terms of filling out the world with anything meaningful. MW Horizon was literally the first Ubi style game to have all content be meaningful.
@@vazazell5967thats wrong and you know it. Its sad that those 2 are one of the best but thats because open world is Just terrible everywhere except metro
I can't say I've played the game (it's been some years since I had money to spend on games), but I found it curious how seemingly at odds his comments on the game's open world is with his older video on player freedom and sandbox, which, personally, I found a lot more compelling and theoretically sound. In this video, there seems to be a unwarranted equation of visual splendor with immersion (particularly weird given his recognition of multiple flaws which generally take away from immersion) and of freedom with freedom to move around, two points which are explicitly questioned in the older one.
I’ll say this: absolutely loved Burning Shores, but Guerrilla Games needs to update its resources tab. Let us pick and choose what supporting items we want on the HUD, and limit them to 8-10 items. Can’t tell you how many times i frantically scrolled through 20+ things looking for a health potion, or the right acid trap. That gets very exhausting, phenomenal final kaiju battle or not.
Yeah, that one aspect of the interface is genuinely crappy compared to everything else. Maybe they could do a 2nd traps/potions wheel next to the weapon wheel. I mean, the controller has 2 sticks.
You can deselect items from that wheel by holding the down button pressed for a moment. It opens a menue where you can pick and choose what shows up on the wheel. You can also craft on the fly here
I pre-ordered this game and was so excited to play it, after a few hours in I had to stop because jfc... Alloy doesn't shut up. What are the DEVS thinking?? constant hints and no respect for player agency. I enjoyed the first game and can't remember if alloy was this annoying.
Horizon forbidden west was my 2022 GOTY It's a shame that they keep swindling this franchise with HZD being released next to BOTW and HFW being released next to Elden ring. Hopefully they choose a better release date for the 3rd game
@roonkolos and with that information they should've done what Ubi and some other studios did and move out the way back in March. They had the power to push the release date but chose not to. It was clear that any game that landed in the February release window was going to get slide tackled by Elden ring lol
@@roonkolos you read correctly. When I see videos of it and look at the great graphics, environment design and sick looking enemy design, and professional gameplay, I really adore the game..... but actually getting to that point is an absolute slugfest of micromanaging resources, initially boring combat because of how relatively weak your bow is, and a story & characters that don't interest me
@@perpetualgrimace same, I started HZD and couldn't get through it bc while the combat is great the main missions and dialogue were super grating. Whatever interest I have in this world vanishes with these cutscenes and characters
@@thmistrapillay1811that's why you get a better bow And what do you mean micro managing ammo? The game gives you enough resources to never have to deeply worry about that
If I ever play this game it will be through piracy and with a full face/body makeover of Aloy, I really cannot stomach that appearence for 50+ hours of game.
I didn't forget it... I enjoyed my time with it (some seventy or eighty hours). It's an improvement on every technical level over the original. It plays better, it looks better, etc. I just wish the writing hadn't taken such a nosedive, especially that surrounding the final conflict and ending. They completely betrayed Sylens's character for the sake of a CW show-style Kum Ba Yah finale. Great game that still somehow manages to be far less memorable than the original, not aided by suffering from the same issue as the original: its modern day story and characters are not nearly as interesting as the lore and the reason for the world being what it is. But since that was already revealed in the previous game, they had to come up with something to create a conflict, and it struck me as nothing so much as hackneyed and contrived. Aloy herself doesn't really get to be a character with her own goals and ambitions, so much as she is an avatar for the player's goals and ambitions.
> "I just wish the writing hadn't taken such a nosedive" But... it didn't? It delivered on all the subtle foreshadowing from the first game (seriously, there was a ton) and it also enhanced character writing compared to side characters from the previous instalment. This is way better than most other AAA sequels. Like Mass Effect 2, Assassin's Creed 2 or God of War Ragnarok, for example. THOSE suffered from writing quality nosedives. Hell, people praise the writing in The Witcher 3 but the main story in that game is pretty mediocre, too. Horizon 2 absolutely has a better main questline than that.
I never forgot about this game, I mean how could I when I somehow managed to hardlock the game in the tutorial? I mean it's not like I lost any progress, but I hadn't seen a game hardlock since the original release of Skyrim. This was after a few patches for Horizon BTW.
Ikr, it seems like a fluke that the first even got the success it did. It's characters are uninteresting, it's combat is mediocre and the story is meh. Horizon games are no masterpiece at best they're like a 5 out of 10 and if we're praising mediocrity then gaming is truly dead.
As terrible as Fallout 76 was, I legitimately enjoyed that game more than Horizon Forbidden West. I'd rather play a game that is so terrible that it is good, than a game that does nothing but play it safe. Horizon has no feeling or soul put behind it.
Thanks for making this vid. I really love these games and it's nice to see someone I respect paying attention to them. The combat is very challenging and fun and i almost never see anyone bring that up. Plus i can spend months in its photomode 😂 which might be the best way to really take in its lush beauty. But back to my original point, I get real tired of mainly seeing it mentioned by people via hackneyed gamer joke about bad releases or whatever. Which always seemed idiotic to me, since Zelda is a switch exclusive and Horizon is a PS exclusive, they arent exactly competing for the same audience. Not everyone is a rich kid that has every console, or someone whose job depends on them and can write them off as a business expense. That fact seems to get lost in the discourse extremely easily. Not that the game really needs someone to defend it, since I'm pretty sure it still sells extremely well and is one of Sony's flagship franchises at this point.
Yup, I played the first game for a couple of hours and was like “OK, let’s play Zelda and Red Dead Redemption 2.” Then Forbidden West came out and I was like “Well, Elden Ring is here.” And I’ve never thought about going back tot his game series again. 😂
Not using the best feature of Hoirzon which is the dynamic hud should be a crime. All you need is the compass outside of combat and even that I turned off because you can always activate the full hud using the touchpad. Otherwise a great commentary.
I love HZD and HFW, and I think it's because both somehow end up feeling like more than the sum of their parts. Maybe neither is the best at any category (except I do think HFW may be the best looking game I've seen, with some amazing performance capture in cutscenes). But despite those flaws, most aspects are strong enough that the whole package gels together in a very satisfying way for me.
The Ubisoft open world Formula just completely turns me off, I I did my best to finish the first game after two years of playing it on and off, I bought the CE of Forbidden West because of the awesome mech Mammoth but otherwise the game is remains unopened to this day. None of the gameplay footage and playthroughs made me think yeah I want to sink time into this, while environments and mech dinos are awesome, the gameplay is just not fun and the open world completely ruins it for me.
(hears you explain when the DLC gameplay clicked for you again) Yup, you nailed it. I know the Monster Hunter comparison is right there on the table and that's fair to make too. But hunts feel their best when you see the situation, approach it with a plan, watch the plan go sideways half way through because of some other factors you didn't consider making their way in or the effectiveness of your plan not quite being right, that's where these games live and breathe so well. Having to craft more traps because getting knocked away by an enemy and you triggered the trap on yourself or needing to make more health potions because the fight turned into a third fight that's been going on for twenty minutes is a really strong commitment to just a brilliantly layered system that's not too packed to the brim, but just enough. My biggest gripes with Forbidden West at 150 hours total were that it still felt kind of impossible to do all the challenges at a certain point. The story was big enough to meet its world and the side quests and world exploration were well paced with the world, just not its challenges I think. Hearing that the DLC is fairly short and focused actually makes me curious about picking up.
I think they need to release their games more strategically...Zero Dawn came alongside BOTW, Forbidden West came near Elden Ring and then Forbidden West Burning Shores DLC came near TOTK...Not the best track record of release dates...
I put more than 100 hours into it. I’m currently beating the game again on ng+ hardest difficulty to get to the dlc I haven’t played yet. The dlcs graphics are insane with the cloud rendering
The worst thing about Horizon is that it ruins a amazing concept with the worst possible gameplay imaginable. Now we're forever denied of a cool game with giant robot dinosaurs because it'll be bashed for being a horizon clone.
Worst gameplay imaginable? Really? I must have low standards because I think the gameplay is a step above most games. It’s no DMC but if I was given a choice between Horizon and the new GOW’s, id happily take Horizon.
Horizon's gameplay is actually the best part about it IMHO, alongside the exploration of the massive world. You have so many options to explore combat, and enemies are always a threat to you at any points.
This video singlehandedly reminded me to never play this game. I hated how Zero Dawn felt and everything praised here is what I hated about the original. Which is a shame, because the concept for this series is extraordinary.
I mean... I also pretty strongly disliked Zero Dawn. Tried to go back to it after Forbidden West and still found all the problems I originally had with it. Play the sequel, don't play the sequel, whatever, but there's a reason this video specifically has Forbidden West in the title and not just Horizon generally.
After being a big fan of the first game, Forbidden West fell kinda flat for me and I never did end up finishing it. Alloy came across to me as a downgrade in the 2nd game compared to the first. Im not sure if Im even looking forward to a pt3 of this series or not anymore at this point. It went from awesome to "meh".
I'd managed to misplace my save file, so I ended up playing the entire base game again before being able to acces burning shores. Great for relearning the game, and it's surprisingly short when you skip all the cutscenes and dialogue. Still took more time than I really wanted before I saw the new stuff though. New stuff that I genuinely really liked!
Horizon might be the most hated franchise that I love deeply ever. Fighting Giant animal like machines is so fun that it has so much freedom and expression you can create in the highlights if you spend the time actually trying, reasons why I love the story so much is it represents and explores the future of this world with so many people ruining society which shows humanity their doom. This is prob the fav post apocalyptic type world and lore in video game not to mention how beautifully guerilla games crafted it. It may be flawed but alongside ghost of Tsushima these games make me love open world games and exploring them tho they may have map markers like your typical average hater dislikes you are given the opportunity to explore without it and that’s what I did.
I will admit I have not played this game fully myself me and my sister would pass the controller back and forth but she played 80 percent of the game it just doesn’t feel like that much of an upgrade from the last game for me to play it fully myself at least not full price when it came out
I bought this game and the furthest I got is the Day 1 patch. I keep saying I will go back and play it but man the games on the horizon really are burning up those prospects
The Bilegut was neat and the Horus fight, while heavily scripted, was cool despite how unbelievable a person in leather armour wielding a bow can damage a giant mech with tank armour.
I could not get into Forbidden West. It was very pretty, but the actual gameplay was kind of forgettable and I could not care less about the story or characters. I put maybe 8-10 hours into it before I dropped it. I never tried the sequel though. It just looked like more of the same?
The Horizon series captured lightning in a bottle with its gameplay. It’s a shame the story and characters were so bland and weak. Will definitely forget about these games.
Like the game, I watched this video a bit too late. Good work brother, Horizon doesn't get enough love. Agree with the Seyka bit, it felt a little too rushed, wish they fleshed it out a little more. Wouldn't hurt to have some world building missions, like "objective: literally just hang out with the gang."
The last time I played the game, Aloy waited exactly half a frame after I entered a puzzle room to blurt out the solution. No time to look around or engage with the puzzle on my own. Just immediate, incessant railroading along the critical path like I haven't been gaming for 30 years. I won't finish the game or buy the dlc until I at least get an option to disable that.
I had been a long time Guerilla fan for years with the Killzone series and was so excited for Horizon: Zero Dawn, that I literally pre-ordered and played it in the same moment that I was getting evicted in a month because my ex was on bullshit and said "fuck it, may as well go out with a bang!" (She hated me for it, but I was giving her my money and she wasn't paying the bills which was the agreement since she made more than me, so I felt it was justified). That being said, the game was enjoyingly disappointing... Let me explain: the gameplay was so fun and immersive when going through the world. What killed the vibe for me was the blatant toxic feminism, almost every man in the game is either a neanderthal or extremely sexist and douchy, while all the women are intelligent and/or leaders - now I'm not saying that part is bad, I'k saying it's off-putting. I've been playing games for decades and when games that had strong male characters, they also had strong female characters, and sometimes even stronger and more intelligent than the men in their respective games, and people loved each character for who they were, not what sex they were. ZD as well as many other games these days feel that men should be put down while female and trans/gay characters should be put above them that turns me off of these games. I'm a person that creates female characters in any game I can create a character in, and have loved strong female characters from the past like L. Croft, J. Dark, J. Valentine, A. Shiunsai, etc., I just hate that newer games want to shit on men to make women feel more empowered when we already had empowering women in games without the need to emasculate men. It's just really annoying and exactly why I haven't cared to play this game yet.
I wouldn’t consider Botw to be direct competition with zero dawn the same was elden ring was with forbidden west. Botw and zero dawn were basically different groups of people playing games on the console of their preference. Elden ring was in direct comp with forbidden west, and took away some of their sales.
The game looks amazing, and I love the idea of robot dinosaurs as enemies, but man they had the worst timing I have to try and get back into playing the original I suppose but at a certain point it just lost me graphics were great The gameplay was polished, the mystery was intriguing, but it just doesn't do anything that other open world games haven't all done before it, and it doesn't really do anything all that spectacular, it's a good game swimming in a sea of great games and those ultimately end up overshadowing it for me
The fact you chose to the title "Dont forget about HFW" Just lets you know the game barely stands above forgettable. Robo dinos sound awesome but its plays completely like some ol' corporate BS. Design by committee. Sony games have stagnated into an amorphous blob. I loved Tsushima but even that felt too much like Assassins Creed.
I can't express how frustrating it is to see a video of this caliber and channel of this quality have as little views and likes as this video does. Much love WOG and I hope that your videos blow up and you get the following that you deserve ❤
Views are fine! Happy to just be able to talk about games in a way that makes sense to me. If it resonates with other people, cool, if it doesn't, cool-utterly rotten patter from certain commenters be damned.
Might be tough. GG couldn’t port Burning Shores to PS4 because the sky travel mechanics were too advanced to keep up fidelity. Can PC run that smoothly at all times?
Well. I absolutely loved HZD. And maybe, *once it aint a friggn exclusive any longer*, I will try HFW and see if it holds up. Until that day... meh. Other studios also have nice games to play. (Just as an aside: The very same is true for Hellblade 2 / Senuas Saga.)
I appreciate your commentary, unlike many, and I believe it is honest. I actually love this game and remember it over Zero Dawn, maybe because it is so fresh in my mind. I've spent over 760 hrs in it, replaying it several times. About the "Sekloy" relationship, this is true to life with "lesbian pairings". I was a part of lgb community years ago. There is a running joke about "lesbians" and Uhals on the second date. Whoever wrote the dialog between Aloy and Seyka had a lot of knowledge about how female pairings "lesbian s" work. It is not the same way female/male relationships develop. The writers understood that. Thanks for your review
All games like this are basically a complete turnoff for me, as they are practically a movie with odd bits of gameplay in-between. I watched a lets play of zero dawn as 'background noise' while working about a year ago, and found the story moderately interesting, but a movie could have done the same thing in a fraction of the time. I started watching a lets play of forbidden west, and it lost me very fast as the story is so loony. What's with this insane obsession with stories in games, forcing extremely long cut-scenes into them? Games are supposed to be played, not watched.
@@DionPanday Hopefully the mainstream will eventually move on from the 'interactive movie' trend. Environmental storytelling is way more interesting I think.
Honestly, very few have that “cinematic” trend now a days.(Mostly from Sony’s outings) I mean, games who penetrated the zeitgeist in the past decade tend to be gameplay focused.
This will never not be an idiotic and reductive take. Games having cutscenes ,narratives, or a cinematic presentation style doesn’t make them “movies”. Plenty of great franchises have cinematic influences. Telling a narrative with both gameplay and cutscenes is valid.
I’m a big fan of the games. I like Aloy as a character. I really enjoyed the combat and the overall gameplay loop of hunting certain machines. And the added traversal mechanics were a welcome addition to Forbidden West. I’m looking forward to finishing up Burning Shores. Though I could totally see this game not being for everyone. Totally understandable.
I look forward to playing this in a couple of years and be surprised by how good it was like Zero Dawn. I did try it on ps plus premium but really didnt hook me and Aloy loudly thinking the most obvious things turned me off. Ended up playing Elden Ring and Ghost of Tsushima then i just literally forgot about it.
They didn't do a good job with the beginning of Forbidden West. They tried to please new and old players and it's not resonating to everyone... But as soon as you go through the first few hours and the game opens up, the dialogue and lore is amazing. I put in a lot of hours and it's super engaging.
I'm glad you could get into Forbidden West, because I just couldn't. To be fair, I did play this right after Elden Ring, and it really showcased the vast difference between it and most western open world design trends. I just felt that it was a bloated version of Zero Dawn, so many different weapon types and versions that I just resorted to spamming whatever I could rather than strategically figuring out what to do. At that point I just wanted to get it over with and put the difficulty down to the easiest setting. The best parts of Zero Dawn was when you're dodging and weaving through huge robo-monsters, frenetically switching between weapons and traps that, and this is important, don't just do straight damage but inflict debuffs and different effects on the enemies. Forbidden West just felt like everything was a damage sponge to compensate for the glut of new weapons and damage types they added.
Eh, this game just isn’t captivating if you play lots of games. It doesn’t do anything particularly new or great, it’s just a solid game of mechanics and character types you’ve seen before. I will never understand this series being included in GOTY conversations.
Yeah. Horizon's release schedule is most unfortunate. This is in my backlog. I'll have to fight my completionist tendencies super hard, otherwise my momentum will die and I'll put this DLC in the back burner like Frozen Wilds...
I've never played either of the Horizon games, but I have watched some videos of and about them, so I'll say my piece. Something about the Horizon games always gave them this distinct smack of mediocrity. For example, I was watching someone fight Horus and Aloy's constant monologing telling the player exactly what to do made me think "Wow, they really don't trust you to think or figure out anything for yourself." Definitely doesn't strike me as a game that deserves to be remembered.
Its the classic AAA formula. Breathtakingly beautiful, tailored to every demographic, polished from every angle with skill and care... yet falls completely flat.
This game had the unfortunate curse of releasing 1 week before Elden Ring.. as such it suffered the same fate as Titanfall 2 which released the same month as both Battlefield 1 AND Gears of War 4. It was doomed from release, and not cause it was a bad game either. It's just the smaller of 3 giants, and we all know what Elden Ring ended up becoming.. I genuinely feel bad for "Horizon: Forbidden West" since it is a genuinely amazing game just as the first one was.
Release the original right before Elden Ring. Release the DLC right before Tears of the Kingdom. They need to stop doing this, seriously. It’s genuinely hurting this series.
This series is the worst. Best that it is forgotten. Its awful, the best thing that came out of the series is that Kojima used their engine to make death stranding.
It's so forgettable though lol, and incredibly bloated to boot. Did we really need like 200,000 weapon variations, a billion different crafting materials, a dozen different parts on every machine, and six branching skill trees with two valour surges each? Every time I think about giving this game another try, I get mentally exhausted just thinking about this stuff. Then there's the story-telling which fixates on boring tribal BS for 90% of the time instead of the actually interesting sci-fi parts.
Forbidden West just pushed the worst of the first game. It’s just as bloated as an Assassin’s Creed open world game to the point that you get lost and forget about the urgency of the story and anything that grounds any reason to push on. And the story is also just bad: killing in the first game had weight, it meant something to the characters, it was dark when needing to. Forbidden West, however, just treats the serious with quirky comments and personalities that have no real internal logic in this world. On that note it also suffers from the stupid writing we’ve seen recently in other titles like Forspoken. I have no idea why characters nowadays constantly speak while we play and constantly treat their situation with ridiculous attitudes? It’s like modern writers have lost the ability to actually understand how people talk and behave or how dialogue actually works. It’s as if modern writers just spend their time online never interacting with people in real life so they’ve lost the ability to write actual people and instead writes memes and TikTok bullshit. Or we’ve just handed the writing jobs to people who just aren’t competent enough for the job. People who aren’t thinking, who aren’t very good storytellers and directors who don’t understand how to actually direct scenes. Story and storytelling grounds these games and it is vital that this part works or else the open world just becomes a boring, flat and irritating obstacle because the reward for getting somewhere is stupid writing with bad characters doing irrelevant things. Fire the writer/directors and get actual writers and directors!
I actually really enjoyed the world and story of HZD and was enjoying the world and story of HFW as well. But the gameplay, especially the poorly thought-out, restrictive traversal mechanics were a bummer as they were no better than HZD at best. After playing Elden Ring, it has been impossible for me to go back and finish it. I'll get around to it at some point I'm sure.
Restrictive traversal? What exactly was restrictive? - They added free fast travel between campfires - More climbable hills and mountains - Gliding - Flying mountable machines - Diving - New mountable ground machines This is the most random comment, especially when comparing it with Elden Ring which has the most restrictive traversal and repetitive gameplay of any games in years...
Surprised this comment got any likes, I don’t remember being able to mount multiple robots, fly, grapple and free dive in hzd but if I’m wrong please correct me. Also while climbing is still case by case it’s not often you can’t climb solid surfaces man made or otherwise. Using elden ring as a benchmark is so odd too, your greatest experimentation with its traversal amounts to spamming jump with torrent up a cliff-face. Torrent is also your one and only mount and while he is fast he controls terribly. Horizon isn’t faring much better in that department but elden ring doesn’t warrant comparison as some shining example. There isn’t even a parkour system outside a basic jump.
Got about halfway through the game before I dropped it last year for ER. Played through the rest and the dlc this spring and unfortunately I'm done with the series now. This does not need a 3rs game imo and it's open world design feels dated. It looks great but idk, they would need to massively overhaul combat and hunting for me to return.
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I loved this game and put tons of hours into it and the DLC. I am glad someone is talking about it
Same ❤ Horizon fans unite
I'm at 70 hours now :) Still not done.
@@lukastembergerI finished at 200. You’ve got a ways to go.
Given I'm a PC player, I'm sure I'll forget about it again until Sony decides to release it a couple years from now.
Even a few years from now it'll be one of the best looking and epic games out there.
coming to pc in one/two months :)
I love this game simply because of how good it feels to play. Movement is fluid. All the different weapon types and ways to approach fights just feel fun. Taking down the various massive machines. It’s frustratingly the funnest game for me to play. It’s not perfect. It’s not entirely original. But it manages to synthesize a lot of popular AAA trends in a friendly, fun package.
I swear Guerilla Games is built on a cursed burial site or something...
Every time they release their game, something industry-defining comes out right after
Horizon 1 => Breath of the Wild a week later
Horizon 2 => Elden Ring a week later
The Burning Shores DLC dodge Tears of the Kingdom, but it was very close to being the same
In fairness, Forbidden West's release was already set in stone. It was Elden Ring that had the date push back. Lot of people seem to either forget that, ignore that part or didn't even know
Wasn't it a week though not much could be done
@@roonkolos
I'm not implying there's bad decisions on their part. It's still insane regardless.
@@roonkolos horizon couldve delayed as a reaction to the elden ring delay. yeah it wouldve sucked and some investors would get prissy but anyone with even a surface level knowledge of the industry couldve told you what the outcome of not delaying was gonna be
@@roonkolosRegardless who pushed back the release date ,the effect is the same.
I definitely forgot about this game
So did the whole gaming media. I still can't put my finger on what they did wrong with such a good premise. Guerilla made one of the most forgettable gaming franchises in the modern days. I played through Zero Dawn and had a blast back then because it was something new, but I felt Forbidden West was a slog with same combat mechanics, more bloated menus (weapon wheel, inventory, skill tree), and mechanics that other games pulled off better like gliders and climbing. Swimming was the only cool mechanic added and they missed the opportunity of giving nice underwater combat sections.
Horizon is threading the same path as Killzone did. A banger IP with lots of potential which never gets to realize it. If Horizon 3 is more of the same, it'll be forgotten even faster.
@@Nero_PR and I guarantee if they DID change a lot, the same people hating it would still hate it regardless
@@Nero_PRI never even played the sequel. The first Horizon wasn’t bad, but it was so bland and forgettable imo. It looked good but it wasn’t super fun to play and I didn’t really get attached to any of the characters, so I just set it down and never finished.
@@Nero_PRyou can’t put your finger on it cause they literally did nothing wrong. This game made more money than the first and cost the double. $230 million that’s more than gow rag for all those fanboys. If numbers don’t say something then play it again
It’s honestly impressive that Horizon managed to be successful despite it’s competitors
I clicked this video just to say: i forgot about this game until i saw the thumbnail.
Same
I am astonished how a dev team can create one of the most forgettable experiences in gaming involving robot dinosaurs.
@@mgk-metalgearkelly5054completely disagree, this is one of Sonys most unique first party games, much better than the Ubisoft slog that is ghost of tushima…
@@enoo9003Hey you take that back mister!! I platimuned Ghost, even the multiplayer content and the Iki Island expansion and shall fight you to the death for your blasphemy!
Jokes aside I platimuned Zero Dawn but haven't gotten around to finishing the sequel, I gotta get on that tbh as I loved both games!
I didn’t forget. It was just a letdown, not enough of an upgrade from the first one to really stand out. And honestly I’d give it a lower rating than the first game. Elden Ring def overshadowed it, I put down horizon after that first week, and didn’t pick it up again til mid summer. And at that point, I never felt like I was ever able to immerse myself in the game and could only compare it to a much superior game.
Elden Ring is untouchable for sure !
I honestly prefer Horizon over Elden Ring. I got bored with ER at halfway point (too much repetition and cumbersome controls) but completed Horizon twice with NG+
@@Damocles3you are no doubt in the minority with that opinion. Elden ring has its flaws, but there is no question it is by far the superior product.
@@Damocles3I do find it ironic tho you don’t find horizon to be repetitive. When there’s way less combat options.
@@YodaSmokeshaven’t played Forbidden West, but I wasn’t that impressed with Elden Ring.
I played this for the first time a couple weeks back and i just can't get behind it. It feels like Aloy regressed and a lot of the mechanics didn't work as fluidly as they did in the first one.
I did like the new environments, characters, and story over all, and I don't think it deserves to be forgotten.. the first certainly will deserves more love. But this one... Ehh
I think your response so far has been one of the only that doesn't come down to hating for the sake of hating
Glad to see someone can actually give good criticism
I have been the opposite. Hated the first game, mainly for the lack of responsiveness the combat had. Started the new one recently and have been loving it so far and the feel of the bow is spot on now
Yep, except the part about Story and characters. They Just cant write good shit
My only real issue was that Aloy's central personal conflict doesn't make sense. She spends most of the game moping around being scared that her friends might get hurt and playing the "I need to do this alone" BS despite having no issue with her friends fighting to the death with Hades at the end of the first game.
If one of her friends died in the fight against Hades then it would make sense but everyone survives so she just feels scared for no reason.
Also Aloy's romance in Burning Shore felt real rushed. If that arc took place over the length of the base game it would feel more organic but as DLC length story it felt like Aloy was being uncharacteristically thirsty.
@@PlebNCso many people has died tho right in front of her😂
Haven't watched the video yet and don't have time for a full comment, but I just needed to say that while I know these games have some flaws, I absolutely love them and do not understand many of the criticisms they get above other games. The sheer imagination at display in the world design and the way all the elements interact with each other, combined with the incredibly involved open world combat and beautiful setting, have made both games some of my favorite of all time.
Then you don't read enough criticism or are simply blinded.
@@toastydanny9136 you're right, I'm completely blind and can't read. You hit the nail right on the head. It's definitely not a difference of opinion!
@@Justjoshingyou13 It's good that you at least acknowledge your flaws in your taste, cause the criticisms against the game are much stronger than your poor argument.
@@toastydanny9136 at least try a witty comeback lol
@@Justjoshingyou13 At least try to get a better taste and broaden your media instead of consuming mediocrity. ;)
I feel very differently about Horizon's storytelling, and story, than you seem to...I can't get enough of it, it's the primary reason I play the games and, initially, struggle through the combat
I like the world and story too, but I think his main pet peeves isn't with their content but with their delivery, which as he said, is mostly through talking head infodumps that are fairly sterile and dull
I like the twist of the first game and how it contextualizes why Aloy interfaces with technology and machines in such a natural way, and the idea of the world being reset because of a plague and how the current population was meant to be caught up but the archive of knowledge was deliberately destroyed is kind of a neat touch; it says that Aloy and the other tribes aren't meant to live like this.
What gets me every time is how goofy everyone is dressed, but the performances seem to have been steered away from camp. You'd think they'd go big but... they just sternly talk to each other.
Some tribes are too "national geographic" for me with their outfits
What is there to forget?
I already have forgotten about the horizon games and I will continue to do so. These games make plain white bread look exciting by comparison.
tbh they’re super overrated yeah especially horizon zero dawn it was cool ish but wow didn’t need a sequel
Really? It's fairly enjoyable, and the ability to tear off armor from your enemies is very enjoyable
This comment section is Cancer.
I feel like 90% of the comments are either those that didnt play, played with the expectation of wanting to hate it or listened to reviewers hating it and thus made that their same thoughts
I know taste and interests vary by player and thats totally fine but people insulting the man for having some enjoyment out of this game isnt upsetting. Its kinda pathetic
I played the first one, and I can confirm it's dull
A lot of vitriol towards this game in the comments. Very weird.
@@lolailo2199if you didn't like it that's fine. I'm clearly talk about those that make hating it part of their personality
Which I'm going to assume you aren't
Coming from someone who loves the Horizon series, give Zero Dawn another chance. The storytelling in that game is incredibly moving, and the datapoint collectibles add so much context to the world. Every playthrough brings me to tears tbh. HFW is a thrilling adventure too, but the storytelling and side quests left me feeling pretty disappointed. It just doesn’t stir my emotions the way that HZD did.
I forgot about this game until you brought it up and most likely will again
I own this game, as it came with my PS5, and I have absolutely zero interest in playing it. It looks like Modern Generic Sony-exclusive #63. And I got all the trophies in the first one have have almost no memory of what the game actually entailed because it was so *painfully* generic and by-the-numbers.
The interesting commentary on "chosen one" narratives is honestly the only interesting thing this series had going for it.
I struggle to even play the new God of War, despite being a big series fan historically who played, and often beat on the hardest difficulty, every game in the series. These games all look so similar that it's hard to be intrigued anymore. I know that's unfair, but that's years and years of the same flavor grinding down appreciation over time, I suppose. Diminishing returns.
I have platinum'd both games and 100% their DLCs as well.
I believe the first one is excellent on all aspects, but I found the second one bloated. The open world is TOO big, and I never complain about it, in fact I usually enjoy the busywork in open-world games even if it gets repetitive, but I really pushed myself to keep exploring and doing everything, and by the end, I didn't want to touch the game again. For reference, one other recent game that I loathed exploring and doing everything was AC:Valhalla, which is kinda strange, because in contrast to most people, I LOVED Odyssey.
The gameplay and combat in the Horizon franchise remains some of the best I've ever played from the Playstation exclusives. It's always basically flawless but just has a story that not many get attached to and their poor release timing of always being smack next to some other crazy releases 😂 coz Zero Dawn and Forbidden West could actually have won GOTY if they released in other years. The gameplay is so addictive once you get into the groove of it.
Its more a victim of being incredibly trite and dull than any release schedule
I quite enjoyed Forbidden West and Burning Shores but I'm genuinely surprised you're gushing about its world and the freedom you have in it, like it's Zelda or Elden Ring. It's an absolutely enormous open world, yes, but I never felt overwhelmed or in awe of it. I never felt like I was conquering it and discovering things, just uncovering what I'm supposed to and barely anything more, and (as you say in the video) finding areas which have scripted moments in it before I'm supposed to be there.
right on the mark. zelda and elden ring have absolutely set a new standard and comparing either of the horizon games to them is not doing aloy any favours. no matter how much you like a game you just cant pretend its something it simply isnt
@@_holy__ghost a new standartd of copypasted content with no story perharps. I don't even know which of those two has less content tbh, they both a huge failure in terms of filling out the world with anything meaningful. MW Horizon was literally the first Ubi style game to have all content be meaningful.
@@vazazell5967thats wrong and you know it. Its sad that those 2 are one of the best but thats because open world is Just terrible everywhere except metro
I can't say I've played the game (it's been some years since I had money to spend on games), but I found it curious how seemingly at odds his comments on the game's open world is with his older video on player freedom and sandbox, which, personally, I found a lot more compelling and theoretically sound. In this video, there seems to be a unwarranted equation of visual splendor with immersion (particularly weird given his recognition of multiple flaws which generally take away from immersion) and of freedom with freedom to move around, two points which are explicitly questioned in the older one.
@@vazazell5967 you're just being a contrarian and you know it.
I'll always remember this game (not the name since it just doesnt stick for me) as that one game that came out a week before Elden Ring released.
6/10 games with the only redeeming trait they have being good graphics deserve to be forgotten about.
what makes you think it's a 6/10 game?? it has a good story and fantastic combat in addition to those nice graphics.
Funny. I keep reading Horizon Forbidden west and then its translate in my brain to Elden Ring. I wonder why.
I would love to enjoy your video, but Sony doesn't want my dirty PC money.
Hasn't a lot of Sony games been ported to PC though?
Bloodborne PC when?
I feel like theres a reason why games like these consistently drop in price generally a year or two afer release
Horizon and Elden ring are the same price right now, games go on sale, after a year of release especially.
I’ll say this: absolutely loved Burning Shores, but Guerrilla Games needs to update its resources tab. Let us pick and choose what supporting items we want on the HUD, and limit them to 8-10 items. Can’t tell you how many times i frantically scrolled through 20+ things looking for a health potion, or the right acid trap. That gets very exhausting, phenomenal final kaiju battle or not.
Yeah, that one aspect of the interface is genuinely crappy compared to everything else.
Maybe they could do a 2nd traps/potions wheel next to the weapon wheel. I mean, the controller has 2 sticks.
You can deselect items from that wheel by holding the down button pressed for a moment. It opens a menue where you can pick and choose what shows up on the wheel. You can also craft on the fly here
I pre-ordered this game and was so excited to play it, after a few hours in I had to stop because jfc... Alloy doesn't shut up. What are the DEVS thinking?? constant hints and no respect for player agency. I enjoyed the first game and can't remember if alloy was this annoying.
Inner thoughts are one thing but constant player character chatter is annoying. I enjoy ambient sounds and music.
Thankfully that was fixed the same day. Doesn't exactly excuse the decision but it wasn't a problem that lasted for long. Again, first 24 hours
@@roonkolos I tried playing it again recently , she's still hinting so much😭
Horizon forbidden west was my 2022 GOTY
It's a shame that they keep swindling this franchise with HZD being released next to BOTW and HFW being released next to Elden ring.
Hopefully they choose a better release date for the 3rd game
Elden Ring was the one that got the date pushed pushed, not Forbidden West tho
@roonkolos and with that information they should've done what Ubi and some other studios did and move out the way back in March.
They had the power to push the release date but chose not to. It was clear that any game that landed in the February release window was going to get slide tackled by Elden ring lol
I respect and adore the game from afar, but I tried HZD and getting past the first couple of hours is an absolute drag.😢
Wait. You adore it but couldn't even play beyond the first few hours? How does that make any sense
Or did I read that i correctly?
@@roonkolos you read correctly. When I see videos of it and look at the great graphics, environment design and sick looking enemy design, and professional gameplay, I really adore the game..... but actually getting to that point is an absolute slugfest of micromanaging resources, initially boring combat because of how relatively weak your bow is, and a story & characters that don't interest me
I played about 10 hours of it and it never really got any better or more fun for me. I think it's just a polarizing series.
@@perpetualgrimace same, I started HZD and couldn't get through it bc while the combat is great the main missions and dialogue were super grating. Whatever interest I have in this world vanishes with these cutscenes and characters
@@thmistrapillay1811that's why you get a better bow
And what do you mean micro managing ammo? The game gives you enough resources to never have to deeply worry about that
If I ever play this game it will be through piracy and with a full face/body makeover of Aloy, I really cannot stomach that appearence for 50+ hours of game.
Sorry what do you mean by that?
I didn't forget it... I enjoyed my time with it (some seventy or eighty hours). It's an improvement on every technical level over the original. It plays better, it looks better, etc. I just wish the writing hadn't taken such a nosedive, especially that surrounding the final conflict and ending. They completely betrayed Sylens's character for the sake of a CW show-style Kum Ba Yah finale.
Great game that still somehow manages to be far less memorable than the original, not aided by suffering from the same issue as the original: its modern day story and characters are not nearly as interesting as the lore and the reason for the world being what it is. But since that was already revealed in the previous game, they had to come up with something to create a conflict, and it struck me as nothing so much as hackneyed and contrived. Aloy herself doesn't really get to be a character with her own goals and ambitions, so much as she is an avatar for the player's goals and ambitions.
> "I just wish the writing hadn't taken such a nosedive"
But... it didn't? It delivered on all the subtle foreshadowing from the first game (seriously, there was a ton) and it also enhanced character writing compared to side characters from the previous instalment.
This is way better than most other AAA sequels. Like Mass Effect 2, Assassin's Creed 2 or God of War Ragnarok, for example. THOSE suffered from writing quality nosedives.
Hell, people praise the writing in The Witcher 3 but the main story in that game is pretty mediocre, too. Horizon 2 absolutely has a better main questline than that.
@@ThePreciseClimber👌🤡🙄
Did we play the same game? Aloy doesn't have her own goals? Sylens betrayed his own character? Like what?
I never forgot about this game, I mean how could I when I somehow managed to hardlock the game in the tutorial? I mean it's not like I lost any progress, but I hadn't seen a game hardlock since the original release of Skyrim.
This was after a few patches for Horizon BTW.
Barring the exceptional graphics, Horizon Forbidden West was extremely forgettable to begin with.
Ikr, it seems like a fluke that the first even got the success it did. It's characters are uninteresting, it's combat is mediocre and the story is meh. Horizon games are no masterpiece at best they're like a 5 out of 10 and if we're praising mediocrity then gaming is truly dead.
Agreed.
As terrible as Fallout 76 was, I legitimately enjoyed that game more than Horizon Forbidden West.
I'd rather play a game that is so terrible that it is good, than a game that does nothing but play it safe.
Horizon has no feeling or soul put behind it.
@@1810jeff Then youre not paying attention to the characters. A few of them are very interesting.
Thanks for making this vid. I really love these games and it's nice to see someone I respect paying attention to them. The combat is very challenging and fun and i almost never see anyone bring that up.
Plus i can spend months in its photomode 😂 which might be the best way to really take in its lush beauty. But back to my original point, I get real tired of mainly seeing it mentioned by people via hackneyed gamer joke about bad releases or whatever. Which always seemed idiotic to me, since Zelda is a switch exclusive and Horizon is a PS exclusive, they arent exactly competing for the same audience. Not everyone is a rich kid that has every console, or someone whose job depends on them and can write them off as a business expense. That fact seems to get lost in the discourse extremely easily.
Not that the game really needs someone to defend it, since I'm pretty sure it still sells extremely well and is one of Sony's flagship franchises at this point.
Yup, I played the first game for a couple of hours and was like “OK, let’s play Zelda and Red Dead Redemption 2.” Then Forbidden West came out and I was like “Well, Elden Ring is here.” And I’ve never thought about going back tot his game series again. 😂
Even the devs seem to have forgotten about it, since there’s still no PC version.
Loved the first game, still waiting for a PC version 🤞🤞🤞
Not using the best feature of Hoirzon which is the dynamic hud should be a crime. All you need is the compass outside of combat and even that I turned off because you can always activate the full hud using the touchpad. Otherwise a great commentary.
I love HZD and HFW, and I think it's because both somehow end up feeling like more than the sum of their parts. Maybe neither is the best at any category (except I do think HFW may be the best looking game I've seen, with some amazing performance capture in cutscenes). But despite those flaws, most aspects are strong enough that the whole package gels together in a very satisfying way for me.
The Ubisoft open world Formula just completely turns me off, I I did my best to finish the first game after two years of playing it on and off, I bought the CE of Forbidden West because of the awesome mech Mammoth but otherwise the game is remains unopened to this day. None of the gameplay footage and playthroughs made me think yeah I want to sink time into this, while environments and mech dinos are awesome, the gameplay is just not fun and the open world completely ruins it for me.
I've haven't experienced the existential dread that Horizon's setting gave me since Neon Genesis Evangelion.
(hears you explain when the DLC gameplay clicked for you again)
Yup, you nailed it. I know the Monster Hunter comparison is right there on the table and that's fair to make too. But hunts feel their best when you see the situation, approach it with a plan, watch the plan go sideways half way through because of some other factors you didn't consider making their way in or the effectiveness of your plan not quite being right, that's where these games live and breathe so well. Having to craft more traps because getting knocked away by an enemy and you triggered the trap on yourself or needing to make more health potions because the fight turned into a third fight that's been going on for twenty minutes is a really strong commitment to just a brilliantly layered system that's not too packed to the brim, but just enough.
My biggest gripes with Forbidden West at 150 hours total were that it still felt kind of impossible to do all the challenges at a certain point. The story was big enough to meet its world and the side quests and world exploration were well paced with the world, just not its challenges I think. Hearing that the DLC is fairly short and focused actually makes me curious about picking up.
I think they need to release their games more strategically...Zero Dawn came alongside BOTW, Forbidden West came near Elden Ring and then Forbidden West Burning Shores DLC came near TOTK...Not the best track record of release dates...
I was somehow turned off by this one since release and probably won't play it any time soon. Seems like a chore to me.
I put more than 100 hours into it. I’m currently beating the game again on ng+ hardest difficulty to get to the dlc I haven’t played yet. The dlcs graphics are insane with the cloud rendering
The worst thing about Horizon is that it ruins a amazing concept with the worst possible gameplay imaginable. Now we're forever denied of a cool game with giant robot dinosaurs because it'll be bashed for being a horizon clone.
Honestly, I don’t think this game has that much of an impact on the zeitgeist.
The gameplay is great.
Worst gameplay imaginable? Really? I must have low standards because I think the gameplay is a step above most games.
It’s no DMC but if I was given a choice between Horizon and the new GOW’s, id happily take Horizon.
Horizon's gameplay is actually the best part about it IMHO, alongside the exploration of the massive world. You have so many options to explore combat, and enemies are always a threat to you at any points.
This video singlehandedly reminded me to never play this game. I hated how Zero Dawn felt and everything praised here is what I hated about the original. Which is a shame, because the concept for this series is extraordinary.
I mean... I also pretty strongly disliked Zero Dawn. Tried to go back to it after Forbidden West and still found all the problems I originally had with it. Play the sequel, don't play the sequel, whatever, but there's a reason this video specifically has Forbidden West in the title and not just Horizon generally.
After being a big fan of the first game, Forbidden West fell kinda flat for me and I never did end up finishing it. Alloy came across to me as a downgrade in the 2nd game compared to the first. Im not sure if Im even looking forward to a pt3 of this series or not anymore at this point. It went from awesome to "meh".
I'd managed to misplace my save file, so I ended up playing the entire base game again before being able to acces burning shores.
Great for relearning the game,
and it's surprisingly short when you skip all the cutscenes and dialogue.
Still took more time than I really wanted before I saw the new stuff though. New stuff that I genuinely really liked!
Horizon might be the most hated franchise that I love deeply ever. Fighting Giant animal like machines is so fun that it has so much freedom and expression you can create in the highlights if you spend the time actually trying, reasons why I love the story so much is it represents and explores the future of this world with so many people ruining society which shows humanity their doom. This is prob the fav post apocalyptic type world and lore in video game not to mention how beautifully guerilla games crafted it. It may be flawed but alongside ghost of Tsushima these games make me love open world games and exploring them tho they may have map markers like your typical average hater dislikes you are given the opportunity to explore without it and that’s what I did.
Both Horizon games just felt a mix of games I've played a thousand times before. Forbidden West is better but they're just missing something.
I will admit I have not played this game fully myself me and my sister would pass the controller back and forth but she played 80 percent of the game it just doesn’t feel like that much of an upgrade from the last game for me to play it fully myself at least not full price when it came out
I bought this game and the furthest I got is the Day 1 patch. I keep saying I will go back and play it but man the games on the horizon really are burning up those prospects
I am astonished how a dev team can create one of the most forgettable experiences in gaming involving robot dinosaurs.
The Bilegut was neat and the Horus fight, while heavily scripted, was cool despite how unbelievable a person in leather armour wielding a bow can damage a giant mech with tank armour.
I could not get into Forbidden West. It was very pretty, but the actual gameplay was kind of forgettable and I could not care less about the story or characters. I put maybe 8-10 hours into it before I dropped it.
I never tried the sequel though. It just looked like more of the same?
The Horizon series captured lightning in a bottle with its gameplay. It’s a shame the story and characters were so bland and weak. Will definitely forget about these games.
Fym "don't forget" the game's only been out for a year
Like the game, I watched this video a bit too late. Good work brother, Horizon doesn't get enough love. Agree with the Seyka bit, it felt a little too rushed, wish they fleshed it out a little more. Wouldn't hurt to have some world building missions, like "objective: literally just hang out with the gang."
This franchise will be forgotten as soon as Sony stops pushing it so much. Its just so dull, boring, and generic.
The last time I played the game, Aloy waited exactly half a frame after I entered a puzzle room to blurt out the solution. No time to look around or engage with the puzzle on my own. Just immediate, incessant railroading along the critical path like I haven't been gaming for 30 years.
I won't finish the game or buy the dlc until I at least get an option to disable that.
I had been a long time Guerilla fan for years with the Killzone series and was so excited for Horizon: Zero Dawn, that I literally pre-ordered and played it in the same moment that I was getting evicted in a month because my ex was on bullshit and said "fuck it, may as well go out with a bang!" (She hated me for it, but I was giving her my money and she wasn't paying the bills which was the agreement since she made more than me, so I felt it was justified).
That being said, the game was enjoyingly disappointing... Let me explain: the gameplay was so fun and immersive when going through the world. What killed the vibe for me was the blatant toxic feminism, almost every man in the game is either a neanderthal or extremely sexist and douchy, while all the women are intelligent and/or leaders - now I'm not saying that part is bad, I'k saying it's off-putting. I've been playing games for decades and when games that had strong male characters, they also had strong female characters, and sometimes even stronger and more intelligent than the men in their respective games, and people loved each character for who they were, not what sex they were. ZD as well as many other games these days feel that men should be put down while female and trans/gay characters should be put above them that turns me off of these games.
I'm a person that creates female characters in any game I can create a character in, and have loved strong female characters from the past like L. Croft, J. Dark, J. Valentine, A. Shiunsai, etc., I just hate that newer games want to shit on men to make women feel more empowered when we already had empowering women in games without the need to emasculate men. It's just really annoying and exactly why I haven't cared to play this game yet.
Already did
I wouldn’t consider Botw to be direct competition with zero dawn the same was elden ring was with forbidden west. Botw and zero dawn were basically different groups of people playing games on the console of their preference. Elden ring was in direct comp with forbidden west, and took away some of their sales.
The game looks amazing, and I love the idea of robot dinosaurs as enemies, but man they had the worst timing
I have to try and get back into playing the original I suppose but at a certain point it just lost me graphics were great The gameplay was polished, the mystery was intriguing, but it just doesn't do anything that other open world games haven't all done before it, and it doesn't really do anything all that spectacular, it's a good game swimming in a sea of great games and those ultimately end up overshadowing it for me
The fact you chose to the title "Dont forget about HFW" Just lets you know the game barely stands above forgettable.
Robo dinos sound awesome but its plays completely like some ol' corporate BS. Design by committee.
Sony games have stagnated into an amorphous blob.
I loved Tsushima but even that felt too much like Assassins Creed.
I can't express how frustrating it is to see a video of this caliber and channel of this quality have as little views and likes as this video does. Much love WOG and I hope that your videos blow up and you get the following that you deserve ❤
He's defending a 6/10 Ubisoft game and you're wondering why he doesn't have good views?
Huh, well, no wonder.
Views are fine! Happy to just be able to talk about games in a way that makes sense to me. If it resonates with other people, cool, if it doesn't, cool-utterly rotten patter from certain commenters be damned.
@@kal-sheiargonianassassinof7980 of all the ways you could word it you had to pick the most insulting way
I'd love if they made the PC port for the Forbidden West.
There's been many Play Station PC ports lately, so maybe, maybe?
Might be tough. GG couldn’t port Burning Shores to PS4 because the sky travel mechanics were too advanced to keep up fidelity. Can PC run that smoothly at all times?
Well. I absolutely loved HZD. And maybe, *once it aint a friggn exclusive any longer*, I will try HFW and see if it holds up. Until that day... meh. Other studios also have nice games to play. (Just as an aside: The very same is true for Hellblade 2 / Senuas Saga.)
I'll unforget about it once it come out on PC so I can actually play it.
I appreciate your commentary, unlike many, and I believe it is honest.
I actually love this game and remember it over Zero Dawn, maybe because it is so fresh in my mind. I've spent over 760 hrs in it, replaying it several times.
About the "Sekloy" relationship, this is true to life with "lesbian pairings". I was a part of lgb community years ago. There is a running joke about "lesbians" and Uhals on the second date. Whoever wrote the dialog between Aloy and Seyka had a lot of knowledge about how female pairings "lesbian s" work. It is not the same way female/male relationships develop. The writers understood that.
Thanks for your review
I'm playing it rigth now, honestly it's way better than I imagined and a strong improvement over ZD
Edit: gramar
Forgot about it the day Elden Ring came out and I haven’t touched it since and I don’t think I will based off this year’s release schedule. 😅
All games like this are basically a complete turnoff for me, as they are practically a movie with odd bits of gameplay in-between. I watched a lets play of zero dawn as 'background noise' while working about a year ago, and found the story moderately interesting, but a movie could have done the same thing in a fraction of the time. I started watching a lets play of forbidden west, and it lost me very fast as the story is so loony.
What's with this insane obsession with stories in games, forcing extremely long cut-scenes into them? Games are supposed to be played, not watched.
@@DionPanday Hopefully the mainstream will eventually move on from the 'interactive movie' trend. Environmental storytelling is way more interesting I think.
Honestly, very few have that “cinematic” trend now a days.(Mostly from Sony’s outings)
I mean, games who penetrated the zeitgeist in the past decade tend to be gameplay focused.
This will never not be an idiotic and reductive take. Games having cutscenes ,narratives, or a cinematic presentation style doesn’t make them “movies”. Plenty of great franchises have cinematic influences. Telling a narrative with both gameplay and cutscenes is valid.
Never play a metal gear game than
I’m a big fan of the games. I like Aloy as a character. I really enjoyed the combat and the overall gameplay loop of hunting certain machines. And the added traversal mechanics were a welcome addition to Forbidden West. I’m looking forward to finishing up Burning Shores.
Though I could totally see this game not being for everyone. Totally understandable.
I look forward to playing this in a couple of years and be surprised by how good it was like Zero Dawn. I did try it on ps plus premium but really didnt hook me and Aloy loudly thinking the most obvious things turned me off. Ended up playing Elden Ring and Ghost of Tsushima then i just literally forgot about it.
They didn't do a good job with the beginning of Forbidden West. They tried to please new and old players and it's not resonating to everyone... But as soon as you go through the first few hours and the game opens up, the dialogue and lore is amazing. I put in a lot of hours and it's super engaging.
I'm glad you could get into Forbidden West, because I just couldn't. To be fair, I did play this right after Elden Ring, and it really showcased the vast difference between it and most western open world design trends. I just felt that it was a bloated version of Zero Dawn, so many different weapon types and versions that I just resorted to spamming whatever I could rather than strategically figuring out what to do. At that point I just wanted to get it over with and put the difficulty down to the easiest setting.
The best parts of Zero Dawn was when you're dodging and weaving through huge robo-monsters, frenetically switching between weapons and traps that, and this is important, don't just do straight damage but inflict debuffs and different effects on the enemies. Forbidden West just felt like everything was a damage sponge to compensate for the glut of new weapons and damage types they added.
Eh, this game just isn’t captivating if you play lots of games. It doesn’t do anything particularly new or great, it’s just a solid game of mechanics and character types you’ve seen before. I will never understand this series being included in GOTY conversations.
The fact that this game was even nominated for GOTY is just insulting.
Yeah. Horizon's release schedule is most unfortunate. This is in my backlog. I'll have to fight my completionist tendencies super hard, otherwise my momentum will die and I'll put this DLC in the back burner like Frozen Wilds...
I've never played either of the Horizon games, but I have watched some videos of and about them, so I'll say my piece.
Something about the Horizon games always gave them this distinct smack of mediocrity. For example, I was watching someone fight Horus and Aloy's constant monologing telling the player exactly what to do made me think "Wow, they really don't trust you to think or figure out anything for yourself." Definitely doesn't strike me as a game that deserves to be remembered.
Its the classic AAA formula. Breathtakingly beautiful, tailored to every demographic, polished from every angle with skill and care... yet falls completely flat.
Elden Ring blew it out of the water just like BOTW before it
This game had the unfortunate curse of releasing 1 week before Elden Ring.. as such it suffered the same fate as Titanfall 2 which released the same month as both Battlefield 1 AND Gears of War 4. It was doomed from release, and not cause it was a bad game either. It's just the smaller of 3 giants, and we all know what Elden Ring ended up becoming.. I genuinely feel bad for "Horizon: Forbidden West" since it is a genuinely amazing game just as the first one was.
Release the original right before Elden Ring.
Release the DLC right before Tears of the Kingdom.
They need to stop doing this, seriously. It’s genuinely hurting this series.
Elden Ring got pushed back
That wasnt their fault. Or ER's eithrr
This series is the worst. Best that it is forgotten. Its awful, the best thing that came out of the series is that Kojima used their engine to make death stranding.
I already forgot about this bland open world game lol
One of my favourite games
I do think I will
Im so excited to play this game, but it needs to vome to PC before I can. So not forgotten, just not as accessible as the original
Thanks for the vid
Never understood the interest in these to be honest. They’re Ubisoft games with a shiny coat of paint. Same with Ghost of Tsushima
It's so forgettable though lol, and incredibly bloated to boot. Did we really need like 200,000 weapon variations, a billion different crafting materials, a dozen different parts on every machine, and six branching skill trees with two valour surges each? Every time I think about giving this game another try, I get mentally exhausted just thinking about this stuff. Then there's the story-telling which fixates on boring tribal BS for 90% of the time instead of the actually interesting sci-fi parts.
cant forget something you dismissed out of hand
Forbidden West just pushed the worst of the first game. It’s just as bloated as an Assassin’s Creed open world game to the point that you get lost and forget about the urgency of the story and anything that grounds any reason to push on. And the story is also just bad: killing in the first game had weight, it meant something to the characters, it was dark when needing to. Forbidden West, however, just treats the serious with quirky comments and personalities that have no real internal logic in this world. On that note it also suffers from the stupid writing we’ve seen recently in other titles like Forspoken.
I have no idea why characters nowadays constantly speak while we play and constantly treat their situation with ridiculous attitudes?
It’s like modern writers have lost the ability to actually understand how people talk and behave or how dialogue actually works. It’s as if modern writers just spend their time online never interacting with people in real life so they’ve lost the ability to write actual people and instead writes memes and TikTok bullshit.
Or we’ve just handed the writing jobs to people who just aren’t competent enough for the job. People who aren’t thinking, who aren’t very good storytellers and directors who don’t understand how to actually direct scenes.
Story and storytelling grounds these games and it is vital that this part works or else the open world just becomes a boring, flat and irritating obstacle because the reward for getting somewhere is stupid writing with bad characters doing irrelevant things.
Fire the writer/directors and get actual writers and directors!
nah fam too much hud
I found the writing to be quite poor ,especially the dialogue. I don't like the game's characters and the gameplay is outdated and stale.
I’m the only person here that actually enjoyed both games
I actually really enjoyed the world and story of HZD and was enjoying the world and story of HFW as well. But the gameplay, especially the poorly thought-out, restrictive traversal mechanics were a bummer as they were no better than HZD at best. After playing Elden Ring, it has been impossible for me to go back and finish it. I'll get around to it at some point I'm sure.
Restrictive traversal? What exactly was restrictive?
- They added free fast travel between campfires
- More climbable hills and mountains
- Gliding
- Flying mountable machines
- Diving
- New mountable ground machines
This is the most random comment, especially when comparing it with Elden Ring which has the most restrictive traversal and repetitive gameplay of any games in years...
Surprised this comment got any likes, I don’t remember being able to mount multiple robots, fly, grapple and free dive in hzd but if I’m wrong please correct me. Also while climbing is still case by case it’s not often you can’t climb solid surfaces man made or otherwise. Using elden ring as a benchmark is so odd too, your greatest experimentation with its traversal amounts to spamming jump with torrent up a cliff-face. Torrent is also your one and only mount and while he is fast he controls terribly. Horizon isn’t faring much better in that department but elden ring doesn’t warrant comparison as some shining example. There isn’t even a parkour system outside a basic jump.
@@Glorpious5 exactly, these people just never played it and they're haters for the sake of hating...
Got about halfway through the game before I dropped it last year for ER. Played through the rest and the dlc this spring and unfortunately I'm done with the series now. This does not need a 3rs game imo and it's open world design feels dated. It looks great but idk, they would need to massively overhaul combat and hunting for me to return.