Finally someone said it! Tired of these Ubisoft type games with crap scripts, bland characters, taking no risks, doing the same thing over and over again, crap storytelling and such a politically correct way of storytelling as well. It feels soulless. It feels like a mindless Marvel film with forced humour in there. Spider-Man games are just as bland. Physicsless. Only there to get you from A to B. Buy and forget. I'm saying this as a Sony fan and it's a damn shame
@@phar0ahad3 I've played Horizon West... and yes, nitpicks do add up. After 25-30 hours, I think i'm done with the series if this is how they're gonna make these titles. Big, beautiful, bland and boring... the comparisons to an Ubisoft title (atleast a polished Ubi title) are very much spot-on.
I'm only 20 minutes in Luke (I will watch the rest I promise 😁) and I've got to write a comment to disagree with how you describe the first 5-10 hours after the tutorial mission of Forbidden West as the "ending area from the first game"... If you're referring to The Spire at Meridian that section lasts about 20-30 minutes if you speak to everyone and explore a bit. If you're including the next area after the opening credits (The Daunt) then this is a completely new area on the far outskirts of Carja territory not seen in Zero Dawn. For some reason you've combined these two DIFFERENT areas as if they are one, to make it seem like we're forced to spend many hours retreading areas we've explored previously in Zero Dawn, and that is completely untrue and an unfair misrepresentation. You even unlock a trophy called "Reached The Daunt" when you arrive here - because Aloy has never been there before - and neither has the player!! Either you can't remember what areas were actually in Zero Dawn, or you can, but are deliberately overlooking it in your video essay for some reason... 🤔 I'm inclined towards thinking it's the former as so far you haven't even mentioned the name of either of these areas (even though you are showing plenty of footage) which makes me think you didn't bother to find out what they are called (which may have contradicted your argument that this was "the ending area from the first game")!! 🤔🤔 Really Luke? I don't know lol... If they threw the player at The Isle of Spires (San Fran) right from the start you'd no doubt complain asking "How did Aloy get this far west? Why didn't Guerilla let us PLAY that journey...?" 🤦♂️ Also, going from the known to the unknown in a narrative is fine, don't linger too long obviously, but as prologue it is fine 👍👍
Not sure how you missed this, but the opening 10-15 hours are in the completely new map… not at all the first game’s map, in fact there’s a prolonged title sequence showing you Aloy leaving the original game area and travelling for ages to get to the new place. Agree this biome is similar and could have been a bit more exciting, sure, but seems like your point is that it’s still the exact map from the first game, which is untrue. Probably worth highlighting.
I haven't played either game (I just like listening to game reviews) but if the maps are so similar that he confused the new area for the one from the previous game then isn't that still a problem? Just because they had a cutscene showing aloy traveling to the new place and the name of the area changed doesn't make something new and exciting for a sequel 🤷
@@gokuog1772 I have a lot of issues with FW. The starting area of the sequel, whilst ‘similar’ to certain areas of the first game, is not one of the main issues I think the game has. It’s clearly definitely not the same map as the first game, and does quite well at establishing the start of the journey tbh before moving off into the newer areas of the map. I’m trying to work out whether Luke is annoyed with the area itself, or that it is ‘exactly the same area’, because I feel it’s unfair to criticise something so heavily for a point that isn’t true
he missed it because he lacks attention to detail, despite bloated 'critiques'. His Elden Ring one is a classic, he states a certain area lacks a main story boss, despite that area housing one of the most important story bosses.
This might come as a shocker but some fans genuinely want to see what happened to Meridian after the first game's boss fight and I think that's why the developers wanted to start the game there so the returning players could see how things ended and how are those people moving on with their lives, seems to me like a bit of fan service.
I have played zero dawn and my bf didn’t and we both enjoyed it a tom.. for me it was fun to see where everyone left of and for him it was to slowly get into the game and mechanics
@@symbiotezilla12345 he might just be that bad at the game, sadly. Especially seeing how many of his criticisms are super easy to fix or were flat out wrong
@@purwantiallan5089 How? Meridian is just a few conversations with people to bridge the gap between Zero Dawn and Forbidden West. What do they do for 21.5 hours? There isn't combat or exploration there, it's literally just a bit of exposition
i think he is saying that the map before the embassy is an old map which is not true at all. And i also dont get why he spent a good portion of main discussion talking about ammunition and arrows, i finished the game now that it launched on pc and i never ran out of arrows or any type of canisters (blaze, chill water, plasma etc) it is impossible to run out if u loot the crates around you. This is what happen when u ignore your surroundings, i was almost annoyed that i felt so rich on resources it felt very easy, zero dawn wasnt like that.
He’s obviously a little lost but not when it comes to the point he’s trying to make but the words he used. I think he meant to say it took 10-15 hours to get to the forbidden west past the embassy. And to be honest by the time I got past it I had already spent over 15 hours in the game. It felt like I was playing the prologue or intro of a game and was waiting for the title to show but it never happened. I’m not talking about a literal title but it just felt like an intro that consumed way too much time. I remember checking to see if it auto saved right after entering the west cause I was had to leave and I noticed that my save file had 17 and some odd hours on it. Why does it take that long to get to the main part of the game? Even with god of war ragnarok, I remember streaming it to my friend as I was playing and after about 15-20 hours I just got bored of all the useless nonsense and right before I gave up on it my friend says “this is where the game really starts.” What? So all that time I spent was basically for nothing. I would understand if they’d want us to spend some time in the safer area to start off with in order to familiarize yourself with the gameplay mechanics and story and whatnot but at least make it so that you can just go straight to the embassy and get to the meat of the game if you want to and make all that other shit optional for people who do want to know what happens with the Ulvand and whatever that other idiot’s name is. I am yet to finish the game but I highly doubt any of those people will ever be mentioned again in the main story so all it was was a waste of time considering it wasn’t a side quest or optional.
@@wingsofpizza i think you just didn't like that part of the game which is fine but i dont think it was a so bad design. I personally liked it, you could say that it was a little boring in times but it was a preparation for the good part coming ahead + the story with ulvund yes was borring but it was tied up with regalas army if i remember correctly so it carried over and after the embassy... and if u include the place you start when varl finds you it was something new and exciting, for me the game started there and i kinda wish that area was bigger. So basically you were already given a chunk of new stuff from the opening area of the game, new environment, the red plants (blight?), new machines, a boss fight, a new tool and some story. Im not trying blindly to defend the game because to be honest i finished the main story and completed all the map before the dlc and it didn't like it as much that i would want to story wise. Back to the point. That area in the Embassy was completely new maybe similar but what luke wants ? every area to look like is from another planet? Games are made to be experienced by gamers mainly casual ones, are not made to rush through it because you have to make a video on it asap so you can proceed to the next one.
Is no one else mad that they completely nerfed the trapping system? From 30 traps to 8 at max? And you can't even scavenge back the traps you set, just their scraps.
My wife 100% the original with tripwires pretty much exclusively. Ever seen one of the giant metal birds blown up by a stationary trap? Ever seen literally all of them taken that way?
Yes, I really don't understand why they decided to "balance" weapons when this is a single player game. The difference between the first and second game in how smooth the gampleay is makes it difficult for me to enjoy this game more than the first (although all of the new features in the second makes the first feel lacking). But it's really frustrating why decided to make their game less fun for any reason. They already have downsides to the more overpowered weapons which is their ammo requirements...
"You are ripped out of it and are forced to return to the region of the first game". This part is not true. The Daunt is a new area and was not a part of the first game. It was only mentioned off the cuff a few times. The Horizon Forbidden West map continues where Zero Dawn's map ended. The Daunt is simply the bridging village between the Carja Sundum and west. They choose to start it there simply because The Daunt is the main entrance that prevents people from going in and out of the west. The first game even mentions that the Daunt is the entry point into the Forbidden West.
The thing you missed about the Breath of the Wild’s shrines is that they are at the very least consistent. The game establishes that pretty much the only structures Link can’t climb are ones made of the materials the ancients used. In Horizon there’s no reason why Aloy can’t scale a relatively small ledge during a puzzle that she would otherwise have no issue climbing
This is the real problem. If a game sets rules and follows them like BOTW does that's fine. But to set rules and then blatantly break them because you want to overdesign sections of it, that's where it becomes a problem.
I had a lot of issues with Kratos in God of War for the same reasons, like why can't you hop over a ledge to get a treasure when you're doing wild shit in the cutscenes? Also found the combat inconsistency very annoying. "You can instant-kill certain enemies if you slam them into walls with the leviathan axe, but there is no consistency because we prioritized natural-looking environments over making what constitutes as a "wall" clear". The number of times I've gotten killed because I tried kicking a drauger only for nothing to happen is... mmmmmmmmmmm
@@ajaykundlas7461 LOL he's fighting a dragon and throwing hands with Aesir in cutscenes that terraforms entire environments but can't break a simple wooden door to get treasure. But to GOW's credit, gameplay wise it's consistent so that you have to go through dumb puzzles throughout the whole game to get treasure where as aloy arbitrarily can't do something like jumping 2 feet to grab a ledge because devs wanted her to climb through the back.
@@symbiotezilla12345 mate. Nearly all video games have those moments and have had them before for decades Not sure why it's an issue only now. Unless it's just how jarring it can be at times. Even then it's still not exactly rare
So let me get it straight, you stayed 5+ hours in Meridian? Because the Daunt is defenitly not part of the first game, maybe it has a similar enviorment but it's certanly not the same.
Very confused where he got that “first few hours leveling up and getting gear in the same area where the last game ended?” Like did you run around the spire area that long? I sped through talking to everyone in like 10 minutes and got maybe 4 resources.
I loved forbidden west and I didn't even play the first horizon. The world was incredible to explore and the combat never got old throughout my playthrough. The ending was a little bit of a let down but besides that I had an amazing experience.
I think this boils down to personal philosophy.... is gameplay>story or is story>gameplay. For me it's super hard to get into the world when the character I play in it is unrelatable or uninteresting... Alloy?...Aloy?... is both
4:12 I noticed a similar thing in the Uncharted series, Nate can climb up cliffs and massive ruins, but if the developers don't want you scaling a small wall he could clearly climb, he performs that pathetic little 6" hop.
@@litt420 no he has a point since this has been a thing with MANY games for like 15 years now Only way this is somehow even worth mentioning is if someone either has willingly not noticed how often it happens or has only began playing recently
@@dakwonju Some times he also does not spend enough Time with Game. Like His Kingdom come review were he missed out on some great quests, he later said there were no good side quests. How can you give your opinion on a games side quests if you have missed some of the best ones in the game. But so many reviewers do that. I think trying to critique to many games. In Terms of HFW its mixed bag somethings are done well other things not so much. I Think his review in this case is fair seems like he has actually spent enough time with the game.
@@John-996 the problem is he almost got everything wrong. Here is a condensed list: Chainscrape is a new area Grappling hook gets acquired in the opening area The dialogue scenes are skippable, and most are optional Shieldglider can be used in multiple different ways Varl’s death gets brought up several different times The scene with Beta ends with Aloy sharing a personal story about Rost Aloy shows several weaknesses including doubt, extreme stubbornness, and trust issues Each combat encounter requires the player to identify weakness and use the weapon that corresponds with the weakness thus spending less resources. His complaint is like saying I used a handgun on a robot and I need more handgun bullets. The drop of rate items can be adjusted separately to the difficulty. In addition, the drop of the item is tied specifically to combat in the removal of that item We can purchase the items needed for ammunition from vendors He literally spams weak arrows (green) towards a TremorTusk in the video, he should be using other weapons. Silens role on how he is the one who figured out the Zeniths weaknesses via the Hades Sunwing gets acquired before the last mission permanently Vast Silver is not even mentioned and if you know you know
For Luke's comment at 33:00, the most epic line in gaming history. Kratos: Do not mistake my silence for lack of grief! Mourn how you wish, leave me to my own.
Youre comparing a character who literally ran out of rage to a character that the writers thought was supposed to be stoic but was really just a stick.
Most surprising part of this video for me is aspect of ammunition you have to constantly grind. For a brief amount of time I felt like I've played completely different game from you.. Completed the game at hard difficulty with +15k metal shards and truly in my entirely playthrough I never thought that I need to grind or even change difficulty to gain more scraps for arrows.. Also aspect of bullet sponge - at the end of the day Aloy is shooting wooden arrows to metal machines and all of them had some weakness you can literally scan in real time and highlight for entire combat.. even so you can use special type of ammunition to strip metal parts protecting weak spots.. it's all in the game, for me this game has one of the best balance idea for all of the player even without experience with dual shock you can still find a way to make it easier for you.. At some points I felt that you didn't put enough work into learning mechanics of the game before making this critique, sadly this game actually has a lot to offer if you give it a try to show you what it has to offer.
I agree with the ammo/part stripping thing. Machines feel way more dangerous in this game than the first too. Although, ammo does become a little bit more grindier but i think thats the point. To force you to use other weapons/items. I havent beaten the game nor did i watch the review just yet. But stripping parts off of enemies makes the game give you a chance in the fight. Sure some are difficult to fight. Like the turtle machine, that one is a bit rough for me still. But, it makes the game challenging and not easy like the first one. Although, some machines are kinda bullet sponges tbf.
@@shunsui07 If I’m correct the developers intentionally made it harder to kill machines after seeing so many players brutally no diff the strongest machines in HZD. So the machines in this game were meant to further resemble late game monsters from like, Monster Hunter if that makes any sense.
What a typical fanboy's reply. Yea, I would believe you if what you said also applies to HZD. Like someone said previously, the devs simply made the game harder and more complicated. You can give more fanboy excuse as you wish, but the simple truth is you don't change what people liked about the original game. This is why GoWR is the GOTY, while HFW is a game ever made.
@@bloedekuh Nothing you just said made any sense. HZD was easier, yes, but that isn't why people enjoyed it. HZD was a simpler game, it doesn't have any weapon upgrades, as that was added in HFW, only coils to make your weapons stronger. Armor was also a lot simpler, not having any real characteristics besides melee and ranged while armor in HFW has weaves and armor specific buffs that make your playstyle easier. HFW also expands the already wide range of different weapons found in HZD to an impressive amount and it also adds some new weapons like the shredder gauntlets, spikethrowers and boltblasters. HFW just gives you more options, better weapons, better melee combat and just literally improves the already good bases laid by HZD. If you have any difficulty on acquiring new weapons or literally crafting ammo, that's quite frankly just on you.
You don't return to the same area where the first game was, you enter a section of it which is the transition point between the "forbidden west" and the eastern lands. Also, the crafting system in this game is as crap as you mentioned. There are tons of weapons with each one having anywhere between 3-6 upgrade levels which require tons of obscure materials to upgrade and its hard to get them all. The first game was simpler, you just had 3/4 levels of each item (i.e. from green to blue to purple rarity items) and upgrades happened via coils. Ammo crafting has always been irritating and it gets more irritating here with just 2x the variety of ammo available.
thank you 🙏🏼 the opening section of forbidden west includes the same biome and cultures (carja/oseram) as the end of zero dawn, but it is a completely new area to explore that was not in the first game.
The only weapons I worried about upgrading were the legendary weapons and I got all of the done in two play throughs. When I got to Erik at the end of the game it took one hit with a valor to take him out and he never even got a chance to touch me.
I'm so confused........the Daunt wasn't in the first game. Why does he keep saying they dump us in the ending area of the first game? There is a brief stop in Meridian to setup the story, then off to the Daunt. Am I missing something?
@@sheertexcept this game has snow, jungle, cave, island, and underwater exploration that zero dawn didnt have. its much better in terms of the world and exploration, not that exploration has changed much, just some really nice, as well as moderate additions
I played the whole game on hard but never really had to scavenge for parts to make arrows or anything like that. I just explored the world as I went because I found it so intriguing and always had enough materials to do whatever I needed to do
He’s a critic so he makes a living and feeds his family by being critical so stuff like this should always be taken with a grain of salt. That said, he makes some good points, although I largely disagree.
I had to scavenge for parts to upgrade gear, but never for ammo. I think having ammo and "damage sponge" issues just indicates he wasn't very good at the game. If he was running out of ammo constantly either he was exclusively using expensive ammo wastefully, or the game was telling him that he needed to change tactics in combat and he ignored it
I think the personality "issues" may be due to the fact she's a clone and not a conventional human. I had no problems with this. She behaves in the way she was designed to behave, solely focused on restoring GAIA and saving the world. The comparison with Ellie(a human child/girl) is nonsensical.
Interesting opinion. While I do agree with some of the short comings I was driven to compete this game compared to Assassins Creed Odyssey, which feels very bloated and Grindy if you want to upgrade ships/weapons, whatever. I actually never once ran out of materials for ammo once I got a quarter of the way in the game, just playing on normal. At least this game had an inventory bank system which removed the storage cap from the first game
Great to hear. I just got ps5 and got Horizon West with it and bought Zero Dawn and haven't heard much bad except here. I loved Odyssey and this looks even better
I can't get over how far you've got in the storyline with the STARTING BOW AND WITHOUT UPGRADING YOUR ARROW POUCH. I didn't think someone would get so far in the game as to meet the specters and have such a pathetic looking weapon wheel still. Of course you're going to struggle with combat and resources if you're mindlessly spamming the weakest arrows at machine armor and not aiming at weak points, trying status effects, valor surges or anything the game has on offer. The comments have already pointed out that your clarification on the Daunt is wrong (it is an entirely new area). That is just one of many mistakes throughout the video born from rushing through games to churn out clickbait videos, but it grates incredibly badly when the video starts with "I've put a lot of time in this game". If you really did, which is doubtful, you were paying no attention to anything at all.
It's a shame, because aiming at weak points and fighting machines with certain tactics is the best part of the game for me - it's like he's not even playing the real game.
I mean that guy thinks that games like AC origins and odysee are great, maybe he thought there are no new bows and weapons because he is used to buy new weapons and stuff as microtransaction like in AC creed. i mean if you say that the new AC with levelsystem and pay to win since origin are amazing while horizon is bad, then something is wrong with you. And i played origin to the end by myself because yes egypt was great but the game itself did anythibg waht horizon did, just worse
@@maulcs same, the fact that you can gather resources off of some animals without killing them is something that made me love the weaknesses of the bots in this game and the last. The fact that shooting parts off of them can give you valuable resources, blow them up, release gases/chemicals, drop weaponry, loses armors on body, capacitate, etc,… give the game so much variety in fighting wise. Combine this with stealth, taming animal, special skills, wide range of traps/weapons, movement like climbing, gliding, and sliding, and melee skills made the combat extremely rewarding to master. The only games where i have seen such complex system of gameplay is from MGSV, Deus Ex and dishonored.
@@khangvinh4656 I mean honestly there are so many different playstyles and weapons that there is no way combat feels "boring" yet he wants to give Odyssey praise. Like seriously the best weapon in the game is boomerang like shredder that tears off valuable parts of robots. How is that not fun?
I have my fair share of problems with this game, but your difficulty problem baffles me. The game doesn't simply have a standard difficulty slider. It has a NUMBER of different settings you can tune to your liking (I often played with max damage received and high damage dealt, making encounters short but incredibly deadly). And I'm pretty sure that item harvesting rate is just one of the things you can tweak. I would much rather have a game I can customize to my own personal experience than one that leaves me frustrated because the developers decided that I need to be X kind of player to enjoy it. And your issue with grinding for ammo and your idea for an ammo dealer...like, that's a thing that exists in the game. I remember a number of times not wanting to go hunting for something so I just went to the nearest weapon dealer and bought the ammo from them. I'm sorry that you missed that mechanic, but it was right there in the game for you. You could easily have sold your left over parts for shards, then bought the ammo you needed.
And tbh, your assessment of enemies as arrow sponges rings hollow to me as well. I don't know how much you engaged with the targeting and elemental system of the game, but the combat becomes extremely satisfying when you're exploiting enemy weaknesses, severing weapons and armor from them, and striking at weak points with your strongest weapons. It is the tactical nature of the game that is its most satisfying aspect, in my opinion, and the one area I think the sequel actually supercedes the original. If you charged in head first to every encounter and just shot arrows at the machines until they fell down, then I'm really not surprised you had a bad time.
@@evobsm2328 it's literally arrow sponge simulator with a terrible loot system where they even give you an option to neglect the whole thing. Do they want you to play the game or not? if i'm boring for thinking that then you are beyond saving
dude, I can’t believe he literally lied about the pullcaster (grappling hook) which you LITERALLY get during the tutorial before meridian, calling the daunt a part of the map from the first game, which it isn’t, and about aloys insecurities. She has MULTIPLE discussions about rost (her dead guardian) to varl, she talks about varls death to zo, and also talks about how she doesn’t really like beta during the mid section of the game. As the game progresses, you see her opening up, especially to beta, to the point where they call each other sisters.
disliking all of the people criticizing this guy, he speaks truth and the game is BLAH and fanboys are mad, but the fanboys are delusional and haven't played good games.
There are so many valid critiques on HFW that it honestly baffles me that you missed them. First of all the first 30 hours of the game is not spent in HZDs map. Chainscrape was not in HZD. Unless you spent 30 hours in the tutorial then you’re just wrong. Secondly, problems such as the bugginess, arbitrary barriers that prevent free exploration, and enemy animations not lining up with hitboxes are faaaar more important than your gripe with the glider (you know you can use the sun wing to fly up and then dismount and use glider right?) lmao. You’re right about the superfluous dialogue though I can’t see how you’d say this game is bloated when you’re so into AC. I agree with your aloy critiques as well.
“You know you can use the sunwing to fly up and dismount and then use the glider” - I’m sorry, are you really making a point about utilizing an item that you only get after you’ve basically beaten the game? Lol gonna be a lil hard using that sunwing during the first 97% of the game, since yanno, you don’t have it. But sure. For the last 3%, he totally should have. Solid points otherwise, that’s just a bit silly.
@@user-bm7mo2ck6r that is one of the saddest gaming delusions I've ever heard. Can you imagine if Fortnite had physical paraglider type gliding? Right now you just stare blankly at the screen while holding forward for twenty seconds
Honestly, I really liked Forbidden West. I played the first one and loved it, so I got this one too. To me, it felt like everything from the first game was improved. More varied and fun activities(I especially liked the machine races), cooler machines, better graphics, etc. I can understand why it may not be to everyone's taste, and I did lose interest after completing the main story and most of the side content, but I do think it's overall better than the first.
I enjoyed the first one...even played through the expansion. (and then bought the game again on Steam just to see what the graphics would look like) When it came to the sequel, it gave me a handful of interesting/fun hours of gameplay... and another 20 hours of tedium. Wasn't a terrible experience, just something more akin to a big, beautiful and more polished Ubisoft game ... that you never finish. The magic was lost and i'm okay with walking away from the franchise at this point.
Not every game is for everybody. But i have said many times, last two years the bread and butter of content creators is to rant on what is wrong with a game, what could be better, etc. Everybody somehow has a better idea how a game should look, play and behave towards a player. Ranting seems to bring more views i guess.. :D
@@kukkilaful I think you are spot on with that assessment. I can understand and respect that they didn't care for a game, but please stop taking it to the level where it makes you sound like you hate and it's trash because it is too similar, too different or whatever. With that mindset, nothing the game creators do will satisfy you. That turns your critique into something with little value.
It's a bland game with bland characters and combat. Literally the only thing interesting about it is the lore, which would make for a decent movie. Personal taste has nothing to do with this bloated mess.
@@EsteBahia You have to play a ton of games in many different categories to truly understand the difference between bad and good games. Many people who play Horizon, don't play many other games besides the big triple-A games, the casual gamer. The game is not good. It's good for some people and that's fine. Some people enjoy shit, some others don't and that's okay.
My only 2 criticisms with this game were the fact you had to collect machine parts to override machines and the amount of shit you had to do to level up legendary gear. Other than that dude I honestly think you fell into the same trap I did with my first playthrough, I was more concerned with exploring and leveling up than just following the game organically. I was so obsessed with collecting shit that I didn't realise it was a waste of time until you got first 3 AI cores. Doing a second playthrough and I love this game now, best advice I can give anyone is do bit of story first as it unlocks both side quests and equipment needed for blocked paths as you progress, just take it one region at time and it flows way better otherwise it feels like a prolonged empty game. I honestly did it region by region and after few hours my map was full of fun side content. Something the game doesn't tell you, hope this helps.
To an extent I feel that that’s fair, if I were to replay the game I definitely just wouldn’t bother wasting time hunting down upgrade components for my gear until I start getting purple and legendary gear. However the fact that it’s possible to fall into that pit at all speaks to how poorly implemented it was as a mechanic. I feel like playing more with expanding the weave and coil system would’ve been a better way to go about it. If ignoring the weapon upgrade mechanic for most of that game makes the game better, then it’s not a very good mechanic.
@@ls93780 I agree, thr coil system in the first game was perfectly fine as it was, I don't need to spend 5 hours upgrading one set of armour or a weopon
I'm guessing you were just sticking to the main quest at the end, but you don't have to finish the game to unlock free use of the Sunwing. Yes, you only get it near the end of the game but you can use it freely to finish off several side quests and roam the map before heading into the final game ending quest.
HFW has its fair share of problems, but depleting your ammunition in most combat situations is definitively not one of them. - I’m baffled how a gamer like you was not able to see that there are cheap and expensive arrow types. And the cheap ones, hands down, get the job done. And the resources to make them, wood and shards, are abundant.
My first playthrough of the game was on Hard and I never really had a problem with ammo. I can count on two hands the amount of times I've ran out of resources for ammo and it only happened with the stronger weapons which require rare components. In these situations I just use the standard bow which still gets the job done when you need to. The things you get from the fights themselves and from minimal exploration are more than enough to replenish your ammo stock. From the way he talks about enemies being damage sponges I think this guy just isn't good at the game and mindlessly shoots arrows at enemies. Except for the stronger machines like the Apex versions of Slaughterspines and Tremortusks most machines can be brought down in a few seconds with a combination of shooting weak points + status effects.
I played on very hard and never felt the need to grind. If I machine was giving me trouble, I just used what the game gave me, like food buffs and elemental weaknesses. I always sold my rare relics to and made sure I interacted with the world to earn different weapon types. And the end of the day, it's just a girl with a bow and arrow fighting off 20 foot tall robot dinosaurs. I would hope this game was hard. It wouldn't be any fun if the game just gave you the most broken weapon right off the start. Some people just suck at video games and want to complain when they don't want to put the time to figure things out for themselves
“Imaging the gliding does not transform the exploration in any meaningful way.” Wtf I really doubt if you played the game or not. For free climbing, imaging you playing Zelda and every shrine you can just climb to the top and finish them off. You can’t climb because it is called a puzzle!
I didnt want you critisize Luke, but the intro area, is about a 1-1,5 hour. plus the returning into that old area, its maybe a 30 minute section with conversations....so not a 5-10 hours.....surelly..and i liked the game, it was beautiful, much more content, interesting story and the story gradation was cool too, new weapon mechanics and much more armors and weapons as the old old one....a new characters, and mainly, much better animations :D just my honest opinion :) it was great...surelly it has few flaws and bugs, but it was a good game, timed in a very strange release time thats for sure...but a good game :D
The gameplay this time is soo good. I mean it goes in super deep and you can really get lost in it. I mean just check out the guides on each and every single weapon and ammo. My favourite new weapon was the shredder. It can single handedly be the best and the worst weapon if in the wrong hands.
Personally I loved Forbidden West but it does have problems The story is not as strong or interesting as the first game and the pacing could do with some work. I spent 8 hours before I even entered the Forbidden west doing all the missions ect and the game just got better when I got into the meat The world is more interesting to explore and combat has been improved which is great. I do think they could've made some more substantial changes to Melee and stealth but meh. Hopefully the 3rd one gets released in a better window
I think the first game is slightly overrated in terms of story. yes I know that the mystery of zero dawn was good but outside of that not much was. aloys personal story was put on the back burner for a slow revelation of what happened to the world. few characters are interesting and aloys development isn't great either in the first game.
@@cheeto6057 yeah. heard they improved on all the above in forbidden west so I can't wait to play. a great sequel imo doesn't need to have another huge mystery like that...I just want answers that were left open from the first game and for them to build upon what they already established.
Fair take. I don't think HZD has a masterpiece of a story or anything but I do think that it was superior to HFW, the mere premise or what ZD could he was enough to motivate me in HZD but in this I felt a bit like I was in a Marvel movie with the flying cyborg like people trying to destroy the planet and now I feel the 3rd game is gonna lead even further into this with the huge AI monster coming towards earth. But yh I can see what u mean
@@introduction1266 I personally don't want them to answer any of the big questions that players have. I always find that stories that remove the mysteries from their worlds always end up being extremely bland and then you no longer have anything keeping you interested
My opinions on the video: - The Daunt is not from the first game. It's weird that wasn't noticed as you play but it's weirder how at least the first ~30 minutes this review constantly states it and keeps going back to it (Then he goes back again at the 1:10:45 mark and again during the whole story section, still wrong). I don't even know where this idea comes from because the Daunt has too many differences to the area around Meridian for this mistake to be made. Maybe i'm mistaken but the jungle areas are to the West of meridian? None of those trees or flora are in the Daunt along with snowcapped highlands near the mountains. - I get the whole argument about how the Main quests feels like fetch quests thing. But you can't say the side quests offer these amazing plot hooks to keep you invested while ignoring direct plot points between GAIA needing Aloy to get the three subfunctions and going to Thebes for the Omega Clearance. In fact, there's ALOT of exposition as to why without even engaging in asking dialogue questions, GAIA outright tells you she needs HEPHAESTUS and she needs the each things to do so. While walking you through it. And each one leads to it's own questline linked to it, like the Oseram who help make the Rebreather who want to access Las Vegas while Aloy needs POSIEDON. The main story has various plot issues but this isn't one. - Completely agree about Aloy's character. It could be better and she could deal with losing people in far better ways. I could say much the same about Rost in the first game and it continues with Varl. Really the strong character archetype would be fine if the story wasn't so adverse to challenging her on well anything. Hekkarro is the only character that outright tells her no and no amount of her bullshit is gonna get him to help unless she helps him fix his problem. Sure it's not much but it's significantly better than the rest of the story not willing to challenge her because she's either "The Saviour of Meridian" or "The One who Defeated Grudda". Granted, "Hekarro's Champion" wasn't much fkin better but it was nice while it lasted. Everything about Tilda is true too, that shit was weird af but she's a villain, I assumed I was supposed to find her creepy and unlikable. - The review conflates two very different systems that touch the same thing. I get the crafting/upgrading can feel tedious but for ammo? Ammunition is not hard to come by unless you really are just wasting arrows and spears by the dozens on burrowers. I know Blastpaste, Machine Bones, and Volatile Sludge are far too limited in your inventory but there's zero reason as to why you are hurting for those when anything Hard and under doesn't really remove those from the loot pool. Now upgrading, that's just fkin broken and needed heavy tweaks (especially any kind of sac webbing and the insane amount of tremortusk tusks needed) but that's not ammo. Ammo/item crafting doesn't come close to that. Even then you went on this long tangent of how you'd prefer to have people or your companions to trade ammo for or whatever. You can just buy Canisters, Blastpaste, e.t.c. from some vendors (some even take animal parts over machine shards). On at least normal difficulty, if there's a companion fighting with you they literally drop ammo of whatever you have out or some weapon you have in your inventory on the ground which you can collect (they may be farmable, no idea I've never been that strapped for ammo for anything to try it). - Why did you even go to that interactive map and put up ALL the icons some of which ARE NOT on the game map? I'm not gonna say the game's open world is the best but that is disingenous af even with the blurb you put at the bottom. More than half of those wouldn't be on the map nor would you even be looking for it unless you wanted to like all the Datapoints and shit like that. Greenshine doesn't show up unless you make a job for it. And even without saying you without getting tallnecks, if you do you can remove each and every icon on the game map. This entire point is bullshit because you went to this interactive map and not the game map which again gives you the option of completely removing all the icons. The game goes so far to remove pathfinding and waypoints on your hud if you want. - Look, clearly Luke doesn't like the game. I get that, but there is too much here that's wrong to take this seriously. This game has many flaws and issues but all Luke is doing is throwing bullshit at the wall and hoping it sticks. He had to have turned his brain off after wasting, yes wasting, 10 hours in the Daunt. Who knows because he had to skip cutscenes or just not pay attention to be this mistaken about parts of the game. Like I said, HFW has many issues and I'd tell you the story is not good but not for many of the reasons Luke pushed out. Most of his gameplay issues really feel like a skill issue because I can't imagine being so strapped for ammo in Normal difficulty or lower. - Fuck that Halo 2 ass cliffhanger ending, everybody should agree on that shit.
The map icons are directly tied to the gameplay loop you criticized earlier, the developers probably felt like it would be more convenient to show the location of enemies because the inventory management is tied directly to drops from them
Personally I think the game is at its best when your just exploring beautiful locations like Forests, underwater areas or gliding down something and enjoying the view. But something I really find annoying is the writing of the game. Aloy is in my description is Lara Croft being treated like Jesus and all her friends are not really friends but basically blind followers. Thank you for saving my tribe now let me repay you by following you around and telling you how great you are. Edit: Something I've always wanted to see in the horizon games is a companion for Aloy. Something like Joel and Ellie, Kratos and Atreus or Booker and Elizabeth
Agreed. The only somewhat interesting character was Sylens. In the first game I enjoyed the backstory while the current events were just boring. I was afraid that the sequel would suffer greatly with the backstory already covered and so it did. The problem with the characters is that they just are not believable for me. They live in harsh tribal environment but often act and talk like millennials or something. The game is a nice and flashy shell with no substance
in a tribalistic game where suddenly someones riding a machine would be like if jesus came riding on a mystic horse people never knew existed and ride. so yeah in that sense yes. and lets be honest... the whole follower thing is relatively common in a lot of video games. like skyrim for example. where if you do certain quests people start to talk different to you. so why is it so weird in this game???
@@jerevarri7094 damn thats the most invalid comment ever. no substance? damn if you call this story and game a flashy empty shell then i fear for what DOES have a shell... characters have a lot more personality for one compared to the previous game. the only negative points i have are these: more bugs than the previous games and visual glitches. plus the game is starting to feel pretentious with trans/gay characters
Ehhh… I’m confused about the opening area critique. It’s not the same as the first game? Like literally a small sequence of the final boss level is the same when we meet the Sun King guy, but everything else afterwards is new, the settlement is also new. Am I missing something?
56:10 unless I'm missing something, both things you described are in both games. You are able to sell machine parts (if you so wish) AND almost every hunting merchant sells ammo crafting material for shards
I thought it was very good. Bow and spike thrower combat, new enemies, environments, sound design, voice acting, lighting, cinematics, and animations were all top notch. For me, it also helped to turn off quest markers and play on very hard. I didn't quite like the story as much though, and I do wish there was more meaningful secrets in the game though.
@@GLITCHED1the story and like 3-4 side quests took me about 45 hours, if completing the game 100% taking about 60-80 hours isnt enough, then your standards are too high. just look at assassins creed valhalla and how horrible the side content is. not to mention they added a literal checklist when they should have done it like odyssey or the witcher 3. question marks over locations so you wont know what to expect and whether or not youll find a side quest, merchant, or anything interesting or useful
@@NikoKuehneHe’s not wrong about the story being short, it’s like 15 main quests. In all fairness everyone plays the game at a different pace and I think Horizon Forbidden West opens the possibility for people to 100% the game in 80 hours, or simply 40.
I loved this game, and I loved the first one. It's a worthy sequel that enhances and improves the stuff that worked well in the first game. Also, it doesn't take 10 hours to get to the first proper area (the area around Chainscrape). The first tutorial area up until the Slitherfang fight is fairly short (it took me maybe a couple of hours at the most), and all you have to in Meridian is climb the tower and watch a hologram that sends you off to the main quest. Even if you speak with every single character there, it'll take you 20 minutes at the most. Then you're off to start the main quest.
Yeah idk why he said it took 10 hours before you head west. I took my time talking to the npcs and exploring a little and it took me no more than 2 hours
This game has me mixed, because Zero Dawn was one of my top 5 favorite games from last gen, loved the twist about her origin and everything. This sequel is better in every way from a gameplay perspective, but the story was meh to me, and the indoor puzzle areas inside the facilities really bring the pacing down. I was really hoping that Guerrilla would have their Naughty Dog/Uncharted 2 moment with this game, and blow us all away, but it showed little growth from the first game. I had fun with Forbidden West in spurts, and it’s still a very good game.
It was just more Horizon and for 2 open world games to be 90% the same is like playing one Assassins Creed for 200 hours. It is not fun. I am glad the platinum was easier then the 1st game and was done with it fairly sooner than expected.
the best part of Zero Dawn was the story and this game just didn’t deliver in that aspect. The zeniths lacked development, and nemesis was shoed in at the last second out of nowhere. I also just couldn’t get invested into any of the side characters except for Tilda, and her turning on Aloy felt extremely forced. Honestly I wish you had the choice to just dip out into space with her.
The main story was worst in Forbidden West but the side quest and gameplay are so much better, even after 30 hours I have to much to do and having lots of fun
He spent 30 hours just staring at one dumb statue in one location. He didnt give this game even chance IMO. Most of his critiques are out and makes me feel that he just didn't get it. He didn't get story, combat, etc.
They could have easily solved the whole “stoic” trope and gave Aloy emotional depth with Varl’s death. She made it clear that she doesn’t want anyone hurt and it’s her burden to carry, and Varl’s death proves that point right. She could have lost her shit with everyone and left, cause in her mind she’s right to do it alone, and ended up in a situation that couldn’t be solved alone and gave her a moment of weakness, only to be saved by the people she loves the most, and from this point on she could stop being such a bland stoic protagonist and actually open up cause you know, the power of friendship or whatever, and it would have only been a few hours of gameplay. It’s not feminine to have a moment of weakness or be open with people, it’s human, which we all relate to.
That was the whole point of her arc in HZD tho. I think they just botched this. HZD should have been a standalone thing, cut the retarded tacked on cliffhanger and it's chef's kiss.
@@LoneLoboX88 They never said that. But it’s a common trope these days in film, television or video games where a “strong female character” must have no moments of weakness, should be all-capable, and are able to always rescue themselves. Having moments of weakness or relying on others doesn’t make a woman any less than she is, and neither are they feminine traits. If the writers would just have Aloy open up more, she wouldn’t be a boring and bland main character.
@@MaajidM oh she's had plenty of weaknesses in this and the previous. The irony is that people still complain about it when they are brought up Damned if she is and damned if she isnt
Luke, I love your reviews and usually agree with you on 90% of criticisms. This is one game where we don’t see eye to eye. This is a 9.5/10 game for me. Loved the world, the story, the characters, melee combat drastically evolved, and love the many new weapons and more RPG mechanics. I do have issues with some of the climbing, it’s a little forced and not particulate “free flowing” very set paths. Not a huge fan of that. Also found it easy to steamroll side quest and farm for material to upgrade equipment very quickly which allowed me to become super OP early on, even on very hard. Going to try out the hardest difficulty on new game+. The music was also so immersive and electrifying. Some of the collectibles are bland forsure, but you get a legendary weapon when completing all them. The voice acting and performances are also on the level of last of us and in some points is even better. Every conversation is so personal and face to face really made me connect with the world. The combat is so fluid with all the new movement mechanics as well. You can pull off some badass moves and become a legendary machine hunter. You can approach comes guns blazing or use at Stealth and traps. The options are endless. The strategy for approaching different animals in the wild is so engaging too. Each machine has different strengths and weaknesses too and different parts to shoot off that you need to upgrade loot. Makes it important to target weak spots and parts you need. There is A LOT of loot I haven’t even touched because the stats seem meh. This is definitely a $70 game as well. Way more than just a DLC for zero Dawn. This is a masterpiece of a game and vastly improves on the first one. I also loved the mega sci-fi plot, I can def see why people don’t like that, insane sci-fi plots always get people riled up for some reason. I’m hyped for the 3rd game especially after the ending!
Bro I’d ignore those last two comments I absolutely adored this game and had so much fun this was one of the first games aside from the last of us II where I set my phone down turned the lights off and put the head phones on and just explored and played and I had such a fun time with it and I agree with what you said I can see some issues here and there but I had so much fun and think they definitely stepped it up by a lot from the first game
It's pretty outrageous to claim the first 10 to 15 hours are spent in the same area as the first game. That's absolute nonsense, I don't understand how anyone could make that mistake. Did you even look up at those mountains? Should have been corrected a long time ago. I spent 6 great hours there, several side quests included. Come on, man...
Literally the only repeated area is Meridian. There are no side quests, and if you spend 10-15 hours there, you shouldn't be allowed to touch a videogame ever again.
I maybe missed something in the first game, but apart from the really brief time in Meridian, everything was new to me. I also didn’t agree with the point about the combat system. It became so good! Very engaging.
@@Yosya8059 No, didn't miss anything. Like you said, everything but the brief Meridian visit it is 100% new. It is a similar biome, I guess, but without placing the areas irrationally far apart from one another that will happen.
I'm conflicted about your points regarding Aloy. On one hand, I don't entirely disagree with what you're saying, but on the other hand, there are some very clear reasons as to why she is as stiff as she is. The way I read it was that she can't exactly afford to be vulnerable. She knows her place in the world and her importance within it and its greater conflicts. I feel like Aloy is rather forced to suppress all emotion because she feels like she can't be weak. This is likely because, knowing that she's facing similarly impossible challenges as Sobeck did, she's trying to live up to that personal expectation of her's. Therefore, to let her hardships and her traumas infiltrate her mind would be to weaken herself which she can not do due to the stakes of the overarching plot. As we see in some of the few pieces of dialogue and writing with and regarding Elisabet (notably that conversation with Travis in the earlier hours of the game), she too was forced to forsake many of the things that we would consider "human" in order to overcome the impossible challenges she was faced with. That being said, once again, I feel like Aloy is trying to live up to that image of Sobeck and so is forced to be as emotionless as possible because she knows that she will fail if she lets any of her insecurities into her mind. We get a little taste of this actually if you interact with some of the items in The Base. She opens up a bit about her struggles but almost always also reminds herself that she's gotta move on and that she can't let that pain hold her back. I think it would be particularly interesting if we did see her reach that boiling point in a third game. It could acknowledge her suppression of her emotions in a full blown breakdown where she's finally forced to face everything she's been bottling up inside her. After the events of the first two games, it would feel fitting to have that payoff and really delve into who she is as she, herself, has not had that luxury due to the burden placed on her shoulders.
Well that’s just your headcanon and even then Sobeck was flawed i mean you the head of the entire project to bring life to the world after the war against the machines, the one that keep in line the mentally ill man capable of ruining the project choose to sacrifice herself rather than some disposable foot soldier just because you have to be the beacon of hope? the martyr? the perfect example of what Aloy has to be? That’s just bad writing
@@lofvers8907 Exactly, some small glimpses of what made her so stiff would go a long way to explain and accept the character she's become. Compare Aloy to the Master Chief from Halo: Chief is also very stiff, but it is explained that he has been trained and augmented to be that way. So you kind of feel a connection to the supersoldier that is Master Chief, because you can imagine going through such a treatment and becoming that way yourself.
sure, i mean games suit different people i thought the first game was decent and i was not wasting my time playing but if it’s a reskin of the first game with minor changes i don’t think the price is justified
@@Old_Red the story is significantly worse and the mystery of where/when/who you are is discovered in the first game leaving nothing to look forward to in the 2nd game
Also for characters and the beginning area, this game takes place like 0 seconds after the first. Like it is an IMMEDIATE connection, so it makes sense her personality continues. She grew up in isolation and in general is a no nonsense person. Like it's constantly shown that Aloy doesn't really want people around her, and tbf I don't think she cares that much outside like a basic level. She doesn't consider Varl or Erend as close as they consider her. She's constantly been shown showing vulnerability and emotion gets her nowhere
Aloy was personable and energetic in the first game. Aloy in forbidden west is autistic and socially inept. If she was raised in isolation, why does she have to be turned off by socializing? Why can’t she enjoy it because she never had it before?
@@michaelmcqueeferton6911 I mean she constantly states that it would slow her down. If the game was set immediately after the first game, she could have had time to settled before setting out again, but it isn't the case so she's all just go go go.
@@shubhamnipanikar2353 yes. That's because that's per personality. As it showed in the first. And it's more of a few months after the first game since she spent some time looking for what she was at the start. Even the shieldweaver being out of power directly shows this
I wholeheartely disagree and I honestly don't know which game this guy has been playing, but it sure as hell wasn't the same game I played and experienced.
@pievancl5457 the title card is directly after the tutorial mission with Varl. Idk if it shows up again cuz I'm only a few hours in but that's where it pops up for the FIRST time
Finally reached the final boss yesterday. Used up all my heals in the penultimate boss, so I am now locked into the final boss with hardly any health refills with no way to get any more. Absolute masterpiece
Luke, usually I find your reviews right on target, but I think you are off track here. I can't get past the first 15 minutes of this video because your comments about the first part of the game are simply factually inaccurate. Maybe I am misunderstanding, but the Daunt IS a new map area where you have never been before. The only duplicated area is the Spire mesa, where you spend a mere 30 minutes linking back to characters from HZD. Once you leave there, you are in a new map area once again--the Daunt. Furthermore, you can clear this area in about 1 hour if you are anxious to get to the actual "Forbidden West". There is no problem with this pacing at all. The game points you on to the main quest objectives and into Barren Light and the Embassy if you want to go straight down that path, and it lets you get there quickly if you like. If you prefer to take time to sample the side quests, you can do that too. It's the player's call. Players who spend 15 hours in the Daunt are going to spend 70+ hours (not 30) in the rest of the game, because they are trying for a 100%-type playthrough, doing all the side quests and collectibles.
This man just read the synopsis of the story from Horizon Wiki because he couldn’t be bothered actually putting in work to understand story and characters. So I did it kinda lazy which is hilarious because he says game is lazy. 🤷🏻♂️
the instant i heard him say that he lost all credibility in my eyes. held him to such a high regard but misinformation gets me. I instantly unsubbed, these critique come form an AC lover?
The ammo items vendors idea is literally in the game..... How can you go into a 10-15 minute rant about something ("ammo grinding") where the solution to the "problem" is already in the game...
Hi Luke! I agree with most of your critique except the opening area of Meridian. I think it was super important to have it (otherwise I would be constantly asking what is Meridian execs doing during the gaming. I kinda worked and saved them). Plus seeing all characters with upgraded graphics and animation was awesome
Same i ended up getting the plat. I do agree that if you are going for certain things game feels long but the combat and world are solid i didn't 100 plus hours ive put into it.
I thought the game was great, even though i agree with most of your points. The only thing I really disagree with is your opinion on resource gathering and how much ammo it takes to take down the machines. I really didn't have this problem, I played on hard and ammo and stuff was never an issue. I pretty much just killed most machines I came across and gathered resources as I went along the missions but never felt like I had to go out of my way to find resources for ammo and what not. Now gathering all the parts for upgrades, especially for the purple and legendary weapons, yeah, that is a grind, but you dont need to do it to beat the game or take out any of the machines. Thats more of an end of game activity for people who really want to get everything they can.
I had the same experience. I think he was using ammo inefficiently and rather than placing shots tactically he went "controller bad" and "must be bad game balance". If you use elemental weaknesses, tear off components, and use valor surges the ammo shouldn't be an issue
@@michaelmcqueeferton6911 His take was about the base difficulty that the game was balanced for. I bet you're right that it's an issue on higher difficulties. Idk the right way to balance that for players like you who enjoy the harder challenge, but his take is inaccurate for the basic difficulty setting
@@grell9296 yeah, Im wondering if its that, or maybe he wants to spam the expensive weapon types, or maybe he doesn't know he can sell everything he collects for shards, I think I had about 20 000 shards by the time I finished the game, and I still had an absolute tone of machine parts. As far as elemental goes, I used the freeze arrows the most and still never had less than 100 chillwater, even still you can buy that stuff with shards too if you really want.
Before I can even see this video, here is my take (which no one will care about but here it goes anyway): I really liked the gameplay, the expansion to what Zero Dawn provided felt solid, if not a bit basic at times, but it still had the frantic feeling of a hunt most of the way through. The scaling was and still is a mess, making melee overpowered early on, but pretty mediocre late game, but it was an overall solid experience that I had a lot of fun with, just from a moment to moment experience. In regards to the Open World: The game barely evolved in terms of world structure and therefore feels like a good (to great depending on your taste) 2017 open world in the year 2022, but with better graphics. It's design feels dated through and through even though I adored the world as a whole. And it has to be said: The PS4 version is superbly done. The stronger focus on companions was pulled off in the most unnatural way possible, with everyone getting their eye to eye chat with Aloy after each mission. Every! Fucking! Time! It felt so formulaic that it got tiring even though I like those characters. I rather would have wanted them more by my side as AI companions to expand on their personality in more normal ways, like basic chatter between fights. Also, while the worth of friendship and teamwork was a major part of the story, it didn't manifest in any meaningful way as Aloy wasn't really saved or supported by anyone - of her team - until the very last mission, which was just a very roughly coordinated assault with a lot of "you'll surely figure it out" thrown in. The story feels like it was written by multiple people that didn't come to an agreement with it's pacing and themes. With a third person, some fanfic ghostwriter, fucking up the ending to no end with a deus ex machina as invincible cliffhanger and a goddamn lovestory coming out of nowhere (yes, there were obvious signs) just to serve up an underwhelming final boss fight in the name of personal liberation (which Aloy could have gotten anyway if they had focused more on Beta and how the "sisters" bond with each other. Liberty in family/community is such a good theme to write about, but it was barely expanded upon, just hinted at more or less). Furthermore the story has now lost all it's grounding with the ending in FW, leading to some sort of talk no jutsu or Cyberpunk type of finale that tears out the series' roots and will probably make it feel disjointed. The shift in tone already started in FW. So yes, while I liked the game and in fact I loved most of it, the ending and the uneventful middle of the story made it really hard to suck me into the tale, with the ending more or less eradicating all anticipation I had for the end of the trilogy.
When games do 'building the team' like Forbidden West, it feels like they are chasing the greatness of Mass Effect 2. But that worked because your allies could come with you, so I agree about that.
I just struggle to think that games like God of War Ragnarok, Elden Ring, and Legend of Zelda all have similar release windows as Horizon yet people decide to play this game and wonder why not everyone is talking about it. Its just so generic compared to the ladder games that no one really wants to put time into this game.
This in one of the best games I’ve ever played but I defenetly see the negatives, but compared to other games releasing these days this game makes me feel good
I actually loved the game.. but the only.. ONLY problem that I have. Which happens to be a big Important one. . What really is a missed opportunity and could've broaden the whole story including part 1 Zero Dawn to a close and elevate part 2 Forbidden West to a next level.. let see I try to be vague to avoid spoilers.. But THE Guy who made all this happen.. to be in that building with all those people. And the thing happend. I expected to have a an actual conversation/ explanation or a big fight. I mean it was a big thing getting there. The whole building and premise of that development was really a big thing and tragic. The events there were atrocious. And just to silence it like that. The person who started this whole mess in the first place. To just.. poof like that.. major problem with that. But everything else the Zeniths everything Storyline was interesting for the next one. Cause it wide open now. But like I said. That chapter. That arc.. missed opportunity
You should probably diversify the games you play. If this is one of the best games you've ever played, you're either an idiot or you honestly have zero experience with non triple A shite.
My main gripe was how much Aloy talked about everything and wouldn't allow me to discover them on my own specially puzzles which she spoiled every single one! It was incredibly annoying. She just refused to shut up. After finishing the main story and upgrading everything there's nothing else to do and come back to except enjoy the beautiful scenery.
I've said it once before, and I'll say it again: HZD had the exact same problem. The difference this time was that HFW had way more puzzles. Still hoping they patch in the ability to turn that off, like they did for the item grab animations.
I was pretty ok with it. I have no desire to waste an hour figuring out a puzzle that takes 3 minutes to complete. I wouldn't say she spoiled it but it did help a LOT.
Yeah she was talking alllll the time.. but when i was halfway the game. They fixed it with that patch.. huge difference hahaa. She was driving me crazy.. I kept yelling at the TV.. I KNOW SHERLOCK!!!🤣🤣
Main reason I think players change difficulty would be for arena and weapon upgrade farming/resource gathering. Ammo didn’t really seem like an issue at least for me since you tend to get it from ally’s during missions. I think it was also pointed out that the difficulty could be customized wrt resource gathering (easy loot) so players aren’t really sliding the difficulty all the time.
The Arena's were clearly not designed for the hardest difficulty because it's almost impossible to kill some of the bigger robots in the required time limit I had to lower the difficulty one level in order to finish the last few Arena battles which did feel kind of bad. But overall I found the games difficulty pretty balanced and with enough of a challenge to keep you on your toes
@@XxWolfxWaRioRxX maybe if you’re talking about the fixed load out challenges, but anything that allows you to have your load out can be completed fairly easily once you have reached the end-game with max upgraded legendaries.
I play on easy mode so i can just relax and play it like i am watching a movie or series.. if i wanted a challenge i would have changed it but felt like I didn’t need it
To be fair, the majority of the korok seed puzzles were also pretty mundane, some I probably wouldn't even consider puzzles. Lots of reused puzzles slightly changed just to fill the world with like 900 of them.
I love your videos, and you're certainly entitled to your opinion, but I gotta disagree with you on this one. I love Forbidden West. I can't really think of a single thing I don't like about the game. Different tokes for different folks, I suppose.
@@nwospidey5782 a lot of people overlook aloy's character. To each their own of course, but when I see stuff like that, it just makes me think they weren't really paying attention
Aloy just seems like she's in a bad mood all the time. Even when people are thanking her, her responses seem "snappish" or like "yeah, yeah, whatever."
I actually feel like Aloy a lot of the time with the characters she’s up against. I think she’s bored by their whining, or complaining or “problem requests” just as I was, but knows she needs to do a majority of it if she wants ppl on side to save the world. The only character she seems to have any genuine emotion towards is Sylens and he’s not around for about 30 hours.
@@ryuhayabaker Lots of npcs had problems in the first game as well and she didn't have 1/10th of the attitude. What's worse is that this attitude follows her on a bunch of side-missions...things that she doesn't have to do if she doesn't want to do it. An example is the armor building contest. Whenever somebody thanks her, for minor or major things, she has clenched teeth type of "you're welcome". I suppose to put in a real life example, it would be like you leaving a grocery store and on the way to your car you see a little girl at a table selling girl scout cookies. You then walk over and buy those cookies and then give an annoyed expression and response when they say thank you. You didn't have to buy the cookies, but you're coping an attitude nontheless.
Aloy was so annoying that it made me quit the game after the first 10 hours... and the story and characters were just so boring that i just dropped the game all together
I understand your complaints about explorations, but I just think they wanted to make a fun game, ya I wish I could climb like in breath of the wild with uncharted 4 style climbing but I loved the puzzle to it, simple but good, and the glider is just a fun mechanic, its simple as hell but its an important addition to make this game traversal quick and fun, its also an excuse to look at the map which is breathtaking
Not sure what your talking about in the traversal in the first game, i never felt limited to a certin area. you could quite easily explore outside of where you where "suppose" to go by jumping/climbing on the rockey terrain, that still exists, you just need to use your imagination and think about how you want to go. Ladders arnt the only way to get around. You can basicly get to the Zenith base by doing this. Even though the whe area is "blacked out" you can still travel there.
The entire "Aloy isn't vulnerable enough" line of critique seems silly. This is an open world action game. Open world action game protagonists are always like 99% badass and 1% vulnerable in a couple cutscenes. In HFW Aloy gets owned by the Zeniths twice. You can't compare Aloy's character arc to a game like TLOU. Compare it to assassin's creed or ghost of tsushima. Protagonists in those games are similarly 99% badass.
@@kreimsnta i was getting my ass whopped all the time, i thought i was playing on hard, nop, i was playing in normal, and i dont consider my self bat at these games, it rlly gets challenging, but once you have good weapons, with good ammo, and hit on weak points it makes you feel like a bad ass
What made me crazy about this game, also Ghost of Tsushima, is that they make this big beautiful open world to look at, albeit kinda boring to explore, but then make your character take up half the screen and give us no FOV slider. I genuinely feel like I would have enjoyed this game more if I could have zoomed out a bit.
One thing I wish they changed since the first game was to stop making aloy shift to different sides of the screen depending on how I position the camera lol its really annoying since I want her centered or just on one side
Thanks Luke for your review! I've watched many of your videos and this is the first time I have the opposite feeling about a certain game. I kinda like HFW and enjoyed my time in it. I re-thinked about why is that for some time and my thoughts are: 1. I've not played Horizon Zero Dawn before, so everything is new to me. 2. I've not being expecting HFW. In fact, I played it long after it was released. So my expectation for it is low. 3. I played a lot end game staff, like trophy grinding, ultra hard challenge and gear upgrades. I found myself enjoy these most and they are not what you've been reviewing. I'm happy to find these out. And always looking forward to your next video!
I liked Forbidden West a lot, but many of these criticisms are valid, particularly the crafting upgrades. This affected the combat overall. The biggest issue for me was how everything felt so cookie-cutter and "Ubisoftified". The first game was like that as well but it is really starting be unlikable.
This is a baffling review. A large part of your critique is based on stuff that isn’t true. The first 15 hours you keep mentioning don’t take place in the original map. Like, at all. Also… that section doesn’t take 15 hours. You can get through it in literally 30 minutes. I normally like your reviews but this one is a head scratcher.
so he took his time to really understand it and you're mad.. I think this game is bad, because so many kids are in the comments defending it blindly without good proof
@ I’m pretty sure my (year old) comment you’re referring to is accusing him of NOT taking his time to understand the game. Also I’m 41 but I appreciate you calling me a kid.
I feel like you played this game wrong. If you are spending countless hours hunting for parts then you are doing something wrong. Sure certain weapons require certain materials. But the game allows you to make jobs so you know exactly where everything is. Other materials are easy to find if you just explore the world, pick up items, etc. Also if you're upgrading every single weapon you have you are not studying game mechanics properly and are essentially wasting time. On the topic of Aloy being too stoic, I think people are missing a big point. Aloy was an outsider for most of her life, she was shunned, and raised by a father figure who was strict himself. Aloy was never socialized to show emotions or vulnerabilities. She is hardened because of the life she had led for many years. And that feeling isn't something that just goes away after getting a couple of friends. Her not showing emotion at Varls passing shouldn't be seen as a sign of poor character development, instead I think that moment presents an idea that sometimes we cannot afford ourselves the luxury of vulnerability, even if it is to mourn a friend. Because there are, sadly, bigger things that need to be accomplished and this is a theme throughout the entire game.
i really liked how they handled Varl's death in regards to Aloy's reaction, and I think it is really true to who she is built up to be across the two games. During an optional conversation Aloy mentions that if she stopped to mourn her friend, she would break and not be able to do what needs to be done. I think it was really subtle and an echo of what she lived through the first game with Rost. Beautifully done in my opinion
I didn't think Aloy was bland in the first game, because I think she had a proper character arc, but in the second not much was expanded or explored with her aside from the beginning where she explains the weight and stress she feels trying to save the world.
How you missed the hammered in message of the game I'm not sure, her arc in this one is accepting help. She's willing to shoulder all of this stress and responsibility but she doesn't need to do it alone.
@@isdrakon9802 And yet, she does. The other characters were again background noise. Only Sylens with his use of disarming the Zenith's shields was any use, and beyond that he too was just another background character.
@@isdrakon9802 how did you miss the arc in AC Valhalla: the 1000 side quests ate just there to hammer in your head that you shoulder all the Burdon. This is not about fun, this game is about Burdon.
I never understood the “this sequel is just a big expansion for the previous game” argument. I think I understand that you expect greater gameplay innovation and tweaking between releases, but I think this approach is just as viable an option as the other. I, of course, had gripes while playing the game, but I ultimately wanted another Horizon game; therefore, I wasn’t unimpressed with what was delivered. Granted, I’m not critically analyzing games for TH-cam videos, but I do enjoy critiquing things, and this line of thinking never made sense to me. It’s similar to the reboot Tomb Raider games. Each game built on the mechanics of the previous one, and I think they turned out fairly well. Rise of the Tomb Raider has been on multiple decade end lists iirc. I think it’s just a different strategy for a sequel, but it’s not invalid.
You expect more of the same from an expansion, you expect new stuff on top of more of the same in a sequel (or a completely different thing, depends, but not the same). Tomb Raider is a somewhat good example because indeed the "new stuff" was basically nothing. Rise starts becoming tiresome by the mid point and shadow is just garbage. This is a modern tendency anyway, to do stuff like Nioh and Nioh 2. Basically it's a matter of giving the feeling of playing/watching something new instead of going forward with the same. It doesn't have to be mechanics or content in particular.
You admit that you have lower expectations than others who aren’t as big fans as you would, and then you say you don’t understand other people criticizing the game? You are a hypocrite
You literally said “i dont expect/want much from this so i dont care that not much new was done” and then “criticism of this game doesnt make sense to me”
I wasn't really expecting it to be anything than more of the same with gameplay improvements so I agree. Although I have played 60+ hours of it, but for some reason I have just not been able to get back into it after I got a bit bored and started playing Elden ring. To me one of the bigger problems was yes technically I could turn the difficulty down, and about 30-40 hours in I did turn on the mode where I didn't need to shoot off specific parts to get upgrades for weapons and gear because I felt especially with the rare ones. It just became an unneeded amount of padding in case you make a mistake getting the most rare parts. What really slowed down my enjoyment though was I would get very invested in the main story and yes my OCD for open world games does kick in where I want to go and do everything that upgrades me and do a ton of side missions before moving forward. But it was actually needed, after the world first open up I was in one of those places where you get what you need to take over new machines and it was literally impossible for me to defeat the machine as it would one shot me. And that would be fine, but what I don't like is that I feel I should be able to get enough XP to be leveled up enough to be able to just play the main missions if I so choose to ignore the side quests and that is literally impossible. So I'd get really invested in the story, but I ended up playing the main story in 1-3 hour chunks with almost 8-10 hours of side quests in between. Making me lose track of the smaller details of the story, or lose emotional context/investment. The game really would have benefited to have some kind of recap that you could choose to watch between loads. That being said I do think it has some of the best written side stories of any of this type of open world RPG. I'm want to try and give it another 5 hour shot to pull me back in and just focus on the main stuff because I now have all the skill tree abilities I want, every legendary weapon and the armor I want to use for the rest of the game. Just need to feel the urge to go back and play it :p I'd say Shadow of the Tomb raider was very different from the first two and was worse off because of it. It leaned to heavily on stealth without having good enough stealth mechanics in my opinion. And to me was a big disappointment because I felt the first two were really great games
@@AshVsEvilFred I’ve 100 percented this game. I am a huge fan. I never said I had low expectations. I said I expected Forbidden West to keep the same gameplay mechanics of its predecessor and build on top of them, hence why I don’t understand his criticism. His opinions are obviously valid. This line of thinking - that the direct sequel to a game somehow must innovate over the previous title rather than simply build from where it left off - doesn’t make sense to me, because the overhauling of mechanics and the addition of new ones does not inherently mean the final product will be better than simply building on what was. I agree, the game has tedium; however, I enjoyed myself 99.99% of the time with it. So, I’m expressing my experience and expectations with the game and how they don’t align with Luke’s.
I enjoyed the beginning of this game, but as time went on, i felt quests tiresome, nothing interesting as the 1st game. Gameplay and music is great but the loop got stale very fast.
@@giganticzombie Totally agree with the point about the first game i started hyped loved every minute but then from half way through to the end it felt like a chore i was just waiting pleading for the game to end. I cannot speak on HFW as i have yet to play it.
about the climbing system... does he complain about games that have absolutely no climbing other than vaulting? Or just when the climbing isn't Assassins creed level? not quite sure why this dude has a problem with almost every system in the game, kinda seems nit picky to me.
The more comments I read and the more of the video I’ve watched the more I’m just saddened by this review as a person who loves forbidden west especially after the dlc I genuinely think that hfw is one of the best AAA games and one of the best monster hunter sims and I serioiusly think he just played wrong and it wasn’t meant for him think of some people playing souls games they play wrong and then complain about it I’m in both commmunites and I’ve finally seen it in the hfw community for the first time
I disagree with your opinion of Aloy. I think her story and character in the first game was exceptional, and I was in tears several times. Not bland. Not uninteresting. Haven't played the second game though.
The world is beautiful, but I’ll admit after 30 hours I set all difficulty settings to easy…I just got so underwhelmed by the paving’s current I just wanted to go back to shore.
I feel this in my soul I ended up turning easy loot on and turning the amount of damage aloy did up while still having enimies hit hard. Just because I wasn't having fun with the combat anymore and after seeing the amount of tedium it was going to take to upgrade my legendary weapons I caved in and went to baby easy mode to help skip the grind. Then I turned the difficulty to back after. I will say the custom difficulty settings are very cool and I wish that was in more games.
Seems like you guys are just trash at the game and don't understand what weapons to use on what enemies. I can literally 1 shot a Slaughter spine now on hard difficulty after mastering the game.
@@steviemac2377 yeah the main story felt rushed but the rest of the game did feel bloated, to the point where I was still relieved to get to the end. The balance was off, but I still wouldn’t call the game ‘lame’ like Lukey does 😂
Same, I love Horizon as a series. The world is always so rich and beautiful and the gameplay is super fun. The story is just always the main letdown and I think ultimately that's okay coz the game sort of takes its place in the middle ground where it doesn't necessarily compete with the heavy hitter launches but blows the middle of the pack out the water. I think as the franchise continues they'll probably get better at that especially the data dumps and occasionally excess cut scenes of just very skippable dialogue
Did you ever think about how if you didn’t completely whiff on 75% of your arrow shots, maybe you wouldn’t be having so many ammo problems? Lol, I haven’t played this game, but even I can see that.
Worse is there's an ammo vendor in every settlement. Meaning his grind to get more is kinda redundant. If he didn't somehow miss every single one of them Plus he's using weak as hell weapons against tough as hell enemies. Even if he does hit they aren't gonna do much anyways
Just finished the game. While I agree that the game is not as great as it could be, there are lots of points here that are disingenuous and wrong: - the first third does not take place in the same place as the previous game, you only get access to about 25% of the map, but thats no different to Ghost of Tsushima or GTA 4, or other open world games. The map opens as you progress and can handle tougher encounters, very standard - Varl’s death unlocks an area where you can go give your respects to him whenever you want - the Sun Wing is aquired before the point of no return. Its perfect for the end game if you want to upgrade all your gear before the final mission - i really dont get the critique on resources. I only needed to hunt to upgrade my stuff (which is the main loop). And you can but resources from merchants, and sell them the resources you dont need depending on your playstyle. So basically, some suggestions or issues presented are addressed in this very game.
Just to clarify something. The Daunt was not an area in Horizon Zero Dawn. Luke's complaint about spending 15+ hours in a HZD area is not even close to accurate.
It's a skill issue related to resource scarcity. When you're bad at the game, throw everything at the machines, spamming any arrows, and hitting machine armor with those bland arrows, as seen in your gameplay. And to think this game was intended to study your enemy and plan your attack using the notes that obviously pop out when you scan the machine and hit those weak spots. It's a bad critic when you obviously hate the game to start on. 🤦
I didnt expect to ever hear someone saying that the new AC's are amazing and underrated and that Forbidden West is lame. Like most sidequests in FW are better than most main missions in evert of the new ACs, let alone acting, writing, enemy design and AI, leveling , skill tree, traversal etc... Really weird tastes in open word Rpgs.
I don’t agree with him when he says that it doesn’t make sense for Aloy to talk about how she isn’t sure if she can save the world but still tries to and somehow that isn’t human. So should she just give up? Would that make her human. This felt like an hour and forty minute ramble more than an actual critique. Also, it does not take you 10-15 hours to get to the open world. That is bizarre
Loved this game and have replayed it. However, agree the start was too slow, the upgrade mechanics are bloated and frustrating and the swimming was terrible - i couldn’t be bothered exploring the amazing looking below water areas.
i agree besides the swimming. i love it and the part where we can fly now. its pretty epic tbh. and i always wondered what laid beneath the sea. it expands the game and play area so much its amazing. idk why you hate it so much. maybe i havent encountered a problem yet but i like it.
tbh the ocean seems to be severely underused; the trailers seemed so promising and then i only had like one mission where i needed to recover things underwater...it felt like they wanted to use it more but then ran out of time. The map feels like they started east in the daunt and started adding many things since they had much time but the further west they got they had less time to fill up the world and so it became much more empty.
This is one of the most beautiful games i've played, specially after the new 60 fps update Gameplay loop is amazing ! i like it more than Monster Hunter rise But the main character and the story is not great at all i feel like story was so much better in Horizon Zero dawn after playing witched 3 i for some reason compare horizon to it in some ways, and omg, Geralt is so much more Real and likeable character than Aloy
The problem with his critique is that he keeps comparing it to Breath of the Wild which is a different game. And having things dropped down in front of you as he's saying happens in BotW just wouldn't make sense. This video reeks of someone who hasn't played Zero Dawn's full story. He thinks it's the same location as HZD and that ZD wasn't fully fleshed out. That's ludicrous. Horizon Zero Dawn gets you the story of what happened to earth, who Aloy is, and a ton more. The Nora got their name from NORAD. The lore is deep if you play the game. FW starts off in Meridian, that yes you do go to in ZD, but you're moving on from there to the Forbidden West where you're not really supposed to go. You end up in San Francisco but along the way you visit Las Vegas and plenty of truly cool areas. Yes, crafting can get tedious but they streamline it for you since you can create jobs. This is one of the most imaginative game franchises ever. The idea of all life on earth being fully destroyed and then the system created to bring it all back has been tainted first by one guy who didn't want anyone to know what he'd done and then by others, looking to create a life only for them elsewhere is just cool. But, go play AC, which is soooo different each time.
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I played the game on Very Hard from the start. Indeed sometimes I ran low on some materials which usually made me change what weapons or ammo to use when just hunting for parts, e.g. it's easy to burn a lot of echo shells and machine muscles fast by shooting Tear Blast Arrows so I opted to simply use Advanced Hunter Arrows and figuring out how to get the machine to stay still for some time to shoot of certain parts. I ended up using Shock Arrows and I also started using the Part Breaker Surge a lot. Tripcasters are also pretty resource efficient. That said, I hate that certain ammo costs so much in resources, particularly in Machine Muscles and those are pretty slow to gather as not nearly every machine drop them and they might drop only a couple when they do. This is why I didn't craft any traps, didn't use canister rope caster, slings, ropes too much, and didn't use the knockdown arrows. I have no idea why some items like sharpshot bow arrows require those muscles. I started crafting almost exclusively on crafting table to save some resources and it was actually kind of realistic / immersive. But I hate that there are so many different types of ammos. Why is there need to be regular and advanced ammo of pretty much every type? Why would it take longer to load some advanced arrow? I also dislike that you can't use any hunter arrow with any hunter bow. I get that Warrior Bow arrows are shorter and lighter and perhaps Sharpshot Bow arrows on the other hand are longer and heavier, that's okay.
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Maybe different level of similar ammo or traps could use different resources so that depending on what kind of materials you have, you can choose which blast traps you make when you really need them.
I already expected for Luke to hate it. Tho I have some criticism about this game myself, I actually liked this game. But to hate it and call it lame. Is a bit much.. but yeah. It's Luke. He never likes something..
You got low standards then.This franchise is just mediocre.I tried to play the first game like 5 times and I just couldn't get into it because I gave no shiys about the characters and the gameplay was meh.
I tried to watch your video with a open mind. And I am by far a fanboy that doesn't seem any wrong with the sequel. But alot of your points are just bitchy. I had my gripes with it. But reasons feel nit picking
After watching this and five minutes of his video on how AC Odyssey was a great game *cough *cough I cannot agree with this guy. The story for Odyssey was all over the place and the main character had an essentially lack of one, allowing you to do whatever you wanted making the main character completely inconsistent. Whereas with HZD and HFW, Aloy was a well written character with her own core traits that express themselves in dialogue options, and the lore of the world in the past and present was incredibly well developed and interwoven together. As for side content, HFW doesn’t even come close to the number of useless side activities that Odyssey had, where everything was loot this chest, kill that guy, solve this puzzle just copy/pasted all over the map. The only side activities in HFW that came close were Rebel outposts, but even those were more enjoyable compared to a fort in Odyssey. As for all the other side activities in HFW, each activity had its own relation to the main story, with Tallnecks and Cauldrons being old activities that did not feel copy/pasted, that felt new and reimagined for the sequel. Relic ruins and viewpoints were fun things that allowed me to see the lore of the world in the past, and the presents relation to it. And him saying there were no improvements is completely wrong, with things like a stash, upgraded climbing mechanics and not having to worry about dying from falling(along with being able to fly a part of that) whereas there really were no improvements in AC Odyssey, which honestly shouldn’t even be called an AC, with its lack of well, assassins. This guy is extremely subjective on these games, picking and choosing games that he finds enjoyable and saying bad things on games that he doesn’t like, so these so called essays are not critiques, just his opinion. So don’t call these reviews based on facts when they are obviously your opinion, and one I do not agree with. Sorry for the rant but I cannot agree with him, I for one love HZD/HFW, and think they are in a far higher class than the garbage Ubisoft has cranked out in AC titles after Brotherhood/Black Flag.
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this video just feels like nit picks......and did yu play the game on max difficulty ?
Finally someone said it!
Tired of these Ubisoft type games with crap scripts, bland characters, taking no risks, doing the same thing over and over again, crap storytelling and such a politically correct way of storytelling as well.
It feels soulless. It feels like a mindless Marvel film with forced humour in there.
Spider-Man games are just as bland. Physicsless. Only there to get you from A to B. Buy and forget.
I'm saying this as a Sony fan and it's a damn shame
@@phar0ahad3 I've played Horizon West... and yes, nitpicks do add up. After 25-30 hours, I think i'm done with the series if this is how they're gonna make these titles.
Big, beautiful, bland and boring... the comparisons to an Ubisoft title (atleast a polished Ubi title) are very much spot-on.
NO
I'm only 20 minutes in Luke (I will watch the rest I promise 😁) and I've got to write a comment to disagree with how you describe the first 5-10 hours after the tutorial mission of Forbidden West as the "ending area from the first game"... If you're referring to The Spire at Meridian that section lasts about 20-30 minutes if you speak to everyone and explore a bit. If you're including the next area after the opening credits (The Daunt) then this is a completely new area on the far outskirts of Carja territory not seen in Zero Dawn. For some reason you've combined these two DIFFERENT areas as if they are one, to make it seem like we're forced to spend many hours retreading areas we've explored previously in Zero Dawn, and that is completely untrue and an unfair misrepresentation. You even unlock a trophy called "Reached The Daunt" when you arrive here - because Aloy has never been there before - and neither has the player!!
Either you can't remember what areas were actually in Zero Dawn, or you can, but are deliberately overlooking it in your video essay for some reason... 🤔 I'm inclined towards thinking it's the former as so far you haven't even mentioned the name of either of these areas (even though you are showing plenty of footage) which makes me think you didn't bother to find out what they are called (which may have contradicted your argument that this was "the ending area from the first game")!! 🤔🤔 Really Luke? I don't know lol... If they threw the player at The Isle of Spires (San Fran) right from the start you'd no doubt complain asking "How did Aloy get this far west? Why didn't Guerilla let us PLAY that journey...?" 🤦♂️
Also, going from the known to the unknown in a narrative is fine, don't linger too long obviously, but as prologue it is fine 👍👍
Not sure how you missed this, but the opening 10-15 hours are in the completely new map… not at all the first game’s map, in fact there’s a prolonged title sequence showing you Aloy leaving the original game area and travelling for ages to get to the new place. Agree this biome is similar and could have been a bit more exciting, sure, but seems like your point is that it’s still the exact map from the first game, which is untrue. Probably worth highlighting.
Sometimes people just hate to hate
I haven't played either game (I just like listening to game reviews) but if the maps are so similar that he confused the new area for the one from the previous game then isn't that still a problem? Just because they had a cutscene showing aloy traveling to the new place and the name of the area changed doesn't make something new and exciting for a sequel 🤷
@@gokuog1772 I have a lot of issues with FW. The starting area of the sequel, whilst ‘similar’ to certain areas of the first game, is not one of the main issues I think the game has. It’s clearly definitely not the same map as the first game, and does quite well at establishing the start of the journey tbh before moving off into the newer areas of the map. I’m trying to work out whether Luke is annoyed with the area itself, or that it is ‘exactly the same area’, because I feel it’s unfair to criticise something so heavily for a point that isn’t true
he missed it because he lacks attention to detail, despite bloated 'critiques'. His Elden Ring one is a classic, he states a certain area lacks a main story boss, despite that area housing one of the most important story bosses.
Exactly thank you. Totally new area, new quests, new machines.
This might come as a shocker but some fans genuinely want to see what happened to Meridian after the first game's boss fight and I think that's why the developers wanted to start the game there so the returning players could see how things ended and how are those people moving on with their lives, seems to me like a bit of fan service.
I don’t see what the problem is….it took me barely 30 minutes to leave meridian not 10 hours like he says
I have played zero dawn and my bf didn’t and we both enjoyed it a tom.. for me it was fun to see where everyone left of and for him it was to slowly get into the game and mechanics
@@symbiotezilla12345 he might just be that bad at the game, sadly. Especially seeing how many of his criticisms are super easy to fix or were flat out wrong
@@roonkolos I think he counts Barren Light into the 10 hours, but then idk why he said that "we've seen this in the previous game" lol
@@antylucka he might not have actually played the first game or he was just flat out lying. That's my guess
You spent 10-15 hours in the city of meridian?!? Doing what, running in circles?
Well some players even spent 21½ hours spending their time stuck in City of Meridian.
@@purwantiallan5089 How? Meridian is just a few conversations with people to bridge the gap between Zero Dawn and Forbidden West. What do they do for 21.5 hours? There isn't combat or exploration there, it's literally just a bit of exposition
i think he is saying that the map before the embassy is an old map which is not true at all. And i also dont get why he spent a good portion of main discussion talking about ammunition and arrows, i finished the game now that it launched on pc and i never ran out of arrows or any type of canisters (blaze, chill water, plasma etc) it is impossible to run out if u loot the crates around you. This is what happen when u ignore your surroundings, i was almost annoyed that i felt so rich on resources it felt very easy, zero dawn wasnt like that.
He’s obviously a little lost but not when it comes to the point he’s trying to make but the words he used. I think he meant to say it took 10-15 hours to get to the forbidden west past the embassy. And to be honest by the time I got past it I had already spent over 15 hours in the game. It felt like I was playing the prologue or intro of a game and was waiting for the title to show but it never happened. I’m not talking about a literal title but it just felt like an intro that consumed way too much time. I remember checking to see if it auto saved right after entering the west cause I was had to leave and I noticed that my save file had 17 and some odd hours on it. Why does it take that long to get to the main part of the game? Even with god of war ragnarok, I remember streaming it to my friend as I was playing and after about 15-20 hours I just got bored of all the useless nonsense and right before I gave up on it my friend says “this is where the game really starts.” What? So all that time I spent was basically for nothing. I would understand if they’d want us to spend some time in the safer area to start off with in order to familiarize yourself with the gameplay mechanics and story and whatnot but at least make it so that you can just go straight to the embassy and get to the meat of the game if you want to and make all that other shit optional for people who do want to know what happens with the Ulvand and whatever that other idiot’s name is. I am yet to finish the game but I highly doubt any of those people will ever be mentioned again in the main story so all it was was a waste of time considering it wasn’t a side quest or optional.
@@wingsofpizza i think you just didn't like that part of the game which is fine but i dont think it was a so bad design.
I personally liked it, you could say that it was a little boring in times but it was a preparation for the good part coming ahead + the story with ulvund yes was borring but it was tied up with regalas army if i remember correctly so it carried over and after the embassy... and if u include the place you start when varl finds you it was something new and exciting, for me the game started there and i kinda wish that area was bigger. So basically you were already given a chunk of new stuff from the opening area of the game, new environment, the red plants (blight?), new machines, a boss fight, a new tool and some story.
Im not trying blindly to defend the game because to be honest i finished the main story and completed all the map before the dlc and it didn't like it as much that i would want to story wise.
Back to the point. That area in the Embassy was completely new maybe similar but what luke wants ? every area to look like is from another planet?
Games are made to be experienced by gamers mainly casual ones, are not made to rush through it because you have to make a video on it asap so you can proceed to the next one.
Is no one else mad that they completely nerfed the trapping system? From 30 traps to 8 at max? And you can't even scavenge back the traps you set, just their scraps.
My wife 100% the original with tripwires pretty much exclusively. Ever seen one of the giant metal birds blown up by a stationary trap? Ever seen literally all of them taken that way?
I dont like using traps so it’s okay for me.
Literally my one issue with game. Other than that I love it
Yes, I really don't understand why they decided to "balance" weapons when this is a single player game. The difference between the first and second game in how smooth the gampleay is makes it difficult for me to enjoy this game more than the first (although all of the new features in the second makes the first feel lacking).
But it's really frustrating why decided to make their game less fun for any reason. They already have downsides to the more overpowered weapons which is their ammo requirements...
@@sxbsyywhy they dont like to use traps btw?
"You are ripped out of it and are forced to return to the region of the first game". This part is not true. The Daunt is a new area and was not a part of the first game. It was only mentioned off the cuff a few times. The Horizon Forbidden West map continues where Zero Dawn's map ended. The Daunt is simply the bridging village between the Carja Sundum and west. They choose to start it there simply because The Daunt is the main entrance that prevents people from going in and out of the west. The first game even mentions that the Daunt is the entry point into the Forbidden West.
It's it really a "new area" if there is nothing different?
@@GarzaLovesYou Everything is different. If you haven't been there or explored it in the first game...that is by definition a "new area".
When he said this I seriously suspected his review, not 1 of the youtubers I trust, but he does make good content and I agree on the Free climbing
@@GarzaLovesYou Sure dude an Embassy that represents the backbone of Tenakth, Utaru, and Carja relationship is no different... Sure sure
Nor did it take me 10 hours to get through
The thing you missed about the Breath of the Wild’s shrines is that they are at the very least consistent. The game establishes that pretty much the only structures Link can’t climb are ones made of the materials the ancients used. In Horizon there’s no reason why Aloy can’t scale a relatively small ledge during a puzzle that she would otherwise have no issue climbing
This is the real problem. If a game sets rules and follows them like BOTW does that's fine. But to set rules and then blatantly break them because you want to overdesign sections of it, that's where it becomes a problem.
I had a lot of issues with Kratos in God of War for the same reasons, like why can't you hop over a ledge to get a treasure when you're doing wild shit in the cutscenes? Also found the combat inconsistency very annoying. "You can instant-kill certain enemies if you slam them into walls with the leviathan axe, but there is no consistency because we prioritized natural-looking environments over making what constitutes as a "wall" clear". The number of times I've gotten killed because I tried kicking a drauger only for nothing to happen is... mmmmmmmmmmm
@@ajaykundlas7461
LOL he's fighting a dragon and throwing hands with Aesir in cutscenes that terraforms entire environments but can't break a simple wooden door to get treasure. But to GOW's credit, gameplay wise it's consistent so that you have to go through dumb puzzles throughout the whole game to get treasure where as aloy arbitrarily can't do something like jumping 2 feet to grab a ledge because devs wanted her to climb through the back.
You guys dead ass need to let video games be videogames lmao
@@symbiotezilla12345 mate. Nearly all video games have those moments and have had them before for decades
Not sure why it's an issue only now. Unless it's just how jarring it can be at times. Even then it's still not exactly rare
So let me get it straight, you stayed 5+ hours in Meridian? Because the Daunt is defenitly not part of the first game, maybe it has a similar enviorment but it's certanly not the same.
Yeah I think he's confused. He's thinking the daunt was in the first game.
This guy isn't terribly bright based on this video.
Very confused where he got that “first few hours leveling up and getting gear in the same area where the last game ended?” Like did you run around the spire area that long? I sped through talking to everyone in like 10 minutes and got maybe 4 resources.
staied
@@suddenimpulse030 he is bright but he failed with this particular review
I loved forbidden west and I didn't even play the first horizon. The world was incredible to explore and the combat never got old throughout my playthrough. The ending was a little bit of a let down but besides that I had an amazing experience.
Imo Zero Dawn is a million times better
@@iLLWiLLx21literally everything is better in this game except for the story lmao
@@iLLWiLLx21hope not cause I don't liked it and hope the new one has better gameplay more weapon besides the bow
I think this boils down to personal philosophy.... is gameplay>story or is story>gameplay. For me it's super hard to get into the world when the character I play in it is unrelatable or uninteresting... Alloy?...Aloy?... is both
@@teeboo123 still gonna check forbidden west when I came to pc in spring 2024?
4:12 I noticed a similar thing in the Uncharted series, Nate can climb up cliffs and massive ruins, but if the developers don't want you scaling a small wall he could clearly climb, he performs that pathetic little 6" hop.
Same with GOD OF WAR
Let’s be real here y’all just hate playing games?
@@RAL0981 lets be Real here do u love trash games?
@@litt420 no he has a point since this has been a thing with MANY games for like 15 years now
Only way this is somehow even worth mentioning is if someone either has willingly not noticed how often it happens or has only began playing recently
Animation blending wasnt really working, cpu limitation and the climbing and hopping is procedual have you seen how big the game is?
Damn, never thought I’d find myself vehemently disagreeing with Luke on almost everything about a game lmao
Because he is factually incorrect. It’s was to disagree
@@dakwonju Some times he also does not spend enough Time with Game. Like His Kingdom come review were he missed out on some great quests, he later said there were no good side quests. How can you give your opinion on a games side quests if you have missed some of the best ones in the game. But so many reviewers do that. I think trying to critique to many games. In Terms of HFW its mixed bag somethings are done well other things not so much. I Think his review in this case is fair seems like he has actually spent enough time with the game.
Dude games are subjective. You don't watch a video to agree, you watch to listen and to hear a perspective.
@@John-996 the problem is he almost got everything wrong. Here is a condensed list:
Chainscrape is a new area
Grappling hook gets acquired in the opening area
The dialogue scenes are skippable, and most are optional
Shieldglider can be used in multiple different ways
Varl’s death gets brought up several different times
The scene with Beta ends with Aloy sharing a personal story about Rost
Aloy shows several weaknesses including doubt, extreme stubbornness, and trust issues
Each combat encounter requires the player to identify weakness and use the weapon that corresponds with the weakness thus spending less resources. His complaint is like saying I used a handgun on a robot and I need more handgun bullets.
The drop of rate items can be adjusted separately to the difficulty. In addition, the drop of the item is tied specifically to combat in the removal of that item
We can purchase the items needed for ammunition from vendors
He literally spams weak arrows (green) towards a TremorTusk in the video, he should be using other weapons.
Silens role on how he is the one who figured out the Zeniths weaknesses via the Hades
Sunwing gets acquired before the last mission permanently
Vast Silver is not even mentioned and if you know you know
@@AnthonyMcNeil did you just lay down a rule for how to view/discuss a video? Lmao. Who are you anyway? 😂
For Luke's comment at 33:00, the most epic line in gaming history.
Kratos: Do not mistake my silence for lack of grief! Mourn how you wish, leave me to my own.
Great line but bad context. Aloy barely has any character
Youre comparing a character who literally ran out of rage to a character that the writers thought was supposed to be stoic but was really just a stick.
you consider this epic? you need to get out and play some real games, and READ
Most surprising part of this video for me is aspect of ammunition you have to constantly grind. For a brief amount of time I felt like I've played completely different game from you..
Completed the game at hard difficulty with +15k metal shards and truly in my entirely playthrough I never thought that I need to grind or even change difficulty to gain more scraps for arrows.. Also aspect of bullet sponge - at the end of the day Aloy is shooting wooden arrows to metal machines and all of them had some weakness you can literally scan in real time and highlight for entire combat.. even so you can use special type of ammunition to strip metal parts protecting weak spots.. it's all in the game, for me this game has one of the best balance idea for all of the player even without experience with dual shock you can still find a way to make it easier for you..
At some points I felt that you didn't put enough work into learning mechanics of the game before making this critique, sadly this game actually has a lot to offer if you give it a try to show you what it has to offer.
I agree with the ammo/part stripping thing. Machines feel way more dangerous in this game than the first too. Although, ammo does become a little bit more grindier but i think thats the point. To force you to use other weapons/items. I havent beaten the game nor did i watch the review just yet. But stripping parts off of enemies makes the game give you a chance in the fight. Sure some are difficult to fight. Like the turtle machine, that one is a bit rough for me still. But, it makes the game challenging and not easy like the first one. Although, some machines are kinda bullet sponges tbf.
@@shunsui07 If I’m correct the developers intentionally made it harder to kill machines after seeing so many players brutally no diff the strongest machines in HZD. So the machines in this game were meant to further resemble late game monsters from like, Monster Hunter if that makes any sense.
I love that there's different weapons and strategies for each creature and how you have to plan ahead and that every encounter is different
What a typical fanboy's reply. Yea, I would believe you if what you said also applies to HZD. Like someone said previously, the devs simply made the game harder and more complicated. You can give more fanboy excuse as you wish, but the simple truth is you don't change what people liked about the original game. This is why GoWR is the GOTY, while HFW is a game ever made.
@@bloedekuh Nothing you just said made any sense. HZD was easier, yes, but that isn't why people enjoyed it. HZD was a simpler game, it doesn't have any weapon upgrades, as that was added in HFW, only coils to make your weapons stronger. Armor was also a lot simpler, not having any real characteristics besides melee and ranged while armor in HFW has weaves and armor specific buffs that make your playstyle easier. HFW also expands the already wide range of different weapons found in HZD to an impressive amount and it also adds some new weapons like the shredder gauntlets, spikethrowers and boltblasters. HFW just gives you more options, better weapons, better melee combat and just literally improves the already good bases laid by HZD. If you have any difficulty on acquiring new weapons or literally crafting ammo, that's quite frankly just on you.
You don't return to the same area where the first game was, you enter a section of it which is the transition point between the "forbidden west" and the eastern lands. Also, the crafting system in this game is as crap as you mentioned. There are tons of weapons with each one having anywhere between 3-6 upgrade levels which require tons of obscure materials to upgrade and its hard to get them all. The first game was simpler, you just had 3/4 levels of each item (i.e. from green to blue to purple rarity items) and upgrades happened via coils. Ammo crafting has always been irritating and it gets more irritating here with just 2x the variety of ammo available.
correct.
thank you 🙏🏼 the opening section of forbidden west includes the same biome and cultures (carja/oseram) as the end of zero dawn, but it is a completely new area to explore that was not in the first game.
Yeah, that point about it starting in an area from the last game confused the hell out of me. Just not true at all.
bigot
The only weapons I worried about upgrading were the legendary weapons and I got all of the done in two play throughs. When I got to Erik at the end of the game it took one hit with a valor to take him out and he never even got a chance to touch me.
I'm so confused........the Daunt wasn't in the first game. Why does he keep saying they dump us in the ending area of the first game? There is a brief stop in Meridian to setup the story, then off to the Daunt. Am I missing something?
I think he was not very clear but it's the same biome and architecture, while not actually being the same map as HZD.
No, you're not crazy nor missing anything. He messed up really bad and walked away laughing
@@sheertexcept this game has snow, jungle, cave, island, and underwater exploration that zero dawn didnt have. its much better in terms of the world and exploration, not that exploration has changed much, just some really nice, as well as moderate additions
@@NikoKuehne but it doesn t look good or real, and its bloated.... read and listen
I played the whole game on hard but never really had to scavenge for parts to make arrows or anything like that. I just explored the world as I went because I found it so intriguing and always had enough materials to do whatever I needed to do
He’s a critic so he makes a living and feeds his family by being critical so stuff like this should always be taken with a grain of salt. That said, he makes some good points, although I largely disagree.
@@Olibelus It's popular to hate on HFW or embellish certain things in it so that is another part of it.
I had to scavenge for parts to upgrade gear, but never for ammo. I think having ammo and "damage sponge" issues just indicates he wasn't very good at the game. If he was running out of ammo constantly either he was exclusively using expensive ammo wastefully, or the game was telling him that he needed to change tactics in combat and he ignored it
I have no idea what he is talking about , I was never really low on ammo unless I went into a vault.
@@grell9296 you can see he really doesn’t have good tactics or aiming skills through the gameplay he shows
I think the personality "issues" may be due to the fact she's a clone and not a conventional human. I had no problems with this. She behaves in the way she was designed to behave, solely focused on restoring GAIA and saving the world. The comparison with Ellie(a human child/girl) is nonsensical.
Interesting opinion. While I do agree with some of the short comings I was driven to compete this game compared to Assassins Creed Odyssey, which feels very bloated and Grindy if you want to upgrade ships/weapons, whatever. I actually never once ran out of materials for ammo once I got a quarter of the way in the game, just playing on normal. At least this game had an inventory bank system which removed the storage cap from the first game
Ye that's what I was thinking. He said this game was bloated, yet says AC Odyssy is an exceptional game 💀
Great to hear. I just got ps5 and got Horizon West with it and bought Zero Dawn and haven't heard much bad except here. I loved Odyssey and this looks even better
I feel bad because i only got half way through AC Odyssey. To much to do and hard to follow any part of the story.
I can't get over how far you've got in the storyline with the STARTING BOW AND WITHOUT UPGRADING YOUR ARROW POUCH. I didn't think someone would get so far in the game as to meet the specters and have such a pathetic looking weapon wheel still. Of course you're going to struggle with combat and resources if you're mindlessly spamming the weakest arrows at machine armor and not aiming at weak points, trying status effects, valor surges or anything the game has on offer.
The comments have already pointed out that your clarification on the Daunt is wrong (it is an entirely new area). That is just one of many mistakes throughout the video born from rushing through games to churn out clickbait videos, but it grates incredibly badly when the video starts with "I've put a lot of time in this game". If you really did, which is doubtful, you were paying no attention to anything at all.
It's a shame, because aiming at weak points and fighting machines with certain tactics is the best part of the game for me - it's like he's not even playing the real game.
I mean that guy thinks that games like AC origins and odysee are great, maybe he thought there are no new bows and weapons because he is used to buy new weapons and stuff as microtransaction like in AC creed. i mean if you say that the new AC with levelsystem and pay to win since origin are amazing while horizon is bad, then something is wrong with you. And i played origin to the end by myself because yes egypt was great but the game itself did anythibg waht horizon did, just worse
@@maulcs same, the fact that you can gather resources off of some animals without killing them is something that made me love the weaknesses of the bots in this game and the last. The fact that shooting parts off of them can give you valuable resources, blow them up, release gases/chemicals, drop weaponry, loses armors on body, capacitate, etc,… give the game so much variety in fighting wise. Combine this with stealth, taming animal, special skills, wide range of traps/weapons, movement like climbing, gliding, and sliding, and melee skills made the combat extremely rewarding to master. The only games where i have seen such complex system of gameplay is from MGSV, Deus Ex and dishonored.
@@khangvinh4656 I mean honestly there are so many different playstyles and weapons that there is no way combat feels "boring" yet he wants to give Odyssey praise.
Like seriously the best weapon in the game is boomerang like shredder that tears off valuable parts of robots. How is that not fun?
@@killerklinge52 origins wasn’t that bad out of the more recent AC games it is hands down the best and most concise
I have my fair share of problems with this game, but your difficulty problem baffles me. The game doesn't simply have a standard difficulty slider. It has a NUMBER of different settings you can tune to your liking (I often played with max damage received and high damage dealt, making encounters short but incredibly deadly). And I'm pretty sure that item harvesting rate is just one of the things you can tweak.
I would much rather have a game I can customize to my own personal experience than one that leaves me frustrated because the developers decided that I need to be X kind of player to enjoy it.
And your issue with grinding for ammo and your idea for an ammo dealer...like, that's a thing that exists in the game. I remember a number of times not wanting to go hunting for something so I just went to the nearest weapon dealer and bought the ammo from them. I'm sorry that you missed that mechanic, but it was right there in the game for you. You could easily have sold your left over parts for shards, then bought the ammo you needed.
And tbh, your assessment of enemies as arrow sponges rings hollow to me as well. I don't know how much you engaged with the targeting and elemental system of the game, but the combat becomes extremely satisfying when you're exploiting enemy weaknesses, severing weapons and armor from them, and striking at weak points with your strongest weapons.
It is the tactical nature of the game that is its most satisfying aspect, in my opinion, and the one area I think the sequel actually supercedes the original. If you charged in head first to every encounter and just shot arrows at the machines until they fell down, then I'm really not surprised you had a bad time.
Yes, those oserams Hunt machines like crazy because they had almost every part i need it hahaha
It’s incoherent and boring I ended up putting easy mode on
@@salmark9080 thats a shame. you must be a boring person if you thought it was boring. sorry for that
@@evobsm2328 it's literally arrow sponge simulator with a terrible loot system where they even give you an option to neglect the whole thing. Do they want you to play the game or not? if i'm boring for thinking that then you are beyond saving
dude, I can’t believe he literally lied about the pullcaster (grappling hook) which you LITERALLY get during the tutorial before meridian, calling the daunt a part of the map from the first game, which it isn’t, and about aloys insecurities. She has MULTIPLE discussions about rost (her dead guardian) to varl, she talks about varls death to zo, and also talks about how she doesn’t really like beta during the mid section of the game. As the game progresses, you see her opening up, especially to beta, to the point where they call each other sisters.
disliking all of the people criticizing this guy, he speaks truth and the game is BLAH and fanboys are mad, but the fanboys are delusional and haven't played good games.
There are so many valid critiques on HFW that it honestly baffles me that you missed them. First of all the first 30 hours of the game is not spent in HZDs map. Chainscrape was not in HZD. Unless you spent 30 hours in the tutorial then you’re just wrong. Secondly, problems such as the bugginess, arbitrary barriers that prevent free exploration, and enemy animations not lining up with hitboxes are faaaar more important than your gripe with the glider (you know you can use the sun wing to fly up and then dismount and use glider right?) lmao. You’re right about the superfluous dialogue though I can’t see how you’d say this game is bloated when you’re so into AC. I agree with your aloy critiques as well.
He mentions bloated problems in AC as well, you Muppet.
Yeah I have had issues with me getting stuck in areas I'm not supposed to be in due to curiosity and not being able to ever get out
Spot on!
The hit box problem was infuriating. Did they ever fix it? The plot was so bad, I sort of forgot about the combat problems.
“You know you can use the sunwing to fly up and dismount and then use the glider” - I’m sorry, are you really making a point about utilizing an item that you only get after you’ve basically beaten the game? Lol gonna be a lil hard using that sunwing during the first 97% of the game, since yanno, you don’t have it. But sure. For the last 3%, he totally should have.
Solid points otherwise, that’s just a bit silly.
"Instead of gliding, you just slowly fall" what is gliding to you??
XD
There's a difference between a real glider and a fortnite glider
@@netriosilverno no I’m sure he’s right
@@netriosilveryeah. It’s a good thing this is a video game not real life. Fortnite glider >
@@user-bm7mo2ck6r that is one of the saddest gaming delusions I've ever heard. Can you imagine if Fortnite had physical paraglider type gliding? Right now you just stare blankly at the screen while holding forward for twenty seconds
Honestly, I really liked Forbidden West. I played the first one and loved it, so I got this one too. To me, it felt like everything from the first game was improved. More varied and fun activities(I especially liked the machine races), cooler machines, better graphics, etc. I can understand why it may not be to everyone's taste, and I did lose interest after completing the main story and most of the side content, but I do think it's overall better than the first.
This is definitely true! Gamers nowaday think if a game is not a 10/10 or a masterpiece (genre defining game) it is bad.
@@ulrichleukam1068 They even do it masterpieces.
I enjoyed the first one...even played through the expansion. (and then bought the game again on Steam just to see what the graphics would look like)
When it came to the sequel, it gave me a handful of interesting/fun hours of gameplay... and another 20 hours of tedium. Wasn't a terrible experience, just something more akin to a big, beautiful and more polished Ubisoft game ... that you never finish.
The magic was lost and i'm okay with walking away from the franchise at this point.
Not every game is for everybody. But i have said many times, last two years the bread and butter of content creators is to rant on what is wrong with a game, what could be better, etc. Everybody somehow has a better idea how a game should look, play and behave towards a player. Ranting seems to bring more views i guess.. :D
@@kukkilaful I think you are spot on with that assessment. I can understand and respect that they didn't care for a game, but please stop taking it to the level where it makes you sound like you hate and it's trash because it is too similar, too different or whatever. With that mindset, nothing the game creators do will satisfy you. That turns your critique into something with little value.
My boy is obsessed with assassins creed but calls this lame. It feels like it’s just not your personal taste.
It's a bland game with bland characters and combat. Literally the only thing interesting about it is the lore, which would make for a decent movie. Personal taste has nothing to do with this bloated mess.
Different games with different standards. Ubisoft IS the consistent 7/10 game studio but with Sony we expect more.
@@presetregret184what games do you play then?
@presetregret184 you see the issue with your argument, it is all opinion.
@@EsteBahia You have to play a ton of games in many different categories to truly understand the difference between bad and good games. Many people who play Horizon, don't play many other games besides the big triple-A games, the casual gamer.
The game is not good. It's good for some people and that's fine. Some people enjoy shit, some others don't and that's okay.
My only 2 criticisms with this game were the fact you had to collect machine parts to override machines and the amount of shit you had to do to level up legendary gear. Other than that dude I honestly think you fell into the same trap I did with my first playthrough, I was more concerned with exploring and leveling up than just following the game organically. I was so obsessed with collecting shit that I didn't realise it was a waste of time until you got first 3 AI cores. Doing a second playthrough and I love this game now, best advice I can give anyone is do bit of story first as it unlocks both side quests and equipment needed for blocked paths as you progress, just take it one region at time and it flows way better otherwise it feels like a prolonged empty game. I honestly did it region by region and after few hours my map was full of fun side content. Something the game doesn't tell you, hope this helps.
You honestly enjoy the most dull, dry, empty shell of a protaganist in gaming history?
@@bigbirdmusic8199 how's she dull, explain please?
@@christophercarlisle7887 Wow its not even worth my time. I hate this game so much the last thing im gonna do is recant this garbage.
To an extent I feel that that’s fair, if I were to replay the game I definitely just wouldn’t bother wasting time hunting down upgrade components for my gear until I start getting purple and legendary gear. However the fact that it’s possible to fall into that pit at all speaks to how poorly implemented it was as a mechanic. I feel like playing more with expanding the weave and coil system would’ve been a better way to go about it. If ignoring the weapon upgrade mechanic for most of that game makes the game better, then it’s not a very good mechanic.
@@ls93780 I agree, thr coil system in the first game was perfectly fine as it was, I don't need to spend 5 hours upgrading one set of armour or a weopon
I'm guessing you were just sticking to the main quest at the end, but you don't have to finish the game to unlock free use of the Sunwing. Yes, you only get it near the end of the game but you can use it freely to finish off several side quests and roam the map before heading into the final game ending quest.
Yep. It only needed 7hrs 26mins and 38 seconds in doing so.
@@purwantiallan5089how? i beat the game in about 40 hours only doing a few side quests. more like 25-35 hours to unlock it
HFW has its fair share of problems, but depleting your ammunition in most combat situations is definitively not one of them. - I’m baffled how a gamer like you was not able to see that there are cheap and expensive arrow types. And the cheap ones, hands down, get the job done. And the resources to make them, wood and shards, are abundant.
My first playthrough of the game was on Hard and I never really had a problem with ammo. I can count on two hands the amount of times I've ran out of resources for ammo and it only happened with the stronger weapons which require rare components. In these situations I just use the standard bow which still gets the job done when you need to. The things you get from the fights themselves and from minimal exploration are more than enough to replenish your ammo stock.
From the way he talks about enemies being damage sponges I think this guy just isn't good at the game and mindlessly shoots arrows at enemies. Except for the stronger machines like the Apex versions of Slaughterspines and Tremortusks most machines can be brought down in a few seconds with a combination of shooting weak points + status effects.
I played on very hard and never felt the need to grind. If I machine was giving me trouble, I just used what the game gave me, like food buffs and elemental weaknesses. I always sold my rare relics to and made sure I interacted with the world to earn different weapon types.
And the end of the day, it's just a girl with a bow and arrow fighting off 20 foot tall robot dinosaurs. I would hope this game was hard. It wouldn't be any fun if the game just gave you the most broken weapon right off the start. Some people just suck at video games and want to complain when they don't want to put the time to figure things out for themselves
so you have to grind, in a triple A looker game///
“Imaging the gliding does not transform the exploration in any meaningful way.” Wtf I really doubt if you played the game or not.
For free climbing, imaging you playing Zelda and every shrine you can just climb to the top and finish them off. You can’t climb because it is called a puzzle!
Lmao Luke you really showed your hand with this one, getting absolutely slayed in the comments for being a hypocritical shill. You love to see it
Yeah, we love to see Luke sticking it to Playstation and watch all the fanboys whining.
@@Rapunzel879 Coming from a guy who praises modern AC and Far Cry games, that doesn't mean much
I mean. This game is literally every modern AAA open world game ever. It does nothing even remotely different to stand out
I didnt want you critisize Luke, but the intro area, is about a 1-1,5 hour. plus the returning into that old area, its maybe a 30 minute section with conversations....so not a 5-10 hours.....surelly..and i liked the game, it was beautiful, much more content, interesting story and the story gradation was cool too, new weapon mechanics and much more armors and weapons as the old old one....a new characters, and mainly, much better animations :D
just my honest opinion :) it was great...surelly it has few flaws and bugs, but it was a good game, timed in a very strange release time thats for sure...but a good game :D
The gameplay this time is soo good. I mean it goes in super deep and you can really get lost in it. I mean just check out the guides on each and every single weapon and ammo. My favourite new weapon was the shredder. It can single handedly be the best and the worst weapon if in the wrong hands.
Personally I loved Forbidden West but it does have problems
The story is not as strong or interesting as the first game and the pacing could do with some work. I spent 8 hours before I even entered the Forbidden west doing all the missions ect and the game just got better when I got into the meat
The world is more interesting to explore and combat has been improved which is great. I do think they could've made some more substantial changes to Melee and stealth but meh.
Hopefully the 3rd one gets released in a better window
I think the first game is slightly overrated in terms of story. yes I know that the mystery of zero dawn was good but outside of that not much was. aloys personal story was put on the back burner for a slow revelation of what happened to the world. few characters are interesting and aloys development isn't great either in the first game.
@@introduction1266 all very true, the premise really carries the first game
@@cheeto6057 yeah. heard they improved on all the above in forbidden west so I can't wait to play. a great sequel imo doesn't need to have another huge mystery like that...I just want answers that were left open from the first game and for them to build upon what they already established.
Fair take. I don't think HZD has a masterpiece of a story or anything but I do think that it was superior to HFW, the mere premise or what ZD could he was enough to motivate me in HZD but in this I felt a bit like I was in a Marvel movie with the flying cyborg like people trying to destroy the planet and now I feel the 3rd game is gonna lead even further into this with the huge AI monster coming towards earth.
But yh I can see what u mean
@@introduction1266 I personally don't want them to answer any of the big questions that players have. I always find that stories that remove the mysteries from their worlds always end up being extremely bland and then you no longer have anything keeping you interested
My opinions on the video:
- The Daunt is not from the first game. It's weird that wasn't noticed as you play but it's weirder how at least the first ~30 minutes this review constantly states it and keeps going back to it (Then he goes back again at the 1:10:45 mark and again during the whole story section, still wrong). I don't even know where this idea comes from because the Daunt has too many differences to the area around Meridian for this mistake to be made. Maybe i'm mistaken but the jungle areas are to the West of meridian? None of those trees or flora are in the Daunt along with snowcapped highlands near the mountains.
- I get the whole argument about how the Main quests feels like fetch quests thing. But you can't say the side quests offer these amazing plot hooks to keep you invested while ignoring direct plot points between GAIA needing Aloy to get the three subfunctions and going to Thebes for the Omega Clearance. In fact, there's ALOT of exposition as to why without even engaging in asking dialogue questions, GAIA outright tells you she needs HEPHAESTUS and she needs the each things to do so. While walking you through it. And each one leads to it's own questline linked to it, like the Oseram who help make the Rebreather who want to access Las Vegas while Aloy needs POSIEDON. The main story has various plot issues but this isn't one.
- Completely agree about Aloy's character. It could be better and she could deal with losing people in far better ways. I could say much the same about Rost in the first game and it continues with Varl. Really the strong character archetype would be fine if the story wasn't so adverse to challenging her on well anything. Hekkarro is the only character that outright tells her no and no amount of her bullshit is gonna get him to help unless she helps him fix his problem. Sure it's not much but it's significantly better than the rest of the story not willing to challenge her because she's either "The Saviour of Meridian" or "The One who Defeated Grudda". Granted, "Hekarro's Champion" wasn't much fkin better but it was nice while it lasted. Everything about Tilda is true too, that shit was weird af but she's a villain, I assumed I was supposed to find her creepy and unlikable.
- The review conflates two very different systems that touch the same thing. I get the crafting/upgrading can feel tedious but for ammo? Ammunition is not hard to come by unless you really are just wasting arrows and spears by the dozens on burrowers. I know Blastpaste, Machine Bones, and Volatile Sludge are far too limited in your inventory but there's zero reason as to why you are hurting for those when anything Hard and under doesn't really remove those from the loot pool. Now upgrading, that's just fkin broken and needed heavy tweaks (especially any kind of sac webbing and the insane amount of tremortusk tusks needed) but that's not ammo. Ammo/item crafting doesn't come close to that. Even then you went on this long tangent of how you'd prefer to have people or your companions to trade ammo for or whatever. You can just buy Canisters, Blastpaste, e.t.c. from some vendors (some even take animal parts over machine shards). On at least normal difficulty, if there's a companion fighting with you they literally drop ammo of whatever you have out or some weapon you have in your inventory on the ground which you can collect (they may be farmable, no idea I've never been that strapped for ammo for anything to try it).
- Why did you even go to that interactive map and put up ALL the icons some of which ARE NOT on the game map? I'm not gonna say the game's open world is the best but that is disingenous af even with the blurb you put at the bottom. More than half of those wouldn't be on the map nor would you even be looking for it unless you wanted to like all the Datapoints and shit like that. Greenshine doesn't show up unless you make a job for it. And even without saying you without getting tallnecks, if you do you can remove each and every icon on the game map. This entire point is bullshit because you went to this interactive map and not the game map which again gives you the option of completely removing all the icons. The game goes so far to remove pathfinding and waypoints on your hud if you want.
- Look, clearly Luke doesn't like the game. I get that, but there is too much here that's wrong to take this seriously. This game has many flaws and issues but all Luke is doing is throwing bullshit at the wall and hoping it sticks. He had to have turned his brain off after wasting, yes wasting, 10 hours in the Daunt. Who knows because he had to skip cutscenes or just not pay attention to be this mistaken about parts of the game. Like I said, HFW has many issues and I'd tell you the story is not good but not for many of the reasons Luke pushed out. Most of his gameplay issues really feel like a skill issue because I can't imagine being so strapped for ammo in Normal difficulty or lower.
- Fuck that Halo 2 ass cliffhanger ending, everybody should agree on that shit.
The map icons are directly tied to the gameplay loop you criticized earlier, the developers probably felt like it would be more convenient to show the location of enemies because the inventory management is tied directly to drops from them
Personally I think the game is at its best when your just exploring beautiful locations like Forests, underwater areas or gliding down something and enjoying the view.
But something I really find annoying is the writing of the game. Aloy is in my description is Lara Croft being treated like Jesus and all her friends are not really friends but basically blind followers. Thank you for saving my tribe now let me repay you by following you around and telling you how great you are.
Edit: Something I've always wanted to see in the horizon games is a companion for Aloy. Something like Joel and Ellie, Kratos and Atreus or Booker and Elizabeth
Agreed. The only somewhat interesting character was Sylens. In the first game I enjoyed the backstory while the current events were just boring. I was afraid that the sequel would suffer greatly with the backstory already covered and so it did. The problem with the characters is that they just are not believable for me. They live in harsh tribal environment but often act and talk like millennials or something. The game is a nice and flashy shell with no substance
yeah like exploring the areas on a clawstrider was my favorite part of the game
in a tribalistic game where suddenly someones riding a machine would be like if jesus came riding on a mystic horse people never knew existed and ride. so yeah in that sense yes. and lets be honest... the whole follower thing is relatively common in a lot of video games. like skyrim for example. where if you do certain quests people start to talk different to you. so why is it so weird in this game???
@@jerevarri7094 damn thats the most invalid comment ever. no substance? damn if you call this story and game a flashy empty shell then i fear for what DOES have a shell... characters have a lot more personality for one compared to the previous game. the only negative points i have are these: more bugs than the previous games and visual glitches. plus the game is starting to feel pretentious with trans/gay characters
Yeap. Aloy is an absolute horrible main character, made even worse by overall bad writing in these games.
Ehhh… I’m confused about the opening area critique. It’s not the same as the first game? Like literally a small sequence of the final boss level is the same when we meet the Sun King guy, but everything else afterwards is new, the settlement is also new. Am I missing something?
I had the same impression. did he play another game? I don't think this is the same area as in the first game. luke exchanges completely here.
no, you are right, i pointed out the same thing
@@mindwipe80 It's not the same area. I think it was just a simple way of saying an area really similar to the first game.
56:10 unless I'm missing something, both things you described are in both games. You are able to sell machine parts (if you so wish) AND almost every hunting merchant sells ammo crafting material for shards
I thought it was very good. Bow and spike thrower combat, new enemies, environments, sound design, voice acting, lighting, cinematics, and animations were all top notch. For me, it also helped to turn off quest markers and play on very hard. I didn't quite like the story as much though, and I do wish there was more meaningful secrets in the game though.
Same this game received a bunch of hate and a bunch of silent applause. my one and only complaint is that the story felt too short for me
@@GLITCHED1 That's why you do side quests too...
@@maxdrags3115 I completed the game 100%...
@@GLITCHED1the story and like 3-4 side quests took me about 45 hours, if completing the game 100% taking about 60-80 hours isnt enough, then your standards are too high. just look at assassins creed valhalla and how horrible the side content is. not to mention they added a literal checklist when they should have done it like odyssey or the witcher 3. question marks over locations so you wont know what to expect and whether or not youll find a side quest, merchant, or anything interesting or useful
@@NikoKuehneHe’s not wrong about the story being short, it’s like 15 main quests. In all fairness everyone plays the game at a different pace and I think Horizon Forbidden West opens the possibility for people to 100% the game in 80 hours, or simply 40.
I can't disagree more about the title. It is twice as good as the first game in every single way.
Thank you, another sane person!
Except the story.
@@Spoopy_man Well, the backstory isn't as interesting bc we know much already but the main story is much better here too bc characters are better etc.
0x2 is still 0
@@Himmyjewett That's just not true and you know it. Both games got very good reviews and fans love them.
I loved this game, and I loved the first one. It's a worthy sequel that enhances and improves the stuff that worked well in the first game.
Also, it doesn't take 10 hours to get to the first proper area (the area around Chainscrape). The first tutorial area up until the Slitherfang fight is fairly short (it took me maybe a couple of hours at the most), and all you have to in Meridian is climb the tower and watch a hologram that sends you off to the main quest. Even if you speak with every single character there, it'll take you 20 minutes at the most. Then you're off to start the main quest.
Yeah idk why he said it took 10 hours before you head west. I took my time talking to the npcs and exploring a little and it took me no more than 2 hours
Because he probably thinks tha The Daunt was in previous game as well.
This game has me mixed, because Zero Dawn was one of my top 5 favorite games from last gen, loved the twist about her origin and everything. This sequel is better in every way from a gameplay perspective, but the story was meh to me, and the indoor puzzle areas inside the facilities really bring the pacing down. I was really hoping that Guerrilla would have their Naughty Dog/Uncharted 2 moment with this game, and blow us all away, but it showed little growth from the first game. I had fun with Forbidden West in spurts, and it’s still a very good game.
It was just more Horizon and for 2 open world games to be 90% the same is like playing one Assassins Creed for 200 hours. It is not fun. I am glad the platinum was easier then the 1st game and was done with it fairly sooner than expected.
the best part of Zero Dawn was the story and this game just didn’t deliver in that aspect. The zeniths lacked development, and nemesis was shoed in at the last second out of nowhere. I also just couldn’t get invested into any of the side characters except for Tilda, and her turning on Aloy felt extremely forced. Honestly I wish you had the choice to just dip out into space with her.
Man same. Sameee
The main story was worst in Forbidden West but the side quest and gameplay are so much better, even after 30 hours I have to much to do and having lots of fun
I played the 2nd game first and had so many questions, witch probably made me love the 1st game even more..
You… you spent 30 hours in that tiny meridian section that should have taken like 20 minutes?
*claims that he is familiar with the first game*
Yeah the Daunt was in Zero dawn totally
He spent 30 hours just staring at one dumb statue in one location. He didnt give this game even chance IMO. Most of his critiques are out and makes me feel that he just didn't get it. He didn't get story, combat, etc.
They could have easily solved the whole “stoic” trope and gave Aloy emotional depth with Varl’s death. She made it clear that she doesn’t want anyone hurt and it’s her burden to carry, and Varl’s death proves that point right. She could have lost her shit with everyone and left, cause in her mind she’s right to do it alone, and ended up in a situation that couldn’t be solved alone and gave her a moment of weakness, only to be saved by the people she loves the most, and from this point on she could stop being such a bland stoic protagonist and actually open up cause you know, the power of friendship or whatever, and it would have only been a few hours of gameplay. It’s not feminine to have a moment of weakness or be open with people, it’s human, which we all relate to.
That was the whole point of her arc in HZD tho.
I think they just botched this. HZD should have been a standalone thing, cut the retarded tacked on cliffhanger and it's chef's kiss.
What's wrong with a woman being feminine? Lol.
@@LoneLoboX88 They never said that. But it’s a common trope these days in film, television or video games where a “strong female character” must have no moments of weakness, should be all-capable, and are able to always rescue themselves.
Having moments of weakness or relying on others doesn’t make a woman any less than she is, and neither are they feminine traits. If the writers would just have Aloy open up more, she wouldn’t be a boring and bland main character.
@@MaajidM oh she's had plenty of weaknesses in this and the previous. The irony is that people still complain about it when they are brought up
Damned if she is and damned if she isnt
@@roonkolos You may be right, she still is boring af
Luke,
I love your reviews and usually agree with you on 90% of criticisms. This is one game where we don’t see eye to eye. This is a 9.5/10 game for me. Loved the world, the story, the characters, melee combat drastically evolved, and love the many new weapons and more RPG mechanics. I do have issues with some of the climbing, it’s a little forced and not particulate “free flowing” very set paths. Not a huge fan of that. Also found it easy to steamroll side quest and farm for material to upgrade equipment very quickly which allowed me to become super OP early on, even on very hard. Going to try out the hardest difficulty on new game+. The music was also so immersive and electrifying. Some of the collectibles are bland forsure, but you get a legendary weapon when completing all them. The voice acting and performances are also on the level of last of us and in some points is even better. Every conversation is so personal and face to face really made me connect with the world. The combat is so fluid with all the new movement mechanics as well. You can pull off some badass moves and become a legendary machine hunter. You can approach comes guns blazing or use at Stealth and traps. The options are endless. The strategy for approaching different animals in the wild is so engaging too. Each machine has different strengths and weaknesses too and different parts to shoot off that you need to upgrade loot. Makes it important to target weak spots and parts you need. There is A LOT of loot I haven’t even touched because the stats seem meh. This is definitely a $70 game as well. Way more than just a DLC for zero Dawn. This is a masterpiece of a game and vastly improves on the first one. I also loved the mega sci-fi plot, I can def see why people don’t like that, insane sci-fi plots always get people riled up for some reason. I’m hyped for the 3rd game especially after the ending!
This game is boring as shit bro , but that’s just my opinion
@@chowder7498 It's not just your opinion. The game is the definition of boring.
I absolutly agree with you. Love this franchise.
Bro I’d ignore those last two comments I absolutely adored this game and had so much fun this was one of the first games aside from the last of us II where I set my phone down turned the lights off and put the head phones on and just explored and played and I had such a fun time with it and I agree with what you said I can see some issues here and there but I had so much fun and think they definitely stepped it up by a lot from the first game
It's pretty outrageous to claim the first 10 to 15 hours are spent in the same area as the first game. That's absolute nonsense, I don't understand how anyone could make that mistake. Did you even look up at those mountains? Should have been corrected a long time ago. I spent 6 great hours there, several side quests included. Come on, man...
Literally the only repeated area is Meridian. There are no side quests, and if you spend 10-15 hours there, you shouldn't be allowed to touch a videogame ever again.
I maybe missed something in the first game, but apart from the really brief time in Meridian, everything was new to me.
I also didn’t agree with the point about the combat system. It became so good! Very engaging.
@@Yosya8059 No, didn't miss anything. Like you said, everything but the brief Meridian visit it is 100% new.
It is a similar biome, I guess, but without placing the areas irrationally far apart from one another that will happen.
I'm conflicted about your points regarding Aloy. On one hand, I don't entirely disagree with what you're saying, but on the other hand, there are some very clear reasons as to why she is as stiff as she is. The way I read it was that she can't exactly afford to be vulnerable. She knows her place in the world and her importance within it and its greater conflicts. I feel like Aloy is rather forced to suppress all emotion because she feels like she can't be weak. This is likely because, knowing that she's facing similarly impossible challenges as Sobeck did, she's trying to live up to that personal expectation of her's. Therefore, to let her hardships and her traumas infiltrate her mind would be to weaken herself which she can not do due to the stakes of the overarching plot.
As we see in some of the few pieces of dialogue and writing with and regarding Elisabet (notably that conversation with Travis in the earlier hours of the game), she too was forced to forsake many of the things that we would consider "human" in order to overcome the impossible challenges she was faced with. That being said, once again, I feel like Aloy is trying to live up to that image of Sobeck and so is forced to be as emotionless as possible because she knows that she will fail if she lets any of her insecurities into her mind. We get a little taste of this actually if you interact with some of the items in The Base. She opens up a bit about her struggles but almost always also reminds herself that she's gotta move on and that she can't let that pain hold her back.
I think it would be particularly interesting if we did see her reach that boiling point in a third game. It could acknowledge her suppression of her emotions in a full blown breakdown where she's finally forced to face everything she's been bottling up inside her. After the events of the first two games, it would feel fitting to have that payoff and really delve into who she is as she, herself, has not had that luxury due to the burden placed on her shoulders.
Aloy was unlikeable in this one rather than the previous Horizon.
@@Dae... literally just the same character lmao y’all so extra
@@Alexis-no4yj same characters can act differently, why you so extra extra?
Well that’s just your headcanon and even then Sobeck was flawed i mean you the head of the entire project to bring life to the world after the war against the machines, the one that keep in line the mentally ill man capable of ruining the project choose to sacrifice herself rather than some disposable foot soldier just because you have to be the beacon of hope? the martyr? the perfect example of what Aloy has to be? That’s just bad writing
@@lofvers8907 Exactly, some small glimpses of what made her so stiff would go a long way to explain and accept the character she's become.
Compare Aloy to the Master Chief from Halo: Chief is also very stiff, but it is explained that he has been trained and augmented to be that way. So you kind of feel a connection to the supersoldier that is Master Chief, because you can imagine going through such a treatment and becoming that way yourself.
I absolutely loved this game. As much as I loved the first game, this one was way better IMO.
Offcourse you did.
@@vinodchhabria8738 Are you suggesting I didn't? Are you suggesting I can't hold a different opinion from someone else?
sure, i mean games suit different people i thought the first game was decent and i was not wasting my time playing but if it’s a reskin of the first game with minor changes i don’t think the price is justified
@@stylesyx1529 It is an entirely different story and this time she has friends to help her.
@@Old_Red the story is significantly worse and the mystery of where/when/who you are is discovered in the first game leaving nothing to look forward to in the 2nd game
Also for characters and the beginning area, this game takes place like 0 seconds after the first. Like it is an IMMEDIATE connection, so it makes sense her personality continues. She grew up in isolation and in general is a no nonsense person.
Like it's constantly shown that Aloy doesn't really want people around her, and tbf I don't think she cares that much outside like a basic level. She doesn't consider Varl or Erend as close as they consider her.
She's constantly been shown showing vulnerability and emotion gets her nowhere
Aloy was personable and energetic in the first game. Aloy in forbidden west is autistic and socially inept. If she was raised in isolation, why does she have to be turned off by socializing? Why can’t she enjoy it because she never had it before?
@@michaelmcqueeferton6911 I mean she constantly states that it would slow her down. If the game was set immediately after the first game, she could have had time to settled before setting out again, but it isn't the case so she's all just go go go.
@@shubhamnipanikar2353 yes. That's because that's per personality. As it showed in the first. And it's more of a few months after the first game since she spent some time looking for what she was at the start. Even the shieldweaver being out of power directly shows this
Even though that's a lie because it takes place 5 months after the first game
No it's not, it's 6 months later. And her personality changed entirely.
Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. Fortunately we do not need to share those opinions.
I wholeheartely disagree and I honestly don't know which game this guy has been playing, but it sure as hell wasn't the same game I played and experienced.
WHERE IS HE GETTING 10 HOURS FOR THE START??
How long did it take you to get to the horizon forbidden west title? I think it took me like 12 hours lol he ain’t lyin
@pievancl5457 the title card is directly after the tutorial mission with Varl. Idk if it shows up again cuz I'm only a few hours in but that's where it pops up for the FIRST time
Finally reached the final boss yesterday. Used up all my heals in the penultimate boss, so I am now locked into the final boss with hardly any health refills with no way to get any more. Absolute masterpiece
Just don’t die 🤷♂️
@@asopher simple as
@@asopher Genius, how didn't I think of that?
Put the difficulty to story and it’s impossible to die.
@@Bane03X that's actually a great idea, now I can see the *thrilling* conclusion to this *amazing* game
some crazy details you got wrong, feels like an overall invalid discourse of horizon when so many things are just incorrect
Luke, usually I find your reviews right on target, but I think you are off track here. I can't get past the first 15 minutes of this video because your comments about the first part of the game are simply factually inaccurate. Maybe I am misunderstanding, but the Daunt IS a new map area where you have never been before. The only duplicated area is the Spire mesa, where you spend a mere 30 minutes linking back to characters from HZD. Once you leave there, you are in a new map area once again--the Daunt. Furthermore, you can clear this area in about 1 hour if you are anxious to get to the actual "Forbidden West". There is no problem with this pacing at all. The game points you on to the main quest objectives and into Barren Light and the Embassy if you want to go straight down that path, and it lets you get there quickly if you like. If you prefer to take time to sample the side quests, you can do that too. It's the player's call. Players who spend 15 hours in the Daunt are going to spend 70+ hours (not 30) in the rest of the game, because they are trying for a 100%-type playthrough, doing all the side quests and collectibles.
This man just read the synopsis of the story from Horizon Wiki because he couldn’t be bothered actually putting in work to understand story and characters. So I did it kinda lazy which is hilarious because he says game is lazy. 🤷🏻♂️
I really don't understand your point about the opening area. The Daunt is a new map, you only go back to Meridian for maybe 1h and that's all.
the instant i heard him say that he lost all credibility in my eyes. held him to such a high regard but misinformation gets me. I instantly unsubbed, these critique come form an AC lover?
The ammo items vendors idea is literally in the game..... How can you go into a 10-15 minute rant about something ("ammo grinding") where the solution to the "problem" is already in the game...
Ammo is also given during story missions so I’m confused about the grind ever even happening
Because he’s trying too hard to complain.
Sadly, ends up looking like a moron in the process.
Hi Luke! I agree with most of your critique except the opening area of Meridian. I think it was super important to have it (otherwise I would be constantly asking what is Meridian execs doing during the gaming. I kinda worked and saved them). Plus seeing all characters with upgraded graphics and animation was awesome
Problem is he also mistaked the area after Meridian to be an Area that is in Zero Dawn which it wasnt
I absolutely loved this game. I couldn't get enough.
Same i ended up getting the plat. I do agree that if you are going for certain things game feels long but the combat and world are solid i didn't 100 plus hours ive put into it.
@@jimmykrabklaw1216 the best part of the game is I got plat without even realizing lol
Actual NPC game 😂😂
Same. I really don't get all the hate... I mean, sure it's not perfect, but no game is.
@@magnem1043 Beware of the elite gamers, they're going far in life
I thought the game was great, even though i agree with most of your points. The only thing I really disagree with is your opinion on resource gathering and how much ammo it takes to take down the machines. I really didn't have this problem, I played on hard and ammo and stuff was never an issue. I pretty much just killed most machines I came across and gathered resources as I went along the missions but never felt like I had to go out of my way to find resources for ammo and what not. Now gathering all the parts for upgrades, especially for the purple and legendary weapons, yeah, that is a grind, but you dont need to do it to beat the game or take out any of the machines. Thats more of an end of game activity for people who really want to get everything they can.
I had the same experience. I think he was using ammo inefficiently and rather than placing shots tactically he went "controller bad" and "must be bad game balance". If you use elemental weaknesses, tear off components, and use valor surges the ammo shouldn't be an issue
I disagree. I played this game on ultra hard on my first play through and ammo was definitely an issue. Maybe it’s not an issue on hard idk
@@michaelmcqueeferton6911 His take was about the base difficulty that the game was balanced for. I bet you're right that it's an issue on higher difficulties. Idk the right way to balance that for players like you who enjoy the harder challenge, but his take is inaccurate for the basic difficulty setting
@@grell9296 yeah, Im wondering if its that, or maybe he wants to spam the expensive weapon types, or maybe he doesn't know he can sell everything he collects for shards, I think I had about 20 000 shards by the time I finished the game, and I still had an absolute tone of machine parts. As far as elemental goes, I used the freeze arrows the most and still never had less than 100 chillwater, even still you can buy that stuff with shards too if you really want.
Before I can even see this video, here is my take (which no one will care about but here it goes anyway): I really liked the gameplay, the expansion to what Zero Dawn provided felt solid, if not a bit basic at times, but it still had the frantic feeling of a hunt most of the way through. The scaling was and still is a mess, making melee overpowered early on, but pretty mediocre late game, but it was an overall solid experience that I had a lot of fun with, just from a moment to moment experience.
In regards to the Open World: The game barely evolved in terms of world structure and therefore feels like a good (to great depending on your taste) 2017 open world in the year 2022, but with better graphics. It's design feels dated through and through even though I adored the world as a whole. And it has to be said: The PS4 version is superbly done.
The stronger focus on companions was pulled off in the most unnatural way possible, with everyone getting their eye to eye chat with Aloy after each mission. Every! Fucking! Time! It felt so formulaic that it got tiring even though I like those characters. I rather would have wanted them more by my side as AI companions to expand on their personality in more normal ways, like basic chatter between fights. Also, while the worth of friendship and teamwork was a major part of the story, it didn't manifest in any meaningful way as Aloy wasn't really saved or supported by anyone - of her team - until the very last mission, which was just a very roughly coordinated assault with a lot of "you'll surely figure it out" thrown in.
The story feels like it was written by multiple people that didn't come to an agreement with it's pacing and themes. With a third person, some fanfic ghostwriter, fucking up the ending to no end with a deus ex machina as invincible cliffhanger and a goddamn lovestory coming out of nowhere (yes, there were obvious signs) just to serve up an underwhelming final boss fight in the name of personal liberation (which Aloy could have gotten anyway if they had focused more on Beta and how the "sisters" bond with each other. Liberty in family/community is such a good theme to write about, but it was barely expanded upon, just hinted at more or less).
Furthermore the story has now lost all it's grounding with the ending in FW, leading to some sort of talk no jutsu or Cyberpunk type of finale that tears out the series' roots and will probably make it feel disjointed. The shift in tone already started in FW.
So yes, while I liked the game and in fact I loved most of it, the ending and the uneventful middle of the story made it really hard to suck me into the tale, with the ending more or less eradicating all anticipation I had for the end of the trilogy.
When games do 'building the team' like Forbidden West, it feels like they are chasing the greatness of Mass Effect 2. But that worked because your allies could come with you, so I agree about that.
I just struggle to think that games like God of War Ragnarok, Elden Ring, and Legend of Zelda all have similar release windows as Horizon yet people decide to play this game and wonder why not everyone is talking about it. Its just so generic compared to the ladder games that no one really wants to put time into this game.
This in one of the best games I’ve ever played but I defenetly see the negatives, but compared to other games releasing these days this game makes me feel good
I actually loved the game.. but the only.. ONLY problem that I have. Which happens to be a big Important one. . What really is a missed opportunity and could've broaden the whole story including part 1 Zero Dawn to a close and elevate part 2 Forbidden West to a next level.. let see I try to be vague to avoid spoilers..
But THE Guy who made all this happen.. to be in that building with all those people. And the thing happend. I expected to have a an actual conversation/ explanation or a big fight. I mean it was a big thing getting there. The whole building and premise of that development was really a big thing and tragic.
The events there were atrocious.
And just to silence it like that.
The person who started this whole mess in the first place. To just.. poof like that.. major problem with that.
But everything else the Zeniths everything Storyline was interesting for the next one. Cause it wide open now.
But like I said. That chapter. That arc.. missed opportunity
You should probably diversify the games you play. If this is one of the best games you've ever played, you're either an idiot or you honestly have zero experience with non triple A shite.
Then u need to play better games if that pile of trash is one of the best games u played
@@HorribleNimbo you're the one who needs to play more games if you think this is trash, lol. See what "trash" actually means.
@@kowxley1793 imagine defending a Ubisoft clone pile of trash lmao. How does that Ubisoft boot taste?
My main gripe was how much Aloy talked about everything and wouldn't allow me to discover them on my own specially puzzles which she spoiled every single one! It was incredibly annoying. She just refused to shut up. After finishing the main story and upgrading everything there's nothing else to do and come back to except enjoy the beautiful scenery.
That's gaming today. Handholding... Developers these days think gamers are too stupid to figure something out by themselves.
I've said it once before, and I'll say it again: HZD had the exact same problem. The difference this time was that HFW had way more puzzles.
Still hoping they patch in the ability to turn that off, like they did for the item grab animations.
I was pretty ok with it. I have no desire to waste an hour figuring out a puzzle that takes 3 minutes to complete.
I wouldn't say she spoiled it but it did help a LOT.
Yeah she was talking alllll the time.. but when i was halfway the game. They fixed it with that patch.. huge difference hahaa. She was driving me crazy.. I kept yelling at the TV.. I KNOW SHERLOCK!!!🤣🤣
I don't mind the talking, but I do mundo that the talking is she explaining what you should do
Main reason I think players change difficulty would be for arena and weapon upgrade farming/resource gathering. Ammo didn’t really seem like an issue at least for me since you tend to get it from ally’s during missions. I think it was also pointed out that the difficulty could be customized wrt resource gathering (easy loot) so players aren’t really sliding the difficulty all the time.
Main proboem is theres no difficulty in this game they jst deal more or less dmg and the loot and thats it trash lazy game
@@worldclassishot8554 I think it’s different on ultra hard as it’s claimed enemies are more aggressive but I guess maybe it’s tied to damage
The Arena's were clearly not designed for the hardest difficulty because it's almost impossible to kill some of the bigger robots in the required time limit
I had to lower the difficulty one level in order to finish the last few Arena battles which did feel kind of bad. But overall I found the games difficulty pretty balanced and with enough of a challenge to keep you on your toes
@@XxWolfxWaRioRxX maybe if you’re talking about the fixed load out challenges, but anything that allows you to have your load out can be completed fairly easily once you have reached the end-game with max upgraded legendaries.
I play on easy mode so i can just relax and play it like i am watching a movie or series.. if i wanted a challenge i would have changed it but felt like I didn’t need it
To be fair, the majority of the korok seed puzzles were also pretty mundane, some I probably wouldn't even consider puzzles. Lots of reused puzzles slightly changed just to fill the world with like 900 of them.
I love your videos, and you're certainly entitled to your opinion, but I gotta disagree with you on this one. I love Forbidden West. I can't really think of a single thing I don't like about the game. Different tokes for different folks, I suppose.
Right. I think he was being too critical with the puzzles and Aloy's character. I did agree with his sentiments about crafting and upgrades.
@@nwospidey5782 a lot of people overlook aloy's character. To each their own of course, but when I see stuff like that, it just makes me think they weren't really paying attention
Dialogs are worse
@@itze_ Dialogue is fine.
thanks for being mature about it. a lot of people have nonsensical emotional responses
Aloy just seems like she's in a bad mood all the time. Even when people are thanking her, her responses seem "snappish" or like "yeah, yeah, whatever."
@ThatVanceGuy I feel bad for the people around you then.
I actually feel like Aloy a lot of the time with the characters she’s up against. I think she’s bored by their whining, or complaining or “problem requests” just as I was, but knows she needs to do a majority of it if she wants ppl on side to save the world.
The only character she seems to have any genuine emotion towards is Sylens and he’s not around for about 30 hours.
@@ryuhayabaker Lots of npcs had problems in the first game as well and she didn't have 1/10th of the attitude. What's worse is that this attitude follows her on a bunch of side-missions...things that she doesn't have to do if she doesn't want to do it. An example is the armor building contest. Whenever somebody thanks her, for minor or major things, she has clenched teeth type of "you're welcome".
I suppose to put in a real life example, it would be like you leaving a grocery store and on the way to your car you see a little girl at a table selling girl scout cookies. You then walk over and buy those cookies and then give an annoyed expression and response when they say thank you. You didn't have to buy the cookies, but you're coping an attitude nontheless.
@@coreymartin5981I never had that Impression but i play on german and the voice actor maybe portrayed it different
Aloy was so annoying that it made me quit the game after the first 10 hours... and the story and characters were just so boring that i just dropped the game all together
I understand your complaints about explorations, but I just think they wanted to make a fun game, ya I wish I could climb like in breath of the wild with uncharted 4 style climbing but I loved the puzzle to it, simple but good, and the glider is just a fun mechanic, its simple as hell but its an important addition to make this game traversal quick and fun, its also an excuse to look at the map which is breathtaking
It's not a 'puzzle'. The Focus tells you where to climb. The climbing is artificial and tedious.
Not sure what your talking about in the traversal in the first game, i never felt limited to a certin area. you could quite easily explore outside of where you where "suppose" to go by jumping/climbing on the rockey terrain, that still exists, you just need to use your imagination and think about how you want to go. Ladders arnt the only way to get around. You can basicly get to the Zenith base by doing this. Even though the whe area is "blacked out" you can still travel there.
The entire "Aloy isn't vulnerable enough" line of critique seems silly. This is an open world action game. Open world action game protagonists are always like 99% badass and 1% vulnerable in a couple cutscenes. In HFW Aloy gets owned by the Zeniths twice. You can't compare Aloy's character arc to a game like TLOU. Compare it to assassin's creed or ghost of tsushima. Protagonists in those games are similarly 99% badass.
He didn't play on Hard for sure. I got countless death by one hit. And i already played over 100 hours on HZD.
@@kreimsnta i was getting my ass whopped all the time, i thought i was playing on hard, nop, i was playing in normal, and i dont consider my self bat at these games, it rlly gets challenging, but once you have good weapons, with good ammo, and hit on weak points it makes you feel like a bad ass
What made me crazy about this game, also Ghost of Tsushima, is that they make this big beautiful open world to look at, albeit kinda boring to explore, but then make your character take up half the screen and give us no FOV slider. I genuinely feel like I would have enjoyed this game more if I could have zoomed out a bit.
Devs severely underutilize FOV options
In what world is ghost of Tsushimas world boring to explore
Are you serious right now that's your complaint? Lol
One thing I wish they changed since the first game was to stop making aloy shift to different sides of the screen depending on how I position the camera lol its really annoying since I want her centered or just on one side
@@TheSynysterGamer Big problem for me gave me serious motion sickness only game to give me that actually.
Thanks Luke for your review! I've watched many of your videos and this is the first time I have the opposite feeling about a certain game. I kinda like HFW and enjoyed my time in it. I re-thinked about why is that for some time and my thoughts are:
1. I've not played Horizon Zero Dawn before, so everything is new to me.
2. I've not being expecting HFW. In fact, I played it long after it was released. So my expectation for it is low.
3. I played a lot end game staff, like trophy grinding, ultra hard challenge and gear upgrades. I found myself enjoy these most and they are not what you've been reviewing.
I'm happy to find these out. And always looking forward to your next video!
I liked Forbidden West a lot, but many of these criticisms are valid, particularly the crafting upgrades. This affected the combat overall. The biggest issue for me was how everything felt so cookie-cutter and "Ubisoftified". The first game was like that as well but it is really starting be unlikable.
This is a baffling review. A large part of your critique is based on stuff that isn’t true. The first 15 hours you keep mentioning don’t take place in the original map. Like, at all. Also… that section doesn’t take 15 hours. You can get through it in literally 30 minutes. I normally like your reviews but this one is a head scratcher.
so he took his time to really understand it and you're mad.. I think this game is bad, because so many kids are in the comments defending it blindly without good proof
@ I’m pretty sure my (year old) comment you’re referring to is accusing him of NOT taking his time to understand the game. Also I’m 41 but I appreciate you calling me a kid.
Quite a few people in the comments are rightfully pointing out that he got basic facts about the game wrong.
I feel like you played this game wrong. If you are spending countless hours hunting for parts then you are doing something wrong. Sure certain weapons require certain materials. But the game allows you to make jobs so you know exactly where everything is. Other materials are easy to find if you just explore the world, pick up items, etc. Also if you're upgrading every single weapon you have you are not studying game mechanics properly and are essentially wasting time.
On the topic of Aloy being too stoic, I think people are missing a big point. Aloy was an outsider for most of her life, she was shunned, and raised by a father figure who was strict himself. Aloy was never socialized to show emotions or vulnerabilities. She is hardened because of the life she had led for many years. And that feeling isn't something that just goes away after getting a couple of friends. Her not showing emotion at Varls passing shouldn't be seen as a sign of poor character development, instead I think that moment presents an idea that sometimes we cannot afford ourselves the luxury of vulnerability, even if it is to mourn a friend. Because there are, sadly, bigger things that need to be accomplished and this is a theme throughout the entire game.
i really liked how they handled Varl's death in regards to Aloy's reaction, and I think it is really true to who she is built up to be across the two games. During an optional conversation Aloy mentions that if she stopped to mourn her friend, she would break and not be able to do what needs to be done. I think it was really subtle and an echo of what she lived through the first game with Rost. Beautifully done in my opinion
I didn't think Aloy was bland in the first game, because I think she had a proper character arc, but in the second not much was expanded or explored with her aside from the beginning where she explains the weight and stress she feels trying to save the world.
That still doesn’t change the moment to moment blandness, just a typical unintelligent rpg character that asks a gazillion dumb questions.
How you missed the hammered in message of the game I'm not sure, her arc in this one is accepting help. She's willing to shoulder all of this stress and responsibility but she doesn't need to do it alone.
@@isdrakon9802 And yet, she does. The other characters were again background noise. Only Sylens with his use of disarming the Zenith's shields was any use, and beyond that he too was just another background character.
i hated in the first game everyone looked like they were glass eyed and robotic yet in forbidden west they move around in the cutscenes
@@isdrakon9802 how did you miss the arc in AC Valhalla: the 1000 side quests ate just there to hammer in your head that you shoulder all the Burdon.
This is not about fun, this game is about Burdon.
27:42 there's a Ghost in the background... No joke, kid in the background is running towards them then vanishes in midrun
I never understood the “this sequel is just a big expansion for the previous game” argument. I think I understand that you expect greater gameplay innovation and tweaking between releases, but I think this approach is just as viable an option as the other. I, of course, had gripes while playing the game, but I ultimately wanted another Horizon game; therefore, I wasn’t unimpressed with what was delivered. Granted, I’m not critically analyzing games for TH-cam videos, but I do enjoy critiquing things, and this line of thinking never made sense to me. It’s similar to the reboot Tomb Raider games. Each game built on the mechanics of the previous one, and I think they turned out fairly well. Rise of the Tomb Raider has been on multiple decade end lists iirc. I think it’s just a different strategy for a sequel, but it’s not invalid.
You expect more of the same from an expansion, you expect new stuff on top of more of the same in a sequel (or a completely different thing, depends, but not the same).
Tomb Raider is a somewhat good example because indeed the "new stuff" was basically nothing. Rise starts becoming tiresome by the mid point and shadow is just garbage.
This is a modern tendency anyway, to do stuff like Nioh and Nioh 2.
Basically it's a matter of giving the feeling of playing/watching something new instead of going forward with the same. It doesn't have to be mechanics or content in particular.
You admit that you have lower expectations than others who aren’t as big fans as you would, and then you say you don’t understand other people criticizing the game? You are a hypocrite
You literally said “i dont expect/want much from this so i dont care that not much new was done” and then “criticism of this game doesnt make sense to me”
I wasn't really expecting it to be anything than more of the same with gameplay improvements so I agree. Although I have played 60+ hours of it, but for some reason I have just not been able to get back into it after I got a bit bored and started playing Elden ring. To me one of the bigger problems was yes technically I could turn the difficulty down, and about 30-40 hours in I did turn on the mode where I didn't need to shoot off specific parts to get upgrades for weapons and gear because I felt especially with the rare ones. It just became an unneeded amount of padding in case you make a mistake getting the most rare parts. What really slowed down my enjoyment though was I would get very invested in the main story and yes my OCD for open world games does kick in where I want to go and do everything that upgrades me and do a ton of side missions before moving forward. But it was actually needed, after the world first open up I was in one of those places where you get what you need to take over new machines and it was literally impossible for me to defeat the machine as it would one shot me. And that would be fine, but what I don't like is that I feel I should be able to get enough XP to be leveled up enough to be able to just play the main missions if I so choose to ignore the side quests and that is literally impossible. So I'd get really invested in the story, but I ended up playing the main story in 1-3 hour chunks with almost 8-10 hours of side quests in between. Making me lose track of the smaller details of the story, or lose emotional context/investment. The game really would have benefited to have some kind of recap that you could choose to watch between loads. That being said I do think it has some of the best written side stories of any of this type of open world RPG. I'm want to try and give it another 5 hour shot to pull me back in and just focus on the main stuff because I now have all the skill tree abilities I want, every legendary weapon and the armor I want to use for the rest of the game. Just need to feel the urge to go back and play it :p
I'd say Shadow of the Tomb raider was very different from the first two and was worse off because of it. It leaned to heavily on stealth without having good enough stealth mechanics in my opinion. And to me was a big disappointment because I felt the first two were really great games
@@AshVsEvilFred I’ve 100 percented this game. I am a huge fan. I never said I had low expectations. I said I expected Forbidden West to keep the same gameplay mechanics of its predecessor and build on top of them, hence why I don’t understand his criticism. His opinions are obviously valid. This line of thinking - that the direct sequel to a game somehow must innovate over the previous title rather than simply build from where it left off - doesn’t make sense to me, because the overhauling of mechanics and the addition of new ones does not inherently mean the final product will be better than simply building on what was. I agree, the game has tedium; however, I enjoyed myself 99.99% of the time with it. So, I’m expressing my experience and expectations with the game and how they don’t align with Luke’s.
I enjoyed the beginning of this game, but as time went on, i felt quests tiresome, nothing interesting as the 1st game. Gameplay and music is great but the loop got stale very fast.
It's funny because it's a total opposite of the original (for me at least). Bland start, fantastic rest of the game. Really strange.
@@giganticzombie Totally agree with the point about the first game i started hyped loved every minute but then from half way through to the end it felt like a chore i was just waiting pleading for the game to end. I cannot speak on HFW as i have yet to play it.
@@MasterJangleLeg same honestly. heard forbidden west is better in every way so I can't wait to play it as well
about the climbing system... does he complain about games that have absolutely no climbing other than vaulting? Or just when the climbing isn't Assassins creed level? not quite sure why this dude has a problem with almost every system in the game, kinda seems nit picky to me.
The more comments I read and the more of the video I’ve watched the more I’m just saddened by this review as a person who loves forbidden west especially after the dlc I genuinely think that hfw is one of the best AAA games and one of the best monster hunter sims and I serioiusly think he just played wrong and it wasn’t meant for him think of some people playing souls games they play wrong and then complain about it I’m in both commmunites and I’ve finally seen it in the hfw community for the first time
I disagree with your opinion of Aloy. I think her story and character in the first game was exceptional, and I was in tears several times. Not bland. Not uninteresting. Haven't played the second game though.
Then, play the second game. It's different.
@@TheLittleMart Luke also heavily criticized Aloy in the first game in this video's which I think is a very strange take.
The world is beautiful, but I’ll admit after 30 hours I set all difficulty settings to easy…I just got so underwhelmed by the paving’s current I just wanted to go back to shore.
man I feel this comment so much, that's what I did with HZD lol
I feel this in my soul I ended up turning easy loot on and turning the amount of damage aloy did up while still having enimies hit hard. Just because I wasn't having fun with the combat anymore and after seeing the amount of tedium it was going to take to upgrade my legendary weapons I caved in and went to baby easy mode to help skip the grind. Then I turned the difficulty to back after. I will say the custom difficulty settings are very cool and I wish that was in more games.
Seems like you guys are just trash at the game and don't understand what weapons to use on what enemies. I can literally 1 shot a Slaughter spine now on hard difficulty after mastering the game.
‘Lame” is too harsh a word. HFW still got a LOT right. For me, only the story was underwhelming.
Definitely needed more main story missions, 17 wasnt enough. I think the first game had about 32 main quests
@@steviemac2377 yeah the main story felt rushed but the rest of the game did feel bloated, to the point where I was still relieved to get to the end. The balance was off, but I still wouldn’t call the game ‘lame’ like Lukey does 😂
@@angelfire1987 dunkey called it lame too.
Same, I love Horizon as a series. The world is always so rich and beautiful and the gameplay is super fun. The story is just always the main letdown and I think ultimately that's okay coz the game sort of takes its place in the middle ground where it doesn't necessarily compete with the heavy hitter launches but blows the middle of the pack out the water. I think as the franchise continues they'll probably get better at that especially the data dumps and occasionally excess cut scenes of just very skippable dialogue
@@TheOnlyTaps the story was amazing and emotional in both what are you talking about 😂
I enjoyed both games, but I edge this one just barely above it because I love the new map and narrative more then the first.
Did you ever think about how if you didn’t completely whiff on 75% of your arrow shots, maybe you wouldn’t be having so many ammo problems? Lol, I haven’t played this game, but even I can see that.
Worse is there's an ammo vendor in every settlement. Meaning his grind to get more is kinda redundant. If he didn't somehow miss every single one of them
Plus he's using weak as hell weapons against tough as hell enemies. Even if he does hit they aren't gonna do much anyways
You didn't play, that's the problem. This game's aim assist is basically non-existent. I'm kind of a hoarder, so ammo is never a problem for me.
He really did not give the combat any fairness with his terrible aim and non existent use of its different weapons
It's a Survival Game. All those mechanic are Supposed to be there. Sounds like you would be happier playing Doom or Pong.
Just finished the game. While I agree that the game is not as great as it could be, there are lots of points here that are disingenuous and wrong:
- the first third does not take place in the same place as the previous game, you only get access to about 25% of the map, but thats no different to Ghost of Tsushima or GTA 4, or other open world games. The map opens as you progress and can handle tougher encounters, very standard
- Varl’s death unlocks an area where you can go give your respects to him whenever you want
- the Sun Wing is aquired before the point of no return. Its perfect for the end game if you want to upgrade all your gear before the final mission
- i really dont get the critique on resources. I only needed to hunt to upgrade my stuff (which is the main loop). And you can but resources from merchants, and sell them the resources you dont need depending on your playstyle.
So basically, some suggestions or issues presented are addressed in this very game.
Just to clarify something. The Daunt was not an area in Horizon Zero Dawn. Luke's complaint about spending 15+ hours in a HZD area is not even close to accurate.
Meridian was a repeat. But you can hardly take longer than an hour to complete it.
He also keeps lying throughout the review.
it's a total repeat tho...
It's a skill issue related to resource scarcity. When you're bad at the game, throw everything at the machines, spamming any arrows, and hitting machine armor with those bland arrows, as seen in your gameplay. And to think this game was intended to study your enemy and plan your attack using the notes that obviously pop out when you scan the machine and hit those weak spots.
It's a bad critic when you obviously hate the game to start on. 🤦
I didnt expect to ever hear someone saying that the new AC's are amazing and underrated and that Forbidden West is lame. Like most sidequests in FW are better than most main missions in evert of the new ACs, let alone acting, writing, enemy design and AI, leveling , skill tree, traversal etc... Really weird tastes in open word Rpgs.
I don’t agree with him when he says that it doesn’t make sense for Aloy to talk about how she isn’t sure if she can save the world but still tries to and somehow that isn’t human. So should she just give up? Would that make her human. This felt like an hour and forty minute ramble more than an actual critique.
Also, it does not take you 10-15 hours to get to the open world. That is bizarre
Loved this game and have replayed it. However, agree the start was too slow, the upgrade mechanics are bloated and frustrating and the swimming was terrible - i couldn’t be bothered exploring the amazing looking below water areas.
i agree besides the swimming. i love it and the part where we can fly now. its pretty epic tbh. and i always wondered what laid beneath the sea. it expands the game and play area so much its amazing. idk why you hate it so much. maybe i havent encountered a problem yet but i like it.
tbh the ocean seems to be severely underused; the trailers seemed so promising and then i only had like one mission where i needed to recover things underwater...it felt like they wanted to use it more but then ran out of time. The map feels like they started east in the daunt and started adding many things since they had much time but the further west they got they had less time to fill up the world and so it became much more empty.
I have a fear of water and hate every single underwater section in the game lol
@@SoupyMittens so...do you even shower/bathe if you´re afraid?
The underwater section of Vegas was really creepy and atmospheric.
This is one of the most beautiful games i've played, specially after the new 60 fps update
Gameplay loop is amazing ! i like it more than Monster Hunter rise
But the main character and the story is not great at all
i feel like story was so much better in Horizon Zero dawn
after playing witched 3 i for some reason compare horizon to it in some ways, and omg, Geralt is so much more Real and likeable character than Aloy
Geralt is a much better character because he actually is a character. Not just a bland protagonist with a name and voice.
In breath of the wild it makes sense that you couldn't climb the shrine walls as the were like flat metal walls
The problem with his critique is that he keeps comparing it to Breath of the Wild which is a different game. And having things dropped down in front of you as he's saying happens in BotW just wouldn't make sense.
This video reeks of someone who hasn't played Zero Dawn's full story.
He thinks it's the same location as HZD and that ZD wasn't fully fleshed out. That's ludicrous.
Horizon Zero Dawn gets you the story of what happened to earth, who Aloy is, and a ton more.
The Nora got their name from NORAD. The lore is deep if you play the game.
FW starts off in Meridian, that yes you do go to in ZD, but you're moving on from there to the Forbidden West where you're not really supposed to go.
You end up in San Francisco but along the way you visit Las Vegas and plenty of truly cool areas.
Yes, crafting can get tedious but they streamline it for you since you can create jobs.
This is one of the most imaginative game franchises ever. The idea of all life on earth being fully destroyed and then the system created to bring it all back has been tainted first by one guy who didn't want anyone to know what he'd done and then by others, looking to create a life only for them elsewhere is just cool.
But, go play AC, which is soooo different each time.
I played the game on Very Hard from the start. Indeed sometimes I ran low on some materials which usually made me change what weapons or ammo to use when just hunting for parts, e.g. it's easy to burn a lot of echo shells and machine muscles fast by shooting Tear Blast Arrows so I opted to simply use Advanced Hunter Arrows and figuring out how to get the machine to stay still for some time to shoot of certain parts. I ended up using Shock Arrows and I also started using the Part Breaker Surge a lot. Tripcasters are also pretty resource efficient.
That said, I hate that certain ammo costs so much in resources, particularly in Machine Muscles and those are pretty slow to gather as not nearly every machine drop them and they might drop only a couple when they do. This is why I didn't craft any traps, didn't use canister rope caster, slings, ropes too much, and didn't use the knockdown arrows. I have no idea why some items like sharpshot bow arrows require those muscles.
I started crafting almost exclusively on crafting table to save some resources and it was actually kind of realistic / immersive. But I hate that there are so many different types of ammos. Why is there need to be regular and advanced ammo of pretty much every type? Why would it take longer to load some advanced arrow? I also dislike that you can't use any hunter arrow with any hunter bow. I get that Warrior Bow arrows are shorter and lighter and perhaps Sharpshot Bow arrows on the other hand are longer and heavier, that's okay.
Maybe different level of similar ammo or traps could use different resources so that depending on what kind of materials you have, you can choose which blast traps you make when you really need them.
The answer is padding. They want you out there collecting resources as a substitute for deeper content.
I already expected for Luke to hate it.
Tho I have some criticism about this game myself, I actually liked this game. But to hate it and call it lame. Is a bit much.. but yeah. It's Luke. He never likes something..
You got low standards then.This franchise is just mediocre.I tried to play the first game like 5 times and I just couldn't get into it because I gave no shiys about the characters and the gameplay was meh.
@@cosmancho2959 Oh but I bet stale old CoD or whatever popular battle royale just tickles your jimmies doesn't it?
He only likes something if it's Last of Us or Assassin's Creed unfortunately
@@Saved-by-Grace what kind of dumb response is that supposed to be?
@@Lukas_Seidl_1 ac on the same level as HZD seems about right with that part at least xd
I tried to watch your video with a open mind. And I am by far a fanboy that doesn't seem any wrong with the sequel. But alot of your points are just bitchy. I had my gripes with it. But reasons feel nit picking
After watching this and five minutes of his video on how AC Odyssey was a great game *cough *cough I cannot agree with this guy. The story for Odyssey was all over the place and the main character had an essentially lack of one, allowing you to do whatever you wanted making the main character completely inconsistent. Whereas with HZD and HFW, Aloy was a well written character with her own core traits that express themselves in dialogue options, and the lore of the world in the past and present was incredibly well developed and interwoven together. As for side content, HFW doesn’t even come close to the number of useless side activities that Odyssey had, where everything was loot this chest, kill that guy, solve this puzzle just copy/pasted all over the map. The only side activities in HFW that came close were Rebel outposts, but even those were more enjoyable compared to a fort in Odyssey. As for all the other side activities in HFW, each activity had its own relation to the main story, with Tallnecks and Cauldrons being old activities that did not feel copy/pasted, that felt new and reimagined for the sequel. Relic ruins and viewpoints were fun things that allowed me to see the lore of the world in the past, and the presents relation to it. And him saying there were no improvements is completely wrong, with things like a stash, upgraded climbing mechanics and not having to worry about dying from falling(along with being able to fly a part of that) whereas there really were no improvements in AC Odyssey, which honestly shouldn’t even be called an AC, with its lack of well, assassins. This guy is extremely subjective on these games, picking and choosing games that he finds enjoyable and saying bad things on games that he doesn’t like, so these so called essays are not critiques, just his opinion. So don’t call these reviews based on facts when they are obviously your opinion, and one I do not agree with. Sorry for the rant but I cannot agree with him, I for one love HZD/HFW, and think they are in a far higher class than the garbage Ubisoft has cranked out in AC titles after Brotherhood/Black Flag.