Horizon Forbidden West

2024-01-27
If you go in looking for one of the best looking games you've ever seen with a continuation of the one of the best sci-fi stories ever you're going to have a great time. If you go in looking for engaging, deep gameplay you might want to look elsewhere.

Let's start with the strengths. While the intro can be a bit of a slow start as the game tries to connect the dots between the first game and this one once it gets going with the arrival of the new baddies I was hooked. I mean Regalla alone I was like ok this is cool you got some psycho lady being (clearly) helped out by Sylens. But then the true baddies, the Far Zenith, a group of tri/billionaires who escaped Earth before it was destroyed and through sheer resources and time managed to become immortal and far, far more advanced technologically rendering them basically invulnerable. Oh yeah one of them is Carrie Anne Moss. Let's go.

The story's a good time and you meet a ton of characters and new cultures along the way. Some highlights are the continued development of Aloy's character as she comes to terms with being a big ol' loner and needs to rely on other people instead of being a mega hardass who Gets Shit Done. Relatable. There's Kotalla a guy who loses his arm in one of the first fights of the game becoming a bit of a downer. By befriending Aloy he learns to own his new handicap and you help him craft a replacement arm which he learns he doesn't need. Oh and Beta a nother clone of Elizabeth Sobeck who happens to be the opposite of Aloy with her nervous anxiety but who Aloy eventually treats as her sister. Ah man love the story.

But the combat. I mean they have all the trappings of something great mechanically. You got big robits of all shapes and sizes with parts you can shoot off that affect their combat abilities. Those parts can be used to craft better gear. Finishing quests gives you perk points no matter you're level (fucking great system for making early quests still viable late game). There's tons of weapons and elemental abilities coinciding with differing weaknesses in enemies. But ultimately it just isn't tuned quite right. The perks are garbage "5%" more damage wastes of time. One on one encounters with big boys are fun but the lack of iframes and the speed of enemies means encounters with groups of enemies (COMMON) are tedious as you're perpetually stun locked and unable to hit specific parts you need to off the robies. I had fun for like 5...10 hours and then turned it down to Story difficulty. It's a bummer because like I said the ingredients are there it just needs to be tuned better and it'd be fun instead of deeply tedious after a while.

Despite my complaints around the combat the fact that they threw in a difficulty mode that means you can faceroll it meant I was still able to have a blast exploring the world, meeting the characters, and unraveling the glorious mysteries of yet another Horizon game.