Mskotor
68h | 69 of 79 (87%)
May 2024 Update
Next update (works only on profile page)
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Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition (Q3 2020) ⭐️⭐⭐☆☆
Action68h | 69 of 79 (87%)
⇱ Click to show summary⇲
The good 👍
- Interesting back story and story building
- Not much filler in terms of watch towers, bandit camps etc.
- Good enemy design and attack patterns
- Really good voice acting
The bad 👎
- Bow combat is not great 😅 and heard from people they just meele everything
- The difficulty level in DLC is ridiculous, and enemies are simple "bullet-sponges"
- I could not play it with a controller, aiming was so bad without a strong auto-aim
- There is no freedom in the parkour, only very specific edges selected by the devs can be gripped. It *looks like* you should grab an edge, but Alloy just slides down
- Walking in scan mode is too slow
- The game is badly optimized, textures pop in and out, and even the map overview can fail to load
- Random crashes all the time. The only solution is to drop all graphic settings to medium, as the game is apparently not adjusted at all for PCs
- "My face is tired" Andromeda level of NPC animation
- It's not possible to buy crafting materials. We are required to find spots where rabbit, badger, duck, or fox spawns, and then repeatedly go in and out of this zone, praying to the RNG god to give us a feather. Not a piece of meat. I played the game for 80 hours, and still was not able to upgrade all my gear.
Conclusion:
In the end, it is another "Ubisoft formula" game. With a bit fewer bandit camps, combat that in theory focuses on the bow (ends with a lot of melee, as it's just easier to aim at enemies with it), and good story.
- Interesting back story and story building
- Not much filler in terms of watch towers, bandit camps etc.
- Good enemy design and attack patterns
- Really good voice acting
The bad 👎
- Bow combat is not great 😅 and heard from people they just meele everything
- The difficulty level in DLC is ridiculous, and enemies are simple "bullet-sponges"
- I could not play it with a controller, aiming was so bad without a strong auto-aim
- There is no freedom in the parkour, only very specific edges selected by the devs can be gripped. It *looks like* you should grab an edge, but Alloy just slides down
- Walking in scan mode is too slow
- The game is badly optimized, textures pop in and out, and even the map overview can fail to load
- Random crashes all the time. The only solution is to drop all graphic settings to medium, as the game is apparently not adjusted at all for PCs
- "My face is tired" Andromeda level of NPC animation
- It's not possible to buy crafting materials. We are required to find spots where rabbit, badger, duck, or fox spawns, and then repeatedly go in and out of this zone, praying to the RNG god to give us a feather. Not a piece of meat. I played the game for 80 hours, and still was not able to upgrade all my gear.
Conclusion:
In the end, it is another "Ubisoft formula" game. With a bit fewer bandit camps, combat that in theory focuses on the bow (ends with a lot of melee, as it's just easier to aim at enemies with it), and good story.
Details
☐ Bare-bone ☐ Average ☑ Good |
At least the story is good. We are born in a tribe, living in the mountains among snowy peaks. Outcast, raised by an outcast. Only in the middle of the game it's explained why we are "unpure". The world is full of machines, which mimic animals in their function. We have bison, gazelles, wolves, giraffes, birds etc. Unfortunately, machines started acting up, and no longer can be easily hunted to get some spare parts. Our tribe is on the mental level of "gods shot lightning", and they have a lot of taboos. Including one about leaving the safety of the mountains. Although the elders do want to know why machines are going rampant. And Alloy, the person who is already an outcast, is a good candidate to "take a bullet for the tribe" and be allowed to venture forth. We will learn the origins of the machines, how the recent world came to be, and be left with (sadly) an unsurprising cliff changer that is preparation for 2nd game in the series. |
☐ Boring ☑ Average ☐ Good |
There is a lot of running between objectives, and objectives focus on going somewhere, killing some machines or bandits (optionally finding some junk), and giving a report to the quest-giver. Nothing extraordinary. A couple of bandit camps, climbing towers, and a lot of collectibles to find. There are a lot of campfires that act as fast travel points, so at least it doesn't take long to jump around. |
☑ Basics (walk, jump etc.) ☐ Magic / powers ☐ Advanced combat |
There are no real powers. We can use gadgets like scanner or line harpoon that immobilize enemies for a short while. Otherwise, we can run, jump, and do basic parkour. |
☐ Clunky and stiff ☑ Adequate ☐ Fluid and enjoyable |
During parkour, there is usually one way to go, and it's enough to hold one button for Alloy to jump around. In combat bow aiming is bad. It works fine as long as we are hidden, but trying to hit the enemy weak spots, when they jump around and charge is impossible. |
☑ Basic ☐ Detailed ☐ Over complicated |
It is clearly made for gamepads. But there is so much junk in the inventory all the time it's hard to navigate. The story collectibles menu is clunky and it doesn't "stay" where we were after we opened an item. E.g. we scroll down to open a voice diary, then we go back to listen to the next in sequence, and we end at the very top of the list. Why? There are a lot of notes and audio logs to read and listen to. |
☐ Boring and generic ☑ Average ☐ Good ☐ Great |
We have up to 3 bows that can be equipped. The basic bow is pretty useless. Hunter bow has piercing / fire arrows that are used 90% of the time (except for when we run out of metal wire to make more piercing arrows). And 3rd bow that can shoot electric/corrosive arrows (I used it only for the achievements...). Electric/explosive traps. And line shooter that can immobilize or slow down agile machines. The usual fight looks like this: try to snipe the enemies on the fringe of the pack with piercing arrows. When they spot us switch to spamming line shooter and hitting with melee till they die. The only exception are the bosses aka Big Tirex or Storm Bird. They need to be immobilized and taken out from a distance. People are headshot with piercing arrows. |
☐ Brain dead ☑ Really basic ☐ Average ☐ Smart and responsive |
Enemies have clear attack patterns, which are satisfying to learn. But it also means there is nothing unpredictable about fights. Enemies don't try to flank us. They always charge head-on. We can overwrite (aka hack) enemies to temporarily fight on our side. Then it looks like a brawl fight where they mirror their attacks until one falls. Human enemies are dumb. They will shoot without trying much to find a better cover. And melee enemies will try to charge us head-on. They are bullet-spongy, so better take them from a distance. |
☑ None ☐ Skins ☐ "Time-savers" ☐ Direct purchase ☐ Custom currency (gems etc.) |
☐ None ☐ Story progression ☐ Few collectibles / easy to get ☑ Grindy collectibles / hard to get ☐ Require multiple playthroughs |
☐ No saves ☐ No saves, progress carries over ☐ One checkpoint, too rare ☐ One checkpoint, frequent ☑ Manual saves |
☐ Can run on potato ☐ Medium requirements ☑ High requirements ☐ Too low for what is visible on the screen ☐ Optimization disaster |
☐ May look good 10 years ago, but not now ☐ Blurry textures / geometry problems ☑ Average ☐ Good ☐ Beautiful |
☐ Nothing to remember ☑ Good voice acting ☐ Good weapons & effects ☑ Good OST ☐ Music flows well with the action |
☐ Resolution, volume only ☐ Basic graphic settings ☑ Advanced graphic settings ☐ Adjustable HUD ☐ Accessibility options |
☐ No map ☐ Basic ☑ Detailed ☐ Minimap ☑ Fast travel |
I already mentioned performance issues and constant crashes. It is reported by people with both low and high-end CPUs and GPUs, so must be an issue with the port itself. |
Side note
Late post, but was busy with life. I will sign for an archery course this month, so after a disappointing experience with this game, I may have some fun with an actual bow. I like simple recurve bows. Sadly no garden to practice on my own.
I have much less playtime (13.5h) than you but from what I saw that’s a very fair review - I got to a point where I put it down, and this is likely to remain unassassinated in my backlog. Good luck with the archery.
I had way higher expectations of it… oh well. I also wanted to play God of War, but I am vary of it now. People hyped “PS exclusives” too much, and I jumped on the bandwagon with Horizon. Will need to check more reviews before I pull the trigger.
I wish they’d port/remaster the original GOW trilogy - I never played them back in the PS2/PS3 days, and I feel like I’m missing something by starting at the 4th in the series
Didn’t even know there were older titles in the series 😅
Not profitable for Sony I guess to port. Better to let the game rot and “fight the piracy!!!” if someone dares to use an emulator to play a game to preserve it.