It’s pretty incredible to see how rockin’ this main quest line is. For how tired and generic Zero Dawn felt, this truly exceeded my expectations of what would happen with the sequel. Each main quest felt like an episode of a television show, episodic in nature and getting to the core of an idea over the course of that hour of quest.
No main quest was truly alike, we had multiple antagonists, warring factions, competing ideas and a whole host of fresh concepts to recontectualize the first game’s lore. Characters felt more varied and human. Returning characters had motivations and ties to the narrative that didn’t just feel wedged in.
Part of me wondered if the death of Lance Reddick shook up the narrative of this game and led to why it stood out so much. As much as I don’t like the idea of selling RPG’s as a continued narrative, I can’t help but feel like this game has so much more function to it than its predecessor.
The pounding music, the beautiful scenery, varied side quests and additional trinkets — there’s so much to explore if this game is your jam and you want more. As someone who didn’t like the bow mechanics and gameplay of the franchise everything surrounding that was just so much juicer.
I didn’t have to do the cauldrons! I didn’t have to grind for hours! The skill tree didn’t really have any perks I wanted, so I got to ignore it as well. I felt free to just get to what I wanted in the game and it would supply it for me. While side-quests weren’t always my jam, I found myself stopping off for them sometimes just to see how it would affect a character or give additional context that would color my view of them.
Learning about new characters and revisiting legacy characters felt heart warming, letting me dig into conversation with them as much as I wanted. If I wanted to know every single thought a main character had about the current narrative moment, I could swing by the Core and ask them! I could walk into a tavern and sit down and just listen to the individual bar themes!
I could participate in the clunky melee combat with the melee pits that broke for me. Or like get stuck on the geometry of mountains. Sometimes I had to fight against the generated climbing structures as Aloy would clip through the ground or animations would slip through structures.
Multiple times I stumbled into out of bounds areas and slipped through the ground but I still have so many good things to say. Absolutely a step in the right direction for RPGs, I really just want to see more ideas at this point and maybe the DLC will provide that.
No main quest was truly alike, we had multiple antagonists, warring factions, competing ideas and a whole host of fresh concepts to recontectualize the first game’s lore. Characters felt more varied and human. Returning characters had motivations and ties to the narrative that didn’t just feel wedged in.
Part of me wondered if the death of Lance Reddick shook up the narrative of this game and led to why it stood out so much. As much as I don’t like the idea of selling RPG’s as a continued narrative, I can’t help but feel like this game has so much more function to it than its predecessor.
The pounding music, the beautiful scenery, varied side quests and additional trinkets — there’s so much to explore if this game is your jam and you want more. As someone who didn’t like the bow mechanics and gameplay of the franchise everything surrounding that was just so much juicer.
I didn’t have to do the cauldrons! I didn’t have to grind for hours! The skill tree didn’t really have any perks I wanted, so I got to ignore it as well. I felt free to just get to what I wanted in the game and it would supply it for me. While side-quests weren’t always my jam, I found myself stopping off for them sometimes just to see how it would affect a character or give additional context that would color my view of them.
Learning about new characters and revisiting legacy characters felt heart warming, letting me dig into conversation with them as much as I wanted. If I wanted to know every single thought a main character had about the current narrative moment, I could swing by the Core and ask them! I could walk into a tavern and sit down and just listen to the individual bar themes!
I could participate in the clunky melee combat with the melee pits that broke for me. Or like get stuck on the geometry of mountains. Sometimes I had to fight against the generated climbing structures as Aloy would clip through the ground or animations would slip through structures.
Multiple times I stumbled into out of bounds areas and slipped through the ground but I still have so many good things to say. Absolutely a step in the right direction for RPGs, I really just want to see more ideas at this point and maybe the DLC will provide that.