After finishing Horizon Zero Dawn, I just really don't get the hype... While this open world attempt at a good game had everything built in it to succeed, the experience I had with it makes me want to stay as far away as possible from it.
For every positive aspect here, there's a bad one tied to it. And the bad one always screams more than it should. And that's a problem that stayed with me throughout the entire experience.
At first, I was loving it! Horizon Zero Dawn is one of the most gorgeous games I've ever played in my life. The world, character designs, enemies, environments - everything brought a tear to my eye. Not only that, but the game grips you from the start. Characters are interesting, bold, well-written and everything is filled with secrets. It made me want to keep playing to find out everything about this post apocalyptic world and its people. And the story is solid from beginning to end, I have to say. Tutorials were smooth, environments were interesting enough, enemy variety was fantastic and even the sidequests were engaging and actually fun to make.
My first 10 hours of Horizon were great. Maybe the game should have lasted about that long, because when I started noticing its flaws, my run with it just crumbled down.
And what killed HZD for me was the combat.
Even in theory it sounds silly. "Human with a bow and arrow, some traps and a knack of wood try to take down prehistoric robot beasts using stealth". I mean, come on... It's overcomplicated and unbalanced as hell!
Every fight feels like a boss fight and they all take too long, even against humans. One little **** up and you're stuck fighting a single robot dinosaur and 5 masked dudes for about 30 minutes. Melee combat is a joke, robots have a ridiculous amount of health and do A LOT of damage, while you have to fend for yourself with a health made of paper and a few weak arrows. Even healing sucks in this game. When you don't have enough to craft potions, you have to HUNT for FLOWERS to heal a LITTLE.
The enemies in this game even managed to ruin one of HZD's best feature, which is exploring. The baffling number of enemies on the map and their misplacement in it makes running around and doing ANYTHING a massive slow chore. A challenge, yes, but definitely not a good one. It's unbelievable how bad it gets. Especially midway through the game, when you're still discovering things.
And to make matters worse, menu interfaces are a mess, you acquire a lot of useless loot, Aloy's mobility and climbing skills rival Skyrim's, conversation animations are extremely stiff and the DLC is forgettable. Basically, Horizon packs a punch when it comes to bad open world cliches.
I was excited for Horizon Zero Dawn. I really was. But once I started to understand the game's MANY flaws in the dull details of its design, I wanted nothing to do with it. It COULD be a great game, but it's nothing but a mediocre 40-hour robot hunt. I just can't recommend it.
For every positive aspect here, there's a bad one tied to it. And the bad one always screams more than it should. And that's a problem that stayed with me throughout the entire experience.
At first, I was loving it! Horizon Zero Dawn is one of the most gorgeous games I've ever played in my life. The world, character designs, enemies, environments - everything brought a tear to my eye. Not only that, but the game grips you from the start. Characters are interesting, bold, well-written and everything is filled with secrets. It made me want to keep playing to find out everything about this post apocalyptic world and its people. And the story is solid from beginning to end, I have to say. Tutorials were smooth, environments were interesting enough, enemy variety was fantastic and even the sidequests were engaging and actually fun to make.
My first 10 hours of Horizon were great. Maybe the game should have lasted about that long, because when I started noticing its flaws, my run with it just crumbled down.
And what killed HZD for me was the combat.
Even in theory it sounds silly. "Human with a bow and arrow, some traps and a knack of wood try to take down prehistoric robot beasts using stealth". I mean, come on... It's overcomplicated and unbalanced as hell!
Every fight feels like a boss fight and they all take too long, even against humans. One little **** up and you're stuck fighting a single robot dinosaur and 5 masked dudes for about 30 minutes. Melee combat is a joke, robots have a ridiculous amount of health and do A LOT of damage, while you have to fend for yourself with a health made of paper and a few weak arrows. Even healing sucks in this game. When you don't have enough to craft potions, you have to HUNT for FLOWERS to heal a LITTLE.
The enemies in this game even managed to ruin one of HZD's best feature, which is exploring. The baffling number of enemies on the map and their misplacement in it makes running around and doing ANYTHING a massive slow chore. A challenge, yes, but definitely not a good one. It's unbelievable how bad it gets. Especially midway through the game, when you're still discovering things.
And to make matters worse, menu interfaces are a mess, you acquire a lot of useless loot, Aloy's mobility and climbing skills rival Skyrim's, conversation animations are extremely stiff and the DLC is forgettable. Basically, Horizon packs a punch when it comes to bad open world cliches.
I was excited for Horizon Zero Dawn. I really was. But once I started to understand the game's MANY flaws in the dull details of its design, I wanted nothing to do with it. It COULD be a great game, but it's nothing but a mediocre 40-hour robot hunt. I just can't recommend it.