I like Horizon Forbidden West less than I liked Zero Dawn. It adds quite a few cool monsters and interesting variations on the monsters from the first game, but many of the systems are expanded in a way that detracted from the experience for me and the narrative is significantly more clumsy.
I think combat in Forbidden West is strictly worse than in Zero Dawn. The traps and arrow combat still work well and can be used to get through the majority of the game without much issue, but there are a number of changes to other systems that make things more complicated, but have a pretty negative effect on the gameplay.
Melee combat is expanded, with more moves and combos. The simplicity and power of melee was one of the complaints I had with the first game, but the additions here don't work for me. Melee moves make Aloy feel out of control, and the combo strings are arbitrary and require some pretty frame-perfect inputs. It skews a bit too hard into some sort of fighting game-inspired system, which I don't really think the game needs or supports. It doesn't make an argument for itself or work better than just shooting enemies.
Relatedly, human enemies seem to have been designed to be the melee enemies in this game. Unlike the original, they wear extreme amounts of armor and the small size of these pieces and the portions of their body that get exposed make arrows very hard to use. Human fights either feel arbitrarily long (because you are shooting them forever) or just bad (because you are trying to use the hard to control melee combat).
In the Zero Dawn, the fact that status effects don't stack doesn't matter so much, because there were only about 5 of them. It was only a slight annoyance and most enemies didn't have multiple weaknesses. With all the extras added in Forbidden West, it feels like the game is telling you to stack up all the effects you can, but punishes you for doing so, since they overwrite each other. It just makes the system feel worse to engage with, since it feels like you cannot actually utilize all your new options.
Ropecasting is nerfed into the ground for some reason I cannot fathom. It is one of the more unique aspects to combat in this series, and this change destroys it for reasons that aren't clear to me. It takes an extreme amount of ropes to lock down a robot and they break out almost immediately. Every other CC status effect is more effective.
The new weapons are interesting, but I found them all to be strictly worse and less fun than the bows.
The weapon system in Zero Dawn is coherent and understandable, with different weapon types having different strengths and weaknesses and pushing you towards different playstyles and options. War Bows apply status effects, Hunter Bows are all-around plus fire arrows, and Sharpshot Bows are for high damage and part removal.
Forbidden West throws this away in favor of offering all the arrow types with each of the bow types. This muddied the choices for me extremely -- the pool of weapons is varied and unpredictable, so there is nothing to work towards and no clear upgrades. This undermines the weapon upgrade system, removing any clear throughline of weapons to work towards. It also undermines the status system, removing your ability to count on finding the status bows you need.
Forbidden West's narrative is all over the place. There are about two and a half overarching plotlines which are vaguely connected. Most of what Aloy is trying to do sort of makes sense and tries to pull in the side plots and characters, but I never really understood why it is of any consequence given the problems Aloy is trying to solve (much like the first game). There are a lot of tangents to recruit people from each of the tribes you meet in the Forbidden West, but this feels more like a tour of the different groups than steps it makes sense for Aloy to take given her main goal.
The game looks great and the new robots are really cool. Fighting them is the highlight and the game is at its best when it is sticking to that, though there are unfortunately quite a few bosses that are just humans, which aren't very fun at all!
I had a good time with Horizon Forbidden West and the actual combat still holds up for the most part. I was definitely disappointed with most of the iteration that took place here, unfortunately, but this game is definitely fun. If you haven't played Zero Dawn, play that instead. If you have and you liked it, then this is worth playing.
I think combat in Forbidden West is strictly worse than in Zero Dawn. The traps and arrow combat still work well and can be used to get through the majority of the game without much issue, but there are a number of changes to other systems that make things more complicated, but have a pretty negative effect on the gameplay.
Melee combat is expanded, with more moves and combos. The simplicity and power of melee was one of the complaints I had with the first game, but the additions here don't work for me. Melee moves make Aloy feel out of control, and the combo strings are arbitrary and require some pretty frame-perfect inputs. It skews a bit too hard into some sort of fighting game-inspired system, which I don't really think the game needs or supports. It doesn't make an argument for itself or work better than just shooting enemies.
Relatedly, human enemies seem to have been designed to be the melee enemies in this game. Unlike the original, they wear extreme amounts of armor and the small size of these pieces and the portions of their body that get exposed make arrows very hard to use. Human fights either feel arbitrarily long (because you are shooting them forever) or just bad (because you are trying to use the hard to control melee combat).
In the Zero Dawn, the fact that status effects don't stack doesn't matter so much, because there were only about 5 of them. It was only a slight annoyance and most enemies didn't have multiple weaknesses. With all the extras added in Forbidden West, it feels like the game is telling you to stack up all the effects you can, but punishes you for doing so, since they overwrite each other. It just makes the system feel worse to engage with, since it feels like you cannot actually utilize all your new options.
Ropecasting is nerfed into the ground for some reason I cannot fathom. It is one of the more unique aspects to combat in this series, and this change destroys it for reasons that aren't clear to me. It takes an extreme amount of ropes to lock down a robot and they break out almost immediately. Every other CC status effect is more effective.
The new weapons are interesting, but I found them all to be strictly worse and less fun than the bows.
The weapon system in Zero Dawn is coherent and understandable, with different weapon types having different strengths and weaknesses and pushing you towards different playstyles and options. War Bows apply status effects, Hunter Bows are all-around plus fire arrows, and Sharpshot Bows are for high damage and part removal.
Forbidden West throws this away in favor of offering all the arrow types with each of the bow types. This muddied the choices for me extremely -- the pool of weapons is varied and unpredictable, so there is nothing to work towards and no clear upgrades. This undermines the weapon upgrade system, removing any clear throughline of weapons to work towards. It also undermines the status system, removing your ability to count on finding the status bows you need.
Forbidden West's narrative is all over the place. There are about two and a half overarching plotlines which are vaguely connected. Most of what Aloy is trying to do sort of makes sense and tries to pull in the side plots and characters, but I never really understood why it is of any consequence given the problems Aloy is trying to solve (much like the first game). There are a lot of tangents to recruit people from each of the tribes you meet in the Forbidden West, but this feels more like a tour of the different groups than steps it makes sense for Aloy to take given her main goal.
The game looks great and the new robots are really cool. Fighting them is the highlight and the game is at its best when it is sticking to that, though there are unfortunately quite a few bosses that are just humans, which aren't very fun at all!
I had a good time with Horizon Forbidden West and the actual combat still holds up for the most part. I was definitely disappointed with most of the iteration that took place here, unfortunately, but this game is definitely fun. If you haven't played Zero Dawn, play that instead. If you have and you liked it, then this is worth playing.