Horizon Forbidden West |OT| it's out

[Legend]

Started meh for me too. I also disliked the writing at times.

Where are you?

[the-pi-guy]

Started meh for me too. I also disliked the writing at times.

Where are you?

Still in the beginning area.

[the-pi-guy]

I think I'm like 5, maybe 6 hours in.

Spoiler for Hidden:

<br>Just had a boss battle against the mysterious attacker. <br>

FW is a weird game.

Spoiler for Hidden:

<br><br>Sometimes I feel like I&#39;m playing Horizon 2, especially in the open world. <br>Sometimes I feel like I&#39;m playing some completely different concoction. <br><br><br>I feel like the game is leaning much harder into being a sci-fi title than the first game did. I&#39;m not sure if overall it&#39;s a good thing or a bad thing. So far I think it&#39;s a fun thing. <br><span style="font-size: 1em;" class="bbc_size">The boss battle I just had was kind of weird. It kind of felt more like something I would expect to see in Metal Gear Solid or something. &nbsp;</span><br><br>The game is pushing a lot more tools, and making for some very different level design. The entire lead up to that boss battle, just couldn&#39;t have existed in the first game. And I don&#39;t think the stuff after it could have existed either. &nbsp;<br><br>I feel like with the liberties they&#39;re taking, I can more easily see a long term franchise of Horizon. &nbsp;<br><br><br>I think I had mentioned Demon&#39;s Souls being one of the most stunning games I&#39;ve seen; but Horizon definitely comes ahead. Demon&#39;s Souls is stunning, and still one of the best looking games ever. But Horizon is jam packed with foliage, and high quality animations and models and much more visually appealing lighting. Will be curious if there&#39;s another jump along the lines of Demon&#39;s Souls =&gt; Horizon II this gen. &nbsp;<br><br>Horizon feels like a definite AAA game in ways that I don&#39;t even think GoW did. &nbsp;(I think overall I prefer GoW as a game, but there&#39;s lots of impressive stuff here.)<br><br><span style="font-size: 1em;" class="bbc_size">On that note, one of my big complaints with GoW was how meaningless the climbing is. You just point in a direction. There&#39;s no chance of failing, it&#39;s not dynamic.</span><br>Horizon is pretty good at climbing and the sequel has made some improvements to make it even more dynamic than before. &nbsp;<br><span style="font-size: 1em;" class="bbc_size"></span>

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[darkknightkryta]

Mostly just that Ragnarok does a fair few things worse than Forbidden West and I didn't expect that. Pre release GOW felt like the "true" next gen game yet Horizon 2 often looks better and is more impressive. Even story and gameplay wise I think Forbidden West is better a lot of the time.

I liked Forbidden West a lot when I played it but I didn't fully appreciate how significant its upgrades were, until playing ragnarok. Of course it couldn't replicate the novelty of the first but I think it'll be a long time before a Sony sequel has that big of a glow up.

I had the same thoughts.  I think God of War was really trapped in the PS4.  I'm going to say some hearsay, but, it's tech feels very limited.  Kratos looks fantastic, but the rest looks really flat.  It doesn't help that the combat is still on a "It works" level.  They patched it up from the first game, so it's not frustrating , but outside of 1 in 1 battles(Where the combat is fantastic), the combat is just there.  They were spawning enemies behind you often, because of how restrictive they were with difficulty.  So it overall felt like the devs were restricted and put all the focus into the story.  Which I'm not sure was the right way to go.  In a sense they should have chopped the story up and focus more on gameplay mechanics.  Which is different to Forbidden West.
Forbidden West just felt right as a sequel.  It still looks fantastic; and I played the game on a base PS4.  They spent a lot of time on generating the side quests.  They balanced the game to revamp the combat.  Not in a way I agree with, but I can't say they didn't sit down and think about it.  They also told just enough story.
I'm sure if I played Forbidden West straight without trying to craft armour and stuff, since I was getting my dog handed to me, I probably would have finished it faster than God of War, but I was more satisfied with Forbidden West.  On the flip side, I finished God of War and I didn't finish Forbidden West, so Santa Monica did something right.

[Legend]

I had the same thoughts.  I think God of War was really trapped in the PS4.  I'm going to say some hearsay, but, it's tech feels very limited.  Kratos looks fantastic, but the rest looks really flat.  It doesn't help that the combat is still on a "It works" level.  They patched it up from the first game, so it's not frustrating , but outside of 1 in 1 battles(Where the combat is fantastic), the combat is just there.  They were spawning enemies behind you often, because of how restrictive they were with difficulty.  So it overall felt like the devs were restricted and put all the focus into the story.  Which I'm not sure was the right way to go.  In a sense they should have chopped the story up and focus more on gameplay mechanics.  Which is different to Forbidden West.
Forbidden West just felt right as a sequel.  It still looks fantastic; and I played the game on a base PS4.  They spent a lot of time on generating the side quests.  They balanced the game to revamp the combat.  Not in a way I agree with, but I can't say they didn't sit down and think about it.  They also told just enough story.
I'm sure if I played Forbidden West straight without trying to craft armour and stuff, since I was getting my dog handed to me, I probably would have finished it faster than God of War, but I was more satisfied with Forbidden West.  On the flip side, I finished God of War and I didn't finish Forbidden West, so Santa Monica did something right.

You haven't finished it? Which part did you make it to?

I liked the combat in both GOWs a lot but I see what you're saying.

[darkknightkryta]

You haven't finished it? Which part did you make it to?

I liked the combat in both GOWs a lot but I see what you're saying.

Combat isn't bad or anything, it's just there.  It shines with one-on-one combat though; boss fights are something else.
With Forbidden West, I'm near west coast.  I need to meet up the girl who came from over seas to do the infiltration mission.  I just got burned out with the enemy placements.  Which was the part I didn't agree with.  There's no armour combinations like last game so you can't prep yourself for the areas in the same way and you can't prep yourself for mobs either since they balanced the mobs in a way where certain enemies are strong against the things that other enemies are weak against.  So after farming, a lot; for so little reward(The armours are so useless); I got burned out.  

[Horizon]

The worst part of Horizon is how slow it takes to get to the open world and actually Forbidden West. It's one of Guerrilla's weaknesses they need to address compared to their Sony peers who are much better at doing openings. It's so important to because potentially hundreds of thousands of players will not bother with the rest of it. Once you get into the forbidden west the game gets so freaking good. The open world is honestly one of the best but it takes at least 4 hours. The other weak area is the campaign/story isn't as good as the first and some missions are just lacking the expected battle and spectacle. Guerrilla are a tremendously talented team who just need to learn to refine some elements and improve some key areas like melee combat and traversal. Maybe Horizon 3 will truly nail everything as the franchise has so much potential.

[the-pi-guy]

I didn't mind the opening, but it also wasn't the most mind blowing thing I've played.

I could certainly see it being an issue for some players.

[darkknightkryta]

I enjoyed the openning from a learning point of view, give you a simple dungeon to start off with.  The issue is that they give you small mini open world at the beginning after the dungeon.  They shouldn't have done that, but I understand why they did.

[Horizon]

I enjoyed the openning from a learning point of view, give you a simple dungeon to start off with.  The issue is that they give you small mini open world at the beginning after the dungeon.  They shouldn't have done that, but I understand why they did.

It's not really a small area though unless you're referring to the daunt but I don't think enough people even made it there. It took two hours to get to the daunt and most games are much quicker getting you into the world like Ghost of Tsushima. I actually think the DLC will be really good because Guerrilla don't have to do that again and can literally just set you free in LA.

[the-pi-guy]

Get your first look at Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores pre-order bonuses and find out how Aloy’s journey continues as pre-orders go live today: https://t.co/JUb3iTFImf pic.twitter.com/H6cA9rl4Gj

— PlayStation (@PlayStation) March 22, 2023

Horizon Forbidden West: The Burning Shores, pre-orders begin today

• Story takes place after the main game, have to beat it before starting Burning Shores
• Pre-order Bonus outfit and Bow
• Launching April 19th, 2023
 https://t.co/8Kl1Va13ns pic.twitter.com/T1UhMXGF4T

— Benji-Sales (@BenjiSales) March 22, 2023

[nnodley]

Definitely excited for it. I can't wait to see what they do with it just being PS5 only

[Legend]

It's not really a small area though unless you're referring to the daunt but I don't think enough people even made it there. It took two hours to get to the daunt and most games are much quicker getting you into the world like Ghost of Tsushima. I actually think the DLC will be really good because Guerrilla don't have to do that again and can literally just set you free in LA.

It's funny that both the first and second games have a very similar structure like that. Smallish tutorial zone, medium mid game zone, and big end game zone. It works well enough imo but it made me dislike returning to old zones.

[the-pi-guy]

Spoiler for Hidden:

<br>man, Horizon FW is leaning real hard into sci-fi.<br><br>I&#39;m starting to imagine Horizon 3 introduces helghast now...&nbsp; <br>

[Legend]

Spoiler for Hidden:

man, Horizon FW is leaning real hard into sci-fi.

I'm starting to imagine Horizon 3 introduces helghast now...  

You found the stargate yet?

Spoiler for Hidden:

just a joke, not spoiler