Horizon Zero Dawn 2 Forbidden West

[georgiafan]

Re: Horizon Zero Dawn 2 Forbidden West

I picked this up today decided to wait a few weeks Incase any bugs came out and also wanted to get my sound system set up.

So far so good After playing the opening hour or so until you get to the first campfire. Ive been meh on my non sports game for the last 6 months or so. It looks like this will get my by for next 6 weeks or so until my vacation.


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[Gotmadskillzson]

Re: Horizon Zero Dawn 2 Forbidden West

73 hours and 45% progression but the game is finally beaten for me. The ending was quite the plot twist. The Thunderbolt Shredder Gauntlet turned out to be my favorite weapon in the game. The Spinthorn Spike Thrower was my second favorite one. Both do a lot of damage. Boltblasters are fun to use as well however the reload time is slow on them.

Had quite a few bugs with missions. Thankfully they all were side missions. From objects or enemies being embedded in the ground or mountain face, to NPCs you need to talk to not recognizing you are there. All in all though, some of the side missions were really good.

[Gotmadskillzson]

Re: Horizon Zero Dawn 2 Forbidden West

I thought that was Tim Russ voice in the game, I looked it up and yep, he is the voice of Jetakka in the game.

[jrnlgrn]

Re: Horizon Zero Dawn 2 Forbidden West

Angela Bassett and Carrie Anne Moss are also voice acting in the game.

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[JoshC1977]

Re: Horizon Zero Dawn 2 Forbidden West

Angela Bassett and Carrie Anne Moss are also voice acting in the game.

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Talking about VAs in this game....

I did not make the connection that the VA for Aloy was the same person who played the role of Chloe Price in the first Life is Strange (and prequel).

[DJ]

Re: Horizon Zero Dawn 2 Forbidden West

Made my way to Barren Light after spending a lot of time in the Chainscrape (love that name) area. Taking my time exploring and accepting more side quests than I normally do. Really enjoying the game and feel like it's a natural progression in terms of story and gameplay from the original.

[ChaseB]

Re: Horizon Zero Dawn 2 Forbidden West

Angela Bassett and Carrie Anne Moss are also voice acting in the game.

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Haha that is Angela Bassett! I thought Regalla sounded like her but didn't make the immediate connection like I did with Moss when I heard her. Funny to see such big names getting somewhat big but still kind of limited roles considering the circumstances, but it probably makes it easier to get them in for their dates.

[jrnlgrn]

Re: Horizon Zero Dawn 2 Forbidden West

Finished the story last night. 59 hrs, 43.1% complete, level 37.

I'd give it an 8 out 10. Overall solid game but doesn't reach the heights of the first. Forbidden West has a lot of that 2nd in a trilogy energy to much yet to little going at the same time. I still think Aloy is a great character, the world of Horizon, and taking down machines in creative ways will always be fun. I tried to do the side missions that made sense in context of the main story. So I still have a lot to do and collect. The acid shredder and exploding spike thrower were my go to weapons. Made short work of most machines.

As for Aloy's personality. She's 20, was shunned most of her life, and had access to the focus which gave her insights that made her the smartest person in the room. I can see why she's a bit quick to dismiss people and is slow to warm up to others.

Assorted musing containing character mission and end story spoilers. You've been warned.

Spoiler

• I always figured Zenith ship didn't really blow up but the Far Zenith stuff was a bit much and I'm glad that story line outside of Beta is done. Giant robots, sentient AI, and clones okay I'm on board. Immortality and faster than light travel? Eh, your starting to lose me. They didn't even go to the closest star system with that fancy FTL drive (Alpha Centuri) they went to Sirius (2x as far).
• I'd rather the Zeniths would have been trying to terraform Mars but screwed it up and that the Zeniths just been some weird cult of descendants with advanced tech but not immortality, magical hovering, and nano? weapons. Nemesis traveling from Mars is also easier for me to get on board with versus a "ball of energy/consciousness?" traveling light years.
• Varl broke the story rule never fall in love cause that always means you're going to die.
• Honestly took me a minute to figure out San Francisco was an island. I was thinking am I supposed to believe Aloy paddled to Hawaii or Asia with no supplies in a few hours lol
• Flying a Sunwing!
• Thanks to years of video gaming, I collected hopefully all the info in Thebes before it self destructed.
• Kotallo, I get it, you now accept the loss of the arm but I ran all over the west for you, the least you could do was keep it on until I left.
• Talanah, I helped find your boyfriend that's not that into you, but you couldn't be bothered to stay at the base and help me save the world, rude?
• As with the last game finding the data points are the great. You get back story of the old world without it bogging down the main story. You get as much or as little as you want. Especially about mundane funny things.
• Wonder where the next game takes place. It seems they are setting up crossing the ocean to the Quen but that journey even with any new tech seems a stretch as Nemesis will make it to earth in about a year. So a quick flight between continents doesn't seem likely.
• I look forward to a Horizon game that is specifically built for this PS5 as this feels a lot like a PS4 game.

17f6b17595c66-screenshotUrl.jpg

[PPerfect_CJ]

Re: Horizon Zero Dawn 2 Forbidden West

I haven't been able to play this NEAR as much as I'd like to, since the Invaders from Beyond update came out for Fallout 76. It made me decide to experiment with a new build and I've been grinding for that. Just a little bit of bad timing with the releases coming so close together. I love the game, tho and can't wait to get to a point where I can sit down and just devote my game time to it.

[Gotmadskillzson]

Re: Horizon Zero Dawn 2 Forbidden West

Assorted musing containing character mission and end story spoilers. You've been warned.

Spoiler

• I always figured Zenith ship didn't really blow up but the Far Zenith stuff was a bit much and I'm glad that story line outside of Beta is done. Giant robots, sentient AI, and clones okay I'm on board. Immortality and faster than light travel? Eh, your starting to lose me. They didn't even go to the closest star system with that fancy FTL drive (Alpha Centuri) they went to Sirius (2x as far).
• I'd rather the Zeniths would have been trying to terraform Mars but screwed it up and that the Zeniths just been some weird cult of descendants with advanced tech but not immortality, magical hovering, and nano? weapons. Nemesis traveling from Mars is also easier for me to get on board with versus a "ball of energy/consciousness?" traveling light years.
• Varl broke the story rule never fall in love cause that always means you're going to die.
• Honestly took me a minute to figure out San Francisco was an island. I was thinking am I supposed to believe Aloy paddled to Hawaii or Asia with no supplies in a few hours lol
• Flying a Sunwing!
• Thanks to years of video gaming, I collected hopefully all the info in Thebes before it self destructed.
• Kotallo, I get it, you now accept the loss of the arm but I ran all over the west for you, the least you could do was keep it on until I left.
• Talanah, I helped find your boyfriend that's not that into you, but you couldn't be bothered to stay at the base and help me save the world, rude?
• As with the last game finding the data points are the great. You get back story of the old world without it bogging down the main story. You get as much or as little as you want. Especially about mundane funny things.
• Wonder where the next game takes place. It seems they are setting up crossing the ocean to the Quen but that journey even with any new tech seems a stretch as Nemesis will make it to earth in about a year. So a quick flight between continents doesn't seem likely.
• I look forward to a Horizon game that is specifically built for this PS5 as this feels a lot like a PS4 game.

[ATTACH]199068[/ATTACH]

So yeah:

Spoiler

The whole Kotallo not using his arm all the time annoyed me too. Varl being killed was heartbreaking, especially when you found out he got the lady pregnant and didn't even know he was about to be a dad. Yeah I too was surprised Talanah didn't come back for the final battle at the end. Sure she was probably off in the woods somewhere crying her eyes out because the guy she loved and traveled across the entire map to find was still in love with his girlfriend that he thought was killed.

The Quen were weird. They too didn't fight in the last battle. Far as the world goes, I found it funny how rebels had guns and bullets. You would have thought with that, they would have easily wiped out the other tribes quickly. Also was wondering why Aloy couldn't have a sword. Everybody you fought had swords of some kind. I was waiting and waiting to unlock one somewhere.

[jrnlgrn]

Re: Horizon Zero Dawn 2 Forbidden West

Patch 1.07 is out to day as well.
https://www.reddit.com/r/horizon/com...est_patch_107/

So yeah:

Spoiler

The whole Kotallo not using his arm all the time annoyed me too. Varl being killed was heartbreaking, especially when you found out he got the lady pregnant and didn't even know he was about to be a dad. Yeah I too was surprised Talanah didn't come back for the final battle at the end. Sure she was probably off in the woods somewhere crying her eyes out because the guy she loved and traveled across the entire map to find was still in love with his girlfriend that he thought was killed.

The Quen were weird. They too didn't fight in the last battle. Far as the world goes, I found it funny how rebels had guns and bullets. You would have thought with that, they would have easily wiped out the other tribes quickly. Also was wondering why Aloy couldn't have a sword. Everybody you fought had swords of some kind. I was waiting and waiting to unlock one somewhere.

Spoiler

Yeah the guns thing is a but weird. Think they come from the machines they kill, so really everyone should be able to get them. Probably a bit easier for the rebels since they could override machines making it less dangerous.

Aloy didn't even ask the Quen, other than Avala. The Quen respected/revered Sobeck so much she probably could have convinced them to help.

[georgiafan]

Re: Horizon Zero Dawn 2 Forbidden West

Horizon isn't my kind of game as sci-fi and large open worlds don't typically do it for me. They have to be really well done to hold my short attention span. By the time I picked up the 1st game it was $15 and included the DLC. It was a surprise to me that I loved it and spent 70 hours on it.

I'm loving this game and its better than the 1st one. The best thing I can say about a game is I can't turn it off here lately I've had to kind of convince myself to play games. I'm not going through the motions with this one. The biggest improvement I see so far is the side missions I want to do and they reward you. I also like the skill tree and look forward to getting the points.

So far I'm 10% and 10 hours in a week so this might not last till my vacation in 7 weeks.

I picked this up today decided to wait a few weeks Incase any bugs came out and also wanted to get my sound system set up.

So far so good After playing the opening hour or so until you get to the first campfire. Ive been meh on my non sports game for the last 6 months or so. It looks like this will get my by for next 6 weeks or so until my vacation.


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[Smallville102001]

Re: Horizon Zero Dawn 2 Forbidden West

27.5% now after about 34 hours just got the mask so I can breath under water last night and just man the LV area is so beautiful looking.

[peter42O]

Re: Horizon Zero Dawn 2 Forbidden West

Just under 59% completion. Over 100 hours thus far and still a ways to go. Overall, enjoying the game but changed the difficulty after 70 hours from hard to custom (easy for damage received and taken) but everything else default.

I see the combat and gameplay as a few steps below the first game. Even using the concentration with a bow and arrow, im still constantly missing shots because first, the bow has to be held down until those four marks around the reticle appear to get off an accurate shot and second, even when you do, the enemy (machine or human) move and you end up missing the shot. It's like, what's the point of slowing down the gameplay if im still missing shots?

Melee combat wise, im not enjoying it as much as the first game. First, there should be a lock on system because my goodness, the amount of melee attacks I miss is staggering. Second, the damage given is minimal unless I use the melee Valor Surge which only lasts a certain amount of time.

Next are the skill trees. Six skill trees is overdoing it. Majority of the skills do nothing and those that do are such a small increase that it doesn't even matter. Not only that but you can only equip a single Valor Surge out of 12. This makes no sense. At least give me one melee and one ranged.

Stealth is pointless on higher difficulty levels especially if the machines/humans are high leveled. Leveling up does nothing but give you skill points and more health. Doesn't actually make you stronger like in pretty much any other action RPG.

The Spear is weak in my opinion and instead of upgrading it through all of these skill trees, I would have preferred an actual upgrade system for it like there is for the bows, slingshots, etc.

Gameplay in general - Aloy feels stiff and clunky. So many times she does what I don't want her to do. And don't get me started on the climbing. It's worse than the first game because even during fights when there's a boulder on the ground and im trying to jump, dodge away, Aloy will literally jump onto the boulder as if she was going to climb it.

It's like, just copy AC Origins/Odyssey. That's all they had to do. Instead, it's worse than the first game. I would rather have just those hooks/handles from the first game. Even worse, so many times, Aloy never pulls herself up to get onto a platform despite it being a half a foot high. Also, while climbing mountains which all the paths highlighted as I have that set to on so I don't have to keep using the focus, Aloy will stop climbing up and go sideways even though I can climb up and are pushing up on the analog stick. It's like, come on.

Oh, and Aloy talks way too damn much. Every few seconds. Even worse, she tells you everything to do regardless of your difficulty level before you even have a chance to survey the area and figure out what to do. This spoils puzzles and pretty much everything as you're playing the game.

Next up is the Grapple Hook. Coming off Halo Infinite and Dying Light 2, this is just bad. It's obvious that it's in the game for puzzles but for traversal, it's useless because if there's no grapple point, you can't use it. I really don't understand the design decisions in this game when it relates gameplay and combat. A lot of it just makes no sense especially when you have a game like AC Origins from over four years ago that showed you the blueprint regarding traversal in an open world game.

Moving on to what's keeping me heavily invested in the game. The story/characters, main quests which have all been great and the side quests/errands. I'm enjoying all of this much more than the combat/gameplay loop which is the opposite of the first game for me in both aspects.

Outside of Strike (meh), racing (also meh) and all the documents that there is to collect, im loving all the side content especially the ruins.

Back to gameplay, this game needed another 3 months minimum. Aloy clips through every ladder, almost every platform when she gets to the top of the ladder. There's some noticeable pop-in. I have had one crash that took me back to the dashboard with an error message. The screen will go black for two seconds randomly for no apparent reason. The Firegleam icons are still on the map after completing them. I had one time where going to open up a car trunk, Aloy froze in the animation. I used fast travel and she was still in the animation. Had to quit and restart the game. Worst of them all was trying to complete a story quest 2/3rds through the game and couldn't because the prompt didn't appear for me to do what I needed to do in order to complete the quest. Quit the game, closed the app and restarted, still didn't work. So I loaded an earlier save file (having ten or so auto save files at various points is one of the game's positives in my opinion) and decided to wait on doing that quest. Lost an hour and 15 minutes of progress. So I did other stuff for 10+ hours in game and finally went back to the quest and thankfully, the prompt appeared and I was able to complete the quest.

This is by far the buggiest game that I have played from Sony since the PS one days. In fact, all those issues listed above surpass all the issues that I had over 20 Sony published games for PS4 combined.

Had two bugs with Rift Apart. A crash/error that sent me back to the dashboard and I fell through the world once. Don't remember any issues with Miles Morales but unlike HFW and Rift Apart, I played that three months after it launched.

Finally, there's an option to change the controller configuration which I did. I'm not a fan of using the R1/R2 buttons for melee combat. Just no. Screw that. I'm not playing a Souls game here. I changed several buttons and because of this, I can't use weapons that are torn off from machines or that human enemies drop after you kill them. Basically, in order for me to do so, I have to change the controller configuration to default. Thankfully, I rarely if ever used the weapons from the machines in HZD and unless im required to, I haven't here either so it's not the biggest deal but this issue also shows that the game clearly wasn't fully tested, polished and ready to go. None of the changes I made conflict with anything according to the game as there's no warning or prompt or anything. When there is conflict, the game highlights it in the controller configuration menu. My setup doesn't have this at all even though, there is clearly a conflict.

Overall, based on how I rate games, HFW will still score high for me but category wise, combat/gameplay is going to be lower than the 10/10 I gave HZD.

Seeing Smallville's post above just reminded me of something. This game takes WAY TOO LONG to give you all the special tools. I still need the last one. It' very annoying because there's stuff in the game I can't do because I need this last special tool.

Reason I don't do the story quests quicker to get the tool is because how I play, once the story is finished, game is done.

[georgiafan]

Re: Horizon Zero Dawn 2 Forbidden West

I was breezing along with no problems in difficulty and was on level 19 when I got to the west so +2 to do the main mission. I really struggled on the rebel camp and first side mission I tried to do and it was to the point it wasn't fun it was so hard.

Do I lower the difficulty or wait till I find a better bow? Right now I'm just using the blue color one as I've been saving my stuff hoping to get a purple one and have a few auto upgrades ?