Horizon Forbidden West

[Mole HD]

Mind blown. This game is such an rollercoaster of positives and negatives.

• When the story kicks in holy crap its good. The creative writing the dutch developers do is really next level
• ... Making it... say relatable in an inclusive fashion is well beyond fitting in the lore and stabs what could be a classic in the face.
• I feel almost cheated, but none of the reviews that i watched ever mentioned a dark souls like difficulty spike on key bosses. Given point 2, it feels really confused and doesn't know what it wants to be. The themes in the game are fine as the creators choice. They're not dark souls.

Maybe that difficulty is normal? Maybe i should just put it on easy. Its kind of annoying because while you're learning the fight, the scenarios don't have you knowing you made a mistake and trying to be better. The scenario's one shot you until you do something different. Its not the most fun while you're there.

Even with HZD when I tried it on the hardest difficulties, the game changed from "I'll just stick a few arrows in that robo-dinosaur thing over there". to "I'll just cower in this long grass over here and hope to hell it doesn't see me" type of game.

It seriously ramped up from being a pleasant almost relaxing story driven adventure game into full on hide under the table Alien Isolation

 

[Surefoot]

The first game had "mini boss"-like mechanical monsters that could one shot you quite easily too - and the expansion a few more of these, especially one I can think of that required perfect timing during a really challenging fight. Not sure what your point is there, it's not Dark Souls and not trying to be IMHO (and it has plenty of personality of its own and an excellent world backstory), very different mood, there's just a healthy amount of difficulty.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

I just wasn’t expecting it. Nothing at all prepared me for a “difficult” game, ie a game where it’s normal to die on a boss a dozen times while you work it out. If they wrote it on the tin I would have been fine. Same with using the game as a modern American political statement as well but I guess they never warn you about that.

I’m still in awe of the graphics. I’m exclaimed out loud a number of times that shouldn’t be real… how is that possible, and at my age I play games for graphics more than gameplay. Always have really, games are one of the highest forms of tech. Anyway.

It’s just there are extreme elements in the game nothing at all warns you about leading into the game, its unexpected from a first party Sony title that you’d imagine they want to be as truly accessible as possible.

If you take the story just by itself it’s also one of the best I’ve heard in recent years. Really enjoy the lore.

Also this time around I love playing in stealth. Being able to tag parts and making a need for it is a nice touch as well.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Also just as trivia is nice to see the old frontier cms representing a different game.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Still in awe that this game exists every time i play it. Truly a privilege to be experiencing such a wonder in computer graphics.

I don't know what i was expecting, but have accepted that monster killing requires interesting part removal or its pretty much impossible. I think i was expecting just winging it to work like the last game but that really isn't the case with the sequel. Just playing normal.

 

[Mole HD]

Still in awe that this game exists every time i play it. Truly a privilege to be experiencing such a wonder in computer graphics.

I don't know what i was expecting, but have accepted that monster killing requires interesting part removal or its pretty much impossible. I think i was expecting just winging it to work like the last game but that really isn't the case with the sequel. Just playing normal.

Easy way around the quandary is to play on story mode...I know some may regard this as some kind of social crime or an admission of failure... it really isn't

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Easy way around the quandary is to play on story mode...I know some may regard this as some kind of social crime or an admission of failure... it really isn't

My 4 year old has decided he wants his own save after playing copilot mode (dont judge please ) so actually tried that. Its sort of interesting to one shot everything...

Personally i don't mind having play in a certain way, or learn certain mechanics, im just trying to comfortably understand what the game is trying to be. Its only foible is its seemingly trying to be everything at once / not saying no to anything. As you progress though the zones / story moments, the different encounters try to teach these to you, but its not the clearest of instructors. Doesn't even define the scope. This is combined with multiple different styles available for machine combat with the diverse weapons.. I have a feeling it will all fall into place soon enough.. at the moment im up to "go for weak spots".

 

[Mole HD]

My 4 year old has decided he wants his own save after playing copilot mode (dont judge please ) so actually tried that. Its sort of interesting to one shot everything...

Personally i don't mind having play in a certain way, or learn certain mechanics, im just trying to comfortably understand what the game is trying to be. Its only foible is its seemingly trying to be everything at once / not saying no to anything. As you progress though the zones / story moments, the different encounters try to teach these to you, but its not the clearest of instructors. Doesn't even define the scope. This is combined with multiple different styles available for machine combat with the diverse weapons.. I have a feeling it will all fall into place soon enough.. at the moment im up to "go for weak spots".

If the first game taught me anything, it was the importance of selecting the right tool for the job...'tear' arrows for removing armour from weak points (as well as other arrow types and when to use them), how to use the spear effectively with timing and purpose rather than just swinging it about like an ape with a club. Once I got used to how the game wanted me to play in different situations, I got on a lot easier.

From what I've seen of Forbidden west...they've kinda upped the ante a bit with more difficult monster types being entirely reliant on the player targeting those weak points specifically in order to defeat them. The first game touched on that aspect a fair bit... but not as much as Forbidden west certainly seems to.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

If the first game taught me anything, it was the importance of selecting the right tool for the job...'tear' arrows for removing armour from weak points (as well as other arrow types and when to use them), how to use the spear effectively with timing and purpose rather than just swinging it about like an ape with a club. Once I got used to how the game wanted me to play in different situations, I got on a lot easier.

I haven't got tear arrows yet in forbidden west. The boom stick seems to have a lot of potential in replacement.

Yeah really don't have a complaint in general though. The biggest difference for me personally is being able to skip time (as annoying as it is). I feel safe now that i never have to suffer poor night graphics unless i want to. Its all a treat.

The gearing is just one step more complex than the first. If you have to bother to upgrade the weapons, you might as well explore what they do otherwise all that effort is for nothing, a good new connection to explore.

 

[Surefoot]

Yeah looks like there are more "Combat class" machines, in the 1st game you really had to take down the proper parts of bigger combat bots like the Thunderjaw, or Sawtooth.. The "gods gift" was a Ravager in the area as you could detach its side autocannon and blast away at everything with it. But yeah without tear arrows it's a lot more difficult I guess. I usually play these games on hard difficulty, unless there's no setting (like the Dark Souls games for instance), I was used to spend coins in arcade games in the 80's and these were properly difficult

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

.. To think this is fundamentally ps4 era tech. The ps4 pro and ps5 versions are very similar.. its mainly draw distance lod for a few things and increased fur on faces and rocks.

Spoiler: How is this even possible?

Spoiler: More

Yeah maybe the people who only play odd should stick to only playing elite

I think it was 110 million euros they spent making this?

EDIT: That was all from ps4 pro. Realtime. Higher fps in dodgy 4k rather than supersampled 1080p, iq much better at SS 1080p.. screenshots were all originally 4k. Yeah i keep saying out loud "how is this even possible" so often when playing this game.

 

[Surefoot]

Yeah i keep saying out loud "how is this even possible" so often when playing this game.

The engine devs are wizards Probably the best game engine out there until UE5 can flex its muscles (and even then it's a close match IMHO). What I like in this engine so far (completed the first HZD and Death Stranding) is it's robustness and level of polish: you can really "explore" around and go creative with your path to anything, and the engine complies without any hiccup - as opposed to the usual open world games with a lot of small bugs and inconsistencies that we've been used to (mostly by Bethesda..). Also character models are now so well detailed, I was breath taken when seeing Lance Reddick it was really his likeness in the game.
UE5 might top that with its "nanite geometry" thing, but artists and devs will have to make use of that, we'll see how it goes (*) - so far Death Stranding tops everything else when it comes to 3D nature geometry (and character models probably too - with well known stars appearing in an incredibly detailed manner, from Guillermo Del Toro to Conan O'Brien...). All of this with amazing performance (played all of this on PC).
The quality of the code behind it shines through the surface - it's bullet proof, and with fantastic rendering performance. It's good to see that UE5 will have a really strong competitor.

(*) One of the side effects of that level of detail, is the need for absurd amounts of textures, in humongous resolutions, which means a LOT of memory taken by them, also the overall asset size will inflate that much, probably pushing games over the 100GB barrier, we'll definitely see that in the near future...

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

probably pushing games over the 100GB barrier, we'll definitely see that in the near future...

Thats normal for mmo's these days. Eso is 115, that new game lost ark was 70+.

Spoiler: Not really a spoiler, more like spoiled gamer.

Since focusing on interesting part removal, combat has been quite fun. Mixing it up with electricity stuns, valor attacks and the cheat stick add the needed variety. Took down a varied flock of machines just for the fun of it (right near that village today). Then the scrappers arrived, which you can melle.

Still awestruck. Every time the night comes i just skip time and very happy. Ironically, i tried to play at night knowing that it was my option not my suffering this time. While its a valiant effort, it looks great.. its still pointless to the immense majesty of when you can see.