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Horizon Zero Dawn |OT| The Land After Time

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B

Billy_Pilgrim

Member
Nearly finished the game now, have to say that the story went completely off the rails around halfway through and what was a genuinely interesting and promising premise really didn't live up to it's potential. In fact it is entering 'fucking stupid bullshit' territory.
 
H

HIGH DEF JEFF

Banned
Billy_Pilgrim said:
Nearly finished the game now, have to say that the story went completely off the rails around halfway through and what was a genuinely interesting and promising premise really didn't live up to it's potential. In fact it is entering 'fucking stupid bullshit' territory.
Click to expand...

Totally agree.
All the stuff you are referring to should have been set aside for the sequel.
 
B

Billy_Pilgrim

Member
HIGH DEF JEFF said:
Totally agree.
All the stuff you are referring to should have been set aside for the sequel.
Click to expand...

I'm impressed with a lot of what they did in the first 20 hours or so, just a shame that they seemed to bottle it somewhat. It felt like it was set up for some seriously mature, adult and sciencey stuff with interesting characters and a few twists, but the actual story could be derived quite easily very early, the characters evaporate, there's no real antagonist, the obi wan makes zero sense whatsoever. Real missed opportunity here, the cheese is strong.

If they'd kept the game grounded on a Nora like culture it would've been far better than the mad max/game of thrones mash up it heads towards.
 
D

daveo42

Banned
Billy_Pilgrim said:
Nearly finished the game now, have to say that the story went completely off the rails around halfway through and what was a genuinely interesting and promising premise really didn't live up to it's potential. In fact it is entering 'fucking stupid bullshit' territory.
Click to expand...

I actually liked the direction they took the story. Just the right level of scifi without being the exact same thing as every other post apocalyptic world. Some of it is a little far-fetched, but the reasons why things turned out the way they did and where things end up I'm on board with. I'd say the only questionable thing comes from (next to last mission)
Ted Faro's decision to kill all the Alphas and shut down the Apollo system for the sake of not influencing this new civilization. Even then, based on the stuff we hear about Ted, it falls in line with his character.
I think the story is well done, though I have yet to complete the final mission of the game. Maybe that'll change, but I've been surprised at the story and how much I've liked it.
 
G

gustave154

Member
Romez said:
Just left the sacred lands and ran into a bird machine which I thought was a Glinthawk lol

Took quarter of its health away, saw that I'm running out of ammo/resources, scanned it and realised it was a Stormbird and noped it out of there so quick.
Click to expand...

I had no idea and died the first time fighting the storm bird. Didn't even get a quarter of its health before getting electrocuted to death by its electric gun.
 
H

HIGH DEF JEFF

Banned
Billy_Pilgrim said:
I'm impressed with a lot of what they did in the first 20 hours or so, just a shame that they seemed to bottle it somewhat. It felt like it was set up for some seriously mature, adult and sciencey stuff with interesting characters and a few twists, but the actual story could be derived quite easily very early, the characters evaporate, there's no real antagonist, the obi wan makes zero sense whatsoever. Real missed opportunity here, the cheese is strong.

If they'd kept the game grounded on a Nora like culture it would've been far better than the mad max/game of thrones mash up it heads towards.
Click to expand...

I wrote a few posts about it yesterday just as I was finishing up the main quest line..

My basic points/beefs are when you suddenly have the typical video game mechanic of "mentor character in your ear telling you what to do" kick in. Everything after that is a super long info dump that really presses on all the good will the game had built up till then. All of the tribal stuff is really well written and could have easily carried the game till the end. Then you have the "other stuff" which I guess you need (for better or worse) to tell the bigger story but it didn't need to be in this game. It could have been a cliffhanger of some kind that sets Aloy up for a journey outside of this region
Colorado
to find more answers.

The "other stuff" seems to be interesting to a lot of people and maybe it is but when you force feed it to me after spending 20 hours telling this great story about these tribes who sort of get along
after what the Mad King did
it makes the transition to the B PLOT hard to get invested in.
 
G

gundamkyoukai

Member
HIGH DEF JEFF said:
Totally agree.
All the stuff you are referring to should have been set aside for the sequel.
Click to expand...

Why ?
Everything made sense story wise and it answer most of the big questions.
One of the things i like about the story is it wrap most things.
So if the game fail ( really happy it did not seem to be the case sales wise) .
We know about most of the big event in the past and everything about Aloy.
 
M

MegaSackman

Member
HIGH DEF JEFF said:
Totally agree.
All the stuff you are referring to should have been set aside for the sequel.
Click to expand...

The masses would have complained. I'm glad with what they did. Really don't understand how someone would want to leave everything for a sequel when most people anticipating the game were worried that they actually would leave the bigger misteries unsolved.

I guess the story didn't do it for you.

Edit: If your complaints are the way in which it was told, then that's more understandable to me. I think they could have made a different job in that regard, I liked it but I'm sure it could be improved. Now the actual story was great to me, and the misteries most definitely needed to be solved. I disagree with you with the cliffhanger and sequel stuff, people were just expecting that not to happen long before the game launched.
 
B

Billy_Pilgrim

Member
HIGH DEF JEFF said:
I wrote a few posts about it yesterday just as I was finishing up the main quest line..

My basic points/beefs are when you suddenly have the typical video game mechanic of "mentor character in your ear telling you what to do" kick in. Everything after that is a super long info dump that really presses on all the good will the game had built up till then. All of the tribal stuff is really well written and could have easily carried the game till the end. Then you have the "other stuff" which I guess you need (for better or worse) to tell the bigger story but it didn't need to be in this game. It could have been a cliffhanger of some kind that sets Aloy up for a journey outside of this region
Colorado
to find more answers.

The "other stuff" seems to be interesting to a lot of people and maybe it is but when you force feed it to me after spending 20 hours telling this great story about these tribes who sort of get along
after what the Mad King did
it makes the transition to the B PLOT hard to get invested in.
Click to expand...

I could definitely stomach it working out that way, in fact I had known from the beginning that we were talking about a multi-layered narrative and that got me quite excited.

Just felt like they threw a story together because reasons and fucked up the good stuff they'd had going before without ever reaching a satisfying conclusion. Lots of woo wah, the background logs and stuff. Btw these can fuck off from games, nobody wants to stand around in an empty room waiting for crap voice acting to end.

There was a lot of opportunity for environmental storytelling and they just fucked it all off, it went very mass effect when it could've shot for something greater.

I can definitely see people loving it, but on balance it fails as a narrative.
 
D

Deleted member 752119

Unconfirmed Member
Made a ton of progress last night, will finish it up today. Need to finish the story mission I stopped on, then do the two cauldrons I missed, see if there are any major sidequests I missed (I don't think there are, but want to double check) and then polish it off.

I don't think I'll bother with the platinum as I don't generally chase trophies and don't feel like doing the hunting challenges (hate timed challenges) or hunting down power cells. Already got all the collectibles and did every side quest and errand I came across. Still have a couple corrupted zones to clear out, and may have missed a bandit camp. I may deal with those before finishing up. Think I'm at level 41.
 
M

MegaSackman

Member
dmaul1114 said:
Made a ton of progress last night, will finish it up today. Need to finish the story mission I stopped on, then do the two cauldrons I missed, see if there are any major sidequests I missed (I don't think there are, but want to double check) and then polish it off.

I don't think I'll bother with the platinum as I don't generally chase trophies and don't feel like doing the hunting challenges (hate timed challenges) or hunting down power cells. Already got all the collectibles and did every side quest and errand I came across. Still have a couple corrupted zones to clear out, and may have missed a bandit camp. I may deal with those before finishing up. Think I'm at level 41.
Click to expand...

Do at least three blazing suns in a Hunting Challenge to enter de Hunting Lodge and get a cool quest!
I hate timed challenge in games, but at least in Horizon there are only 15 and they're quite easy outside from one or two.
 
H

HIGH DEF JEFF

Banned
MegaSackman said:
The masses would have complained. I'm glad with what they did. Really don't understand how someone would want to leave everything for a sequel when most people anticipating the game were worried that they actually would leave the bigger misteries unsolved.

I guess the story didn't do it for you.
Click to expand...

See my post above..
Let me reiterate this point. This is the first time since Red Dead that I was completely sucked in to a video game story. The main story, all of the side quests and the errands (even if a lot of them devolve into go to a place, investigate, follow footprints) held my attention because the writing is really good between Aloy and all these different characters. And the final cut scene, even though it ties into the stuff I dont really like, was incredible.

Obviously the explanation for why the world is the way it is has to come at some point and if it was going to be shoehorned into this game it didn't need to be in one large chunk. Repeating myself from yesterday but
by the third board room hologram I was looking at my phone.
 
G

gundamkyoukai

Member
MegaSackman said:
The masses would have complained. I'm glad with what they did. Really don't understand how someone would want to leave everything for a sequel when most people anticipating the game were worried that they actually would leave the bigger misteries unsolved.

I guess the story didn't do it for you.

Edit: If your complaints are the way in which it was told, then that's more understandable to me. I think they could have made a different job in that regard, I liked it but I'm sure it could be improved. Now the actual story was great to me, and the misteries most definitely needed to be solved. I disagree with you with the cliffhanger and sequel stuff, people were just expecting that not to happen long before the game launched.
Click to expand...

I don't think the made any real mistakes story wise .
Then again i like info dumps which some people don't .
I guess it also depend on what you really care about , the tribal stuff while nice is not what i cared about .
It was the sci fi story so i did most of them in a row and got back to the other stuff later on .
 
H

HIGH DEF JEFF

Banned
Billy_Pilgrim said:
I could definitely stomach it working out that way, in fact I had known from the beginning that we were talking about a multi-layered narrative and that got me quite excited.

Just felt like they threw a story together because reasons and fucked up the good stuff they'd had going before without ever reaching a satisfying conclusion. Lots of woo wah, the background logs and stuff. Btw these can fuck off from games, nobody wants to stand around in an empty room waiting for crap voice acting to end.

There was a lot of opportunity for environmental storytelling and they just fucked it all off, it went very mass effect when it could've shot for something greater.

I can definitely see people loving it, but on balance it fails as a narrative.
Click to expand...

Especially in
GAIA
when you find like 30 of them in a row!!
I made the "ill listen to them later" decision.....ill never listen to them.
 
D

Deleted member 752119

Unconfirmed Member
MegaSackman said:
Do at least three blazing suns in a Hunting Challenge to enter de Hunting Lodge and get a cool quest!
I hate timed challenge in games, but at least in Horizon there are only 15 and they're quite easy outside from one or two.
Click to expand...

I think I did already. Assuming you're meaning the quest line that ends with you killing
Redmaw.
 
D

Deleted member 752119

Unconfirmed Member
Billy_Pilgrim said:
Just felt like they threw a story together because reasons and fucked up the good stuff they'd had going before without ever reaching a satisfying conclusion. Lots of woo wah, the background logs and stuff. Btw these can fuck off from games, nobody wants to stand around in an empty room waiting for crap voice acting to end.

There was a lot of opportunity for environmental storytelling and they just fucked it all off, it went very mass effect when it could've shot for something greater.

I can definitely see people loving it, but on balance it fails as a narrative.
Click to expand...

I love it and love finding audio logs, e-mails etc. in games. One of the few types of collectibles I enjoy hunting for/find rewarding. But the Mass Effect series is also near the top of my GOAT list so....
 
H

HIGH DEF JEFF

Banned
MegaSackman said:
Do at least three blazing suns in a Hunting Challenge to enter de Hunting Lodge and get a cool quest!
I hate timed challenge in games, but at least in Horizon there are only 15 and they're quite easy outside from one or two.
Click to expand...

Me too. It was at that point I set the game to easy just to get the blazing sun marks. Usually got them all on the first try.
 
D

DriftingSpirit

Member
Rhaknar said:
Stealth suit with stealth purple mods and silent sprint

tumblr_nxd4t2yONj1tggtypo3_400.gif
Click to expand...
lol
 
M

MegaSackman

Member
HIGH DEF JEFF said:
See my post above..
Let me reiterate this point. This is the first time since Red Dead that I was completely sucked in to a video game story. The main story, all of the side quests and the errands (even if a lot of them devolve into go to a place, investigate, follow footprints) held my attention because the writing is really good between Aloy and all these different characters. And the final cut scene, even though it ties into the stuff I dont really like, was incredible.

Obviously the explanation for why the world is the way it is has to come at some point and if it was going to be shoehorned into this game it didn't need to be in one large chunk. Repeating myself from yesterday but
by the third board room hologram I was looking at my phone.
Click to expand...

That didn't happen to me and to a lot of people here but I can totally see that happening to someone. If your problems are with the storytelling then I won't say anything because even if I enjoyed it I can see that it's not a good way of telling things, I mean, it works but it's pretty heavy in Horizon, there are like 5 missions where you just listen to audio logs and watch holograms, I loved it because they were really good so as the story but it's not a good way of telling it.
What I disagree is that the story is bad, cheesy, bullshit and all that, and that the game could have saved their misteries for a sequel, we have a lot of that already in the industry.
 
D

Deleted member 752119

Unconfirmed Member
MegaSackman said:
Yes, that one. Then you can forget about the rest if you're not into it.
Click to expand...

Cool. I may dick around with them down the road, but I'm ready to wrap this up for now and move back to Zelda and the Mass Effect next week. :D
 
P

Primethius

Banned
I think the game faltered a bit with the execution of the story but the way it entangled the several plot points was pretty good. The sci-fi aspects were necessary to explain the present day story and the present day stuff was well thought out.

The sci-fi stuff was well thought out too. I expected Kojima levels of BS with the premise of the game (robo dinosaurs) and I got something that explains almost everything without making me feel like a dumber person at the end.
 
G

GeoramA

Member
Took down a Thunderjaw for the first time. That was amazing.

Weird how you don't hear too BioShock comparisons because it definitely felt like taking down a Big Daddy for the first time.
 
H

HIGH DEF JEFF

Banned
GeoramA said:
Took down a Thunderjaw for the first time. That was amazing.

Weird how you don't hear too BioShock comparisons because it definitely felt like taking down a Big Daddy for the first time.
Click to expand...

The Big Daddy comparison is how i pitched this game to a friend of mine. Told him its like fighting 20 different types of Big Daddys!
 
G

gundamkyoukai

Member
For me i don't think there was anything more satisfying than taking down a stormbird .
With the thunderjaw using his own weapon made it kind of easy .
The stormbird on the other hand is just one on one with what we have .
 
Melchiah

Melchiah

Member
I've enjoyed the game so far, but the checkpoint system is sometimes pretty annoying. I lose all the XP and items gained, and everything in the inventory returns to being unchecked. The latter in particular is just needless repetition.
 
D

DriftingSpirit

Member
Melchiah said:
You can't save everywhere though. I just cleared a camp, and died before reaching the next. As a result all the items I had viewed, and treasure boxes I had opened, returned to how they were. =/
Click to expand...
I think the fireplaces are spread out rather well and there are quite a few of them. I understand how you could end up in that situation though.
 
R

Ravage_Hydra

Member
One thing i can say about the OST is Julie Elven did a great job her voice just bring life to the songs she's feature in.

My personal 3 favorites are

Prologue (feat. Julie Elven)
Aloy's Theme (feat. Julie Elven)
Victory (feat. Julie Elven)
 
M

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
leng jai said:
Ropecaster just make Glinthawks and Stormbirds trivial.
Click to expand...

Glinthawks don't even need a ropecaster, just fire arrows. I do have have a 40% fire mod on my bow IIRC, but two fire arrows and they go down, then critical hit, then r2 to finish them off.

Haven't taken down a Stormbird yet though. Every time I tried I kept being harassed or blindsided by more monsters showing up, grrr.

I do play on hard btw
 
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