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Love this because it vibes with a feeling I've been having for a while now, which is that I'm not sure that when people say "I want open world games that encourage exploration" that they actually mean "I want to explore."
Tons of these games (even BOTW) have mechanics that surface and reward exploration (the actual act of going from A to B to see what's there) in the same way. And yet some get more praise in this department than others. It's all the same mechanically at the end of the day: identify landmark or map icon -> travel to location -> see thing, get item, or do task -> repeat. That's what exploration means mechanically in all these games, and they all try to encourage it. It's literally the core gameplay loop of the genre.
What I would posit is that people aren't looking for "exploration." They're looking for a consistent feeling of wonder and novelty. Lots of people praise Ghost of Tsushima for exploration, but I think what they're actually reacting to is the sense of wonder they got from the beautifully composed and colorful biomes.
That's why Dark Souls might feel more "exploratory" than AC Valhalla for example despite being set in a more limited game space. Dark Souls evokes that sense of wonder and novelty by giving you bespoke level designs and encounters in visually striking environments that make you feel like you've somehow outsmarted the devs.
People want games that feel novel or serendipitous. The actual exploration mechanics don't matter.
Interesting complaint:
Horizon Forbidden West Review: Gorgeous Open World Let Down by AAA Game Design
Looks and sounds great, but it’s in service of a poorly thought-out experience.gadgets.ndtv.com
Big Brain Time on this con -_-
Con - "PS5 60fps performance mode looks muddy and noticeably lowers image quality settings"
I guess they mean, they think the IQ is lowered too much? Incredibly petty and arrogant to make off hand comments for technical issues like this without further analysis for something which others well qualified in this area are saying is head and shoulders above 99% of the competition.
Horizon Forbidden West Review
Our Horizon Forbidden West Review - for an in-depth, unbiased review of the latest and greatest video games, read on.
www.ausgamers.com
I doubt many of them played much of it, since they're on a time crunch to get the review out and there's so much to do in the game. But yeah I'd like to hear more, too.
BOTW boss fights suck, combat system sucks etc etc.. Far far worse than Horizon in that regard. Like there is no one game that does everything well. If you like exploration sure I can see liking BOTW more but no.. .it does not do everything well. Not even close.
I prefer the exploration in BOTW to the combat in HZD so I think it is a better game but saying it does everything better is completely off.
Like Elden Ring is about to show BOTW what truly god tier open world combat with similar sense of discovery and exploration that BOTW is going far. But then again that game is going to lack in puzzles compared to BOTW. Like I said its impossible for one game to check every single box.
I disagree. I honestly could not care less about not being able to climb everything. It won't make my time less enjoyable at all. HZD is one of my favorite games of last gen and much better to me that BOTW. HZD was compelling to me in ways that BOTW wasn't.
How is 89 MC score not outstanding especially compared to DL2 that reviewed far worse which you are playing.
Loved the first game so I have this preordered. Excited to check it out after I finish Xenoblade Chronicles. :)
When i saw 3 review that say the same thing , i always feel like they dont understand why difficulty setting exist... even here everything can be parameter. It feel super amateurish.
Dying Light 2 reviews were much worse (and Dying Light 1 for that matter), but you got that one. Why are the higher reviews on this one a deal breaker for you?
Few games can compare to the polish and groundbreaking work in Dying Light 2. Good choice.
Do any reviews go into how the game does as an RPG? Or is it another action adventure game with lite RPG mechanics?
I think their point is fair - they didn't particularly care about the first game and seeing as Forbidden West doesn't reinvent the formula but only evolves it and refines it, the likelihood is that they also won't love the sequel.
At the end of the day, reviews can only be so helpful. If I don't like a game that much and its sequel comes out with similar (positive) reception, I most likely won't be interested in it no matter how high the metascore is (unless reviews state that it's a once in a generation type of game)
This pleases me. Thanks you all. 😀
Some reviews mentioned how the mechanics and skill trees and stuff were more in-depth, and that this one felt closer to The Witcher 3, for what's it's worth, but I haven't read a whole lot concerning how much more it feels like an RPG.
Interesting complaint:
Horizon Forbidden West Review: Gorgeous Open World Let Down by AAA Game Design
Looks and sounds great, but it’s in service of a poorly thought-out experience.
Interesting indeed.
If I kill a cricket outside in my backyard, should I not expect another to come in it's place?
Sure that does not mean reviews are not good though. It is just that their tastes differ which is fine. An 89 indicates good reviews. I get your point though..
what is your solution? it's like a film critic complaining about the use of cross cuts and explosions in an action film. these are staple design principles of games generally, when you're creating a non-linear environment how do you keep it populated? it's not just open world games. any game ever made where you're expected to retread areas bar a very, very small few which have very different objectives (shadow of the colossus comes to mind) don't have enemies which respawn. i can think of ways you might modify encounters between respawns, but doing away with respawns entirely would make for a different game entirely with a world that becomes very empty very quickly.
it is the very definition of unconstructive criticism.
Does this reviewer want to run around an empty world with no enemies? I actually can't think of a single game that does what they're asking for here.
Simple. I enjoyed the first dying light a lot. If I felt the same way about the first horizon reviews wouldn't matter to me either way and I'd pick it up.
The fact that this game got the same range of reviews than the first one implies it is a better game. It wouldn't have scored like this if it were just the same game.
These reviews are great. I enjoyed the first game quite a bit so looking forward to getting this one.
But this has devolved into what review thread devolve into, taking the few reviews that don't like the game as much as others and bashing them to no end. For a game almost no one in here has played yet, anyways.
But this has devolved into what review thread devolve into, taking the few reviews that don't like the game as much as others and bashing them to no end. For a game almost no one in here has played yet, anyways.
Aurc here is my review:
Console Creatures - Recommended
"Horizon Forbidden West is the rare sequel that not only improves on every mechanic but also creates a lived-in world full of danger and wonder in every corner."
Console Creatures - Recommended
"Horizon Forbidden West is the rare sequel that not only improves on every mechanic but also creates a lived-in world full of danger and wonder in every corner."
IMO it depends on how the world is designed and how frequently enemies respawn.
If there's a point on the map that I run back and forth over a lot, then I can see myself getting annoyed if enemies keep respawning every time I walk past. At the same time, it could also be annoying in some games if you kill an enemy and nothing respawns there, ever.
In Skyrim enemies will respawn in the world and dungeons will be repopulated, but only after a sufficient amount of time has passed (or if some quest grabs the already cleared dungeon, either a scripted one or a radiant one).
BOTW has an interesting spin on this. Enemies respawn but only after either a sufficient amount of time has passed, or when the game needs to clear its internal stack of changed entities (defeated enemies, opened chests, etc) because it's getting too unwieldy. This isn't unique in the open world game space (again, Skyrim does this), but unlike other games where this is invisible to the player BOTW goes out of its way to inform players of this, so you can actually take this into account when exploring and can mark respawn points of certain major enemies that are likely to drop good materials and weapons on your map.
The review doesn't make it very clear how respawning works in Horizon, but I can see it being annoying if say, a Thunderjaw would be visible from outside some town even though I went out of my way to kill it only five minutes ago (this is an extreme example, not saying it happens in the actual game). At the same time, it could be annoying if I killed every Thunderjaw on the map and no more ever spawned, because then I'd be all out of Thunderjaws to fight.
Exactly. Saying that respawning enemies is a game-y thing is... lazy.
DS2 had an experimental system but still has respawns, you can burn the bonfire ascetic once you've expired an area etc. Divinity and Deus Ex are the others i've played in that list and both are incredibly different from a design perspective. It is never intended you revisit areas in Divinity, it is linear in that you are expected to take certain paths through the world based on your level relative to your enemies. Deus Ex is the same. I love the two latter games there, and critiquing them for choosing to do something different would be levelling expectations of design philosophy on a game you're meant to be examining on it's merits.
I think it's silly to require games to explain these idiosyncrasies of the medium, but like "blood moon" respawns, Horizon has the system of cauldrons which are constantly 3d printing robots to populate/terraform the world as GAIA intended in a way which promotes the environmental rebirth. If enemies are destroyed they are re-added to achieve that balance.
From my time on here BOTW fans come into every Horzion topic like Kanye saying how BOTW is the greatest game of all time, how it took all of Zero Dawn thunder, and how BOTW climbing is the greatest innovation in gaming history. But Horzion fans are the insecure ones lol.
Why does every review thread like this devolve into people picking apart the reviews that gave it a lower score?
Feels really insecure.
Feels really insecure.
The way I see it is being compared to BOTW is a compliment. It's one of the highest rated games of the modern era. I feel like the attitude towards comparing Horizon to BOTW is similar to SMT fans mad that SMTV was compared to Persona. I mean they're both action adventure open world games, BOTW is one of the highest rated ones, and reviewers compare games all the time.. especially to BOTW and Souls games. I would prefer Horizon be compared to BOTW than Assassin's Creed.
Game should be judged on its own merits. Variety in games is good. Everything should not be similar. BOTW and Elden Ring are trying to do different things from Horizon.
This just doesn't make sense when talking about reviews. Reviews are supposed to help consumers buy games, they aren't objective.. they're 100% subjective and should be. You have no reference point when just talking about an individual game, you have to make comparisons to help the average consumer make a purchase. It seems like this point is only brought up when there's something negative being said about the game being reviewed vs the comparison... however if I'm a big BoTW fan and I see someone say that HFW has a glider similar to BoTW, that could be an easy sell for me!
Horizon 2 is the 6th highest rated PS5 game on MC so far.
Here's who's ahead of it:
1. Hades (93)
2. Demon's Souls (92)
3. Endwalker (91)
4. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 (90)
5. Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade (89)
Remove the remake, remaster and port and Horizon is at #3 (#2 if we wanna be cheap and remove the late Hades port)...
Here's who's ahead of it:
1. Hades (93)
2. Demon's Souls (92)
3. Endwalker (91)
4. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 (90)
5. Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade (89)
Remove the remake, remaster and port and Horizon is at #3 (#2 if we wanna be cheap and remove the late Hades port)...
I dont agree with that. Sure, reviews are subjective but comparison is not needed at all to convey or articulate the experience a game offers. Sometimes people use comparisons to make something easier to understand, which is fine but denigrating a game because it is not similar to another game is just not fruitful atleast in my opinion.
When I played Horizon my first thought was how similar it was to Monster Hunter. HZD was a mashup of many ARPG tropes, but focussed on what Guerilla are good at; combat. IMO it absolutely nailed a monster hunter lite wrpg feeling set in a world I did not want to leave.
Goobers constantly referring to botw in reference to gameplay design makes me like the game less by association. So annoying and ignores how it jacked systems from many other arpg's and ignored a lot of what made past Zelda games great (good dungeons).
Goobers constantly referring to botw in reference to gameplay design makes me like the game less by association. So annoying and ignores how it jacked systems from many other arpg's and ignored a lot of what made past Zelda games great (good dungeons).