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Horizon Forbidden West - a formulaic and unambitious sequel (CRITIQUE)

Chris Davis・88 minutes read

Horizon Forbidden West disappoints as a sequel to the original game, failing to address criticisms, lacking innovation, and suffering from technical issues. Despite some engaging aspects, the game's repetitive and tedious elements, unbalanced difficulty, and inconsistent storytelling lead to an unsatisfactory experience, prompting a call for significant improvements in future installments.

Insights

Horizon Forbidden West fails to address criticisms from its predecessor, lacking improvements seen in other games of the genre and disappointing players with linear mission design and frustrating puzzles.
The game's combat, despite additional options, remains largely unchanged, with crafting described as tedious and unnecessary, leading to a lack of significant gameplay alterations.
Exploration and environmental navigation in Forbidden West are hindered by restrictions on climbing and contrived puzzles, limiting player agency and causing frustration.
Guerrilla Games' approach to climbing and environment interaction lacks consistency and immersion, with climbing mechanics feeling contrived and disconnected from the world, leading to confusion and awkward animations.

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Recent questions

What are the criticisms of Horizon Forbidden West?
The game fails to address previous issues, lacks innovation, and features tedious puzzles and linear mission design.
How is the combat system in Horizon Forbidden West?
Combat involves armor stripping, weak spot targeting, and challenging precision aiming.
What are the criticisms of the climbing mechanics in Horizon Forbidden West?
Climbing mechanics lack consistency, immersion, and freedom, with contrived restrictions.
What are the issues with difficulty in Horizon Forbidden West?
The game is criticized for unbalanced difficulty, lack of challenge, and over-leveling.
How is the storytelling in Horizon Forbidden West?
The storytelling is criticized for being clumsy, overwritten, and lacking subtlety.

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Summary

00:00

Horizon Forbidden West: Disappointing Sequel with Flaws

Horizon Forbidden West is a disappointing sequel to the 2017 game of the year, offering more content but not necessarily improving on its predecessor.
The game fails to address legitimate criticisms from the previous installment and lacks improvements seen in other games of the genre.
Guerrilla Games added features and content without rectifying existing problems, such as linear mission design and frustrating puzzles.
Combat remains largely unchanged despite additional options, which do not significantly alter gameplay.
Crafting is a major focus in the game, described as tedious and unnecessary.
The story in Forbidden West is not as compelling as in the first game, focusing more on the present rather than the mystery of the past.
The game is visually stunning but suffers from bugs that impact the overall experience.
Guerrilla Games attempted to address some issues through menu options and patches, but these solutions are seen as band-aids rather than fundamental fixes.
The quest design in the game is criticized for being formulaic and overly reliant on specific mechanics like detective vision.
Exploration and environmental navigation are hindered by restrictions on climbing and contrived puzzles, leading to frustration and lack of player agency.

11:11

Cauldron puzzles criticized for dull restrictions

Cauldron puzzles are criticized for being dull and restrictive, despite the potential for creative design in high-tech underground locations.
The puzzles in these areas are visually cluttered, with challenges limited to identifying specific interactive elements and executing actions in a narrow manner.
Optional areas like cauldrons could offer diverse challenges, like timed jumping sequences, but instead focus on mundane tasks like rotating vents.
Ruins in the game are described as lacking creativity, relying on restricting Aloy's abilities to create puzzles rather than offering engaging challenges.
The ruins feature puzzles where Aloy's climbing abilities are inexplicably limited, forcing players to solve puzzles in a specific, often tedious manner.
Puzzle solutions are straightforward but require players to think in a narrow, specific way, sometimes leading to frustration and reliance on hints provided by the game.
Aloy's constant commentary during puzzles can be annoying, as she often provides solutions too quickly, detracting from the challenge.
The game's puzzle design is criticized for being uninteresting and repetitive, with puzzles feeling more like unlocking doors with specific "keys" rather than engaging challenges.
The climbing mechanics in the game are compared unfavorably to other open-world games like Assassin's Creed Origins and Breath of the Wild, lacking the freedom and flexibility of those titles.
Guerrilla Games' approach to climbing in Forbidden West is seen as a mix of restricting Aloy's climbing abilities in some areas while allowing her to climb almost anything in others, leading to a lack of consistency and immersion.

22:15

Flawed climbing mechanics hinder exploration in game.

Aloy can only climb edges that have been programmed into the game as climbable, leading to confusion when some cliffs are not climbable.
The climbing mechanics in the game feel heavily contrived, with arbitrary restrictions on what can and cannot be climbed.
To determine climbable surfaces, players must either throw Aloy at them or use the focus to display yellow lines indicating climbable edges.
The climbing animations in the game are often awkward and rely too much on canned animations and scripting, leading to a lack of smoothness in movement.
Aloy's movements feel disconnected from the environment, with inconsistencies in what she can interact with and how she navigates the world.
The mount in the game is not well-implemented, with speed issues and poor design for mounted navigation, leading to frequent use of fast travel.
The world design includes invisible walls that hinder exploration and restrict movement, making it less enjoyable to navigate off the beaten path.
The glider in the game is a positive addition, allowing players to skip tedious land traversal, but it is not integral to exploration.
The grapple mechanic is underutilized and lacks creativity, with specific grapple points limiting its potential for enhancing movement and combat.
The game's quest design is restrictive and repetitive, falling short compared to more innovative open-world games like Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring.

33:09

"Enhancing player freedom in game design"

Free-climbing enhances player freedom and puzzle design
Suggests allowing players to tackle final mission at their own pace
Proposes making final boss easier if all GAIA’s subsystems are collected or more allies are brought
Advocates for starting in the middle of the map for a different gameplay experience
Criticizes Guerrilla Games for not learning from Breath of the Wild's innovations
Praises Elden Ring for its open-world approach and gameplay depth
Highlights the lack of depth and originality in Forbidden West compared to Elden Ring
Criticizes Guerrilla Games for shallowly incorporating features from other games
Discusses the excessive focus on crafting and hunting in Forbidden West
Describes the extensive content and challenges in Forbidden West, making it a lengthy game with various activities

44:14

Improving Gameplay: Streamlining Weapons and Outfits

Crafting weapons disincentivizes future crafting
Suggestion of having fixed weapons for better gameplay
Proposal to upgrade weapons with different damage types like fire, frost, electricity
Idea to eliminate crafting weapon and outfit upgrades for more meaningful loot
Critique on the excessive number of outfits, proposing a streamlined approach
Challenges with upgrading pouches for various resources and weapons
Inventory management issues with limited carry capacity for potions, food, and traps
Difficulty in tracking and upgrading pouches due to the need to hunt animals
Criticism of the tedious crafting experience and the need for improvements
Feedback on the combat system, lack of variety in weapon usage, and suggestions for improvement

54:53

"Combat challenges and rewards in Forbidden West"

Valor mode in combat provides various buffs depending on the active one, with each weapon having a special attack.
Forbidden West's combat offers depth and rewards skillful play, with detailed machine info guiding players on armor stripping and weak spot targeting.
Aiming for small weak spots is challenging due to the precise damage system, requiring accuracy to avoid missing.
Combat involves chipping away at machines by removing parts, making enemies weaker as their health decreases.
Some enemies in Forbidden West seem less challenging compared to the previous game, with certain tactics rendering them less threatening.
Gyro controls aid aiming adjustments, though they can interfere with machine scanning if the controller isn't kept still.
Combat encounters in the game can feel frustrating due to excessive tracking and hitbox issues, impacting the overall experience.
Hitboxes extending too far in front of machines result in early hits on the player, leading to unfair damage in some instances.
Aloy's stagger animations and reactions to attacks can be frustrating, affecting player control and immersion during combat.
Combat against human enemies remains a weak point in the game, with heavily armored foes and headpieces complicating headshot mechanics and combat strategies.

01:05:44

"Horizon Zero Dawn: Unbalanced Difficulty and Storyline"

Camps in the game require players to kill the camp leader to clear out enemies, with grapple points aiding in aerial takedowns.
Difficulty in the game is unbalanced, with the main campaign being fairly easy, especially when Aloy is overpowered.
Criticizing popular games like Horizon Zero Dawn requires playing on the hardest difficulty to appease fanboys.
Playing on the hardest difficulty in Forbidden West doesn't significantly alter the gameplay experience.
The lack of difficulty in Forbidden West is due to players being consistently over-leveled, even without engaging in optional content.
Skill points in the game are abundant, with the skill tree being largely unnecessary and valor abilities not offering substantial benefits.
The main story in Forbidden West is engaging, but certain quests within the main quest line feel unnecessary and uninteresting.
Aloy's journey in the game involves reactivating GAIA and finding its subsystems, leading to a confrontation with the Far Zenith crew and Nemesis.
Predictions made in the previous game about the sequel's storyline, involving the Odyssey crew and Nemesis, are proven correct.
The game introduces a clone of Elizabet Sobek named Beta, highlighting the nature vs nurture concept through Beta's upbringing and personality differences.

01:17:09

"Horizon Forbidden West: Storytelling and Bugs"

Guerrilla Games chose the Far Zenith route over focusing on Sylens and the Hades sub-routine for a full game, leaving unanswered questions from the first game.
Aloy quickly resolves the Hades issue by deleting it, subverting expectations in the game's start.
Sylens has a minor role in the game, despite potential for a larger part, leading to speculation on the original plan.
Sylens tries to regain importance towards the end, revealing he knew about Nemesis all along.
The game's storytelling is criticized for being clumsy and overwritten, with excessive exposition and dialogue.
Aloy distributes focus devices to her team, enabling easy communication, reminiscent of the first game's focus importance.
The game's visuals are praised for their detail and quality, but the bugs and glitches detract from the overall experience.
Various bugs and glitches are listed, including invisible NPCs, floating assets, and NPCs getting stuck during quests.
Aloy's interactions and dialogue sometimes contradict previous events, indicating potential quest changes or reordering.
Despite the visual splendor, the game's focus on realism is questioned, with a preference for resources to be allocated elsewhere in game development.

01:28:06

Reviewer disappointed in Forbidden West after wait

The reviewer expresses disappointment in the game Forbidden West after a five-year wait, highlighting that more of the same content is not sufficient and can even worsen the overall product, suggesting that major changes are needed for the next installment, which is estimated to be four years away.

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