Horizon Forbidden West (Review): PS5's Breath of the Wild 

Mmmmmm cheese drums

The weirder, the better!

I guess for me it's more just how it's done than what it is. I *wanted* to be way more into Horizon lore by the end of this than I was, but there are multiple instances of some absolutely wild stuff happening in-game, or a cutscene-some real "I don't know if I've ever seen this in a video game before" stuff-and then it's followed up with a thirty minute shot reverse shot conversation monotonously explaining away all the mystery. There's some interesting stuff to dig into here for sure, I just wish it was more interestingly delivered.

@@WritingOnGames the first game has the same problem, the story is quite interesting, but the execution is often wonky, for instance, the opening sequence that shows baby aloy being adopted as an exiled, that follows kid aloy learning the basics of hunting and being told she's an exiled... wait, wasn't that just told me like a few minutes before? there are tons of these narrative decisions that ended up having me put down the game after a dozen hours and play other things, I came back and eventually finished it, and enjoyed it more on my second playthrough actually, maybe my expectations were already set and could gloss over the less well made aspects and had fun with the game. After watching your video I'm actually more excited for the sequel since my most requested features seem to be adressed.

imo the narrative and world-building was the BEST part of Horizon Zero Dawn and in that respect it easily outclassed certain more popular open world games with shallow generic worlds and characters that just did more of the same thing we've already seen many times. So if you say you couldn't really get into the original and the sequel's narrative continues in a similar way, that sounds GREAT... and it's good to hear the exploration and world are even better.

@@WritingOnGames Thinking about this some more I feel like the sometimes simple or dry delivery of certain exposition in this game, like old audio recordings, holograms and occasionally face to face conversations... where a more flashy cinematic presentation might have seemed more *impressive* on the surface, having these shocking revelations about how things came to be the way they are delivered in such a stark format actually ADDS to its impact. It's so much more shocking and emotional learning all these things without frills or emphasis for effect. It just lets it sit there. There are a lot of "holy shit" moments that are all the more powerful for their seeming mundanity, like people *really* just made these choices and did these things and now here we are... Maybe it's true some in-person dialogue scenes between characters could have used something more cinematically, and there are a couple of story choices that seemed odd or incomplete, but overall I found the storytelling of this game incredibly good and moving in a way I was not expecting...

@@ninjadodovideos No, the world lore and even voice logs are fine, it's the interpersonal communication and total lack of relationship between them that makes it very odd. I did all the side missions in HZD and got the most help with the final boss, but people just showed up like "Remember me and that thing we did for 5 minutes? Now you're my best friend." And no, no I don't remember you. The present day story and it's presentation weren't very good.

If you like fun traversal more than anything else, then are you looking forward to Forspoken??

I couldn't agree more. That and a meaning open world like BOTW elevate open world games from solid to truly great. Traversal is way underappreciated

That's precisely why Spiderman PS4 and Miles Morales is such a fun game, even if it's just freeroaming.

@@cliffturbo2146 yess, thats exactly it. Like they have fast travel and I never used it

You must not have liked RDR2

Thanks a lot!

I'd imagine they're generated based on rules on the terrains / assets. Kind of looks a lot like the system in Death Stranding which used the same engine. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some back and forth of ideas with the 2 teams.

@@TheEveningEconomies maybe it's a system like in dying light. I don't think the devs there created every single handhold manually since it would take a ton of time, so it uses some kind of edge detection to determine if something can be a handhold or not

@@TheEveningEconomies You are absolutely right. While interviewing the Horizon team for Forbidden West, they talked about just that. They talked about how the great thing about PlayStation studios is how they work with each other and exchange ideas. They talked about how they worked with the Death stranding team after Zero Dawn because death stranding team needed assistance with some issues they where having. In turn the Death Stranding team helped Guerilla on Forbidden West. If people knew this they would understand why the Bunge acquisition is super important to Sony. Most studios under Sony collaborate with each other. You can even see this on twitter how the studios support each other by creating skins promoting other games in their games. It happened today with the sandwich tweet and how more and more studios kept tweeting on if they can join and the studios where like there is more room at the table. Seems silly the whole sandwich tweet thing but it just illustrate some thing that is unique and organic with the PlayStation studio family. The next 5 to 10 years are going to be so interesting to watch.

@@juanpablo8886 II think this is the future of the gaming industry, games are starting to take more time and resources to be created, collaboration between studios is important to guarantee a high quality game.

@@homeoessential2741 i think going into the future we won't see things like that anymore. I agree it would be nice, but for years now triple A games have held spectacle and visuals over anything else. And i don't see that changing anytime soon.

I really don't think the two audiences overlap as much as people think they do.

@@akshayarrison7269 The 2 are big AAA open world game, even if it's true that they don't appeal to exactly the same audience, there's still a sizable chunk of people who will opt to buy ER instead or at least wait before buying HFW. Plus, that mean the 2 will have to compete for review and coverage time, which probably won't benefit HFW since the Souls have more brand recognition and ER is available on all platforms. It's kinda sad that ER was delayed, it would have been better for both games if they had come a month apart.

@@raitoiro, well, you are correct, and the people like me would prefer ER to HFW any day any time. However, regarding brand recognition, I would not be so sure if I were you. HZD sold over 20mln copies alone whereas all three Dark Souls games sold over 25mln copies. Granted, there are a bunch of people who are well aware of the DS series and are not into games like that, but the same can be said about the Horizon series.

@@amenoyoni Brand recognition and sell number aren't always related. Being a big commercial success obviously helps a lot, but IMO being culturally significant is more important. And the Souls have had a huge impact on the game industry: there's a whole genre named after the series (souls-like), huge series take inspiration from them, and at this point the name is basically synonymous with difficult games. The series is somewhat niche so they don't sell huge quantities but the people who play them tend to love them and be vocal about that fact. On the other hand Horizon does have some brand recognition, mostly because robot dinos are hella cool. But aside from that it was a fairly formulaic open world which didn't had much impact on the industry, especially since it came out at the same time as BOTW. A "proof" of this is that between the release of the 2 games, if you didn't go look for it, you would likely not hear anything about Horizon. Whereas you can expect the Souls to pop up here and there in article, in meme, in best games lists, ...

@@raitoiro, I fully agree with you on the matter that the DS series has had a much more pronounced impact on the game industry. As you pointed out, it created its own genre. However, its merits are important mostly to the developers, who are inspired by them, and people like you and me. We know where from it has originated and we value the product and the source. However, I hardly imagine a person who bases their game purchases on the mere factor of the contribution to the industry when there are many other factors to consider when choosing a game, like gameplay, storytelling, difficulty, art design, or graphics. A game could change the industry upside down, and yet it would have much worse recognition among consumers than a regular every-year-releasing shooter. And unfortunately, this kind of recognition sells vastly more.

Eldritch is kinda better.

Minor Key's games are great. Did not expect to see someone talk about em here :P

Plus dying light 2

Hopefully it's the year they find a way to justify their existence. No more tedious compulsory checklists of collectibles and reskinned fetchquests to tick off to make up the bulk of the world.

Plus Cyberpunk next gen update so I can play that game all over again.

Cyberpunk next-gen on consoles means more people get to experience the proper game. I played it on PC where there were only minor bugs but now console players also get to play. Zelda BotW Sequel comes out this year as well. That innovated open-world games like nothing else. Horizon, Cyberpunk, Elden Ring and Zelda have made me fall back in love with open-world games!

@@djbeema that would be amazing! I fully support open-world, so long as games can find a way to incorporate the open world into the core game mechanics. Imo this is why BotW was so influential. It showed that it can indeed be done. Horizon Forbidden West expanded itself to a similar level of exploration as Zelda, which will really help the open world. I hope more games take note from BotW and expand on their formula without straight up copying the game (like Horizon Forbidden West did compared to Horizon Zero Dawn). I don't want to see BotW clones that basically copy the game 1:1 (like Immortal Fenyx Rising). Games like Zelda and Horizon are being unique, and it's great for the industry!

Thanks a lot! Glad you enjoy it.

Funny enough, those expositions were the whole reason I enjoyed the first game. I’m hoping there’s enough of that exposition for me in this game, because open world usually bores me (hated BOTW despite respecting its craft because I really wanted a strong main story) Sounds like I’m gonna be fine

@@marls5459 Same here. I took joy absorbing every bit of lore from the world of Horizon.

@@marls5459 Thanks for this. I disliked the constant combat and the huge amount of traversal needed to get through the game on the first go. For me the strength of hte game was the exposition, questing, and dialog. I enjoyed the game much more the second time because I could skip a lot more of the tedious combat and traversal and get right to the quests, narrative, and exposition that I enjoyed. Also nice to know I can safely skip BOTW.

Hopefully you get to play it soon

As long as you get the opportunity to play it, all that matters.

Indeed. And, hopefully without the story having been spoiled for me too during that time

I said the same thing, unfortunately I have to know what happens next.

This is literally my experience

Yes! There are. I’ve seen some gameplay clips if it

Thanks!

That's fine! People are allowed to have different tastes.

@@WritingOnGames no only mine! Unsubbed! Jk love this channel. I said that hoping you or someone else would expand on it. I like to hear differing viewpoints. To me, open-world = time sink. Too many things to do over a huge map... I just don't have the endurance. (And that sucks bc I want to see where the story goes - I never finished the first Horizon game) I loved God of War because it was a focused journey and I kinda knew what I was in for when I signed up. I feel like a focused story allows for more polish.

@@therupoe sorry for my terse response, it's just I get people telling me they don't get my general coldness to those games a lot. Honestly it's not really to do with preferring open worlds over linear narratives-I'm no big fan of generic open world time sinks myself, and I very much include open world games like Ghost of Tsushima among the label of Sony Prestige Titles. I just find myself thinking with a lot of these games "what would actually be here if you stripped away the Hollywood-esque sheen? Big set pieces might look pretty but what am I actually *doing* to move it all along? Am I doing anything?!" I guess I think that at its core (and probably the main reason I so adore games like Hitman, which is probably a better thing to put up against GoW rather than simply open world games) the strength of games as a medium lies in its ability to allow self-expression-for players to, at least in part, craft their own stories. It's the reason I love Hitman so much. Most open world games don't allow you to do that, which is why I don't think the choice between "God of War or open world game" really works for me here. But to use GoW as an example, that's a game where I just found myself holding up on the analogue stick a lot of the time and watching (albeit very slickly produced) cutscenes where a dude says "BOY" a lot. Guardians of the Galaxy was another example of this despite not being a Sony game-I found myself genuinely astounded at how long the game was making me just hold up to go through yet more corridors with absolutely zero flexibility. At some stage, we're reaching the realm of "badly paced TV show" rather than "compelling action game" (although I will say the Sony stuff is way better than GotG). As I say, the big budget Sony title is a kind of game I've softened to in the last couple of years (I went from outright loathing Ghost of Tsushima when it released to having a decent-enough time with it for a video last year, and having played the recent PC version of GoW, I'm not bouncing off it quite as hard as I did on PS4) but I guess my biggest thing is that the way these games get held up as high watermarks of the medium, to me is the same as if someone took the latest DreamWorks film and held it with the same reverence. These games are pure fluff, pure popcorn to me-which is fine, sometimes that's what I want-but certainly nowhere near approaching the "generation-defining masterpiece" level reverence with which people tend to hold these games. Like I say in the video, there's a sterility there, a kind of fidelity-over-substance approach that I just can't shake with any of these titles. I like the art I experience, the games I play to have a bit more... bite to them, I guess.

@@WritingOnGames really great response, thanks! I get where you're coming from now.

Ikr. Look at Last of Us 1 & 2, absolute masterpieces.

I've not played Forbidden West yet and am trying to avoid spoilers but I *assume* it's the pretty big twists/revelations that the game reveals in the story quests at and after "Maker's End" -- that quest and most of the main story quests after recontextualize pretty big things in the world, explaining how the post apoclaypse world reached its stage, Aloy's parentage, the behaviour of the machines etc. Those are all pretty far into the game --- recommendation is to finish the first game's story

@@sanskarmishra5309 More like “this company was following a formula that I wasn’t a huge fan of and now someone who noticed that formula has made a balanced review explaining how the game does/does not fall into it.” If anything I’m the OPPOSITE of what you’ve said! I’m happy my opinion ISN’T validated so I have more things to enjoy! Why do people online gotta make things confrontational regardless of anything?

@@chazzergamer I love the camera in GOW.

@@itcouldbelupus2842 I appreciate it on a technical aspect, I’m sure showing off that much detail in one cut with no obvious load screens wasn’t an easy task. But the fact it doesn’t make combat clear and easy to read was a constant source of frustration for me.

@@chazzergamer a more customizable combat camera would have been good for those who struggle with it being so close, I enjoy the limited visibility because it makes positioning more important, and I like being able to see what I'm hitting and feel like I'm right in there instead of watching it happen from far away. I couldn't keep playing AC Valhalla because the camera was so far away and the weapon feedback was terrible, it just felt so bad. But we probably have very different tastes and requirements of a Gabe's combat, a simple slider to adjust the combat camera distance in any game like this wouldn't be that hard to do and would make everyone happier.

@@itcouldbelupus2842 To me positioning doesn't matter in most combat games nowadays because the player character and the enemies will hone in on whatever the player is currently attacking. I'm sure you've seen either your character or an enemy slide across the ground to hit you in a way that doesn't mimic the movement of the animation. GOW has it, Ghost Of Tsushima certainly has it, along with the AC games. The only 3D combat game I can think of that doesn't have this is FROM games (they have some weird Grab tracking but their animation is consistent) and Devil May Cry 5, which is the best combat game ever made. Being able to see what you are hitting is important but also seeing whats coming to attack you in also just as important, but GOW doesn't share the same values. The Threat Circle is the half-assed answer which isn't accurate at all and the constant ranged enemies means that combat for me was never challenging and fun, just constantly being hassled by ranged enemies I can't see when I'm trying to get into the groove. If GOW had a camera like The Arkham games which effortlessly transition from close narrative camera to wider combat camera, it would have solved one of the major problems with the game for me.

I make all the music for the videos. Glad you like it! The music is available to patrons at a certain level.

@@WritingOnGames You got amazing talent That track is a vibe Your videos are always chill to listen to aswell Will become a Patreon once I have money Thank you for answering& letting me know where to find it!

Exactly!!! Also the stamina meter in BOTW was immersion breaking and the constant rain as well! Also Gravity Rush rules!

They are still Redeye Watchers

@Tahir Yeah?? Like, populated once or just ruins?

@Tahir Wow, you just brought my hype levels up to a million! Have you been able to play early?

I played botw after i beat hzd and imo it sucked in comparison lol i didnt even bother beating it

Casul

I’m a lifelong Zelda fan and I also couldn’t get into BotW at all. It really threw out everything I loved about the series. Conversely, I absolutely loved HZD and ended up getting the platinum within just a few weeks of starting it.

@@Road_to_Dawn Did finishes BotW but had no interest in the DLC (or exploring that world any further), but got the DLC for HZD nearly sight unseen and still jump in every now and then to finish a side quest I hadn't yet!

If LoZ2 didn't exist I'd say BotW was the worst of the series. I'd take A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker over BotW any day. There's literally no benefit to fight anything outside the shitty forgettable bosses. Risk breaking a weapon for what? No xp or meaningful loot. Waaaaayyyy too many shrines...only a few were any fun. Huge open world with a lot of boring shit sprinkled about. I don't get the love.

Yeah that was weird. GoW4 has some of the best organic gameplay and story of any game, almost ever.

I agree zero dawn is alot better 👍 botw bored me lol

Yeah, going up against Elden Ring this time is, uh... certainly a choice.

Weren't they kinda forced into that situation by Elden Ring getting delayed?

I sincerely hope you enjoy it too!

Since he indicated he didn't like HZD 1 that much it's probably fine since it sounds like it continues similarly. Horizon 1's story was *excellent*.

@@ninjadodovideos I hope so

Isn't it obvious? From shadow of the colossus!

Just cause ?

People who have only played BOTW seeing their second game: "getting a lot of BOTW vibes from this".

You can upgrade you pouch to be larger fairly easily