Horizon Zero Dawn
PlayStation 4
Nostalgia Factor:
This is a relatively new game that, until now, I had never played before. Don’t expect nostalgia to factor into my review. I first heard of Horizon Zero Dawn around the time it came out. It was being compared favorably to the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for the Switch. Both titles were game of the year contenders in 2017, although most reviewers handed that title over to Zelda. Still, though, it put Horizon Zero Dawn on my radar as a game that I would have to check out as soon as it went down in price, which it did in late 2018. I was able to get the full game, plus the Frozen Wilds extra content for less than 20 bucks. I’d call that a major win!
Story:
This game takes place in a future where most of mankind has been exterminated by an unknown apocalyptic event. Mankind still exists, but they are clustered into small, primitive tribes located around the globe. Dangerous machines that resemble dinosaurs and other animals (like horses) roam freely, attacking any human they come into contact with. The game doesn’t come right out and say what happened, but we are left to assume that these machines are responsible for humanity’s demise.
Horizon: Zero Dawn’s main character is Aloy. Aloy was raised as a child by a man named Rost. For unknown reasons, Rost and Aloy are shunned from the Nora tribe and rejected as outcasts. As a young girl, Aloy explores some old ruins and uncovers a “Focus”, which she clips to the side of her head. I’ll go into greater detail as to how the Focus works later on, but it does allow her to scan things around her and it also assists her in hunting animals and evading machines. As an adult, Aloy learns that she can gain acceptance into the Nora tribe if she can pass “the trials.” Naturally, she passes them. But as the trials are coming to a close, a rival tribe commences an attack on the Nora. One of the attackers has a Focus similar to Aloy’s, and Aloy can detect that they are attacking the tribe because they want to kill HER specifically.
After fighting off the attackers, Aloy is fully accepted into the Nora tribe. Not only that, she is anointed the new seeker of the Nora, which grants her the power to leave Nora tribal grounds in order to uncover the reason behind the attack. On her journey, Aloy gets pulled into many different quests and side quests. She basically travels around, helping people and doing good everywhere she goes. By the end of the game she becomes this almost legendary figure that people revere.
The ultimate goal of her quest is to discover the reason behind the attack, which Aloy does. I won’t spoil too much, as most of the fun in this game is in its discovery. But suffice it to say, its complicated and it has to do with Aloy’s mysterious past. Not only does Aloy have a complex history behind her, you also uncover more and more of what happened to the world and why it is the way it is now.
Gameplay:
Before I ever had the chance to play this game, I had heard it billed as an RPG. I don’t agree with that. Final Fantasy is an RPG. Dragon Age is an RPG. Knights of the Old Republic is an RPG. Would you call Infamous, early Assassin’s Creed, or any of the Batman Arkham games RPGs? No. This game reminds me a lot more of the latter than the former.
Horizon Zero Dawn has a giant game map, and I mean GIANT. You have the main quest to complete, but your journey consists of so much more than just doing the main quest. Peppered across the game map are all kinds of things to check out. There are loads of collectible items, like old coffee mugs (which people seem to be fascinated by in the future), flowers, and Banuk figurines. There are waypoints that reveal large chunks of the map at a time. There are Tallnecks, which are basically some kind of dinosaur/giraffe machine hybrid. There are several of these scattered across the map, and they contain lots of useful data if you can manage to scale them and hack into them. There are hunting lodges, where you undergo trials that help you hone your hunting skills. There are cities. There are tradeposts. There are hunting grounds where you can stalk certain types of machines if you are in need of parts. There are campfires, which work as save points. Bandit camps to destroy. I’m sure there is even more stuff that I am forgetting about, too. Suffice it to say, there is stuff on the map EVERYWHERE.
When you are not exploring or collecting things, you are either taking on side quests for other game characters, or you are working on completing the main mission. This isn’t an uncommon thing in games these days, so most people should know how this works. You can accept multiple quests at the same time. There is a menu that allows you to select which quest is your “priority” quest highlighted on the map. While working on one quest, you can still work on others at the same time. These quests don’t expire, either, so you can work on whatever quest you want whenever you want. My strategy was to take care of everything in my immediate area at one time. So I’d do all the quests and collect everything around me before moving on to the next game area. That made my progress in the game very slow going, but what can I say? I like to be thorough.
The game’s combat took me a while get used to, but once I did get used to it it became second nature to me. You only have two types of spear attacks, the quick and weak attack or the slow and powerful attack. My strategy for most enemies pretty much stayed the same the whole game. Use a heavy attack, roll out of the way of the counterattack, use a heavy attack, roll, heavy attack, roll, heavy attack, roll, so on and so forth. It almost never fails. Some enemies can’t be taken out in this manner, however. There are flying enemies that require you to shoot them down with your bow. There are also other heavily armored enemies that you have to shoot with your bow in order to destroy pieces of its armor, which make it more vulnerable to physical attacks. Scanning each enemy with your focus highlights each enemy’s vulnerable spots, as well as its elemental weaknesses.
There are several different types of bows in the game, as well as different types of arrows. Regular arrows are good for hunting animals or killing humans. Hard point arrows are good for knocking pieces of armor off of the machines. Fire arrows set things on fire. Different bow types have different strengths and weaknesses. I am not exactly sure what these strengths and weaknesses are, as I fell in love with the Shadow Hunter bow and only used that one all game long. Other bows have different arrow types as well, but like I said I didn’t mess with the other bows so I don’t know what those arrows are.
There are also several other weapons in the game, but nothing I found quite as effective as the Shadow Hunter bow. I liked using the tripwire, which you can use to lure enemies into traps. There’s a sling that shoots electricity or freeze based projectiles. A machine gun like thing that fires shrapnel at enemies (which I never used because it sucked). One thing I didn’t discover until late in the game, that was actually quite useful, is a harpoon like gun that fires spears that are attached to wires that allow you to temporarily tie enemies down so you can whale away at them while they are incapacitated. A lot of the weapons in the game are absolutely useless, however. Stick to the spear, the bow, the tripwires, and the harpoon thing.
Basic game controls are very user friendly. Tilt the analog stick slightly to tip-toe, hold it sharply to jog, hold it after clicking L3 and you go into a full out sprint. Circle rolls, X jumps. Square crouches your character, which is useful for either entering tight spaces or trying to sneak up on an enemy unawares. The right triggers control your weak and heavy spear attacks. The other side will either draw your bow or pull up the weapon selection wheel. Clicking R3 brings up your Focus. If you’ve played, let’s say, a Batman Arkham game, Focus mode works similarly to detective mode. Things slow down, abnormal objects appear a different color. You can scan enemies to discover their weaknesses while in focus mode. You can uncover old audio or text logs by scanning them with the Focus. I mainly used it for discovering wildlife, which can be hard to spot regularly. The Focus plays a big part in this game, and I would encourage you to use it in order to make your life a little bit easier.
Climbing is easy as pie too. Most surfaces you can manage to run or jump up. Sometimes you need to take advantage of handholds in order to work your way up steeper inclines that you can’t climb normally. Just basically hold the direction you want to go, and the game does the rest. Every once in a while you need to hit the jump button to make your way over long gaps, but that is okay. The game holds your hand for these segments of the game. There is almost no challenge or risk of falling down when climbing around on things. Uncharted this is not.
The only RPG aspects of the game that I could find were that as you gain EXP, you level up and learn new skills and abilities. You buy and sell things to merchants. You equip your character with different weapons and armor types. You also pick up resources that you can either use to sell or to craft items. There is a conversation wheel that allows you to respond to conversations in different ways, not that it changes how the game plays out. I don’t think this is enough to categorize Horizon: Zero Dawn as an RPG, though.
Graphics:
One thing you can’t criticize about this game is its graphics. It is freaking gorgeous. The characters look great, sure. So do the enemies. But what really makes the game so beautiful is its world. It is large and expansive, filled with all kinds of amazing scenery and incredible effects. Many times while playing this I would climb to the nearest high object and just stand there, taking in everything laid out in front of me. Aside from your view getting blocked by a mountain or something of that nature, there is no limit as to how far you can see. It is hard to put into words just how incredible this world is.
That’s not to mention the game’s special effects. One effect in particular I love is when you walk through tall grass. You can almost feel it brushing against your sides as you control Aloy. I love when it is dark out and you are hunting machines, and all you can make out is the blue light that they emit. You know that some major carnage is about to go down, but it also feels so peaceful and serene at the same time. I love the water effects. I love how the machinery looks when you are exploring the old ruins. I love the constantly changing weather. It’s just really cool stalking around the game’s map in a torrential downpour when you can barely see three feet in front of you. One thing the game absolutely nailed was how harsh and unforgiving cold weather can be. The whipping wind, the snow coming down sideways, the thick sheen of ice that covers small bodies of water, Aloy’s breath coming out in great clouds of white. Most games just give you some snow and some icy patches on the ground and are like: here you go. It’s cold! Horizon: Zero Dawn really sells the cold weather like nothing I have seen before.
Visually, this game is a masterpiece.
Sound:
I’m not as excited about the game’s music and sound effects as I am by its graphics. The voice acting is good, even if it can be a bit stiff and wooden at times. The sound effects are all… fine. Nothing annoying, nothing out of place, but nothing particularly memorable either. The same can be said about the game’s music. I like the little jingle that plays after you complete a mission. I like the singing/chanting music when you pause the game or have to sit through a loading screen. Outside of those two songs, though, I couldn’t tell you anything else that was memorable about the game’s music.
Where I will offer praise is in the game’s atmospheric sound effects. Play this with your earbuds in. When it is raining, it sounds like you are in the middle of a rainstorm. When you are exploring an old, empty cave, the sounds echo and you can hear distant drips of water. The visuals of the game are already on-point. The game’s sound effects complete the puzzle of making this a truly immersive gaming experience.
Overall:
It took me a while to get into this game. To be perfectly honest with you, I didn’t even really like it that much in its early hours. Once I got into the groove, though, and figured out how the game worked, I never looked back. I mentioned in my Fallout reviews how I would always have a hard time turning those games off, because I was always wanting to complete “just one more” mission or uncover “just one more” location. This game is the epitome of that. There is SO MUCH to see and do on the game’s map. My intention would be to finish a mission and then go to bed. But after finishing the mission, there would be, let’s say, one of the game’s hidden flower collectibles nearby. I’d tell myself – okay, once you’ve collected this you need to turn off the game and go to bed because it’s late! I’d collect the flower and then I’d notice that there was a Tallneck nearby. Okay, I’ll go override this Tallneck, then it’s time for bed. Then I’d see there was a vantage point nearby, so I would go check that out. On and on it went. Before I knew it, an hour had passed and my wife would be in the bedroom, pissed that I had taken so long to come to bed.
The game is flat out fun. I honestly have a hard time trying to pinpoint one dull moment or one time that the game started to feel tedious or monotonous for me. Okay, maybe there are certain areas of the game where you have to listen to an endless number of boring audio files, but those areas are quite rare. When you are actually playing, the game is never boring. I can tell you right now that (spoiler alert), the game is going to get an A+. It is freaking brilliant. This isn’t to say, however, that it does not have flaws.
The characters. Aloy is a strong, admirable character that you really begin to feel attached to the longer you play the game. Rost is a good man. Sylens is a respectable and intriguing assistant character. And he is played by Broyles from Fringe, which is super awesome. But that’s it. None of the other characters in this game are memorable in any way. They’re just kind of flat and one dimensional, and pass through Aloy’s life in the blink of an eye. Outside of Aloy and (maybe) Rost, I didn’t feel an emotional connection to anyone in the game.
Also, the game has some pretty excessive loading times. In a game this big, it is expected that the load times might be a little long. That’s fine. But when you die, it takes forever to load. There are areas in the game that can be quite difficult, and you will find yourself dying quite often. You are going to be looking at a lot of loading screens. Keep a book or your smart phone handy, or your attention may begin to wander. It also takes a long time to load when you fast travel somewhere. Kind of defeats the purpose of FAST travel, but it is what it is. It’s certainly faster than walking, if that amounts to anything.
Normally I can go on and on when it comes to a game’s flaws, but I don’t have much else to say about Horizon Zero Dawn. The pros most definitely outweigh the cons. The characters aren’t great, there are a lot of boring audio logs, and the load times can be excessive. Those are the only faults I can find with the game. Everything else about it is brilliant.
My overall play time with Horizon Zero Dawn (DLC included) was somewhere between 72 and 78 hours. I can’t remember the exact number. But to me, that’s a lot! I thought the Fallout games and their 40 or 50 hour playtimes were a lot. The thing about Horizon Zero Dawn is that it doesn’t seem like I played it that long. Fallout dragged at times, and it often felt every second, every minute of its 50 hour play time. This game just breezes along. You really don’t feel like you have been playing for that long. I was stunned when I saw how long I had been playing. That, to me, is the mark of a great game. To play it for that long and to have the time fly by so quickly.
I can’t recommend this game enough to anyone who has a PlayStation 4. It is one of the best games I have played on the console. If you own a PS4 and haven’t played this yet, you need to fix that immediately!
Final Score:
A+
If you liked my review of Horizon Zero Dawn, please check out some of my other reviews:
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