Horizon: Zero Dawn

Finished the story to this last night. Still have to go back and finish some side stuff to get the plat, but overall this was a very well put together game. Nothing really stood out as "GOAT" to me, but with that said, there was absolutely nothing about this game that was truly terrible either. Didn't much care for how they handled things at the very very end, but aside from that, I loved how they slowly revealed how everything went down. Definitely a game I think everyone should experience, for sure.

docu on the making of the game

Just picked this up this week, and I'm just getting to Dawntower. Probably ~10 hours in. The Cauldrons make this game for me so far. What a cool concept.

So, as with most open world games, the pacing of the narrative is fucking awful. I want to know what happens next, but I hesitate to pursue the main quest line in favour of side quest completion. However, every side quest so far has been mediocre at best.

Without spoiling anything, is there any reason I should be behaving this way? Are there any killer quest lines I'm gonna miss (ex. Bloody Baron in Witcher 3) if I just make a run through the story?

Thanks

None of them can be missed, after beating the game it puts you right before the start of the final mission(gives you unlimited chances to get the All Together trophy)

The "Tie Down Trial" can go fuck itself. Three crits on the ground on flying enemies that you tied down while in a herd of Tramplers, and all within 120 seconds? Fuck off. Fuck. Off.

I was really enjoying this game until I left Daytower and started hitting the flying mobs. I hate flying-anything in every god damn action game I've ever played.

I'm going to need anger management after this horseshit.



Stalking mechanical dinosaurs, setting traps, being aware of surroundings, methodically taking apart a whole area piece by piece? That stuff is awesome. Being able to set up death matches between robotic dinosaurs?? Where has this game been all my life!?

....But the Tie Down Trial? I hope whoever thought that was a good idea drowns in a pool of their own vomit while leaving their browser history open for the world to find. Fuck them and fuck this horseshit trial.


Anyways.....Carry on.

I like this game a lot less than I did a couple hours ago.



EDIT: Finally beat it at 1 min 33 seconds.

What was my overwhelming feeling? Not skill....not that I'd learned something....not a sense of accomplishment. I didn't feel powerful, or that I'd overcome something.

I felt like I finally got lucky. That's all. I felt like a lot of things outside my control finally went in my favor, so that I got all three crits 50 seconds faster than my next best attempt.

Nothing satisfying about it. Not even after beating it.

Fuck that trial.

You can generally cheese most of the trials if you just focus on the goals instead of worrying about kills and avoiding mobs and stealth, etc. You can also prep many of them by dropping dropped weapons and items ahead of time. They are pretty bullshitty, I totally agree, but then again they are completely optional parts of the game too. For the tie down one for example, you can do it super fast if you just focus on getting three crits on a single mob and not damaging it outside of those crits:



If you get stuck on any one trial just look up a youtube video, you'll find some crazy method someone has figured out to make it a lot easier. The ones near the end tend to get a bit crazy too.

Had issues with the Tie-down trial also, biggest thing i figured out, get the Shadow Ropecaster put in 1 handling(helps with reload), the other 2 with tear(helps with tie down effect)

Burn glinthawk with 2 fire arrows, tie him down(should take 2-3 ropes depending on mods), then prepare the next glinthawk while waiting for the first to come down the heavy rope helps a ton with this trial.

Folanlron said:

Had issues with the Tie-down trial also, biggest thing i figured out, get the Shadow Ropecaster put in 1 handling(helps with reload), the other 2 with tear(helps with tie down effect.

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Yea, that sounds so much better than what I was doing. I still had the Carja Ropecaster, but modded for only pure handling, so it would fire fast but I swear to all the gods it had an almost mystical ability to miss what should have been sure shots even at close range.

As it turns out, I ran across my first Thunderjaw not too long after the trial. I made it a point to kill it on my first attempt just to regain a little dignity lol.

Killing Thunderjaws is even better than anger management. Went from level 33 to 35 on Thunderjaws alone, and I feel so much better.....having a blast again. Only stopped because it was starting to cut into my blaze supply hah. But the last one, I took both it's blade cannons (whatever those are called), carried them both to the nearest Trampler herd and proceeded to annihilate the herd like I was the bringer of the apocalypse.

I needed that after that horseshit trial.

I'm sure I'm over-leveled at this point compared to where I am in the story, but I'm fine with that.....having way too much fun battling 'bots to stop.

Picked this up last week and definitely my favorite PS4 game since Last of Us. I'm level 26 and about 50% through the game. Really my only criticisms:

Frenzied Wombat said:

Picked this up last week and definitely my favorite PS4 game since Last of Us. I'm level 26 and about 50% through the game. Really my only criticisms:

Spoiler

1) The weapon/crafting system is just unoriginal and doesn't scale well. I'm only halfway through the game and already have Shadow protection armor and all the shadow tier weapons, which means I'm only 50% through the game with nothing to look forward to in terms of new gear or upgrades beyond mods.

2) Fuck the trials as the only way to get lodge weapons. I despise timed quests which basically are endless reloads until you figure out the correct approach/pattern

3) Except for the mobs explicitly weak to electricity, I don't see a use for this ammo type. Freezing always seems to be better than stunning. In fact, the overall best strat all around just seems to be to boost fire on the War Bow and pelt a mob with endless fire DoT damage.

4) WTF are harvest arrows for when tearblast arrows seem to be universally superior?

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Harvest arrows net you more resources when you hit a component. They're also used to collect resources from a body before looting.

There are a few enemy types that are particularly weak to fire but freezing and tearblasting are generally the way to go. I played on very hard and those arrows trivialized many of the encounters, especially coupled with the double and triple shots.

sneakyflute said:

Harvest arrows net you more resources when you hit a component. They're also used to collect resources from a body before looting.

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Ho-Lee-Shit.

I would have never known that. Going to have to play around with those.

sneakyflute said:

Harvest arrows net you more resources when you hit a component. They're also used to collect resources from a body before looting.

There are a few enemy types that are particularly weak to fire but freezing and tearblasting are generally the way to go. I played on very hard and those arrows trivialized many of the encounters, especially coupled with the double and triple shots.

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Damn, didn't know you could use them to harvest components off dead robots..

Freezing/tearblasting is probably the most efficient, but it requires proper aim lol. Pelting a large mob with 30 or so fire arrows definitely takes longer, but you basically just need the skillz necessary to hit the broadside of a barn. Everything seems generally vulnerable to the fire DoT.

Which leads me to another question. I am fucking horribad at aiming on the PS4, and the frustration is compounded coming from decades of PC based precision mouse control. It's why I don't play many games on the PS4. What does "aim assist" even do? I literally can't tell any difference between it being on or off.

Your aim must be REALLY bad if you don't see a difference between aim assist on and off. It seems pretty obvious really. Arrows actually curve with aim assist on. No aim assist and shit just goes straight. My aim is dreadful with gamepads too so I do use aim assist and it is definitely less frustrating for me.

From what I've heard, this game uses projectile tracking rather than the subtle reticle tracking you normally see in console games. But yeah, I found the absence of aim assist on very hard frustrating more than anything because it's not intuitive at all. That's why you have that stupid time slow function.

Yes Utnayan I am quite addicted heh

Utnayan said:

Haha woot!

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Holy shit the story in this game is fucking awesome.