This game is close to perfection in every single way. Visually it looks awesome on a PS5, the gameplay was already good in Zero Dawn, but here it was majorly improved upon, which I absolutely loved.

The fighting mechanics (both melee and ranged) in this game are now pretty complex, but easy to grasp and I found it challenging and rewarding to win every time. You not only have to keep in mind the attack patterns, but you also have infinite possibilities for approach which differ from machine to machine, making it also a game of strategy. The best example of this would be "The Arena" challenges, the last one of which took me more time than the last Sekiro boss to get a badge for (with that said, I was playing at the max difficulty all the time).

As for the story, not gonna lie, I had to watch a recap of the events of Zero Dawn because I completed it a few years before and I forgot all the details, which the characters were constantly talking about here. Other than that, I feel like the plot was really good. Even the side quests and other activities are really fun to explore. I even went as far as to complete every single quest which I did not regret at all. I even got my second Platinum on this game without any hustle at all, as completing the game fully basically pops all the trophies without doing anything special. What really shows that the story was good was that I managed to remember the names of the more-or-less main characters and all tribes and not felt lost because of this (This usually happens when the plot is boring and I can't make myself care about it).

Very much looking forward to playing the burning shores DLC.

todas as ruínas de prédios dos estados unidos nesse jogo são de empresas, escritórios, hoteis - e todos os documentos e e-mails que você lê estão lá pra falar a senha de uma porta, reclamar do chefe, dizer que guardou algum item importante no andar tal. não é um futuro distópico - é até bonito ver como as tribos estão usando circuitos como adereços ornamentais e pedaços de robô como máscaras e estão aprendendo a adorar computadores - é um passado distópico mesmo: um país corporativista causou o fim do mundo, e as pessoas nesse passado não tinham mais que atravessar só a cidade pra trabalhar, mas sim o oceano, pois não sobrou uma única casa na américa do norte: ou é prédio empresarial ou é monumento (as únicas coisas que um jogador que habitasse esse mundo poderia reconhecer)

The first 10 hours or so were fine and managed to recreate the strengths of the first game, but when you unlock the entire world, the story absolutely implodes as the narrative around the "future humans" is so braindead it's hard to take anything seriously. Some of the events happening were so weird and silly that I had a hard time accepting that this was really in the game.

And I could write a book about how silly the tribespeople are, anyone wearing metal on their bare skin in very hot or cold climates would scorch or freeze themselves to death within a few hours. And all they do is stand up and down in the same spot for the entire game. Everything is so sterile and half-ass about the NPCs, even if they look great from a visual point of view (apart from everyone having perfectly clean armor).

Half the missions are fetch quests, and the game lacks the mystery and the freshness of the first game. The last 5 hours or so were the worst part of the game, and the ending is so bad it virtually wrecks the entire lore of Horizon (which the first game did a good job of building), by making everything too fantastical.

All that said, it still plays well, the only part of the combat I don't like is when you get swarmed by multiple machines (which happens quite a bit) because it becomes too focused on using the weapon wheel and slow-mo and leaping back and forth in a frenzy to avoid everything dashing about.

But in general, it still has a fast-paced intense combat system, a stunning world, cool machines, and a lot to explore.

I liked the first game a lot, but this game soured me on Horizon, and while I still platinumed it and enjoyed it somewhat, it was like eating a cake with pebbles on it, where I like 80% of it and absolutely despise the rest. However, there were enough good parts of the cake to still give it a good score.

Bem melhor que o primeiro, a história é melhor contada, com ritmo bem melhor em comparação ao anterior (mesmo melhorando, ainda é apenas bom nesse quesito).
Ainda tem personagens esquecíveis mas eles estão bem mais interessantes aqui.
A gameplay melhorada é bacana, mas o melee ainda não é perfeito.
Referência gráfica, um dos jogos mais bonitos da geração.

7/10

Oh Horizon... I feel so sorry that I started this one and the last one when they first released, only to put them down and not play them for like a year because the GOTY winners released within the same week.

I love hunting for robot dinos and extracting specific parts, Monster Hunter style. I love building my setup of both armor and weapons to match my playstyle. I love the new skills they added to add more punch to your weapons (not to mention some of the new weapon types were cool too). This is one of the most beautiful games out there. It is superior to the first in just about every way (and that's saying a lot because the first game is awesome).

I truly wish these games picked better times to be released because they truly deserve to shine next to those GOTY winners rather than being forgotten by many and pushed to the sidelines. I hope that the next entry into this franchise gets its moment; I won't make the same mistake of waiting so long to play it again.