I don't know why, but Ashley Burch really lays on the breathiness in her acting during the start of the game. It was excruciating to hear that constant sighing sound at the end of every word. It seems that she pulled back on the breathiness as the game's hours went past. I don't think I could have finished this game otherwise. The melodramatic acting was killing me.

Also, many of the side characters feel too squeaky clean. Everyone is jovial and cracking jokes. There’s no bite to most of the characters; most are paragons. The writing was just tame in general. Few moments that genuinely made me laugh. Couldn’t care less about most of the side quests either. That boils down to uninteresting characters, tedious and predictable gameplay (investigate, follow/climb, fight, resolve), the world's ending and I'm helping some random tribeswoman find her dementia-addled father.

I did like some of the side quest stories: Helping a young kid prove himself during a climb that was symbolic for his village, the hot air balloon flight with the tinkerer, helping Zo fix her village's tilling machines/deities that previously tended their crops, and helping Kotallo make a prosthetic arm. I did all 28 side quests and I literally can't remember most of them.

It feels like you’re watching a stage play, with everyone donning immaculate wardrobes, face paints, and accessories. That’s one of the big problems for me. It’s hard to immerse myself when it feels like the world’s biggest larp session, with all the trappings that come with it; stilted dialogue, okay writing, the lack of any sense of realism, etc. After any battle in the game, no one comes away with any scrapes or bruises, not a drop of blood in sight.

Paradoxically, the game features heavy violence at points. Regalla's massacre is a chief example. The Carja/Tenakth forces are equally maimed and murdered by Regalla, with guttural cries and splurts of blood. Kotallo's arm is chainsawed off for christ's sake! I went back and watched that cutscene and saw something shocking: Kotallo falls to the ground after being mutilated and his removed arm has already been nicely wrapped up haha. Similarly, Regalla is impaled by Kotallo if you choose to kill her. Not a drop of blood, then either.

The narrative shied away from confronting its weirder sci-fi elements. I liked the sci-fi story with Ted Faro being a giant tumorous blob, but the game shied away from showing you his disgusting appearance and quickly killed him off. I was hoping for a Resident Evil-esque boss fight or at least a conversation with Ted. They also shied away from explaining the new amalgamated consciousness of Far Zenith billionaires dubbed "Nemesis" that's coming to wipe out all life on Earth.

This game has the problem of male antagonists being pure evil, while the female antagonists, of which there are few, have complexity. They're misguided, being manipulated by a male, have good intentions, etc.

So the game starts incredibly slow and monotonous. It felt like a direct continuation of the first game in the worst way, in that it's exactly the same game. Unfortunately, it barely reinvents itself. The new elements are swimming (not that important besides missions), the grapple hook thing that makes platforming a little less tedious, the new flying mount that unfortunately unlocks very late game, side quests have dialogue choices that actually impact those stories, and side quests have subtle dialogue effects on the main story. The choice to select a new desert Tenakth leader was awesome!

The tallnecks had a lot more variety and puzzle-like gameplay to determine how to activate them. Also, the cauldrons have more variety and one in particular stood out; you find a dormant tallneck in there and ascend out of the cauldron atop the tallneck. Great moment!

The combat became stale quickly. The problem is that you have to fight many robots for different crafting materials. It felt a lot more grindy than Zero Dawn. Forbidden West forces you to keep crafting upgrades for your weapons and armor, otherwise you don't stand a chance. The map is also littered with innumerable enemy areas. You get knocked over constantly by enemies with attacks that affect a massive area as well. I have no clue how to dodge some of these attacks. Getting up after a hit takes forever. They also kill your mount quickly if you're spotted. It killed the combat for me, because I started running from each encounter. It was no longer fun. Eventually, I gave up and played the game on story difficulty.

The default setting for UI is distracting and takes up too much of the screen. Similarly, the animation to open chests, loot machines, bodies, and plants was tedious over many hours. Having to scan constantly for climbable surfaces and loot gets annoying quickly. I was going into the settings constantly to try to make the gameplay less tedious and distracting.

The climbing feels kinda loose and I miss jumps all the time when it looked like I should have reached it. Really frustrating. So many different weapon types, ammo, resources, etc. It’s extremely overwhelming. Most of it doesn’t even matter anyway. Platforming areas relied heavily on the pullcaster, using it pull open vents and pull down beams to jump to. It quickly became tedious.

The notes/datapoints you find are presented in such a boring way. They read like emails. It’s not like in The Last of Us where all the notes are physical unique objects, with actual handwriting.

I did like the world map. It has depth to it, so you can make out the changes in elevation and all the peaks and valleys. Flying the pterodactyl mount was awesome! It unlocked too late though to fully enjoy it. Beautiful game, but there is too much visual clutter. It's so detailed that it's overwhelming to navigate.

My favorite tracks
1. https://youtu.be/PyCWedrKiMU?si=fzKcm73JM0uZLee-
2. https://youtu.be/yKPPSBsNK4g?si=8jFavC80mJB7kEnZ
3. https://youtu.be/MSZOJFct28o?si=iwDEJmNA-6qFdLpq