I've played through Horizon before on PS4 so I feel justified in giving my opinion on it now despite me not being able to get through my playthrough here. I remember enjoying most of Horizon back when I first played it but I can comfortably say I enjoyed it significantly less this time around. More than halfway through the story nothing hasd improved. The writing has consistently been either mediocre or straight-up bad. The narrative has compelling elements, such as figuring out how the dangerous world came to be, but the dialogue and character hold it back significantly. I can only say I somewhat enjoyed combat with how fast and slick it felt. It isn’t anything original or mind-blowing but I don’t believe that was the goal. I could tell this by how the rest of the gameplay was comprised of bog-standard open-world affairs. Collect items that have no real narrative or interesting gameplay purpose, clear out bandit camps full of lackluster AI and interact with lifeless NPCs for forgettable side quests. Audio logs and other lore-specific collectibles were the only worthwhile items worth exploring for. Even then, however, I had to swift through dozens of blandly written and mundane ones to get to the interesting stuff. That’s basically how I’d describe my whole experience. There were moments where combat encounters were visually and mechanically impressive while certain narrative beats gave way for intrigue. But those moments were not worth experiencing the dull writing, plain characters, and generic open-world activities. I’m hoping the sequel takes it up a notch in every area, but only time will tell.