The sequel that is a massive improvement over the first is a repeating theme in gaming but some franchises begin with a first game that feels as polished as that potential sequel. The first Horizon was that for me, a fully formed game that executed its premise so well that a sequel couldn’t really improve on it greatly. What happened is the sequel Forbidden West feels more like the third sequel where it adds a few elements but doesn’t really change too much, not the leap forward a major sequel should be. The formula is so great that Forbidden West is still an excellent game and taken in a vacuum I would argue it is better than the first mechanically, but part of the joy of gaming is discovery and the first one is an experience I won’t forget while this one had a sense of familiarity throughout.
Much like the first game you play as Aloy as you traverse a huge open world filled with roaming robotic dinosaurs and animals. Guerrilla doubled down on the skill trees adding all kinds of new secondary attacks and a super meter that allows for a buff of your choosing. Reactions to these combat changes were mixed, some say it upset the fast flow of combat from the first game, others say it adds depth, I can see both sides. For one it’s easy to forget you have all these attacks at your disposal. There are specific weapon skill shots and a bigger overall super move, both use up a new meters that runs out with use. To change these skills you have to enter a menu which can be cumbersome, I bet a bunch of people just picked one super and just left it.
Combat is built around these new attacks so if you don’t invest and use them combat can be a slog compared to the first game. The first ten to fifteen hours I found combat to be really difficult (I was playing on hard) as I didn’t have the skills opened up yet. Once I reached the games sweet spot half way in I had plenty of cool power shots with all my weapons and a found a few supers that worked great for certain situations like stealth in the human camps, or having double the tear damage for some time. This combined with more aggressive and complex robots makes the combat have some added depth. It really comes through in the arena battles where complete mastery of the weapon types and knowledge of all the enemies weak points is a must to succeed.
There is an added emphasis to the stasis attacks with two new ones joining the previous games ones, a slow gel and plasma. Both these new stasis effects aren’t particularly useful, it’s a damn shame the slow down gel is practically useless as it takes forever to apply and it wears off so quick. However as a positive there was one skill that was removed that I feel benefited the game tremendously, the removal of the corruption stasis. I remember that the final third of my OG horizon playthrough I was just corrupting robots left and right and standing back as they all killed each other, it was very unbalanced. There is still a way to turn robots against one another but it’s not something that is easy to do, this balanced the game much more, no more cheap way out.
In the end I found the combat to still be as thrilling as the first and the added depth made it fun to fight robots from start to finish. I still maintain Horizon has the best combat of any ubisoft style open world game mainly because of the incredible diverse and complex enemies. The robot list has expanded greatly with some tremendous new creatures like a huge bat, a stegosaurs like robot, giant elephant and the best one a huge serpent. The lure of the game is that every battle feels like a boss fight; this game pushes that even further, I loved the fights against the major machines and the added variety in battle strategies makes them more compelling then ever.
There is one caveat to the combat system and I am shocked it wasn’t addressed in any way in this sequel, defense is still non existent. You can dodge roll, that’s it. Here is a game with extremely agreesive robots who have attacks that can knock and stun Aloy multiple times and Aloy’s only defense for their myriad of deadly attacks is to roll. How is there no skill for a counter? Some type of mobile shield (I think there is some shield thing with one weapon but it isn’t good)? Way too often when the action gets far too chaotic does it feel like Aloy is being thrown around like a rag doll with a painfully long stand up animation (why no quick get up with a timed button press?!) It’s a damn shame no effort was put into giving players a proper way to handle the different kinds of attacks, instead the only defense is a good offense.
Melee didn’t get much of a face lift either, the devs touted better melee combat with more combos and power moves, they are right it’s present but ultimately doesn’t really change the way melee feels. It’s still clunky, it lacks in impact compared to other games and is almost always a poor substitute when you can just arrow someone. Overall combat is slightly improved to the first game but it’s a small hop of an improvement rather than a leap.
This game still uses a loot based gear system for its weapon and armor progression. Every robot you face has certain components that are used to upgrade specific weapons. I find the requirements to upgrade the best gear to be so absurd that it renders having the gear upgraded useless because by the time you find every component you have essentially killed every major beast multiple times, so what’s the point. This whole system needs to be refined so that upgrades come easier and they mean something. Very quickly did I stop caring about going out of my way to collect components, it happened naturally as I played, if I got enough for an upgrade great if not oh well.
Part of what made me love the first Horizon is the incredible detailed world Guerrilla created. In terms of gaming it’s one of the best fully realized sci fi worlds ever created. The backstory to the lore is so well documented, the first executed such a great mystery and now for the sequel all the revelations are revealed so it’s hard to recapture the stories magic. The sequel turns to creating new super villains which if you really think of how it all fits, it’s kind of absurd, but hey it’s a game with robot dinosaurs so I’ll go with it. The strength is in the amount of unique interesting characters Aloy meets across her journey with a few returning friends. Missing the mystery of the first hurts the overall story to me but by the end I was fully invested and it does have some really great moments, Aloy continues to be one of the best female heroes in all of gaming. There are also some standout new characters, all impeccably acted with some of the best faces ever put in a game, I swear these are real people but they were not.
The game world is STUNNING! The forbidden west offers more variety in environments giving the game a breathtaking about of lush vistas. I know technically this game is cross gen but it’s up there as the best looking game I have ever seen. On PS5 after a much needed patch the 60fps mode looks crisp and clean, easily the way to play the game, a stunning showcase for graphics. I wanted to explore every inch of this world as there were things to do all over. Yes the open world bloat is still present here but I think the activities are more varied than before and the side quests feel like they have meaningful stories and rewards. Most side stories introduce you to brand new characters, some really fun like a traveling troupe that wants to put on a show and discovers the ruins of Las Vegas. These side stories take you to areas you would never visit in the main story and many times culminate in a great battle and offers some decent fleshing out of the world.
New to Forbidden West is a mini game board game which serves as a world wide fake chess like game. I don’t think it ever had enough depth to be great but it was a neat diversion. There are Robot races, small puzzle “tombs” to explore, and the big arena with loads of combat challenges. There is always something to do in this game, but if you want to just stick to the main story you will get a great campaign that has some great moments and battles against all the robot types. My only real gripe is that in major story moments you don’t play the best parts, games like MGS and God of War have spoiled me. It’s a shame to get some epic action sequence in a cutscene and then all you actually play is the same things you have always done all game.
Horizon Forbidden West builds on the incredible foundation laid by the first game. This game is also bigger, I sunk something absurd like 130 hours into it and still didn’t do everything. It still has top of its class combat mechanics with some of the most impressive enemies found in an open world game. The lore and story is still very compelling but it lost some of the mystery which fascinated me in the first game. Sadly many of its gameplay systems remain unchanged and now outdated like no defense and poor loot management. Also open world maps of the Ubisoft variety are quickly becoming out of fashion. So instead of a sequel that sets the standards for the entire franchise moving forward it serves as the sequel where it pushes the quickly dated formula as far as it can go. Still an excellent game but not as memorable as the first and hopefully they are ready for a shakeup whenever the eventual third game hits.
Overall score: 9.0
Much like the first game you play as Aloy as you traverse a huge open world filled with roaming robotic dinosaurs and animals. Guerrilla doubled down on the skill trees adding all kinds of new secondary attacks and a super meter that allows for a buff of your choosing. Reactions to these combat changes were mixed, some say it upset the fast flow of combat from the first game, others say it adds depth, I can see both sides. For one it’s easy to forget you have all these attacks at your disposal. There are specific weapon skill shots and a bigger overall super move, both use up a new meters that runs out with use. To change these skills you have to enter a menu which can be cumbersome, I bet a bunch of people just picked one super and just left it.
Combat is built around these new attacks so if you don’t invest and use them combat can be a slog compared to the first game. The first ten to fifteen hours I found combat to be really difficult (I was playing on hard) as I didn’t have the skills opened up yet. Once I reached the games sweet spot half way in I had plenty of cool power shots with all my weapons and a found a few supers that worked great for certain situations like stealth in the human camps, or having double the tear damage for some time. This combined with more aggressive and complex robots makes the combat have some added depth. It really comes through in the arena battles where complete mastery of the weapon types and knowledge of all the enemies weak points is a must to succeed.
There is an added emphasis to the stasis attacks with two new ones joining the previous games ones, a slow gel and plasma. Both these new stasis effects aren’t particularly useful, it’s a damn shame the slow down gel is practically useless as it takes forever to apply and it wears off so quick. However as a positive there was one skill that was removed that I feel benefited the game tremendously, the removal of the corruption stasis. I remember that the final third of my OG horizon playthrough I was just corrupting robots left and right and standing back as they all killed each other, it was very unbalanced. There is still a way to turn robots against one another but it’s not something that is easy to do, this balanced the game much more, no more cheap way out.
In the end I found the combat to still be as thrilling as the first and the added depth made it fun to fight robots from start to finish. I still maintain Horizon has the best combat of any ubisoft style open world game mainly because of the incredible diverse and complex enemies. The robot list has expanded greatly with some tremendous new creatures like a huge bat, a stegosaurs like robot, giant elephant and the best one a huge serpent. The lure of the game is that every battle feels like a boss fight; this game pushes that even further, I loved the fights against the major machines and the added variety in battle strategies makes them more compelling then ever.
There is one caveat to the combat system and I am shocked it wasn’t addressed in any way in this sequel, defense is still non existent. You can dodge roll, that’s it. Here is a game with extremely agreesive robots who have attacks that can knock and stun Aloy multiple times and Aloy’s only defense for their myriad of deadly attacks is to roll. How is there no skill for a counter? Some type of mobile shield (I think there is some shield thing with one weapon but it isn’t good)? Way too often when the action gets far too chaotic does it feel like Aloy is being thrown around like a rag doll with a painfully long stand up animation (why no quick get up with a timed button press?!) It’s a damn shame no effort was put into giving players a proper way to handle the different kinds of attacks, instead the only defense is a good offense.
Melee didn’t get much of a face lift either, the devs touted better melee combat with more combos and power moves, they are right it’s present but ultimately doesn’t really change the way melee feels. It’s still clunky, it lacks in impact compared to other games and is almost always a poor substitute when you can just arrow someone. Overall combat is slightly improved to the first game but it’s a small hop of an improvement rather than a leap.
This game still uses a loot based gear system for its weapon and armor progression. Every robot you face has certain components that are used to upgrade specific weapons. I find the requirements to upgrade the best gear to be so absurd that it renders having the gear upgraded useless because by the time you find every component you have essentially killed every major beast multiple times, so what’s the point. This whole system needs to be refined so that upgrades come easier and they mean something. Very quickly did I stop caring about going out of my way to collect components, it happened naturally as I played, if I got enough for an upgrade great if not oh well.
Part of what made me love the first Horizon is the incredible detailed world Guerrilla created. In terms of gaming it’s one of the best fully realized sci fi worlds ever created. The backstory to the lore is so well documented, the first executed such a great mystery and now for the sequel all the revelations are revealed so it’s hard to recapture the stories magic. The sequel turns to creating new super villains which if you really think of how it all fits, it’s kind of absurd, but hey it’s a game with robot dinosaurs so I’ll go with it. The strength is in the amount of unique interesting characters Aloy meets across her journey with a few returning friends. Missing the mystery of the first hurts the overall story to me but by the end I was fully invested and it does have some really great moments, Aloy continues to be one of the best female heroes in all of gaming. There are also some standout new characters, all impeccably acted with some of the best faces ever put in a game, I swear these are real people but they were not.
The game world is STUNNING! The forbidden west offers more variety in environments giving the game a breathtaking about of lush vistas. I know technically this game is cross gen but it’s up there as the best looking game I have ever seen. On PS5 after a much needed patch the 60fps mode looks crisp and clean, easily the way to play the game, a stunning showcase for graphics. I wanted to explore every inch of this world as there were things to do all over. Yes the open world bloat is still present here but I think the activities are more varied than before and the side quests feel like they have meaningful stories and rewards. Most side stories introduce you to brand new characters, some really fun like a traveling troupe that wants to put on a show and discovers the ruins of Las Vegas. These side stories take you to areas you would never visit in the main story and many times culminate in a great battle and offers some decent fleshing out of the world.
New to Forbidden West is a mini game board game which serves as a world wide fake chess like game. I don’t think it ever had enough depth to be great but it was a neat diversion. There are Robot races, small puzzle “tombs” to explore, and the big arena with loads of combat challenges. There is always something to do in this game, but if you want to just stick to the main story you will get a great campaign that has some great moments and battles against all the robot types. My only real gripe is that in major story moments you don’t play the best parts, games like MGS and God of War have spoiled me. It’s a shame to get some epic action sequence in a cutscene and then all you actually play is the same things you have always done all game.
Horizon Forbidden West builds on the incredible foundation laid by the first game. This game is also bigger, I sunk something absurd like 130 hours into it and still didn’t do everything. It still has top of its class combat mechanics with some of the most impressive enemies found in an open world game. The lore and story is still very compelling but it lost some of the mystery which fascinated me in the first game. Sadly many of its gameplay systems remain unchanged and now outdated like no defense and poor loot management. Also open world maps of the Ubisoft variety are quickly becoming out of fashion. So instead of a sequel that sets the standards for the entire franchise moving forward it serves as the sequel where it pushes the quickly dated formula as far as it can go. Still an excellent game but not as memorable as the first and hopefully they are ready for a shakeup whenever the eventual third game hits.
Overall score: 9.0