I'll just say, this review is another reason why I write reviews. To some, this is a time consumer and meaningless. But to those who aren't so shackled to the Jokatech hate train to see anything in front of them, I'm sure you must know when a good project is released, and done well. This is my breakdown of Horizon: Zero Dawn for the PS4. It took me quite a while to finish this game, as I was taking my time, and had many obligations, contrary to what some think.
This is one of the titan IP's for the console, released in 2017 (ancient by today's standards), by Sony. It was developed by Guerilla Games. It stars a young female protagonist, as many IP's today do. Her name is Aloy, and she is an outcast of the Nora people who is raised by an outcast named Rost. He found her as a child and took her in. Much of her past is either unknown or fabricated in the outset. The beauty of it all, is how intricate and meaningful it all gets as you learn more. You start playing with the character as a small child, who is exploring an abandoned cave, where you find a small but important piece of bluetooth-like technology, called a Focus. As time goes by, little does she know that the Focus was a means of tracking her. She undergoes a proving trail approved by the Nora to earn the right to be a hunter for them, which would alienate Rost if she wins. After successfully completing it along with other youths, the entire camp is immediately attacked, and Rost killed, while Aloy manages to barely escape with her life. The Oseram, Carja, and Shadow Carja, are clans that have been at war for ages, and Aloy learns that the shadow carja are seeking her out for some reason. When she finds out that it has to do with her resemblance to the scientist who protected mankind years ago, she begins to look for answers. The planet is filled with hostile machine monsters that have driven mankind into submission. The Shadow Carja are awakening a device that will unearth the worst of them and bring about a second destruction. Aloys is on a quest to stop this, as well as find the truth.
To start, the game is a gorgeous looking game, where they utilize the night-day cycle very well, as I wish Mass Effect would have. It's one enormous world, with bodies of water and various climates, as it's a version of Earth. Aloy will even react to sudden or persistent climate effects such as the cold or rain. As a child, Rost taught her how to hunt machines and to forage for supplies and materials. I had wondered how the foraging system would work, as it was just randomly scattered singular samples of various materials like ridgewood, and medical plants. When you take down machines, you can salvage materials from them, including metal scraps, which are the currency of the game. There are still regular animals and wildlife in the game as well, including birds, foxes, boars etc. These animals are usually hiding on the fringes of main paths and avoiding both you and machine monsters. Aloy is equipped with a spear as her base weapon, which she can perform melee attacks with, and various bows and crossbows, which she can affix different kinds of ammunition to, depending on the weapons specs and the supplies she salvages. She can have bows that do tear damage, fire damage, ice damage, electrical damage, or corruption damage. Corruption is a state that is overcoming many of the machines in the world due to the influence of the ultimate machine adversary known as Hades. It is a rouge machine, that existed at the beginning of the conflict, and is seeking to repeat the destructive process that occurred centuries earlier.
One thing that stood out to me immediately in the game, is the fact that there are no inns or areas to rest. While you can find sanctuary in towns and some few isolated areas, the world is pretty much covered completely with machine monsters, who all turn hostile when they hear, see or sense you. The game has many bonfires to save at. In fact, there are probably too many. Every few steps you take, you uncover another one. At first, in the game you acquire what are called Fast travel packs, which can be purchased from merchants in various cities. Once you collect the proper rare materials, you can construct a Golden Fast Travel Pack, which allows unlimited instant transmission to any previously visited bonfire. Because there are so many bonfires in the world, it makes travel a bit too quick in later portions of the game. And you are not always safe at these bonfires. Many of them are in the open, off of trails, where various kinds of dangerous machines roam freely. And, as I mentioned, you only heal with manual intake of medicines or herbs that you concoct on your own. This was not very good in my opinion, as it takes a lot of time, searching and salvaging to fill your pouch with medicinal plants. Each time you heal, Aloy consumes as many plants as it takes to top off her health. There is no in between. This usually depletes an enormous amount of the plants you harvested. The alternative are potions that you can store after mixing with specific ingredients. It is not easy to come by the ingredients, so it is extremely helplful when you win skirmishes with shadow carja camps or troops, as they tend to carry them, and have them stored in chests on their settlements.
The backstory was phenomenal, and what really sold me on the adventure. You meet Silens, who is among those tracking you through the focus tool that you wear, that you found as a child. He has an unnatural thirst for knowledge that led him to assist the villain of the game, which he claims he isn't proud of. You work to mutually uncover answers, and you find out about Aloy's ancestor, who once stopped the threat. Hearing the dialogue in the recordings that you find strewn about the world, really gave meaning to the relationships that formed and fell before your civilization came to life. You even hear how the Carja became involved from different perspectives. There were many moral decisions and choices that the scientist in the past had to make as humanity faced extinction. By the end of the quest, Aloy goes from an uninformed warrior outcast, to sounding like a nuclear physicist graduate, with her understanding of the science behind the weaponry and technology used to reprogram and counter attack the machines in the past.
The difficulty was awesome, but ridiculous at time, with enemies that were boss level being thrown at you in bulk on often occasion. There were times, I had to lower it from hard to normal, sad to say, such as when you had to head back to the Nora village later in the game after the unleash of an attack, and several Deathbringer machines are casually thrown at you. Or, there was a time I faced a rockbreacker machine that took forever to take down. Enemies like the Thunderjaw and the Stormbird, while having elemental weaknesses, were still insanely accurate, almost to a psychic level, and durable, exhausting all of your resources to get past. It felt, and was often unfair, but the challenge was exhilarating in its own way. There were just some boss fights that were off the chain, and bulks of enemies that were inopportune. For instance, there was a mission where I had just escaped from one of the science research facilities that was operated by Aloy's ancestor, who's name is Elizibet Sobeck. I believe it was a facility where they housed the clones, which is an intricate part of the story. Aloy emerges hanging on for dear life. Outside the facility, was a Stormbird sweeping the area. There was no way past him, and no way to outrun him without a fight. These enemies do insane damage, and will exhaust either all of your resources, which I didn't have and/or your life. He did so several time- thank goodness for autosave. Eventually, I had to find a way to sneak past him, as defeat didn't exist in his world.
There was also a side mission where I took on a Rockbreaker for some miners, thinking it would be a breeze. He did life bars in damage with each hit, and had beyond deadly accuracy. I died on that fight a good amount of times. Even on another occasion, where I took over a facility that the Shadow Carja were trying to excavate, after the dungeon was complete, there was an army of them waiting for me outside. It was one of those moment where you watch your cinematic death with a smirk, while saying, "This is a part of the plot right? This has to be a joke, or tense scene or segue right?" And then after watching the loading screen, you realize you are actually supposed to win that fight. The game needs some kind of auto-heal mechanic to get a fresh start at points.
The game was a good length. It lasted me about 50 hours minus any DLC content. Being in such an archaic setting, it didn't really provide much in the way of entertainment activites, like other RPG's. That's why I've always had a love for futuristic dystopian setting. I'm going to cut this review here and say that it was an enjoyable experience with very tough enemies, that I would play again. I had a very elaborate review written up, but my computer just scrapped the last hour of writing, and I'm not going to write that all again. I rate this highly as a metal of a game. 9/10
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