3/5 ★ – _DogBiscuits's review of Horizon Forbidden West.

Horizon Forbidden West is a very big sequel. The game has doubled down on my favorite aspects of Zero Dawn, but also done nothing to change my criticisms of the original. It feels as though for every positive I have, I also bring a negative. But we will start with the positives. For the most part, Forbidden West is polished like a mirror sheen. The open world is gorgeous, detailed and dense. Only rivaled by a small handful of other modern titles. This game truly takes another step into closing the gap between CGI and Photorealism. But more is here than a pretty photo to look at. The world is rich with lush detail that is always moving. The way tall grass flows in the wind of an open field, how light bleeds through trees on a sunset evening creating a beautiful mix of colors. Or the way water rolls in off the coast changing the very texture of the sand. The examples I could bring are too many to list. Perhaps the greatest visual achievement though is how lifelike important and non-important npcs are. Zero Dawn was definitely impressive upon release, but has been eclipsed since. Character models are highly detailed from the light fuzz of hair on their cheeks to the more complex and natural facial animations they can produce. By the end of my Zero Dawn playthrough, I was painfully noticing repeat animations and stiff facial expressions. This has all been changed now though for a much more lifelike believable experience. While on close inspection and many hours of playing you can notice some patterns, but they are nowhere near as prominent or frequent Combat in Forbidden West is superb too. The metal animals that roam the world are fascinating in design and movement. And unlike anything else you can find in a game today. It is not enough to swing and hit your opponents. For survival you must strategize. Find weak points, tear off armor, use weapons of strong elements like fire or ice against an enemy's weakness. It makes for a thrilling combat loop. Human enemies have been improved as well. While still not as fun to fight as the robots, the improvements are welcome and help bring variety to the combat, if only a little. If I had to find one more complaint though, it would be that by the end of my playthrough I had become quite unstoppable. Losing that fun strategy in gameplay. I prematurely ended the few side quests I had left in my 100% run. I had played more than I think most would and by far gotten my times worth. But I felt it was important to bring up nonetheless. This is for the most part where my praise ends. While not a lot of my criticisms felt to truly be ruining my experience, they stopped this game from being the 9 - 10/10 it could have been. And I’m going to start with the story. The important distinction I would like to make first though is the difference between story and lore. Like Zero Dawn, the lore of this franchise is deep and enjoyable to explore. I will not go into spoilers, but listening to old recordings, reading diary entries or exploring actual real world buildings after 1000 years of decay is fascinating. Like putting together a good Jigsaw. But the story of Forbidden West is quite honestly boring. While entertaining me definitely for some long stretches at a time I can’t help but feel like most of my journey was spent waiting for the actual important plot point to happen. The story doesn’t feel like the narrative of a 30+ hour action/rpg. It feels like a Hollywood blockbuster that could be summed up in 2. I felt the narrative never quite reached the same heights as Zero Dawn. The threat here never quite gets to truly show off much of themselves. Which is a shame because I kept waiting for these moments that felt like they would come, but either never quite delivered or never appeared. Many of the new characters don’t actually do or add a whole lot either. I didn’t find any one new character particularly compelling. We would venture along with these companions who do not make up for some of the best character dialogue like we might have seen in Red Dead or Gta. So a lot of the experience felt like waiting. Waiting for the next big moment to draw me back in for a limited time. To then be met with a lot of filler dialogue to move me onto the next sequence. Rinse repeat over a long period of time. When talking earlier, about every positive seems to bring a negative. The overall world and design is by far captivating and always gorgeous to look at. But the way Aloy moves around the world for myself, is always dragging me out of the experience. Ever since the first Horizon game, I did not like the way Aloy controlled. It always felt floaty and exaggerated. Her body never quite seemed to operate within the world of physics that the world sets up. It distracts me from the set up as Aloy is able to brute force her way around the game with limitless effort and limited interaction. Some measures have been made to rectify a lot of what I didn’t like about the first game. The world is much more vertical than before, and has given a lot more places to climb and grab. Compared to being able to “Skyrim” just about every small mountain or hill I came across in the original. But this is hardly a change in how Aloy moves, but rather a conscious choice in designing the overworld. Enough quality and content is presented here that my playthrough lasted over 100 hours. My time in Forbidden West was special. And it is a game I would recommend to most. And likely a game I will replay in the future. But like my thoughts on the first game, I always felt a kind of ball and chain around my leg, truly preventing me from enjoying what feels like a potentially phenomenal product. 6/10