5/5 ★ – soulfulgamer19's review of Horizon Zero Dawn.

This is literally the perfect Paul game, and my first (and only) platinum!!!! It has everything I love in games—an emotional and profound narrative; a beautiful open world; at-your own-pace gameplay that lets you explore or fight; memorable characters; and a deeply moving message that can only be communicated through the interactive medium of videogames. Especially notable is the big plot twist in the middle — it’s seriously one of the most existentially jarring and thought provoking moments I’ve experienced in media. The sheer originality of the premise is fantastic. I won’t divulge it here but I’ll just say it’s more relevant every passing year. Mechanically, the game fuses many elements of open world action adventure RPGs but in a way that elevates it beyond others. The combat is particularly well designed. It really gives the feeling of a primitive hunter going against deadly machines. It’s tactical, even cerebral, yet can turn deadly quick. You feel on the knife’s edge at all times. It’s frantic, thrilling, and doesn’t get old. Scaling the tallnecks is also such a wonderful twist on Ubisoft tower climbing. The world is also brimming with character, both visually and narratively. The world design is very thought out and lived in, well more than other games. For example, the writers didn’t just create tribes. They created tensions between them. And then internal divisions within them. This grounded writing makes the plot much more interesting and engaging. About 30 hours in, I was sad the game was going to end, so I turned off the main quest markers and turned the game into a free roam explore-athon It was amazing. I had so much fun freely exploring every single corner of the map that I naturally obtained the platinum because the experience of exploring the world was so fun and beautiful to behold. I loved hearing all the little sidequest characters and their stories. Discovering the different biomes while riding on the machines was magnificent. I particularly loved exploring the Cauldrons, which were so well done, like dungeons in Zelda if it was a AAA photorealistic game. In case it’s unclear, Horizon Zero Dawn is one of my favorites games of all time. It’s one of the most creative, fun, beautiful, thought provoking and engrossing experiences I’ve played. To this day, it stands as a PS4 classic and a high watermark of originality and execution.