Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Edition Review by Todd Lewis
One of the best Ubisoft open world games around. Boy, gamers are weak for good graphics. This game is gorgeous, the environment is absolutely stunning, and the music is forgettable but adds the ambience to make the world feel large in scale and alive. Now, let's get down to it: this game gets more credit than it deserves. Take away the spectacular visuals and the most evident issues are the wonky physics, the repetitive nature of the game in general, the drawn out, bland story, and the pointless mechanics with no real consequence (we'll get to that later).
Wonky Physics: some terrain that I should obviously be able to climb won't allow me, hate it. During combat, Aloy will have awkward collision with objects like rocks and trees. Sometimes it feels like the character is being forced to move a certain way and its really annoying. I understand that its Guerrillas first time doing this, but man, if you can't do it, don't, and this is a problem in most Playstation Style games. More casual gamers will claim that the movement is excellent. I find it kind of inaccurate, slugglish, and unpolished.
Repetitive Gameplay Nature: The way the game feels in the first five hours, that's essentially how it will play. There's alot of little weapon effects on the machines and a whole lot of cool traps and bombs, but it still ends up feeling samey. Let me change this weapon which essentially does exactly the same thing as this other one, but it does frost stuff. You couldn't program a more seamless way to change the elemental stuff? Maybe add more weapons too? The combat is bad when the physics mess things up, but overall the combat is satisfying because the small number of machines have their own ways of being killed, which is cool. It just doesn't feel substantial enough because the game is so drawn out.
Story and Pace: The story starts out strong but then becomes about tribes of humans vs other tribes of humans. ZZZZZzzzzzz. Come on, man. The game doesn't have to be this long. The skill tree essentially exists to elongate you progressing through the game. Admit it: if half of the gameplay mechanics in the skill tree that are locked were unlocked from the beginning, the game would have been funner. Seriously, why keep stealth kills and effective critical hits behind a skill??? Or the ability to essentially keep mods and traps after equipping and use, respectively? It feels poorly though out. The conversations between characters is also so robotic and bland. Its like skyrim characters talking to each other with better animations and graphics. They don't feel human.
Pointless Mechanics: Also, you don't have to do stealth kills. You can go in guns blazing and just fight like an idiot because the human enemies are morons. The machines too. Sidestep one of them and go for a heavy attack then critical: dead. The AI is just goofy in this game, and again, why implement so much stealth stuff if you really don't have to do it. Same goes for responding to questions and talking. You can choose different options but they don't have a tangible effect on your gameplay. That's the issue! Most stuff in this game, the "complexities", are objectively not complex. Mods, weapon elements, stealth mechanics, moral responses, all impact your immediate gameplay very little, if at all. It feels like an Ubisoft game with just too much to do and its all the same shit!
Graphics are great, but this game is just a little above average, in actuality. Its fun, but it breaks no new ground and, essentially, just does what a lot of other games do already a lot better—exactly like Ghost of Tsushima and Days Gone!
Don't get me wrong: the machine dinosaur thing is cool, but that's where the novelty ends.