There are eleven of them in the game, and they count towards your completion. The last one is bugged. It should appear in a chest right next to the Control Tower near the Rockbreaker / Fireclaw site in the north-eastern part of the map. But it isn't there. Someone found it on an earlier version of the game, and the director confirmed there were eleven. They are aware of the issue, and they're working on a patch. I'm not sure if it's already out yet, I haven't checked since I beat the game.
@Octane I have a couple of those, they are great! I will have to look for the other ones. Thanks for the info. I did see a new update download the other day here in the U.S.
Ok, finished The Frozen Balls and thought it was a nice bit of DLC. I easily got about 18 hours out of it to do all the trophies. The story was OK, it set things up for a sequel but was very much an extended side mission as opposed to game changer.
However, the combat was great and the new enemies and difficulty were fun. I also liked the new weapons. I had to do a bit of farming at the end because one of the NPC's actually delivered the killing blow on a Fireclaw so I had to go seek one out which ended up being the longest hardest fight of the game.
I think this is a good end for me on HZD. The DLC did it right not to wear me out but I feel I am pretty done with this world until the sequel. For the money, still probably my favourite gaming experience of the year in terms of 2017 releases.
Now I may be an idiot, but there's one thing I am not sir, and that sir, is an idiot
@Ralizah I guess it’s best to move the discussion over here.
But in answer to the question on the other thread — Yes, you will find a few things out there during exploration. Like @Kidfried says it’s mainly the new and different robot enemies (they get bigger, faster, more varied in their attack and tactics, etc) and the occasional human enemies and bandit camps to participate in the combat, but there are collectibles. Metal flowers, little figurines, others called “vessels” ... I won’t spoil it but many of which will be sellable and provide you some value for some useful upgrades. There is a meta-quest for collecting parts over the course of the game to get the best armor, each portion of which is at the end of one of a series of optional side dungeons each with its own internal challenges within. (The armor is awesome and worth it by the way for end game exploration and combat). There are other activities, like hijacking robots you will be able to mount and ride them (you’ve probably seen the footage in trailers so I hope it’s not a spoiler), and finding lookout points at which you get video diaries and snippets of supplemental story. So, yeah, there is some exploration but it’s in the form of collecting items and extra information about the backstory of the world. But most of your time out and about is going from combat to combat. It’s not quite like Red Dead 2 where you will randomly run across NPCs asking you for a ride into town or trying to rob you, etc.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
So, I don't like to directly compare this to BotW, seeing as how these two games are radically different, but I will say that the system where you override, mount, and ride robots is vastly better than breaking wild horses. For a number of reasons. First, the machines in this game intelligently adapt to the terrain you run up against, whereas BotW horses get stuck on anything that isn't perfectly smooth geometry, making them all but useless for areas that don't have roads or aren't big grassy plains. Riding these things around in a joy, whereas horses in BotW are a pain. They're all as difficult to manage on uneven ground as the horse from Shadow of the Colossus. Second, you can call your machine from pretty much anywhere and it'll come to you, whereas, in BotW, if the horses can't hear you whistle, they won't come. I get that the latter is more realistic, but it also makes the game a little less fun, so I prefer the Horizon approach. Besides, if BotW was concerned with realism, all of your weapons wouldn't break like they're made of brittle glass. Thirdly, these things can actually attack enemies.
I really like the Monster Hunter-ish aspect of the game where you have to knock off certain parts from the robots to collect certain materials.
The different weapons are pretty cool. The tripcaster, ropecaster, and different sorts of bows all have a use, and they're all invaluable to the seasoned hunter.
The plot isn't terrible so far, but, honestly, I've been having fun upgrading my stuff and completely ignoring the main plot. The game is at its best when I'm not watching creepy, semi-realistic humans talk to eachother.
@Th3solution So, having played further into this game now, I realize the value of the open world. Like Far Cry 4, it's a hunting simulator. You run around the world killing machines and animals to collect resources for upgrading your stuff. You also forage for materials. This is all in the service of upgrading your capacities and having the necessary materials for better weapons and armor as well.
@Ralizah Glad you’re enjoying it. The story is better toward the end, in my opinion.
I really enjoy reading your impressions of games. I usually agree with you, but even when I don’t, I really like the insight you always seem to have. You often bring up such good salient points that I haven’t thought about.
I do hope you grow accustomed to the character animation during the story scenes. I got used to it over time. The rest of the art and visual design is so good, it makes up for it. And it seemed to me that Aloy wasn’t as doll-eyed and robotic as the NPCs.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Ralizah It's hard not to compare the games seeing as they got released on the same day, or near enough to that, and both being open world games.
You are right to point how dumb the horses were in BOTW though, a bit ironic that the horse felt more robotic at times than the mounts in HZD.
I really liked the strategy involved in the combat, you will have to mix things up to take one the different enemies. Which i wasn expecting fro it at all. Too many games you could quite easily beat the game with the starting weapons.
Main problem with the story is that most of it is told through voice recorders (in the second half of the game at least). I don't like that. Too much waiting around and listening, and not enough action.
@Th3solution I think I've grown accustomed to the character animations. I just don't like them. This game would have looked so much better with a more stylized and less realistic approach to character animation and design.
But, you know, I could enjoy Zero Time Dilemma despite the infinitely worse character animations, and the same is true of this title.
As to the story: I think it's fine so far. I like the setting. I've always enjoyed it when science-fiction stories adopt a more mythic approach to storytelling usually reserved for fantasy, and this game has an interesting, somewhat Native American-feeling spin on that.
The strongly matriarchal structure of her society is also very interesting. As is the kind of nuanced approach to it. It's undoubtedly feminist sci-fi, but it doesn't feel propagandistic or preachy (so far, at least).
I get the feeling the majority of the backstory is going to be communicated via audio logs. Reminds me of those random notes people left lying around in old Resident Evil games that detailed important information for the player. All well and good, but still lazy story-telling. That aspect of a game is always going to be secondary for me, though, and I think it's important for a game to prioritize elements that make the game more fun to play, so I can't complain too much. I'd also rather listen to an audio log than have someone follow me around and chat my ear off.
Which isn't to say that information isn't presented in more naturalistic ways as well. I learned about the 'creation myth' of this new world at that event Aloy attended before heading to the Proving. It wasn't forced on me at all: some lady was up in front of an audience reciting it to a crowd, so I had Aloy just plant herself on a log and listen. Very cool.
@Kidfried At least this game spares me the indignity of gory skinning animations!
I will say, though, that it does a great job of using body language to make the machines somewhat sympathetic. Wounding a grazer enough will usually make it start limping like an injured deer, and it immediately elicits a feeling of remorse in me. Reminds me of how Pixar movies often use animations to characterize objects you ordinarily wouldn't attribute any agency or emotion to whatsoever.
@Ralizah Yeah, I think you’re spot on. The game’s strengths and weaknesses are more apparent to me in retrospect. For Horizon 2 I hope they tweak the conversation animations. The story-telling gets more overt toward the end and starts to take a little more of a front row seat.
I also appreciated the Native American / tribal custom and societal setting. It’s rarely been done in video games, at least not to this extent. Assassin’s Creed 3, Red Dead Redemption... some of those games with historical settings do have brushes with tribal politics and narrative but it’s always a side point where in HZD the social constructs that have evolved in the world are at the center of a lot of the narrative. It is an interesting amalgamation with the futuristic Sci-Fi backdrop, as you say.
I realize you have a ways to go in the story yet, but how do you like Aloy as a protagonist so far? I found her to be well crafted for the most part. She lacks the levity of a Nathan Drake, Delsin Rowe, Ellie, or even Kat (to reference some other notable exclusive protagonists) but is not as stiff and serious as Kratos, Galahad, or others. She does seem very real and down to earth. I enjoyed playing as her and she was just relatable enough to make me feel emotionally tied to her plight. If I remember correctly, she won the PS character tournament a couple years ago we had, but I can’t remember for sure. I do think she benefitted from being the most recent big new character when we did that poll, but I’d still surmise she’s one of the biggest PlayStation icons at present. All due respect to Deacon St. John, but Kratos is the only one who could have supplanted her right now.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
Great convo - was thinking about this the other day.
@Ralizah Interestingly, I played HZD and BOTW near enough in parallel as I was glued to this when I got the Switch and swapped between the two. I came away thinking that if you could blend the strengths of each, you would possibly have a perfect open world game.
So for example, the world in HZD is amazing yet you often need to follow set paths or get funneled into certain areas, and I longed to be able just to completely 100% explore like BOTW and wander around. I also found that the side content was very icon heavy, so your map was constantly filled whereas BOTW streamlined that so much and tied it into exploration. At the same time, I found the narrative for HZD and its central 'mystery' drove me forward and I liked some of the missions and the way the backstory was introduced. I also loved the random encounters and focus on hunting which was more fun than BOTW.
They are very different games, obviously, but they both show the strengths of good open worlds in different ways.
Now I may be an idiot, but there's one thing I am not sir, and that sir, is an idiot
Somehow managed to get into a fight with two Sawtooths and a Scrapper all at the same time. That was... something...
Thankfully, multiple layers of blast wires make short work of the Sawtooths!
The fire bug robots suck, though. I need to find frost arrows or something to deal with them.
@Rudy_Manchego So far, while I think Horizon benefits being open world in its design, the best aspects of the game have very little to do with the environment itself. The spectacular combat and the persistent drive to upgrade my equipment are its main strengths as a game (putting aside the visuals). The actual environments are largely window-dressing, though. Aloy doesn't get cold, wet, hungry, etc. She doesn't feel like she's a part of that world.
BotW could do with better combat encounters and perhaps a busier ecosystem, but, otherwise, it's the most integrated and fully-realized open world I've ever seen in a video game, and Link feels intimately connected to it by being forced to adapt to and live off of the land. There are so many things to do in it, so many ways to play off your surroundings.
I feel both games kind of reflect the priorities of their parent companies. Sony is interested in mature, original experiences that push visual and narrative boundaries for the medium. For Nintendo, on the other hand, everything is about crafting a fun and memorable experience for the player. Sony innovates conceptually in its games, but tends to be fairly conservative in terms of how its games actually play. Nintendo innovates, often wildly, in terms of how its games are played, but tends to be conservative conceptually, sticking to long-running franchises with established motifs and themes.
I'm not sure both could, or should, be reconciled in terms of their design philosophies, though. While Horizon could do with more fleshed-out environmental interactivity, and BotW could do with more or better setpieces, I feel like the limitations of each help to define the sort of games they are, and draw attention to their respective strengths, as well.
@Octane Yeah, the big beetle things that keep spitting fireballs at me. I shoot at their components, but my arrows barely do any damage. I might as well be throwing rocks at them.
@Th3solution To be honest, I have almost no opinion whatsoever on Aloy thus far. She doesn't strike me as much of a character beyond being vaguely heroic and purpose-driven, which is pretty typical for stories of this type.
I'm not too far into the story, though, and have been busy upgrading my stuff and trying to find collectibles. And killing machines for fun and parts, of course.
@Ralizah Just to be sure, the one that's walking on two legs, right? Cause I don't think there's a beetle robot in the game.
Anyway, if that's the one, you may want to try to damage their fuel sack on their backs. Shooting regular arrows may cause it to leak, but a few fire arrows could be interesting as well considering the contents
@Ralizah Yeah, I think so. It's been a while since I played the game. I loved the tear arrows because they did massive damage, but they only destroy stuff. Fire arrows can blow stuff up, like the fuel pouches on their backs. I'm not sure if you have to damage them first or not. Tear arrows may destroy them before you get a chance to use the fire arrows. Just try and experiment when you encounter them!
Don't forget that they also have separate fuel tubes underneath their head/neck that supplies the nozzle.
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