Topic: Horizon Forbidden West

@render yeah family likes to book my free time too… I managed to get very little time on Horizon Forbidden West on Saturday or Sunday and the missus has already pre-booked my activities for my day off this week. Gonna try and get an hour in at lunch times and maybe another hour after work… but with a game like this, I really need a session time to be no less than 3 hours.

Btw, I'm amazed how many new types of machines have already been introduced and I imagine this is not nearly all of them (since the majority of the map remains covered in fog).
They're all very well designed and the big ones (like the shellsnapper or widemaw, which I thought was a weapon trait in Returnal) are really intimidating

The story is very Netflix budget Sci Fi but then so was the first one, I wasn't expecting a revolution in this regard.

The voice acting is far more convincing this time around, Sylens is an early standout, and the transitions from action to dialogue are less jarring, though still not feeling completely natural. It is perfectly serviceable though.

I quite like Varl and his wide-eyed naivety, it's charming, and allows for some exposition without it feeling too on the nose.

@Voltan Now if we could only give you some much needed personality...

@KilloWertz Nah, I'm not a video game protagonist

I can’t help but wonder if anyone bought this game and straight lined the main quest? I have real trouble moving on to the next section of the map or main quest until I’ve cleared up as much stuff on the map as possible. I’m not at a point where I know I can go back and tidy up some bits I couldn’t do before so I’m going to have to do that first.

@render I imagine that could be actually pretty hard to do, maybe on easy difficulty. The suggested levels for main quests seem to encourage doing some of the side stuff (then again doing a lot of it makes the main quest rather easy).

That said, I'm absolutely obsessing about every icon on the map myself

@render @Voltan yeah I always make sure that I do all available side-quests in an area before moving on in all open world games… but I agree, in Horizon Forbidden West that basically ensures that I’m at about the right level for the next main mission. Don’t think I’ve been over-levelled once… which is fine by me as I always do side-missions but I’d imagine ‘main-liners’ are finding some difficulty for sure.

@render @Voltan @colonelkilgore I couldn't imagine just straight lining the main quest, Aloy isn't getting to put her feet up until she's the ultimate machine strike champion. Forget Hades. Maybe the final boss will be a machine strike tournament 😂

@Voltan @colonelkilgore @MightyDemon82 I’ve been pretty much following that process of matching the quest with my level and so far it’s working nicely. I’m just knocking on the door of being able to do the first cauldron I found which I’ve been looking forward to.

Machine Strike boss 😬🤣

@render Yeah, I'm definitely doing a cauldron tonight. Even though I should probably just go straight to sleep
I actually went inside one last night but it said I wouldn't be able to exit if I went further so I checked the suggested level and decided against it for now (as mine wasn't there yet) If I remember correctly from Zero Dawn, there's always a miniboss at the end of one

@render @Voltan I done a cauldron as part of a main quest yesterday. I’d kinda forgot all about them from the first game but it did bring back memories. I’d imagine that this one was probably the most basic of all of them in Forbidden West, so I’ll be looking forward to doing some more.

So I did 2 cauldrons - the story one and another. This means I can now go further west, which - while tempting - is obviously not what I'm going to do - all those icons on the map won't clear themselves
Calling it a night early, because Monday kicked my butt a little.

@velio84 I don't think I have one but I'll keep an eye out.

@Voltan Just done the same 2 cauldrons.

I really like this part of the game, I think it works really well. It feeds into the world building, pushes the platforming a bit, and the best bit is the more intimate battles. One thing I think they’ve changed is that you are only allowed to set 3 traps out at once now or at least that’s what it told me. I remember in HZD I’d pretty much pepper the floor with all the traps that I’d got and manage to do some substantial damage in a quick space of time. Guess this is going to make them more interesting.

@render The number of traps actually depends on your skills, outfits, weaves, coils, whatever. It's 2 for me

The kangaroo like machines caught me off guard the first time I came across one. Put up more of a fight than I was expecting lol.

@Voltan Cheers, I forgot that was even a skill 😀. I stacked up a load of skill points initially and just blitzed through unlocking the top sections of all the different trees.

@Splat That tail whip thing those guys do is brutal.

The sidequests are already so much better than the first game. One thing they’ve nailed is having them all add to the main story, and in some cases continuing threads from the first one.

One thing I've noticed is that Aloy now starts talking to herself about what to do in situations (dropping hints) immediately on finding a conundrum. In HZD, she wouldn't pipe up until the player seemed a little lost.

@ApostateMage I really hate that. Imagine Lara doing that in the original Tomb Raider.