After the phenomenal job Guerilla Games did with the world and character building of Horizon Zero Dawn (HZD), I went into Horizon Forbidden West (HFW) expecting a bit of sequel-itis. The story for HFW was all over the place so I'm glad I had set my expectations lower. The writers give us three different antagonists -- Regalla, the Zeniths, and the AI HEPHAESTUS -- and none of them feel as particularly interesting as Helis and HADES did in Zero Dawn. I saw a review somewhere that said "Feels like they're desperately trying to be Mass Effect 2", and I agree. All the characters essentially had their own form of loyalty quests, just without the ME2 style payoff where loyalty mattered for the final push.
My problems with the game's story centered around how HFW erases everything that made Aloy unique in the world they had built for HZD. Spoilers will follow so if you don't want to have story elements spoiled, back out now or fast forward to the paragraph about game mechanics.
In HZD, only Aloy and Sylens had functioning Focus units, and Aloy's "gift of second sight" was one of her major defining characteristics. So much so, that second sight is referenced repeatedly by non-player characters in HFW. HFW picks up six months following the conclusion of HZD where Aloy has inexplicably found an entire bag of functioning Focus units which she promptly hands out to any of her closest allies like Halloween candy. Meanwhile, Sylens apparently has found a treasure trove of Focus devices as well because he surreptitiously gets them in the hands of the Sons of Prometheus, a villainous faction who teach Regalla's rebels how to 'tame' machines. And then we meet Alva and the Quen, a far east tribe whose entire culture is built around having Focus units, albeit outdated ones. "Second sight" no longer feels special or unique now that everyone that matters has access to it.
The character of Beta being introduced as another Elizabet Sobeck clone. This was the other major defining characteristic of Aloy: The fact that she alone was the genetic identical to Sobeck, thus granting her access to things in the world no one else could ever see. With the introduction of Beta, that uniqueness is gone as well. But they went a step further and basically rendered both Aloy and Beta redundant by...
Having HEPHAESTUS destroy the usability of Sobeck's Alpha Clearance level, thus requiring the acquisition of Ted Faro's Omega Clearance. The ease with which Aloy retrieves Faro's clearance level means anyone with a Focus device and some basic hacking skills -- like, say, Sylens or Alva with her updated Focus -- could have done the same. And at the end of the game, with all but HEPHAESTUS and the destroyed HADES reunified with GAIA, Sobeck's unique genome is all but meaningless.
Also, with regards to how things wrap up, I was not a fan of the APOLLO historical database being recovered. This gives Guerilla Games an excuse to 'modernize' the game later and introduce things like guns. If Sylens was able to create the Zenith anti-shield device based solely on what he learned from HADES and his own wits, imagine what he could do with the totality of the APOLLO database at his fingertips. The story at the end spins it as a necessary thing for the forthcoming Nemesis fight, but meh... I would rather the group fight Nemesis in the next game with their own wits than use the APOLLO database to inevitably introduce some 'old world' MacGuffin. Between HFW's Ted Faro/Quen tribe story line and the recovery of the APOLLO database, HFW feels like it diminishes many of the really important revelations in HZD. I genuinely wish APOLLO had been permanently lost.
Kotallo was probably my favorite of the new companions introduced. I did like the concept of the Utaru tribe and Zo's "Healing the Land Gods" was probably my favorite of all the loyalty quests. I hated how Regalla's story arc felt hurried and I hated how little effort they put toward her character toward the end of the game. Angela Bassett did a great job voicing her but she could have been so much better. Carrie Anne-Moss as Tilda van der Meer was okay but I couldn't help but feel like she was just reprising her role as Aria T'loak from Mass Effect 2 and 3. Seems Carrie Anne-Moss is drawn to playing cold, calculated, narcissistic femmes who live for a thousand years -- at least in video games that is (her only video game work outside of Matrix Trinity reprisals are Aria and Tilda).
This may sound silly but I'm happy that both HZD and HFW don't have romantic subplots with Aloy. Even though it's clear characters like Erend, Avad, and Petra have feelings for Aloy, I find it nice that Aloy's general attitude is "I've got too much important shit to do" so we don't get sidetracked with hackneyed romance story arcs.
Mechanically, I think everything except climbing mechanics were a step up from HZD. Combat felt better, weapons felt more satisfying, melee skill trees made the spear more than just an afterthought or a stealth weapon as it was in HZD. However, there were a lot of the Valor Surge special skill abilities that didn't feel particularly useful so I mostly stuck to a revolving set of the same three or four throughout my playthrough. Climbing felt like utter dogshit and I don't know why they felt the need to change it. Most of my deaths came while climbing or the game thinking I wanted to climb as soon as I'd get near something with a ledge.
Other than climbing, my gameplay complaints are the Arena and the Melee Pits, specifically the final one in the town of Thornmarsh. The Arena, I feel, unlocks far too early for the player and/or is significantly overtuned. I played through the game on Hard but had to turn down the difficulty just to get through the Arena challenges. I tried sticking with Hard, got absolutely wrecked, and figured my gear just wasn't good enough. I came back to the Arena many levels later with better, fully modified gear, and still got my ass handed to me. After a while, I just came to the conclusion that it was poorly designed; The machines are far too aggressive, their knockdown/knockback too strong, there are too few opportunities for stealth or combat planning, and the traps too weak for the amount of damage you need to do to hit the timers. As for the Thornmarsh Melee Pit, nothing shows how wonky the melee combo delays are like that particular area. At no other point in the game did I get frustrated with the melee combat as I did there. Not even when fighting "The Enduring" with all her cheesy moves.
While I enjoyed the game enough to platinum it, I doubt I'll pick up the game and replay it again until DLC comes out. That stands in stark contrast to HZD, which I 100%'d twice on PS4 and then again on the PC release. HFW was a good game, better than a lot of single player story games that come out, but it was missing the spark that kept me interested in HZD.
