I have finished the Horizon Zero Dawn main quest and some side quests. I killed many machines and all I can say is wow. This game may be one of the best PlayStation 4 exclusives up to date. Is Horizon Zero Dawn worth it?
Sony really pulled it off and I will tell you why in this Horizon Dawn Zero review.
I bought Horizon Zero Dawn on Amazon like a year ago. Until this date, I still play. The game has an amazing story and gameplay experience. Like any other video game, Horizon Zero Dawn is not perfect but the great things really shadow the wrong ones.
I recommend getting this if you are into open world game. If you love exploring, finding treasures, killing robots evil machines ( like come on) & taking over camps. If you don’t like any of that, then Horizon Zero Dawn may not be for you. However, If you do, then this game is must-play.
Horizon Zero Dawn showdown star Aloy; an outcast who does not know who she is and where she belongs. During the 20 hours main quest, you will not cover all her secrets alongside the mysteries of the world.
How the heck did the machines take over and what’s up with the guys that are raising agent war machines. One of my worries was the story, but while playing this fear totally disappeared.
Horizon Zero Dawn is well written, well presented and got some awesome plot twists that will totally change the way you look at the game.
HZD Dinosaurs Machines Taking Over
While the game may be difficult to understand the many audio glitches and an overwhelming amount of information, they help to explain why this amazing world happened. Their settings are amazing. It is not only unique, I mean in what other games can you fight these types of cyborg dinos? We have killed dinos in other games before.
However, dinos that look like machines? They are incredibly strong which one has to focus on their weak points to take them down. It is smart to scan every dino to see their weak points before you engage and then focus on that. Is that rocket launcher eating you alive? why not destroy it?
The machines feel like they are alive and behave like real animals. They harvest, they run in packs and among many other things. The huge amount of different enemies with their different forms really helped with the overall variation in the game. However, I hate games that keep throwing the same enemies at you.
While you might kill many Watchers, a huge enemy like the Thunderjaw and the Stormbird will only appear once in the whole main mission. You can, of course, hunt them if you want, see them in the up world but you are only forced to kill them in the story.
Everything else that the game throws at you, it feels natural and not just a way to keep you busy as many games do. Those games simply do not have enough enemies and this is not the case in Horizon Zero Dawn.
Even after completing the main storyline, there were still two machines that I have not discovered yet. I did not complete the whole world map.
The game open world is huge and is not afraid to hold stuff back with gems that some people might never discover. The game will give you the sense that this world is alive and that stuff happens because it makes sense in the world.
You Can’t-Miss Horizon Zero Dawn Side Quest
Horizon Zero Dawn also shows you that the sidequests are really important. There are many green exclamation marks on the map every time you discover new sediment. Which there are many in the world including some awesome urban environments that absolutely look amazing.
Any time you walk into these villages or cities, a ton of people will ask for your help. Sometimes, well actually most of the times this site quest does not end after you have completed the initial task.
The side quests can easily unravel into more deeper stories and will help you travel even further than planned and discover new things. You will discover a new part of the world through these side activities and even machines that you will simply not encounter if you just follow the main story.
You will only be rewarded with XP and a happy face of an NPC but also completely new content for finishing these side quests. By the way, that is extremely awesome. This reward method gives you enough incentive to go back to this side quest if you finish the game.
Apart from side missions, there are also trials. These challenges increase the playing time for many hours. If you wish to complete them all, be warned they can be very hard. Expect to kill enemies in new and interesting ways.
If you can do that you will get big rewards. Only if you are skilled enough to be creative like kill the robots by putting down traps instead of using your bow.
Trust me, you want these rewards because it’s amazing how handy the many skills the Arctic you can unlock. Being able to switch the modifications for example that you got on your bow with your new weapon without them being destroyed.
Being able to chow down enemies with a bee attack on your spear and then you can follow up with a critical hit. These tactics will really help you during a hunt.
Let me tell you about the dungeons called “Cauldrons” in this game. They are optional but I really thought they were going for the Zelda approach here but this is also another way to enhance your experience.
You are put into an area where you have to clear the tight spaces and you cannot run away from the enemies. So you really have to kill them head-on. Again, showing that there is a lot of variation in this game.
You can always override a new set of machines, which means you can ride them or make them fight alongside you. The could be very helpful, especially towards the end of the game.
Collecting Useful Items in HZD…
The economy also deserves a lot of praise. In many RPGs, the resources you collect can become useless or simply too easy to obtain. In Horizon Zero Dawn, I really had to think about the item that I took with me. If I had enough wires that meant better arrows, no wires meant less damage.
Sometimes, I had to use my other bow with less power but easier to craft ammunition. There is organic wildlife in this game and they really gave a great meaning. If you kill a boar it will help you upgrade your inventory. You will need it because you can collect many things in all Horizon Zero Dawn. You want as deep pockets as possible.
The foxes and turkeys also serve for creating fast travel items. You can travel between the campfires in the world. The world is huge collect as much as you can in the wildlife in order to fast travel.
Money Won’t Solve All Your Problems…
The balance is really great and everything serves a purpose, just like the machines. Yes, I have already praised the machines in all Horizon zero Dawn.
They look amazing but they also are part of the progression system in the game. You have to kill certain machines to get new armor and weapons. Unless you got enough money? It does not matter because you will need special items from machines. That could only mean that, like the real world, you will have to go out and hunt these machines.
Then bring back their parts and craft whatever is that you need. This method of rewarding and a great way to upgrade your items while at the same time developing your skills. Unlike other games just reward you for just playing a lot of hours. This is exactly the case with Monster Hunter.
The game also takes a lot of Capcom’s RPG. Rolling away from incoming attacks, use your bow to destroy parts that you can then harvest. I even used a Monster Hunter tactic in Horizon and it worked. Watcher was trying to blind me but I turned my back, and just like that, I did for the Gazoo in Monster Hunter and it worked.
You can take tactics from other games like Capcom and apply it to Horizon Zero Dawn. This shows you that Guerrilla Games paid attention to what worked which made the gameplay so great.
Borrowing What Works from Other Games
Horizon Zero Dawn took a lot of things from other games. When you are using your bow and arrow to kill the bandit enemies in the game and climb a lot of rocks. It reminded me a lot of the Tomb Raiders games. When you talk to people and ask them many questions and that sounds like Elder Scrolls and Fallout.
The game also has the cinematic feel of a linear single-player game like Uncharted but with a huge open world. It is really impressive what Guerrilla has done.
There are only three loading screens in the game. When you start, when you die and when your fast travel. Besides that, everything is seamless which makes this world even more believable. One of the things that horizon does best is to not take you out of the experience.
The game is an open-world RPG and sometimes NPCs can get stuck or does something unusual but it is nothing game breaking. What it really gives you the idea that you are playing a game. There is no time to know Rises you were done where you walk to a point on the map that you aren’t supposed to be in and then the game asks you to go back.
You are free to do whatever you want and that really helps with the overall enjoyment. the fun of the action and the superfluid combat the variation in quests and enemies it all makes this game extremely fun. it makes you not want to put down the controller and simply keep on playing.
The ‘but’ of this Game
While writing this review, I wanted to go back to the Horizon Zero Dawn and continue doing side missions and discover new areas of the map. That is how excited I am about this game.
Yes, I’m super positive about this game. I hear you ask, is there anything that you don’t like or could be better? Well, yes of course! No game is perfect. There are some critiques I have, for example, the gear is way too limited in my opinion.
Halfway through the game, I already had the best armor and weapon that is not awarded until the final mission. I wanted new exclusive upgrades but even every vendor I visited had the same gear and nothing that was better than the things I owned.
On level 15, that kind of sucked at times. The game can also have some weird design choices like environments. They will instantly kill you without really communicating that. I also felt that the storyline about uncovering the secrets of the world was a little bit overwhelming. Especially if you did all the quests one after the other.
It is information overload. A time there was three audio dialogues in one room. That was very hard to listen to all at the same time. Even while you’re listening to them, Aloy will still talk when you trigger a new event. This results in the chaos through your speakers.
I was really surprised by the voice acting and facial animations. They are not like the best. You cannot compare them with like Uncharted but they are ok.
It does not have an impact on the game’s presentation. at all. The Bandit AI could be improved for the sequel. When there are aggressive and they attack you it’s fine but in stealth mode, there are super stupid. For example, when you kill one of them right next to each other, the one alive does not notice it.
Still, though, it is fun to kill a whole bandit camp one by one with just putting an arrow through their head. All these mistakes could be easily be fixed but I felt that they do not have an impact on the overall amazing experience that the game offered. You can forgive those little flaws because we Horizon Zero Dawn does many many things right.
Aloy is an Impressive Character
Aloy as a character is super likable. I was surprised by this approach of character development. She tells what is on her mind and that totally fell in line with the things that I thought in many situations.
You will really feel for her and will love to go on an adventure with this beautiful fierce hunter that can totally defend herself. While Aloy is undoubtedly the star of this game, the side characters were not as good and I was not impressed.
You will meet many of them throughout the game and will be happy to see them show up from time and time. I did not expect an Uncharted quality gasp but not rise with the Tomb Raider where the characters are simply uninterested and unremarkable at all.
It is also up to you and your curiosity to get to know the characters better. Like many RPGs, Aloy can ask more detailed questions about what happened and I was always interested enough to ask them.
Graphics…
Let’s finalize this review with something obvious about the graphics. This is one of the best-looking exclusive PS4 game. This game is even more impressive because it’s an open world title. and mostly those titles pay for that in terms of graphics quality.
Well in horizon this is not the case. the detail in the machines to many many different plays in areas you will face, it is just mind-blowing. even when you finish the game you still sometimes look I think whoa it’s truly amazing what the gorilla games have done.
I played a little bit on the PS4 but most of my time on the PS4 Pro. Both versions, I thought they look and run amazing. That is truly an achievement and also the fact that this is a first-person shooter studio that is now also capable of making an interesting and super-fun open-world RPG that everyone has to play.
This beats my favorite game of 2016 and also my favorite ps4 exclusive Uncharted 4. That is simply because of the unique setting way, better and interesting intense gameplay, and because it blends it also together so well. Everyone should play Horizon Zero Dawn.
Even if you do not like old world games because it really feels like third-person action games most of the time.
Final Thoughts
Horizon Zero Dawn is something special a game. I cannot recommend enough. I bet that this game will come up when we discuss the many amazing titles this generation.
Sony really has something great here.
I cannot wait to see what they will do next in the inevitable sequel. If you have any questions about Horizon zero Dawn review, let me know in the comments down below. Do you think Horizon Zero Dawn worth it?
