Horizon II: Forbidden West (PS5/PS4) | PC - March 21, 2024

[Melena]

That fight against the enduring on hard can eat a dick. Doesn't help half the time the game registers three hits of R1 instead of two, so I wind up doing Nora warrior instead of rock breaker.

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[Souj]

That fight against the enduring on hard can eat a dick. Doesn't help half the time the game registers three hits of R1 instead of two, so I wind up doing Nora warrior instead of rock breaker.

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I beat her on normal with just basic Quick/strong attacks and the occasional arrow. Super glad I got to be so pissed off trying to do all those training combos for no reason other than to infuriate me and waste my time.

Getting platinum trophy seemed pretty easy, but now that I’m going through and cleaning up the quests/hunting for satchel upgrades, that slog is feeling all too real.

[Melena]

I one shot her after the gym and eating, but yeah, she takes significantly less damage, and one three hit combo does about 600 damage to you on hard. Basically have to stun lock her and make liberal use of the smoke barrels to interrupt her attacks

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[Souj]

Easter Egg… I’m guessing there’s more of this specific one.

Spoiler: show

Alloy even says “looks like a boy.”

[Cantih]

Yeah, it's like the Death Stranding Easter eggs in the first game.
Find all 3, and you unlock a Kratos facepaint.

[6souls]

Yeah, it's like the Death Stranding Easter eggs in the first game.
Find all 3, and you unlock a Kratos facepaint.

Why would you unlock Kratos face paint from Death Stranding Easter eggs?

[Gokulo]

Why would you unlock Kratos face paint from Death Stranding Easter eggs?

Death Stranding was in the first game. Kratos facepaint is for the easter egg in this one.

[6souls]

Death Stranding was in the first game. Kratos facepaint is for the easter egg in this one.

[Malithar]

Assuming most here have beaten it or at least nearing the ending. What's everyone's final thoughts?

Spoiler: show

I can't put my finger on it, but something felt missing to me when it comes to story. The first game had the revelation that Enduring Victory was bullshit PR spin and Zero Dawn was just to save life. That felt pretty heavy. I'm not sure if Far Zenith really had the same impact for me. I'm not really surprised that they made it offworld and stuff, even makes sense. But them coming back with a thousand years of technological advancement and getting beat by a handful of people just didn't land at all for me. Sylens knowing how to deal with them just didn't feel earned. Doubly so for Nemesis, it just feels like a boogyman to chart into the sequel. There's no agency or attachment to it.

Not showing Ted Faro was also a big miss for me. You can't build up this character for so long and how terrible he was, and reveal he's alive and not show him. There didn't have to go all out Resident Evil style mutations on him with the holo showing he's sprouted around the entire reactor, just make him something like a super mutant from Fallout. The ending boss had pretty much zero impact for me. I cared more about killing Erik given he killed Varl. The final level where Beta takes over the printer also felt a bit frustrating. The first game, you fought through the rampage of Meridian. This one, you get a short cutscene. I wanted to be out there fighting the Zeniths with Slaughterspines and Thunderjaws as backup. Companions and the base felt a bit under utilized, but talking to your allies and getting to know their personality was fun.

Gameplay wise, everything felt really tight and controlled. I felt like some of my shots that should have hit a piece I was aiming for didn't, but I just chocked it up to so much more armor and such being on machines blocking it. I'm really disappointed in the direction they went with weapons. The first game, I was annoyed that I needed multiple bows for the different arrow types, but it at least had a progression path of each new tier adding a new arrow type that made sense. This time, upgrades weren't always upgrades due to ammo types being lost. Nothing worse than getting some fancy new weapon with better stats, but you lose an ammo type you're really clicking with. The weapons that have a wasted slot on some junk type also felt like such an obvious missed opportunity. Really wish they'd just lock things down to weapon types and you learn how to make different ammo types as you go, and you can assign them to your weapon wheel as you wish, with new weapons and stuff just giving modifiers and extra damage to certain types.

At least the game wasn't flooded with spear mods and you didn't get an augmentable spear until the end of the game like the first. Instead, your spear is just stuck at base level. I was super excited the first time I went into my inventory and saw a dozen different % mods and stuff on my spear, but it's all for naught. Food felt like a good idea in conception, but it was silly easy to cap out the skills that you wanted without it. Definitely preferred the weaves and mods here to the mess that was the first game.

Legendary items were...annoying. The sound effect you got when getting one was hype inducing, but it was so over used on materials and sellables. Legendary mods felt pretty terrible, and legendary weapons, while generally useful and great, lacked personality. If something is going to be legendary, I expect special abilities, a unique skin, etc. They were all just reskinned versions of existing weapons with 5 mod slots and generally, a good ammo load out. I dunno, they just missed for me. They didn't feel worthy of being called legendary. In my mind, something legendary should be some Oseram weapon you come across where they mounted a Ravager cannon to it or something and it's totally unique.

Exploration was one of the best parts about the game for me. The verticality and options afforded to you to get around were really nice. The vistas and just how far and detailed the view was really felt next gen. Only real complaint here was the metal flowers, by time you can handle them, just about nothing locked behind them matters. It felt like something that should have definitely come right after firegleam unlock. Side activities were pretty spot on, I liked the racing, machine strike, and just odds and ends that got you out in the world. Machine contracts felt a bit under baked. There were a few really unique ones where you had to do things a certain way, but the majority were just kill x. I think I missed findings old world relics like the mugs and stuff. That sort of stuff added personality to the past, and gave you something extra to track down and get rewarded for.

Lot of stuff to say, I guess because it didn't quite meet my expectations in a few areas. Still a fantastic game.

[Souj]

Dude built several Lego sets. Tall neck, sawtooth, thundermaw and a whole bunch of other stuff.

https://mobile.twitter.com/serialbui...8R-0afXNz8jO4g


Jeez. $80 for instructions and a list of pieces you need. Still pretty tempting, though I wonder how much it would cost for everything. Edit: looks like up to $800 with parts according to Reddit.

[Souj]

Thank you Machine Strike cheap-o strategy.
Get the fireclaw piece from the raintrace merchant. Use it as your only piece. The AI acts differently when you have only one piece and fire claw has exactly 7 points and has high attack and high maneuverability. Just keep hit and running.

Just two trophies left. Last mission, and Scan Everything trophy, which I can’t do until I do the last mission.

[Souj]

Platinum trophy achieved. Waiting on the DLC now.

Spoiler: show

status quo with Heaphestus returned is kind of lame, but unexpected. Wouldn’t be a game if Gaia ate him. Maybe dlc will be recapturing it and then all the cauldrons get taken over by Nemesis at the start of 3, and hey, look at that. Bunch of new aggressive machines.

Also, apparently this latest patch nerfed the shit out of most of the legendary weapons. At least people are complaining about it nonstop in the Horizon circles. I only had the last mission to go, so it was only just downloading it when I turned my PS5 on tonight and started the game without the installing it.

[6souls]

[Vil]

Just started this the other day and have a question.

For coils and stuff, do you have to get a skill or something like Tinker in the 1st game, or can you freely swap coils/weaves?

[6souls]

https://blog.playstation.com/2022/06...ding-new-game/

We’re so thankful for our incredibly talented community and are happy to announce that a major update will be released today. It includes the much-requested New Game+ feature and Ultra Hard mode for those who want challenge themselves further, but also a host of quality-of-life features that we know our community would appreciate: the transmog feature allows players to easily customize the cosmetics of their equipped outfit to look like any other owned outfit, and with respec players are enabled to freely reset their skill points and redistribute them.

hink you can still take down that Slaughterspine? This update also comes with a dedicated trophy pack so you can track your victories as you revisit the Forbidden West on Ultra Hard through New Game+!

Additionally, there’s a new Herbalist vendor who sells animal parts, and we’ve revamped Temporal Anti-Aliasing to improve the visual fidelity of our Performance mode on PS5 and rendering on PS4 Pro. We’re already working on an upcoming patch which will include VRR support and a 40FPS Mode, so stay tuned for more.

[Eragon]

Transmog let’s gooooo

[Tyrath]

I just finished off Elden ring so this update is in time for me to get into this game.

[Kachiko]

Where be our Genshin Impact constellations for Alloy?

[Vil]

I forgot how much fun I had just picking apart a machine and ripping parts off of them. Didn't have time to replay HZD before this like I would have planned, but is the thing where stuff is destroyed on a machine's death (if the part isn't removed) new to FW or more common? Between that and seeing parts that will explode but do persist on death, I feel like it's a lot more being careful, which makes some things a lot more frantic. I thought that HZD was primarily rng based drops outside of like shooting off cannisters, but it's been a while, so idk.

Dealt with my first Tremor-something this evening. Some of these new things are just awesome.

At first, I wasn't really feeling the whole "sidegrade" weapons with so many different weapons of a type within a tier, but the "create a job" thing has really helped motivate me/keep me going when farming parts to upgrade an extra weapon or two.

[Melena]

Parts destroyed if the machine dies is new. There is a toggle you can turn on so it disables that feature. Makes it much easier to grind for legendaries and honestly, was probably my most hated change in the game from the first.

The other big thing on HZD is there is no trip wire/bomb limit, and it was so much damn fun to turn an enclosed area into a fun house of horrors for machines. FW is much more open, has less of those areas, combined with the trip/trap limits that can only be extended by skills, makes that a bit harder.