So I've been running ME:A, and while it's a fun game, HZD is hands down superior in most ways. The story is more affecting, the gestures and expressions more believable, the exploration more driven by wanting to see what new revelations will unfold rather than the search for more loot, the gameplay tighter and more satisfying. And it's prettier to boot.
Whoever put Guerilla Games on Killzone was an idiot. They were wasted on that franchise.
I can't wait to see what else they come out with.
And who knew the Game of the Year would be out in February?
HZD seems to benefit from much better direction than ME:A.
One little example is the facial expressions. I think that ME:A seems to have better range in facial expressions, at least on secondary characters. Aside from Aloy, people in HZD don't really change expression much, and when they do it's accomplished by flipping the camera to Aloy and then flipping back to the character in question, rather than change expression on camera. In ME:A, you get more on-camera movement, and it's like watching a marionette. In HZD, characters generally provide a more consistent tone. One random character I found early on in ME:A veered between being brightly chipper and sounding ready to bawl her eyes out from one line of dialog to another.
It would not surprise me to find out that ME:A had significantly more character animations, and that on an objective level the animations were more complex and more realistic. Horizon Zero Dawn did a lot of things well, and it was able to do a good job of papering over the things that it didn't do so well.
More complex? I'd argue not but whatever. More realistic though? No way. Horizon's subtle facial expressions are far more realistic than the flailing around, melodramatic animations you get out of ME, they're unparalleled for a game of this size. Just look at this gif of Varl: https://giant.gfycat.com/IllustriousImpartialEagle.gif
Maybe I'm just getting grumpier in my old age but I feel the older I get the more useless the internet is becoming.
15+ years ago if I wanted the location of all the hidden packages in GTA3 I could search for that online and someone would very kindly have made a map with all their locations.
Nowadays if I want to find, say, the locations of scanned glyphs (I'm missing three) I'm expected to sit through a painful 10min Youtube video for the same information.
Is nobody just creating a simple numbered map any more for this stuff or is it all about chasing ad revenue now?
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
Maybe I'm just getting grumpier in my old age but I feel the older I get the more useless the internet is becoming.
15+ years ago if I wanted the location of all the hidden packages in GTA3 I could search for that online and someone would very kindly have made a map with all their locations.
Nowadays if I want to find, say, the locations of scanned glyphs (I'm missing three) I'm expected to sit through a painful 10min Youtube video for the same information.
Is nobody just creating a simple numbered map any more for this stuff or is it all about chasing ad revenue now?
Fucking tell me about it!
To make matters worse I read really fast, so to sit through a 10 min video explaining something that would take me, like, a minute to read the transcript of is painful.
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
Yeah it's ridiculous. These people take a million years to tell you something that should take a second. It's not like they're being paid by the minute. I found them after having to sit through one, he hadn't numbered them in his video in the order they appear in the database. Would it have hurt to edit the video in the correct order?
Thanks, all I have left are the world datapoints to collect. I appear to be stuck at 93.93percent and not sure what I need to do besides those. I've got all the trophies.
Started the game up after a few weeks off and forgot I was in a tower vantage point. My "Open World Game Mode" was on the wrong setting and I promptly jumped off the edge of the building hitting X thinking that would deploy the glider. Aloy will be missed.
Thanks, all I have left are the world datapoints to collect. I appear to be stuck at 93.93percent and not sure what I need to do besides those. I've got all the trophies.
Everything required to fill the "Game Completion Percentage" is listed on the "Game Completion" page in the menu. Datapoints are not included in that tally.
Yeah it's ridiculous. These people take a million years to tell you something that should take a second. It's not like they're being paid by the minute. I found them after having to sit through one, he hadn't numbered them in his video in the order they appear in the database. Would it have hurt to edit the video in the correct order?
Tell me about it. Non-gaming, too, when I need simple instructions for something simple like rewiring a plug all I get is 10 minute videos and it's like YO TEXT AND DIAGRAMS WOULD TAKE 30 SECONDS IS MORE USEFUL THAN CONSTANTLY PAUSING AND REWINDING THIS SHIT.
Yeah it's ridiculous. These people take a million years to tell you something that should take a second. It's not like they're being paid by the minute. I found them after having to sit through one, he hadn't numbered them in his video in the order they appear in the database. Would it have hurt to edit the video in the correct order?
Tell me about it. Non-gaming, too, when I need simple instructions for something simple like rewiring a plug all I get is 10 minute videos and it's like YO TEXT AND DIAGRAMS WOULD TAKE 30 SECONDS IS MORE USEFUL THAN CONSTANTLY PAUSING AND REWINDING THIS SHIT.
Just finished the game and I gotta say they really nailed the ending. The plot wrapped up in a way that is both immediately satisfying while leaving room for more. It also had a great emotional capstone for Aloy. All in all this was just a really solid game that kept getting better and better the farther I got into it.
I finished this on ... Saturday? I was left a little cold by the climax, but the ending overall was good. Speaking of, what was it that (super end of game spoiler)
Aloy took from Elizabet's hand?
I feel like I missed something there.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I finished this on ... Saturday? I was left a little cold by the climax, but the ending overall was good. Speaking of, what was it that (super end of game spoiler)
Aloy took from Elizabet's hand?
I feel like I missed something there.
I can't remember anything of particular significance to the locket, other than it appeared to be the Earth from before it got eaten by death robots.
Pretty sure it's symbolic of the fact that Aloy is taking up Elisabet's mission to restore the planet.
I finished this on ... Saturday? I was left a little cold by the climax, but the ending overall was good. Speaking of, what was it that (super end of game spoiler)
Aloy took from Elizabet's hand?
I feel like I missed something there.
I can't remember anything of particular significance to the locket, other than it appeared to be the Earth from before it got eaten by death robots.
Pretty sure it's symbolic of the fact that Aloy is taking up Elisabet's mission to restore the planet.
Also, Aloy basically thinking of Elisabet as her mother and being her daughter. Taking up after her, it also shows that Alow finally has a "family" of sorts in the memories/legacy/etc of Elisabet. I don't think the item is all that important more the idea that Aloy is taking something to always have a part of her "mother" with her.
I finished this on ... Saturday? I was left a little cold by the climax, but the ending overall was good. Speaking of, what was it that (super end of game spoiler)
Aloy took from Elizabet's hand?
I feel like I missed something there.
I can't remember anything of particular significance to the locket, other than it appeared to be the Earth from before it got eaten by death robots.
Pretty sure it's symbolic of the fact that Aloy is taking up Elisabet's mission to restore the planet.
Also, Aloy basically thinking of Elisabet as her mother and being her daughter. Taking up after her, it also shows that Alow finally has a "family" of sorts in the memories/legacy/etc of Elisabet. I don't think the item is all that important more the idea that Aloy is taking something to always have a part of her "mother" with her.
I don't think that it's quite simple, and I'm curious about which direction they go with, if any, in future content.
The first is the obvious, that Elisabet is effectively Aloy's mother.
The second gets a little metaphysical, but it's the idea that Aloy is Elisabet, reincarnated through technological means. There's a few little things in the game that indicate to me that the developers might think of it that way. For one, you have GAIA's message for Aloy. She addresses the future woman in front of her as Elisabet, rather than addressing the young woman in terms of Elisabet's clone. Later, she calls Aloy a re-instantiation of Elisabet - we can quibble about what she meant, but in the context of the rest of her message I take it to mean that she's saying that Aloy is a new version of the same person.
And the rest of GAIA's message really, really hammers home that GAIA considers Aloy to be Elisabet. GAIA has her moment of despair, but what she says when recovers from it says a lot: "No. No. I know you too well, Elisabet. Somehow, you will find a way. In you, all things are possible." GAIA also used the "In you, all things are possible" line while talking to Elisabet in other data logs in the game.
And then, there's Aloy's last line of dialog in the game, in response to being prompted for her name and rank: "Elisabet Sobeck, Alpha Prime." You can say that sure, she was just responding to the prompt she was given. But the writers choose to make that the prompt. They could have just said "Override ready. Please confirm override" and had Aloy yell "Confirm!" Or any one of a dozen different things. They could have given Aloy more dialog after. They didn't. They choose to have Aloy end the game by declaring herself to be Elisabet Sobeck.
I think that the writers are writing Aloy as Elisabet's reincarnation rather than her daughter, and I think that in the second game we may see Aloy perceive herself as Elisabet returned, rather than a different person with the same genetic code.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
I just started this game and I desperatly wish it came out 3 weeks before Zelda and I could have played it first. I really like bits of it but moving around in the world is just so incredibly less fun than in Breath of the Wild that it's pushing me away after only 3ish hours. I'll probably push through but man "nah just fucking climb whatever" is like a billion times better than uncharted climbing, something that I so didn't want to do again after UC3 that I still haven't played uncharted 4.
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Giggles_FunsworthBlight on DiscourseBay Area SprawlRegistered Userregular
So, I'm nearly finished, and this game is magnificent.
However. My only real complaint is that outside of the main gameplay loop (which is completely and utterly compelling, I might add), there's not enough to do if you don't care about collectibles. Whilst Tallnecks are fun, it was very disheartening that not a single one of them revealed anything of any use or interest to me. It was all Machine Sites and mugs. My distaste for collectibles aside, machine sites don't have much use as I never once had the need to farm a specific creature outside of a quest.
I'd have liked more side-quests, more bandit camps, and more cauldron-esque experiences. Fortunately the emergent gameplay was fantastic so the world never felt boring or empty, but the map certainly was despite being jammed full of icons. Even if they'd just put the Power Cells for the super-armour out in the world and had the Tallnecks reveal those, that would have been better.
The mugs are pretty bullshit.
The flowers are actually really interesting though. They're usually located in some of the most godawful gorgeous nooks and vistas in the game, and I didn't realize until I'd collected most of them, if you open them up in the collectibles menu they have little poems.
End game spoiler adjacent metal flower origin speculation:
Initially I was thinking maybe one of the Hanuk made them, because of the spiritual nature of the poetry. Then I figured it was one of the subroutines, but after seeing Elisabet's final resting place I'm wondering if she didn't leave them around like the what's his face left the Vantage spikes.
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LutExIVThieves Guild ChairmanIn the ShadowsRegistered Userregular
Just started this the other day, man is it good. And is a father of a strong willed daughter with red hair that's about to leave for college, those first few hours smacked me right in the feels.
I'm out in the wider world now just sprinting off after every shiny thing on the Horizon (no pun). Can't wait to see what actually happened to everything. I dig the vistas that show how things looked before.
Steam/PSN/XBox Live:LutExIV
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
So, I'm nearly finished, and this game is magnificent.
However. My only real complaint is that outside of the main gameplay loop (which is completely and utterly compelling, I might add), there's not enough to do if you don't care about collectibles. Whilst Tallnecks are fun, it was very disheartening that not a single one of them revealed anything of any use or interest to me. It was all Machine Sites and mugs. My distaste for collectibles aside, machine sites don't have much use as I never once had the need to farm a specific creature outside of a quest.
I'd have liked more side-quests, more bandit camps, and more cauldron-esque experiences. Fortunately the emergent gameplay was fantastic so the world never felt boring or empty, but the map certainly was despite being jammed full of icons. Even if they'd just put the Power Cells for the super-armour out in the world and had the Tallnecks reveal those, that would have been better.
The mugs are pretty bullshit.
The flowers are actually really interesting though. They're usually located in some of the most godawful gorgeous nooks and vistas in the game, and I didn't realize until I'd collected most of them, if you open them up in the collectibles menu they have little poems.
End game spoiler adjacent metal flower origin speculation:
Initially I was thinking maybe one of the Hanuk made them, because of the spiritual nature of the poetry. Then I figured it was one of the subroutines, but after seeing Elisabet's final resting place I'm wondering if she didn't leave them around like the what's his face left the Vantage spikes.
Flowers spoiler
Conjecture by some people in the forum is that they're the product of Demeter, hence the surrounding triangle of flowers
Just started this the other day, man is it good. And is a father of a strong willed daughter with red hair that's about to leave for college, those first few hours smacked me right in the feels.
I'm out in the wider world now just sprinting off after every shiny thing on the Horizon (no pun). Can't wait to see what actually happened to everything. I dig the vistas that show how things looked before.
The vistas aren't just the short audiolog and a view into the world that was; they also have a text component. Make sure you read it. It's as good or better than The Survivalist story in Fallout New Vegas.
So, I'm nearly finished, and this game is magnificent.
However. My only real complaint is that outside of the main gameplay loop (which is completely and utterly compelling, I might add), there's not enough to do if you don't care about collectibles. Whilst Tallnecks are fun, it was very disheartening that not a single one of them revealed anything of any use or interest to me. It was all Machine Sites and mugs. My distaste for collectibles aside, machine sites don't have much use as I never once had the need to farm a specific creature outside of a quest.
I'd have liked more side-quests, more bandit camps, and more cauldron-esque experiences. Fortunately the emergent gameplay was fantastic so the world never felt boring or empty, but the map certainly was despite being jammed full of icons. Even if they'd just put the Power Cells for the super-armour out in the world and had the Tallnecks reveal those, that would have been better.
The mugs are pretty bullshit.
The flowers are actually really interesting though. They're usually located in some of the most godawful gorgeous nooks and vistas in the game, and I didn't realize until I'd collected most of them, if you open them up in the collectibles menu they have little poems.
End game spoiler adjacent metal flower origin speculation:
Initially I was thinking maybe one of the Hanuk made them, because of the spiritual nature of the poetry. Then I figured it was one of the subroutines, but after seeing Elisabet's final resting place I'm wondering if she didn't leave them around like the what's his face left the Vantage spikes.
I mean don't get me wrong, despite everything I said I think this may be in my top 10 games of all time. I find it quite hard to articulate just how good I think it is.
ALRIGHT FINE I GOT AN AVATAR
Steam: adamjnet
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Giggles_FunsworthBlight on DiscourseBay Area SprawlRegistered Userregular
So, I'm nearly finished, and this game is magnificent.
However. My only real complaint is that outside of the main gameplay loop (which is completely and utterly compelling, I might add), there's not enough to do if you don't care about collectibles. Whilst Tallnecks are fun, it was very disheartening that not a single one of them revealed anything of any use or interest to me. It was all Machine Sites and mugs. My distaste for collectibles aside, machine sites don't have much use as I never once had the need to farm a specific creature outside of a quest.
I'd have liked more side-quests, more bandit camps, and more cauldron-esque experiences. Fortunately the emergent gameplay was fantastic so the world never felt boring or empty, but the map certainly was despite being jammed full of icons. Even if they'd just put the Power Cells for the super-armour out in the world and had the Tallnecks reveal those, that would have been better.
The mugs are pretty bullshit.
The flowers are actually really interesting though. They're usually located in some of the most godawful gorgeous nooks and vistas in the game, and I didn't realize until I'd collected most of them, if you open them up in the collectibles menu they have little poems.
End game spoiler adjacent metal flower origin speculation:
Initially I was thinking maybe one of the Hanuk made them, because of the spiritual nature of the poetry. Then I figured it was one of the subroutines, but after seeing Elisabet's final resting place I'm wondering if she didn't leave them around like the what's his face left the Vantage spikes.
Flowers spoiler
Conjecture by some people in the forum is that they're the product of Demeter, hence the surrounding triangle of flowers
Just started this the other day, man is it good. And is a father of a strong willed daughter with red hair that's about to leave for college, those first few hours smacked me right in the feels.
I'm out in the wider world now just sprinting off after every shiny thing on the Horizon (no pun). Can't wait to see what actually happened to everything. I dig the vistas that show how things looked before.
The vistas aren't just the short audiolog and a view into the world that was; they also have a text component. Make sure you read it. It's as good or better than The Survivalist story in Fallout New Vegas.
The writing is fantastic in this. Just before the proving...
Rost: You've lived far too long in isolation.
Aloy (tearfully): Not until today.
That was so well done and the animations were great too. Real kick in the nuts.
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
My art book just arrived. Goddamn there was some gorgeous art that went into this game. And some of it they recreated beautifully in the in-game experience. Especially sitting down on a hillside looking at the vista of the ruins of the old world. I did that many times myself.
Platinumed this game last night. Really excellent overall. One of the better sci-fi stories I've seen in a video game.
What is everyone's favorite/least favorite big beastie to fight? My favorite is probably the thunderjaw, because knocking off that disc launcher and using it against it feels so good. Least favorite is probably rockbreaker because there's a lot of downtime and the burrow attacks are kind of random and hard to avoid.
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Only ever came across rockbreakers once and they were in a corrupted zone, and yeah, rockbreakers are pretty dumb to fight. In the end, I ended up beating them because there was a passing Behemoth convoy. Hit the corrupted rockbreaker with ice while standing up on a rock where the rockbreakers couldn't reach me, then the big AoE attacks from the Behemoth hurt them super-bad and I mopped up.
Between the tunneling, their huge-ass attacks, and having to disable so many parts to stop one single attack or ability, I just refused to ever fight more rockbreakers again.
Stormbirds were my least enjoyable fights, though, because I fought them multiple times. Neat concept, but the camera limits meant they were constantly flying up out of where you could see or shoot them, which really pissed me off.
What is everyone's favorite/least favorite big beastie to fight?
Rockbreakers were among my favorites to fight (or at least most memorable) because those encounters were pretty rare - my first was completely unexpected (I was riding through the desert and came upon a bunch of guards and some other machines fighting, when suddenly, the Rockbreaker burst from the earth to attack them all); my second felt epic as hell (at the part where you fight two corrupted ones at once near a river, I took control of a bunch of robots before storming across the river, Normandy-style, and I slid right past/under a flying rock and my friendly Snapjaw as it lunged into a Rockbreaker).
I avoided all avoidable Stormbirds. The one mandatory fight was exciting, but after that, I much preferred the feeling of riding my mount away - and taking photo mode shots the whole way - as a Stormbird obscured the sun/moon and hell rained down from above.
The Thunderjaw v. Thunderjaw fight in an enormous valley was a big highlight - whether taking them both on or controlling one and watching the two fight. Tried both ways.
Platinumed this game last night. Really excellent overall. One of the better sci-fi stories I've seen in a video game.
What is everyone's favorite/least favorite big beastie to fight? My favorite is probably the thunderjaw, because knocking off that disc launcher and using it against it feels so good. Least favorite is probably rockbreaker because there's a lot of downtime and the burrow attacks are kind of random and hard to avoid.
Anything Sawtooth or bigger that doesn't fly. I don't mind flyers, but I think the ground fights are more exciting. Ravagers might be my favorite because their gun is fun as hell.
Interesting story here on the challenge of writing (and rewriting) Horizon's story. But I'm sharing for this last snippet from Lead Writer John Gonzalez, who had this to say about the still-untold stories of Horizon's world and fodder for a sequel (spoilers!):
“Can Aloy rebuild the technology required to reboot GAIA and restore control to the terraforming system before the biosphere spins out of control?” Gonzalez posed. “Who–or what–sent the mysterious signal that transformed HADES into a rogue AI? We know HADES escaped GAIA’s destruction by fleeing to the core processor of a derelict Titan…but what happened to the rest of GAIA’s subordinate protocols, and what have they been up to for the past 19 years? Probably nothing good.”
So it looks like we may get more rogue AI (performing their intended functions, but in dangerous and unforeseen ways) in HZD2.
Interesting story here on the challenge of writing (and rewriting) Horizon's story. But I'm sharing for this last snippet from Lead Writer John Gonzalez, who had this to say about the still-untold stories of Horizon's world and fodder for a sequel (spoilers!):
“Can Aloy rebuild the technology required to reboot GAIA and restore control to the terraforming system before the biosphere spins out of control?” Gonzalez posed. “Who–or what–sent the mysterious signal that transformed HADES into a rogue AI? We know HADES escaped GAIA’s destruction by fleeing to the core processor of a derelict Titan…but what happened to the rest of GAIA’s subordinate protocols, and what have they been up to for the past 19 years? Probably nothing good.”
So it looks like we may get more rogue AI (performing their intended functions, but in dangerous and unforeseen ways) in HZD2.
It's stated that it will be possible to bring GAIA back online and it will just take years to do it, but I personally hope that it means the remaining games will be about getting those other protocols back as a part of GAIA to get the world put back together.
APOLLO would obviously be a big priority to try and get back in some fashion and HADES is under wraps (hopefully forever), but AETHER, POSEIDON, and ARTEMIS would all obviously be really great potential options for being the focus of future games. Sky, ocean, and animal life are perfect candidates for something to go crazy wrong while providing some really awesome material for new robot designs. And with ARTEMIS, they could go really nuts and have it go after recreating megafauna, giving us the super-rad mix of fighting dinosaurs with dinosaur robots.
Interesting story here on the challenge of writing (and rewriting) Horizon's story. But I'm sharing for this last snippet from Lead Writer John Gonzalez, who had this to say about the still-untold stories of Horizon's world and fodder for a sequel (spoilers!):
“Can Aloy rebuild the technology required to reboot GAIA and restore control to the terraforming system before the biosphere spins out of control?” Gonzalez posed. “Who–or what–sent the mysterious signal that transformed HADES into a rogue AI? We know HADES escaped GAIA’s destruction by fleeing to the core processor of a derelict Titan…but what happened to the rest of GAIA’s subordinate protocols, and what have they been up to for the past 19 years? Probably nothing good.”
So it looks like we may get more rogue AI (performing their intended functions, but in dangerous and unforeseen ways) in HZD2.
It's stated that it will be possible to bring GAIA back online and it will just take years to do it, but I personally hope that it means the remaining games will be about getting those other protocols back as a part of GAIA to get the world put back together.
APOLLO would obviously be a big priority to try and get back in some fashion and HADES is under wraps (hopefully forever), but AETHER, POSEIDON, and ARTEMIS would all obviously be really great potential options for being the focus of future games. Sky, ocean, and animal life are perfect candidates for something to go crazy wrong while providing some really awesome material for new robot designs. And with ARTEMIS, they could go really nuts and have it go after recreating megafauna, giving us the super-rad mix of fighting dinosaurs with dinosaur robots.
It really is impressive how they managed to put a definitive end to HZD's story, yet left themselves room to breathe for a sequel. If a sequel was never greenlit I would be very content with the story we've got.
Even the "post credits cliffhanger" wasn't a cliffhanger, at lease not pulled out of a writer's ass. The "next threat" was information we already knew; the writers were just reminding us.
Finished HZD Tuesday night. Platinum'd with a playtime of 64 hours, 30 minutes.
Oh my god, what a story. I loved it.
This was one of the few games that had me craving more story as the credits rolled.
And that stinger. Oh Yes.
Post-Credits/End Game Spoilers.
I thought it was so very fitting and awesome for Sylens to capture HADES like that. Heck, he as much as told us he would right after GAIA Prime. "I would do it all over again, just with more safeguards." (paraphrased)
I can't help but like Sylens, even if I don't trust him at all. There was something just so refreshing about his sheer uninterest in any emotional attachment or getting personal.
Also one of the few games where I've absolutely and unabashedly loved the writing of every character.
What is everyone's favorite/least favorite big beastie to fight?
Minor Machine spoilers.
Thunderjaws were definitely the most fun to fight for me as well. I played on hard, so if I shot off both disk launchers and gave the beastie what for, it still had a tenth or so of health left. Which felt like the perfect amount. Enough that one or two good shots to the weak spot above the hind legs finishes it off.
The Stormbird was fun to fight ... once. I never could figure out which spots were intended to hit for massive damage, so the couple fights I had with them dragged on a bit. I was also slightly annoyed that ropecasting them to the ground didn't open up a critical prompt that I could see.
Same with the first time I fought Rockbreakers, although I fought one for a sidequest that went down fast when I hit the two of the four digging legs to open the fight, hit the other two after dodging, and then the underbelly fire bladder and the vent on the back.
Everything else was fun. Ravagers are probably my #2 most fun spot after Thunderjaw. Breaking the gun and using it to kill the Ravager and any friends it had nearby was always a fun time.
Posts
More complex? I'd argue not but whatever. More realistic though? No way. Horizon's subtle facial expressions are far more realistic than the flailing around, melodramatic animations you get out of ME, they're unparalleled for a game of this size. Just look at this gif of Varl:
https://giant.gfycat.com/IllustriousImpartialEagle.gif
15+ years ago if I wanted the location of all the hidden packages in GTA3 I could search for that online and someone would very kindly have made a map with all their locations.
Nowadays if I want to find, say, the locations of scanned glyphs (I'm missing three) I'm expected to sit through a painful 10min Youtube video for the same information.
Is nobody just creating a simple numbered map any more for this stuff or is it all about chasing ad revenue now?
Fucking tell me about it!
To make matters worse I read really fast, so to sit through a 10 min video explaining something that would take me, like, a minute to read the transcript of is painful.
Ask and ye shall receive...
List of all datapoint locations and companion map
Everything required to fill the "Game Completion Percentage" is listed on the "Game Completion" page in the menu. Datapoints are not included in that tally.
buying all of the "very rare" purple weapons and armors count towards the percentage.
Tell me about it. Non-gaming, too, when I need simple instructions for something simple like rewiring a plug all I get is 10 minute videos and it's like YO TEXT AND DIAGRAMS WOULD TAKE 30 SECONDS IS MORE USEFUL THAN CONSTANTLY PAUSING AND REWINDING THIS SHIT.
Steam: adamjnet
It's just the Shadow weapons though right? I have two outfits and eight weapons showing in the stats, is that all of them?
I found a side quest I missed too, Acquired Taste. Stuck at 96.11 now.
Don't forget to like and subscribe!
Pretty sure it's symbolic of the fact that Aloy is taking up Elisabet's mission to restore the planet.
I think you need to buy all the Heavy armor, even though it's not listed as "Shadow X"
Should be:
1. Nora Protector Heavy (Melee defense)
2. Nora Survivor Heavy (All elemental defenses)
3. Nora Silent Hunter Heavy (Stealth)
4. Banuk Sickness Eater Heavy (Corruption defense)
5. Banuk Ice Hunter Heavy (Freeze defense)
6. Carja Blazon Heavy (Burn defense)
7. Carja Silks Heavy (3 mod slots)
8. Oseram Sparkworker Heavy (Shock defense)
9. Oseram Arrow Breaker Heavy (Ranged defense)
10. Shadow Stalwart Heavy (Blind/sonic defense)
There are Medium/Heavy versions of the Shadow armor you get in the story that become available at Merchants. Good idea to check for that.
XBL: Sans Gravitas, Steam, Destiny, Twitch
Destiny Raid Groups: Team NATBurn, Team Fourth Meal (Disbanded)
I don't think that it's quite simple, and I'm curious about which direction they go with, if any, in future content.
The second gets a little metaphysical, but it's the idea that Aloy is Elisabet, reincarnated through technological means. There's a few little things in the game that indicate to me that the developers might think of it that way. For one, you have GAIA's message for Aloy. She addresses the future woman in front of her as Elisabet, rather than addressing the young woman in terms of Elisabet's clone. Later, she calls Aloy a re-instantiation of Elisabet - we can quibble about what she meant, but in the context of the rest of her message I take it to mean that she's saying that Aloy is a new version of the same person.
And the rest of GAIA's message really, really hammers home that GAIA considers Aloy to be Elisabet. GAIA has her moment of despair, but what she says when recovers from it says a lot: "No. No. I know you too well, Elisabet. Somehow, you will find a way. In you, all things are possible." GAIA also used the "In you, all things are possible" line while talking to Elisabet in other data logs in the game.
And then, there's Aloy's last line of dialog in the game, in response to being prompted for her name and rank: "Elisabet Sobeck, Alpha Prime." You can say that sure, she was just responding to the prompt she was given. But the writers choose to make that the prompt. They could have just said "Override ready. Please confirm override" and had Aloy yell "Confirm!" Or any one of a dozen different things. They could have given Aloy more dialog after. They didn't. They choose to have Aloy end the game by declaring herself to be Elisabet Sobeck.
I think that the writers are writing Aloy as Elisabet's reincarnation rather than her daughter, and I think that in the second game we may see Aloy perceive herself as Elisabet returned, rather than a different person with the same genetic code.
The mugs are pretty bullshit.
The flowers are actually really interesting though. They're usually located in some of the most godawful gorgeous nooks and vistas in the game, and I didn't realize until I'd collected most of them, if you open them up in the collectibles menu they have little poems.
End game spoiler adjacent metal flower origin speculation:
I'm out in the wider world now just sprinting off after every shiny thing on the Horizon (no pun). Can't wait to see what actually happened to everything. I dig the vistas that show how things looked before.
Steam/PSN/XBox Live:LutExIV
Flowers spoiler
The vistas aren't just the short audiolog and a view into the world that was; they also have a text component. Make sure you read it. It's as good or better than The Survivalist story in Fallout New Vegas.
That was freaking awesome!
I mean don't get me wrong, despite everything I said I think this may be in my top 10 games of all time. I find it quite hard to articulate just how good I think it is.
Steam: adamjnet
Bless you.
Yeah, I caught up. Also didn't realize they were
Aloy (tearfully): Not until today.
That was so well done and the animations were great too. Real kick in the nuts.
What is everyone's favorite/least favorite big beastie to fight? My favorite is probably the thunderjaw, because knocking off that disc launcher and using it against it feels so good. Least favorite is probably rockbreaker because there's a lot of downtime and the burrow attacks are kind of random and hard to avoid.
Between the tunneling, their huge-ass attacks, and having to disable so many parts to stop one single attack or ability, I just refused to ever fight more rockbreakers again.
Stormbirds were my least enjoyable fights, though, because I fought them multiple times. Neat concept, but the camera limits meant they were constantly flying up out of where you could see or shoot them, which really pissed me off.
I avoided all avoidable Stormbirds. The one mandatory fight was exciting, but after that, I much preferred the feeling of riding my mount away - and taking photo mode shots the whole way - as a Stormbird obscured the sun/moon and hell rained down from above.
The Thunderjaw v. Thunderjaw fight in an enormous valley was a big highlight - whether taking them both on or controlling one and watching the two fight. Tried both ways.
The disc launcher is indeed insane.
Anything Sawtooth or bigger that doesn't fly. I don't mind flyers, but I think the ground fights are more exciting. Ravagers might be my favorite because their gun is fun as hell.
So it looks like we may get more rogue AI (performing their intended functions, but in dangerous and unforeseen ways) in HZD2.
APOLLO would obviously be a big priority to try and get back in some fashion and HADES is under wraps (hopefully forever), but AETHER, POSEIDON, and ARTEMIS would all obviously be really great potential options for being the focus of future games. Sky, ocean, and animal life are perfect candidates for something to go crazy wrong while providing some really awesome material for new robot designs. And with ARTEMIS, they could go really nuts and have it go after recreating megafauna, giving us the super-rad mix of fighting dinosaurs with dinosaur robots.
It really is impressive how they managed to put a definitive end to HZD's story, yet left themselves room to breathe for a sequel. If a sequel was never greenlit I would be very content with the story we've got.
Even the "post credits cliffhanger" wasn't a cliffhanger, at lease not pulled out of a writer's ass. The "next threat" was information we already knew; the writers were just reminding us.
Steam: adamjnet
Oh my god, what a story. I loved it.
This was one of the few games that had me craving more story as the credits rolled.
And that stinger. Oh Yes.
Post-Credits/End Game Spoilers.
I can't help but like Sylens, even if I don't trust him at all. There was something just so refreshing about his sheer uninterest in any emotional attachment or getting personal.
Also one of the few games where I've absolutely and unabashedly loved the writing of every character.
Minor Machine spoilers.
The Stormbird was fun to fight ... once. I never could figure out which spots were intended to hit for massive damage, so the couple fights I had with them dragged on a bit. I was also slightly annoyed that ropecasting them to the ground didn't open up a critical prompt that I could see.
Same with the first time I fought Rockbreakers, although I fought one for a sidequest that went down fast when I hit the two of the four digging legs to open the fight, hit the other two after dodging, and then the underbelly fire bladder and the vent on the back.
Everything else was fun. Ravagers are probably my #2 most fun spot after Thunderjaw. Breaking the gun and using it to kill the Ravager and any friends it had nearby was always a fun time.