Horizon Forbidden West Review
Aloy's latest journey outclasses Zero Dawn in every way, but also includes a lot of mediocre open-world fluff
Guerilla has returned to the stage with PlayStation’s premiere red-headed protagonist and a whole new story in Horizon Forbidden West. After investing dozens upon dozens of hours into the game, I can cut to the chase and say yes, it is great. If you are reading this as a fan of the original game, have no fear, because Forbidden West will absolutely deliver for you. Almost every aspect of the game, from the story to the combat, has been improved. It is a worthy sequel and another quality entry into the illustrious stable of PlayStation first-party titles. There is a big “but” though. This game certainly has its flaws. As I was nearing the end of my journey with Aloy, I just couldn’t help feeling like the game couldn’t get out of its own way. Let’s get into it.
The Forbidden West Is Incredible
My biggest compliment to this game is that the map is stunning. It feels alive and lived-in. The numerous climates and geographical set pieces you encounter throughout the story are both soothing to look at and intriguing to explore. The different herds of machines that inhabit the wild areas mimic a futuristic episode of Planet Earth. The several tribes that lay claim to the varying terrains are thoughtfully integrated into their environments. It’s almost as if the map is a character itself.
I found myself using this game’s photo mode more than any game I’ve ever played. Every few minutes, I would stumble into a beautiful frame. Whether it was swimming in a sunken cavern, gliding over the landscape, or talking with characters in one of the numerous settlements scattered across the land. All of the pictures used in this review were from my personal playthrough. I honestly wish I had taken more to capture some of the other environments, but oftentimes I was too engrossed in the game. I was always excited to exist in this world.
Next-Gen Representation
It’s genuinely difficult to convey how incredible the characters in this game look. Not just the main characters, or side characters, but even random NPCs that you meet for a single questline. It legitimately looks like a diversified world of people. I also have to give a shoutout to the character designs in this game. The people of color look awesome. It was so refreshing to play a game where the black characters actually look like real black people, from the hair to the facial features. Not to mention it was done on such a broad scale. It’s fun to have differences in appearance and dialect in the world of a game. It gives the people of the world life and background. Liked I mentioned while breaking down The Spawnies, I truly hope this is the new standard for games, especially open-world games, going forward, because it definitely added an extra layer of charm and believability to the character interactions.
My only complaint is a complaint I had with the first game as well: Aloy’s hair. I don’t know if the tech is just not there yet, but Aloy’s hair was constantly spazzing out during the game. I would have much rather had the option to put her signature red hair in a bun or helmet than to watch the game struggle to simulate flowy hair movement.
The Machine Combat Steals the Show
The best part of this game for me was the machines. They are what make the Horizon franchise unique, and they are the main thing that kept my interest 40 hours deep into the game. There are so many different machine designs and just as many ways to take them on. The fact that each machine is composed of smaller components that you can systematically detach is brilliant. I know this is nothing new; it was in the first game, but the refreshed set of machines makes it feel new.
As someone who never really got into Monster Hunter, I get the hype. Removing a machine’s tail to stop swipe attacks, or tying it down to remove a cannon from its back to then use against it is was always so fun. Each machine came with its own strategies, and it seemed like those moments just got bigger and more exciting as the game went on.
The combat was also a shining star in the gameplay. The system got a nice upgrade featuring brand new skill trees, new weapons, new ammo types, special character abilities, and weapon abilities. While at times it felt like a lot, the core combat mechanics felt great. Swapping through my arsenal of weapons and traps to inflict elemental damage, knockdown machines, and blast them into pieces never stopped feeling satisfying.
Exploration Isn’t Perfect, but It’s Getting There
I loved roaming the world of Horizon, and the game did a great job of enabling me. The mount, the glider, the hook shot, and the other tools you get all come together to create the ultimate adventurer's tool kit. Not only that, but many of the areas you can explore all feel like they were crafted to tell a specific story. One moment you are walking through a town and hotel reclaimed by a jungle, and the next you're ascending a snowy, plane wrecked, mountain cap that overlooks the entire map.
I will say, except for the glider, none of the traversal mechanics felt as smooth as I wanted. The climbing was serviceable, but the weird grapple point system they went with for this game often resulted in some unnatural and clunky climbs. The mount felt very similar to the way it played in the first game, sometimes getting stuck on invisible or minor obstacles. The hook shot was cool, but I feel like it lacked a bit of fluidity when it came to chaining traversal moves together. These are things that I can easily see being improved in the next iteration of the game, and there wasn’t anything that truly frustrated me during my time playing the game.
The Story Takes Some Risks
The story of Horizon Forbidden West was...interesting to say the least. The story in Horizon Zero Dawn took the format of showing somewhat of an A plot / B plot while we switched between the story of Project Zero Dawn and the present-day tribal struggle. Forbidden West does the same thing on a grander scale. The only difference is that we get really sci-fi in this one. Like suuuper sci-fi. Some of the decisions I thought were awesome, and others just left me scratching my head. I think the first half of the game is really solid. There are some twists and turns that caught me by surprise and kept me eager to learn more, but near the end, they started to lose me.
It didn’t help that I had a lot of trouble connecting with most of the companion side characters. Many of them just seemed to lack personality. It’s a problem I had with the first game. First and foremost, they all seemed to exist to serve Aloy. There was very rarely any genuine conflict between her and the characters, and when there was, it was usually because she didn’t let them praise her enough. Secondly, all of their issues seem trivial compared to what Aloy was facing, and Aloy even kind of acknowledges it. My problem with the side characters is amplified by the lack of time that you get to spend with most of them compared to the time you spend playing the game as a whole. I believe there were just a couple too many characters, and as a result, I felt a little less connected with all of them.
Unfortunately, it seems like the story suffered the same issue as the rest of the game; it was trying to do too much. I still enjoyed the ride, but I was legitimately laughing at how goofy it became by the end.
Horizon Forbidden is Extremely Over-Engineered
I heard the content creator SkillUp call Horizon Forbidden West “over-engineered” at one point during his review, and I felt like that description perfectly summed up all my major complaints with the game. It’s just doing too much. It seems like the game can’t get out of its own way at times, and as a result, my enjoyment of the game suffered.
I can come up with a dozen examples of this:
The story seems like it’s trying to go really big this time. Jamming in a new technological concept or piece of backstory every minute, to the point where it seems like the story flies off the rails and is too far gone to pull back in by the end.
The upgrade system is extremely laborious, requiring an insane amount of work to max out weapons, pouches, and armor sets, but the payoff is incredibly unsatisfying.
There are too many things to manage during fights.
There are five skill trees in the game, but almost all of them feel like support trees for the standard warrior class.
The in-game board game Machine Strike is unnecessarily complicated and challenging to play for absolutely no reason.
There are far too many random points of interest that have no reward for exploring them.
I could go on and on.
This would all be fine if there were some clear purpose for all of these additions, but I never felt like these things had proper opportunities to add to the experience.
The complex nature of the story opens up more holes in the plot than it closes.
The gear in the game, no matter how good they are, all do the same things. It would be cool if the legendary or strong items came with a cool effect or special abilities, but no, you just do more damage or buff some skill. For the effort it takes to upgrade the best weapons, a lot of which you find dozens of hours in the game, it’s just kind of lame.
When you jump into a fight, you need to manage your weapon stamina, your concentration, your valor charge, your elemental damage, scanning the enemy, laying traps, and overriding machines. etc. Once you’re in battle, you also need to manage health potions, stamina potions, and food, which are all on the same item bar with 15 other options. Far too much to manage in a fight with a Thunderjaw.
The skill trees have an insane amount of skills, but less than half of them feel interesting or exciting. In a game like Spiderman, you unlock new tricks to add to Spiderman’s base arsenal that you use in almost every encounter. In Forbidden West, most of the flashier skills you unlock are tied to specific weapon abilities that you may not ever use with the way you play. I personally would have enjoyed it more if the skill trees could stand on their own in terms of playstyle, or instead were condensed down.
Machine Strike is just...not fun.
There were lots of points on the map that you unlock once you gain a new skill from the main storyline, but going back to unlock them often nets you a chest of resources. As a result, it feels like going back to explore these areas felt like busywork. It would have been cool to be rewarded with some weapons, armor, or a unique encounter once in a while.
These are complaints that really started to set in with me once I was 80% done with the game. I don’t think most people will mind, but when you’re an open-world completionist like I am, you will certainly start to pick up on these things. The story, the looting, the crafting, the upgrades, the random points of interest, and the skill trees all just felt like too much. They could have been streamlined and provided just as much, if not more value. And that’s what I felt like was holding this game back from being an amazing game.
Horizon Stands as King Atop a Group of Average Open World Games
For a game of its type, Horizon Forbidden West is awesome. By that, I mean that out of all the games where you look at this giant open-world map littered with icons and try and clean as much of it up as possible, Horizon is one of the best. The machines, the combat, the world design, and the characters are all standouts that improve on their predecessors from the previous installment.
It not only feels like a sequel, but it feels like one of the first steps into the next generation of games. The world and everything in it look gorgeous. Interactions, both hostile and friendly, feel authentic and natural in the context they've set. The story quickly subverts your expectations and then buckles you up for a wild (maybe too wild?) ride.
My issue lies with the game trying to do way too much. It is like they wanted to improve on Zero Dawn without getting rid of any of the original mechanics, so they just doubled them. The game seems like it’s a director’s cut. No idea was punted from the game; it all made it in the final version. There’s a great game in Horizon Forbidden West, but that great game has been mixed with a lot of mediocre and unnecessary gameplay mechanics. Unfortunately, that results in a game that gets watered down by the sum of its parts. Horizon Forbidden gets an 8 for that reason.
