Horizon Zero Dawn Review

      The Playstation system has introduced us to many exclusive game worlds along the years, some of which can even be considered the best in gaming history. It is quite often that I find myself trying to come up with a game to recommend to some of my friends and I cannot find something that is not a PS Exclusive. That is not to say that there are not tons of other interesting games out there (many of which I have played and enjoyed tremendously), but for the past few years SONY is undeniably a serious protagonist in the gaming world. From the God of War series (seriously, Kratos is so legendary that should be on every platform), Bloodborne (the Dark Souls-esque PS4 Exclusive) and Naughty Dog's miraculous Uncharted Series and The Last of Us epic to the more fun Little Big Planet, Ratchet & Clank and Crash Bandicoot, these are just a few of the amazing exclusives Sony has had to offer. And in 2017 another one was added to the list; this time with a purely female protagonist: Aloy. We're talking about none other than Horizon Zero Dawn. 

      I remember watching the trailers and the gameplays and being so intrigued by the mystic dystopian story of a futuristic world ruled by huge robotic dinosaurs. Fortunately, the game not only managed to reach my high expectations but it exceeded them. 

THE STORY

Horizon Zero Dawn follows Aloy, a redheaded girl, living in a world that is and isn't quite like ours. It is a world destroyed by some kind of apocalypse that seems to have happened hundreds of years ago, as any sign of modern civilization is covered with leaves, plants and moss and any single thing that may be reminiscent of technology and development is in ruins. Aloy (voiced by Life is Strange's Ashly Burch) is raised as an outcast driven away from a primitive-like village (which despite its savage ways is quite a matriarchic society) and is taught how to hunt and survive in the wild by her adoptive father, Rost. We see Aloy through her adulthood when she finally decides to become a member of the village that has denied her for so long, and soon, we follow her to a journey across the lands as she tries to discover who her mother was as well as what happened to the world so many genarations ago.

THE GAMEPLAY

 I might not be the most experienced rpg-gamer but during my 70-hour gameplay of Horizon Zero Dawn I managed to catch a lot of things that make this game one of the most fulfilling rpg's in recent history and some things that could -naturally- be improved. 

   First things first, Aloy is a rather well-developed character, who moves and responds to our choices quite fluently and effortlessly. Her long curly copper hair fills up the screen as it waves to the wind and Aloy always reacts to and comments on anything that may happen to her or draw her attention; may that be the wind, the water, the sand, the bushes or the robots she finds along her path. Which brings me to the A.I. of the game. 

    It is apparent since almost the first moment, that great attention has been paid to the A.I. of the main characters (and by main characters I do not only mean our protagonist but the robots as well). Every different robot you may encounter throughout the game - and there are 24 different types to see - moves and acts in different ways which show its different strengths and weaknesses. Every machine has a standard route that it follows but from the moment it catches a glimpse of Aloy, this route changes as the machine goes into a hunting mode. Aloy hides in the bushes or fights the machines which either run away or fight back always reacting to what the player does. They even try to evade traps that Aloy has set in the environment. 

      As for the fighting, this was a bit strange in the beginning but it soon became second nature to me. Aloy has a lot of weapons to choose from (bows with different types of arrows, slings, rattlers, ropecasters and tripcasters as well as her main spear which she also uses to hack the machines and make them fight for her). By keeping the L1 button pressed, a wheel of weapons and ammunition appears - something that can happen before and during combat as it also slows time down leaving you adequate time to plan your next move or craft more ammo- and you get to choose how to approach each battle differently. The R3 button is your "focus" (same as the "listen" button in The Last of Us or the corresponding Batman ability in the Arkham Series) which shows the various weakpoints on the robots' bodies. For most of the time, the game allows you either to fight with everything you have or stealthily approach each area according to your strengths, your health and the enemies you see in front of you. Aloy can evade, fight back and hack quite easily but sometimes the camera is not helpful as it does not follow your movements closely and it can leave several enemies (or their important body parts) out of your sight - this was a frustrating detail which did not really make it difficult for me to proceed but it could become a bit bothersome after a while.

The game is a huge open-world arena full of robotic monsters, living animals (including foxes, turkeys, rats and rabbits) as well as humans. Anywhere you turn and whichever way you want to go there will be a herd of machines that inhabit a particular place. Thus, Horizon Zero Dawn is full of combat opportunities and in fact every fight can be considered a boss fight as you have to adapt to each and every enemy you have to encounter. Machines can be found in forests, jungles and deserts or in "Cauldrons" which are man-made caves where Aloy can gain further intelligence that can help her in her journey.
     Being a role-playing game, Horizon Zero Dawn gives the player the ability to control the course of the dialogues but not in a really influential way. It is unfortunate that Horizon has come after the epicness that is The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, where every single choice seemed to play a role for the endgame, because one cannot help but slightly compare the two. Although The Witcher raised the stakes even higher than before, this does not mean that HZD is not good; only that it is more dedicated to its core story. The main quest is rather big, especially if you give yourself time to get lost in the beautiful environments, and the side quests are almost all interesting and quite long. What is more, Guerrilla Games has inserted some dialogue options which give Aloy the chance to choose the way she wants to react (angry, compassionate or insightful) and thus express her personality.
      As for the other human characters, they are all beautifully designed and adequately developed in order to serve their purpose but no relationships can be created between them and Aloy; something I felt was missing - especially since I had recently played both The Witcher and the Mass Effect series where relationships played a huge part in the story. Nonetheless, this omission did not lessen the overall experience and despite not being able to invest in romance or friendships, I still wanted to see where this whole thing would end up. Also, when it comes to fighting human enemies, that was when the game was more reminiscent of other Action or Action RPG titles -such as Assassin's Creed or Watch Dogs- and not essentially unique.

THE GRAPHICS

    Horizon Zero Dawn is hands down the most beautiful game I have ever seen. The level of detail on everything is astounding. From the trees and snowy mountains in the first big "area" of the game, to the dry plains and deserts or semi-primitive cities that one gets to visit later on, everything is created meticulously. Mind you: I played the game on a regular PS4 so I can only imagine the perfection that PS4 Pro owners got to witness.
    It is apparent even in my playstation, however, that every model and texture has been given great attention. The game did not lag during my 70-hour gameplay - at least not noticeably enough to bother me - and the only problems that I managed to catch were a couple of lip de-syncronizations of the human characters or some minimal floating of the machines, as well as some movements of limbs even when the machines were supposed to be dead. But this is nothing compared to the massive scale of the game and the gorgeous jaw-dropping environments that Guerrilla has brought to our consoles.
   As for those who want to share pictures with their psn friends and followers, or just want to capture the beauty of Horizon Zero Dawn, then prepare to have the time of your life. The game's photo mode allows you to take a picture of whatever moment you would like (including pausing the cutscenes and taking shots of them), moving the camera in whichever direction best serves your creativity and add filters and/or borders that make each picture unique. What is more, the game gives you the opportunity to change the time of day and take the same photograph again and again under different sunlight or moonlight. Needless to say that my share button was overused - and it still wasn't enough.

 

GAVEL SLAM

   Horizon Zero Dawn is one of those games that I extremely enjoyed. My platinum trophy is only a small indication of how obsessed I became with Guerrilla 's newest creation (the over 1 giga screenshot folder in my library is another one). No matter the small problems one could try and find in a game as big as this (such as the lack of serious relationships throughout the game which led to a somewhat little indifference towards certain characters, or the uninspired end boss - not bad, just not what I was expecting-), the overall experience was greatly fulfilling and the constant need to find out what has happened to HZD's world was so interesting that it kept me going for hours and hours. Bring on The Frozen Wilds.

*All photos were taken by me in photo mode. You can click on them for higher resolution.

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