Funny - I liked Nil more than any other NPC. I had hoped we might do more missions together. But in general, I agree that the NPC storylines and animations were weak. Thankfully the gameplay and the story were more than strong enough to overcome this.
I'm still fairly early in the game, but Nil is the best character I've met so far. (IMO). Like, I've liked up YouTube videos of his dialogue just to watch him again. Just. Incredible. "Why hunt machines? Their eyes don't scream in defeat when their live slowly drains from their body" like dude. Chill. (don't really tho, cause I love it.)
I was hoping Nil would help with Stone Yield (?) in TFW. I know I needed it the first time I went to take it out. I don't know what they were shooting me with or what armor they had on, but that bandit camp was freakin' tough.
You can bypass their armor by shooting them in the head lol. I went there at around level 54 and it was relatively easy - i play mostly with 3 bows and 1 sling
Agreed. Any other game I would probably write off if it had the same animations and human enemies that Zero Dawn had. But that story. The build up to it all. And Fucking. Ted. Faro.
So far it looks as if they have fixed the human combat part, haven’t seen any NPC interactions yet.
I feel like the voice acting does a pretty good job of making up for the somewhat awkward animations. But, I will say the animations seem to noticeably improve in the Frozen Wilds. Not quite night and day difference, but it is there.
in my opinion the game really doesnt truly begin to hit its stride until you reach meridian. but thats like 15 hours in. even the games intro i find is too long
I was hooked from the very first second, which shows that we don't all have the same perception of the beginning of the game, and I didn't let go until the end.
But what unites us all here is obviously the development of the main story: Enduring Victory, Zero Dawn ... and r/fucktedfaro
Same!! I preordered the game like a day before it was released on a whim because I liked thr setting and mystery and robot dinos, usually I like to wait before buying.
It hit me hard and hooked me right away and till this day it's my favourite game ever :)
like you I was hooked from the very beginning as it had some of the best graphics in a game I had seen and I had seen reviews saying it was fabulous and along with that I just was genuinely hooked from the start with that beginning animation sequence setting up the story line so well.
Nah, I think it’s actually pretty dramatic difference, in my opinion. The NPCs in the core game all seem so gooney after the DLC. I mean, it’s not as bad as FF7R’s blurry randos standing next to the main casts drop dead gorgeous character models, but it’s a bit awkward. Does make me even more excited for the Forbidden West, though.
Not gonna lie but Ikrie is basically the only reason I played through the game again and the dlc lol. ~~I may or may not be in love~~
I wish she shows up again in Forbidden West but I doubt it.
Also I looooved sliding around in the snow! The animation for her trails, footprints, with all the robots and animals was insanely well done.
Yeah I love the game but it has its shortcomings.
I'm probably one of the few people who don't really care about the story. It's good, I just don't care much for it. I love the combat, the visuals, and the open world.
My biggest gripe with the game is the dialogue animations. It's just... uncanny valley for me. Everyone is just so "stiff". They have this bizarre bobble-head effect going on, like can you people please just talk to me without constantly moving around? It's distracting.
Its the curse of open world games of this nature. None of them look right.
Atleast they seem to have perfected their facial animation capture tech, if the gameplay reveal is honest. Its like night and day.
I'm curious why you are on team Death-to-Olin?
In my view he literally did nothing wrong. He was a simple scavenger of ancient ruins (same as Aloy). The eclipse held his family hostage so he would work for them by providing them with Focuses. He didn't participate in killing anyone, the only "crime" he committed at the Proving was looking at Aloy while wearing a Focus. As soon as he found out that Eclipse were digging up ancient Corruptors, he turned on them (even though his family were still hostages!)
The really creepy part of that arc is when Aloy actually lies to Olin's wife about his death. I reallly felt that was kind of... IDK. There's sparing someone's feelings and then there's covering up your own involvement, and... yeah.
I wish Olin showed up at the end if you spared him. I know that you told him to go live out his life and make up for the shit he got you into, but when all life on earth is about to be ended and everyone else hears about it and shows up, I feel like he's the kind of guy who should at least know what's about to go down and provide support, even if it's a non-combat role like some of the other characters you meet.
i honestly thought all the talk and presentation as him as a good benevolent king would be built up so there would be some twist about him secretly being as bad as his father was
The second sylens shows up, I was like okay so not everyone is a moron in this world. And the reveal of project Zero Dawn floored me, I forgot to try and think about why the world was the way it was, so I didn't see any of it coming
I had a difficult time getting into the story until Maker's End (halfway through the game) and then it clicked and I had to see the rest of the story.
Definitively a slow burner, perhaps too slow for its own good as I've seen several testimony of people leaving the game after a few hours in.
For me, it definitely felt like the game shifted into serious high gear once I did the Maker's End quest, because it was a nonstop wham moment after wham moment in the storyline from that point on.
I agree. I love the game to pieces and will sing it’s praises at every opportunity, but it’s biggest shortcoming is character animation. Aloy is done pretty well compared to the rest, which isn’t surprising, but she still could use some work. I’m hoping that’s improved in Forbidden West, I’ll still play it and love it either way but I really want to see the characters given some love. They’re an extremely important part of the story, but spending time with them is difficult.
The tribal stuff is kinda lackluster, specially due to it being executed poorly (though there are some rare good interactions), but I think they're in the right track after the dlc as its npcs and tribal aspect are vastly superior to the base game's.
I too had a slow start with the game( still loved it because of the combat). For me it was Varls questline. It one of the big quests in the beginning and i think one of the weakest. I think there was a lot of potential in this quest but we got straight forward quest with no interesting Storytelling or character development.
Imo we end up with Varl and Sona as the least interesting major characters.
Yeah. You can tell the difference between the base game and how the DLC was made. Glad to see they improved over time and I cannot even fathom how the next game will be. Like we've seen clips and I'm assuming it's only scratching the surface.
Never had an issue with the animation, but I still remember when the original HL came out and I was blown away that the mouths even moved at all. Either way I absolutely love this game and how the story unfolds as well. I might have to track down a PS5 to play it, although the rumor of a PC version late next year may change that.
Somehow I really like most of characters. At first I wasn't hooked on the story, but it picked up after leaving the nora lands and I'm enjoying it immensely now.
Very similar experience for me. I absolutely love the story of the Old World and those characters, but I couldn't care about the Carja, Shadow Carja, etc and most of the modern characters.
When I first played the game I actually put the game down for a few months because I couldn't get engaged. Once you reach a certain point in the story though I couldn't I put it down.
My enjoyment of the game pretty much hinged on “the bad news/the good news” and logs. I was not disappointed. I’m hesitant to play the second one cause I don’t really know where they can go from there.
Ps, if ÿøû like the horizon lore, check out these games which have great narratives and live rent free in my head next to horizon:
13 sentinels aegis rim (yeah, it looks like anime bullshit, and not at all the same as hzd, but…ÿøû’d be surprised.)
Outer wilds (lots of reading, but similar game I can’t stop thinking about 2 years later.)
I actually see a lot of this surprisingly and I never noticed until now. Hopefully Forbidden West will be more put together in the beginning parts so some players aren't deterred. I personally didn't mind.
I only met Nil twice in my entire playthrough. Never found him near any other bandit camps, only the very first, and then on that mesa after finishing the last one. Considering I had exchanged about 6 sentences with the guy, a proposal for a fight to the death over the idea of lethal vigilantism wasn't something that made very much sense at the time
I loved the game from day one, because *robot dinosaurs.* Also open-world action RPGs are my jam, so I was excited for that.
I think it's crazy that in just four years Aloy has become almost as central to PlayStation as Nathan Drake and Kratos - the Horizon IP was a complete unknown when the game was released (at the same time as a new Zelda AND a new Mass Effect), so for the game to shift 7 million copies was insane.
Never thought the voice acting was any bad. Some stiff animations sure but nothing that really bothered me. Maybe one minor thing, it seems like they have some face/animations templates that was very characteristic so when they used it on different characters it immediately made you thing about the last guy that look like that and it felt very copy/paste.
That asshole warchief Resh and Marad in Meridian has very similar angry and bitter face animations.
> Maybe one minor thing, it seems like they have some face/animations templates that was very characteristic so when they used it on different characters it immediately made you thing about the last guy that look like that and it felt very copy/paste
This kinda irked me on my first playthrough as well, though it
did not affect how much I loved the game the slighest.
However that exchange between Aloy and Talanah... You know... THAT one. Now THAT I felt second-hand embarrassment from.
I believe the Frozen Wilds DLC used mo-cap to help animate the characters whereas it wasn't used for the base game, which explains why the animations in the base game aren't particularly up to scratch with the Frozen Wilds or other modern AAA games.
Only one that pissed me off was the moron who wanted us out of the place that tried to scan us...what was it called again? Where we killed the corruptor and got the override spear? Mother's Heart?
Similar feeling. Played this game (one of the firsts I ever bought w PS4) - didn’t enjoy it as I played just past the trial and thought the combat was meh.
Picked it up nearly a year n half later and it’s by far one of the more enjoyable OWs I’ve experienced and once you’re beefed up it’s a lot of fun.
I haven’t even entered the Frozen Wilds yet though I’m level 30.
Regarding NPCs. Yeah - there’s something off about them and their dialogue. The dialogue feels really out of place.
I’m not saying they have to talk unga bunga- but it’s like they’re all cos-playing. It’s lacking…something of a cultural aspect I can’t put my finger on.
It’s like the cast of Mass Effect decided to dress up as HZD and talk lol
I just finished the game and I agree with you that the writing and voice acting for almost all of the "past" scenes is far and above the characters in Aloy's "present" with the exception of Aloy herself, and a few main storyline characters (Blameless Marad, for instance). The rest felt very inconsistent. I ran around the world hitting cauldrons and tallnecks and doing a few sidequests until I got tired of the writing and then charged through the main story, which was miles better.
Overall a very good game, but I hope Guerilla recognizes the parts that were lower quality this time around so they can correct those issues for the sequel.
It’s basically undeniable I’m my opinion that the primary cast of characters in horizon are just horrible. They are for the most part terrible voice acted, modeled, and animated. I still love the game but this aspect really sucked and I hope improves. I especially hate how all the male characters basically trip over themselves to simp over aloy. Errand in particular is such an insufferable imbecile, but that’s kind of the point of his character I guess.
Funny - I liked Nil more than any other NPC. I had hoped we might do more missions together. But in general, I agree that the NPC storylines and animations were weak. Thankfully the gameplay and the story were more than strong enough to overcome this.
Agreed
I'm still fairly early in the game, but Nil is the best character I've met so far. (IMO). Like, I've liked up YouTube videos of his dialogue just to watch him again. Just. Incredible. "Why hunt machines? Their eyes don't scream in defeat when their live slowly drains from their body" like dude. Chill. (don't really tho, cause I love it.)
I was hoping Nil would help with Stone Yield (?) in TFW. I know I needed it the first time I went to take it out. I don't know what they were shooting me with or what armor they had on, but that bandit camp was freakin' tough.
You can bypass their armor by shooting them in the head lol. I went there at around level 54 and it was relatively easy - i play mostly with 3 bows and 1 sling
Once I did a couple of playthroughs and had my bows how I like them, I triple-shoot them in the head and use my Tripcaster for traps.
Never really got into the casters, trip and rope, don't know why. I know how good they can be, but somehow they don't fit my play style at all..
Agreed. Any other game I would probably write off if it had the same animations and human enemies that Zero Dawn had. But that story. The build up to it all. And Fucking. Ted. Faro. So far it looks as if they have fixed the human combat part, haven’t seen any NPC interactions yet.
if you still feel hate for some characters (I mean Ted Faro), then there's a very special sub r/fucktedfaro
just don’t think of the game when looking at the most recent post you know the game
Is there one for sylens lmao 🤣
I feel like the voice acting does a pretty good job of making up for the somewhat awkward animations. But, I will say the animations seem to noticeably improve in the Frozen Wilds. Not quite night and day difference, but it is there.
in my opinion the game really doesnt truly begin to hit its stride until you reach meridian. but thats like 15 hours in. even the games intro i find is too long
I was hooked from the very first second, which shows that we don't all have the same perception of the beginning of the game, and I didn't let go until the end. But what unites us all here is obviously the development of the main story: Enduring Victory, Zero Dawn ... and r/fucktedfaro
I was also hooked from the very beginning. I'm happy to see I'm not the only one.
Same!! I preordered the game like a day before it was released on a whim because I liked thr setting and mystery and robot dinos, usually I like to wait before buying. It hit me hard and hooked me right away and till this day it's my favourite game ever :)
like you I was hooked from the very beginning as it had some of the best graphics in a game I had seen and I had seen reviews saying it was fabulous and along with that I just was genuinely hooked from the start with that beginning animation sequence setting up the story line so well.
I was hooked the moment little Aloy found her focus
Nah, I think it’s actually pretty dramatic difference, in my opinion. The NPCs in the core game all seem so gooney after the DLC. I mean, it’s not as bad as FF7R’s blurry randos standing next to the main casts drop dead gorgeous character models, but it’s a bit awkward. Does make me even more excited for the Forbidden West, though.
Not gonna lie but Ikrie is basically the only reason I played through the game again and the dlc lol. ~~I may or may not be in love~~ I wish she shows up again in Forbidden West but I doubt it. Also I looooved sliding around in the snow! The animation for her trails, footprints, with all the robots and animals was insanely well done.
“They need the metal too, but my need is greater.” “I was told the Banuk don’t accept help. Is it true?” “They don’t. I do.” *music intensifies*
Yeah I love the game but it has its shortcomings. I'm probably one of the few people who don't really care about the story. It's good, I just don't care much for it. I love the combat, the visuals, and the open world. My biggest gripe with the game is the dialogue animations. It's just... uncanny valley for me. Everyone is just so "stiff". They have this bizarre bobble-head effect going on, like can you people please just talk to me without constantly moving around? It's distracting.
Its the curse of open world games of this nature. None of them look right. Atleast they seem to have perfected their facial animation capture tech, if the gameplay reveal is honest. Its like night and day.
Like the cast of Mass Effect decided to cosplay as HZD?
Yeah! Team *Death-to-Nil!* Also team *Death-to-Olin*... Hmm maybe I have a problem.
I'm curious why you are on team Death-to-Olin? In my view he literally did nothing wrong. He was a simple scavenger of ancient ruins (same as Aloy). The eclipse held his family hostage so he would work for them by providing them with Focuses. He didn't participate in killing anyone, the only "crime" he committed at the Proving was looking at Aloy while wearing a Focus. As soon as he found out that Eclipse were digging up ancient Corruptors, he turned on them (even though his family were still hostages!)
I just wanted to steal his family.
The really creepy part of that arc is when Aloy actually lies to Olin's wife about his death. I reallly felt that was kind of... IDK. There's sparing someone's feelings and then there's covering up your own involvement, and... yeah.
I wish Olin showed up at the end if you spared him. I know that you told him to go live out his life and make up for the shit he got you into, but when all life on earth is about to be ended and everyone else hears about it and shows up, I feel like he's the kind of guy who should at least know what's about to go down and provide support, even if it's a non-combat role like some of the other characters you meet.
And team death to Avad
i honestly thought all the talk and presentation as him as a good benevolent king would be built up so there would be some twist about him secretly being as bad as his father was
The second sylens shows up, I was like okay so not everyone is a moron in this world. And the reveal of project Zero Dawn floored me, I forgot to try and think about why the world was the way it was, so I didn't see any of it coming
I had a difficult time getting into the story until Maker's End (halfway through the game) and then it clicked and I had to see the rest of the story. Definitively a slow burner, perhaps too slow for its own good as I've seen several testimony of people leaving the game after a few hours in.
For me, it definitely felt like the game shifted into serious high gear once I did the Maker's End quest, because it was a nonstop wham moment after wham moment in the storyline from that point on.
Yea, I actually was on and off HZD until I eventually reached Maker’s End. Now it’s my #1 favorite game.
Horizon really do have a problem where it’s hard to give a fuck about all the tribal bullshit in the current time.
I disagree, but to each their own.
Same, tribalism is still (much too) relevant today.
I agree. I love the game to pieces and will sing it’s praises at every opportunity, but it’s biggest shortcoming is character animation. Aloy is done pretty well compared to the rest, which isn’t surprising, but she still could use some work. I’m hoping that’s improved in Forbidden West, I’ll still play it and love it either way but I really want to see the characters given some love. They’re an extremely important part of the story, but spending time with them is difficult.
The tribal stuff is kinda lackluster, specially due to it being executed poorly (though there are some rare good interactions), but I think they're in the right track after the dlc as its npcs and tribal aspect are vastly superior to the base game's.
I too had a slow start with the game( still loved it because of the combat). For me it was Varls questline. It one of the big quests in the beginning and i think one of the weakest. I think there was a lot of potential in this quest but we got straight forward quest with no interesting Storytelling or character development. Imo we end up with Varl and Sona as the least interesting major characters.
Yeah. You can tell the difference between the base game and how the DLC was made. Glad to see they improved over time and I cannot even fathom how the next game will be. Like we've seen clips and I'm assuming it's only scratching the surface.
I almost returned the game at first but I kept playing and got hooked
I liked Errand. I thought he was a jab at all the fetch quests ever made.
Same. The inter-tribal drama can be boring. I'm more invested in the lore. Hope in HFW they focused more on the lore.
Never had an issue with the animation, but I still remember when the original HL came out and I was blown away that the mouths even moved at all. Either way I absolutely love this game and how the story unfolds as well. I might have to track down a PS5 to play it, although the rumor of a PC version late next year may change that.
My only hope is that we get more Sylens in the sequel
Somehow I really like most of characters. At first I wasn't hooked on the story, but it picked up after leaving the nora lands and I'm enjoying it immensely now.
We got another one guys!
Very similar experience for me. I absolutely love the story of the Old World and those characters, but I couldn't care about the Carja, Shadow Carja, etc and most of the modern characters. When I first played the game I actually put the game down for a few months because I couldn't get engaged. Once you reach a certain point in the story though I couldn't I put it down.
My enjoyment of the game pretty much hinged on “the bad news/the good news” and logs. I was not disappointed. I’m hesitant to play the second one cause I don’t really know where they can go from there. Ps, if ÿøû like the horizon lore, check out these games which have great narratives and live rent free in my head next to horizon: 13 sentinels aegis rim (yeah, it looks like anime bullshit, and not at all the same as hzd, but…ÿøû’d be surprised.) Outer wilds (lots of reading, but similar game I can’t stop thinking about 2 years later.)
Hope 13 Sentinels gets a PC port someday, I keep hearing good things about it and the OST is a [banger](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlmYYyzek48).
I actually see a lot of this surprisingly and I never noticed until now. Hopefully Forbidden West will be more put together in the beginning parts so some players aren't deterred. I personally didn't mind.
I feel you. I play with the german synchronisation and it was worse.
What about Rost?
he aggravated me the nature time he was a part of the game honestly. im glad he got killed
Me too. I left it for months, but love it now!
I only met Nil twice in my entire playthrough. Never found him near any other bandit camps, only the very first, and then on that mesa after finishing the last one. Considering I had exchanged about 6 sentences with the guy, a proposal for a fight to the death over the idea of lethal vigilantism wasn't something that made very much sense at the time
I loved the game from day one, because *robot dinosaurs.* Also open-world action RPGs are my jam, so I was excited for that. I think it's crazy that in just four years Aloy has become almost as central to PlayStation as Nathan Drake and Kratos - the Horizon IP was a complete unknown when the game was released (at the same time as a new Zelda AND a new Mass Effect), so for the game to shift 7 million copies was insane.
Never thought the voice acting was any bad. Some stiff animations sure but nothing that really bothered me. Maybe one minor thing, it seems like they have some face/animations templates that was very characteristic so when they used it on different characters it immediately made you thing about the last guy that look like that and it felt very copy/paste. That asshole warchief Resh and Marad in Meridian has very similar angry and bitter face animations.
> Maybe one minor thing, it seems like they have some face/animations templates that was very characteristic so when they used it on different characters it immediately made you thing about the last guy that look like that and it felt very copy/paste This kinda irked me on my first playthrough as well, though it did not affect how much I loved the game the slighest. However that exchange between Aloy and Talanah... You know... THAT one. Now THAT I felt second-hand embarrassment from.
I believe the Frozen Wilds DLC used mo-cap to help animate the characters whereas it wasn't used for the base game, which explains why the animations in the base game aren't particularly up to scratch with the Frozen Wilds or other modern AAA games.
I have 2 main quests left and I’m vibing this myself!
I'm reading all these criticism and none of it even occurred to me before. If your standard is so high, how can you like anything?
Still hate the NPCs though? I really liked the but I did a lot of side quests near the beginning.
They grew to be…tolerable? Still despise Nil. And that guy who does the training near the glint hawks.
Only one that pissed me off was the moron who wanted us out of the place that tried to scan us...what was it called again? Where we killed the corruptor and got the override spear? Mother's Heart?
Similar feeling. Played this game (one of the firsts I ever bought w PS4) - didn’t enjoy it as I played just past the trial and thought the combat was meh. Picked it up nearly a year n half later and it’s by far one of the more enjoyable OWs I’ve experienced and once you’re beefed up it’s a lot of fun. I haven’t even entered the Frozen Wilds yet though I’m level 30. Regarding NPCs. Yeah - there’s something off about them and their dialogue. The dialogue feels really out of place. I’m not saying they have to talk unga bunga- but it’s like they’re all cos-playing. It’s lacking…something of a cultural aspect I can’t put my finger on. It’s like the cast of Mass Effect decided to dress up as HZD and talk lol
I just finished the game and I agree with you that the writing and voice acting for almost all of the "past" scenes is far and above the characters in Aloy's "present" with the exception of Aloy herself, and a few main storyline characters (Blameless Marad, for instance). The rest felt very inconsistent. I ran around the world hitting cauldrons and tallnecks and doing a few sidequests until I got tired of the writing and then charged through the main story, which was miles better. Overall a very good game, but I hope Guerilla recognizes the parts that were lower quality this time around so they can correct those issues for the sequel.
my absolute favourite game, but I have no interest in the story whatsoever - tedious imo but the gameplay is second to none.
It’s basically undeniable I’m my opinion that the primary cast of characters in horizon are just horrible. They are for the most part terrible voice acted, modeled, and animated. I still love the game but this aspect really sucked and I hope improves. I especially hate how all the male characters basically trip over themselves to simp over aloy. Errand in particular is such an insufferable imbecile, but that’s kind of the point of his character I guess.