izigame.me

Content

Rating: 20/20
The main story lasts around 30 hours, excluding everything else. Once we account for the side activities and time spent traversing the game world, we're looking at up to 100 hours of playtime, possibly more to fully complete the game and get all the achievements.

Gameplay

Rating: 14/20
Gameplay-wise, Horizon Forbidden West does everything its predecessor did but improves in a few key areas. As the game genre suggests, the gameplay revolves around the main story, the side activities, and exploration. Even though the gameplay has drastically improved, it's structured around the same concept as the first game, with a few fresh throw-ins. The only three additions worth mentioning are the gliding, diving, and flying gameplay mechanics. The glider thingie is super neat tactical equipment, while the diving is enjoyable and brings relaxation far away from the tension. The flying mounts stuff gets unlocked so late that the game could do without it.
As someone who doesn't like long games but jumps into a few lengthy titles here and there, I feel like this one offers too many activities for my taste. I'm unsure if a game can have too much content, but this is it. The only side hustles I found enjoyable were the cauldrons and the relic sites. As for everything else, I somehow managed to cope with them, but I wish I could skip most of them. The developers tried to make each of them unique, but there's only so much to differentiate one from another before they become repetitive. The combat is a bit more challenging and refined when compared to the first game, the new weapons and tactics add variety, and the boss battles require more planning. Also, I feel like there's too much hand-holding in this one compared to its predecessor, where even Aloy starts repeating the same clues over again.
However, where the game takes a step back is the movement in general. Mounts constantly trip and jump over the smallest of obstacles, making them stop in place. Aloy's jumps and movement are both very inconsistent and precise, all at the same time, and you never know what you'll get. The objective marker was already a problem in the first game. But somehow, it's even worse in this one to the point where you never know where the next objective is unless you look at the map to see which path leads there. The marker sometimes shows an objective you know is right around the corner and leads you via the furthest path possible, or it updates its waypoint position every second.

Presentation

Rating: 18/20
Since this is the second installment in the franchise, I'll first say that there isn't a single thing left unimproved over the original game, and the second installment is leaps and bounds above it in all respects. The game now offers proper motion capture animations with some of the best animations and character attention to detail I've ever seen in a video game. Only a few games out there can match the density. Underwater sequences are mesmerizing and add so much to the experience. The vastness and openness of the play area can only be fully fathomed by flying a mount high into the sky or climbing on top of the tallest mountains or structures in the game. However, a video game this good can only go so far as it's not without the drawbacks.
Some foliage in certain areas flickers, appears and disappears, and grows from the ground as you come closer, and tons of pop-in is visible on various objects. Certain characters and NPCs, especially enemies, are so repetitive that differentiating them by their looks is often impossible. I even found a few side-quest characters appearing as doppelganger enemies in certain places, but it might be just me being good at remembering faces and noticing them. The variety is not there to match everything else the game does. None of this takes much from the overall presentation, but it is worth mentioning. The soundtrack is excellent, and the frequency of play is on point each time. Voice acting is satisfying to listen to, and the overall sound design and quality of the effects are satisfactory.

Story

Rating: 16/20
The story of Horizon Forbidden West picks up at the end of Horizon Zero Dawn. While the main quests kept me interested, everything besides the main story, I just wanted it to be over as soon as possible. Don't get me wrong, it excels in many areas over the first game, but everything besides the story is all over the place. The feeling of mystery I felt playing the original game was replaced with excitement that never stopped delivering, while all the side stuff was overwhelming besides a few activities. I couldn't care less about some NPC losing a family member and Aloy's constant blabbering of: "Maybe my focus can spot it. My focus might find something. Maybe my focus can help me find it." while doing the same side stuff over again gets annoying very fast.
Since it's a game where you must tackle all these things and can't enjoy just the story for what it is, I'd say the side activities take away more than they add for my taste. The ending of the main story felt satisfying. As for the Burning Shores DLC, it's not on par with The Frozen Wilds. There are a few interesting missions, but it's mostly there only to demonstrate how good Guerrilla Games' clouds and water rendering tech is, and oh, to show that another PlayStation female protagonist likes scissoring another female character. It's just a PlayStation's obsession with lesbians. What can I say? Most of their female leads seem to be into some girl-on-girl action. I have nothing against anyone, but it's getting out of hand.

Technicalities

Rating: 15/20
The perception of the technical side of things varies when we're talking about the PC platform. Obviously, this is Guerrilla Games' finest technological endeavor to date, but it might leave a lot to be desired for some PC gamers using older hardware. The amount of PC hardware required to handle this game, even at a stable 60 FPS, is higher than usual but reasonable if we consider what the game aims to achieve. The game scales well on various hardware. However, technical issues arise with configurations with insufficient amounts of hardware resources. The amount of CPU power required varies drastically from one in-game location to another, and it can be CPU-heavy. The Burning Shores DLC is significantly more demanding on average compared to the main game. Hence why it it was dropped from the PS4 version. The sheer amount of detail speaks for itself, and it's unrealistic to expect a game this dense to run "fine" on older generations of hardware.
It's possible to run the game even on older hardware, but keep the expectations in check and be prepared to optimize the gameplay experience accordingly by utilizing FPS caps to avoid frame drops and performance inconsistencies. An SSD is a must for this game. A 6C/12T CPU of any kind with a GPU with at least 6GB VRAM and 16GB RAM is the bare minimum I would recommend for a stable gameplay experience based on my testing on various hardware, and this is for a stable 60 FPS with console-like settings. I haven't experienced any issues except the inconsistent loading times, where it loads the same location, with a variety of 2 to 15 seconds. Other than this, I experienced a single instance where the game pegged my CPU to 100% and started skipping frames and audio cues in that underwater cauldron due to the rising and lowering water levels. Other than this, I experienced no performance issues, even on an older configuration.

Final Verdict

Rating: 83/100
Horizon Forbidden West is a generational leap and an ambitious continuation of Aloy's adventure that excels in all areas over its predecessor. However, despite everything going in its favor, it somehow gets trapped in the looming shadow of Horizon Zero Dawn.