Horizon Zero Dawn is a Action-RPG game originally released for PS4 in 2017, while it was later confirmed for PC release in possibly 2020. It was developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Computer Entertainment.
A talented developer was made responsible for their outstanding FPS series such as Killzone which had caught my attention back in my younger days when I had a PS3 console, so I was blowned away with epic over-the-top campaign, innovative graphics design, and addicting online multiplayer matches which I fell a love with the series during the PS3 era.
As I moved on with the PS4 era, I've began to watch Sony E3 live conference 2015 to see the exciting upcoming titles that I'm looking forward too, so the game that gives me a eye-catching moment is Horizon Zero Dawn that been shown on live shows as a gameplay demo footage which I was impressed with the looks of the game because it's different from the Guerrilla's previous development titles filled with gorgeous graphics aspects and actual gameplay performance in which made me wanted to play this game for the future release.
The game finally got released in 2017 as I originally planned to pick up the copy of Horizon Zero Dawn, but it didn't happened till I finally got the copy as in 2020.
I been spent playing the game for over 3 hours of play a day which I already know the game has bigger campaign filled with many quests and exploration that extends the overall play length and it took me 3 weeks to finish the whole game.
So far, I spent my wonderful times of playing the game through many of main and side quests that I had really fun exploring the new areas, collecting resources and materials, fighting off heavy-duty machines, tracing paths using focus devices, upgrading weapons, and levelling up abilities.
You have great objectives, decent combat system, and amazing boss battles will also satisfy the fans of the genres that seeks epic adventures and challenging missions.
I also find the story and presentation is actually pretty done a solid job which starting out with good opening scenes and introducing protagonist, while the rest of it focuses on longer additional dialogue conversation and gathering information which I understand it adds the overall in-depth plot, but I finding it quite over done that sometime it gets pretty slow in half-way doesn't mean it's a bad thing in the game.
Aside the great story, the characters are actually pretty good especially with playable protagonist which I think it done a remarkable job in whole game.
Is Horizon Zero Dawn a greatest PS4 titles? let's find out the positives and negatives of the game itself.
So without go further do, let's start the review.
Presentation
The game takes place in 31st century where most of the humans lives in tribal-like populations, while the world fills with machinery like creatures.
The story focused on Aloy who are being raised by the outcast named Rost. As a child, she discovers a abandoned place where she obtains the focus, a AR device that gives her ability to access the stored information that is related to one of her past relative from 100 years ago.
After growing up her age, she is now a hunter who joined the Nora tribe which she aims to protect the mankind's homeland, while battling against the cultists members and robotic machines as well as continuing to discover her past identity.
The game actually tells the story that explains Aloy discovered the device that had the stored recordings of the past history that already happened in 100 years ago which is the reason why Aloy wanted to find out her identity that is related to her past mother who is the US scientist behind Zero Dawn project and how the world was being completely destroyed, so these are the plots predicts the future that affecting the earth that been overtaken by the horrible corrupted machines hurting the mankind.
I got to say the story is actually great because of learning all about the backstory involves projects and getting to know with protagonist's identity that really caught my interest in the game.
I got to say Aloy is actually solid character for its delivering her brave personality and powerful fighter in which she is one of the female protagonist that can able to train and fight against the foes.
I also liked some of the side characters in the game that are also done a decent job, so you have Nil the Carja solder who invited Aloy to raid the bandit camps, Varl and Sona of Nora tribe members swore to avenge Vala's death, Erend the Oseram captain who searches for his lost sister, and Sylens the Banuk traveller who helps Aloy to discover the truth behind the machines.
Then you will have the evil tribes known as Shadow Carja which is led by the corrupt leader named Helis is one of the villain that threatens to attack several of tribes (e.g Carja, Nora, and Oseram) and conquer the homeland.
I got to say I really liked the concept of the machines that is just almost like the animals in robotic figures, so you have Watchers, Strider, Grazer, Scrapper, Broadhead, Lancehorn, Sawtooth, Bellowback, Glinthawk, and there's plenty of more robotic species found in every locations.
I really liked the overall settings of presentation which is looking spectacular on each locations. It is based on states of America that is being renamed in maps such as All-Mother Mountains (Cheyenne Mountain) is the Nora's worship place, Devil's Grief (Denver, CO) is a ruin site in Sacred Lands, Meridian (Eagle Canyon, UT) are the city of the sun where Carja tribes lives in, and Sunfall (Bryce Canyon National Park, UT) is capital of Shadow Carja.
The mountain places like Mother's watch and Banuk Encampment are icy and cold places filled with snows and frosty, the canyons places like Morning's watch are quite hot and sandy, and Forrest places like outside of Meridian Village are quite greenery filled with trees and flowers which I think these concepts in the game look well presented that is looked different from the real-life world.
While the game does have interesting story, great cast of characters, and the stunning presentation design, I do find the additional dialogue is seems kinda too much during the conversation between the characters so I fully understand these dialogue trees is trying to increase the in-depth plot, but it's makes the dialogue conversation quite too long because it has about 6 to 7 dialogue options to select to ask question that doesn't mean it's going to affect the overall story itself once you have to get used with the slower paced conversation.
Overall, it has interesting story, great cast of characters, and the stunning presentation design.
Gameplay
In single player game, you take control of Aloy in third-person perspective open-world map where you get to explore and uncover the new areas, so you will have map inventory that helps you to locate by placing the maker as well as it has the several icons that indicates stuff like mains, sides, enemies, items, and etc.
Aloy has her ability to hide under the grass during the stealth, swim on water, climb on walls, parkour platforming, roll dodge, and best of all the focus device that allows you to scan on species, tracking down footprints, and collecting information from documents which I finding the devices is very useful for most of the mains and side quests.
You have list of weapons to use in combat gameplay such as bow that shoots in long range, so it had three types of bow that has different variants of arrows items such as hunter arrow deals low impact and tear, fire arrow brings fire damage over time, hardpoint arrow has stronger damage and tears easily on machine's parts, precision arrow are very effective for sniping, harvest arrow are weaker but removes machine's parts that can be looted, shock arrow that stuns machines, and freeze arrow that froze enemies in which these of the arrow variants can be effective on ether human enemies or machines that they are being venerable.
There are some useful weapons can be purchased from merchants such as forgefire are used for close range attacks deals medium fire damage, icerail deals high freeze severity, rattler that shoots 5 bolt projectiles, ropecaster is a tool to pin down targets, slingshot that shoots 4 types of bombs, and best of all the tripcaster that placed shock traps on ground allowing to stun on machines which these are all weapons are worked effectively well in combat battles and exploration.
You can also perform melee weapons such as spear which I think it worked better on stealth attacks, while using it as basic melee attack during the combat battle which I got to say it does have some ups and downs.
I finding the spear weapon as a melee combat is quite unbalanced with damages depending on which machines you're fighting with and some of them are kinda much easy to kill machines, while the others doesn't take much damage which I think that it could have been better if the game has more melee weapons to purchase rather than just being stuck with same ones which is the reason why it wasn't good as the main weapons that worked pretty well for its more variations and upgrades.
During the exploration, you will have a full list of quests that you need to complete the task which has main quest which focuses on story campaign, while the side quest and errands are just the extended mission with extra tasks that don't mainly focus on story but it also rewards your player's experience. Then you have the cauldron is just a special dungeons which rewards you with adding new tools to your arsenal, the bandit camps is the mission where you had to take down the enemy's bases, and hacking the tallneck to expand the map locations.
Along with the mission quest, you can spend time killing the machines, hunting down real animals and collecting every materials and resources that really helps crafting your ammos and travel bags, while it also works with upgradable pouchs that gives more spaces on your inventory screen which requires rare items and some resources to develop.
After beating the quest will award you with skill points which you can use them on inventory screen to improve your ability skills such as shooting with 3 arrows, balancing aim while standing on ropes, increasing strike attack, reducing your visibility to enemies, faster reload, more concentration, overriding machines, and healing your health faster which really benefiting your player's performance.
I was impressed with the choice of combat gameplay that I can able to fight off machines and being able to perform stealth mechanics quite well thanks to variety of weapon's ammunition offers solid collision detection on enemies and I also got to say the playable character just controls well in the game for its smooth aiming precision and climbing ability, but I wish they could have improve the melee system to balance out the damages and speed that would have it made it better.
Most of the whole quest in the game are outstanding because it has great selection of mission objectives like completing the competition to become Nora Brave, tracking down the killers using focus device, confronting those who commit crimes against humanity, helping person to seek revenge, and searching for people went missing in which these are the types of mission objectives that I had spent my fun on amazing game for over 3 hours a day without any disappointment thanks to 30 to 40 hours of play length that keeps you busy with the game well.
Overall, it has outstanding quests with full of exploration, smooth player's controls, and great combat system.
Graphics
I got to say the Horizon Zero Dawn had the most incredible graphic design in modern video game.
I have never seen anything amazingly to see how the PS4's powerhouse can able to manage such quality AAA game like this.
The character's animation looks very real for having impressive body figure for its movements and facial expression offers well made lip syncing during the dialogue which really shows how realistic these characters had looked in PS4 standards.
The whole environments of map design is incredibly photo-realistic of having a bloomy special effects in some areas, the lighting effects are quite effective for real-time weather system, and the visuals on some surfaces like water and grass are very detailed with sharp textures and the use of animation.
It ran on 30fps of full 4K resolution making it the most beautiful game of all Sony's exclusives in which I considered it a biggest technical achievements of one of the Playstation's hardwares.
Overall, it has incredible character's model, photo-realistic environment design, and great use of visual effects.
Music and Sounds
The original soundtrack is epicly amazing by Joris de Man, who is responsible of composing soundtrack for Killzone series, which proper nails with the orchestrated folklore music that is kinda mix of James Cameron's Avatar and the CD Projekt Red's The Witcher 3 which is the reason why it sounded pretty epic in whole game.
I also wanted to praise the sound design in the game for its ambient sounds in some areas and some background effects are kinda sounds pretty damn good in the game. I got to say the voice cast in the game such as Ashly Burch (Aloy), JB Blanc (Rost), Crispin Freeman (Helis), Chook Sibtain (Olin), and Lance Reddick (Sylens) is sounds remarkably fantastic for bringing their strongest role of their characters.
Overall, it has epic soundtrack, impressive sound design, and strong voice role.
Special Features
The game does have new game plus mode as well as how many quests and discoveries have you completed which really adds the replay value, and it also included the expansion DLC called The Frozen Wilds contains new storylines, characters, and area which you can purchase it from PS Store as DLCs or get it physically as the complete edition.
Overall, the features is a amazing package to this game.
Advantages
Stunning presentation design
Interesting story and characters
Outstanding quests with full of exploration
Fluid combat system
Photo-realistic graphics design
Epic original soundtrack
Excellent features (Including DLCs and new game plus)
Disadvantages
Very slow and long dialogue conversation
Unbalanced melee damage attack
Final Verdict
Presentation 8.5/10 - interesting story, great cast of characters, and the stunning presentation design.
Gameplay 9/10 - outstanding quests with full of exploration, smooth player's controls, and great combat system.
Graphics 10/10 - incredible character's model, photo-realistic environment design, and great use of visual effects.
Music and Sounds 9/10 - epic soundtrack, impressive sound design, and strong voice role.
Special Features 9/10 - expansion DLC and new game plus.
Overall 9/10 - Horizon Zero Dawn is a Guerrilla's strongest AAA title making it the most beautiful Action RPG on Playstation's system.
I am so glad that the developer team behind Killzone series just made a such terrific game that offers a gorgeous looking graphics design, soild story presentation, stronger character role, numerous of mission quests with lots of explorations, well executed combat gameplay, and higher replay values which is the reason why I've enjoyed it for over 30 hours length of amazing adventures.
I cannot wait to see Guerrilla's another Horizon sequel for PS5 in possibly the future release which I am excited for it, so for any those who are searching for quality Action RPG title (such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wilds and The Witcher 3), then this game is for you to play which is worth for less than £10, so I'll say buy it.
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