Review cover Horizon: Zero Dawn (PlayStation 4)
Official GBAtemp Review

Product Information:

  • Release Date (NA): February 28, 2017
  • Release Date (EU): March 1, 2017
  • Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
  • Developer: Guerilla Games
  • Genres: Adventure, Action, Open World

Game Features:

Single player
Local Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Co-operative
A little bit Diamond Age, a pinch of Persia, and a beautiful dystopian world pull the otherwise tedious Horizon to near-epic levels.

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Storyline

Horizon starts out with a naming ceremony for an Outcast (non-tribe member) baby and her appointed guardian, who is also an Outcast. Both of them are to be shunned, but one of the tribe's matriarchs performs the ceremony anyway, much to the chagrin of others who share her position. Rost, the child's guardian, is more than happy with his duty to name and foster the baby, who he names Aloy (Kinda like "Alloy", a merging of two things *hint hint*). Having lost his own daughter and being cast out of the tribe for reasons unexplained in the intro, you really get the sense that he is overjoyed to have a purpose and someone to share his life with. He still respects tribal customs, and raises Aloy in this fashion, guarding her against trying to communicate with the tribe.

Aloy, however, has a strong urge to know and have approval of a motherly figure in her life, but is heartbroken to find none of the tribe mothers will even look at her when she approaches them. It's after she runs away crying from the experience when she falls into a ravine and discovers an ancient underground bunker full of advanced machinery and technology. This is where she finds a Focus, a small device that she can attach to her temple to project holographic images, and also an integral part of the storyline and gameplay.

The Focus allows her to scan enemies and objects, to learn about their weaknesses and patterns. If you've ever read The Diamond Age, this seems very much the "Illustrated Primer". A while after finding her way back to Rost, she finally prods him into revealing that he does not know who her mother is, but if she were to win The Proving, she would become part of the tribe again and be granted a favor of the matriarchs, which she could use to ask about her mother. A training montage ensues and you flash-forward to young adult life, equipped with all the basic abilities and your Focus just days before The Proving.

This bite-sized synopsis sums up the plot without giving away any spoilers, however, you can pretty much guess the rest of the story from the very heavy context clues given to you shortly after the introductory events. The writers didn't really seem to put a whole lot of mystery into the plot, but rather give away chunks of information at certain intervals throughout the game.

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Review imageReview imageReview image

 

Combat and Gameplay

The combat is fluid and fun, no doubt about it, but it has 2 things that I have a major problem with.

The first is that unless you spend your skill points on the ability to deal extra damage to units you have downed, it's nearly impossible to melee a humanoid that you've knocked on it's butt. The melee isn't context sensitive so the game doesn't know to attack downwards, so you'll just swing your weapon uselessly over their prone bodies. This can be problematic because it can put you into a long delay and on the other side of them after the end of your combo, giving them time to get up and start their own attack. Be sure to buy the skill early or prepare to be frustrated.

The second problem is that you can buy the first column of skills all the way down, plus the "Whistle" move and basically Bamboozle™ every enemy in the game. Pick a brush far enough away from the cluster or camp of enemies and hide in it, whistle to attract one, then shank him with the R1 sneak attack. Rinse and repeat. You can basically do this around level 10-12, depending on how you allocate your skill points, and it makes a bulk of the early to mid game a joke. Unless you accidentally slip out of the bush or the AI glitches and sees your somehow, you wont use normal combat at all.

Other than that, the game boasts a fantastic combat engine. You can animation cancel into a dodge with invulnerability frames, then pop back up and start swinging again. It feels especially awesome when you are surrounded by a bunch of robotic enemies and you're dodging, weaving, and slashing to take them all down.

The skill system feels kind of weak, and some of the abilities you can "earn" seem like you should have had them from the start. The game could have easily done away with the level up and skill system and been fine. You eventually gain the ability to take over and control robototic animals, which is pretty cool, and will make you feel like Chris Pratt with raptor robots at your command. Using the horse-like machines to get around makes travel much easier as well, and the designs of all the "animals" is great.

The game has a LOT of scavenging and collecting items from not only the machine animals, but regular animals and natural resources as well. You can craft upgrades right from the inventory screen as well as on the fly crafting of ammunition, which can be performed while running or in the middle of combat, which is handy but doesn't really make sense in the scheme of things. The various types of traps and weapons are really fun to use, but I end up hoarding most of them in favor of the Bamboozle™ method.

It feels like a bulk of the side quests are boring "fetch" quests, and even some of the required quests are boring, having to use the Focus to follow tracks endlessly around to find X person or Y animal. Most of the non-main-story content seems tedious and really left me feeling like I wish I could skip it and get back to finding out more about Aloy's origins. The Focus can be used to scan enemies to learn more about them, as well as long-dead human's databases and recordings that help you to learn about the world before, adding lots of fairly interesting content to the game.

 

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Review imageReview imageReview image

 

Graphics, Glitches, and Sound

First off, the graphics are incredible. Awesome textures and design make the world feel real, and the view distance makes everything feel vast and open. The only major problems that I have with the graphics in the game come from the cutscenes. The facial animations are good but the lips of the characters seem stiff and weird, like they all just got done having lip injections. Additionally, if you have subtitles turned on and you are viewing ambient speech subtitles, then click a context sensitive object that moves you into a cutscene, the subtitles will be pushed off the bottom of the screen if there is more than a single line of dialogue to display. While the subtitle issue could be fixed easily with a patch, the plastic surgery after-effects will be a permanent fixture of the title.

There are some weird spawning issues too, such as units spawning on top of the machines you have taken control over when you activate a mission node or scene trigger. I also recall a time early on in the game where I quick saved at a camp fire without realizing a giant acid spewing mech was behind me. I got killed, then loaded back to the machine killing me over and over. To make matters worse, there was a knee high stone wall that Aloy just couldn't seem to get over properly surrounding the camp site, which resulted in a few more deaths before I could escape and evade the creature.

I've decided to lump sound into this category as well because I don't have much to say. The sound effects are top-notch, the voice acting is good, and the music is... well... I think there's music? None of the scores really stood out to me; no catchy tunes floated on the breeze while roaming around in villages, the combat music is forgettable (I couldn't even hum it if you asked me to), and while the music works as intended according to what's going on in the game, don't expect any orchestral concerts for the soundtrack.

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Excuse me, sir... GET OFF MY HORSE!

 

With all said and done, Horizon: Zero Dawn is definitely worth a purchase, there is plenty of content to keep you busy, and even though the story is predictable, it's interesting enough to make you want to see it through to completion. Replay value seems fairly low because of a lot of tedium in doing quests not necessarily related to the main plot, and the fact that the collectibles don't impact the game in a multiple-ending kind of way. Since the climbing mechanic is prop based, you shouldn't get stuck traversing obstacles either, so the game plays out smoothly without a lot of fiddling to get Aloy to do what you want. Be sure to check it out, if you get a chance-- especially if you have a PS4 Pro.

Verdict

What We Liked ...
  • Amazing Visuals
  • Great Combat
  • Good Voice Acting
What We Didn't Like ...
  • Easily Bamboozled Enemies
  • Botox for Everybody
  • Restrictive Combat
  • Soundtrack?
8
Gameplay
Tight combat and combos with responsive dodge mechanics make the game a joy to play, though you'll be forgoing this most of the time for the Bamboozle™ method.
9
Presentation
Overall a great graphical experience, but too many boring and tedious side-quests mar an otherwise fantastic game.
7
Lasting Appeal
While completionists will have a great time finding all the Flowers and Vessels and such, they aren't really interesting enough to keep a casual player going back to find them all. It's fun to roam around but there isn't a great need to unless you are grinding for parts.
8.5
out of 10

Overall

Definitely worth a purchase as you'll get your money's worth in play time and experience. One of the best exclusives for PlayStation.
Before the comments section gets too sodium enriched, these are done by different reviewers. People have different taste, its their opinion on the game, ect...
Carry on with the salt mining.
 
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Don't mind me, i just came to trigger salty people.

GBAtemp gave this a better score than botw.

Ok i'm out, have a nice and salty day.

(nice review btw, will try to get this someday)
Yeah, I already pointed out in that review that they've given better scores to a lot of garbage. Just means there's no baseline standard for this site's review scores. Welcome to GBATemp, where the rules are made up and the points don't matter.

This game in particular looks pretty cookie-cutter. I like the fact that the environments are modeled after Colorado, but certainly not enough to buy a PS4 and experience it in 30 FPS. I can walk outside and get a much better frame rate. :gun:
 
Yeah, I already pointed out in that review that they've given better scores to a lot of garbage. Just means there's no baseline standard for this site's review scores. Welcome to GBATemp, where the rules are made up and the points don't matter.

This game in particular looks pretty cookie-cutter. I like the fact that the environments are modeled after Colorado, but certainly not enough to buy a PS4 and experience it in 30 FPS. I can walk outside and get a much better frame rate. :gun:
But outside you would get only 24fps... also zelda runs at non solid 30fps when docked...
 
But outside you would get only 24fps... also zelda runs at non solid 30fps when docked...
Are you saying the human eye can't see more than 24 FPS? :P

I'm not claiming Zelda is a great game because of its frame rate, either, it's a great game because it's the first non cookie-cutter open world game in decades.
 
Are you saying the human eye can't see more than 24 FPS? :P

I'm not claiming Zelda is a great game because of its frame rate, either, it's a great game because it's the first non cookie-cutter open world game in decades.
doesnt the human eye cant see more than 30 irl?
 
doesnt the human eye cant see more than 30 irl?
24 FPS is supposedly more "cinematic," but you can definitely perceive things IRL at a much higher rate. Real people and objects don't blur unless they're quickly leaving your FoV, where as most motion blurs at 24 or 30 FPS, even directly in front of the camera.
 
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This game tries to mesh Far Cry Primal and Tomb Raider altogether without any obvious flaws.

I think 8.5 overall is a good score for a good game, the review is on point on what it seems to be the game pros and cons.

Not GOTY material though.
 
I can't remember the exact score, 6.5 or something for Sun/Moon, 7/10 for BoTW, and this game higher than those two? Yeah, it's...unique, I won't say any further, don't feel like arguing. I am interested in this game though.
 
Don't mind me, i just came to trigger salty people.

GBAtemp gave this a better score than botw.

Ok i'm out, have a nice and salty day.

(nice review btw, will try to get this someday)

Just FYI, we don't congregate on the scores, it's per reviewer :P I totally would have given Zelda 9/10 eeeassyyy.
 
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Reactions: DespyCL
I agree with this review, especially about the music part, there were some good tracks but rarely played enough, the battle music is really good tho, I would've given it a 9 but thats just me. When I went into the first caludron my mind was totally blown. its pure scifi eye candy and the medicinal plants were a perfect touch.

I can't remember the exact score, 6.5 or something for Sun/Moon, 7/10 for BoTW, and this game higher than those two? Yeah, it's...unique, I won't say any further, don't feel like arguing. I am interested in this game though.

I would actually score this on par with pokemon sun/moon. To me both excellent games but just lacking in some areas that push it over the edge and make it a god-like game. I'm playing Zelda next so well see how that goes
 
@HaloEliteLegend
@DespyCL
@Xzi
@RustInPeace

It's been said already but I just want to reiterate the point since it keeps getting brought up lately...

The staff members don't consult with each other when it comes to publishing reviews. Tom's review of BotW had absolutely no input from me or anybody else except when it was edited for any spelling/grammar issues. Similarly SonyUSA's review had no input from anybody else aside from, again, spelling/grammar.

If you notice, not a single time in this review or any other official reviews do any of us say "we" to refer to website as a whole. In this review Sony said "I" several times to specify that it was her thoughts. She didn't say "we" because her views don't reflect all of ours.

Tom gave BotW a 7/10. I gave Mighty No 9. a 7.2/10. However it's no secret that BotW is a much better game. Tom and I just give different values to our numbers, so his 7 may equal my 9 and my 7.2 may equal his 5 (I'm making up these numbers). Similarly, Sony mentions that she probably would have given BotW a 9/10 which places it above the 8.5 that she gave for this game.

This system isn't a necessarily bad thing either. I think it's good that we aren't explicitly told what criteria equals a 7. To some it's an average score, to others it's only for trash. The content of the review is much, MUCH more important than a numerical number. Maybe some would prefer we use the pain assessment scale:
pain-scale-chart.gif
But we don't, because while we value each other opinions and trust each other to write reviews deemed good enough to be official, we don't always agree and hold games up to different standards.

TL;DR: Just because Horizon Zero Dawn was given a score that is 1.5 points higher than BotW which was written by a different reviewer, it is not necessarily GBAtemp's official stance that it is better by 1.5 arbitrary points.



---


Moving on, this is a great review Sony! I'm a big disappointed to hear that there are quite a few fetch quests, but I suppose that's what we can expect from open world games like this. It is certainly something that I plan on picking up and completely no-lifing after I get some of my shit together.
 
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Gonna wait for a bargain on this one, people are telling me it's "different" from a lot of open world titles but I've heard that so many times from so many people I just don't believe it anymore.
Unless it's Witcher 3 tier I don't think I can do open world anymore.
 
Huh? There's no weapon durability... ?
Sorry, I must be confused. I been having trouble seeing with my glasses lately and reading been difficult.

The thing i can't get in tune with about this game is the character names, and how much it remind me of brave the disney movie. Even the twitch streamers i watched mentioned that movie. But the game does look great, Was you running this on Ps4 pro in 4k when you played? Also i find it funny you added "botox for everyone" in the con list despite having "glorious visuals" :P
 
Sorry, I must be confused. I been having trouble seeing with my glasses lately and reading been difficult.

The thing i can't get in tune with about this game is the character names, and how much it remind me of brave the disney movie. Even the twitch streamers i watched mentioned that movie. But the game does look great, Was you running this on Ps4 pro in 4k when you played? Also i find it funny you added "botox for everyone" in the con list despite having "glorious visuals" :P

Yeah the lips are stiff in cutscenes, that was my only gripe xP I was playing on a Ps4 Pro but only in 1080. For some reason it doesn't see my 4k monitor as a 4k device :/

Also, if ye had a chance to change yer fate, wouldja DOOIT?!
 
Yeah the lips are stiff in cutscenes, that was my only gripe xP I was playing on a Ps4 Pro but only in 1080. For some reason it doesn't see my 4k monitor as a 4k device :/

Also, if ye had a chance to change yer fate, wouldja DOOIT?!
Well maybe to not die so early in life. But other than that, perhaps not. If i'm still alive, it means i have more opportunity to become better me.

I think lips have always been a hassle to animate in video games, unless is 2D sprite pixel art. 3D mocap and lip sync is just hard, i feel like lots of people were lazy in some of that part. Lots of people probably focus too much on detail for environment and maybe character design but actual animation gets a bit lazy. Didn't have enough budget for lips. :P
 
@Ericzander No, I completely understand! I was just mildly trolling for the fun of it (and also why I didn't want to be the first person to mention it and start what would ensue, haha). I've never considered reviews anything more than a personal reflection and completely understand that it has no bearing on other reviews, that the scores are arbitrary, and that they don't reflect the site they're published on. And no hard feelings towards Tom, either!
 
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Review cover
Product Information:
  • Release Date (NA): February 28, 2017
  • Release Date (EU): March 1, 2017
  • Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
  • Developer: Guerilla Games
  • Genres: Adventure, Action, Open World
Game Features:
Single player
Local Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Co-operative

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