Last year, I bought a PlayStation 4 after watching this trailer:
Horizon was second game I’ve ever preordered and it beat every expectation I had.
After putting in 52 hours in 12 days, I completed the game last week. If you want to purchase the game, don’t keep reading, just go ahead and buy it.
If you still want to know how it is, keep reading.
Story & Characters
Story is 8/10.
It could have been great but the antagonists were a bit undeveloped. They were good, but I never felt the intense emotions for them which I did for some of the friends. That may be because I spent more time with friends during the game.
One more reason could be that I did a lot of side quests. These distracted me from the main villains. Still, main villains had a lot of potential left unused. I recall one one specific side quest villain that I hated more than main villains.
Speaking of characters, Alloy is a likeable protagonist. While she’s no Ezio or Batman, she’s no Emily (Dishonored 2) either. She has quite a collection of witty lines and good dialog. Many times, she said something relevant that made me crack up.
Gameplay
10/10.
If nothing else, you should buy the game for gameplay alone. Here’s what you’ll do throughout the game:
- Collect herbs/parts
- Stalk machines, lay traps
- Attack
- Repeat
Step 2 is very very important. I loved the fact that except for a few moments, I did not feel like an overpowered tank. Even at level 50 (max level possible as of now), Alloy can be taken down by a medium sized enemy easily (especially those pesky Rock Crushers). Though the traps can feel a bit overpowered but machines soon learn to not walk into them repeatedly and adapt.
I’ve kept playing the game even after the completion of main quest for the sheer joy of taking down the machines. Each enemy has different weak points taking them down strategically is the most fun I’ve had in a game, ever!
However, due of the brilliance of machines, humans feel a bit out of the place. Fighting machines is so much fun that human encounters feel almost a grind. And there was one specific boss that felt completely out of place. He had very light armour and still took almost 2 full quivers to kill. The reason? He was “too fast” and blocked arrows with his hands before they could reach him. But even with these quirks, gameplay is very satisfying.
Due to the nature of your main weapon, the bow, every shot is a mini game in itself. Yes, you can keep shooting arrow after arrow by pressing R2. But waiting a bit and releasing when the on-screen indicator signals and controller rumbles is something you’ll learn to do over time and enjoy.
Graphics, Audio
I did not expect the graphics to be this good. The trailer looked amazing and I’m happy to say that the game looks as good as initial trailer. Even on a standard PS4 hooked to a non-HDR TV, the game looks great.
Audio is great too. From voice acting to background music, everything is top-notch. In fact, I am listening to the soundtrack right now.
Stability
I’m mentioning this because I’m quite impressed with the stability. During the gameplay, game never crashed and while there were minor visual glitches in a few places, it’s great.
That’s rare for a released game and I’ve had several other games that crash even a year after the launch.
Overall
I’ll just repeat myself here. Don’t wait, go and buy it! There’s no multiplayer but single player is more than enough to keep you occupied and there’s no shortage of things to do in the game.
And yes, it was worth buying a PS4 for this game!