Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition

One of the biggest games of its generation and strongest entries in the Sony catalog, Horizon Zero Dawn is a game that pushed graphics further than what we had seen up to 2017. Definitely one of the best looking games I have played, from the environments to the characters there's a certain extra level of polish that most games just can't come up close with. This is what AAA gaming is meant for, to give you a grand experience without really any budget restrictions. Amazingly this was a also a new IP, but it manages to create a rich lore of the world and it's no wonder that we will see more games in the Horizon franchise in the future.

I guess the main criticism about this game is that it's like a Ubisoft title. You have a huge map to explore with tons of checkpoints of activities to do, and those can get a little repetitive after you've done a couple of them. The difficulty ramps up as you advance, but the game does have a feeling that it's given you all that it can about halfway through it and then afterwards you are just going through the motions... which is fine I guess, since these are some pretty fun motions to go through. The battle system is excellent with you fighting robot-like dinosaurs with many different tactics can you lead you to take them down. Feelings of overwhelmemt can happen, so sometimes it's better to not take every battle and just ran past through enemies. A decent crafting system will have you upgrading your carry capacity, and you'll get to loot all your kills for items for possible trading and whatnot. It's a lot like Far Cry (which I'm also a fan of) but I think with more polish as HZD seems to have more compelling quests and cutting some of the filler.

The game is not without its flaws, and biggest one for me is the progression system which is a little lackluster. Gaining a level grants you 10 HP and a skill point which feels a little irrelevant, as being level 35 or 40 makes very little difference and it's mostly just about getting some better gear or components... so when a side quests grants you XP, there's little motivation to actually complete it for the experience (and is mostly just interesting for the stories and the battles that come with it), I wish the rewards were a little more compelling. It doesn't seem like the game was made for the "long run", and even trying to complete all the little activities on the map could have had a little more excitement to it.

Still overall I do think that Zero Dawn is a pretty complete game, just for how much work there is in all of its areas, the big storyline and intuitive combat mechanics. It's a lot of fun most of the time and gives you some pretty challenging fights. There aren't many games that feel like this one where it checks all of those points correctly, It could have been more even, and this is something I hope the sequel will be able to push the RPG elements of it a little bit further. For now still I do think it's one of the Sony essentials and a good example of a game that defines the PS4 generation. Playing on mouse and keyboard feels even better due to the all the bow aiming you have to do, and the PC port seems to have fixed most of its issues (it crashed 2-3 times, but the game autosaves often so not much was lost), would recommend it if you haven't got around to it yet.