I finally have a PlayStation 5, and the first game I purchased with the console is Horizon: Forbidden West developed by Guerilla Games. Horizon: Forbidden West is an action RPG, and is the sequel to the critically acclaimed Horizon: Zero Dawn released in 2017. I have played the first Horizon game a while back but never wrote a review for it, so I hope to make this up by writing a review for the second one. Horizon: Forbidden West is basically like the first game, but with a few new bells and whistles.
The first thing that I want to point out is that the graphics for Horizon: Forbidden West is outstanding, and this game is the perfect centerpiece to show off the processing power of the PS5. This is the best-looking game I have ever seen on a console. Everything, from the overall environment of exploration to the minute details of Aloy's freckles is so crisp. The presentation of the cut scenes is so clear that I thought that graphics legitimately cannot get better than this. Just like the first game, Horizon: Forbidden West really pushes the boundaries on graphical capability on a console and is easily the most impressive thing about this game.
I was also impressed with the combat, and in particular, the controls that complement the combat. There are many types of machines with different ways to target weak points to take them down. When you add the plethora of weapons and effects you can use to fight these machines, the game sets a combat environment where you can use your creativity, and that to me is amazing. What is even better is that I felt like there has been great care on optimizing the controls while in combat so that doing things like attacking, switching your weapon, and crafting ammo feels seamless. The combat controls simplify some of the more complex aspects of the combat.
Horizon: Forbidden West is not without its problems, and most of these problems carry over from the first game. I love the premise of living in a post-apocalyptic world where machines rule the land and the human population has been reverted to living a more primitive lifestyle to survive. However, I find that the overall story and the aspects that contribute to the story feel dry, and even boring at times. Although the voice acting is good, the character dialogue felt lame and tedious to listen to. I am usually someone where I want to get immersed in the story, but there were many points in this game where I was so tired of listening to the dull dialogue and the banal way of the delivering of these lines that I had to skip the cut-scenes.
I felt that the supporting cast of characters (outside of Aloy) were average. There were some memorable characters you meet and interact with throughout the game, and there is some character development for some of these characters. What really hampers the character development (and this is probably the most grating thing about Horizon: Forbidden West), is that there seems to be always only one facial expression on all these characters through every interaction. Throughout my playthrough of this game, this was the thing that I hyper-focused on, and it negatively affected my enjoyment of the story. There were significant moments of the game where you can hear the emotion on the voice acting, but the facial expressions of the character looked the same, which created this weird dichotomy that I could not ignore.
My other observation about this game is that Horizon: Forbidden West highlights the difference in a saturated genre (open-world, action-adventure RPG) between what is worth playing, and what is not worth playing. When playing games in this genre, I can tell in less than 5 hours whether I want to continue playing the game or to stop playing because of how tired the formula is. Ubisoft games of this genre (Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Immortals: Fenyx Rising, etc) do a poor job of freshening the genre and they beat the gamer over the head with its tired formula of collection-style side quests and stale and empty worlds. Thankfully, Horizon: Forbidden West is an open-world game worth playing among the same line as Ghost of Tsushima and Cyberpunk 2077.
Horizon: Forbidden West is basically the same as the first game (which is already a great game) but with a fresh coat of paint. There are more things to do, new weapons, new characters, and new ways of traversing the map. If you have played Horizon: Zero Dawn, this game feels familiar, and there is nothing overly different in this game. Horizon: Forbidden West is still a great game, despite its flaws, and I still recommend this game to any PS5 owner.
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