Story, worldbuilding, dungeons, combat, and especially graphical performance are all universally better in Horizon. The only reason people care about Zelda is because “muh Nintendo”, and the fact that it is a good set of ganes. However, I’ve seldom seen any criticism of Horizon outside of outright misogony and xenophobia, or “Assassin’s Creed did it first”, as if Guerilla has any control over history.
Sony ownership is valid criticism. The Zero Dawn remaster forces PSN sign-in. Yet, Nintendo owns Zelda, and is easily a shittier company–with a crowd of zombies lined up to lick their boots. Horizon isn’t the series with the cult following, here.
None of that changes the fact that people find it so important to mention their disdain for Horizon the moment it’s brought up. Everyone within my space who has tried the game has admitted it’s quite a well-designed set of games. If you don’t like it because of its genre, then that’s completely fine, but stop saying it’s “unorignal”. If Horizon is unoriginal, so is Zelda. They’re both unique compared to their predecessors.
“QUIT HAVING FUN!!”
Very much agree. BoTW is a good game and definitely worth playing but it isn’t a great game. My biggest gripe with it is that there is clearly a RPG leveling/XP system that they desperately try to hide. They don’t want to be an RPG but it is difficult for an open world game to not use those mechanics.
So once you realize this you ask yourself why am I breaking all of these weapons just to get more weapons when the only outcome is that the enemies get harder. Blood moons are probably just world resets when you go up a level, which also makes higher level enemies appear.
They also very apparently apply this to the rain patterns as well. Right away I went all in on exploring and getting shrines to increase stamina because it sure is handy to be able to climb large cliffs to explore the map. But I didn’t actually do much fighting during that time. Once I had stamina maxed and started just playing and clearly as I leveled up the chances of rain as soon as you approached a cliff side went up considerably making all of that work feel worthless.
The end result was that playing more just meant things got worse, instead of a normal RPG where leveling up meant you gained abilities/stats instead the world just got harder. Sure the weapons got better but once you have the master sword you are always using that first and the harder the enemies get the less effective it is since its stats don’t change.
The game also has some serious balancing issues with those levels. Until you get protective clothing it see a like nearly every enemy does exactly your health minus one heart in damage. Have 8 hearts? Ehh 7 of those don’t matter if you weren’t at 100% health you are dead anyways. Go through shrines to increase those hearts? Doesn’t matter enemies still nearly one shot you every time. Easily rectified if you buy/upgrade armor but if you are a cheap bastard like me and don’t want to spend money on items that might not be useful you end up playing quite a while before you understand that the deck is stacked against you.
Also in general the map is very lifeless, and there is so little variation in enemies. They certainly are limited by the WiiU/Switch so can’t fault them too much on that front.
ToTK fixes a lot of problems compared to BoTW but using the same map feels like it should have been DLC. Everything above/below the map feels like they just told an intern here is your spot go make a change in this area without having to make a change to the old map. And the story line feels very copy+paste from BoTW (go fight the four things in the four corners then go kill the big bad).
Obviously the devices you can make and the increased variation in enemies fixes a lot of the complaints with BoTW, and helps keep you engaged with the game.
ZD has a top tier storyline, but you need to be the type that cares about that to get the most out of it. I suspect most of the folks that don’t like Horizon are the type that don’t bother to listen to the audio files/read the text messages which really fills out the story. Gameplay is good but gets a little repetitive towards the end (once you are grinding thunderjaws for fun on very hard everything else is just too easy). Some enemies are just variations but the variations change how you approach fighting them.
HFW the story isn’t nearly as good (still good but HZ is a high bar), but the variations in enemies and how you have to fight them is much better. If you are trying to get end game weapons the grind is a bit too much. Do yourself a favor and just change to story mode difficulty so you don’t have to waste hours of your time fighting the same enemies. If you just want to explore/fight across a huge beautiful map HFW is great for that.
Not to mention Forbidden West’s status as a sequel, and Tears of the Kingdom’s status as a “sequel”. TotK decides it took place after BotW (makes sense), but it can’t decide if any of BotW happened at all. Case in point: Everyone supports Link in his goal to stop the calamity, he stops the calamity, and Hateno collectively forgets who Link is–where children go to learn about that calamity, from none other than Zelda herself.
On the other hand, HFW takes place immediately after ZD, and therefore feels like a part of a larger narrative, as opposed to a standalone one. This is why I’m fine with the narrative not being up to par with ZD–all of ZD is still there. I liked the games focus on Aloy’s development. Her portrayal at the end of FW is very different than the start of ZD. She feels a lot less abrasive, and this growth makes sense.
Versus “DemON KinG?! SEcrEt StoNEs!?” I feel like TotK treated me like I’m incompetent, incapable of understanding narrative. It’s baffling how much praise the game got, while FW was out getting either slammed with the same old uninspired complaints, or unfortunately lynched by Elden Ring.
I’m sure Horizon 3 will be an incredible game, yet see the same reception.
Maybe it’s just the circles I find myself in, but I’ve never heard any big criticisms of the Horizon series, much less it being “unoriginal”. I agree that Horizon is better than BotW, but BotW is a fantastically fun game on an accessible mobile platform.
Don’t have anything counter to your arguments, just that I’ve never heard anyone voice an opinion contrary to it.
i know next to nothing about the horizon games, but i haven’t ever understood them as even playing in the same sport as botw? are they that similar that they are comparable?
They’re similar by virtue of being open world. There’s an early area that cannot be exited, similar to the Great Plateau. Tallnecks are towers you climb to expand map visibility, Cauldrons are major (optional) dungeons not unlike large shrines, some enemy bases are scattered about the map, range combat is generally similar feeling (outside of Horizon’s expanded arsenal). There’s a lot of overlap.
The major difference is the story unravelling, where BotW simply hands you the final quest. It’s more like TotK in terms of progression, but the main story is mandatory. From a replayability standpoint, Zelda has a leg up here, but I care more about blind playthroughs–Horizon wins the contest handily. Zelda has a strong emphasis on resources, where I think it has a more engaging harvesting system. Else, Horizon doesn’t have a photos or glyphs storyline analogue, or any koroks, but it does have vantage points for data logs, and scattered collectibles to be traded for rewards.
i know you already covered that base, but it just sounds like the ubi far cry games…
Most modern open world games are, or at least take some inspiration. It’s why I think the “Assassin’s Creed clone” argument is ridiculous, since the argument is selectively applied. Horizon remains one of the best executions of an open world.
i mean, it’s not ridiculous. it just describes the genre, like “doom clone” used to describe all fpses.
i don’t really play that genre because they all seem so samey. the thing botw (and totk more so) had going for it was existing lore, a seldom used artstyle, and a rock solid, extremely adaptable ECS.
Disagree. Both are great, Zelda better, and what disdain.
