As a representative of Sony's PS platform in recent years, the open-world action game "Horizon: Dawn of Zero", in addition to the beautiful graphics and high-completion action system, attracts players through a unique future and an original unified world view. And "Horizon: Forbidden Lands in the West" is a new sequel that inherits all the characteristics of "Horizon: Dawn of Zero" and then extends it.
First of all, to remind the player of a place, perhaps some PS5 players want to start from this game to understand the "Horizon" series, but the connection between "Western Forbidden Domain" and "Zero Dawn" is very strong, not only is the extension of the game system, the plot is also completely connected after "Zero Dawn", so if you have not played "Zero Dawn", new players may not understand what the plot is talking about at the beginning of the game, because the plot and world view of the "Horizon" series are also the focus of the game, so it is strongly recommended that the "Western Forbidden Domain" because of the "Western Forbidden Land" Players who are interested, it is best to play Dawn of Zero first.
Another reason why it will be particularly emphasized is also based on operability, the new elements of this work are also built in the operation of "Dawn of Zero" and then extended out, the same button will have different functions according to different conditions, a button corresponding to a lot of actions, if you start directly from the "Western Forbidden Domain", I am afraid that the operation will feel quite complicated, so it is recommended to get used to the overall operation mode from "Dawn of Zero", and then play the "Western Forbidden Domain" with the concept.
In addition, the teaching mode of this game is not so kind, after the game taught players basic actions at the beginning, new actions such as diving were simply brought over. Therefore, there may be some places that will be stuck because they are not familiar with the operation, and they can only rely on the experience of "Dawn of Zero" to slowly deduce the way and steps of playing. Because this game in terms of exploration, the goals are quite clear, this time you can also "set" the mark to let the player more clearly see which routes can be taken, basically it is difficult to card level, will happen the card level is mostly high combat difficulty or unskilled operation.
Before starting to talk about the system, I believe that there is a place where some players are quite concerned, especially after the "Last survivor 2" incident, although this game is also dominated by Eroy, it seems that the face is more "rounded" than the first game, which makes people worry about whether the game production group is also especially catering to the "specific ethnic groups that do not buy games". I have reservations about this, and it is true that Eroy is really fat compared to the first game, but it can be thought of as a symbol of her "strength".
This new action system, one is the above-mentioned "diving", can go deep into the water to explore, so this time there is also an "oxygen" meter, and most games are different from the "oxygen" will die when used up, will not be gentle and slowly deduct physical strength (in the middle and late stages to get the oxygen mask can enjoy diving). Another new action element is the "hook rope", this time a specific place can be "flying" up through the hook rope, and you can also use the hook rope to pull the huge rock or tree trunk that hinders the route directly, so it can be said that the Eloy of this game is "infinitely powerful", so it does not matter if it is slightly designed to be "meaty".
The basic gameplay of the Horizon series is no different from most European and American open-world action games, exploring various areas in the vast world, defeating various enemies to collect materials, creating equipment and props through materials, and challenging various side plots to enjoy the game content more in the process of promoting the main story. Therefore, to attract players to this game, you can't just rely on the way you play. At the beginning, it was also said that the plot and world view of the Horizon series are also the charm of the game, and the seemingly primitive world is full of machine creatures, the reason is that the player is in a future world where machine technology is fully developed, but because of the loss of control of the machine, the civilization collapses. Machines have also developed their own natural ecology, which is why there are all kinds of machine creatures in the primitive environment.
The player plays the role of Eloy while traveling to explore the truth of this world, and the process will of course be full of conflicts between people and machines, which also constitutes the battle and collection elements of the game. The game prepares a variety of weapons and actions to allow players to cope with various combat situations, while defeating the enemy to collect materials is also closely related to the weapons and equipment. These parts of the European and American open world games players will soon be able to adapt, in addition, although this game is a sequel, of course, the scenes and enemies of the previous game will appear again, but please rest assured, this "recycling and reuse" approach is only in the early stage, this game basically still allows players to explore new areas, challenge new enemies, and the number of side quests has also increased significantly, even if players who are familiar with the previous game, they can still play fresh in this game.
As mentioned earlier, one of the reasons why the player may be a card level is "high combat difficulty", the reason for this is based on two elements, the first is the enemy's action mode and the increase in attack power, this time whether it is against the machine or the human enemy, the attack desire has become enthusiastic and the attack pattern has increased, and the damage caused to the player has also increased, so from the beginning to the middle, it is quite possible that the player will return to the west with two or three attacks. However, in this part, not only the enemy becomes stronger, but the player plays Eroy also has a certain degree of enhancement. The most common growth system for open-world action RPG is to obtain skill points with the level and plot, and consume skill points to select skills in the skill tree, so as to create different styles of growth and combat policies with other players, of course, this game also adopts this growth system, but the acquisition of skill points is quite easy, and there is a chance to get level up, play mini-games, and unstrip plots.
At the same time, the number of skill trees has also increased to six, and Eloy's attack methods have also increased significantly. For example, close-range combat also has more continuous attacks that can be diversified and derived, and after opening up specific skills, you can also use "big tricks" that are almost equivalent to full-screen attacks. Perhaps it was because of the stronger way Elloy fought this time that the development team decided that the enemy strength needed to be increased to increase the challenge of the game. Another reason for the difficulty of the game is because of the collection of materials, although this type of game basically avoids the element of collecting materials to make higher quality equipment by knocking down enemies, but this time the existence of "rare materials" has been added. In short, this time, it will be decided whether a specific material can be obtained based on whether a specific part of the enemy exists and whether the player attacks a specific part.
The natural effect of this on combat is that when the player needs certain materials, they must adjust their tactics to face specific enemies. For example, a particularly difficult enemy will become easy to deal with as long as a specific part is hit, but for the sake of material, it must deliberately avoid the attack weakness and let itself fall into a state of easy to fight; or the enemy that is originally easy to deal with has to become tricky because of the attack on a specific part. And because this game in the equipment design, the frequency of players collecting materials is increased a lot, more or less, players will fall into a bitter battle in terms of combat.
Incidentally, the game has an "arena" element, which varies from person to person, some people can play quite enjoyable, and some people will play with anger. This element is simply a "challenge level" in which the player must use the weapons and skills set by the system to fight against various powerful enemies. This part is good in that it allows players to practice and adapt to various equipment and tactics; the disadvantage is that they cannot use their own convenient means to fight. So to say that it is interesting or not is really to see people.
Finally, to sum up, "Horizon: Forbidden Lands" is said to be the sequel to "Horizon: Dawn of Zero", but it is not quite right to call it Generation 2, after all, the plot continues in its entirety, but it also ends the "Hades" problem of the previous game early to let players have new goals. Therefore, the suggestion is to treat the "Horizon" series as a complete work as a whole, "Dawn of Zero" is the first part, "Western Forbidden Lands" is the last part, such a concept will be more appropriate to play. However, the overall weight of the game, the overall weight of "Forbidden Lands" may be 2 to 2.5 times more than "Dawn of Zero", the previous game is estimated to be about 60 hours can be the main line along with the side line; this game is about 50 hours to play, the progress is about 40%. Not only is the above-mentioned side plot greatly increased, but in the later stage, Elloy will also get the "flying" means to explore over the mountains, making the exploration space of the entire open world map twice as large as the previous game.
Therefore, I also return to the original topic again, although this game is one of the main games of the PS platform in 2022, but the plot and gameplay are based on the first work of "Dawn of Zero", so it is strongly recommended that players who are interested in "Western Forbidden Domain" start from "Dawn of Zero"; relatively speaking, people who have played "Dawn of Zero" can play with peace of mind, and I believe that "Western Forbidden Domain" will definitely bring you more surprises.