I was a bit confused as to why the first game got so much praise after I started playing it. It feels like a completely hollow game with lame characters and story and dialogue and gameplay and the "RPG" (items with colored tiers) elements aren't even good.
I liked the story of lost tech and the overall geoengineering effort run amok. I honestly enjoyed the game more than BotW which had weirdly similar vibes. The second one was feeling less coherent though, I haven't finished it yet. I enjoy uncovering the mysteries, which means I don't think I could replay it.
I kind of noped out when I discovered that the larger enemies turned into arrow sponges. The combat never really clicked for me and it just became tedious.
I really enjoyed the combat in the first half of the game, but I turned the difficulty down to story mode for the second half because the combats were getting so tedious.
The combat sucks too, especially against the human enemies that are just boring to fight, at least the machines look interesting and have their own specific weak points. For some reason you also get really good weapons like halfway into the game, which makes it too easy.
I think a lot of the enjoyment in these kinds of open world games comes from how good the traversal is. Spider-Man has a very similar formula, but swinging around New York on webs is a lot of fun. Traversing Horizon's world isn't fun, and you need to craft items for fast travel.
I liked it, but I literally didn't play any of these survival/craft/shooter games until the first Horizon caught my eye. The thing that wins me over is the controller gimmicks with the PS4. I love when it lights up and makes noises in sync with my actions in the game.
I blame Ubisoft. Assassins creed kept getting more and more UI bloat and needless "features" that distract from what the original selling point of the game was supposed to be, which is cool immersive parkour and being an assassin that can melt into crowds to get away.
Even AC1 didn't really deliver on this promise, and every subsequent game got further away. Always blame ubisoft 
Years ago Ubisoft helped me realize that I really don't like videogames that much anymore which led to the rekindling of my love for reading. That company's games accidentally bored me onto the track of becoming a communist.
Generic tech demo, and I've seen tech demos with more creative spark.
I liked the first game but the open world stuff is a slog. I would actually have preferred it to be more of a monster hunter style game i think that could have worked really well. I set the difficulty to max to try and give me some vague feeling of threat but just didn't work. Have no real desire to play the sequel i got my fill.
I wish we had an option to keep Aloy a bit more quiet while exploring
I remember enjoying the first one, but this one feels tedious. Fighting the machines is still pretty good, but the story is more of the same, presented poorly. The climbing is just stupid, things that look easy to climb are impassable. It's like they wanted to have an Assassin's Creed style vertical element, but didn't want to spend the time to design a vertical world.
I enjoyed the first one, but the second hasn't really been as fun. I'm finding everything just that little bit too complex. Did I need another storage box? Not really.
Did I need to have my focus display red crosses everywhere because you can't climb most things? Not really.
Did I need to have my focus now require me to hold it down, because clicking does a pointless pulse thing? I would rather not.
Do I need this stupid grappling hook? Not really.
Everything they added was pointless and gets in the way of the game.
I thought it was good after I turned the difficulty down to easy. I finished 2 playthroughs of the original on ultra-hard, so I dunno why but the combat was just not fun at all.
Not sure why you had trouble seeing things, I thought everything was pretty clear, only 1 or 2 times where I got lost on where to go next.
Honestly I went in hoping for more of the first game which is probably why I ended up disappointed in some aspects.
Tabletop, DnD, board games, and minecraft. Also Animal Crossing.
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