Music

maxfisher

I’m aware there were dinosaurs with long necks, but the proportions and design of tallnecks in the game clearly resemble giraffes. If you take the sauropod you posted and double the length of its legs, lop its tail off, put it on a severe diet and dramatically improve its posture, it would be a similar shape as well.

asianxcore

Started playing this game earlier tonight.

It's absolutely gorgeous.

asianxcore

I'm about 17.5 hours in and I just hit Level 30.

Still enjoying the game greatly, outside some poorly designed puzzles.

The new machines are absolutely insane.

The Questyen

I'm about as far in as you are. Fantastic game and sequel. I haven't really run into any poorly designed puzzles but I've been doing a lot of side stuff and not focusing on the main quest.

redbill

I'm enjoying it a lot, level 15. Surprised to be dying as much as I am, maybe stretching the limits of where I'm exploring at my level. Also need to revisit my armor choice perhaps. The Skill trees are fun. TONS of stuff to do. a little glitchy and camera-wonky at points. trapping myself in trees is a bit annoying. Not terribly innovative in the Open-World genre beyond what HZD already gave us, but quite fun, good story. Wish there was a way to auto-play all the dialog options for NPCs.

maxfisher

I’m at level 38 and have put in just over 40 hours. It’s a great game, but I’ve hit a handful of bugs that have either caused the game to crash or forced me to exit out and restart it. The most annoying one is a contract where I’m supposed to get loot off a specific shellsnapper, but when I killed it, it dove underground as it died. I’ve tried revisiting the area multiple times, but it always shows as 4 meters below the spot on the map where it should be, so I guess I won’t be going full completionist on it.

The story, characters and voice acting are top notch, as is most of the gameplay. The graphics are gorgeous and some of the environments are really well imagined. I think I enjoy the game’s abandoned, post-apocalyptic version of Vegas more than the real thing.

My biggest nitpick is probably how prying/interacting/opening things sometimes requires triangle and sometimes requires R2. Seems odd to have it vary and it causes me to hit the wrong one sometimes. Not a big deal, but there have been a couple times I thought I was going to have to use R2 and ended up doing a heavy attack that caused me to fall off a ledge.

I’m not sold on the new approach to weapons. I think I preferred how they were handled in the original instead of having to carry and switch between so many. I also definitely preferred the overall approach to weapons, armor and coils in the original. Again, those are just minor nitpicks though.

I’d probably give it a solid 9/10 at the moment. I am curious as to its length. Based on how much of the map is still clouded for me, I’m feeling like this might be a 100+ hour game if you want to try to do everything of consequence. It hasn’t started feeling too repetitive yet, but I could see that happening if the far west doesn’t change things up a bit.

slop101

There was an update today, so maybe they fixed the bugs?

asianxcore

Absolutely plowed through the Main Story and finished it up this evening.

Immediately, I spent the next 2+ hours doing all of the Side Quests to create one of the best armor sets in the game.

Will probably pop in and out of this game over the next couple months to level up to Level 50, finish additional Side Quests and grind for upgrade materials.

steebo777

How many hours do you have into it?

maxfisher

Unfortunately, they didn’t get to the one that’s frozen me out of the contract.

One PSA tip for people who haven’t figured it out: you get resources from fish in this game by swimming around until you get close to them and hitting triangle. I’d been trying to shoot them like in the first game and wasted so many arrows and attempts.

Goldberg74

Spent 11 hours running around The Daunt. Just a few more nooks and crannies to seek out the I’ll proceed to the Embassy. 😇

asianxcore

I believe about 31-hours? The Main Quest can be finished in about 20+

Goldberg74

I played for nearly 100 hours before I finished the main story in HZD.

asianxcore

Awesome! I believe I was at the 65+ hour mark before I decided to finish up the Main Story in the first game.

Normally, I would play a game like this a bit slower (as I did with Cyberpunk 2077) but this year I wanted to complete more games than I have in the past few years.

nickdawgy

I always try and do side quests first. But sometimes you run into a wall because you haven’t learned a skill you get during the main mission.

Goldberg74

I finished The Frozen Wilds expansion before the main story. Having those weapons was nice.

Yup, me too.

That Embassy sequence was amazing. Wow! Now onto the Forbidden West… and lots of coughing.

asianxcore

I didn't have that luxury as I played/beat the first game when the DLC was unreleased..

That's the beauty of this game though, everyone is free to play how they want. There isn't a wrong way to approach it.

davidh777

Uh, by mistake I posted an Enslaved comment here, so I’m replacing it with filler.

Still playing HZD but taking on Frozen Wilds in hopes of improving gear before proceeding with the main story, as was mentioned here.

Goldberg74

👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

Goldberg74

I updated to 1.007.000 tonight and then did the first contract with the Shell-walker and everything went well. Maybe that was fixed. Try it. But if itks still underground, that sucks. It happened to me in FZD when a machine I needed to kill got thrown back into a boulder and became untouchable. That chapped my hide.

maxfisher

Finished this up last night with just under 77 hours in the game. I’m honestly a bit tired of games that take up that much time, but this one was good enough that I was actually glad for the size of it.

I didn’t mess with the races, board games or fighting pits and only did the first half of the arena, but was fairly completionist other than those. Well, except for my contract with the glitched underground resources that haven’t been fixed yet.

The story ends well and very clearly lays the logical groundwork for another entry in the series. I found it funny that just after I had noticed the original game had far more robot animals than robot dinosaurs, this one comes out and adds a lot more dinosaur-based machines.

I will say, I kind of missed the first game’s approach to weapon levels. It was kind of cool that the base damage was the same and the only thing that changed was the number of coils you could apply. It felt like that allowed for much more customization of Aloy’s arsenal. That said, it’s much more vital to get the higher level weapons in this. The legendary weapons I got blew the next level down out of the water, even after I’d fully upgraded them and equipped them with high level coils.

I don’t know if I’d give this a perfect ten, but it’s very close for me. Maybe a 9.5.

uteotw

I'm greatly enjoying this so far, level 21, but one thing I really dislike: While I get why it can take tons of effort and ammo to take down a machine, I don't love how it takes tons of effort as well to defeat a human enemy. Shoot them in the head with an arrow, and it's just "Ouch!" and they keep on coming.
That said, it's a fantastic game. (I also am not doing any races or board games--pass.)

Adam Tyner

A sharpshooter bow will take someone down with a single headshot if they're not wearing armor.

Goldberg74

I just took out the Eclipse this weekend and it took a few well placed headshots to put them all down. Then I worked on the machines.
I'm at Level 17 (about 33 hours into it) and just got to the point where I have a "base of operations" (as not to spoil it for those who haven't played it yet).
True the melee combat has become a little more difficult, but the Pits are helping me string the combos and have a little fun without needing to waste ammo and healing.
I am enjoying the game and slowly working my way through the issues (the camera gets away from me sometimes when in combat. and I know its me that's the problem).