Ian Payne

Tedious ammo/armor/upgrade crafting requires more management than your personal finances. Tedious side quests with mostly little to no addition to the main story. One in particular comes to mind, the dude missing his arm wants you to help him gather resources to build a mechanical one, he’ll have you run to 2 random locations after you help him gather the resources for seemingly no reason, it’s just a waste of time. I eventually started to completely ignore the side quests halfway through the game because of the terrible dialogue and consumption of time with nothing to add to the main plot, just so I could get on with the dang story. The transitions for your optional dialogue stuff is dreadful, just give me some well written dialogue during cinematic scenes! Some parts didn’t make sense at the end regarding Sylens, Tilda, and Nemesis. Also it’s corny that this game isn’t rated mature. Watching tribal people fight each other and super machines with blades, spears, and futuristic weapons while there is no blood is childish and laughable. Climbing looks ridiculous. Machines move and attack more like a dance routine than animals. And why is every character from an ignorant hyper religious tribe still so ignorant and religious even after Aloy onboards them with a Focus and reveals the truth of what the machines are and how they were created by humans and how humanity arrived where it is. A 4.5 stars for interesting plot, 1.5 stars for plot execution and storytelling. 2.5 stars overall. I may play the DLC and maybe horizon 3 once it becomes very cheap, just so I can wrap up the story in my head.