If you want EVEN MORE of my thoughts you can find them on patreon where any tier unlocks a written post mortem a few days after a video upload. https://www.patreon.com/AdamSrayi

the reason why Zero Dawn had a big city (Meridian) while the Forbidden West had small cities, is that the carja are more advanced and civilised than the tenakth whom are more like tribal and almost nomadic, and were always at war with each other until recently when Hekarro united them.

I was so exited when Aloy got a shield, only to realise it later you can't use it as a shield

For me, the biggest frustration with the combat by far is the fact all the machines, from the burrower to the tide ripper, are equally nimble. They all move on a dime, it's nearly impossible to circle around the bigger machines, they just sorta slide around in place to prevent you from being able to get behind them to hit weak points. You effectively have to use the same strategy on every machine in order to defeat them. The first game had the same problem, but it's exacerbated in this one. It's pretty ridiculous that a large, limbering, aquatic machine can be so nimble on land in only that specific respect.

I hope the developers watch this.

10:36 feels a bit too nitpicky, they probably made it more silent so that it doesn’t blast your eardrums in contrast to other stuff.
But I do wish that the water ripples, sand/snow deformation was made by machines, just look at the slitherfang, it leaves no traces in the sand

Something I wished you talked about during the combat section was the arena challenges. As it is right now, the arena is fine, but the knocked down mechanic is really apparent here. Aloy takes so long to get back up after falling down, and the amount of machines in the arena means there will almost always be one to knock you down straight after. This is all made worse by the fact that, in order to get the top reward, you need to beat them within a certain timeframe, and when half of that time is spent recovering from falls you (most likely) dodged, it feels a little unfair.

The arena also highlights just how much could have been done with the combat, in terms of contextual attacks. The time you spend getting to higher ground could be worth it if you could jump off walls onto enemies or use the glider more reliably.

It’s a really cool concept that - once I’d heard about it - devoted time figuring out how to unlock, but once I did the first challenge and realised exactly how unpolished the combat was in this setting, I never came back to.

This is sad because, just like you, I really enjoyed the game. What you said about how we should criticise the things we enjoy just as much as the things we like is so well put. Your video highlights issues you have in a clear and concise way without entirely shitting on a game that (in my opinion) was totally worth my time. Thanks for making it, you’ve got some real talent!

The outfit previews, in my experience, are directly tied to the time of day, for some inexplicable reason.

My absolute biggest annoyance is the second you attack one of the machines, the rest of them almost always gang up on you even if you've separated them a good distance apart. Not to mention their barrage of AOE attacks that keep coming at you from a mile away leads to some veeeery annoying battles. This literally happens 99% of the time. Of course I am playing on hardest difficulty so usually just 2 hits and I'm bye bye. Not fun.

Loved the first game and got all the achievements. Couldn't finish this one.

I played and beat this game and couldn't help but feel like it was slightly disappointing the entire time but could never figure out why. You summed it up perfectly for me

The worst part for me was the constant grinding for upgrade resources. It was ludicrous and made the game lose all momentum. My second gripe was that the open world parts of the game are designed to allow players the freedom to play how they want – but then side content like the Melee Pits, Gauntlet Runs, Arena, and Hunting Grounds force you to play THEIR way or fail. It’s a contradiction that means players  who prefer one kind of play are stuck in a game style they don’t like (or even actively hate) for large parts of the game.

Every time Alloy fall down after attack, my regular response was: “Fuckin wake up, you’re at the war”

Youre completely right. It's like every team that was in charge of a certain mechanic completely failed to communicate with each other. Combat has nothing to do with overworld has nothing to do with traversal.
Combat also seems to have nothing to do with the weapon upgrade system. I have no idea how they ruined a perfectly fine weapon system with whatever the fuck is going on in this game.

Brilliant, you put my thoughts into words perfectly. 👍🏾

Great video. Especially the part about the visual clutter and "towns" being hard to navigate because of the lack of distinct things to focus on.

This is the best review I've found on this game. Even if it's late to publish the video, because every aspect you mentioned is correct.

8:30 These inconsistencies in lighting are actually due to the fact they made a lot of artificial lights. I mean all characters and their faces have some weird backlight from nowhere. I can understand this for static images to make it more visually interesting. But in motion, it rather feels weird, ESPECIALLY outside of the cutscenes. I would rather like to have just the sun as a single light source in a scene. Especially considering their engine got better with GI (Or maybe it's not and this is the reason they just cranked up the ambient light?).

36:27 you can throw rocks, launch bombs, environmental traps, smoke bombs and the berserk arrows

Also its true, that fun aspect is often lost in these new games