Good
- I like alloy's personality. She doesn't take s*** from anyone, but yet she has sympathy and is reasonable to those who deserve it. She's also very strong and does not rely on others.
- the game touches on the controversial topic of AI singularity. The way they told the story made it such a mystery, and it's really cool how there's this whole new primitive civilization that came out of this apocalypse. And the whole time it made me constantly Wonder what this project zero Dawn was.
- it's very interesting listening to all the audio recordings of people in the past, especially the people who worked on zero dawn. And how each one of them came to either accept or decline their fate.
- the thought of machines duplicating endlessly consuming biomatter is scary. And how after they've consumed all biomatter, there would be just millions of robots hibernating on the surface of the planet waiting for any new biomatter to appear. Like some kind of grim silent death trap for any alien.
- I feel like a tomb Raider of sorts, because I'm reading pretty much tombs of life before the robot apocalypse. Except the theme is a little reversed, because alloy is a primitive person rating the tomb of a more advanced civilization.
- the constant back and forth gameplay in the main quest between the present day affairs in the primitive land, and the contrasting tomb rating of the advanced past gives diversity to the gameplay. It's like two parallel storylines, which tv shows use too.
- that part when sylens rescued alloy was epic
- seeing alloy rise from being an outcast, nobody, to literally a holy figure as she was walking out of all mother was a very surreal moment even from the point of view of the player. I really like how alloy doesn't care for authority and the law if it does not make sense, even from the matriarchs.
- many of the side missions are well connected to the two main story lines. Both the primitive civilization and the robot apocolypse past. The game introduces you to characters in the beginning that Branch out into side quests later on in the game. This fundamental introduction to these characters allows me to make a connection with them, and for me to actually care about the quests that they put me on later. Not many games are able to make me care about side missions like Horizon zero Dawn can.
- using the rope caster and tieing down robots then hitting their armor parts off or using critical hits on them feels very satisfying.
- knowing the sacrifice that Elisabet made was just heart wrenching.
- there's a good balance between using melee, projectiles, and traps in combat.
Bad
- The ledges can be highlighted more vividly. Because they aren't, there are many times where I am not sure where I can be climbing until I started randomly jumping.
- some of the NPC facial animations when they're talking doesn't match the expressive voice acting. The facial movements of each character just aren't all that big.
- there are a lot of ways to exploit the combat using the environment. Like staying in a spot where the boss can't reach you. Most games would restrict the area you can go but Horizon zero Dawn allows you to pretty much go anywhere in a large area during the fight.
- the final chapter ended too fast. I was really hoping the final battle was gonna be more epic. It was alright. It just happened really fast, and there weren't any new machines, just a big deathbringer and other minions. Given the amazing story this far, I also expected a twist to happen, but the ending was very predictable. Still good, but I was hoping for something more spicy.