Well, I played the game even though I knew it wouldn't really be for me (it should though, but the gaeplay looked very shallow). I have to admit that the game is better than I expected. Or rather it's more fun than I expected. Outside of the combat and pretty environments (clearly the main focus of the game), everything is extremely basic and simplistic. The world is pretty but is barely interactive (can't even properly climb and I thought we'd be past this dumb painted ledges thing), villages (and indeed the world) are just empty stages with nothing to do.
The first hour of the game has you doing just about everything you'll be doing the next 20 hours, sidequests are just basic "find this person" stuff. You'll be gathering the same plants and seeing the same wildlife in barren wastelands as in frozen landscapes. It's a lack of attention to the little things that irk me. Also a downside to the lush graphics is a complete inability to spot certain pick-ups in the world. They "solved" this problem by indicating these with giant ugly icons hovering over them, but it just looks terrible and clutters up the cress further. I couldnl't turn them off by the look of things, but even if I cold they would become impossible to find.
Another example of lack of attention is the audio-playbacks you find. You'll almost always find a bunch of them together and not spaced out well enough, meaning you'll start listening to one and you'll already be standing next to the next one. I don't want to go into my menu and listen to them there, the fun thing about these things should be the ability to listen to them while I'm playing and if they're bunched up like this, it kinda defeats that purpose. I usually just ignore them, it's not like the game has particularly engaging dialogues anyway.
It sounds like I absolutely hate the game and I certainly don't think it's a must-play or above average in most ways. But here's the thing, for as much of an unoriginal game this is from a gameplay perspective (you can't convince me this isn't bog-standard stuff for the most part) there is 2 things that I already mentioned that do lift it above complete mediocrity, well 3 I guess. Graphics and combat.
It's obvious almost all their attention was put into these two aspects and it shows. The combat is wonderfully dynamic; nailing a well-placed arrow shot, crippling an enemy is very satisfying. There's a surprising amount of enemy variety, both big and small, flying and swimming, walking and running types. Great stuff, and the different equipment you get also works perfectly for taking these guys down, like the different bow-types that use different arrows.
That said, I was able to cheese a lot of combat encounters by just hiding in the grass and whistling. I guess the robots (and humans alike) aren't smart enough to maybe not come close to an ever-growing pile of corpses near the grass.
Of course the graphics are the main selling point here: the world really is incredibly beautfully presented with fog clinging to valleys, heavy rainfall obscuring your view, tall mountains, lush forests, vast deserts, the gamne has them all and they're all gorgeous. Of course you can't actually do anything in them outside of walking and awkwardly jumping over rocks. Why does this game not have a simple climbing mechanic? Something like Dragon's Dogma has it and it makes world traversal so much more fun and engaging.
I forgot to mention the story btw. It's actually pretty interesting and one of the main reasons I'm still playing the game. I'm definitely intersted to see what's coming up. I think I'm a little past the half-way point right now and shit is ramping up more and more so I'm curious to see what they come up with. Aloy herself is...whatever, she doesn't have much of a personality to me, it's a very modern character in that she just makes some smug remarks to everything that's said. Maybe she'll show some depth as the game goes on, but so far I'm not impressed.
Anyway, the third thing is probably the most important and it's: fun. I can't deny that for all its many problems and downsides, the game is definitely fun to play. I was able to get the game cheap so I think it's worth about what I paid for it, but personally I'm still baffled at all the unanimous praise the game is getting. The game is pretty much what I expected from the very first reveal. It's a cross between modern Tomb Raider and Far Cry. There really isn't two ways about it: the game does almost everything those games do and it barely differentiates itself in meaningful ways. I will say it's better than those two (thanks largely to the combat), but that's not exactly high praise.
