[devo22]

Originally Posted by chemgear

That's wild - awesome stuff! I'm not remotely that skilled.

I ran around upgrading all the legendary stuff before finishing the story stuff. 100 hours and still stuff to circle back on after the fact.

Game looks gorgeous and had a ton of fun. Story didn't hook me as much as the first game with all the lore and mystery of Zero Dawn and Enduring Victory but still enjoyable. Kotallo voice actor really stood out for me.

Spoiler!

Just the motion capture and animations for even the most basic side quests are a nice leap forward. That eyebrow raise, body language and the delivery of that "unkind comparison" lol.

Video games are awesome.

Time to get back to the Steamdeck and Triangle Strat.

I really liked a lot of aspects of the game. Setting, map, characters, machines, gameplay and so on - it's all A+ for me. Unfortunately, the main story was a letdown for me too.

Spoiler!

The whole Far Zenith storyline fell flat for me. I'm not at all against Sci-Fi and outer space stuff in general, but it needs to fit the story and world for me to work. And while Zero Dawn was obviously also a bit Sci-Fi like, throwing immortal space travellers into the mix was a bit of an overkill for me. I really tried to give it a chance, but it never captivated me.

I did like the idea of rebuilding GAIA with all the subordinate functions. The different tribes were interesting, and the ruins of Vegas and San Francisco were outstanding. Ted Faro's fate was crazy AF. Liked some of the new characters, especially Kotallo.

The story was never going to reach the impact of the first game for me anyways, because discovering the world with all the machines and investigating the truth behind Zero Dawn, the fall of humanity and Aloy's background was so interesting to me that the sequel was pretty much bound to fall short in that regard. But yeah, I didn't really like the direction they went.

The game also really punished me for my habit of doing a ton of side missions and stuff before progressing the main story. I only got some really helpful upgrades pretty late in the game lol.

All that being said, I still enjoyed the heck out of the game ... maybe even to a crazy amount given the main story. Plus at least the ending guarantees there'll be a third game, and that's a good thing.