Horizon Forbidden West: 'The Burning Shores' Is Almost Great [4K] [Review]

--------------------------------------------------------------------
The Burning Shores DLC contains additional content for Horizon Forbidden West, including new characters and experiences in a stunning yet hazardous new area. To enter the Burning Shores, you must complete the main quest (up to and including Singularity) in the PS5 version of Horizon Forbidden West.

Horizon Forbidden West is a 2022 action role-playing game developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The sequel to 2017's Horizon Zero Dawn, the game is set in a post-apocalyptic version of the Western United States recovering from the aftermath of an extinction event caused by a rogue robot swarm. The player can explore the open world and complete quests using ranged and melee weapons against hostile machine creatures.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
╔═╦╗╔╦╗╔═╦═╦╦╦╦╗╔═╗
║╚╣║║║╚╣╚╣╔╣╔╣║╚╣═╣
╠╗║╚╝║║╠╗║╚╣║║║║║═╣
╚═╩══╩═╩═╩═╩╝╚╩═╩═╝
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe and I'll be your bestest friend!
#horizonforbiddenwest #playstation #ps5

[Jchil]

I don’t understand the issue Luke has with the fast travel things. Sure there doesn’t NEED to be that many, but it no way does it hurt or take anything away from the game even a little. Not even sort of. It makes getting to the area you desire that much quicker and more convenient. I understand that there’s an excessive amount, but I can’t think of even one negative consequence of having that many and I’ve never heard him come up with one either. Just a weird thing to dwell on. I get mentioning it once, but over the coarse of a few videos I’ve heard him complain about it a handful of times as if it’s something that takes away from the games experience. I’m confused by this, maybe I’m missing something?

[djspace]

I can't believe after all this time you have not enabled the auto-pickup or at least disable the pickup animations on ressources in the wild.

[jt.hudgens]

How did we get to the point where what makes a bad open world is over abundance of fast travel points, I do recall people complaining in the Witcher three that they had to go up to one of the signs to fast travel

[Trisred]

I'm a bit disappointed with the Waterwing, there's not much you can do with it after unlocking it, other than swimming. I wish we could use it to access new underwater areas, like caves or ruins and to unlock new side quests

[KTSky]

Walter Londra is played by Sam Witwer, who is actually the same actor who played Deacon St. John in Days Gone, among many other things. He’s an incredible actor and so talented, but unfortunately his talent has been criminally underutilised twice recently. He was Cpt. Leon Ferris in The Callisto Protocol too, but both of his most recent video game characters barely have any real screen time.

[jonbodhi]

I have to disagree about your characterization to Aloy. In the first part of HFW, she’s called out CONSTANTLY by characters from the first game for taking off without even a goodbye (you can return to that last area and get scolded by even MORE characters. )

She continues her: ‘I have to do this myself’ until she almost dies after her first encounter with the Zeniths. After this, she begins to soften and gather allies around her. It’s kinda the whole POINT of that home base. By the end, she KNOWS she needs their help to succeed, and couldn’t have done it without them. She grows as a person.

She also get growth in her interactions with her ‘sister.’ Aloy is, frankly, kinda awful to her fir a LONG time, until she realizes that being raised by a loving parent made her into who she is, and she gets closer to her ‘sister, ’ and more forgiving of her timidity and flaws.

Did you engage with the companions at the base? Because she goes through genuine character growth through them, along with their side quests.

Furthermore, her attitude comes from the fact the was literally CREATED to save the world, and is the ONLY ONE, who can do certain things, and she feels an enormous responsibility to her ‘mother’ to save her legacy, but as she goes through the game and meets all sorta of oddballs, she becomes determined to save it because SHE wants to, not simply as her ‘mother’s’ legacy, but because he appreciates the beauty of this world. The Las Vegas quests especially highlight this.

I spent some 200 hour with the game, doing almost all the story-based side-quests, and repeatedly engaged the companions between main quests, and Aloy’s growth seemed obvious to me (as well as mourning a death that affects her the test of the game!).

I think you rushed through HFW, and missed a lot.

[DEEDSNOTWORDS]

I mostly enjoy this game for its visuals, lore, and gameplay, but yeah, the stories they tell are hard to enjoy when you can't really connect with the characters.

[somethingfierce]

Luke, 'good but not great' is NOT an 8/10. 7/10 max.

[HARLEM-NEWYORK]

I don't get why you care how many fast travels this game has. To me it doesn't make a game better or worse. It seems like your nitpicking tbh

[RupertNigelson]

Funny how you mentioned days gone but didn’t know deacon is the same va as the villain in this dlc, I mean they’re literally both modelled after Sam Witwer too 😂

[itsdantaylor]

I would say while I was OK with this DLC i think it's biggest flaw is that there isn't enough NEW in it. While similarly frozen north didn't add much to the story of Zero Dawn it gave us a new local that was different as we didn't have much experience with a frozen environment save for a small area, it gave us a look into the Banuk tribe and bit more of a glimpse into some of the lore of the old world and AI. In burning shores we area that seemed very familiar to areas we had gotten in Forbidden west, we got a story with the Quen which I feel was better done in forbidden west and a story involving a zenith being a general POS/Villain which was similar to the story of MOST of forbidden west. Even Seyka (while i don't have that much of a issue with her as a character) is more of the same. She's a Quen who feels apart from her tribe, (better done with Alva) who is a warrior, (better done with Kotallo), and looking to desperately save her sister, (which we got with Erend in Horizon Zero Dawn.) There just wasn't enough NEW in this DLC which was really disappointing. It's the first time I really feel like a mis step or a wasted opportunity in the Horizon series.

[garthantash]

I am an unabashed Horizon super fan and I think your take on the DLC is pretty much spot on. I didn't gel with Seyka and you are right, it needed more time. I am pleased that the kiss is just an option as I thought the "I am not ready for this" response was more in keeping with my experience with Aloy and actually showed a bit of vulnerability in her, something she wasn't sure about for once. (Plus if Aloy is going to hook up with a woman, Petra is my girl.)
I couldn't help but feel the DLC was putting work into back-end technical improvements ready for Horizon 3 at the expense of story and content now.

[versversa]

aloy was not written the most lively in the first game, but they really developed her through the second game...they should go just a pinch further, less scared, but they are doing an amazing job

[claytonbearden]

I'm shocked Luke didn't recognize Sam Witwer. I haven't played it yet and didn't hear dialogue, but that face was instantly recognizable.

[ChiaraKeating]

Warning spoiler: I think Mass Effect is a really good example of why I don’t go back to the horizon games once I’ve completed them, but I have hundreds and hundreds of hours in mass effect. Your companions really make the game and I just can’t connect with any of the characters you collect in these games. I even forgot I had a clone sister until Aloy mentions it in the dlc. The companions just don’t pull me back in, maybe that’s just me

[blackmanwithcomputer]

Yeah, Aloy being grouped up with other characters allows for her character to be explored and developed more. I look at this as an experiment, and hopefully they build off this foundation.

I think the "new thing" was the companion system being introduced with Seyka.

With Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man, that's how Spider-Man has always been. Tho, Spider-Man does it throw enemies off. Aloy (and other modern characters) just do it to be badass or make sure the tension is never too high, and it's annoying.

[daylen]

5:24 He definitely is. Other than Lance Reddick, Sam Witwer is probably the most expensive actor they cast. Getting him to do voice lines would not have been cheap.

[Calakapepe]

10:34 I agree 💯% No one's talking about how rushed the romantic feelings are going.. like humans CAN get going really fast... but Aloy just took 50 hours recently to accept having friends simply help her sometimes.. She never (though she couldve) showed a yearning for the spark that Varl found... she hasnt experienced anything with Seyka that showed that Seyka filled an empty spot in her soul (and it didn't need to be this big problem) She couldve throughout realized that she was impressed, enthrawled by seyka.. or even that she likes seykas face/ eyes lol

... side note, I agree the water wings needed more utilization!

But also, you may just have that thing where big hype makes you dislike the flaws tenfold. Like you're here complaining about the number of campfires. Like yeah, they're plentiful.... and then... thats it. Its not gonna break the game. If you want to be forced to explore more.. then just do it. But when Im not in the mood nor have the time to explore organically.. Im glad I have the fast travel virtually anywhere.
Then the other side.. games that are georgous and perform well have the pretty bias.. we give it more excuses probably idk. hehe But we all loved zero dawn despite terrible talking animations.. cause the rest was beautiful!
Just let horizon be horizon and hopefully they address the problems that are actually problems :)

[zachsheets]

When you did the review of Valhalla I felt so validated that you thought it was so bad. I totally agreed. But here is where I don't. I love forbidden west and I loved the DLC. I'm so addicted to machine hunting and trying to get the rare parts to upgrade weapons. The loop has me ..

[Czoslop]

My biggest issue with the DLC is the amount of new machines. The new machines that were added in Frozen Wilds were impactful, I mean I remember the way you get greeted by a Daemonic Scorcher. The fight with three Daemonic Frostclaws and the fight with Fireclaw!

In my opinion they only added two machines: Bilegut and Waterwing (which could have been a variant of Sunwing).