That's a real bummer, but if it helps, the game transforms if you start ignoring the weak points they constantly highlight and instead focus on the elemental weaknesses.
Once you realize half the enemies are vulnerable to fire, you can pretty much cake walk the game.
Also, the story is surprisingly believable considering it's about robot dinosaurs.
me personally, the game play was quite standard (not a bad thing). What I hated was how much information dumping that it was really hard for me to understand whats going on. They would say a faction name thats not an actual language that I then forget it. Ultimately i got bored and dropped it, I also already know what happens at the end. I tried to play it so i can play Forbidden West but just couldnt get into it.
TBH, Forbidden West is the same game, just more. So if you didn't like Zero Dawn, you probably wouldn't like Forbidden West.
I guess I was so engrossed in the story that I actually voluntarily read all the old world data I could find. So I was hungry for the info dumps. If you can tolerate that kinda reading and listening, they really put a lot of thought into the timeline and ensured everything was fleshed out and consistent.
Stuff like having the robotic caregivers for the first generation of new humans since they wouldn't have any parents . They really put a lot of thought into it.
Im a lore lover the fighting the robots with rocks and sticks kept me from touching it. I got the game for almost free and dove in absentmindedly and fell in love, especially with the lore! I eventually let the blood rage consume me and enjoyed dismantling the bots for better gear. Forbidden West is one of my top 3 GOAT. I love when developers don't extremely overhaul what isn't broken.
I was genuinely surprised how much I freaking LOVED HZD, and... didn't really care for Forbidden West. It seemed like they really wanted to do a lot of stuff with the sequel that never quite worked out. It seemed like they wanted to really flesh out the concept of companions and overridden machines, but in my gameplay it just didn't work that well.
It also seemed like they wanted to increase the viability of stealth, which should have been a great way for me to enjoy the game (as I LOVE using stealth in games like this), but again it just didn't work very well.
The different skill trees, well.. traps just always felt worthless, and the mounted options just seemed meaningless as well.
I loved most of the story, but found the gameplay to be so much of a downgrade from the first game that I had a hard time enjoying it.
Just taking a guess at what didn't click. If you focus on the weak points like the tutorial suggests, it's gonna be a super frustrating game, pecking bots to death with a bow. I'm guessing a lot of people fell into that trap without realizing that the game literally gives you a grenade launcher later.
I love how tear weapons are seen has super OP to get to the weak points, but then you realize you can just use elemental bombs to delete enemies. I found out about the elemental stuff way too late into the game.
I never really got in Forbidden West though for some reason. I need to go back to it and finish it when I'm in a better mood.
I played for like 20 hours, i don’t think i got far into the story, i was most of the time just getting upgrades and such, but after a bit it just got so boring, I figured out element weaknesses and such but still I just could not get into it for the life of me.
I really wanted to give this game a chance and still just couldn’t get into it.
I mean, she's not the hottest woman in the room, that much is true. Nor is she meant to be. She's a reasonably attractive young woman, something that's informed by the fact that she's a younger version of reasonably attractive, but not stunningly beautiful, middle aged woman.
As for writing, I agree that she's pretty well written in Zero Dawn, though I find I like her ark in Forbidden West much more. Since the world is already well established, and she has a more interpersonal ark, I think its a much stronger display of her actual personality.
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u/PraetorianFury Aug 19 '26
That's a real bummer, but if it helps, the game transforms if you start ignoring the weak points they constantly highlight and instead focus on the elemental weaknesses.
Once you realize half the enemies are vulnerable to fire, you can pretty much cake walk the game.
Also, the story is surprisingly believable considering it's about robot dinosaurs.