Story, worldbuilding, dungeons, combat, and especially graphical performance are all universally better in Horizon. The only reason people care about Zelda is because “muh Nintendo”, and the fact that it is a good set of ganes. However, I’ve seldom seen any criticism of Horizon outside of outright misogony and xenophobia, or “Assassin’s Creed did it first”, as if Guerilla has any control over history.
Sony ownership is valid criticism. The Zero Dawn remaster forces PSN sign-in. Yet, Nintendo owns Zelda, and is easily a shittier company–with a crowd of zombies lined up to lick their boots. Horizon isn’t the series with the cult following, here.
None of that changes the fact that people find it so important to mention their disdain for Horizon the moment it’s brought up. Everyone within my space who has tried the game has admitted it’s quite a well-designed set of games. If you don’t like it because of its genre, then that’s completely fine, but stop saying it’s “unorignal”. If Horizon is unoriginal, so is Zelda. They’re both unique compared to their predecessors.
“QUIT HAVING FUN!!”
i know next to nothing about the horizon games, but i haven’t ever understood them as even playing in the same sport as botw? are they that similar that they are comparable?
They’re similar by virtue of being open world. There’s an early area that cannot be exited, similar to the Great Plateau. Tallnecks are towers you climb to expand map visibility, Cauldrons are major (optional) dungeons not unlike large shrines, some enemy bases are scattered about the map, range combat is generally similar feeling (outside of Horizon’s expanded arsenal). There’s a lot of overlap.
The major difference is the story unravelling, where BotW simply hands you the final quest. It’s more like TotK in terms of progression, but the main story is mandatory. From a replayability standpoint, Zelda has a leg up here, but I care more about blind playthroughs–Horizon wins the contest handily. Zelda has a strong emphasis on resources, where I think it has a more engaging harvesting system. Else, Horizon doesn’t have a photos or glyphs storyline analogue, or any koroks, but it does have vantage points for data logs, and scattered collectibles to be traded for rewards.
i know you already covered that base, but it just sounds like the ubi far cry games…
Most modern open world games are, or at least take some inspiration. It’s why I think the “Assassin’s Creed clone” argument is ridiculous, since the argument is selectively applied. Horizon remains one of the best executions of an open world.
i mean, it’s not ridiculous. it just describes the genre, like “doom clone” used to describe all fpses.
i don’t really play that genre because they all seem so samey. the thing botw (and totk more so) had going for it was existing lore, a seldom used artstyle, and a rock solid, extremely adaptable ECS.