I never played this out of a pure refusal to buy a console for 1 or 2 games that were exclusive to it. Stoked to play it now.
It starts amazing but then it slows the heck down for my liking and at some point it really feels like work, work, work just trying to keep the inventory logistics going on, having enough of the special types of everything because obviously if there are 4 enemies in the scene you need 4 different types of ammunition and maybe 3-4 different outfits that you can switch on the go. Now that it's been some while I realize I never bothered to finish it and it wasn't because it was too difficult - just because it got way too boring and unrelatable. The main character feels like a robot, the story starts out interesting and wanting to find out more about what's going on with the main arc but eventually to me it just boiled down to "oh man, I already spent 3 hours killing those things and another one? Man, can't I just get along with the story?" Your mileage may vary. I just don't have the nerve for grinding these days. I don't mind some routine but I don't like grind. Enough is enough, I've got other things to do and other games to play, I don't need to spend a whole year to find out whatever it was that was the main thing that I no longer remember because all I'm doing is grinding through endlessly long battles every 10 meters, visiting merchants, getting refilled and then maybe advancing another 10 meters to find out that there was nothing interesting there. But the visuals are amazing and the world had such potential.
Methinks perhaps you spent far to much time overthinking the combat TBH. Ammunition you can craft on the go and long as you don't you know, stop picking things up, you'll almost always have enough materials to do so unless it's been a long harrowing fight well outside your current strengths. (You can potentially take down anything at any level, it may however be far more tedious than enjoyable and prone to sudden instant death) Personally I just picked an outfit I liked until I got the shield suit and was fine for the entire game. Yes, you could totally micromanage and pick the suit best for each enemy type, but it wasn't actually -necessary- Ammo really broke down to three (maybe 5 tops) major 'you will use these, all the fucking time' and a whole slew of optional 'you can also use any of these you like and some of these may be much more useful under very specific conditions but you'll never actually -need- them'. As for the grind well, Aside from the occasional run for specific materials I didn't really feel like I did any grind whatsoever. Well I take that back, I did feel a bit grindy when I was finishing off the achievements and when doing the hunter challenges. Some of them seemed a bit obnoxious. I completed them all however. The only real complaint I had was in the shield suit quest you had to pick up one of the pieces in a specific story mission and if you didn't, you may not be able to (the area is supposed to open up later, but in my case it did not. However I was able to get in by abusing the mount system and a little bit of creative climbing) You may also have been putting yourself through unnecessary combat circumstances way to frequently because once you get out of the starter zone you can quite literally explore the entire map without fighting a single critter you don't want to (as long as you don't actively try and harass them while you're doing so) I wouldn't recommend it mind, but once you know the habits and tactics of the enemies you can avoid all of them without much effort. Also probably should have spent less time at merchants, the only reason to buy anything is if it's a new or upgraded weapon, or you've simply got more money than you need and don't want to go looking for one specific material you've run out of. Personally I enjoyed setting up kill traps, drop a couple explosive traps, a couple gas traps, layer a few tripwires and proximity mines and then shoot an enemy, watch them turn into pudding when they hit your killzone. Doesn't work every time, sometimes enemies will have stupid pathing or they'll reset sooner than really makes sense but it's quite glorious when it does XD. I also enjoy stealing their weapons and going to town XD
I mean, it's a well made game and all but I probably played it the wrong way or something, dunno, now that I remember back our youngest one was also growing up rapidly and I would have to shut it down whenever he got around so I only was able to play an hour or so in the evenings. When that one hour was lost several times a row just fighting the same robots over and over I got bored, fell off from any immersion or story and switched attention elsewhere. It's kinda like that for me with games - I can't really enjoy them like I used to. Too little time and of that little time I usually want to play stuff that ain't appropriate for the kids or at least not for all of them. Mostly I just tinker with electronics nowadays...
I'm stoked for Horizon Forbidden West. Just the idea of underwater combat makes this worthwhile for me and damn the rest XD. I'll be buying a PS5 specifically for this game and everything else is just gravy.
