I Kill Robot Dinosaurs

[netgirl_y2k]

In the last month and a bit I have apparently played, like, ninety odd hours of Horizon: Forbidden West. I mean...yikes, a bit.

I usually don't buy games on release day (partly for financial reasons, like, get back to me when it's twenty quid, and partly because I have this one friend who has wasted many hundreds of pounds on pre-orderers of fancy editions of Fallout 76 and Cyberpunk 2077) but Horizon: Zero Dawn is my absolute favourite game so I made an exception. What can I say, I am a lady of simple needs, and those needs are pretending to shoot robot dinosaurs with an imaginary bow and arrow.


I liked this less than the first game. Which, to be honest, I was kind of expecting. A lot of the joy of Zero Dawn was being dropped into this far future world that was overrun with robot dinosaurs and discovering, you know, how the hell this came about. And that's not a trick you can pull twice. So, yes, while the plot went full on sci-fi bullshit pretty early, I wan onboard with it, it held together pretty coherently, and, hey, I like sci-fi bullshit, but the last act twist lost me. Partly because it was in service of a pretty blah boss fight, and partly because Tilda's ultimate plan being 'Kidnap the much younger clone of my long dead former lover, and force her to help me rebuild Earth on another planet after abandoning her all friends and loved ones to death' is dark as fuck in ways that the game, understandably enough, didn't want to linger on.

I kind of want to write a fic where Tilda succeeds in taking Aloy off planet that really leans into how fucked up it is. I also want to write a really sweet and cute Aloy/Alva fic, and an Aloy/Talanah one after the game didn't no-homo it as much as I thought they might

So, I'd file Forbidden West's story in that fic writer sweet spot of 'Not that good, no, but my God do I find it fascinating.'

I was surprised how bummed I was when Varl died. I registered him very little in the first game, and then he was bugging me in the early part of this game when he was following Aloy around like a puppy. But then he got together with Zo, and he and Aloy were bros and I really got to appreciate their friendship and then...what the fuck, game?

I did enjoyed Aloy's new companions. Alva was just frickin' adorable, and Aloy 'n' Beta appeal to the part of me that loves complicated sibling dynamics.

That said, I probably spent thirty hours playing the story and sixty hours playing Monster Hunter: Dinobots in the open world, so, yeah, I was having more fun with that bit of it. I did try to play Monster Hunter a few years back, but the reason I couldn't get into it was that the monsters were just animals minding their own business who seemed to feel fear and pain when I started whaling on them with a comically oversized sword, and for some reason I don't experience the same guilt when it comes to pinging pneumatic javelins at innocent robot triceratops because I need the upgrade materials.

Comments

[chestnut_pod]

There were some fantastic sentences in this review that made me truly happy for universal grammar.

[netgirl_y2k]

That's what I'm here for.

[tamoline]

I think why I was grumpy about HFW and relationships in that comment a while back was because several things happened in fairly close succession in my playthrough - not helped by the fact that I was playing it a *lot* - and the rest of the playthrough was a lot more chill on the subject, which I appreciated.

That being said, I'm still side-eying the part where Talanah said Aloy just needs to wait for the right person to come along because if Aloy is supposed to be aro - or even if they're leaving it open for her to be read as aro - that phrase is just as yikes as when it's aimed at any other sexual minority. And annoyingly kills the ship a little for me because I really don't want that attitude to be validated.

Poor Varl. I went through a very similar evolution of my feelings towards him. I kind of wish that Aloy got to take the news to his mother, maybe with Zo in tow. Difficult, especially after Vala, but.

Alva is so cute. I hope we get to see her with Federa at some point. (I'd been kind of shipping Alva/Beta up until I found out about her, it has to be said. I think their interactions could be cute, though I don't remember really seeing them on screen until then.)

And, oh god, Tilda. I'm so glad we had a couple of main queer female characters apart from her, because she definitely hits the predatory lesbian stereotypes - even down to grooming children - though in a way that does fit her character and the themes of the game.

I probably played a bit too much of the game, because I've burned out a little, though I'll probably get back into it once the DLC hits.

[netgirl_y2k]

I think I was doing more (probably too much, tbh) of the open world stuff so I got the romance beats more spaced out. I actually wish there was a new game plus option, so I could see if the story hangs together better when played all at once without me having to forever interrupt myself to grind for upgrades.

I do want the fic where Aloy takes Zo back to the Nora Lands to meet Sona, but, yeah, it would be sad.

Weirdly, I found myself shipping Aloy/Talanah more after Forbidden West, I think because all I needed was for Talanah not to end up with that rando, but I can see how that line could be irksome.

Alva did feel a little like an antidote in advance to Tilda (although, honestly, after the last few years of all f/f content feeling very...sanitised, I actually found myself getting quite into how unapologetically fucked up Tilda's character and story were) but she was so cute and I loved her so much. I did find it hard to get into the idea of her girlfriend back home, especially with her not going back at the end of the game, but I love her as a potential love interest for Aloy, or, oh yes, Beta.

[tamoline]

Alva did feel a little like an antidote in advance to Tilda (although, honestly, after the last few years of all f/f content feeling very...sanitised, I actually found myself getting quite into how unapologetically fucked up Tilda's character and story were)

A couple of years back, I was involved in a fandom where a sequel story managed to have not one, but multiple predatory queer women as fairly major characters which left a bad taste in my mouth as regards the trope, so I'm definitely part of the audience for the salve of Alva. :)