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robo-dino-puppy · 1 year

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my thoughts on burning shores if anyone was interested (spoilers obvs, also loooooong, so long and rambling, don’t feel like you need to read it lol):

first of all - that final fight with the horus was EPIC. i LOVED the multiple sections that basically take you through all the game mechanics - stealth, ranged, climbing, swimming, platforming - all just really cool. SO AMAZING and FUCKING CREEPY to see a horus crawling/walking around. also props to sam witwer to being a great over-the-top villian lol. the final fight with londra in the head section felt a bit cramped and it took me a few cycles to understand what to do (like it took me too long to realize i could shoot the mines yikes i’m dumb) but once i did i liked the design of it. (although i felt aloy should have been more terrified of the horus waking up? she and seyka seemed pretty chill and jokey throughout the whole thing considering the situation - i feel like she should have been more scared, at least at first?)

second of all, little complaint - the sounds of the waterwing are EXCRUCIATING to me. really, honestly awful. well not from a sound design perspective, they're fine as... sounds... just not sounds i have to listen to frequently. but i'm very sensitive to noise and i have misophonia, so... maybe that's why. i wish it would just stop making noises. so many noises. all the time. in my mind steve (my sunwing) flew off to hang out with some burning shores sunwings and the moment i go back to a sunwing site i will recognize him and override him again and then we will go back to adventuring together and i will abandon the waterwing unless i need one again. also they added a noise to the barrel roll on the sunwing and that is not cool, don't like, i would like steve to be quiet(er) again pls.

third, an issue - i can't complete cauldron theta because every time i kill the bilegut my game crashes. TT-TT i go through the whole fight, aloy says "it's done!" and the game closes and i get an error. i have fought that bastard three times now and i WILL NOT be doing it again until i have reason to believe it’s fixed lol. the rest of the cauldron was pretty cool tho!

other things:

GILDUN! OMG. i loved that whole quest. i felt bad but i listened to all his commentary behind the door before opening it :D i also felt bad because he's so friendly and optimistic and his delving partner was a jerk, and while i didn't want to lie to him i chose the heart option for aloy's response, and i don't think i could choose the others. and he gets a focus and a hug! AHHHHHH it was great. you’re our friend gildun! (i did get him talking on aloy's focus once when i went back to the main game, so i wonder if there will be random comments like that sometimes? v cool)

NORA LOOKOUT ARMOR! holy crap i forgive them for not giving us the banuk sickness eater bc i did not expect to get the lookout. AMAZING. i will have to do a run with her wearing the lookout the whole time. the quen armors are pretty great too (and lots of dyes, but still only four dyes for the oseram armors? like, why? why didn't the oseram armor get the ng+ dye? WHY GUERRILLA)

ZENITH WEAPON! i was ambivalent about this idea before bc i wasn't sure how zenith weapons would work with the others we have, but i honestly love it. i also like the little clinky noise it makes when she puts it on/stows it :D some of the new weapons (like the shredder) in hfw felt kind of ratchet-and-clank-y, which i loved bc i *adored* r&c growing up. the zenith gauntlet also feels a bit like r&c and i’m digging it. now aloy just needs a topiary sprinkler lolololol (just kidding).

ZENITH FACEPAINTS! ok i would not wear these full time but they are honestly beautiful with the gold. also didn't expect these. and some new quen ones and the new valor surge one and the pangaea one. (are there more? i haven’t finished the delver’s trinkets or the aerial vantage points) i have my work cut out for me for my facepaint series!

i'm... not sure how i feel about aloy and seyka. as an ace girl who was hoping (however foolishly and vainly) for at least the choice of ace girl rep in aloy, it didn’t hit for me the way i’m sure they wanted it to. (i realize she still could be ace, just not aro, but to me it didn’t feel like they were telling an ace story, if that makes sense.) and i like seyka but she wasn't as immediately endearing to me as many of the other side characters - altho maybe my opinion will change on a second playthrough.

but i *am* glad that aloy is 1) letting herself be emotional/vulnerable around others 2) is more relaxed and happy after hfw’s whole story and 3) actually voiced aloud how her early life as an outcast impacted her ability to form friendships. (or wait... was that only in the brain flashpoint dialogue, which is the one i picked? idk) so anyway not mad about it even if i wasn’t really feeling it, and i’m happy for the ppl who wanted aloy to be canonically into the ladies. (which imo it always seemed like she was)

the map is beautiful and the clouds are too. the sky in the new map omg!!! the color of the sky/clouds is definitely unique from any of the other areas. it does feel a biiiiiit too bright in places tho. several times the environment or aloy was completely blown out, highlights-wise. i didn’t change any settings on my game or tv from before, so i don’t feel like it’s on my end, but maybe i need to check.

speaking of sky have you flown up into the cloud layer? like it's a small thing i guess but it is BEAUTIFUL, it literally looks like one of the luminist paintings they said they were inspired by, but it's 3d. so, so pretty.

i did feel it was a bit short/fast especially compared to how the frozen wilds felt, but i may have just rushed it bc i was able to sit down and binge and i wanted to avoid spoilers.

why no tallneck? :( the frozen wilds tallneck was so great...

the jurassic park references made me laugh :D

the whole thing londra was doing to the quen, and the conversation with nova, was extra gross and creepy. also i thought we'd get nova as an AI ally like CYAN but oh well.

again the horus fight was amazing 10/10 boss fight v cool. the only thing i would have added was somehow shooting from the waterwing before gliding down to the ground. with two riders one can shoot and one can steer right?

but the side quest with the three waterwings on the island? HHHHHOLY fuck that was annoying. i used practically all my resources to kill those bastards. "weak to fire" my ass. they have like mile-wide aoe attacks and they are FAST and i kept missing their bodies while my ammo was going through their wings... super, super annoying, did not like, 0/10.

i hope they un-mirror the ammo selection, i was constantly picking the wrong arrows lol.

i walked up on some sandpipers on a beach and i scared them off and it was so REAL i just stood there and watched them fly away. and then they landed further down and started doing their little sandpiper-y thing again. SO COOL.

LEGENDARY SPIKE THROWER WITH DRILL SPIKES! thank u gildun i love it and will cherish it forever.

i'm not sure about the aerial vantage points (whatever they're called) bc i haven't finished them yet but the ones i have done are more emotionally along the lines of the original vantage points, so that's cool.

i did the stormbird in the cloud before i had the waterwing override and the stormbird KILLED STEVE so i reloaded a previous save where steve was alive and waited to do that until i was riding a (super-noisy and annoying) waterwing lol.

i am SAD that all our companions have left the main map. :( i mean they didn't do anything besides stand there in the same spots but... they were there...

sylens, ahhhhhh. that final convo made me tear up a little. i wish aloy had said something before she walked away, even a sarcastic "thanks" would have felt better imo. he didn't see her smile and he didn't hear the comment she made later. just considering the real-world stuff with lance reddick, oof.

also, visiting varl’s grave T_T

aaaaaaanyway i personally felt it was *well* worth $20 and i’m sooooooo excited to see what guerrilla does in the future!

#text post #burning shores #hfwbs #burning shores spoilers #hfwbs spoilers #thoughts!

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